CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mr. & Mrs-, 
 Bernard Berman 
 
DV Eioo Ji°"J=" University Library 
 BX 5133.K55G6 1904 
 
 ^llniiSS^P.?' °' •''^ Pentateuch, a set of 
 
 pa 
 
 3 1924 007 506 425 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924007506425 
 
THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH 
 
 DAVID 
 
THE GOSPEL OF 
 
 THE PENTATEUCH 
 
 A SET OF PARISH SERMONS 
 
 DAVID 
 
 FIVE SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 Eontjon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW VORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1904 I 
 
 [The Right 0/ Translation a. Reserved] 
 
The Pentateuch published separately 
 
 (originally published elsewhere) 
 Printed (Fcap. 8vo) 1863, Reprinted 1871 
 
 David published separately 
 First printed (Fcap. 8vo) 1865, Reprinted 1874 
 
 In one volume 
 
 First printed (Crown 8vo) 1878, Reprinted 1880, 18 
 
 New Edition 1890, Reprinted 1904 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ....... ix 
 
 SERMON I. 
 God in Christ . . . . i 
 
 SERMON II. 
 The Likeness of God . . . .19 
 
 SERMON III. 
 The Voice of the Lord God . . .36 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 Noah's Flood . . . -51 
 
 SERMON V. 
 Abraham . . . . • .64 
 
 SERMON VI 
 Jacob and Esau . . . • .78 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 J&SEPH . ... 91 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 The Bible the great Civilizer , , . 104 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 Moses . . . . .118 
 
 SERMON X. 
 The Plagues of Egypt . . .132 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 The God of the Old Testament is the God of 
 
 THE New ... . 147 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 The Birthnight of Freedom . . -159 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram . . , 170 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 Balaam . ... 184 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 Deuteronomy .... 197 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 National Wealth . . .211 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 The God of the Rain . . . 225 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 The Death of Moses . . . 238 
 
 DA VI D. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 David's Weakness . . . 255 
 
 SERMON II. 
 David's Strength . . . 270 
 
 SERMON III. 
 David's Anger . . . 283 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 David's Deserts . . . 297 
 
 SERMON V. 
 Friendship ; or, David and Jonathan . . 313 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 to the rev. canon stanley. 
 
 My dear Stanley, 
 
 T dedicate these Sermons to you, not that 
 I may make you responsible for any doctrine or 
 statement contained in them, but as the simplest 
 method of telling you how much they owe to 
 your book on the Jewish Church, and of express- 
 ing my deep gratitude to you for publishing that 
 book at such a time as this. 
 
 It has given to me (and I doubt not to many 
 other clergymen) a fresh confidence and energy in 
 preaching to my people the Gospel of the Old 
 Testament as the same with that of the New ; 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 and without it, many of these Sermons would have 
 been very different from, and I am certain very 
 inferior to, what they are now, by the help of your 
 admirable book. 
 
 Brought up, like all Cambridge men of the last 
 generation, upon Paley's Evidences, I had accepted 
 as a matter of course, and as the authoritative 
 teaching of my University, Paley's opinions as to 
 the limits of Biblical criticism,* quoted at large 
 in Dean Milman's noble preface to his last edition 
 of the History of the Jews ; and especially that 
 great dictum of his, ' that it is an unwarrantable, 
 as well as unsafe rule to lay down concerning the 
 Jewish history, that which was never laid down 
 concerning any other, that either every particular 
 of it must be true, or the whole false.' 
 
 I do not quote the rest of the passage ; first, 
 because you, I doubt not, know it as well as I ; 
 and next, in order that if any one shall read these 
 lines who has not read Paley's Evidences, he may 
 be stirred up to look the passage out for himself, 
 
 * Evidences, Part III. Cap. iii. 
 
PREFACE. st> 
 
 and so become acquainted with a great book and 
 a great mind. 
 
 A reverent and rational liberty in criticism 
 (within the limits of orthodoxy) is, I have always 
 supposed, the right of every Cambridge man ; and 
 I was therefore the more shocked, for the sake of 
 free thought in my University, at the appearance 
 of a book which claimed and exercised a licence 
 in such questions, which I must (after careful study 
 of it) call anything but rational and reverent. Of 
 the orthodoxy of the book it is not, of course, 
 a private clergyman's place to judge. That book 
 seemed dangerous to the University of Cambridge 
 itself, because it was likely to stir up from without 
 attempts to abridge her ancient liberty of thought ; 
 but it seemed still more dangerous to the hun- 
 dreds of thousands without the University, who, 
 being no scholars, must take on trust the historic 
 truth of the Bible. 
 
 For I found that book, if not always read, yet 
 still talked and thought of on every side, among 
 persons whom I should have fancied careless of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 its subject, and even ignorant of its existence, 
 but to whom I was personally bound to give 
 some answer as to the book and its worth. It 
 was making many unsettled and unhappy ; it 
 was (even worse) pandering to the cynicism and 
 frivolity of many who were already too cynical 
 and frivolous ; and, much as I shrank from de- 
 scending into the arena of religious controversy, 
 [ felt bound to say a few plain words on it, at 
 least to my own parishioners. 
 
 But how to do so, without putting into their 
 heads thoughts which need be in no man's head, 
 and perhaps shaking the very faith which I was 
 trying to build up, was difficult to me, and I 
 think would have been impossible to me, but 
 for the opportune appearance of your admirable 
 book. 
 
 I could not but see that the book to which I have 
 alluded, like most other modern books on Biblical 
 criticism, was altogether negative ; was possessed 
 too often by that fanaticism of disbelief which 
 is just as dangerous as the fanaticism of belief; 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 was picking the body of the Scripture to pieces 
 so earnestly, that it seemed to forget that Scrip- 
 ture had a spirit as well as a body ; or, if it 
 confessed that it had a spirit, asserting that spirit 
 to be otie utterly different from the spirit which 
 the Scripture asserts that it possesses. 
 
 For the Scripture asserts that those who wrote 
 it were moved by the Spirit of God ; that it is a 
 record of God's dealings with men, which certain 
 men were inspired to perceive and to write down : 
 whereas the tendency of modern criticism is, with- 
 out doubt, to assert that Scripture is inspired by 
 the spirit of man ; that it contains the thoughts 
 and discoveries of men concerning God, which 
 they wrote down without the inspiration of God ; 
 which difference seems to me (and I hope to 
 others) utterly infinite and incalculable, and to 
 involve the question of the whole character, 
 honour, and glory of God. 
 
 There is, without a doubt, something in the 
 Old Testament, as well as in the New, quite 
 different in kind, as well as in degree, from the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 sacred books of any other people : an unique 
 element, which has had an unique effect upon 
 the human heart, life and civilization. This re- 
 mains, after all possible deductions for ' ignorance 
 of physical science,' 'errors in numbers and chron- 
 ology,' 'interpolations,' 'mistakes of transcribers,' 
 and so forth, whereof we have read of late a great 
 deal too much, and ought to care for them and 
 for their existence, or non-existence, simply no- 
 thing at all ; because, granting them all — though 
 the greater part of them I do not grant, as far 
 as I can trust my critical faculty — there remains 
 that unique element, beside which all these acci- 
 dents are but as the spots on th; sun compared to 
 the great glory of his life-giving light. The unique 
 element is there; and I cannot but still believe, 
 after much thought, that it — the powerful and 
 working element, the inspired and Divine element 
 which has converted and still converts millions 
 of souls — is just that which Christendom in all 
 ages has held it to be : the account of certain 
 'noble acts' of God's, and not of certain noble 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 thoughts of man — in a word, not merely the 
 moral, but the historic element ; and that, there- 
 fore, the value of the Bible teaching depends on 
 the truth of the Bible story. That is my belief. 
 Any criticism which tries to rob me of that I 
 shall look at fairly, but very severely indeed. 
 
 If all that a man wants is a 'religion,' he ought 
 to be able to make a very pretty one for himself, 
 and a fresh one as often as he is tired of the old. 
 But the heart and soul of man wants more than 
 that, as it is written, 'My soul is athirst for God, 
 even for the living God.' Those whom I have to 
 teach want a living God, who cares for men, works 
 for men, teaches men, punishes men, forgives men, 
 saves men from their sins ; and Him I have 
 found in the Bible, and nowhere else, save in 
 the facts of life which the Bible alone interprets. 
 
 In the power of man to find out God I will 
 never believe. The 'religious sentiment,' or 'God- 
 consciousness,' so much talked of now-a-days, 
 seems to me (as 1 believe it will to all practical 
 common-sense Englishmen), a faculty not to be 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 depended on ; as fallible and corrupt as any 
 other part of human nature; apt (to judge from 
 history) to develop itself into ugly forms, not 
 only without a revelation from God, but too 
 often in spite of one — into polytheisms, idola- 
 tries, witchcrafts, Buddhist asceticisms, Phcenician 
 Moloch-sacrifices, Popish inquisitions, American 
 spirit-rappings, and what not. The hearts and 
 minds of the sick, the poor, the sorrowing, the 
 truly human, all demand a living God, who has_, 
 revealed himself in living acts ; a God who has 
 taught mankind by facts, not left them to discover 
 him by theories and sentiments ; a Judge, a Father, 
 a Saviour, and an Inspirer ; in a word, their hearts 
 and minds demand the historic truth of the 
 Bible — of the Old Testament no less than of the 
 New. 
 
 What I needed therefore, for my guidance, was 
 a book which should believe and confess all this, 
 without condemning or ignoring free criticism and 
 its results ; which should make use of that criti- 
 cism not to destroy but to build up ; which 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 employed a thorough knowledge of the Old Tes- 
 tament history, the manners of the Jews, the 
 localities of the sacred events, to teach men not 
 what might not be in the Bible, but what was 
 certainly therein ; which dealt with the Bible after 
 the only fair and trustful method ; that is, to con- 
 sider it at first according to the theory which it 
 sets forth concerning itself, before trying quite 
 another theory of the commentator's own inven- 
 tion ; and which combined with a courageous 
 determination to tell the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth, that Christian spirit of 
 trust, reverence and piety, without which all in- 
 tellectual acuteness is but blindness and folly. 
 
 All this, and more, I found in your book, en- 
 forced with a genius which needs no poor praise of 
 mine ; and I hailed its appearance at such a crisis 
 as a happy Providence, certain that it would be, 
 what I now know by experience it has been, a 
 balm to many a wounded spirit, and a check to 
 many a wandering intellect, inclined, in the rash- 
 ness of youth, to throw away the truth it already 
 
 b 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 had, for the sake of theories which it hoped that 
 
 it might possibly verify hereafter. 
 
 With your book in my hand, I have tried to 
 
 write a few plain Sermons, telling plain people 
 
 what they will find in the Pentateuch, in spite of 
 
 all present doubts, as their fathers found it before 
 
 them, and as (I trust) their children will find it 
 
 after them, when all this present whirlwind of 
 
 controversy has past, 
 
 ' As dust that lightly rises up. 
 And is lightly laid again.' 
 
 I have told them that they will find in the Bible, 
 and in no other ancient book, that living working 
 God, whom their reason and conscience demand ; 
 and that they will find that he is none other than 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. I have not apologised for 
 or explained away the so-called ' Anthropomor- 
 phism' of the Old Testament. On the contrary, 
 I have frankly accepted it, and even gloried in it 
 as an integral, and I believe invaluable element 
 of Scripture. I have deliberately ignored many 
 questions of great interest and difficulty, because I 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 had no satisfactory solution of them to offer ; but 
 I have said at the same time that those questions 
 were altogether unimportant, compared with those 
 salient and fundamental points of the Bible history 
 on which I was preaching. And therefore I have 
 dared to bid my people relinquish Biblical criti- 
 cism to those who have time for it; and to say 
 of it with me, as Abraham of the planets, ' O my 
 people, I am clear of all these things! I turn 
 myself to him who made heaven and earth.' 
 
 I do not wish, believe me, to make you respon- 
 sible for any statement or opinion of mine. I am 
 painfully conscious, on reviewing for the Press 
 Sermons which would never have been published 
 save by special request, how imperfect, poor, and 
 weak they seem to me — how much worse, then, 
 they will appear to other people; how much more 
 may be said which I have not the wit to say ! 
 But the Bible can take care of itself, I presume, 
 without my help. All I can do is, to speak what 
 I think, as far as I see my way ; to record the 
 obligation toward you under which I, with thou- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 sands more, now lie ; and to express my hope that 
 we shall be always found together fellow-workers 
 in the cause of Truth, and that to you and in 
 you may be fulfilled those noble and tender words, 
 in which you have spoken of Samuel, and of those 
 who work in Samuel's spirit : 
 
 ' In later times, even in our own, many names 
 spring to our recollection of those who have 
 trodden or (in different degrees, some known, and 
 some unknown) are treading the same thankless 
 path in the Church of Germany, in the Church of 
 France, in the Church of Russia, in the Church of 
 England. Wherever they are, and whosoever the)' 
 may be, and howsoever they may be neglected 
 or assailed, or despised, they, like their great pro- 
 totype and likeness in the Jewish Church, are the 
 silent healers who bind up the wounds of their 
 age in spite of itself ; they are the good physicians 
 who bind together the dislocated bones of a dis- 
 jointed time ; they are the reconcilers who turn the 
 hearts of the children to the fathers, or of the 
 fathers to the children. They have but little 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 praise and reward from tlie partisans who are loud 
 in indiscriminate censure and applause. But, like 
 Samuel, they have a far higher reward, in the 
 Davids who are silently strengthened and nurtured 
 by them in Naioth of Ramah — in the glories of a 
 new age which shall be ushered in peacefull)' and 
 happily after they have been laid in the grave.'* 
 
 That such, my dear Stanley, may be your work 
 and your destiny, is the earnest hope of 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 C. KINGSLEV. 
 
 EvERSLEY Rectory, 
 
 July 1, 1S63. 
 
 * Lectures on /he jfeivisJi Church, Lcct. xviii. p. 401. 
 
THE 
 
 GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH 
 
 A SET OF PARISH SERMONS 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 GOD IN CHRIST. 
 ( SepUtagcsima Sunday.) 
 
 Genesis i. i. 
 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
 
 "\ 71 TE have begun this Sunday to read the book 
 of Genesis. I trust that you will listen to it 
 as you ought— with peculiar respect and awe, as 
 the oldest part of the Bible, and therefore the 
 oldest of all known works — the earliest human 
 thought which has been handed down to u3. 
 
 And what is the first written thought which 
 has been handed down to us by the Providence 
 of Almighty God ? 
 
 'In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth.' 
 
 How many other things, how many hundred 
 other things, men might have thought fit to write 
 down for those who should come after ; and say — 
 
 I 
 
2 GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 This is the first knowledge which a man should 
 have ; this is the root of all wisdom, all power, 
 all wealth. 
 
 But God inspired Moses and the Prophets to 
 write as they have written. They were not to 
 tell men that the first, thing to be learnt was how- 
 to be rich ; nor how to be strong ; nor even how 
 to be happy : but that the first thing to be learnt 
 was that God created the heaven and the earth. 
 
 And why first .' 
 
 Because the first question which man asks — 
 the question which shows he is a man and not 
 a brute — always has been, and always will be — 
 Where am I .'' How did I get into this world . 
 and how did this world get here likewise ? And 
 if man takes up with a wrong answer to that 
 question, then the man himself is certain to go 
 wrong in all manner of ways. For a lie can never 
 do anything but harm, or breed anything but 
 harm ; and lies do breed, as fast as the blight on 
 the trees, or the smut on the corn : only being 
 not according to nature, or the laws of God, the)' 
 do not breed as natural things do, after their kind - 
 but, belonging to chaos, the kingdom of disorder 
 and misrule, they breed fresh lies unlike them- 
 selves, of all strange and unexpected shapes ; so 
 
[.1 GOD IN CHRIST. 3 
 
 that when a man takes up with one h'e, there is 
 no saying what other lie he may not take up with 
 beside. 
 
 Wherefore the first thing man has to learn is 
 truth concerning the first human question, Where 
 am I ? How did I come here ; and how did this 
 world come here ? To which the Bible answers 
 in its first line — 
 
 ' In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth.' 
 
 How God created, the Bible does not tell us. 
 Whether he created (as doubtless he could have 
 done if he chose) this world suddenly out of no- 
 thing, full grown and complete ; or whether he 
 created it (as he creates you and me, and all living 
 and growing things now) out of things which had 
 been before it — that the Bible does not tell us. 
 
 Perhaps if it had told us, it would have drawn 
 away our minds to think of natural things, and 
 what we now call science, instead of keeping our 
 minds fixed, as it now does, on spiritual things, 
 and above all on the Spirit of all spirits ; Him of 
 whom it is written, ' God is a Spirit.' 
 
 For the Bible is simply the revelation, or un- 
 veiling of God. It is not a book of natural 
 science. It is not merely a book of holy and 
 
4 GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 virtuous precepts. It is not merely a book where- 
 in we may find a scheme of salvation for our souls. 
 It is the book of the revelation, or unveiling of the 
 Lord God, Jesus Christ ; what he was, what he is, 
 and what he will be for ever. 
 
 Of Jesus Christ ? How is he revealed in the 
 text, ' In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth .'' ' 
 
 Thus : — If you look at the first chapter of 
 Genesis and the beginning of the second, you 
 will see that God is called therein by a different 
 name from what he is called afterwards. He is 
 called God, Elohim, The High or Mighty One 
 or Ones. After that he is called the Lord God, 
 Jehovah Elohim, which means properly, The High 
 or Mighty I Am, or Jehovah, a word which I will 
 explain to you afterwards. That word is generally 
 translated in our Bible, as it was in the Greek, 
 'The Lord ;' because the later Jews had such a 
 deep reverence for the name Jehovah, that the\' 
 did not like to write it or speak it : but called 
 God simply Adonai, the Lord. 
 
 So that we have three names for God in the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 First El, or Elohim, the Mighty One : by which, 
 so Moses says, God was known to the Jews before 
 
I.] GOD IN CHRIST. 5 
 
 his time, and which sets forth God's power and 
 majesty — the first thing of which men would think 
 in thinking of God. 
 
 Next Jehovah. The I Am, tlie Eternal, and 
 Self-existent Being, by which name God revealed 
 himself to Moses in the burning bush — a deeper 
 and wider name than the former. 
 
 And lastly, Adonai, the Lord, the living Ruler 
 and Master of the world and men, by which he 
 revealed himself to the later Jev/s, and at last to 
 all mankind in the person of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Now I need not to trouble your mind or my 
 own with arguments as to how these three 
 different names got into the Bible. 
 
 That is a matter of criticism, of scholarship, 
 with which you have nothing to do : and you may 
 thank God that you have not, in such days as 
 these. Your business is, not how the names got 
 there, which is a matter of criticism, but why they 
 have been left there by the providence of God, 
 which is a matter of simple religion ; and you may 
 thank God, I say again, that it is so. For scholar- 
 ship is Martha's part, which must be done, and 
 yet which cumbers a man with much serving : but 
 simple heart religion is the better part which Mary 
 
6 GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 chose; and of which the Lord has said, that it 
 shall not be taken from her, nor from those who, 
 like her, sit humbly at the feet of the Lord, and 
 hear his voice, without troubling their souls with 
 questions of words, and endless genealogies, which 
 eat out the hearts of men. 
 
 Therefore all I shall say about the matter is 
 that the first chapter of Genesis, and the first 
 three verses of the second, may be the writing 
 of a prophet older than Moses, because the)' call 
 God Elohim, which was his name before Moses' 
 time ; and that Moses may have used them, and 
 worked them into a book of Genesis ; while he, in 
 the part which he wrote himself, called God at 
 first by the name Jehovah Elohim, The Lord God, 
 in order to show that Jehovah and El were the 
 same God, and not two diiTerent ones ; and after 
 he had made the Jews understand that, went on 
 to call God simply Jehovah, and to use the t\vo 
 names, as they are used through the rest of the 
 Old Testament, interchangeably : as we say some- 
 times God, sometimes the Lord, sometimes the 
 Deity, and so forth ; meaning of course always 
 the same Being. 
 
 That, I think, is the probable and simple ac- 
 count which tallies most exactly with the Bible. 
 
I.] GOD IN CHRIST. 
 
 As for the first five books of the Bible, the Pen- 
 tateuch, having been written by Moses, or at least 
 by far the greater part of them, I cannot see the 
 least reason to doubt it. 
 
 The Bible itself does not say so ; and therefore 
 it is not a matter of faith, and men may have 
 their own opinions on the matter, without sin or 
 false doctrine. But that Moses wrote part at least 
 of them, our Lord and his Apostles say expressly. 
 The tradition of the Jews (who really ought to 
 know best) has always been that Moses wrote 
 either the whole or the greater part. Moses is by 
 far the most likely man to have written them, of 
 all of whom we read in Scripture. We have not 
 the least proof and, what is more, never shall or 
 can have, that he did not write them. And there- 
 fore, I advise you to believe, as I do, that the 
 universal tradition of both Jews and Christians 
 is right, when it calls these books, the books of 
 Moses.* 
 
 * I must say that all attempts to put a later date on these books 
 seems to me to fail simply from want of evidence. I must say, 
 also, that all attempts to distinguish between 'Jehovistic' and 
 ' Elohistic ' documents {with the exception, perhaps, of the first 
 chapter of Genesis) seem to me to fail likewise ; and that the 
 theory of an Elohistic and a Jehovistic sect has received its re- 
 diictionem ad absurdum in a certain recent criticism of the Psalms. 
 
S GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 But now no more of these matters : we will 
 think of a matter quite infinitely more important, 
 and that is, Who is this God whom the Bible re- 
 veals to us, from the very first verse of Genesis ? 
 
 At least, he is one and the same Being. 
 Whether he be called El, Jehovah, or Adonai, 
 he is the same Lord. 
 
 It is the Lord who makes the heaven and the 
 earth, the Lord who puts man in a Paradise, lays 
 on him a commandment, and appears to him in 
 visible shape. 
 
 It is the Lord who speaks to Abraham : though 
 Abraham knew him only as El-Shaddai, the 
 Almighty God. It is the Lord who brings the 
 Israelites out of Egypt, who gives them the law 
 on Sinai. It is the Lord who speaks to Samuel, 
 to David, to all the Prophets, and appears to 
 Isaiah, while his glory fills the Temple In what- 
 ever 'divers manners' and 'many portions,' as St. 
 Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he speaks 
 to them, he is the same Being. 
 
 And Psalmists and Prophets are most careful 
 to tell us that he is the God, not of the Jews 
 only, but of the Gentiles ; of all mankind — as 
 indeed, he must be, being Jehovah, the I Am, 
 the one Self-existent and Eternal Being ; that 
 
1.] GOD IN CHRIST. 
 
 from his throne he is watching and judging all the 
 nations upon earth, fashioning the hearts of all, 
 appointing them their bounds, and the times of 
 their habitation, if haply they may seek after him 
 and find him, though he be not far from any one 
 of them ; for in him they live and move and have 
 their being. 
 
 This is the message of Moses, of the Psalmists 
 and the Prophets, just as much as of St. Paul on 
 Mars' Hill at Athens. 
 
 So begins and so ends the Old Testament, re- 
 vealing throughout The Lord. 
 
 And how does the New Testament begin ? 
 
 By telling us that a Babe was born at Beth- 
 lehem, and called Jesus, the Saviour. 
 
 But who is this blessed Babe ^ He, too, is The 
 Lord. 
 
 'A Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.' And 
 from thence, through the Gospels, the Acts, the 
 Epistles, the Revelation of St. John, he is the 
 Lord. There is no manner of doubt of it. The 
 Apostles and Evangelists take no trouble to prove 
 it. They take it for granted. They call Jesus 
 Christ by the name by which the Jews had for 
 hundreds of years called the El of Abraham, 
 the Jehovah of Moses. The Babe who is born 
 
13 GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 at Bethlehem, who grows up as other human 
 beings grow, into the man Christ Jesus, is none 
 other than the Lord God who created the universe, 
 who made a covenant with Abraham, who brought 
 the Israelites out of Egypt, who inspired the Pro- 
 phets, who has been from the beginning governing 
 all the earth. 
 
 It is very awful. But you must believe that, or 
 put your Bibles away as a dream — New Testament 
 and Old alike. Not to believe that fully and utterly, 
 is not to believe the Bible at all. For that is what 
 the Bible says, and has been sent into the world 
 to say. It is, from beginning to end, the book 
 of the revelation, or unveiling of Jesus Christ, 
 very God of very God. 
 
 But some may say, ' Why tell us that .'' Of 
 course we believe it. We should not be Christians 
 if we did not.' 
 
 Be it so. I hope it is so. But I think that it 
 is not so easy to believe it as we fancy. 
 
 We believe it, I think, more firmly than our 
 forefathers did five hundred years ago, on some 
 points ; and therefore we have got rid of man\- 
 dark and blasphemous superstitions about witches 
 and devils, about the evil of the earth and of our 
 own bodies, of marriage, and of the common 
 
I.] GOD IN CHRIST. ii 
 
 duties and bonds of humanity, which tormented 
 them, because they could not believe fully that 
 Jesus Christ had created, and still ruled the world 
 and all therein. 
 
 But we are all too apt still to think of Jesus 
 Christ merely as some one who can save our souls 
 when we die, and to forget that he is the Lord, who 
 is and has been always ruling the world and all 
 mankind. 
 
 And from this come two bad consequences. 
 People are apt to speak of the Lord Jesus — or 
 at least to admire preachers who speak of him — 
 as if he belonged to them, and not they to him; 
 and, therefore, to speak of him with an irreverence 
 and a familiarity which they dared not use, if they 
 really believed that this same Jesus, whose name 
 they take in vain, is none other than the Living 
 God himself, their Creator, by whom every blade 
 of grass grows beneath their feet, every planet 
 and star rolls above their heads. 
 
 And next — they fancy that the Old Testament 
 speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ only in a few 
 mysterious prophecies — some of which there is 
 reason to suspect they quite misinterpret. They 
 are slow of heart to believe all that the Scriptures 
 have spoken of him of whom Moses and the 
 
12 GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 Prophets did write, not in a few scattered texts, 
 but in every line of the Old Testament, from the 
 first of Genesis to the last of Malachi. 
 
 And therefore they believe less and less, that 
 Jesus Christ is still the Lord in any real practical 
 sense — not merely the Lord of a few elect or 
 saints, but the Lord of man and of the earth, and 
 of the whole universe. They think of him as a 
 Lord who will come again to judgment — which 
 is true, and awfully true, in the very deepest 
 sense : but they do not think of him — in spite of 
 what he himself and his apostles declared of him 
 — as The Living, Working Lord, to whom all 
 power is given in heaven and earth, and not 
 merely over the souls of a few regenerate ; as the 
 Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, of whom 
 St. Paul says, ' that the mystery of Christ has been 
 hid from the beginning of the world in God, who 
 created all things by Jesus Christ' * * * ' That, 
 in the dispensation of the fulness of times, he 
 might gather together in one all things in Christ, 
 both which are in heaven, and which are in earth.' 
 They fill their minds with fancies about the book 
 of Revelation, most of which, there is reason to 
 fear, are little else but fancies : while they overlook 
 what that book really does say, and what is the 
 
I.] GOD IN CHRIST. 13 
 
 best news that the world ever heard, that he is 
 the Prince of tlie kings of the earth. 
 
 Therefore they have fears for Christ's Bible, 
 fears for Christ's Church, fears for the fate of the 
 world, which they could not have if they would 
 recollect who Christ is, and believe that he is able 
 to take care of his own kingdom and power and 
 glory, better than man can take care of it for him. 
 Surely, surely, faith in the living Lord who rules 
 the world in righteousness is fast dying out among 
 us ; and many who call themselves Christians seem 
 to know less of Christ, and of the work which he 
 is carrying on in the world, than did the old 
 Psalmist, who said of him, 'The Lord shall endure 
 for ever; he hath also prepared his seat for judg- 
 ment. For he shall judge the world in righteous- 
 ness, and minister true judgment among the 
 people.' He fashioneth ' the hearts of all of them, 
 and understandeth all their works.' 
 
 Who can say that he believes that, who holds 
 that this world is the devil's \\-orld, and that sinful 
 man and evil spirits are having it all their own 
 way till the day of judgment .' 
 
 Who can say that he believes that, who falls 
 into pitiable terror at every new discovery of 
 science or of scholarship, for fear it should destroy 
 
14 GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 the Bible and the Christian faith, instead of believ- 
 ing that all which makes manifest is light, and 
 that all light comes from the Father of lights, by 
 the providence of Jesus Christ his only-begotten 
 Son, who is the light of men, and the inspiration 
 of his Spirit, who leadeth into all truth ? 
 
 And how, lastly, can those say that they believe 
 that, who will lie, and slander, and have recourse 
 to base intrigues, in order to defend that truth, 
 and that Church, of which the Lord himself has 
 said that he has founded it upon a rock, and the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against it ? 
 
 But if you believe indeed the message of the 
 Bible, that Jesus Christ is the Lord who made 
 lieaven and earth, then it shall be said of you, as 
 it was of St. Peter, ' Blessed art thou : for flesh 
 and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my 
 Father which is in heaven.' 
 
 Yes. Blessed indeed is he who believes that ; 
 who believes that the same person who was bora 
 in a stable, had not where to lay his head, went 
 about healing the sick and binding up the broken 
 heart, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, 
 dead, and buried, and rose again the third day, 
 and ascended into heaven — ascended thither that 
 he might fill all things ; and if none other than the 
 
I.] GOD IN CHRIST. 15 
 
 Lord of the earth and of men, the Creator, the 
 Teacher, the Saviour, the Guide, the King, the 
 Judge, of all the world, and of all worlds past, 
 present, and to come. 
 
 For to him who thus believes shall be fulfilled 
 the promise of his Lord, ' Come unto me, all )'c 
 that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest.' 
 
 He will find rest unto his soul. Rest from that 
 first and last question, of which I said that all men, 
 down to the lowest savage, ask it, simply because 
 they are men, and not beasts. Where am I .'' How 
 came I here .'' How came this world here likewise.'' 
 
 For he can answer — 
 
 ' I am in the kingdom of the Babe of Bethlehem. 
 He put me here. And he put this world here 
 likewise : and that is enough for me. He created 
 all I see or can see — I care little how, provided 
 that He created it ; for then I am sure that it 
 must be very good. He redeemed me and all man- 
 kind, when we were lost, at the price of his most 
 precious blood. He the Lord is King, therefore 
 will I not be moved, though the earth be shaken, 
 and the hills be carried into the midst of the sea. 
 Yea, though the sun were turned to darkness, and 
 the moon to blood, and the stars fell from heaven, 
 
i6 GOD IN CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 and all power and order, all belief and custom of 
 mankind, were turned upside down, yet there 
 would still be One above who rules the world in 
 righteousness, whose eye is on them that fear him 
 and put their trust in his mercy, to deliver their 
 soul from death, and to feed them in the time of 
 dearth. Darkness may cover the land for awhile, 
 and gross darkness the people. But while I sit 
 in darkness, the Lord shall be my light, till the 
 day when he shall say once more, " Let there be 
 light," and light shall be.' 
 
 Yes. To the man who is a good man and true ; 
 who has any hearty Christian feeling for his fellow- 
 men, and is not merely a selfish superstitious 
 person, caring for nothing but what he calls the 
 safety of his own soul ; to the man, I say, who 
 has anything of the loving spirit of Christ in him, 
 what question can be more important than this, 
 Is the world well made or ill .'' Is it vrell governed 
 or ill .'' Is it on the whole going right or going 
 wrong .•" And what can be more comforting to 
 such a man, than the answer which the Bible gives 
 him at the outset ? — 
 
 This world is well made, in love and care ; for 
 Christ the Lord made it, and behold it was very 
 good. 
 
I.] GOD IN CHRIST. 17 
 
 This world is going right and not wrong, in 
 spite of all appearances to the contrary ; for 
 Christ the Lord is King. He sitteth between the 
 cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet. He is 
 too strong and too loving to let the world go 
 any way but the right. Parts of it will often go 
 wrong here, and go wrong there. The sin and 
 ignorance of men will disturb his order, and rebel 
 against his laws ; and strange and mad things, 
 terrible and pitiable things will happen, as they 
 have happened ever since the day when the first 
 man disobeyed the commandment of the Lord. 
 But man cannot conquer the Lord ; the Lord 
 will conquer man. He will teach men by their 
 neighbours' sins. He will teach them by their 
 own sins. He will chastise them by sore judg- 
 ments. He will make fearful examples of wilful 
 and conceited sinners ; and those who seem to 
 escape him in this life, shall not escape him in 
 the life to come. But he is trying for ever every 
 man's work by fire ; and against that fire no lie 
 will stand. He will burn up the stubble and chaff, 
 and leave only the pure wheat for the use of future 
 generations. His purpose will stand. His word 
 will never return to him void, but will prosper 
 always where he sends it. He has made the 
 
 2 
 
GOD IN CHRIST. 
 
 round world so sure that it cannot be moved, 
 either by man or by worse than man. His ever- 
 lasting laws will take effect in spite of all opposi- 
 tion, and bring the world and man along the path, 
 and to the end, which he purposed for them in the 
 day when God made the heavens and the earth, 
 and in that even greater day, when he said, ' Let 
 us make man in our image, after our likeness,' 
 and man arose upright, and knew that he was 
 not as the beasts, and asked who he was, and 
 where ? feeling with the hardly opened eyes of 
 his spirit after that Lord from whom he came, 
 and to whom he shall return, as many as have 
 eternal life, in the day when Christ the Lord of 
 life shall have destroyed death, and put all 
 enemies under his feet, and given up the king- 
 dom to God, even the Father, that God may be 
 all in alL 
 
SERMON n. 
 
 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 
 (TrinUy Sunday.) 
 
 Genesis i. 26. 
 
 And God said, Let us mike man in our ima2;e, after our 
 likenebS. 
 
 ■T^HIS is a hard saying. It is difficult at times 
 to believe it to be true. 
 
 If one looks not at what God has made man, 
 but at what man has made himself, one will never 
 believe it to be true. 
 
 When one looks at what man has made himself; 
 .at the back streets of some of our great cities ; at 
 the thousands of poor Germans and Irish across 
 the ocean bribed to kill and to be killed, they 
 know not why ; at the abominable wrongs and 
 cruelties going on in Poland at this moment — the 
 cry whereof is going up to the ears of the God of 
 Hosts, and surely not in vain ; when one thinks 
 ■of all the cries which have gone up in all ages 
 
20 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [serm. 
 
 from the victims of man's greed, lust, cruelty, 
 tyranny, and shrillest of all from the tortured 
 victims of his superstition and fanaticism, it is 
 difficult to answer the sneer, 'Believe, if you can, 
 that this foolish, unjust, cruel being called man, 
 is made in the likeness of God. Man was never 
 made in the image of God at all. He is only 
 a cunninger sort of animal, for better for worse — 
 and for worse as often as for better.' 
 
 Another says, not quite that. Man was in the 
 likeness of God once, but he lost that by Adam's 
 fall, and now is only an animal with an immortal 
 soul in him, to be lost or saved. 
 
 There is more truth in that latter notion than 
 in the former: but if it be quite right; if we did 
 lose the likeness of God at Adam's fall, how 
 comes the Bible never to say so ? How comes 
 the Bible never to say one word on what must 
 have been the most important thing which ever 
 happened to mankind before the coming of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ .■" 
 
 And how comes it also that the New Testament 
 says distinctly that man is still made in the like- 
 ness of God .'' For St. Paul speaks of man as 
 ' the likeness and glory of God.' And St. James 
 says of the tongue, 'Therewith bless we God» 
 
II.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 21 
 
 even the Father ; and therewith ' (to our shame) 
 "curse we men, which are made in the hkeness 
 of God.' 
 
 But the great proof that man is made in the 
 image and hkeness of God is the incarnation of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ ; for if human nature had 
 been, as some think, something utterly brutish 
 and devihsh, and utterly unlike God, how could 
 God have become man without ceasing to be 
 God .'' Christ was man of the substance of his 
 mother. That substance had the same human 
 nature as we have. Then if that human nature 
 be evil, what follows .■' Something which I shall 
 not utter, for it is blasphemy. Christ has taken 
 the manhood into God. Then if manhood be evil, 
 what follows again ? Something more which I 
 shall not utter, for it is blasphemy. 
 
 But man is made in the image of God ; and 
 therefore God, in whose image he is made, could 
 take on himself his own image and likeness, and 
 become perfect man, without ceasing to be perfect 
 God. 
 
 Therefore, my friends, it is a comfortable and 
 wholesome doctrine, that man is made in the 
 image of God, and one for which we must thank 
 the Bible. For it is the Bible which has revealed 
 
THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [serm. 
 
 that truth to us, in its very beginning and outset, 
 that we might have, from the first, clear and 
 sound notions concerning man and God. The 
 Bible, I say ; for the sacred books of the heathen 
 say, most of them, nothing thereof 
 
 Man has, in all ages, been tempted, when he 
 looks at his own wickedness and folly, not only 
 to despise himself — which he has good reason 
 enough to do — but to despise his own human 
 nature, and to cry to God, ' Why hast thou made 
 me thus.?' He has cursed his own human nature. 
 He has said, ' Surely man is most miserable of all 
 the beasts of the field.' He has said, ' I must get 
 rid of my human nature — I must give up wife, 
 family, human life of all kinds, I must go into 
 the deserts and the forests, and there try to forget 
 that I am a man, and become a mere spirit or 
 angel.' So said the Buddhists of Asia, the deep- 
 est thinkers concerning man and God of all the 
 heathens, and so have many said since their time. 
 But so does the Bible not say. It starts by 
 telling us that man is made in God's likeness, and 
 that therefore his human nature is originally and 
 in itself not a bad, but a perfectly good thing. All 
 that has to be done to it is to be cured of its 
 diseases ; and the Bible declares that it can be 
 
II.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 23 
 
 cured. Howsoever man may have fallen, he may- 
 rise. Howsoever the likeness may be blotted and 
 corrupted, it can be cleansed and renewed. How- 
 soever it may be perverted and turned right round 
 and away from God and goodness to selfishness 
 and evil, it can be converted, and turned back 
 again to God. Howsoever utterly far gone man 
 may be from original righteousness, still to 
 original righteousness he can return, by the grace 
 of baptism and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 And what in us is the likeness of God .■' That 
 is a deep question. 
 
 Only one answer will I make to it to-day. 
 Whatever in us is, or is not, the likeness of God, 
 at least the sense of right and wrong is; to know 
 right and wrong. So says the Bible itself: 
 ' Behold the man is become as one of us, to know 
 good and evil.' Not that he got the likeness of 
 God by his fall — of course not; but that he became 
 aware of his likeness, and that in a very painful 
 and common way — by sinning against it ; as St. 
 Paul says in one of his deepest utterances, ' By 
 sin is the knowledge of the law.' 
 
 And you may see for yourselves how human 
 nature can have God's likeness in that respect, 
 and yet be utterly fallen and corrupt. 
 
24 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [skrm. 
 
 For a man may — and indeed every man does 
 — know good and yet be unable to do it, and 
 know evil, and yet be a slave to it, tied and 
 bound with the chains of his sins till the grace 
 of God release him from them. 
 
 To know good and evil, right and wrong — to 
 have a conscience, a moral sense — that is the 
 likeness of God of which I wish to preach to- 
 day. Because it is through tliat knowledge of 
 good and evil, and through it alone, that we can 
 know God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. 
 It is through our moral sense that God speaks to 
 us; through our sense of right and wrong; through 
 that I say, God speaks to us, whether in reproof 
 or encouragement, in wrath or in love ; to teach 
 us what he is like, and to teach us what he is 
 not like. 
 
 To know God. That is the side on which we 
 must look at this text on Trinity Sunday. If 
 man be made in the image of God, then we may 
 be able to know something at least of God, and 
 of the character of God. If we have the copy, 
 we can guess at least at what the original is like. 
 
 From the character, therefore, of every good 
 man, we may guess at something of the character 
 of God. But from the character of Jesus Christ 
 
n.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 25 
 
 our Lord, who is the very brightness of his 
 Father's glory and the express image of liis 
 person, we may see perfectly — at least perfectly 
 enough for all our needs in this life, and in the 
 life to come — what is the character of God, who 
 made heaven and earth. 
 
 I beseech you to remember this — I beseech you 
 to believe this, with your whole hearts, and rriinds, 
 and souls, and especially just now. 
 
 For there are many abroad now who will tell 
 you, man can know nothing of God. 
 
 Answer them : ' If your God be a God of whom 
 I can know nothing, then he is not my God, the 
 God of the Bible. For he is the God who has 
 said of old, " They shall not teach each man his 
 brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall 
 know Me, from the least unto the greatest." He 
 is the God, who, through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 accused and blamed the Jews because they did 
 not know him, which if they could not know him 
 would have been no fault of theirs. Of doctrines, 
 and notions, and systems, it is written, and most 
 truly, " I know in part, and I prophesy in part," 
 and again, " If a man thinketh that he knoweth 
 anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to 
 know." But of God it is written, "This is life 
 
26 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [serm. 
 
 eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and 
 Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." ' 
 
 But they will say, man is finite and limited, 
 God is infinite and absolute, and how can the 
 finite comprehend the infinite ? 
 
 Answer: 'Those are fine words: I do not under- 
 stand them; and I do not care to understand 
 them ; I do not deny that God is infinite and 
 absolute, though what that means I do not know. 
 But 1 find nothing about his being infinite and 
 absolute in the Bible. I find there that he is 
 righteous, just, loving, merciful, and forgiving; 
 and that he is angry too, and that his wrath is 
 a consuming fire, and I know well enough what 
 those words mean, though I do not know what 
 infinite and absolute mean. So that is what I 
 have to think of, for my own sake and the sake 
 of all mankind.' 
 
 But, they will say, you must not take these 
 words to the letter; man is so unlike God, and 
 God so unlike man, that God's attributes must 
 be quite different from man's. When you read 
 of God's love, justice, anger, and so forth, you 
 must not think that they are anything like man's 
 love, man's justice, man's anger ; but something 
 quite different, not only in degree, but in kind : 
 
II.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 27 
 
 SO that what might be unjust and cruel in man, 
 would not be so in God. 
 
 My dear friends, beware of that doctrine ; for 
 out of it have sprung half the fanaticism and 
 superstition which has disgraced and tormented 
 the earth. Beware of ever thinking that a wrong 
 thing would be right if God did it, and not you. 
 And mind, that is flatly contrary to the letter of 
 the Bible. In that grand text where Abraham 
 pleads with God, what does he say .'' Not, ' Of 
 course if Thou choosest to do it, it must be 
 right,' but 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
 RIGHT ? ' Abraham actually refers the Almighty 
 God to his own law ; and asserts an eternal rule of 
 right and wrong common to man and to God, 
 which God will surely never break. 
 
 Answer: 'If that doctrine be true, which I will 
 never believe, then the Bible mocks and deceives 
 poor miserable sinful man, instead of teaching 
 him. If God's love does not mean real actual 
 love, — God's anger, actual anger, — God's forgive- 
 ness, real forgiveness, — God's justice, real justice, 
 — God's truth, real truth, — God's faithfulness, real 
 faithfulness, what do they mean .■' Nothing which 
 I can understand, nothing which I can trust in. 
 How can I trust in a God whom I cannot under- 
 
28 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [serm. 
 
 Stand or know ? How can I trust in a love or a 
 justice which is not what / call love or justice, or 
 anything like them ? 
 
 ' The saints of old said, / know in whom I have 
 believed. And how can I believe in him, if there 
 is nothing in him which I can know ; nothing 
 which is like man — nothing, to speak plainly, like 
 Christ, who was perfect man as well as perfect 
 God .' If that be so, if man can know nothing 
 really of God, he is indeed most miserable of all 
 the beasts of the field, for I will warrant that he 
 can know nothing really of anything else. And 
 what is left for him, but to remain for this life, 
 and the life to come, in the outer darkness of 
 ignorance and confusion, misrule and misery, 
 wherein is most literally — as one may see in the 
 history of every heathen nation upon earth — 
 wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
 
 ' If God's goodness be not like man's goodness, 
 there is no rule of morality left, no eternal stand- 
 ard of right and wrong. How can I tell what I 
 ought to do ; or what God expects of me ; or 
 when I am right and when I am wrong, if you 
 take from me the good, plain, old Bible rule, that 
 man can be, and must be, like God .'' The Bible 
 rule is, that everything good in man must be 
 
II.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 29 
 
 exactly like something good in God, because it 
 is inspired into him by the Spirit of God himself. 
 Our Lord Jesus, who spoke, not to philosophers 
 or Scribes and Pharisees, but to plain liuman 
 beings, weeping and sorrowing, suffering and 
 sinning, like us, — told them to be perfect, as our 
 Father in heaven is perfect, by being good to the 
 unthankful and the evil. And if man is to be 
 perfect, as his Father in heaven is perfect, then 
 his Father in heaven is perfect as man ought to be 
 perfect. He told us to be merciful as our Father 
 ill heaven is merciful. Then our Father in heaven 
 is merciful with the same sort of mercy as we 
 ought to show. We are bidden to forgive others,, 
 even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us : 
 then if our forgiveness is to be like God's, God's, 
 forgiveness is like ours. We are to be true, be- 
 cause God is true : just, because God is just. Ho\v^ 
 can we be that, if God's truth is not like what 
 men call truth, God's justice not like what mea. 
 call justice ? 
 
 'If I give up that rule of right and wrong, I 
 give up all rules of right and wrong whatsoever.' 
 
 No, my friends ; if we will seek for God where- 
 he may be found, then we shall know God, whom 
 truly to know is everlasting life. But we must 
 
30 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [serm. 
 
 not seek for him where he is not, in long words 
 and notions of philosophy spun out of men's 
 brains, and set up as if they were real things, 
 when words and notions they are, and words and 
 notions they will remain. We must look for God 
 where he is to be found, in the character of his 
 only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who alone has 
 revealed and unveiled God's character, because 
 he is the brightness of God's glory, and the 
 express image of his person. 
 
 What Christ's character was we can find in the 
 Holy Gospels ; and we can find it too, scattered 
 and in parts, in all the good, the holy, the 
 noble, who have aught of Christ's spirit and like- 
 ness in them. 
 
 Whatsoever is good and beautiful in any human 
 soul, that is the likeness of Christ. Whatsoever 
 thoughts, words, or deeds are true, honest, just, 
 pure, lovely, of good report; whatsoever is true 
 virtue, whatsoever is truly worthy of praise, that 
 is the likeness of Christ ; the likeness of him 
 who was full of all purity, all tenderness, all mercy, 
 all self-sacrifice, all benevolence, all helpfulness ; 
 full of all just and noble indignation also against 
 oppressors and hypocrites who bound heavy 
 burdens and grievous to be borne, but touched 
 
II.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 31 
 
 them not themselves with one of their fingers ; 
 who kept the key of knowledge, and neither 
 entered in themselves, or let those who were 
 trying enter in either. 
 
 The likeness of an all-noble, all-just, all- 
 gracious, all-wise, all-good human being ; that is 
 the likeness of Christ, and that, therefore, is the 
 likeness of God who made heaven and earth. 
 
 All-good ; utterly and perfectly good, in every 
 kind of goodness which we have ever seen, or 
 can ever imagine — that, thank God, is the like- 
 ness and character of Almighty God, in v/hom 
 we live and move, and have our being. To know 
 that he is that — all-good, is to know his character 
 as far as sinful and sorrowful man need know ; 
 -and is not that to know enough .'' 
 
 The mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity, as 
 set forth so admirably in the Athanasian Creed, 
 is a mystery ; and it we cannot know — we can 
 only believe it, and take it on trust : but the 
 diaracter of the ever-blessed Trinity — Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost — we can know: while by keeping 
 the words of the Athanasian Creed carefully in 
 mind, we may be kept from many grievous and 
 liurtful mistakes which will hinder our knowing 
 at We can know that they are all good, for such 
 
32 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [seum. 
 
 as the Father is such is the Son, and such is the 
 Holy Ghost. That goodness is their one and 
 eternal substance, and majesty, and glory, which 
 we must not divide by fancying with some, that 
 the Father is good in one way and the Son in 
 another. That their goodness is eternal and un- 
 changeable ; for they themselves are eternal, and 
 have neither parts nor passions. That their good- 
 ness is incomprehensible, that is, cannot be 
 bounded or limited by time or space, or by any 
 notions or doctrines of ours, for they themselves 
 are incomprehensible, and able to do abundantly 
 more than we can ask or think. 
 
 This is our God, the God of the Bible, the God 
 of the Church, the God who has revealed himself 
 in Jesus Christ our Lord. And him we can believe 
 utterly, for we know that he is faithful and true ; 
 and we know what that means, if there is anj- 
 truth or faithfulness in us. We know that he is 
 just and righteous ; and we know what that 
 means, if there is any justice and uprightness in 
 ourselves. Him we can trust utterly ; to him we 
 can take all our cares, all our sorrows, all our 
 doubts, all our sins, and pour them out to him, 
 because he is condescending ; and we know what 
 that means, if there be any condescension and real 
 
u.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 33 
 
 high-mindedness in ourselves. We can be certain 
 too that he will hear us, just because he is so 
 great, so majestic, so glorious ; because his great- 
 ness, and majesty, and glory is a moral and 
 spiritual greatness, which shows itself by stooping 
 to the meanest, by listening to the most foolish, 
 helping the weakest, pitying the worst, even while 
 it is bound to punish. Him we can trust, I say, 
 because him we can know, and can say of him, 
 Let the Infinite and the Absolute mean what they 
 may, I know in whom I have believed — God the 
 Good. Whatever else I cannot understand, I can 
 at least 'understand the lovingkindness of the 
 Lord;' however high his dwelling may be, I 
 know that he humbleth himself to behold the 
 things in heaven and earth, to take the simple 
 out of the dust, and the poor out of the mire. 
 Whatever else God may or may not be, I know 
 that gracious is the Lord, and righteous, yea, our 
 God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple, 
 for / was in misery, and he helped me. Whatso- 
 ever fine theories or new discoveries I cannot 
 trust, I can trust him, for with him is mercy, and 
 with the Lord is plenteous redemption ; and he 
 shall redeem his people from all their sins. How- 
 ever dark and ignorant I may be, I can go to him 
 
 3 
 
34 THE LIKENESS OF GOD. [serm. 
 
 for teaching, and say, Teach me to do the thing 
 that pleaseth thee, for thou art my God ; let 
 thy loving Spirit lead me forth into the land of 
 righteousness. 
 
 The land of righteousness. The one true 
 heavenly land, wherein God the righteous dwell- 
 eth from eternity to eternity, righteous in all 
 his ways, and holy in all his works, and there- 
 fore adorable in all his ways, and glorious in all 
 his works, with a glory even greater than the 
 glory of his Almighty power. On that glory 
 of his goodness we can gaze, though afar off 
 in degree, yet near in kind, while the glory 
 of his wisdom and power is far, far beyond my 
 understanding. Of the intellect of God we 
 can know nothing ; but we can know what is 
 better, the heart of God. For that glory of 
 goodness we can understand, and know, and 
 sympathize with in our heart of hearts, and say, 
 If this be the likeness of God, he is indeed worthy 
 to be worshipped, and had in honour. Praise the 
 Lord, O my soul, for the Lord is good. Kings 
 and all people, princes and all judges of the 
 world, young men and maidens, old men and 
 children, praise the name of the Lord, for his 
 name only is excellent, because his name is good. 
 
i;.] THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 35 
 
 Lift up your eyes, and look upon the face of Christ 
 the God-man, crucified for you ; and behold 
 therein the truth of all truths, the doctrine of all 
 doctrines, the gospel of all gospels, that the 
 'Unknown,' and 'Infinite,' and 'Absolute' God, 
 who made the universe, bids }'ou know him, and 
 know this of him, that he is good, and that his 
 express image and likeness is — Jesus Christ, hi.s 
 Son, our Lord. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 
 
 (Preached also al the Chapel Royal, St. Jame^. Sexagesiiwi 
 Sunday. ) 
 
 Genesis iii. 8. 
 
 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden 
 in the cool of the day. 
 
 'T^HESE words would startle us, if we heard 
 them for the first time. I do not know but 
 that they may startle us now, often as we have 
 heard them, if we think seriously over them. 
 That God should appear to mortal man, and 
 speak with mortal man. It is most wonderful. 
 It is utterly unlike anything that we have ever 
 seen, or that any person on earth has seen, for 
 many hundred years. It is a miracle, in every 
 sense of the word. 
 
 When one compares man as he was then, weak 
 and ignorant, and yet seemingly so favoured by 
 God, so near to God, with man as he is now,. 
 
THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 37 
 
 strong and cunning, spreading over the earth and 
 replenishing it ; subduing it with railroads and 
 steamships, with agriculture and science, and all 
 strange and crafty inventions, and all the while 
 never visited by any Divine or heavenly appear- 
 ance, but seemingly left utterly to himself by 
 God, to go his own way and do his own will upon 
 the earth, one asks with wonder, Can we be 
 Adam's children ? Can the God who appeared 
 to Adam, be our God likewise, or has God's plan 
 and rule for teaching man changed utterly ? 
 
 No. He is one God ; the same God yesterday, 
 to-day, and for ever. His will and purpose, his 
 care and rule over man, have not changed. 
 
 That is a matter of faith. Of the faith which 
 the holy Church commands us to have. But it 
 need not be a blind or unreasonable faith. That 
 our God is the God of Adam ; that the same 
 Lord God who taught him teaches us likewise, 
 need not be a mere matter of faith : it may be 
 a matter of reason likewise ; a thing which seems 
 reasonable to us, and recommends itself to our 
 mind and conscience as true. 
 
 Consider, my friends, a babe when it comes 
 into the world. The first thing of which it is 
 aware is its mother's bosom. The first thing 
 
3S THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. [SERM. 
 
 which it does, as its eyes and ears are gradually 
 opened to this world, is to cling to its parents. 
 It holds fast by their hand, it will not leave their 
 side. It is afraid to sleep alone, to go alone. 
 To them it looks up for food and help. Of 
 them it asks questions, and tries to learn from 
 them, to copy them, to do what it sees them 
 doing, even in play ; and the parents in return 
 lavish care and tenderness on it, and will not let 
 it out of their sight. But after a while, as the 
 child grows, the parents will not let it be so per- 
 petually with them. It must go to school. It 
 must see its parents only very seldom, perhaps it 
 must be away from them weeks or months. And 
 why.? Not that the parents love it less : but that 
 it must learn to take care of itself, to act for 
 itself, to think for itself, or it will never grow up 
 to be a rational human being. 
 
 And the parting of the child from the parents 
 does not break the bond of love between them. 
 It learns to love them even better. Neither does 
 it break the bond of obedience. The child is 
 away from its parents' eye. But it learns to obey 
 them behind their back ; to do their will of its 
 own will; to ask itself. What would my parents 
 wish me to do, were they here? and so learns, if 
 
III.] THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 39 
 
 it will think of it, a more true, deep, honourable 
 and spiritual obedience, than it ever would if its 
 parents were perpetually standing over it, saying, 
 Do this, and do that. 
 
 In after life, that child may settle far away from 
 his father's home. He may go up into the tempta- 
 tions and bustle of some great city. He may 
 cross to far lands beyond the sea. But need he 
 love his parents less .'' need the bond between 
 them be broken, though he may never set eyes on 
 them again .-' God forbid. He may be settled 
 far away, with children, business, interests of his 
 own ; and yet he may be doing all the while 
 his father's will. The lessons of God which he 
 learnt at his mother's knee may be still a lamp 
 to his feet and a light to his path. Amid all the 
 bustle and labour of business, his father's face 
 may still be before his eyes, his father's voice still 
 sound in his ears, bidding him be a worthy son 
 to him still ; bidding him not to leave that way 
 wherein he should go, in which his parents trained 
 him long, long since. He may feel that his parents 
 are near him in the spirit, though absent in the 
 flesh. Yes, though they may have passed alto- 
 gether out of this world, they may be to him 
 present and near at hand ; and he may be kept 
 
40 THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. [si. km. 
 
 from doing many a wrong thing and encouraged 
 to do many a right one, by the ennobling thought, 
 My father would have had it so, my mother would 
 liave had it so, had they been here on earth. And 
 though in this world he may never see them again, 
 he may look forward steadily and longingly to the 
 day when, this life's battle over, he shall meet 
 again in heaven those who gave him life on earth. 
 
 My friends, if this be the education which is 
 natural and necessary from our earthly parents, 
 made in God's image, appointed by God's eternal 
 laws for each of us, why should it not be the 
 education which God himself has appointed for 
 mankind .■" All which is truly human (not sinful 
 or fallen) is an image and pattern of something 
 Divine. May not therefore the training which we 
 find, by the very facts of nature, fit and necessary 
 for our children, be the same as God's training, by 
 which he fashioneth the hearts of the children of 
 men ? Therefore we can believe the Bible when it 
 tells us that so it is. That God began the education 
 of man by appearing to him directly, keeping him, 
 as it were, close to his hand, and teaching him by 
 direct and open revelation. That as time went on, 
 God left men more and more to themselves out- 
 wardly : but only that he might raise their minds 
 
111.] THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 41 
 
 to higher notions of rehgion — that he might make 
 them hve by faith, and not merely by sight ; and 
 obey him of their own hearty free will, and not 
 merely from fear or wonder. And therefore, in 
 these days, -when miraculous appearances have, as 
 far as we know, entirely ceased, yet God is not 
 changed. He is still as near as ever to men ; still 
 caring for them, still teaching them ; and his very 
 stopping of all miracles, so far from being a sign 
 of God's auger or neglect, is a part of his gracious 
 plan for the training of his Church. 
 
 For consider — Man was first put upon this earth, 
 with all things round him new and strange to him ; 
 seeing himself weak and unarmed before the wild 
 beasts of the forest, not even sheltered from the 
 cold, as they are ; and yet feeling in himself a 
 power of mind, a cunning, a courage, which made 
 him the lord of all the beasts by virtue of his mind, 
 though they were stronger than he in body. All 
 that we read of Adam and Eve in the Bible is, as 
 we should expect, the history of children — children 
 in mind, even when they were full-grown in stature. 
 Innocent as children, but, like children, greedy, 
 fanciful, ready to disobey at the first temptation, 
 for the very silliest of reasons; and disobeying 
 accordingly. Such creatures — with such wonder- 
 
43 THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. [serm. 
 
 ful powers lying hid in them, such a glorious future 
 before them; and yet so weak, so wilful, so ignorant 
 so unable to take care of themselves, liable to be 
 destroyed off the face of the earth by their own 
 folly, or even by the wild beasts around — surely 
 they needed some special and tender care from 
 God to keep them from perishing at the very 
 outset, till they had learned somewhat how to 
 take care of themselves, what their business and 
 duty were upon this earth. They needed it before 
 they fell ; they needed it still more, and their 
 children likewise, after they fell : and if they 
 needed it, we may trust God that he afforded 
 it to them. 
 
 But again. Whence came this strange notion, 
 which man alone has of all the living things which 
 we see, of Religion ? What put into the mind 
 of man that strange imagination of beings greater 
 than himself, whom he could not always see, but 
 who might appear to him .'' What put into his 
 mind the strange imagination that these unseen 
 beings were more or less his masters f That they 
 had made laws for him which he must obe)- .'' 
 That he must honour and worship them, and do 
 them service, in order that they might be favour- 
 able to him, and help, and bless, and teach him .■' 
 
III.] THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 4- 
 
 All nations except a very few savages (and wc 
 do not know but that their forefathers had it like 
 the rest of mankind) have had some such notion 
 as this ; some idea of religion, and of a moral 
 law of right and wrong. 
 
 Where did they get it .-' 
 
 ^Vhere, I ask again, did they get it ? 
 
 My friends, after much thought I answer, there 
 Is no explanation of that question so simple, so 
 rational, so probable, as the one which the text 
 gives. 
 
 'And they heard the voice of the Lord God.' 
 
 Some, I know, say that man thought out for him- 
 self, in his own reason, the notion of God ; that he 
 by searching found out God. But surely that is 
 contrary to all experience. Our experience is, 
 that men left to themselves forget God ; lose more 
 and more all thought of God, and the unseen 
 world ; believe more and more in nothing but 
 what they can see and taste and handle, and 
 become as the beasts that perish. How then did 
 man, who now is continually forgetting God, con- 
 trive to remember God for himself at first .'' How, 
 unless God himself showed himself to man ? 1 
 know some will say, that mankind invented for 
 themselves false gods at first, and afterwards cleared 
 
4+ THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. [serm. 
 
 and purified their own notions, till they discovered 
 the true God. My friends, there is a homely old 
 proverb which will well apply here. If there had 
 been no gold guineas, there would be no brass 
 ones. If men had not first had a notion of a true 
 God, and then gradually lost it, they would not 
 have invented false gods to supply his place. And 
 whence did they get, I ask again, the notion of 
 gods at all .-' The simplest answer is in the Bible: 
 God taught them. I can find no better. I do not 
 believe a better will ever be found. 
 
 And why not .' 
 
 Why not .■" I ask. To say that God cannot 
 appear to men is simply silly ; for it is limiting 
 God's Almighty power. He that made man and all 
 heaven and earth, cannot he show himself to man, 
 if he shall so please .'' To say that God will not 
 appear to man because man is so insignificant, and 
 this earth such a paltry little speck in the heavens, 
 is to limit God's goodness ; nay, it is to show that 
 a man knows not what goodness means. What 
 grace, what virtue is there higher than condescen- 
 sion .'' Then if God be, as he is, perfectly good, 
 must he not be perfectly condescending — ready 
 and willing to stoop to man, and all the more 
 ready and the more willing, the more weak, igno- 
 
111.] THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 45 
 
 rant, and sinful this man is ? In fact, the greater 
 need man has of God, the more certain is it that 
 God will help him in that need. 
 
 Yes, my friends, the Bible is the revelation of 
 a God who condescends to men, and therefore 
 descends to men. And the more a man's reason 
 is spiritually enlightened to know the meaning 
 of goodness and holiness and justice and love, 
 the more simple, reasonable, and credible will it 
 seem to him that God at first taught men in the 
 days of their early ignorance, by the only method 
 by which (as far as we can conceive) he could have 
 taught them about himself ; namely, by appearing 
 in visible shape, or speaking with audible voice ; 
 and just as reasonable and credible, awful and 
 unfathomable mystery though it is, will be the 
 greater news, that that same Lord at last so con- 
 descended to man that he was conceived by the 
 Holy Ghost ; born of the Virgin Mary ; suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate ; was crucified, dead, and 
 buried ; and rose the third day, and ascended 
 into heaven. Credible and reasonable, not indeed 
 to the natural man who looks only at nature^ 
 which he can see and hear and handle ; but 
 credible and reasonable enough to the spiritual 
 man, whose mind has been enlightened by the 
 
45 THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. [serm. 
 
 Spirit of God, to see that the things which are 
 seen are temporal, but the things which are not 
 seen are eternal ; even justice and love, mercy and 
 condescension, the divine order, and the kingdom 
 of the Living God. 
 
 And now one word on a matter which is tor- 
 menting the minds of many just now. It is often 
 said that all that I have been saying is contrary 
 to science. That this science and understanding 
 of the world around us, which has improved so 
 marvellously in our days, proves that the appari- 
 tions and miracles spoken of in the Bible cannot 
 be true ; that God, or the angels of God, can never 
 have walked with man in visible shape. 
 
 Now, my friends, I do not believe this. I believe 
 the very contrary. I entreat you to set your minds 
 at rest on this point ; and to believe (what is cer- 
 tainly true) there is nothing in this new science 
 to contradict the good old creed, that the Lord 
 God of old appeared to his human children. It 
 would take too much time, of course, to give j'ou 
 my reasons for saying this : and I must therefore 
 ask you to take on trust from me when I tell you 
 solenmly and earnestly that there is nothing in 
 modern science which can, if rightly understood, 
 contradict the glorious words of St. Paul, that God 
 
III.] THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 47 
 
 at sundry times and in divers manners spake to 
 the fathers by the prophets, and hath at last 
 spoken unto us by a Son, whom he hath appointed 
 heir of all things : by whom also he made the 
 , worlds, who is the brightness of his glory, and 
 the express image of his person, and upholdeth 
 all things by the word of his power: even Jesus 
 Christ, God blessed for ever. Amen. 
 
 What then shall we think of these things ? 
 Shall we say, ' How much better off were our 
 forefathers than we ! Ah, that we were not left 
 to ourselves! Ah, that we lived in the good old 
 times Vv'hen God and his angels walked with men !' 
 
 My friends, what says Solomon the Wise ? — 
 ' Inquire not why the former times were better 
 than these, for thou dost not inquire wisely con- 
 cerning this.' 
 
 It is very natural for us to think that we could 
 become more easily good men, more certain of 
 going to heaven, if we saw divine apparitions and 
 heard divine voices. A very natural thought. But 
 natural things are not always the best or wisest 
 things. Spiritual things are surely higher and 
 deeper than natural things. It is natural to wish 
 to see Christ, or some heavenly being, with our 
 aatural eyes and senses. But it is spiritual and 
 
48 THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD, [sf.rm 
 
 therefore better for our souls, to be content to see 
 him by faith, with the spiritual eyes of our' heart 
 and mind, to love him with all our heart and mind 
 and soul, to worship him, to put our whole trust 
 in him, to call upon him, to honour his holy name 
 and his word, and to serve him truly all the days 
 of our life. 
 
 Natural, indeed, to wish that we were back 
 again in the old times. But we must recollect 
 that these old times were not good times, but 
 bad times, and for that very reason the Lord took 
 pity on them. That they were times of darkness, 
 and therefore it was that the people who sat in 
 great darkness, and in the valley of the shadow 
 of death, were allowed to see a great light. And 
 that after that, the fulness of time, the very 
 time which the Lord chose that he might be in- 
 carnate of the Virgin Mary, and came down upon 
 this earth in human form, was not a good time. 
 On the contrary, the fulness of time, 1863 years 
 ago, was the very wickedest, most faithless, most 
 unjust time that the world had ever seen — a time 
 of which St. Paul said that there were none who 
 did good, no, not one ; that adders' poison was 
 under all lips, and all feet swift to shed blood, 
 and that the way of peace none had known. 
 
III.] THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 49 
 
 Better, far better, to live in times like these, in 
 which there is (among Christian nations at least) 
 no great darkness, even though there be no great 
 light ; times in which the knowledge of the true 
 God and his Son Jesus Christ is spreading, slowly 
 but surely, over all the earth; and with it, the 
 fruit of the knowledge of the Lord, justice, mercy, 
 charity, fellow-feeling, and a desire to teach and 
 improve all mankind, such as the world never saw 
 before. These are the fruits of the Scriptures of 
 the Lord, and the Sacraments of the Lord, and 
 of the Holy Spirit of the Lord ; and if that Holy 
 Spirit be in our hearts, and we yield our hearts 
 to his gracious motions and obey them, then we 
 are really nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ than 
 if we saw him, as Adam did, with our bodily eyes, 
 and yet rebelled against him, as Adam did, in our 
 hearts, and disobeyed him in our actions. Of old 
 the Lord treated men as babes, and showed him- 
 self to their bodily eyes, that so they might learn 
 that he was, and that he was near them. But us 
 he treats as grown men, who know that he is, and 
 that he is with us to the end of the world. And if 
 he treats us as men, my friends, let us behave 
 ourselves like men, and not like silly children, who 
 cannot be trusted by themselves for a moment 
 
 4 
 
50 THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD. 
 
 lest they do wrong or come to harm. Let us 
 obey God, not with eye-service, just as long as 
 we fancy that his eye is on us, but with the deeper, 
 more spiritual, more honourable obedience of faith. 
 Let us obey him for obedience' sake, and honour 
 him for very honour's sake, as the young emigrant 
 in foreign lands obeys and honours the parents 
 whom he will never see again on earth ; and let 
 us look forward, like him, to the day when him 
 whom we cannot see on earth we may, perhaps, 
 be permitted to see in heaven, as the reward — 
 and for what higher reward can man wish ? — of 
 faith and obedience. 
 
SERMON IV, 
 
 NOAH'S FLOOD. 
 
 ( Qttinquagesima Sunday. ) 
 
 Genesis ix. 13. 
 
 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a 
 covenant between me and the earth. 
 
 '^IT'E all know the history of Noah's flood. 
 What have we learnt from that history } 
 What were we intended to learn from it .' What 
 thoughts should we have about it .-' 
 
 There are many thoughts which we may have. 
 We may think how the flood came to pass ; what 
 means God used to make it rain forty days ; what 
 is meant by breaking up the fountains of the great 
 deep. We may calculate how large the ark was ; 
 and whether the Bible really means that it held all 
 kinds of living things in the world, or only those 
 of Noah's own country, or the animals which had 
 been tamed and made useful to man. We may 
 
52 NOAH'S FLOOD. [serm. 
 
 read long arguments as to whether the flood spread 
 over the whole world, or only over the country where 
 Noah and the rest of the sons of Adam then lived. 
 We may puzzle ourselves concerning the rainbow 
 of which the text speaks. How it was to be a sign 
 of a covenant from God. Whether man had ever 
 seen a rainbow before. Whether there had ever 
 been rain before in Noah's country ; or whether he 
 did not live in that land of which the second chap- 
 ter of Genesis says that the Lord had not caused 
 it to rain upon the earth, but there went up a mist 
 from the earth and watered the face of the ground, 
 as it does still in that high land in the centre of 
 Asia, in which old traditions put the garden of 
 Eden, and from which, as far as we yet know, man- 
 kind came at the beginning. 
 
 We. may puzzle our minds with these and a 
 hundred more curious questions, as learned men 
 have done in all ages. But — shall we become 
 really the wiser by so doing .'' More learned we 
 may become. But being learned and being wise 
 are two different things. True wisdom is that 
 which makes a man a better man. And will 
 such puzzling questions and calculations as these, 
 settle them how we may, make us better men .' 
 Will they make us more honest and just, more: 
 
IV.] NOAH'S FLOOD. 53 
 
 generous and loving, more able to keep our tem- 
 pers and control our appetites .'' I cannot see that. 
 Will it make us better men merely to know that 
 there was once a flood of waters on the earth .■" 
 I cannot see that. If we look at the hills of sand 
 and gravel round us, a little common sense will 
 show us that there have been many floods of 
 waters on the earth, long, long before the one 
 of which the Bible speaks : but shall we be bet- 
 ter men for knowing that either.' I cannot see 
 why we should. Now the Bible was sent to make 
 us better men. How then will the history of the 
 flood do that > 
 
 Easily enough, my friends, if we will listen to 
 the Bible, and thinking less about the flood itself, 
 think more about him who, so the Bible tells us, 
 sent the flood. 
 
 The Bible, I have told you, is the revelation 
 of the living Lord God, even Jesus Christ ; who, 
 in his turn, reveals to us the Father. And what 
 we have to think of is, how does this story of the 
 flood reveal, unveil to us the living Lord of the 
 world, and his living government thereof.' Let us 
 look at the matter in that way, instead of puzzling 
 ourselves with questions of words and endless 
 genealogies which minister strife. Let us look at 
 
54 NOAH'S FLOOD. [serm. 
 
 the matter in that way, instead of (hke too many 
 men now, and too many men in all ages) being so 
 busy in picking to pieces the shell of the Bible, 
 that we forget that the Bible has any kernel, and 
 so let it slip through our hands. Let us look at 
 the matter in that way, as a revelation of the living 
 God, and then we shall find the history of the flood 
 full of godly doctrine, and profitable for these 
 times, and for all times whatsoever. 
 
 God sent a flood on the earth. 
 
 True ; but the important matter is that God sent it 
 
 God set the rainbow in the cloud, for a token. 
 
 True ; but the important matter is that God set 
 it there. 
 
 Important.' Yes. What more important than 
 to know that the flood did not come of itself, that 
 the rainbow did not come of itself, and therefore 
 that no flood comes of itself, no rainbow comes 
 of itself ; nothing comes of itself, but all comes 
 straight and immediately from the one Living 
 Lord God } 
 
 A man may say. But the flood must have been 
 caused by clouds and rain ; and there must have 
 been some special natural cause for their falling 
 at that place and that time ? 
 
 What of that ? 
 
IV.] NOAH'S FLOOD. 55 
 
 Or that the fountains of the great deep must 
 have been broken up by natural earthquakes, such 
 as break up the crust of the earth now. 
 
 What of that ? 
 
 Or that the rainbow must have been caused by 
 the sun's rays shining through rain-drops at a cer- 
 tain angle, as all rainbows are now. What of that.' 
 Very probably it was : but if not, What of that 7 
 What we ought to know, and what we ought to 
 care for is, what the Bible tells us without a doubt, 
 that however they came, God sent them. How- 
 ever they were made, God made them. Their 
 manner, their place, their time was appointed 
 exactly by God for a moral purpose. To do 
 something for the immortal souls of men ; to 
 punish sinners ; to preserve the righteous ; to 
 teach Noah and his children after him a moral 
 lesson, concerning righteousness and sin ; concern- 
 ing the wrath of God against sin ; concerning God, 
 that he governs the world and all in it, and does 
 not leave the world, or mankind, to go on of them- 
 selves and by themselves. 
 
 You see, I trust, what a message this was, and 
 is, and ever will be for men ; what a message and 
 good news it must have been especially for the 
 heathen of old time. 
 
56 NOAH'S FLOOD. [serm. 
 
 For what would the heathen, what actually did 
 the heathen think about such sights as a flood, 
 or a rainbow ? 
 
 They thought of course that some one sent the 
 flood. Common sense taught them that. 
 
 But what kind of person must he be, thought 
 they, who sent the flood .-' Surely a very dark, 
 terrible, angry God, who was easily and suddenly 
 provoked to drown their cattle and flood their 
 lands. 
 
 But the rainbow, so bright and gay, the sign 
 of coming fine weather, could not belong to the 
 same God who made the flood. What the fancies 
 of the heathen about the rainbow were matters 
 little to us : but they fancied, at least, that it 
 belonged to some cheerful, bright and kind God. 
 And so with other things. Whatever was bright, 
 and beautiful, and wholesome in the world, like 
 the rainbow, belonged to kind gods ; whatever 
 was dark, ugly, and destroying, like the flood, 
 belonged to angry gods. 
 
 Therefore those of the heathen who were re- 
 ligious never felt themselves safe. They were 
 always afraid of having oftended some god, they 
 knew not how ; always afraid of some god turning 
 against them, and bringing diseases against their 
 
IV.] NOAH'S FLOOD. 57 
 
 bodies; floods, drought, blight against their crops; 
 storms against their ships, in revenge for some 
 shght or neglect of theirs. 
 
 And all the while they had no clear notion that 
 these gods made the world ; they thought that the 
 gods were parts of the world, just as men are, and 
 that beyond the gods there was the some sort of 
 Fate, or necessity, which even gods must obey. 
 
 Do you not see now what a comfort — what a 
 spring of hope, and courage, and peace of mind, 
 and patient industry — it must have been to the 
 men of old time to be told, by this story of the 
 flood, that the God v/ho sends the flood sends 
 the rainbow also .' There are not two gods, nor 
 many gods, but one God, of whom are all things. 
 Light and darkness, storm or sunshine, barrenness 
 or wealth, come alike from him. Diseases, storm, 
 flood, blight, all these show that there is in God 
 an awfulness, a sternness, an anger if need be — 
 a power of destroying his own work, of altering 
 his own order ; but sunshine, fruitfulness, peace, 
 and comfort, all show that love and mercy, beauty 
 and order, are just as much attributes of his essence 
 as awfulness and anger. 
 
 They tell us he is a God whose will is to love, 
 to bless, to make his creatures happy, if they will 
 
58 NOAH'S FLOOD. [serm. 
 
 allow him. They tell us that his anger is not 
 a capricious, revengeful, proud, selfish anger, such 
 as that of the heathen gods : but that it is an 
 orderly anger, a just anger, a loving anger, and 
 therefore an anger which in its wrath can remem- 
 ber mercy. Oat of God's wrath shineth love, as 
 the rainbow out of the storm ; if it repenteth him 
 that he hath made man, it is only because man 
 is spoiling and ruining himself, and wasting the 
 gifts of the good world by his wickedness. If 
 he see fit to destroy man out of the earth, he 
 will destroy none but those who deserve and need 
 destroying. He will save those whom, like Noah, 
 he can trust to begin afresh, and raise up a better 
 race of men to do his work in the world. If God 
 send a flood to destroy all living things, any when 
 or anywhere, he will show, by putting the rainbow 
 in the cloud, that floods and destruction and anger 
 are not his rule ; that his rule is sunshine, and 
 peace, and order ; that though he found it neces- 
 sary once to curse the ground, once to sweep away a 
 wicked race of men, yet that even that was, if one 
 dare use the words of God, against his gracious 
 will ; that his will was from the beginning, peace 
 on earth, and not floods, and good will to men, 
 and not destruction ; and that in his Iicart, in the 
 
IV.] NOAH'S FLOOD. 59 
 
 abyss of his essence, and of which it is written, 
 that God is Love — in his heart I say, he said, 
 ' I will not again curse the ground any more for 
 man's sake, even though the imagination of man's 
 heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again 
 smite everything living, as I have done. While 
 the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, sum- 
 mer and winter, and day and night, shall not 
 cease.' 
 
 This is the God which the book of Genesis goes 
 on revealing and unveiling to us more and more — 
 a God in whom men may trust. 
 
 The heathen could not trust their gods. The 
 Bible tells men of a God whom they can trust. 
 That is just the difference between the Bible and 
 all other books in the world. But what a differ- 
 ence ! Difference enough to make us say. Sooner 
 that every other book in the world were lost, and 
 the Bible preserved, than that we should lose the 
 Bible, and with the Bible lose faith in God. 
 
 And now, my friends, what shall we learn from 
 this .? 
 
 What shall we learn 1 Have we not learnt 
 enough already .? If we have learnt something 
 more of who God is ; if we have learnt that he 
 is a God in whom we can trust through joy and 
 
6o NOAH'S FLOOD. [serm. 
 
 sorrow, through hght and darkness, through life 
 and death, have we not learnt enough for our- 
 selves ? Yes, if even those poor and weak words 
 about God which I have just spoken, could go 
 home into all your hearts, and take root, and bear 
 fruit there, they would give you a peace of mind, 
 a comfort, a courage among all the chances and 
 changes of this mortal life, and a hope for the life 
 to come, such as no other news which man can 
 tell you will ever give. But there is one special 
 lesson which we may learn from the history of 
 the flood, of which I may as well tell you at once. 
 The Bible account of the flood will teach us how 
 to look at the many terrible accidents, as we 
 foolishly call them, which happen still upon this 
 earth. There are floods still, here and there, earth- 
 quakes, fires, fearful disasters, like that great 
 colliery disaster of last year, which bring death, 
 misery and ruin to thousands. The Bible tells 
 us what to think of them, when it tells us of the 
 flood. 
 
 Do I mean that these disasters come as punish- 
 ments to the people who are killed by them.'' 
 That is exactly what I do not mean. It was true 
 of the flood. It is true, no, doubt, in many other 
 cases. But our blessed Lord has specially forbid- 
 
IV.] NOAH'S FLOOD. 6i 
 
 den tis to settle when it is true to say that any 
 particular set of people are destroyed for their- 
 sins : forbidden us to say that the poor creatures 
 who perish in this way are worse than their neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 'Thinkest thou,' he says, 'that those Galilaeans 
 whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices,, 
 were sinners above all the Galilaeans .' Or those 
 eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell, and 
 killed them ; think you that they were sinners- 
 above all who dwelt in Jerusalem ? I tell you 
 nay.' 
 
 'Judge not,' he says, 'and ye shall not be judged,'' 
 and therefore we must not judge. We have no- 
 right to say, for instance, that the terrible earth- 
 quake in Italy, two years ago, came as a punishment 
 for the sins of the people. We have no right to 
 say that the twenty or thirty thousand human, 
 beings, with innocent children among them by 
 hundreds, who were crushed or swallowed up by 
 that earthquake in a few hours, were sinners above 
 all that dwelt in Italy. We must not say that, 
 for the Lord God himself has forbidden it. 
 
 But this we may say (for God himself has said 
 it in the Bible), that these earthquakes, and all 
 other disasters, great or small, do not come ofr 
 
62 NOAH'S FLOOD. [serm. 
 
 themselves — do not come by accident, or chance, 
 or blind necessity ; but that he sends them, and 
 that they fulfil his will and word. He sends them, 
 and therefore they do not come in vain. They 
 fulfil his will, and his will is a good will. They 
 carry out his purpose, but his purpose is a gracious 
 purpose. God may send them in anger; but in 
 his anger he remembers mercy, and his very wrath 
 to some is part and parcel of his love to the rest. 
 Therefore these disasters must be meant to do 
 good, and will do good to mankind. They may 
 be meant to teach men, to warn them, to make 
 them more wise and prudent for the future, more 
 humble and aware of their own ignorance and 
 weakness, more mindful of the frailty of human 
 life, that remembering that in the midst of life 
 we are in death, they may seek the Lord while 
 he may be found, and call upon him while he 
 is near. They may be meant to do that, and 
 to do a thousand things more. For God's ways 
 are not as our ways, or his thoughts as our thoughts. 
 His ways are unsearchable, and his paths past 
 finding out. Who hath known the mind of the 
 Lord, that he may instruct him, or even settle 
 what the Lord means by doing this or that '>. 
 
 All we can say is — and that is a truly blessed 
 
IV.] NOAH'S FLOOD. 63 
 
 thing to be able to say^ — that floods and earth- 
 quakes, fire and storms, come from the Lord 
 whose name is Love ; the same Lord who walked 
 with Adam in the garden, who brought the children 
 of Israel out of Egypt, who was born on earth 
 of the Virgin Mary, who shed his life-blood for 
 sinful man, who wept over Jerusalem even when 
 he was about to destroy it so that not one stone 
 was left on another, and who, when he looked 
 on the poor little children of Judaea, untaught 
 or mistaught, enslaved by the Romans, and but 
 too likely to perish or be carried away captive 
 in the fearful war which was coming on their 
 land, said of them, ' It is not the will of your 
 Father in heaven, that one of these little ones 
 shall perish.' Him at least we can trust, in the 
 dark and dreadful things of this world, as well 
 as in the bright and cheerful ones ; and say 
 with Job, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust 
 in him. I have received good from the hands 
 of the Lord, and shall I not receive evil?' 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 ABRAHAM. 
 
 (First Sunday in Lent.) 
 
 Genesis xvii. i, 2. 
 
 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, tlie Lord appeared 
 to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God ; walk 
 before me, and be thou perfect. 
 
 T HAVE told you that the Bible reveals, that is, 
 unveils the Lord God, Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 and through him God the Father Almighty. I 
 have tried to show you how the Bible does so, step 
 by step. I go on to show you another step which 
 the Bible takes, and which explains much that has 
 gone before. 
 
 From whom did Moses and the holy men of old 
 whom Moses taught get their knowledge of God,, 
 the true God .'' 
 
 The answer seems to be — from Abraham. 
 
 God taught Moses more, much more than he 
 
ABRAHAM. 65 
 
 taught Abraham. It was Moses who bade men 
 call God Jehovah, the I AM ; but who, hundreds 
 of years before, taught them to call him the Al- 
 mighty God ? 
 
 The answer seems to be, Abraham. God, we 
 read, appeared to Abraham, and said to him, ' Get 
 thee out of thy country, and from thy father's 
 house, unto a land that I shall show thee, and I 
 will make of thee a great nation.' And again the 
 Lord said to him, ' I am the Almighty God, walk 
 before me and be thou perfect, and thou shalt be a 
 father of many nations.' 
 
 ' And Abraham believed God, and it was counted 
 to him for righteousness. And he was called the 
 friend of God.' 
 
 But from what did Abraham turn to worship the 
 living God .'' From idols .'' We are not certain. 
 There is little or no mention of idols in Abraham's 
 time. He worshipped, more probably, the host of 
 heaven, the sun and moon and stars. So say the 
 old traditions of the Arabs, who are descended 
 from Abraham through Ishmael, and so it is most 
 likely to have been. That was the temptation in 
 the East. You read again and again how his 
 children, the Jews, turned back from God to wor- 
 ship the host of heaven ; and that false worship 
 
66 ABRAHAM. [serm. 
 
 seems to have crept in at some very early time. The 
 sun, you must remember, and the moon are far 
 more brilliant and powerful in the East than here ; 
 their power of doing harm or good to human 
 beings and to the crops of the land is far greater ; 
 while the stars shine in the East with a brightness 
 of which we here have no notion. We do not 
 know, in this cloudy climate, what St. Paul calls 
 the glory of the stars ; nor see how much one star 
 differs from another star in glory; and therefore 
 here in the North we have never been tempted to 
 worship them as the Easterns were. The sun, the 
 moon, the stars, were the old gods of the East, 
 the Elohim, the high and mighty ones, who ruled 
 over men, over their good and bad fortunes, over 
 the weather, the cattle, the crops, sending burning 
 drought, pestilence, sun-strokes, and those moon- 
 strokes which we never have here ; but of which 
 the Psalmist speaks when he says, ' The sun shall 
 not smite thee by day, neither the moon by night.' 
 And them the old Easterns worshipped in some 
 wild confused way. 
 
 But to Abraham it was revealed that the sun, 
 the moon, and the stars were not Elohim — the high 
 and mighty Ones. That there was but one Elohim, 
 one high and mighty One, the Almight}- maker of 
 
v.] ABRAHAM. 67 
 
 them all. He did not learn that, perhaps, at once. 
 Indeed the Bible tells us how God taught him step 
 by step, as he teaches all men, and I'evealed 
 himself to him again and again, till he had taught 
 Abraham all that he was to know. But he did 
 teach him this ; as a beautiful old story of the 
 Arabs sets forth. They say how (whether before 
 or after God called him, we cannot tell) Abraham 
 at night saw a star : and he said, ' This is my Lord.' 
 But when the star set, he said, ' I like not those 
 who vanish away.' And when he saw the moon 
 rising, he said, 'This is my Lord.' But when the 
 moon too set, he said, 'Verily, if my Lord direct 
 me not in the right way, I shall be as one who 
 goeth astray.' But when he saw the sun rising, he 
 said, ' This is my Lord : this is greater than star or 
 moon.' But the sun went down likewise. Then 
 said Abraham, ' O my people, I am clear of these 
 things. I turn my face to him who hath made the 
 heaven and the earth.' 
 
 And was this all that Abraham believed — that 
 the sun and moon and stars were not gods, but 
 that there was a God besides, who had made them 
 all .'' My friends, there have been thousands and 
 tens of thousands since, I fear, who have believed 
 as much as that, and yet who cannot call Abraham 
 
68 ABRAHAM. [serm. 
 
 their spiritual father, who are not justified by faith 
 with faithful Abraham. 
 
 For merely to believe that, is a dead faith, 
 which will never be counted for righteousness, 
 because it will never make man a righteous man 
 doing righteous and good deeds as Abraham did. 
 
 Of Abraham it is written, that what he knew,, 
 he did. That his faith wrought with his works. 
 And by his works his faith was made perfect. 
 That when he gained faith in God, he went and 
 acted on his faith. When God called him he went 
 out, not knowing whither he went. 
 
 His faith is only shown by his works. Because 
 he believed in God he went and did things which 
 he would not have done if he had not believed 
 in God. Of him it is written, that he obeyed the 
 voice of the Lord, and kept his charge, his com- 
 mandments, his statutes, and his laws. 
 
 In a word, he had not merely found out that 
 there was one God, but that that one God was a 
 good God, a God whom he must obey, and obey 
 by being a good man. Therefore his faith was 
 counted to him for righteousness, because it was- 
 righteousness, and made him do righteous deeds. 
 
 He believed that God was helping him ; there- 
 fore he had no need to oppress or overreach any 
 
v.] ABRAHAM. 69 
 
 man. He believed that God's eye was on him ; 
 therefore he dared not oppress or overreach any 
 man. 
 
 His faith in God made him brave. He went 
 forth he knew not whither ; but he had put his 
 trust in God, and he did not fear. He and his 
 three hundred slaves, born in his house, were not 
 afraid to set out against the four Arab kings who 
 had just conquered the five kings of the vale of 
 Jordan, and plundered the whole land. Abraham 
 and his little party of faithful slaves follow them 
 for miles, and fall on them and defeat them utterly, 
 setting the captives free, and bringing back all the 
 plunder; and then, in return for all that he has 
 done, Abraham will take nothing — not even, he 
 says, 'a thread or a shoe-latchet — lest men should 
 say, We have made Abraham rich.' And why ? 
 
 Because his faith in God made him high-minded, 
 generous, and courteous ; as when he bids Lot go 
 whither he will with his flocks and herds. ' Let 
 there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and 
 me. If thou wilt take the left hand, I will go to 
 the right' He is then, as again with the king 
 of Sodom, and with the three strangers at the 
 tent door, and with the children of Heth, when 
 he is buying the cave of Machpelah for a burying- 
 
70 ABRAHAM. [serm. 
 
 place for Sarah — always and everywhere the same 
 courteous, self-restrained, high-bred, high-minded 
 man. 
 
 It has been said that true religion will make 
 a man a more thorough gentleman than all the 
 courts in Europe. And it is true : you may see 
 simple labouring men as thorough gentlemen as 
 any duke, simply because they have learned to 
 fear God ; and fearing him, to restrain themselves, 
 and to think of other people more than of them- 
 selves, which is the very root and essence of all good 
 breeding. And such a man was Abraham of old 
 — a plain man, dwelling in tents, helping to tend 
 his own cattle, fetching in the calf from the field 
 himself, and dressing it for his guests with his own 
 hand ; but still, as the children of Heth said of 
 him, a mighty prince — not merely in wealth of 
 flocks and herds, but a prince in manners and 
 a prince in heart. 
 
 But faith in God did more for Abraham than 
 this : it made him a truly pious man — it made 
 him the friend of God. 
 
 There were others in Abraham's days who had 
 some knowledge of the one true God. Lot his 
 nephew, Abimelech, Aner, Eshcol, Mamre, and 
 others, seem to have known whom Abraham 
 
v.] ABRAHAM. 71 
 
 meant when he spoke of the Almighty God. But 
 of Abraham alone it is said that he believed God ; 
 that he trusted in God, and rested on him ; was 
 built up on God ; rested on God as a child in 
 the mother's arms — for this we are told, is the 
 full meaning of the word in the Bible — and looked 
 to God as his shield and his exceeding great re- 
 ward. He trusted in God utterly, and it was 
 counted to him for righteousness. 
 
 And of Abraham alone it is said that he was 
 the friend of God ; that God spoke with him, and 
 he with God. He first of all men of whom we 
 read, at least since the time of Adam, knew what 
 communion with God meant; knew that God spoke 
 to him as a friend, a benefactor, a preserver, who 
 was teaching and training him with a father's love 
 and care ; and felt that he in return could answer 
 God, could open his heart to him, tell him not 
 only of his wants, but of his doubts and fears. 
 
 Yes, we may almost say, on the strength of the 
 Bible, that Abraham was the first human being, 
 as far as we know, who prayed with his heart and 
 soul ; who knew what true prayer means — the 
 prayer of the heart, by which man draws near 
 to God, and finds that God is near to him. This 
 — this communion with God, is the especial glory 
 
72 ABRAHAM. [serm. 
 
 ■of Abraham's character. This it is which has given 
 him his name through all generations, The friend 
 of God. Or, as his descendants the Arabs call 
 him to this day, simply, 'The Friend.' 
 
 This it is which gained him the name of the 
 Father of the Faithful ; the father of all who be- 
 lieve, whether they be descended from him, or 
 whether they be, like us, of a different nation. 
 This it is which has made a wise man say of 
 Abraham, that if we will consider what he knew 
 and did, and in what a dark age he lived, we shall 
 see that Abraham may be (unless we except Moses) 
 the greatest of mere human beings— that the human 
 race may owe more to him than to any mortal 
 man. 
 
 But why need we learn from Abraham ? we 
 who, being Christians, know and believe the true 
 faith so much more clearly than Abraham could do. 
 
 Ah, my friends, it is easier to know than to 
 believe, and easier to know than to do. Easier to 
 talk of Abraham's faith than to have Abraham's 
 faith. Easier to preach learned and orthodox 
 sermons about how Abraham was justified by his 
 faith, than to be justified ourselves by our own 
 faith. 
 
 And say not in your hearts, ' It was easy for 
 
v.] ABRAHAM. 73 
 
 Abraham to believe God. I should have believed 
 of course in his place. If God spoke to me, of 
 course I should obey him.' My friends, there is 
 no greater and no easier mistake. God has spoken 
 to many a man who has not believed him, neither 
 obeyed him, and so he may to you. God spoke 
 to Abraham, and he believed him and obeyed him. 
 And why.'' Because there was in Abraham's heart 
 something which there is not in all men's hearts — 
 something which answered to God's call, and made 
 him certain that the call was from God — even the 
 Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 So God may call you, and you may obey him, 
 if only the Spirit of God be in you ; but not else. 
 JlTay call you, did I say .'' God does call you and 
 me, does speak to us, does command us, far more 
 clearly than he did Abraham. We know the 
 mystery of Christ, which in other ages was noi 
 made known to the sons of men as it is now re- 
 vealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the 
 Spirit. God, who at sundry times and in divers 
 manners spoke to the fathers by the prophets, hath 
 in these last days spoken to us by his Son, Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, and told us our duty, and the 
 reward which doing our duty will surely bring, far 
 more clearly than ever he did to Abraham. 
 
74 ABRAHAM. [serm. 
 
 But do we listen to him ? Do we say with 
 Abraham, ' O my people, I am clear of all these 
 things which rise and set, which are born and die, 
 which begin and end in time, and turn my face to 
 him that made heaven and earth !' If so, how is 
 it that we see people everywhere worshipping not 
 idols of wood and stone, but other things, all 
 manner of things beside God, and saying, ' These 
 are my Elohim. These are the high and mighty 
 ones whom I must obey. These are the strong 
 things on which depend my fortune and my hap- 
 piness. I must obey them first, and let plain doing 
 right and avoiding wrong come after as it can.' 
 
 One worships the laws of trade, and says, ' I 
 know this and that is hardly right ; but it is in the 
 way of business, and therefore I must do it' 
 
 One worships public opinion, and follows after 
 the multitude to do evil, doing what he knows is 
 wrong, simply because others do it, and it is the 
 way of the world. 
 
 One worships the interest of his party, whether 
 in religion or in politics ; and does for their sake 
 mean and false, cruel and unjust things, which he 
 would not do for his own private interest. 
 
 Too many, even in a free country, worship great 
 people, and put their trust in princes, saying, 'I 
 
v.] ABRAHAM. 75 
 
 am sorry to have to do this. I know it is rather 
 mean ; but I must, or I shall lose such and such a 
 great man's interest and favour.' Or, ' I know I 
 cannot afiford this expense ; but if I do not I shall 
 not get into good society, and this person and that 
 will not ask me to his house.' 
 
 All, meanwhile, except a few, rich or poor, 
 worship money ; and believe more or less, in spite 
 of the Lord's solemn warning to the contrary, that 
 a man's life does consist in the abundance of the 
 things which he possesses. 
 
 These are the Elohim of this world, the hig-h 
 and mighty things to which men turn for help 
 instead of to the living God, who was before all 
 things, and will be after them ; and behold they 
 vanish away, and where then are those that have 
 put their trust in them .' 
 
 But blessed is he whose trust is in God the Al- 
 mighty, and whose hope is in the Lord Jehovah, 
 the eternal I Am. Blessed is he who, like faithful 
 Abraham, says to his family, ' My people, I am 
 clear of all these things. I turn my face from them 
 to him who hath made earth and heaven. I go 
 through this world like Abraham, not knowing 
 whither I go ; but like Abraham, I fear not, for I 
 go whither God sends me. I rest on God ; he is 
 
76 ABRAHAM. [serm. 
 
 my defence, and my exceeding great reward. To 
 have known him, loved him, obeyed him, is reward 
 enough, even if I do not, as the world would say, 
 succeed in life. Therefore I long not for power 
 and honour, riches and pleasure. I am content 
 to do my duty faithfully in that station of life 
 to which God has called me, and to be forgiven for 
 all my faiUngs and shortcomings for the sake of 
 Jesus Christ our Lord, and that is enough for me ; 
 for I believe in my Father in heaven, and believe 
 that he knows best for me and for my children. 
 He has not promised me, as he promised Abraham, 
 to make of me a great nation; but he has promised 
 that the righteous man shall never be deserted, or 
 his children beg their bread. He has promised to 
 keep his covenant and mercy to a thousand genera- 
 tions with those who keep his commandments and 
 do them ; and that is enough for me. In God 
 have I put my trust, and I will not fear what man, 
 or earth, or heaven, or any created thing can do 
 unto me.' 
 
 Blessed is that man, whether he inherit honour- 
 ably great estates from his ancestors, or whether 
 he make honourably great wealth and station for 
 himself; whether he spend his life quietly and 
 honestly in the country farm or in the village shop. 
 
v.] ABRAHAM. 77 
 
 or whether he simply earn his bread from week to 
 week by plough and spade. Blessed is he, and 
 blessed are his children after him. For he is a son 
 of Abraham ; and of him God hath said, as of 
 Abraham, ' I know him that he will command his 
 children and household after him, and the}- shall 
 keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judg- 
 ment, that the Lord may bring on him the blessing 
 which he has spoken.' 
 
 Yes; blessed is that man. He has chosen his 
 share of Abraham's faith ; and he and his children 
 after him shall have their share of Abraham's 
 blessing. 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 JACOB AND ESAU. 
 (Second Sunday in Lent.) 
 
 Genesis xxv. 29 — 34. 
 
 And Jacob sod pottage : and Esau came from the field, and lie was 
 faint : And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with 
 that same red pottage ; for I am faint : therefore was his name 
 called Edom. And Jacob said. Sell me this day thy birthright. 
 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die : and what 
 profit shall this birthright do to me ? And Jacob said. Swear 
 to me this day ; and he sware unto him : and he sold his birth- 
 right unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of 
 lentiles ; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his 
 way : thus Esau despised his birthright. 
 
 T HAVE been telling you of late that the Bible 
 is the revelation of God. But how does the 
 story of Jacob and Esau reveal God to us 1 What 
 further lesson concerning God do we learn there- 
 from .'' 
 
 I think that if we will take the story simpl}- as 
 it stands we shall see easily enough. For it is all 
 simple and natural enough. Jacob and Esau, we 
 
JACOB AND ESAU. 79 
 
 shall see, were men of like passions with ourselves ; 
 men as we are, mixed up of good and evil, some- 
 times right and sometimes wrong : and God re- 
 warded them when they did right, and punished 
 them when they did wrong, just as he does with 
 us now. 
 
 They were men, though, of very different charac- 
 ters : we may see men like them now every day 
 round us. Esau, we read, was a hunter — a man 
 of the field ; a bold, fierce, active man ; generous, 
 brave, and kind-hearted, as the end of his story 
 shows : but with just the faults which such a man 
 would have. He was hasty, reckless, and fond of 
 pleasure ; passionate too, and violent. Have we 
 not seen just such men again and again, and liked 
 them for what was good in them, and been sorry 
 too that they were not more sober and reasonable, 
 and true to themselves .' 
 
 Jacob was the very opposite kind of man. He 
 was a plain man — what we call a still, solid, pru- 
 dent, quiet man — and a dweller in tents : he lived 
 peaceably, looking after his father's flocks and 
 herds ; while Esau liked better the sport and 
 danger of hunting wild beasts, and bringing home 
 venison to his father. 
 
 Now Jacob, we see, was of course a more thought- 
 
8o JACOB AND ESAU. [serm. 
 
 ful man than Esau. He kept more quiet, and so had 
 more time to think : and he had plainly thought 
 a great deal over God's promise to his grandfather 
 Abraham. He believed that God had promised 
 Abraham that he would make his seed as the sand 
 of the sea for multitude, and give them that fair 
 land of Canaan, and that in his seed all the families 
 of the earth should be blessed ; and that seemed 
 to him, and rightly, a very grand and noble thing. 
 And he set his heart on getting that blessing for 
 himself, and supplanting his elder brother Esau, and 
 being the heir of the promises in his stead. Well>- 
 — that was mean and base and selfish perhaps : 
 but there is somewhat of an excuse for Jacob's 
 conduct, in the fact that he and Esau were twins ;. 
 that in one sense neither of them was older than 
 the other. And you must recollect, that it was 
 not at all a regular custom in the East for the 
 eldest son to be his father's heir, as it is in England. 
 You find that few or none of the great kings of the 
 Jews were eldest sons. The custom was not kept 
 up as it is here. So Jacob may have said to him- 
 self, and not have been very wrong in saying it :: 
 ' I have as good a right to the birthright as Esau. 
 My father loves him best because he brings him in 
 venison ; but I know the value of the honour whicb 
 
VI.] JACOB AND ESAU. 8l 
 
 IS before my family. Surely the one of us who 
 cares most about the birthright will be most fit to 
 have it, and ought to have it ; and Esau cares no- 
 thing for it, while I do.' 
 
 So Jacob, in his cunning, bargaining way, took 
 advantage of his brother's weak, hasty temper, and 
 bought his birthright of him, as the text tells. 
 
 That story shows us what sort of a man Esau 
 was : hasty, careless, fond of the good things of 
 this life. He had no reason to complain if he lost 
 his birthright. He did not care for it, and so he 
 had thrown it away. Perhaps he forgot what he 
 had done ; but his sin found him out, as our sins 
 are sure to find each of us out. The day came 
 when he wanted his birthright and could not have 
 it, and found no place for repentance — that is, no 
 chance of undoing what he had done — though he 
 sought it carefully with tears. He had sown, and 
 he must reap ; he had made his bed, and he must 
 lie on it. And so must Jacob in his turn. 
 
 Now this, I think, is just what the story teaches 
 us concerning God. God chooses Abraham's family 
 to grow into a great nation, and to be a peculiar 
 people. The next question will be : If God favours 
 that family, will he do unjust things to help them ? 
 — will he let them do unjust things to help them- 
 
 6 
 
82 JACOB AND ESAU. [serm. 
 
 selves ? The Bible answers positively, No. God 
 will not be unjust or arbitrary in choosing one 
 man and rejecting another. If he chooses Jacob, 
 it is because Jacob is fit for the work which God 
 wants done. If he rejects Esau, it is because Esau 
 is not fit. 
 
 It is natural, I know, to pity poor Esau; but 
 one has no right to do more. One has no right to 
 fancy for a moment that God was arbitrary or hard 
 upon him. Esau is not the sort of man to be the 
 father of a great nation, or of anything else great. 
 Greedy, passionate, reckless people like him, with- 
 out due feeling of religion or of the unseen world, 
 are not the men to govern the world, or help it 
 forward, or be of use to mankind, or train up their 
 families in justice and wisdom and piety. If there 
 had been no people in the world but people like 
 Esau, we should be savages at this day, without 
 religion or civilization of any kind. They are of 
 the earth, earthy ; dust they are, and unto dust 
 they will return. It is men like Jacob whom God 
 chooses — men who have a feeling of religion and 
 the unseen world ; men who can look forward, and 
 live by faith, and form plans for the future — and 
 carry them out too, against disappointment and 
 difficulty, till they succeed. 
 
VI. 1 JACOB AND ESAU. S3 
 
 Look at one side of Jacob's character — his per- 
 severance. He serves seven years for Rachel, be- 
 cause he loves her. Then when he is cheated, and 
 Leah given him instead, he serves seven years 
 more for Rachel — 'and they seemed to him a 
 short time, for the love he bore to her;' and then 
 he serves seven years more for the flocks and 
 herds. A slave, or little better than a slave, of his 
 own free will, for one-and-t\\'enty years, to get 
 what he wanted. Those are the men whom God 
 uses, and whom God prospers. Men with deep 
 hearts and strong wills, who set their minds on 
 something which they cannot see, and work stead- 
 fastly for it, till they get it ; for God gives it to 
 them in good time — when patience has had her 
 perfect work upon their characters, and made them 
 fit for success. 
 
 Esau, we find, got some blessing — the sort of 
 blessing he was fit for. He loved his father, and 
 he was rewarded. ' And Isaac his father answered 
 and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be 
 the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven 
 from above ; and by thy sword shalt thou live, and 
 shalt serve thy brother ; and it shall come to pass 
 when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou 
 >halt break his yoke from off thy neck.' 
 
S4 JACOB AND ESAU. [serm. 
 
 He was a brave, generous-hearted man, in spite 
 of his faults. He was to live the free hunter's life 
 which he loved ; and we find that he soon became 
 the head of a wild powerful tribe, and his sons 
 after him. Dukes of Edom they were called for 
 several generations ; but they never rose to any 
 solid and lasting power ; they never became a great 
 nation, as Jacob's children did. They were just 
 what one would expect — wild, unruly, violent 
 people. They have long since perished utterly off 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 And what did Jacob get, who so meanly bought 
 the birthright, and cheated his father out of the 
 blessing .' Trouble in the flesh ; vanity and vexa- 
 tion of spirit. He had to flee from his father's 
 house ; never to see his mother again ; to wander 
 over the deserts to kinsmen who cheated him as 
 he had cheated others ; to serve Laban for twent}-- 
 one years ; to crouch miserably in fear and trem- 
 bling, as a petitioner for his life before Esau whom.. 
 he had wronged, and to be made more ashamed 
 than ever, by finding that generous Esau had for- 
 given and forgotten all. Then to see his daughter 
 brought to shame, his sons murderers, plotting 
 against their own brother, his favourite son ; to- 
 see his grey hairs going down with sorrow to the 
 
VI.] JACOB AND ESAU. 85 
 
 grave; to confess to Pharaoh, after one hundred 
 and twenty years of life, that few and evil had 
 been the days of his pilgrimage. 
 
 Then did his faith in God win no reward ? Not 
 so. That was his reward, to be chastened and 
 punished, till his meanness was purged out of 
 him. He had taken God for his guide; and 
 God did guide him accordingly ; though along 
 a very different path from what he expected. 
 God accepted his faith, delivered his soul, gave 
 him rest and peace at last in his old age in Egypt, 
 let him find his son Joseph again in power and 
 honour: but all along God punished his own in- 
 ventions — as he will punish yours and mine, my 
 friends, all the while that he may be accepting 
 our faith and delivering our souls, because wc 
 trust in him. So God rewarded Jacob by giving 
 him more light : by not leaving him to himself, 
 and his own darkness and meanness, but opening 
 his eyes to understand the wondrous things of 
 God's law, and showing him how God's law is 
 everlasting, righteous, not to be escaped by an\' 
 man ; how every action brings forth its appointed 
 fruit; how those who sow the wind will reap the 
 whirlwind. Jacob's first notion was like the notion 
 of the heathen in all times, ' My God has a special 
 
S3 JACOB AND ESAU. [serm. 
 
 favour for me, therefore I may do what I hke. He 
 will prosper me in doing wrong ; he will help me 
 to cheat my father.' But God showed him that 
 that was just not what he would do for him. He 
 would help and protect him ; but only while he 
 was doing RIGHT. God would not alter his 
 moral laws for him or any man. God would be 
 just and righteous ; and Jacob must be so likewise, 
 till he learnt to trust not merely in a God who 
 happened to have a special favour to him, but in 
 the righteous God who loves justice, and wishes 
 to make men righteous even as he is righteous, 
 and will make them righteous, if they trust in 
 him. 
 
 That was the reward of Jacob's faith — the best 
 reward which any man can have. He was taught 
 to know God, whom truly to know is everlasting 
 life. And this, it seems to me, is the great revela- 
 tion concerning God which we learn from the 
 history of Jacob and Esau. That God, how much 
 soever favour he may show to certain persons, is 
 still, essentially and always, 2^ just God. 
 
 And now, my friends, if any of you are tempted 
 to follow Jacob's example, take warning betimes. 
 You will be tempted. There are men among you 
 — there are in every congregation — who are, like 
 
JACOB AND ESAU. S7 
 
 Jacob, sober, industrious, careful, prudent men, and 
 fairly religious too ; men who have the good sense 
 to see that Solomon's proverbs are true, and that 
 the way to wealth and prosperity is to fear God, 
 and keep his commandments. 
 
 May you prosper ; may God's blessing be upon 
 your labour; may you succeed in life, and see 
 your children well settled and thriving round you, 
 and go down to the grave in peace. 
 
 But never forget, my good friends, that you 
 will be tempted as Jacob was — to be dishonest. 
 I cannot tell why; but professedly religious men, 
 ill all countries, in all religions, are, and always 
 have been, tempted in that way — to be mean and 
 cunning and false at times. It is so, and there 
 is no denying it : when all other sins are shut 
 out from them by their religious profession, and 
 their care for their own character, and their fear 
 of hell, the sin of lying, for some strange reason, 
 is left open to them ; and to it they are tempted 
 to give way. For God's sake — for the sake of 
 Christ, who was full of grace and truth — for your 
 own sakes — struggle against that. Unless you 
 wish to say at last with poor old Jacob, 'Few 
 and evil have been the days of mj- pilgrimage ;' 
 struggle against that. If you fear God and be- 
 
S8 JACOB AND ESAU. [serm. 
 
 lieve that he is with you, God will prosper your 
 plans and labour; but never make that an excuse 
 for saying- in your hearts, like Jacob, 'God intends 
 that I should have these good things ; therefore 
 I may take them for myself by unfair means.' 
 The birthright is yours. It is you, the steady, 
 prudent. God-fearing ones, who will prosper on 
 the earth, and not poor wild, hot-headed Esau. But 
 do not make that an excuse for robbing and cheat- 
 ing Esau, because he is not as thoughtful as you 
 are. The Lord made him as well as you ; and 
 died for him as well as for you ; and wills his 
 salvation as well as yours ; and if you cheat him 
 the Lord will avenge him speedily. If you give 
 way to meanness, covetousness, falsehood, as Jacob 
 did, you will rue it; the Lord will enter into judg- 
 ment with you quickly, and all the more quickly 
 because he loves you. Because there is some right 
 in you — because you are on the whole on the right 
 road — the Lord will visit you with disappoint- 
 ment and affliction, and make your own sins your 
 punishment. 
 
 If you deceive other people, other people shall 
 deceive you, as they did Jacob. If you lay traps, 
 you shall fall into them yourselves, as Jacob did. 
 If you fancy that because you trust in God. 
 
VI.] JACOB AND ESAU. Zg 
 
 God will overlook any sin in you, as Jacob did, 
 you shall see, as Jacob did, that your sin shall 
 surely find you out. The Lord will be more sharp 
 and severe with you than with Esau. And why ? 
 Because he has given you more, and requires more 
 of you ; and therefore he will chastise you, and 
 sift }'ou like wheat, till he has parted the wheat 
 from the tares. The wheat is your faith, your 
 belief that if you trust in God lie will prosper 
 you, body and soul. That is God's good seed, 
 which he has sown in you. The tares are your 
 fancies that you may do wrong and mean things 
 to help yourselves, because God has an especial 
 favour for you. That is the devil's sowing, which 
 God will burn out of you by the fire of affliction, 
 as he did out of Jacob, and keep your faith safe, as 
 good seed in his garner, for the use of your children 
 after you, that you may teach them to walk in 
 God's commandments and serve him in spirit and 
 in truth. For God is a God of truth, and no liar 
 shall stand in his sight, let him be never so reli- 
 gious ; he requires truth in the inward parts, and 
 truth he will have ; and whom he loves he will 
 chasten, as he chastened Jacob of old, till he has 
 made him understand that honesty is the best 
 policy; and that whatever false prophets may 
 
OO JACOB AND ESAU. 
 
 tell you, there is not one law for the believer 
 and another for the unbeliever; but whatsoever 
 a man sows, that shall he reap, and receive the 
 due reward of the deeds done in the body, whether 
 they be good or evil. 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 JOSEPH. 
 
 (Preached on the Sunday before the Wedding of the Prince of 
 Wales. March Wi, third Sunday in Lent.) 
 
 Genesis xxxix. 9. 
 How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against Go;I ? 
 
 nPHE story of Joseph is one which will go home 
 to all healthy hearts. Every child can under- 
 stand, every child can feel with it. It is a story 
 for all men and all times. Even if it had not 
 been true, and not real fact, but a romance of 
 man's invention, it would have been loved and 
 admired by men ; far more then, when we know 
 that it is true, that it actually did so happen ; 
 that is part and parcel of the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 We all, surely, know the story — How Joseph's 
 brethren envy him and sell him for a slave into 
 Egypt — how there for a while he prospers — how 
 his master's wife tempts him — how he is thrown 
 into prison on her slander — how there again he 
 
•92 JOSEPH. [SEKM. 
 
 prospers — how he explains the dreams of Pha- 
 raoh's servants — how he Hes long forgotten in the 
 prison — how at last Pharaoh sends for him to 
 interpret a dream for him, and how he rises to 
 power and great glory — how his brothers come 
 down to Egypt to buy corn, and how they find 
 liim lord of all the land — how subtilly he tries 
 them, to see if they have repented of their old 
 sin — how his heart yearns over them in spite 
 of all their wickedness to him — how at last he 
 reveals himself, and forgives them utterly, and 
 sends for his poor old father Jacob down into 
 Egypt. Whosoever does not delight in that story, 
 simply as a story, whenever he hears it read, can- 
 not have a wholesome human heart in him. 
 
 But why was this story of Joseph put into Holy 
 Scripture, and at such length, too ? It seems, at 
 first sight, to be simply a family history — the 
 story of brothers and their father ; it seems, at 
 first sight, to teach us nothing concerning our 
 redemption and salvation ; it seems, at first sight, 
 not to reveal anything fresh to us concerning 
 God ; it seems, at first sight, not to be needed 
 for the general plan of the Bible history. It tells 
 us, of course, how the Israelites first came into 
 Egypt ; and that was necessary for us to know. 
 
VII.] JOSEPH. 93, 
 
 But the Bible might have told us that in ten 
 verses. Why has it spent upon the story of 
 Joseph and his brethren, not ten verses, but ten 
 chapters ? 
 
 Now we have a right to ask such questions as 
 these, if we do not ask them out of any carping, 
 fault-finding spirit, trying to pick holes in the 
 Bible, from which God defend us and all Chris- 
 tian men. If we ask such questions in faith 
 and reverence — that is, believing and taking for 
 granted that the Bible is right, and respecting it, 
 as the Book of books, in which our own fore- 
 fathers and all Christian nations upon earth for 
 many ages have found all things necessary for 
 their salvation — if, I say, we question over the 
 Bible in that child-like, simple, respectful spirit,, 
 which is the true spirit of wisdom and under- 
 standing, by which our eyes will be truly opened 
 to see the wondrous things of God's law : then 
 we may not only seek as our Lord bade us, but 
 we shall find, as our Lord prophesied that we 
 should. We shall find some good reason for this 
 story of Joseph being so long, and find that the 
 story of Joseph, like all the rest of the Bible,, 
 reveals a new lesson to us concerning God and. 
 the character of God. 
 
94 JOSEPH. [SERM 
 
 I said that the story of Joseph looks, at first 
 sight, to be merely a family history. But suppose 
 that that were the very reason why it is in the 
 Bible, because it is a family history. Suppose 
 that families were very sacred things in the eyes 
 of God. That the ties of husband and wife, parent 
 and child, brother and sister, were appointed, not 
 by man, but by God. Then would not Joseph's 
 story be worthy of being in the Bible .'' Would 
 it not, as I said it would, reveal something fresh 
 to us concerning God and the character of God .' 
 
 Consider now, my friends : Is it not one great 
 difference — one of the very greatest — between men 
 and beasts, that men live in families, and beasts 
 do not .' That men have the sacred family feeling, 
 and beasts have not ^ They have the beginnings 
 of it, no doubt. The mother, among beasts, feels 
 love to her children, but only for a while. God 
 has implanted in her something of that deepest, 
 holiest, purest of all feelings — a mother's love. 
 But as soon as her young ones are able to take 
 care of themselves, they are nothing to her — 
 among the lower animals, less than nothing. The 
 fish or the crocodile will take care of her eggs 
 jealously, and as soon as they are hatched, turn 
 round and devour her own young. 
 
VI .] JOSEril. 9S 
 
 The feeling of a father to his child, again, you 
 find is fainter still among beasts. The father, as 
 you all know, not only cares little for his offspring, 
 even if he sometimes helps to feed them at first, 
 but is often jealous of them, hates them, will try 
 to kill them when they grow up. 
 
 Husband and wife, again : there is no sacredncss 
 between them among dumb animals. A lasting 
 and an unselfish attachment, not merely in youth, 
 but through old age and beyond the grave — what 
 is there like this among the animals, except in the 
 case of certain birds, like the dove and the eagle, 
 who keep the same mate year after year, and have 
 been always looked on with a sort of affection and 
 respect by men for that very reason ? 
 
 But where, among beasts, do you ever find any 
 trace of those two sacred human feelings — the love 
 of brother to brother, or of child to father .-' Where 
 do you find the notion that the tie between hus- 
 band and wife is a sacred thing, to be broken at 
 no temptation, but in man 1 
 
 These are the feelings which man has alone of 
 all living animals. 
 
 These then, remember, are the \^ery family feel- 
 ings which come out in the story of Joseph. He 
 lionours holy wedlock when he tells his master's 
 
95 JOSEPH. [SERM. 
 
 wife, ' How can I do this great wickedness, and 
 sin against God?' He honours his father, when 
 he is not ashamed of him, wild shepherd out of 
 the desert though he might be, and an abomina- 
 tion to the Egyptians, while he himself is now 
 in power and wealth and glory, as a prince in a 
 civilized country. He honours the tie of brother 
 to brother, by forgiving and weeping over the very 
 brothers who have sold him into slavery. 
 
 But what has all this to do with God .' 
 
 Now man, as we know, is an animal with an 
 immortal spirit in him. He has, as St. Paul so 
 carefully explains to us, a flesh and a spirit — a 
 flesh like the beasts which perish; a spirit which 
 comes from God. 
 
 Now the Bible teaches us that man did not 
 get these family feelings from his flesh, from the 
 animal, brute part of him. They are not carnal, 
 but spiritual. He gets them from his spirit, and 
 they are inspired into him by the Spirit of God. 
 They come not from the earth below, but from 
 the heaven above ; from the image of God, in 
 which man alone of all living things was made. 
 
 For if it were not so, we should surely see some 
 family feeling in the beasts which are most like 
 men. But we do not. In the apes, which are, in 
 
VII.] JOSEPH. 97 
 
 their shape and fleshly nature, so strangely and 
 shockingly like human beings, there is not as 
 much family feeling as there is in many birds, 
 or even insects. Nay, the wild negroes, among 
 whom they live, hold them in abhorrence, and 
 believe that they were once men like themselves,. 
 who were gradually changed into brute beasts, 
 by giving way to detestable sins ; while these 
 very negroes themselves, heathens and savages 
 as they are, have the family feeling — the feeling 
 of husband for wife, father for child, brother for 
 brother ; not, indeed, as strongly and purely as 
 we, or at least those of us who are really Christian 
 and civilized, but still they have it ; and that 
 makes between the lowest man and the highest 
 brute a difference which I hold is as wide as 
 the space between heaven and earth. 
 
 It is man alone, I say, who has the idea of 
 family ; and who has, too, the strange, but most 
 true belief that these family ties are appointed 
 by God — that they are a part of his religion — - 
 that in breaking them, by being an unfaithful 
 husband, a dishonest servant, an unnatural son,. 
 a selfish brother, he sins, not only against man,, 
 and man's order and laws, but against God. 
 
 Parent and child, brother and sister — those ties. 
 
 7 
 
98 JOSEPH. [SERM. 
 
 are not of the earth earthy, but of the heaven 
 of God, eternal. They may begin in time; of 
 what happened before we came into this world 
 we know nought. But having begun, they cannot 
 end. Of what will happen after we leave this 
 world, that at least we know in part. 
 
 Parent and child ; brother and sister ; husband 
 and wife likewise ; these are no ties of man's 
 invention. They are ties of God's binding; they 
 are patterns and likenesses of his substance, and 
 of his being. Of the eternal Father, who says 
 for ever to the eternal Son, 'This day have I 
 begotten thee! Of the Son who says for ever 
 to the Father, 'I come to do thy will, O God.' 
 Of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is not 
 ashamed to call us his brethren ; but like a 
 greater Joseph, was sent before by God to save 
 our lives with a great deliverance when our fore- 
 fathers were but savages and heathens. Husband 
 and wife likewise — are not they two divine words 
 — not human words at all } Has not God conse- 
 crated the state of matrimony to such an excellent 
 mystery, that in it is signified and represented the 
 mystical union between Christ and his Church 1 
 Are not husbands to love their wives, and give 
 themselves for them as Christ loved the Churcli 
 
VII.] JOSEPH. 99 
 
 and gave himself for it .'' That, indeed, was not 
 revealed in the Old Testament, but it is revealed 
 in the New ; and marriage, like all other human 
 ties, is hol}^ and divine, and comes from God down 
 to men. 
 
 Yes. These family ties are of God. It was 
 to show us how sacred, how Godlike the)' are 
 — how eternal and necessary for all mankind — 
 that Joseph's story was written in Holy Scripture. 
 
 They are of God, I say. And he who despises 
 them, despises not man but God ; who hath also 
 given us his Holy Spirit to make us knov/ how 
 sacred these bonds are. 
 
 He who looks lightly on the love of child to 
 parent, or brother to brother, or husband to wife, 
 and bids each man please himself, each man help 
 himself, and shift for himself, would take away 
 from men the very thing which raises them above 
 the beasts which perish, and lower them again 
 to the likeness of the flesh, that they may of 
 the flesh reap corruption. 
 
 They who, under whatever pretence of religion 
 part asunder families ; or tell children, like the 
 wicked Pharisees of old, that they may say to 
 their parents, Corban — ■' I have given to God the 
 service and help which, as your child, I should 
 
lOO JOSEPH. [SERM. 
 
 have given to you' — shall be called, if not by 
 men, at least by God himself, hypocrites, wh& 
 draw near to God with their mouths, and honour 
 him with their lips, while their heart is far from 
 him. 
 
 I think now we may see that I was right when 
 I said — Perhaps the history of Joseph is in the 
 Bible because it is a family history. For see, 
 it is the history of a man who loved his family, 
 who felt that family life was holy and God- 
 appointed ; whom God rewarded with honour and 
 wealth, because he honoured family ties ; because 
 he refused his master's wife ; because he rewarded 
 his brothers good for evil ; because he was not 
 ashamed of his father, but succoured him in his 
 old age. 
 
 It is the history of a man who — more than 
 four hundred years before God gave the ten com- 
 mandments on Sinai, saying. 
 
 Honour thy father and mother, 
 
 Thou shalt not commit adultery, 
 
 Thou shalt not kill in revenge. 
 
 Thou shalt not covet aught of thy neighbours 
 — It is the history, I say, of a man who had 
 those laws of God written in his heart by the 
 Holy Spirit of God ; and felt that to break them« 
 
VII.] JOSEPH. 101 
 
 was to sin against God. It is the history of a 
 man who, sorely tempted and unjustly persecuted, 
 kept himself pure and true ; who, while all around 
 him, beginning with his own brothers, were tram- 
 pling under foot the laws of family, felt that the 
 laws were still there round him, girding him in 
 with everlasting bands, and saying to him. Thou 
 shalt and Thou shalt not ; that he was not sent 
 into the world to do just what was pleasant for 
 the moment, to indulge his own passions or his 
 own revenge ; but that if he was indeed a man, 
 he must prove himself a man, by obe}-ing Al- 
 mighty God. It is the history of a man who 
 kept his heart pure and tender, and who thereby 
 gained strange and deep wisdom ; that wisdom 
 which comes only to the pure in heart ; that 
 wisdom by which truly good men are enabled 
 to see farther, and to be of more use to their 
 fellow-creatures than many a cunning and crooked 
 politician, whose eyes are blinded, because his 
 heart is defiled with sin. 
 
 And now, my friends, if we pray — as we are 
 bound to pray — for that great Prince who is just 
 entering on the cares and the duties, as well as 
 the joys and blessings of family life — what better 
 prayer can we offer up for him, than that God 
 
I02 JOSEPH. [SEEM. 
 
 would put into his heart that spirit which he put 
 into the heart of Joseph of old — the spirit to see 
 how divine and God-appointed is family life ? 
 God grant that that spirit may dwell in him, 
 and possess him more and more day by day. 
 That it may keep him true to his wife, true to 
 his mother, true to his family, true, like Joseph, 
 to all with whom he has to deal. That it may 
 deliver him, as it delivered Joseph, from the snares 
 of wicked women, from selfish politicians, if they 
 ever try to sow distrust and opposition between 
 him and his kindred, and from all those tempt- 
 ations which can only be kept down by the 
 Spirit of God working in men's hearts, as he 
 worked in the heart of Joseph. 
 
 For if that spirit be in the Prince — and I doubt 
 not that that spirit is in him already — then will 
 his fate be that of Joseph ; then will he indeed 
 be a blessing to us, and to our children after us ; 
 then will he have riches more real, and power 
 more vast, than any which our English laws can 
 give; then will he gain, like Joseph, that moral 
 wisdom, better than all worldly craft, which cometh 
 from above — first pure, then gentle, easy to be en- 
 treated, without partiality, and without hypocrisy ; 
 then will he be able, like Joseph, to deliver his 
 
VII.] JOSEPH. 103 
 
 people in times of perplexity and distress ; then 
 will he by his example, as his noble mother has 
 done before him, keep healthy, pure, and strong, 
 our English family life — and as long as that en- 
 dures, Old England will endure likewise. 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. 
 (Fourth Sunday in Lent.) 
 
 Phillippians iv. 8. 
 
 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
 are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
 pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
 good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, 
 think on these things. 
 
 TT may not be easy to see what this text has 
 
 to do with the story of Joseph, which we have 
 just been reading, or with the meaning of the 
 Bible of which I have been speaking to you of 
 late. 
 
 Nevertheless, I think it has to do with them ; as 
 you will see if you will look at the text with me. 
 
 Now the text does not say ' Do these things.' 
 It only says 'think of these things.' 
 
 Of course St. Paul wished us to do them also : 
 but he says first tliink of them ; not once in a way. 
 
THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. loj 
 
 but often and continually. Fill your mind with 
 good and pure and noble thoughts ; and then you 
 •will do good and pure and noble things. 
 
 For out of the abundance of a man's heart, 
 not only does his mouth speak, but his whole 
 body and soul behave. The man whose mind 
 is filled with low and bad thoughts will be sure, 
 when he is tempted, to do low and bad things. 
 The man whose mind is filled with lofty and 
 good thoughts will do lofty and good things. 
 
 For thoughts are the food of a man's mind ; 
 and as the mind feeds, so will it grow. If it 
 feeds on coarse and foul food, coarse and foul 
 it will grow. If it feeds on pure and refined 
 food, pure and refined it will grow. 
 
 There are those who do not believe this. Pro- 
 vided they are tolerably attentive to the duties 
 of religion, it does not matter much, they fancy, 
 what they think of out of church. Their souls 
 will be saved at last, they suppose, and that is 
 all that they need care for. Saved .'' They do not 
 see that by giving way to foul, mean, foolish 
 thoughts all the week they are losing their souls, 
 destroying their souls, defiling their souls, lowering 
 their souls, and making them so coarse and mean 
 and poor that they are not worth saving, and are 
 
io6 THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. [serm. 
 
 no loss to heaven or earth, whatever loss they 
 may be to the man himself. One man thinks 
 of nothing but money — how he shall save a penny 
 here and a penny there. I do not mean men of 
 business ; for them there are great excuses ; for 
 it is by continual saving here and there that 
 their profits are made. I speak rather of people 
 who have no excuse, people of fixed incomes — 
 people often wealthy and comfortable, who yet 
 will lower their minds by continually thinking 
 over their money. But this I say, and this I 
 am sure that you will find, that when a man in 
 business or out of business accustoms himself, as 
 very many do, to think of nothing but money, 
 money, money from Monday morning to Saturday 
 night, he thinks of money a great part of Sunday 
 likewise. And so, after a while, the man lowers 
 his soul, and makes it mean and covetous. He 
 forgets all that is lovely and of good report. He 
 forgets virtue — that is manliness ; and praise — that 
 is the just respect and admiration of his fellow- 
 men ; and so he forgets at last things true, honest, 
 and just likewise. He lowers his soul ; and there- 
 fore when he is tempted, he does things mean and 
 false and unjust, for the sake of money, which he 
 has made his idol. 
 
viii.] THE BTRLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. 107 
 
 'J" alee another case, too common among men 
 and women of all ranks, high and low. 
 
 How man}' there are who love gossip and 
 scandal ; who always talk about people, and never 
 about things — certainly not about things pure and 
 lovely and of good report, but rather about things 
 foul and ugly and of bad report ; who do not 
 talk, because they do not think of virtue, but of 
 vice ; or of praise either, because they are always 
 finding fault with their neighbours. The man who 
 loves a foul story, or a coarse jest — the woman 
 who gossips over every tittle tattle of scandal 
 which she can pick up against her neighbour — 
 what do these people do but defile their own souls 
 afresh, after they have been washed clean in the 
 blood of Christ ? Foul their souls are, and there- 
 fore their thoughts are foul likewise, and the foul- 
 ness of them is evident to all men by their tongues. 
 Out of their hearts proceed evil thoughts about 
 their neighbours, out of the abundance of their 
 hearts their mouths speak them. 
 
 Now let such people, if there be any such here, 
 senously consider the harm which they are doing 
 to their own characters. They may give way to 
 the habits of scandal, or of coarse talk, without 
 any seiious bad intention; but they will surely 
 
loS THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. [serm. 
 
 lower their own souls thereby. They will grow to 
 the colour of what they feed on and become foul 
 and cruel, from talking cruelly and foully, till they 
 lose all purity and all charity, all faith and trust in 
 their fellow-men, all power of seeing good in any 
 one, or doing anything but think evil ; and so lose 
 the likeness of God and of Christ, for the likeness 
 of some foul carrion bird, which cares nothing for 
 the perfume of all the roses in the world, but if 
 there be a carcase within miles of it, will scent it 
 out eagerly and fly to it ravenously. 
 
 The truth is, my friends, that these souls of ours 
 instead of being pure and strong, are the very 
 opposite; and the article speaks plain truth when 
 it says, that we are every one of us of our own 
 nature inclined to evil. That may seem a hard 
 saying ; but if we look at our own thoughts we 
 shall find it true. Are we not inclined to take, at 
 first, the worst view of everybody and of ever3-thing.' 
 Are we not inclined to suspect harm of this person 
 and of that .' Are we not inclined too often to be 
 mean and cowardly .'' to be hard and covetous .■" to 
 be coarse and vulgar .' to be silly and frivolous .' 
 Do we not need to cool down, to think a second 
 time, and a third time likewise ; to remember our 
 duty, to remember Christ's example, before we can 
 
VIII.] THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. 109. 
 
 take a just and kind and charitable view? Do we 
 not want all the help which we can get from every 
 quarter, to keep ourselves high-minded and re- 
 fined ; to keep ourselves from bad thoughts, mean 
 thoughts, silly thoughts, violent thoughts, cruel 
 and hard thoughts? If we have not found out 
 that, we must have looked a very little way into 
 ourselves, and know little more about ourselves 
 than a dumb animal does of itself. 
 
 How then shall we keep off coarseness of soul ? 
 How shall we keep our souls refined? that is, true 
 and honest, pure, amiable, full of virtue, that is, 
 true manliness ; and deserve praise, that is, the 
 respect and admiration of our fellow-men ? By 
 thinking of those very things, says St. Paul. And 
 in order to be able to think of them, by reading oT 
 them. 
 
 There are very few who can easil)' think of these- 
 things of themselves. Their daily business, the 
 words and notions of the people with whom they 
 have to do, will run in their minds, and draw them 
 off from higher and better thoughts ; that cannot 
 be helped. The only thing that most men can do, 
 is to take care that they are not drawn off entirely 
 from high and good thoughts, by reading, were it 
 but for five minutes every day, something really- 
 
no THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. [serm. 
 
 worth thinking of, something which will lift them 
 above themselves. 
 
 Above all, it is wise, at night, after the care and 
 bustle of the day is over, to read, but for a few- 
 minutes, some book which will compose and soothe 
 the mind; which will bring us face to face with 
 the true facts of life, death, and eternity ; which 
 will make us remember that man doth not live by 
 bread alone ; which will give us, before we sleep, 
 a few thoughts worthy of a Christian man, with an 
 immortal soul in him. 
 
 And, thank God, no one need go far to look 
 for such books. I do not mean merely religious 
 books, excellent as they are in these days : I mean 
 any books which help to make us better and wiser 
 and soberer, and more charitable persons ; any 
 books which will teach us to despise what is 
 vulgar and mean, foul and cruel, and to love what 
 is noble and high-minded, pure and just. We need 
 not go far for them. In our own noble English 
 language we may read by hundreds, books which 
 will tell us of all virtue and of all praise. The 
 stories of good and brave men and women ; of gal- 
 lant and heroic actions ; of deeds which we ourselves 
 should be proud of doing ; of persons whom we 
 tefei to be better, wiser, nobler than we are ourselves- 
 
VIII.] THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. in 
 
 In our own language we may read the history 
 of our own nation, and whatsoever is just, honest 
 and true. We may read of God's gracious pro- 
 vidences toward this land. How he has punished 
 our sins and rewarded our right and brave en- 
 deavours. How he put into our forefathers the 
 spirit of courage and freedom, the spirit of truth 
 and justice, the spirit of loyalty and order ; and 
 how, following the leading of that spirit, in spite 
 of many mistakes and failings, we have risen to 
 be the freest, the happiest, the most powerful 
 people on earth, a blessing and not a curse to 
 the nations around. 
 
 In our own English tongue, too, we may read 
 such poetry as there is in no other language in 
 the world ; poetry which will make us indeed see 
 the beauty of whatsoever things are lovely and 
 of good report. Some people have still a dislike 
 of what they call foolish poetry books. If books 
 are foolish, let us have nothing to do with them. 
 But poetr}^ ought not to be foolish ; for God sent 
 it into the world to teach men not foolishness, 
 but the highest wisdom. He gave man alone, of 
 all living creatures, the power of writing poetry, 
 that by poetry he might understand, not only how 
 necessary it was to do right, but how beautiful 
 
112 THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. [serm. 
 
 and noble it was to do right. He sent it inta 
 the world to soften men's rough hearts, and quiet 
 their angry passions, and make them love all 
 which is tender and gentle, loving and merciful, 
 and yet to rouse them up to love all which is 
 gallant and honourable, loyal and patriotic, de- 
 vout and heavenly. Therefore whole books of the 
 Bible — Job, for example, Isaiah, and the Psalms — 
 are neither more nor less than actual poetry, 
 written in actual verse, that their words might the 
 better sink down into the ears and hearts of the 
 old Jews, and of us Christians after them. And 
 therefore also, we keep up still the good old 
 custom of teaching children in school as much as 
 possible by poetry, that they may learn not only 
 to know, but to love and remember whatsoever 
 things are lovely and of good report. 
 
 Lastly, for those who cannot read, or have 
 really no time to read, there is one means left of 
 putting themselves in mind of what every one 
 must remember, lest he sink back into an animal 
 and a savage. I mean by pictures ; which, as St. 
 Augustine said 1400 years ago, are the books of 
 the unlearned. I do not mean grand and ex- 
 pensive pictures ; I mean the very simplest prints, 
 provided they represent something holy, or noble. 
 
VIM.] THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. iij 
 
 or tender, or lovely. A few such prints upon a 
 cottage-wall may teach the people who live therein 
 much, without their being aware of it. They see 
 the prints, even when they are not thinking of 
 them ; and so they have before their eyes a con- 
 tinual remembrancer of something better and more 
 beautiful than what they are apt to find in their 
 own daily life and thoughts. 
 
 True, to whom little is given, of them is little 
 required. But it must be said, that more — far 
 more — is given to labouring men and women now 
 than was given to their forefathers. A hundred, 
 or even fifty years ago, when there was very little 
 schooling ; when the books which were put even 
 into the hands of noblemen's children were far 
 below what you will find now in any village 
 school ; when the only pictures which a poor 
 woman could buy to lay on her cottage-wall were 
 equally silly and ugly : then there were great 
 excuses for the poor, if they forgot whatsoever 
 things were lovely and of good report; if they 
 were often coarse and brutal in their manners, and 
 cruel and profligate in their amusements. 
 
 But even in the rough old times there always, 
 ■were a few at least, men and women, who were 
 above the rest ; who, though poor people like the 
 
114 THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. [serm. 
 
 rest, were still true gentlemen and ladies of God's 
 making. People who kept themselves more or 
 less unspotted from the world ; who thought of 
 what was honest and pure and lovely and of good 
 report; and who lived a life of simple, manful. 
 Christian virtue, and received the praise and re- 
 spect of their neighbours, even although their 
 neighbours did not copy them. There were 
 always such people, and there always will be — 
 thank God for it, for they are the salt of the earth. 
 
 But why have there always been such people .'' 
 and why do I say confidently, that there always 
 will be ? 
 
 Because they have had the Bible ; and because, 
 once having got the Bible in a free country, no 
 man can take it from them. 
 
 The Bible it is which has made gentlemen and 
 ladies of many a poor man and woman. 
 
 The Bible it is which has filled their minds 
 with pure and noble, ay, with heavenly and divine 
 thoughts. 
 
 The Bible has been their whole library. The 
 Bible has been their only counsellor. The Bible 
 has taught them all they know. But it has taught 
 them enough. 
 
 It has taught them what God is, and what 
 
Vlll.] THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. 115 
 
 Christ is. It has taught them what man is, and 
 what a Christian man should be. It has taught 
 them what a family means, and what a nation 
 means. It has taught them the meaning of law 
 and duty, of loyalty and patriotism. It has filled 
 their minds with things honest and just and 
 lovely and of good report ; with the histories of 
 men and women like themselves, who sinned and 
 sorrowed and struggled like them in this hard 
 battle of life, but who conquered at last, by trust- 
 ing and obeying God. 
 
 This one story of Joseph, which we have been 
 reading again this Sunday, I do not doubt that it 
 has taught thousands who had no other story-book 
 to read — who could not even read themselves, but 
 had to listen to others' reading; that it has taught 
 them to be good sons, to be good brothers ; that it 
 has taught them to keep pure in temptation, and 
 patient and honest under oppression and wrong ; 
 that it has stirred in them a noble ambition to 
 raise themselves in life ; and taught them, at the 
 same time, that the only safe and sure way ot 
 rising is to fear God and keep his commandments; 
 and so has really done more to civilize and refine 
 them — to make them truly civilized men and 
 gentlemen, and not vulgar savages — than if they 
 
ii6 THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. [serm. 
 
 had known a smattering of a dozen sciences. I 
 say that the Bible is the book which civilizes and 
 refines, and ennobles rich and poor, high and low, 
 and has been doing so for fifteen hundred years ; 
 and that any man who tries to shake our faith in 
 the Bible, is doing what he can — though, thank 
 God, he will not succeed — to make such rough and 
 coarse heathens of us again as our forefathers were 
 five hundred years ago. 
 
 And I tell you, labouring people, that if you 
 want something which will make up to you for 
 the want of all the advantages which the rich 
 have — go to your Bibles and you will find it 
 there. 
 
 There you will find, in the history of men like 
 ourselves — and, above all, in the history of a man 
 unlike ourselves, the perfect Man — perfect Man 
 and perfect God together — whatsoever is true, 
 whatsoever is honest, just, pure, lovely, and of 
 good report ; every virtue, and every just cause 
 of praise which mortal man can desire. Read 
 of them in your Bible, think of them in your 
 hearts, feed on them with your souls, that your 
 souls may grow like what they feed on; and 
 above all, read and study the story and character 
 of Jesus Christ himself, our Lord, that beholding. 
 
viii.] THE BIBLE THE GREAT CIVILIZER. 117 
 
 as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, you may be 
 changed into his likeness, from grace to grace, 
 and virtue to virtue, and glory to glory. 
 
 And that change and that growth are as easy 
 for the poor as for the rich, and as necessary 
 for the rich as for the poor. 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 MOSES. 
 (Fifth Sunday in Lent.) 
 
 Exodus iii. 14. 
 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM. 
 
 A ND now, my friends, we are come, on this 
 Sunday, to the most beautiful, and the most 
 important story of the whole Bible — excepting of 
 course, the story of our Lord Jesus Christ — the 
 story of how a family grew to be a great nation. 
 You remember that I told you that the history 
 of the Jews, had been only, as yet, the history 
 of a family. 
 
 Now that family is grown to be a great tribe, 
 a great herd of people, but not yet a nation; 
 one people, with its own God, its own worship, 
 its own laws ; but such a mere tribe, or band 
 of tribes as the gipsies are among us now ; a 
 herd, but not a nation. 
 
MOSES. iig 
 
 Then the Bible tells us how these tribes, being 
 weak I suppose because they had no laws, nor 
 patriotism, nor fellow-feeling of their own, became 
 slaves, and suffered for hundreds of years under 
 crafty kings and cruel taskmasters. 
 
 Then it tells us how God delivered them out 
 of their slavery, and made them free men. And 
 how God did that (for God in general works 
 by means), by the means of a man, a prophet 
 and a hero, one great, wise, and good man of 
 their race — Moses. 
 
 It tells us, too, how God trained Moses, by 
 a very strange education, to be the fit man to 
 deliver his people. 
 
 Let us go through the history of Moses ; and 
 we shall see how God trained him to do the 
 work for which God wanted him. 
 
 Let us read from the account of the Bible 
 itself. I should be sorry to spoil its noble sim- 
 plicity by any words of my own : ' And the 
 children of Israel were fruitful, and increased 
 abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceed- 
 ing mighty ; and the land was filled with them. 
 Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, 
 which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his 
 people, Behold, the people of the children of 
 
MOSES. [SERM. 
 
 Israel are more and mightier than we : Come 
 on, let us deal wisely with them ; lest they mul- 
 tiply, and it come to pass, that, when there 
 falleth out any war, they join also unto our 
 enemies, and fight against us, and so get them 
 up out of the land. Therefore they did set over 
 them taskmasters to afflict them with their bur^ 
 dens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, 
 Pithon and Raamses. . . . And Pharaoh charged 
 all his people, saying, Every son that is born 
 ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter 
 ye shall save alive. And there went a man of 
 the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter 
 of Levi. And the woman conceived and bare 
 a son : and when she saw him that he was a 
 goodly child, she hid him three months. And 
 when she could no longer hide him, she took 
 for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with 
 slime and with pitch, and put the child therein : 
 and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. 
 And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would 
 be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh 
 came down to wash herself at the river ; and her 
 maidens walked along by the river's side ; and 
 when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent 
 her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened 
 
"X.] MOSES. 
 
 it, she saw the child ; and behold the babe wept- 
 And she had compassion on him, and said, This 
 is one of the Hebrews' children. Then said his 
 sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to 
 thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may 
 nurse the child for thee ? And Pharaoh's daughter 
 said to her, Go. And the maid went and called 
 the child's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said 
 unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for 
 me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the 
 woman took the child, and nursed it. And the 
 child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's 
 daughter, and he became her son. And she called 
 his name Moses : and she said. Because I drew 
 him out of the water.' 
 
 Moses, the child of the water. St. Paul in 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews says that Moses was 
 called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; that is, 
 adopted by her. We read elsewhere that he was 
 learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, of 
 which there can be no doubt from his own writings, 
 especially that part called Moses' law. 
 
 So that Moses had from his youth vast advan- 
 tages. Brought up in the court of the greatest 
 king of the world, in one of the greatest cities 
 of the world, among the most learned priesthood 
 
MOSES. [SERM. 
 
 in the world, he had learned, probably, all states- 
 manship, all religion, which man could teach him 
 in those old times. 
 
 But that would have been little for him. He 
 might have become merely an officer in Pharaoh's 
 household, and we might never have heard his 
 name, and he might never have done any good to 
 his own people and to all mankind after them, as 
 he has done, if there had not been something 
 better and nobler in him than all the learning and 
 statesmanship of the Egyptians. 
 
 For there was in Moses the spirit of God ; the 
 spirit which makes a man believe in God, and trust 
 God. 'And therefore,' says St. Paul, 'he refused to 
 be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; esteem- 
 ing the reproach of Christ better than all the 
 treasures in Egypt.' 
 
 And how did he do that .' In this wise. 
 
 The spirit of God and of Christ is also the spirit 
 of justice, the spirit of freedom ; the spirit which 
 hates oppression and wrong ; which is moved with 
 a noble and Divine indignation at seeing any 
 human being abused and trampled on. 
 
 And that spirit broke forth in Moses. 'And it 
 came to pass in those days, when Moses was 
 grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and 
 
IX.] MOSES. 123 
 
 looked on their burdens : and he spied an Egyptian 
 smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he 
 looked this way and that way, and when he saw 
 that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and 
 hid him in the sand.' 
 
 If he cannot get justice for his people, he will do 
 some sort of rough justice for them himself, when 
 he has an opportunity. 
 
 But he will see fair play among his people 
 themselves. They are, as slaves are likely to be, 
 fallen and base ; unjust and quarrelsome among 
 themselves. 
 
 'And when he went out the second day, behold, 
 two men of the Hebrews strove together : and he 
 said to him that did the wrong. Wherefore smitest 
 thou thy fellow ? And he said, Who made thee a 
 prince and a judge over us .'' intendest thou to kill 
 me as thou killedst the Egyptian ? And Moses 
 feared, and said. Surely this thing is known. Now 
 when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay 
 Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, 
 and dwelt in the land of Midian' — the wild desert 
 between Egypt and the Holy Land. 
 
 So he bore the reproach of Christ ; the reproach 
 which is apt to fall on men in bad times, when 
 they try, like our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver the 
 
124 MOSES. [SERM. 
 
 captive, and let the oppressed go free, and execute 
 righteous judgment in the ^arth. He had lost all, 
 by trying to do right. He had been powerful and 
 honoured in Pharaoh's court. Now he was an out- 
 cast and wanderer in the desert. He had made 
 his first trial, and failed. As St. Stephen said of 
 him after, he supposed that his brethren would 
 have understood how God would deliver them by 
 his hand ; but they understood not. Slavish, base, 
 and stupid, they were not fit yet for Moses and 
 his deliverance. 
 
 And so forty years went on, and Moses was an 
 old man of eighty years of age. Yet God had not 
 had mercy on his poor countrymen in Egypt. 
 
 It must have been a strange life for him, the 
 adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter ; brought up 
 in the court of the most powerful and highly 
 civilized country of the old world ; learned in all 
 the learning of the Egyptians ; and now married 
 into a tribe of wild Arabs, keeping flocks in the 
 lonely desert, year after year : but, no doubt, 
 thinking, thinking, year after year, as he fed his 
 flocks alone. Thinking over all the learning 
 which he had gained in Egypt, and wondering 
 whether it would ever be of any use to him. 
 Thinking over the misery of his people in Egypt, 
 
IX.] MOSES. 125 
 
 and wondering- whether he should ever be able 
 to help them. Thinking, too, and more than all, 
 of God — of God's promise to Abraham and his 
 children. Would that ever come true .'' Would 
 God help these wretched Jews, even if he could 
 not .'' Was God faithful and true, just and merciful ? 
 
 That Moses thought of God, that he never 
 lost faith in God for that forty years, there can 
 be no doubt. 
 
 If he had not thought of God, God would not 
 have revealed himself to him. If he had lost 
 faith in God, he would not have known that it 
 ivas God who spoke to him. If he had lost faith 
 in God, he would not have obeyed God at the 
 risk of his life, and have gone on an errand 
 as desperate, dangerous, hopeless — and, humanly 
 speaking, as wild as ever man went upon. 
 
 But Moses never lost faith or patience. He be- 
 lieved, and he did not make haste. He waited for 
 God; and he did not wait in vain. No man will 
 wait in vain. When the time was ready ; when 
 the Jews were ready ; when Pharaoh was ready ; 
 when Moses himself, trained by forty years' patient 
 thought, was ready ; then God came in his own 
 good time. 
 
 And Moses led the flock to the back of the^ 
 
126 MOSES. [SERM. 
 
 desert, and came to the mountain of God, even 
 to Horeb. And there he saw a bush — probably 
 one of the low copses of acacia — burning with fire; 
 and behold the bush was not consumed. Then 
 out of the bush God spoke to Moses with an 
 audible voice as of a man ; so the Bible says 
 plainly, and I see no reason to doubt that it is 
 literally true. 
 
 ' Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, 
 the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the 
 God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face ; for he 
 was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, 
 I have surely seen the affliction of my people 
 which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by 
 reason of their taskmasters ; for I know their 
 sorrows ; and I am come down to deliver them 
 out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring 
 them up out of that land unto a good land and 
 a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey ; 
 unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, 
 and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the 
 Hivites, and the Jebusites.' 
 
 Then followed a strange conversation. Moses 
 was terrified at the thought of what he had to 
 do, and reasonably : moreover, the Israelites in 
 Egypt had forgotten God. 'And Moses said unto 
 
IX.] MOSES. 127 
 
 God, Behold, when I come unto the children of 
 Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your 
 fathers hath sent me unto you ; and they shall 
 say to me. What is his name ? what shall I say 
 unto them ? And God said unto Moses, I Am 
 that I Am : and he said. Thus shalt thou say 
 unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me 
 unto you.' 
 
 I Am ; that was the new name by which God 
 revealed himself to Moses. That message of God 
 to Moses was the greatest Gospel, and good news 
 which was spoken to men, before the coming of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Ay, we are feeling now, 
 in our daily life, in our laws and our liberty, our 
 religion and our morals, our peace and prosperity, 
 in the happiness of our homes, and I trust that 
 of our consciences, the blessed effects of that 
 message, which God revealed to Moses in the 
 wilderness thousands of j-ears ago. 
 
 And Moses took his wife, and his sons, and 
 set them upon an ass, and returned into the land 
 of Egypt, to say to Pharaoh, ' Thus saith the 
 Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn, Let 
 my son go that he may serve me, and if thou let 
 not my firstborn go, then I will slay thy firstborn.' 
 
 A strange man, on a strange errand. A poor 
 
128 MOSES. [SERM. 
 
 man, eighty years old, carrying all that he had in- 
 the world upon an ass's back, going down to the 
 great Pharaoh, the greatest king of the old world, 
 the great conqueror, the Child of the Sun (as his 
 name means), one of the greatest Pharaohs who 
 ever sat on the throne of Egypt ; in the midst of 
 all his princes and priests, and armies with which 
 he had conquered the nations far and wide; and 
 his great cities, temples, and palaces, on which 
 men may see at this day (so we are told) the face 
 of that very Pharaoh painted again and again, as 
 fresh, in that rainless air, as on the day when the 
 paint was laid on ; with the features of a man 
 terrible, proud, and cruel, puffed up by power till 
 he thought himself, and till his people thought 
 him a god on earth. 
 
 And to that man was Moses going, to bid him 
 set the children of Israel free; while he himself 
 was one of that very slave-race of the Israelites, 
 which was an abomination to the Egyptians, who- 
 held them all as lepers and unclean, and would 
 not eat with them ; and an outcast too, who had 
 fled out of Egypt for his life, and who might be 
 killed on the spot, as Pharaoh's only answer to his 
 bold request. Certainly, if Moses had not had 
 faith in God, his errand would have seemed that 
 
IX.] MOSES. 129 
 
 of a madman. But Moses had faith in God ; 
 and of faith it is said, that it can remove moun- 
 tains, for all things are possible to them who- 
 believe. 
 
 So by faith Moses went back into Egypt ; how 
 he fared there we shall hear next Sunday. 
 
 And what sort of man was this great and 
 wonderful Moses, whose name will last as long 
 as man is man "i We know very little. We 
 know from the Bible and from the old traditions 
 of the Jews that he was a very handsome man ; 
 a man of a noble presence, as one can well be- 
 lieve ; a man of great bodily vigour ; so that 
 when he died at the age of one hundred and 
 twenty, his eye was not dim, nor his natural 
 force abated. We know, from his own words, 
 that he was slow of speech ; that he had more 
 thought in him than he could find words for — 
 very different from a good many loud talkers, 
 who have more words than thoughts, and who get 
 a great character as politicians and demagogues, 
 simply because they have the art of stringing fine 
 words together, which Moses, the true demagogue, 
 the leader of the people, who led them indeed out 
 of Egypt, had not. Beyond that we know little. 
 Of his character one thing only is said : but that 
 
 9 
 
130 MOSES. [SERM. 
 
 is most important. 'Now the man Moses was 
 very meek.' 
 
 Meek : we know that that cannot mean that 
 he was meek in the sense that he was a poor, 
 cowardly, abject sort of man, who dared not 
 speak his mind, dared not face the truth, and 
 say the truth. We have seen that that was just 
 what he was not ; brave, determined, out-spoken, 
 he seems to have been from his youth. Indeed, 
 if his had been that base sort of meekness, he 
 never would have dared to come before the great 
 king Pharaoh. If he had been that sort of man 
 he never would have dared to lead the Jews 
 through the Red Sea by night, or out of Egypt 
 at all. If he had been that sort of man, indeed, 
 the Jews would never have listened to him. No; 
 he had — the Bible tells us that he had — to say 
 and do stern things again and again ; to act like 
 the general of an army, or the commander of a 
 ship of war, who must be obeyed, even though 
 men's lives be the forfeit of disobedience. 
 
 But the man Moses was very meek. He had 
 learned to keep his temper. Indeed, the story 
 seems to say that he never lost his temper really 
 but once ; and for that God punished him. Never 
 man was so tried, save One, even our Lord Jesus 
 
IX.] MOSES. 
 
 Christ, as was Moses. And yet by patience he 
 conquered. Eighty years had he spent in learning 
 to keep his temper ; and when lie had learned 
 to keep his temper, then, and not till then, was 
 he worthy to bring his people out of Egypt. 
 That was a long schooling, but it was a schooling 
 worth having. 
 
 And if we, my friends, spend our whole lives, 
 be they eighty years long, in learning to keep 
 our tempers, then will our lives have been well 
 spent. For meekness and calmness of temper 
 need not interfere with a man's courage or jus- 
 tice, or honest indignation against wrong, or power 
 of helping his fellow-men. Moses' meekness did 
 not make him a coward or a sluggard. It helped 
 him to do his work rightly instead of wrongly ; 
 it helped him to conquer the pride of Pharaoh, 
 and the faithlessness, cowardice, and rebellion of 
 his brethren, those miserable slavish Jews. And 
 so meekness, an even temper, and a gracious 
 tongue, will help us to keep our place among 
 our fellow-men with true dignity and indepen- 
 dence, and to govern our households, and train 
 our children in such a way that while they obey 
 us they will love and respect us at the same 
 time. 
 
SERMON X. 
 THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 
 
 (Palm Sunday.) 
 
 Exoncs ix. 13, 14. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go^ 
 that they may serve me. For I will at this time send all my 
 plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon 
 thy people; that thou ma)est know that there is none lik& 
 me in all the earth. 
 
 \/0U will understand, I think, the meaning; 
 of the ten plagues of Egypt better, if I 
 explain to you in a few words what kind of a. 
 country Egypt is, what kind of people the Egypt- 
 ians were. Some of you, doubtless, know as well 
 as I, but some here may not : it is for them I 
 speak. 
 
 Egypt is one of the strangest countries in the 
 world ; and yet one which can be most simply 
 described. One long straight strip of rich flat land,, 
 many hundred miles long, but only a very few 
 
THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 
 
 miles broad. On either side ot it, barren rocks 
 and deserts of sand, and running through it from 
 end to end, the great river Nile — 'The River' of 
 which the Bible speaks. This river the Egyptians 
 looked on as divine : they worshipped it as a god ; 
 for on it depended the whole wealth of Egypt. 
 Every year it overflows the whole country, leaving 
 behind it a rich coat of mud, which makes Egypt 
 the most inexhaustibly fertile land in the world ; 
 and made the Egyptians, from very ancient times, 
 the best farmers of the world, the fathers of 
 agriculture. Meanwhile, when not in flood, the 
 river water is of the purest in the world ; the 
 most delightful to drink ; and was supposed in 
 old times to be a cure for all manner of diseases. 
 
 To worship this sacred river, the pride of their 
 land, to drink it, to bathe in it, to catch the 
 fish which abound in it, and which formed then, 
 and forms still, the staple food of the Egyptians, 
 was their delight. And now I have told you 
 enough to show you why the plagues which God 
 sent on Egypt began first by striking the river. 
 
 The river, we read, was turned into blood. 
 What that means — whether it was actual animal 
 blood — what means God employed to work the 
 miracle — are just the questions about which we 
 
■134 THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. [serm. 
 
 need not trouble our minds. We never shall 
 know : and we need not know. The plain fact 
 is, that the sacred river, pure and life-giving, be- 
 came a detestable mass of rottenness — and with 
 it all their streams and pools, and drinking water 
 in vessels of wood and stone — for all, remember, 
 came from the Nile, carried by canals and dykes 
 over the whole land. 'And the fish that were 
 in the river died, and the river stunk, and there 
 was blood through all the land of Egypt.' 
 
 The slightest thought will show us what horror, 
 confusion, and actual want and misery, the loss 
 of the river water, even for a few days or even 
 hours, would cause. 
 
 But there is more still in this miracle. These 
 plagues are a battle between Jehovah, the one 
 true and only God Almighty, and the false gods 
 of Egypt, to prove which of them is master. 
 
 Pharaoh answers: 'Who is Jehovah (the Lord) 
 that I should let Israel go ?' I know not the 
 Jehovah. I have my own god, whom I worship. 
 He is my father, and I his child, and he will 
 protect me. If I obey any one it will be him. 
 
 Be it so, says Moses in the name of God. Thou 
 shalt know that the idols of Egypt are nothing, 
 that they cannot deliver thee nor thy people- 
 
X.] THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 135 
 
 Thus saith Jehovah, Thou shalt know which is 
 master, I or they. ' Thou shalt know that I am 
 the Lord.' 
 
 So the river was turned into blood. The sacred 
 river was no god, as they thought. Jehovah was 
 the Lord and Master of the river on which the 
 very life of Egypt depended. He could turn it 
 into blood. All Egypt was at his mercy. 
 
 But Pharaoh would not believe that. 'The 
 magicians did lilcewise with their enchantments' 
 — made, we may suppose, water seem to turn to 
 blood by some juggling trick at which the priests 
 in Egypt were but too well practised ; and Pha- 
 raoh seemed to have made up his mind that 
 Moses' miracle was only a juggling trick too. 
 For men will make up their minds to anything, 
 however absurd, when they choose to do so : 
 when their pride, and rage, and obstinacy, and 
 covetousness, draw them one way, no reason will 
 draw them the other way. They will find reasons, 
 and make reasons to prove, if need be, that there 
 is no sun in the sky. 
 
 Then followed a series of plagues, of which we 
 have all often heard. 
 
 Learned men have disputed how far these 
 plagues were miracles. Some of them are said 
 
136 THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. [sf.rm. 
 
 not to be uncommon in Egypt, others to be 
 almost unknown. But whether they — whether 
 the frogs, for instance, were not produced by 
 natural causes, just as other frogs are; and tlie 
 lice and the flies likewise ; that I know not, my 
 friends, neither need I know. If they were not, 
 they were miraculous ; and if they were, they 
 were miraculous still. If they came as other 
 vermin come, they would have still been miracu- 
 lous : God would still have sent them ; and it 
 would be a miracle that God should make them 
 come at that particular time in that particular 
 country, to work a truly miraculous effect upon 
 the souls of Pharaoh and the Egyptians on the 
 one hand, and of Moses and the Israelites on 
 the other. But if they came by some strange 
 means as no vermin ever came before or since, 
 all I can say is — Why not .■" 
 
 And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Say unto 
 Aaron, Stretch out thy rod and smite the dust 
 of the land, that it may become lice through- 
 out all the land of Egypt.' 
 
 Whether that was meant only as a sign to 
 the Egyptians, or whether the dust did literally 
 turn into lice, we do not know, and what is 
 more, we need not know; if God chose that it 
 
x.l THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 137 
 
 should be so, so it would be. If you believe at 
 •ill that God made the world, it is folly to pre- 
 tend to set any bounds to his power. As a 
 wise man has said, 'If you believe in any real 
 God at all, you must believe that miracles can 
 happen.' He makes you and me and millions 
 of living things out of the dust of the ground 
 continually by certain means. Why can he not 
 make lice, or anything else out of the dust of 
 the ground, without those means .■' I can give 
 no reason, nor any one else either. 
 
 We know that God has given all things a law 
 which they cannot break. We know, too, that 
 God will never break his own laws. But what 
 are God's laws by which he makes things ? We 
 do not know. 
 
 Miracles may be — indeed must be — only the 
 effect of some higher and deeper laws of God. 
 We cannot prove that he breaks his law, or dis- 
 turbs his order by them. They may seem con 
 trary to some of the very very few laws of God's 
 earth which we do know. But they need not 
 be contrary to the very many laws which we 
 do not know. In fact, we know nothing about 
 the matter, and had best not talk of things that 
 we do not understand. As for these things being 
 
133 THE Pr.AGUES OF EGYPT. [SErM. 
 
 too wonderful to be true — that is an argument 
 which only deserves a smile. There are so many 
 wonders in the world round us already, all day 
 long, that the man of sense will feel that nothing 
 is too wonderful to be true. 
 
 The truth is, that, as a wise man says, Custom 
 is the great enemy of Faith, and of Reason like- 
 wise ; and one of the worst tricks which custom 
 plays us is, making us fancy that miraculous things 
 cease to be miraculous by becoming common. 
 
 What do I mean .■' 
 
 This : which every child in this church can 
 understand. 
 
 You think it very wonderful that God should 
 cause frogs to come upon the whole land of Egypt 
 in one day. But that God should cause frogs to 
 come up every spring in the ditches does not 
 seem wonderful to you at all. It happens everj' 
 year ; therefore, forsooth, there is nothing won- 
 derful in it. 
 
 Ah, my dear friends, it is custom which blinds 
 our eyes to the wisdom of God, and the wonders 
 of God, and the power of God, and the glory 
 of God, and hinders us from believing the message 
 with which he speaks to us from every sunbeam 
 and every shower, every blade of grass and everj' 
 
X.] THK PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 139 
 
 standing pool. 'Is anything too hard for the 
 Lord .? ' 
 
 If any man here says that anything is too hard 
 for the Lord, let him go this day to the nearest 
 standing pool, and look at the frog-spawn therein, 
 and consider it till he confesses his blindness and 
 foolishness. That spawn seems to you a foul 
 thing, the produce of mean, ugly, contemptible 
 creatures. Be it so. Yet it is to the eyes of the 
 wise man a yearly miracle ; a thing past under- 
 standing, past explaining ; one which will make 
 him feel the truth of that great 139th Psalm; 
 ' Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid 
 thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too 
 worderful for me ; it is high, I cannot attain 
 unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit t or 
 whither shall I flee from thy presence .■' If ] 
 ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if I make 
 my bed in hell, behold, thou art there also.' 
 
 That every one of those little black spots should 
 have in it life — What is life .' How did it get 
 into that black spot .' or, to speak more carefulh', 
 is the life in the black spot at all .' Is not the 
 life in the Spirit of God, who is working on that 
 spot, as I believe .' How has that black spot the 
 power of growing, and of growing on a certain and 
 
140 THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. [serji. 
 
 fixed plan, merely by the quickening power of 
 the sun's heat, and then of feeding itself, and of 
 changing its shape, as you all know, again and 
 again, till — and if that is not wonderful, what 
 is ? — it turns into a frog, exactly like its parent) 
 utterly unhke the black dot at which it began ? 
 Is that no miracle ? Is it no miracle that not 
 one of those black spots ever turns into anything 
 save a frog ? Why should not some of them turn 
 into toads or efts ? Why not even into fishes oi 
 serpents ? Why not ? The eggs of all those 
 animals, in their first and earliest stages are 
 exactly alike ; the microscope shows no differ- 
 ence. Ay, even the mere animal and the human 
 being, strange and awful as it may be, seem, 
 under the microscope, to have the same begin- 
 ning. And yet one becomes a mere animal, and 
 the other a member of Christ, a child of God, 
 and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. What 
 causes this but the power of God, making of the 
 same clay one vessel to honour and another to 
 dishonour .' And yet people will not believe in 
 miracles ! Why does each kind turn into its kind .-" 
 Answer that. Because it is a law of nature .' Not 
 so ! There are no laws of nature. God is a law 
 to nature. It is his will that things so should 
 
X.] THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 141 
 
 be ; and when it is his will they will not be so, 
 but otherwise. 
 
 Not laws of nature, but the Spirit of God, as 
 the Psalms truly say, gives life and breath to 
 all things. Of him and by him is all. As the 
 greatest chemist of our time says, 'Causes are 
 the acts of God — creation is the will of God.' 
 
 And he that is wise and strong enough to create 
 frogs in one way in every ditch at this moment, 
 is he not wise and strong enough to create frogs 
 by some other way, if he should choose, whether 
 in Egypt of old, or now, here, this very day .' 
 
 Whatsoever means, or no means at all, God 
 used to produce those vermin, the miracle remains 
 the same. He sent them to do a work, and they 
 did it. He sent them to teach Egyptian and 
 Israelite alike that he was the Maker, and Lord, 
 and Ruler of the world, and all that therein is ; 
 that he would have his way, and that he coidd 
 have his way. 
 
 Intensely painful and disgusting these plagues 
 mu.st have been to the Egyptians, for this reason, 
 that they were the most cleanly of all people. 
 They had a dislike of dirt, which had become 
 quite a superstition to them. Their priests (ma- 
 gicians as the Bible calls them) never wore any 
 
'42 THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. [serm. 
 
 garments but linen, for fear of their harbouring 
 vermin of any kind. And this extreme cleanliness 
 of theirs the next plague struck at ; they were 
 covered with boils and diseases of skin, and the 
 magicians could not stand before Pharaoh by rea- 
 son of the boils. They became unclean and unfit 
 for their office ; they could perform no religious 
 ceremonies, and had to flee away in disgrace. 
 
 After plagues of thunder, hail, and rain, which 
 seldom or never happen in that rainless land of 
 Egypt ; after a plague of locusts, which are very 
 lare there, and have to come many hundred miles 
 if they come at all ; of darkness, seemingly im- 
 possible in a land where the sun always shines : 
 then came the last and most terrible plague of all. 
 After solemn warnings of what was coming, the 
 angel of the Lord passed through the land of 
 Egypt, and smote all the first-born in Egypt, 
 from the first-born of Pharaoh upon his throne 
 to the first-born of the captive in the dungeon ; 
 and there arose a great cry in Egypt, for there 
 was not a house in which there was not one dead. 
 A terrible and heart-rending calamit}- in any case, 
 enough to break the heart of all Egypt ; and it 
 did break the heart of Egypt, and the proud heart 
 of Pharaoh himself, and they let the people go. 
 
X.] THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 143 
 
 But this was a religious affliction too. Most of 
 these first-born children — probably all the first- 
 born of the priests and nobles, and of Pharaoh 
 himself — were consecrated to some god. They 
 bore the name of the god to whom they belonged; 
 that god was to prosper and protect them, and 
 behold, he could not. The Lord Jehovah, the 
 God of the Hebrews, was stronger than all the 
 gods of Egypt ; none of them could deliver their 
 servants out of his hand. He was the only Lord 
 of life and death ; he had given them life, and 
 he could take it away, in spite of all and every 
 one of the gods of the Egyptians. 
 
 So the Lord God showed himself to be the 
 Master and Lord of all things. The Lord of the 
 sacred river Nile ; the Lord of the meanest ver- 
 min which crept on the earth ; the Lord of the 
 weather — able to bring thunder and hail into a 
 land where thunder and hail was never seen be- 
 fore ; the Lord of the locust swarms — able to 
 bring them over the desert and over the sea to 
 devour up every green thing in the land, and then 
 to send a wind off the Mediterranean Sea, and 
 drive the locusts away to the eastward ; the Lord 
 of light — who could darken, even in that cloud- 
 less land, the very sun, whom Pharaoh worshipped 
 
144 THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. [serm. 
 
 as his god and his ancestor ; and lastly, the Lord 
 of human life and death — able to kill whom he 
 chose, when he chose, and as he chose. The Lord 
 of the earth and all that therein is ; before whom 
 all men, even proud Pharaoh, must bow and con- 
 fess, ' Is anything too hard for the Lord .-'' 
 
 And now, I always tell you that each fresh por- 
 tion of the Old Testament reveals to men some- 
 thing fresh concerning the character of God. You 
 may say, These plagues of Egypt reveal God's 
 mighty power, but what do they reveal of his 
 character ? They reveal this : that there is in 
 God that which, for want of a better word, we 
 must call anger ; a quite awful sternness and 
 severity ; not only a power to punish, but a 
 determination to punish, if men will not take 
 his warnings — if men will not obey his will. 
 
 There is no use trying to hide from ourselves 
 that awful truth — God is not weakly indulgent. 
 Our God can be, if he will, a consuming fire 
 Upon the sinner he will surely rain fire and 
 brimstone, storm and tempest of some kind or 
 other. This shall be their portion too surely. 
 Vengeance is his, and vengeance he will take. 
 But upon whom .-' On the proud and the ty- 
 rannical, on the cruel, the false, the unjust. So 
 
X.] THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 145, 
 
 say the Psalms again and again, and so says the 
 liistory of these plagues of Egypt. Therefore his 
 anger is a loving anger, a just aager, a merciful 
 anger, a useful anger, an anger exercised for the 
 good of mankind. See in this case why did God 
 destroy the crops of Egypt — even the first-born 
 of Egypt .'' Merely for the pleasure of destroying i* 
 God forbid. It was to deliver the poor Israelites 
 from their cruel taskmasters ; to force these Egypt- 
 ians by terrible lessons, since they were deaf to 
 the voice of justice and humanity — to force them, 
 I say — to have mercy on their fellow-creatures, 
 and let the oppressed go free. Therefore God 
 was, even in Egypt, a God of love, who desired 
 the good of man, who would do justice for those 
 who were unjustly treated, even though it cost 
 his love a pang ; for none can believe that God 
 is pleased at having to punish, pleased at having 
 to destroy the works of his own 'hands, or the 
 creatures which he has made. No ; the Lord 
 was a God of love even when he sent his sore 
 plagues on Egypt, and therefore we may believe 
 what the Bible tells us, that that same Lord 
 showed, as on this day, a still greater proof of 
 his love, when, as on this day, he entered into 
 Jerusalem, meek and lowly, sitting on an ass, 
 
 lo 
 
146 THE PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 
 
 and going, as he well knew, to certain death. 
 Before the week was over he would be betrayed, 
 mocked, scourged, crucified by the very people 
 whom he came to save; and yet he did it, he 
 endured it. Instead of pouring out on them, as 
 on the Egyptians of old, the cup of wrath and 
 misery, he put out his hand, took the cup of 
 wrath and misery to himself, and drank it to 
 its very dregs. Was not that, too, a miracle .■' 
 Ay, a greater miracle than all the plagues of 
 Egypt. They were physical miracles ; this a 
 moral miracle. They were miracles of nature; 
 this of grace. They were miracles of the Lord's 
 power; these of the Lord's love. Think of that 
 miracle of miracles which was worked in this 
 Passion Week — the miracle of the Lord Jehovah 
 stooping to die for sinful man, and say after 
 that there is anything too hard for the Lord. 
 
SERMON XI. 
 
 THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IS THE GOD 
 OF THE NEW. 
 
 (Palm Sunday.) 
 
 Exodus ix. 14. 
 
 r will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon 
 thy servants, and upon thy people, that thou mayest know 
 that there is none like me in all the earth. 
 
 \A7'E are now beginning Passion Week, the 
 week of the whole year which ought to 
 teach us most theology ; that is, most concern- 
 ing God, his character and his spirit. 
 
 For in this Passion Week God did that which 
 utterly and perfectly showed forth his glory, as 
 it never has been shown forth before or since. 
 In this week Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, 
 died on the cross for man, and showed that his 
 name, his character, his glory was love — love 
 without bound or end. 
 
r4S THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [serm. 
 
 It was to teach us this that the special services, 
 lessons, collects, epistles, and gospels of this week 
 were chosen. 
 
 The second lesson, the collects, the epistles, 
 the gospel for to-day, all set before us the pa- 
 tience of Christ, the humility of Christ, the love 
 of Christ, the self-sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb 
 without spot, enduring all things that he might 
 save sinful man. 
 
 But if so, what does this first lesson — the chap- 
 ter of Exodus from which my text is taken — 
 what does it teach us concerning God ? Does it 
 teach us that his name is love .'' 
 
 At first sight you would think that it did not. 
 At first sight you would fancy that it spoke of 
 God in quite a different tone from the second 
 lesson. 
 
 In the second lesson, the words of Jesus the 
 Son of God are all gentleness, patience, tender- 
 ness. A quiet sadness hangs over them all. They 
 are the words of one who is come (as he said 
 himself), not to destroy men's lives, but to save 
 them ; not to punish sins, but to wash them away 
 by his own most precious blood. 
 
 But in the first lesson how differently he seems 
 to speak. His words there are the words of a stern 
 
XI.] IS THE GOD OF THE NEW. 149 
 
 and awful judge, who can, and who will destroy 
 whatsoever interferes with his will and his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 ' I will at this time send all my plagues upon 
 thine heart, and on thy servants, and all thy people, 
 that thou mayest know that there is none like me 
 in all the earth.' The cattle and sheep shall be 
 destroyed with murrain ; man and beast shall be 
 tormented with boils and blains ; the crops shall be 
 smitten with hail; the locusts shall eat up every 
 green thing in the land ; and at last all the first- 
 born of Egypt shall die in one night, and the land 
 be filled with mourning, horror, and desolation, 
 before the anger of this terrible God, who will 
 destroy and destroy till he makes himself obeyed. 
 
 Can this be he who rode into Jerusalem, as on 
 this day, meek and lowly, upon an ass's colt ; who 
 on the night that he was betrayed washed his 
 disciples' feet, even the feet of Judas who betrayed 
 him_.? Who prayed for his murderers as he hung 
 upon the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they 
 know not what they do.'' 
 
 Can these two be the same .'' 
 
 Is the Lord Jehovah of the Old Testament the 
 Lord Jesus of the New .' 
 
 They are the same, my friends. He who laid 
 
150 THE GOD OF TITE OLD TESTAMENT [serm. 
 
 waste the land of Egypt is he who came to seek 
 and to save that which was lost. 
 
 He who slew the children in Egypt is he who 
 took little children up in his arms and blessed 
 them. 
 
 He who spoke the awful words of the text is he 
 who was brought as a lamb to the slaughter ; and 
 as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he 
 opened not his mouth. 
 
 This is very wonderful. But why should it not 
 be wonderful .' What can God be but wonderful ? 
 His character, just because it is perfect, must con- 
 tain in itself all other characters, all forms of 
 spiritual life which are without sin. And yet again 
 it is not so very wonderful. Have we not seen — I 
 have often — in the same mortal man these two 
 different characters at once 1 Have we not seen 
 soldiers and sailors, brave men, stern men, men who 
 have fought in many a bloody baUle, to whom it is 
 a light thing to kill their fellow-men, or to be killed 
 themselves in the cause of duty ; and yet most full 
 of tenderness, as gentle as lambs to little children 
 and to weak women ; nursing the sick lovingly and 
 carefully with the same hand which would not 
 shrink from firing the fatal cannon to blast a whole 
 company into eternity, or sink a ship with all its 
 
XI.] IS THE GOD OF THE NEW. 151 
 
 crew ? I have seen such men, brave as the lion and 
 gentle as the lamb, and I saw in them the likeness 
 of Christ — the Lion of Judah ; and yet the Lamb 
 of God. 
 
 Christ is the Lamb of God ; and in him there are 
 the innocence of the lamb, the gentleness of the 
 lamb, the patience of the lamb : but there is more. 
 What words are these which St. John speaks in the 
 spirit .'' — 
 
 ' And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is 
 rolled together, and every mountain and island 
 were moved out of their places ; and the kings of 
 the earth, and the great, and the rich, and the chief 
 captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman 
 and every freeman hid themselves in the dens and 
 in the rocks of the mountains ; and said to the 
 mountains and to the rocks. Fall on us, and hide us 
 from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and 
 from the wrath of the Lamb ; for the great day of 
 his wrath is come ; and who shall be able to 
 stand.'' 
 
 Yes, look at that awful book of Revelation with 
 which the Bible ends, and see if the Bible does not 
 end as it began, by revealing a God who, however 
 loving and merciful, long-suffering, and of great 
 goodness, still wages war eternally against all sin 
 
152 THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [serm. 
 
 and unrighteousness of man, and who will by no 
 means clear the guilty; a God of whom the apostle 
 St. Paul, who knew most of his mercy and forgive- 
 ness to sinners, could nevertheless say, just as 
 Moses had said ages before him, ' Our God is a 
 consuming fire.' 
 
 Now I think it most necessary to recollect this 
 in Passion Week; ay, and to do more — to remember 
 it all our lives long. 
 
 For it is too much the fashion now, and has often 
 been so before, to think only of one side of our 
 Lord's character, of the side which seems more 
 pleasant and less awful. People please themselves 
 in hymns which talk of the meek and lowly Jesus, 
 and in pictures which represent him with a sad, 
 weary, delicate, almost feminine face. Now I do 
 not say that this is wrong. He is the same 
 yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; as tender, as 
 compassionate now as when he was on earth ; and 
 it is good that little children and innocent young 
 people should think of him as an altogether gentle, 
 gracious, loveable being ; for with the meek he will 
 be meek ; but again, with the froward, the violent, 
 and self-willed, he will be froward. He will show 
 the violent that he' is the stronger of the two, and 
 the self-willed that he will have his will and not 
 theirs done. 
 
XT,] IS THE GOD OF THE NEW. 153 
 
 So it is good that the widow and the orphan, the 
 weary and the distressed, should think of Jesus as 
 utterly tender and true, compassionate and mer- 
 ciful, and rest their broken hearts upon him, the 
 everlasting rock. But while it is written, that 
 whosoever shall fall on that rock he shall be broken, 
 it is written too, that on whomsoever that rock 
 shall fall, it will grind him to powder. 
 
 It is good that those w'ho wish to be gracious 
 themselves, loving themselves, should remember 
 that Christ is gracious, Christ is loving. But it is 
 good also, that those who do not wish to be 
 gracious and loving themselves, but to be proud 
 and self-willed, unjust and cruel, should remember 
 that the gracious and loving Christ is also the most 
 terrible and awful of all beings ; sharper than a 
 two-edged sword, piercing asunder the very joints 
 and marrow, discerning the most secret thoughts 
 and intents of the heart; a righteous judge, strong 
 and patient, who is provoked every day : but if a 
 man will not turn he will whet his sword. He 
 hath bent his bow and made it ready, and laid his 
 arrows in order against the persecutors. What 
 Christ's countenance, my friends, was like when on 
 earth, we do 7iot know ; but what his countenance 
 is like now, we all may know ; for what says 
 
134 THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [serm. 
 
 St. John, and how did Christ appear to him, who 
 had been on earth his private and beloved friend ? 
 
 ' His head and his hair were white as snow, and 
 his eyes were hke a flame of fire, and his voice hke 
 the sound of many waters ; and out of his mouth 
 went a sharp two-edged sword, and his coun- 
 tenance was as the sun when he shineth in his 
 strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet 
 as dead.' 
 
 That is the likeness of Christ, my friends ; and 
 we must remember that it is his likeness, and fall 
 at his feet, and humble ourselves before his un- 
 speakable majesty, if we wish that he should do to 
 us at the last day as he did to St. John — lay his 
 hand upon us, saying, ' Fear not, I am the first and 
 the last, and behold, I am alive for evermore, 
 Amen. I have the keys of death and hell' 
 
 Yes, it is good that we should all remember this. 
 For if we do not, we may fall, as thousands fall, 
 into a very unwholesome and immoral notion about 
 religion. We may get to fancy, as thousands do, 
 rich and poor, that because Christ the Lord is meek 
 and gentle, patient and long-suffering, that he is 
 therefore easy, indulgent, careless about our doing 
 wrong; and that we can, in plain English, trifle with 
 Christ, and take liberties with his everlasting laws 
 
XI.] IS THE GOD OF THE NEW. 155 
 
 of right and wrong; and so fancy, that provided we 
 talk of the meek and lowly Jesus, and of his blood 
 washing away all our sins, that we are free to 
 behave very much as if Jesus had never come into 
 the world to teach men their duty, and free to 
 commit almost any sin which does not disgrace us 
 among our neighbours, or render us punishable by 
 the law. 
 
 My friends, it is not so. And those who fancy 
 that it is so, will find out their mistake bitterlj- 
 enough. Infinite love and forgiveness to those 
 who repent and amend and do right ; but infinite 
 rigour and punishment to those who will not amend 
 and do right. This is the everlasting law of God'.^ 
 universe ; and every soul of man will find it out at 
 last, and find that the Lord Jesus Christ is not a 
 Being to be trifled with, and that the precious 
 blood which he shed on the cross is of no avail to 
 those who are not minded to be righteous even as 
 he is righteous. 
 
 'But Christ is so loving, so tender-hearted that 
 he surely will not punish us for our sins.' This is 
 the confused notion that too many people have 
 about him. And the answer to it is, that just 
 because Christ is so loving, so tender-hearted, there- 
 fore he viust punish us for our sins, unless we 
 
136 THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT [serm. 
 
 Utterly give up our sins, and do right instead of 
 wrong. 
 
 That false notion springs out of men's selfish- 
 ness. They think of sin as something which only 
 hurts themselves ; when they do wrong they think 
 merely, 'What punishment will God inflict on me 
 for doing wrong.'' They are wrapt up in them- 
 selves. They forget that their sins are not merely 
 a matter between them and Christ, but between 
 them and their neighbours ; that every wrong 
 action they commit, every wrong word they speak, 
 every wrong habit in which they indulge them- 
 selves, sooner or later, more or less hurts their 
 neighbours — ay, hurts all mankind. 
 
 And does Christ care only for than ? Does he 
 not care for their neighbours .' Has he not all 
 mankind to provide for, and govern and guide .' 
 And can he allow bad men to so on makinsr this 
 world worse, without punishing them, any more 
 than a gardener can allow weeds to hurt his 
 flowers, and not root them up ? What would you 
 say of a man who was so merciful to the weeds 
 that he let them choke the flowers .-' What would 
 you say of a shepherd who was so merciful to the 
 wolves that he let them eat his sheep .' What 
 would you say of a magistrate who was so merciful 
 
XT.] IS THE GOD OF THE NEW. 157 
 
 to thieves that he let them rob the honest men ? 
 And do you fancy that Christ is a less careful and 
 just governor of the world than the magistrate who 
 punishes the thief that honest men may live in 
 safety .' 
 
 Not so. Not only will Christ punish the wolves 
 who devour his sheep, but he will punish his sheep 
 themselves if they hurt each other, torment each 
 other, lead each other astray, or in any way inter- 
 fere with the just and equal rule of his kingdom ; 
 and this, not out of spite or cruelty, but simply 
 because he is perfect love. 
 
 Go, therefore, and think of Christ this Passion 
 Week as he was, and is, and ever will be. Think 
 of the whole Christ, and not of some part of his 
 character which may specially please your fancy. 
 Think of him as the patient and forgiving Christ, 
 who prayed for his murderers, ' Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they do.' But 
 remember that, in this very Passion Week, there 
 came out of those most gentle lips — the lips which 
 blessed little children, and cried to all who were 
 weary and heavy laden, to come to him and he 
 would give them rest — that out of those most 
 gentle lips, I say, in this very Passion Weelc, 
 there went forth the most awful threats which 
 
rsS THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 ever were uttered, ' Woe unto you, Scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites. Ye serpents, ye generation 
 of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of 
 hell.''' Think of him as the Lamb who offered 
 himself freely on the cross for sinners. But think 
 of him, too, as the Lamb who shall one day come 
 in glory to judge all men according to their works, 
 Think of him as full of boundless tenderness and 
 humanity, boundless long-suffering and mercy. 
 But remember that beneath that boundless sweet- 
 ness and tenderness there burns a consuming fire ; 
 a fire of divine scorn and inditrnation ajrainst all 
 who sin, like Pharaoh, out of cruelty and pride ; 
 against all which is foul and brutal, mean and 
 base, false and hypocritical, cruel and unjust; a 
 fire which burns, and will burn against all the 
 wickedness which is done on earth, and all the 
 misery and sorrow which is suffered on earth, 
 till the Lord has burned it up for ever, and 
 there is nothing but love and justice, order and 
 usefulness, peace and happiness, left in the uni- 
 verse of God. 
 
 Oh, think of these things, and cast away your 
 sins betimes, at the foot of his everlasting cross, 
 lest you be consumed with your sins in his ever- 
 lasting fire ! 
 
SERMON XII. 
 
 THE EIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. 
 ( Eastei- Day.) 
 
 Exodus xii. 42. 
 
 This is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, foi 
 bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. 
 
 ■"PO be much observed unto the Lord by the 
 children of Israel. And by us, too, my 
 friends ; and by all nations who call themselves 
 free. 
 
 There are many and good ways of looking 
 at Easter Day. Let us look at it in this way 
 for once. 
 
 It is the day on which God himself set men 
 free. 
 
 Consider the story. These Israelites, the chil- 
 dren of Abraham, the brave, wild patriarch of 
 the desert, have been settled for hundreds of 
 years in the rich lowlands of Egypt. There they 
 
i6o THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOJI. [serm. 
 
 have been eating and drinking their fill, and grow- 
 ing more weak, slavish, luxurious, fonder and 
 fonder of the flesh-pots of Egypt ; fattening liter- 
 ally for the slaughter, like beasts in a stall. They 
 are spiritually dead — dead in trespasses and sins. 
 They do not want to be free, to be a nation. 
 They are content to be slaves and idolaters, if 
 they can only fill their stomachs. This is the 
 spiritual death of a nation. 
 
 I say, they do not want to be free. When 
 they are oppressed, they cry out — as an animal 
 cries when you beat him. But after they are 
 free, when they get into danger, or miss their 
 meat, they cry out too, and are willing enough 
 to return to slavery ; as the dog which has 
 run away for fear of the whip, will go back to 
 his kennel for the sake of his food. ' Because 
 there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken 
 us away to die in the wilderness .' Wherefore 
 hast thou dealt thus with us to carry us out of 
 Egypt?' And again, 'Would God we had died 
 by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, 
 where we did sit by the flesh-pots, and eat meat 
 to the full!' Brutalized, in one word, were these 
 poor children of Israel. 
 
 Then God took their cause into his own hand; 
 
xii.] THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. 161 
 
 I say emphatically into his own hand. If that 
 part of the story be not true, I care nothing for 
 the rest. If God did not personally and actually 
 interfere on behalf of those poor slaves ; if the 
 plagues of Egypt are not true — if the passage 
 of the Red Sea be not true — the story tells me 
 and you nothing ; gives us no hope for ourselves, 
 no hope for mankind. 
 
 For see. One says, and truly, God is good ; 
 God is love; God is just; God hates oppres- 
 sion and wrong. 
 
 But if God be love, he must surely show his 
 love by doing loving things. 
 
 If God be just, he must show his justice by 
 doing just things. 
 
 If God hates oppression, then he must free the 
 oppressed. 
 
 If God hates wrong, then he must set the wrong 
 right. 
 
 For what would you think of a man who pro- 
 fessed to be loving and just, and to hate oppression 
 and wrong, and yet never took the trouble to do a 
 good action, or to put down wrong, when he had 
 the power } You would call him a hypocrite ; 
 you would think his love and justice very much 
 on his tongue, and not in his heart. 
 
 II 
 
i62 THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. [serm. 
 
 And will you believe that God is like that man? 
 God forbid ! 
 
 Comfortable scholars and luxurious ladies may 
 content themselves with a dead God, who does not 
 interfere to help the oppressed, to right the wrong, 
 to bind up the broken-hearted ; but men and 
 women who work, who sorrow, who suffer, who 
 partake of all the ills which flesh is heir to — they 
 want a living God, an acting God, a God who will 
 interfere to right the wrong. Yes — they want a 
 living God. And they have a living God — even 
 the God who interfered to bring the Israelites out 
 of Egypt with signs and wonders, and a mighty 
 hand and an outstretched arm, and executed 
 judgment upon Pharaoh and his proud and cruel 
 hosts. And when they read in the Bible of that 
 God, when they read in their Bibles the story of 
 the Exodus, their hearts answer. This is right. 
 This is the God whom we need. This is what 
 ought to have happened. This is true : for it must 
 be true. Let comfortable folks who know no 
 sorrow trouble their brains as to whether sixty or 
 six hundred thousand fighting men came out of 
 Egypt with Moses. We care not for numbers. 
 What we care for is, not how many came out, but 
 who brought them out, and that he who brought 
 
XII.] THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. 163 
 
 them out was God. And the book which tells us 
 that, we will cling to, will love, will reverence above 
 all the books on earth, because it tells of a living 
 God, who works and acts and interferes for men ; 
 who not only hates wrong, but rights wrong ; not 
 only hates oppression, but puts oppressors down ; 
 not only pities the oppressed, but sets the 
 oppressed free ; a God who not only wills that 
 man should have freedom, but sent freedom down 
 to him from heaven. 
 
 Scholars have said that the old Greeks were the 
 fathers of freedom ; and there have been other 
 peoples in the world's history who have made 
 glorious and successful struggles to throw off their 
 tyrants and be free. And they have said. We are 
 the fathers of freedom ; liberty was born with us. 
 Not so, my friends ! Liberty is of a far older and 
 far nobler house ; Liberty was born, if you will 
 receive it, on the first Easter night, on the night 
 to be much remembered among the children of 
 Israel — ay, among all mankind — when God him- 
 self stooped from heaven to set the oppressed free. 
 Then was freedom born. Not in the counsels of 
 men, however wise ; or in the battles of men, 
 however brave : but in the counsels of God, and 
 the battle of God — amid human agony and terror, 
 
l64 THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. [s&rm. 
 
 and the shaking of the heaven and the earth ; 
 amid the great cry throughout Egypt when a 
 first-born son lay dead in every house ; and the 
 tempest which swept aside the Red Sea waves ; 
 and the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of 
 fire by night ; and the Red Sea shore covered 
 with the corpses of the Egyptians ; and the thun- 
 derings and lightnings and earthquakes of Sinai ; 
 and the sound as of a trumpet waxing loud and 
 long ; and the voice, most human and most divine^ 
 which spake from off the lonely mountain peak to 
 that vast horde of coward and degenerate slaves,. 
 and said, ' I am the Lord thy God who brought 
 thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt obey 
 my laws, and keep my commandments to do them/ 
 Oh ! the man who would rob his suffering fellow- 
 creatures of that story — he knows not how deep 
 and bitter are the needs of man. 
 
 Then was freedom born : but not of man ; not 
 of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but 
 of the will of God, from whom all good things 
 come ; and of Christ, who is the life and the light 
 of men and of nations, and of the whole world, and 
 of all worlds, past, present, and to come. 
 
 From God came freedom. To be used as his 
 gift, according to his laws ; for he gave, and he can. 
 
XII.] THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREF.nOM. 165 
 
 take away; as it is written, 'He shall take the 
 kingdom of God from you, and give it to a people 
 brinorin? forth the fruits thereof.' ' For there be 
 many first that shall be last ; and last that shall 
 be first.' It is this which makes the Jews indeed 
 a peculiar people : the thought that the living God 
 had actually and really done for them what they 
 could not do for themselves ; that he had made 
 them a nation, and not they themselves. It is this 
 which makes the Old Testament an utterly dif- 
 ferent book, with an utterly different lesson, to the 
 written history of any other nation in the world. 
 
 And yet it is this which makes the history of 
 the Jews the key to every other history in the 
 world. For in it Jesus Christ our Lord, the living 
 God who makes history, who governs all nations, 
 reveals and unveils himself, and teaches not the 
 Jews only, but us and all nations, that it is he who 
 hath made us, and not we ourselves; that we got 
 not the land in possession by our own sword, nor 
 was it our own strength that helped us, but thou, 
 O Lord, because thou hadst a favour unto us ; 
 that not to us, not to us is the praise of any 
 national greatness or glory, but to God, from 
 whom it comes as surely a free gift as the gift 
 of liberty to the Jews of old. 
 
I6S THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. [SERM. 
 
 I say, the history of the Jews is the history of 
 the whole Church, and of every nation in Christen- 
 dom. 
 
 As with the Jews, so with the nations of Europe ; 
 whenever they have trusted in themselves, their 
 own power and wisdom, they have ended in weak- 
 ness and folly. Whenever they have trusted in 
 Christ the living God, and said, ' It is he that hath 
 made us, and not we ourselves,' they have risen to 
 strength and wisdom. When they have forgotten 
 the living God, national life and patriotism have 
 died in them, as they died in the Jews. When 
 they have remembered that the most high God 
 was their Redeemer, then in them, as in the Jews, 
 have national life and patriotism revived. 
 
 And as it was with the Jews in the wilderness, 
 so it has been with them since Christ's resurrection. 
 They fancied that they were going at once into the 
 promised land. So did the first Christians. But 
 the Jews had to wander forty years in the wilder- 
 ness ; and Christendom has had to wander too, 
 in strange and bloodstained paths, for one thou- 
 sand eight hundred years and more. For why .? 
 The Israelites were not worthy to enter at once 
 into rest ; no more have the nation of Christ's 
 Church been worthy. The Israelites brought out 
 
X[i.] THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. 167 
 
 of Egypt base and slavish passions, which had to 
 be purged out of them ; so have we out of hea- 
 thendom. They brought out, too, heathen super- 
 stitions, and mixed them up with the worship of 
 God, bearing about in the wilderness the taber- 
 nacle of Moloch and the image of their god 
 Remphan, and making the calf in Horeb ; and 
 so, alas ! again and again, has the Church of 
 Christ. 
 
 Nay, the whole generation, save two, who came 
 out of Egypt, had to die in the wilderness, and 
 leave their bones scattered far and wide. And so 
 has mankind been dying, by war and by disease, 
 and by many fearful scourges besides what i.'; 
 called now-a-days, natural decay. 
 
 But all the while a new generation was spring- 
 ing up, trained in the wilderness to be bold and 
 hardy ; trained, too, under Moses' stern law, to the 
 fear of God ; to reverence, and discipline, and 
 obedience, without which freedom is merely brutal 
 license, and a nation is no nation, but a mere flock 
 of sheep or a herd of wolves. 
 
 And so, for these one thousand eight hundred 
 years have the generations of Christendom, by 
 the training of the Church and the light of the 
 Gospel, been growing in wisdom and knowledge ; 
 
163 THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. ^trm. 
 
 growing in morality and humanity, in that true 
 discipline and loyalty which are the yoke-fellows 
 of freedom and independence, to make them fit 
 for that higher state, that heavenly Canaan, of 
 which we know not ivhe.n it will come, nor 
 whether its place will be on this earth or else- 
 where ; but of which it is written, 'And I John 
 saw the holy city. New Jerusalem, coming down 
 from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride 
 adorned for her husband. And I heard a great 
 voice out of heaven saying. Behold, the taber- 
 nacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with 
 them, and they shall be his people, and God 
 himself shall be with them, and be their God. 
 And God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither 
 sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more 
 pain : for the former things are passed away. And 
 he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make 
 all things new. 
 
 ' And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord 
 God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 
 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of 
 the moon to shine in it : for the glory of God did 
 lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And 
 the nations of them which are saved shall walk in 
 
XII.] THE TilRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM. 169 
 
 the light of it ; and the kings of the earth do bring 
 their glory and honour into it. And the gates of 
 it shall not be shut at all by day : for there shall 
 be no night there. And they shall bring the glory 
 and honour of the nations into it. And there shall 
 in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, 
 neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh 
 a lie : but they which are written in the Lamb's 
 book of life.' 
 
 That, the perfect Easter Day, seems far enough 
 off as yet ; but it will come. As the Lord liveth, 
 it will come; and to it may Christ in his mercy 
 bring us all, and our children's children after us. 
 Amen. 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 KORA.H, DATHAN, AND AEIRAM. 
 (First Sunday after Easter, 1863.^ 
 
 Numbers xvi. 32 — 35. 
 
 A.nd the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and 
 their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and 
 all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went 
 down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them : and 
 they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel 
 that were round about them fled at the cry of them : for they 
 said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a 
 fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men 
 that offered incense. 
 
 T WILL begin by saying that there are several 
 things in this cliapter which I do not under- 
 stand, and cannot explain to you. Be it so. That 
 is no reason why we should not look at the parts 
 of the chapter which we can understand and can 
 explain. 
 
 There are matters without end in the world 
 round us, and in our own hearts, and in the life of 
 
KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. 171 
 
 every one, which we cannot explain ; and therefore 
 we need not be surprised to find things which we 
 cannot explain in the life and history of the most 
 remarkable nation upon earth — the nation whose 
 business it has been to teach all other nations the 
 knowledge of the true God, and who was specially 
 and curiously trained for that work. 
 
 But the one broad common-sense lesson of this 
 chapter, it seems to me, is one which is on the 
 very surface of it ; one which every true English- 
 man at least will see, and see to be true, when he 
 hears the chapter read ; and that is, the necessity 
 of discipline. 
 
 God has brought the Israelites out of Egypt, 
 and set them free. One of the first lessons which 
 they have to learn is, that freedom does not mean 
 license and discord — does not mean every one 
 doing that which is right in the sight of his own 
 eyes. From that springs self-will, division, quar- 
 rels, revolt, civil war, weakness, profligacy, and 
 ruin to the whole people. Without order, disci- 
 pline, obedience to law, there can be no true and 
 lasting freedom ; and, therefore, order must be 
 kept at all risks, the law obeyed, and rebellion 
 punished. 
 
 Now rebellion may be and ought to be punished 
 
172 KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. [serm. 
 
 far more severely in some cases than in others. If 
 men rebel here, in Great Britain or Ireland, we 
 smile at them, and let them off with a slight 
 imprisonment, because we are not afraid of them. 
 They can do no harm. 
 
 But there are cases in which rebellion must be 
 punished with a swift and sharp hand. On board 
 a ship at sea, for instance, where the safety of the 
 whole ship, the lives of the whole crew, depend on 
 instant obedience, mutiny may be punished by 
 death on the spot. Many a commander has ere 
 now, and rightly too, struck down the rebel with- 
 out trial or argument, and ended him and his 
 mutiny on the spot ; by the sound rule that it is 
 expedient that one man die for the people, and 
 that the whole nation perish not. 
 
 And so it was with the Israelites in the desert 
 All depended on their obedience. God had given 
 them a law — a constitution, as we should say 
 now — perfectly fitted, no doubt, for them. If they 
 once began to rebel and mutiny against that law, 
 all was over with them. That great, foolish, 
 ignorant multitude would have broken up, pro- 
 bably fought among themselves — certainly parted 
 company, and either starved in the desert, or have 
 been destroyed piecemeal by the wild warlike 
 
xni.] KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. 173 
 
 tribes, Midianites, Moabites, Amalekites — who 
 were ready enough for slaughter and plunder. 
 They would never have reached Canaan. They 
 would never have become a great nation. So they 
 had to be, by necessity, under martial law. The 
 word must be, Obey or die. As for any cruelty in 
 putting Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to death, it 
 was worth the death of a hundred such — or a 
 thousand — ^to preserve the great and glorious 
 nation of the Jews to be the teachers of the world. 
 
 Now this Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebel. 
 They rebel against Moses about a question of tlie 
 priesthood. It really matters little to us what 
 that question was — it was a question of Moses' 
 law, which, of course, is now done away. Only 
 remember this, that these men were princes — 
 great feudal noblemen, as we should say ; and that 
 they rebelled on the strength of their rank and 
 their rights as noblemen to make laws for them- 
 selves and for the people ; and that the mob of 
 their dependents seem to have been inclined to 
 support them. 
 
 Surely if Moses had executed martial law on 
 them with his own hand, he would have been as 
 perfectly justified as a captain of a ship of war 01 
 a general of an army would be now. 
 
(74 KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. [serm. 
 
 But he did not do so. And why ? Because 
 Moses did not bring the people out of Egypt. 
 Moses was not their king. God brought them out 
 of Egypt. God was their king. That was the 
 lesson which they had to learn, and to teach other 
 nations also. They have rebelled, not against 
 Moses, but against God ; and not Moses, but God 
 must punish, and show that he is not a dead God, 
 but a living God, one who can defend himself, and 
 enforce his own laws, and execute judgment — and, 
 if need be, vengeance — without needing any man 
 to fight his battles for him. 
 
 And God does so. The powers of Nature— the 
 earthquake and the nether fire — shall punish these 
 rebels ; and so they do. 
 
 'And Moses said. Hereby ye shall know that 
 the Lord hath sent me to do all these works ; for I 
 have not done them of mine own mind. If these 
 men die the common death of all men, or if they 
 be visited after the visitation of all men ; then the 
 Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a 
 new thing, and the earth open her mouth and 
 swallow them up, with all that appertain to them, 
 and they go down quick into the pit ; then ye 
 shall understand that these men have provoked 
 the Lord.' 
 
XIII.] KORAH, DATTTAN, AND ABIRAM. 175 
 
 Men have thought differently of the story ; but 
 I call it a righteous story, and a noble story, and 
 one which agrees with my conscience, and my 
 reason, and my notion of what ought to be, and 
 my experience also of what is — of the way in 
 which God's world is' governed unto this day. 
 
 What then are we to think of the earth opening 
 and swallowing them up .' What are we to think 
 of a fire coming out from the Lord, and consuming 
 two hundred and fifty men that offered incense .' 
 
 This first. That discipline and order are so 
 absolutely necessary for the well-being of a nation 
 that they must be kept at all risks, and enforced 
 by the most terrible punishments. 
 
 It seems to me (to speak with all reverence) as 
 if God had said to the Jews, ' I have set you free. 
 I will make of you a great nation ; I will lead you 
 into a good land and large. But if you are to be 
 a great nation, if you are to conquer that good 
 land and large, j'ou must obey : and you shall 
 obey. The earthquake and the fire shall teach 
 you to obey, and make you an example to the 
 rest of the Israelites, and to all nations after you.' 
 
 But how hard, some may think, that the wives 
 and the children should suffer for their parents' 
 sins. 
 
176 KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. [serm. 
 
 My friends, we do not know that a single woman 
 or child died then for whom it was not better that 
 he or she should die. That is one of the deep 
 things which we must leave to the perfect justice 
 and mercy of God. 
 
 And next — what is it after all, but what we see 
 going on round us all the day long .' God does 
 visit the sins of the fathers on the children. There 
 is no denying it. Wives do suffer for their hus- 
 bands' sins ; children and children's children for 
 whole generations after generations suffer for their 
 parents' sins, and become unhealthy, or super- 
 stitious, or profligate, or poor, or slavish, because 
 their parents sinned, and dragged down their 
 children with them in their fall. It is a law of the 
 world ; and therefore it is a law of God. And it 
 is reasonable to be believed that God might choose 
 to teach the Israelites, once and for all, that it was 
 a law of his world. For by swallowing up those 
 women and children with the men, God said to the 
 Israelites, it seems to me in a way which could 
 not be mistaken, ' This is the consequence of law- 
 lessness and disorder — that you not only injure 
 yourselves, but your children after you, and involve 
 your families in the same ruin as yourselves.' 
 
 But there was another lesson, and a deep lesson. 
 
xiii.] KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. 177 
 
 in the earthquake and in the fire. And what was 
 this ? that the earthquake and the fire came out 
 from the Lord. 
 
 Earthquakes have swallowed up not hundreds 
 merely, but many thousands, in many countries, 
 and at many times. 
 
 Fire has come forth, and still comes forth from 
 the ground, from the clouds, from the consequences 
 of man's own carelessness, and destroys beast and 
 man, and the works of man's hands. Then men 
 ask in terror and doubt, ' Who sends the earth- 
 quake and the fire ? Do they come from the 
 devil — the destroyer ? Do they come by chance, 
 from some brute and blind powers of nature .'' 
 
 This chapter answers, ' No. They come from 
 the Lord, from whom all good things do come ; 
 from the Lord who delivered the Israelites out of 
 Egypt ; who so loved the world that he spared 
 not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him 
 for us.' 
 
 Now I say that is a gospel, and good news, 
 which we want now as much as ever men did ; 
 which the children of Israel wanted then, though 
 not one whit more than we. 
 
 Many hundreds of years had these Israelites 
 been in Egypt. Storm, lightning, earthquake, the 
 
 12 
 
178 KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. [serm. 
 
 fires of the burning mountains, were things un- 
 known to them. They were going into Canaan — 
 a good land and fruitful, but a land of storms and 
 thunders ; a land, too, of earthquakes and subter- 
 ranean fires. The deepest earthquake-crack in the 
 world is the valley of the Jordan, ending in the 
 Dead Sea — a long valley, through which at dif- 
 ferent points the nether fires of the earth even now 
 burst up at times. In Abraham's time they had 
 destroyed the five cities of the plain. The pro- 
 phets mention them, especially Isaiah and Micah, 
 as breaking out again in their own times ; and in 
 our own lifetime earthquake and fire have done 
 fearful destruction in the north part of the Holy 
 Land. 
 
 Now what was to prevent the Israelites wor- 
 shipping the earthquake and the fire as gods ? 
 
 Nothing. Conceive the terror and horror of the 
 Jews coming out of that quiet land of Egypt, 
 the first time they felt the ground rocking and 
 rolling ; the first time they heard the roar of the 
 earthquake beneath their feet ; the first time they 
 saw, in the magnificent words of Micah, the moun- 
 tains molten and the valleys cleft as wax before 
 the fire, like water poured down a steep place; 
 and discovered that beneath their very feet was 
 
xill.] KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAjr. 179 
 
 Tophet, the pit of fire and brimstone, ready to 
 burst up and overwhelm them they knew not 
 when. 
 
 What could they do, but what the Canaanites 
 did who dwelt already in that land ? What but to 
 say, ' The fire is king. The fire is the great and 
 dreadful God, and to him we must pray, lest he 
 devour us up.' For so did the Canaanites. They 
 called the fire Moloch, which means simply the 
 king ; and they worshipped this fire-king, and 
 made idols of him, and off"ered human sacrifices to 
 him. They had idols of metal, before which an 
 everlasting fire burned ; and on the arms of the 
 idol the priests laid the children who were to be 
 sacrificed, that they might roll down into the fire 
 and be burnt alive. That is actual fact. In one 
 case, which we know of well, hundreds of years 
 after Moses' time, the Carthaginians off"ered two 
 hundred boys of their best families to Moloch in 
 one day. This is that making the children pass 
 through the fire to Moloch — burning them in the 
 fire to Moloch — of which we read several times 
 in the Old Testament ; as ugly and accursed a 
 superstition as men ever invented. 
 
 What deliverance was there for them from these 
 abominable superstitions, except to know that the 
 
i8o KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. [serm. 
 
 fire-kingdom was God's kingdom, and not Moloch's 
 at all; to know with Micah and with David that 
 the hills were molten like wax before the presence of 
 the Lord; that it was the blast of his breath which 
 discovered the foundations of the world ; that it 
 was he who made the sea flee and drove back the 
 Jordan stream ; that it was before him that the 
 mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like 
 young sheep ; that the battles of shaking were 
 God's battles, with which he could fight for his 
 people ; that it was he who ordained Tophet, and 
 whose spirit kindled it. That it was he — and that 
 too in mercy as well as anger — who visited the 
 land in Isaiah's time with thunder and earthquake, 
 and great noise, and storm and tempest, and the 
 flame of devouring fire. That the earth opened 
 and swallowed up those whom God chose, and no 
 others. That if fire came forth, it came forth from 
 the Lord, and burned where and what God chose, 
 and nothing else. Yes. If you will only under- 
 stand, once and for all, that the history of the Jews 
 is the history of the Lord's turning a people from 
 the cowardly, slavish worship of sun and stars, of 
 earthquakes and burning mountains, and all the 
 brute powers of nature which the heathen wor- 
 shipped, and teaching them to trust and obey him, 
 
xni.] KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM, i8i 
 
 the living God, the Lord and Master of all, then 
 the Old Testament will be clear to you through- 
 out ; but if not, then not. 
 
 You cannot read your Bibles without seeing 
 how that great lesson was stamped into the very 
 hearts of the Hebrew prophets ; how they are 
 continually speaking of the fire and the earth- 
 quake, and yet continually declaring that they too 
 obey God and do God's will, and that the man 
 who fears God need not fear them — that God was 
 their hope and strength, a very present help in 
 trouble. Therefore would they not fear, though 
 the earth was moved, and though the mountains 
 be carried into the midst of the sea. 
 
 And we, too, need the same lesson in these 
 scientific days. We too need to fix it in our 
 hearts, that the powers of nature are the powers 
 of God ; that he orders them by his providence to 
 do what he will, and when and where he will ; 
 that, as the Psalmist says, the winds are his mes- 
 sengers and the flames of fire his ministers. And 
 this we shall learn from the Bible, and from no 
 other book whatsoever. 
 
 God taught the Jews this, by a strange and 
 miraculous education, that they might teach it in 
 their turn to all mankind. And they have taught 
 
i82 KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. [serm. 
 
 it. For the Bible bids us — as no other book 
 does — not to be afraid of the world on which we 
 live ; not to be afraid of earthquake or tempest, or 
 any of the powers of nature which seem to us 
 terrible and cruel, and destroying ; for they are 
 the powers of the good and just and loving God. 
 They obey our Father in heaven, without whom 
 not a sparrow falls to the ground, and our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who came not to destroy men's lives, 
 but to save them. And therefore we need not fear 
 them, or look on them with any blind superstition, 
 as things too awful for us to search into. We 
 may search into their causes ; find out, if we can, 
 the laws which they obey, because those laws are 
 given them by God our Father ; try, by using 
 those laws, to escape them, as we are learning now 
 to escape tempests ; or to prevent them, as we are 
 learning now to prevent pestilences : and where 
 we cannot do that, face them manfully, saying, 
 ' It is my Father's will. These terrible events 
 must be doing God's work. They may be punish- 
 ing the guilty ; they may be taking the righteous 
 away from the evil to come; they may be teaching 
 wise men lessons which will enable them years 
 hence to save lives without number ; they may be 
 preparing the face of the earth for the use of 
 
\-lll.] KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM. 183 
 
 ijenerations yet unborn. Whatever they are doing 
 they are and must be doing good ; for they are 
 doing the will of the living Father, who willeth 
 that none should perish, and hateth nothing that 
 he hath made.' 
 
 This, my friends, is the lesson which the Bible 
 teaches ; and because it teaches that lesson it is 
 the Book of books, and the inspired word or 
 message, not of men concerning God, but of God 
 himself, concerning himself, his kingdom over this 
 world and over all worlds, and his good will to 
 men. 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 BALAAM. 
 
 Numbers xxiii. 19. 
 
 Ciod 15 not a man, that lie should lie ; neither the son of man, that 
 he should repent : hath he said, and shall he not do it ? or hath 
 he spoken, and shall he not make it good? 
 
 T F I was asked for any proof that the story of 
 Balaam, as I find it in the Bible, is a true 
 story, I should lay my hand on this one only — 
 and that is, the deep knowledge of human nature 
 which is shown in it. 
 
 The character of Balaam is so perfectly natural, 
 and yet of a kind so very difficult to unravel 
 and explain, that if the story was invented by 
 man, as poems or novels are, it must have 
 been invented very late indeed in the history 
 of the Jews ; at a time when they had grown 
 to be a far more civilised people, far more ex- 
 perienced in the canning tricks of the human 
 heart than they were, as far as we can see 
 
BALAAM. 1S5 
 
 from the Bible, before the Babylonish captivity. 
 But it was not invented late; for no Jew in these 
 later times would have thought of making Balaam,, 
 a heathen, to be a prophet of God, or a believer in 
 the true God at all. The later Jews took up the 
 notion that God spoke to and cared for the Jews 
 only, and that all other nations were accursed. 
 
 There is no reason, therefore, against simply 
 believing the story as it stands. It seems a very 
 ancient story indeed, suiting exactly in its smallest 
 details the place where Moses, or whoever wrote 
 the Book of Numbers, has put it. 
 
 We, in these days, are accustomed to draw a 
 sharp line between the good and the bad, the 
 converted and the unconverted, the children of 
 God and the children of this world, those who 
 have God's Spirit and those who have not, which 
 we find nowhere in Scripture ; and therefore when 
 we read of such a man as Balaam we cannot 
 understand him. He is a bad man, but yet he is 
 a prophet. How can that be .'' He knows the 
 true God. More, he has the Spirit of God in him, 
 and thereby utters deep and wonderful prophecies; 
 and yet he is a bad man and a rogue. How can 
 that be .' 
 
 The puzzle, my friends, is one of our own 
 
iS6 BALAAM. [serm. 
 
 making. If, instead of taking up doctrines out of 
 books, we will use our own eyes and ears and 
 common sense, and look honestly at this world as 
 it is, and men and women as they are, we shall 
 find nothing unnatural or strange in Balaam ; we 
 shall find him very like a good many people whom 
 we know ; very like — nay, probably, too like — 
 ourselves in some particulars. 
 
 Now bear in mind, first, that Balaam is no 
 impostor or magician. He is a wise man, and a 
 prophet of God. God really speaks to him, and 
 really inspires him. 
 
 And bear in mind, too, that Balaam's inspiration 
 did not merely open his mouth to say wonderful 
 words which he did not understand, but opened 
 his heart to say righteous and wise things which 
 he did understand. 
 
 ' Remember,' says the prophet Micah, ' O my 
 people, what Balak, king of Moab, consulted, and 
 what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him from 
 Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the right- 
 eousness of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come 
 before the Lord, and bow myself before the high 
 God ? Shall I come before him with burnt offer- 
 ings, with calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be 
 pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten 
 
XIV.] BALAAM. 187 
 
 thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first- 
 born for my transgressions, the fruit of my body 
 for the sin of my soul ? He hath shewed thee, 
 O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord 
 require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.' W'h}', 
 what deeper or wiser words are there in the whole 
 Old Testament .' This man Balaam had seen 
 down into the deepest depths of all morality, unto 
 the deepest depths of all religion. The man who 
 knew that, knew more than ninety-nine in a 
 hundred do even in a Christian country now, and 
 more than nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand 
 nine hundred and ninety-nine in a million knew in 
 those days. Let no one, after that speech, doubt 
 that Balaam was indeed a prophet of the Lord ; 
 and yet he was a bad man, and came deservedly 
 to a bad end. 
 
 So much easier, my friends, is it to know what 
 is right than to do what is right. 
 
 What then was wrong in Balaam .' 
 
 This, that he was double-minded. He wished 
 to serve God. True. But he wished to serve 
 himself by serving God, as too many do in all 
 times. 
 
 That was what was wrong with him^self- 
 
'83 BALAAM. [serm. 
 
 seeking ; and the Bible story brings out that 
 self-seeking with a delicacy, a keenness, and a 
 perfect knowledge of human nature, which ought 
 to teach us some of the secrets of our own hearts. 
 
 Watch how Balaam, as a matter of course, 
 inquires of the Lord whether he may go, and 
 refuses, seemingly at first honestly. 
 
 Then how the temptation grows on him ; how, 
 when he feels tempted, he fights against it in 
 fine-sounding professions, just because he feels 
 that he is going to yield to it. Then how he 
 begins to tempt God, by asking him again, in 
 hopes that God may have changed his mind. 
 Then when he has his foolish wish granted he 
 goes. Then when the terrible warning comes to 
 him that he is on the wrong road, that God's 
 wrath is gone out against him, and his angel 
 ready to destroy him, he is full still of hollow 
 professions of obedience, instead of casting him- 
 self utterly upon God's mercy, and confessing 
 his sin, and entreating pardon. 
 
 Then how, instead of being frightened at God's 
 letting him have his way, he is emboldened by 
 it to tempt God more and more, and begins 
 offering bullocks and rams on altars, first in this 
 place and then in that, in hopes still that God 
 
XIV.] BALAAM. 1S9 
 
 may change his mind, and let him curse Israel; 
 in hopes that God may be like one of the idols of 
 the heathen, who could (so the heathen thought) 
 be coaxed and flattered round by sacrifices to do 
 whatever their worshippers wished. 
 
 Then, when he finds that all is of no use; that 
 he must not curse Israel, and must not earn 
 Balak's silver and gold, he is forced to be an 
 honest man in spite of himself ; and therefore 
 he makes the best of his disappointment by taking 
 mighty credit to himself for being honest, while 
 he wishes all the while he might have been al- 
 lowed to have been dishonest. Oh, if all this is 
 not poor human nature, drawn by the pen of 
 a truly inspired writer, what is it ? 
 
 Moreover, it is curious to watch how as Balaam 
 is forced step by step to be an honest man, so 
 step by step he rises. A weight falls off his 
 mind and heart, and the Spirit of God comes 
 upon him. 
 
 He feels for once that he must speak his mind, 
 that he must obey God. As he looks down from 
 off the mountain top, and sees the vast encamp- 
 ment of the Israelites spread over the vale below, 
 for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see, all 
 ordered, disciplined, arranged according to their 
 
tgo BALAAM. [serm. 
 
 tribes, the Spirit of God comes upon him, and 
 he gives way to it and speaks. 
 
 The sight of that magnificent array wakens 
 up in liim the thought of how divine is order, 
 how strong is order, how order is the life and 
 root of a nation, and how much more, when that 
 order is the order of God. 
 
 ' How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy 
 tabernacles, O Israel ! As the valleys are they 
 spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as 
 the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath 
 planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. 
 His king shall be higher than Agag,' and all 
 his wild Amalekite hordes. He will be a true 
 nation, civilized, ordered, loyal and united, for 
 God is teaching him. 
 
 Who can resist such a nation as that .'' ' God 
 has brought him out of Egypt. He has the 
 strength of an unicorn.' ' I shall see him,' he 
 says, 'but not now; I shall behold him, but not 
 nigh : there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and 
 a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite 
 the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children 
 of Sheth.' And when he looked on Amalek, he 
 took up his parable, and said, 'Amalek was 
 the first of the nation ; but his latter end shall 
 
XIV.] BALAAir. igi 
 
 be that he perish for ever.' And he looked on 
 the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, 
 ' Strong is thy dweliing-place, and thou puttest 
 thy nest in a rock. Nevertheless, the Kenite 
 shall be wasted, till Asshur shall carry thee away 
 captive.' 'Alas, who shall live when God doeth 
 this !' 
 
 And then, beyond all, after all the Canaanites 
 and other Syrian races have been destroyed, he 
 sees, dimly and afar off, another destruction still. 
 
 In his home in the far east the fame of the ships 
 of Chittim has reached him ; the fame of the new 
 people, the sea-roving heroes of the Greeks, of 
 whom old Homer sang ; the handsomest, cun- 
 ningest, most daring of mankind, who are spread- 
 ing their little trading colonies along all the isles 
 and shores, as we now are spreading ours over the 
 world. Those ships of Chittim, too, have a great 
 and glorious future before them. Some day or 
 other they will come and affhct Asshur, the great 
 empire of the East, out of which Balaam probably 
 came ; and afflict Eber too, the kingdom of the 
 Jews, and they too shall perish for ever. 
 
 Dimly he sees it, for it is very far away. But 
 that it will come he sees; and beyond that all is 
 dafk. He has said his say; he has spoken the 
 
19? BALAAM. [serm. 
 
 v/hole truth for once. Balak's house full of silver 
 and gold would not have bought him off and 
 stopped his mouth when such awful thoughts 
 crowded on his mind. So he returns to his place — 
 to do what? 
 
 If he cannot earn Balak's gold by cursing Israel, 
 he can do it by giving him cunning and politic 
 advice. He advises Balak to mak« friends with 
 the Israelites and mix them up with his people by 
 enticing them to the feasts of his idols, at which 
 the women threw themselves away in shameful 
 profligacy, after the custom of the heathens of 
 these parts. 
 
 In the next chapter we read how Moses, and 
 Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, put down those filthy 
 abominations with a high hand ; and how Balaam's 
 detestable plot, instead of making peace, makes 
 war; and in chapter xxxi. you read the terrible 
 destruction of the whole nation of the Midianites, 
 and among it this one short and terrible hint : 
 ■ Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the 
 sword.' 
 
 But what may we learn from this ugly story .' 
 
 Recollect what I said at first, that we should 
 find Balaam too like many people now-a-da)'s ; 
 perhaps too like ourselves. 
 
XIV.] BALAAM. 193 
 
 Too like indeed. For never were men more 
 tempted to sin as Balaam did than in these days, 
 when religion is all the fashion, and pays a man, 
 and helps him on in life ; when, indeed, a man 
 cannot expect to succeed without professing some 
 sort of religion or other. 
 
 Thereby comes a terrible temptation to many 
 men. I do not mean to hypocrites, but to really 
 well-meaning men. They like religion. They 
 wish to be good ; they have the feeling of 
 devotion. They pray, they read their Bibles, they 
 are attentive to services and to sermons, and are 
 more or less pious people. But soon — too soon — 
 they find that their piety is profitable. Their 
 business increases. Their credit increases. They 
 are trusted and respected ; their advice is asked 
 and taken. They gain power over their fellow- 
 men. What a fine thing it is, they think, to be 
 pious ! 
 
 Then creeps in the love of the world ; the love 
 of money, or power, or admiration; and they begin 
 to value religion because it helps them to get on 
 in the world. They begin more and more to love 
 piety not for its own sake, but for the sake of 
 what it brings ; not because it pleases God, but 
 because it pleases the world ; not because it 
 
 13 
 
'94 BALAAM. [serm 
 
 enables them to help their fellow-men, but because 
 it enables them to help themselves. 
 
 So they get double-minded, unstable, incon- 
 sistent, as St. James says, in all their ways ; trying 
 to serve God and Mammon at once. Trying to do 
 good — as long as doing good does not hurt them 
 in the world's eyes; but longing oftener and oftener 
 to do wrong, if only God would not be angry. 
 Then comes on Balaam's frame of mind, ' If 
 Balak would give me his house full of silver and 
 gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of 
 the Lord.' 
 
 Oh no. They would not do a wrong thing for 
 the world — only the)^ must be quite sure first that 
 it is wrong. Has God really forbidden it .' Why 
 should they not take care of their interest .'' A\'hy 
 should they not get on in the world ? So they 
 begin, like Balaam, to tempt God, to see how far 
 they can go ; to see if God has forbidden this and 
 that mean, or cowardly, or covetous, or ambitious 
 deed. So they soon settle for themselves what 
 God has forbidden and what he has not ; and their 
 rule of life becomes this — that whatsoever is safe 
 and whatsoever is profitable is pretty sure to be 
 right ; and after that no wonder if, like Balaam, 
 they indulge themselves in every sort of sin, pro- 
 
XIV.] BALAAM. 195 
 
 vided only it is respectable, and does not hurt 
 them in the world's eyes. 
 
 And all the while they keep up their religion. 
 Ay, they are often more attentive than ever to 
 religion, because their consciences pinch them at 
 times, and have to be silenced and drugged by 
 continual church-goings and chapel-goings, and 
 readings and prayings, in order that they may be 
 able to say to themselves with Balaam, ' Thus 
 saith Balaam, he who heard the word of God, and 
 had the knowledge of the Most High.' 
 
 So they say to themselves, ' I must be right. 
 How religious I am ; how fond of sermons, and of 
 church services, and church restorations, and mis- 
 sionary meetings, and charitable institutions, and 
 everything that is good and pious. I must be right 
 with God.' Deceiving their ownselves, and saying 
 to themselves, T am rich and increased with goods, 
 I have need of nothing,' and not knowing that they 
 are wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. 
 
 Would God that such people, of whom there are 
 too many, would take St. John's warning and buy 
 of the Lord gold tried in the fire — the true gold of 
 honesty — that they may be truly rich, and anoint 
 their eyes with eye-salve that they may see them- 
 selves for once as they are. 
 
196 BALAAM, 
 
 But what does this story teach us concerning 
 God ? For remember, as I tell you every Sunday, 
 that each fresh story in the Pentateuch reveals to 
 us something fresh about the character of God. 
 What does Balaam's story reveal ? Balaam him- 
 self tells us in the text, ' God is not a man that 
 he should lie, nor the son of man that he should 
 repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it .-'' 
 
 Yes. Fancy not that any wishes or prayers of 
 yours can persuade God to alter his everlasting 
 laws of right and wrong. If he has commanded a 
 thing, he has commanded it because it is according 
 to his everlasting laws, which cannot change, 
 because they are made in his eternal image and 
 likeness. Therefore if God has commanded you a 
 thing, do it heartily, fully, without arguing or com- 
 plaining. If you begin arguing with God's law, 
 excusing yourself from it, inventing reasons why 
 you need not obey it in this particular instance, 
 though every one else ought, then you will end, 
 like Balaam, in disobeying the law, and it will 
 grind you to powder. 
 
 But if you obey God's law honestly, with a 
 single eye and a whole heart, you will find in it a 
 blessing, and peace, and strength, and everlasting 
 life. 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 (Third Sunday after Easter.) 
 
 Deut. iv. 39, 40. 
 
 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that 
 the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth be- 
 neath : there is none else. Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes 
 and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that 
 it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, 
 and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which 
 the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever. 
 
 T EARNED men have argued much of late 
 as to who wrote the book of Deuteronomy. 
 After having read a good deal on the subject, 
 I can only say that I see no reason why we 
 should not believe the ancient account which 
 the Jews give, that it was written, or at least 
 spoken by Moses. 
 
 No doubt there are difficulties in the book- 
 If there had not been, there would never have 
 
igS DEUTERONOMY. [serm. 
 
 been any dispute about the matter ; but the 
 plain, broad, common-sense case is this : 
 
 The book of Deuteronomy is made up of several 
 great orations or sermons, delivered, says the work 
 itself, by Moses, to the whole people of the Jews, 
 before they left the wilderness and entered into 
 the land of Canaan ; wherefore it is called Deuter- 
 onomy, or the second law. In it some small 
 matters of the law are altered, as was to be ex- 
 pected, when the Jews were going to change their 
 place and their whole way of life. But the whole 
 teaching and meaning of the book is exactly that 
 of Exodus and Leviticus. Moreover, it is, if pos- 
 sible, the grandest and deepest book of the Old 
 Testament. Its depth and wisdom are unequalled. 
 I hold it to be the sum and substance of all 
 political philosophy and morality of the true 
 life of a nation. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
 and Ezekiel, grand as they are, are, as it were, 
 its children ; growths out of the root which 
 Deuteronomy reveals. 
 
 Now if Moses did not write it, who did ? 
 
 As for the style of it being different from that 
 of Exodus and Leviticus, the simple answer is. 
 Why not ? They are books of history and of 
 laws. This is a book of sermons or orations, 
 
XV.] DEUTERONOMY. 199 
 
 spoken first, and not written, which, of course, 
 would be in a different style. Besides, why should 
 not Moses have spoken differently at the end of 
 forty years' such experience as never man had 
 before or since .'' Every one who thinks, writes, 
 or speaks in public, knows how his style alters, 
 as fresh knowledge and experience come to him. 
 Are you to suppose that Moses gained nothing 
 by his experience .'' 
 
 As for a few texts in it being like Isaiah or 
 Jeremiah, they are likely enough to be so ; for 
 if (as I believe) Deuteronomy was written long 
 before those books, what more likely than that 
 Isaiah and Jeremiah should have studied it, and 
 taken some of its words to themselves when they 
 were preaching to the Jews just what Deuter- 
 onomy preaches } 
 
 As for any one else having written it in Moses' 
 name, hundreds of years after his death, I cannot 
 believe it. If there had been in Israel a prophet 
 great and wise enough to write Deuteronomy, we 
 must have heard more about him, for he must 
 have been famous at the time when he did live ; 
 while, if he were great enough to write Deuter- 
 onomy, he would have surely written in his own 
 name, as Isaiah and all the other prophets wrote, 
 
DEUTERONOMY. [serm. 
 
 instead of writing under a feigned name, and 
 putting words into Moses' mouth wliich he did 
 not speak, and laws he did not give. Good men 
 are not in the habit of telhng lies : much less 
 prophets of God. Men do not begin to play- 
 cowardly tricks of that kind till after they have 
 lost faith in the living God, and got to believe that 
 God was with their forefathers, but is not with 
 them. A 1%'w of the time of the Apocrypha, or of 
 the time of our Lord, might have done such a 
 thing, because he had lost faith in the living God ; 
 but then his work would have been of a very 
 different kind from this noble and heart-stirring 
 book. For the pith and marrow, the essence and 
 life of Deuteronomy is, that it is full of faith in the 
 living God ; and for that very reason I am going 
 to speak to you to-day. 
 
 For the rest, whether Moses wrote the book 
 down, and put it together in the shape in which 
 we now have it, we shall never be able to tell. 
 The several orations may have been put together 
 into one book. Alterations may have crept in by 
 the carelessness of copiers ; sentences may have 
 been added to it by later prophets — as, of course, 
 the grand account of Moses' death, which probably 
 was at first the beginning of the book of Joshua. 
 
XV.] DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 And beyond that we need know nothing — even if 
 we need know that. 
 
 There the book is ; and people, if they be wise, 
 will, instead of trying to pick it to pieces, read and 
 study it in fear and trembling, that the curses pro- 
 nounced in it may 7iot come, and the blessings 
 pronounced in it may come upon this English 
 land. 
 
 Now these Jews were to worship and obey 
 Jehovah, the one true God, and him only. 
 
 And why.' 
 
 Why, indeed .'' You must understand why, or 
 you will never understand this book of Deuter- 
 onomy or any part of the Old Testament, and if 
 you do not, then you will understand very little, if 
 anything, of the New. 
 
 You must understand that this was not to be a 
 mere matter of religion with the old Jews, this 
 trusting and obeying the true God. Indeed, the 
 word religion, so far as I know, is never mentioned 
 once in the Old Testament at all. By religion we 
 now mean some plan of believing and obeying 
 God, which will save our souls after we die. But 
 Moses said nothing to the Jews about that. He 
 never even anywhere told them that they would 
 hve again after this life. We do not know the 
 
202 DEUTERONOMY. [^fmv. 
 
 reason of that. But we may suppose that he 
 knew best. And as we believe that God sent him, 
 we must believe that God knew best also; and 
 that he thought it good for these Jews not to be 
 told too much about the next life ; perhaps for 
 fear that they should forget that God was the 
 living God ; the God of now, as well as of here- 
 after ; the God of this life, as well as of the life to 
 come. My friends, I sometimes think we need 
 putting in mind of that in these days as much as 
 those old Jews did. 
 
 However that may be, what Moses promised 
 these Jews, if they trusted in the living God, was 
 that they should be a great nation, they and their 
 children after them ; that they should drive out 
 the Canaanites before them ; that they should 
 conquer their enemies, and that a thousand should 
 flee before one of them ; that the}- should be 
 blessed in their crops, their orchards, their gar- 
 dens ; that they should have none of the evil 
 diseases of Egypt ; that there should be none 
 barren among them, or among their cattle. In a 
 word, that they should be thoroughly and always 
 a strong, happy, prosperous people. 
 
 This is what God promised them by Moses, and 
 nothing else ; and therefore this is what we must 
 
XV.] DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 think about, and see whether it has anything to do 
 with us, when we read the book of Deuteronomy, 
 and nothing else. 
 
 On the other hand, God warned them by the 
 mouth of Moses that if they forgot the Lord God, 
 and went and worshipped the things round them, 
 men or beasts, or sun and moon and stars, then 
 poverty, misery, and ruin of every kind would 
 surely fall upon them. 
 
 And that this last was no empty threat is proved 
 by the plain facts of their sacred history. For they 
 did forget God, and worshipped Baalim, the sun, 
 moon, and stars ; and ruin of every kind did come 
 upon them, till they were carried away captive to 
 Babylon. And this we must think of when we 
 read the book of Deuteronomy, and nothing else. 
 
 If they wished to prosper, they were to know 
 and consider in their hearts that Jehovah was God, 
 and there was none else. Yes — this was the con- 
 tinual thought which a true Jew was to have. 
 The thought of a God who was his God ; the God 
 of his fathers before him, and the God of his 
 children after him ; the God of the whole nation of 
 the Jews, throughout all their generations. 
 
 But not their God only. No. The God of the 
 Gentiles also, of all the nations upon the earth. 
 
204 DEUTERONOMY. [serm. 
 
 He was to believe that his God alone, of all the 
 gods of the nations, was the true and only God, 
 who had made all nations, and appointed them 
 their times and the bounds of their habitations. 
 
 We cannot understand now, in these happier 
 days, all that that meant ; all the strength and 
 comfort, all the godly fear, the feeling of solemn 
 responsibility which that thought ought to have 
 given, and did give to the Jews — that they were 
 the people of Jehovah, the one true God. 
 
 For you must remember that all the nations 
 round them then, and all the great heathen nations 
 afterwards, were, as far as we know, the people of 
 some god or other. Religion and politics were 
 with them one and the same thing. They had 
 some god, or gods, whom they looked to as the 
 head or king of their nation, who had a special 
 favour to them, and would bless and prosper them 
 according as they showed him special reverence, 
 and after that god the whole nation was often 
 named. 
 
 The Ammonites' god was Ammon, the hidden 
 god, the lord of their sheep and cattle. The 
 Zidonians had Ashtoreth, the moon. The Phoeni- 
 cians worshipped Moloch, the fire. Many of the 
 Canaanites worshipped Baal, the lord, or Baalim, 
 
xv.] DEUTERONOMY. 205 
 
 the lords — the sun, moon, and stars. The Philis- 
 tines afterwards (for we read nothing of Philistines 
 in Moses' time) worshipped Dagon, the fish-god, 
 and so forth. The Egyptians had gods without 
 number — gods invented out of beasts, and birds, 
 and the fruits of the earth, and the season, and the 
 weather, and the sun and moon and stars. Each 
 class and trade, from the highest to the lowest, 
 and each city and town throughout the land seems 
 to have had its special god, who was worshipped 
 there, and expected to take care of that particular 
 class of men or that particular place. 
 
 What a thought it must have been for the 
 Jews — all these people have their gods, but they 
 are all wrong. We have the right God ; the only 
 true God. They are the people of this god, or of 
 that ; we are the people of the one true God. 
 They look to many gods ; we look to the one God, 
 who made all things, and beside whom there is 
 none else. They look to one god to bless them in 
 one thing, and another in another ; one to send 
 them sunshine, one to send them fruitful seasons, 
 one to prosper their crops, another their flocks and 
 herds, and so forth. We look to one God to do 
 all these things for us, because he is Lord of all at 
 once, and has made all. 
 
DEUTERONOMY. [sER^r. 
 
 Therefore we need not fear the gods of the 
 heathen, or cry to any of them, even in our ut- 
 most distress ; for we belong to him who is before 
 all gods, the God of gods, of whom it is written, 
 ' Worship him, all ye gods ;' and ' It is the Lord 
 who made the heaven and the earth, the sea and 
 all that therein is. Him only shalt thou worship, 
 and him only shalt thou serve.' If we obey him, 
 and keep his commandments ; if we trust in him, 
 utterly, through good fortune and through bad 
 — then we must prosper in peace and war, we 
 and our children after us ; because our pros- 
 perity is grounded on the real truth, and that 
 of the heathen on a lie ; and all that the hea- 
 then expect their false gods to do for them, 
 one here and another there, all that, the one real 
 God will do for us, himself alone. 
 
 Do you not see what a power and courage that 
 thought must have given to the Jews ? Do you 
 not see how worshipping God, and loving God, 
 and serving God, must have been a very different, 
 a much deeper, and a truly holier matter to them 
 than the miserable selfish thing which is miscalled 
 religion by too many people now-a-days, by which 
 a man hopes to creep out of this world into hea- 
 ven all by himself, without anj- real care or love 
 
XV.] DEUTERONOMY. 207 
 
 for his fellow-creatures, or those he leaves behind 
 him .' 
 
 No. An old Jew's faith in God, and obedience 
 to God, was part of his family life, part of his 
 politics, part of his patriotism. If he obeyed God, 
 and clave earnestly to God, then a blessing would 
 come on him in the field and in the house, on his 
 crops and on his cattle, going out and coming in ; 
 and on his children and his children's children to 
 a thoilsand generations. He would be helping, 
 if he obeyed and trusted God, to advance his 
 country's prosperity ; to insure her success in war 
 and peace, to raise the name and fame of the 
 Jewish people among all the nations round, that 
 all might say, ' Surely this great nation is a wise 
 and an understanding people.' 
 
 Thus the duty he owed to God was not merely 
 a duty which he owed his own conscience or his 
 own soul ; it was a duty which he owed to his 
 family, to his kindred, to his country. It was 
 not merely an opinion that there was one God 
 and not two ; it was a belief that the one and 
 only true God was protecting him, teaching him, 
 inspiring him and all his nation. That the true 
 God would teach their hands to war and their 
 finsers to fight. That the true God would cause 
 
2o8 DEUTERONOMY. [serm. 
 
 their folds to be full of sheep. That their valleys 
 should stand rich with corn, that they should laugh 
 and sing. That the true God would enable them 
 to sit every man under his own vine and his own 
 fig-tree, and eat the labour of his hands, he and 
 his children after him to perpetual generations. 
 
 This was the message and teaching which God 
 gave these Jews. It is very different from what 
 many people now-a-days would have given them, 
 if they had had the ordering of the matter, and the 
 making of those slaves into a free nation. But 
 perhaps there is one proof that God did give it 
 them, and that the Bible speaks truth, when it 
 says that not man, but God gave them their law. 
 
 No doubt man would have done it differently. 
 But God's ways are not as man's ways, nor God's 
 thoughts as man's thoughts. 
 
 And God's ways have proved themselves to be 
 the right ways. His purpose has come to pass. 
 This little nation of the Jews, inhabiting a coun- 
 try not as large as Wales, without sea-port towns 
 and commerce, without colonies or conquests — 
 and at last, for its own sins, conquered itself 
 and scattered abroad over the whole civilized 
 world — has taught the whole civilized world, has 
 converted the whole civilized world, has influenced 
 
XV.] DEUTERONOMY. 209 
 
 all the good and all the wise unto this day so 
 enormously, that the world has actually gone 
 beyond them, and become Christian by fully un- 
 derstanding their teaching and their Bible, while 
 they have remained mere Jews by not fully under- 
 standing it. Truly, if that is not a proof that God 
 revealed something to the Jews which they never 
 found out for themselves, which was too great for 
 them to understand, which was God's boundless 
 message and not any narrow message of man's 
 invention — if that does not prove it, I say — I know- 
 not what proof men would have. 
 
 But now I have told you that God bade these 
 Jews to look for blessings in tins life, and blessings 
 on their whole nation, and on their children after 
 them, if they obeyed and served him. Does God 
 not bid us to look for any such blessings .'' The 
 Jews were to be blessed in this world. Are we 
 only to be blessed in the next .' 
 
 To that the Seventh Article of our Church gives 
 a plain and positive answer. For it says that those 
 are not to be heard who pretend that the old 
 Fathers, i.e. Moses and the Prophets, looked only 
 for transitory promises — i.e. for promises which 
 would pass away. No. They looked for eternal 
 promises which could not pass away, because they 
 
 14 
 
DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 were according to the eternal laws of God, which 
 stand good both for this world and for all worlds ; 
 for this life and for the life everlasting. 
 
 Yes, my friends, settle in your hearts that the 
 book of Deuteronomy is meant for you, and for all 
 the nations upon earth, as much as for the old 
 Jews. That its promises and warnings are to you 
 and to your children as surely as they were to the 
 old Jews. Ay, that they are meant for every 
 nation that is, or ever was, or ever will be upon 
 earth. If you would prosper on the earth, fear 
 God and keep his commandments ; and know and 
 consider it in your heart that the Lord Jesus Christ 
 he is God in heaven above and on the earth 
 beneath : there is none else. He it is who gives 
 grace and honour. He it is who delivers us out of 
 the hands of our enemies. He it is who blesses 
 the fruit of the womb, and the fruit of the flock, 
 and the fruit of the garden and the field. He is 
 the living God, in whom this world, as well as the 
 world to come, lives and moves and has its being; 
 and only by obeying his laws can man prosper, 
 he and his children after him, upon this earth 
 of God. 
 
SERMON XVI. 
 
 NATIONAL WEALTH. 
 
 (Fifth Sunday after Easter. ) 
 
 Deut. viii. II — 18. 
 
 Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his 
 commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I com- 
 mand thee this day : lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and 
 hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein ; and when thy 
 herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is 
 multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied ; then thine heart 
 be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought 
 thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage ; 
 who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein 
 were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was 
 no water ; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint ; 
 who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers 
 knew not, that he might humble thee and that he might prove 
 thee, to do thee good at thy latter end : and thou say in thine 
 heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me 
 this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God : for it 
 is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish 
 his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. 
 
 T TOLD you before that the book of Deuter- 
 onomy was the foundation of all sound politics 
 — as one would expect it to be, if its author were 
 Moses, the greatest lawgiver whom the world ever 
 
212 NATIONAL WEALTH. [serm. 
 
 saw. But here, in this lesson, is a proof of the 
 truth of what I said. For here, in the text, is 
 Moses' answer to the first great question in poli- 
 tics, What makes a nation prosperous .■' 
 
 To that wise men have always answered, as 
 Moses answered, ' Good government ; government 
 according to the laws of God.' That alone makes 
 a nation prosperous. 
 
 But the multitude — who are not wise men, nor 
 likely to be for some time to come — give a different 
 answer. They say, 'What makes a nation pros- 
 perous is its wealth. If Britain be only rich, then 
 she must be safe and right,' 
 
 To which Moses, being a wise lawgiver, and 
 having, moreover, in him the Spirit of the Lord 
 who knoweth what is in man, makes a reasonable, 
 liberal, humane answer. 
 
 Moses does not deny that wealth is a good thing. 
 He does not bid them not try to be rich. He 
 takes for granted that they will grow rich ; that 
 the national fruit of their good government will be 
 that they will increase in cattle and in crops and 
 in money, and in all which makes an agricultural 
 people rich. 
 
 He takes for granted, I say, that these Jews will 
 grow very rich ; but he warns them that their 
 
XVI.] NATIONAL WEALTH. 213 
 
 riches, like all other earthly things, may be a curse 
 or a blessing to them. Nay, that they are not 
 good in themselves, but mere tools which may be 
 used for good or for evil. He warns them of a 
 very great danger that riches will bring on them. 
 And herein he shows his knowledge of the human 
 heart ; for it is a certain fact that whenever any 
 nation has prospered, and their flocks and herds, 
 and silver and gold, all that they had, have multi- 
 plied, then they have, as Moses warned the Jews, 
 forgotten the Lord their God, and said, ' My power 
 and the might of my hand hath gotten me this 
 wealth.' 
 
 And it is true, also, that whenever any nation 
 has begun to say that, they have fallen into con- 
 fusion and misery, and sometimes into utter ruin, 
 till they repented, and turned and remembered the 
 Lord their God, and found out that the strength 
 of a nation did not consist in riches, but in virtue. 
 For it is he that giveth the power to get wealth. 
 He gives it in two ways : First, God gives the raw 
 material ; secondly, he gives the wit to use it. 
 
 You will all agree that God gives the first ; 
 that he gives the soil, the timber, the fisheries, 
 the coal, the iron. 
 
 Do you believe it ? I hope and trust that you 
 
214 NATIONAL WEALTH. [serm. 
 
 do. But I fear that now-a-days many do not ; for 
 they boast of the resources of Britain as if we 
 ourselves had made Britain, and not Almighty 
 God ; as if we had put the coal and the iron 
 into the rocks, and not Almighty God ages be- 
 fore we were born. 
 
 And if they will not say that openly, at least 
 they will say, 'But the coal, and iron, and all 
 other raw material would have been useless, if 
 it had not been for the genius and energy of 
 the British race.' 
 
 Of course not. But who gave them that genius 
 and energy ? Who gave them the wit to find 
 the coal and iron .■' 
 
 God ; and God gave it to us when we needed 
 it, and not before. 
 
 Think of this, I beseech you ; for it is true, 
 and wonderful, and a thing of which I may say, 
 'Come, and I will reason with you of the right- 
 eous acts of the Lord.' 
 
 Men say, 'As long as England is ahead of the 
 world in coal and iron she may defy the world.' 
 I do not believe it ; for if she became a wicked 
 nation all the coal and iron in the universe would 
 ,not keep her from being ruined. 
 
 But even if it were true, which it is not, that 
 
XVI.] NATIONAL WEALTH 215 
 
 the strength of Britain Hes in coal and iron, and 
 not in British hearts, what right have we to boast 
 of coal and iron ? 
 
 Did our forefathers know of them when they 
 came into this land ? Did they come after coal 
 and iron ? 
 
 Not they. They came here to settle as small 
 yeomen ; to till miserable little patches of corn, 
 of which we should be now ashamed, and to feed 
 cattle on the moors, and swine in the forests — 
 and that was all they looked to. Then they 
 found that there was iron, principally down south, 
 in Sussex and Surrey ; and they worked it, clum- 
 sily enough, with charcoal ; and for more than 
 twelve hundred years they were here in England, 
 with no notion of the boundless wealth in iron 
 and coal lying together in the same rocks which 
 God had provided for them ; or if they did guess 
 at it, they could not use it, because they could 
 not work deep mines, being unable to pump out 
 the water ; for God had not opened their eyes 
 and shown them how to do it. 
 
 But just when it was wanted, God did show 
 them. About the middle of the last century the 
 iron in the Weald was all but worked out ; the 
 charcoal wood was getting scarcer and scarcer, 
 
2i5 NATIONAL WEALTH. [serm. 
 
 and there was every chance that England, instead 
 of being ahead of all nations in iron, would have 
 fallen behind other nations ; and then where should 
 we have been now ? 
 
 But, just about one hundred years ago, it pleased 
 God to open the eyes of certain men, and they in- 
 vented steam-engines. Then they could pump the 
 mines, then they could discover and use the vast 
 riches of our coal-mines. Then, too, sprung up a 
 thousand useful arts and manufactures ; while the 
 land, not being wanted for charcoal and firewood, 
 as of old, could be cleared of wood, and thousands 
 of acres set free to grow corn. Population, which 
 had been all but standing still, without increasing, 
 has now more than doubled, and wealth inestim- 
 able has come to this generation, of which our 
 forefathers never dreamed. 
 
 Now what have we to boast of in that .' What, 
 save to confess ourselves a very stupid race, who 
 for twelve hundred years could not discover, or 
 at least use the boundless wealth which God had 
 given us, because we had not wit enough to invent 
 so simple a thing as a steam-engine. 
 
 All we should do, instead of boasting, is to 
 bless God that he revealed to us just what we 
 needed, and at the very time at which we needed 
 
XVI.] NATIONAL WEALTH. 217 
 
 it, and confess that it is he that giveth us power 
 to get wealth. It is he that hath made us, and 
 not we ourselves. 
 
 Look again at another case, even more ex- 
 traordinary, which has happened during our own 
 times — indeed within the last ten years — the dis- 
 covery of gold in Australia. 
 
 There had been rumours and whispers of gold 
 for years before ; and yet no one looked for gold, 
 cared for it, hardly believed in it. God had dulled 
 their understanding and blinded their eyes for 
 some good purpose of his own. That is what the 
 Bible would have said of such a matter, and that 
 is what we should say. 
 
 And at last some man finds lying out upon the 
 downs a huge lump of gold — by accident (as men 
 call it ; by the special providence of God, as they 
 ought to call it) ; and at that every one starts up 
 and awakes, and begins looking for gold. And 
 now that their eyes are opened, behold! the gold 
 is everywhere. Not merely in lonely forests and 
 unexplored mountains, but on farms where the 
 sheep have been pastured for years past ; ay, even 
 Melbourne streets were full of gold, under the 
 feet of the passengers and the wheels of the car- 
 riages ; there had the gold been all along, but men 
 
2l8 NATIONAL WEALTH. [sERM. 
 
 could not see it till God opened their eyes. Verily, 
 verily, God is great, and man is small. I do not 
 say that this was a miracle in the common mean- 
 ing of the word ; but I do say that this was a 
 striking instance of that everlasting and special 
 providence of the living God, who ordereth all 
 things in heaven and earth, from the rise of a 
 nation to the fall of a sparrow ; and does so, not 
 by breaking his own laws, but by making his laws 
 work exactly as he will, when he will, and where 
 he will ; and I say that it is a fresh proof of the 
 great saying, that no man can see a thing unless 
 God shows it to him. For it is the Lord who 
 gives us power to get wealth. It is he that hath 
 made us, and not we ourselves; and in him we live 
 and move, and have our being. 
 
 This, then, was what Moses commanded — to 
 remember that they owed all to God. What they 
 had, they had of God's free gift. What they were, 
 they were by God's free grace. Therefore they 
 were not to boast of themselves, their numbers, 
 their wealth, their armies, their fair and fertile 
 land. They were to make their boast of God, and 
 of God's goodness. 
 
 He that gloried was to glory in the Lord, and 
 confess that a Syrian ready to perish was their 
 
XVI.] NATIONAL WEALTH. 219 
 
 father Jacob, when the Lord had mercy on him, 
 and made him the head of a great tribe, and the 
 father of a great nation ; that not themselves, but 
 God had brought them out of Egypt with signs 
 and wonders ; that they got not the land in posses- 
 sion by their own bow, neither was it their own 
 sword that helped them, but that God had driven 
 out before them nations greater and mightier than 
 they. 
 
 This they were to remember, because it was 
 true. And this we are to remember, because it is 
 more or less true of us. God has put us where we 
 are. God has made of us a great nation ; God has 
 discovered to us the immense riches of this land. 
 It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves. 
 
 But more. You will see that Moses warns them 
 that if they forget God, the Lord who brought 
 them out of the land of Egypt, they would go 
 after other gods. 
 
 He cannot part the two things. If they forget 
 that God brought them out of Egypt, they will 
 turn to idolatry, and so end in ruin. 
 
 Now why was this.' 
 
 Why should not the Jews have gone on worship- 
 ping one God, even if they had forgotten that he 
 brought them out of the land of Egypt ? 
 
220 NATIONAL WEALTH. |.=kkm. 
 
 Some people now-a-days think that they would, 
 and that they might have very well been what is 
 called Monotheists, without believing all the story 
 of the signs and wonders in Egypt, and the pas- 
 sage of the Red Sea, and the giving of the law to 
 Moses. 
 
 Such men may be very learned ; but there is one 
 thing of which they know very little, and that is, 
 human nature. Moses knew human nature ; and 
 he knew that if men forgot that God was the living 
 God, the acting God, who had helped them once, 
 and was helping them always, and only believed 
 about there being one God far away in heaven, 
 and not two, that that sort of dead faith in a dead 
 God would never keep them from idols. They 
 would want gods who would help them, who would 
 hear their prayers, to whom they could feel grati- 
 tude and trust ; and they would invent them for 
 themselves, and begin to worship things in the 
 heavens above, and the earth beneath, because 
 they had forgotten their true friend and helper, the 
 living God. 
 
 And so shall we. If we forget that God is the 
 living God, who brought our forefathers into this 
 land ; who has revealed to us the wealth of it step 
 by step, as we needed it; who is helping and 
 
XVI.] NATIONAL WEALTH. 221 
 
 blessing us now, every day and all the year round 
 ■ — then we shall begin worshipping other gods. 
 
 I do not mean that we shall worship idols, 
 though I do not see why our children's children 
 should not do so a few hundred years hence if we 
 teach them to forget the living God. There are 
 too many Christians at this day who worship 
 saints, and idols of wood and stone ; and so may 
 our descendants do — or do even worse. 
 
 But we ourselves shall begin — indeed we are 
 doing it too much already — worshipping the so- 
 called laws of nature, instead of God who made 
 the laws, and so honouring the creature above the 
 creator ; or else we shall worship the pomps and 
 vanities of this world, pride and power, money and 
 pleasure, and say in our hearts, ' These are our 
 only gods which can help us — these must we 
 obey.' Which if we do, this land of England will 
 come to ruin and shame, as surely as did the land 
 of Israel in old time. 
 
 If we do not believe in the living God, we shall 
 believe in something worse than even a dead god. 
 For in a dead god — a god who does nothing, but 
 lets mankind and the world go their own way — no 
 man nor nation ever will care to believe. 
 
 And now, my dear friends, remember that a 
 
222 NATIONAL WEALTH. [serm. 
 
 nation is, after all, only the people in that nation : 
 you, and I, and our neighbours, and our neigh- 
 bours' neighbours, and so forth ; and that there- 
 fore, in as far as we are wrong, we do our worst 
 to make the British nation wrong. If we give 
 way to ungodly pride and self-sufficiency, then we 
 are injuring ourselves; and not only that, but 
 injuring our neighbours and our children after us, 
 as far as we can. And therefore our duty is, if 
 we wish well to our nation, not to judge our neigh- 
 bour, nor our neighbour's neighbour, but to judge 
 ourselves. 
 
 If we go on trusting in ourselves rather than 
 God ; if we keep within us the hard self-sufficient 
 spirit, and boast to ourselves (though we may be 
 ashamed to boast to our neighbours), ' My power 
 and the strength of my hands have got me this 
 and that ;' and in fact live under the notion, which 
 too many have, that we could do very well without 
 God's help if God would let us alone — then we are 
 heaping up ruin and shame for ourselves and for 
 our children after us. Ruin and shame, I say. 
 We are apt to forget how easy and common it is 
 for God to turn the wisdom of men into folly ; to 
 frustrate the tokens of the liars, and make the 
 prophets mad. How men blow great bubbles, and 
 
XVI.] NATIONAL WEALTH. 223 
 
 God bursts them with the slightest touch. How, 
 when all seems well, and men cry peace and 
 safety, sudden destruction comes upon them un- 
 awares. How, when men say, ' Soul, take thine 
 ease, eat, drink, and be merry ; thou hast much 
 goods laid up for many years,' God answers, 
 ' Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required 
 of thee.' 
 
 My friends, we see God doing thus in these very 
 days by great nations, by great branches of in- 
 dustry. Look at the American war, look at the 
 Manchester cotton famine, and see how God can 
 confound the strong and cunning, and blind their 
 eyes to the ruin which is coming till it is come in 
 all its might. And then think. If it be so easy 
 for him to confound such as them, is it less easy 
 for him to confound you and me, if we begin to 
 fancy that we can do without him, and ask, ' Doth 
 God perceive it .' Or is there knowledge in the 
 Most High ? We are they that ought to speak. 
 Who is Lord over us .''' 
 
 Yes, in this sense God is indeed a jealous God, 
 who will not give his honour to another. And a 
 blessed thing for men it is that God zs a jealous 
 God, that he wz7/ punish us for trusting in any- 
 thing but him — will punish us for trusting in our- 
 
224 NATIONAL WEALTH. 
 
 selves, or in our wisdom, or in wealth, or in science, 
 or in armies and navies, or in constitutions and 
 laws ; in anything, in short, save the living God. 
 
 For if he left us alone to go our own way 
 without trusting or fearing him, we should surely 
 go down and down (as the Chinese seem to have 
 gone down), generation after generation, till we 
 became only a mere cunning and spiteful sort of 
 animals, hateful and hating one another. But 
 when we are chastened for our folly, we are 
 chastened by him that we may be partakers of his 
 holiness ; that we may be his children, looking up 
 to him as our father, from whom comes every 
 good and perfect gift ; the Father of Lights, with 
 whom is no variableness or shadow of turning ; 
 and who therefore will and can give us, his chil- 
 dren, light, more and more to understand those 
 his invariable and eternal laws, by which he has 
 made earth and heaven ; who has given us his 
 Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and will with him 
 likewise freely give us all things. 
 
SERMON XVII. 
 
 THE GOD OF THE RAIN. 
 (Fifth Sunday after Easter,) 
 
 Deut. xi. II, 12. 
 
 The land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and 
 valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. A land 
 which the Lord thy God careth for : the eyes of the Lord 
 thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year, 
 even unto the end of the year. 
 
 T TOLD you, when I spoke of the earthquakes 
 of the Holy Land, that it seems as if God 
 had meant specially to train that strange people 
 the Jews, by putting them into a country where 
 they untst trust him, or become cowards and 
 helpless ; that so they might learn not to fear 
 the powers of Nature which the heathen wor- 
 shipped, but to fear him the living God. 
 
 In this chapter is another instance of the same. 
 They were to be an agricultural people. Their 
 very worship was (if you can understand such 
 
 15 
 
226 THE GOD OF THE RAIN. [seRM^ 
 
 a thing now-a-days) to be agricultural. Pente- 
 cost was a feast of the first-fruits of the harvest. 
 The Feast of Tabernacles was a great national 
 harvest home. The Passover itself, though not 
 at first an agricultural festival, became one by 
 the waving of the Paschal sheaf, which gave per- 
 mission to the people to begin their spring-harvest 
 — so thoroughly were they to be an agricultural 
 and cattle-feeding people. They were going into 
 a good land, a land of milk and honey and oil 
 olive ; a land of vines and figs and pomegranates ; 
 a rich land ; but a most uncertain land — a land 
 which might yield a splendid crop one year, and 
 be almost barren the next. 
 
 It was not as the land of Egypt— a land which 
 was, humanly speaking, sure to be fertile, because 
 always supplied with water, brought out of the 
 Nile by dykes and channels which spread in a 
 network over every field, and where — as I believe 
 is done now — the labourer turned the water from 
 one land to the other simply by moving the earth 
 with his foot. 
 
 It was a mountain land, a land of hills and 
 valleys, and drank water of the rain of heaven ; 
 a land of fountains of water, which required to be 
 fed continually by the rain. In that hot climate 
 
XVII. THE GOD OF THE RAIN. 227 
 
 it depended entirely on God's providence from 
 week to week whether a crop could grow. 
 
 Therefore it was a land which the Lord cared 
 for — a land which needed his special help, and 
 it had it. ' The eyes of the Lord God were always 
 upon it, from the beginning of the year unto the 
 •end of the year.' 
 
 Beautiful, simple, noble, true words — deeper 
 than all the learned words, however true they 
 may be (and true they are, and to be listened 
 to with respect), which men talk about the laws 
 •of Nature and of weather. Who would change 
 them for all the scientific phrases in the world .' 
 
 The eyes of the Lord were upon the land. It 
 needed his care ; and therefore his care it had. 
 
 Therefore the Jew was to understand from his 
 first entry into the land, that his prosperity de- 
 pended utterly on God. The laws of weather, 
 by which the ram comes up off the sea, were un- 
 known to him. They are all but unknown to us 
 now. But they were known to God. Not a drop 
 •could fall without his providence and will ; and 
 therefore they were utterly in his power. 
 
 'And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken 
 diligently unto my commandments which I com- 
 ■mand you this day, to love the Lord your God, 
 
228 THE GOD OF THE RAIN. [serm. 
 
 and to serve him with all your heart and with 
 all your soul, that I will give you the rain of 
 your land in his due season, the first rain and 
 the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy 
 corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will 
 send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou 
 mayest eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, 
 that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside 
 and serve other gods, and worship them; and then 
 the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and he 
 shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and 
 that the land yield not her fruit ; and lest ye 
 perish quickly from off the good land which the 
 Lord giveth you.' 
 
 Now the Bible story is, that this warning came 
 true. More than once we read of drought — long, 
 and severe, and ruinous. In one famous case, 
 there was no rain for three years ; and Ahab 
 has to go out to search through the land for a 
 scrap of pasture. ' Peradventure we shall find grass 
 enough to save the horses and mules alive.' 
 
 And most distinctly does the Bible say that 
 these droughts came at times when the Jews 
 had fallen into idolatry, and profligacy therewith. 
 That is the Scripture account. And if you be- 
 lieve in the living God, whose providence ordereth 
 
XVII.] THE GOD OF THE RAIN. 229 
 
 all things in heaven and earth, that account will 
 seem reasonable and credible to you. 
 
 What special means God used to bring about 
 these great droughts we cannot know, any more 
 than we can know why a storm or a shower 
 should come one week and not another. And 
 we need not know. God made the world, and 
 God governs the world, and that is enough for us. 
 
 Be that as it may, Moses goes down to the very 
 root and ground and true cause of the riches of 
 the land, and of the rainfall, and of the prosperity 
 of the Jews, and of the prosperity of any living 
 nation on earth, when he says, 'Therefore shall 
 ye lay up these my words in your heart and in 
 your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your 
 hand, that they may be as frontlets between your 
 eyes.' 
 
 ' Ye shall lay up these my words in your heart 
 and your soul, and teach them your children when 
 thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest 
 by the way, when thou liest down and when thou 
 risest up.' That is, thou shalt believe continually 
 in a living God — a God who is working every- 
 where at every moment, about thy path and about 
 thy bed, and spying out all thy ways ; and not 
 only about thee, but about all that thou seest. 
 
23° THE GOD OF THE RATN. [serm. 
 
 From him comes alike rain and sunshine ; from 
 him comes the life of man ; from him comes all 
 which makes it possible for man to live upon the 
 earth. 
 
 And it is a plain fact that the Jews for a long 
 time did believe this — at least the prophets, 
 psalmists and good men among them — to the 
 most intense degree ; to a degree in which per- 
 haps no nation has believed it since. With them 
 God is everything, and man nothing. Man finds 
 out nothing : God reveals it to him. Man's intel- 
 lect does nothing: the Spirit of God gives him 
 understanding to do it — even, says Isaiah, under- 
 standing to plough; and to sow, and to reap his 
 crops in due season. It is the Spirit of God, 
 according to the prophets and psalmists, which 
 makes the difference between a man and a beast. 
 But upon the beasts too, and the green things of 
 the earth, and on all nature, the Spirit of God 
 works. He is the Lord and giver of life. Take 
 only those four Psalms, the 8th, iSth, 29th, 104th, 
 and learn from them what the old Jews thought of 
 this wonderful world in which we live. 
 
 ' These all wait upon thee' — all living things by 
 land and sea — ' that thou mayest give them meat 
 in due season. When thou givest it them they 
 
XVII.] THE GOD OF THE RAIN. 231 
 
 gather it. When thou openest thy hand they are 
 filled with good. When thou hidest thy face they 
 are troubled. When thou takest away their 
 breath they die, and are turned again to their 
 dust. When thou lettest thy breath go forth they 
 shall be made, and thou shalt renew the face of 
 the earth.' 
 
 So again, in the world of man, God is the living 
 Judge, the living overlooker, rewarder, punisher 
 of every man, not only in the life to come, but in 
 this life. His providence is a special providence. 
 But not such a poor special providence as men are 
 too apt to dream of now-a-days, which interferes 
 only now and then on some great occasion, or on 
 behalf, of some very favoured persons, but a 
 special providence looking after every special act 
 of man, and of the whole universe, from the fall 
 of a sparrow to the fall of an empire. 
 
 And it is this intense faith in the living God, 
 which can only come by the inspiration of the 
 Spirit of God, which proves the old Testament 
 to be truly inspired. This it is which makes it 
 different from all books in the world. This it is, 
 I hold, which marks the canon of Scripture. For 
 in the Apocrypha — true, noble, and good as most 
 • of it is — you do not find the same intense faith in 
 
232 THE GOD OF THE RAIN. [skrm. 
 
 the living God, or anything to be compared there- 
 with ; and that for the simple reason that the 
 Jews, at the time the Apocrypha was written, 
 were losing that faith very fast. They felt them- 
 selves that there was an immense difference be- 
 tween anything that they could write and what 
 the old psalmists and prophets had written. They 
 felt that they could not write Scripture. All they 
 could do was to write commentaries about it, and 
 to carry out in their own fashion Moses' command, 
 ' Thou shalt bind my words for a sign upon your 
 hands, and they shall be as frontlets between your 
 eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the door- 
 posts of thine house.' They were right in that ; 
 but as they lost faith in the living God, they 
 began to observe the command in the letter, and 
 neglect it in the spirit. 
 
 You know — some of you, at least — how these 
 words were misused afterwards ; how the scribes 
 and the Pharisees, in their zeal to carry out the 
 letter of the law, went about with texts of Scrip- 
 ture on their foreheads, and wrists, and the hems 
 of their robes, enlarging their phylacteries, as our 
 Lord said of them. But all the time they did not 
 understand the texts, or love them, or get any 
 good from them ; but only made them excuses 
 
XVII.] THE GOD OF THE RAIN. 233 
 
 for hating and scoffing at the rest of the world. 
 They had them written only on their foreheads, 
 not on their hearts — an outside and not an inside 
 religion. They had lost all faith in the living 
 God. God had spoken, of course, to their fore- 
 fathers ; but they could not believe that he was 
 speaking to them — not even when he spoke by 
 his only begotten Son, the brightness of his glory, 
 and the express image of his person. God, so 
 they held, had finished his teaching when Malachi 
 uttered his last prophecy. And now it was for 
 them to teach, and expound the law at second- 
 hand. There could be no more prophets, no 
 more revelation ; and when one came and spoke 
 with authority, at first hand, out of the depth of 
 his own heart, he was to be persecuted, stoned, 
 crucified. No. They had the key of knowledge ; 
 and no man could enter in, unless they chose to 
 open the door. Nothing new could be true. John 
 the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking, and 
 they said, ' He hath a devil.' The Son of Man 
 came eating and drinking, and thej^ said, ' Behold 
 a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of 
 publicans and sinners.' And meanwhile the poor, 
 the ignorant, those whose hearts were really in 
 earnest, were looking out for a prophet and a 
 
234 THE GOD OF THE RAIN. [serm. 
 
 deliverer — often going after false prophets, with 
 Theudas and Barcochab, into the wilderness ; 
 but going, too, to be baptized with the baptism 
 of John, and crowding in thousands to hear our 
 Lord preach to them of the living God of whom 
 Moses had preached of old ; while the scribes and 
 Pharisees sat at home, wrapped up in their narrow, 
 shallow book-divinity, and said, ' This people, who 
 knoweth not the law, is accursed.' Nothing new 
 could be true. It must be put down, persecuted 
 down, lest the Romans should come and take 
 away their place and nation. 
 
 But they did not succeed. Our Lord and his 
 truth, whom they crucified and buried, rose again 
 the third day and conquered ; and the Romans 
 came after all, and took away their place and 
 nation. And so they failed, as all will fail, who 
 will not believe in the living God. 
 
 My friends, all these things were written for 
 our example. As it was then, so may it be 
 again. 
 
 There may come a time in this land when 
 people shall profess to worship the word of God ; 
 and yet, like those old scribes, make it of none 
 effect by their own commandments and traditions. 
 When they shall command men, like the scribes, 
 
XVII.] THE GOD OF THE RAIN. 235 
 
 to honour every word and letter of the Bible, and 
 yet forbid them to take the Bible simply and 
 literally as it stands, but only their interpretation 
 of the Bible; when they shall say, with the 
 scribes, ' Nothing new can be true. God taught 
 the Apostles, and therefore he is not teaching us. 
 God worked miracles of old ; but whosoever thinks 
 that God is working miracles now is a Pantheist 
 and a blasphemer. God taught men of old the 
 thing which they knew not ; but whosoever dares 
 to say that he does so now is bringing heresy and 
 false doctrine, and undermining the Christian faith 
 by science falsely so called.' 
 
 And all because they have lost all faith in the 
 living God — the ever-working, ever-teaching, ever- 
 inspiring, ever-governing God whom our Lord 
 Jesus Christ revealed to men ; in whom the 
 Apostles, and the Fathers, and the great middle- 
 age Schoolmen, and the Reformers believed, and 
 therefore learned more and more, and taught men 
 more and more concerning God and the dealings 
 of God, as time went on. 
 
 And then, when they see ignorant people run- 
 ning after quacks and impostors, spirit-rappers and 
 table-turners, St. Simonians and Mormons, and 
 false prophets of every kind, they will have no- 
 
236 THE GOD OF THE RAIN. [serm. 
 
 thing to say but ' This people which knoweth not 
 the law is accursed.' While when they see any- 
 thing like new truth, or new teaching from God 
 appear, instead of welcoming the light, and going 
 to meet the light, and accepting the light, they 
 will say, ' What shall we do ? For all men will 
 believe on him, and then the powers of this world 
 will come and take away our station and our 
 order .'' As if Christ could not take better care 
 of his Church for which he died than they can 
 in his stead ! And so they will persecute God's 
 servants, in the name of God, and call upon the 
 law to put down by force the men whom they 
 cannot put down by reason. 
 
 From ever falling into that state of stupid lip- 
 belief, and outward religion, and loss of faith in 
 the living God : Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 From all blindness of heart ; from pride, vain- 
 glory, and hypocrisy ; from envy, hatred, and 
 malice, and all uncharitableness : Good Lord, de- 
 liver us. 
 
 From all false doctrine, heresy, and schism ; 
 from hardness of heart and contempt of thy word 
 and commandment : Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 For if people ever fall into that frame of mind 
 (as did the scribes and Pharisees), and the good 
 
XVII.] THE GOD OF THE RAIN. 237 
 
 Lord do not deliver them from it, it will surely 
 happen to them as it is written in the Bible. 
 
 The powers of this world will come and take 
 away their place, and their power, and their 
 station : but meanwhile the truth which they think 
 that they have stifled will rise again, for Christ, 
 who is the truth, will raise it again ; and it shall 
 conquer and leaven the hearts of men till all be 
 leavened ; and while the scribes and Pharisees 
 shall be cast into the outer darkness of discon- 
 tented and hopeless bigotry, the kingdoms of the 
 world, which they fancied were the devil's do- 
 minion, shall become the kingdoms of God and 
 of his Christ, and be adopted into that holy and 
 ever-growing Church, of which it is written, that 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, for in 
 it is the Spirit of God to lead it into all truth. 
 
 To which blessed end may God bring us, and 
 our children after us. Amen. 
 
SERMON XVIII. 
 
 THE DEATH OF MOSES. 
 (First Sunday after Trinity.) 
 
 Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6. 
 
 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, 
 according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a 
 valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor ; but no man 
 knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. 
 
 ■^OME might regret that the last three chapters 
 of Deuteronomy are not read among our Sun- 
 day lessons. There was not, however, room for 
 them ; and I do not doubt that those who chose 
 our lessons knew better than I what chapters they 
 ■ought to choose. We may, however, read them 
 for ourselves, not only in the daily lessons, but 
 as often as we choose. And well worth reading 
 they are. 
 
 For I know of no stronger proof of the truth 
 •of the book of Deuteronomy, and of the whole 
 
THE DEATH OF MOSES. 239 
 
 Pentateuch, than its ending so differently from 
 what we should have expected, or indeed wished. 
 If things went in this world, as they do in novels 
 and fables, according to man's notion of what is 
 right and good, then Moses and his history would 
 have had a very different ending. 
 
 And if the story of Moses had been of man's 
 invention, we should have heard — I think, from 
 what we know of the fables, 'myths' as they call 
 them now, which nations have invented about 
 themselves, and their own early history, we may 
 guess fairly what we should have heard — how 
 Moses brought the Jews into the land of Canaan, 
 and established his laws, and reigned over them, 
 and died in honour and great glory — if he died 
 at all, and was not taken up into the skies, and 
 changed into a star, or into a god ; and how 
 he was buried with great pomp ; and how his 
 sepulchre did remain among the Jews until that 
 day ; and probably how men worshipped at it, 
 and miracles were worked at it, and so forth. 
 
 Also, we should have heard how, as soon as 
 the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, they 
 began forthwith to serve the Lord with all their 
 heart and soul, as they never did afterwards, and 
 to keep Moses' law, while it was yet fresh in their 
 
240 THE DEATH OF MOSES. [serm. 
 
 minds, more exactly than ever they did after- 
 wards ; and in short, we should have had one 
 of those stories of a 'golden age,' a 'good old 
 time,' a pattern-time of early purity and devo- 
 tion, of which nations and Churches, of all tongues 
 and all creeds, have been so ready to dream in 
 their own case ; and which they have used, not 
 altogether ill, to rebuke vice in their own day, 
 by saying, ' Look how perfect your forefathers 
 were. Look how you, their unworthy children, 
 have fallen from their faith and their virtue.' 
 
 This, I think, is what we should have been 
 told if the Pentateuch had been the invention 
 of man. This is exactly what we are not told ; 
 but, on the contrary, the very opposite. 
 
 What we are told is disappointing, sad, gloomy, 
 full of dark fears and warnings about what the 
 Jews will be and what they will have to endure. 
 But it is far more true to human nature, and to 
 the facts which we see in the world about us, 
 than any story of a good old time would have 
 been. 
 
 They are still wandering in the land of Moab, 
 when the time draws near when Moses must die. 
 He is a hundred and twenty years old, but hale 
 and vigorous still. His eye is not dim, nor his 
 
xviiL] THE DEATH OF MOSES. 241 
 
 natural force abated. But the Lord has told him 
 that his death is near. He gives the command 
 of the army of Israel to Joshua the son of Nun. 
 and then he speaks his last words. 
 
 Songs they are, dark and rugged, like all the 
 higher Hebrew poetry ; but, like it, full of the 
 very Spirit of God — the Spirit of wisdom and 
 understanding, the Spirit of faith and of the fear 
 of the Lord. 
 
 There are three of these songs which seem to 
 belong to those last days of his. 
 
 The Prayer of Moses the man of God — which 
 is our 90th Psalm, our burial Psalm. We all 
 know the sadness of that Psalm ; its weariness, as 
 of one who had laboured long, and would fain be 
 at rest ; its confession of man's frailty — fading 
 away suddenly like the grass ; its confession of 
 God's strength, God from everlasting, before the 
 mountains were brought forth ; its eternal gospel of 
 hope and comfort, that the strength of God takes 
 pity on the weakness of man, ' Lord, thou hast 
 been our refuge, from one generation to another.' 
 
 Then comes the Song of the Rock — the song of 
 which (it seems) the Lord said to him, 'Write this 
 song, and teach it the children of Israel, that it 
 may be a witness for me against them.' 
 
 16 
 
242 THE DEATH OF MOSES. [seem. 
 
 And SO Moses writes ; and seemingly before all 
 the congregation of Israel, according to the custom 
 of those times, he chants his death-song, the Song 
 of the Rock. It is such a song as we should 
 expect from him. God is the Rock. He was 
 thinking, it may be, of the everlasting rocks of 
 Sinai, where God had appeared ' to him of old. 
 But God is the true, everlasting Rock, on which 
 all things rest; the Eternal, the Self-existent, the 
 I Am, whom he was sent to preach to men. But 
 he is a good and righteous God likewise. His 
 work is perfect. ' A God of truth, and without 
 iniquity, just and right is he.' 
 
 In him Moses can trust, but not in the children 
 of Israel ; they are a perverse and crooked genera- 
 tion, who have waxen fat and kicked. God has 
 done all for them, but they will not obey him. 
 Even in the wilderness they have worshipped 
 strange gods, and sacrificed to devils, not to God ; 
 and so they will do after Moses is gone ; and then 
 on them will come all the curses of which he has 
 so often warned them. ' The sword without, and 
 terror within, shall destroy both the young man 
 and the virgin, the suckling also with the man 
 of gray hairs. O that they were wise, that they 
 understood this, that they would consider their 
 
xvui.] THE DEATH OF MOSES. 243 
 
 latter end ! How should one chase a thousand ; 
 and two put ten thousand to flight?' What a 
 people they might be, and what a future there is 
 before them, if they would but be true to God 1 
 But they will not. And so Moses' death-song, 
 like his life's wish, ends in disappointment and 
 sadness, and dread of the evils which are coming 
 upon his beloved countrymen. 
 
 Lastly, he blesses them, tribe by tribe, in strange 
 and grand words, such as dying men utter, who, 
 looking earnestly across the dark river of death, 
 see further than they ever saw amid the cares and 
 temptations of life. And he blesses them. He 
 will say nothing of them but good. He will speak 
 not of what they will be, but of what they ought 
 to be and can be. But not in their own strength — 
 only in the strength of God. Man is to be nothing 
 to the last ; and God is all in all. 
 
 'There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, 
 who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in 
 his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is 
 thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting 
 arms. 
 
 ' Happy art thou, Israel : who is like unto 
 thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of 
 thy help and who is the sword of thy excellency ! 
 
244 THE DEATH OF MOSES. [serm. 
 
 and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; 
 and thou shalt tread upon their high places.' 
 
 Those are the last words of Moses. Then he 
 goes up into the mountain top, never to return ; 
 and the children of Israel are left alone with God 
 and their own souls, to obey and prosper, or dis- 
 obey and die. 
 
 The time of their schooling is past, and their 
 schoolmaster is gone for ever. They are no more 
 to be under a human tutor. They are come to 
 man's estate and man's responsibility, and they 
 are to work out their own fortunes by their own 
 deeds, like every other soul of man. 
 
 For Moses himself must not enter into the 
 promised land. In spite of all his faith, his 
 courage, his endurance, his patriotism, he has 
 sinned against God, and he must be punished ; 
 and punished, too, in kind — in the very thing 
 which he will feel most deeply, in being shut out 
 from the very happiness on which he has set his 
 heart all along. 
 
 He who has brought the Jews to the edge of 
 the promised land must not have the honour and 
 glory of taking them into it. He must have no 
 honour and glory. That must be God's alone. 
 Man must be nothing, and God all in all. Moses 
 
XVIII.] THE DEATH OF MOSES. 245 
 
 must die in faith, not having received tlae pro- 
 mises, as many another saint of God has died. 
 
 And why .'' To teach him and the Jews and 
 us that man is nothing, and God is all in all. 
 
 Moses had given way to the very temptation 
 which would beset such a man. He had spoken 
 unadvisedly with his lips, and said, 'Hear now, 
 ye rebels, or ye fools, must we bring you water 
 out of this rock.'' We, and not God. He had 
 claimed for himself the power and glory of work- 
 ing miracles. The miracles, he thought for a 
 moment, were his, and not God's. And it may 
 be that this was not the only time that he had so 
 sinned. He may naturally have thought that he 
 had some special power and influence with God. 
 But be that as it may, the Jews were trained to 
 believe that the miracles were God's, God's im- 
 mediate work, and not performed by the wisdom 
 or sanctity or supernatural power of any saint or 
 prophet whatsoever. Let the Jews once learn to 
 give the honour and glory to Moses, and not to 
 God, and the whole of their strange education 
 went for nothing. Instead of worshipping God 
 they would begin to worship saints. Instead of 
 trusting in God, they would begin to trust in men; 
 whether on earth or in heaven matters not. If 
 
245 THE DEATH OF MOSES. [serm. 
 
 Moses was to have the honour and glory, the 
 Jews would surely grow into a superstitious, saint- 
 worshipping, miracle-mongering people, and come 
 to ruin and slavery thereby. They were to fear 
 God and nought else. To trust in God and 
 nought else. 
 
 So Moses must vanish out of their sight, sadly 
 and mysteriously. All they know of him is, that 
 he is punished for a sin which he committed long 
 ago, as you and I may be. All they know of his 
 death and burial is, that his body was not left 
 foully to the birds of the air and the beasts of 
 the field ; for the Lord buried him. They know 
 not how, and did not need to know. And we 
 need not know. Enough for them and for us to 
 know that no dishonour was done to the grand 
 old man ; that as he died far away on the lonely 
 mountain top without a child to close his eyes, 
 his last look fixed upon the good land and large 
 which lay spread out below, of entering which he 
 had been dreaming for forty— it may be for more 
 than forty — years. Enough for us to know that 
 the kindly earth received his body again into her 
 bosom, and that the true Moses — the immortal 
 spirit of the man — returned to God who created 
 him, and inspired him, and sustained him to be 
 
xviii.] THE DEATH OF MOSES. 247 
 
 perhaps the greatest man — save One who was 
 more than man — who ever trod this earth. 
 
 So our human feelings, hke those of the Jews, 
 are satisfied. But Moses is not to be worshipped 
 by them or by us ; no splendid temple is to rise 
 over his bones ; no lamps are to burn, or priest 
 to chant round his shrine ; no miracles are to be 
 worked by his relics; no man is to invoke his 
 patronage and intercession in their prayers. The 
 people whom he has brought out of Egypt are to 
 be free — free from the slavery of the body, free 
 from the more degrading slavery of the soul. 
 
 And so they go on over Jordan to fulfil their 
 strange destiny, to fight their way into the pro- 
 mised land, to root out the Canaanite tribes, whose 
 iniquity was full, whose sins had made them a 
 nuisance not to be suffered on the earth of God. 
 But do they go to establish a golden age ; to 
 become a perfect people .-" 
 
 Nothing less. To become, according to the 
 book of Judges, just what Moses foretold — an 
 ignorant, selfish, often profligate and disorderly 
 people, doing each what is right in his own eyes, 
 falling continually into idolatry, civil war, and 
 slavery to the heathens round about. Nothing 
 more shows the truth of this history than its 
 
248 THE DEATH OF MOSES. [sekm. 
 
 humility, its continual confession of sin, its readi- 
 ness to confess the ugly truth that the Jews are 
 a foolish, ignorant, unmanageable, lawless, sensual 
 race, stiffnecked and rebellious, always resisting 
 the Holy Spirit. The immense difference between 
 the Old Testament history and that of all other 
 nations is, that it is a history not of their virtues, 
 but of their sins ; and a history, on the other hand, 
 of God's punishments and mercies. God in the 
 Old Testament is all, and the Jews are nothing; 
 and one may say that it differs from all other 
 histories in this, that it is not a history of the 
 Jews themselves at all, but a history of God's 
 dealings with them. 
 
 If any man chooses to explain that, by saying 
 that the story was all invented by priests and 
 prophets afterwards, to rebuke the people for fall- 
 ing into idolatry, he must have his fancy. Thought 
 is free — for the present, at least — though it is 
 written that for every idle word that men speak, 
 they shall give account at the day of judgment. 
 But one question 1 must ask, and I am sure that 
 British common sense and British honesty will 
 ask it too : If these prophets were really good 
 men, fearing God, and wishing to make their 
 countrymen fear him likewise, would it not have 
 
xviii.] THE DEATH OF MOSES. 249 
 
 been a rather strange way of showing that they 
 feared God to tell their countrymen a set of fables 
 and h'es ? Good men are not in the habit of 
 telling lies now, and never have been ; for no lie 
 is of the truth, or can possibly help the truth in 
 any way ; and all liars have their portion in the 
 lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. And 
 that such men as the prophets of whom we read 
 in the Old Testament did not know that, and 
 therefore invented this history, or invented any- 
 thing else, is a thing incredible and absurd. 
 
 Here we have the Old Testament, an infinitely 
 good book, giving us infinitely good advice and 
 good news, and news too concerning God — God's 
 laws, God's providence, God's dealings, such as 
 we get nowhere else. And shall we believe that 
 this infinitely good book is founded upon false- 
 hood .' or that the good men who wrote it could 
 fancy it necessary to stoop to falsehood, and take 
 the devil's tools wherewith to do God's work ? 
 That they may have been imperfectly informed 
 on some points there is no doubt; for the Bible 
 tells us that they were men of like passions with 
 ourselves, and they may not always have been 
 true to the Spirit of God who was teaching them, 
 even as we are not, though he teaches us. They 
 
250 THE DEATH OF MOSES. [serm. 
 
 only knew in part and prophesied in part ; and 
 now that which is perfect is come, that which is 
 in part is done away ; the mystery of Christ was 
 not revealed to them as it has been to us by the 
 holy apostles and prophets of the new dispensa- 
 tion, of which St. Paul says, comparing it with 
 the knowledge which the old Jews had when the 
 gospel came. That the glory of the law had no 
 glory, by reason of the more excellent glory of 
 the gospel. They may, I say, have made slight 
 errors in unimportant matters, though it is far 
 more probable that those errors have crept into 
 the text, as the Scriptures were copied again and 
 again through many centuries by different scribes, 
 of whose perfect good sense and honesty we can- 
 not be certain. But who that really values his 
 Bible cares for them any more than he cares for 
 the spots on the sun which he can find through 
 a telescope .'' The sun still shines, and gives light 
 to the whole earth, and the Bible still shines, and 
 gives light to every soul of man who will read 
 it in reverence and faith. But that the prophets 
 ever invented, or ever dared to tamper with truth, 
 is a thing not to be believed of men whose writ- 
 ings are plainly, by their own meaning and end, 
 inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
xvMi.] THE DEATH OF MOSES. 251 
 
 One more reason — and a reason which to me 
 is unanswerable — for believing, like our forefathers, 
 that the Old Testament is true. The Old Testa- 
 ment, as well as the New, tells us of the ' noble 
 acts' of the Lord — of certain gracious and mer- 
 ciful and just things which the Lord did to the 
 children of Israel. But if that be not true, what 
 follows ? That God has not done the noble acts 
 which men thought he had, and therefore that 
 God is not as noble as men thought he was; that 
 men have actually fancied for themselves a better 
 God than the God who exists already. 
 
 Absurd. 
 
 Absurd, truly ; and if you choose to call it by 
 a harder name still, you have a right to do so. 
 
 Do not you think that God must be better, not 
 worse ; more generous, not less ; more condescend- 
 ing, not less ; more just, not less ; more helpful, 
 not less, than man can fancy or describe .-' Are 
 not the riches of Christ unsearchable, and the 
 mercies of the Lord boundless } Is he not able 
 and willing to do exceeding abundantly beyond 
 all that we can ask or think ? Did not even 
 St. Paul say that he only knew in part and pro- 
 phesied in part ? And must it not be true of 
 the whole Bible what the beloved apostle St. John 
 
252 THE DEATH OF MOSES. 
 
 says of his own Gospel, 'And there are many 
 other things which Jesus did, the which if they 
 sliould be written every one, I suppose that even 
 the world itself could not contain the books that 
 should be written?' 
 
 Bear that in mind, remembering always that 
 the God of the Old Testament is the God of the 
 New likewise ; and whenever you read, either in 
 the Old or New Testament, of the noble acts of 
 the Lord, say boldly, as millions of hearts have 
 said already, when the good news of the Bible 
 came to them, ' This is so beautiful that it must 
 be true. The Spirit of God in the Bible, and the 
 judgment of the Church in all ages, bears witness 
 with my spirit that this is true. So ought God 
 to have done, and therefore surely so hath God 
 done. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
 RIGHT.?' 
 
DAVID 
 
 FIVE SERMONS 
 
Note. — The first four of these Sermons were preached before the 
 University of Cambridge. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 
 
 PsALiM Ixxviii. 71, 72, 73. 
 
 lie chose David his servant, and took him away from the sheep- 
 folds. As he was following the ewes great with young ones, 
 he took him ; that he might feed Jacob his people, and Israel 
 his inheritance. So he fed them with a faithful and tnie heart, 
 and ruled them prudently with all his power. 
 
 T AM about to preach to you four sermons on 
 the character of David. His history, I take 
 for granted, you all know. 
 
 I look on David as an all but ideal king, edu- 
 cated for his office by an all but ideal training. 
 A shepherd first ; a life — be it remembered — full 
 of danger in those times and lands ; then captain 
 of a band of outlaws; and lastly a king, gradually 
 and with difficulty fighting his way to a secure 
 throne. 
 
 This was his course. But the most important 
 stage of it was probably the first. Among the 
 
256 DAVID'S WEAKNESS. [SERM. 
 
 dumb animals he learnt experience which he after- 
 wards put Into practice among human beings. 
 The shepherd of the sheep became the shepherd 
 of men. He who had slain the lion and the bear 
 became the champion of his native land. He who 
 followed the ewes great with young, fed God's 
 oppressed and weary people with a faithful and 
 true heart, till he raised them into a great and 
 and strong nation. So both sides of the true 
 kingly character, the masculine and the feminine, 
 are brought out in David. For the greedy and 
 tyrannou.s, he has indignant defiance : for the weak 
 and helpless, patient tenderness. 
 
 My motives for choosing this subject I will 
 explain in a very few words. 
 
 We have heard much of late about ' Muscular 
 Christianity.' A clever expression, spoken in jest 
 by I know not whom, has been bandied about the 
 world, and supposed by many to represent some 
 new ideal of the Christian character. 
 
 For myself, I do not understand what it means. 
 It may mean one of two things. If it mean the 
 first, it is a term somewhat unnecessary, if not 
 somewhat irreverent. If it mean the second, it 
 means something untrue and immoral. 
 
 Its first and better meaning may be simply a 
 
1.] DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 257 
 
 healthy and manful Christianity, one which does 
 not exalt the feminine virtues to the exclusion 
 of the masculine. 
 
 That certain forms of Christianity have com- 
 mitted this last fault cannot be doubted. The 
 tendency of Christianity, during the patristic and 
 the Middle Ages, was certainly in that direction. 
 Christians were persecuted and defenceless, and 
 they betook themselves to the only virtues which 
 they had the opportunity of practising — gentle- 
 ness, patience, resignation, self-sacrifice, and self- 
 devotion — all that is loveliest in the ideal female 
 character. And God forbid that that side of the 
 Christian life should ever be undervalued. It has 
 its own beauty, its own strength too made perfect 
 in weakness ; in prison, in torture, at the fiery 
 stake, on the lonely sick-bed, in long years of 
 self-devotion and resignation, and in a thousand 
 womanly sacrifices unknown to man, but written 
 for ever in God's book of life. 
 
 But as time went on, and the monastic life, 
 which, whether practised by man or by woman, is 
 essentially a feminine life, became more and more 
 exclusively the religious ideal, grave defects began 
 to appear in what was really too narrow a con- 
 ception of the human character. 
 
 17 
 
2S8 DAVID'S WEAKNESS. [serm. 
 
 The monks of the Middle Ages, in aiming ex- 
 clusively at the virtues of women, generally copied 
 little but their vices. Their unnatural attempt to 
 be wiser than God, and to unsex themselves, had 
 done little but disease their mind and heart. 
 They resorted more and more to those arts which 
 are the weapons of crafty, ambitious, and unprin- 
 cipled women. They were too apt to be cunning, 
 false, intriguing. They were personally cowardly, 
 as their own chronicles declare ; querulous, pas- 
 sionate, prone to unmanly tears ; prone, as their 
 writings abundantly testify, to scold, to use the 
 most virulent language against all who differed 
 from them ; they were, at times, fearfully cruel, 
 as evil women will be; cruel with that worst 
 cruelty which springs from cowardice. If I seem 
 to have drawn a harsh picture of them, I can 
 only answer that their own documents justify 
 abundantly all that I have said. 
 
 Gradually, to supply their defects, another ideal 
 arose. The warriors of the Middle Ages hoped 
 that they might be able to serve God in the 
 world, even in the battle-field. At least, the 
 world and the battle-field they would not re- 
 linquish, but make the best of them. And among 
 them arose a new and a very fair ideal of man- 
 
I.] DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 259 
 
 hood : that of the ' gentle, very perfect knight,' 
 loyal to his king and to his God, bound to defend 
 the weak, succour the oppressed, and put down 
 the wrong-doer; with his lady, or bread-giver, 
 dealing forth bounteously the goods of this life 
 to all who needed ; occupied in the seven works 
 of mercy, yet living in the world, and in the per- 
 fect enjoyment of wedded and family life. This 
 was the ideal. Of course sinful human nature 
 fell short of it, and defaced it by absurdities ; but 
 I do not hesitate to say that it was a higher 
 ideal of Christian excellence than had appeared 
 since the time of the Apostles, putting aside the 
 quite exceptional ideal of the blessed martyrs. 
 
 A higher ideal, I say, was chivalry, with all 
 its shortcomings. And for this reason : that it 
 asserted the possibility of consecrating the whole 
 manhood, and not merely a few faculties thereof, 
 to God ; and it thus contained the first germ ot 
 that Protestantism which conquered at the Re- 
 formation. 
 
 Then was asserted, once for all, on the grounds 
 of nature and reason, as well as of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, the absolute sanctity of family and national 
 life, and the correlative idea, namely, the conse- 
 cration of the whole of human nature to the 
 
26o DAVID'S WEAKNESS. [serm. 
 
 service of God, in that station to which God had 
 called each man. Then the Old Testament, with 
 the honour which it puts upon family and national 
 life, became precious to man, as it had never 
 been before ; and such a history as David's be- 
 came, not as it was with the mediaeval monks, a 
 mere repertory of fanciful metaphors and alle- 
 gories, but the solemn example, for good and 
 for evil, of a man of like passions and like duties 
 with the men of the modern world. 
 
 These great truths, once asserted, could not but 
 conquer ; and they will conquer to the end. All 
 attempts to restore the monastic and feminine 
 ideal, like that of good Nicholas Ferrar at Little 
 Gidding, failed. They withered like hot-house 
 exotics in the free, keen, bracing English air ; 
 and in our civil wars, Cavalier and Puritan, in 
 whatever they differed, never differed in their 
 sound and healthy conviction that true religion 
 did not crush, but strengthened and consecrated 
 a valiant and noble manhood. 
 
 Now if all that ' Muscular Christianity ' means is 
 that, then the expression is altogether unneces- 
 sary ; for we have had the thing for three 
 centuries — and defective likewise, for it is not a 
 merely muscular, but a human Christianity which 
 
1.] DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 261 
 
 the Bible taught our forefathers, and which our 
 forefathers have handed down to us. 
 
 But there is another meaning sometimes at- 
 tached to this flippant expression, ' Muscular 
 Christianity,' which is utterly immoral and in- 
 tolerable. There are those who say, and there 
 have been of late those who have written books 
 to shew, that provided a young man is sufficiently 
 brave, frank, and gallant, he is more or less 
 absolved from the common duties of morality and 
 self-restraint. 
 
 That physical prowess is a substitute for virtue 
 is certainly no new doctrine. It is the doctrine 
 of every red man on the American prairies, of 
 every African chief who ornaments his hut with 
 human skulls. It was the doctrine of our heathen 
 forefathers, when they came hither slaying, plun- 
 dering, burning, tossing babes on their spear- 
 points. But I am sorry that it should be the 
 doctrine of any one calling himself a gentleman, 
 much more a Christian. 
 
 It is certainly not the doctrine of the Cate- 
 chism, which bids us renounce the flesh, and live 
 by the help of God's Spirit a new life of duty to 
 God and to our neighbour. 
 
 It is certainly not the doctrine of the New 
 
262 DAVID'S WEAKNESS. [serm. 
 
 Testament. Whatsoever St. Paul meant by bid- 
 ding his disciples crucify the flesh, with its 
 affections and lusts, he did not mean thereby that 
 they were to deify the flesh, as the heathen round 
 them did in their profligate mysteries and in their 
 gladiatorial exhibitions. 
 
 Neither, though the Old Testament may seem 
 to put more value on physical prowess than does 
 the New Testament, is it the doctrine of the Old 
 Testament, as I purpose to show you from the 
 life and history of David. 
 
 Nothing, nothing, can be a substitute for purity 
 and virtue. Man will always try to find substi- 
 tutes for it. He will try to find a substitute in 
 superstition, in forms and ceremonies, in voluntary 
 humility and worship of angels, in using vain re- 
 petitions, and fancying that he will be heard for 
 his much speaking ; he will try to find a sub- 
 stitute in intellect, and the worship of intellect, 
 and art, and poetry; or he will try to find it, as 
 in the present case, in the worship of his own 
 animal powers, which God meant to be his ser- 
 vants and not his masters. But let no man lay 
 that flattering unction to his soul. The first and 
 the last business of every human being, whatever 
 his station, party, creed, capacities, tastes, duties, 
 
I.] DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 263 
 
 is morality : Virtue, Virtue, always Virtue. No- 
 thing that man will ever invent will absolve him 
 from the universal necessity of being good as God 
 is good, righteous as God is righteous, and holy 
 as God is holy. 
 
 Believe it, young men, believe it. Better would 
 it be for any one of you to be the stupidest and 
 the ugliest of mortals, to be the most diseased 
 and abject of cripples, the most silly, nervous 
 incapable personage who ever was a laughing- 
 stock for the boys upon the streets, if only you 
 lived, according to your powers, the life of the 
 Spirit of God ; than to be as perfectly gifted, 
 as exquisitely organised in body and mind as 
 David himself, and not to live the life of the 
 Spirit of God, the life of goodness, which is the 
 only life fit for a human being wearing the human 
 flesh and soul which Christ took upon him on 
 earth, and wears for ever in heaven, a Man indeed 
 in the midst of the throne of God. 
 
 And therefore it is, as you will yourselves have 
 perceived already, that I have chosen to speak to 
 you of David, his character, his history. 
 
 It is the character of a man perfectly gifted, 
 exquisitely organised. He has personal beauty, 
 daring, prowess, and skill in war ; he has gener- 
 
264 DAVID'S WEAKNESS. [serm. 
 
 osity, nobleness, faithfulness, chivalry as of a 
 mediseval and Christian knight ; he is a musician, 
 poet, seemingly an architect likewise ; he is, more- 
 over, a born king ; he has a marvellous and most 
 successful power of attracting, disciplining, ruling 
 his fellow-men. So thoroughly human a personage 
 is he, that God speaks of him as the man after 
 his own heart ; that our blessed Lord condescends 
 to call himself especially the Son of David. 
 
 For there is in this man (as there is said to be 
 in all great geniuses) a feminine, as well as a 
 masculine vein ; a passionate tenderness ; a keen 
 sensibility ; a vast capacity of sympathy, sadness, 
 and suffering, which makes him truly the type of 
 Christ, the Man of sorrows ; which makes his 
 Psalms to this day the text-book of the afflicted, 
 of tens of thousands who have not a particle of 
 his beauty, courage, genius ; but yet can feel, in 
 mean hovels and workhouse sick-beds, that the 
 warrior-poet speaks to their human hearts, and for 
 their human hearts, as none other can speak, save 
 Christ himself, the Son of David and the Son of 
 man. 
 
 A man, I say, of intense sensibilities; and there- 
 fore capable, as is but too notorious, of great 
 crimes, as well as of great virtues. 
 
I.] DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 265 
 
 And when I mention this last fact, I must ask 
 you to pause, and consider with me very solemnly 
 what it means. 
 
 We may pervert, or rather misstate the fact 
 in more than one way, to our own hurt. We 
 may say cynically, David had his good points and 
 his bad ones, as all your great saints have. Look 
 at them closely, and in spite of all their preten- 
 sions you will find them no better than their 
 neighbours. And so we may comfort ourselves, 
 in our own mediocrity and laziness, by denying 
 the existence of all greatness and goodness. 
 
 Nathan the prophet said that David's conduct 
 would be open to this very interpretation, and 
 would give great occasion to the enemies of the 
 Lord to blaspheme. But I trust that none of you 
 wish to be numbered among the enemies of the 
 Lord. 
 
 Again, we may say, sentimentally, that these 
 great weaknesses are on the whole the necessary 
 concomitants of great strength ; that such highly 
 organised and complex characters must not be 
 judged by the rule of common respectability ; and 
 that it is a more or less fine thing to be capable 
 at once of great virtues and great vices. 
 
 Books which hint, and more than hint this, 
 
265 DAVID'S WEAKNESS. [serm 
 
 will suggest themselves to you at once. I only 
 advise you not to listen to their teaching, as you 
 will find it lead to very serious consequences, 
 both in this life and in the life to come. 
 
 But if we do say this, or anything like this, 
 we say it on our own responsibility. David's 
 biographers say nothing of the kind. David 
 himself says nothing of the kind. He never re- 
 presents himself as a compound of strength and 
 weakness. He represents himself as weakness 
 itself — as incapacity utter and complete. To 
 overlook that startling fact is to overlook the 
 very element which has made David's Psalms the 
 text-book for all human weaknesses, penitences, 
 sorrows, struggles, aspirations, for nigh three 
 thousand years. 
 
 But this subject is too large for me to speak 
 of to-day ; and too deep for me to attempt an 
 explanation till I have turned your thoughts to- 
 ward another object, which will explain to you 
 David, and yourselves, and, it seems to me at 
 times, every problem of humanity. Look not at 
 David, but at David's greater Son; and consider 
 Christ upon his Cross. Consider him of whom it 
 is written, 'Thou art fairer than the children of 
 men : full of grace are thy lips, because God hath 
 
I.] DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 267 
 
 blessed thee for ever. Gird thee with thy sword 
 upon thy thigh, O thou most Mighty, according to 
 thy worship and renown. Good luck have thou 
 with thine honour ; ride on, because of the word of 
 truth, of meekness, and righteousness ; and thy 
 right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thy 
 arrows are very sharp, and the people shall be 
 subdued unto thee, even in the midst among the 
 King's enemies.' Consider him who alone ful- 
 filled these words, who fulfils them even now 
 eternally in heaven. King over all, God blessed 
 for ever. And then sit down at the foot of his 
 Cross : however young, strong, proud, gallant, 
 gifted, ambitious you may be — sit down at the foot 
 of Christ's Cross, and look thereon, till you see 
 what it means, and must mean for ever. See how 
 he nailed to that Cross, not in empty metaphor 
 but in literal fact, in agonising soul and body, 
 all of human nature which the world admires — 
 youth, grace, valour, power, eloquence, intellect : 
 not because they were evil, for he possessed them 
 doubtless himself as did none other of the sons 
 of men — not, I say, because they were evil, but 
 because they were worthless and as nothing beside 
 that divine charity which would endure and con- 
 quer for ever, when all the noblest accidents of 
 
268 DAVID'S WEAKNESS. [serm. 
 
 the body and the mind had perished, or seemed 
 to perish. In the utmost weakness and shame 
 of human flesh he would shew forth the strength 
 and glory of the Divine Spirit ; the strength and 
 the glory of duty and obedience ; of patience 
 and forgiveness ; of benevolence and self-sacrifice ; 
 the strength and glory of that burning love for 
 human beings which could stoop from heaven to 
 earth that it might seek and save that which was 
 lost. 
 
 Yes. Look at Christ upon his Cross ; the sight 
 which melted the hearts of our fierce forefathers, 
 and turned them from the worship of Thor and 
 Odin to the worship of 'The white Christ;' and 
 from the hope of a Valhalla of brute prowess, to 
 the hope of a heaven of righteousness and love. 
 Look at Christ upon his Cross, and see there, 
 as they saw, the true prowess, the true \'alour, 
 the true chivalry, the true glory, the true man- 
 hood, most human when most divine, which is 
 self-sacrifice and love — as possible to the weakest, 
 meanest, simplest, as to the strongest, most gal- 
 lant, and most wise. 
 
 Look upon him, and learn from him, and take 
 his yoke upon you, for he is meek and lowly of 
 heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls; and 
 
1.] DAVID'S WEAKNESS. 269 
 
 in you shall be fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah, 
 which he spake, saying, ' Let not the wise man 
 glory in his wisdom, neither the mighty man 
 glory in his might, neither let the rich man glory 
 in his wealth : but let him that glorieth glory in 
 this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that 
 I am the Lord, who exercise loving-kindness. 
 Judgment, and righteousness in the earth : for hi 
 these things I delight, saith the Lord.' 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 DAVID'S STRENGTH. 
 
 Psalm xxvii. i. 
 
 The Lord is my light, and my salvation ; whom then shall I fear ? 
 The Lord is the strength of my life ; of whom then shall I be 
 afraid ? 
 
 T SAID, last Sunday, that the key-note of David's 
 character was not the assertion of his own 
 strength, but the confession of his own weakness. 
 And I say it again. 
 
 But it is plain that David had strength, and 
 ■of no common order ; that he was an eminently 
 powerful, able, and successful man. From whence 
 then came that strength ? He says, from God. 
 He says, throughout his life, as emphatically as 
 did St. Paul after him, that God's strength was 
 made perfect in his weakness. 
 
 God is his deliverer, his guide, his teacher, his 
 inspirer. The Lord is his strength, who teaches 
 -his hands to war, and his fingers to fight ; his 
 
DAVID'S STRENGTH. 271 
 
 hope and his fortress, his castle and deUverer, 
 his defence, in whom he trusts ; who subdueth 
 the people that is under him. 
 
 To God he ascribes, not only his success in 
 life, but his physical prowess. By God's help he 
 slays the lion and the bear. By God's help he 
 has nerve to kill the Philistine giant. By God's 
 help he is so strong that his arms can break even 
 a bow of steel. It is God who makes his feet 
 like hart's feet, and enables him to leap over the 
 walls of the mountain fortresses. 
 
 And we must pause ere we call such utterances 
 mere Eastern metaphor. It is far more probable 
 that they were meant as and were literal truths. 
 David was not likely to have been a man of brute 
 gigantic strength So delicate a brain was pro- 
 bably coupled to a delicate body. Such a nature, 
 at the same time, would be the very one most 
 capable, under the influence — call it boldly, inspi- 
 ration — of a great and patriotic cause, of great 
 dangers and great purposes; capable, I say, at 
 moments, of accesses of almost superhuman en- 
 ergy, which he ascribed, and most rightly, to the 
 inspiration of God. 
 
 But it is not merely as his physical inspirer 
 or protector that he has faith in God. He has 
 
272 DAVID'S STRENGTH. [serm, 
 
 a deeper, a far deeper instinct than even that ; 
 the instinct of a communion, personal, practical, 
 living, between God, the fount of light and good- 
 ness, and his own soul, with its capacity of dark- 
 ness as well as light, of evil as well as good. 
 
 In one word, David is a man of faith and a 
 man of prayer — as God grant all you may be. 
 It is this one fixed idea, that God could hear him, 
 and that God would help him, which gives unity 
 and coherence to the wonderful variety of David's 
 Psalms. It is this faith which gives calm confi- 
 dence to his views of nature and of man ; and 
 enables him to say, as he looks upon his sheep 
 feeding round him, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, 
 therefore I shall not ■ want' Faith it is which 
 enables him to foresee that though the heathen 
 rage, and the kings of the earth stand up, and the 
 rulers take counsel together against the Lord and 
 his Anointed, yet the righteous cause will surely 
 prevail, for God is king himself Faith it is which 
 enables him to bear up against the general im- 
 morality, and while he cries, 'Help me, Lord, for 
 there is not one godly man left, for the laithful fail 
 from among the children of men'— to make answer 
 to himself in words of noble hope and consolation, 
 ' Now for the comfortless troubles' sake of the 
 
[I.] DAVID'S STRENGTH. 273 
 
 needy, and because of the deep sighing of the 
 poor, I will up, saith the Lord, and will help 
 every one from him that swelleth against him, and 
 will set him at rest' 
 
 Faith it is which gives a character, which no 
 other like utterances have, to those cries of agony 
 — cries as of a lost child — which he utters at 
 times with such noble and truthful simplicity. 
 They issue, almost every one of them, in a sudden 
 counter-cry of joy as pathetic as the sorrow which 
 has gone before. 'O Lord, rebuke me not in 
 thine indignation : neither chasten me in thy 
 displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for 
 I am weak : O Lord, heal me, for my bones are 
 vexed. My soul also is sore troubled : but. Lord, 
 how long wilt thou punish me .■' Turn thee, O 
 Lord, and deliver my soul : O save me for thy 
 mercy's sake. For in death no man remembereth 
 thee : and who will give thee thanks in the pit .' 
 I am weary of my groaning ; every night wash 
 I my bed : and water my couch with my tears. My 
 beauty is gone for very trouble : and worn away 
 because of all mine enemies. Away from me, all 
 ye that work vanity, for the Lord hath heard the 
 voice of my weeping. The Lord hath heard my 
 petition : the Lord will receive my prayer.' 
 
 18 
 
274 DAVID'S STRENGTH. [serm. 
 
 Faith it is, in like wise, which gives its peculiar 
 grandeur to that wonderful i8th Psalm, David's 
 song of triumph ; his masterpiece, and it may be 
 the masterpiece of human poetry, inspired or un- 
 inspired, only approached by the companion- 
 Psalm, the 144th. From whence comes that 
 cumulative energy, by which it rushes on, even 
 in our translation, with a force and swiftness 
 which are indeed divine; thought following 
 thought, image image, verse verse, before the 
 breath of the Spirit of God, as wave leaps after 
 wave before the gale ? What is the element in 
 that ode, which even now makes it stir the heart 
 like a trumpet .' Surely that which it itself de- 
 clares in the very first verse : 
 
 ' I will love thee, O Lord, my strength ; the 
 Lord is my stony rock, and my defence : my 
 Saviour, my God, and my might, in whom I will 
 trust, my buckler, the horn also of my salvation, 
 and my refuge.' 
 
 What is it which gives life and reality to the 
 magnificent imagery of the seventh and following 
 verses ? ' The earth trembled and quaked : the 
 very foundations also of the hills shook, and were 
 removed, because he was wroth. There went a 
 smoke out in his presence : and a consuming fire 
 
n.] DAVID'S STRENGTH. 275 
 
 out of his mouth, so that coals were kindled at it 
 He bowed the heavens also, and came down : and' 
 it was dark under his feet. He rode upon the 
 cherubims, and did fly : he came flying upon the 
 wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret 
 place : his pavilion round about him with dark 
 water, and thick clouds to cover him. At the 
 brightness of his presence his clouds removed : 
 hailstones, and coals of fire. The Lord also 
 thundered out of heaven, and the Highest gave 
 his thunder : hailstones, and coals of fire. He 
 sent out his arrows, and scattered them : he cast 
 forth lightnings, and destroyed them. The springs 
 of waters were seen, and the foundations of the 
 round world were discovered, at thy chiding, O 
 Lord : at the blasting of the breath of thy dis- 
 pleasure. He shall send down from on high to 
 fetch me : and shall take me out of many waters.' 
 What protects such words from the imputation 
 of mere Eastern exaggeration ? The firm con- 
 viction that God is the deliverer, not only of 
 David, but of all who trust in God ; that the 
 whole majesty of God, and all the powers of 
 nature, are arrayed on the side of the good and 
 of the oppressed. 'The Lord shall reward me 
 after my righteous dealing : according to the clean- 
 
276 DAVID'S STRENGTH. [serm. 
 
 ness of my hands shall he recompense me. 
 Because I have kept the ways of the Lord : and 
 have not forsaken my God, as the wicked doth. 
 For I have an eye unto all his laws : and will 
 not cast out his commandments from me. I was 
 also uncorrupt before him : and eschewed mine 
 own wickedness. Therefore shall the Lord reward 
 me after my righteous dealing : and according unto 
 the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight. With 
 the holy thou shalt be holy : and with a perfect 
 man thou shalt be perfect.' 
 
 Faith, again, it is, to turn from David's highest 
 to his lowest phase — faith in God it is which has 
 made that 51st Psalm the model of all true peni- 
 tence for evermore. Faith in God, in the spite 
 of his full consciousness that God is about to 
 punish him bitterly for the rest of his life. Faith 
 it is which gives to that Psalm its peculiarly 
 simple, deliberate, manly tone ; free from all ex- 
 aggerated self-accusations, all cowardly cries of 
 terror. He is crushed down, it is true. The tone 
 of his words shews us that throughout. But 
 crushed by what .' By the discovery that he has 
 offended God .■' Not in the least. For the sake 
 of your own souls, as well as for that of honest 
 critical understanding of the Scriptures, do not 
 
II.] DAVID'S STRENGTH. 277 
 
 foist that meaning into David's words. He never 
 says that he had offended God. Had he been a 
 mediaeval monk, had lie been an average supersti- 
 tious man of any creed or time, he would have said 
 so, and cried, I have offended God ; he is offended 
 and angry with me, how shall I avert his wrath .■■ 
 
 Not so. David has discovered not an angry, 
 but a forgiving God ; a God of love and goodness, 
 who desires to make his creatures good. Peni- 
 tential prayers in all ages have too often wanted 
 faith in God, and therefore have been too often 
 prayers to avert punishment. This, this — the 
 model of all truly penitent prayers — is that of a 
 man who is to be punished, and is content to take 
 his punishment, knowing that he deserves it, and 
 far more beside. And why ? Because, as always, 
 David has faith in God. God is a good and just 
 being, and he trusts him accordingly ; and that 
 very discovery of the goodness, not the sternness 
 of God, is the bitterest pang, the deepest shame 
 to David's spirit. Therefore he can face without 
 despair the discovery of a more deep, radical 
 inbred evil in himself than he ever expected 
 before. ' Behold, I was shapen in wickedness : 
 and in sin hath my mother conceived me ;> 
 because he could say also, ' Thou requirest truth 
 
278 DAVID'S STRENGTH. [serm. 
 
 in the inward parts ; and shalt make me to under- 
 stand wisdom secretly.' He can cry to God, out 
 of the depths of his fouhiess, ' Make me a clean 
 heart, O God : and renew a right spirit within 
 me. Cast me not away from thy presence : and 
 take not thy holy Spirit from me. O give me 
 the comfort of thy help again : and stablish me 
 with thy free Spirit. Then shall I teach thy ways 
 unto the wicked : and sinners shall be converted 
 unto thee.' He can cry thus, because he has dis- 
 covered that the will of God is not to hate, not to 
 torture, not to cast away from his presence, but to 
 restore his creatures to goodness, that he may 
 thereby restore them to usefulness. David has dis- 
 covered that God demands no sacrifice, much less 
 self-torturing penance. What he demands is the 
 heart. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit. 
 A broken and a contrite heart he will not despise. 
 It is such utterances as these which have given, 
 for now many hundred years, their priceless value 
 to the little book of Psalms ascribed to the 
 shepherd outlaw of the Judjean hills. It is such 
 utterances as these which have sent the sound of 
 his name into all lands, and his words throughout 
 all the world. Every form of human sorrow, 
 doubt, struggle, error, sin ; the nun agonising in 
 
II.] DAVID'S STRENGTH. 279 
 
 the cloister ; the settler struggling for his life in 
 Transatlantic forests ; the pauper shivering over 
 the embers in his hovel, and waiting for kind 
 death ; the man of business striving to keep his 
 honour pure amid the temptations of commerce ; 
 the prodigal son starving in the far country, and 
 recollecting the words which he learnt long ago 
 at his mother's knee ; the peasant boy trudging 
 a-field in the chill dawn, and remembering that 
 the Lord is his shepherd, therefore he will not 
 want — all shapes of humanity have found, and will 
 find to the end of time, a word said to their 
 inmost hearts, and more, a word said for those 
 hearts to the living God of heaven, by the vast 
 humanity of David, the man after God's own 
 heart; the most thoroughly human figure, as it 
 seems to me, which had appeared upon the earth 
 before the coming of that perfect Son of man, who 
 is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. 
 
 It may be said, David's belief is no more than 
 the common belief of fanatics. They have in all 
 ages fancied themselves under the special protec- 
 tion of Deity, the object of special communications 
 from above. 
 
 Doubtless they have ; and evil conclusions have 
 they drawn therefrom, in every age. But the 
 
28o DAVID'S STRENGTH. [serm 
 
 existence of a counterfeit is no argument against 
 the existence of the reality ; rather it is an argu- 
 ment for the existence of the reality. In this 
 case it is impossible to conceive how the idea 
 of communion with an unseen being ever entered 
 the human mind at all, unless it had been put 
 there originally by fact and experience. Man 
 would never have even dreamed of a living God, 
 had not that living God been a reality, who did 
 not leave the creature to find his Creator, but 
 stooped from heaven, at the very beginning of 
 our race, to find his creature. 
 
 And a reality you will surely find it — that living 
 and practical communication between your souls, 
 and that Father in heaven who created them. It 
 will not be real, but morbid, even imaginary, just 
 in proportion as your souls are tainted with self- 
 conceit, ambition, self-will, malice, passion, or any 
 wilful vice ; especially with the vice of bigotry, 
 which settles beforehand for God what he shall 
 teach the soul, and in what manner he shall teach 
 it, and turns a deaf ear to his plainest lessons if 
 they cannot be made to fit into some favourite 
 formula or theory. But it will be real, practical, 
 healthy, soul-saving, in the very deepest sense of 
 that word, just in proportion as your eye is single 
 
ti.] DAVID'S STRENGTH. 2»I 
 
 and your heart pure ; just in proportion as you 
 hunger and thirst after righteousness, and wish 
 and try simply and humbly to do your duty in 
 that station to which God has called you, and to 
 learn joyfully and trustingly anything and every- 
 thing which God may see fit to teach you. Then 
 as your day your strength shall be. Then will 
 the Lord teach you, and inform you with his eye, 
 and guide you in the way wherein you should go. 
 Then will you obey that appeal of the Psalmist, 
 'Be ye not like to horse and mule, which have 
 no understanding, whose mouths must be held in 
 with bit and bridle, lest they fall upon thee. 
 Great plagues remain for the ungodly. But whoso 
 putteth his trust in the Lord, mercy embraceth 
 him on every side.' 
 
 For understand this well, young men, and settle 
 it in your hearts as the first condition of human 
 life, yea, of the life of every rational created being, 
 that a man is justified only by faith ; and not 
 only a man, but angels, archangels, and all possible 
 created spirits, past, present, and to come. All 
 stand, all are in their right state, only as long as 
 they are consciously dependent on God the Father 
 of spirits and his Son Jesus Christ the Lord, in 
 whom they live and move and have their being. 
 
282 DAVID'S STRENGTH. 
 
 The moment they attempt to assert themselves, 
 whether their own power, their own genius, their 
 own wisdom, or even their own virtue, they ipso 
 facto sin, and are justified and just no longer; 
 because they are trying to take themselves out of 
 their just and right state of dependence, and to 
 put themselves into an unjust and wrong state of 
 independence. To assert that anything is their 
 own, to assert that their virtue is their own, just 
 as much as to assert that their wisdom, or any 
 other part of their being, is their own, is to deny 
 the primary fact of their existence — that in God 
 they live and move and have that being. And 
 therefore Milton's Satan, though, over and above 
 all his other grandeurs, he had been adorned with 
 every virtue, would have been Satan still by the 
 one sin of ingratitude, just because and just as long 
 as he set up himself, apart from that God from 
 whom alone comes every good and perfect gift. 
 
 Settle it in your hearts, young men, settle it in 
 your hearts — or i-ather pray to God to settle it 
 therein ; and if you would love life and see good 
 days, recollect daily and hourly that the only 
 sane and safe human life is dependence on God 
 himself, and that — 
 
 Unless above himself he can 
 Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man. 
 
SERMON TIL 
 
 DAVID'S ANGER. 
 
 Psalm cxliii. ii, 12. 
 
 Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake : for thy righteousness' 
 sake bring my soul out of trouble. And of thy mercy cut off 
 mine enemies, and destroy all them that afflict my soul : for I 
 am thy servant. 
 
 'T'HERE are those who would say that I dealt 
 unfairly last Sunday by the Psalms of David ; 
 that in order to prove them inspired, I ignored 
 an element in them which is plainly uninspired, 
 wrong, and offensive ; namely, the curses which he 
 invokes upon his enemies. I ignored it, they 
 would say, because it was fatal to my theory < 
 because it proved David to have the vindictive 
 passions of other Easterns ; to be speaking, not 
 by the inspiration of God, but of his own private 
 likes and dislikes ; to be at least a fanatic who 
 thinks that his cause must needs be God's cause, 
 and who invokes the lightnings of heaven on all 
 who dare to differ from him. Others would say 
 
284 DAVID'S ANGER. 
 
 that such words were excusable in David, living 
 under the Old Law ; for it was said by them of 
 old time, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate 
 thine enemy:' but that our Lord has formally 
 abrogated that permission ; ' But I say unto you. 
 Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, 
 and do good to those who despitefully use you 
 and persecute you.' How unnecessary, and how 
 wrong then, they would say, it is of the Church 
 of England to retain these cursing Psalms in her 
 public worship, and put them into the mouths of 
 her congregations. Either they are merely painful, 
 as well as unnecessary to Christians; or if they 
 mean anything, they excuse and foster the habit 
 too common among religious controversialists of 
 invoking the wrath of heaven on their opponents. 
 
 I argue with neither of the objectors. But the 
 question is a curious and an important one ; and I 
 am bound, I think, to examine it in a sermon 
 which, like the present, treats of David's chivalry. 
 
 What David meant by these curses can be best 
 known from his own actions. What certain per- 
 sons have meant by them since is patent enough 
 from their actions. Mediaeval monks considered 
 but too often the enemies of their creed, of their 
 ecclesiastical organisation, even of their particular 
 
in.] DAVID'S ANGER. 285 
 
 monastery, to be ipso facto enemies of God ; and 
 applied to them the seeming curses of David's 
 Psalms, with fearful additions, of which David, 
 to his honour, never dreamed. ' May they feel 
 with Dathan and Abiram the damnation of Ge- 
 henna,'* is a fair sample of the formulae which 
 are found in the writings of men who, while they 
 called themselves the servants of Jesus Christ our 
 Lord, derived their notions of the next world 
 principally from the sixth book of Virgil's ^neid. 
 And what they meant by their words their acts 
 shewed. Whenever they had the power, they 
 were but too apt to treat their supposed enemies 
 in this life, as they expected God to treat them 
 in the next. The history of the Inquisition on 
 the continent, in America, and in the Portuguese 
 Indies — of the Marian persecutions in England — 
 of the Piedmontese massacres in the 17th cen- 
 tury — are facts never to be forgotten. Their 
 horrors have been described in too authentic 
 documents ; they remain for ever the most hideous 
 pages in the history of sinful human nature. Do 
 we find a hint of any similar conduct on the part 
 
 * From a charter quoted by Ingulf — and very probably 
 a spurious one. 
 
286 DAVID'S ANGER. [serm. 
 
 of David ? If not, it is surely probable that he 
 did not mean by his imprecations what the 
 mediaeval clergy meant. 
 
 Certainly, whatsoever likeness there may have 
 been in language, the contrast in conduct is most 
 striking. It is a special mark of David's character, 
 as special as his faith in God, that he never 
 avenges himself with his own hand. Twice he 
 has Saul in his power : once in the cave at Engedi, 
 once at the camp at Hachilah, and both times he 
 refuses nobly to use his opportunity. He is his 
 master, the Lord's Anointed ; and his person is 
 sacred in the eyes of David his servant — his 
 knight, as he would have been called in the 
 Middle Age. The second time David's tempta- 
 tion is a terrible one. He has softened Saul's 
 wild heart by his courtesy and pathos when he 
 pleaded with him, after letting him escape from 
 the cave ; and he has sworn to Saul that when 
 he becomes king he will never cut off his children, 
 or destroy his name out of his father's home. 
 Yet we find Saul, immediately after, attacking 
 him again out of mere caprice ; and once more 
 falling into his hands. Abishai aays — and who 
 can wonder ^ — ' Let me smite him with the spear 
 to the earth this once, and I will not smite a 
 
m.] DAVID'S ANGER. 287 
 
 second time.' What wonder ? The man is not 
 to be trusted — truce with him is impossible ; but 
 David still keeps his chivalry, in the true meaning 
 of that word : ' Destroy him not, for who can 
 stretch forth his hand against the Lord's Anointed, 
 and be guiltless.' As the Lord liveth, the Lord 
 shall smite him, or his day shall come to die ; or 
 he shall go down into battle, and perish. But 
 the Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my 
 hand against the Lord's Anointed.' 
 
 And if it be argued, that David regarded the 
 person of a king as legally sacred, there is a case 
 more clear still, in which he abjures the right of 
 revenge upon a private person. 
 
 Nabal, in addition to his ingratitude, has in- 
 sulted him with the bitterest insult which could 
 be offered to a free man in a slave-holding 
 country. He has hinted that David is neither 
 more nor less than a runaway slave. And David's 
 heart is stirred by a terrible and evil spirit. He 
 dare not trust his men, even himself, with his black 
 thoughts. ' Gird on your swords,' is all that he 
 can say aloud. But he had said in his heart, 
 ' God do so and more to the enemies of David, 
 if I leave a man alive by the morning light of all 
 that pertain to him.' 
 
288 DAVID'S ANGER. [seem. 
 
 And yet at the first words of reason and of 
 wisdom, urged doubtless by the eloquence of a 
 beautiful and noble woman, but no less by the 
 Spirit of God speaking through her, as all who 
 call themselves gentlemen should know already, 
 his right spirit returns to him. The chivalrous 
 instinct of forgiveness and duty is roused once 
 more ; and he cries, ' Blessed be the Lord God 
 of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me; 
 and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day 
 from shedding blood, and from avenging myself 
 with mine own hand.' 
 
 It is plain then, that David's notion of his duty 
 to his enemies was very different from that of the 
 monks. But still they are undeniably impreca- 
 tions, the imprecations of a man smarting under 
 cruel injustice; who cannot, and in some cases 
 must not avenge himself, and who therefore calls 
 on the just God to avenge him. Are we therefore 
 to say that these utterances of David are unin- 
 spired ? Not in the least : we are boldly to say 
 that they are inspired, and by the verj- Spirit of 
 God, who is the Spirit of justice and of judgment. 
 
 Doubtless there were, in after ages, far higher 
 inspirations. The Spirit of God was, and is gradu- 
 ally educating mankind, and individuals among 
 
III.] DAVID'S ANGER. 289 
 
 mankind, like David, upward from lower truths 
 to higher ones. That is the express assertion of 
 our Lord and of his Apostles. But the higher 
 and later inspiration does not make the lower 
 and earlier false. It does not even always su- 
 persede it altogether. Each is true ; and, for 
 the most part, each must remain, and be respected, 
 that they may complement each other. 
 
 Let us look at this question rationally and re- 
 verently, free from all sentimental and immoral 
 indulgence for sin and wrong. 
 
 The first instinct of man is the Lex Talionis. 
 As you do to me — says the savage — so I have 
 a right to do to you. If you try to kill me or 
 mine, I have a right to kill you in return. Is 
 this notion uninspired .' I should be sorry to say 
 so. It is surely the first form and the only pos- 
 sible first form of the sense of justice and retri- 
 bution. As a man sows so shall he reap. If a 
 man does wrong he deserves to be punished. No 
 arguments will drive that great divine law out of 
 the human mind ; for God has put it there. 
 
 After that inspiration comes a higher one. The 
 man is taught to say, I must not punish my enem}- 
 if I can avoid it. God must punish him, either 
 by the law of the land or by his providential 
 
 19 
 
290 DAVrD'S ANGER. [serm. 
 
 judgments. To this height David rises. In a 
 seemingly lawless age and country, under the most 
 extreme temptation, he learns to say, ' Blessed be 
 God who hath kept me from avenging myself 
 with my own hand.' 
 
 But still, it may be said, David calls down God's 
 vengeance on his enemies. He has not learnt to 
 hate the sin and yet love the sinner. Doubtless 
 he has not : and it may have been right for his 
 education, and for the education of the human 
 race through him, that he did not. It may have 
 been a good thing for him, as a future king ; it 
 may be a good thing for many a man now, to 
 learn the sinfulness of sin, by feeling its effects in 
 his own person ; by writhing under those miseries 
 of body and soul, which wicked men can, and do 
 inflict on their fellow-creatures. 
 
 There are sins which a good man will not pity, 
 but wage internecine war against them ; sins for 
 which he is justified, if God have called him there- 
 to, to destroy the sinner in his sins. The traitor, 
 the tyrant, the ravisher, the robber, the extor- 
 tioner, are not objects of pity, but of punishment ; 
 and it may have been very good for David to 
 be taught by sharp personal experience, that those 
 who robbed the widow and put the fatherless to 
 
III.] DAVID'S ANGER. 291 
 
 death, like the lawless lords of his time ; those 
 like Saul, who smote the city of the priests for 
 having given David food — men and women, chil- 
 dren and sucklings, oxen and asses and sheep, 
 with the edge of the sword ; those who, like 
 the nameless traitor who so often rouses his 
 indignation — his own familiar friend who lifted 
 up his heel against him — sought men's lives un- 
 der the guise of friendship : that such, I say, 
 were persons not to be tolerated upon the face 
 of God's earth. We do not tolerate them now. 
 We punish them by law. We even destroy them 
 wholesale in war, without inquiring into their in- 
 dividual guilt or innocence. David was taught, 
 not by abstract meditation in his study, but by 
 bitter need and agony, not to tolerate them then. 
 If he could have destroyed them as we do now, 
 it is not for us to say that he would have been 
 wrong. And what if he were indignant, and what 
 if he expressed that indignation .' I have yet to 
 discover that indignation against wrong is aught 
 but righteous, noble, and divine. The flush of 
 rage and scorn which rises, and ought to rise in 
 every honest heart, when we see a woman or a 
 child ill-used, a poor man wronged or crushed — 
 What is that, but the inspiration of Almiglity 
 
292 DAVID'S ANGER. [serm. 
 
 God ? What is that but the likeness of Christ ? 
 Woe to the man who has lost that feeling ! Woe 
 to the man who can stand coolly by, and see 
 wrong done without a shock or a murmur, or even 
 more, to the very limits of the just laws of this 
 land. He may think it a fine thing so to do; a 
 proof that he is an easy, prudent man of the 
 world, and not a meddlesome enthusiast. But 
 all that it does prove is : That the Spirit of God, 
 who is the Spirit of justice and judgment, has 
 departed from him. 
 
 I say the Spirit of God and the likeness of 
 Christ. Instead of believing David's own state- 
 ment of the wrong doings of these men about 
 him, we may say cynically, and as it seems to 
 me most unfairly, ' Of course there were two 
 sides to David's quarrels, as there are to all such ; 
 and of course he took his own side ; and con- 
 sidered himself always in the right, and every 
 one who differed from him in the wrong;' and 
 such a speech will sound sufficiently worldly-wise 
 to pass for philosophy with some critics ; but, 
 unfortunately, he who says that of David, will 
 be bound in all fairness to say it of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 For you must remember that there was a class 
 
III.] DAVID'S ANGER. 293 
 
 of sinners in Judjea, to whom our Lord speaks no 
 word of pity or forgiveness : namely, the very men 
 who were his own personal enemies, who were 
 persecuting him, and going about to kill him ; and 
 that therefore, by any hard words toward them, 
 he must have laid himself open, just as much as 
 David laid himself open, to the imputation of 
 personal spite. And yet, what did he say to the 
 scribes and Pharisees : ' Ye go about to kill me, 
 and therefore I am bound to say nothing harsh 
 concerning you'.' What he did say was this: 
 'Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can 
 ye escape the damnation of hell .''' 
 
 Yes ; in the Son of David, as in David's self, 
 there was, and is, and will be for ever and ever, 
 no weak, and really cruel indulgence ; but a 
 burning fire of indignation against all hypocrisy, 
 tyranny, lust, cruelty, and every other sin by 
 which men oppress, torment, deceive, degrade their 
 fellow-men ; and still more, still more, remember 
 that, all young men, their fellow-women. That 
 fire burns for ever — the Divine fire of God ; the 
 fire not of hatred, but of love to mankind, which 
 will therefore punish, and if need be, exterminate 
 all who shall dare to make mankind the worse, 
 whether in body or soul or mind. 
 
294 DAVID'S ANGER, [serm. 
 
 But David prays God to kill his enemies. No 
 doubt he does. Probably they deserved to be 
 killed. He does not ask, you will always re- 
 member, if you be worthy of the name of critical 
 students of the Bible — he does not ask, as did 
 the mediaeval monks, that his enemies should go 
 to endless torments after they died. True or 
 false, that is a more modern notion — and if it be 
 appHed to the Psalms, an interpolation — of which 
 David knew nothing. He asks simply that the 
 men may die. Probably he knew his own business 
 best, and the men deserved to die ; to be killed 
 either by God or by man, as do too many in all 
 ages. 
 
 If we take the Bible as it stands (and we have 
 no right to do otherwise), these men were trying 
 to kill David. He could not, and upon a point of 
 honour, would not kill them himself But he 
 believed, and rightly, that God can punish the 
 offender whom man cannot touch, and that He 
 will, and does punish them. And if he calls on 
 God to execute justice and judgment upon these 
 men, he only calls on God to do what God is 
 doing continually on the face of the whole earth. 
 In fact, God does punish here, in this life. He 
 does not, as false preachers say, give over this 
 
III.] DAVID'S ANGER. 295 
 
 life to impunity, and this world to the devil, and 
 only resume the reins of moral government and 
 the right of retribution when men die and go into 
 the next world. Here, in this life, he punishes 
 sin ; slowly, but surely, God punishes. And if 
 any of you doubt my words, you have only to 
 commit sin, and then see whether your sin will 
 find you out. 
 
 The whole question turns on this. Are we to 
 believe in a living God, or are we not .■' If we 
 are not, then David's words are of course worse 
 than nothing. If we are, I do not see why David 
 was wrong in calling on God to exercise that 
 moral and providential government of the world, 
 which is the very note and definition of a living 
 God. 
 
 But what right have we to use these words .'' 
 My friends, if the Church bids us use these words, 
 she certainly does not bid us act upon them. 
 She keeps them, I believe most rightly, as a 
 record of a human experience, which happily 
 seems to us special and extreme, of which we, in 
 a well-governed Christian land, know nothing, and 
 shall never know. 
 
 Special and extreme.' Alas, alas! In too many 
 countries, in too many ages, it has been the com- 
 
-96 DAVID'S ANGER. [serm. 
 
 mon, the almost universal experience of the many 
 weak, enslaved, tortured, butchered at the wicked 
 vi^ill of the few strong. 
 
 There have been those in tens of thousands, 
 there may be those again who will have a right 
 to cry to God, ' Of thy goodness slay mine 
 enemies, lest they slay, or worse than slay, both 
 me and mine.' There were thousands of English 
 after the Norman Conquest ; there were thousands 
 of Hindoos in Oude before its annexation ; there 
 are thousands of negroes at this moment in their 
 native land of Africa, crushed and outraged by 
 hereditary tyrants, who had and have a right to 
 appeal to God, as David appealed to him against 
 the robber lords of Palestine ; a right to cry, 
 ' Rid us, O God ; if thou be a living God, a God 
 of justice and mercy, rid us not only of these 
 men, but of their children after them. This 
 tyrant, stained with lust and wine and blood; 
 this robber chieftain who privily in his lurking dens 
 murders the innocent, and ravishes the poor when 
 he getteth him into his net; this slave-hunting 
 king who kills the captives whom he cannot sell ; 
 and whose children after him will inevitably imi- 
 tate his cruelties and his rapine and treacheries — 
 deal with him and his as they deserve. Set an 
 
in.] DAVID'S ANGER. 297 
 
 ungodly man to be ruler over him; that he may 
 find out what we have been enduring from his 
 ungodly rule. Let his days be few, and another 
 take his office. Let his children be fatherless, 
 and his wife a widow. Let his children beg their 
 bread out of desolate places. Let there be no 
 man to pity him or take compassion on his father- 
 less children — to take his part, and breed up a 
 fresh race of tyrants to our misery. Let the 
 extortioner consume all he hath, and the stranger 
 spoil his labour — for what he has is itself taken 
 by extortion, and he has spoiled the labour of 
 thousands. Let his posterity be destroyed, and 
 in the next generation his name be clean put out 
 Let the wickedness of his father and the sin of 
 his mother be had in remembrance in the sight 
 of the Lord ; that he may root out the memorial 
 of them from the earth, and enable law and justice, 
 peace and freedom to take the place of anarchy 
 and tyranny and blood.' 
 
 That prayer was answered — if we are to believe 
 the records of Norman, not English, monks in 
 England after the Conquest, by the speedy ex- 
 tinction of the most guilty families among the 
 Norman conquerors. It is being answered, thank 
 God, in Hindostan at this moment. It will surely 
 
DAVID'S ANGER. 
 
 be answered in Africa in God's good time ; for the 
 Lord reigneth, be the nations never so unquiet. 
 And we, if we will read such words rationally 
 and humanly, remembering the state of society 
 in which they were written — a state of society, 
 alas ! which has endured, and still endures over 
 a vast portion of the habitable globe ; where might 
 is right, and there is little or no principle, save 
 those of lust and greed and revenge — then instead 
 of wishing such words out of the Bible, we shall 
 be glad to keep them there, as testimonies to the 
 moral government of the world by a God and a 
 Christ who will surely avenge the innocent blood ; 
 and as a Gospel of comfort to suffering millions, 
 when the news reaches them at last, that they 
 may call on God to deliver them from their tor- 
 mentors, and that he will hear their cry, and will 
 help them. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 DAVID'S DESERTS. 
 
 2 Samuel i. 26. 
 
 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan : very pleasant 
 hast thou been unto me : thy love to me was wonderful, passing 
 the love of women. 
 
 "PASSING the love of woman? How can that 
 be, we of these days shall say. What love 
 can pass that, saving the boundless love of him 
 who stooped from heaven to earth, that he might 
 die on the Cross for us .'' No. David, when he 
 sang those words, knew not the depth of woman's 
 love. And we shall have a right so to speak. The 
 indefeasible and Divine right which is bestowed 
 by fact. 
 
 As a fact, we do not find among the ancient 
 Jews that exalting and purifying ideal of the 
 relations between man and woman, which is to 
 be found, thank God, in these days, in almost 
 every British work of fiction or fancy. 
 
 It is enunciated, remember always, in the oldest 
 
300 DAVID'S DESERTS. [serm. 
 
 Hebrew document. On the very threshold of the 
 Bible, in the very first chapters of Genesis, it is 
 enunciated in its most ideal purity and perfection. 
 But in practice it was never fulfilled. No man 
 seems to have attempted to fulfil it. Man be- 
 comes a polygamist, lower than the very birds 
 of the air. Abraham, the father of the faithful, 
 has his Sarah, his princess-wife : but he has others 
 beside, as many as he will. And so has David 
 in like wise, to the grief and harm of both him 
 and Abraham. 
 
 So, it would seem, had the majority of the Jews 
 till after the Captivity ; and even then the law 
 of divorce seems to have been as indulgent toward 
 the man as it was unjust and cruel toward the 
 woman. Then our blessed Lord reasserted the 
 ideal and primaeval law. He testified in behalf 
 of woman, the puppet of a tyrant who repudiated 
 lier upon the most frivolous pretext, and declared 
 that in the beginning God made them male and 
 female ; the one husband for the one wife. But 
 his words fell on unwilling ears. His disciples 
 answered, that if the case of a man with his wife 
 be such, it is not good for a man to marry. And 
 such, as a fact, was the general opinion of Chris- 
 tendom for many centuries. 
 
IV.] DAVID'S DESERTS. 301 
 
 But of that, as of other sayings of our Lord's, 
 were his own words fulfilled, that the kingdom 
 of God is as if a man should put seed into the 
 ground, and sleep and wake, and the seed should 
 spring up, and bear fruit, he knew not how. 
 
 In due course of time, when the Teutonic nations 
 were Christianised, there sprang up among them 
 an idea of married love, which showed that our 
 Lord's words had at last fallen on good ground, 
 and were destined to bear fruit an hundredfold. 
 
 Gradually, with many confusions, and some- 
 times sinful mistakes, there arose, not in the 
 cloister, not in the study — ^not even, alas! in 
 the churches of God, as they were then ; but 
 in the flowery meads of May ; under the forest 
 boughs, where birds sang to their mates ; by the 
 side of the winter hearth ; from the lips of wan- 
 dering minstrels ; in the hearts of young creatures, 
 whom neither the profligacy of worldlings, nor the 
 prudery of monks, had yet defiled : from them 
 arose a voice, most human and yet most divine, 
 reasserting once more the lost law of Eden, and 
 finding in its fulfilment, strength and purity, self- 
 sacrifice and self-restraint. 
 
 That voice grew clearer and more strong as 
 time went on. It was purged from youthful mis- 
 
302 DAVID'S DESERTS. [serh. 
 
 takes and youthful grossnesses ; till, at the Re- 
 formation, it could speak clearly, fully, once and 
 for all — no longer on the ground of mere nature 
 and private fancy, but on the ground of Scripture, 
 and reason, and the eternal laws of God ; and 
 the highest ideal of family life became possible 
 to the family and to the nation, in proportion as 
 they accepted the teaching of the Reformation : 
 and impossible, alas ! in proportion as they still 
 allowed themselves to be ruled by a priesthood 
 who asserted the truly monstrous dogma, that the 
 sexes reach each their highest excellence only 
 when parted from each other. 
 
 But these things were hidden from David. One 
 ■can well conceive that he, so gifted outwardly 
 and inwardly, must have experienced all that was 
 then possible of woman's love. In one case, in- 
 deed, he was notably brought under that moral 
 influence of woman, which we now regard and 
 rightly, as one of the holiest influence's of this life. 
 The scene is unique in Scripture. It reads like a 
 scene out of the Middle Age. 
 
 Abigail's meeting with David under the covert 
 of the hill ; her turning him from his purpose of 
 wild revenge by graceful compliments, by the 
 frank, and yet most modest expression of her 
 
IV.] DAVID'S DESERTS. 303 
 
 sympathy and admiration ; and David's chivalrous 
 answer to her chivalrous appeal — all that scene, 
 which painters have so often delighted to draw, 
 is a fore-feeling, a prophecy, as it were, of the 
 Christian chivalry of after ages. The scene is 
 most human and most divine : and we are not 
 shocked to hear that after Nabal's death the fair 
 and rich lady joins her fortune to that of the wild 
 outlaw, and becomes his wife to wander by wood 
 and wold. 
 
 But amid all the simple and sacred beauty of 
 that scene, we cannot forget, we must not forget 
 that Abigail is but one wife of many ; that there 
 is an element of pure, single, all-absorbing love 
 absent at least in David's heart, which was present 
 in the hearts of our forefathers in many a like 
 case, and which they have handed down to us 
 as an heirloom, as precious as that of our laws 
 and liberties. 
 
 And all this was sin unto David ; and like all 
 sin, brought with it its own punishment. I do 
 not mean to judge him : to assign his exact 
 amount of moral responsibility. Our Lord forbids 
 us positively to do that to any man ; and least 
 of all, to a man who only acted according to his 
 right, and the fashion of his race and his age. 
 
304 DAVID'S DESERTS. [serm. 
 
 But we must fix it very clearly in our minds, 
 that sins may be punished in this life, even 
 though he who commits them is not aware that 
 they are sins. If you are ignorant that fire burns, 
 your ignorance will not prevent your hand from 
 suffering if you put it into the fire. If you are 
 of opinion that two and two make five, and there- 
 fore spend five pounds while you only possess 
 four, your mistake will not prevent your being 
 in debt. And so with all mortal affairs. 
 
 Sin, afj^dpria, means first, it seems to me, a 
 missing the mark, end, or aim of our existence ; 
 a falling short of the law, the ideal, the good 
 works which God has prepared beforehand for us 
 to walk in ; and every such sin, conscious or un- 
 conscious, must avenge itself by the Divine laws 
 of the universe, whether physical or spiritual. No 
 miracle is needed ; no intervention of God with 
 his own laws. His laws are far too well made 
 for him to need to break them a second time, 
 because a sinner has broken them already. The}- 
 avenge themselves. And so does polygamy. So 
 it did in the case of David. It is a breach of the 
 ideal law of human nature ; and he who breaks 
 that law must suffer, as David suffered. 
 
 Look at the latter history of David, and at 
 
IV.] DAVID'S DESERTS. 305 
 
 what it might have been. One can conceive so 
 noble a personage under such woman's influence 
 as, thank God, is common now, going down into 
 an honoured old age, and living together with a 
 helpmate worthy of him in godly love and honesty 
 to his life's end ; seeing his children Christianly 
 and virtuously brought up, to the praise and 
 honour of God. 
 
 And what was the fact .■■ 
 
 The indulgence of his passions — seemingly 
 harmless to him at first — becomes most harmful 
 ere he dies. He commits a crime, or rather a 
 complication of crimes, which stains his name for 
 ever among men. 
 
 I do not think that we shall understand that 
 great crime of David's, if we suppose it, with 
 some theologians, to have been merely a sudden 
 and solitary fall, from which he recovered by 
 repentance, and became for the time to come as 
 good a man as he had ever been. Such a theory, 
 however well it may fit certain theological systems, 
 does not fit the facts of human life, or, as I hold, 
 the teaching of Scripture. 
 
 Such terrible crimes are not committed by men 
 in a right state of mind. Nemo repente fuit iurpis- 
 simus. He who commits adultery, treachery, and 
 
 20 
 
3o6 DAVID'S DESERTS. [serm. 
 
 murder, must have been long tampering, at least 
 in heart, with all these. Had not David been 
 playing upon the edge of sin, into sin he would 
 not have fallen. 
 
 He may have been quite unconscious of bad 
 habits of mind ; but they must have been there, 
 growing in secret. The tyrannous self-will, which 
 is too often developed by long success and com- 
 mand : the unscrupulous craft, which is too often 
 developed by long adversity, and the necessity 
 of sustaining oneself in a difficult position — these 
 must have been there. But even they would not 
 have led David to do the deed which he did, had 
 there not been in him likewise that fearful moral 
 weakness which comes from long indulgence of 
 the passions — a weakness which is reckless alike 
 of conscience, of public opinion, and of danger 
 either to earthly welfare or everlasting salvation. 
 
 It has been said, ' But such a sin is so unlike 
 David's character.' Doubtless it was, on the theory 
 that David was a character mingled of good and 
 evil. But on David's own theory, that he was an 
 utterly weak person without the help of God, the 
 act is perfectly like David. It is David's self It 
 is what David would naturally do when he had 
 left hold of God. Had he left hold of God in 
 
iv.] DAVID'S DESERTS. 307 
 
 the wilderness he would have become a mere 
 robber-chieftain. He does leave hold of God in 
 his palace on Zion, and he becomes a mere Eastern 
 despot. 
 
 And what of his sons .? 
 
 The fearful curse of Nathan, that the sword 
 shall never depart from his house, needs, as usual, 
 no miracle to fulfil it. It fulfils itself. The tra- 
 gedies of his sons, of Amnon, of Absalom, are 
 altogether natural — to have been foreseen, but not 
 to have been avoided. 
 
 The young men have seen their father put no 
 restraint upon his passions. Why should they put 
 restraint on theirs .' How can he command them 
 when he has not commanded himself.'' And 3'et 
 self-restraint is what they, above all men, need. 
 Upstart princes — the sons of a shepherd boy — 
 intoxicated with honours to which they were not 
 born ; they need the severest discipline ; they 
 break out into the most frantic licence. What 
 is there that they may not do, and dare not do ? 
 Nothing is sacred in their eyes. Luxury, am- 
 bition, revenge, vanity, recklessness of decency, 
 open rebellion, disgrace them in the sight of all 
 men. And all these vices, remember, are height- 
 ened by the fact that they are not brothers, but 
 
3o8 DAVID'S DESERTS. [serm. 
 
 rivals; sons of different mothers, hating each other, 
 plotting against each other ; each, probably, urged 
 on by his own mother, who wishes, poor fool, to 
 set up her son as a competitor for the throne 
 against all the rest. And so are enacted in 
 David's house those tragedies which have dis- 
 graced, in every age, the harems of Eastern 
 despots. 
 
 But most significant is the fact, that those 
 tragedies complete themselves by the sin and 
 shame of David's one virtuous and famous son. 
 Significant truly, that in his old age Solomon the 
 wise should love strange women, and deserting 
 for their sakes the God of his fathers, end as an 
 idolater and a dotard, worshipping the abomina- 
 tions of the heathen, his once world-famous wisdom- 
 sunk into utter folly. 
 
 But, it may be said, the punishment of David's 
 sin fell on his sons, and not upon himself 
 
 How so .'' Can there be a more heavy punish- 
 ment, a more bitter pain, than to be punished 
 in and by his children ; to see his own evil ex- 
 ample working out their shame and ruin .' But 
 do not fancy that David's own character did not 
 suffer for his sin. The theory that he became, 
 instantly on his repentance, as good and great a 
 
iv.] DAVID'S DESERTS. 309 
 
 man as he was before his fall, was convenient 
 enough to certain theologians of past days ; but 
 it is neither warranted by the facts of Scripture, 
 nor by the noble agonies, however noble, of the 
 51st Psalm. 
 
 It is a prayer for restoration, and that of the 
 only right and true kind : ' Take not thy Holy 
 Spirit from me ;' and, as such, it was doubtless 
 heard : but it need not have been fulfilled instantly 
 and at once. It need not have been fulfilled, it 
 may be, till that life to come, of which David 
 knew so little. It is a fact, it was not fulfilled 
 in this life. We read henceforth of no noble 
 and heroical acts of David. From that time 
 forth — I speak with all diffidence, and merely as 
 it seems to me — he is a broken man. His atti- 
 tude in Absalom's rebellion is all but imbecile. 
 No act is recorded of him to the day of his 
 death but what is questionable, if not mean and 
 crafty. The one sudden flash of the old noble- 
 ness which he has shewn in pardoning Shimei, 
 he himself stultifies with his dying lips by a 
 mean command to Solomon to entrap and slay 
 the man whom he has too rashly forgiven. The 
 whole matter of the sacrifice of Saul's sons is so 
 very strange, so puzzling, even shocking to our 
 
310 DAVID'S DESERTS. [serm. 
 
 ideas of right and wrong, that I cannot wonder 
 at, though I dare not endorse, Coleridge's bold 
 assertion, that they were sacrificed to a plot of 
 State policy, and the suspicion of some critics, 
 that the whole scene was arranged between David 
 and a too complaisant priesthood, and God's name 
 blasphemously taken in vain to find a pretext 
 for a political murder. And so David shivers 
 pitiably to his grave, after a fashion which has 
 furnished a jest for cynics and infidels, but which 
 contains, to the eyes of a wise man, the elements 
 of the deepest tragedy; one more awful lesson 
 that human beauty, valour, wit, genius, success, 
 glory, are vanity of vanities : that man is nothing, 
 and God is all in all. 
 
 But some may ask. What has all this to do 
 with us ? To do with us .'' Do you think that 
 the Scripture says in vain, 'AH these things are 
 written for our example' .■" As long as human 
 nature is what it is now, and was three thousand 
 years ago, so long shall we be tempted to commit 
 the same sins as David : different in outward form, 
 according to the conditions of society; but the 
 same in spirit, the same in sinfulness, and the same 
 in the sure punishment which they bring. And 
 above all, will men to the end be tempted to the 
 
IV.] DAVID'S DESERTS. 311 
 
 sin of self-indulgence, want of self-control. In 
 many ways, but surely in some way or other, 
 will every man's temptation be, to lose self- 
 control. 
 
 Therefore settle it in your minds, young men, 
 that the first and the last of all virtues and 
 graces of which God can give is self-control ; 
 as necessary for the saint and the sage, lest they 
 become fanatics or pedants, as for the young 
 man in the hey-day of youth and health ; but as 
 necessary for the young man as for the saint and 
 the sage, lest, while they become only fanatics 
 and pedants, he become a profligate, and a cum- 
 berer of the ground. 
 
 Remember this — remember it now in the 
 glorious days of youth which never will return, 
 but in which you are sowing seed of which you 
 will reap the fruit until your dying day. Know 
 that as you sow, so will you reap. If you sow 
 to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption ; 
 corruption — deterioration, whether of health, of 
 intellect, of character in some shape or other. You 
 know not, and no man knows, what the curse will 
 be like; but the curse will surely come. The 
 thing which is done cannot be undone ; and you 
 will find that out before, and not merely after 
 
312 DAVID'S DESERTS. 
 
 your dying day. Therefore rejoice in your youth, 
 for God has given it to you ; but remember, that 
 for it, as for each and all of his gifts, God will 
 bring you into judgment. And when the hour 
 of temptation comes, go back — go back, if you 
 would escape — to what you all were taught at 
 your mother's knee concerning the grace of God; 
 for that alone will keep you safe, or angel, or 
 archangel, or any created being safe, in this life 
 and in all lives to come. 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP ; OR, DAVID AND JONATHAN. 
 
 2 Samukl I. 26. 
 
 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan : very pleasant hast 
 thou been unto me : thy love to me was wonderful, passing the 
 love of women. 
 
 TDASSING the love of woman! That is a 
 hard saying. What love can pass that .'' Yet 
 David doubtless spoke truth. He was a man 
 who must have had reason enough to know what 
 woman's love was like ; and when he said that 
 the love of Jonathan for him passed even that, he 
 bestowed on his friend praise which will be im- 
 mortal. 
 
 The name of Jonathan will remain for ever as 
 the perfect pattern of friendship. 
 
 Let us think a little to-day over his noble 
 character and his tragical history. It will surely 
 do us good. If it does nothing but make us 
 somewhat ashamed of ourselves, that is almost the 
 best thing which can happen to us or to any man. 
 
314 FRIENDSHIP; OR, [seum. 
 
 We first hear of Jonathan as doing a very 
 gallant deed. We might expect as much. It is 
 only great-hearted men who can be true friends ; 
 mean and cowardly men can never know what 
 friendship means. 
 
 The Israelites were hidden in thickets, and 
 caves, and pits, for fear of the Philistines, when 
 Jonathan was suddenly inspired to attack a 
 Philistine garrison, under circumstances seemingly 
 desperate. ' And that first slaughter, which Jona- 
 than and his armour-bearer made, was about 
 twenty men, within, as it were, an half-acre of 
 land, which a yoke of oxen might plough.' 
 
 That is one of those little hints which shews 
 that the story is true, written by a man who knew 
 the place — who had probably been in the great 
 battle of Beth-aven, which followed, and had 
 perhaps ascended the rock where Jonathan had 
 done his valiant deed, and had seen the dead 
 bodies lying as they had fallen before him and 
 his armour-bearer. 
 
 Then follows the story of David's killing Go- 
 liath, and coming back to Saul with the giant's 
 head in his hand, and answering modestly to him, 
 'I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Beth- 
 lehemite.' 
 
v.] DAVID AND JONATHAN. 315 
 
 'And it came to pass, when he had made an 
 end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jona- 
 than was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan 
 loved him as his own soul. 
 
 ' Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, 
 because he loved him as his own soul. 
 
 ' And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that 
 was upon him, and gave it to David, and his 
 garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and 
 to his girdle.' 
 
 He loved him as his own soul. And why ? 
 Because his soul was like the soul of David ; 
 because he was modest, he loved David's modesty; 
 because he was brave, he loved David's courage ; 
 because he was virtuous, he loved David's virtue. 
 He saw that David was all that he was himself, 
 and more ; and therefore he loved him as his own 
 soul. And therefore I said, that it is only noble 
 and great hearts who can have great friendships ; 
 who admire and delight in other men's goodness ; 
 who, when they see a great and godlike man, 
 conceive, like Jonathan, such an affection for him 
 that they forget themselves, and think only of 
 him, till they will do anything for him, sacrifice 
 anything for him, as Jonathan did for David. 
 
 For remember, that Jonathan had cause to hate 
 
3i6 FRIENDSHIP; OR, [serm. 
 
 and envy David rather than love him; and that 
 he would have hated him if there had been any 
 touch of meanness or selfishness in his heart. 
 Gradually he learnt, as all Israel learnt, that 
 Samuel had anointed David to be king, and that 
 he, Jonathan, was in danger of not succeeding 
 after Saul's death. David stood between him and 
 the kingdom. And yet he did not envy David — 
 did not join his father for a moment in plotting 
 his ruin. He would oppose his father, secretly 
 indeed, and respectfully ; but still, he would be 
 true to David, though he had to bear insults and 
 threats of death. 
 
 And mark here one element in Jonathan's great 
 friendship. Jonathan is a pious man, as well as a 
 righteous one. He believes the Lord's messages 
 that he has chosen David to be king^ and he 
 submits; seeing that it is just and right, and that 
 David is worthy of the honour, though it be to 
 the hurt of himself and of his children after him. 
 It is the Lord's will ; and he, instead of repining 
 against it, must carry it out as far as he is con- 
 cerned. Yes ; those who are most true to their 
 fellow-men are always those who are true to God ; 
 for the same spirit of God which makes them fear 
 God makes them also love their neighbour. 
 
v.] DAVID AND JONATHAN. 317 
 
 When David escapes from Saul to Samuel, it 
 is Jonathan who does all he can to save him. 
 The two friends meet secretly in the field. 
 
 ' And Jonathan said unto David, O Lord God 
 of Israel, when I have sounded my father about 
 to-morrow any time, or the third day, and, behold, 
 if there be good toward David, and I then send 
 not unto thee, and shew it thee ; the Lord do so 
 and much more to Jonathan.' 
 
 Then David and Jonathan agree upon a sign 
 between them, by which David may know Saul's 
 humour without his bow-bearer finding out David. 
 He will shoot three arrows toward the place where 
 David is in hiding ; and if he says to his bow- 
 bearer. The arrows are on this side of thee, David 
 is to come ; for he is safe. But if he says, The 
 arrows are beyond thee, David must flee for his 
 life, for the Lord has sent him away. 
 
 Then Jonathan goes in to meat with his father 
 Saul, and excuses David for being absent. 
 
 ' Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jona- 
 than, and he said unto him, Thou son of the 
 perverse, rebellious woman, do not I know that 
 thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own 
 confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother.-' 
 Por as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the 
 
3i8 FRIENDSHIP; OR, [serm. 
 
 ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy 
 kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him 
 unto me, for he shall surely die. And Jonathan 
 answered Saul his father, and said unto him, 
 Wherefore shall he be slain ? what hath he done ? 
 And Saul cast a javelin at him to smite him ; 
 whereby Jonathan knew that it was determined 
 of his father to slay David.' 
 
 He goes to the field and shoots the arrows, 
 and gives the sign agreed on. He sends his bow- 
 bearer back to the city, and David comes out of 
 his hiding-place in the rock Ezel. 
 
 'And as soon as the lad was gone, David arose 
 out of a place toward the south, and fell on his 
 face to the ground, and bowed himself three times; 
 and they kissed one another, and wept one with 
 another, until David exceeded. And Jonathan 
 said to David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we have 
 sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, 
 The Lord be between me and thee, and between 
 my seed and thy seed for ever. And he arose and 
 departed : and Jonathan went into the city.' 
 
 And so the two friends parted, and saw one 
 another, it seems, but once again, when Jonathan 
 went to David in the forest of Ziph, and 'strength- 
 ened his hand in God,' with noble words. 
 
v.] DAVID AND JONATHAN. 319 
 
 After that, Jonathan vanishes from the story of 
 David. We hear only of him that he died fighting 
 by his father's side, upon the downs of Gilboa. 
 The green plot at their top, where the Israelites' 
 last struggle was probably made, can be seen to 
 this day ; and there most likely Jonathan fell, 
 and over him David raised his famous lamenta- 
 tion : 
 
 ' O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high 
 places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jona- 
 than : very pleasant hast thou been unto me : 
 thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love 
 of women. How are the mighty fallen, and the 
 weapons of war perished!' 
 
 So ends the beautiful and tragical story of a 
 truly gallant man. Seldom, indeed, will there be 
 seen in the world such perfect friendship between 
 man and man, as that between Jonathan and 
 David. Seldom, indeed, shall we see anyone lov- 
 ing and adoring the very man whom his selfish 
 interest would teach him to hate and to supplant. 
 But still every man may have, and ought to have 
 a friend. Wretched indeed, and probably de- 
 servedly wretched, is the man who has none. 
 And every man may learn from this story of 
 Jonathan how to choose his friends. 
 
320 FRIENDSHIP; OR, [serm. 
 
 I say, to choose. No one is bound to be at 
 the mercy of anybody and everybody with whom 
 he may come in contact. No one is bound to 
 say. That man lives next door to me, therefore 
 he must be my friend. We are bound not to 
 avoid our neighbours. They are put near us by 
 God in his providence. God intends every one 
 of them, good or bad, to help in educating us, 
 in giving us experience of life and manners. We 
 are to learn from them, live with them in peace 
 and charity, and only avoid them when we find 
 that their company is really doing us harm, and 
 leading us into sin and folly. But a friend — which 
 is a much deeper and more sacred word than 
 neighbour — a friend we have the right and the 
 power to choose; and our wisest plan will be to 
 copy Jonathan, and choose our friends, not for 
 their usefulness, but for their goodness ; not for 
 their worth to us, but for their worth in them- 
 selves ; and to choose, if possible, people superior 
 to ourselves. If we meet a man better than our- 
 selves, more wise than ourselves, more learned, 
 more experienced, more delicate-minded, more 
 high-minded, let us take pains to win his esteem, 
 to gain his confidence, and to win him as a friend, 
 for the sake of his worth. 
 
v.] DAVID AND JONATHAN. 321 
 
 Then in our friendship, as in everything else 
 in the world, we shall find the great law come 
 true, that he that loseth his life shall save it. He 
 who does not think of himself and his own interest 
 will be the very man who will really help himself, 
 and further his own interest the most. 
 
 For the friend whom we have chosen for his 
 own worth, will be the one who will be worth 
 most to us. The friend whom we have loved and 
 admired for his own sake, will be the one who 
 will do most to raise our character, to teach us, 
 to refine us, to help us in time of doubt and 
 trouble. The higher-minded man our friend is, 
 the higher-minded will he make us. For it is 
 written, 'As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharp- 
 eneth the face of his friend.' 
 
 Nothing can be more foolish, or more lowering 
 to our own character, than to choose our friends 
 among those who c^n only flatter us, and run 
 after us, who look up to us as oracles, and fetch 
 and carry at our bidding, while they do our souls 
 and characters no good, but merely feed our self- 
 conceit, and lower us down to their own level. 
 But it is wise, and ennobling to our own character, 
 to choose our friends among those who are nearer 
 to God than we are, more experienced in life, and 
 
 21 
 
322 FRIENDSHIP; OR, [serm. 
 
 more strong and settled in character. Wise it is 
 to have a friend of whom we are at first some- 
 what afraid ; before whom we dare not say or do 
 a foolish thing, whose just anger or contempt 
 would be to us a thing terrible. Better it is that 
 friendship should begin with a little wholesome 
 fear, till time and mutual experience of each 
 other's characters shall have brought about the 
 perfect love which casts out fear. Better to say 
 with David, ' He that telleth lies shall not stay in 
 my sight ; I will not know a wicked person. Yea, 
 let the righteous rather smite me friendly and 
 reprove me. All my delight is in the saints that 
 are in the earth, and in such as excel in virtue.' 
 
 And let no man fancy that by so doing he lowers 
 himself, and puts himself in a mean place. There 
 is no man so strong-minded but what he may 
 find a stronger-minded man than himself to give 
 him counsel ; no man is so noble-hearted but what 
 he may find a nobler-hearted man than himself to 
 keep him up to what is true and just and honour- 
 able, when he is tempted to play the coward, and 
 be false to God's Spirit within him. No man is 
 so pure-minded but what he may find a purer- 
 minded person than himself to help him in the 
 battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
 
v.] DAVID AND JONATHAN. 323 
 
 My friends, do not think it a mean thing to 
 look up to those who are superior to yourselves. 
 On the contrary, you will find in practice that 
 it is only the meanest hearts, the shallowest and 
 the basest, who feel no admiration, but only envy 
 for those who are better than themselves ; who 
 delight in finding fault with them, and blackening 
 their character, and showing that they are not, 
 after all, so much superior to other people ; while 
 it is the noblest-hearted, the very men who are 
 most worthy to be admired themselves, who, like 
 Jonathan, feel most the pleasure, the joy, and the 
 strength of reverence ; of having some one whom 
 they can look up to and admire ; some one in 
 whose company they can forget themselves, their 
 own interest, their own pleasure, their own honour 
 and glory, and cry. Him I must hear; him I must 
 follow; to him I must cling, whatever may betide. 
 
 Blessed and ennobling is the feeling which 
 gathers round a wise teacher or a great states- 
 man all the most earnest, high-minded, and pious 
 youths of his generation ; the feeling which makes 
 soldiers follow the general whom they trust, they 
 know not why or whither, through danger, and 
 hunger, and fatigue, and death itself; the feeling 
 which, in its highest perfection, made the Apostles 
 
324 FRIENDSHIP; OR, [serm. 
 
 lorsake all and follow Christ, saying, ' Lord, to 
 whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eter- 
 nal life' — which made them ready to work and to 
 die for him whom the world called the son of the 
 carpenter, but whom they, through the Spirit of 
 God bearing witness with their own puie and 
 noble spirits, knew to be the Son of the Living 
 God. 
 
 Ay, a blessed thing it is for any man or woman 
 to have a friend ; one human soul whom we can 
 trust utterly ; who knows the best and the worst 
 of us, and who loves us, in spite of all our faults ; 
 who will speak the honest truth to us, while the 
 world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us 
 behind our back ; who will give us counsel and 
 reproof in the day of prosperity and self-conceit ; 
 but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in 
 the day of difficulty and sorrow, when the world 
 leaves us alone to fight our own battle as we can. 
 
 If we have had the good fortune to win such a 
 friend, let us do anything rather than lose him. 
 We must give and forgive ; live and let live. If 
 our friend have faults, we must bear with them. 
 We must hope all things, believe all things, endure 
 all things, rather than lose that most precious of 
 all earthly possessions — a trusty friend. 
 
v.] DAVID AND JONATHAN. 325 
 
 And a friend, once won, need never be lost, if 
 we will only be trusty and true ourselves. Friends 
 may part — not merely in body, but in spirit, for 
 a while. In the bustle of business and the acci- 
 dents of life they may lose sight of each other 
 for years ; and more — they may begin to differ in 
 their success in life, in their opinions, in their 
 habits, and there may be, for a time, coldness and 
 estrangement between them ; but not for ever, if 
 each will be but trusty and true. 
 
 For then, accordine: to the beautiful ficure of 
 the poet, they will be like two ships who set sail 
 at morning from the same port, and ere nightfall 
 lose sight of each other, and go each on its own 
 course, and at its own pace, for many days, 
 through many storms and seas; and yet meet 
 again, and find themselves lying side by side in 
 the same haven, when their long voyage is past. 
 
 And if not, my friends; if they never meet; if 
 one shall founder and sink upon the seas, or even 
 change his course, and fly shamefully home again : 
 still, is there not a Friend of friends who cannot 
 change, but is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 for ever .■' 
 
 What says the noble hymn :— 
 
326 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 ' When gathering clouds around I view, 
 And days are dark and friends are few, 
 On him I lean, who, not in vain, 
 Experienced every human pain : 
 He sees my griefs, allays my fears, 
 And counts and treasures up my tears.' 
 
 Passing the love of woman was his love, 
 indeed; and of him Jonathan was but such a 
 type, as the light in the dewdrop is the type of 
 the sun in heaven. 
 
 He himself said — and what he said, that he 
 fulfilled — ' Greater love hath no man than this — 
 that a man lay down his life for his friends.' 
 
 In treachery and desertion ; in widowhood and 
 childlessness ; in the hour of death, and in the 
 day of judgment, when each soul must stand alone 
 before its God, one Friend remains, and that the 
 best of all.