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THE 
 
 JUL i 
 
 ■ » 
 
 y 
 
 ni 
 
 ENGLISH PULPIT; 
 
 COLLECTION OF SERMONS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 MOST EMINENT LIVING DIVINES 
 
 OF 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 " I wish the majesty of the piilpit -were more looked to ; and that no sermons were offered 
 from thence, but such as should make the hearers both the better and wiser ; the more 
 knowing, and the more serious." — Bishop Burnet. 
 
 " I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake, and not for his own ; who seeks my 
 salvation, and not his own vaiu-glorj'. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only 
 to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue." 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ROBERT CAR'TER & BROTHERS, 
 
 No. 285 BROADWAY. 
 
 1849. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The fact that the public are already in possession of many valuable 
 collections of sermons, cannot be deemed a sufficient reason for not 
 increasing the number of such publications. On the contrary, new acces- 
 sions to the existing stock are constantly needed to supply the places of 
 those that are yearly passing into disuse. There is a freshness in a work 
 directly from the press — especially if it contain a choice variety of mat- 
 ter — which gives to it a peculiar charm. Perhaps 
 
 " 'Tis curiosity. — Who hath not felt 
 Its spirit, and before its altar knelt ? " — 
 
 that will lead many to read with interest a new book, who would never 
 advance beyond the title page of an old one of equal merit. 
 
 That this inert love of novelty may be turned to the best account, no 
 pains should be spared to furnish an ample supply of healthy aliment, that 
 thus the reluctant mind may be allured to the reception of useful instruction. 
 Besides, it is a fact — scarcely less interesting to the patriot than to the 
 Christian — that the alarming demand for a large class of publications, 
 pregnant with the most deadly poison, under which the press for years 
 has " groaned, being burdened," is gradually diminishing, while good, 
 truthful, and religious books are finding a correspondingly greater sale. 
 To answer this increasing demand, and as an antidote to the poison, every 
 Christian press in the land should be kept busy, scattering its " healing 
 leaves " with an unsparing hand, until useful and religious books, like 
 Aaron's rod, shall have swallowed up the serpents of the magicians. 
 
 In offering to the public this collection of sermons, it is proper to state 
 that, with the exception of a single discourse,* no portion of the present 
 volume has before been published in this country. It will be found to 
 contain sermons by several ministers whose productions are comparatively 
 little known to the American public. Among these might be mentioned 
 that of Daniel Moore, the worthy successor of Melvill, at Camden Chapel. 
 Mr. Moore is justly celebrated both as a preacher and a writer. In the 
 
 * Tlie sermon by Dr. Bums was preached and published in another form during his 
 recent visit to this countrj'. 
 
4 INTRODUCTION". 
 
 latter sphere he has been the successful competitor for several prizes. 
 His writings are destined to be more extensively known in this country. 
 The sermon by him in this volume is one of a series which he delivered 
 before the University of Cambridge. 
 
 It is believed that the " English Pulpit" is in no respect inferior to any 
 similar work that has appeared from the American press, while it differs 
 from all of them in two particulars — it contains but one sermon by the 
 same individual, and is designed to embody specimens of the pulpit efforts 
 of some of the most eminent living divines of England. In making these 
 selections, the editor has not confined himself to any one branch of the 
 Christian church, but has freely ranged through all denominations main- 
 taining the essential principles of Christianity. And he indulges the hope, 
 that from this wide field he has culled such fruit as will prove both pleas- 
 ant to the eye and good for food —r- fruit tending to increase knowledge 
 and promote piety. 
 
 The editor would not of course be willing to be held responsible for 
 every sentiment maintained in these pages ; still, it has been his endeavor 
 not to give greater publicity to fundamental error. By glancing at the 
 table of contents it will be seen that a choice variety of subjects are here 
 discussed, and by referring to the sermons the attentive reader will dis- 
 cover something of that " diversity of gifts " in the Christian ministry, 
 which, from their respective peculiarities of style, compass of thought, 
 habits of illustration, and natural temperament, is calculated to render 
 their ministrations adapted to " the edifying of the whole body of Christ," 
 and for bringing sinners " to a knowledge of the truth." It has been 
 well observed by the Rev. John Newton that, " in the variety of gifts 
 conferred on the faithful ministers of the gospel, the Lord has a gracious 
 regard to the different tastes and dispositions, as well as to the wants of 
 his people ; and by their combined effects the complete system of his 
 truth is illustrated, and the good of his church promoted with the highest 
 advantage ; while his ministers, like officers assigned to different stations 
 in an army, have not only the good* of the whole in view, but each one 
 his particular post to maintain." 
 
 It has been often remarked of the ministers of Great Britain, that a very 
 large proportion of their sermons are addressed to the church, and that 
 the great dividing line between saints and sinners is not made sufficiently 
 distinct. In its general application this remark is doubtless just,* but 
 
 * Since writing the above, the editor has for the first time met with the following state- 
 ment by the Rev. John Yonng, of London. After having preached at Albion Chapel nearly 
 twelve years, in commencing a sei-ies of sermons to the imconverted, he says : " It is an 
 ■unusual thing to preach to the unconverted. I have never yet preached an entire sermon 
 to the unconverted. There may be detached passages in many sermons that are applicable 
 to this class ; there may be particular warnings, exhortations, and appeals that .are addressed 
 to them ; but it is unusual to preach wholly and expressly to the unconverted as a class. 
 It is not the present system." He admits, however, that " this is not in harmony with 
 apostolic example," but that " all the sermons — sketches of sermons rather — that are pre- 
 sented in the New Testament, were preached to the unconverted." 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 there are many honorable exceptions to it. As an example, might be 
 mentioned James Parsons, of York, " a burning and a shining light," and 
 one of the brightest ornaments of the English pulpit. A large propor- 
 tion of his sermons are addressed to the impenitent ; and seldom does 
 he preach a discourse which does not contain pungent and soul-stirring 
 appeals to the consciences of sinners ; and, as the result of his faithful 
 labors, " much people has been added to the Lord." The " Sermons to 
 the Unconverted, by B. W. Noel," show that he does not forget his obli- 
 gations to this class of his hearers. To this list might be added the names 
 of Bunting, James, Aitken and others. There is undoubtedly danger, lest, 
 from the delightful and elevating nature of heavenly themes, we should 
 be induced to preach more frequently to saints, than is consistent with a 
 faithful discharge of our duty to those who are far from God. It is im- 
 portant to mature and perfect the work of grace in the hearts of those 
 that have embraced Christ ; but the great majority of most congregations 
 are in the broad way to perdition ; and the minister who is anxious to give 
 " full proof of his ministry," and whose grand, conspicuous aim is, " to 
 save himself and them that hear him," will be careful to " give to every 
 one his portion in due season." 
 
 It was observed by the prince of philosophers, " that no man would ever 
 become a good philosopher until he saw all nature in the bosom of the 
 Creator ; " with equal truth it may be said, in reference to the work of the 
 ministry, that no man will ever be a good and " faithful minister of Christ," 
 who does not view his responsibility in the light of another world. He 
 must feel that he is an ambassador of God, commissioned by him to 
 " preach the word ; to be instant in season and out of season ; to reprove, 
 rebuke and exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." Such a minister 
 will strive to obtain deep and realizing views of the worth of the immor- 
 tal soul — of the imminent danger of its being lost, and of the awful 
 responsibility, should one perish through his neglect. Penetrated with 
 these views, he will feel no inclination to cater to the taste of those 
 " which say to the seers, see not ; and to the prophets, speak unto us 
 smooth things ; " * but he will adopt as his motto : 
 
 " Careless, myself a dying man, 
 Of dying men's esteem ; 
 Happy, my God, if thou approve, 
 Though all the world condemn." 
 
 But, if the preacher's heart is not deeply imbued with the spirit of his 
 calling, he is very liable to be unduly influenced in the choice of his sub- 
 jects, and in his style of preaching, by that class of hearers who regard 
 sermons only as a species of entertainment, or intellectual treat. There 
 aie many qualified, it may be, to perceive, and ready to admire the 
 
 * Isaiah xxx. 10. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 beauties of fine composition, who are exquisitely alive to the powerful 
 charm of eloquence, that would feel no interest in, nay, be disgusted with, 
 d discourse embodying the most important truths, if presented in a serious 
 and simple style, without the graces of literary elegance and the attrac- 
 tions of oratory. But the preacher of the gospel should never forget that 
 it is quite possible to minister to the gratification of cultivated taste with- 
 out promoting the growth of piety — that the wondering multitude may be 
 thrilled and electrified by his eloquence, without being alarmed by the 
 warnings, or interested in the doctrines of the gospel. He may be " unto 
 them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play 
 well on an instrument ; they may hear his words but do them not."* 
 They are pleased with the preacher, and at ease with themselves. But so 
 far as these are concerned, the important and solemn office of preaching 
 has failed to secure its appropriate effect. 
 
 Happy the preacher who, when called to " finish his course, and the 
 ministry which he has received of the Lord Jesus," can address those 
 with whom he has labored, in the language of the apostle, " Now, behold, 
 I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of 
 God, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this 
 day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned 
 to declare unto you all the counsel of God." t 
 
 * Ezek. xxxiii. 32. t Acts. xs. 25—27. 
 
0«' 
 
 cf 
 
 PIlIITC£ITO:j 
 
 
 ALPHABETICAL ARRANGEMENT OE PREACHERS. 
 
 PKEACHEE. SUBJECT. PAGE. 
 
 Adkins, T. . . . The Glory of the Gospel, 376 
 
 Atherton, W. . . God's Love to the World, 168 
 
 Beaumont, J. E. . Cluist Crucified, 123 
 
 Belcher, J. . . . The Transmission of Scripture Truth to Posterity, 331 
 
 Bennett, J. . . . The Double Transfer, 241 
 
 Birt, I The Spiritual Building, 
 
 Bloomfield, C J. 
 Bradley, C. . 
 Bromley, J. . 
 Bunting, J. . 
 Bunting, W. M. 
 
 180 
 
 The Nature and Effects of Justifying Faith, 26 
 
 . Ease for the Troubled Spirit, 201 
 
 . Eai-tlily and Heavenly Things Contrasted, 250 
 
 . The Nature and Unreasonableness of Unbelief, 13 
 
 . Doctrine of the Atonement, 209 
 
 Bums, J The Great Theme of the Christian Ministry, 112 
 
 Gumming, J. . . Duty of Assailing the Errors of the Church of Eome, 353 
 
 East, T Man's Happiness Dependent on his Coming to Christ, 304 
 
 Fletcher, A. ... An Address to Children, 291 
 
 Ford, D. E. ... Eariy Dedication to God, 155 
 
 Gibson, T The Worth of the Soul, 391 
 
 Hamilton, J. . . . Industry, '^^ 
 
 Hamilton, E. W. . Scene of the Last Judgment, 229 
 
 James, J. A. . . . Christianity a System of Love, 86 
 
 Jay, W Opposition to Christ, 190 
 
 Jobson, F. J. . . . The Knowledge of Christ Crucified, 48 
 
 Melvill, H Translation of EHjah, and Death-Bed of Elisha, 260 
 
 Moore, D Paul before Felix, 84 
 
 Newton, R. . . . The Happy 5Ian a Religious Man, 272 
 
 Noel, B. W. . . . The Nature of Justifying Faith, 841 
 
 Parsons, J. . . . The Character and Privileges of a Christian, 86 
 
 Parsons, E. . . . The Song of Angels, 136 
 
 Raffles, T The Church of Christ, M 
 
 Shermon, J. . . . The Wisdom of Winning Souls, (to S. S. Teachers,) 81T 
 
 Wolff, J A Coming Lord, 148 
 
 Yonng, R Human Agency in the Conversion of Sinners, 861 
 
BIBLICAL ARRANGEMENT OF TEXTS. 
 
 TEXTS. PREACHER. PAGE, 
 
 2 Kings 13 : 14, . . . . H. Melvill, Episcopal, 260 
 
 Psalm 78 : 2-7, .... J. Belcher, Baptist, 331 
 
 Psalm 94 : 19, C. Bradley, Episcopal, 201 
 
 Psalm 144: 15, . . . . R. Newton, J/e«Ao&<, 272 
 
 Proverbs 11 : 30, . . . .J. Sherman, OongregatUmal, 317 
 
 Isaiah 40 : 6-8, .... J. Bromley, Methodist, 250 
 
 Jeremiah 3:4, . . . . D. E. Ford, 155 
 
 Jeremiah 50 : 14, ... J. dimming, Presbyterian, 353 
 
 Matthew 12 : 30, ... Wm. Jay, Congregational, 190 
 
 Matthew 14 : 18, . . . . T. Raffles, Congregational, 64 
 
 Matthew 16 : 26, . . . . T. Gibson, Episcopal, 391 
 
 Mark 6:6 J. Bunting, Methodist, 13 
 
 Luke 1 : 30-33, .... J. Wolff, 148 
 
 Luke 2 : 14, E. Parsons, Jr., Congregational, 136 
 
 John 3: 16, Vf . Mh&rion, Methodist, 168 
 
 John 5 : 40, T. East, Congregational, 304 
 
 John 12 : 21, A. Fletcher, Presbyterian, 291 
 
 Acts 2 : 22, 23, .... J. E- Beaumont, Methodist, 123 
 
 Acts 24 : 25, D. Moore, Episcopal, 84 
 
 Romans 3 : 25, B. W. Noel, Episcopal, 341 
 
 Romans 10 : 10, . . . . Bishop of London, 26 
 
 Romans 12 : 11, . . . .J. Hamilton, Presbyterian, 76 
 
 1 Corinthians 2:2, . . F. J. Jobson, Methodist, 48 
 
 1 Corinthians 2:2, . . J. Bums, General Baptist, 112 
 
 Galatians 5 : 13, . . . . J. A. James, Congregational, 98 
 
 Ephesians 2 : 22, . . . .1. Birt, 180 
 
 1 Timothy 1 : 11, . . . T. Adkms, 870 
 
 James 6 : 20, R. Young, Methodist, 361 
 
 1 Peter 1 : 19, . . . . W. M. Bunting, Methodist, 209 
 
 1 Peter 2:24, J. Bennett, Congregational, 247 
 
 1 Peter 4 : 16 J. Parsons, Congregational 86 
 
 Revelation 20 : 11-13, . R. W. Hamilton, Oongregatimal, 229 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON I. • 
 
 BY REV. JABEZ BUNTING, D. D. 
 Afld he marvelled, because of their unbelief. — Mark vi. 6 13 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT REV. C. J. BLOOMFIELD, D. D., BISHOP OF LONDON. 
 
 With the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and, with the mouth, confession is 
 made unto salvation. — Romans x. 10 26 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 BY REV. JAMES PARSONS. 
 A Christian. — 1 Petek v. 16 86 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 BY REV. F. J. JOBSON. 
 
 I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and Mm cracified. — 
 1 CoE. ii. 2 48 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 BY REV. T. RAFFLES, D. D., L. L. D. 
 
 And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this roclt I will build my Church ; and 
 the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. — Matthew xvi. 18 64 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 BY REV. JAMES HAMILTON. 
 Not slothful in business. — Romans xii. 11 78 
 
 SERMON Vn. 
 
 BY EEV. DANIEL MOORE. 
 
 And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, 
 and answered. Go thy way for this time : wnen I have a convenient season, I will send for 
 thee. — Acts xxiv. 25 84 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 
 BY REV. JOHN A. JAMES. 
 By love serve one another. — GaliAtians v. 13 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 BY KEY. JABEZ BURNS, D. D. 
 
 For I detennined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him cruci- 
 fied. — 1 CORUSTUIANS ii. 2 112 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 BY REV. J. E. BEAUMONT, M. D. 
 
 Ye men of Israel, hear these words : Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among 
 you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by liim in the midst of you, as ye 
 yourselves also know : HLni being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge 
 of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. — Acts ii. 22, 
 23 123 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 BY REV. EDWARD PARSONS, JR. 
 Glorj' to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good- will towards men. — Luke ii. 14. . 136 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 
 BY REV. JOSEPH WOLFF, D. D. 
 
 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary ; for thou hast found favor with God. And, 
 behold, thou shalt conceive ia thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name 
 Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest ; and the Lord God 
 shall give unto him the throne of his father David ; and he shall reign over the house of 
 Jacob for ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end — Luke i. 30-33 148 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 
 BY REV. D. E. FORD. 
 
 Wilt thou not from this time cry imto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youtli ? — 
 Jekemiah iii. 4 155 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 BY REV. WM. ATHERTON. 
 
 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
 in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. — John iii. 16 168 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 
 BY EEV. ISAIAH BIRT. 
 
 In whom ye are buUded together for a habitation of God through tlie Spirit. — Ephe- 
 81AJJ8 ii. 22 180 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 
 BY REV. WM. JAY. 
 He that is not with me, is against me. — Matthew xii. 30 190 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 
 BY REV. CHARLES > BRADLEY. 
 
 In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul. — Psalm oxciv. 
 19 20X 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 BY REV. W. M. BUNTING. 
 The precious blood of Chi-ist. — 1 Peter i. 19 209 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 
 BY REV. R. W. HAMILTON, D. D., L. L. D. 
 
 And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and 
 the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small 
 and great, stand before God ; and the books were opened ; and another book was opened, 
 which is the book of life ; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written 
 in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; 
 and death and heU delivered up the dead which were in them ; and they were judged every 
 man according to their works. — Kevelations xx. 11-13. . . • 229 
 
 SERMON XX. 
 
 BY REV. J. BENNETT, D. D. 
 
 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, 
 should live imto righteousness : by whose stripes ye were healed. — 1 Peter ii. 24. . . 241 
 
 SERMON XXI. 
 
 BY REV. JAMES BROMLEY. 
 
 The voice said. Cry. And he said. What shall I cry ? All flesh ^ grass, and all the 
 goodhness thereof is as the flower of the field : the grass withereth, the flower fadeth : 
 because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass with- 
 ereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever. — Isaiah xl. 6 — 
 8 250 
 
 SERMON XXII. 
 
 BY REV. HENRY MELVILL, D. D. 
 
 Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness, whereof he died. And Joash, the king of 
 Israel, came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, my father, my father, the 
 chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. — 2 Kings xiii. 14 260 
 
 SERMON XXIII. 
 
 BY REV. ROBERT NEWTON, D. D. 
 
 Happy is that people, that is in such a case ; yea, happy is that people, whose God is 
 the Lord." — Psalm cxliv. 15 272 
 
 SERMON XXIV. 
 
 BY REV. ALEX. FLETCHER, D. D. 
 Sir, we would see Jesus. — John xii. 21 291 
 
 SERMON XXV. 
 
 BY REV. TIMOTHY EAST. 
 Ye will not come to me that ye might have life. — John v. 40 304 
 
 ^ SERMON XXVI. 
 
 BY REV. JAMES SHERMAN. * 
 
 He that winneth souls is wise. — Pbovebbs xi. 30 81<S 
 
IS CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XXVII. 
 
 BY REV. J. BELCHER, D. D. 
 
 I will open my mouth in a parable ; I will uttei- dark sayings of old ; which we have heard 
 and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, 
 showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his won- 
 derful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a 
 law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their 
 children ; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be 
 born : who should arise and declare them to their children : that they might set their hope 
 in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. — Psalm Ixxviii. 
 2-7 331 
 
 SERMON XXVni. - 
 
 BY THE HON. AND REV. B. W. NOEL. 
 
 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. — Eom. iii. 
 86 340 
 
 SERMON XXIX. 
 
 BY KEV. JOHN GUMMING, D. D. 
 
 Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about ; all ye that bend the bow shoot 
 at her, spare no arrows ; tor she hath sinned against the Lord. — Jek. 1. 14 353 
 
 SERMON XXX. 
 
 BY REV. ROBERT YOUNG. 
 
 Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save 
 ft soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. —James v. 20 361 
 
 SERMON XXXI. 
 
 BY REV. T. ADKINS. 
 The glorious Gospel of the blessed God. — 1 Timothy i. 11 876 
 
 SERMON XXXII. 
 
 BY REV. TIMOTHY GIBSON. 
 What Shan a man give in exchange for his soul ? — Matt. xvi. 26 391 
 
THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 THE NATURE AND UNREASONABLENESS OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 BY EEV. J. BUNTING, D.D. 
 
 " And he marvelled because of their unbelief." — Mark ti. 6. 
 
 When He, by -whom the world was made, condescended to dwell 
 among men, and so was " in the world," the world " knew him not." 
 " He came unto his own, and his own received him not." They " hid 
 as it were their faces from him ; he was despised, and they esteemed 
 him not." And by none of our Lord's countrymen was that saying 
 more fully verified, than by the Nazarenes. In Nazareth he appeared 
 as an infant ; at Nazareth he was brought up ; they had the honor of 
 seeing the first indications of his superior wisdom and piety. It was 
 at Nazareth that " the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled 
 with wisdom ; and the grace of God was with him." To Nazareth he 
 returned, after his celebrated conversation with the doctors in the tem- 
 ple ; and there he was subject to Mary, his real mother, and to Joseph, 
 his reputed father ; while he " increased in wisdom and in stature, and 
 in favour with God and man." It was at Nazareth that he wrought 
 in the occupation of a carpenter, till the time came for his commenc- 
 ing his public ministry. It was at Nazareth, in fine, that he did many 
 of his most wonderful works. His brethren, — that is, his kinsmen, — 
 all hved there ; and this, together with other circumstances, would nat- 
 urally beget in our Savior some particular attachment to a place with 
 which he had been so long connected : it would be his wish, that the 
 companions of his early life should be made partakers of the benefits 
 of his religion. Accordingly we find, that at the commencement of 
 his ministry he went to Nazareth; and entered into the synagogue, 
 " as Ms custom was." — I wish parents to notice this, for their encour- 
 agement to train their children to early habits of piety ; — as his cus- 
 tom was or had been, " on the sabbath-day he stood up to read ; " and 
 
14 ~ THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 there he delivered a discourse founded on a passage in Isaiah. At the 
 first part of his discourse his countrymen were dehghted, and " won- 
 dered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." But 
 when he began to make a proper apphcation of his subject, as it 
 became him to do, their anger was greatly roused ; and but for an 
 interference of his miraculous power, his Ufe had paid the forfeit of 
 his fidelity. They " rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led 
 him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they 
 might cast him down headlong. But he," perhaps rendering himself 
 invisible, or them powerless, " passing through the midst of them, went 
 his way." So ungrateful a reception might well have discouraged 
 him, or induced him to abandon them for ever, as persons who judged 
 themselves, passed sentence on themselves, as unworthy of eternal life. 
 But our Savior, rich in mercy, and slow to anger, has here taught us 
 to be " patient in tribulation," and to persevere in doing good, though 
 in doing it we sufier only ill. Mark tells us, and we have reason to 
 believe, from comparing other circumstances, that it was only a few 
 months after, that " he came to his own country, and when the sab- 
 bath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue." As on the 
 former occasion, the people were at first struck with admiration, and 
 confessed that " mighty works were wrought by his hands." But, 
 notwithstanding their conviction of the truth of his teaching, and the 
 dignity of his public ministry, their minds were filled with prejudice ; 
 their evil heart of unbelief was not subdued ; and they were not pre- 
 pared to render him that practical homage which was due to the true 
 Messiah. To justify themselves in their infidelity, they pretended to 
 doubt the truth of his mission ; and they basely and ungenerously re- 
 counted the meanness and obscurity of his parentage, and the defi- 
 ciency of his education : — "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, 
 the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon ? and are not 
 his sisters here with us ? And they were offended at him." The 
 cause of this was, that their hearts were full of blindness and preju- 
 dice, their minds were worldly and carnal, and their reasonings were 
 false and deceitful. And the effects of this were deplorable ; for it is 
 said that " he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his 
 hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled be- 
 cause of their unbelief." —The sin of unbelief is here represented in 
 a two-fold point of view. 
 
 1. As injurious to those who exercise it. " He could there do no 
 mighty work." They did not believe in his power, and therefore they 
 came not to him for cure ; and he could not obtrude his goodness upon 
 them, or force them to receive benefits from him, consistently with his 
 
THE NATURE OF UNBELIEF. 15 
 
 plan and determination. " How much," says the excellent Dr. Dod- 
 dridge, " did these Nazarenes lose, by their obstinate prejudices against 
 Jesus ! How many diseased bodies might have been cured, how many 
 lost souls might have been recovered and saved, had they given him a 
 better reception ! " And you will, no doubt, joki in the pious wish 
 which the Doctor adds : " May divine grace deliver us from that un- 
 belief, which does, as it were, disarm Christ himself, and render him 
 a savor of death, rather than of life, to our souls ! " But unbeUef 
 is here represented, 
 
 2. As exceedingly unreasonable and absurd. " He marvelled be- 
 cause of their unbeUef ; " — it excited the surprise of Christ. Unbe- 
 lief is altogether without reason ; it is not to be vindicated. It is 
 contrary to the duty of the situation and circumstances under which 
 men are placed ; it is contrary to what might reasonably be expected 
 from such men under such circumstances. It is to this last view of 
 unbelief that we propose now to attend. We shall, first, explain what 
 we mean by unbeUef ; and, sedondly, justify the sentiment of surprise 
 which existed in the mind of Christ on the occasion before us. 
 
 I. Let us explain what vp'e mean by unbelief. 
 
 Unbelief, in general, is the rejection of God's revealed truth ; and, 
 in particular, it imphes the refusal and neglect to receive and act on 
 the testimony God has given of his Son, as the only and all-sufficient 
 Savior of guilty men. 
 
 1. The unbelief of some is TOTKL. This imphes a rejection oi ^Q 
 Messiah — a denial of his Messiahship — a total refusal to admit of his 
 being the way to life and blessedness. Such were the Sadducees — 
 such were many of the ancient Jews — and such are evidently the 
 majority of them to this day. Nor does it apply to Jews alone : the 
 same word which tells us that the doctrine of Christ was " a stumbling- 
 block to the Jews," tells us that, by the wise and philosophic Greeks, 
 it was despised as " foolishness." All men in the present day have 
 not even nominal faith in Christ. I speak not now of the thousands 
 of heathens who are not believers in Christ ; their case, whatever it 
 may be, is not unbelief in the gospel ; — " How shall they beheve in 
 him of whom they have not heard ? And, how shall they hear without 
 a preacher ? " — their case is rather matter of our compassion than of 
 our surprise. But it is matter of surprise that, in a Christian country, 
 many to whom the gospel is preached, many who have heard the joy- 
 ful sound of salvation, — that many of these should despise the majesty 
 of the gospel, and refuse to give it that credence which it demands 
 from them. 
 
16 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 2. Not only are they unbelievers who reject, but such as mutilate 
 and corrupt Christianity. There are many who profess to admire, 
 and even to defend with zeal and learning, its exterior form and struc- 
 ture, who are yet among the very foremost to deprive it of all its 
 beauty, and to rob it of its pecuhar excellency. Amongst these, I 
 cannot but include those who, while they admit the Messiahship of 
 Christ, deny his divinity, his atonement, and his dwelling in the hearts 
 of beUevers by his Holy Spirit. These are such distinguishing points 
 in Christian truth, that he who systematically denies them cannot, with 
 propriety, be called a believer in Christ. He admits the general 
 words of Scripture, but he puts his own sense upon these words, — a 
 sense very different from that which was put upon them by the primi- 
 tive church — a sense very different from that which was plainly taught 
 by Christ himself, and by his apostles. He builds the fabric of his 
 hopes on a different foundation from that which God has laid in Zion, 
 namely,, on Christ, who " gave himself for us, an offering and a sacri- 
 fice to God for a sweet-smelling savor," and by whose blood alone we 
 can be cleansed from sin ; and he regards as so enthusiastic the idea 
 of the indwelhng of Christ in the hearts of his people by his Holy 
 Spirit, that there is no room in his creed for the dominion of Christ as 
 King in Zion. Thus, though he believes the words of Scripture, he 
 believes them not in their true sense : and as he is not a believer, he 
 is, of course, an unbehever. This statement is no violation of true 
 candor, for that requires attention to be paid to truth ; and that can- 
 dor which does not render due homage to the truth, is sin. However 
 common and fashionable this spurious candor may be among men, it is 
 an abomination to God, whose truth it, in fact, denies. For those who 
 believe not, we are required to feel the tenderest pity ; for them we 
 are to use our best efforts, to offer up our most fervent prayers. Per- 
 haps the passage which will best explain our duty in this respect, is 
 found in the epistle to Timothy ; — " The servant of the Lord must not 
 strive : but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness 
 instructing those that oppose themselves ; if God peradventure will 
 give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth ; and that 
 they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are 
 taken captive by him at his will." Now, this passage, so far from 
 warranting indifference to the truth, represents the truth as a matter 
 of the greatest importance ; the very end of our instructions is here 
 stated to be that such persons may be brought to repentance and ac- 
 knowledging of the truth ; and it is only as they repent and acknowl- 
 edge the truth, which they before denied, that they can be recovered 
 out of the snare of the devil, and brought to true repentance. That 
 
THE NATURE OP UNBELIEF. 17 
 
 is a false love, a fictitious tenderness, -which represents error as not 
 dangerous ; and which declares that it matters not ■what we believe, 
 though God declares that he that believeth not the gospel, — the pure 
 unmutilated gospel, — shall be damned. Let us not hide the truth, 
 which we are called by God as a church to exhibit. It is not for the 
 support of light and unimportant truths that the church is called " the 
 pillar and ground of the truth : "-^no : the truth is of importance ; it 
 is essential to salvation ; and men should see in our whole manner that 
 we consider the truth as nothing less than a matter of hfe and death. 
 
 3. The neglecters of the gospel, as well as its rejecters and corrup- 
 ters, are guilty of unbelief, though in a more mitigated form, I grant. 
 These hold the truth, but they hold it in unrighteousness ; like a man 
 who holds a torch, only to convince those who behold him that the per- 
 son who bears it is going sadly out of the way. Our Lord condemns 
 all such ; and it is evident they deserve condemnation, because no 
 salutary effects are produced by their profession of faith. Such per- 
 sons are unbelievers, and it is necessary that the truth should be told 
 tiem. Faith works by love : the faith of God's elect is not a mere 
 opinion ; it impUes a belief of the excellency, the suitableness, the 
 eflBcacy of the gospel ; such a conviction of this as will lead men to 
 embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as the chief subject, the substance of 
 the gospel ; such a conviction as leads to the use of Christ for the ends 
 for which God has given him, namely, for " wisdom, righteousness, 
 sanctification, and redemption." 
 
 Now, if such persons are not believers at all, how awfully prevalent 
 is the sin of unbelief! Among those who call our Savior Lord, and 
 who, generally speaking, receive his truth, how many are there who 
 do not believe with the heart unto righteousness ! They have no clear 
 view of their need of Christ as a Savior ; no decided reliance upon 
 him ; no clear application of his merits and atonement. They hear 
 and read of Christ ; they join in hymns to his praise ; they approach 
 him with their lips ; — but there is no affectionate trust of the heart. 
 These, then, ai-e unbeUevers : God the Judge will not admit that this 
 faith is saving ; it is dead faith, and cannot save them. 
 
 4. Even in those who are partly renewed hy grace, there are the 
 secret workings of this principle. Though it is in a form more mild, 
 it is yet to be discovered ; and, in proportion as it exists, it mars the 
 progress of the work of grace in their souls. I may instance a case 
 or two. 
 
 There is the penitent sinner, who is seeking, but has not yet found, 
 the pardon of his sins. In such persons there is to be perceived some 
 good thing toward the God of Israel ; and much that, if followed up, 
 2 
 
18 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 will lead to good. They are not far from the kingdom of God : they 
 have some knowledge, and some faith. Now, to such, God's word 
 holds out the most gracious promises ; — " Ask, and ye shall receive ; 
 seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." 
 " Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." And yet, in 
 many cases, from week to week, from month to month, from year to 
 year, the effect of all these kind promises and gracious invitations is 
 baffled by a secret something, which refuses to be comforted when God 
 would comfort ; which puts away the mercy which God waits to be- 
 stow ; which still exclaims, " The mercy of the Lord is clean gone for 
 ever ! he will be merciful to others, but not to me ! " Now, what is 
 this secret something, which keeps the man who is convinced of sin, 
 and who wishes for pardon, and who knows that without it he shall be 
 ruined for ever ? — what is it, I say, which keeps him out of the pos- 
 session of pardoning mercy ? — what is it ? Satan calls it humility 
 and diffidence ; and he keeps you out of the blessing, by telhng you 
 it is not proper for one so sinful and so worthless to lay hold on the 
 blessings of salvation, and that you are only acting the part of a hum- 
 ble man to keep aloof from those blessings. This Satan tells you : but 
 he is a liar, and the father of Ues. listen not to that arch fiend, 
 when he pretends to preach humility ! No : the real name of the 
 principle that keeps you back is pride, and not humility. Real humil- 
 ity will not lead to unbehef ; it will' rather lead men to cry for mercy, 
 and cause them to flee to the only refuge that is set before them. 
 
 And even those who believe, but are not yet made perfect in love, 
 are under the influence of unbelief in part. As unbelief prevents the 
 sinner from entering into God's family ; so unbelief, in one who is a 
 child, prevents him from the enjoyment of the privileges of God's fam- 
 ily. Take an example. — There are found, in the word of God, " ex- 
 ceeding great and precious promises ; " promises of a clean heart, and 
 a right spirit ; promises of complete recovery to the image of God ; 
 promises of being sanctified wholly, body, soul, and spirit ; promises 
 of being preserved blameless to the coming of the day of the Lord. 
 And what hinders the man, who sees the beauty and excellency of 
 holiness, and beholds it so clearly and abundantly promised — what 
 hinders him from entering on the full possession of it ? In some cases 
 it may be want of perception of its beauty, and the possibility of at- 
 taining it ; but, in general, it is want of faith. 
 
 Take another case. In some dark and cloudy day a man has yield- 
 ed to temptation ; he has committed sin, and he is filled with misery. 
 But this, his guilt, he acknowledges ; he does not attempt to palliate 
 it ; and it is the privilege of such a man to come to God as at first he 
 
THE NATURE OF UNBELIEF. 19 
 
 came, and to obtain a renewal of that favor which he has forfeited. 
 And what is it that induces him to postpone the apphcation for this 
 mercy to a future period ? "What prevents him approaching the foun- 
 tain opened ? What prompts him to seek to wear his stain away, in- 
 stead of coming to have it washed away at once ? Satan persuades 
 him that the principle which thus keeps him from God his Father, who 
 is waiting to be gracious to him, and receive him back to his favor, is 
 shame, holy shame, ingenuous shame ; — but it is really unbelief. We 
 ought to be ashamed of having been negligent, of having been unfaith- 
 ful, of having been sinners ; but we ought not to be ashamed of coming 
 to God for forgiveness ; we ought to remember that these words belong 
 to us — " These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any 
 man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the right- 
 eous : and he is the propitiation for our sins." 
 
 And I might observe, that unbelief operates, in a degree, in believ- 
 ers in Christ. It is so in cases of affliction, of trial, of difficulty. Be- 
 lievers are sometimes in circumstances in which they are ready to say, 
 " My way is hid from the Lord : my God hath forgotten me ! " in op- 
 position to his word, who hath said, " I will never leave thee ; I will 
 never forsake thee ! " But I cannot dwell longer on this part ; and 
 you can easily apply these remarks to other cases. I proceed, 
 
 ii. to justify the expression op astonishment on the part of 
 Christ. 
 
 It is said that " he marvelledhec2in5e of their unbelief." — 'Unbelief 
 is altogether unreasonable and unbecoming. 
 
 1. How unreasonable, for instance, was the unhelief which our Lord 
 tvitnessed in the days of his flesh. The unbelief of these men at Naz- 
 areth was marked with great stupidity, and chargeable with great folly. 
 For, consider tvhat opportunities they had been favored with of seeing 
 our Lord's early character, and of listening to his propitious doctrines. 
 The superior sanctity, which marked his childhood, ought to have made 
 strong impressions on their minds ; and ought to have led them to in- 
 vestigate carefully, and to receive honestly the convictions of their 
 minds. An unbelief so blind as theirs was surely unreasonable. Con- 
 sider, also, their confession of his ivisdo-m and power. " From whence," 
 exclaimed they, " hath this man these things ? and what wisdom is this 
 which is given unto him, that such mighty works are wrought by his 
 hands ? " The fact they admitted ; the evidences were too strong to 
 be resisted. Why, then, did they not at once proceed to draw the on- 
 ly rational inference, namely, that he was a divine person ? Their un- 
 belief was unreasonable. Advert, also, to the nature of the excuses 
 
20 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 they presented for it. They talked of the meanness of his education — 
 of the poverty of his circumstances — of the narrowness of his means. 
 Why, these were the very circumstances that ought to have induced 
 faith. For if natural causes could not produce such surprising effects, 
 how very rational to conclude that they were produced by supernatu- 
 ral causes. Then, their possession of the ancient Scriptures left them 
 without excuse. They had the prophecies of Isaiah ; and they might 
 have read them if they had not wilfully neglected so to do. His fifty 
 third chapter would have told them that Christ was to be " as a root out 
 of a dry ground ; " that he would be destitute of any outward " form, or 
 comeliness, or beauty," which should lead men to " desire him." All 
 this justifies the strong sensation of surprise, on the part of our Savior, 
 at so much insensibility. " He marvelled ; " he who well knew what 
 was in man, and how depraved and how very unreasonable man natu- 
 rally was — even He was surprised ; even the Searcher of hearts " mar- 
 velled, because of the unbelief" they manifested ! 
 
 2. The same unreasonableness attaches to modern as to ancient un- 
 belief. Let us consider this in reference to the various descriptions of 
 unbelief we noticed in the first part of the discourse. 
 
 First. On what do our modern infidels rest their unbelief ? Do they 
 plead WANT OF evidence ? How base and ungrounded is their asser- 
 tion ! Let them study our Christianity ; let them institute a strict 
 comparison between its various parts ; let them look at the long chain 
 of prophecies by which it was introduced ; let them consider the mira- 
 cles by which its verity was attested — its pure salutary truths and 
 doctrines ; let them mark the astonishing rapidity of its early progress — 
 its progress in opposition to all obstructions, and to the most determin- 
 ed hostility ; and that it came not with any appeal to the passions, or pro- 
 claiming any truce to the vices, but with the force of truth alone, and 
 denouncing all the vices. Let them, I say, consider this body and 
 weight of evidence ; which, if considered aright, is more than enough 
 to weigh down all their objections, and which, if rejected, exposes them 
 most justly to t\ie charge of unreasonable unbelief. But our religion, 
 they allege, contains in it so many mystekies, and that these ought to 
 lead them to its rejection. But this very circumstance, we say, is an 
 additional argument for faith. If Christianity told us nothing but what 
 the book of nature teaches, it could not be from God. Surely, if God 
 write a book, it must contain something of which the ear hath not heard, 
 which the eye hath not seen, and of which the human heart hath not 
 conceived. As in the earth, while surveying the works of nature, and 
 perceiving their peculiar skill and adaptation, we infer that they are 
 the produce of a Divine hand ; so, in what are termed the mysteries 
 
TEE NATURE OF UNBELIEF. 21 
 
 of religion, we see abundant proofs of a Divine hand. And besides, if 
 we are to doubt because of what is mysterious, where is scepticism to 
 end ? We see mystery all around us ; and if we are not to believe till 
 we can comprehend, we shall never believe at all. It is absurd, it is 
 monstrous, to reject the truth of God, because it teaches us something 
 which, but for it, we could not understand ! And ^mther peculiar crim- 
 inality and unreasonableness attaches to modern than could attach to 
 ancient infidelity. On us " the ends of the world are come ; " to us the 
 system of Christianity is more fully explained, and the glory of God 
 shines forth with greater radiancy, in the person and work of Jesus 
 Christ. The beneficial efiects of the system have been illustrated by 
 many striking facts in our days, which were not known to our fathers. 
 The argument for Christianity is stronger ; it has grown, and is still 
 growing, with the growth of information. On the infidels of these days, 
 therefore, the benevolent Savior may well look down with mingled emo- 
 tions of surprise and indignation ; he may well be alike grieved for the 
 hardness of their hearts, and surprised at the strength of their infatua- 
 tion ! 
 
 Secondly. And what shall I say of the unreasonableness of the next 
 class, — a disbelief of the principal doctrines of Christianity ? Is not 
 this unreasonable f When a man writes a book for his fellow-men, if 
 his object be to instruct philosophers and the learned, he adapts his 
 style to them ; but if he be anxious to instruct the mass of men — if he 
 would benefit the unlearned, and those who are incapable of deep and 
 critical inquiry, — then he writes in a plain and popular style, that all 
 who read may at once comprehend his meaning. Now, apply this to 
 the book which God has given. The poor and uneducated form the 
 mass of the people ; their instruction and benefit must therefore be re- 
 garded ; and if he be a good and gracious God, then a plain and sim- 
 ple man will be able to collect his meaning from the plain language and 
 letter of his word. Those who reject the great truths of the Bible 
 pretend to say that a great part of the Bible is not to be understood 
 according as the words appear on the surface. They tell us about cor- 
 ruptions ; and they explain much of its contents away into Eastern sim- 
 iles. But let any plain, unsophisticated man, any man whose mind is 
 not prejudiced and perverted by tortured criticisms, — let any honest 
 man regard the corruptions, as they term them, of the Scriptures, and 
 he will find them to be the very vital and important truths of the sys- 
 tem. But there is some reason to think that men are beginning to get 
 tired of this rational system ; and to see that they must either follow 
 Scripture, as it is, or go at once to Deism : they begin now to find that 
 the half-way house, as it has been termed, between Deism and Chris- 
 
'12 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 tianitj, is untenable. And let those ■who attempt to take refuge there, 
 let these half way-house-n^en take care, lest God should say to them, as 
 he said to ancient Chaldea — " Thy Tvisdom and thy knowledge, it hath 
 perverted thee ! " 
 
 8. But the form of unbelief -which is the most extraordinary, is that 
 of the neglecters of salvation : those who hold the truth, but hold it in 
 unrighteousness. You will not surely account us your enemies if we 
 tell you the truth. We say that there are many who admit the truth 
 of the gospel, and yet neglect its great salvation. If we speak of such 
 characters, we must speak in the terms which belong to them : we ac- 
 cuse you of conduct which, if it were exemplified in the common affairs 
 of Ufe, would justly expose you to the charge of inconsistency and irra- 
 tionahty. I will endeavor to set out your conduct before you, and I 
 entreat you to let your consciences go with me. You say that you be- 
 lieve the gospel to be of God; that " at the first it began to be spoken 
 by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him ; God 
 also bearing them -witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers 
 miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will ; " you 
 say that you beheve in his Scripture ; — and yet — you live in habitual 
 opposition to what you know to be the requirements, and what you 
 know to be the privileges of this gospel ! Tou say that you believe in 
 the existence of a God ; a God who is present in all places ; who is in- 
 timately acquainted with all your thoughts, and words, and actions ; — 
 and yet — you go on, day after day, in a career which you know he 
 must hate ! You say that you believe him to be a just God ; and that 
 he who is the Maker of all the earth shall be the Judge of all the earth ; 
 and that he has prepared the thunderbolts of his wrath, that he may 
 take vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not his 
 will ; — and yet — you continually defy this authority, and expose 
 yourselves to this vengeance ! You sayjon believe that you have im- 
 mortal souls ; that when you leave this world you must go into another 
 state ; that this other state must be regulated by your present charac- 
 ter and conduct ; that there is a state of happiness for the holy, and of 
 misery for the unholy ; and yet — you act as if you had no souls ; as 
 if there were no future state ; as if heaven were a delusion, and hell 
 were a chimera ! — You say that you believe Jesus Christ came from 
 heaven to earth to seek and to save the lost ; that he was delivered for 
 the offences of men, and rose again for their justification, and returned 
 to heaven, that he might intercede for them and send them down all 
 the blessings of his salvation ; and you come to hear his truth proclaim- 
 ed to you Sabbath after Sabbath ; and, such is the force of habit, you 
 would be quite uncomfortable if you did not Hsten to these things j — 
 
THE KATtTRE OF UNBELIEF. 23 
 
 and yet — you are quite content to have no experience of this Savior's 
 pardoning mercy and sanctifying grace ! — I might pursue this train 
 of remark ; but from what has been said, you see how clearly a charge 
 of the most marvellous unbelief and absurdity may be made out against 
 you. You kiss the Savior, like Judas, and like him you betray him 
 for this world's good. You call him Lord, but you do not the things 
 which he says. You sleep as quietly in your beds, after we have as- 
 sured you, upon his authority, that you are in danger of eternal perdi- 
 tion, as if you had never heard a word about the matter ! and it is 
 more than probable that some of you will do so this very night ! And 
 how is this ? Is it not marvellous ? "Well may Christ be grieved and 
 wonder ! Is it not marvellous insensibility to what you acknowledge 
 to be so valuable and important ? Is it not a proof of marvellous unbe- 
 lief, to disregard a blessing which you yourselves allow to be attaina- 
 ble ? Is it not a marvellous disregard of all the thunders of the divine 
 WTath, which you must confess are hanging over your heads ? that 
 you were willing to follow up the convictions of your own minds ! that 
 you would not attempt to get rid of them in an unhallowed way ! that 
 you would cherish them by reading the Scriptures and pious books, by 
 meditation, by prayer, by intercourse with Christians, and by the use 
 of all the means which God has appointed to save souls from the wrath 
 to come ! 
 
 4. I speak to those, also, who, though not loving sin, but truly con- 
 vinced of their sinfulness and consequent danger, hating sin, and de- 
 sirous of being freed from it; yet go on for weeks, and months, and 
 even years, ivithout finding the mercy which Crod has proiyiised, — with- 
 out obtaining the blessings of pardon, of adoption, of hoUness, of conso- 
 lation, of the Holy Spirit's influence. Come, and let me expostulate 
 with you. There are many such in all our congregations, and in all 
 our societies. It is a fact, that if we have a thousand members, we 
 find at least a hundred, to whose general seriousness we can make no 
 exception, whose conduct is marked by regularity ; who yet cannot, 
 with satisfaction to their ministers and fellow Christians, declare what 
 God has done for their souls. There are, no doubt, therefore, some 
 such present this evening. Now, let me expostulate with you : look 
 at your case. that I may be assisted to say something which shall 
 lead you this night to lay hold on Christ ! something that shall make 
 you ashamed of your unbelief in my Savior and yours ! something that 
 shall convince you that, when he opens his arms to receive you, you 
 have no right to run away from him ; that you have no right to close 
 your ears to his inviting voice ; that it is your duty, as well as your in- 
 terest, to lay hold on his mercy, and to receive the blessings which he 
 
24 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 has pressed on your acceptance in the exuberance of his kindness ! 
 Now, what does he say ? — " Come unto me all ye that are heavy lad- 
 en, and I will give you rest. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy 
 transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Come 
 now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : Though your sins be 
 as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like 
 crimson, they shall be as wool." But I need not repeat these promises : 
 what you want is, not the knowledge of them, — you have heard them 
 read a hundred times ; — no ; what you want is, to believe, to embrace 
 them. These promises point out you — you yourselves — as the very 
 persons who want these good things. And 0, consider that these 
 promises are confirmed — confirmed by a solemn oath ; " that by two 
 immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, they might 
 have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the 
 hope set before them." You have heard God's promise, — now hear 
 God's oath. 0, infinite condescension ! You doubt his word — shame 
 on you ! but he does not desert you for your sin. Now, hear it, peni- 
 tent ! hear the oath of thy God. We have it on record in his own book: 
 it is written for your comfort. Listen — " As I hve, saith the Lord 
 God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wick- 
 ed turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways ; 
 for why will ye die ? " God tells you, by his hfe, that he is ready to 
 save you — to save you now. And this promise, and this oath, have 
 been sealed by the blood of Christ ; and " he that spared not his own 
 Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also 
 freely give us all things ? " And this promise, and this oath, have 
 been confirmed by the resurrection of Christ. By this we are taught 
 that the sacrifice he presented was accepted — that God is satisfied ; 
 and that there is nothing even in his justice to hinder him from pardon- 
 ing you. Hence the language of the apostle to the Hebrews ; — " Now 
 the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, 
 that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting 
 covenant, make you perfect ! " and so on. 0, what comfort is contain- 
 ed in these words ! God is " the God of peace! " Why, we might 
 have been charged to tell you that God is " a man of war." — But no ; 
 we have to proclaim him to you as " the God of peace." He has a 
 peaceful disposition towards you ; and he has proved this by raising up 
 Jesus Christ from the dead. 
 
 It is possible that we may have erred in telling you that this is your 
 privilege, and not dwelling sufiiciently upon it as your duty. It is your 
 duty to believe ; it is a great crime you are guilty of in not coming to 
 God for the pardon of your sins, when he has told you so plainly and 
 
THE NATURE OF UNBELIEF. 25 
 
 SO repeatedly that he waits to bestow that pardon. You believe the 
 word of jonv fellow-men : to-morrow you will take their word, perhaps, 
 twenty times in the day, in the course of your business ; but you will 
 not take the word of Crod; you must behold something extraordinary, 
 you must have some miracle performed, before you believe God ! And 
 is not this most marvellous, most unreasonable ? Will it not be infi- 
 nitely better to take him at his word, and receive the blessing ? Why, 
 part of his word you do believe : — you do believe his threatenings ! 
 when he says that " the wicked man shall surely die," this you firmly 
 believe. But another part of his word, — that very part which is most 
 suited to your case, — you put away from you ! Tou say that you are 
 not ready yet ; that you are not worthy yet ! the marvellous ab- 
 surdity of tliis unbelief ! Men under the influence of this vile princi- 
 ple will absolutely believe all but that which they are required to be- 
 lieve, — that which most of all concerns them to believe, — that " this 
 
 IS A FAITHFUL SAYING, AND WORTHY OF ALL ACCEPTATION, THAT JeSUS 
 
 Christ came into the world to save sinners." I now proclaim it 
 to you : — take it home to yourselves : — say, 
 
 " Who did for every sinner die, 
 Hath surely died for me.^* 
 
 For me he hath obtained that redemption which is of so much value ; 
 that, without which I must for ever have perished ! " Sayest thou 
 this ? — Then tJwu art the very man for my Savior ! Thou art the 
 very man on whom he now looks down, on whom he now waits to be 
 gracious ! 
 
 I have already trespassed so unwarrantably upon your time, that I 
 must leave you to apply this train of thought to other cases of unbelief 
 which will present themselves readily to your mind. We may learn 
 from this subject, 
 
 1. The marvellous corruption of human nature, from whence all this 
 mibelief originates. If man was as he came out of the hands of his 
 Maker, he would receive with simple, confiding love, all that he has 
 said, and listen implicitly to all his assurances. Faith has its seat in 
 the heart ; and so has unbelief; hence we read of" an evil heart of 
 unbeUef." Man is very far gone from original righteousness. Now, 
 as unbelief took us away from God, so faith alone can bring us back to 
 God, and prepare us for an ultimate admission into heaven. See also, 
 
 2. The necessity of the agency of the Holy Spirit. This is necessa- 
 ry, that faith may be inspired, and kept in exercise, and brought to ma- 
 turity. If unbelief be in the heart by nature, it is not the nicest train 
 of reasoning, it is not all the power of moral suasion, that can produce 
 faith. True faith is supomatural ; the apostle tells the Philippians 
 
216 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 that it had been " given them to believe in his name." You must be- 
 lieve : believing is your act ; but it is an act of a heart renewed by the 
 grace of the Holy Spirit ; by the same almighty and efficacious power 
 by which Christ was raised from the dead. Look at the case of infi- 
 dels ; other means are employed in abundance, but they remain infi- 
 dels still ; while others have been converted from infidehty in the ab- 
 sence of all human means. Look at the case of Saul of Tarsus ; he 
 was a most bigoted Pharisee, and a furious and determined persecutor ; 
 and he was not made into a sincere and humble Christian, and a zeal- 
 ous and successful preacher, by books, or by human argumentation. 
 The miraculous light, and the voice from heaven, might arouse his at- 
 tention, but it was by an immediate and direct interference of the Holy 
 Spirit that the change was eifected, and true faith was inspired. The 
 conversion of Vanderkemp, also, is a case fully in point ; a conversion 
 scarcely less remarkable than that of the apostle Paul. From a Ger- 
 man infidel, infidehty, perhaps, of the most specious and dangerous 
 kind, Vanderkemp, without human interference, became a zealous 
 Christian. I do not mean to say that good books, that wise and pious 
 information, are to be despised ; but I do mean to say, that the great 
 fault is in men's hearts ; and that it is necessary that the heart should 
 be prepared by the operation of the Spirit, to receive the truth in the 
 love of it. And that, though the mind may be prepared in some meas- 
 ure by knowledge, yet that true faith is the immediate effect of a direct 
 influence of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 As to all the instances of unbelief we have specified, and as to all 
 others which may occur, ^o direct to Cfod; pray against your unbelief; 
 beseech him to cure you of this dreadful infatuation. 
 
 And let the disciples — let those who are set to guide souls to Christ, 
 let all the church say, " Lord, increase our faith ! " 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 THE NATUEE AND EFFECT OF JUSTIFYING FAITH. 
 BY THE RIGHT HEV. C. J. BLOOMPIELD, D. D., 
 
 BISHOP OF LONDON. 
 
 "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto 
 talvalion." — Romans x. 10. 
 
 The apostle declares that his heart's desire and prayer to God for 
 Israel was, that they might be saved ; but they utterly mistook the way 
 of salvation, imagining it to be by a work which they could themselves 
 
JUSTIFYING FAITH. 27 
 
 achieve, upon the foundation of their own merit, as doers of the law. 
 They refused to accept as a free gift that which was offered to them by 
 God in Christ, and chose rather to be justified by the deeds of the law 
 than by him who alone is holy. " Being ignorant," says the apostle, 
 " of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own right- 
 eousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of 
 God." The righteousness of God is that righteousness Avhich God be- 
 stows upon all believers in Christ — not actual hohness ; but, justify- 
 ing them, they have the privilege of being regarded as righteous, and 
 treated as such, for the sake of the true, intrinsic, substantial holiness 
 of Christ. " For," continues the apostle, " Christ is the end of the 
 law for righteousness to every one that believeth." 
 
 Perfect, unceasing obedience, was the requirement of the law ; but 
 perfect obedience was impracticable to fallen man ; therefore right- 
 eousness was unattainable by the deeds of the law. But was it attain- 
 able by the gospel ? " What saith it P " — as asks the apostle. " The 
 word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart ; that is, the 
 word of faith which we preach. That, if thou shalt confess with thy 
 mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath 
 raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart 
 man believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is 
 made unto salvation." 
 
 It appears, then, that, in order to salvation, two things are indispen- 
 sably necessary ; the one, a plenary and heartfelt faith in Jesus as a 
 crucified and glorified Savior ; the other, an open and oral confession 
 of him in that character before men, agreeably to his own precept and 
 promise, " Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son 
 of man confess before the angels of God." By specifying faith and 
 confession as leading to certain results — the one to righteousness, that 
 is, to being accounted righteous in the sight of God, the other to final 
 salvation — the apostle has cleai'ly intimated the inseparableness, and, 
 in some measure, the unit}/ of both. At all events, he has spoken of 
 the two as inseparable ; and these words may be urged as an unan- 
 swerable refutation of two perilous errors, one of which many are found 
 to avow in words, while the other is by many more exemplified in prac- 
 tice ; for one sect pretend that religious feeling or principle is enough 
 without a particular profession of it ; while the other say that profes- 
 sion alone is all that is required of us. 
 
 Let us consider the nature of those two great acts of religion of 
 which the apostle speaks as being necessary to the perfection of the 
 Christian character — belief and confession. The point which claims 
 our attention, is — 
 
28 THE ENGLISH PDLPIT. 
 
 I. That man believeth with the heart unto righteous- 
 ness. 
 
 The apostle does not say that man believeth with the understanding^ 
 which is especially considered to be the seat or instrument of belief; 
 but " man believeth with the heart unto righteousness." And to the 
 same eflfect he cautions the Hebrew Christians : " Take heed, breth- 
 ren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing 
 from the living God," And so it was with the first preaching of the 
 gospel by our blessed Lord himself ; its reception or rejection was occa- 
 sioned, not by the sagacity, the strength of reason, the power of in- 
 duction possessed by his hearers, but by the state in which their hearts 
 were : " But that on good ground are they, which, in an honest and 
 good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with 
 patience." Philip told the pious Ethiopian eunuch, who was endea- 
 voring in vain to comprehend the meaning of the evangelical prophet, 
 " If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest be baptized." 
 
 Now, this is the very expression by which the Scripture describes 
 that love of God which must be felt by all faithful and teachable 
 children. We must believe, as we must love, with all our heart. The 
 truth is, my brethren — and it is a truth which cannot be too fre- 
 quently nor too earnestly impressed upon mankind in an age of reli- 
 gious inquisitiveness — the truth is, the aflfections have a great deal 
 to do with faith. The edifice of Christian faith is not one which can 
 be built up solely by arguments and inferences upon the basis of his- 
 torical verity, but it must be raised, and strengthened, and drawn out 
 into full and fair proportion, by devotion, and love, and thankfulness 
 — by the poAverful master-building of the Spirit. "Faith," the apos- 
 tle says, " is the evidence of things not seen." It is the certain belief 
 of truths incapable of demonstration to our limited understandings ; 
 the sure expectation of things to come to pass hereafter ; a belief and 
 an expectation resting altogether upon the revelation of the promise of 
 God. Now, as things future and invisible cannot be objects of sense 
 or knowledge, properly so called, these must be embraced by the mind 
 upon some other prmciple than that upon which the understanding 
 builds its ordinary conclusions — and that principle is a firm reliance 
 upon the word of God. "We judge him faithful who hath promised ; 
 but we can form no correct judgment of his moral perfection, talk of 
 them as we may, unless we feel an earnest desire to know God as he 
 is ; and such a desire is wholly incompatible with a set of affections 
 disordered by unholy wishes and habits. 
 
 We are assured, by our blessed Lord himself, that no man can come 
 to him as a Savior unless he be drawn of God ; and God will not draw 
 
JUSTIFYING FAITH. 29 
 
 to him the heart which delights in the works of the devil or the lusts 
 of the flesh, nor the heart which prides itself upon its virtues. The 
 man who is strongly attached to sinful practices, or possessed of a high 
 opinion of his own powers and merits, does not wish the gospel. In 
 the one case it would lay an irksome restraint upon his appetites, and 
 in the other it would mortify his pride. He comes to the examination 
 of truth prejudiced, and is, therefore, a partial judge. All his natural 
 passions are marshalled in array, to oppose the admission of affections 
 which require a teachable mind. He rejects the gospel of Jesus 
 Christ because he disbeUeves it, but he disbelieves it because he dis- 
 likes it ; and, wishing it not to be true, he easily persuades himself 
 it is false. This is an evil heart of unbelief. Look closely to the life 
 and proceedings of an infidel, and you will, in most instances, discover 
 abundant reason for his unwillingness to embrace that faith which com- 
 mands an imdeviating course of holiness — which commands humility, 
 and abstinence from the things of the flesh, and a contempt of the 
 world ; and if you discover some symptoms, not only of a mind uncon- 
 vinced by the evidences of the gospel, but of a heart rebelling against 
 its precepts, reject the testimony of that man, pay no regard to his 
 authority ; he is not an unbiassed nor a candid judge. " If our gospel 
 be hid," said the apostle, " it is hid to them that are lost : in whom the 
 god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, 
 lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, 
 should shine unto them." 
 
 But there is a speculative assent to the truth of Christianity which, 
 although it exempts a man from the imputation of actual unbelief, is 
 yet not a belief unto righteousness, because it is not believing with the 
 heart. He may entertain no doubt of the authenticity of the gospel 
 of Jesus Christ, nor of the obligatory nature of his precepts, and yet, 
 if his heart remain unengaged in the question and work of religion, 
 there is no practical application of his knowledge, in his own particu- 
 lar case, as one for whom Christ died. There is no seeking for, and, 
 consequently, no indwelling of the Spirit ; and, therefore, none of the 
 fruits of the Spirit can be produced. This, then, is an inoperative, 
 unfruitful faith ; it has no root in the heart, and the heart is every 
 thing in religion. I would rather see a Christian zealously aflccted 
 and engaged in the service of the Lord with some errors of doctrine 
 — nay, even of practice, if they do not affect his moral standing — 
 than a formal speculative behever of the gospel, who is correct in his 
 interpretation of Scripture, but takes no delight in experiencing the 
 gospel promises, nor in exemphfying its power to distinguish him from 
 the world. 
 
30 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 We may believe with the understanding. Indeed, if our under- 
 standing be not greatly warped by our inclinations, we must believe the 
 gospel, but it will not be a believing unto righteousness — that is to 
 say, it will not be a justifying faith, such a faith as will induce Almighty 
 God to deal with us as though we were justified. It can be only when 
 we believe with the heart, when our affections, and endeavors, and 
 wishes, are engaged on the side of Christ — when we not only under- 
 stand, but feel, what he has done for us as our Savior — when we not 
 only admit the truth of what Scripture declares concerning him, but 
 rejoice in his merit, and make it the grand basis of our hopes, and 
 the single principle of action — that we can be justified. 
 
 But, since " the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
 wicked," it becomes an inquiry of infinite concernment to us to deter- 
 mine if our belief be unto righteousness. By its fruits we shall know 
 it. If the fountain-head of faith be in the heart, its golden streams 
 will overflow in all our words and actions. Do we experience a sincere 
 delight in the work of religion — in the contemplation of God's expe- 
 rienced and covenanted mercies ? — In his worship ? — In the study 
 of his word ? — Are we fervent and persevering in prayer, not for the 
 good things of this world, but for an increase of the gifts and graces 
 of Christianity ? — Do we find soHd and enduring comfort under all 
 the trials of life in the reflection that we possess an interest in the 
 kingdom which Christ has purchased ? -— Is it a subject of deep anxiety 
 and regret that all the thoughts and wishes of our hearts are not more 
 directly bent towards that kingdom ; and are we continually laboring 
 to give them that direction? — Is our love of Christ a constraining 
 love — a love which compels us to love one another, because God in 
 Christ hath loved us ? — Are these feelings and habits in the mind in a 
 progressive state ? — Are we more and more detached from the world, 
 and rising above the care and love of those objects of pursuit which 
 once were very delightful to us ? This, and nothing less than this, in 
 its consequences and results, is what St. Paul terms " believing with 
 the heart unto righteousness " — not merely the assent of our under- 
 standing, but the consent of our wills. To believe that Jesus died for 
 the sins of mankind without accepting him for your own Savior — to 
 accept him formally for your Savior without a spirit of devotedness 
 to his service — this is not a belief unto righteousness. A heart 
 wounded, and contrite, and longing for the enjoyment of God's sure 
 promises of mercy and truth -^ rejoicing in these promises as estab- 
 lished in Jesus Christ — a heart purified and renewed by the Spirit of 
 holiness — a heart abhorring sin and all that leads to sin — a heart that 
 rejects and casts out all opinion of its own holiness or merit — a heart 
 
JUSTIFYING FAITH. 31 
 
 that loves to meditate on the things of God, and that ascends to his 
 foot-stool in holy aspirations — this is a heart that believeth unto righte- 
 ousness. 
 I come now to the second division of our text. 
 
 n. With the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 
 
 It is manifest that, by confession, the apostle here means an open 
 profession of faith in Christ crucified — a profession made before men. 
 We are commanded to avoid all ostentation of piety or of charity ; to 
 pray, not that we may be seen of men ; to give alms so secretly that 
 our right hand may not know what our left hand doeth ; the sum of 
 which precepts is — we are not to perform any act of religious duty 
 looking to the praise of man for our reward. But, if we are actuated 
 by a desire to promote the glory of God and the spiritual welfare of 
 others, then the public manifestation of piety is not only innocent, but 
 a most important part of our religious duty. In no respect should we 
 live or die for ourselves, neither is our religion to be of such a nature ; 
 we ourselves are only parties in it ; we must believe and pray for the 
 confirmation and enlargement of our own comfort, and strength, and 
 hope, but we must do this with a view to the honor of God and the 
 growth of Christian piety. We are commanded to confess Christ 
 before men — to provoke one another to good works — to let our light 
 shine before men, not that they may admire and applaud the. lustre as 
 emanating from ourselves, but that they may be guided by it to the 
 First Source of light and truth — that they may see our good works, 
 and glorify our Father which is in heaven. 
 
 But how, it may be asked, how is it possible for a creature to do 
 honor to his Creator ? How can man glorify God — the eternal, the all- 
 powerful, the all-wise ? What accession of honor can accrue to him from 
 the united testimony of a sinful race, who from the throne of his glory 
 beholds and rejoices in the blessed spirits of light, who are for ever occu- 
 pied in his adoration and praise ? True, indeed, it is, the Lord of heaven 
 and earth can receive no accession to his own intrinsic glory from the fee- 
 ble praises or polluted services of an infirm and sinful race ; yet he pleads 
 with us, and encourages us, and commands us to serve him accord- 
 ing to the imperfect constitution of our nature ; and surely the praises 
 of millions and millions of reasonable souls, the offerings of devoted 
 hearts, the uplifted hands of the redeemed of the earth, the hallelujahs 
 of countless myriads presented before the throne of God and of the 
 Lamb, may seem not unworthy to please even the ear of Omnipotence, 
 to mingle with those sounds of melody in which the Eternal Spirit 
 spake of Him who was, and is, and is to come. 
 
82 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 We need not ascend into heaven for a reason for that command 
 which directs us to make open confession of our faith before men. 
 With the first believers it was the test of sincerity. It was then a 
 duty attended with danger, to be discharged in the face of persecution, 
 at the risk of bonds, starvation, and even death itself To have denied 
 Christ from the fear of these would have been to betray the cause of 
 God, and give a triumph to sin and Satan ; whereas confessing him,in 
 the teeth of persecution, was the sure evidence of faith rooted in the 
 heart, and certified to him who made it, a confession of him by the 
 Lord himself on the day of judgment ; therefore, says St. Paul, " With 
 the mouth confession is made unto salvation." To such a trial of their 
 sincerity many pious servants of the Lord have since been exposed in 
 the later ages of the church, and, by their constancy in the midst of 
 flames, have witnessed a good confession before men. If, by the provi- 
 dence of God in the peculiar arrangements of his government, we are 
 protected from so fierce an ordeal, are we exempted also from the 
 necessity of making an open profession of our faith in a crucified 
 Savior ? There are still enemies of Christ and of man's salvation in 
 whose teeth the profession must be made. There is the evil one, who 
 continues to oppose the progress of the gospel, and to cause the holy 
 name of Jesus to be blasphemed — there is the proud unbeliever, who 
 rejects the counsel of God, and lightly esteems the rock of his salva- 
 tion — there are those false teachers who still labor to poison the 
 fountain of living waters with the impure streams of human tradition 
 — there are those ungodly men who use the liberty of the gospel for 
 a cloak of maliciousness, and disclaim the eternal obligation of God's 
 moral law — there is a vain, deceitful world, which persuades us to 
 rejoice and repose in its pageantry and pleasures, and to hear its delu- 
 sions, and to be loud in its praises, while we are careless about the 
 work of salvation, and name the name of Christ in Avords of formal 
 acknowledgment : — all these are to be confronted, and confounded, 
 and put to shame, by the public confession of united believers. And, 
 lastly, there are hard-hearted and luke-warm children of this generation 
 who are to be awakened and allured to piety by the moving spectacle 
 of Christians openly and professedly engaged in the all-important work 
 of setting forward the glory of God, and the salvation of sinful men. 
 
 Now, it is manifest that this notion of Christian confession implies 
 the duty of public and common worship, a compliance with the outward 
 forms and proprieties of religion. It is upon this principle that the 
 very institutions of Christianity which we minister and reduce to use — 
 the sacraments which the Lord has appointed as means of grace and 
 badges of discipleship — and, lastly, the duty of Christian communion 
 
JUSTIFYING FAITH. 33 
 
 — are founded. The church of Christ could never be visibly and dis- 
 tinctly set apart from the world ; it could never be, as its founder 
 described it, a city set on a hill that cannot be hid, -without the public 
 and visible exercises of religion, the common resorting together, and 
 unanimous confession of the great truths of the gospel. 
 
 What a powerful and convincing testimony it is to the importance of 
 these truths ! What an awakening, moving spectacle to the doubtful, 
 or the careless, is that of an assembled congregation of believers pro- 
 claiming with one heart and voice their allegiance and thanksgiving to 
 one common God their Father — their high and holy trust in Him who 
 died for their sins, and rose again for their justification ! " But, if all pro- 
 phesy, and there come in one that beheveth not, or one unlearned, he is 
 convinced of all, he is judged of all ; and thus are the secrets of his heart 
 made manifest ; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God, 
 and report that God is in you of a truth." Thus it appears that, inde- 
 pendently of the apostle's command not to forsake the assembling of 
 ourselves together, and of the apostolic practice which sanctioned the 
 Lord's day as a Christian sabbath, a day for religious meeting — inde- 
 pendently of the comfort and refreshment which individual Christians 
 find in the opportunity of common worship — the duty of it is rendered 
 indispensable by the acknowledged eflBcacy of example, by which the 
 attention of all men may be turned to the importance of religion, and 
 an opening made for grace and conversion, and so for glorifying God. 
 
 It is chiefly upon this ground the apostles urged upon their converts 
 a punctual attendance to rehgion, and a strict regard to the decency 
 of their devotional exercises as a means of common edification and the 
 building up of the household of Christ. And this is a sufiicient 
 answer to those persons who pretend that they can worship God as well 
 in the privacy of the chamber as in the solemn assembhes of the 
 Christian Sabbath. Not to dwell upon the argument that those who 
 neglect the public worship of God are, for the most part, unfrequent 
 and careless in their private devotions, we would remind them that our 
 religious duty is not merely a question between God and ourselves 
 alone — that it has a reference to the salvation of others as well as 
 our own, to the advancement of God's glory and the extension of his 
 dear Son's kingdom upon earth. But the manifestation of our own 
 allegiance is an essential principle of practical Christianity ; the 
 strength and allegiance of our faith must be made visible not only in 
 preserving us unblameable, but in putting forth an attractive power, 
 drawing into the sphere of our influence some of those who are floating 
 careless upon the surface of human existence and bringing them within 
 the range of spiritual thanksgiving and consolation. How powerful 
 3 
 
34 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 an encouragement will it be to every penitent person to be exemplary 
 in the observance of all the stated offices of piety, if, while he is 
 advancing in the race before him, he is urging others forward in the 
 same course, confirming the doubtful, awakening the careless, and 
 drawing the feet of the loiterer into paths of pleasantness and peace ! 
 And with what a constraining force ought these motives to bind the 
 consciences of those servants of God, whom his providence has placed 
 in the higher walks of life, to let their light be seen of men — I say 
 what a motive to abstain from all engagements which prevent their 
 domestics from improving the opportunities of the Christian Sabbath 
 
 — in fact, from those engagements and amusements which are a glarmg 
 violation of the decencies of an established rehgion, an open insult to 
 Christian piety — and to encourage and assist their famihes and ser- 
 vants to turn to the best account that little time which is permitted to 
 them, by the habits of society, for doing honor to God, and acquiring 
 a saving knowledge of his love. 
 
 I need not, after what has been said, dwell upon the mercifulness 
 of the provision which our heavenly Father has made for the wants of 
 his children in appointing a Sabbath, and instituting a church, and 
 ordaining ministers, not merely to offer a daily sacrifice for his people, 
 like the Jewish priesthood, but to be their spiritual friends, guides, and 
 comforters, to watch over their souls as those who must give account ; 
 nor need I, after what has been said, endeavor to prove that it is a 
 subject of pious thanksgiving to any neighborhood when any enlarged 
 opportunities are afforded to the inhabitants of profiting by the advan- 
 tages held out to them by a scriptural church. But let me remind 
 you that he who builds it up and plants the watchman thereon will 
 come again, and expect the fruits of his vineyard in increased atten- 
 tion to the public duties of piety, in an enlarged acquaintance with 
 the word of God, a devout and delighted listening to the ministry of 
 reconciliation, a strict comphance with the gospel rule of holiness of 
 heart, a visible increase of Christian zeal, and the enlargement of the 
 Redeemer's fold. 
 
 If the sanctuary which has now been set apart by solemn prayer 
 from all common and trivial uses, and consecrated to the noblest occu- 
 pation of reasonable creatures, to the common worship of their Creator 
 
 — if it should set open its doors in vain, and if the gracious invitations 
 of your Savior are unanswered, may not the Lord appeal to common 
 sense and justice, and say, " Oh, inhabitants of Jerusalem, judge, I 
 pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard ! What could have been done 
 more to my vineyard that I have not done in it ? Wherefore, when 
 I looked that it should brmg forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ! " 
 
PRIVILEGES OF A CHRISTIAN. 36 
 
 But, -wliUe I enlarge upon the duty of an open, an outward confession 
 of our faith in Christ, and the consequent obligation of public worship, 
 I would caution you, in the last place, against entertaining the belief 
 that the public exercises of religion are religion itself. They are its 
 aids, its expression, its demonstration, but they are not its escence, nor 
 its substance. No man can be truly rehgious who neglects them ; but 
 a strict observance of them will not supply the place, nor remedy the 
 defect, of a single Christian grace. Let me, then, in conclusion, recur 
 to the beautiful words which should occupy the first and the last place 
 in our exhortations and your reflections — the seat of true religion is 
 the heart ; it is there that faith is enshrined in humble, holy thoughts 
 — it is from thence that streams of charity flow — it is from thence 
 that prayer ascends at once to the throne of the Eternal — it is there 
 that holy sorrow for sin, and humble hope, must dwell. And Oh, may 
 he who discerns its inmost thoughts, and who alone can purify and 
 establish it unblameable in holiness — may he make it in every one of 
 us a fit habitation for himself, a decent and appropriate temple for his 
 Holy Spirit, that we may dwell in him, and he in us, while we continue 
 in his church upon earth, that our names may be inscribed among " the 
 
 GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND CHURCH OF THE FIRST-BORN, WHOSE NAMES 
 ARE WRITTEN IN HEAVEN ! " 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 THE CHARACTER AND PRIVILEGES OF A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 BY REV. J. PARSONS. 
 
 A Christian."—! Pet. iv. 16. 
 
 It has been customary, my brethren, in all ages, and in all nations, 
 to designate those systems which have exercised a considerable influ- 
 ence over the opinions and over the practice of mankind, by names 
 either derived from the systems themselves, or the titles of him by 
 whom they were respectively founded. Illustrations of this fact may 
 be abundantly found both in the annals of ancient and modem philoso- 
 phy ; and also in ancient andi modern religion. Such a mode of de- 
 signation has justly been considered to be perfectly admissible, and in- 
 deed it is absolutely necessary, for the purpose of preserving the mem- 
 ory of those great events which have transpired both in the social and 
 moral history of mankind. 
 
36 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 On this principle it was, that when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
 appeared upon the earth, for the purpose of announcing important doc- 
 trines with regard to the government of Jehovah, and the destinies of 
 mankind, and gathered around him a circle of followers, these followers 
 became designated by a name derived from him to whom thej render- 
 ed their homage, and by which title they have been properly and per- 
 manently distinguished. As their organization and their augmentation 
 in number gave signs of the permanency and establishment of their 
 cause, they either chose or received a title which is memorable, appro- 
 priate, and comprehensive — a title which, altogether merging the mi- 
 nor distinctions of rank, of origin, and of nation, proclaimed the fact of 
 their union around a common Savior, and under a common religion. 
 That title was the title of Christians. 
 
 It is stated by the evangelical historian that " the disciples were first 
 called Christians at Antioch," a Gentile city, which, as we are inform- 
 ed in the Acts of the Apostles, received one of the earliest messages of 
 the gospel, and had a multitude of converts to the Lord. By that ap- 
 pellation they are still to be distinguished, and it must remain as the 
 badge of augmenting multitudes till the world itself shall fade away and 
 be dissolved. It is of httle importance to us to ascertain distinctly and 
 properly what may be comprehended in many of those appellations by 
 which the children of men are distinguished ; but it is of vast impor- 
 tance to every individual, that he should understand perfectly and dis- 
 tinctly what is comprehended in the name and character of Christian, 
 comprising, as it does, all that belongs to your present welfare, and 
 your final and everlasting state. 
 
 I would observe, my brethren, that while, on the present occasion, it 
 is our intention to present before you what is comprehended in the ap- 
 pellation of Christian, we shall, if spared to the evening of this day 
 fortnight, present to you what is comprehended in the character of an 
 infidel. Requesting, however, your attention ■ now to the appellation 
 which is particularly before us, we propose, 
 
 I. To consider in what consists the Christian's character and Chris- 
 tian's privileges : and, 
 
 II. We shall endeavor to impress those exhortations, which, from 
 the view of a Christian's character and a Christian's privileges, may 
 justly and properly arise. 
 
 I. In what consists a Christian's character and a Chris- 
 tian's PRIVILEGES. 
 
 1st. With regard to what constitutes a Christian's character. 
 
 That there have been not a few misapprehensions and perversions 
 
PRIVILEGES OF A CHRISTIAN. 37 
 
 on this subject, will doubtless b^ evident to every one who is at all ac- 
 quainted with, and able to judge of, the past history of mankind. By 
 the avowed enemies of Christianity many a falsehood and many a per- 
 version has been uttered ; and even by those who have been recogniz- 
 ed among its professed friends, grievously mistaken notions have been 
 entertained and expressed, which have been incalculably injurious to 
 the promotion of the cause. As it is possible that not a few may now 
 be present whose notions on this subject may be far from proper and 
 correct, we shall endeavor to present, in a few brief particulars, all that 
 is stated upon it in the inspired record, by which alone our views are 
 to be regulated. And here you will observe, 
 
 (1.) A Christian is one Yfhofullt/ and cordially believes the testimo- 
 ny that is given concerning Christ. The truth is evident, and is pal- 
 pable, that the claims of him who is the founder of our rehgion should 
 be accurately and properly estimated, and that whatever he is declar- 
 ed to be, in the institutes of religion, should be fully and universally 
 embraced. The question then arises — what is the precise nature and 
 import of that testimony which is given to us concerning the Founder 
 of Christianity, the reception of which at all times is essential to the 
 just estimate of his name ? The import of that testimony is, we be- 
 lieve, in the first place, that the Lord Jesus Christ possesses an eternal 
 and Divine existence in union with the Almighty Father — that he as- 
 sumed human nature by virtue of his miraculous incarnation, and in 
 which human nature he Avas subservient to the Father, in compliance 
 with the everlasting counsels, being in that nature known as the Mes- 
 siah, or Christ, both of which words mean " the anointed one" — that 
 during his existence on earth he was emphatically without a stain of 
 moral pollution, being holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin- 
 ners — that in that way he became the great teacher and exemplar to 
 mankind — that he submitted to an ignominious death on the cross of 
 Calvary, as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin, the imputation of the merit 
 of which, through the medium of faith, is essential to secure the pardon 
 and acceptance of man with God — that he rose again from the dead, 
 at an appointed period, for the purposes of his own glory, and to give 
 a solemn pledge and proof of the resurrection and immortality of man- 
 kind — that he ascended up to heaven to his Father, and to our Fa- 
 ther, to his God and to our God, there to intercede, and there to reign 
 as Mediator, sending down the influonces of his Spirit to renovate the 
 hearts of his people — and that, at the appointed period which has been 
 determined, he shall come forth with glory and with splendor, for the 
 purpose of raising and judging all the human race, and that then his 
 mediatorial kingdom shall finally and for ever close. These various 
 
eC THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 laniths, as I have now briefly stated them, we believe to be distinctly 
 recorded in those written statements of revelation which have descend- 
 ed for the guidance of our faith. They are written there in characters 
 of Hght, which no sophistry or infidelity can ever obscure or quench in 
 final darkness. You will observe, that a Christian is one who believes 
 all these truths, and cherishes them with a warm devotion of heart, 
 and therefore called emphatically by the apostle Paul, " One chosen 
 from the beginning to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, 
 and behef of the truth." His mind, moreover, you will observe, be- 
 comes properly the subject of all those various emotions towards his 
 Master, and his Master's work, which, from its nature,it is calculated 
 to inspire. The divinity of Christ becomes the object of his worship ; 
 the condescension of Christ becomes the object of his gratitude ; the ex- 
 ample of Christ becomes the object of his imitation ; the atonement of 
 Christ becomes the object of his trust ; the glory of Christ becomes the 
 object of his expectation ; the reign of Christ becomes the object of his 
 joy ; and the re-appearance of Christ becomes the object of his hope. 
 Such is distinctly the nature of the Christian's faith ; and they who 
 feel not, and who believe not this, whatever may be their professions 
 and pretensions, are to be considered, at the very best, as having but 
 the form of religion without the power, — as having no part or lot in 
 the matter. 
 
 (2.) We observe that a Christian is one T^^ho permanently obeys the 
 commandments of Christ. Permanent obedience, it must always be 
 remembered, is to be regarded as the proper sign of genuine and per- 
 sonal faith. The great design of Christianity was that of possessing a 
 perfect and absolute empire both over the mind and over the life. The 
 various principles contained in the testimony which has been delivered 
 concerning Christ can be fulfilled only, satisfactorily and conclusively, 
 in perfect spiritual obedience to the commandments which the great 
 Redeemer has promulged. That great spiritual fact was sufiiciently 
 proclaimed during the life-time of the Redeemer himself. " Every 
 tree," says he, " that bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and 
 cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruit ye shall knoAV them." 
 Again, " not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
 the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which 
 is in heaven." Again, " Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the 
 things that I say ? " Again, " If any man love me, he will keep laj 
 commandments." Again, " He that hath my commandments, and 
 keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." Again, " If ye keep my com- 
 mandments, ye shall abide in my love. Greater love hath no man 
 than this, that a man may lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my 
 
PRIVILEGES OF A CHRISTIAN. B9 
 
 friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." Now, it must be very 
 clear, that, to understand and perfectly distinguish all that is present- 
 ed in the religion of the gospel, and to bring whatever is preceptive in- 
 to regular and constant action, must be considered as an essential law 
 of the Christian caUing. The Christian is commanded to " crucify the 
 flesh, with the affections and lusts." He is commanded to come out 
 and separate himself from whatever is impure and unholy in the con- 
 duct and habits of the world. He is commanded to " bring forth the 
 fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the praise and glo- 
 ry of God : virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, broth- 
 erly kindness, charity." All these things are to be in him and abound. 
 He is commanded to set his affections on things above, and not on 
 things on the earth. He is commanded to make a public and open 
 avowal of his attachment to the name of the great Redeemer, whom he 
 professes to serve, and to dedicate every thing he possesses of wealth, 
 of talent, or of opportunity, to the diffusion of the cause and glory of 
 the Redeemer in the world. 
 
 It would be an insult to the principles of this great congregation to 
 state, at length, that those only are Christians by whom these various 
 commandments are obeyed ; and I will venture to assume, for the 
 honor of this church and people, that you will not venture to deny, 
 that those who disobey these commandments have no title to claim the 
 name of the great Redeemer who delivered them. I know that, in 
 modem times especially, there are multitudes of men who profess the 
 name of Christian, who nevertheless are open and avowed infidels in 
 •principle, and whose habits are hostile to what the great Redeemer 
 has exemplified. And I know, too, how grievously the reputation of 
 religion has suffered in the estimation of the world, by the crimes and 
 pollution of votaries, which votaries are to be solemnly repudiated and 
 renounced, as we do now solemnly repudiate and renounce them, as 
 having no more connection with the worth and religion of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, than is possessed by the very spirits of the abyss them- 
 selves. If, in your own sphere of existence, you meet with those who 
 profess to know God, and yet in practice deny him — if you meet those 
 persons that assume the name of Christ, and yet refuse to imitate his 
 example, and obey his commandments, we have but to pronounce res- 
 pecting them, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ ; " These 
 are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding 
 themselves without fear ; clouds they are without water, carried about 
 of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, 
 plucked up by the roots ; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their 
 
li THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 own shame ; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackuegs of 
 darkness for ever." 
 
 (3.) We observe, in the last place, that a Christian is one wlio re- 
 ceives Ids faith and holiness, and his desert in them, hy the Spirit of 
 Christ. The fact, my brethren, which we now state, with regard to 
 the origin of the Christian character, is one which has received, in 
 modern, as well as in ancient times, a very general denial. It being 
 the judgment of men, especially among the unconverted, that the dis- 
 pensation of the gospel is nothing more than the dispensation of all 
 speculative systems, so that it does not require any impulse but what 
 arises from the intellect and aflfection of the human mind itself. We 
 must state, first, the great evangelical principle which it is my desire, 
 on the present occasion, to announce among you — that the determi- 
 nation and tendency of the human will towards evil is so strong, so 
 deep, so inveterate, and so perfectly rooted, that there never would a 
 single case occur of one individual being brought to the Redeemer, 
 behoving in the doctrines of Christ, and rendering evangelical obe- 
 dience to the commandments of Christ, apart from the influence of the 
 Spirit of God. Apart from that influence all remains as the existence 
 of infidelity and sin ; and, if you see any thing Uke a state of profes- 
 sion which appears to argue the possibility of the approach of one 
 who is unconverted to the character of one who is a Christian, the or- 
 naments which are around him are but like the flowers which you have 
 sometimes seen scattered around a corrupting corpse. They may veil 
 the terrors and deformity of death ; they may shed a transient inter- 
 est and beauty over the scene before you, but they can do no more, 
 and they leave it a corpse still. Hear, my brethren, the record of 
 Scripture on this subject — " But as many as received him to them 
 gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe 
 on his name ; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Again, " Except a man 
 be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of God." Again, " No man can come unto me, except the Father 
 draw him." Again, " The words that I speak unto you they are 
 spirit, and they are life ; it is the Spirit that quickeneth ; it is the 
 Spirit that giveth life." Again, " No man can say that Jesus is Lord, 
 but by the Holy Ghost." And again, " We are saved, not by Avorks 
 of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he 
 saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Sa- 
 vior." Thus, my brethren, we are brought to a conclusion, which can- 
 not be mistaken, that every thing which assists to form and to perfect 
 
PRIVILEGES OF A CHRISTIAN. 41 
 
 a Christian's character is truly and essentially Divine ; that every 
 grace which flourishes in his heart is implanted there by the power of 
 the Almighty ; that every principle which is formed around his life, 
 and breathes a consecrated glory, is an emanation from heaven. The 
 Alpha and O^ega — the beginning and the ending — the first and the 
 last of a Christian's character — is the sovereign mercy of God ; and 
 to that mercy, in time and through eternity, he may well ascribe the 
 praise. We have now presented to you that which constitutes a Chris- 
 tian's character : let us proceed to consider, 
 
 2nd. What constitutes a Christian's privileges. 
 
 The connection of the text, indeed, you will observe, speaks of the 
 Bufferings of a Christian : — "If any man suffer as a Christian, let him 
 not be ashamed." But let it not be forgotten that the suffering of a 
 Christian does by no means call into question the verity, or diminish 
 the value, of his privileges ; but, on the other hand, by the wonderful 
 and mysterious arrangement of Divine mercy, these sufferings are 
 overruled, so as to become themselves privileges and blessings. He is 
 taught to glory in tribulation also ; and the glorious fact stands for 
 ever, that he who is born again, and who, by Divine grace, is brought 
 into fellowship with Jesus Christ, is possessed of enjoyments, immuni- 
 ties, and blessings, so vast, that Divinity alone can comprehend them, 
 and eternity alone can fulfil them. Let us now take a brief survey, 
 and particularly enumerate the privileges which belong to a Christian. 
 Observe, 
 
 (1.) K Q\ms,\h.di,n is justified from the guilt and condemnation of 
 sin. It is an ordination of heaven that the exercise of faith in the 
 Divine testimony — especially in that department of the Divine testi- 
 mony which refers to the ability of Christ to save us, and to his pro- 
 pitiatory sacrifice for sin — shall be the medium of imputing the merit 
 of Christ to the behever, so that he who believes is justified, is counted 
 holy — that is the meaning of justification — is counted holy before 
 God, no longer in a state of condemnation, no longer in peril of per- 
 dition, no longer in peril at the judgment, but secure of acceptance 
 there ; " we are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption 
 that is in Jesus Christ : whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, 
 through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remis- 
 sion of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God ; to declare, 
 I say, at this time, his righteousness : that he might be just, and the 
 justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." This justification once be- 
 stowed is irrevocable and irreversible, containing a final and inalienable 
 title to the skies. 
 
 (2.) A Qh.v\s,\\2kn possesses frieiidship and constant intercourse mth 
 
42 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 God. The removal of the guilt and mental alienation, bj which, in a 
 state of nature, he was characterized, is connected with the favor and 
 kindness of God, from whom he was once estranged. Listen, Christian, 
 to the statement of the subject, if you think it presumption — " We 
 have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of <|esus, by a new 
 and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil — 
 that is to say, his flesh." " In him we have boldness, and access with 
 confidence, by the faith of him." " We have access by one spirit unto 
 the Father." " We have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we 
 cry, Abba, Father." The Christian is a child of God, and enjoys all 
 the fulness of God, which is comprehended in the protection of a 
 father's arm, the wisdom of a father's counsels, the constancy of a 
 father's care, and the tenderness of a father's heart. 
 
 (3.) A Christian j^oss^ssgs the certainty of victory over death. The 
 terrors of death arise, legitimately, only from the curse upon creation, 
 and the fear of the punishment of eternity. The curse and the terrors 
 of punishment in a Christian are removed ; and, therefore, the fear of 
 death is perfectly and entirely destroyed. We, therefore, may say, 
 in the beautiful language of the apostle Paul, in the second chapter of 
 Hebrews, " Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh 
 and blood, he also, himself, likewise took part of the same." Why ? — 
 " that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death 
 — that is, the devil; and deliver them, who, through fear of death, 
 were, all their life-time, subject to bondage." We, therefore, may 
 say, in the language of the same apostle, as he looked down to the 
 coldness of the grave, and contemplated the terrors of the last enemy, 
 " death, where is thy sting ? grave, where is thy victory ? The 
 sting of death is sin ; and the strength of sin is the law. But, thanks 
 be to God, which givethus the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'* 
 Other men, without exception, shall fall beneath the stroke of the 
 king of terrors, in hopeless and helpless ruin ; but the Christian enters 
 into his territory that he may be the victim of the conqueror, but the 
 destroyer of the desolater ; and thus death must have his empire, that 
 the Christian may frustrate and trample him under his feet. And, 
 
 (4.) The Christian has the prospect of perfect and immortal happi- 
 ness and glory. For, why is it that he is born again ? Why is it that 
 he is brought to the exercise of repentance, and the exercise of faith ? 
 And why is it that he is made to crucify the flesh, with the aflections 
 and lusts, but for the single purpose that he may enter into life, and be 
 saved ? " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again into a 
 
PRIVILEGES OF A CHRISTIAN. 43 
 
 lively hope, bj the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an 
 inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadethnot away." 
 
 In a few words, my brethren, contemplate the future hopes of him 
 who is a Christian. At the moment of his departure, the disembodied 
 spirit enters into the paradise of the Redeemer, where, being absent 
 from the body, it is present with the Lord, waiting for the adoption, to 
 wit, the redemption of the body. At the appointed coming of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, with the shout of the archangel, and the trump of 
 God, his flesh shall answer the summons of the trumpet by rising from 
 the dust, not in corruption, but in incorruption ; not in dishonor, but 
 in glory ; not in weakness, but in power ; not a natural body, but a 
 spiritual body ; not bearing the image of the earthly, but bearing the 
 image of the heavenly ; shaped into the likeness of his Lord. Stand- 
 ing in his perfected nature, at the right hand of his Judge, the Judge 
 shall render to him his applause in the presence of an assembled uni- 
 verse, and then will ratify his entrance into bliss — that bliss which 
 comprehends whatever the love of God can prompt, whatever the wis- 
 dom of God can arrange, whatever the power of God can impart — 
 that bliss which no sin can pollute — that bliss which no sorrow can 
 darken — that bliss which no time can impair — that bliss which no 
 change can affect — that bliss which no calamity can destroy — that 
 bliss which remains like the throne of God, firm, perfect, unchangeable, 
 and for ever. 
 
 Here, then, my brethren, is presented to you a brief enumeration 
 of the Christiaii's privileges — and, my hearers, what think you of 
 them ? Deem them not, we entreat you, the inventions of a deceiver. 
 Deem them not, we entreat you, the dreams of an enthusiast. They 
 are the actual, palpable attendants of the course of every pilgrim 
 towards eternity, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, excepting 
 Jesus himself be an impostor, and this, the record of his love, be a he. 
 No, my hearers ! they arise not like the unreal, empty vision that 
 mocks the parched and weary traveller of the oriental desert, setting 
 before him the lovely green sward, and the shadowy grove, and the 
 bright and refreshing stream ; and, as he nears it, expecting to receive 
 his repose, it gradually vanishes into air, leaving nothing still before 
 him but the broad level of an interminable sand ! No ; these are liv- 
 ing realities on which the eye of faith, kindled and invigorated by the 
 power of Jehovah himself, fixes an unwavering gaze ; and, as we ad- 
 vance, and advance, and still advance, the light that shines upon them 
 becomes stronger and stronger, and brighter and brighter, until, at 
 last, we bask in all the sunshine and enjoy all the pleasure they reveal. 
 A Christian's privileges ! — what is there in nature to compare with 
 
44 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 them ? A Christian's privileges ! — do you not deem wealth, and hon- 
 or, and fame, and power, and royalty, to be reputed but as nothing 
 compared with them ? A Christian's privileges ! — do they not give to 
 him a surpassing grandeur, a halo of Inconceivable splendor ? A Chris- 
 tian's privileges ! — ought they not to bestir a holy startling and kind- 
 ling in every bosom, exciting a fervent and Intense ambition that re- 
 fuses to be satisfied until we reach the heaven in which they are con- 
 summated and crowned ? 
 
 We have now contemplated the two great divisions which mark the 
 first part of the subject, and now we proceed, 
 
 II. To SEEK TO IMPRESS THE EXHORTATIONS WHICH OUR VIEW OP 
 
 THE Christian's character and the Christian's privileges ought 
 
 JUSTLY AND PROPERLY TO INSPIRE. 
 
 My address is. In the 
 
 First place, to those hy whom this character is sustained. 
 
 My Christian brethren, we exhort you, first, to live diligently and 
 carefully in consistency with the religion you have embraced. I am 
 happy in believing that multitudes who are now In the presence of God 
 sustain the character, and have a title to those privileges we have de- 
 scribed ; let me, however, stir up your minds by way of remembrance. 
 Christians ! the eyes of many are upon you. " You are a spectacle to 
 the world, and to angels, and to men ! " In you the honor of religion 
 is involved ! Your Inconsistencies would stain it ; your consistencies 
 will adorn it ! With regard to your belief In the principles of the gos- 
 pel to which we have referred, we exhort you, that In them you will 
 be firm and unwavering ; that you will not be led away by cunningly 
 devised fables, or carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the 
 sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to de- 
 ceive ; but that you will be estabhshed in the faith ; that you will hold 
 fast the form of sound words ; that you will be " steadfast, unmovable, 
 always abounding In the work of the Lord." With regard to your con- 
 formity to the principles of the gospel, we exhort you, that there you 
 will be vigilant, watchful, and exact. The state of the times In Avhich 
 we live, the many avenues which are constantly opened for conformity 
 between Christians and worldlings, render necessary repeated exhorta- 
 tions to those that profess the name of Christ to come out and be sep- 
 arate, to " avoid the very appearance of evil," and by " denying un- 
 godliness and worldly lusts, and hving soberly, righteously, and godly, 
 in this present world, adorn the doctrine of God your Savior in all 
 things." Be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, 
 in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine 
 
PRIVILEGES OF A CKRISTIAN. 45 
 
 as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. Let your light, 
 my brethren, in this manner shine before men, and, while your own 
 character is exalted, and your own enjoyments are multiplied, you will 
 confer honor on the great cause to which you are attached, and be- 
 come, in some measure, the instruments in the hands of the Almighty 
 in propelUng the march of your beloved religion over the heathen and 
 unenlightened countries of the earth, and in constituting the religion 
 of the Bible the religion of the world. 
 
 We exhort you, secondly, that you will make a public glory of your 
 connexion with the cause to which you are attached. That you are Chris- 
 tians, ought to be publicly known before the world, and the ungodly, by 
 your courage and fortitude for the truth, should be called to take knowl- 
 edge that you are numbered among those who are chosen, and called, 
 and faithful. For what on earth is there to render a Christian asham- 
 ed of the religion with which he is connected ? There are many, in- 
 deed, in modern times, professing to be connected with the name of 
 Christ, who, while they avow themselves to be so, do it with a timid 
 and fearful misgiving, and there are multitudes more who avoid the 
 avowal altogether, as if to say that they were Christians involved be- 
 fore the public an avowed disgrace. As a minister of the living God, 
 knowing not a little of the crimes of the church, knowing not a little of 
 the needs of the church, knowing not a little' of the demands of the 
 church, I would earnestly and solemnly beseech you who have felt the 
 stirring of the grace of God in your hearts, to appear before the world 
 without one compromise : and they will perceive what you are in your 
 characters, and in your prospects, and in your hopes. Come out pub- 
 licly from the world ; unite yourselves publicly with the people and with 
 the servants of God. Let the Christian church be your home — let 
 the Christian church be your atmosphere — let the Christian church be 
 your occupation. " Be not thou, therefore, — I would speak particu- 
 larly to the young — be not thou, therefore, ashamed of the testimony 
 of the Lord ; " but in every scene of your mortal existence emulate the 
 spirit of the great apostle of the Gentiles, " God forbid that I should 
 glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ my Lord ! " 
 
 These days of peace, my brethren, are fallen, mean, and degen- 
 erate indeed, if the disciples of Christ are to be arrayed beneath 
 the shadow, refusing to make known their light and principles before 
 the world, when, in what may be called the heroic age of the church, 
 martyrs, amid storms and tempests, and when they were brought to the 
 'rack, refused to bend, or compromise, or quail. We are told of one — 
 and he is but an example — who, when brought before the tribunal of 
 judgment from whence he was to receive the doom of death, and ask- 
 
46 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 ed, " What is thy name ? " replied, " I am a Christian." " What is 
 thine occupation ? " " I am a Christian." " What is thy native coun- 
 try ? " " I am a Christian." " Who were thine ancestors ? " " I am 
 a Christian." And to every question his reply consisted in the words, 
 " I am a Christian." My brethren, emulate the spirit and imitate the 
 example ! Rise superior alike to the world's reproach and scorn ! Wear 
 the badge of your religion like a diadem on your brow, openly and un- 
 concealed ! In youth, and in age ; in pubhcity, and in retirement ; 
 in health, and in sickness ; in life, and in death, be this your proclama- 
 tion, I am a Christian. We observe, in the 
 
 Second place, that an address will properly be directed to those who 
 from tJiis character are yet estranged. 
 
 There are, perhaps, not a few in this congregation, who, although 
 they have possessed the means of Christian privilege, and have often 
 heard the language of Christian exhortation, are, nevertheless', at this 
 very moment, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the 
 world. Is there not a conscience, testifying that its possessor is with- 
 out a title to the elements of that character which we have endeavored 
 to describe ? You, who have reason to believe you are yet unconvert- 
 ed, allow me to press upon you one great consideration, and that is, 
 the vast importance of a personal interest in that character which we 
 have portrayed. I cannot but believe that the plain and perspicuous 
 statement, as I trust it has been, of what pertains to the Christian's 
 privileges and the Christian's character, is adapted to inspire something 
 like a desire on your part to be mingled with them. Perhaps, you feel 
 as did Balaam, when he ascended the summit of a rock and looked 
 down upon the tribes of Israel abiding in their tents, with the taberna- 
 cle in the midst, and the Shechinah and glory of the living God hover- 
 ing over the encampment ; and, after pausing first, perhaps, in obser- 
 vation, then in admiration, exclaimed, " How goodly are thy tents, 
 Jacob, and thy tabernacles, Israel ! From the top of the rocks I 
 see him, and from the hills I behold him. Let me die the death of 
 the righteous, and let my last end be like his ! " Is not the inspira- 
 tion of the prophet, the inspiration of every reasonable being who has 
 beheld a spiritual survey of the character and privileges of the sons 
 and daughters of God. 
 
 To the view of their privileges add another consideration, which must 
 solemnly be pressed upon you, and that is, that without a participation 
 in the character and privileges of the sons and daughters of God, you 
 must be finally and eternally miserable. Yea, my hearers, in life, you 
 will be destitute of the only influence which can console and alleviate 
 in death. You will have no ray of Ught beaming upon the darkness of 
 
PRIVILEGES OP A CHRISTIAN. 47 
 
 the grave, and no charm to chase away the terrors that gather thick 
 around the entrance to eternity! In judgment yon m\\ have no shield 
 to ward off the certainty of justice, and prevent the sentence of con- 
 demnation ! In eternity, you will suffer the untold agqnies of the tor- 
 ments of hell for ever ! Do you want my warrant ? "He that be- 
 lieveth not the Son, shall not see Ufe ; but the wrath of God abideth on 
 him." Do you want another ? " He thatbelieveth not shall be damn- 
 ed." Do you want another ? " The Lord Jesus Christ shall be re- 
 vealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking ven- 
 geance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruc- 
 tion from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." 
 0,lull not yourselves into a deceitful slumber ; cry not " peace, peace," 
 when there is no peace ! Your spirits, even now, are standing upon 
 the verged if you look not to Christ, and believe not upon him, you 
 will sink into the lowest hell ! 
 
 My brethren, in the name of Christ, I ask those who constitute this 
 congregation, in advancing towards the close of the subject — whether 
 they refuse to be called by the name and to wear the character of 
 Christians ? You have heard what a Christian is — will you be a 
 Christian, or will you not ? Will you receive the truth as it is in Je- 
 sus ? Will you rest upon the great Redeemer, who is able to save un- 
 to the uttermost all that come unto God by him ? My hearers, will 
 you render and avow your allegiance, that the name of Christ shall be 
 your badge — that his example shall be your model — that his com- 
 mandments shall be your rule — and that his heaven shall be your 
 goal ; or will you refuse ? My hearers, the moment is now arrived, 
 when immortal spirits are challenged as to their choice with regard to 
 their eternal welfare. You, perhaps, may dream but little of it ; but 
 the place where we are gathered is filled with immortal spirits, who are 
 waiting anxiously for your de<;ision. There are angels bending from 
 their seats, and resting on their harps, watching you with intense solic- 
 itude, till they hear the command of God, that there may be joy amongst 
 them over sinners who are brought to repentance. There are demons 
 rising from the abyss, fluttering to preserve the captives whom they 
 fear may be disenthralled, maddened if you escape, rejoicing if the arch- 
 fiend make the triumph, if you become tenfold more the children of 
 hell than before. The two orders of invisible beings are amongst us, 
 and what shall be the result of to-night ? Will you give joy to angels 
 or joy to demons ? Will you kindle rapture in heaven, or will you kin- 
 dle rapture in hell ? Will you burst the bands that surround you asun- 
 der, and rise, and stand emancipated in the liberty wherewith Christ 
 
48 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 makes his people free ; or will you clank your chains around you like 
 maddened captives, and make yourselves more the children of corrup- 
 tion than ever ? My hearers, in the name of God, who is greater than 
 angels and fiends, I demand your decision, and I demand your decision 
 for Christ ! By His agony and bloody sweat ; by his cross and pas- 
 sion ; by his precious death and burial ; by his glo»ious resurrection 
 and ascension ; by his reign at the right hand of the Father, and by 
 his coming as the Judge of quick and dead, I demand of every one that 
 this night he will enrol his name as a Christian ! Refuse it if you dare, 
 and answer for it before the tribunal of God ! For myself, I take the 
 vow once more, and I trust I shall be followed, even by thousands, who 
 are in the presence of God, " I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; 
 for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." 
 " I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and 
 him crucified." " Whether I live, I will live unto the Lord ; or wheth- 
 er I die, I will die unto the Lord ; whether I live, therefore, or die, I 
 am the Lord's. For, to this end, Christ both died and rose, and re- 
 vived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living." 
 
 Come, ye sons and daughters of men, let us thus sustain the Christ- 
 ian's character, then shall Ave enjoy the Christian's privileges ; and, as we 
 possess the Christian's privileges, we shall rise to the Christian's heav- 
 en ! Shall we meet there ? The day will declare it ! Sinners, your 
 blood be upon your own heads ! Amen. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 
 BY REV. F. J. J0B80N, 
 
 " I determined not to know any thing among yon, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 
 
 1 CoBinTHiARS, ii. 2. 
 
 Man, by his intellectual constitution, is capable of acquiring and 
 possessing knowledge ; and in this he stands distinguished from all oth- 
 er beings in the visible universe. The earth on which you tread, cov- 
 ered as it is with beauty and bloom, knows not of its own existence ; it 
 is totally unconscious of itself. The sun, that shines so gloriously, 
 knows not of his own splendor ; he is totally unconscious of the light 
 and life he throws on all around. The air, that sustains all animal and 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 49 
 
 vegetable life, knows not of its sustaining and refreshing qualities. 
 Birds, that wing their adventurous way through the air ; beasts, that 
 stalk upon the surface of the earth ; fishes, that pass down to depths 
 unfathomed — are totally incapable of contemplating the scenes by 
 which they are surrounded. But man, the last and brightest fruit of 
 eternal wisdom — max, the last production of Jehovah in his six days' 
 labor, can contemplate the glorious scenes by which he is surrounded. 
 The brute creation seem to think of nothing but what is urged upon 
 them by present inclinations ; the past is a blank to them, the future 
 all in darkness. But man can review the past, contemplate the present, 
 and look onward to the future. Nay, you know not where to put a 
 limit to the powers of the mind of man. You may stride over the sur- 
 face of this earth, and speak with certainty of its dimensions ; you may 
 measure the distance of the most far-out planet, and, after you have 
 ascertained its distance, you may mark out its surface, and place a 
 boundary line beyond it ; but where will you put a limit to the powers 
 of the mind of man ? It is ever moving onwards. It goes on link by 
 link in the chain of understanding ; and you know not where to find 
 an end of that chain, but at the footsteps of the Eternal Throne. 
 
 But not only is there a power in the mind of man to acquire and re- 
 tain knowledge, but there is a love for knowledge, implanted by the 
 Divine hand within his breast for important purposes. The mind of 
 man has as great a dislike to ignorance as the eye has to darkness, or 
 the Umbs to confinement. It loves to look out on the broad light of ^ 
 truth ; it loves to range in the freedom of its faculties. 
 
 But various are the opinions of men, as to what constitutes the most 
 valuable kind of knowledge. One man says, that the knowledge of 
 languages is the most valuable of all knowledge, and he sets himself 
 down to study the speech of various nations ; and thus he seeks repu- 
 tation among men. Another man says, that the expression of senti- 
 ment in poetic numbers is the most exalted employment of the mind ; 
 and he, as a poet, seeks reputation among his fellow beings. Another 
 man says, that to understand well the connection between cause and 
 efiect, or to be a natural philosopher, and be able to place every creat- 
 ed object in its proper situation — from the gigantic elephant that stalks 
 the surface of the earth, down to the smallest insect that dances in the 
 sun-beam — is to be a wise man ; and, as a natural philosopher, he seeks 
 reputation among his fellow-creatures. Another, perhaps, takes off the 
 crust of the earth, on which you tread, and looks down into it to see how 
 it is built and composed ; and, as a geologist, he seeks reputation among 
 men. Another, makes the earth, on which you walk, an observatory, and 
 
 gazes at the stars ; and by his progress in what is called the celestial sci- 
 4 
 
50 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 euce, he seeks reputation in the world. My friends, such knowledge may 
 be valuable, but it is not the most valuable ; such knowledge may be 
 important, but it is not the most important. Man is a guilty sinner ; 
 and in this world his time should be occupied in seeking reconciUation 
 ■with his God. By Christ crucified a way is opened, whereby guilty 
 man may be reconciled to God. Then, I say, that man is the wise 
 man, who goes to the cross of Christ to study there the great science 
 of human redemption. Let a man be what he may — astronomer, ge- 
 ologist, poet, natural philosopher, or whatever else, he must yield the 
 palm to the Christian student, who goes to the cross of Chi'ist to study 
 there the great science of human salvation. Do you wonder, then, to 
 hear the apostle Paul — the noble, talented, learned Paul — avow a 
 determination so great, as that which is expressed in the words of the 
 text ? Do you wonder to hear him say, amidst the philosophers and 
 sages of Greece, " I am determined not to know anything among you, 
 save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Noble Paul ! valiant Paul ! 
 He had a right to say so ; he knew that Christ crucified was everything 
 to him as a guilty sinner. You cannot be surprised to hear him say, 
 " I am determined not to know any thing save Jesus Christ, and him 
 crucified." 
 
 The persons, to whom St. Paul first avowed his determination, were 
 persons that were given to the study of science, as it was taught by 
 their philosophers, who were well skilled in all the tricks of human ora- 
 tory, Paul went among them, and he declared simply and plainly the 
 death of Christ, and the way of salvation for guilty man by the death 
 of Christ ; and they frowned upon Paul ; they looked upon it as bad 
 taste in Paul, to go among the philosophers of Greece, and speak of 
 the death of Christ as the way of deliverance for guilty beings. But 
 Paul challenged them to point to effects produced by their preaching, 
 so great as those which had been produced by the simple story of the 
 cross. " AVhere," says he, " is the wise ? where is the scribe ? where 
 is the disputer of this world ? hath not God made foohsh the wisdom 
 of this world ? " And then he goes on to show how the effects, which 
 had been produced among the Corinthians, had been caused — that it 
 was not done by any tricks of human oratory, or by the gaudy addresses 
 of an eloquent man. No ; he reminds them of the plain and simple 
 way in which he went amongst them^ and proclaimed the cross of Je- 
 sus Christ ; he says, " And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came 
 not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the tes- 
 timony of God ; for I determined not to know any thing among you, 
 save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 
 
 First, then, we shall notice the grand subject, which so exclusively 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 61 
 
 engaged the apostle's attention — Jesus Christ, the Savior of man ; in 
 the second place, we shall bring forward reasons to justify a determina- 
 tion so great, as that which the apostle avows in my text, so that he 
 would " know nothing among them, save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
 fied." 
 
 I. First, then, we are to notice the grand subject, which so ex- 
 clusively engaged the apostle's attention. 
 
 It was as much as if he had said, " I am determined to think of 
 nothing for myself, I am determined to teach nothing to you, but Je- 
 sus Christ, and him crucified; this shall be the point, the centre, to 
 which all the lines of my ministry shall be drawn — Jesus Christ, and 
 him crucified." 
 
 I suppose, my friends, it is not necessary for me to take up the time 
 this morning, in explaining to you the meaning of these words. You 
 arc all aware, that the word Jesus signifies a Savior. The first who 
 bore that name, was the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim — the suc- 
 cessor of Moses ; for Joshua, by proper interpretation, is the same 
 name as Jesus, and that name was given unto Joshua as a proof that 
 God would fulfil his promise unto his people ; that he would raise up 
 a leader, who should direct them through the wilderness, and bring 
 them safely into a land " flowing with milk and with honey." And 
 you know, that the name given to the Savior — that of Jesus — was 
 not given to him merely as a proper name, a name by which he might 
 be distinguished among the sons of men — not given to him, as the 
 name of John was given at his circumcision. No ; for when the angel 
 appeared unto Joseph, and gave the name o? Jesus, he gave along with 
 it the etymology or meaning of the name ; he said, " Thou shalt call 
 his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." The 
 word Jesus, then, signifies a Savior. 
 
 We now come to that title which is generally annexed to that of Je- 
 sus — that of Christ, which signifies the anointed. Under the old dis- 
 pensation, kings and priests were anointed — set apart for their office. 
 You remember, that David was anointed to be king by Samuel, and 
 Aaron and his sons were anointed to the priesthood. Oil was poured 
 upon their heads. Nor was this a mere formal or unmeaning ceremo- 
 ny ; but, connected with it, was the bestowment of fit qualifications for 
 their office. Until David had been anointed by Samuel, he was a raw 
 shepherd, quite unfit to reign over Israel ; but when Samuel had anoint- 
 ed him, the Spirit of God came upon him, and prepared him for the 
 office. Now Christ was anointed. I do not mean that it was mere 
 oil — a mere drug pressed out of vegetable matter — that was poured 
 
52 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 upon him. No ; it -was the unction of the Holy One. You remember, 
 that at his baptism the Holy Ghost descended upon him, and a voice 
 from heaven Tvas heard, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am ■vyell 
 pleased ; " and then he went into the temple, and he cried, " The Spirit 
 of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anoiilted me to preach the 
 gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to 
 preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, 
 to set at liberty them that are bruised." 
 
 But, my friends, it is not upon the name of Jesus that we rest our 
 hopes for salvation, nor is it upon the anointing of the Savior that we 
 rest our hopes for salvation ; no, it was not the anointing of Christ nor 
 the name of Christ upon which the apostle Paul determined to dwell — • 
 but Jesus Christ a-ucified. And that is every thing to you and to me, 
 as guilty sinners. That is the foundation of all your hopes ; that is 
 the ground of all your expectations ; that is the key-stone of the whole 
 arch of Christianity. If you take that away, there is nothing for us 
 to hope for, nothing left on which we can ground our expectations of 
 eternal salvation. Jesus Christ crucified is every thing to you and to 
 me. 
 
 Let us attend to this mighty subject — this subject, which, on ac- 
 count of its magnificence, has been justly called " the wisdom of God " 
 — this subject, which, on account of its grandeur, excites the admira- 
 tion of the loftiest intelligences. You never find, in this book, that an- 
 gels are walking the surface of this earth to inquire into the connec- 
 tion between cause and effect in its transactions ; but you do find them 
 Christian students — the angels are represented by Peter as desiring 
 to fathom the mysteries of redemption. This is the subject which will 
 engage our attention throughout all eternity, if you and I shall get to 
 heaven, and furnish us with songs long as eternity shall endure. 
 
 Let us, then, look at Jesus Christ crucified — Jesus Christ your 
 Savior — Jesus Christ my Savior — Jesus Christ crucified for the sins 
 of the whole world — not Jesus Christ, a good man going up and down 
 this world, performing his heavenly Master's will — not Jesus Christ, 
 a great prophet commissioned by God to convey some important infor- 
 mation to the inhabitants of this world. No ; to view him as a good 
 man, his greatest enemies are willing — to view him as a great prophet, 
 his greatest enemies are wiUing. My friends, there is a system in our 
 day, which seeks to pluck the crown of underived glory from the head 
 of the Savior, to wrest the sceptre from his hand, to take the robe of 
 royalty from his shoulders, and to reduce him to the level of a man. 
 There are some who bow to Christ as a good man and a great prophet, 
 but who scorn to look upon him as the co-equal Son of God. No won- 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 63 
 
 der that the doctrine should be attacked, and maliciously attacked ; 
 but that men, who pretend to bow to the authority of this book, should 
 deny it — is indeed inconsistent ; and we do not believe the atheist is 
 a more inconsistent man, than men who pretend to revere the author- 
 ity of the Bible, and deny the Divinity of Christ. 
 
 We will just look at this point ; for you know that the Divinity of 
 Jesus Christ is every thing to you and to me. I will just refer you to 
 two or three arguments founded on the word of God. 
 
 I will first refer you to an interesting conversation, that took place 
 between Jesus Christ and the Jews, in the days of his flesh. They 
 said, " Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ? " 
 Jesus said unto them, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham 
 was, I am " — thus claiming for himself that name, which signifies un- 
 derived or unborrowed existence — that name, by which Jehovah re- 
 vealed himself when he sent Moses forth with a message to the chil- 
 dren of Israel, for he said, " I am hath sent thee unto them ; " this 
 name Christ claimed himself. I next refer you to the prayer of Christ 
 — that prayer, which he offered unto the Father before he ascended 
 up on high ; " Father," says he, " glorify thou me with thine own self, 
 with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Now 
 what mortal is there that dare stand up and pray in this way ? What 
 man is there in this assembly — good man or good woman, as he or she 
 may be — that dare stand up, and say, " Father, glorify thou me with 
 thine own selfj with the glory which I had with thee before the world 
 
 was 
 
 ?" 
 
 Not only are the names of God ascribed to Christ, but the work of 
 God, you will find in this book, is ascribed to Christ. Perhaps you 
 will remember the fine annunciation with which the apostle John opens 
 his gospel. He says, " In the beginning was the word, and the word 
 was with God, and the word was God ; the same was in the beginning 
 with God ; all things were made by him, and without him was not any 
 thing made that was made." So that whatever the Divine Father and 
 the Divine Spirit have been engaged in, the Divine Son has also been 
 engaged in. The Divine Father and the Divine Spirit were employed 
 in bringing into existence this world of ours, and all the glorious worlds 
 that roll around us throughout all space ; but whatever the Divine Father 
 and the Divine Spirit have been employed in, the Divine Son has also 
 been employed in. The Divine Father and the Divine Spirit have 
 been engaged, throughout eternity, in bringing into existence beings of 
 intelligence and beings of responsibility ; but whatever the Divine Fa- 
 ther and the Divine Spirit have been engaged in, the Divine Son has 
 been engaged in also. " By him were all things created, that are in 
 
54 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be 
 thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers ; and he was before 
 all things, and by him all things consist." 
 
 You remember, too, that when Christ was upon the earth, He re- 
 ceived worship. In that hour when the doubts of Thomas were dis- 
 persed, he addressed the Savior — "My Lord," said he, " and my 
 God ; " and Christ did not reprove him for that conduct. And you 
 will find, that many times the Savior took worship to himself. Now 
 the loftiest created intelligence is not allowed to take worship. You 
 remember that, when John would have fallen down to worship before 
 the feet of an angel, he said, " See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow- 
 servant ; worship God." But Christ received worship, why ? He 
 was God, and he knew that it was his right. 
 
 If you search the Old Testament Scriptures, you will find proofs of 
 the Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Isaiah calls him, 
 " The mighty God, the everlasting Father ; " or, as it might be read, 
 " the Father of eternity." Jeremiah calls him " the Lord " (or, as 
 it might be read, " Jehovah ") " our righteousness." 
 
 You remember, too, the attitude in which Christ stood, and the tone 
 of voice with which he spoke, when he performed miracles. When 
 Christ performed miracles, he did not act as Moses or Elijah did when 
 they performed miracles, who prayed that God would help them and 
 be with them, before they wrought the miracle. No ; he spoke with 
 the voice of one having authority ; he spoke, and the winds ceased, 
 and the waves were still, hushed as a child in its cradle by its mother ; 
 it was the God of nature that spoke, and therefore all was quiet. But 
 there is one part of our Lord's conduct, which, to my mind, proves 
 more than volumes in regard to his Divinity ; and that is his conduct 
 to his disciples, when he gave them their commission before he 
 ascended up on high. " He breathed on them, and said unto them, 
 Receive ye the Holy Ghost." Now I ask, what man could breathe 
 the Holy Ghost, the essence of God ? what human being could breathe 
 the Holy Ghost ? 
 
 Here, then, the foundation is good, Christ is God : and if he be 
 God, then I can rest upon him, because I know he made atonement 
 for the sins of the world. But if you take away the Divinity of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, there is nothing left for me to rest upon. Why, 
 suppose I were to take the best man in all this book, and set him be- 
 fore you, and dress him up in all his virtues, and say, " By this man 
 is preached unto you salvation ; " which of you could rest your salva- 
 tion upon him ? No ; Milton, in his beautiful book, over which we 
 hang with delight, hour after hour, represents God as looking round 
 
KNOWLEDGE OP CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 55 
 
 among the angels of heaven, and asking which of them would go and 
 deliver man. That may do foi- Milton, it may do for poetry ; but it 
 will not do for our soul's foundation. The brightest archangel that 
 burns before the eternal throne, would not have done to make atone- 
 ment for the sins of man. Infinite justice must be satisfied ; an 
 infinite nature must effect that work ; in the whole round of beings, 
 there is but one that is infinite ; and unless Christ had undertaken our 
 cause, you and I must have been lost for ever. But, blessed be his 
 name ! He undertook our cause ; he came down into this world, and 
 suffered, and bled for you and for me. With the might of his Divinity, 
 he entered our humanity; and, by the one ofiering of himself, he 
 made a full, perfect, and sufiBcient atonement for the sins of the world. 
 Human nature was necessary, in order to make that atoning sacrifice ; 
 and I know it is a mystery, how God and man could be united in one 
 nature ; but why should I reject a truth that is revealed, because it is 
 a mystery ? I cannot comprehend myself; I know that I can turn to 
 the right, or turn to the left, or stretch out my arm, by the mere exer- 
 tion of my will — but I cannot understand it. And if I cannot under- 
 stand myself, why should I reject this doctrine because I cannot 
 comprehend it. My friends, there are heights in religion, as there are 
 mountains in nature, which the foot of man never trod ; and if the 
 eagle, in his magnificent flight, shall bring down from those mountains 
 the leaves of a tree which I have never seen, shall I doubt the exist- 
 ence of the tree, merely because I have not ascended to the spot where 
 it grows ? And since I cannot comprehend how God and man can be 
 united in one nature, I will throw myself before the feet of Christ, and 
 I will worship him, and cry to every sinner that shall come within the 
 sound of my voice, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the 
 sin of the world." Christ has undertaken your cause and my cause. 
 He suffered in our stead. 
 
 I have not time this morning to dwell upon the sufferings of the 
 Savior. And if I had, I would not dwell upon his corporeal sufier- 
 ings ; I Avould not speak of those things which are being dwelt upon 
 for hours, and set forth as if they were the most important ; I would 
 not speak of the insults in the judgment hall ; I would not speak of 
 him hurried through the streets, and of the people proclaiming all the 
 way that they had found out the cheat and the hypocrite, and that his 
 OTvn confession convicted him of blasphemy, and condemned him to 
 die ; I would not speak of their plaiting a crown of thorns, and put- 
 ting it round his head, and with their fists striking the sharp edges 
 into his temples ; I would not tell how with their whips they smote 
 his back, till it became one bloody wound ; I would not speak of his 
 
56 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 being nailed to the cross, his body pulled to its full length and breadth, 
 and pierced by the nails that fastened it ; I would not speak of the 
 multitude that -wagged their heads in scorn, and said, " He saved 
 others, himself he cannot save." No, if I had time to dwell, I 
 would dwell upon the weight of Divine wrath, that descended upon him 
 and crushed him, in the hour of the world's atonement. I would go 
 to that. Why ? Because my Savior went to it. He often spoke of 
 that hour ; and there seemed to be something brooding upon his mind, 
 in reference to that awful hour, throughout his life. He spoke of it 
 to his disciples often. He spoke of it on the mount of transfiguration ; 
 there it is said," He spake of his decease which he should accomplish 
 at Jerusalem." Oh ! what an hour was that ! At that awful hour, 
 the whole universe bent an eager aspect towards him, angels gazed 
 upon him with breathless silence, devils leagued their forces to uphold 
 their empire. That was the most interesting hour the world ever 
 knew. If Christ had then quitted our cause, you and I had perished 
 for ever ; but, adored be our Savior ! He did not quit our cause. No, 
 he longed for the garments dyed in blood ; he said,. " How am I 
 straitened, till that baptism be accomplished ; " he trod with un- 
 wavering step that path of difficulty ; he buffeted with that hour, and 
 at the close of it he shouted, with a voice that shook hell to its centre, 
 reverberated through the universe, and filled all heaven with gladness, 
 " It is finished." Oh ! go, my fellow-sinner, go to the cross. Stand 
 by the cross. Here is the ransom-price for thy soul. Here is atone- 
 ment made for thy sins. Go to the cross, and cry, with the apostle, 
 " I am determined not to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him 
 crucified." 
 
 Oh ! what is there so noble, so sublime, so majestic, as the crucifixion 
 of our Lord ? Oh ! be Christians, be Christians. Men may talk 
 about deeds of human enterprise and human chivalry ; they may speak 
 of the senate-house, where the passing of an act of Parliament has 
 decided the interests of millions in a single moment ; they may tell of 
 the battle-field, where hundreds have stood for hours up to the ancles 
 in human blood ; they may speak of the accession of a temporal prince, 
 or a temporal princess, where thousands have been fixed in immovable 
 gaze at the pomp of majesty. But we will go to the cross ; we will 
 stand by the cross ; we will gaze upon the Savior ; and we will cry, 
 " I determine not to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him cru- 
 cified." Oh ! I wish this morning I might lig the humble instrument, 
 in God's hand, of giving you, or getting you, more love to Christ. Oh ! 
 go to the cross ; love your Savior, adore your Savior, admire your 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 57 
 
 Savior. I tell you, it will afford the richest enjoyment. You will sing 
 ■with the poet — 
 
 " Sweet the moments, rich in blessing, 
 Which before the cross I spenii; 
 Life, and heulth, and peace possessing, 
 From the sinner's dying Friend. 
 Hero I Ml sit for ever viewing 
 Mercy's streams in streams of blood ! 
 Precious drops, my soul bedewing, 
 ' Plead and claim my peace with God." 
 
 Oh go to the cross, then ; and say, with the apostle Paul, " I am 
 determined not to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
 fied." 
 
 II. But we promised to bring forward, in the second place, some 
 REASONS to justify a determination so great, as that which is avowed 
 in the words of my text. The apostle said, " he was determined not 
 to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 
 
 I have already informed you of the occasion of these words, and 
 spoken to you of Paul going amidst the philosophers and sages of 
 Greece, and telling them the simple tale of Christ crucified, and how 
 they despised him. But Paul was far above being turned from his 
 work by them. And why ? 
 
 1. He knew that it did not want the power of human eloquence to 
 set forth this truth. No ; what would you say to me, if I were to 
 light a taper at mid-day to show you the meridian sun ? what would 
 you say to me, if I were to take you to a small pool, and say. Look 
 there, you see what the ocean is ? what would you say to me, if I 
 were to take you out to some of the richest scenery that this world 
 would afford, and, after I had shown it you, give you a piece of colored 
 glass, and say. Look at that scene, through this piece of colored glass ? 
 Why, you would say, let the sun shine in its own glory, let the 
 ocean flow in its own expanse, let nature be shown in her own 
 robes. And let the gospel be seen in its own power. Paul knew that 
 it did not need any power of human eloquence to set it forth^ No ; 
 it was " the wisdom of God," and it needed the power of God, and 
 nothing else, to set it forth. And, therefore, he said, " I am deter- 
 mined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him 
 crucified." 
 
 2. There is another reason for bringing this forward — another rea- 
 son to justify St. Paul, and to lead you to the foot of the cross ; and it 
 is this — the knowledge of Christ crucified is certain hnoivledge ; and 
 in this it is distinguished from all other kinds of knowledge. This 
 declaration would have applied in the days of the apostle ; for you 
 remember the mythology of the ancients ; you remember that Greece, 
 
58 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 in the height of her intellectual power, had thirty thousand gods, and 
 thej were conflicting in their temples day after day, where Paul was, as 
 to what was the right object of worship ; but Paul knew that Chi-ist the 
 Savior was the right object of worship, and on account of the certainty 
 of this knowledge, he had a right to determine, and he did " determine 
 not to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." And 
 there is a great deal of uncertainty in our day in all sciences. Take 
 the knowledge of anatomy, for instance ; a man may tell me how my 
 bod}^ is composed, my bones, and flesh, and blood, but he cannot tell 
 me how will acts upon motion — how it is that I can, when I like, 
 move my foot, or move my hand. Take astronomy ; a man may tell 
 me how far a planet is off", but he cannot tell me whether it is inhabited. 
 Take chemistry ; why, you may torture nature with your fires, but she 
 will not divulge her secrets. No ; it is still as then, that there is a 
 great deal of ignorance. Athens was in ignorance ; she had erected 
 an altar to " the unknown God," and it was only Paul that could stand 
 up and say, "Him declare I unto you." Paul had tried for himself, 
 he knew for himself, and therefore he had a right to exclaim, " I am 
 determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and 
 Him crucified." 
 
 I would stay a moment here, and I would have you try, each and all 
 for yourselves, the certainty of this knowledge. You may talk about 
 evidence of other sorts ; you may talk about historical evidence, and 
 you may talk about internal evidence ; but it is only experimental 
 evidence that can satisfy the mind. Now I will suppose a familiar 
 illustration, to make this clear to you all. Supposing that one of you 
 sent your servant to a shop for something ; say for a bottle of ink ; 
 well, the girl comes back, and you ask her what she has got; " Why ! " 
 she says, " I asked the shopman for ink, and he has given me ink, here 
 it is, here is the bottle " — that is historical evidence, the testimony of 
 others to a fact ; but you are not quite satisfied ; you open the bottle, 
 and you look at the ink, and find it is black, and it smells like ink — 
 that is internal evidence ; but still you are not satisfied ; you take your 
 pen and dip it into the bottle, and you write, and you know it is ink, 
 because you have written Avith it. Now suppose a neighbor should 
 come in, and should say, " The shopman has deceived you, or your 
 servant has deceived you — it is not ink." What would you do? 
 Would you send for the servant, and question her about what the shop- 
 man said to her ? No, you would say. It is ink ; I know it is because 
 I have tried it. And so a man may talk about the evidence arising 
 from Jesus Christ being a good man, and such a character as this . 
 world never saw besides ; but Paul had rested upon the Savior ; he 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 59 
 
 knew for himself that he was a Savior, and, therefore, amidst the 
 philosophers of Greece and Rome he cried, " I determined not to know 
 any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 
 
 3. If you ask me for another reason, then I say, that tlie knowledge 
 of Christ crucified is suited to you as guilty sinners. Much of the 
 interest of any thing, you know, depends upon its suitabihty. Take 
 an illustration or two. Go to the man, Avho is living this day in the 
 midst of his family, in all the comforts of his home, and say to him, 
 You may enjoy the blessings of home ; why, the man sees that there 
 is nothing in that communication — nothing in that knowledge — that 
 is at all suited to him, for he was already enjoying the comforts of his 
 house ; but go to the soldier, who is wearied by a long and arduous 
 campaign, whose ears have been deafened many a time by the cannon 
 roar, who is sighing for the quiet shadow of the village trees, under 
 whose broad foliage he reclined and sung in days of youthful inno- 
 cence — tell him that peace is proclaimed, the warfare accomplished, 
 he may go home — why, he smiles, he dances for joy, he thanks you — 
 because there is something in your information suited to his taste. 
 Go to the man who is walking through your streets, and say to him, 
 You may enjoy the comforts of freedom — the man returns you 
 no thanks ; there is notliing in that information suited to him ; but go 
 to the captive, whose clothes are wet with the damp of the dungeon, 
 and his cheek marked by the flow of his tears, and see how his eyes 
 sparkle with delight, when you tell him that the dungeon door is open, 
 and he may go free. And so it is with the sinner. If I come to you 
 and tell you of a Savior, and you are shut up in carnal security, fan- 
 cying yourselves good enough, and going to heaven, there is nothing 
 in the information suited to you ; and if you are trembling because of 
 your sins, then I bring you good news. I tell you this morning, Christ 
 ■was crucified for you and for me ; and therefore you ought to say and 
 avow, with the apostle, " I am determined not to know any thing, save 
 Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 
 
 4. There is another reason — it is extensive knowledge. He, who 
 knows Christ, knows almost every thing else besides. This knowledge 
 has not only hght in itself, but it throws light on all other things. He, 
 that knows Christ, knows the evil nature of sin in a better way than 
 any other man does. Where will you go, to show me the evil nature 
 of sin ? Why, perhaps, some of you would show me a poor drunkard, 
 that is to be found (and sorry am I to see that there are so many in this 
 large town) reeling through the streets, perhaps on the Sabbath-day, 
 with swollen eyes, an aching head, and (I fear) a troubled heart ; you 
 would say. Look at that man, his home has become a dungeon of 
 
60 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 discontent, liis wife sighs whenever she sees him, his children w^ear 
 patched and tattered clothes, and soon the devil will take him, we fear 
 — look at that man, and see the evil of shi ! I look at that man, but 
 I do not stop there. Where would others of you take me ? jou would 
 take me to the murderer's cell, and say to me that he is going to ex- 
 piate his offence against his country's laws, and you would tell me to 
 look at him in his extremity, and see the evil of sin ; I look at that 
 man, but I do not stop there. Where would you go ? Perhaps you 
 would take me to the mouth of hell ; you would blow aside its hquid 
 flames, and bid me listen to the groanings and bowlings of the damned 
 in the pit of despair, and you would say, There see the evil nature of 
 sin ; I would go with you, but I do not stay there. I go to Calvary ; 
 I gaze upon my Savior ; I remember, that that is God and man 
 united, and hung upon the cross ; and I say, how great must be sin's 
 evil nature, since none but God incarnate could make atonement for 
 the sins of mankind. 
 
 He who know^s Christ crucified, knows the goodness of God in its 
 richest form. Where will you go, to show me the most striking pic- 
 tures of the goodness of God ? Some of you, fathers, would take me, 
 perhaps, to your habitations, and point me to your children smiling 
 around you in health and happiness, and say, See there a proof of 
 the goodness of God ! I go with you to your habitations, but I do 
 not stop there. Where would you go for a proof of the goodness 
 of God ? Perhaps some of you Avould take me to the corn-fields, and 
 show me the gold ears waving in the breeze, and, as you pointed to 
 them, say. See, there is food for man and food for beast, there is a 
 proof of the goodness of God. I go with you to the corn-fields, but 
 I do not stop there. Perhaps some of you would take me to some 
 vale that was by, and show me a nest having in it a few little unfledged 
 birds, with nothing above it but the broad sky, and the open air about 
 it, and they are poor, weak, and helpless creatures, and must be starved 
 to death unless they have food in a few hours, and you would remind 
 me of God having sent forth his messengers to collect it for them, and 
 you would say, See, there is a proof of the goodness of God. I go 
 ■with you to that vale and that nest, but I do not stop there. I go to 
 Calvary, and I see there the greatest picture of God's love to man, 
 for I see Jesus hanging upon the cross. I see there the best proof of 
 God's love to man as a guilty sinner, and, with a sight of the cross, I cry, 
 " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
 
 He who knows Christ crucified, knows history in its best form, much 
 better than the mere historian, who is to be found with his midnight 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 61 
 
 lamp over musty volumes of ancient times. He looks at tlie call of 
 Abraham, and the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, 
 and he shows how God was preparing the way for the establishment 
 of Christianity in the world. He knows not only the histoi'y of the 
 past, but he can tell the history of the future. Why, philosophy 
 walks your churchyards, and asks, "If a man die, shall he live 
 again ? " but there is no answer to the question. Reason has sent 
 out her sons, in all ages and in all directions, to look for the rays of 
 immortality, that are said to be darting across the path of man's ex- 
 istence ; but they return disheartened and misuccessful. It is true, 
 that there were some few, of giant intellect, that expressed their 
 hopes of another state of existence, but what they spoke of at one 
 time, they doubted at another. Socrates and Plato at one time spoke 
 as from the brightness of heaven, and at another as from the dark- 
 ness of the tomb. It was all uncertainty ; there is a veil, and the 
 hand of philosophy can never draw it aside. But the gospel has 
 caused the light to shine upon that veil, and it has become transpa- 
 rent, and you may see, on the other side of that veil, the form of 
 departed friends ; you may see Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, 
 you may see Dives in hell, lifting up his eyes, being in torments, and 
 hear him cry, " I am. tormented in this flame." yes, while man 
 knows nothing of the future, and sees the earth heaved above its 
 proper level, and knows that the bodies of the dead are there con- 
 fined, yet cannot answer the question, " If a man die, shall he live 
 agam ? " — the Christian can. He knows that Christ " shall change 
 our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body ; " 
 and if you ask. How can it be done ? — we take up the words of the 
 apostle, and say, " According to the mighty working, whereby he is 
 able even to subdue all things unto himself." 
 
 On account of its extent, then, take up the words of the text and 
 say, " I am determined not to know any thmg save Jesus Christ, and 
 him crucified." 
 
 5. If I had time, I would go on to show that it is sanctified hnoio- 
 ledge — it is purifving. It is not a knowledge that regards the outer 
 man, and says that if he will attend to this and that, to which he is 
 averse, and avoid this and that to which he is prone, he shall become 
 a well-behaved and orderly man in society. Alas ! for sueli know- 
 ledge. It is never said in my Bible, that a man has a head " of unbe- 
 lief in departing from the living God ; " but it is written in my Bible, 
 that man has an " evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living 
 God." This knowledge (I mean, experimental knowledge) passes 
 through every vein where sin has passed ; it neutralizes the stream as 
 
62 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 it passes ; it goes down to tlic fountain, and it purifies the fountain. 
 It requires a man to " come out from the world, and be separate, and 
 touch not the unclean thing." 
 
 Oh ! then, look at the characteristics of this knowledge — the 
 knowledge of Christ crucified — and say if you will not go to the 
 cross this moniing and cry with the apostle, " I am determined not 
 to know anything, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Oh ! again 
 I say, I wish you would love your Savior. If you came to me, and 
 told me you were a Christian, I would ask you how much you loved 
 your Savior ; and, In proportion as you loved your Savior, I know the 
 Word of God would stand with me, when I declared that in that pro- 
 portion you were a Christian. I love to read the prophecies of this 
 book ; the prophets seem to have gone over the surface of creation, 
 and sought the most lovely images to set forth the Savior ; they call 
 him a " Sun," and they call him a " Sliield," and a " Star," and a 
 '' Tree ; " oh ! hut— 
 
 " Nor earth, nor seas, nor sun, nor stars, 
 Nor heav'n his full resemblance bears ; 
 His beauties you can never trace, 
 Till you behold him face to face." 
 
 Oh ! love your Savior. Remember he loved you. Remember he 
 was not fastened to the cross by spikes or nails ; if Christ my Sa- 
 vior had never been fastened to the cross by any thing but spikes or 
 nails, he would never have been fastened to it at all. It was hia 
 iove that led him there ; it was his love that bound him there. Oh, 
 you are ready to cry this morning, let nature speak with her ten 
 thousand tongues : 
 
 " Oh ! for this love let rocks and hills 
 Their lasting silence break, 
 And all harmonious human tongues 
 The Savior's praises speak." 
 
 I wish I had this morning one moment of poetic inspiration to give 
 vent to the zeal, with which my bosom burns. I wish I had this morn- 
 ing a voice of thunder, that it might be borne across the breezes of 
 the mighty ocean ; I would cry to every sinner in this world to come 
 forth, and avow the determination of St. Paul, and say, " I am de- 
 termiaed not to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
 fied." This shall be the theme of my discourse as long as God will 
 give me breath, while I stand in the midst of sinners. "Woe be to the 
 minister, who weaves garlands of flowers to please his people ; the 
 Lord help us to preach Christ ; the Lord help us to cry to this wicked, 
 this apostate town, " I am determined not to know any thhag among 
 you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." / 
 
 0,thou guilty sinner, I cannot leave thee. I again tell thee, the 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 63 
 
 waj is open to the cross. Go to the cross. Thou hast heard he is a 
 Savior ; he can save to the uttennost ; lay hold of that Savior. What 
 is faith in Christ ? It is a reliance upon Christ, a firm reliance upon 
 your Savior. It is like a man ready to drown — throw him a shilling 
 rope and a thousand pounds bank note — which would he choose ? We 
 have heard of some who have preferred this world to Christ ; but 
 throw a dro^\^ling man a shilling rope and a thousand pounds ; will he 
 argue, " Oh ! I wonder if this rope be strong enough, I wonder if it 
 is twisted the right way ? " no, the man says, " I am drowning, and 
 unless I get get hold of the rope, I shall be lost." So it is with thee, 
 my poor fellow-sinner. I have not many moments to speak to thee, 
 and therefore I show thee a plain illustration ; I toll thee, thou must, 
 by the hand of faith, get hold of the Savior, and cling to the Savior, 
 and then, sure as God's Word, thy debt is paid, thy soul is saved and 
 thou art justified. I tell you, there is a way to the cross ; I tell you 
 there are blessmgs clustered in the cross ; I tell you there is a Savior 
 hanging on that cross ; and what is his language ? " Look unto 
 me " — " look unto me " — " look unto me, and be ye saved, aU ye 
 ends of the earth." " Oh ! but," says the sinner, " you do not know 
 my case ; I was the child of pious parents ; when upon earth they 
 prayed with me, and laid their hands upon my head, and cried to God 
 to save me ; but their hoary heads are in the grave ; they are dead 
 and gone to God, and I am not saved ; do you think there is sal- 
 vation for me?" I tell you there is — there is mercy for you. 
 Jesus is " able to save to the uttermost." Christ crucified can bring 
 you into the peace and favor of God in this world, and take you to 
 reign with God for ever. 
 
 Now I will just give you a specimen — a sample of God's ability 
 to save. You have looked at the cross, and you have looked at the 
 ^avior ; now look at one side of the cross, and see what is there. 
 There is another bemg crucified with the Savior ; look at him, a poor 
 wretch, who is deemed unfit for this world, who has been tauntmg the 
 Savior, and saying to him, " If thou be the Christ, save thyself and 
 us." But see ; Jesus has turned and looked upon him, and that 
 sight has broken his heart, and he has looked at Christ with the eye 
 of faith, and through the prickly thorns streaming with blood, and he 
 has said, " Lord,, remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
 dom." Can he save him? can he save him? Will he save him? 
 will he save him ? Here is a poor wretch, perhaps, who never 
 prayed in his fife before, and just as his tongue is cleaving to the 
 roof of his mouth in the agonies of dissolution, and his life-blood is 
 gui-gling from his hands and feet, he cries, " Lord, remember me." 
 
64 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Will he save him ? What does he saj ? He said nothing to the 
 multitudes that were shouting around the cross ; he said nothing to the 
 scoffs of the scorncr ; no, the scoffs of the scorner he noticed not, the 
 shouts of the multitude he regarded not. But here is a penitent whis- 
 pering in his ear the cry for mercy, and that he hears, and he says, 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in 
 paradise." And that day, before six o'clock at night, Christ took the 
 spirit of the thief up to heaven ; and it is there this morning, as a sam- 
 ple of God's ability to save. Oh ! go to thy Savior, gaze upon thy 
 Savior. While you see him taking the spirit of the thief up to para- 
 dise with him, say, on account of his love, on account of his mercy, " I 
 am determined not to know any thing, save Jesus Christ, and him cru- 
 cified." 
 
 The Lord add his blessing, and save you all — save you in this life 
 — save you in death, and save you for ever. For, blessed be God, 
 there is an eternal home with him ; and if you once put your feet with- 
 in the threshold of heaven's gate, you may go to its pearly battlements 
 and cry, " Farewell, tempting devil ! farewell, sin and sorrow, I am far 
 from the world, and far from your reach." Lord ! save us all for ever- 
 more in Christ. 
 
 SERMON V, 
 
 Christ's church. 
 
 BY REV. T. BAFFLES, D. D., L. L. D. 
 
 " And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church ; and the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against it." — Matthew xvi. 18. 
 
 Perhaps there is no passage of Holy Scripture that has furnished 
 more abundant materials for controversy than this. There are no less 
 than six modes, for instance, of interpreting the word " rock ; " and 
 each of these modes of interpretation can boast its great name, and 
 claim for its sanction some acknowledged masters in Israel ; whilst the 
 nature and constitution of the " Church," which our Lord declares he 
 " will build upon that rock," has been, from time immemorial, and is at 
 this present moment, matter of furious controversy and warm debate. 
 With this controversy, however, we purpose not to intermeddle ; we 
 tave neither time nor inclination for this ; but we shall simply endeav- 
 
Christ's church. 65 
 
 or, bj Divine help, to give you a plain and practicalj and, I trust, in- 
 telligent exposition of the passage. 
 
 With the occasion of it, you are, doubtless, perfectly familiar. 
 When our Lord " came into the coasts of Cesarca Philippi," the sacred 
 historian tells us he began to inquire of his disciples what were the 
 opinions which men entertained and expressed concerning him. The 
 general impression is, that he went thither for the sake of retirement 
 and instructive conversation with his disciples ; but whatever might 
 have been his immediate motive, he certainly did most effectually 
 improve his residence there for that purpose. He opened the conver- 
 sation, which he there held with them, by the important question, 
 *' "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am ? " What is the 
 general opinion which men entertain and express concerning me ? 
 
 Many propose a similar question concerning themselves from motives 
 of vanity and of overweening self-conceit, in the hope of hearing in 
 reply something that will minister to their pride, and prove as grateful 
 incense offered at the shrine of their self-esteem. But of such a mo- 
 tive as this, the Redeemer was incapable : and the question he thus 
 proposed to the disciples, was for their sakes, rather than his own, — 
 that from their answer he might take occasion more aptly and impres- 
 sively to " expound to them the things concerning himself: " his mys- 
 terious nature, his mediatorial character, and his spiritual kingdom. 
 
 And then they told him — " Some say that thou art John the Bap- 
 tist ; some, Elias ; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets ; " for 
 there was a controversy respecting him at that day, as well as now. 
 Some regarded him as an impostor and a deceiver of the people ; some 
 said, " He hath a devil, and is mad," and marvelled that such multi- 
 tudes should flock to hear him ; some even dared to affirm that he was 
 in league with the powers of darkness, and wrought his stupendous 
 miracles by Satanic agency. 
 
 And this appears to me to be that very " sin against the Holy 
 Ghost " which shall never be forgiven, " neither in this world, nor in 
 that which is to come " — to ascribe to infernal influence those mighty 
 works which he wrought by the immediate agency of the Spirit of 
 God ; for immediately after the utterance of this blasphemy, " He 
 casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils," our Lord 
 pronounced these tremendous words, " Verily, I say unto you, all 
 sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith 
 soever they shall blaspheme : but he that shall blaspheme against the 
 Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damna- 
 tion; "and it is added — '■^Because they said, He hath an unclean 
 spirit." 
 
 5 
 
66 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 But among those who entertained better opinions, a general impres- 
 sion was, that he was John the Baptist, or one of the ancient prophets 
 risen from the dead. And when they thus told him the various opin- 
 ions men entertained respecting him, he added, " But whom say ye 
 that I am ? " What is your opinion ? And Peter, always prompt, 
 ever ardent, instantly responded, " Thou art the Christ " — the Mes- 
 siah, the Anointed — " the Son of the living God." Now it was in 
 reply to Peter, and as suggested by his answer, that our Lord gave 
 utterance to the memorable announcement of the text : "'And I say 
 also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
 Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 There are two things, to which our attention is demanded in the 
 text ; first, the edifice of which the Redeemer speaks — the " Church," 
 and, secondly, the relation in which he himself stands to that edifice : 
 "my Church." "Upon this rock I will build my Church; and the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 I. First, the edifice of which the Redeemer speaks — the Church — 
 " my Church." What does he mean by his Church ? 
 
 Not any material building, of whatever form or dimensions, however 
 costly the materials of Avhich it is composed, however approved the 
 style of architecture in which it is constructed, however vast the pro- 
 portions by which it is distinguished, however exquisite the skill with 
 which it is wrought, however gorgeous the ceremonial, however appro- 
 priate the rites by which it is consecrated. Though there may be the 
 long-drawn aisle, and the fretted vault, and the peahng anthem, and 
 the measui-ed chant — all this does not constitute a church, according 
 to the New Testament acceptation of the term, nor, assuredly, in the 
 sense in which our Lord is to be understood in the passage before us. 
 Nor are we to understand by it any building of humbler kind, or of 
 worse materials, or of inferior workmanship. 
 
 No mere collection of material things, then, whether stone, or clay, 
 or wood, is a church, in the scriptural acceptation of the word. Cus- 
 tom has, indeed, so applied the term to such edifices, that there are 
 multitudes who affix to it no other idea ; but not a solitary instance of 
 such an apphcation of the term occurs in the whole compass of the 
 sacred volume. But very few passages will suffice to show, that 
 where the word " church " is used, whether by Christ or by his apos- 
 tles, persons, and not things, are intended by it. Thus, in that well- 
 known passage, which has been so notoriously perverted from its right 
 meaning, referring to the exercise of Christian discipline, our Lord 
 says — "If he" — that is, the ofiending brother — "if he will not 
 
cheist's church. 67 
 
 hear thee," when thou hast told his fault iu the presence of one or 
 two others, (taken with him as witnesses by the offended party,) then 
 " tell it unto the church ; but if he neglect to hear the church, let 
 him be unto thee as an heathen man and a pubhcan." To suppose 
 that our Lord meant, in this case, any material edifice, such as a 
 chapel or a church, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, were, you 
 know, an utter absurdity ; for, then must bricks aud stones be endowed 
 with intelligence, and have ears to hear, and tongues to speak. 
 
 But if by the word " church " persons are meant, the question is, 
 who are the persons that thus compose the church, and imder what 
 circumstances do they so compose it ? The literal meaning of the 
 word " church " is an assembly ; but every assembly is not a church. 
 The tumultuous mob gathered together in the streets of Ephesus, of 
 which we read in the Acts, and of whom it is said, the greater part 
 knew not wherefore they were congregated — that is termed an assem- 
 bly, and the word translated " church " is employed to express it ; 
 but that is not a church. 
 
 The circumstances under which persons constitute a church, are two- 
 fold. To express the first, I will use the language employed by one 
 of the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England — for I cannot find 
 language, to my apprehension, better fitted for the purpose : " A 
 church," saith the article, " is a congregation of faithful men," (mark 
 you that,) " in which congregation the pure word of God is preached, 
 and the sacraments be duly ministered, according to Christ's ordinance, 
 in all those things which are requisite unto the same." This is the 
 first sense in which the word " church" is to be understood.. Every 
 assembly of professing Christians, associated or convened for the pur- 
 poses of religious worship, the celebration of the divine ordinances, the 
 maintenance or administration of Christian discipline, or the enjoyment 
 of Christian communion, in any of its acts or forms, in one place, is a 
 church. The external circumstances, under which such an association 
 or society exists, may be various, but they in no wise, and in no degree 
 affect its essential character. It may be large, or it may be small ; it 
 may be rich, or it may be poor ; it may be learned, or it may be illitr 
 erate ; there may be many such societies, or more than one, or only 
 one, in a village, in a hamlet, in a town, in a city, in a district, but 
 each and every one, as the case may be, is a church. The Church at 
 Jerusalem was so large that three thousand were added to it in a sin- 
 gle day ; whilst we read iu the New Testament of churches so small 
 that they could meet in a private house. Such a church there was in 
 the house of Priscilla and Aquila, and in the house of Nymphas ; whilst, 
 when more churches than one existed in a district, we do not find that 
 
68 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 they were reckoned as one cliurch, and called tlie cliurch of that dis- 
 trict or country, as the Church of Judea, the Church of Asia, the 
 Church of Macedonia, but each maintained its distinctive and individ- 
 ual character ; and they were designated accordingly, the churches 
 of Judea, the churches of Asia, the churches of Macedonia. And 
 thus, though they were associated in the bonds of fraternal affection, 
 and recognized each other as the churches of Christ, and delighted to 
 enjoy communion with each other — as such being all in one — each 
 maintained an independence of the rest, and administered, with unfet- 
 tered freedom, its own affairs^ presenting a lovely example of indepen- 
 dence and of union — 
 
 " Distinct, as the billows ; but one as the sea." 
 
 The other sense in which the word " church" is used, is that which 
 embraces all the true and genuine believers in Christ, of every age and 
 of every dispensation, of every color and of every clime, of every coun- 
 try and of every region, from the beginning to the end of time, wheth- 
 er in visible connexion with any portion, or section, or society, or de- 
 nomination of professing Christians, or not. This is the true, spiritual, 
 universal, cathohc Church ; the spiritual body of Christ, of which every 
 believer is a living member ; the true vine, of which every beUever is 
 a livmg branch ; the spiritual building, in which every believer is a 
 living stone ; " the general assembly and church of the first-born, writ- 
 ten in heaven." 
 
 , Brethren, here let us pause ; and ere we pass to the second article 
 of our discourse, let us gaze upon this wondrous edifice, as it rises 
 through successive ages to its completion. What goodlj'- stones com- 
 pose it ! — countless myriads of ransomed and regenerated men. What 
 mingling colors adorn it ! — from the purest white of Europe, to the 
 deepest jet of Africa. How does every grade of civilized or barba- 
 rous life, every age of the world, and every dispensation of the Church 
 furnish its due proportion of materials for the glorious edifice ! — from 
 the burning Asiatic to the shivering Esquimaux — from the turbaned 
 sultan to the tattoed savage — from the monarch on his throne, to the 
 negro in his chains. There is the Jew, no more a devotee to rites 
 and ceremonies, that have long since passed away ; and there is the 
 Pagan, now happily emancipated from the cruel superstitions by which 
 he and his fathers have been so long enslaved ; " the goodly fellowship 
 of the prophets," and " the noble army of martyrs," shine conspicuous 
 there ; and there are all that love the Savior, and that bear his image, 
 and that taste his grace, whatever the name by which they may be 
 known, or whether known by no name at all. The Episcopalian is 
 there, with the Presbyterian ; the Wesleyan is there, with the Luther- 
 
Christ's church. 69 
 
 an ; the ladependent is there, •with the Baptist ; each rejoicing to re- 
 cognize his essential union with all the rest, and each regretting that 
 they were ever otherwise than one. And each, according to his car 
 pacitj, contributes to the perfect symmetry, the exquisite beauty, the 
 imperishable glory, the surpassing loveliness of this most august and 
 stately temple of the living God. That is his church, which he " wiU 
 build upon the rock, and against which the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vaU." 
 
 II. We now proceed, in the second place, to consider the relation in 
 which Jesus Christ stands to this edifice. " Upon this rock," he says, 
 " I will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 it." 
 
 1. In the first place, Jesus Christ is its foundation. It is built on 
 him. " On this rock I will build my church." Some say, that by 
 " this rock," he meant Peter ; for that he says, " Thou art Peter " — 
 alluding to the meaning of his name — " and on this rock " — that is, 
 on thee, Peter — " I will build my church." But then he should have 
 said — (I speak it with all reverence ; I am constrained so to speak, 
 for the argument requires it ; I speak with reverence) — but then he 
 should have said, if such had been his meaning, " Thou art Peter ; and 
 thy nature, or thine ofSce, or the place that I will assign to thee, or 
 the honor that I will confer upon thee, in connexion with my church, 
 corresponds with the meaning of thy name ; for as thy name signifies 
 a rock or a stone, and a rock or a stone is the best foundation, so upon 
 thee, Peter, as on an immovable rock, I will build my churcli ; and the 
 gates of hell shall not prevail against it." But did he say this ? No, 
 nor anything like it. For what was there in Peter to justify it ? Was 
 he omnipotent ? See him sinking amidst the waves, and hear him cry, 
 " Lord, save, or I perish." Was he infallible ? Listen to his Master's 
 sharp reproof, addressed to him almost immediately after this very con- 
 versation : " Get thee behind me, Satan ; thou art an offence unto me : 
 for them savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of 
 men." Was he perfect ? Alas ! foV him ; for he denied his Lord, and 
 notwithstanding his solemn pledge, that he would die Avith him rather 
 than deny him, ere the cock that morning crew, he had set the seal of 
 an oath to the thrice repeated declaration — "I know not the man." 
 Is it on such an one as Peter, then, that Christ will build his church ? 
 Nay, if on any being inferior to himself he will build his church, it must 
 be on Gabriel, the strongest, or on Michael, the fairest of the archan- 
 gels that bow before the eternal throne. But neither are they either of 
 them fit to be the foundation of the Christian Church ; for though they 
 
70 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 " excel in strength," they are not omnipotent ; and nothing less than 
 omnipotence will suffice to bear up the mighty edifice, risiug through 
 successive ages in majesty and beauty, or secure its stability against 
 the furious and combined and reiterated attacks of earth and of hell. 
 
 So it is not Peter that he means, ■when he says, " On this rock I will 
 build my church," but it is himself; it is not to Peter that he refers, 
 but to his own Messiahship — that great fact which Peter's testimony 
 had embraced, which " flesh and blood had not revealed " to him, 
 " which none of the princes of this world knew " — for " no man can 
 thus call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." " Thou art the Christ, 
 the Son of the hving God " — the anointed one, the desire of all na- 
 tions, the hope and expectation of Israel ; " on this rock " — on my- 
 self, on my own mysterious person, on my mediatorial character, on my 
 work, on my obedience unto death, as the exclusive ground of hope for 
 a perishing world ; on myself, the only foundation wliich God has laid, 
 and beside which there is, there can be no other — " on this rock I 
 will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 Let us hear no more of creeds and canons and confessions of unin- 
 spired and therefore fallible man ; let us hear no more of councils and 
 convocations, and fathers and founders of the Christian Church ; let 
 us hear no more of names and authorities, of popes and patriarchs, of 
 Peter and of Paul, of Luther and of Calvin, of Wesley and of Whit- 
 field, as the foundations of the church. Away with all this Popery 
 of Protestantism. For who is Peter, and who is Paul, and who is 
 Luther, and who is Calvin, and who is Wesley, and who is Whit- 
 field, but servants, ministers, instruments, by whom the great Archi- 
 tect condescends to bmld ? But the foundation, and the head, and 
 the chief corner stone, and the top-stone of the building, is Christ ; and 
 the Church is " built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ himself" — and Jesus Christ alone — " being the chief 
 corner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed together gi'oweth 
 unto an holy temple in the Lord : in whom ye also are builded together 
 for an habitation of God through the Spirit." * 
 
 2. Secondly, as Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Church, so is 
 he its architect ; " on this Rock," he says, " /will build my Church." 
 but he builds rather as a master-builder, than as a workman, though it 
 is by virtue of influence derived from him that the workmen he em- 
 ploys are fitted for their work, and rendered efficient operatives in the 
 performance of it. 
 
 (1.) As the architect of it, then, he selected its site. He had the 
 range of the universe where to choose, and he fixed on our earth as 
 the favored spot on which he would display the wonders of redemption, 
 
Christ's church. 71 
 
 and rear, through a long succession of ages, the glorious structure of 
 the Church. What may be the history of other intelligences, ■ — the 
 inhabitants of other -fforlcls, if, indeed, there are other worlds, peopled 
 like our own, we cannot tell ; but we know that there is a world where 
 rebellion arose, that there is a race like our own, who " kept not their 
 first estate." Yet he did not choose to build his Church in heaven, 
 the scene of rebeUion, nor construct it amid the ransomed spirits, 
 selected from among them. The angels who " kept not their first 
 estate, and left their own habitation " — for them no provision of mercy 
 is made, no atoning sacrifice is offered ; and they are reserved in 
 chains and in darkness, until the great day. God verily took not on 
 him, he did not lay hold on the nature of angels, but he took on him 
 the seed of Abraham ; he took our degraded nature into mysterious 
 and indissoluble union with his own ; he came down to our polluted and 
 accursed world, and there, at Calvary, laid deep and broad, in the 
 death of the cross, in the shedding of his blood, the foundations of 
 his Church. Hence it is that all eyes, throughout the universe, are 
 directed to this spot ; hence it is that this little speck — scarcely more 
 in the vast system of worlds with which it stands connected — concen- 
 trates within itself the profoundest interest of the loftiest beings in the 
 celestial world. Into the histories involved in the rise and progress of 
 the Church, " the angels desire to look," and all the wonders of re- 
 demption which it displays are unknown to " principahties and powers 
 in heavenly places ; " they may be known, not by the \asible universe, 
 glorious as it is, but by the Church, infinitely surpassing that in glory 
 — " the manifold wisdom of God." 
 
 (2.) As the architect of the Church, he drew the plan. In his 
 own infinite mind, in the arrangements of the council of peace, ere he 
 " clothed himself with light as with a garment," ere he had given 
 being, beauty, and harmony to the system of a material universe, ere 
 " the morning stars had sung together," or " the sons of God shouted 
 for joy," he had conceived the idea, and formed the plan of the Chris- 
 tian Church. And having settled, in its magnificent outline, and 
 minutest details, the plan thus formed in his infinite mind, he has con- 
 descended to lay it down in the sacred volume, that it may be clearly 
 understood, and no man presume to disturb its order, or interfere Avith 
 its arrangements. In all that relates to its visible form, its internal 
 economy, its scheme of doctrine, or its platform of discipline, we must 
 be guided by the principles announced or the order sanctioned by the 
 Divine architect, as these are revealed and recorded in his word. 
 And woe unto him, who mlfully immolates them on the one hand, or 
 thanklessly abandons them on the other. It is not, brethren, for any 
 
72 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 mere fallible men to frame laws for the government of the Church ; it 
 is not for the princes and the potentates of this world to assume to 
 themselves the headship of the Church, and in this capacity, by and 
 with consent of their councils and their parliaments, to decree rites and 
 ceremonies in the Church ; and still less is it for them to impose them 
 on the consciences of their subjects, and by pains and penalties, and 
 fines and imprisonments, to foi'ce obedience to them. They may, 
 indeed, do this, but it is at their peril ; for though superior to all hu- 
 man tribunals in the possession of that power, which is too often in the 
 hand of the oppressor, they must one day answer for it at the tribunal 
 of Jesus Christ — answer for their daring assumption of his authority 
 and invasion of his sacred prerogative. In all matters of doctrine 
 and discipline, then, our first and last and final appeal is "to the law 
 and to the testimony," as contained in the sacred volume ; and if the 
 things required to be believed or to be performed are evidently at vari- 
 ance with the letter or the spirit of that book, we are bound to reject 
 them as mere human inventions, be the consequences to ourselves what 
 they may. 
 
 (3.) Again, as the architect of the Church, Jesus Christ selects 
 and prepares the materials of which it is composed. And these are 
 " living stones," ransomed sinners, redeemed men, immortal spirits, 
 hewn from the quarry of a common and desperate depravity, snatched 
 from the ruin of a universal apostacy, renewed, justified, sanctified, and 
 fitted each for the place assigned to it in the building, by the eternal 
 Spirit, whose life-giving power, whose quickening influence, whose puri- 
 fying grace, are essential to the efiiciency, the beauty, and the perfec- 
 tion of the building. Other materials there may be in the visible 
 sanctuary; and hence so many faults and defects of the Christian 
 church appear even to the human eye ; for men build upon the foun- 
 dation " wood, hay, stubble," base materials, destined finally to be 
 consumed. But when the Lord himself adds to the church, it will be 
 "such" — and only such — "as shall be saved." Nor shall any 
 other stones be sufiered to occupy a prominent place in the building, 
 when " the top-stone shall be brought forth with shoutings of Grace, 
 grace unto it." 
 
 (4.) Still further ; as the architect of the church, Jesus Christ em- 
 ploys the workmen and pays them their wages. " Go ye into all the 
 world," said he to his disciples, " and preach the gospel to every crea- 
 ture." This was the high commission, under which the first body of 
 workmen employed in the erection of this spiritual building acted. 
 That commission we own to be in force at the present hour ; and to it all 
 faithful preachers of the gospel must refer as their authority, to the end. 
 
Christ's church. 73 
 
 That the Christian ministry is a Divine institution, no man, I appre- 
 hend, can doubt, "who regards the Bible as the word of God. But who 
 are authorized to act under that commission, and what is a sufficient 
 authority for their 'acting, are questions, about Avhich there is no small 
 stir in the present day. Some hold that ordination of a particular 
 kind, involving a direct, lineal, ecclesiastical descent from the apostles, 
 is essential to constitute a duly authorized preacher of the gospel and 
 pastor in the Church, and that all beside are intruders into the sacred 
 office, only pretenders to holy orders, and that the ministrations and 
 ordinances of such are invalid. But with regard to this chimera of 
 apostolical descent, it would be no very difficult task to show that to 
 trace it is a thing all but impossible ; that to do it, you must include in 
 the line some persons of no very apostolic character ; and that- after 
 all, a lineal descent of this description is little worth, unless it secure 
 along with it a transmission of " the truth as it is in Jesus, " in all the 
 simplicity and power of its essential principles and sanctifying influ- 
 ence. What good is it, that a man has received ordination after the 
 fashion or within the pale of this church, or that, if his doctrine is un- 
 sound, if his life is unholy ? Better, sure, be conducted to heaven by 
 the instrumentality of one who preaches and who lives the truth, how- 
 ever unauthorized and irregular his ministrations in the estimation of 
 some, than be dragged down to perdition by the false doctrine and pes- 
 tilential example of a man who boasts a valid ordination, an apostolic 
 descent. 
 
 But is it irrelevant, on such a topic as this, to appeal to the test 
 which our Lord has announced — "By their fruits ye shall know 
 them ? " If the validity and efficiency of a ministry be in souls sav- 
 ed unto God, in sinners repenting, and " bringing forth fruits meet 
 for repentance," then are there multitudes who neither claim for them- 
 selves, nor desire for themselves, nor grudge to others, the credit of 
 such apostolical descent, whose ministry is honored by seals of this de- 
 scription, as abundant in number and decided in character as many by 
 whom they are disowned can boast. 
 
 We hesitate not to say, then, that all who are duly qualified with 
 gifts and graces for the work, and are laboring simply and zealously, 
 with a single eye to the Divine glory, in erecting this spiritual building, 
 adding immortal and living stones to this building, are duly authorized 
 and accredited workmen, and will assuredly at last, if found " faithful 
 unto death, " receive of him the promised reward ; for as he employs 
 the workmen, he also pays them their wages. Souls for their hire, 
 seals to their ministry, constitute their present recompense ; and by- 
 and-by, in the presence of assembled worlds, when the chief Shepherd, 
 
74 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 when the Master-builder shall appear for that purpose, " a crown of 
 glory, that fadeth not away." And what mitred abbot, what crosiered 
 ecclesiastic, what titled dignitary, what impurpled prelate, does he need 
 to envy, to whom, though persecuted and despised on earth, his Lord 
 shall say, " Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the 
 joy of thy Lord ? " " Well done ! " — oh ! it shall ring through all 
 the regions of the blest ; and the joy which it awakens shall infinitely 
 more than compensate for a life of ceaseless sacrifice and toil, though 
 a thousand such lives were compressed into one, and that one life 
 lengthened out to the days of Methuselah. 
 
 3. Christ is the foundation, Christ is the architect ; and now, thirdly, 
 Christ is the proprietor of the Church : " On this rock," he says, " I 
 will build my Church." 
 
 He calls it his. Every living stone in that building is the purchase 
 of his blood as well as the work of his hand, given to him by his 
 Father, in covenant engagements, for this express purpose, that from 
 such materials he might construct " a glorious church," and finally 
 " present it to himself without spot or blemish, or any such thing." 
 We talk of this church and of that, of your church and of my church, 
 of the Church of England, and the Church of L'eland,and the Church 
 of Scotland ; but the true church is the Church of Christ. It is the 
 property of no party, of no country, of no body, of no class or com- 
 munity or nation under heaven, but the property of Christ, composed 
 of the holy and the excellent from among them all, and to be allowed 
 and recognized and honored as his property, when all the communities 
 who have laid claim to it on earth shall have ceased for ever to exist, 
 when he shall come to be " glorified in his saints, and admired in all 
 them that believe." 
 
 4. Finall}^, while Christ is the foundation, the architect, and the pro- 
 prietor of the church, he is also the guarantee of its stability : " On 
 this rock," he says, " I will build my cljurch ; and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it." 
 
 By " the gates of hell" are meant the powers of darkness, the thrones, 
 the principalities, the princedoms, tlie dominations of the infernal world 
 and all the forces that superstition, infidelity, and antichrist, in all their 
 varied forms, can supply and league with them. These powers of dark- 
 ness shall not prevail against it. Let them combine, let them make the 
 effort ; let them combine with all their art and cunning and sophistry, 
 as they ever have done, as they are doing now, as they will still con- 
 tinue to do ; let them do the utmost which ingenuity can suggest, which 
 pohcy can approve, which power can execute ; let them summon learn- 
 ing to their aid, and array themselves with the decrees of councils and 
 
Christ's chobch. 75 
 
 the acts of legislation ; let them nerve afresh the old arm of persecu- 
 tion ; let them open again the dungeons of the Inquisition ; let them 
 kindle anew the iires of Smithfield ; let them ply their racks ; let them 
 thunder then- anathemas and mutter their curses ; as in time past, so 
 in time to come, all shall prove impotent and vain; hke the storm, that 
 only roots the monarch of the forest still further in the soil, or the bil- 
 low, that leaves unmoved the rock at whose base it has broken. 
 
 " What though the galea of hell withstand, 
 Yet must this building rise." 
 
 "The gates of hell shall not prevail agamst it." They never have 
 prevailed against it ; they may have seemed to do so for a season, but 
 they never have in reality. Is the sun plucked from the firmament 
 because sometimes it is obscured by clouds ? Are stars quenched in 
 their orbit, because there are nights of darkness in which they fail to 
 shine ? Clouds sometimes have hung around the Church, and there 
 have been periods in her story when the enemy has seemed to triumph ; 
 but those periods, like the summer cloud, have passed away, and from 
 that temporary gloom the Church has emerged with augmented splen- 
 dor. Did they prevail against the Church of Calvary ? They thought 
 to do so ; they imagined that they had ; and all seemed lost, when the 
 stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre, when the seal was fixed 
 and the Roman guard was set. But see what " a show he made of 
 them openly," and how he triumphed over them in his cross, when, 
 having burst the barriers of the tomb, " He ascended up on high, 
 leading captivity captive ; " and as he entered the celestial world amid 
 the anthems and hallelujahs of cherubim and seraphim, and countless 
 myriads of " the morning stars," the powers of darkness were seen 
 prostrate and crushed beneath his feet, and writhing in anguish for 
 their previous overthrow. Did they prevail against it at the Reforma- 
 tion, with their racks, and their dungeons, and their bulls and all their 
 instruments of torture ? They seemed to think they had ; but like 
 the phoenix, the Church has risen from the flame, and, in reaction 
 against the powers of darkness, has been augmented and gaining 
 strength from that period to the present hour. Do they now ? Are 
 the powers of darkness prevailing against the Church in these days in 
 which we Hve ? They struggle, they boast, they utter great swelling 
 words of vanity, but do they prevail ? Where is the evidence ? 
 Where is the proof? Is it in the twenty-seven million copies of the 
 word of God, which the Bible Society alone has printed and sent 
 abroad in every tongue and dialect of the world's vast family ? Is it 
 in the noble army of missionaries, who are gathering materials for this 
 
 J 
 
76 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 building from almost every region under heaven, and adorning the goodly 
 structure Avith every variety of color the human countenance presents ? 
 Is it in the planting of missionary churches abroad, or in the idols 
 abandoned by their former worshippers, that grace our missionary 
 museum at home ? 
 
 And if " the gates of hell" have never yet prevailed, if the gates 
 of hell are not prevailing now, shall they ever prevail ? No ; they 
 never shall. The truth of prophecy, the faithfulness of God, the cer- 
 tainty of the covenant, the rectitude of the Divine administration, the 
 atonement of Christ, the value of his blood, the privileges of his inter- 
 cession, all forbid. Instability there maybe in all other things : " the 
 mountains may depart, and the hills may be removed ; " thrones may 
 totter, the heavens may be wrapped together as a scroll, the elements 
 may " melt with fervent heat," the earth and all its works may " be 
 burned up ; " palaces and pyramids, the noblest works of man, the 
 Alps and the Andes, the mightiest works of God, may only serve as 
 fuel to the general flame, and ruin once more drive her ploughshare 
 over the creation ; but the word of our God shall endure for ever ; and 
 ere the powers of darkness, ere " the gates of hell shall prevail against 
 the Church," the pillars that support the eternal throne must fall, and 
 the being of a God be blotted out from the universe which he has 
 made. 
 
 SERMON YI. 
 
 INDUSTRY. 
 BY REV. JAMES HAMILTON. 
 
 *' Not slothful in business." — Romans, xii. 11. 
 
 Two things are very certain, — that we have all got a work to do, 
 and are all, more or less, indisposed to do it : In other words, every 
 man has a calling, and most men have a greater or less amount of in- 
 dolence, which disinclines them for the work of that calling. Many 
 men would have liked the gospel all the better, if it had entirely 
 repealed the sentence, " In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy 
 bread ; " had it proclaimed a final emancipation from industry, and 
 turned our world into a merry play-ground or luxurious dormitory. 
 But this is not what the gospel does. It does not abolish labor ; it 
 
INDUSTRY. 77 
 
 gives it a new and a nobler aspect. The gospel abolishes labor much 
 in the same way as it abolishes death ; it leaves the thing, but changes 
 its nature. The gospel sweetens the believer's work ; it gives him new 
 motives for performing it. The gospel dignifies toil : it transforms it 
 from the drudgery of the workhouse or the penitentiary, to the affec- 
 tionate offices and joyful services of the fire-side and the family circle. 
 It asks us to do for the sake of Christ many things which we were once 
 compelled to bear as a portion of the curse, and which worldly men per- 
 form for selfish and secondary reasons. " Whatsoever ye do in word 
 or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." " Wives, submit 
 yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord." " Chil- 
 dren, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the 
 Lord." " Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the 
 flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, 
 fearing God ; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and 
 not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward 
 of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ." The gospel has not 
 superseded diligence. " Study to be quiet and to do your own busi- 
 ness, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you." " If 
 any man will not work, neither let him eat." It is mentioned as almost 
 the climax of sin, "And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about 
 from house to house ; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busy- 
 bodies, speaking things which they ought not : " as on the other hand, 
 the healthy and right-conditioned state of a soul is " not slothful in 
 business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 
 I. This precept is violated by those who have no business at all. 
 By the bounty of God's providence, some are in such a situation that 
 they do not need to toil for a subsistence ; they go to bed when they 
 please, and get up when they can sleep no longer, and they do with 
 themselves whatever they like ; and though we dare not say that their's 
 is the happiest life, it certainly is the easiest. But it will neither be 
 a lawful life nor a happy one, unless it have some work in hand, some 
 end in view. Those of you who arc familiar with the sea-shore, may 
 have seen attached to the inundated reef, a creature, whether a plant 
 or an animal you could scarcely tell, rooted to the rock as a plant might 
 be, and twirling its long tentacula as an animal would do. This plant- 
 animal's life is somewhat monotonous, for it has nothing to do but grow 
 and twirl its feelers, float in the tide, or fold itself up on its foot-stalk 
 when that tide has receded, for months and years together. Now, 
 would it not be very dismal to be transformed into a zoophyte ? Would 
 it not be an awful punishment, with your human soul still in you, to be 
 
78 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 anchored to a rock, able to do nothing but spin about your arms or fold 
 them up again ; and knowing no variety, except when the receding 
 ocean left you in the dayhght, or the returning waters plunged you into 
 the green depths again, or the sweeping tide brought you the prize of 
 a young periwinkle or an invisible star-fish ? 
 
 But what better is the life you are spontaneously leading ? What 
 greater variety marks your existence, than chequers the hfe of the sea- 
 anemone ? Does not one day float over you like another, just as the 
 tide floats over it, and find you much the same, and leave you vegeta- 
 tiug still ? Are ;^ou more useful ? What real service to others did 
 you render yesterday ? What tangible amount of occupation did you 
 overtake in the one hundred and sixty-eight hours of which the last 
 week consisted ? And what higher end in living have you than that 
 polypus ? You go through certain mechanical routines of rising, and 
 dressing, and visiting, and dining, and going to sleep again ; and are 
 a little roused from your usual lethargy by the arrival of a friend, or 
 the effort needed to write some note of ceremony. But as it curtseys 
 in the waves, and vibrates its exploring arms, and gorges some dainty 
 medusa, the sea-anemone goes through nearly the same round of pur- 
 suits and enjoyments with your intelligent and immortal self. Is this a 
 life for a rational and responsible creature to lead ? 
 
 II. But this precept is also violated by those who are diligent in 
 trifles, — whose activity is a busy idleness. You may be very earnest 
 in a pursuit which is utterly beneath your prerogative as an intelligent 
 creature, and your high destination as an immortal being. Pursuits 
 which are perfectly proper in creatures destitute of reason, may be 
 very culpable in those who not only have reason, but are capable of 
 enjoyments above the range of reason itself. We this instant imagined 
 a man retaining all his consciousness transformed into a zoophyte. Let 
 us imagine another similar transformation ; fancy that, instead of a 
 polypus, you were changed into a swallow. There you have a creature 
 abundantly busy, up in the early morning, for ever on the wing, as 
 graceful and sprightly in his flight as tasteful in the haunts which he 
 selects. Look at him, zigzagging over the clover field, skimming the 
 limpid lake, whisking round the steeple, or dancing gaily in the sky- 
 Behold him in high spirits, shrieking out his ecstasy as he has bolted 
 a dragon-fly, or darted through the arrow-slits of the old turret, or 
 performed some other feat of hirundine agility. And notice how he 
 pays his morning visits, alighting elegantly on some house-top, and 
 twittering politely by turns to the swallow on either side of him, and 
 
INDUSTRY. 79 
 
 after five minutes' conversation, off and away to call for liis friend at 
 tlie castle. And now he lias gone upon Ms travels, gone to spend the 
 winter at Rome or Naples, to visit Egypt or the Holy Land, or perform 
 some more recherche pilgrimage to Spain 'or the coast of Barbary. 
 And when he comes home next April, sure enough he has been abroad ; 
 — charming climate, — highly deHghted with the cicadas in Italy, and 
 the bees on Hymettus ; — locusts in Afi'ica rather scarce this season ; 
 but upon the whole much pleased with his trip, and returned in high 
 health and spirits. Now, dear friends, this is a very proper life for a 
 swallow, but is it a life for you ? To flit about from house to house ; 
 to pay futile visits, where, if the talk were written down, it would 
 amount to little more than the chattering of a swallow ; to bestow all 
 your thoughts on graceful attitudes, and nimble movements, and pol- 
 ished attire ; to roam from land to land with so httle information in 
 your head, or so little taste for the sublime or beautiful in your soul, 
 that could a swallow publish his travels, and did you publish yours, we 
 should probably find the one a counterpart of the other ; the winged 
 traveller enlarging on the discomforts of his nest, and the wingless one, 
 on the miseries of his hotel or his chateau ; you describing the places 
 of amusement, or enlarging on the vastness of the country, and the 
 abundance of the game ; and your rival eloquent on the selfsame 
 things. Oh ! it is a thought, not ridiculous, but appalling. If the 
 earthly history of some of our brethren were written down ; if a faith- 
 ful record were kept of the way they spend their time ; if all the hours 
 of idle vacancy or idler occupancy were put together, and the very 
 small amount of useful diUgence deducted, the life of a bird or quadru- 
 ped would be a nobler one ; more worthy of its powers and more equal 
 to its Creator's end in forming it. Such a register is kept. Though 
 the trifler does not chronicle his own vain words and wasted hours, they 
 chronicle themselves. They find their mdelible place in that book of 
 remembrance with which human hand cannot tamper, and from which 
 no erasure save one can blot them. They are noted in the memory 
 of God. And when once this life of wondrous opportunities and awful 
 advantages is over — when the twenty or fifty years of probation are 
 iled away — when mortal existence, with its faculties for personal im- 
 provement and serviceableness to others, is gone beyond recall— when 
 the trifler looks back to the long pilgrimage, with all the doors of hope 
 and doors of usefulness, past which he skipped in his frisky forgetful- 
 ness — what anguish will it move to think that he was gambolled 
 through such a world without salvation to himself, without any real 
 benefit to his brethren, a busy trifler, a vivacious idler, a clever fool ! 
 
80 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 III. Those violate this precept v;\xo have a lawful calling, a proper 
 business, but are slothful in it. When people are in business for them- 
 selves, they are in less risk of transgressing this injunction : though 
 even there it sometimes happens that the hand is not diligent enough 
 to make its owner rich. But it is when engaged in business, not for 
 oui'selves, but for others, or for God, that we are in greatest danger 
 of neglecting this rule. The servant, who has no pleasure in his work, 
 who does no more than wages can buy, or a legal agreement enforce ; 
 the shopman, who does not enter con amore into his employer's inter- 
 est, and bestir himself to extend his trade as he would strive were the 
 concern his own ; the scholar, who trifles when his teacher's eye is 
 elsewhere, and who is content if he can only learn enough to escape 
 disgrace ; the teacher, who is satisfied if he can only convey a decent 
 quantum of instruction, and who does not labor for the mental expan- 
 sion and spiritual well-being of his pupils, as he would for those of his 
 own children ; the magistrate or civic functionary, who is only careful 
 to escape pubUc censure, and who does not labor to make the commu- 
 nity richer, or happier, or better for his administration : the minister, 
 who can give his energies to another cause than the cause of Christ, 
 and neglect his Master's business in minding his own ; every one, in 
 short, who performs the work which God or his brethren have given 
 him to do in a hireling and perfunctory manner, is a violater of the 
 divine injunction, " Not slothful in business." There are some per- 
 sons of a dull and languid turn. They trail sluggishly through life, 
 as if some painful viscus, some adhesive slime were clogging every 
 movement, and making their snail-path a waste of their very substance. 
 They do nothing with that healthy alacrity, that gleesome energy 
 which bespeaks a sound mind even more than a vigorous body ; but 
 they drag themselves to the inevitable task with remonstrating reluc- 
 tance, as if every joint were set in a socket of torture, or as if they 
 expected the quick flesh to cleave to the next implement of industry 
 they handled. Having no wholesome love to work, no joyous delight 
 in duty, they do every thing grudgingly, in the most superficial man- 
 ner, and at the latest moment. Others there are, who, if you find 
 them at their post, you will find them dozing at it. They are a sort 
 of perpetual somnambulists, walking through their sleep ; moving in a 
 constant mystery ; looking for their faculties, and forgetting what they 
 are looking for ; not able to find their work, and Avhen they have found 
 their work not able to find their hands ; doing every thing dreamily, 
 and therefore every thing confusedly and incompletely ; their work a 
 dream, their sleep a dream; not repose, not refreshment, but a slum- 
 brous vision of rest, a dreamy query concerning sleep ; too late for 
 
INDUSTRY. 81 
 
 every thing, taking their passage when the ship has sailed, insuring 
 their property when the house is burned, locking the door when the 
 goods are stolen — men, whose bodies seem to have started in the race 
 of existence before their minds were ready, and who are always gar 
 zing out vacantly as if they expected their wits were coming up by 
 the next arrival. But, besides the sloths and somnambulists, there is 
 a third class — the day-dreamers. These are a very mournful, because 
 a self deceiving generation. Like a man who has his windows glazed 
 with yellow glass, and who can fancy a golden sunshine, or a mellow 
 autumn on the fields even when a wintry sleet is sweeping over them, 
 the day-dreamer lives in an elysium of his own creating. With a foot 
 on either side of the fire — with his chin on his bosom, and the wrong 
 end of the book turned towards him, he can pursue his self-complacent 
 musings till he imagines himself a traveller in unknown lands — the 
 explorer of Central Africa — the solver of all the unsolved problems 
 in science — the author of some unprecedented poem at which the 
 wide world is wondering — or something so stupendous that he even 
 begins to quail at his own glory. The misery is, that whilst nothing is 
 done towards attaining the greatness, his luxurious imagination takes 
 its possession for granted ; and with his feet on the fender, he fancies 
 himself already on the highest pinnacle of fame ; and a still greater 
 misery is, that the time thus wasted in unprofitable musings, if spent 
 in honest application and downright working, would go very far to 
 carry him where his sublime imagination fain would be. It would not 
 be easy to estimate the good of which day-dreams have defrauded the 
 world. Some of the finest intellects have exhaled away in this slug- 
 gish evaporation, and left no vestige on earth except the dried froth — 
 the obscure film which survives the drivel of vanished dreams ; and 
 others have done just enough to show how important they would have 
 been had they awaked sooner, or kept longer awake at once. Sir 
 James Mackintosh was one of the latter class. His castle-buildinsr 
 
 o 
 
 " never amounted to conviction ; in other words, these fancies have 
 never influenced my actions ; but I must confess that they have often 
 been as steady and of as regular recurrence as conviction itself; and 
 that they have sometimes created a little faint expectation, a state of 
 mind in which my wonder that they should be realized would not be so 
 great as it rationally ought to be." Perhaps no one in modern times 
 has been capable of more sagacious or comprehensive generalization in 
 those sciences which hold court in the high places of human intellect 
 than he ; but a few hints and a fragment of finished work are all that 
 remain. Coleridge never sufficiently woke up from his long day-dream 
 to articulate distmctly any of the glorious visions which floated before 
 
82 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 his majestic fancy, some of wliich we reallj believe that the world 
 would have been the wiser for knowing. And, returning from secular 
 philosophy to matters of Christian practice, have you never met those 
 whose superior gifts would have made them eminently useful, and who 
 had designs of usefulness, perhaps plilUuithropic schemes of pecuhar 
 ingenuity and beauty, but who are passing away from earth, if they 
 have not passed away already, without actually attempting any tangi- 
 ble good ? And yet so sincere are they in their own inoperative be- 
 nevolence — so hard do they toil and sweat in their own Nephelococ- 
 cy^a, that nothing could surprise them more than the question — 
 " What do ye more than others ? " unless it were their own inabUity 
 to point out the solid product and lay their hands on the actual results. 
 
 To avoid this guilt and wretchedness — 
 
 1. Have a business In which diligence is lawful and desirable. There 
 are some pursuits which do not deserve to be called a business, ^ro- 
 pus was the king of Macedonia, and it was his favorite pursuit to make 
 lanterns. Probably he was very good at making them, but his proper 
 business was to be a king, and therefore the more lanterns he made, 
 the worse king he was. And if your work be a high calhng, you must 
 not dissipate your energies on trifles, on things which, lawful in them- 
 selves, are still as irrelevant to you as lamp-making is irrelevant to a king. 
 Perhaps some here are without any specific calling. They have neither 
 a farm nor a merchandise to look after. They have no household to care 
 for, no children to train and educate, no official duties to engross their 
 time ; they have an independent fortune, and live at large. My friends, 
 I congratulate you on your wealth, your liberal education, your position 
 in society, and your abundant leisure. It is in your power to be the 
 benefactors of your generation ; you are in circumstances to do an em- 
 inent service for God, and finish some great work before your going 
 hence. What that work shall be I do not attempt to indicate ; I rath- 
 er leave it for your own investigation and discovery. Every one has 
 his own hne of things. Howard chose one path, and Wilberforce an- 
 other ; Harlan Page chose one, and Brainerd Tajdor another. Mrs. 
 Fletcher did one work. Lady Glenorchy another, and Mary Jane Gra- 
 ham a third. Every one did the work for which God had best fitted 
 them, but each made that work their business. They gave themselves 
 to it ; they not only did it, by the bye, but they selected it and set 
 themselves in earnest to it, not parenthetically, but on very purpose — 
 the problem of their Uves — for Christ's sake and in Christ's service, 
 and held themselves as bound to do it as if they had been by himself 
 expressly engaged for it. And, brethren, you must do the same. 
 Those of you who do not need to toil for your daily bread, your very 
 
INDUSTRY. 83 
 
 leisure is a hint what the Lord would have you to do. As you have 
 no business of your own, he would have you devote yourselves to his 
 business. He would have you carry on, in some of its manifold depart- 
 ments, that work which he came to earth to do. He would have you 
 go about his Father's business as he was wont to be about it. And if 
 you still persist in living to yourselves, you cannot be happy. You 
 cannot spend all your days in making pin-cushions or reading newspa- 
 pers, or loitering in club-rooms and coffee houses, and yet be happy. 
 If you profess to follow Christ, this is not a Christian life. . It is not a 
 conscientious, and so it cannot be a comfortable life. And if the pin- 
 cushion or the newspaper fail to make you happy, remember the rea- 
 son — very good as relaxations, ever so great an amount of these things 
 can never be a business, and " wist ye not that you should be about 
 your Father's business ?" 
 
 2. Having made a wise and deliberate selection of a business, go on 
 with it, go through with it. Persevering mediocrity is much more re- 
 spectable and unspeakably more useful than talented inconstancy. In 
 the heathery turf you will often find a plant chiefly remarkable for its 
 peculiar roots ; from the main stem down to the minutest fibre, you will 
 find them all abruptly terminate, as if shorn or bitten off, and the silly 
 superstition of the country people alleges, that once on a time it was a 
 plant of singular potency for healing all sorts of maladies, and therefore 
 the great enemy of man in his malignity bit off the roots in which its 
 virtues resided. This plant, with this quaint history, is a very good 
 emblem of many well-meaning but little-effecting people. They might 
 be defined as radidbus proemorsis, or rather inceptis succisis. The 
 efficacy of every good work lies in its completion, and all their good works 
 terminate abruptly and are left off unfinished. The devil frustrates 
 their efficacy by cutting off their ends ; their unprofitable history is 
 made up of plans and projects, schemes of usefulness that were never 
 gone about, and magnificent undertakings that were never carried for- 
 ward ; societies that were set agoing, then left to shift for themselves, 
 and forlorn beings, who for a time were taken up and instructed, and 
 just when they were beginning to show symptoms of improvement, wore 
 cast on the world again. 
 
 But others there are, who before beginning to build count the cost, 
 and having collected their materials and laid their foundations deep and 
 broad, go on to rear their structure, indifferent to more tempting 
 schemes and sublimer enterprises subsequently suggested. The man 
 who provides a home for a poor neighbor, is a greater benefactor of the 
 poor than he who lays the foundation of a stately almshouse and never 
 finishes a single apartment. The persevering teacher who guides one 
 
84 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 child into the saving knowledge of Christ and leads him on to establish- 
 ed habits of piety, is a more useful man than his friend who gathers in 
 a room-full of ragged children, and after a few weeks of waning zeal, 
 turns them all adrift on the streets again. The patriot who set his 
 heart on abolishing the slave-trade, and after twenty years of rebuffs 
 and revilings, of tantalized hope and disappointed eflfort, at last succeed- 
 ed, achieved a greater work than if he had set afloat all possible schemes 
 of philanthropy, and then left them, one after the other, to sink or 
 swim. So short is life, that we can afford to lose none of it in abortive 
 undertakings ; and once we are assured that a given work is one which 
 :t is worth our while to do, it is true wisdom to set about it instantly ; 
 and once we have begun it, it is true economy to finish it. 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 
 BY DANIEL MOORE, M. A, 
 
 " And as he reasoned of righteouaness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and au- 
 ■wered. Go thy way for this time : when I have a convenient season, I will send for thee." 
 
 Acts xxit. 25. 
 
 The Jews at Thessalonica spoke with much more truth than they 
 were aware of, when, in describing the first introduction of Christianity 
 into Europe, they exclaimed, " These that have turned the world up- 
 side down have come hither also." Christianity did turn the world 
 upside down ; and that not before it needed turning. Everywhere 
 around were seen the tokens of spiritual disorder : men were judged of 
 by false standards, actions were weighed in deceitful balances, laws were 
 framed on erroneous principles, and every thing denoted that the moral 
 world had flown off from its centre, or, under the action of some strange 
 disturbances, had travelled far out of its appointed orbit. The time 
 was come, therefore, when it was needful that a change should pass 
 over the spirits of men ; that there should be, not a revolution of thought 
 alone, but a recasting of language. Moral qualities were losing all 
 their distinctness, by being called out of their proper names ; men de- 
 lighted " to call evil good, and good evil ; to put darkness for fight, 
 and fight for darkness ; to put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." 
 
PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 85 
 
 But Christianity gave mankind a new vocabulary, taught them the 
 right use of language, and made words to become (what they could 
 scarcely be said to have been before) the true representatives of 
 thoughts and things. No purpose, either in politics or morals, seems 
 to be answered by such conventions, as that a great general should or- 
 dinarily mean a great curse ; that the most terrific scourge which can 
 afflict humanity should be desci'ibed as the glory of a nation's arms ; 
 that we should call a man high-spirited, when we mean to say he is re- 
 sentful ; or proclaim him destitute of spirit, because he aims to resem- 
 ble the meek and lowly Jesus. Delusions like these, however, never 
 "want either for advocates among teachers, or partisans among the 
 taught. In every age there are to be found those who would " say to 
 the seers, see not, and to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right 
 things ; speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits ; " and, on the 
 other hand, there have rarely been wanting prophets, who, in comjjH- 
 ance with such infatuated request, have been willing to prophesy their 
 people into a smooth destruction, and have been careful only that they 
 should die an easy death. 
 
 Not so, however, the great apostle of the Gentiles ; he would be a 
 prophet in chains, and, before those " in high places," was bold to de- 
 nounce " spiritual wickedness." He would neither prophesy deceits 
 to obtain his own deliverance, nor smooth things to conciliate his judge. 
 He was one of those who was to " turn the world upside down," and, 
 therefore, was only pursuing his vocation when he turned a judgment- 
 hall into a sanctuary, and made a pulpit of fhe prisoner's bar ; show- 
 ing how the accused might arraign his judge, and the judge be made 
 so to tremble on his own tribunal, that he was glad to wave the man of 
 chains away, saying, " Go thy way for this time ; when I have a con- 
 venient season I will send for thee." 
 
 The text presents to us two points for consideration : first, the topics 
 of discourse selected by the apostle ; and, then, the practical effect 
 of the discourse on the mind of his principal hearer. 
 
 I. In considering the topics of discourse selected by the apostle, 
 you will bear in mind the peculiar circumstances of his two principal 
 hearers, Felix and Drusilla. The former, as you remember, was orig- 
 inally a slave of the emperor Nero ; but, being raised to the dignity 
 of procurator of Judrea, he exercised the imperial functions with such 
 a mercenary soul, and by such open unfairness disgraced his judicial 
 administration, that he compelled the Jews at last to petition for his re- 
 moval. The other principal hearer, Drusilla, was the wife of an insig- 
 nificant heathen king, who was then hving, and who, after the most 
 
86 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 painful sacrifices to obtain her band, found bimself basely supplanted 
 by bis more powerful neighbor, the procurator of Judgea.* Such were 
 the apostle's auditors: a ruler hated for his injustice, a woman enthron- 
 ed in unblushing sin ; and yet both evincing a strange and cm-ious anx- 
 iety to hear this " ambassador in bonds " discourse " concei-ning the 
 faith in Christ." 
 
 And now, observe with what holy skill this " workman that needed 
 not to be ashamed" proceeded to " divide the word of truth." The 
 first thing that cannot fail to be observed is, that he does not direct his 
 reproofs against what he knew to be the vices of his noble hearers, but 
 that he is wholly taken up in expatiating on the blessedness of the con- 
 trary virtues. It was from no want of faithfulness to the terms of his 
 high commission, " boldly to rebuke vice," that the apostle did not 
 arouse the moral indignation of the assembled courtiers, by one of those 
 graj)hic delineations of character which sometimes gave to his pictures 
 the attributes and vividness of things of life. Easily could his vast 
 mental resources have evoked a spectre of tyranny, of which the living 
 counterpart sat before him, — of an oppressor, seated on a purchased 
 throne, ruling with a rod of iron, and pampering his mean soul, from 
 day to day, with " the wages of unrighteousness." We should then 
 have seen the pale wrath gathering on the monster's brow, and revenge 
 choking all his powers of utterance, as he sunk under the withering de- 
 tdls of the hireling crying out for his defrauded wages, and the widow 
 suing for her alienated portion, and the orphan, with no advocate but 
 his miseries, and no weapon but his tears, pouring forth his disregard- 
 ed suit to a Father that dwelt in heaven. But this holy preacher act- 
 ed upon the spirit of his Master, and therefore resolved to prove, that, 
 though he hated the sin much, yet he loved the sinner more ; that, if 
 he kindled coals of fire, it was not to consume, but to melt, to soften, 
 to fuse into a mould of penitential humbleness the iron soul of the trans- 
 gressor ; and, for this end, he knew how worse than useless would be 
 any irritating exhibitions of those judicial frauds, the cry of which had 
 so long and so loudly entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth . He 
 adopted, therefore, the wiser, and, as the event proved, the more ef- 
 fectual course of reasoning on topics, which, while they disarmed his 
 hearers of all hostility against himself, would yet pierce, even to the di- 
 viding asunder of soul and spirit, the guilty pair before whom he had 
 been desired to preach. 
 
 Accordingly he opened his discourse by reasoning in favor of righte- 
 ousness ; taking that term first, perhaps, in its most comprehensive 
 meaning, as denoting moral rectitude, or whatsoever is due either to 
 
 * Josephus, lib. xx. c. 1. 
 
PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 87 
 
 God or man. All irreligion is essentially unjust, as withholding from 
 God his rightful due in the affections of our hearts, and in the obedi- 
 ence of our lives. It involves, also, a want of rectitude to our fellow- 
 men, in the violation of the claims of justice and benevolence. But, 
 more particularly, and pointedly, he would reason of righteousness in a 
 public magistrate ; of the benefits to a nation, of the acceptableness to 
 God, of the calm satisfaction to a judge's own mind, when, unawed by 
 thx-eats, and inaccessible to a bribe, he weighed all causes in an even 
 balance, and ruled his people in the fear of God : and thus he would 
 show this imperial favorite how he might have that which would be far 
 more ornamental than his purple, and raise him much higher than his 
 throne ; that the noblest kingdom was the empire over the hearts of 
 his subjects, and a people's love the brightest jewel in his crown ! 
 
 By the same spirit was the apostle influenced in the selection of his 
 second topic of discourse. He reasoned of temperance ; of the habit of 
 self control, of the blessedness of keeping all our appetites under a holy 
 and self-denying restraint, and of the moral benefits to a nation, when 
 those who sat in high places threw a fresh lustre over their dignities, by 
 their unblemished purity of life. The occasion had not been unfit for the 
 preacher to have discoursed of the griefs of an injured husband, basely 
 supplanted in his affections, his house left unto him desolate, and his wife 
 polluting God's holy altar, that she might bind round her dishonored 
 brow the diadem of borrowed royalty. But the apostle knew, that, though 
 this might be the best way to arouse the passions, it was the worst way 
 to win the heart. He chose, therefore, to enlarge on that Avise and beau- 
 tiful subordination of the natural affections, described in Scripture as 
 temperance, which makes up the spiritual harmony of the soul, which is 
 the essence of all gospel liberty, which lays the foundation for a holy 
 life, and thus educates the soul for future companionship with God. 
 " Lord, who is he that shall ascend unto thy holy hill ? and who shall 
 rise up in thy holy place ? even he that hath clean hands and a pure 
 heart, and that hath not lift up his eyes unto vanity, nor sworn to de- 
 ceive his neighbor." Without holiness, therefore, no man, either 
 here or hereafter, shall see the Lord. Not here ; for it is not more 
 true that God is of too pure eyes to look upon iniquity, than that ini- 
 quity is of too weak eyes to look upon God. " I heard thy voice in 
 the garden," said Adam, " and I hid myself, for I was afraid : " the 
 wicked cannot hide their sins amidst the trees of the garden, but they 
 will try to hide themselves. Not hereafter ; for, to be able to see 
 God, to pierce through the dim opaque of nature and of sense, to pen- 
 etrate, with eagle vision, the regions of light unapproachable, is a priv. 
 ilege which God hath reserved exclusively for those who are " washed 
 
88 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 from their filthiness." " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 
 see God." 
 
 But the apostle proceeds to a third topic, the consideration of the 
 time -when our observance or neglect of these duties of righteousness 
 and temperance should be brought under the immediate cognisance of 
 heaven ; when Felix shall be as Paul, and the judge shall stand by hia 
 prisoner, and both must put in their pleas in answer to what the God 
 of heaven shall lay to their charge. He reasoned of '^'■judgment to 
 come.'^ Here was a new theme to Felix : of some judgments he knew 
 enough, and of the practice of some judges too ; how bribes might buy 
 them, and artifice deceive them, and a cunning rhetoric blind them, 
 and the fear of man turn them aside. But this was a judgment where 
 each man would be his own accuser ; where advocates would be placed 
 on their own trial ; where all bribes will have been left on this side of 
 the grave, and where all subterfuges will be unmasked before the full 
 light of heaven. 
 
 In some respects, this would be a new theme to Drusilla also: she 
 was a Jewess, and was curious to hear what the apostle would say about 
 Christ ; and, in substance, the apostle's answer to her would be, " He 
 whom your nation have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and 
 slain, is now exalted at the right hand of power, wielding over the 
 spirits of men the sceptre of universal empire, putting forth the ener- 
 gies of his deity to save contrite and believing souls, but whetting his 
 two-edged sword for the destruction of the impenitent and the simier. 
 Judge not by what your eyes have seen or your ears have heard ; he 
 who departed in weakness shall return in power ; he who died in dis- 
 honor shall appear in glory ; he who was led as a lamb to the slaugh- 
 ter shall return like a lion /or the slaughter. He came the first time 
 to seek and to save ; he will come the second time to find and to de- 
 stroy. Once, it was enough that he should be seen by the traveller 
 who rested at the inn, or by the wise men who came from far with gifts ; 
 but then he shall be seen by ' every eye,' by men from their emptied 
 graves, and by angels from their forsaken thrones. Then shall all kin- 
 dreds wail, as they witness the commencing pomp of judgment; as the 
 trump's shrill blast announces the sealed-up book of time ; as, above 
 the world's ashes, there rises a great white throne, and as before it are 
 arrayed, in ranks small and great, the throngs of congregated dead. 
 And then the angels, those ministers that do the judge's pleasure, shall 
 bring forth the books of heaven. First, they shall unclasp the volume 
 of the Book of Life, unloose all its seven seals, and read out aloud the 
 names of the redeemed of God. And then another book shall be open- 
 ed ; the Book of the Divine Remembrance, the diary of conscience 
 
PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 89 
 
 while it ^Yas allowed to speak, but kept up by angels when its seared 
 tongue could speak no more. Strange, passing strange, will be the 
 soul's meeting with its old associates; sms, of which there may remain 
 no more trace within us than of a foot-print washed by the returning 
 tide, will then rise up before us in overwhelming and terrific aggre- 
 gate : our own tongue must confess them, our own hands must subscribe 
 the registry ; thus setting the seal to the unerring faithfulness of those 
 things which were written in the books." 
 
 Brethren, how little do we realize this thought of the future judg- 
 ment as perpetuating, in all their breadth and vividness, the characters 
 of once-committed sin. Offences which we write on sand are trans- 
 cribed by angels on to a tablet of everlasting marble : tyrants may 
 write in faint characters their morning wrongs, and leave them to be 
 washed away by the dark tide of their evening guilt ; but there are 
 no such obliterating tides in heaven ; all that we think, say, intend, or 
 do, is there " graven with an iron pen, and with lead in the rock for 
 ever." In God's book not only are " all our membei^s written," but 
 the sins of those members too ; the eye in its wantonness, the tongue 
 in its deceit, the hand with its bribes, the heart with its impure and 
 unholy thoughts, the ear turning deaf to the poor man's call, and the 
 feet in their swiftness to shed innocent blood. Yea, even the blank 
 leaves in this book shall contribute to our everlasting undoing : duties 
 not done, warnings not regarded, opportunities not cultivated, and 
 holy convictions not followed up, and improved, and deepened, will 
 appear as witnesses against us, and supply lashes for that final scourge 
 which shall drive the impenitent soul from the everlastmg presence of 
 God. 
 
 II. But we must proceed to the other division of our subject : 
 The PRACTICAL EFFECT of the discourse on the mind of its principal 
 hearer ; and the important lessons to be gathered from the conduct and 
 language of Felix. At the end of the discourse, Felix trembled, and 
 answered, " Go thy way for this time ; when I have a convenient sea- 
 son, I will call for thee." Felix trembled! What a striking testimo- 
 ny have we here to the power of conscience ; to the yet undethroned 
 authority of heaven's viceroy in the human soul ; to the difficulty of 
 effacing the chai-actcrs of that inward decalogue, in whose broken ta- 
 bles nature still reads her law, and the heathen finds himself " without 
 excuse : " and, until it is seared over by the hot iron of hardening 
 and unrepented sin, or until its fine edge is blunted by a course of 
 oft-resisted and despised convictions, will conscience continue to pros- 
 per in that whereunto God hath sent it. In the soul's deep solitude 
 
90 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 it will hold its court : itself the giver of the law ; itself the witness 
 to its transgression ; itself the judge to sentence ; itself the execu- 
 tioner to avenge ; all as if in mute rehearsal of that deeper tragedy, 
 where, on the high platform of heaven's judicature, both quick and 
 dead must stand. 
 
 Thus was it in the bosom of Felix. Torpid and trance-like had 
 Heaven's messenger been lying in the lap of sin ; but, at the sound 
 of Paul's voice, she proved she was " not dead, but sleeping ; " telling 
 him, in her stifled utterances, to hear the anticipative verdict of a 
 judgment yet to come ; and, instantly the governor forgot his dignity, 
 as much as the prisoner forgot his chains. The two parties appeared, 
 for the moment, to have changed places ; conscience ha\ing made a 
 coward of the judge, and truth having invested the captive with more 
 majesty than the purple. And why, we may ask, did not the genuine 
 conversion of the governor ensue upon this ? The reasoning of the 
 apostle had convinced his understanding, and had both awakened and 
 alarmed his conscience ; wherefore did it not penetrate further, into 
 the iimer chamber of the heart ? Without controversy, this is the 
 natural tendency of deep spiritual convictions ; left to itself, truth 
 would as assuredly issue in the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, as 
 water, unobstructed, would run down the mountain's side. But we 
 may oppose a force to this spiritual gravitation ; the Spirit of God 
 will work powerfully with us, but it will not always work irresistibly 
 against us ; and, therefore, if, after a man has had the eyes of his 
 understanding opened, and the powers of his moral sense awakened, 
 he should still resolve, like Felix, to say to every message addressed 
 to his soul, " Go thy way for this time," with sorrowful steps and 
 slow will the insulted Spirit retire from his heart, leaving conscience to 
 return to its stupor, and the understanding to close its eyes again. 
 
 And, here, let us not lose ourselves in any metaphysical subtleties, 
 as to where the constraining energy of the Spirit terminates, and the 
 permitted exercise of the human will begins. Philosophy cannot teU 
 us any thing more than our own consciousness ; and, if it could tell 
 us any thing contrary to it, we should pause before we received it : 
 and this consciousness tells us, that we have it in our power almost at 
 any time to dismiss an unwelcome subject from our thoughts. " The 
 most obvious of the powers which the mind possesses over the traui of 
 its thoughts," says an eminent authority, " is its power of singling out 
 any one of them at pleasure ; of detaining it ; of making it a partic- 
 ular object of attention ; " * and, for the calling into exercise of this 
 power, there is no readier or more effective way than that resorted to 
 
 * Stewart's Philosophy of the Human Mind, p. S98. 
 
PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 91 
 
 by the g'liltj FeUx : namely, by the forced dismissal of every exter- 
 nal association, by which the succession of disagreeable thoughts 
 could be kept up ; or by surrounding ourselves with other outward ob- 
 jects, which should divert these thoughts into a different channel. The 
 conduct of Felix, therefore, is intelligible enough : with the sermon in 
 his ears, and with the preacher before his eyes, and having seated at 
 his side the shameless partner of his crimes, he could think of nothing 
 but " righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." Conscience 
 seemed to owe all its power to the presence of the apostle ; and, so 
 long as Paul was allowed to lash him with " whips," would conscience 
 have the power to scourge his soul with " scorpions." * To break the 
 chain, therefore, to stop the succession of painful thoughts, he resolves 
 on an immediate dismissal of the preacher, saying, " Go thy way for 
 this time ; when I have a convenient season, I will caU for thee." 
 
 But the most important of the practical lessons to be gathered from 
 this history remains to be considered ; namely, the strange infatuation 
 of miconverted men, in supposing that, though they tiifle with con- 
 viction for the present, a time will yet come, when they shall be bet- 
 ter prepared to yield to them, " When I have a convenient season, 
 I will call for thee." The great fallacy of life seems to be a persuar 
 sion, that, having for a given part of our days run in the way of the 
 ungodly, we shall afterwards be able to retrace our steps, and, with 
 the speed of thought, find ourselves in the ways of God. All consid- 
 erations of time, habit, diminished strength, and contracted iasensibil- 
 ity to religious impressions, are overlooked ; whilst the soul yields 
 itself to the fascinations of delay, pledges the future to noble and 
 high resolves, and sees facihties for duty in some distant morrow, 
 which it thinks are wholly wanting " while it is called to-day." In 
 vain does reason urge, that, if we find it hard to put out the first spark 
 of sin, we shall find it harder still to extinguish the raging flame ; that, 
 if we cannot pluck up sin when it is a green twig, it will be in vain to 
 try when custom has given it the strength of a sturdy tree : spell- 
 bound and reason-proof, we resolve that it is better to " contend with 
 horses," than let " the footmen " weary ns ; and that, though, at this 
 time, we faint in the land of peace, yet, only give us a convenient 
 season, and we will breast even " the swelhngs of Jordan." 
 
 In our remaining remarks, therefore, we would be considered as en- 
 deavoring to prove the utter improbability, both from the constitution 
 of the human mind, and from the lessons of human experience, that 
 to any person postponing the work of repentance to a more conve- 
 
 *" My conscience Imlli a thousand several tongiica, 
 
 And every tongue brings in a several tale." — Shaesfeabb. 
 
92 THE ENGLISH PDLPIT. 
 
 nient season, such season should ever come. "We are not about to dig 
 for such an one an early grave, nor to introduce the contingency, that, 
 suddenly and unlooked-for, may the last foem.an come. But, on the 
 contrary, even supposing him to have a special indemnity against both 
 these evils : that, in his right hand, were a charter, securing to him 
 length of days, and, in his left, a promise that he should die as grad- 
 ually and as slowly as the sun when sinking into his " golden rest ; " 
 we still affirm, that there is the highest human probability that he 
 never will repent, if he systematically despise warnings and convic- 
 tions 710W. We all know that there are certain things which are in- 
 separable from a state of reconciliation and acceptance with Almighty 
 God ; that there are truths to be learned, enmities to be rooted up, 
 habits to be formed, dispositions to be cherished, and that, till all this 
 be done, we can neither die happily, nor rise unblameably. 
 
 Not, however, to amplify too largely on the parts of the saintly 
 life, let us confine our reasonings to two obvious requisites : the illu- 
 mination of the mind, and the sanctification of the heart ; the 
 way of holiness understood, and the habit of holiness formed ; the 
 light which shows heaven to us, and the grace which prepares us for 
 heaven. Now, first, what is the hope, that, in old age, (the conve- 
 nient season of all procrastinators,) our power of apprehending spirit- 
 ual truth will be as keen and vigorous as we should find it now ? That 
 we do not select old age as the time for learning the rudiments of a 
 language, nor employ its impaired faculties in acquiring new principles 
 of science, arises from the consciousness that our powers of intelli- 
 gence become Aveakened as the frame with which it is united becomes 
 enfeebled or decayed. We have reason to believe that the brain is 
 the material medium through which the mind acts ; that is, that cer- 
 tain altered states of the material substance are connected with cer- 
 tain altered states of the sentient mind ; and this appears to be an 
 ultimate fact of our nature, which, from the want of homogeneousness 
 in the substances aSected, we consider to be incapable of further 
 analysis. Unexplained itself, however, this mystery may, perhaps, 
 explain other mysteries ; it may explain whei-efore aged persons have 
 such difficulty in receiving new impressions, especially when, in order 
 to their reception, they must displace others, which they had admitted 
 and cherished long before : for it is at least possible, that the sub- 
 stance, with which the thinking mind is united, obeying the law of 
 other substances in the human system, may acquire^ by long growth 
 and use, a settled habit or form, which the impaired energy of old age 
 renders it not easy to disturb. Hence, perhaps, in part, that practical 
 difficulty which ministers of the gospel so constantly meet with, wl*en 
 
PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 93 
 
 called to converse -witli an aged man, for the first time, on the tbinga 
 ■which belong unto bis peace. Tbej find that opinions, which have 
 been the growth, perhaps, of an ordinary life, have entirely possessed 
 themselves of bis mind ; alike indisposing him either for unlearning 
 what is false, or for acquiring a knowledge of that which is true : so 
 that, in however many lights they may place the gospel-way of salvar 
 tion, bis mind does not readily embrace it, because already pre-engaged 
 with some other way. The doctrine of a sinner's acceptance through 
 faith in the blood of Christ, is like a new language to him ; his un- 
 derstanding appreciates not the necessity of such a doctrine ; and, 
 when taken in connection with that changed state of his moral affec- 
 tions required by the gospel, bis heart is unwilhng to submit to it : so 
 that, at every pause in our exhortation to him to stay bis soul on the 
 Savior's righteousness, some expression falls from his lips evincing a 
 continued dependence on bis own. 
 
 But, brethren, if it be a hard thing merely to instruct the hoary head 
 in the way of righteousness ; if every year of delayed conversion les- 
 sens our capacity even to comprehend Grod's method of pardoning and 
 restoring sinners ; how immeasurably more difficult shall we find it to 
 fulfil that other requirement of heaven, the sanctification of the 
 heart ! to plant, in this overrun and howling waste, the seeds of that 
 hoHness, without which no man shall see the Lord ! For, in order to 
 this, we have not only to expel the love of the world, to break the as- 
 sociated chain of past enjoyments, to undo all, as all had never been; 
 but we have to form a new habit in the soul, to make every thing yield 
 to the power of a new affection, and to bind every disobedient and trai- 
 torous thought in sweet captivity to the will of God. But, would eith- 
 er reason or experience teach us that this can be an easy task ? Do 
 we not all know the moral force of habit ? that mysterious suggestive 
 faculty, whereby our actions, whether good or evil, reproduce and per- 
 petuate themselves ; till, at last, they become as integi'al portions of 
 our moral being, and lord it over our souls with the tyranny of a sec- 
 ond nature. Indeed, to estimate, in some degree, the difficulty of ef- 
 fecting a revolution such as that supposed by gospel-sanctification, it ig 
 only needful to single out any one from the prevalent habits and dis- 
 positions of life, and to count the time and cost of changing it for an- 
 other, which should be opposite. Let the clenched hand of parsimony 
 learn to practise a liberal and enlarged munificence ; let the boaster 
 of high degree turn a contemptuous eye on all the relics of ancestral 
 pride ; and we may then imagine how hard it is for these habit-dyed 
 Ethiopians to change their skins, or these sin-marked leopards to efface 
 their spots ! 
 
94 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 The probability, therefore, that a yjostponed repentance will ever be 
 an effectual or sincere repentance, may be put to an easy test. If, in 
 a dying hour ; if, in the day of the mind's feebleness, and decay, and 
 waste ; if, in a brief remnant, cut off from a life of worldliness, or sleep, 
 or sin, the soul can evoke into existence a new order of affections, and, 
 in the twinkling of an eye, put on its dress for heaven ; we need mor- 
 alize no longer on the perils of spiritual delay ; we may let conscience 
 sleep on in the lap of the great thief of time, saying, for this time, let 
 us " eat and drink," and hereafter we can repent and die. But if, on 
 the contrary, worldly habits strike root downwards, the more they bear 
 fruit upwards ; if sanctification demands that every ancient idol fall and 
 be crushed before the ark of God ; and if time, if labor, if holy and 
 persevering effort, be needed to educa^te immortal spirits for the skies ; 
 then, was ever folly like his folly, who, with a conviction that his soul 
 is at this moment lying under the wrath of God, would say to the mes- 
 senger of heaven, whoever he may be, " Go thy way for this time ; 
 when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee ? " 
 
 Neither are the results of experience, as collected from those who 
 are in the habit of attending the closing scenes of hfe, at all opposed 
 to the conclusions of antecedent reasoning. Physicians concur with 
 Divines in attesting, that men, for the most part, die as they live, and 
 that the exhaustion of nature's strength alone frequently incapacitates 
 them for any essential change in the state and affections of the mind. 
 Thus, those who live the hfe of the unrighteous, die the death of the 
 unrighteous also ; the power of unbelief is as victorious in the dying 
 hour, as in the hours of health ; sin, the world, and the devil hold their 
 victims in strong delusion to the last ; and that Savior, who, through 
 life, had been regarded as " a root out of a dry ground," appears, even 
 in death, to be destitute of all " form and comeliness." 
 
 Let us conclude with one or two practical reflections : — First, how 
 great is the danger of resisting religious convictions ! of turning a deaf 
 ear to language, which, by its effects on our minds, is discerned to be 
 the voice of God ! It is not needful tha,t we should have a Paul preach- 
 ins: before us, or a Drusilla seated beside us, in order that words utter- 
 ed in the sanctuary should appear to have been so expressly written 
 for us, to have come home to our consciences with so much of closeness 
 and of power, that, although we could not send the preacher away, we 
 were but too willing to be sent away by the preacher ; hailing with 
 gladness the breaking up of the solemn assembly, welcoming with eager- 
 ness the in-rushing current of worldly thoughts, and giving a tacit 
 promise to our consciences to call for these holy convictions at som(> 
 
PAUL BEFORE FELIX. 95 
 
 more convenient season. But, how know we that these convictions 
 will come when we call them ? Where is our warrant for supposing 
 that the Holy Spirit will bide our time ; will tarry our convenience ; 
 will wait the day when we, having nothing else to occupy us, wiU per- 
 mit him to rekindle his quenched flame, and to repeat the warnings 
 which we neglected or despised before ? Surely, all experience would 
 look the other way ; would teach, that convictions lose their power 
 when they lose their freshness. Felix, we are told, heard Paul preach 
 many times afterwards ; but we do not find that he ever trembled af- 
 ter the first. 
 
 Lastly, how great is the affront to God, of this intention to yield to 
 rehgious convictions hereafter ! To delay our preparation for heaven 
 is not a foolish thing only, not a dangerous thing only ; it is a profane, 
 a wicked, a God-dishonoring thing. We cannot purpose to amend our 
 lives to-morrow, without also purposing to insult God to-day. To teU 
 God that we mean to repent next year, is to tell him that we do not 
 mean to repent before. We may keep our resolution, or we may not 
 keep it ; but the mere forming of it implies that, until the time specified 
 arrives, we intend to go on sinning still, to make more work for his par- 
 doning mercy in the interim ; cuttmg out, as it were, a space from the 
 tenn of our moral probation, and bargaining with high heaven for an 
 indulgence for prospective sin. 
 
 Hear we, then, the conclusion of the whole matter, which we may 
 fairly sum up, in a single sentence, thus : that repentance delayed 
 IS mercy trifled with, and a holy life intended only, is life 
 ETERNAL LOST. To Say to any religious conviction, " Go thy way for 
 this time," is to degrade reason, to injure the soul, to disparage heav- 
 en, to dishonor God. It is as if we designed to give God the worst of 
 our days, and spend on self and sin the best ; to reserve a lamb of the 
 first year for the world, and to bring to the Lord only the maimed and 
 the blind : it is to offer at the shrine of the evil one our manhood, our 
 vigor, our freshness, our strength ; and to lay on the altar of the God 
 of heaven an offering of disease, decay, old age, and mental feebleness. 
 God grant that we may bring no more of these vain oblations ; but 
 now, in the accepted time, now, m our convenient season, may " offer 
 an offering in righteousness, and call upon the name of the Lord ! " 
 Amen. 
 
96 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 
 CHKISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. 
 
 BY KEV. JOHN ANGELL JAMES. 
 
 " By love serve one another." — Galatians t. 13. 
 
 Ckristianity is a system of love, — of love in its purest, brightest, 
 and divinest form. It is an emanation from the mind and heart of in- 
 finite and eternal Benevolence. Its doctrines are the truths of love ; 
 its principles are the rules of love ; its invitations are the offers of love ; 
 its promises are the assurances of love ; its very threatenings are the 
 severities of love ; and its one great design is, to expel selfishness from 
 the human bosom, and to plant in its room a principle of holy and univer- 
 sal philanthropy. Hence a man may be so intimately acquainted with 
 all the evidences of this Divine system, as to be enabled, by the most 
 powerful and subtle logic, to defend its outworks against the attacks of 
 infidelity ; he may understand, and be able to arrange all its doctrines 
 as articles of faith in the most symmetrical order ; he may also be able 
 to harmonize seeming discrepancies and contradictions ; but still, if he 
 know not that the essence of Christianity is love, he has no sympathy 
 within his inner soul, he has mistaken its genius and its spirit, and is as 
 blind to its richest glories, as the individual whose darkened eye-balls 
 never look on the glories of the sky, nor the beauties of the earth. 
 
 My subject is in harmony with the feelings of my own heart, with 
 the movements of the day, and with the design for which we are as- 
 sembled this evening. The text is love ; and I hope the sermon will, 
 in accordance with the text, be love also. 
 
 In the first place, I shall endeavor to explain the nature, and to 
 exhibit the grounds and manifestations of Christian love ; in the second 
 place, show some of the reasons why the different denominations of 
 professing Christians should exercise this love one to another ; thirdly, 
 point out the manner in which we may manifest this disposition, and 
 then urge a few appropriate and cogent motives. 
 
 I, In the first place, I am to explain the nature and exliibit the 
 grounds and exercises of Christian love. 
 
 That artificer, as it has been called, of deification, the corrupt soul 
 of man, never once, amidst all its multiplied devices, struck out the 
 idea of absolute goodness. And how should it ? A.11 its prototypes 
 
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. 97 
 
 for the formation of its gods, were founded on itself — on its o\\n pas- 
 sions. But what idolatry could not do, and human reason in the high- 
 est stretch of its powers could never approach, the apostle, in one beau- 
 tiful expression, has set before us — " God is love." This we owe to 
 Revelation, and it never could have come from any other source. The 
 love of God is not an infinite quietism of the Divine mind, retired from 
 all human affairs and leaving the world to take care of itself; it is an 
 active principle. 
 
 There are two kinds of love in the Divine mind ; the love of com- 
 placency, which it bears to all the holy parts of creation, and the love 
 of benevolence, which it bears to the whole creation irrespective of mor- 
 al character. Analogous to this, there is in the mind of every good 
 man, a two-fold love ; the love of complacency, which he always bears 
 towards the righteous, and the love of benevolence, which he is to bear 
 to the whole sentient creation. The apostle distinguishes these two, 
 where he says, add " to brotherly kindness, charit^^" Beyond that 
 inner circle, where brotherly kindness " lives and moves and has its 
 being," there is an outer circle, in Avhich charity also is to revolve and 
 perform its part. And, be it recollected, that we are to be no less as- 
 siduous in the duties of the outer circle, than we are in those of the 
 inner ; and that man, whatever his professions to brotherly kindness 
 may be, has but the name who adds not to it charity. 
 
 Look at the operations of chanty, or the love of benevolence. It 
 was this which existed in the mind of Deity from eternity, and in the 
 exercise of which he so loved our guilty world, as to give his " only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
 have everlasting life." It Avas on the wings of charity, that the Son 
 of God flew from heaven to earth, on an errand of mercy to our lost 
 world ; it was charity that moved in the minds and hearts of the apos- 
 tles, and urged them, with the glad tidings of salvation, from country to 
 country. The Avhole missionary enterprise is founded, not of course 
 on the basis of brotherly kindness, but on that of charity. All those 
 splendid instances that have been presented to us of the exercise of 
 philanthropy, and with which your memories are familiar, are all the 
 operations of this Divine charity. See Howard, leaving the seclusion of 
 a country gentleman, giving up his elegant retreat, and all its luxurious 
 gratifications, pacing to and fro through Europe, plunging into dun- 
 geons, battling with pestilence, weighing the fetters of the prisoner, 
 gauging the diseases even of the pest-house, — all under the influence 
 of heavenly charity. See Wilberforce, through twenty years of his 
 life, hfting up his unwearied voice, and employing his fascinating elo- 
 quence against the biggest outrage that ever trampled on the riiihts of 
 7 
 
98 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 humanity. What formed his character, sketched his plan, inspired his 
 zeal, but charity ? See that illustrious woman, lately departed, so ripe 
 for glory, and so richly invested with it, who interested herself amidst 
 the prisoners of Newgate, — to chain their passions, to reclaim their 
 vices, and to render them more meet for society, which had condemned 
 them as its outcasts. ^Vliat was it, that gave to Mrs. Fry her principle 
 of action, — what, indeed, was the principle itself, but charity ? 
 
 Let us, then, my dear friends, not confine our attention exclusively to 
 •' brotherly kindness," but passing this narrower boundary, go out into 
 the great world, with a principle like that which I have now described 
 — which existed in the bosom of Deity, was displayed by the Son of 
 God upon the cross, and which was the basis of the origin of that In- 
 stitution which it is my delight and my honor to plead this evening. 
 
 But I am directed particularly, by the manner in which I intend 
 to treat the subject this evening, to " brotherly kindness " — to broth- 
 erly love, as the word would be more emphatically rendered. Broth- 
 erly love is founded on two things : a common relation and a common 
 character. It is the love of all those v/ho are with us disciples of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ — children by regeneration of the one living and 
 true God. This is the ground of brotherly love ; and if it exist on 
 such ground as this, the man Avho loves one brother loves all, and he 
 who loves not all, loves none. We must go higher, and sink deeper, 
 for the grounds and motives of brotherly love, than the names, the 
 greatest, the most venerable, and the most venerated names amongst 
 men. It must be something deeper than Calvin, or Luther, or Whit- 
 field, or Wesley ; we must never stop for the foundation of brotherly 
 love, until we touch the rock of ages, which rock is Jesus Christ. He 
 that loves others only for the sake of man, loves them with an affection 
 infinitely lower than he who loves them for the sake of Christ and of 
 God. 
 
 But there is a common character, which is also a ground of brother- 
 ly love, as well as a common relation. The objects of this aifection 
 bear one common impress — the image of the heavenly Father. In 
 human families, it is sometimes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to 
 trace any resemblance between the children and the parents. Not so 
 in the Divine family. God, in regeneration, never begets a child, but 
 in his own likeness ; and where there is not the image of the Father, 
 there cannot be the relation. The family hkeness, in that circle where 
 none are related to God by a more distant relationship than that of a 
 child, is holiness ; hohness is the family feature of the household of 
 faith. And where we see holiness, the mind of Christ, the image of 
 God — for these are convertible terms ; whatever be the color of the 
 
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. G9 
 
 skin of the man that bears this image, whatever be the nation which 
 gave liim birth, whatever be the party name by which he is distinguish- 
 ed — there we are to recognize an object, to wliich we are to be drawn 
 by the irresistible attraction of our Father's image, and by the mighty 
 influence of a new nature in our own souls. And the man that sees all 
 this, and yet waits and wishes for a second reason for his affection — who 
 closes his hand, places it in his bosom, keeps his -feelings in abeyance, 
 and holds back his heart, until he has found a denominational relation- 
 ship, has not a spark of brotherly love in his soul. What ! shall the 
 name of Jesus, shall the character of God, be not enough to engage 
 our love to one, who bears the name and the likeness of our Father, 
 and stands united to our Savior by the tie of a common faith, till we 
 have found out that he is related to us by party name, as well as to 
 God by the bond of a new nature. 
 
 And how, my brethren, does brotherly love operate where it exists ? 
 I shall attempt no description of my own, except a passing remark, as 
 I go forward, on that which the apostle has already given us. " Love 
 suffereth long " — is not easily roused into resentment or to malice by 
 injuries, great or small : " is kind " in words, in actions, and in spirit ; 
 the law of kindness is upon its Hps, and the fruit of kindness drops from 
 its hand. " Love envieth not." Envy is that misery which we feel at 
 the sight of another superior or more excellent character, which makes 
 us miserable at the sight of it, and causes us to hate the more eminent 
 one, on which the diabohcal glance is fixed — than which is not to be 
 found a temper nearer akin to that which rages through hell. " Love 
 vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up " — does not boast what it has 
 done, can do, or will do, what it is, or what it has been — but is cloth- 
 ed with the garment of humility. " Love doth not behave itself un- 
 seemly " — keeps its place, like a soldier in the ranks, and steps not 
 out of the position, in which it has been placed. " Love seeketh not 
 her own" — abhors selfishness, looks upon the things of others, as well 
 as upon its own ; " is not easily provoked " — is not passionate, giving 
 way to ebullitions of rage of any kind; " thinketh no evil" — is not 
 hasty to impute a bad motive, as long as a good one can be found, for 
 the actions of another ; " rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the 
 truth" — ^. takes no pleasure in the failings and misconduct of a foe. 
 but delights in the manifestations of excellence, even when its own 
 cause would thus seem to be damaged by what it discerns in another : 
 *'beareth," or covereth, " all things," — has not a microscope in its 
 hand, ever to magnify the failings that are near, nor a telescope, to 
 bring near those that are remote, but a mantle, to cover all that need 
 not be exposed to public view ; " believeth all things," to the advan- 
 
100 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 tage of another ; " hopeth all things," where it has not ground for faith ; 
 " endureth all things " — makes any sacrifice, bears anj labor, for the 
 benefit of others. Such are the manifestations of love. 
 
 Now for a moment or two dwell on the importance which is attach- 
 ed to it by the various representations which are given of it in the word 
 of God. 
 
 It is the outward manifestation of an inward principle of belief — 
 " Faith worketh by love." It is the evidence of regeneration, in the 
 possession of which a man may as certainly conclude that he is a child 
 of God, as if a seraph were dispatched from the throne, to tell him that 
 he had seen his name written in the Lamb's book of life. It is the 
 grand novelty of the Christian dispensation, like to which nothing can 
 be found in our world, like to which even Judaism supplied nothing as 
 to its model, its meaning and its motives. It is the great law of the 
 Christian dispensation : " This is my commandment," said the Savior 
 — mine emphatically — " that ye love one another." It is the badge 
 of discipleship : " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, 
 if ye love one another." Philosophers and teachers had given to their 
 disciples some peculiar sentiments or mark. Says Christ, Love shall 
 be the badge of my disciples ; and let that man be accounted an im- 
 postor, a pretender, a hypocrite, whatever else he may have, who has 
 not my mark upon him, and is not distinguished by love to his breth- 
 ren. 
 
 Such, brethren, is love. How excellent ! Love, without any sel- 
 fish, interested ally, neither darkened by hatred nor shaded by caprice, 
 is an attribute which pertains to Deity, and that which sums up all the 
 others. This fair spirit sits enthroned in the heavens, where she lives 
 as a principle omnipotent, an element Divine ; she dwells in brightness 
 and in eternity with the Almiglity. Her music is the song of the an- 
 gelic host, the sigh of the sympathetic spirit, the prayer- of the humble 
 and the contrite, the gratitude expressed to the author of every mercy, 
 and the word of kindness dropped from the lip of charity. Love pre- 
 vailed over the creation of the world, made man almost an angel, and 
 gave him as his residence a paradise almost a heaven. Love preserves 
 the harmony of the upper sphere, and marks out the progress of the 
 soul through troubles here, and immortality hereafter. Her form was 
 seen, her voice was heard on earth, when the Son of God became in- 
 carnate ; and he has bequeathed to his church, as an inestimable lega- 
 cy, the power of love, as the essence of his religion. 
 
 But, brethren, is there all this beautiful display of love amongst us 
 that there should be ? If an angel that knew nothing of ecclesiastical 
 history, but was totally unacquainted with all the details of its darken- 
 
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. 101 
 
 ed page, and knew nothing of the church of God, but that it was a com- 
 pany of men and women, redeemed by the precious blood of him who 
 became incarnate, before whose throne he bowed, regenerated by the 
 same Spirit which had filled his heavenly mind with holiness, and des- 
 tined for that blessed world, from which he had dropped down upon 
 men — I say, if such a visitant came among us, what kind of beings 
 would he expect to see in men and women thus circumstanced ? Would 
 he not look that they should appear as so many sparkling forms of pure, 
 bright love, so cemented to one another by their common love to their 
 Divine Father and his to them, as that they should scai-cely have any 
 separate interest, inchnation, or will — all filled with the most compla- 
 cent benignity one towards another, each contributing to the happiness 
 of all, and all building up the happiness of each ; who though perad- 
 venture they may not in all things think alike, nor be marshalled under 
 the banner of one particular regiment, yet would never allow their dif- 
 ferences to embitter their hearts, or to alienate their affections one from 
 another ; in short, would he not expect to find in our world so many 
 pieces of immortal glory, flashing the lustre of that world from which 
 he himself came ? Alas ! what grief he would feel, what disappoint- 
 ment he would experience, at hearkening to the bitter controversy and 
 witnessing the wide alienation of professing Christians ! Would he not 
 conclude that he had lost his way, mistaken his world, lighted upon 
 some other abode than that to which he had directed his course. Would 
 he not say, I came in search of the blood-bought church, the love-ce- 
 mented multitude ; and do you mean to say that this is it ? Is it for 
 this divided, discordant church, the Son of God died upon the cross ? 
 Oh ! where is the fruit of his agony, the answer of his prayer ? Breth- 
 ren, do we not deserve the rebuke ? does not the reproach lie upon us ? 
 God helping us, we will put it away. ' But is it not true, that the bitter 
 and thorny aloe of Christian contention is quite full blown upon the 
 steps of the Christian temple ? Is it not true, that the nettle and the 
 bramble grow luxuriantly in its course ? Is it not true, that birds of 
 discordant notes utter their screams around ? Well, thanks to Jeho- 
 vah, we are beginning, I trust, to displace these plants of deformity, 
 and to raise in their room the myi'tle, the fir-tree, and the olive, from 
 whence the voice of the turtle, the emblem of peace, shall be heard 
 through the length and breadth of the land. So that ere long, if an- 
 other visitant come to our world in search of the blood-bought multi- 
 tude, the love-cemented church, we shall be able to present to him 
 something that will not disappoint him, cause him to droop his wings, 
 and to go back to his heaven with a dejected countenance. 
 
1(^ TIIE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 II. Now, brethren, let us consider, secondly, one or two reasons, 
 why the different denominations of evangelical Christians should exer- 
 cise this love one towards another. 
 
 And, in the first place, is there not an agreement in our views of the 
 fundamental docti'ines of Christianity ? Do we not hold the inspiration 
 and the sufficiency of the Scriptures, the Divine Trinity of Persons in 
 the essence of the Godhead, the incarnation of the Son of God, and the 
 atonement and salvation of the world, the great Protestant doctrine of 
 justification by faith, the regeneration and sanctification of the human 
 soul by the Spirit, and the necessity of holiness as the evidence of real 
 faith ? What ! shall I hold back from the Episcopalian who with me 
 acknowledges the doctrine of the Trinity, because his views of church 
 government differ from mine ? Shall I refuse my hand to the Presby- 
 terian because he thinks the church should be governed by elders, by 
 the many, instead of each particular congregation being independent ; 
 while at the same time he believes the incarnation and atonement of 
 Christ ? Shall I refuse communion with my Methodist brethren, be- 
 cause they do not see with me in the doctrine of election, and the per- 
 severance of the saints ; while I see eye to eye with them on the doc- 
 trine of justification by faith and regeneration by the Spirit? Shall I 
 scowl on the Baptist, because he refuses to receive children at the font ; 
 while at the same time he holds with me all the fundamental truths of 
 Christianity ? Brethren, if I retire from a man, because of a differ- 
 ence of minor importance, do not I disparage the grand principles of 
 agreement and set the minor ones above them ? If I do not hold com- 
 munion with him, because we differ in small things, am I not thereby 
 throwing discredit on the great and fundamental doctrines of God's 
 blessed word ? 
 
 But this is not all : the great evangelical body, in all its divisions, 
 are agreed, secondly, in views of personal, vital, and experimental re- 
 ligion. Philosophers may be united on the principles of science, be- 
 cause science has no necessary connexion with the state of the heart, 
 and does not necessarily depend for evidence on the state of the heart. 
 But the doctrines of Christianity do ; they are not like the aurora la- 
 realis floating in the pure regions of the atmosphere, but doing nothing 
 for the fertilizing of the globe. The doctrines of the gospel are not 
 like gems in a cabinet, deposited there for show, and not for use ; they 
 are all vital principles of action — means of sanctification. And, ray 
 dear Methodist brethren, here we are one. You and I agree most 
 perfectly that no man is a Christian because he was born in a land so 
 called ; and that no man becomes a Christian by mere baptism. We 
 hold together the religion of the affections ; we hold the necessity of 
 
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. 103 
 
 "joy and peace in believing," as the evidences of faith; we hold in 
 common the witness of the Holv Spirit, either direct or indirect, or 
 both ; and therefore, in all the principles of experimental and vital re- 
 ligion, we are one, and are called upon, in the exercise of love, to 
 " serve one another," 
 
 Again : we ai-e engaged in a common work, and through Divine 
 grace are blessed with a common success. Yes ; what are we about ? 
 Striving one and all to bring into execution the plans of the eternal 
 mind, in reference to our world ; to carry into application the death of 
 the Son of God upon the cross ; to fulfil the purpose for which the 
 Spirit is poured out from on high, and the Scriptures are written. And 
 we have all done something for this. 
 
 Brethren, I honor you. You have carried the lamp of salvation in- 
 to almost every nook and dark corner of our land ; you have covered 
 the country with your chapels ; your patriotism is seen in your piety — 
 in what you are doing for the country. Then I turn my attention from 
 home to foreign parts. You have aided to burst the manacles which 
 fettered the slave, and to give liberty to a hundred thousand believers 
 in the West Indies. In connexion with your Baptist brethren, and 
 that illustrious man, whose name in your kindred society will to-morrow 
 be mentioned in tones of grief and with tears of sorrow, you have done 
 more ; for you have given the liberty, wherewith Christ makes his peo- 
 ple free, to these slaves, as they were once in the body. I view your 
 progress in New Zealand, Polynesia, and South Africa, with gratitude 
 and delight. I look upon that splendid blossom of missionary hope and 
 prospect, your mission upon the Gold Coast of Western Africa. I turn 
 to Ceylon, and to other parts of the world, and thank God for the to- 
 kens of his favor, which he has granted you there. We, brethren, 
 have done something mighty ; there is no room for jealousy — none for 
 envy. And here, on the ground of common success, is a reason for 
 our loving and serving one another. When Cowper, the poet of pa- 
 thos and piety, was recovering from that direful malady under which 
 he suffered from the hand of God, and in public worship was acknowl- 
 edging his thankfulness to the Author of his mercy, in the same pew 
 there sat with him an individual, whose heartfelt gratitude was over- 
 flowing in a hymn of praise, in which he seemed so heartily to join, that, 
 says Cowper, " I could not help saying in my heart, bless you for prais- 
 ing him thus, whom I so much love." I catch the sentiment, and I 
 say to my Methodist brethren, bless you for all you have done for that 
 dear Savior whom, without presumption, I dare affirm I love. And I 
 doubt not, dear friends, that the response will come back from your 
 
104 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 society to ours, and we shall bless one another, and God for each oth 
 er, for what we ai-e doing together. 
 
 III. Now, thirdly, I go on to consider in what kind of service we 
 are to manifest our love to each other, as different denominations. 
 
 And here, my brethren, I advocate nothing latitudinarian ; I ask for 
 no compromise ; for as long as denominational differences exist, there 
 must be denominational preferences. And we love our denominations, 
 because each of us deem them most accordant with the word of God, 
 and there is the ground of our love to them. I am no advocate for that 
 spurious philosophy, which sprung up some forty or fifty years ago, 
 which proposed to build a system of universal benevolence upon the de- 
 struction of individual tenderness ; as if we could love the whole more, 
 by loving each particular part of it less. The order of nature is to pro-' 
 ceed from species to genus, from individual to generality, from that 
 which is near to that which is remote. Every man, by taking care of 
 bis own soul first, is better prepared to take care of the souls of others ; 
 he who looks well to his own family is contributing to the well-being of 
 the country ; the farmer that takes care of distant fields is expected, 
 first of all, to begin with his own ; and so we are expected, in our love 
 to the universal church, to begin with that section of it to which we 
 may each respectively belong. Therefore I ask for no relinquishment 
 of attachment or attention to that particular part of the great family of 
 God to which we belong ; but I ask, that we engage in all those exer- 
 cises for each other, by which we can manifest our love, and serve each 
 other without in the smallest degree injuring that part of the church 
 with which we are more intimately connected. 
 
 And how shall we do this ? By purifying our controversies from all 
 wrath, malice, un charitableness and evil speaking ; by avoiding all mis- 
 representation of each other's sentiments, caricaturing each other's sys- 
 tems, or deducing from each other's principles inferences which we 
 should repudiate with abhorrence ; by being careful not to exaggerate 
 the points on which we differ, till we seem to make them of equal con- 
 sequence with those on which we agree — which, to my idea, seems to 
 be the very essence of sectarianism ; by doing nothing to each other 
 which may lower us in public opinion ; by rooting out all the prejudices 
 of education and of sect, by extinguishing all envy of each other's suc- 
 cess ; by abstaining from all suspicion and doubt as to the sincerity of 
 each other's motives ; by refraining from all underhand proselyting, 
 and by not exposing each other's weaknesses ; and, may I now say, by 
 embracing that discovery of modern charity, that what affects the whole 
 affects each part, that what strengthens the body strengthens each 
 
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. 105 
 
 limb, and that what weakens that body, weakens each member. If 
 Poperj and Infidelity triumph, it is at the common expense of us all ; 
 if a cloud of reproach hang over the church of God generally, the 
 cold, chiUing and withering power of it will be felt by each of us. 
 And what cloud is so dark, what is so withering, as the dissensions of 
 the Christian church ? Infidelity, like a vulture, scents the smell of 
 battle from afar, directs her course to the field of conflict, and gorges 
 and fattens on the blood of the combatants. Popery, hke the witches 
 and the wizards of the dark ages, carries on her incantations amidst 
 the uproar of the elements, and the storms that are raging. Brethren, 
 let us disappoint the appetite of the vulture, and the malice of the wiz- 
 ard ; let us come closer to each other ; let us come nearer and nearer, 
 for our common defence and for our common sympathy. " Divide and 
 conquer," is that watchword which was handed up from hell by Satan 
 to his emissaries ; " Unite and resist," is the counterword which heav- 
 en gives to us all. And then, brethren, — to make it bear upon the pres- 
 ent object of our meetmg, — " union is strength," inasmuch as the divid- 
 ed state of the Christian world appears to me to be one of the mightiest 
 obstacles in existence to the conversion of the Redeemer's kingdom. God 
 will not employ his church to bring on the millennium, till that church 
 is more harmonious. We must be calm, dignified, tranquil, holy, peace- 
 ful, to be fit for the great work to which God has called us. He em- 
 ploys the graces, and not the furies, to fulfil his purposes of mercy to 
 mankind. Like, then, the tribes of Israel, each bearing its own stand- 
 ard, but all collecting round the ark, let us move onward, all standing 
 together under the cooling shadow of the cloudy pillar, and reflecting 
 together the brilliant splendors of the fiery symbol that led the conse- 
 crated host through the wilderness. Depend upon it, a harmonized 
 church must be the precursor of a converted world ; and, to my cyo, 
 one of the brightest signs of the times, one of the most decisive marks 
 that God is about to bless us all in advancing his cause on the earth is, 
 that he is bringing us all nearer to each other. 
 
 But this is not all : we must serve each other by reciprocal help in 
 pecuniary matters. Oh ! say some, I cannot in conscience subscribe 
 my money to a society that propagates what I consider to be error. I 
 doubt, my brethren, this is rather the logic of the pocket, than of the 
 conscience ; because, upon the ground of the objector, I would say, 
 you will admit there is more truth than there is error in this denomi- 
 nation which seeks your support ; one part error, perhaps, and nine- 
 teen parts truth ; and then, if you will not give your money to propar 
 gate error, you should give your money to propagate truth ; and, sure- 
 ly, the nineteen parts have a greater claim upon your support than the 
 
106 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 one part Is repellent. Besides, the man that argues thus, should be 
 quite sure that he is infallible, and that there is no subtle mixture of 
 error in anything of his OAvn ; and few of us, I suppose, claim infalli- 
 bility. • 
 
 Then, again, let us " serve one another," by advocating each oth- 
 er's cause. Of all the sights in our divided, discordant world, there is 
 scarcely any one more gratifying to me, than to see a semicircle of 
 members and ministers of all denominations^ collected round the presi- 
 dential chair of him who acts as the medium of our union and commun- 
 ion at a public meeting. Every missionary platform ought to be a 
 communion-table, where all the followers of Christ shoidd meet in the 
 blessed fellowship and the sweet comfort of love. And what applies to 
 the platform, applies equally to the pulpit. We should be always ready 
 to advocate each other's missions ; and angels must rejoice over every 
 instance of this kind, as repelling the taunt of the infidel, and the scoff 
 of the Papist, who in sarcasm tell us, that our missionary schemes are 
 like many bubbles of enthusiasm, blown by bigots, followed by fools, 
 and that they will explode by the expansive force of their own absurd- 
 ity ; mere schemes of selfishness, to set up our denominations in dif- 
 ferent parts of the world, to the neglect or opposition of others. Foul 
 spirits of darkness, you lie. Our object is not sectarian, but Christian; 
 and all of us have been the happy instruments of converting myriads of 
 men and women " from the error of their ways," and translating them 
 with robes washed white and clean in the blood of the Lamb, to the king- 
 dom of our Father. We know to-night — we feel it, and we exhibit it 
 — " how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together in 
 unity." 
 
 But now, brethren, permit me to advance a few motives for this re- 
 ciprocal exercise of love and service. 
 
 And, in the first place, as a motive to "love" and "serve one 
 another," I mention, that in doing so, we serve one common master. 
 Who is that ? Not Wesley, Whitfield, Calvin, or Luther, but that dear 
 friend of sinners, before whose throne they are casting down their 
 crowns at this moment, and would have us cast down ours. Yes, we 
 go to exhibit the mighty magnet of the cross, and draw men to Christ, 
 that we may make men Christians. Yes, Christian is their surname, 
 whatever baptismal name we give them in addition. We go to carry 
 together — (is it not so ?) — the ark of the covenant into the dark 
 realms of Paganism on the one hand, and of Mahometanism on the 
 other. We go on, bearing the sacred vessel, responsively singing, as 
 we bear it onward, " The world for Christ ! " Angels catch the sound, 
 and respond, " The world for Christ ! " Devils, in despair, groan 
 
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. 107 
 
 forth the echo, " The world for Christ ! " God, in the purpose of his 
 power and of his mercy, seals the decree, and says, " The world for 
 Christ." In serving one another, then, we sei^ve Christ. 
 
 Secondly, in serving one another, we accomplish the same great 
 object. And what is that object ? Not, brethren, to turn men from 
 one set of opinions to another, without turning them to God ; not get- 
 ting them to renounce the ceremonies of one religion to take up the 
 ceremonies of another religion, without worshipping God in the spirit, 
 and serving Christ Jesus, and having " no confidence in the flesh." 
 This would not be worth our pains, nor the money we have been ex- 
 pending. No, brethren, our object is to turn men to God ; and there- 
 fore, whoever serves another serves himself, so far as the accomplish- 
 ment of his object is concerned. 
 
 Again : we employ the same means. What are these ? Education 
 for the children, preaching for the adults, fellowship for the converts. 
 No crucifixes, no rehcs, no trumpery of Popery, no Jesuitical tricks, 
 no Romish ceremonies, no holy water, no baptizing children stealthily, 
 no smuggling in priests under the disguise of carpenters, no ships of 
 war, no steamers bearing cannon, no grape-shot fired upon poor defence- 
 less women and children, no Tahitian bloodshed, perfidy and treachery; 
 we leave these things to Popery, it is worthy of them, and they of it. 
 We carry God's blessed Word. We send the truth by men who un- 
 derstand and feel it — who appeal to the understanding ; to the intel- 
 lect by reasoning, to the heart by persuasion, to the conscience by all 
 the force of those great motives which are evolved in the truth. We 
 go to evangelize, and to bring civilization in its train. Brethren, we 
 do all this ; and therefore these are motives to " serve one another." 
 Our means are alike. We carry not the edicts of monarchs, the de- 
 crees of councils, the traditions of men ; we carry not the institutes of 
 fellow-creatures as the supreme authority ; we go to make the Bible 
 the book of the world even as it was given to the world, we go under 
 the warrant of the command of Jesus Christ to " preach the gospel to 
 every creature," and guide our conduct in all things by the acts of the 
 apostles. And therefore there is no reason for suspecting each other ; 
 none for standing aloof. We may compare our prospects, the most 
 secret as well as the most pubhc, and we shall find that as honest men 
 we can " serve one another," for we are pursuing the same object un- 
 der the same means. 
 
 I have only one thing more ; and that is, we anticipate the same 
 result. Very few of us are wholly taken up with the idea, though in 
 our musings we may dwell upon the subject, that our denomination is 
 to be the religion of the millennium. Perhaps, my brethren, God may 
 
108 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 intend to take us all to pieces, and make none of our religions exactly 
 that of the latter- day glory, but bring out a new and a more perfect 
 system than any of us have yet attained to. But without troubhng 
 ourselves as to what denomination is to prevail in the latter-day glory, 
 it is enough for us to know that there is to be a latter-day glory — 
 that there is to be a millennium, in which Christianity shall cover the 
 earth in its purest and brightest form. And the man who in the fore- 
 sight of the downfall of Popery, Paganism, Mahometanism, Judaism 
 and Infidelity, and the raising up of Christianity upon their ruins, 
 holds his heart in abeyance till he has ascertained, if he can, whether 
 it is his denomination that is to prevail, — who, in imagination listening 
 to the shouts of a renovated world, while heaven and earth are res- 
 ponding to each other, " Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reign- 
 eth 1 " determines not to echo the song till he can ascertain whether it 
 is raised by Methodist, or Episcopahan, or Presbyterian, or Congrega- 
 tional voices, or he who watches " the new heavens and the new earth " 
 emerging out of the moral chaos of our world, refuses to rejoice before 
 he has ascertained whether his party is then to be dominant, may be a 
 sectarian, but he cannot be a Christian. 
 
 Friends of Immanuel, friends of your species, friends of your Bible, 
 in the hope and the prospect of our regenerated, redeemed world, in 
 which, under the peaceful sceptre of Jesus, the earth shall be deliv- 
 ered from slavery, from tyranny, and from war, — when commerce 
 shall be purified from its stupidity, literature from its pride, and phi- 
 losophy from its scepticism ; do not stand calculating or conjecturing 
 who are to do this, and how it is to be accomplished ! Brethren, we 
 are all to do it, and God will honor us all ; and when our world shall 
 be illuminated, and the latter-day glory shall come, and the light of 
 heaven shall spread over the earth, it will, perhaps, be as impossible to 
 say who has done most to accomplish this, as it is to say which of those 
 gas lights has thrown most splendor around us this evening. Here 
 they are — all illuminating the place together. And so will it be with 
 respect to the glory of that period to which our attention is now di- 
 rected ; we shall all be honored of God to do something to bring it on, 
 and shall praise him on that day, not only for what we have done, but 
 for what others have done. And the man that hushes the groans of 
 creation, and spreads over our desolate earth the verdure of moral 
 vegetation, shall have my hand, my heart, my prayer, my adoring 
 praise and gratitude to God, however I may differ from him on the 
 subject of church government, the ordinances of religion, or some of 
 the minor parts of Christianity. In the prospect of the millennium, in 
 which " the knowledge of the Lord is to cover the earth as the waters 
 
CHRISTIANITY A SYSTEM OF LOVE. 109 
 
 cover the cliannel of the sea," I see enough to rejoice In, ■without stay- 
 ing to ask who has done most to accomphsh it, or Avhose opinions will 
 then most widely prevail. 
 
 Mj beloved and honored brethren in the ministry, of every name 
 and denomination that may be present here this evening, bear with me 
 while I give utterance, not indeed to the responses of oracular Ayisdom, 
 or to the counsels of patriarchal authority, but to the effusions of a 
 brother's heart, anxious for your success and for his own. If Christians 
 are to be " the light of the world," we are to be the light of the 
 Church. If the Church is to be " the salt of the earth," we are to be 
 the salt of the Church. Our influence, I say, — although I seem to 
 magnify my office, but not myself — is great, and our responsibihty 
 proportionate. We cannot be negative characters. The pulpit, raised 
 as it is between the law on the one hand and the gospel on the other, 
 is the very centre of the moral universe, and all the world will feel 
 its influence, and feel it through all the ages of eternity. There is a 
 mighty power in this ministerial and pastoral character, more than 
 even in books. Here are the 
 
 " Thoughts that breathe and words that burn." 
 
 The minister in earnest awes by the thunder of his sermon, delights 
 by its music, or kindles by its enthusiasm the souls of those who hear 
 it. There is an addition of all that influence which we carry with us 
 in the private circle, where a single remark may be the means of start- 
 ing an immortal soul on a career of glory, never to end for ev^r and 
 ever ; or may sink that soul down to the bottomless pit. Oh ! let us 
 consider how much the harmony of the Church, the conversion of the 
 world depends upon us ! In one sense, though in a very different one 
 to that which Tractarian theology contends for, we are the channels 
 through which the blessing of God descends to the Church and to the 
 world. Oh ! let us take care how we choke those channels by indo- 
 lence, negligence, or carelessness, and that we keep them open by min- 
 isterial zeal, fidelity and holiness. Immortal souls, for their eternal 
 destinies, hang upon our hands : we, in reference to the world, retard 
 or accelerate the millennial glory. Oh ! let us then, in these eventful 
 days, look up to God, by fasting and prayer, that we be not found 
 wanting at our post ! Considerable stir has been made of late about 
 the rising ministry, but oh ! my venerable fathers in Christ, is it not 
 true that we on whom the snows of winter are descended, who have 
 had so much more time to study the worth of souls, the value of divine 
 truth, the importance of salvation, the terror of damnation, and the 
 life of eternity, are more wanting even than some of our younger 
 
110 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 brethren. Oh ! that God would help us all, younger or older, to con- 
 sider how much the tone and temper of the Church depend upon us — 
 how much we have it in our power to bring Christians closer to each 
 other, or to repel them to a wider distance ! May we all consider, 
 that God will hold us responsible for what we do, for the Church and 
 for the world I Upon us hang the interests of our Master, which will 
 flourish or decay as we appeal to the muids and hearts and consciences 
 of our people. May God lead us to meditate upon these tremendous 
 truths ; for sometimes it does appear to me wonderful, that with Such 
 interests hanging upon us, we can be so light-hearted, or that we can 
 find any rest upon our beds, when such interests are dependent upon 
 us. May the Lord God grant that we may be found faithful — kind- 
 ling the purest and the brightest zeal in the souls of our hearers, and 
 aiding onward, as our duty, our honor, and our privilege is, the tri- 
 umphal car of the Redeemer, who is going forth " conquering and to 
 conquer ! " 
 
 Brethren, what need I say to you on the subject of your missions ? 
 As to their nature, their importance, their extent, and at the same 
 time their claims, you know all this better than I do. God has great- 
 ly honored and blessed you. Without one particle of envy, without a 
 single feeling but that of gratulation and thankfulness, I think of your 
 more than £100,000 a-year, for the support of your missions. I can 
 only stand and wonder and adore. You leave us far behind. We 
 wish that we were up with you, but we do not for a moment regret that 
 you are blessed of God to the extent of your liberality. Go on and 
 prosper. You have missions of which any denomination under the 
 sun might, (I will not say be proud) but for which any one, and every 
 one might be thankful. To whatever part of the vast field I turn my 
 eyes, I see every thing which should be felt by you as a motive and 
 stimulus to greater zeal. Look at the West Indies, where you began ; 
 what wonders has the Lord achieved by you there ! Look at Ceylon ; 
 how many, in that eastern part of the world, have you turned from 
 following dumb idols to serve the living and true God ! Look at your 
 more modern missions of Polynesia ; look at New Zealand ; look at 
 the Fejees ; in all those spots of God's world you see motives for 
 thankfulness and increased zeal. May the Lord bless you in your 
 mission to Africa ; may you be the honored instruments of carrying 
 the gospel of mercy into those regions that " are full of the habitations 
 of cruelty ! " There plant the standard of the cross, amidst those 
 pyramids of human skulls, and other marks of ferocity, which have 
 troubled the feelings and inspired the zeal of your missionaries. Go 
 on, brethren ; you have reached a pitch which might lead any body tc 
 
I 
 
 CHKISTIANITT A SYSTEM OF LOVE. Ill 
 
 suppose that it needs no stimulus, and admits of no increase ; but the 
 Methodist body will repudiate the idea of not looking for any increase. 
 It would be as bold an attempt for any man to fix the ne plus ultra of 
 Methodist zeal as it would be to fix the 7ie plus ultra of scientific re- 
 search and attainment. Halt, is not a word which your leaders are 
 accustomed to give to those who follow them ; to retrogade is not a 
 motion which their followers are accustomed to make. Onward ! is 
 the cry. Your missionaries abroad give the sound, and friends at 
 home echo it here. Brethren, perhaps it will startle you when I say, 
 that you could, if you would, raise another .£100,000 to that which 
 you have raised. Oh ! go forward, that we, peradventure, may have 
 our zeal kindled and warmed by you. 
 
 There are four questions, which in conclusion, I would put to you — 
 may you not do more — can you not do more — ouglit you not to do 
 more — and will you not do more ? 
 
 3Iay you not, when the world is all before you, and Providence 
 your God ; when there is no limit, but that which your means impose 
 upon your efforts ; when doors are opening m every part of the world, 
 and voices from heaven and the earth are saying, " Come and help 
 us ? " Go and help them. You can do more. Where is the man, 
 except he be among the pooi^st in society, who will rise and say, with 
 all his luxuries or comforts that Providence has bestowed upon him, 
 that he can do no more ? Can is a mighty word, and cannot is a 
 fearful one for any man to utter in reference to duty. What you can 
 do, ought you not to do ? Can the word ought be measured by any 
 other limit than the word can ? What you ouglit to do, that ^oill you 
 not do ? ^len are afraid of that word will, as if it belonged only to 
 Omnipotence, and was the fiat of the Creator. Brethren, it is a law- 
 ful word ; we find it in the Scripture ; and let every man say. By 
 God's grace I ivill do what I ought to do. I ougM to do what I can 
 do, and from this hour I will study the meaning, and act under the 
 potency of the questions that have been submitted this night to me. 
 
 Brethren, I have done. I thi'ow this offering upon the altar of your 
 cause, with one regret — and only one — that it is not more worthy 
 of the cause of the people of God I have come kere to-night to advo- 
 cate. 
 
112 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 S E 11 M N IX. 
 
 THE GREAT THEME OP THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 BY J ADEZ BURNS, D. D. 
 '' For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ,and him crucified." 
 
 1 CoRIIfTHIAHS, ii. 3. 
 
 The apostle Paul was eminently a man of one subject, and that sub- 
 ject was Christ ; Christ in his person, work, offices and glory. He 
 made this evident by his preaching, for immediately after the record 
 of his conversion, it is added, " And straightway he preached Christ 
 in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God." — Acts ix. 20. This 
 too was his theme at Antioch, in Inconium, to the jailer and others at 
 Philippi, at Corinth, and in Thessalonica. Before the apostle finished 
 his eloquent oration to the Athenians, he amiounced the doctrine of 
 the resurrection, and the judgment of the world by Christ Jesus. — 
 Acts xvii. 31. In harmony with these statements was the apostle's 
 noble avowal, that if he visited imperial Rome, he would go unto them 
 in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. Not only do 
 we see the apostle's one subject from the topics of his constant preach- 
 ing, but also from the uniform tenor of his epistles. Hence, writing 
 to the church at Colosse, he refers to Christ, in them, the hope of 
 glory, whom, says he, " we preach." To the Philippians he declares 
 that he " accounted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowl- 
 edge of Christ Jesus his Lord." He declared to the brethren in Ga- 
 latia, that he would not glory in any thing, save in the cross of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. So when he wrote his second letter to the Co- 
 rinthians, he observes with peculiar emphasis, " We preach not our- 
 selves, but Christ Jesus the Lord ; and ourselves your servants for 
 Jesus' sake." So in the striking language of the text: "For I de- 
 termined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and 
 him crucified." Probably the idea of the apostle was, that in his 
 search after knowledge, he would devote his chief thoughts and time 
 to know more and more of the Savior, and that as an apostle commis- 
 sioned to preach to a perishing world, he would make the Lord Jesus 
 and his cross the great theme of his ministry. Noble resolution ! — 
 Evangelical averment ! Worthy of him who had been so marvellously 
 converted by the grace of Christ, and who was destined to be one of 
 the chiefest of the apostles. But the resolution of Paul is worthy of 
 every Christian minister. Though this subject was the grand theme 
 of the apostles and early preachers of the gospel, it is still as fresh 
 
GREAT THEME OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 113 
 
 and rich and all-essential as ever. Let us then endeavor to define and 
 illustrate the resolve of the apostle, and then ascertain if it ])e capa- 
 ble of vindication. Let us, 
 
 I. Define and illustrate the resolve of the apostle. 
 
 1. He could not mean absolutely that he tvould not preach on any 
 other subject. For he did preach on the being and majesty of the 
 Godhead, and his infinitely blessed perfections. He did preach on 
 the wonders of creation, and the -wisdom and bounty of divine provi- 
 dence. He did preach on the fall of man ; and on human depravity, 
 and man's utter helplessness and misery. He did preach the moral 
 excellency of the law, and its design, as our school-master, to bring us 
 to Christ. He did preach the doctrines of repentance, and obedient 
 conformity to the will of God. He did preach the graces and virtues 
 of the Chi'istian character, and entire hohness of heart and hfe. He 
 did preach on death and judgment and eternity, on the joys of heaven, 
 and the terrors of the wrath to come. It is clear, also, 
 
 2. That he did not mean to confitie himself only to the great fact 
 of ChnsVs crucifixion. His language is, " Christ, and him crucified." 
 Hence we find that he dwelt largely on the Savior's Godhead and di- 
 vine glory. He insisted on the sinlessness of his humanity. On his 
 resplendent and unparalleled miracles. His teaching. His obedience 
 unto the death. His ascension and perpetual intercession. His regal 
 glory and second coming. But he obviously designed, 
 
 3. To make the crucified Redeemer the grand leading theme of his 
 public ministrations. He would dwell on this principally. That the 
 facts and doctrines of the cross should never hold a subordinate, but 
 the chief place in his discourse. That this should be the Alpha and 
 Omega of his sermons. The great Sun and Centre around which all 
 other truths should revolve. That Christ crucified should be the one 
 foundation on which he would endeavor to build the whole structure 
 of the Christian system. That this should be the essential feature, 
 the very life of that gospel he would publish to the world. Hence he 
 writes unto the Corinthian brethren, towards the conclusion of this 
 epistle, " For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I received, 
 how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scnptures." — 1 
 Cor. XV. 3. The i*esolve in the text evidently implies, 
 
 4. That Christ crucified should be declared as the only hope of the 
 perishing sinner. He would make known this truth at all times and to 
 all men. He made it evident that he pointed the apostate, ruined pin- 
 ner only to the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. 
 He made known no other way of escape from the wrath to come. He de- 
 
114 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 lighted to declare that it was a " faithful saying and worthy of all ac- 
 ceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." That 
 he " had tasted death for every man," and " gave himself a ransom 
 for all, to be testijSed in due time." yes, these were the truths in 
 connection with Christ's crucifixion the apostle rejoiced to proclaim. It 
 was his work and life to point the dying sinner to the cross of Christ. 
 He doubtless intended, 
 
 5. Tltat he would make all other subjects to harmonize ivith this, and 
 to terminate in it. For instance, he showed hoAV both the moral and 
 ceremonial law were inefficient to save the transgressor, and that the 
 cross only could do what neither the one, nor both of them could eflect. 
 He discoursed, too, on Jewish history, that he might explain the mean- 
 ing of the various types and ceremonies of that people, as being elu- 
 cidated and embodied in Christ. That Jesus was the true passover 
 sacrificed for us. That he was the real bread of hfe which came down 
 from heaven. The blessed rock from which gushed forth the waters 
 of life for a perishing world. The apostle also often quoted from the 
 writings of the prophets, but here also he never lost sight of his one grand 
 subject. He made it evident that Christ was the sum and substance 
 of prophecy, that to him bare all the prophets witness. That Christ 
 was the illustrious personage of whom INIoses in the law and the proph- 
 ets had written. See also 1 Peter i. 10 — 12. Thus the apostle made 
 Christ and his cross both the great centre and end of his ministry. 
 But the declaration of the text also included the idea that the apostle 
 would, 
 
 6. liefer to all the momentous aspects and phases of Chris fs cnv- 
 dfixion. In this he would dwell on the death of Christ, — (1) As 
 the work of Jewish unbelief and malevolence, by which as a nation 
 they had filled up the cup of their iniquity. They had often sinned 
 against God by the rejection of his counsels, and the persecution of 
 the prophets. God had sent various of his servants unto them, but 
 they had despised their message and put them to death. At length 
 he said, I will send unto them my Son, for they will reverence him. 
 But when Christ appeared in their midst, they said this is the heir, 
 let us kill him. Hence they rejected his gracious word and despised 
 the annunciations of his love. Though he did such works and ratified 
 his truth by such signs as none other had ever done, yet they despised 
 him, maltreated him, thirsted with bitterest hate and envy for his 
 blood, and at length, with the most atrocious wickedness, they put him 
 to a cruel and ignominious death. And so intent were they on this 
 deed of unheard-of baseness and violence, that they pubUcly preferred 
 the release of Barabbas to Jesus, and even announced to the world 
 
GREAT THEME OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 115 
 
 their cheerful readiness that the blood of Christ should be upon them 
 and upon their children. Peter did not fail with the utmost fideUty to 
 charge them with having, by wicked hands, crucified and slain their 
 own Messiah, the Son of God. — Acts ii. 22, 23. How the impreca- 
 tion they uttered in reference to the blood of Christ has been fulfilled ! 
 How it has rested on their unbelieving posterity to this day ! But 
 the apostle, while he would show that the crucifixion of Christ was an 
 act of unparalleled wickedness, yet he would also dwell on the impor- 
 tant truth that it was, (2) The execution of God's own design in his 
 pm'poses of grace towards our world. Hence Peter, in the passage 
 we have partially quoted, adds, " Him bemg delivered by the determi- 
 nate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken," &c. Hence 
 the apostle often dwelt on the divine intentions in reference to the re- 
 demption of mankind, and on the wisdom and power by which all 
 events were controlled in reference to this consummation. God laid the 
 foundation of his merciful designs before time began to roll, and he 
 overruled the voluntary wickedness of the Jews for their accomplish- 
 ment. He would declare Christ crucified, (3) As an act of unexam- 
 pled love and grace on the part of the Lord Jesus. It was infinite 
 compassion and love which prompted the Savior to undertake the 
 achievement of our redemption. It was this love that constrained him 
 to assume our humanity, and though he was rich, yet caused him for 
 our sakes to become poor. And how poor, what tongue can declare I 
 It was this love that was embodied in his incarnate state, that was ut- 
 tered in all his gracious discourses, exhibited in all his merciful mira- 
 cles, that shone with such pure and gentle radiance in all his actions. 
 It was this that led him to endure scorn and reproach, that made him 
 submissive to keenest sufiering, that caused him to drink the bitter un- 
 mixed cup in Gethsemane, and to be bathed in blood, while prostrated 
 in the garden, the scene of his agony. It was love that led him to 
 suffer the indignities of his base mock trial, and to expire m unutter- 
 able pain and ignominy on the accursed tree. A greater evidence of 
 love he could not display than by laying down his life for us. Hence 
 the cross was the grand climacterical display of the love of Christ to 
 a guilty world. Love, deep, intense, infinite, unsearchable I In Christ 
 crucified was thus proclaimed in unmistakable language the immeasur- 
 able riches of his grace. But the cross too was designed, (4) As an 
 exposition of the benevolence of God. Often have both theologians 
 and poets done dishonor to the Father by teaching that he was ren- 
 dered propitious and merciful through the work of the Son. That he 
 sat upon his throne arrayed in habiliments of flaming wrath. That he 
 was intent on the eternal ruin of the guilty transgressor, but that the 
 
116 I THE EXGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Son, more pitiful and compassionate, interposed, and thus moved God, 
 bj his propitious engagements, to clemency and love. Nothing can 
 give a more false and dishonorable view of the divine character than 
 such representations. Such views are at utter variance with the 
 teachings of Christ himself, and altogether irreconcilable with the 
 scheme of the gospel. Jesus declares that " God so loved the world 
 that he gave his Son ;" hence the gift of Christ was the evidence, the 
 effect of his own original, pure and spontaneous love. Christ did not 
 come to obtain his clemency, but to publish and demonstrate it. He 
 came as the grand, living fact of God's intense love toward us — and 
 greater love even Deity could not evince than in not withholding his 
 own Son, but delivering him up for us all. God had shown his regards 
 towards us in the gifts of nature and in the bounties of Providence, 
 but he never gave so bright and so glorious an evidence of it, as in 
 the crucifixion of his beloved Son. But by declaring Christ and him 
 crucified, the apostle would further dwell, (5) On the extreme evil and 
 malignity of sin, and the spotless hohness of God. God had often de- 
 clared his utter detestation of all sin. In the sentence passed on our 
 first parents, and in their expulsion from paradise. In the evils Avhich 
 immediately flowed from man's transgression. The groaning sterile 
 earth, the diseases of the body, the agonies of death and the triumphs 
 of the grave. He had declared his abhorrence of moral evil in the 
 law given on Sinai, under circumstances of peculiar majesty and gran- 
 deur. A grandeur so awful and overwhelming that even Moses, with 
 holy alarm, exclaimed, "I exceedingly fear and quake;" — but the 
 clearest manifestations of sin's heinousness and extreme turpitude was 
 reserved for the cross, when God's own Son should expire under pecul- 
 iar circumstances of grief and pain and ignominy, as the only sacri- 
 fice by which atonement could be made, and through which alone the 
 sinner could be saved from it. Even hell, with its darkness and wail- 
 ing and horror and endless blackness and despair, offers not so striking 
 a declaration of the infinite evil of sin, as is seen in the crucifixion of 
 the holy and ever-blessed Son of God. God here declared in terms 
 which it is impossible to mistake, that sin was so desperately evil and 
 so entirely contrary to his holy nature, and righteous laws, and equita- 
 ble government, that it could only be effaced by the offering up as the 
 great sacrifice, the Lord of life and Prince of Glory. How appro- 
 priate then that declaration, that we have redemption through his 
 blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. 
 Such then were some of the striking phases under which the apostle 
 would contemplate the crucifixion of Christ, and the truths he would 
 announce in connection with it. No marvel that he should resolve to 
 
GREAT THEME OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 117 
 
 know nothing among men, but the gi'eat, profound and comprehensive 
 subject of Jesus Christ and him crucified. 
 We inquire, then, 
 
 II. If this avowal is capable of vindication. 
 
 This avowal we conceive to have formed the very glory of Paul's 
 apostleship. No higher resolve could he have adopted. No hoher or 
 nobler averment could he have declared. Various are the weighty rea- 
 sons on which a successful vindication of the apostle might be ground- 
 ed. We must be content to notice two or three. The apostle's 
 avowal was worthy of himself and the gospel he preached, — 
 
 1. Because in ifie facts and doctrines of Chnst's crucifixioyi was 
 presented a true system of religion in opposition to the multifarious 
 schemes of earthly philosopjhy. Long before the apostle preached the 
 gospel, philosophers of various countries had published the principles 
 of their diversified systems of ethics and religion. Hence men had 
 not wanted for instruction, such as it was, on the subject of the soul 
 acid its innate longings for happiness. But ancient philosophy was 
 only like the feeble, flickering light of the expiring lamp, and there was 
 no clearness in its revelations nor certainty in its enunciation. One 
 system was in direct opposition to another, and their lying oracles 
 never uttered, but in dark and uncertain sound. The great teachers 
 of these systems were not agreed on one point of any importance in 
 relation to the lofty aspiration and high hopes of immortal beings. 
 They were not agreed even as to the divine existence. " For the 
 world by wisdom knew not God." Some of them taught that there 
 were two gods, one the patron of evil and the other of good. One 
 to be the object of dread, the other of confidence and love. Most of 
 these teachers rather believed in a multitude of gods, and were' given 
 up to the gross superstitions by which they were surrounded. They 
 were not agreed as to the real nature of moral evil. The vices of some 
 were the virtues of others. They could not agree as to the true char- 
 acter of the chief good. Some taught that it consisted in pleasure, 
 one party applying the term to sensual, the other to mental gratifica- 
 tion. Others, that it consisted in obtaining to perfect stoicism and 
 indifference to all pleasure and pain. They had only feeble and un- 
 certain guesses as to the future. They had their misgivings as well as 
 their hopes, in reference to the soul's immortality. And of the res- 
 urrection of the body they had not the smallest possible conception. 
 How true of them, destitute of the light of divine truth, " that they 
 wandered in endless mazes lost." They were hke the perplexed and 
 
118 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 alarmed mariner -without compass or chart, in the midst of the dark and 
 blighting mist. But Paul rejoiced that in connexion "with the cross was 
 a true, clear and blessed system of religion adapted to all the hopes and 
 desires of the immortal mind. Hence, in preaching Christ, he called 
 the attention of men to the Sun of righteousness which had arisen on 
 the world, bringing celestial light and joy to a bewildered race. Here 
 was the true and gi-eat teacher, who had solved all difficult problems, 
 and answered all the important inquiries of the human mind. Here 
 was a new system of ethics and worship, full of holy lustre and moral 
 beauty. Here vice was truly depicted, and virtue distinctly revealed. 
 Here the true God was made known in all the grandeur of his perfec- 
 tions. Here the chief good was positively exhibited. The w^ay of hap- 
 piness written as with a sun-beam, and hfe and immortality brought to 
 light by the gospel. Here the eternal world was unveiled, and the 
 glories of heaven and th,e horrors of hell presented for the contempla- 
 tion of men. In one word, here was a system of pure and certain and 
 harmonious truth, worthy of the acceptance of intellectual and undying 
 beings, and of this system the cross of Christ was the immovable basis, 
 and the grand centre. But the apostle's avowal may be vindicated 
 on the ground, 
 
 2. That in Christ and Mm crucified was contained the lody and re- 
 ality of the Jewish ceremonial. Judaism, in contradistinction to pagan 
 philosophy, was a divine institution, which originated with God, and 
 reflected his truth and glory. But it was evident that it was only lo- 
 cal in its character and of transitory duration. It was but the figure 
 cr type of a better and more enduring dispensation. All its services 
 and sacrifices and rites were shadows of good things to come. It only 
 required candor in the Jew to discern that Christ was the end 
 of the whole ceremonial institution, the body of all their shadows, 
 the object distinctly recognized in all their types. He was the true 
 paschal lamb. The real sacrifice for sins. The one great offering 
 for the people. The teacher and prophet like unto Moses, unto whom 
 the people should hearken. That the tabernacle with its altar, the ho- 
 liest of all with its furniture, the priesthood with its services, all point- 
 ed to Christ, and all terminated their labors in him. Here, then, the 
 apostle preached the very system of saving religion, wliich God had 
 been pre-figuring from the time of Moses, the goodly land of which 
 Canaan itself but feebly typified. And hence the apostle resolved to 
 present this system to the inquiring, anxious Jew ; in all its divinity 
 and adaptation to his moral necessities. Hence exclaims the apostle, 
 " But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and 
 unto the Greeks fooUshness, but unto them which believe, Christ the 
 
GREAT THEME OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 119 
 
 power of God, and Christ the TV'isdom of God." 1 Cor. i. 23, 24. 
 But we vindicate the apostle's avowal, 
 
 3. As Christ crucified was to he the great moral attraction of our 
 perishing species. Jesus himself had declared, " And I, if I be lifted 
 up, will draw all men unto me." These words of the blessed Savior 
 had especial reference to the manner of his death. Hence Paul knew 
 experimentally the influence of the cross in subduing the enmity of the 
 heart, and bringing the conscience into reconcihation with God. Paul 
 knew the power of the cross in destroying the dominion of sin, and in 
 bringing all the deep emotions of the soul into a state of holy and obe- 
 dient love. Besides, the apostle realized in Christ crucified all that 
 man, in his fallen and miserable condition, could possibly need. Did 
 man under a sense of heavy guilt sigh for pardon, he declared that 
 " through this man is preached forgiveness of sins, and by him all 
 that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not 
 be justified by the law of Moses." Acts xiii. 38, 39. Did man feel 
 the misery of his polluted state and desire holiness, he could announce 
 that a fountain had been opened for sin and uncleanness, and that the 
 blood of Christ, God's Son, cleansed from all sin. "Was man tortured 
 with the anguish of a distracted conscience, the apostle would appeal to 
 the same cross, and by it preach peace to them that were near, and 
 to them that were afar off. Were men in circumstances of dread when 
 contemplating death and the grave and eternity, he would show that 
 the light of the cross irradiated the sombre tomb, and opened a bril- 
 liant pathway to eternal glory. Hence, also, he connected the cross 
 of Christ with the gift of etei*nal life to all believers. "What good rea- 
 son had he then to resolve not to know anything among men, save Jesus 
 Christ and him crucified ? But the apostle not only knew the influence 
 of the death of Christ personally, but he also knew that by its inher- 
 ent energy it was to subvert and overthrow the empire of sin, and 
 build up to entire completion the kingdom of grace among men. 
 Hence with holy triumph he exclaimed, " Now thanks be unto God, 
 which always causeth us to triimiph in Christ, and maketh manifest the 
 savor of his knowledge by us in every place." 2 Cor. ii. 14. Paul 
 had confidence that the power of the cross would overthrow Paganism, 
 with all its multifarious, cruel and horrid rites, and Judaism, not-, 
 withstanding the existing prejudices against Christ and his holy gos- 
 pel. Then he knew well that the cross and the universal dominion of 
 Christ over all flesh were essentially connected, and that by the vir- 
 tues of Calvary Jesus should reign from the rising to the setting of the 
 sxva. Hence this view of Christ's mediatorial work and glory had been 
 asserted by the prophet Isaiah, who in connection with predictions of 
 
120 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 the Messiah's sufferings and death, had also prophesied as the final 
 result, that " he should see his seed, prolong his days, and that the 
 pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand. That he should see 
 the travail of his soul and be satisfied." Isa. liii. 10, 11. And with 
 these sentiments harmonized the declaration of the apostle in his letter 
 to the Philippians, — " Who being in the form of God thought it not 
 robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and 
 took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
 men : and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and 
 became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore 
 God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is 
 above every name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
 of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; 
 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
 glory of God the Father." Here, then, we learn on what the hope of 
 our world's renovation rests, and the means for its accomplishment. 
 All, all is to be effected by the power of that gospel whose glorious 
 principles are concentrated in Jesus Christ and him crucified. We 
 have yet to contend with the superstitions and cruel and polluted rites 
 of heathenism, but we trust in the doctrine of Christ crucified for the 
 overthrow of every pagan temple, and the utter extirpation of idolatry 
 from the world. We rely on this for the annihilation of the Mahome- 
 dan imposture, the religion of the beast, and know that the crescent 
 must fall and pass away before the glory and power of the cross. And 
 this doctrine, too, must uproot the superstitions of Romanism, and the 
 mere crucifix and Mary ism shall perish before the mighty influence of 
 the truth as it is in Jesus. And scepticism and profligacy and world- 
 liness, with every form of moral evil, shall be exiled from our world by 
 the effulgent glory and celestial majesty of the gospel of Christ. We 
 despise not the progress of science and philosophy ; we do not under- 
 rate the value of learning, and the spread of literature ; we cannot be 
 indifferent to the various important benevolent institutions of our times, 
 but on none of them can we rest for the world's deliverance from error 
 and guilt. Our only hope clings to the faithful and extended promul- 
 gation of the doctrine of Christ and him crucified. yes, the light 
 and saving influence of Calvary are powerfully working for the restora- 
 tion of our world from debasement, sin and death, to a state of univer- 
 sal dignity, holiness and bliss. 
 
 And now what are the important lessons we derive from this subject ? 
 We see, 
 
 1. What is the very essence and glory of the gospel. It is the great 
 fact of Christ's death as an atoninor sacrifice for the sin of the world. 
 
GREAT THEME OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRT. 121 
 
 It is true tliat he both Uved and died as an illustrious example of holy 
 obedience and resignation to the will of God. That he died to confirm 
 with his dying breath and his flowing blood the great truths which he had 
 taught, and the celestial principles of his kingdom. But it is an essen- 
 tial truth, that he died to redeem us to God. That he suffered the just, 
 for us the unjust, to bring us to the enjoyment of the Divine favor and 
 everlasting life. That he bore in his own body our sins upon the tree. 
 And that now God may, in the exercise of the most rigid equity, be 
 manifested both as the just God and yet the Savior. And now in 
 Christ's name may be preached to every fallen child of man, repentance 
 and remission of sins. Men may now return to God, because he hath 
 redeemed them, and redeemed them not with corruptible things, such 
 as silver and gold, but with the " precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the 
 foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." 
 1 Peter i. 18, 19. The exclusion of this great subject, or giving it 
 an inferior place in the gospel system, is virtually the withholding or 
 enshrouding the brightest and sweetest rays of gospel glory. We 
 learn, 
 
 2. WJiat slioidd still he the chief topic of pulpit ministration. It 
 is " Jesus Christ and him crucified." This should be the constant and 
 not the merely occasional theme. This should be the precious golden 
 thread running through the whole web of our discourses.' It is vitally 
 connected with every doctrine, with every blessing, with every privi- 
 lege, with every duty of Christianity. It is the very heart and spirit 
 of evangelical preaching. For this there is no substitute. When this 
 is wanting, the cardinal principle is wanting. No embellishments of 
 rhetoric, no style of composition, no beauty of thought, no grandeur of 
 idea, no energy of expression, can make up for this. All without this 
 is the chiseled form, and it must be cold and without life. It is the 
 painted representation, but it is nothing after all but canvass and col- 
 oring applied Avith the touch of a human hand, the glory and the divin- 
 ity are wanting. Sermons without this maybe chaste or elegant, they 
 may be startling or eloquent, but evangelical and Christian they are 
 not. No, the resolve of the man who feels the power of the truth on 
 his own heart, and who longs to bring the same power to bear on the 
 hearts of others, must be that of the apostle, " For I am determined 
 not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified." 
 We learn from this, 
 
 3. The probable main cause of the apparent extensive failure as to 
 tJie success of preaching. It is possible for men to retain an honorable 
 character for being evangelical, while Christ and his cross are subordi- 
 
122 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 nate themes in their ministry. And if the gospel only is the power of 
 God unto salvation, and Christ crucified is the very power of that gos- 
 pel, how can such preaching be effective when that theme is not al- 
 ways in the ascendant. Let it not be imagined that it is essential to 
 this that certain phrases must always be in use or a certain monoto- 
 nous mode observed in the discussion of pulpit discourses, but rather that 
 the spirit of the cross should imbue the minister's heart on every oc- 
 casion. This theme alone can bring the love of God, in all its omnipo- 
 tent influence, to bear on the human heart, and we know of nothing 
 else that can soften and renew it. How careful we should be, that as 
 preachers we are not diverted from the doctrine of Jesus Christ and 
 him crucified. Oh, let us preach him always, and with all our hearts, 
 and then we may confidently expect that God will crown our labors 
 with eminent success. Blessed be God, the cross has lost none of its 
 saving virtue. It is still the grand catholicon for all the ills and woes 
 which aifect our common humanity. "We inquire, 
 
 4. What personal interest and acquaintance have you ivith this great 
 subject ? You may hear of Christ crucified and not spiritually under- 
 stand it. Or you may understand it in its doctrinal bearing, and yet 
 be strangers to its saving power. You may often hear of the cross, 
 and yet live at a great moral distance from it. You may even love to 
 listen to evangelical truth, and yet be the slaves of error and unbelief. 
 Even a profession of attachment to the cross may be made, and yet in 
 works you may deny him. Brethren, how is it with you ? Have you 
 so contemplated Jesus Christ and him crucified that you can confident- 
 ly say, " He loved me and hath given himself for me ?" Has Christ 
 been formed in your hearts the hope of glory ? By the cross have 
 you obtained peace and joy in the Holy Ghost ? Here have you found 
 rest to your wearied soul, and a good hope through grace ? Do you 
 revere the cross, glory in it, and by it has the world been crucified to 
 you and you to the world ? Are the sacred interests of the cross yours, 
 and so yours, that you live constantly under their constraining influ- 
 ence ? Are you hving to advance its peaceful and joyous triumphs ? 
 Does it cheer you in sorrow, strengthen you in trouble, is it your hope 
 in death, will yoa trust only and entirely to it when you shall plunge 
 into the swellings of Jordan ? Will your hope and love to the cross 
 bear you up, when the world is on fire — and when the Savior comes 
 in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory ? Brethren, an 
 experimental knowledge of Christ and him crucified is our only blessed- 
 ness in this world, and can be our only song and joy forever. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, let it be our first concern to know really and 
 savingly for ourselves, Jesus Christ and him crucified, and then let it 
 
CmilST CRUCIFIED. 123 
 
 be the great end of our lives to promote to the utmost of our ability the 
 knowledge of that blessed subject among others. For this is life eter- 
 nal, to know the true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Amen. 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST. 
 
 BY J. E. BEAUMONT, M. D. 
 
 " Ye men of Israel, hoar theso words ; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by rair- 
 Bcles, and womlers, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know : Him 
 being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked 
 hands have crucified and slain." — Acts ii. 22, 23. 
 
 If there be joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sin- 
 ner that repenteth, what must be the joy of that minister who on good 
 grounds has reason to conclude, that by the instrumentality of his min- 
 istrations the kingdom of heaven has been opened to a multitude of 
 perishing sinners ? That joy of all joys is the highest, the deepest, 
 the richest, and the strongest. Such was Peter's joy upon the day of 
 Pentecost. 
 
 He who enters on the work of the ministry, enters into tribulation. 
 "When Peter was appointed to the ministry, to the apostleship, he was 
 appointed to martyrdom. He that said to Peter, " Feed my sheep, 
 feed my lambs," said also unto him, " When thou wast young, thou 
 girdcst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest ; but when thou 
 shalt be old, thoa shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird 
 thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." Peter's ministra- 
 tion Avas a scene of glory, but it was a scene of tribulation ; it was 
 contested all along its course with the fiercest and the most virulent 
 opposition ; but God gave him to taste at its outset the sweetest joy 
 that a minister can taste, and so prepared him for the bitternesses that 
 were to come. 
 
 The first sermon, the very first sermon, that Peter preached, was 
 with the Holy Ghost and with power. My text is a part of it. You 
 know the simphcity of his manner, the order and power of his argu- 
 ment, the force and majesty of his eloquence, — and oh, how success- 
 ful was that first sermon ! Peter brought home to his hearers the 
 guilt which they had contracted ; he set before them Jesus Christ cru- 
 
124 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 cified hy them — ah ! anci/c»- them as well as by them ; and that ser- 
 mon at once captiv^ated three thousand hearts — three thousand were 
 pricked to the heart, believed, and were added unto the Lord. Our 
 God is in the heavens, and still our Jesus reigns. We that preach in 
 tliis day, are sometimes tempted to inquire, " Who hath believed our 
 report ? and to whom is the arm of ^he Lord revealed ? " but our God 
 is in the heavens, and still our Jesus reigns, and " with him is the res- 
 idue of the Spirit." May he pour it out on this congregation ! May 
 the arm of the Lord our God be made bare amongst us to-night ! I 
 bring you no new gospel ; I rejoice that I preach to those, mainly so 
 at least, this evening, who have been accustomed to the burden of my 
 ministry, and who know that I have nothing else to preach but Jesus 
 Christ, and him crucified. " Hear these words, then, ye men of Isra- 
 el," and be thankful that ye have to hear them, not in hell, but on 
 earth where the gospel is preached. " Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap- 
 proved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs," said 
 Peter unto the people to whom he preached, " which God did by him 
 in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know : him being delivered 
 by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, 
 and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." 
 
 Now, there are four inquiries to which I shall endeavor to direct 
 your attention from these words. First, Who was delivered ? " Jesus 
 of Nazareth, a man approved of God." Secondly, To what was he 
 delivered ? Crucifixion ; " Ye crucified him." Thirdly, By whom 
 was he thus delivered ? "By the determinate counsel and foreknowl- 
 edge of God, and by your wicked hands and hearts." Fourthly and 
 lastly, The design on account of, and the end for which, Jesus of 
 Nazareth was delivered : " for us men, and for our salvation." May 
 God the Holy Spirit assist me to preach, and you to hear ! 
 
 I. Who was delivered ? Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth had at once a name of ignominy and a name of 
 renown ; a name of scandal and a name of glory. Jesus of Nazareth, 
 or as it is in the original, Jesus the Nazarene — called a Nazarene in 
 Scripture because he was devoted unto God — called a Nazarene by 
 the Jews because he was brought up at Nazareth ; and they availed 
 themselves of that fact in his earliest history, to fasten upon him what 
 they thought would be an indelible stigma. " Jesus of Nazareth." 
 Jesus is a name of gloi-y. It was, indeed, a human name, a common 
 name : it was borne by many, as we read in history, before it was ap- 
 •'plied to him who was born of a virgin ; but when it was once put on 
 him who was born of the virgin in Bethlehem, it never was put on 
 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED. ' 125 
 
 any other. You do not hesitate to call your children by the names of 
 the apostles, always excepting the name of Judas — for -what father 
 could bear to have a son called by the name of Judas ? The name 
 that had been an honorable name, was by the fact of the conduct of 
 him that betrayed the Son of man Avith a kiss, blighted, blasted, and 
 withered away. But the name of Jesus, which had been a human 
 name, a common name, before it was put upon him born of a virgin, 
 when once it was put upon him became a divine name, a superhuman 
 name, and no father dares to call his sou Jesus, because God has 
 called his Son Jesus. 
 
 " This is the name to sinners dear, 
 This is the name to sinners given." 
 
 This is a name above every name, Jesus of Nazareth ; he saves us by 
 the power of his cross, by the glory of his throne. 
 
 We observe, that the particular feature of his character here de- 
 veloped in the text, is, the power of working miracles. " Jesus of 
 Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and won- 
 ders, and signs.'^ Now these three words, " miracles, wondera, and 
 signs," are synonymous, the import of them is the same, substantially 
 the same. He wrought mhacles. What is a miracle? A miracle 
 has been defined — " a suspension of the power of the laws of nature; 
 a suspension or counteraction of the laws of nature." And what are 
 the laws of nature ? The laws of nature are the association and agen- 
 cies of God, by which he employs certain causes to the production of 
 certain effects, and not others — a certain association between definite 
 causes and definite effects — what our philosophers call " the laws of 
 nature ; " what the Bible calls " the ordinances of heaven." What 
 philosophers signify by the terms, the essential, the inflexible, eternal 
 laws of nature, is nothing at all but the will of God acting in a defi- 
 nite way ; and these laws of nature, these ordinances of heaven, this 
 fixed association between cause and effect — Jesus of Nazareth broke 
 in upon them, disturbed them when he pleased, set them aside as often 
 as he listed. He showed that he was the Author of nature, and that 
 all these laws which philosophers call the laws of nature, were of his 
 own making, his own ordination ; and, therefore, as he produced the 
 effects without their appropriate causes, as he produced results apart 
 from the usual associated causes, therefore he was the God of nature ; 
 and, by his power of working miracles, proved that he was God over 
 all. His miracles are called wonders, because they filled the specta- 
 tors with wonder ; and they are called signs, because they were in- 
 dexes of the properties, and prerogatives, and character of him that 
 wrought them. 
 
126 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 " Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by mirar 
 cles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of 
 you, as ye yourselves also Jcnow.^^ Yes, he might very well say that 
 he was preaching to a people who had seen Jesus raise the dead — 
 who had seen him walk upon the lake of Gennesareth — who had seen 
 him multiply a handful of bread, so that thousands were fed — they 
 had seen him give sight to a man born blind. How did he effect it ? 
 "Why, he spat upon the ground, made clay with the spittle, and an- 
 ointed the eyes of the man born blind ! Was that hkely to make a 
 blmd man see ? Was that the way to open the eyes of a man bom 
 blind, to besmear the eye-balls over in that way ? Why did our Sa- 
 vior do it in that manner ? It was done to teach those who witnessed 
 the miracle, that the thing itself did not follow from the physical means 
 employed ; for there was no connection whatever between besmearing 
 the blind man's eyes over in that way and his reception of sight. It 
 was to show that the thing wrought was solely the effect of him that 
 wrought it, and not in any wise connected with the physicial means 
 employed at the time of the production. The miracle excited their 
 attention, as well it might. It was examined ; it was tested ; the 
 scribes, and pharisees, and priests, tossed it from crucible to crucible ; 
 they endeavored to find some flaw in it ; but after all their long at- 
 tempts to detect some fallacy, in effect they said, " We will give it 
 up ; we cannot deny it ; it is unquestionable that a notable miracle 
 has been wrought by the man." 
 
 His power of working miracles was farther displayed in the resur- 
 rection of the dead — as we have already noticed. He raised the 
 son of the wdow at Nain, he raised the daughter of Jairus, he raised 
 Lazarus. Had he only raised up the daughter of Jairus, our infidels 
 would have said, it was not a resurrection^ it was merely a case of 
 suspended animation. Well, but, besides that, he raised the son of 
 the widow of Nain, who had been dead some days. And that is not 
 all : he raised Lazarus, who was dead and buried, and not only dead 
 and buried, but the process of putrefaction had commenced on the sol- 
 ids and fluids of the body. In that hot country putrefaction took 
 place in three days ; and, as I stated when I preached to you last, 
 one proof of the truth of Scripture is the resurrection of Christ. It 
 was prophesied of Christ, that God should not leave his soul in hell, 
 and Christ was not more than three days in the grave, because if he 
 had been he would have seen corruption. But Lazarus was more than 
 three days in the grave ; for, when he opened up the wondrous scene 
 about to be exhibited, the sister of Lazarus said, " Lord, by this time 
 he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days." But what was that to 
 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 127 
 
 tHe Son of God ? He came to the mouth of the grave and said : 
 " Lazarus, come forth ; " and Lazarus started into hfe. It was Jesus 
 of Nazareth that spake the word, and he was mighty in signs and in 
 deeds. 
 
 Sec his power in feeding the hungry out of a single handful of 
 bread, which he multiphed ; see him walking on the waters as if a 
 pavement of adamant were under his feet ; these are some of the mir- 
 acles, and signs, and wonders, done by Jesus of Nazareth, in the midst 
 of the people ; and these attested his own character as the Messiah. 
 The prophecies that went before him intimated that he should perform 
 miracles ; and, performing such miracles, they also attested his own 
 character, his infinite beneficence and benevolence. I pass on to 
 notice, 
 
 11. To WHAT THIS JeSTJS OF NaZARETH, A MAN APPROVED OF 
 
 God, by these miracles, and signs, and wonders, was deliv- 
 ered ; for the apostle says, " Him being delivered." 
 
 Here we may ask, why is it that Peter, who is in general so bold 
 and perspicuous, does not mention to what circumstances, or to what 
 condition, Jesus of Nazareth was delivered ? But we shall find an 
 answer to this by a reference to the idiom of Peter's mother tongue. 
 Peter was a Jew, and spoke the Hebrew language ; and, according to 
 the idiom of that language, the words rendered to be delivered, mean 
 to be delivered to death, to be delivered up for God, to be delivered 
 to martyrdom. It was a common proverb among the Jews, that such 
 an one was delivered — that is, delivered to death, delivered to mar- 
 tyrdom for the truth. Jesus of Nazareth was delivered to death, to a 
 death the most extraordinary in its nature, and the most dolorous in 
 its circumstances, if you consider the place where he died, the persons 
 amongst whom he died, or the death itself which he endured. 
 
 Consider the place where he died. We all hope to die in our own 
 homes, in our own beds ; the people of God generally are allowed to 
 die thus. But where did your Lord and Master die ? One of the 
 historians says, with inimitable and overwhelming emphasis, "They 
 led him away to Calvary, and there they crucified him." A place pu- 
 trid with blood and bones — a place, the atmosphere of which was 
 impregnated with a blasphemous breath. Consider, too, among ivhom 
 Tie died. He was crucified between two thieves, two malefactors ; he 
 had the middle place assigned him, as though he was worse than either 
 of them. And, as to the death itself ivhich he endured, you know 
 what it was. Crucifixion was the most lingering and painful mode of 
 death, and it was the most infamous one ; and m the estimation of the 
 
128 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Jews, it was an accursed death, for, according to their own law, " Cur- 
 sed is he that hangeth on a tree." There see the head that was 
 filled with treasures of knowledge sinking lifeless upon his bosom ; see 
 those hands that mixed the ointment for the eyes of the blind, that 
 multiplied the loaves for the starving people, that were stretched out 
 upon the sick and dying, to recover and to serve them; see those 
 hands stretched on the accursed tree ; see those feet that were be- 
 dewed with the tears, and anointed with the ointment of Mary, and 
 that carried him about on his journies of piety and charity, pierced 
 with rugged iron ; and the heart that throbbed with love for the human 
 race, and glowed with zeal for the honor of his Father, pierced with 
 the cruel spear. " Behold, all ye that pass by, and see if ever was 
 sorrow like unto his sorrow in the day that the Lord afflicted him in 
 the fierceness of his anger." What part of his flesh was exempt from 
 sufiering ? He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. What part 
 of his body was exempt from anguish ? Was it his hands and his 
 feet ? — they were pierced with nails. Was it his temples ? — they 
 were punctured with thorns. Was it his back ? — that was lacerated 
 with scourges. Was it his side ? — that was broken by "the hostile 
 spear. Was it his bones ? — they were all as it were out of joint. 
 Was it his muscles ? — they were stretched upon the gibbet. Was it 
 his veins ? — they were deprived of their purple fluid. Was it his 
 nerves, those canals of feeling, those rivers of sensation ? — they 
 were wrung with anguish. He bore our sins in his own body on the 
 tree. And all this, the affliction of his body, was as nothing compared 
 with the sorrows of his soul. " My soul," said he, when he was de- 
 livered up, " is exceeding sorrowful." " Now am I sorrowful," said 
 he, as if he never knew what sorrow was before. Though he had been 
 a man of sorrows, and a child of grief, and began when he was the 
 babe of Bethlehem to know the sorrows, though dear to him on our 
 account, yet, when he came to be delivered up, he said, " Now, now 
 is my soul exceeding sorrowful." The weight of mental anguish may 
 be alleviated by two sources ; it may be alleviated by the afiectionate 
 sympathy of relatives and friends, or alleviated by the consolations of 
 God our heavenly Father. 
 
 The weight of mental anguish, I say, may be alleviated by the sym- 
 pathies of affectionate friends. When you die, I dare say, your 
 friends will be with you, and they will shake the pillow under your 
 head, and they will wipe away the cold, clammy sweat as it forms on 
 your marble brow, and they will quote the precious promises, and will 
 pour out the fervent prayer, and they will soothe your anguish, and 
 render you a thousand nameless offices of tenderness and affection. 
 
CHKIST CRUCIFIED. 129 
 
 But how was it with your Savior ? When he died, his disciples for- 
 sook him and fled ; he was surrounded by grim guards — by hostile 
 bands. 
 
 ' The weight of our mental anguish is often alleviated, too, hy the 
 ministry of holy angels. We see not their lovely forms, we hear not 
 the melody of their voices ; but they are with us in the hour of our 
 deepest sorrow, and they perform offices of affectionate kindness to us 
 in the moment of our dissolution. They are ministering spirits sent 
 forth to minister unto them who are heirs of salvation ; and perhaps 
 the most important part of their ministration is rendered to us just 
 when life is quivering on the lip, and the immortal spirit is on the con- 
 fines of eternity. Our Savior had himself, during his life, been min- 
 istered to by angels ; but, when delivered up to death, the angels af- 
 forded hun no sympathy. thou blessed seraph — thou that didst 
 fly to him when in the wilderness of temptation ; thou that didst ap- 
 pear to sti'engthen him when in the garden of Gethsemane — where 
 wert thou when he was upon the cross of Calvary ? He drank the 
 wine-press of his Father's fury alone ; with him was none ; neither 
 man nor angel could sympathize with him in his suffering. 
 
 The weight of mental anguish may be alleviated by the consolations 
 of our heavenly Father. But Jesus of Nazareth, when delivered up 
 to death, was without these consolations also. The Father that had 
 honored his birth by a new star — the Father that had honored his 
 baptism by the sound of a more than mortal voice from the excellent 
 glory — the Father that had honored him when he performed the mir- 
 acles to which I have alluded — the Father, the God of all consola- 
 tion, the everlasting Father, the God of love — forsook him upon the 
 cross. " My God (we hear no complaint from him until this, and then 
 Christ said,) My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " And, 
 at the sound of his voice, and the bowing of his head, nature affright- 
 ed threw herself into convulsions, the sun hid his face, the rocks rent, 
 the graves opened, the dead came forth. Jesus of Nazareth was de- 
 livered up to death, a death the most extraordinary in its nature, and 
 the most dolorous in its circumstances. 
 
 m, I inquire, by whom he was delivered up to this death ? 
 And the text leads our attention to two classes of agents that were 
 concerned in this act, the one human — the other divine; the one 
 guilty, the other holy ; the one visible, the other invisible. 
 
 I notice, first, the humayi agents. " Ye men of Israel," said the apos- 
 tle, " hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God 
 among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by 
 9 
 
130 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know ; him being deliv- 
 ered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have 
 taken, and by -wicked hands have crucified and slain." Yes, it was 
 the Jews that did it ; their high priest had said it was expedient for 
 Christ to die ; it was their Pontius Pilate that condemned him ; it was 
 their Judas that betrayed him ; it was their Herod that mocked him ; 
 it was their priests that plotted it ; it was their scribes and pharisees 
 that hailed it ; it was their populace that shouted for it. But let not 
 the Jews imagine that their guilt is at all diminished by the fact of 
 the death of Christ being " according to the determinate counsel and 
 foreknowledge of God:" "him being delivered by the determinate 
 counsel and foreknowledge of God." Their actions were not at all 
 influenced by the determinate counsel of Jehovah ; the apostle tells 
 them they were not : ^e says, " Ye have done it ; him ye have taken, 
 and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Oh, ye detestable, 
 ye infuriated people ; what could move you to tear, and mar, and 
 taunt, and crucify, and revile, and slay the Lord of life and glory ? 
 He healed your sick, cleansed your lepers, gave sight to the blind, 
 expelled demons from the possessed, he raised your dead — for which 
 of these things do ye crucify him ? Jerusalem, he ennobled you by 
 his birth, he distinguished you by his miracles, he enlightened you by 
 his doctrines, he cherished thee with such affectionate regard that his 
 eyes became fountains of tears. Here is an appeal by the mouth of 
 the divine Father, " Oh, my people, testify to me what have I done to 
 thee ? wherein have I wearied thee ? I brought thee from the house 
 of bondage with my great might ; I made a way through the Red Sea, 
 dried it up for the soles of thy feet ; I cast out thy enemies before 
 thee ; I gave thee manna from the clouds ; I conducted thee by a pil- 
 lar of fire and cloud ; I brought thee triumphantly forth into the land 
 of Canaan ; I gave thee houses to live in which thou buildedst not, and 
 wells to drink of which thou diggedst not, and fields which thou sowedst 
 not ; I gave to thee David and Solomon for kings ; I raised up judges 
 among you ; I gave you Moses for a prophet, and Aaron for a priest, 
 and Miriam for a prophetess — these things have I done. Why do 
 ye crucify me — which of all these things forms the matter of my ac- 
 cusation ? " Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, 
 and stonest them which are sent unto thee, mayest thou not have been 
 satisfied with having shed the blood of all the righteous men that have 
 ever been slain, from the death of Zacharias between the porch and 
 the altar, without imbruing thy murderous hands in the blood of the 
 Lord of life and glory ? Oh, ye murderous, infuriated Jerusalem, ye 
 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 131 
 
 have taken Jesus of Nazareth, and him by wicked hands have ye cru- 
 cified and slain ! 
 
 But there is another agency in this transaction : a G-od appears in 
 this amazing scene. Lift up the eyes of your mind to the throne of 
 the heavens, to the Majesty on high, and see God dehvering up his 
 own Son to this accursed death. " Him being delivered by the de- 
 terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken." They 
 could have had no power at all against the Son of man except it had 
 been given to them from above ; they could not any of them — neither 
 Herod, nor Judas, nor Pontius Pilate, nor the priests — none of them 
 could have had any power at all, if it had not been fnom God, if it 
 had not been with the concurrence of the Lord, Jehovah himself ; 
 " him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge 
 of God." 
 
 The death of Christ was not casual, it was not accidental, it was 
 according to the certain counsels entered into between the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost, m the abyss of a past eternity ; when as yet 
 there was darkness, when as yet there were no creatures to be redeem- 
 ed ; Avhen as yet time had not begun to reign. In these councils that 
 were held between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it was agreed 
 that one of the persons of the Trinity should become incarnate fur 
 lost human nature ; that one should die for our guilty world. Accord- 
 ing to these counsels, to the contract formed and entered into, Jesus 
 of Nazareth was delivered up unto death. See Jehovah deliberating 
 whether his own Son or man he should spare. To what will you com- 
 pare this, and whereunto will you liken it ? I know nothing that this 
 transaction on the part of Jehovah can be compared unto. I know 
 that Abraham's ofiering up Isaac is appealed to as something like it ; 
 but for my part, I can hardly find a shadow of resemblance between 
 the one transaction and the other. Abraham had his son a gift from 
 God, God had his Son by ineffable generation ; Abraham owed every 
 thing he had to God, God owed us nothing ; Abraham could not have 
 kept Isaac back from God, but not all heaven, or earth, or hell, could 
 have ravished God's eternal Son from his Father's bosom. Abraham, 
 in offering up Isaac, performed an act of obedience as well as of high 
 and generous affection, but God owed nothing to us. Whereunto, 
 then, will ye liken these doings of the Lord God, and to what will 
 you Compare them ? See Jehovah, in his ancient council, deliberating 
 with his Son about the future redemption of a future world, and de- 
 liberating whether his own Son or man he should spare — his own Sou, 
 innocent and holy; man, polluted and gviilty — his own Son, the 
 brightness of his own glory ; man, the image of the devil — his own 
 
132 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Son, the express image of the Father's person, beloved of all heaven; 
 man, an atom of dust, a child of earth, an heir of hell, covered over 
 with the smoke of the bottomless pit, besmeared all over -with the lep- 
 rosy of abominable crimes. See Jehovah deliberating -whether his 
 OTVTi Son or man he should spare. How wondrous is it ! How amaz- 
 ing that such deliberations should be followed by such results ! Hear 
 the declaration of the apostle on the subject ; hear the oracles of God 
 telling us the result of the whole deliberation : " He spared not his 
 own Son, but freely gave him up for us all." Oh, amazing act of 
 generosity, of noble interference, of high, unutterable love ; in fact we 
 have no language at all to express it ; the mind of an angel, as well 
 as the mind of man, is overwhelmed and confounded ; we must all sit 
 down together in the attitude of little children ; we can only proclaim, 
 " 0, the depths, the heights of the knowledge of God, they — they 
 are past finding out ! " " him being delivered by the determinate 
 counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked 
 hands crucified and slain." Although we have no line wherewith we 
 can fathom this mystery, wherewith we can reach the depths, — no 
 means of ascertaining the height, and breadth, and length of this 
 profound mystery, we find no difficulty to see the design of it. This 
 is the 
 
 IV. and last point, The design on account of, and the end 
 FOR "WHICH, Jesus of Nazareth was delivered up to this death 
 — A death so extraordinary in its nature, and so dolorous 
 IN its circumstances. 
 
 He was delivered up for what? for whom ? Not for his own ini- 
 quity, for he had none : not for himself, for he was no transgressor. 
 He was conceived and bom in all the beauties of holiness ; from the 
 manger to the cross, he was h61y, harmless, undefiled, and separate 
 from sinners. He could challenge the bitterest of his enemies and 
 say — " "Which of you convinces me of sin ? " And the very cir- 
 cumstances attendant on his death, illustrated and proclaimed the 
 fact of the innocency of his life. Pontius Pilate, the judge that pre- 
 sided, called for water and said, " I will have nothing to do with this 
 innocent man: I am clear." The wife of the judge had a dream 
 about the matter, and so did the dream lie upon her spirit, that, unus- 
 ual as it was to send any message to a judge on the bench, she sent 
 to him on the bench, and said, " Have thou nothing to do with the blood 
 of this just man." Judas, the traitor that had betrayed him, that 
 had bartered him away for thirty pieces of silver, ran in among the 
 chief priests in a frenzy, flung down the money, and said, " I have 
 
CHRIST CRUCIFIED. ' 133 
 
 sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood." The thief upon the 
 cross said, " This man hath done nothing amiss." The centurion, 
 with his hundred of soldiers, planted around the cross to see the cer- 
 tainty of the fulfilment of the sentence, said^rs^, to the honor of his 
 humanity, " This was a righteous man ! " and then exclaimed, to the 
 honor of his divinity, " Truly, this righteous man was the Son of 
 God ! " And thus wisdom is justified, not only of her children, but 
 by her enemies also. The very things that were intended to tarnish 
 his innocence, were the means of eliciting and establishing it ; and 
 that not before half of the people, but when all the people were gath- 
 ered together from Dan to Beersheba. So true is it that he was de- 
 livered not for his own iniquity, for he never had any. 
 
 Now, we are only acquainted with the iniquity of angels and men 
 — with the iniquity of fallen angels, and the iniquity of our own spe- 
 cies — and the question is narrowed to this : If Jesus were not deliv- 
 ered for his own iniquity — having none at all — it comes to this : he 
 was delivered for the iniquity either of angels that sinned, or for our 
 iniquity. Now, then, for which of the two was it ? Was it for the 
 iniquity of the angels ? He passed by the angels ; he took not hold 
 of their nature ; he never was found in fashion as an angel. Oh ! I 
 love the angels, and I will tell you why I love them ; among a thou- 
 sand other reasons, I love them for this — that they do not envy man 
 the grandeur and glory of his being redeemed by the Son of God, 
 while that part of their own species that are sunk into rebellion, gone 
 away from God, was not taken hold of by the purposes of Jehovah, 
 and not taken hold of by the Son of God. When Jesus of Nazareth 
 was born, the angels sung. What did they sing ? What did they 
 shout over the plain of Bethlehem ? " Glory to God in the highest " 
 — and in hell peace ? No ; and because they could not sing in hell 
 peace, did they refuse to sing on earth peace ? They could not say, 
 and they did not say, " Good will to devils," to our lost brethren ; 
 but could say, and they did say, " Good will to man." Jesus of Naz- 
 areth was " delivered for our offences, and was raised for our justifi- 
 cation." He took hold of our nature : " The chastisement of our 
 peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Jesus 
 Christ, the just, delivered himself up for us, the unjust, that he might 
 bring us to God. He saw human nature sinking, falling, plunging 
 into ruin, total and eternal ruin, and he felt for us. Why he felt for 
 us, rather than for angels that sinned, do not ask me ; I know nothing 
 about it — I can tell you nothing about the matter. It is enough for 
 me to know, that he loves me, and loves you, and that he loves all 
 our apostate race. It is the grandeur of the gospel, it is our gospel, 
 
134 ' THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 that Jesus of Nazai'eth loved the human race. In spite of its sinking 
 he came after it, and caught it, and snatched, and hfted it out of the 
 ruin that ^vas enclosing it in, and gave it back to God. " He died the 
 just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." 
 
 " Well, then, here comes in the old, withered, good-for-nothing ob- 
 jection of the Socinians, -who are fain to tell us that this is a very 
 strange procedure — this is a most unaccountable thing to say, that 
 Jesus, the innocent and holy, should suffer for the guilty and unholy. 
 They tell us it is an unjust thing that the innocent should suffer and 
 atone for the guilty ; but then I ask them, why did he suffer, for what 
 did he suffer, if it was not to atone for the guilty ? There was some 
 end to be answered by the suffering of the cross. AYhen a holy being 
 so distinguished endured such suffering, there must have been some 
 end in view. Why, then, I ask, did he suffer ? 0, they sky, he suf- 
 fered to give us an example of suffering, to give us an example of mag- 
 nanimity, to give us a model of patience under suffering. And they 
 talk about justice ; they bring an accusation of forming a monstrous 
 doctrine, when I say Jesus Christ died to atone for a guilty world, — 
 and they say he died for a reason not a millionth part so good ! If 
 there is injustice in his dying to save a world from the curse of God, 
 there is a million times more monstrous injustice in his dying merely 
 to teach us how to suffer. He died by his own consent. He was de 
 livered up, the text indeed says, by the determinate counsel of God, 
 and by the wicked hands or hearts of the Jews, and he was delivered 
 up as much by his own will, by his own consent, as he was either by 
 the determinate counsel of the Father, or the wicked hands and hearts 
 of the Jews. what a lovely victim is Christ, not unwillingly drag- 
 ged to the altar, not unwillingly pressed upon the altar : oh no ! What 
 bound him to the cross ? Was it the nails ? If he had never been 
 fastened by any thing but nails, he had never been fastened at all. It 
 was love that bound Ijim to the cross ; it was love that carried him to 
 the cross ; it was love to us that led him to go to the high altar ; and 
 it was love to us that fastened him to that altar. 
 
 Oh, for this love of Christ — this love of God ! There it is ; I am 
 fast ; you must ask me no more. If you ask me why Jesus died for 
 you, I can only say because he loved you. If you ask me why he 
 loved you rather than angels, I can give no answer at all ; I am lost in 
 an ocean of love — I can go no lower — I do not want to go higher or 
 deeper ; — it is love. 
 
 " Oh, for this lore let rocks and hills 
 Their Instin;,' silence break : 
 Anil all harmonious human tongues 
 The Savior's praises apeak." 
 
CKRI6T CRUCIFIED. 135 
 
 I am anxious, before I close the subject, to have the matter brought 
 home to jour consciences, and to know how you stand affected to this 
 great subject, to know whether or not you have believed on this cruci- 
 fied Savior to the salvation of your souls. It is not enough to hear of 
 this Savior, and of this salvation ; it is not enough to hear of this cru- 
 cifixion, and the love that prompted it ; there must be a personal ap- 
 propriation of the benefit of the death of Christ, and the blood that 
 was poured out on mount Calvary — the blood that was shed there 
 must be poured out on our hearts — must be applied here — the blood 
 that was shed eighteen hundred years ago must be sprinkled on our 
 hearts now, to-night, this hour, this moment. " His blood be on you 
 and your children," may it be sprinkled on all, to wash away your sins, 
 to justify your persons, to sanctify your natures. Oh, if the blood of 
 the Lamb shall be found upon you at your dying day, at the day of 
 judgment, happy are ye ; " happy the people that is in such a case." 
 You remember reading of the case of the children of Israel, of the 
 sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb upon the door-posts of the 
 houses in Egypt. Why was that blood sprinkled on the door-posts ? 
 You say it was to distinguish the houses of the Israelites from the 
 houses of the Egyptians. What, could not the omniscience of Jeho- 
 vah distinguish between the houses of Israel and the houses of Egypt 
 without a visible mark being upon the doors of the one to identify it ? 
 As I take it, the true, the grand reason, why the blood of the paschal 
 lamb was sprmkled upon the door-posts of the houses of Israel, was to 
 teach you, and your children, and your children's children to the latest 
 generation of those that shall accompany you to the throne of God, 
 that the atonement of Christ must be apphed by faith, that the blood 
 shed must be sprinkled. It was not enough that the passover was 
 killed, that the blood of the lamb was poured out, but it must be ap- 
 plied — as the blood was sprinkled on the door-posts, so the blood of 
 the atoning Lamb must be applied to us by faith. 
 
 For my part, I see no reason why the apphcation should not take 
 place this instant. I feel assured that, as to many, it has taken place 
 already; but I fear as to some, I fear as to several, the application 
 has not yet taken place ; and if you die before it occurs, it had been 
 better for you never to have been bom. And why do you not look 
 for the application to be made just now ? You very likely will admit 
 with the preacher, that the application must take place some time or 
 other, some how or other, before you die ; but then you have a strange 
 way of settling the matter. At present you think some how or other, 
 in some undefinable and mysterious manner, the thing is to take place ; 
 I tell you it is to take place by the application of the truth of the gos- 
 
186 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 pel, and I know of no time and no occasion so likelj for the application 
 to take place as wlien you are hearing the gospel in which the truth is 
 revealed ; as when you are in the house of God, and on the day of 
 God. You are at the pool-side, but I want you to get into the pool. 
 It was quite mournful, it was quite melancholy, to hear the story of 
 the man lying at the pool all those years. You are here, get into the 
 pool. You must not be at it, merely, but must step in. May the an- 
 gel trouble the waters, that you may wash and be well ! May you be- 
 lieve and be saved, believe and live, and live for ever. Amen. 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 THE SONG OF ANGELS. 
 BY REV. EDWARD PARSONS, JR. 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men." — Luke ii. 14. 
 
 Nothing was ever, humanly speaking, more unlikely, than that the 
 cause of the despised and persecuted Nazarene should have survived 
 its universaUy-furious opposition, or escaped its apparently inevitable 
 disgrace. For, in the external character of Jesus, there were no glo- 
 ries that were calculated to arrest the attention, or to secure the ap- 
 plause of a wicked and a corrupted world. If you refer to his birth, 
 be was born in a manger. If you refer to his circumstances, he was 
 *' a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." If you refer to his 
 state, he was so poor, that, though " the foxes had their holes and the 
 birds of the air their nests, he had not where to lay his head." If you 
 refer to his mission, he came to commence no earthly dynasty and to 
 establish no earthly throne ; for he came " to seek and to save that 
 which was lost." If you refer to his name, he assumed no name re- 
 nowned in the schools of philosophy, or in the annals of war ; for his 
 name was called Jesus, because " he should save his people from their 
 sins." If you refer to his authority, " his kingdom was not of this 
 world." If you refer to his followers, they were twelve poor, ilhterate, 
 and uneducated fishermen. If you refer to his appearance, " his vis- 
 age was marred more than any man's, and his form more than the 
 sons of men." If you refer to his death, he died upon the summit of 
 Calvary. He had glories ; but they were invisible by mortal vision. 
 
SONG OP THE ANGELS. 137 
 
 He gained victories ; but thej -were solely the conquests of truth over 
 error. His robe was the mockery of royalty; his sceptre was a reed ; 
 his throne was his cross ; and his diadem neither ghttered with jewels, 
 nor blazed with gems, because it was " a crown of thorns." 
 
 But the cause of this despised individual has survived ; it has sur- 
 vived, increasing its glory and extending its praise ; it has survived, 
 while the desolating hand of time has subverted the firmest foundations 
 of human policy, and blasted the brightest glories of human fame. 
 And this evening, exulting in its perpetually-increasing triumph, during 
 the long period of eighteen hundred years, we anticipate the happiness 
 of the hour which is approaching, when the nations shall rejoice in the 
 beams of " the Sun of righteousness," and in the splendor of the mil- 
 lennial day. 
 
 Now it has been one demonstration of the superior glory of the Sa- 
 vior, that it has been identified with the ministry of angels. The an- 
 gels, indeed, as " the morning stars sang together," and as " the sons 
 of God," they " shouted for joy," when the Savior created this visible 
 universe. The angels, as you see in the context of this passage, were 
 with the Savior when he entered into our world, to die for our sins, the 
 *'just for the unjust, to bring us unto God." They followed him through 
 every stage and step of his mediatorial undertaking, oft wondering how 
 and where the scene of love would end. When he died, they sur- 
 rounded his cross, as astonished spectators of that sad scene of unut- 
 terable abasement and distress. When he rose from the dead, they 
 rolled away the stone from the mouth of his sepulchre. 
 
 " They brought his chariot from above, 
 And bore him to his throne ; 
 Clapp'd thoir triumphant wings, and cried, 
 ' The glorious work is done !' " 
 
 Now, the words of ray text constitute the song of the angels, in con- 
 nexion with the mediation and work of Jesus ; for the shepherds were 
 feeding their flocks on the plain of Bethlehem, " and suddenly there 
 was with the angel," who appeared to them, " a multitude of the hea- 
 venly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, 
 and on earth peace, good-will toward men." 
 
 In these words, my dear friends, there are three topics, to which, by 
 the divine help and blessing, it is my intention now for a few moments 
 to direct your attention. First, you will allow me to request you to 
 refer to the brightness of the divine glory; the angels exclaimed, 
 " Glory to God in the highest." Secondly, to the excellency of the 
 divine influence ; they said, " on earth peace." And, tliirdly, to the 
 immensity of the divine love ; they said, " Good-will toward men." 
 
138 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 And then we shall attempt to close the discourse, by applying the prin- 
 ciples contained in it to the object which has more immediately con- 
 vened us. 
 
 In the first place, tben, let us refer to THE beightness of the di- 
 vine GLORY. The angels exclaimed, " Glory to God in the highest." 
 
 Now there is nothing so essential to the moral happiness of intelli- 
 gent beings, as proper views of the character and of the glory of God. 
 
 Since God is the only source of moral obligation, an acquaintance 
 with his character is essential to the due discharge of that obligation. 
 
 You will always find the moral characters and principles of men to 
 be excellent or degraded in proportion to the accuracy of their acquaint- 
 ance with the divine character and claims. In proof of this, you have 
 only to refer to the history of the world, and you will find that distorted 
 ideas of the character of God have always been connected with the per- 
 petration of enormous crime. Look to the ancient Greeks and Romans; 
 why was it, that, according to the testimony of Cicero himself, the moSt 
 unnatural lusts and disgusting impurities were not only tolerated among 
 the homes of private life, but even committed in the temples of their 
 deities — but because of their distorted ideas of the character of God ? 
 
 Look to the ancient Britons ; why was it, that our forefathers acted 
 on the demoniacal notion of human sacrifices, and imbrued their hands 
 in the blood of their captives and victims — but because of their dis- 
 torted ideas of the character of God ? Look to the Indians ; why ia 
 it, that the wretched Hindoos cast their writhing bodies beneath the 
 wheels of the gigantic idol's blood-stained car, plunge their offspring in- 
 to the waves of the Ganges, and fight up their country with the lurid 
 glare of the funeral piles of devoted widows — but because of their 
 distorted ideas of the character of God ? Look to the modern French ; 
 why was it, that in their country, during a recent revolution, deeds 
 of barbarism and of cruelty, of licentiousness and of pollution, of un- 
 precedented and almost infernal atrocity, were perpetrated, which 
 are enough to turn back the eyes of the observer with disgust and with 
 horror — but because of their distorted ideas of the character of Gt)d ? 
 
 Abstracted from proper views of the character of God, every motive 
 to the pursuit of holiness must be annihilated ; vice must extend its 
 encroaching claims and its polluting power ; and the whole immortal 
 being, as the inhabitant of a fatherless and forsaken world, must be 
 descending to the mansions of darkness and despair. 
 
 It is here, then, you see the distinguishing excellency of the media- 
 torial work of the Savior. He has revealed all the perfections of God, 
 all the claims of the great Legislator upon the obedience and reverence 
 of his creatures, and all the sanctions which are appended to his laws, 
 
SONG OP TEE ANGELS. 139 
 
 in the joys and the sorrows, the terrors and the triumphs of the invis- 
 ihle world. " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only-begotten 
 Son, -which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." — 
 " For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath 
 shined in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory 
 of God in the face of Jesus Christ." But it is not enough to say this. 
 It is not enough to say that the Lord Jesus, in liis mediatorial work, 
 has revealed the character of God ; we must also say that he has glo- 
 rified the character of God. And the accuracy of the ascription of 
 the angels, when they said, " Glory to God in the highest," can soon 
 be made apparent by a few appropriate considerations. 
 
 Behold, in the person and in the work of Christ, the glory of the 
 divine wisdom. For the wisdom of God is so illustriously displayed 
 in the mediation of Jesus, that he is expressly called " the wisdom of 
 God ;" the gospel which he proclaimed, is designated " the wisdom 
 of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained 
 before the world unto our glory ; " and we are told by the same apos- 
 tle, that " to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, hath 
 been made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." Ad- 
 mire, in the mediation of Christ, the wisdom of God — in the consti- 
 tution of the Savior's person, so that, while as man he could be afflicted, 
 and could suffer, and could die, as God could be exalted, and could be 
 enthroned, and could be adored — in rendering the entrance of sin 
 actually subservient to the noblest display of the perfections of God, 
 and the highest happiness of man — and in such a complete baffling 
 of the powers and principalities of hell, that we are healed by our Sa- 
 vior's wounds, crowned by our Savior's cross, absolved by our Savior's 
 condemnation, enriched by our Savior's poverty, and glorified by our 
 Savior's disgrace. Here alone there was abundant reason for the 
 exclamation of the angels," Glory to God in the highest." 
 
 Again, behold in the mission and in the work of Christ, the glory of 
 the divine power. Power was glorified in tlte creation of the fabric of 
 the universe ; power has been glorified in the perpetual revolutions of 
 the planetary worlds, of which the universe is composed. But all the 
 manifestations of the power of God, that have ever been presented to 
 us in the works of creation or in the dispensations of providence, sink 
 into absolute insignificance, when compared with its manifestation in 
 the mediation of Jesus. Go, and muse on the ministry of Christ. — 
 What though he was nailed to the accursed tree — what though he was 
 taunted, in the midst of his dying agonies, by the scoffing blasphemers, 
 who said, " If thou be Christ, save thyself and us : if thou be the Son 
 of God, come down from the cross." What though his disciples were 
 
140 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 lost in despair, and his enemies were rejoicing in tlie imagined infamy 
 of his cause, Avhen he was consigned to the lowlj sepulchre of the rock, 
 with a band of Roman soldiers for his guard — was there not power, 
 when, amidst the agonies of death, he changed the heart of a blas- 
 phemingv malefactor, and took his renovated spirit with him, as a trophy 
 of his grace, to the kingdom of heaven ? Was there not power, when 
 he bore for us the burden of that wrath, which would otherwise have 
 sunk us down to the lowest and to the deepest hell ? Was there not 
 power, when he broke the dart of death — when he demolished the 
 throne of the king of terrors — when " through death he destroyed 
 him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and dehvered them, 
 who, through fear of death, were all their hfetime subject to bondage ;" 
 so that he "hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to 
 light through the gospel ? " Was there not power in the supernatural 
 effects which attended the first preaching of his gospel, by which the 
 whole fabric of Gentile idolatry and Jewish superstition was overthrown, 
 and the banner of the cross was elevated above the palaces of the 
 Caesars ? And has there not been power in the emancipation of mil- 
 lions and myriads from the thraldom of their corruption, who are now 
 consecrating all the faculties of their being, and all the duration of 
 eternity, to the utterance of his praise ? Where is the individual, who, 
 in connection with these observations, does not again see the justice of 
 the ascription of the angels — " Glory to God in the highest ?" 
 
 Again, you may behold, in the mediatorial work of the Savior, the 
 glory of the divine holiness and justice. If every son and daughter 
 of Adam were to be cast into unquenchable fire — if every angel in 
 heaven were to be united with those fallen spirits, who are reserved in 
 blackness and chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day 
 — if the earth which we inhabit were to be transformed into a multi- 
 tude of worlds — if ev^ery blade of grass — if every atom of sand — 
 if every drop of dew — if every particle of earth were to be changed 
 into incomprehensible numbers of inteUigent creatures, and if all, on 
 account of sin, were to experience the devouring wrath of God, and 
 were to welter forever in seas of fire rolling in the caverns of the 
 damned, it would form no such manifestation of the justice and holiness 
 of God, as is presented to us in the mediation of Christ. n 
 
 O what a groan was that ! 
 Heard from heav'n's highent throne to earth's deep centre. 
 'Twaa our enormous load of heavy guilt, 
 Which bow'd his Mossed head, o'erwLclm'd his cross, 
 Made groan the centre, burst eartli's marble womb, 
 With panga, strange pangs, deliver'd of hor dead. 
 Hell howl'd, and Hoav'nthat hour let fall a fear; 
 Heav'n bled, that man might live ; heav'n wept, that man 
 Might never die. 
 
SONG OF THE ANGELS. 141 
 
 "Who can stand on the hill of Calvary — ■ who can stand under the 
 shadow of the cross — who can see the Savior's head hanging over his 
 agitated bosom — who can perceive the spear of the murderer pene- 
 trating his heart, and then "who, after contemplating these things, and 
 recollecting that every pang that he bore, and every tear that he shed, 
 were all on account of the guilt of our offences — where is the indi- 
 vidual, I say, who, after adverting to matters like these, is not ready, 
 with overwhelming gratitude and with penitent tears, to adopt the lan- 
 guage of the seraphim, and to cry, " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of 
 hosts ; the whole earth is filled with his glory ? " Do you not, then, 
 my friends, again see the justice of the angelic ascription, " Glory to 
 God in the highest ?" 
 
 But behold again, in the mission and in the work of the Savior, the 
 glory of the divine love. Now suppose a monarch seated upon a throne 
 of unbounded royalty and power, suppose him surrounded with all the 
 insignia of despotic authority, suppose him covering continents with his 
 armies and the ocean with his fleets, and surpassing, in the grandeur 
 of his achievements, the most splendid exploits of ancient or of mod- 
 em times ; then suppose, that he were to pass from the splendor of his 
 court and the radiance of his royalty, with all the meltings of pity, to 
 relieve a single family, bowed down with wretchedness and abandoned 
 to despair ; I would ask you, whether that one single act would not 
 redound more to his glory than the most illustrious achievements of his 
 policy, or the most splendid successes of his arms. Now, my friends, 
 what is all this compared with the love of God for a lost world, as dis- 
 played in the mediatorial work of Jesus ? Although our Savior had 
 existed from distant ages in his own uncreated being, perfectly happy 
 in himself and surrounding his throne with a lustre, before which 
 even angelic intelligences were confounded — although he had created 
 a universe of worlds, so vast that if the whole system of which wo 
 form a part were to be annihilated, its loss would no more be felt than 
 the subtraction of a blade of grass from the foliage of the field, or the 
 fall of a leaf from the verdure of the forest — yet, when miserable 
 man rebelled, when he raised his arm against Ilim who could have 
 crushed him with a stroke or damned him with a frown, he descended 
 to this almost imperceptible spot in the realms of being ; he assumed 
 the body of man, who is a worm ; he descended to the lowest recesses 
 of sorrow and woe ; he died an ignominious death upon the cross ; he 
 made- atonement for sin and reconciliation for iniquity ; he reunited 
 heaven and earth ; he filled the whole celestial world with the trophies 
 of his grace, and he raised countless multitudes of the redeemed to a 
 happiness sublimer than that of Eden, and to honors more exalted than 
 
142 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 those of the angels, to the very throne of Deity, the Father, the Son 
 and the Holy Spirit, the eternal all in all. stupendous love ! 
 infinite mercy ! grace beyond degree ! He descended ; he Tvas 
 born ; he suflered ; he wept ; he bled ; he expired. When the Savior 
 came into our world, Jehovah smiled with unexpressible tenderness 
 from the throne of his dominion : the groans of the whole creation, 
 which has travailed in pain until now, were hushed into a momentary 
 pause ; a thrilling note of joy resounded to the extremities of the uni- 
 verse ; angels, as you see in the context of this passage, resting for a 
 moment from their customary employ, crowded to heaven's battlements, 
 as admiring spectators of the wonderful scene ; and man that was a 
 rebel was pardoned, man that was a wanderer was reclaimed, man that 
 was condemned was blessed, man that was accursed was redeemed. 
 " Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, and might, and majesty 
 and dominion be unto him, that sitteth upon the throne, and to the 
 Lamb for ever and ever." Do you not, then, again see the justice of 
 the angelic ascription, " Glory to God in the highest ? " 
 
 And here I must advance one step further, and I shall only make 
 the observation, before I proceed to the second part of my discourse : 
 in the mediatorial work of Christ, you have all the perfections of God 
 in harmony. Here there is not the glory of mercy at the expense of 
 justice ; here there is not the glory of wisdom at the expense of power ; 
 but the glory of all the divine attributes united. Here unsullied jus- 
 tice, and immaculate holiness and infinite grace are all mingled ; not 
 one of them darkens or eclipses the other, but they shine with united 
 beams and concentrated radiance. 
 
 " Here his whole name appears complete, 
 
 Nor wit can guess, nor reason prova 
 Which of the letters best is writ, 
 
 The power, the wisdom, or the love." 
 
 Thus, with this line of illustration, we might proceed to an almost 
 indefinite extent ; but enough, I trust, has been adduced to you to show 
 the justice of the ascription of the angels, when, adverting to the medi- 
 atorial work of Immanuel, they said, " Glory to God in the highest." 
 There, then, is the brightness of the divine glory. 
 
 Let us now proceed, in the second place, to refer to the excellen- 
 cy OF the divine influence. The angels, you observe, not only said, 
 " Glory to God in the highest," but they also said, " On earth peace." 
 
 Now, my friends, one of the greatest evils, by which our world can 
 be afilicted, is to he found in war. It is one of the most hideous of 
 all the train of sin. Ever since the time of the first murderer it has 
 stalked over our world, brandishing the torch of the incendiary, and 
 
SOXG OF THE ANGELS. 143 
 
 marching to the -work of destruction, preceded by terror and flame, 
 followed by devastation, creating the riot of death and the carnival of 
 the grave. Go to the field of battle ; and amidst the alternations from 
 cold malignity to furious rage, amidst the cries of the wounded, the 
 shrieks of the dying, the dashing of weapons, and the clangor of ar- 
 tillery, learn the demoniacal character of war. Follow the march of a 
 hostile army through a devastated country : and while you see opulent 
 cities plundered by a brutal soldiery, and abandoned to the reign of 
 cruelty and lust, the habitations of peaceful industry committed to the 
 flames, and humanity itself expiring before its progress, confess again 
 the demoniacal character of war. Eefer to the invariable influence of 
 war upon those nations where a fondness for it has prevailed ; it has 
 annihilated the agriculture and commerce of the richest nations that 
 were ever presented to our view by the geography of the globe. And 
 more ; it has emptied earth and peopled hell ; it has been employed to 
 make angels weep and fiends triumph over the deplorable aspect of this 
 guilty world. Only think, for a moment, of the numbers that war has 
 destroyed ; you are told, by one of the best historians of ancient or 
 modern times, that, in fifty battles that were fought by Ccesar, he 
 trampled upon the corpses of 1,192,000 of his fellow-creatures: and it 
 is no exaggeration to say, that war has actually immolated a greater 
 number of individuals than are now to be found upon the surface of 
 the earth. Now suppose that, by some exertion of supernatural power, 
 the whole earth were to be depopulated, suppose that its cities were to 
 be destroyed, that its houses were to be emptied, that its inhabitants 
 were to be anniliilated, and that the whole world were to become a 
 great charnel-house or cemetery, filled with the bleaching bones and 
 corrupting bodies of the dead ; how intensely shocking is the idea ! 
 But this chimera of destruction, war has actually realized ; this immen- 
 sity of ruin, war has actually accomplished ; and had it not been for a 
 restraming providence, by war human society would long since have 
 become extinct, the last man would have expired, and God would have 
 been despoiled of the revenue of his praise. 
 
 But let it be remarked, that the spirit of Christianity is essentially 
 the spirit of peace. And when the angels contemplated the crimson 
 seas of human gore which have stained the soil of almost every coun- 
 try under heaven, and then when they remembered, that, by the tran- 
 quiflizing influence of the gospel of Christ, the passions of man would 
 be assuaged, and the Hon transformed into a lamb, so that, in j^rocess 
 of time, the whole universe would be a temple of amity and concord, 
 over the gates of which the inscription would be found, " Behold how 
 good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity ! " 
 
144 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Do you not see abundant reason why they should associate •with the 
 ascription of " Glory to God in the highest," the exclamation, " on 
 earth, peace ? " 
 
 I have said that the spirit of the gospel is essentially the spirit of 
 peace ; find me a single man, who has been brought to be subject to 
 the power of the truth, whose passions are not calmed, and whose vio- 
 lence is not subdued. I have said that the spirit of the gospel is 
 essentially the spirit of peace ; no sooner were its influences extensive- 
 ly diffused, than those infamous gladiatorial spectacles, so common in 
 the latter ages of the Roman empire — to which even females, forget- 
 ting the mildness and tenderness of their sex, crowded to see their 
 fellow-creatures dying by the dagger's point, or amidst the bowlings of 
 wild beasts — sink into oblivion. Again, I have said that the spirit of 
 the gospel is essentially the spirit of peace : one of its fundamental 
 pruiciples is, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; " and one of 
 its unalterable maxims is, " If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he 
 thirst, give him drink ; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon 
 his head." Once more ; I say, the spirit of the' gospel is essentially 
 the spirit of peace ; and when that enrapturing era shall arrive, when 
 Immanuel shall sway his sceptre from the northern to the southern 
 pole, when he shall extend his ilhmitable dominion, so as to receive 
 the homage and the adoration of all the creatures he has formed, then 
 the demon of war shall die, then the temple of Janus shall be closed, 
 then the sword shall be put into an eternal scabbard, then a heaven- 
 directed messenger shall wave the olive branch over the distracted na- 
 tions, then a voice, louder than a thousand thunders, coming from the 
 excellent glory, shall be heard amidst the tumults of our world, crying, 
 " Peace, peace ; be still, be still." The children of the same Father 
 and creatures of the same God shall crowd around the cross as their 
 centre, with redemption for their theme, and with heaven for their 
 home ; and then the triumphant watchAvord of all the tribes and fami- 
 lies of man shall be, " Here there is neither barbarian, Scythian, bond 
 nor free, Greek nor Jew ; Christ is all and in all." Hasten on, ye 
 circling years, and bring this blessed period, when all the inhabitants 
 of the earth shall praise him — come, happy and holy day, which our 
 inspired prophets have described, and of which our holy poets have 
 sung, when the Savior's name shall endure for ever, Avhcn it shall con- 
 tinue as long as the sun and the moon, when the whole earth shall be 
 blessed in him, and all nations shall call him blessed. 
 
 You perceive, then, my dear friends, Avhy it was that the angels, 
 "when they heard of the mediatorial work of Christ, not only exclaimed, 
 
SONG OF THE ANGELS. 145 
 
 " Glor J to God in the highest," but connected that exclamation -ivith 
 the words, " on earth peace." 
 
 And then, thirdly, you must advert to the immensity of the di- 
 vine LOVE. Now here alone there is abundant matter for a sermon ; 
 but, inasmuch as I have to set before you the claims of an institution, 
 which solicits the approval and liberal contributions of all who are 
 within these walls, I shall waive many of the topics which otherwise I 
 should have presented, and I shall only suggest those particular thoughts 
 which may bring the subject to a happy conclusion. 
 
 There is something truly astounding in the declaration, " Good-will 
 toward men ; " the good- will of God toward man, rebel man, insulting 
 man, blaspheming man, man — though wooed and awed, blessed and 
 chastised — a rebel still, a rebel amidst the thunders of the throne. — 
 " Good-will toward men ! " no good-will of this description was dis- 
 played to the angels ; when they sinned they were irrecoverably lost ; 
 when they sinned, they were exiled from their seats of bhss ; but 
 when men sinned, we find them elevated to those vacant thrones. 
 
 " O, love of infinite degree '. 
 
 Unmeasurable grace ! 
 Must heav'n's eternal darling die. 
 
 To save the tiait'rou8 race ? 
 
 Must angels sink for ever down, 
 
 To burn in quenchless fire, 
 While God forsakes his shining throne, 
 To raise us wretches higher ? 
 
 O for this love let rocks and hills 
 
 Their lasting silence break, 
 And all harmonious human tongues 
 
 The Savior's praises speak." 
 
 " Good-will towai'd men ! " Now in order to understand the com- 
 prehensive meaning of this, ponder upon the words, " God commended 
 his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for 
 us." Ponder again upon this declaration, " God, who is rich in mercy, 
 for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we wei'e dead in 
 sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved,) 
 and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly 
 places in Christ Jesus." Ponder again, " Not by works of righteous- 
 ness which we have done, but according to his mercy he hath saved 
 us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, 
 which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that, 
 being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the 
 hope of eternal life." " Good- will toward men ! " Only refer, my 
 friends, to the appropriateness, to the appUcable power of the good- 
 will of God to our circumstances and wants ; and then let your hearts 
 10 
 
146 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 bound with love, and let your bosoms burn witb gratitude. Think of 
 the hours of penitence ; then think of the good-will of God, and go on 
 your way with the prophetic song, " Lord, I will praise thee ; though 
 thou wast angry with we, thine anger is turned away, and thou com- 
 fortest me." Think of affliction ; and then think of the good-will of 
 God, and come to the conclusion of the apostle, when he said, " Our 
 light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Think of the hour of death; 
 and then think of the good-will of God to man, and confront the last 
 enemy with the triumphant exclamation, " grave, where is thy vic- 
 tory ? death, where is thy sting ? " Think of the judgment-day, 
 of the conflagration of the globe, of the melting of the elements, of 
 the passing away of the heavens, of the burning of the earth, of the 
 rearing of the great white throne, and of the pronunciation of the irre- 
 vocable destiny of the whole human race ; and then think of the good- 
 will of God, and anticipate the utterance of the words, " Well done, 
 good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Think 
 of the ages of eternity, rolling for ever and for ever, either in heaven 
 or in hell ; and then think of the good-will of God, and you may turn 
 to " the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," flowing from 
 his throne, interminable like the perfections of .his nature, and passing 
 all knowledge like the heights and depths of his love. 
 
 Thus you see, my dear friends, that, if you advert even to the sur- 
 face of the subject, if you even contemplate it as it presents itself to 
 the most superficial observer, you find abundant reason why the song 
 of the angels at the birth of the Savior should be, " Glory to God in 
 the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men." 
 
 Now it would ill become me to apply these principles to the matter 
 that has convened us this evening, if I did not, before I proceed, make 
 my appeal to this numerous auditory, while I ask of all the individuals 
 of whom it is composed, if they have any acquaintance with the medi- 
 ation of Christ, thus bringing " glory to God," thus diffusing " peace 
 on earth," and thus connected with . " good-will to men." Ah ! my 
 dear hearers, it will be of no consequence to you who may be saved 
 if you are not ; and it will be of no avail to you who may pass through 
 the golden gates of the celestial city into the new Jerusalem, if you 
 are not there. Allow me this evening to make my appeal to you. I 
 remember how, two and twenty years ago, in this place, I first com- 
 memorated the Savior's dying love, at a Missionary Communion ; since 
 that time I have never been within the walls of this edifice ; and such 
 is the uncertainty of human life, that it is exceedingly probable we 
 never shall be collected together again, until we stand before the judg- 
 
SONG OF THE ANGELS. 147 
 
 ment-seat of Christ. Xow I must be permitted, under tliese circum- 
 stances, though " in "weakness, and in fear, and much trembling " — I 
 must be permitted, before I bring this discourse to a conclusion, to 
 make one appeal to jou. Now I ask you — I ask you — if you have 
 any experimental and personal acquaintance with the mediation of 
 Christ, the sum and the substance of which are ]i^esented to you in 
 the song of the angels. Yonder, I fear, may be found an individual, 
 who, after having heard the gospel month after month and year after 
 year, has only realized one influence from it, hardening his heart and 
 preparing him as fuel for the flame. And I fear, many in this place at 
 the present tune, know not the power of prayer, have never uttered 
 the words, " Lord, save us, or we perish," and are still at a distance 
 from the shelter of the Redeemer's love. Poor, unfortunate individ- 
 uals ! have pity, have pity upon yourselves ; if you turn aside from 
 the Savior, there is no other sacrifice for sin, and you are actually per- 
 petrating, with suicidal hands, the murder of your everlasting peace. 
 Poor, unfortunate individuals ! have pity, have pity upon yourselves ; 
 days are passing ; time is receding ; eternity is advancing ; many, on 
 your right hand and on your left, have recently been taken to their 
 long home. 0, why are you unconcerned ? If the stubborn knee 
 has never bent in prg^er before, let it begin to bend to-night. If 
 the callous soul has never uttered the exclamation for mercy before. 
 let it plead to-night. By all the perfections of God, which have 
 this evening been presented to your view — by all the sweet influences 
 of the gospel of everlasting peace — by all the immensity of the love 
 of God — by all the songs of angels — by all the transports of the re- 
 deemed on the one hand, and by the weeping, and the wailing, and 
 the gnashing of teeth of the damned on the other, I entreat you, I 
 implore you, I charge you, that this evening you begin to attend to 
 the things which belong to your peace. Spirit of the living God I 
 descend and rest upon this congregation. Spirit of grace and of sup- 
 plication ! descend and rest upon this congregation. Spirit of power, 
 and of love, and of a sound mind, and of holiness, and of peace ! de- 
 scend and rest upon this congregation. Spirit of glory and of God I 
 descend and rest upon -this congregation. Oh! that now — oh! that 
 now there may be a shaking among the dry bones. Oh ! that now — 
 oh ! that now it may be said of many of you, " Behold, he prayeth ! " 
 Oh . that now — oh ! that now there may be rejoicing in the presence 
 of the angels of God, over many sinnera that are repentmg here. 
 Then our meeting together will have been for the better and not for 
 the worse ; and then, in a brighter world of loveliness and of day, wo 
 shall strike together our golden harps to the Savior's praise, and cast 
 
L4§ THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 our starry crowns at his feet, while, with the whole celestial universe, 
 we unite in the acclamation, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain ! 
 worthy is the Lamb that was slain ! " 
 
 Now, my friends, the engagements of this Sabbath have drawn to a 
 close. Now the shadows of the evening have gathered around us. 
 Novj we are anotherLord's day nearer to eternity. How long we may 
 be spared we cannot tell ; how many more opportunities we may have 
 of hearing of the glad tidings of great joy we cannot tell ; how long 
 we may live to call upon the mercy of God, and to present ourselves 
 before the throne of grace, we cannot tell. But as you go out at those 
 doors to-night, and as you return to your respective places of abode, 
 let the following inquiry dwell upon your minds, and be connected with 
 your prayers : " The friend or the foe of the Savior, which am I ? "" 
 I have heard to-night of the angelic ascription, now let me bring the 
 matter to a test and to a close. " The friend or the foe of the Savior 
 — which am I? " All eternity, all heaven, all earth, all hell, await 
 your reply. " The friend or the foe of Christ — which am I ? " 
 
 Arise, God, and plead thine own cause ! arise, God, and plead 
 thine own cause ! 
 
 SERMON XIL 
 
 A COMING LORD. 
 
 BY REV. JOSEPH WOLFF, V.V., 
 
 A CONVERTED JEW. 
 
 " And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary : for thou hast found favor with God. And, befioW, 
 thou shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be 
 great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest : and tho I.orJ God shall give unto him the throne of 
 bis father David : and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever ; and of his kingdom there shalS 
 be no end." — Luke i. 30 — 33. 
 
 You perceive, my friends, that this is prophecy. Therefore, for 
 the better understanduig of it, we must first of all give you the defini- 
 tion of prophecy. Prophecy is a prediction of an event, which is still 
 to come ; a prediction of history. 
 
 Now how must such a prophecy be construed, in order to find out 
 the real sense of it ? We must try to find out the grammatical mean- 
 ing of it ; and then we must examine whether such a prophecy has 
 really been fulfilled. This is quite common sense ; and every one of 
 you will agree with me. Moses himself gives us, in Deuteronomy, 
 
A COMING LORD. 149 
 
 this direction, hoAV we may know that a prophet has spoken. If the 
 event he predicted has come to pass, then we may know that a prophet 
 has been among vis ; if the event does not come to pass, then he has 
 spoken presumptuously and rashly. 
 
 Let us now examine this prediction ; which had been given already 
 in the twenty-third of Jeremiah, and seventh of Isaiah. 
 
 " Fear not, Mary ; for thou hast found favor with God." And in 
 what was this favor to consist ? " And behold, thou shalt conceive in 
 thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus." 
 This verse needs no interpretation at all. Every one knows, it is ad- 
 mitted by all, by profane history, by the Jews, in Josephus and in 
 their other writers, the most deadly foes of Christ, that Jesus was 
 born, and that the Virgin Mary was his mother. 
 
 " He shall be great." Every one will admit this again — will admit 
 that he Avas great. The mode of establishing his rehgion by twelve 
 fishermen, proved that he was great. His conduct on the cross proved 
 that he was great ; he looked down upon his enemies and prayed for 
 th^. His resurrection proved that he had some higher power than a 
 mere creature. That he was great. Infidelity has witnessed in a most 
 remarkable manner. I was struck lately in reading a book I brought 
 from Bokhara ; where it is said that Mahomet has predicted that his 
 religion shall altogether pull down the religion of the Nazarene through- 
 out the East, and the religion of the Koran be established. Now it is 
 very remarkable, that when his mighty officer and general went into 
 Armenia, and tried to sweep away Christianity there, (where there 
 was a convent which is still existing, as some travellers who are here 
 well know, and where the great Ignatius Alnoorane, " the enlighten- 
 er," had preached the gospel in the second century,) he was not able 
 to convert to Mahomedanism one single district of that territory. Con- 
 tinually their exclamation was — " Christ, God and very Christ, God 
 of very God ! " Voltaire also tried to pull down Christ ; his exclama- 
 tion was — "Down with the infamous;" has he succeeded? That 
 this church is full now, is witness that Christ is great in the nineteenth 
 century, as he was proved in the seventeenth, and in the middle ages, 
 when he still had servants who " worshipped him in spirit and in 
 truth." This has taken place, then ; it is no more prophecy; it has 
 become history. 
 
 " He shall be called the Son of the Highest." How do you, mem- 
 bers of the Church of England, call him ? " Son of the Highest." 
 The Independents ? " Son of the Highest." The Kirk of Scotland ? 
 " Son of the Highest." I have seen Ncstorians in their own moun- 
 tains, and I asked them — How do you call Christ ? Their answer 
 
150 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 was — "Jesus, the Son of the livmg God; Jesus, the Son of the 
 Highest." So far, still, the text has become history. But let us 
 go on. 
 
 " And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father 
 David." Has this taken place ? 
 
 Before we give any opinion, let us examine how he was the son of 
 David. It is wonderful how Scripture explains Scripture. In the 
 first of the Romans we read, in the fourth verse, that he was " declared 
 to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit ; " but how 
 was he the Son of David? Why, in the third verse we read that he 
 was " made of the seed of David " — according to the Spirit ? no — 
 "according to the flesh." Then if he was the son of David according 
 to the flesh, the throne of David which he has must also be accord- 
 ing to the flesh. And that he is to sit upon the throne of his father 
 David " according to the flesh," is decidedly predicted also in the 
 second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles : " Therefore being a 
 prophet," (speaking of David,) " and knowing that God had sworn 
 with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the 
 flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne." 
 
 Here let us examiae what is " the throne of David." Now the 
 New Testament is the inspired commentary on the Old, and let us not 
 depart from it ; but let us lay altogether aside all human opinions, 
 whether of antiquity or of modern times. " The throne of David " 
 in the whole of the books of Samuel and the Kings, and in Isaiah and 
 all the prophets, refers us to Palestine, of which Jerusalem is the cap- 
 ital. If this, after Christ's coming, in the dispensation of the New 
 Testament, was to be something quite diSerent — if there was to be 
 another "throne of David," the New Testament, which is a commen- 
 tary, would have given us quite different words for it. But does it ? 
 No; you have the same words — "the throne of David" in the Old 
 Testament, " the throne of David " in the New. 
 
 Then, is this prophecy fulfilled ? No : it is not yet fulfilled ; and 
 shall not be fulfilled until his second coming in glory. 
 
 Here I give you two axioms, Avhich are carried through the whole 
 of the Old and New Testament. Christ was anointed to the three- 
 fold office of jmest, prophet and king. As High Priest, he was an- 
 ointed, and visibly manifested ; he was sacrificed on the cross, and 
 passed visibly into heaven. As prophet, he was also anointed and vis- 
 ibly manifested; he spake as "never man spake.," and he stood upon 
 the mountain, and multitudes saw the great proj^het — "the prophet," 
 as he was called. As king, he was also anointed, but is not yet visi- 
 bly manifested. Just as David his father, and the type of Christ, was 
 
A COMING LORD. 151 
 
 anointed by Samuelj but had not entered his kingly office until Saul 
 was slain ; so Christ, -who is also anointed as kuig, has not yet entered 
 that kingly office, and shall not enter it until the antitype of Saul — 
 Antichrist — shall be slain. 
 
 This is the drift of Christ's instructions to his disciples on this sub- 
 ject. I know that there are many who do not completely agree with 
 me ; such as Butler, and Bishop jSIaltby, and several bishops in our 
 time. There is a general opinion current in the Christian Church, 
 that the great fault of the Jews was, that they expected a temporal 
 kingdom, and Christ intended merely to establish a spiritual kingdom, 
 and therefore they disbelieved. Now I ask, is there one single text in 
 the whole of the Scripture, which proves this ? On the contrary, he 
 continually tried to prove to the Jews, and to his disciples, who were 
 of the same opinion, that their error consisted, not in expecting such a 
 kingdom, but in forgetting that a great event was to intervene. I 
 refer you to the twenty-fourth of Luke. The disciples, after his cru- 
 cifixion, had got quite discouraged ; they said, " We trusted that it 
 had been he which should have redeemed Israel," — and they (with 
 the rest of the Jews) understood by that their being redeemed from 
 the captivity of the Romans ; to-day is the third day, they said, 
 and we see nothing ; we are disappointed ; we are still slaves of the 
 Romans. Now Christ appears; and what does he say to them? 
 You have misunderstood the prophets ? No : not a word of it. 
 On the contrary, he says — " fools, and slow of heart to beheve all 
 that the prophets have spoken ! " You believe only one part, with re- 
 gard to the glory ; you forget altogether the other part. " 0\ight not 
 Chiist to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ? " 
 
 The same method which Christ thus took to set them right, was 
 pursued afterwards by the apostles, as you will see in the third of the 
 Acts. " And now, brethren," says the apostle, " I wot that through 
 ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers ; " and in what did consist 
 their ignorance ? " But those things which God before had showed 
 by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffijr, he hath so 
 fulfilled ; " he does not say, that all with regard to the glory had been 
 fulfilled, but only the suffering part. " Repent ye, therefore, and be 
 converted, that your sins may be blotted out," (for there is another 
 time to come, which is also predicted,) " when the tunes of refreshing 
 shall come from the presence of the Lord ; and he shall send Jesus 
 Christ," (this is the second time,) " which before was preached unto 
 you; whom the heaven must receive" — for ever to be there? no, 
 "until the times of restitution of all things," (the times of the bring- 
 ing back of all things to their former condition,) " Avhich God hath 
 
152 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets," and which has not yet 
 been fuljEilled. 
 
 Now go to a further question: how shall he appear, when he is to 
 come ? Again let Scripture answer. I read in the first chapter of the 
 Acts, when they were on the mount of Ohves — "And when he had 
 spoken those things, while they beheld, he was taken up : and a cloud 
 received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly 
 toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white 
 apparel ; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
 into heaven ? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, 
 shall so come in hke manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. 
 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet." 
 He shall so come " in like manner : " "in the self-same manner " — 
 is the idea conveyed in the Greek text. So then, he was conveyed to 
 heaven by a cloud. How shall he come again ? I refer you to the 
 seventh chapter of Daniel. " I saw in the night visions, and behold, 
 One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven ; " in the 
 selfsame manner as he went up. 
 
 Where did he stand when he went up ? On " the mount called 
 Olivet." Where shall he stand when he shall come again in glory ? 
 I refer you to the fourteenth chapter of Zechariah. " I will gather 
 all nations against Jerusalem to battle. Then shall the Lord go forth, 
 and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. 
 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives " — the 
 real mount of Olives, not a spiritual one, for it is added — " which is 
 before Jerusalem on the east ; " exactly as we find it in the present 
 day, and the self-same spot where he stood when he went up. 
 
 Those who deny the personal reign of Christ, (which I believe,) tell 
 us — Yes, he will come, he will appear visibly, but it will be on the 
 day of judgment. Then I ask, what do you understand by " the day 
 of judgment ? " The idea generally is, that this earth shall be alto- 
 gether annihilated, and the saints shall be taken away to another 
 place, which is not at all defined. Now let me tell you, if this is spir- 
 ituality, the Lamas of Thibet believe the same. But to Scripture we 
 must go continually, like Luther, who said, " Hear Scripture — Scrip- 
 ^-^^^^fiJ^ure ; " and by this Word we must sift every thing. And where is 
 y' '^ it said that this world shall be annihilated ? There is not one single 
 '•^^text to that effect, in the whole of Scripture. That it shall be pm-i- 
 fied by fire, as it was purified by water, is true ; but it was not anni- 
 hilated by water — only purified. So it shall be, says St. Peter, by 
 fire. 
 
 That Christ is to come for the purpose of building up Jerusalem, is 
 
A COMING LORD. 153 
 
 clearly stated in the hundred and second psalm ; " "When the Lord 
 shall build up Zion, he shall appear " (in the Hebrew, " he shall be 
 seen visibly ") " in his glory " — as his glory was frequently seen by 
 the whole nation upon Horeb and mount Sinia. That he shall come 
 to establish a kingdom here on earth, is clearly said in the seventh 
 chapter of Daniel : " I saw in the night visions, and behold, he came 
 with the clouds of heaven, and there was given him dominion and glo- 
 ry and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve 
 him." That this is not to be in what we call heaven, but that his saints 
 at that time shall reign with him under the sky, we are told in the twen- 
 ty-seventh verse of that chapter : " The kingdom and dominion, and 
 the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given 
 to the people of the saints of the Most High." And afterwards, in 
 the Revelation, when John, caught up in spirit into heaven, hears the 
 song of the glorified saints, which tells him what their final destiny 
 shall be, what does he hear ? I read in the fifth chapter — "And 
 they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and 
 to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us 
 to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
 and nation ; and hast made us unto God kings and priests : and we 
 shall re'.gn on the earth." " On the earth : " you cannot make of this 
 earth heaven, and of heaven earth. 
 
 At his first coming Christ distinctly said to Pilate, " Now is my 
 kingdom not from hence," Shall it never be ? Again, go to the Rev- 
 elation — the eleventh chapter : " And the seventh angel sounded ; 
 and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this 
 world " (which were not his at his first coming,) " are become the 
 kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 In what state shall the earth be at that time ? Filled with sorrow ? 
 1^0 : it shall be a beautiful earth. Let me read to you from the sev- 
 enty-second psalm. " He shall come down like rain upon the mown 
 grass ; as showers that water the earth. In his days " (it shall not 
 be as at present, when the righteous are often oppressed, and the un- 
 righteous flourish, but) " the righteous shall flourish, and abundance 
 of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also 
 from sea to sea," (there is no sea in heaven,) " and from the river 
 unto the ends of tlie earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall 
 bow before him : " I have too much experienced that it is not so now, 
 but it is not proper in the pulpit to speak of myself ; " God and noth- 
 ing but God, and Mahomed the ambassador of God," is their outcry, 
 and the defenceless traveller is frequently put to death. Shall it be 
 
154 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 SO then ? " They that dwell in the mldemess shall bow before him ; 
 and his enemies shall lick the dust. Yea, all kings shall fall down 
 before him : all nations shall serve him." 
 
 But it would detain you too long to enter into the predictions of that 
 time, when " the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, 
 as the waters cover the Sea." I must conclude with that which shall 
 be the song of the redeemed creation here on earth. You will find it 
 in the ninety-eighth psalm. " Oh ! sing unto the Lord a new song ; 
 for he hath done marvellous things ; his right hand, and his holy arm, 
 hath gotten him the victory. The Lord hath made known his salva- 
 tion : his righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the hear 
 then. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house 
 of Israel ; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our 
 God. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth ; make a loud 
 noise, and rejoice, and sing praise." 
 
 Until that time come Ave have to watch and to pray. " Come, Lord 
 Jesus; come quickly." 
 
 At that time, the great test of our discipleship shall be, as Christ 
 says in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, acts of benevolence — 
 acts of philanthropy. And how can you prove that spirit better than 
 by promoting those societies which try to proclaim Christ our Lord, 
 and the great doctrine of repentance and forgiveness of sins in him, 
 and his final coming in glory ? There are two societies established, 
 for which a collection will be made — the one for the purpose of pro- 
 moting Christian knowledge, the knowledge of that Lord Jesus Christ 
 who " is great," and has proved through ages that he is great ; and 
 the other, the society for providing additional curates. I am sure 
 you will contribute towards the support of these societies. 
 
 I am very glad to have seen you so attentive ; for the coming of 
 our Lord in glory is a solemn subject. But how much more shall you 
 be solemnised, when you shall one day be stopped in your worldly busi- 
 ness, and look out and hear the shout of the angels, and the sound of 
 the trumpet — " Behold, he cometh ! " 
 
 " Lo ! he comes, with clouds descending, 
 Once for favored sinners slain ; 
 Thousand, thousand saints attending, 
 Swell the triumph of his train. 
 Hallelujah ! see the Son of God appear." 
 
EARLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 165 
 
 SEEMON XIII. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 
 BY REV. D. E. FORD. 
 
 " Wilt tliou uot from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art the guide of my youth." — Jer iii. 4. 
 
 The verse which I have now read in your hearing is part of the 
 parable which the prophet Jeremiah set before Israel to show their 
 transgressions and their sins, and to justify the ways of God to man in 
 sending upon the rebellious nation the afflictions and the judgments 
 which were about to befall them The rebellious children, however, of 
 that age, have long since gone to their last account : no divine remon- 
 strances, no invitations of mercy, now sound in their ears ; " the sum- 
 mer is ended, the harvest is past, and they are not saved." But, my 
 beloved young friends, God is waiting for you ; is " waiting to be grar 
 cious ; " has not " in anger shut up his tender mercies ; " and there is 
 repeated in your hearing the gracious invitation which sounded in the 
 ears of lost sinners in by-gone ages. " Wilt thou not from this time 
 cry unto me. My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ? " The 
 God of Israel is gracious as ever. Ages have not worn out his for- 
 bearance, have not exhausted his compassion, have not diminished his 
 resources. There is the same tenderness in infinite mercy ; there is 
 the same condescension in infinite love. Nay, brethren, more plainly 
 is his tenderness seen now than then ; more strikingly is his compas- 
 sion seen now than then ; for " God, who at sundry times and in divers 
 manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last 
 days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all 
 things, by whom also he made the worlds." And he is speaking to 
 you. It is the language of him who agonized upon the cross ; it is 
 the language of him who came down from heaven to renew and sanc- 
 tify the human heart — " Wilt thou not, from this time, cry unto me, 
 My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ? " 
 
 The Lord grant us his special help and blensing, this evening, while 
 I direct your attention, first, to the assumption, and then to the invita- 
 tion of the text. 
 
 I. First, to the assumption ; namely, that the individual addressed 
 has not said it. Look at the text. Is it not assumed that the indi- 
 vidual to whom it is addressed, has never said, " My Father, Thou art 
 
156 THE EXGLISn PULPIT. 
 
 the guide of my youth ?" " Wilt thou not from this time " do it ? — 
 " Wilt thou not, from this time, cry unto me, My Father, thou art the 
 guide of my youth ? " The assumption, then, is, that the person is in 
 a state of unregeneracy, in a state of unpardoned guilt ; has never 
 given his heart to God, in a covenant which shall not be broken. 
 
 My hearers, multitudes are in this awful condition. While God is 
 inviting and commanding and exhorting by his Word, by his Spirit, and 
 by his ministei's, they are refusing to hsten ; they are refusing to obey ; 
 they " will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so 
 wisely." And in that condition there are some — I fear that in that 
 condition there are many — of you. Up to this very hour, every in- 
 vitation that you have heard has been in vain ; up to this very hour, 
 every command of God to which you have listened, has been in vain ; 
 up to this very hour, every promise which has invited your attention, 
 has been in vain ; you have " loved your idols, and after them you 
 would go." Could I converse with you alone, as it has often been my 
 happiness to converse with the young, I doubt not that many a young 
 heart here would confess the awful fact, that the controversy between 
 the soul and God is yet unsettled. Oh ! how often have my ears and 
 my heart been pained by the confessions, even of the children of many 
 prayers, that they have not given their hearts to God ! that they know 
 that there is an unsettled controversy between Jehovah and themselves, 
 and yet they can eat and drink and sleep, as though there were nothing 
 the matter, as though there were nothing amiss ! The truth is, that 
 they disbelieve the facts of the gospel, or regard them with such indif- 
 ference, or such unbelief, as almost to amount to infidelity. Ah ! my 
 dear young friends, remember that the theory of the gospel will never 
 save the soul ; remember, that a mere admission that Christ is the Son 
 of God in so many words, will never secure your salvation, if you are 
 withholding from him your heart. What is the difierence between you 
 and the avowed infidel, excepting that the latter is consistent in his 
 wickedness, and you are not so ? To acknowledge him in words, but 
 to deny him by deeds ; to say that he is your Father, while you are not 
 doing the things which he commands — is but to add the guilt of in- 
 consistency to all your other crimes. Now is it not an awful fact, that 
 there are many of you (I wish you not to hear for your young com- 
 panions, but every one to hear for himself) — is it not a fearful fact, 
 that many of you have never yet committed one act of devoted conse- 
 cration to the ser\ace of the Lord God Almighty ? You have never 
 gone to the throne of grace, and said, " Lord, here is my heart ; take 
 it, and make it thine own for ever ; " you have never said there, — 
 "other lords have had dominion over me, but by thee only will I make 
 
EAKLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 157 
 
 mention of thy name." On the other hand, your conduct, if not your 
 language, has been that of the proud monarch of Egyi^t — " "Who is 
 the Lord, that I should obey his voice ? " Now, my dear young 
 friends, if you for one moment suspect that this is the fearful truth, I 
 beseech you to think of nothing else until you have settled this matter, 
 and decided whether God is worthy of your love. If he be, give him 
 your heart ; and do it at once. If he be not, why should you trouble 
 yourselves with religion any more ? " Choose ye this day whom ye 
 will serve ; but if the Lord be God, serve him." Oh ! it is a melan- 
 choly sight to see the young rising around us with no notions of piety 
 but those of restraint, and melancholy, and dreariness ; they soon thi'ow 
 off the restraints of early instruction, and they break loose into all 
 manner of wickedness. And why ? Because their hearts are un- 
 changed. Why ? Because their souls are unredeemed, and they 
 have never learnt by practical experience that " the ways of wisdom 
 are ways of pleasantness " and that " all her paths are peace." But 
 oh ! let us bring the young to Christ ; let his love be shed abroad in 
 then- souls, and then his voice will have music for their ears, which 
 shall for ever incapacitate them to listen to the syren song of pleasure ; 
 and then his fellowship shall have charms for their understandings and 
 for their hearts, such as shall give them a perpetual and increasing dis- 
 rehsh for all worldly and improper associations. 
 
 In the neglect of the claims of God there is an amount of daring, 
 a degi-ee of moral madness, of which we can hardly form a concep- 
 tion ; especially in the case of the child of msmy prayers, who has been 
 nurtured in the lap of piety, who has been led to the footstool of mercy 
 by the hand of maternal affection, and has been taught from a moth- 
 er's lips to lisp the name of Jesus. I am addressing many such ; and 
 their advantages are beyond all price. It is better to be the child of 
 many prayers, than to be the heir of a dukedom ; it is better to be the 
 child of many prayers, than to draw one's descent from a line of kings 
 and princes. See the superior advantages with which such a person 
 is endued throughout all his future life. Thal^oung man who has been 
 " trained up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," can never 
 pretend that religion is priestcraft, and that godliness is superstition. 
 Many think so ; and they really fancy that they are men of sense 
 while they think so. The fact is, that this arises from their ignorance ; 
 they have never seen religion exhibited in its proper light ; and as Je- 
 sus said for his murderers on the cross, " Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do," so we say, concerning many of the 
 proud despisers and blasphemers of the Son of God. But the child 
 of many prayers can never be placed in such circumstances as theirs. 
 
158 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 He has seen that religion sweetens the cup of human sorrow ; he has 
 seen that religion adds refinement to all the pleasures of which social 
 life is capable : he knows, or ought to know, that " the ways of wis- 
 dom are pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace ; " and he is 
 left without excuse, should he neglect the great salvation. 
 
 Here, however, I would carefully guard against mistake. Let no 
 one suppose that I am framing excuses for those who are not the chil- 
 dren of many prayers ; let no one go away from the sanctuary to-night, 
 and say, " I feel that the warning did not apply to me, because I have 
 had none of those advantages of which the preacher spoke." Remem- 
 ber, whatever may have been your birth or your parentage, you are an 
 immortal being. Remember, whoever may have been your father or 
 mother, you have a soul to be saved or lost. Remember, that you 
 must give an account of yourself unto God ; and it will be but a poor 
 solace in hell to find that the mother who bare you, and the father 
 who begat you, are companions in your misery, aiding to increase the 
 bitterness of your doom throughout eternity. Remember, whatever 
 may have been your disadvantages, Christ is now setting before you 
 the light of life, that God is now setting before you the gracious invi- 
 tations of his love ; and that whatever may have been your neglect of 
 the great salvation, either from want of opportunity or from disincli- 
 iiation, still " now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." 
 In a word, let the unconverted youth, of whatever class, pause ; let 
 him look at his standing. He is on the brink of eternity, on the brink 
 of eternity without God and without hope : it is but another step, and 
 he may be in ruin, in everlasting ruin, in remediless woe. 
 
 I once saw a profligate young man expire. He had been the child 
 of many prayers, and he had wasted his father's substance in riotous 
 living, and he was brought home to die. I visited him on the bed of 
 death. He looked at me with anguish which I cannot describe, and 
 said, " Why should you come to torment me " — I think he gasped as 
 well — " before the time ? " I said, "My young friend, I am not 
 come to torment you ; I am come to tell you that there is mercy in God 
 even at the last hour." " No mercy for me," he said ; " I have sinned 
 through all, I have neglected all, I have despised all." He was ex- 
 hausted when he had made this reply. I endeavored to say a few 
 words more, directing him to " the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
 sins of the world ; " but he said, " I cannot hear you, I cannot hear 
 you ; I am dying, and I am damned." He fetched the most hideous 
 groan I ever heard in my life ; his jaw fell, his eye was fixed, his spirit 
 was gone to take its stand at the judgment seat. I shall never forget 
 that scene to my dying day. Aud oh ! perhaps there is some young 
 
EARLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 159 
 
 man here to-niglit, who is running through precisely the same course, 
 and whose dying confession will be of the same order — "I am dying, 
 and I am damned." 
 
 Did time allow, I might occupy it to a considerable extent by bring- 
 ing before you those varieties of character which are presented to our 
 view by the unconverted youth around us. There are some who seem 
 to lack but one thing ; and that, the one thing needful. There are 
 others, who arc impatient of parental restraint, and anxious to forget 
 their own responsibility in the gaieties of life and in the follies of sin- 
 ful pleasure. But I stay not to classify these young persons ; for I 
 conceive that the task after all is needless. " Broad is the way that 
 leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat." You 
 may find variations of character and of creed almost to mfinity. But 
 no matter what those variations may be, how near they come to the 
 gate of life, or how far from that gate they may be found, provided 
 they will not enter there. Remember, that if " one thing be lacking," 
 tliat one thing is fatal ; remember that " he who offends in one point is 
 guilty of all." I wish most distinctly to impress upon the minds of 
 all the unconverted youth before me, that they are involved in one com- 
 mon ruin ; that if they have not " fled for refuge to the hope set before 
 them in the gospel," there " remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a 
 certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which 
 shall devour the adversaries." There may be, and there undoubtedly 
 will be, degrees in future punishment ; for " where much is given, much 
 will be required." But all must perish in their sins, who have not 
 come to Jesus that they may have life. Take the loveliest specimen 
 of unsanctified humanity ; you may admire it and praise it as youvrill, 
 but that loveliest specimen of unsanctified humanity is doomed to per- 
 ish, apart from the blood of sprinkling. Now does any young friend 
 here say, " That is meant for me ? " It is ; I wish it so to be under- 
 stood. You are trifling away your privileges, you are spurning the 
 offers of grace and mercy through the crucified Savior ; and I pray 
 God that you may listen to this warning, and that it may not be in vain. 
 
 II. In the second place, then, I proceed to direct your attention to 
 the invitation of the text. " Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me. 
 My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ? " Will you not say it 
 now, supposing you have never said it ? Will you not say it from this 
 time, supposing that the whole of your life has previously been lost ? 
 The object of this discourse is to persuade you to say it — the object 
 of this discourse is to prevail upon you to say it ; and to say it, not as 
 a matter of course, not as the result of mere transient excitement, but 
 
160 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 to say it as the result of a stern and steadfast resolve tliat, whatever 
 others may do, you will henceforth serve the Lord God of Israel. 
 
 I shall now proceed, in his faith and fear, to set before you some 
 powerful reasons, why from this time you should say, he is " the guide 
 of your youth." 
 
 1. My first reason shall be drawn from the claims of him who asks 
 it. It is the Almighty God. He is the speaker who invites your con- 
 fidence and demands your love ; it is he who says in my text, " Wilt 
 thou not from this time cry unto me. My Father, thou art the guide of 
 my youth ? " He has said it again and again, and you have neglected 
 the invitation. Let me ask you, does he deserve such treatment at 
 your hands ? Think of his claims, and then ask your conscience 
 whether he does. Is it fitting that you should thus treat the Almighty 
 God, your Creator — that you should thus treat him who loved the 
 world, and " so loved it as to give his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
 ever belie veth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life ? " — 
 Is it meet that you should thus treat him, who " desires not the death 
 of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live ? " 
 Is it meet that you should thus treat him, who " willeth all men to be 
 saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth ? " You have no 
 right to plead his designs or decrees, as a reason for your ignorance 
 and guilt. God " will have all men to be saved ; " he commands you 
 to submit to his authority ; he invites you to venture upon his love ; he 
 bids you welcome to his throne ; and he says " Wilt thou not from this 
 time cry unto me. My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ? " Or, 
 if you regard the author of my text as the Savior of the world, does 
 not he deserve better treatment at your hands ? He who died for 
 your redemption ; he, who waits upon his glorious throne that he may 
 " see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied ;" he who will have you 
 to participate in the fulness of his grace, and to submit to his authori- 
 ty, and to welcome his love ; does he not deserve your confidence ? — 
 does he not deserve your devout affection ? and will you withhold from 
 him the spontaneous tribute of your praise ? Or, if you regard the 
 invitation of the text as coming from the Holy Spirit of God ; it is he 
 that strives with your sins, it is he that remonstrates with your per- 
 verseness, it is he that would overcome your unbelief; it is he that sets 
 before you the path of life, that asks you to walk in it. Does he not 
 deserve better treatment at your hands ? I call upon you, then, in 
 the name of the everlasting Father;. I call upon you, in the name of 
 him who died for the world's redemption ; I call upon you, in the name 
 of the Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier — ■ no longer to persist in this contro- 
 versy with God, but to yield your heart to his service, and to do it now. 
 
EARLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 161 
 
 2. As another reason, I would set before you the dangers of delay. 
 Remember that your soul is m peril all the while you are hesitating. 
 Remember, too, that all additional delay makes the matter worse*. You 
 feel it diiEcult to turn to Jesus now ; you will find it more difficult to- 
 morrow, more difficult the day following, and so on to the end of life. 
 Theg^e is a hardening tendency in transgression ; there is a downward 
 progress in sin, which hardens the heart, defiles the soul, perverts the 
 judgment, and, humanly speaking, renders salvation impossible. It is 
 the merest, and, at the same time, the most fearful delusion of Satan, 
 that leads many a young person to conclude that he will have a more 
 favorable season than the present for giving himself to Christ. Many 
 pretend to be waiting for God, while God is all the while waiting for 
 them. I have often told such, that in plain matter of fact they are 
 not waiting God's time, but they are waiting the devil's time. God 
 says, " Noiv is the accepted time, wow is the day of salvation." Sa- 
 tan says, " To-morrow, or the day following, will be the accepted time." 
 " Go thy way for this time," replies the sinner, " when I have a con- 
 venient season I will send for thee." I remember an incident which 
 may illustrate and impress upon the memory of the young the danger of 
 delays in religion. You have all heard of the samphire gatherer, whose 
 deadly trade lies on the brink of ruin. An instance some years ago occur- 
 red in the neighborhood in which I dwelt, in which a man's life was placed 
 in the most imminent danger whilst he was engaged in that dangerous 
 occupation. It is customary, and in fact it is the only way of pursu- 
 ing that perilous trade to advantage, for the man who follows it as his 
 livelihood, to fasten a rope round his waist, which rope is fastened to a 
 crow-bar that is well secured in the ground, and taking the other end 
 of the rope to lower himself over the cliffs, perhaps from four to six 
 hundred feet in height, swinging himself by his own exertions, so as to 
 catch the various ledges of rock where the samphire grows. A man 
 was one day pursuing, according to his custom, this dangerous occupa- 
 tion, when, with great difficulty, he contrived to swing himself on one 
 of the ledges of rock ; and in the exertion of grasping the rock, he let 
 go the rope by which he was suspended. You see at once the immi- 
 nent danger in which he was placed. There was the yawning gulph 
 beneath ; not a human being could come to his rescue from above, for 
 no one could tell from what part of the cliff he had descended ; his 
 only chance of escape was to gain the rope, of which he had quitted 
 his hold. That rope was of immense length, swinging from the cliff 
 above, high in the air, coming toward him, moving further off, coming 
 toward him again. The thought struck him that at every motion of 
 the rope he would be left further off: he knew, that were it in a per- 
 il 
 
162 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 peudicular line with the crow-bar to which it was affixed, it would be 
 altogether beyond his reach, and that therefore, should he remain where 
 he was,' escape would be impossible. The only possible method of sav- 
 ing his life was to make a desperate aim at the rope when it came the 
 nearest to him. Accordingly, the next time it came towards him he 
 made a desperate plunge, and threw himself off at the height of four 
 hundred feet, and providentially grasped the rope and was saved. — 
 My young friends, I ask you to make that plunge now. I ask you, 
 now, while God's salvation is coming nigh, to grasp the offers of mer- 
 cy. I ask you now to close with God, to " lay hold of the hope that 
 is set before you in the gospel." You may do it — it is coming to- 
 wards you — welcome it — clasp it — hold it fast, and you will be 
 saved for ever. 
 
 3. And then, in the third place, I would direct your attention to the 
 final consequences of refusal. " Neither is there salvation in any oth- 
 er ; for there is none other name under heaven given amongst men, 
 whereby we must be saved." Religion is not a choice between this 
 system and that system — between this savior and that savior ; but it 
 is the Lord Jesus Christ, or everlasting death — salvation in God's 
 way, or everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from 
 the glory of his power ; and the final consequences of refusal are dura- 
 ble as eternity. God has decreed, that that which a man sows he also 
 shall reap; and that he who "sows to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap 
 corruption." Oh ! what a fearful harvest is that which the lost soul 
 will infallibly reap in hell ! — and that harvest shall still be " bringing 
 forth fruit unto death ;" so that through interminable ages the woe of the 
 lost shall only be begun. And all this for rejecting — what ? Not the 
 service of a tyrant, but of the ever-living God. All this for rejecting 
 — what ? Not the unreasonable demands of one who hates our spe- 
 cies, and scatters misery and death through his vast dominion, but of 
 one who loves sinners ; and so loveth them, as to give his only begot- 
 ten Son to suffer and to die for their redemption. If any thing can 
 add sharpness to the pains of hell, it must be the recollection that all 
 this is borne in consequence of such infatuation — in consequence of 
 such madness, as that which put away salvation, and refused eternal 
 life. There would be something tolerable in damnation itself, were the 
 hopeless sufferers doomed to it by a decree from which there was no 
 escape ; there would be some solace in the thought — " Well, whatever 
 I had done would have been in vain, for the gates of eternal life were 
 barred against my admission." But oh ! what will it be for the lost 
 soul to find that the " head and front of his offending " was this — he 
 would not go to Christ, he would not have Christ to " reign over him ;" 
 
EARLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 163 
 
 he deliberately put away eternal life, when God's own hands placed it 
 within his reach, and offered it for his acceptance. 
 
 4. In the fourth place, I would set before you some encouragements 
 to hope. From the observations which I have abeady addressed to 
 you, I would have you draw this conclusion, that your only chance of 
 salvation is in instantaneous submission to Christ. And it is not a 
 mere chance, it is a certainty ; for " God is faithful ;" — and the ac- 
 ceptance of the sinner depends on his faithfulness — "who will have 
 all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." The 
 awakened sinner, then, needs not go to the throne of God with a bare 
 perad venture as to the question of his acceptance ; he may be certain 
 that God will accept him. God is more willing to bless the penitent 
 than the penitent to receive his blessing — is more wilhng to clasp in 
 the everlasting arms of his mercy the prodigal, than the prodigal is to 
 leave the husks eaten by the swine, and throw himself at his Father's 
 feet. Wherever unwillingness may be found, there is no unwillingness 
 on the part of God. He is saying, " Turn ye, turn ye ; why will ye 
 die ? " And he is saying so to every unconverted hearer this evening. 
 He is saying so especially to the young, who have not yet given their 
 hearts to Christ. He is inviting them to do it now ; he is inviting them 
 from this very hour — from this very service, to say, each for himself, 
 " My Father, thou art the guide of my youth." And, my dear young 
 friends, what a kind father God will be ! It was my happiness, first 
 to bow before his throne with acceptance in my early days ; and the 
 only regret I have in relation to that matter, is, that I did not sooner 
 bow before him. Oh ! if I can persuade the youngest child here, who 
 is capable of listening to this discourse, that Christ is waiting for him 
 — that God is waiting for him — that the Holy Spirit is waiting for 
 him, I shall not have labored in vain, or have spent my strength for 
 nought. I am persuaded there is a great mistake in the church of 
 God concerning the possibility of youthful piety and of youthful de- 
 votion. I am thoroughly persuaded, as the result of long experience, 
 that it is no mere proverb, no mere parable in which the psalmist says, 
 " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, 
 because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the 
 avenger." Many a Christian parent has overlooked the most valuable 
 part of early education, under the vain imagination that the time was 
 not come to lead the heart of his child to God. So soon as the child 
 is capable of understanding the outline of the gospel — so soon as the 
 child is capable of knowing what was meant when the Savior said. 
 " Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of 
 such is the kingdom of heaven " — so soon can conversion take place. 
 
164 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 and so soon can conversion bring forth its appropriate fruits, and put 
 to shame " the enemy and the avenger." Mj dear Christian friends, 
 you who are parents, agonize with God for the salvation of every one 
 of your children, until " Christ be formed in them the hope of ever- 
 lasting glory." To be nursing " vessels of wrath fitted unto destruc- 
 tion," oh ! what a mournful task ! And yet this is what many a Chris- 
 tian parent is undoubtedly doing ; and doing, because he has never 
 aright regarded his responsibility, or the claims of Christ. The parent 
 should account every child that is given to his care, as coming from 
 God with this express declaration, " Take this child and nurse it for 
 me." Oh! for that care — for that piety — for that devotedness, 
 which shall make every Christian father artd every Christian mother, a 
 father in Israel and a mother in Israel, rearing seed — godly seed — 
 for the church of God, and for his heavenly kingdom. It is marvel- 
 lous indeed — it is marvellous indeed, how indifferent some Christian 
 parents are to the religious condition of their offspring. I have some- 
 times been shocked, when on asking religious parents concerning their 
 children, they have replied, " We have no hope of them at present, 
 sir, but they are but young as yet." Oh ! the devil takes their hearts 
 in early days, and why should not Christ have them ? If they are old 
 enough to love the service of sin, and the pleasures of the world, they 
 are old enough to love the service of Christ, and to know the pleasures 
 of devotion. I know that some faint-hearted and timid Christians will 
 marvel at the agony and holy piety and devotedness which will lead 
 a Christian parent to mourn over his httle one who as yet gives no signs 
 of a decided conversion. But why do the faint-hearted so censure ? 
 Simply because they believe not the facts of the case. No man would 
 censure for his intensity of feeling, no man would censure for the ut- 
 most extravagance of manner, the poor man who was standing in the 
 street while his house was in flames, and was watching the operations 
 of the firemen as they were raising their ladders to the topmost win- 
 dows, where his wife and children were all imploring help, and expect- 
 ing every moment of delay to be fatal, and to sink them into the yawn- 
 ing gulf beneath. Every heart would glow with sympathy, and eve- 
 ry hand would be stretched out to rescue the sufferers. But if a man 
 be indeed anguished because his wife and children are unconverted, 
 why is he censured ? Because mankind heed not the declarations of 
 God ; and therefore heed not the " lake which burns with fire and 
 brimstone." They are ready to give the man their sympathy, Avhose 
 wife and children are in danger of perishing in the flames, for they be- 
 lieve the fire will burn ; but they charge that man with enthusiasm who 
 feels, and deeply feels, the condition of his unconverted friends and 
 
EARLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 165 
 
 relations. But, my hearers, shall we care for the opinions of the 
 wortd ? The day is coming which will prove who are right and who 
 are wrong ; but until that period, as Christians who " know in whom 
 thej have believed," by all that is sacred, by all that is glorious, by all 
 that is triumphant in the sacrifice and mediation of Christ, we are 
 bound to labor, and to labor to the utmost, for the salvation of souls. 
 But, to return. Let none go away from the sanctuary to-night, and 
 say, " I am no longer a child, and therefore the warning of the preach- 
 er did not apply to me ; I own that I am unconverted, but I am not a 
 youth, and therefore the invitation of mercy, as sounded in the text, 
 is not intended for my ear." My dear friend, I beseech you, in God's 
 name, go not away with such an impression as this. The matter is 
 worse for you ; one of God's promises has lost its force ; wait a httle 
 longer, and all his promises will be by-gone things. You can no long- 
 er make him the " guide of your youth," for your youth is past ; wait 
 a little longer, and there will not be one promise in his word to encour- 
 age you ; wait a little longer, and you will not have one opportunity of 
 flying for refuge to lay hold on the hope that is set before you. Take 
 warning from the fact that a part of God's mercy is gone for ever ; — 
 take warning from the fact that a part of his invitations can give no 
 longer utterance and warning. Take warning. ' Oh ! fly for refuge 
 now, while one promise is left — while one hope of mercy remaineth. 
 God has not yet in anger withdrawn his graciousness, he has not yet 
 in anger shut up his tender mercies ; but he soon will. And let no 
 one say, I am clear from my obligations, because though I once was 
 the child of many prayers, my parents have long since ceased to pray 
 for me. Ah ! they have been in heaven, perhaps, these many years ; 
 and the last parting regret of their souls, as they left this world, was 
 that their sons, that their daughters were unconverted. But, imagine 
 not that any length of duration can obliterate the obligations, which 
 press, and shall forever press upon your souls. The years of Methu- 
 selah would not even weaken them. Live and die unconverted, and 
 eternity itself shall but perpetuate them for ever and ever. Refuse 
 the gospel, trifle a little longer with the salvation which is thus set be- 
 fore you, and you will infallibly perish in your sins ; and as God is in 
 heaven, your portion will be in hell for ever. And do not think that 
 yours will be mere damnation. Yours will be damnation under the 
 most awful, under the most aggravating circumstances, which we can 
 conceive ; and when ages of interminable suffering shall have rolled 
 away, the fresh corruscations of ever-burning light shall mark your 
 locality in hell; and the lost spirits look down, and Tyre and Sidon,yea, 
 and Sodom and Gomorrah, shall shudder in the distance as they pass 
 
166 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 bj, and see the severer doom that greets the child of many prayers. 
 Once agam, what is done must be done quickly. If you had a mere 
 chance of inheriting a large fortune, and the limitation of that chance 
 turned upon a little delay unknown to you — say that the application 
 must be made withui a hundred days, or that the apphcation must be 
 made within seven years — let me ask, is there one of you who would 
 let to-morrow's sun set on the world without having made sure of his 
 claim, without having made it sure without uncertainty and without 
 delay. Surely your soul deserves that which a little property would 
 not be denied ; surely the Lord Jesus Christ deserves that which Mam- 
 mon would at once have as his tribute ; surely if you would be thus 
 anxious to receive a little of this world's wealth, you must be equally 
 anxious, you ought to be equally anxious, to secure the great salvation. 
 The truth is, if you will not answer in the affirmative to the question 
 of my text, " Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me. My Father, 
 thou art the guide of my youth ? " I fear that the concealed evil in 
 your soul is infidelity, which you would not own, but which you fondly 
 cherish. You believe not that God has spoken to you — you believe 
 not that he will speak to you in accents of thunder by and by. But 
 you must beheve, and that right soon. You may now close your eyes 
 against the brightest revelations of the Son of God ; you may now 
 stop your ears against the sound of salvation, and trifle with redeem- 
 ing love ; but remember that your eyes and your ears will be unstop- 
 ped, and that very shortly you will behold the Lord " coming with 
 clouds," and that you will " wail because of him." There will be no 
 mfideUty then ; there will be no avoiding his gaze then. In vain shall 
 you " call upon the rocks to hide you, and upon the mountains to cov- 
 er you from the wrath of the Lamb," which shall " come upon you to 
 the uttermost;" and in vain shall you attempt to close your ears — 
 those ears which have refused to listen to the invitations of redeeming 
 love — in vain shall you attempt to close your ears against the awful 
 thunders which shall say, " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, 
 prepared for the devil and his angels." The lost spirit will then say, 
 " Well, I never thought it would come to this ; I only intended to neg- 
 lect the salvation of my soul for a little season, I never intended to 
 neglect it altogether ; God is my witness that I did not intend for ever 
 to neglect his Holy Spirit ; I wanted only a little of this world's pleas- 
 ure ; I wanted only a little of this Avorld's sin ; I saw that others had 
 been recovered after they had gone as far, or a little farther than my- 
 self, and I took courage from their example ; I never intended to per- 
 ish in my unbelief, I never intended to reject finally the grace of God. 
 But oh ! what a mistake have I made ! I went a httle too far ; I went 
 
EARLY DEDICATION TO GOD. 167 
 
 beyond the verge of mercv. God liad long tolerated me, but at length 
 he said he would tolerate me no longer ; he said — ' I will bear with 
 the transgressor no longer ; my ministers, let him alone ; Providence, 
 let him alone ; my Spirit, let him alone ;' and the result is that I am 
 lost. Here I am, and here I must bo for ever." My dear young 
 friends, shall it come to this ? Shall it come to this, after all that you 
 have heard, after all that you have felt, after all that you have received ? 
 Shall others press into the kingdom of God, and shall you be shut out ? 
 Shall it be said of some of you, " Many shall come from the east and west, 
 and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom 
 of heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out ? " Shall 
 you be among them ? You will, you infallibly will, in God's name I tell 
 you you will, unless you answer in the affirmative the question of my text, 
 " Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me. My Father, thou art the 
 guide of my youth ? " God is sincere in asking it, the Holy Spirit is 
 sincere in asking it, Christ is sincere in asking it. Will you doubt the 
 sincerity of the Almighty ? will you dare to trifle a little longer and 
 a little longer with the great salvation ? Well, then, in conclusion, 
 mark my words. You may forget all this sermon now, but you will 
 remember it in hell. Nay, nay, I will not undertake to say that you 
 will remember my poor arguments and weak illustrations there ; they 
 are poor and weak indeed, compared with the awful truth ; but this I will 
 undertake to say, you will remember my text there, you will never forget 
 it. It will be wTitten m your conscience as with a pen of iron in letters 
 of living fire ; you will remember, that then, that there, that at this 
 time, God said imto you, " Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, 
 My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ? " — and you dared to 
 say, " Lord, I will not have thy guidance ; Lord, I will not accept 
 thy salvation, I will have none of thy counsel, I reject thy reproof." 
 Remember, that if you make this hard bargain, you must stand by it, 
 and none will have a right to complain. Remember it is your o^vn 
 doing ; for God invites you, heaven invites you — will you not repent, 
 will you not be saved ? 
 
 In conclusion, I tell you I have no hope of your conversion to God, 
 if your reply is, " I will think of this matter." I have no hope of your 
 conversion, if your reply is, " I will meditate on this matter when I 
 go home." Do it now. God is waiting. Now let the resolve ascend 
 to his throne, before the last h^'-mn is over, before the service closes. — 
 Let the answer be made to God now — " My Father, I will say unto 
 thee, ' thou art my guide ; ' my Father, I will consecrate my body, 
 soul, and spirit unto thee. Thanks, immortal thanks to thy name, that 
 I have the power to do it. I bless thee that I am not in hell ; I bless 
 
168 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 thee that I have not perished in my sins ; I bless thee that I have not 
 sinned away the last hope of mercy, and that thou art waiting to be 
 gracious ; and now, after having tried thy patience so long, I will try 
 it no more. My Father, be thou the guide of my youth, my portion 
 and my hope, my guide even unto death." Amen. 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 aOD'S LOVE TO THE WORLD. 
 BY REV. W. ATHERTON. 
 
 " For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in hin» 
 •hould not perish, but have everlasting life." — John iii. 16. 
 
 The chapter now before us contains a variety of important and inter- 
 esting matter. In the beginning we have an annunciation, accompanied 
 by a solemn asseveration, which is enough to make any man thoughtful; 
 in the conclusion, we have a denunciation which is enough to make any 
 thoughtful man tremble ; and in the interval, we have glad tidings of 
 great joy, suited to all people. In the commencement we hear it said 
 by Jesus Christ, " Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." This is enough to 
 make any man thoughtful ; especially when we consider that it is ad- 
 dressed to an old man — to a rehgious man — to a master in Israel ; 
 and that it was necessary to tell even him that he must be born again. 
 In the conclusion of the chapter, we are told — "He that believeth not 
 the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him." — 
 This is enough to make an unbeliever tremble. Then, in the middle 
 of the chapter, we have indeed tidings of great joy ; for it is said, 
 " God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world ; but th^t 
 the world through him might be saved. As Moses lifted up the ser- 
 pent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be hfted up ; that 
 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. — 
 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'' 
 The coming of Jesus Christ into our world ; the work he performed ; 
 the redemption which he effected ; and the greatest events the world 
 ever knew, or of which men can ever be told. This was the great ob- 
 ject of creation — the grand design of Providence. This event was 
 revealed to men by the holy prophets, announced by the voice of an- 
 
god's love to the world. 169 
 
 gels, recorded by tlie pen of inspiration, and is of the greatest impor- 
 tance to us. The words of the text lead us to consider, 
 
 I. The objects of God's love. 
 
 " God so loved the ivorld." This expression has various significations 
 in Scripture. Sometimes it means the globe on which we live, — the 
 earth which we behold, with all its various scenery, its furniture, and 
 the animals by which it is inhabited. Thus it was said, " He was in 
 the world, and the world knew him not." " He came into the world 
 to save sinners." But while heaven is God's throne, the earth is his 
 footstool. Much as it is desired ; much as it is idohzed ; much as it is 
 pursued ; — this world is the most despicable of all God's creatures, — 
 it is that on which he sets his feet. And yet men set their hearts on 
 the footstool, wliile they might have the throne. The words of the 
 text cannot apply to this. 
 
 By this term we sometimes understand the G-entiles in every nation, 
 age, and circumstance, as distinguished from the Jews, who had a rev- 
 elation of the true God, the knowledge of his will, and the services 
 of his law ; while the rest of mankind, the Gentiles, were in the 
 grossest ignorance, addicted to the vilest superstitions, and sunk into 
 the most sensual idolatries that ever disgraced men. Thus we read, 
 " If the fxll of them," — that is, the Jews — " be the riches of the 
 world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how 
 much more their fulness ? " Here the words " world " and " Gen- 
 tiles " are evidently synonymous. And again : " If the casting away 
 of them be the reconciling of the loorld, Avhat shall the receiving of 
 them be, but life from the dead ? " Here, also, the term " world '* 
 means the Gentiles. Now " God so loved the world," — the Gentile 
 world — a world perishing in ignorance and idolatry, that he gave his 
 Son to die for them. 
 
 The term means, also, the ungodly part of manhlnd, as distin- 
 guished from believers who have " passed from death unto life." Thus, 
 Christ said to his disciples, " Ye are not of the world, but I have 
 chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hatcth you." Be- 
 lievers are not of the unenlightened, carnal, unregencratc world. They 
 are separated from it, hated by it, opposed to it ; and these are rea- 
 sons why they should not wish to be united to it. 
 
 The term most commonly signifies all mankind — every child of 
 Adam. In this sense we read, " the whole world lieth in wickedness ; " 
 — ^Hhe whole ivorld is become guilty before God." And in this 
 extended sense we understand the term in the text. This sense fully 
 accords with all the attributes of Deity, and is well supported by the 
 
170 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 united testimony of the Holj Scriptures. Hence, we are told that 
 Christ " loved the church, and gave himself for it ; " and again, that 
 he " died for the ungodly ; " and the ungodly and the church include, 
 of course, all sorts and conditions of men. " He is the propitiation 
 for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole 
 world." The term " the whole world " is only employed twice in the 
 sacred volume : and on both occasions by this same apostle. First, he 
 says, "the whole world lieth in the wicked one;" and again, — 
 " Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world." We can 
 assign no reason whatever why the words should not be understood in 
 the same sense in one place as in the other. But we are told, also, 
 " if Christ died for all, then were all dead ; and he died for all, that 
 they should henceforth live unto him." The same " all " that were 
 dead in sin, is the "all for whom Christ died." Again: "He gave 
 himself a ransom for aZ?." " All we like sheep have gone astray ; the 
 Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." The same " all " that had 
 gone astray like lost sheep, was the " all" whose iniquities were laid 
 on him. And lest still we should suppose that " all men " meant only 
 a part, we are expressly told that " Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, 
 tasted death for every many 
 
 Here, then, we have a ground for hope. We are the objects of God's 
 love. Men can only exclude themselves from his compassion by wil- 
 ful obstinacy and unbelief. God has given a commission to his minis- 
 ters to go " into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creor 
 ture ; " and " God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life." Let us consider, 
 
 II. The nature and degree op this love. 
 
 1. Its nature. But in speaking of the nature of this love, it is 
 much more easy to say what it is not, than to say what it is. It could 
 not be a love of corrvplacency . We love objects on account of their 
 excellency, or their beauty, or their fitness to make us happy. But in 
 man there is, by nature, no moral excellence, no rectitude of principle, 
 no beauty of hohness. His nature is depraved, his principles are cor- 
 rupt, his actions are defiled, his soul is black with pollution, the whole 
 head is sick, the whole heart is faint ; he is so destitute of every par- 
 ticle of righteousness that he has nothing to cover or conceal the naked- 
 ness of his nature. God must, therefore, look upon such a creature 
 with the greatest abhorrence. 
 
 It must, therefore, be a love of j;%. He looked down from his 
 high and holy habitation, and saw that men everyAvhere were filled 
 
god's love to the world. 171 
 
 with all unrighteousness, stung by the scorpion sin, writhing in anguish, 
 \ying in the regions of death, sinking to everlasting misery ! He be- 
 held man ignorant of all that is necessary for him to know, and none 
 to teach him. He saw him amidst the most splendid and costly sacri- 
 fices, unable to present a suitable atonement for the sins of his soul. 
 He marked him ardently pursuing pleasure, yet finding no satisfaction. 
 He saw him about to sink, the prey of death and hell, while there was 
 none to rescue, none to deliver. In this state he pitied him ; he alight- 
 ed by him, as he lay in his sins and in his blood, and he said, " I have 
 loved thee in thy lost estate, and have sent my Son, my incarnate Son, 
 to rescue and redeem thee ! " 
 
 This love was unmerited. The men to whom it is manifested saw no 
 need of it, made no effort to obtain it, did not even seek it. If a pious 
 act, a good word, a gracious thought, would have merited heaven itself, 
 man had it not to give. On the contrary, men despised, rejected, 
 scoflfed at the proffered good. " Behold," said John, " what manner 
 of love the Father hath bestowed upon us ! " What manner of love ? 
 Wliy, a love unmerited, free, every way worthy of God. 
 
 It was disinterested. When we hear that God loved the world, we 
 are not to suppose that he gained any thing by it : — no, he made no 
 acquisition to his authority ; he increased not the extent of his domin- 
 ions ; he made no addition to his knowledge, to his happiness, to his 
 essential glory. All these he possessed in infinite degrees before. 
 Were God to blot out of existence every creature he had made, or 
 were man to damn himself to everlasting misery, the happiness of God 
 would experience no diminution. And were he to create innumerable 
 worlds, people them all with seraphs or archangels, and bring them all 
 to worship in his presence, — still this would add nothing to his essen- 
 tial glory. The riches of his glory are the same from eternity to eter- 
 nity, and are incapable of either rismg or falling. He could not love 
 the world from a motive of interest : therefore man, and man alone, 
 derives the benefit. Notice, 
 
 2. The degree of this love. It is so high, no thought can reach it; 
 so deep, no mind can fathom it ; so extensive in its range, no tongue 
 can declare it. 
 
 The gift itself bespeaks its greatness. " God so loved the world, 
 that he gave" — what? a throne of light? — No. What? some 
 servant of his presence, some first-born son of light? — No. "\Yhat? 
 
 — He "so loved the world, that he gave his Son — his begotten Son 
 
 — his only-begotten Son ; the brightness of his own glory; the express 
 image of his Father's person ; the heir of all things." Such love as 
 this cannot be told : the Redeemer himself does not attempt to tell 
 
172 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 US ; he has put an eternity of meaning into this particle " so," and 
 has left it for the eternal study and admiration of angels and of 
 men. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten 
 Son." 
 
 Tlie subjects on whom tliis love is bestowed raise its degree. " God 
 so loved the world,'" that is, men : who, when spoken of in comparison 
 with their Maker, are called worms, grasshoppers, nothing, less than 
 nothing, and vanity ; mere clods of matter, with a spark of mind, mys- 
 teriously united by the Deity. And yet, this man, this worm, this 
 nothing, this less than nothing, and vanity ; man, sunk in sin, a daring 
 rebel against God in his heart and in his life, leagued with Satan, op- 
 posed in all things to the authority and law of God ; — this insignificant, 
 unworthy man, God so loved, as to meditate and devise his recovery to 
 favor, to happiness, to eternal life. 
 
 We learn the degrees of this love, also, from the expressions of the 
 Redeemer toivards his enemies. See him going to Jerusalem for the 
 last time ; — Jerusalem, a place pre-eminent in cruelty, " the slaugh- 
 ter-house of G^d's servants ; " and in less than a week, perhaps, to 
 become the place of his own execution. He overlooks the malice of 
 the Pharisees, the treachery of Judas, the infidelity of Peter, the cow- 
 ardice of all his disciples, the cruelty of his accusers, the ignominy of 
 ihQ cross, the pain of death ; and he fixes his eyes on the vast inunda- 
 tion of wrath which was coming on the devoted city. He might have 
 looked on all this with feelings of joy, as a just retribution for the loss 
 of so much blood. But no : he gazed on the approaching wrath ; his 
 eye afi'ected his heart — his heart afiected his tongue, and, with strong 
 compassion he cried — " How often would I have gathered thy chil- 
 dren together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
 would not ! " He sees his mistaken accusers met together to demand 
 his innocent blood ; he hears them loudly clamor for his life. He does 
 not call for a legion of angels at once, to sweep them to the hell they 
 deserved ; but spends his last breath, and sheds his dearest blood, to 
 buy pardon for his murderers ! Nor did he forget them after he had 
 ended his life. He commissioned his disciples to go and preach to 
 them ; — "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel in my name, 
 beginning at Jerusalem.''^ It might rather have been thought that he 
 would have said, " Go to the outcast heathen ; visit the abominable 
 Gentiles ; penetrate to the very ends of the earth ; — these, though 
 they have sinned deeply, have not sinned agamst such mercy and grace. 
 But come not near that ungodly race, the dwellers in Jerusalem. They 
 have slaughtered my servants, the prophets ; they have taken the head 
 of John the Baptist, whom I sent, to reward a lascivious dance ; last 
 
god's love to the world. 173 
 
 of all, they have wickedly shed my blood. If you should visit some 
 of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet enter not Jerusalem ; let 
 not the gospel pass through those gates, through which they led me, its 
 Author, to shed my blood." But no : — he said, " Go to Jerusalem ; 
 and, to show the value of my gospel, the efficacy of my atonement, the 
 power of my love, — go there first. Let those who shed my blood be 
 the first to taste its healing virtue ; let those who troubled the waters 
 be the first to participate in their valued influence ; let those who struck 
 the rock be the first to drink of its salutary streams. Go to Jerusa- 
 lem ; and, should you in your wanderings meet the poor wretch that 
 thrust his spear into my side, tell him that the wound he made has 
 opened a cleft in my heart sufficiently wide to take him in ; and that 
 the blood and water which he caused to flow, has sufficient virtue to 
 pardon and purify him. Begin at Jerusalem ; — the inhabitants thereof 
 lately said, ' His blood be on us, and on our children.' And so be it ! 
 but not in vengeance on their heads, but in all its virtue to soften, and 
 in all its efficacy to save ! Let it be on their consciences and on their 
 hearts, making them meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." 
 
 The degree of this love appears, also, in the extent of the Savior's 
 sufferings. From the manger to the cross, he became " a man of sor- 
 rows, and acquainted with grief." He personally experienced pain and 
 want ; he had " not where to lay his head." His words were pervert- 
 ed ; his actions were misconstrued ; his miracles were ascribed to an 
 influence he hated. He was betrayed by a chosen companion, aban- 
 doned by his friends in the hour of distress, and forsaken by his heav- 
 enly Father ! See him pressed down, crushed, and groaning beneath 
 the weight of woe and sin ! What horror of darkness, what anguish 
 of soul, was ever to be compared to his ! The Father has forsaken 
 him ! A child has grown up before his parent, " as a tender plant, 
 and as a root out of a dry ground ; " he has grown up to perfection, 
 and become the object of his delight — his only joy ! But this child 
 is taken suddenly, dangerously ill ; the disease makes rapid and malig- 
 nant progress ; it threatens to take away the dehght of his eyes, the 
 joy of his heart. The parent sees the progress of the disease ; he 
 marks the ravages it makes ; and his feelings keep pace with its pro- 
 gress. He sees his child in the agonies of death ; he witnesses his 
 struggles ; he hears his sighs ; the last gleam of his eye fastens on his 
 father, while, in his last agony, he cries, "Father, help me! father, 
 save me from this hour ! " And what is there which such a father would 
 not do for such a son ? Now, behold this scene realized. See the agony 
 of the Savior ! Mark him in the dark, cold night, prostrate on the 
 damp garden, bedewing the earth with his tears ; groaning through the 
 
174 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 distress of his soul ; sweating " as it were great drops of blood falling 
 to the ground ; " piercing heaven with his cries, and saying, in effect, 
 " If it be possible, let this cup pass from me ! Save me from this 
 hour ! " The Father hears the agonizing supplication of his Son, and 
 yet he turns away. Nay, he appears to frown upon his Son in the 
 depth of his anguish ; and, while he frowns upon his Son, he turns a 
 smile of mercy on a half damned world ! But follow him to the con- 
 summation of his pains ; see him ascend the rugged hill of Calvary. 
 Mark how they pierce his hands and his feet ! He weeps, and the 
 drops extinguish the sun ! He sighs, and his sigh rends the rocks ! 
 He groans, and his last groan causes the earth to tremble ! All 
 nature sympathized, and owned the presence of the Creator of the 
 world ! " God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten 
 Son." 
 
 Then, the numler of the subjects of this love shows the greatness of 
 its degree. " God so loyed the world,'" — all mankind. This love is 
 unconfined, unlimited. "Whosoever believeth," — in whatever age 
 or clime, — whatsoever his national, civil, intellectual, or moral distinc- 
 tions ; whatever the nature, the number, the magnitude, the repeti- 
 tions of his iniquities. As all need the exercise of this love, so to all 
 it is ofibred ; as all need, so all may have it ; as " all have sinned and 
 come short of the glory of God," so " whosoever believeth " need not 
 perish, but may have " everlasting life." This love extends to all. 
 
 ni. The design op this love. 
 
 It is that we should " not perish, but have everlastuig life. " Here, 
 1. Observe, that /or sin the world deserved to perish. This is the 
 true state, the natural condition of the world ; it is actually perishing. 
 The word " perish" has reference sometimes to the death of the 
 body. Thus the affrighted mariner said to Jonah, " What meanest thou, 
 sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon 
 us, that we perish not ; " that we lose not our lives — that we be not en- 
 gulphed in the ocean. As all have " sinned, and come short of the 
 glory of God," the sentence of death has passed universally on all ; 
 — " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." No man can 
 expect to be exempt from the attack of death. But, through the mer- 
 its of Christ, God has determined that man shall not utterly perish ; 
 that he shall not ultimately and for ever see corruption. Jesus Christ 
 hath " abohshed death ; " he has destroyed its power ; he has obtained 
 a victory over it. The monster, death, shall be made to disgorge his 
 prey. To the believer in Christ, death is converted into a sleep ; he 
 can scarcely be said to die ; he rather falls asleep in the arms of his 
 
god's love to the world. 175 
 
 Lord ; wliile he hears God saying to him, in effect, " Fear not to go 
 down into the grave ; for I will go down with thee, and will bring thee 
 up again. I'ear not the cold earth, the gnawing worms, the disgusting 
 putridity ; I have entered the grave before ; I have sanctified it by my 
 presence ; I have converted it into a bed of roses. I will bring thee 
 up again. If thou goest down in weakness, I will bring thee up again 
 in power ; if thou goest down in corruption, I will raise thee up in 
 incorruption ; if thou goest down a natural body, I will bring thee up 
 again a spiritual body, amazingly refined, astonishingly improved. I 
 will change thy vile body, and fashion it like unto my own glorious 
 body. Thus, thou shalt not perish, but be raised to life eternal." 
 
 The word " perish " is expressive sometimes of mental misery. When 
 the prodigal is represented as far from his father's house, it is said he 
 was ready to perish. Every imregenerate man is destitute of peace ; 
 he has no mental satisfaction ; he is the slave of sin ; the drudge of Sor 
 tan ; under the tyranny of evil passions and appetites ; distracted by a 
 guilty conscience ; an " aUen from the commonwealth of Israel ; a 
 stranger to the covenant of promise ; having no hope, and without God 
 in the world." Now, God has given his Son, that we might not thus 
 perish ; that Son has suffered death that we might be redeemed ; that 
 "we might be delivered from the powers of Satan and the world ; that 
 ■we might be brought into the possession gf peace ; that our wants 
 might be supplied ; and that ayc might have true satisfaction and last- 
 ing joj- 
 
 The word " perish " means, also, everlasting condemnation. Thus it 
 is said, "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish with- 
 out law : " and again, — " The Lord is long suffering, not willing that 
 any should perish.''^ This sense of the word includes banishment " from 
 the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power ; " it is to 
 be damned without .the possibihty of ever rising ; it is the being doom- 
 ed to " the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the sec- 
 ond death ; " it is to feel the gnawing of the worm that " dieth not," 
 and the scorching of the flame that is not quenched ; it is to suffer the 
 bitter pains of everlasting death. Every man, by reason of sin, is 
 doomed thus to perish, both body and soul, here and everlastingly. 
 But through the free pardon, which is bought by the blood of Jesus 
 Christ, and received by faith, he is so delivered that over him the sec- 
 ond death has no power. 
 
 2. But, on the other hand, he shall " have everlasting life.^^ This 
 everlasting life has a beginning in the present state : it commences 
 while the soul is yet united to the body. Man, by nature, is " dead in 
 trespasses and sins : " all his powers are under the influence of a moral 
 
176 THE ENGLISH PDLPIT. 
 
 paralysis : he is incapable of spiritual actions and enjoyments. But, 
 through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, fallen man is quickened : 
 his understanding is enlightened to see his state ; his heart is softened ; 
 his various powers are brought into exercise ; jjious resolutions are 
 formed ; peace takes possession of his conscience ; hope springs up in 
 his breast ; he flees for refuge " to lay hold on the hope set before 
 him." Thus he is passed from death unto life : he is raised " from a 
 death in sin to a life of righteousness." 
 
 This life has its existence in the soul, in virtue of a vital union with 
 Jesus Christ. It is a life which is infused by the gracious influence of 
 the Holy Ghost. It consists of joy, peace, hope, love, holiness, and 
 the prospect of life everlasting. He who has this, has a life of the same 
 nature with the future, though it is inferior in its degree. Hence, it 
 is called the earnest, the first fruits, the foretaste : the same life that 
 he shall have in future, he has now in part ; the present is a drop of 
 that mighty ocean. 
 
 This " everlasting life " includes the fulness of joywhich is at God's 
 right hand — the pleasures which endure for ever more. This includes 
 a nearer and fuller view of the Redeemer, a closer union with the 
 Father of our spirits. Every hindrance to serving God will be fully 
 removed ; every desire will be enlarged and fulfilled ; every thing that 
 is evil will be put out of the way ; the soul will be filled with bliss and 
 happiness unutterable, and endowed with a " far more exceeding and 
 eternal weight of glory." In consequence of sin man lost all right 
 and title to this life ; but through the death of Jesus Christ, and the 
 benefits of his death, man may be brought to rejoice in all this. Let 
 us consider, 
 
 IV. The WAT in which we may be interested in the bene- 
 fits OF this gift of the Redeemer. 
 
 That we may " not perish, but have everlasting life," beheving is 
 indispensably necessary. 
 
 The word believing is sometimes to be understood in a simple sense, 
 as expressing an act of the mind. To believe is neither more nor less 
 than to take Cfod at his word. 
 
 1. We must beUeve the record God has given us of man. And 
 what is this ? Why, that he is ignorant, wicked, depraved, dead ; that 
 " the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint ; " that in his flesh 
 dwells nothing that is good. When we understand, beheve, and feel 
 this, it humbles our proud spirits, induces true penitence of heart, and 
 urges us to flee for refuge from the wrath to come. 
 
 2. We must believe the testimony Cfod has given of his Son. And 
 
god's love to the world. 177 
 
 vrhat is this ? That he was equal ^^•ith God ; that he has " borne our 
 sin, and carried our sorrow ; " that he has satisfied the demands of the 
 divine justice ; that he has healed the honors of the broken law ; that he 
 has " finished transgression, and made reconcihation for iniquity ;" — 
 that he has obtained salvation for us at the hands of his heavenly Fath- 
 er. To receive this testimony aright, is to believe that Jesus Christ is 
 made over to sinners as a complete and willing Savior. A sure trust 
 and confidence in this ; a firm reliance in Jesus Christ, as made a sin- 
 offering for us ; as coming to free us from condemnation, and save us ; 
 this is the faith which brings comfort and peace into the soul. 
 
 And there must be a cmitinuance in this. This will give us power 
 over every sin, and victory over every temptation, till our natures are 
 conformed to that of Christ ; till our lives are formed upon the model .j 
 of his ; till " as he Avas, so we are, in this world.^^ So that, in order ' 
 that we " may not perish, but have everlasting life," we must believe, 
 and continue to believe ; " the life that we now live in the flesh," must 
 be " by faith on the Son of God ; " and the faith we exercised at first 
 we must continue to exercise, till we receive the crown of life which is 
 laid up for us in heaven. 
 
 From this subject we may, 
 
 1. See the evil of sin. It must be a great evil, a grievous and a 
 bitter thing, when it required such a sacrifice — such sufferings — to 
 make an atonement for its commission. For if God had given more 
 than was necessary, it would have been as unworthy of his wisdom as 
 if he had given too little. If God gave his only-begotten Son, it was 
 absolutely necessary he should so do, in order that we might "not per- 
 ish, but have everlasting life." 
 
 2. See the value of the soul. Most men think little of their souls ; 
 the body engrosses all their care, while the soul, — compared with 
 which the whole world is but as a grain of sand, — is totally neglected 
 by them. Yea, they can give their souls to the devil, with both hands, 
 as a free-will offering ! " The redemption of the soul is precious." Go 
 to Bethlehem ! visit Calvary ! see the darkened sun — the rending 
 rocks — the opening graves — convulsed nature ! and in the sufferings 
 of the incarnate God, discover the value of the soul, and learn to say, 
 " What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world and lose his own 
 soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? " And think, 
 also, what is all that you can do for the bodies of your fellow-creatures, 
 in comparison with saving a soiil from death ! 
 
 3. See the condemnation of sinners. Notwithstandmg all that God 
 has done, the mass of mankind are careless, wicked, depraved, seeking 
 death in the error of their ways. And are there none here who are 
 
 12 
 
f 
 
 178 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 in danger of perishing ? uf perishing amidst the blaze of light — amidst 
 the calls of mercy — amidst the displays of love ? These men rush 
 on the loaded artillery of heaven ! they are despising the overtures of 
 mercy, levelling the mountains -which infinite goodness has thrown up 
 to prevent their ruin, opposing the swelling tide of divine love, which 
 would set full on their souls, and, with lighted torches in their hands, 
 forcing their way to eternal ruin ! Surely theirs will not be ordinary 
 pangs ! If those who hear the gospel perish, they must, as it were, 
 take hell by force, and be lost, spite of all God's love could do to pre- 
 vent their ruin I brethren, privileged as we are in reading and 
 hearing this truth — " God so loved the world, that he gave his only- 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
 have everlasting life ; " let it not become as a millstone about our 
 necks, to drag us down to the depths of perdition ! 
 
 4. See the encouragement awarded to those who are seeking the Lord 
 — those who are weary of sin, and of the service of the world, the 
 flesh, and Satan. Like the prodigal, they are come to themselves ; 
 they are alive to a sense of their condition. Seeing their ingratitude, 
 their rebellion, they exclaim, " My iniquities are more in number than 
 the hairs of my head ! I am a grievous sinner ! I am unworthy of the 
 least of all God's mercies ! " All this is true, very true ; and it is also 
 true that God loves thee — loves thee with a love of pity and compas- 
 sion — and is not willing that thou shouldst perish. believe the 
 record of heaven ! believe the record that God has given of his Son ! — 
 believe that Christ came into the world to seek and save the lost — to 
 save sinners, even the chief ! Receive this record ; cordially grasp it 
 with all thy soul. Say, " It is worthy of all acceptation ! it is worthy 
 of my acceptation ! " God enable thee so to believe, that thy soul 
 may live for ever ! 
 
 5. And if God " spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for 
 us all, how shall he not with him aho freely give us all things ? " He 
 will surely give an answer to our every prayer, and supply our every 
 need. Let us, then, honor him by our implicit confidence. " My God 
 shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory, by Christ 
 Jesus." From this love let believers fully expect grace here, and 
 glory hereafter. 
 
 6. And who is there among us that can think on all this love, and 
 not wish to make suitable returns ? Who does not say, — 
 
 "What shall I do, to make it known 
 What thou for all mankind hast done ? " 
 
 Should it not be proclaimed to the ends of the earth ? and should it 
 not be made known in our own land ? and that, not only by preaching 
 
god's love to the world. 179 
 
 — by the distribution of the sacred Scriptures — by the circulation of 
 religious truth ; but also by the education of the young ? It has been 
 found that by schools, and by schools on the Sabbath day^ habits of 
 order and decency have been induced, the most valuable instructions 
 have been communicated, and a powerful influence has been exerted to 
 save souls from ruin. These schools have been found a very powerful 
 engine for preventing much evil, and for promoting a great deal of 
 good. They have been in use for half a century ; and they have been 
 greatly increased and supported by the liberality of Christians. This 
 is a strong proof that they have been, and are, useful ; were it other- 
 wise, they would not be so supported. One object we have now in 
 view, is to promote the interests of a Sunday school in connexion with 
 this chapel. It was established in the year 1791 ; the year in which 
 the venerable John Wesley died. Since that period 14,731 children 
 have passed through its instructions. They have received the light of 
 knowledge, and some of them the light of life ; some have gone from 
 this world, after having brought forth fruit to the honor of God on 
 earth ; and others are still walking upon earth, in the fear of the Lord, 
 and the comforts of the Holy Ghost. When it is considered that this 
 has taken place in the dense and dark population of Spitalfields, we 
 think it will be duly appreciated. There are 350 children at present 
 in the school. When we think on the length of time this school has 
 been instituted ; on the many children who have passed through its 
 instructions ; on the number of pious and intelligent persons who have 
 been engaged in this work, some of whom are, perhaps, bending from 
 their lofty thrones on the present occasion, to see how the recital of the 
 Redeemer's dying love influences your minds in reference to the sup- 
 port of this school ; — we cannot but hope that you will render it all 
 the assistance in your power. God has loved you : he has proved his 
 kindness to you in ten thousand instances, as to your own persons, your 
 substance, your famihes, your friends. And see what he has brought 
 you through ; and how bright he has made your prospects for another 
 world. Surely you are saying — " What shall I render to the Lord 
 for all his mercies ? " "VYhat ? why render love — love for love. God 
 has loved you, and he requires your love in return. He addresses you 
 as he did his servant formerly, and he addresses you personally, and 
 he addresses himself to your hearts — " Lovest thou me ? " And if 
 you say, " Lord, thou knowest that I love thee ! " he replies, " Feed 
 my lambsy Some of these children, it may be, are bereaved of their 
 parents : they are almost outcasts of the world ; but they are the ten- 
 derlings of Christ's flock : he calls them to himself ; he bears them in 
 his bosom ; he intends to bless them ; — but he honors his servants, by 
 
180 THE ENGLISH PULPIT, 
 
 allowing them to take these lambs under their care. K you regard 
 his authority, if you have tasted of his love, attend to his injunction, 
 and return the love whei-ewith he has loved you, by feeding his lambs. 
 Supply their minds with knowledge ; make them acquainted with his 
 truth and guardianship ; and do all that is needful to support those 
 schools, which profess to accomplish this great object. And what you 
 do, diO from a principle of love to Christ ; doit, also, out of love to 
 your fellow-creatures, and an earnest desire for the welfare of posterity. 
 And what you do, do it with all your hearts, and with all your might. 
 " God will not be unrighteous, to forget your work and labor of love ;" 
 and you shall receive from him happiness here, and hfe everlasting ! 
 
 SEEMON XY. 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL BUILDING 
 
 BY EEV. ISAIAH BIRT. 
 "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. — Efhesi&ivs ii. 22. 
 
 The gospel ministry, in all its departments, is conducted on the same 
 principles. Whether it be stationary or itinerant ; whether it be pas- 
 toral or missionary; — these principles are ever the same. These 
 principles are very few, but very important. They relate to all men 
 — to all without distinction, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free, 
 kings or subjects ; — they consider all as far from God ; that the whole 
 world " lieth in wickedness ; " that " there is none righteous, no not 
 one." This is the first principle of a gospel ministry ; it contemplates 
 every man as a sinner, exposed to wrath and indignation. These prin- 
 ciples relate to Jesus Christ also. This ministry exhibits the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, in his person, his offices,, and his works, as the great, the 
 only Redeemer, appointed for salvation by God, to the ends of the 
 earth. We must also consider the ministry of the gospel as relating 
 to the means, under divine influence, hy which a church is to he formed 
 out of this world, set apart for the worship and service of God upon 
 earth, and finally to be made like him, and be with him, and enjoy him 
 for ever. 
 
 These principles are ever exhibited in the ministry of the gospel. — 
 And in order to confine them in our view, the church of God is repre- 
 
THE SPIRITUAL BUILDING. 181 
 
 sented under a variety of similitudes. Sometimes it is considered as 
 a sheep-fold ; and the sheep are gathered by his care, watched over, 
 provided for, and blessed for ever. In the words before us, it is rep- 
 resented under the idea of a building. " Now therefore," it is said to 
 the Gentiles, who were once considered as diflferent from the Jews ; — 
 " now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- 
 citizens with the saints, and of the household of God ; and are built 
 upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself 
 being the chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed 
 together groweth into an holy temple in the Lord ; in whom we also," 
 both Jews and Gentiles, " are builded together for an habitation of God 
 through the Spirit." Seeking the divine blessing and assistance, we 
 will employ ourselves this evening in contemplating the church under 
 the idea which is given in the text, as " builded together in Christ for 
 an habitation of God through the Spirit." We will, first, take notice 
 of the materials of this building ; then, we will attend to its basis and 
 plan ; thirdly, we will contemplate the instruments and agency employed 
 in its construction ; we will next consider the end to be accomplished 
 in its erection; SiYidfinaUy, we will return to ourselves, and endeavor 
 to enforce on our own hearts what is important in connexion with the 
 words of the text. And that we may be blessed of God, and that 
 it may be the mercy of every one present to be united to the church 
 here, and to share in its glories hereafter ! 
 
 I. Let us contemplate the materials of this building, 
 
 1. 1)1 their nature 1 They are of a very superior order. In all 
 buildings there are some materials which are comparatively insignifi- 
 cant, some unimportant, some unsightly. But if we examine Scrip- 
 ture, in reference to the materials of this building, we shall fin'd that 
 it selects the most precious materials, — gold, and silver, and precious 
 stones, on which men set such a high value. And yet all these images 
 fall short ; gold, and silver, and precious stones, are not worthy consid- 
 eration, when compared with human souls — with the children of men 
 — the sons and daughters of Adam, If we consider man in reference 
 to the eternal world, he is a being of a superior order. If we regard 
 him in relation to angels, he is, in many respects, similar, and is capa- 
 ble of sharing in their enjoyments and delights. If we contemplate 
 him in reference to God himself, we see him fonned for intimate com- 
 munion with him. You can find no being superior to man, except 
 angels ; and indeed, when we come to be united to the church, we are 
 said to come " to an innumerable company of angels ; " and when, in the 
 Revelation, John tells us of the glories of the celestial city, we find 
 
182 . THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 that " all the angels stood round about the throne ; " and when redeem- 
 ed men from every part of the world uttered their ascriptions of praise 
 and thanksgiving to God and the Lamb, for the blessings of redem2> 
 tion, we find the angels united with them, as though they w^ere but one 
 company, — united with them in their acclamations — and added a 
 hearty "Amen" to their sublime doxologies. Contemplate these 
 materials, 
 
 2. In their diversity. There is a great diversity in every building. 
 If we were to examine the building in which we are now assembled, 
 we should find in it a great variety of materials of a very reverse 
 description. So it is in this building of God ; it is composed of per- 
 sons of every possible variety ; " of every nation, and kindred, and 
 tongue." Scripture does not confine the blessings of the gospel to 
 any one class — to monarchs, or to the poor only ; but when the inhab- 
 itants of the celestial city were shown to John, he was informed that 
 they comprehended persons of all descriptions — kmgs and their sub- 
 jects, bond and free, Jews and Gentiles, and even slaves. For the 
 distinctions which prevail, and properly prevail, amongst men, have no 
 place in heaven whatever. No ; it is man — man in his sinfulness — 
 man in his spiritual, his undying nature — man in the endless diversi- 
 ties of his earthly condition, — that is contemplated by the gospel. No 
 man can stand and survey this building as it rises, and say, ." I can 
 never become a part of that building ; I am so dry a tree, that I can 
 never be cut and fitted ; I am so rough a stone that I can never be 
 squared and polished ! " No ; all may be made fit. Even amongst 
 the angels Ave find a great diversity ; for we read of " thrones, domin- 
 ions, principalities, and powers ; " and these angels all join to form a 
 part of this glorious building. Contemplate these materials, 
 
 3. In their number. This is exceeding great. John tells us' that 
 he saw " a great multitude which no man could number." how 
 pleasing is the consideration ! When we considered their diversity, this 
 was pleasing ; this led us to entertain hope as to all our fellow-men ; 
 but here is number also — agreat number — " a great, an innumerable 
 multitude, out of all nations, and kindred, and people, and tongues." 
 God has done much more in this respect than we are aware of, or are 
 sometimes willing to allow. We are ready to suppose, as Elijah, that 
 there are very few who serve God ; whereas, God had, at that very 
 period, " reserved to himself seven thousand men who had not bowed 
 the knee to the image of Baal." There are multitudes we know not 
 of, who are preparing for glory, for honor, for eternal life. " In my 
 Father's house," said the Savior, " are many mansions ; " and multi- 
 tudes out of every nation — multitudes which no human power can 
 
THE SPIRITUAL BUILDING. 183 
 
 calculate, — \y\\\ be collected to inhabit them. The principles which 
 men have adopted to limit their views of the number of the redeemed, 
 appear to me as calculated to expand our ideas considerably ; they are 
 the choice of the God of love, the purchase of the benevolent Redeem- 
 er, and they are an exceeding great number. Contemplate them also, 
 
 4. In their circumstances. These are very unpropitious. The 
 angels, who are to become a part in this building, are all prepared and 
 fitted for their places ; but men — they are like the trees in the forest, 
 or the stones m the quarry, or the ore in the mine. The trees must 
 be felled and squared ; the stones must be dug out and polished ; the 
 ore must be brought out and purified, before it can be ready to form 
 any part of this building. And then contemplate these materials, 
 
 5. In their value. And can you estimate this ? It is impossible ; 
 it is like thinking of space, or of God himself. Christ has given us 
 some idea of their value, when he said, " What is a man profited if he 
 gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give 
 in exchange for his soul ? " One soul — the soul of the poorest man 
 — the soul of a poor negro slave — one soul — is of more value than 
 the world ! But if one soul be so valuable, how shall we estimate the 
 value of the vast mass of mind which goes to compose the church of the 
 living God ? What is gold and silver ? what are precious stones ? — 
 what shall we put in competition with human souls ? with these minds — 
 these minds capable of feeling, of thought, of suffering, of joy ? And 
 when we add to this, eternal duration — an eternal duration in joy or 
 in suffering, O how immense is the value of immortal souls ! None 
 but Jesus Christ can estimate the value of these materials — the value 
 of immortal souls. 
 
 II. Let us attend to the basis on which it rests, and the 
 
 PLAN ON WHICH IT IS CONDUCTED. 
 
 1. There have been experiments made by angelic and by human 
 minds, but they have both failed. Angels were tried in heaven, and 
 they failed ; 7nan was tried under most propitious circumstances on 
 earth, but he failed ; the foundation which might have been supposed 
 to have stood, failed, and the building came down. But what is the 
 foundation on which this building rests ? Ah, you anticipate me here I 
 It is Christ ; it is Christ himself ; Jesus Christ is the chief corner-stone. 
 As it is said in Isaiah, " Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, 
 a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." And, says 
 Paul, " As a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation ; and other 
 foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 
 This, then, is the base of this building ; on his person, on his work, on 
 
18^ THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 his mediation, on his sufferings, on his exaltation, on his government, 
 — the -whole building rests. If he fall, the structure for ever falls ; 
 none can raise, none can sustain it, but he ! This is the base — the 
 most important part ; this is the foundation which God has laid in Zion. 
 Now here Jesus Christ appears to us under the idea of correspon- 
 dence. There is in him that which is most suitable for this important 
 purpose. He is said to be "head of all principalities and powers ;" 
 but little is said, it is true, of ayigels ; and yet we are given to under- 
 stand that he is their head and support. But he is intimately allied to 
 us ; he is " bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." He has done 
 all that is necessary for our salvation : he has died for our transgres- 
 sions ; he has brought in for us an everlasting righteousness ; he has 
 risen to heavenly glory ; he is seated at the right hand of his heavenly 
 Father ; and he is now carrying on the blessed work. And he is capa- 
 ble of supporting all this vast concern ; for Paul says, " In him dwell- 
 eth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." There is a correspondence 
 therefore, between the work and his character. Were he man, he might 
 fear a giving way of this building ; for even angels in heaven were not 
 able to stand. But when we consider that the fulness of the Godhead 
 is in him, and that he is " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever," we see in his merit, and in his perpetual existence, a 
 sure foundation for the confidence and salvation of all the sons and 
 daughters of men. From age to generation, the materials have all 
 been brought here, and here they have rested. 
 
 2. Christ is not only the basis — he is also spoken of as the chief 
 corner-stone. Not only do all the parts rest upon him ; but in him they 
 are all united ; — m him they are all united to each other, to the holy 
 angels, to himself, and to the Divine Father ; all are one in him. God 
 never could, I was about to say — it is certain God never has met with 
 man, but in Christ ; it is here men and Christ meet, and it is here men 
 and men meet in harmony as one. We are ready to suppose that the 
 church may be formed under this or that denomination, or according to 
 this or that creed. No, no ; these never unite hearts and souls togeth- 
 er ; these never unite man to God, nor man to man ; but let men come 
 to Christ ; let them be one with him ; and then they are united to God, 
 and united to the whole church. 
 
 3. Christ is not only the basis and the union of this building, but 
 the lohole hidlding is constructed hy him. All the lines are drawn from 
 him, from his dignity, from his glory. In the preceding verse we read, 
 " In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy 
 temple in the Lord : in whom ye also are builded together for an habi- 
 tation of God through the Spirit." The building will partake of the 
 
THE SPIRITUAL BUILDING. 185 
 
 character of the foundation ; it will not be a grand and noble founda- 
 tion, with a small and insignificant structure erected upon it. When 
 we consider the person of Christ ; his work ; his groans, and tears, and 
 sufierings, and death ; his glory, and his power ; and when we call to 
 mind that he is heir of all things, and head over all ; — we may rest 
 assured that the building shall be noble, extensive, and grand. 
 
 4. The excellencies of Christ will he the beauty of the building. 
 The church is built in him ; Christians are all lively stones, and he 
 lives in them and through them. He is not only the foundation on 
 which the church rests, and the corner-stone by which it is united, and 
 the pattern according to which it is framed ; but " the head-stone of the 
 corner," the crown, the ornament of the whole. The beauties and 
 excellencies of the Savior will appear in all his church. When he comes 
 in glory, it will be " to be admired in his saints, and to be glorified in 
 them that believe." When the whole work is completed, all will be 
 glorious, and beautiful, and excellent ; and he will appear the chief 
 beauty, and glory, and excellency of all. 
 
 III. Let us consider the instruments and agency by which 
 
 THIS BUILDING IS CONSTRUCTED AND CARRIED ON. 
 
 There is something very sweet and interesting in the contemplation 
 of this work ; especially when we feel that we have an interest in it 
 ourselves. 
 
 How extensive is this work ! It is carrying on in Europe, in Asia, 
 in Africa, in America ; and it is carrying on in the celestial world also. 
 Does it not immediately strike you that it requires a iiniversal presence? 
 an agent that must be present everywhere, both in earth and heaven, 
 in order to carry it on ? 
 
 Sow arduous is this ivorh! It is a work of most astonishing labor 
 and engagements. To gather in all the materials for this building, 
 however scattered, and to adjust them all, however rough and unfit; 0, 
 this is a great work ! When the far-famed Jewish temple was to be 
 erected, Solomon was employed in the work ; and he was endued with 
 astonishing wisdom, with great pqwer, and with extensive riches, for its 
 accomplishment. But 0, what wisdom, what power, what resources, 
 are required to collect and adjust the materials of this building ! But 
 the time would fail me to enumerate the difiicultics of this work. 0, 
 when we consider what is in each of our poor wicked hearts ; and the 
 influence of the world; and the subtlety of Satan; — we may well 
 conceive that it requires no less than a creative power ; not wisdom and 
 power in an ordinary ratio ; not a power and wisdom to collect materi- 
 
186 THE ENGLISH PCLPIT. 
 
 als already fitted and prepared ; but a creative power to make all 
 things anew. 
 
 Think of the time required to carry on this work. It has been going 
 on from the first periods of time, through all succeeding ages and gen- 
 erations, to the present ; and it shall be continued as long as time shall 
 last. Men have been very busilj employed ; they have been born, and 
 lived, and flourished, and died. Thrones have been set up and cast 
 down. Empires have been formed, have arrived at the zenith of their 
 glor}', and have disappeared. But this work has been going on from 
 generation to generation, and the last stone shall liot be brought forth 
 till the last moment of time. There is, therefore, a perpetual agency 
 required. In this work patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, 
 kings and their subjects, the learned and the powerful, the wise and the 
 good, have been variously employed ; but they were merely instruments ; 
 they were called to their day's work, and then taken to their reward. 
 Stupendous providences, also, have been employed ; but these have 
 only been as means ; and these were laid aside when they had accom- 
 plished their design. But this great agent, he works from first to last, 
 without relaxation, without intermission. 
 
 This is the agent pointed out in the text ; the Holy Spirit ; the wise, 
 the almighty, the omnipresent, the infinite, the eternal Spirit ; an agent 
 that ever lives, and ever works. " Not by might, nor by power, but 
 by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." He is the great agent ; instru- 
 ments are used and laid aside ; providences are employed and overruled ; 
 but he is the great agent who worketh all in all. And, 
 
 IV. Let us notice the design to be accomplished in this 
 
 WORK. 
 
 It is " for an habitation of God." What was the design of the 
 erection of the Jewish tabernacle in the wilderness ? It was to be 
 God's residence ; there the Shechinah was to be placed ; — and so it 
 was intended with respect to the temple which was afterwards built by 
 Solomon. But these were only symbols, types, shadows ; this is ike 
 temple, the habitation of God, where he will dwell. This is the taber- 
 nacle, the temple, the Zion, of which God has said, " This is my rest 
 for ever ; here will I dwell ; for I have desired it." But how shall we 
 speak aright of this ? " It doth not yet appear what we shall be ; " we 
 may think of all that is good, and great, and blessed, and give it the 
 happiest expression ; and when we have done all that we can, we are 
 still at the threshold ; we are still compelled to say, " It doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be." We may, however, say something, 
 
 1. As to its perfection. This habitation of God will display the 
 
THE SPIRITUAL BUILDING. 187 
 
 utmost perfection ; nothing that is polluted shall enter into it. It was 
 said of God's earthl}^ temple, that it was " the holy place, the taberna- 
 cle of the Most High ; " it was the abode of Deity. This gives us 
 an idea of the most perfect purity. A just idea of God's earthly tem- 
 ple leads the saints to say, " A day in thy courts, with all our imper- 
 fections, is better than a thousand spent elsewhere." then what will 
 be the place where the blessed God dwells ; the tabernacle which he 
 makes his eternal abode ? Nothing that is impure, nothing that defil- 
 eth, can enter there. The words of the text convey an idea also, 
 
 2. As to its vast extent. Have you ever considered what the Apos- 
 tle says, — " He hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be 
 head over all things to the church, Avhich is his body ; " then mark " the 
 fulness of him tliat filleth all in alW^ 0, what wonderful ideas does 
 this language convey to our minds ! Tliis habitation will not only be 
 holy and pure, but of vast extent. " The fulness of him that filleth all 
 in all." 0, this infinitely surpasses all our ideas. 
 
 3. It shall be holy and exquisite love. All will be alike, when 
 brought to form parts of this habitation of God. There will not be 
 two different principles — two creeds — two parties — two feelings ; 
 no ; all souls, all sentiments, all feelings, all hearts, will be alike. Saints 
 and angels all uniting and united ; united in bonds most sacred, most 
 blessed, most endearing, most perfect. There will be all that can unite 
 the thoughts and the heart, all that can endear the affections. All will 
 be brethren, and amidst them all the Son of God, " the first-born among 
 many brethren ; " he will have " the pre- eminence ; " but it will be the 
 pre-eminence of a brother and a friend. And, 0, say, what will be 
 the blessedness of such a state of mind, of such a state of feehng, of 
 such a state of holy, of blessed love ! 
 
 4. A state of supreme delight also. We can form but little idea 
 of delight in the present state ; our delights are chiefly either from 
 recollection, or from anticipation. The flame of delight is but weak 
 and languid at the best, while we are on earth ; but in the temple of 
 God it will burn with a full and steady flame. There the great Father 
 of all will contemplate all his designs completely fulfilled ; every obsta- 
 cle to the manifestation of his kindness will be for ever removed ; and 
 all his heart will be continually overflowing to his creatures ! He will 
 bring all his fulness to bear upon their souls to render their bliss com- 
 plete, while all that is contrary to their happiness, and bliss shall be 
 entirely done away. Then the blessed Redeemer shall " see of the tra- 
 vail of his soul, and be satisfied ; " all the fruit of his toil shall be 
 gathered ; all his children shall be brought home, and he shall receive 
 his full reward ! He remembers Calvary, in all the blessedness and 
 
188 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 glory connected with it ; he is filled with sacred delight, and all his 
 people share it with him. And what shall we say of tlie saints them- 
 selves ? 
 
 " O the delights, the heavenly joye, 
 
 The glories of" the place, ' 
 
 Where Jesus sheds the brightest beams 
 
 Of his o'erflowing grace I " 
 
 Ah, shall I be there ? Ah, my friends, will you be there ? 0, what 
 a full tide of joy will pour into the souls of the saints, when the joy 
 of each in this vast multitude will contribute to the joy of all ! For 
 there will be no selfish feeling ; the delight is a common stock ; the joy 
 of one will be the joy of all, and the joy of all is the joy of each indi- 
 vidual. Each one will say, " This God is our God for ever and ever ! 
 This Lord is our Lord for ever and ever ! " With what feelings shall 
 we remember our trials and difficulties here, and praise the love that 
 has brought us safely through ! This will be delight infinitely beyond 
 the best that we ever formed any idea of. Like the Queen of Sheba, 
 we shall say, " the half was not told us — the thousandth part was not 
 told us ; " it will be beyond our warmest wishes, and infinitely surpass 
 our most fervent prayers. 
 
 5. It will be a state, a presentation of the most unspeakable glory. 
 What is said by the beloved disciple ? " 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, sajing. Behold, the tabernacle of God is with man, and he 
 will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself 
 shall be with them and be their God." — " 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." 0, the ineffable glory 
 ,and blessedness which is to attend the consummation of the union 
 which is now formed between Christians and their blessed Lord ! 
 
 V. Let us conclude the subject with a few reflections. 
 
 We must not dismiss the subject without these. I have, in part, 
 anticipated them, it is true ; but it is worth having a second, and a 
 third, and a fourth, and a continual impression of them upon our 
 minds. 
 
 1. Have we been saved? Have we been dehvered from the world? 
 Have we been built on Jesus Christ ? Has the gospel produced any 
 effect upon our minds ? Is there any evidence that Christ is our 
 foundation ? Have we come as sinners to build upon him ? Ah, my 
 friends ! these are questions of the first importance ; and a period will 
 
THE SPIRITUAL BUILDING. 189 
 
 arrive, in your experience, and in mine, when these questions will put 
 all others in the shade. When we come to death — and we are coming 
 to it, and coming nearer and nearer to it every day — and when the 
 judgment>seat and eternity, with all its realities, bursts upon us ; these 
 will be questions of the very highest consideration. 0, be concerned 
 to be partakers of Christ, and aim to be built upon him ! He is the 
 only refuge, the only foundation of security and salvation. 
 
 " None but Jesus 
 Can do helpless sinners good." 
 
 There is " no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved." 
 Let this inquiry be carried home to our hearts, and let the effect of it 
 enter into our lives. It will be sure to come to us at some period, — 
 
 let it come NOW ! 
 
 2. As Crod honors human instrumentality in carrying on this blessed 
 building, how concerned shoidd we all he to he employed in it ! Let each 
 say, " Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do in this blessed work ? " 
 If there be a possibility of one arriving at that state of blessedness, 
 and then saying — " In yonder great world, where I lived for many 
 years, I never did any thing, I never gave any thing towards the car- 
 rying on that glorious building, which is now the joy, the admiration 
 of all ! While the servants of Christ were employed in the most labo- 
 rious exertions, I never did any thing ; while they made the greatest 
 sacrifices, I never gave any thing ; while they united all their energies, 
 
 1 bad no hand whatever in the work ! " 0, if it be possible for shame 
 to come across the cheek of a redeemed man, how would he then 
 blush ! let us, and especially those who have the blossoms of the 
 grave upon us, let us employ our time, our talents, our all, in this 
 work. We are all called to do something — to carry stones or timber 
 to the building, to dig stones out of the quarry, or to hew and square 
 the wood. I might heg of you this evening, but I will not. Read the 
 text, and meditate upon what is connected with it ; and then witlihold, 
 if you can, if you dare, all that this great and good cause claims at 
 your hands. 
 
 3. It shoidd he our concern to live, and labor, and die, fully assured 
 of the glory of God, and the glory of the church. Amidst all the 
 trials of this militant state, amidst all the ravages of death and the 
 grave, and amidst all the ruins and convulsions of the world, the church 
 of Christ shall stand. Nothing shall ever be able to cast it down. 
 For the divine honor, for angels' joy, for man's good, it shall stand, — 
 for men, for angels, for God, for ever and ever ! Amen. 
 
SERMON XVI. 
 
 OPPOSITION TO CHRIST. 
 
 BY REV. W. JAY. 
 
 " He that is not with me is against me," — Matthew xii. 30. 
 
 My brethren, the ministers of the gospel are liable to many reflec- 
 tions, and they are not always of the same character ; yea, some of 
 them seem perfectly opposite to others. Sometimes they are censured 
 for being too lax in their preaching ; and when they proclaim the 
 unsearchable riches of Christ, and the efficacy of his blood as together 
 able to cleanse from all sin, and the glory of his righteousness as able 
 to justify the ungodly, and invite all, even the chief of sinners, to 
 come to him as they are, and to be blessed with all spiritual blessings 
 in him — oh! this 13 dangerous ; this is licentiousness; and these, if 
 they are not uiigodly men, are deluded men, who turn the grace of 
 God into licentiousness, and teach their hearers to " sin, that grace 
 may abound." 
 
 Then, on the other side, they are condemned as being too strict, too 
 severe ; and when they require persons to deny themselves and take 
 up their cross and follow the Savior, and to crucify the flesh, with its 
 affections and lusts, and to mortify the deeds of the body, and to 
 become not only moral, but godly and Christian, and entirely godly and 
 Christian — " oh ! this is a hard saying, who can bear it ? " But the 
 question is, whether it is a true one. We wish to be always tender, 
 but we dare not to be unfaithful — unfaithful to God, unfaithful to 
 souls, unfaithful to our subject. And what saith the Scriptures ? 
 Whose lips said, " straight is the gate, and narrow is the road that 
 leadeth to life, and few there be that find it," whereas, " wide is the 
 gate, and broad is the road that leadeth to destruction, and many there 
 be that go in thereat ? " Whose lips said, " Re that is not with me 
 is against me?" 
 
 Our subject, therefore, this evening is, Opposition to Christ. The 
 disgracefulness of being against him; the danger of being against 
 him ; the possibility of being against him, and the evidence of being 
 against him. " Consider what we say, and may the Lord give you 
 understanding in all things." 
 
 I. The DISGRACEFULNESS of being against Christ. In order to 
 make this appear a little, you will observe — 
 
OPPOSITION TO CHRIST. 191 
 
 That nothing shows men more than their attractions and aversions. 
 Mark the objects of their choice and of their preference ; see with 
 whom they most readily and pleasingly associate ; and then call to 
 remembrance the adage, " Tell me a man's company, and I will tell 
 you his character." Congeniality is the inducement and the bond of 
 union. To be against some individuals would expose you to general 
 indignation. Which of you would like to be opposed to a Thornton, 
 a Reynolds, a Howard, a Leigh ton, a Fenelon? But here we have 
 the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of his person. 
 What a picture of Christ have the four gospels given us ! Look at it ; 
 and then suffer me to ask, is there any being in the world odious 
 enough to be against him ? He is possessed of all excellencies ; all 
 the excellencies found in creatures separately and imperfectly, are 
 found in him combined and complete. Take all that was innocent in 
 Adam, all that was tender in Joseph, all that was meek in Moses, 
 all that was patient in Job, all that was zealous in Paul, all that is 
 good in the spirits of just men made perfect, all that is wise in the 
 innumerable company of angels ; and even the aggregate would be 
 no more to his glory than a drop to the ocean, or a ray to the sun. 
 To be against him is, therefore, to be against all truth, and righteous- 
 ness and peace, against the glory of God, and the happiness of man- 
 kind. 
 
 Again : nothing is more unreasonable, vile, and shameful, than to 
 oppose a Benefactor and Friend, who has laid you under peculiar obli- 
 gations, upon whom you had no claim, and who has yet spared no 
 expense, no pains in order to serve you. Lamb of God, that takest 
 aAvay the sin of the world ! what do we owe thee ! To thee we owe 
 the bread we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe. 
 
 " There's not a gift thy hand bestows, 
 But cost thy heart a groan." 
 
 If we are allowed to remain in the land of the living, it is owing to 
 thy intercession on oxxr behalf; if we have been redeemed, it is with 
 thy precious blood ; and if we have entertained a hope of a better 
 Avorld, thou hast altogether inspired it. And, my brethren, he asks 
 — and he has a right to ask — " For which of these good works do ye 
 stone me ? Is it because I remembered you in your low estate ? Is 
 it because for your sakes, though I was rich, I became poor, that ye 
 through my poverty might be made rich ? Is it because I bare your 
 sins in my own body on the tree, and died that you might live ? " 
 Against him ! Be against the benefactor who plunged into the flood 
 to save you from drowning ; be against him who generously paid your 
 debt, and released you from the confinement of the dungeon, and re- 
 
192 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 stored you to the bosom of your family ; be against your father, who 
 has been laboring to train you up and provide for you ; be against 
 your mother, who bare you, and at her bosom fed you ; and you would 
 be a thousand times less infamous than you are when you are against 
 him. Were there in mankind the same ingenuousness in religion as in 
 other things, they would all, every one of them, shun you ; they would 
 consider you the disgrace and the scandal of the universe. The apos- 
 tle Paul was not revengeful ; he was the most compassionate man 
 alive ; and yet when he came to reflect on the case, he made no 
 scruple to say, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let bim 
 be Anathema Maranatha." 
 Let us now look — 
 
 11. At the DANGER of being against Christ. There are three ques- 
 tions which we must address to you concerning this. The first of 
 which is — 
 
 Can you overcome him ? Did ever any succeed in opposing him ? 
 Is it not the question of Job — " Who ever hardened himself against 
 him and prospered ? Did the old world ? Let the deluge tell. Did 
 Pharaoh ? Let the plagues of Egypt and the closing waves of the 
 Red Sea tell. Did Hiel, the re-builder of Jericho ? Let the death of 
 Abiram his first-born, and the death of Segub, his younger son, tell. 
 Did the Jews ? Let their dispersion and sufferings to this hour tell. 
 " If," said they, " we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him, 
 and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation." 
 They said. It does not seem right to put him to death, but state reasons 
 require it - — expediency requires it ; we must perish, or he must perish. 
 Foolish policy ! and all policy is foolish that is not founded in justice. 
 And were they preserved from the evils they dreaded by crucifying 
 him ? The crime drew down upon them the very thing, and the 
 Romans came, and with such cruelty and slaughter as never distin- 
 guished them in any of their wars , and wrath came down upon them 
 to the uttermost. 
 
 This is an emblem of all those who oppose him. And therefore, 
 the psalmist says, " Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine 
 a vain thing ? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers 
 take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, 
 saying. Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their 
 cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh ; the Lord 
 shall have them in derision." " Thou shalt break them with a rod 
 of iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." And 
 so will it be with all his adversaries. War is the most uncertain thing 
 
OPPOSITION TO CHRIST. 198 
 
 in tlie -world ; and wisdom says, " Let not him that putteth on the 
 armor boast himself like him that putteth it off. And the Kevelation 
 says, " These shall make war with the Lamb ; and the Lamb shall 
 overcome them, for he is King of kings, and Lord of lords." And 
 what are they ? Worms on a dunghill, tampering with their ruin, 
 their breath in their nostrils, and themselves crushed before the moth. 
 And this is the case even in their combination too. Hand may 
 join in hand, but they will not go unpunished. God has said of the 
 Messiah, " The kingdom and the nation that will not serve thee 
 shall perish ; " and it matters not how learned or how powerful such 
 kingdom and such nation may be. If they will stand opposite the 
 designs of Christ, if they will hinder the spread of the gospel, if they 
 will endeavor to suppress the circulation of the Scriptures, if they 
 forbid the liberty of conscience, if they endeavor to maintain a sys- 
 tem which his honor and his truth require to be destroyed, let 
 them do what they will, their doom is sealed, and their destruction is 
 certain. 
 
 But, my brethren, we wish you to think, not of nations, but of 
 individuals; we wish you to think, not of Popish countries, but of ^oiw- 
 selves, and to remember your own danger, and that the Savior has 
 said, " As for these mine enemies that would not that I should reign 
 over them, bring them forth, and slay them before my face." 
 If you cannot conquer, let us ask another question : 
 Can you mcZwrg him ? This is his own inquiry — " Can thy heart 
 endure, or can thy hand destroy, when I shall deal with thee ? " And 
 it is answered by every thing in Scripture ; or rather, indeed, it is 
 not. " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the hving God ; " 
 but none of the sacred writers attempt to tell us hozv fearful ; they 
 felt they were unable. His is a wrath accompanied with Almighty 
 power, and with boundless resources. As for the rage of man, it is 
 limited ; limited as to time, limited by the very nature of the subject, 
 limited by the capacity of the infliction. But there arc no such limits 
 here. Men may destroy the body, and there is no more that they can 
 do ; but there is eternity in this punishment ; there is the soul with 
 him to destroy ; yea, there is the body to be revived to share in the 
 misery. " He is able to destroy both body and soul in hell ; I say 
 unto you, Fear him." 
 
 If you cannot conquer, or if you cannot endure, let me ask — 
 Can you escape from him ? Is there a moral possibility of your 
 escaping from him ? Does not the truth of God forbid the supposi- 
 tion ? Does not the justice of God forbid it ? Does not the holiness 
 of God forbid it ? Has he not said, " The unrighteous shall not inherit 
 13 
 
194 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 the kingdom of God ? " Are these his sayings ? and is he a faithful 
 God ? Why, the only hope that some of you can indulge in, is a hope 
 that God will be found a liar, and his Word a He. What a forlorn 
 hope is this ! What a world of evidence have you to overcome before 
 you can He down and enjoy repose ! Or is there any physical possibil- 
 ity of your escape ? Civil justice is no more omniscient than it is 
 omnipotent. How often do criminals elude justice ! How frequently, 
 when they are pursued, do they conceal themselves ! When they have 
 been in prison, they have broke through the walls ; and when they have 
 been fettered, they have filed off their chains and have escaped. But, 
 my brethren, there is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against 
 the Lord. " He that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that 
 escapeth of them shall not be delivered." " Though they dig into 
 bell, thence shall mine hand take them ; though they cHmb up to 
 heaven, thence will I bring them down ; and though they hide them- 
 selves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence ; 
 and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence 
 will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them ; and though they 
 go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the 
 sword, and it shall slay them ; and I will set mine eyes upon them for 
 evil, and not for good." " How," says the apostle — " How can we 
 escape if we neglect so great salvation ? " 
 Let us notice — 
 
 HI. The POSSIBILITY of being against him. For there are many 
 who will be ready to say, Wliy, he was raised up from the dead by 
 the glory of the Father ; he dieth no more ; death hath no more domin- 
 ion over him ; the heavens have received him ; and he himself said, 
 " I am no more in the world ; " how, then, can any oppose him now ? 
 To this we answer, that, consistently with these admissions, there is a 
 sense in which he is now in the world, so that if you wish to show your 
 dislike towards him you can do it, and if you wish to show your love 
 you can do it. 
 
 Observe, first, he has a people, and they that persecute them perae- 
 cute Jdm. Witness his address to Saul of Tarsus ; " Saul, Saul," 
 said he, " why persecutest thou me ? " He was not persecuting him 
 Ijersonally, but relatively, in his ministers, and in his followers. It 
 would be in vain for you to say to a man, " I do not injure you," and 
 then wound him in the arm or the foot. Why, are not his members 
 himself ? And our Savior says, " He that toucheth you, toucheth the 
 apple of mine eye." It would be in vain for one to say, " I am not 
 agauist you," and then injure your wife or your children. Why, they 
 
oi'POsitiOxN: to ciirist. 195 
 
 are you. And Christians are his bride, and they are his children ; 
 and he "will avenge himself of their persecutors and of his own. Hence 
 says David, " He has bent his bow, and made ready his arrow, to 
 shoot the persecutors." 
 
 This opposition very early begun. You remember that Cain slew 
 his brother Abel ; and wherefore did he slay him ? Because his works 
 were evil, and his brother's righteous. The principle, therefore, is not 
 confined to any age of the world ; the nature of real godUness is always 
 the same, and will provoke the resentment of human nature, which 
 also is always the same. Acts, indeed, may vary according to circum- 
 stances. The spirit of our constitution and government is friendly to 
 the rights of individuals ; our profession and religion, therefore, does 
 not expose us to the penalties of death, and stripes, and imprisonments, 
 and fines. But our forefathers endured all this ; and we should call 
 those days to remembrance, and be grateful for our own advantages. 
 "But the tongue can no man tame," saith the Scripture ; and " out 
 of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." And when the 
 mouth is silent from decency, the carnal mind is enmity against God ; 
 and there will be always instances of persecution, therefore, which no 
 legislation will be able to restrain or prevent ; showing that as it was 
 then, so it is now — they that are after the flesh, persecute them that 
 are after the Spirit. 
 
 Again ; he has a cause in the world ; and this cause is the gospel 
 of our salvation, infinitely dear to him, and every way beneficial to 
 man, whether considered individually or socially, personally or relar 
 tively. We defy any history to produce an instance of an abiding, 
 consistent, real change of character and of nature, accomplished 
 where the truth as it is in Jesus, or the doctrine of the cross, has been 
 denied or rejected, in any province, or village, or individual. But 
 v.'hat was accomplished in the first ages of Christianity ? What mar- 
 vellous changes ! Did not Corinth know ? Did not Rome know ? 
 Did not Thessalonica know ? Did they not always witness these 
 amazing transformations of character for the better ? And to this 
 very day the same results follow. There the gospel came not in 
 word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assu- 
 rance. We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen- 
 The drunkard has become sober, and the swearer has learned to fear 
 an oath, and the Sabbath breaker has " called the Sabbath a delight ; 
 the holy of the Lord, honorable ; " and men who were before a bur- 
 den to themselves, and a curse to the neighborhood, delivered from 
 the tyranny of their evil appetites and passions, and from the stings 
 of a guilty conscience, have been called, and softened, and refreshed ; 
 
196 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 and having obtained mercy, have found it their happiness to dif- 
 fuse it. 
 
 And yet how this gospel has been opposed ! When the mariner's 
 compass and other useful discoveries were made known in our country-, 
 how were they hailed in their errand ! But how has it been with the 
 gospel, which is infinitely the greatest blessing which the human race 
 ever possessed ? How has it been opposed as if it were a pestilence 
 that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that cometh at noon day I 
 "Why ? My brethren, the secret can be explained. The gospel is the 
 enemy of self and sin. The gospel offends the pride of human nature, 
 by considering all upon a level naturally, and affording only the same 
 salvation for all, regardless of any difference of station or of charac- 
 ter ; and it excludes all boasting, so that if any man glory he must 
 glory in the Lord. 
 
 And it also offends because of its sanctifying influence. Men love 
 to be lawless ; they love to stand with David's vain ones, who said, 
 " With our lips we will prevail ; our tongues are our own ; who is 
 lord over us ? " Many of them indeed may be willing to part with 
 those sins, to which they have no temptation in their constitution or in 
 their external calling ; but the gospel requires you to pluck out a 
 right eye, and to cut off a right arm, and to part with your bosom 
 lusts. There are some who would be wiUing, like Herod, to do many 
 things if Herodias was still allowed them. But the fact is, the gospel 
 allows no sensual indulgences ; it teaches " to deny all ungodliness and 
 worldly lusts, and to hve soberly, righteously and godly in the present 
 world." 
 
 Again ; he has also a providential agency on earth ; and the dispen- 
 sations of his providence are designed to promote the purposes of his 
 grace. He does all that is done in the affairs of nations and of indi- 
 viduals. It is he that makes our cups run over, or that breaks our 
 cisterns, so that they can hold no water. It is he that gives us health, 
 or sends sickness. It is he that suffers our children to be about us, 
 or destroys the hopes of man. All these are designed to allure us jto 
 himself, or to constrain us to seek a better, even a heavenly country, 
 and to forsake the foolish and live. But all this, you see, is vain ; men 
 oppose him in his smiles and in his frowns ; and they say by their 
 tempers, if not by their lips, " Depart from us, for we desire not the 
 knowledge of thy ways." 
 
 IV. Let us notice the evidence of being against him. For if it 
 be allowed to be possible that men can be against him, there are some 
 ■who seem to think that it is a very improbable thing. So it has fre- 
 
OPPOSITION TO CHRIST. 197 
 
 quently been supposed, and some of the heathen moraUsts have said, 
 that if ever virtue appeared visible, it -would engage the esteem and 
 admiration of all mankind. There was one exception to this opinion. 
 Socrates differed from his brethren in many particulars : and Socrates, 
 having expressed his idea of a perfect character, ventured to predict 
 the treatment he would be likely to meet with if he appeared in our 
 world. He contended that his practice would be so pecuUar, that his 
 reproofs would be so unwelcome, that his endeavors to reform and 
 reclaim men would be so importunate and irksome, that mankind, 
 too degenerate to bear either his example or his reproof, instead of 
 loving would hate him, and probably persecute him, and (how 
 remarkable that he should use the word ! not put Mm to death, but) 
 crucify him. * 
 
 Now was this a judgment according to truth. Such a character did 
 appear in our world ; he was the image of the invisible God ; he went 
 about doing good, and good only. And how was he received ? He 
 was " despised and rejected of men." "He was in the world, and 
 the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came 
 unto his own, and his own received him not." " The world," said he 
 to the Jews, " cannot hate you ; but me it hateth, because I testify 
 that its deeds are evil." " Marvel not, if the world hate you ; you 
 know that it hated me before it hated you." 
 
 " I would not have been against him," some are ready to say, " if 
 I had lived in the days of his flesh." So the Jews said while they 
 were adorning the tombs of the good prophets their fathers had per- 
 secuted ; they said, " Had we lived in the days of our fathers we 
 would not have persecuted them," while they were involved in a 
 course far more criminal. Their ancestors had only shed the blood of 
 God's servants, while they were imbruing their hands in the blood of 
 his own Son. 
 
 Again ; when you hear of persons being against Christ, you think 
 of tyrants, of Neros, Julians, and Voltaires, of infidels, profligates 
 and blasphemers, of murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers ; 
 all these beings are against him. But do not deceive yourselves ; 
 the charge comprehends many characters distinguished by nothing of 
 all this ; the charge embraces thousands who never swore au oath in 
 their lives, thousands who never broke a promise to their ftllow- 
 creatures, perhaps, in their lives, thousands who have regularly 
 attended on the means of grace, who have always on the Sabbath 
 repaired to the house of God to hear the preaching of the Word ; 
 and therefore, perhaps, there may be some — oh ! my God, there may 
 be many in this very assembly ; for what says he who cannot be 
 
198 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 deluded, and wlio cannot deceive ? " He tliat is not with me is against 
 me." 
 
 You have heard much of antichrist. The word signifies against 
 Christ ; and this has been apphed to Popery, and very justly, for what 
 can be more against Christ than nearly the whole of their system ? 
 But John says, " Even now are there many antichrists ; " therefore 
 there may be antichrists among Protestants as well as among Papists. 
 A Socinian is an antichrist ; a sinner trusting in his own righteousness 
 is an antichrist ; so is every mere formal professor who is holding the 
 truth in unrighteousness. 
 
 The question therefore is, Are you ivitli him ? Are you with him in 
 sentiment, in disposition, in action, in pursuit ? Are you with him as 
 scholars are with their teacher, as servants are with their master, as 
 soldiers are with their commander, as subjects are with their sove- 
 reign ? Does he occupy the highest place in your regard ? Does he 
 dwell in your hearts by faith ? Do you say, " Other lords besides 
 thee have had dominion over me, but henceforth will I make mention 
 of thy name ?" And do you feel what is done against Mm as done 
 against yourselves f And are you " sorrowful for the solemn assembly, 
 who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden ? " And 
 does the reproach of them that reproached him fall on you ? And do 
 you tremble when you hear his precious name blasphemed ? and do you 
 rejoice in the advancement of his cause ? and are you praying that liis 
 kingdom may come, and that his Word may have free course and bo 
 glorified ? and does this simplify your life, and does it regulate it ? Are 
 you willing on this altar to oflfer all adverse interests ? And are you 
 concerned to make every thing not only subordinate, but subservient 
 to his praise ? Alas ! how many are there here — and they know it — 
 who are not with him ; and we know therefore . that they are against 
 him, for this is the doctrine of our text. 
 
 Let me, therefore, men and brethren, remind you, in conclusion, 
 that this is an awful truth. There is no neutrality in religion. There 
 are cases in which neutrality is possible ; there are cases in which it 
 may be excused, if not admired and commended. In family disputes, 
 and in the quarrels of your neighbors, it may be wise and aycII to keep 
 neutral. If you do no good by interfering, you may do evil ; and that 
 is no little thing in a world like this. Two nations may wage war 
 against each other, and waste their mutual resources, whilst a third, 
 however urged, may remain neutral, securing its subjects, and hus- 
 banding its wealth. Some have thought the excellency of a senator 
 to be, that he belongs to no party. I once thought the same myself, 
 but I do not now ; I see that things are now in such a state that a 
 
OPPOSITION TO CHRIST. 199 
 
 man inust take a part, tliat he can do nothing now as a neutral, ■w'hether 
 in poUtics or in religion, having no influence with either party. Let 
 him, therefore, choose his side, and avow it ; and let him be as mod- 
 erate on his side as possible, and endeavor to improve his side as much 
 as possible ; for you will see all that comes between, falling down 
 between both parties, both of whom they disown, and both of whom 
 disown them. 
 
 But if it were not so, I repeat it again, there can be no neutrality 
 hei-e ; and this cannot be repeated too often. " No man can serve 
 two masters ; for either he will hate the one and love the other ; or 
 else he will hold to the one and despise the other ; ye cannot serve 
 God and mammon." " Whosoever, therefore, will be the friend of the 
 world, is the enemy of God." " If any man love the world, the love 
 of the Father is not in him." Let me therefore recommend to you 
 faith in this decision. There are many people who speak as if the 
 Bible had said nothing ; whereas it has said all. They say, " If we 
 are not so good as some, we are not so bad as others ; and if we are 
 not friends, we are not enemies." But what does he say ? It is not 
 the opinion of the prisoner, but the opinion of the judge, which is to 
 be consulted in such cases as these. A magistrate one day said, "I 
 was yesterday attending for hoars on a villain who was accusing a 
 scoundrel, both of whom ought to have been hanged on the same gal- 
 lows." Nothing can be more disagreeable than to find persons who 
 are all in the wrong disputing among themselves who is right. AVhy, 
 at the deluge persons could be drowned any where, but there was only 
 one ark to save them. There is only one way of salvation now, but 
 there are a thousand ways of destruction. It matters not, therefore, 
 what you are, or what you do, if you are destitute of faith and real 
 holiness ; for our Savior has said, " He that believeth not shall be 
 damned ;" and "without holiness," saj^s his apostle, "no man shall 
 see the Lord." 
 
 Make this, therefore, 'the standard of your inquiry ; and do not 
 observe it casually ; consult it when you are alone, and ask whether 
 it accuses or acquits you — whether it condemns or justifies you. I 
 know not, my dear hearers, how you hear, but when I hear such a 
 question as this, it often shakes my hope to the centre, and I go 
 down from this desk, trembling lest after preaching to others I 
 myself should be a castaway. Endeavor, therefore, to be decided ; 
 do not rest in negatives ; remember that you are not only required 
 to " cease to do evil," but to " learn to do well ; " " that every tree 
 that bringeth not forth good fruit," though it bring forth no bad 
 fruit, " is hewn down and cast into the fire ; " that the servant who 
 
200 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 vras -wicked, and because unprofitable was therefore cast into outer 
 darkness, was the man who had one talent, which he did not abuse, 
 but wrapt it up in a napkin. There is no medium between loving 
 Christ and hating him. When the dispute is between God and Baal, 
 there is to be no halting between two opinions. " I would," says 
 the Savior, " thou wert either cold or hot ; so then, because thou 
 art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my 
 mouth." 
 
 But there are some, blessed be God, who are with him. This is 
 their glory, and this should be their joy. Are they with him now ? 
 They shall be with him for ever. Are they now suffering with him ? 
 They shall also reign with him. Are they now with him in the reproach 
 of the cross? They shall soon be with him in the glory of the crown. 
 Are they now with him in the toils of the fight ? They shall soon be 
 with him in the triumphs of victory ; and he will fulfil his Word — 
 " Him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne, even 
 as I overcame and am sat down with my Father on his throne." " You 
 are they," says he, " who have continued with me in my temptations; 
 and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto 
 me ; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit 
 on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." You are on the 
 safe side ; you are on the rising side ; you are on the side which by- 
 and-by will anniliilate the opposite side and become a universality. 
 You are with him — are advancing with him. Here is the Savior, 
 here are his people ; they are weak, but he is almighty ; he is at their 
 head ; therefore be not afraid to go forward. Ye infidel powers, and 
 ye spiritual wickednesses in high places, bring forward all your forces ; 
 we challenge you in the face of the universe. You know we began 
 our course at the lake of Galilee ; we drove you before us to the 
 east and the west, to the north and the south ; the kingdom of God 
 was established in spite of you, and mightily grew the Word of God 
 and prevailed, and does still. Do not you see, all your efforts have 
 only covered you with shame ? In a little while it shall be said, with- 
 out a figure, " Behold, the whole world is gone after him." The Lord 
 hasten it in his time ! 
 
 But where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? At present 
 Jesus is upon the throne of grace ; oh ! that I could urge you imme- 
 diately to apply to him there ! Though your sins were as scarlet, 
 they should be white as snow ; though they were red like crimson, 
 they shoidd be as wool. He says, " Let the wicked forsake his way, 
 and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him return unto the 
 Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for he will 
 
EASE FOR THE TROUBLED SPIRIT. 201 
 
 abundantly pardon." Here is Lis own proclamation ; these are his 
 proposals. Oh ! that you would believe him, and throw down the 
 weapons of your rebellion, and confide in the word of a prince, that 
 if you come in and submit yourselves you shall obtain life and peace. 
 Oh ! if you did but know his bands and cords of love ! Oh ! if you 
 did but know the liberty of his service ! Oh ! if you did but know 
 how easy his yoke, and how light his burden ! Oh ! did you but 
 know the blessedness of those who know the joyful sound and walk 
 in the light of his countenance, and in his righteousness exalt them- 
 selves ! Surely you would immediately repair to him. Oh ! let 
 me entreat you, let me beseech you, to do this. I conclude in the 
 language of the psalmist : " Kiss the Son " — that is, " submit to 
 him " — " lest he be angry, and ye perish by the way, when his wrath 
 is kindled but a Uttle. Blessed are all they that put their trust in 
 him." 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 
 EASE FOR THE TROUBLED SPIRIT. 
 
 BY THE REV. CHARLES BRADLEY, M. A. 
 
 *'Inthe multitude of my thoughts within rae, thy comforts delight my soul." — Psalms xciv. 19. 
 
 A TEXT of this kind shows us forcibly the power of Divine grace in 
 the human heart : how much it can do to sustain and cheer the heart. 
 The world may afflict a believer, and pain him ; but if the grace which 
 God has given him is in active exercise in his soul, the world cannot 
 make him unhappy. It rather adds by its ill treatment to his happi- 
 ness ; for it brings God and his soul nearer together — God the foun- 
 tain of all happiness, the rest and satisfaction of his soul. 
 , This psalm was evidently written by a deeply afflicted man. The 
 wicked, he says, were triumphing over him ; and had been so for a 
 long while. He could find no one on earth to take his part against 
 them. " Who will rise up for me against the evil-doers ? " he asks in 
 the sixteenth verse ; " or who will stand up for me against the workers 
 of ini({uity ? " And it seemed, too, as tliough God had abandoned 
 him. His enemies thought so, and he seems to have been almost ready 
 to think so himself. But Avliat was the fact ? All this time the Lord 
 waa secretly pouring consolation into his soul, and in the end made 
 
202 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 that consolation abundant. In appearance a wretched, he was in real- 
 ity a happy man ; suflfering, yet comforted ; yea, the text says, delighted 
 — " Thy comforts delight my soul." 
 
 We must consider, first, his sorrow ; and then, his comfort under it. 
 The evil ; and the remedy. 
 
 I. In his sorrow, there are two things for us to notice : the source, 
 and the greatness of it. 
 
 1. The source of it, you may say, is doubtless the ill treatment he 
 was experiencing. But not so, brethren ; it arose, he says, from his 
 own mind — his own thoughts. Our Prayer-Book version of the pas- 
 sage makes this clear ; the word translated here " thoughts," is rendered 
 there " sorrows." The one translation explains the other ; the psalm- 
 ist means thoughts that engender sorrows ; disturbed, sorrowful and 
 distressing thoughts. 
 
 But who can keep these out of his mind when trouble comes, or 
 indeed when it does not come ? None of us, brethren. The best of 
 us are liable at all times to these sources of disquietude. Some of us 
 suffer more from them than from all our outward afflictions put 
 together. 
 
 To enumerate them all WOuld be an endless task ; but some we may 
 mention. 
 
 There are thoughts concerning our own spiritual state and condition, 
 which are often painful to us. "Is Christ my Savior ? or is he not ? 
 Is this heart of mine a really converted heart ? or still a hard, ungod- 
 ly, unclean one ? Am I one of the sheep of Christ — one that the 
 good shepherd in his love and power has brought to himself, and will 
 eventually take to his home in the heavens ? or am I one of the filthy 
 swine, that he can now take no delight in, and that in his holiness he 
 will one day cast for ever from him ? " 
 
 And there are thoughts of the same character as to our future spir- 
 itual course and condition. If we really are the Lord's, how we shall 
 keep so : how we shall ever get through the difficvilties and temptations 
 we see before us, and bear up under the conflict that is going on with- 
 in us, and keep alive the faith and hope and love, that so frequently 
 even now seem expiring. 
 
 And then come thoughts of the same troublous concern about death 
 and judgment. How it will be with us when we come to die ; how we 
 shall bear the sinking of dissolving nature ; the going into a new, 
 strange, untried world ; the first sight there of a holy God ; the stand- 
 ing before him, as sinners, to be judged. 
 
 And this world, too, how many harassing, distressing thoughts does 
 
EASE FOR THE TROUBLED SPIRIT. 203 
 
 that give rise to within us ! We profess to have overcome, and tri- 
 umphed over it ; but the battle, dear brethren, we at times find has 
 not been half fought nor Avon. " My Savior has told me, to ' take no 
 thought of the morrow ; ' he has promised to think of it for me, and 
 provide against it for me ; nay, he has told me that he has already so 
 provided for it ; and oh ! that I could leave it entirely in his hands ! 
 But it is not always I can. What shall I do when this or that thing 
 comes, which I see impending ? I would ' provide things honest in the 
 sight of all men ; ' but how, amid the difficulties I am placed in, shall 
 I ever do it ? But children must be provided for ; how shall I provide 
 for them ? They will want a friend to watch over them when I am 
 gone ; who will befriend them ? They may go before me ; if so, how 
 shall I bear the loss ! " " And these afflictions," the soul says at other 
 times, " that are even now come upon me — why are they come ? why are 
 they so multiplied one upon another, and so long continued ? I want 
 to be enlightened ; I cannot understand the Lord's dealings with me ; 
 the more I think, the more I am perplexed and disturbed." 
 
 And sometimes we can excite anxious thoughts in our minds, even 
 from the absence of afflicting providences. " I read in my Bible," the 
 soul says, " that ' whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth ; ' but he chas- 
 tens not me. The sun rises brightly day after day upon me ; my days 
 pass in peace and quietness ; oh ! if I were a child of God could this 
 be so ? " 
 
 And then, brethren, when in our better moments we forget ourselves, 
 and look at the world and church around us, here again our thoughts 
 often trouble us. We mourn over the world's sins, and distractions, 
 and miseries ; we are ready to tremble often for the ark, the cause, 
 the church, the glory of God. The Lord says to us — "Be still, and 
 know that I am God ; I will be exalted among the heathen, / mil be 
 exalted in the earth ; " but we are afraid he will not be exalted — we 
 find it hard to be still. We are as anxious for the church and for the 
 cause of Christ, as though Christ were not that great and lofty being 
 we know he is — the omnipotent King of Zion — but some potty prince, 
 who cannot maintain his own cause, from whose hands the sceptre is 
 ready to fall because of weakness. 
 
 I need not go on. You all know, that thinking is sometimes pain- 
 ful and distressing work. All of us, some in one way and some in 
 another, have found out with the psalmist, that " thoughts " are fre- 
 quently only another name for " sorrows." 
 
 2. Observe, now, the greatness of this man's distress. 
 
 This is forcibly expressed in the text, though in our translation it is 
 scarcely obvious. The word in it rendered " thoughts," scholars tell 
 
204 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 US, signifies originally the small branches of trees. The idea in the 
 psalmist's mind appears to be this. " Look at a tree, with its branches 
 shooting in every direction, entangling and entwining themselves one 
 with another ; let the wind take them — see how they feel it, how rest- 
 less they become, and confused, beating against and striving one with 
 another. Now my mind is like that tree. I have a great many 
 thoughts in it, and thoughts which are continually shifting and chang- 
 ing ; they are perplexed and agitated thoughts, battling one with anoth- 
 er. There is no keeping the mind quiet under them ; they bring dis- 
 order into it, as well as sorrow." And mark the word " multitude " 
 in the text ; there is exactly the same idea in that. It signifies more 
 than number : confusion. Think of a crowd collected and hurrying 
 about : " so," says the psalmist, " are my thoughts. I have a crowd 
 of them in my mind, and a restless confused crowd. One painful 
 thought is bad enough, but I have many : a multitude of them ; an 
 almost countless, a disturbed throng." 
 
 We now, then, understand the case we have before us. This man's 
 sorrow arose, at this time, from disquieting thoughts within his own 
 breast ; and his sorrow was great, because these thoughts were many, 
 and at the same time tumultuous. 
 
 " But what," some light-hearted persons m,ay be ready to say, " is 
 such sorrow to us ? We know nothing of it ; why should we be told 
 of it ? " Dear brethren, here is one reason why you should be told of 
 it, that you may see and learn, that God need not go far, at any time, 
 to afflict any one of us. He can do it, this text says, without calling to 
 his aid sickness, or losses, or disappointments, or any outward calami- 
 ties ; there is a scourge ready prepared for him within our own breasts. 
 He has only to turn our minds, our own thoughts, loose on us, and we 
 shall be miserable enough. 
 
 We know not, brethren, what there is in our hearts — how much 
 evil and how many seeds of misery and bitterness. God in his mercy 
 restrains for a time the workings of our own minds ; but now and then 
 he lets a bitter branch shoot up, that we may see there is bitterness 
 within us. But the harvest of evil and the harvest of misery — he 
 reserves that to a distant day. The Lord grant that none of yon may 
 reap it. But reap it you will, brethren, if you make no effort now to 
 escape it. It is a part of that " wrath to come," which we must have 
 fall on us, if we do not now flee from it. Continue to make light of 
 God's " great salvation," and you will understand at last too well, that 
 there is no wretchedness like that which is born within a man's own 
 bosom ; which springs out of a man's own mind — a thinking, active, 
 disquieted, guilty, God-abandoned mind — a heart given up to itself, 
 
EASE FOR THE TROUBLED SPIRIT. 205 
 
 its own evils, its own wild thoughts and workings. Oh ! dread that, 
 brethren ; dread it more than poverty, or bereavements, or any of the 
 mortal ills " that flesh is heir to." Oh ! dread it as you would dread 
 hell. Let us all pray — " Lord ! cleanse thou the thoughts of our hearts 
 within us. Whatever thou take from us, take not thy Spirit, thy 
 restraining Spirit, from us. Never in thine anger leave us to 
 ourselves." 
 
 II. Let us now go on to our second point : the psalmist's comfort in 
 his sorrow. 
 
 1. Look, first, at the source of this. It came from God. " My 
 thoughts," he says ; they constituted his sorrow ; it sprung from him- 
 self. But " Thy comforts," he says ; his consolations were from God. 
 Here again, brethren, let me remind you, we may afflict and torment 
 ourselves, but it is the living God only who can comfort us. It is easy 
 for us to set our minds at work, and raise a storm : but if we want to be 
 quieted, if we want a calm there — a real calm, not a lethargy — it is 
 beyond our power to make one. The Lord, the Lord from his high 
 throne above us, must speak, and bid the tumult be still. 
 
 But when the psalmist says " Thy comforts," he means more than 
 comforts of which God is the author or giver. God is the author and 
 giver of all our comforts — of all the earthly comforts that surround 
 us ; they are all the work and gift of his gracious hand. Hence he is 
 called " the Father of mercies " — of mercies generally ; as our church 
 calls him in her General Thanksgiving — " the Father of all mercies." 
 He is the God, the Scriptures tell us, " of all consolation." We are 
 to understand here such comforts as are peculiarly and altogether God's ; 
 such as flow at once from God ; not from him through creatures to us, 
 but from him immediately to us without the intervention of creatures. 
 The comforts that we get from his attributes — from meditating on, 
 and what we call reahzing them : the comforts we get from his prom- 
 ises — believing and hoping in him ; and the comforts of his presence, 
 he drawing near to our souls and shining into them — we knowing he is 
 near us, conscious of it by the light and happiness and renewed strength 
 within us. " Thy comforts " — the comforts we get from the Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; from looking at him ; considering him; thinking of his 
 person, and offices, and blood, and righteousness, and intercession, and 
 exaltation, and glory, and his second coming ; our meeting him, seeing 
 him, being like him, " Thy comforts " — the comforts which como 
 from the Holy Spirit, " the comforter ; " when he opens the Scriptures 
 to us, or speaks to us through ceremonies or ordinances, or witnesses 
 ■withm us of our adoption of God ; shining in on his own work of grace 
 
206 TII3 ENGLISH PCLPIT. 
 
 ill our hearts ; enabling us to see tliat work, and to see in God's pecu- 
 liar, eternal love to us ; not opening to us the book of life, and show- 
 ing us our names there, but doing something that makes us almost as 
 joyful as though that book were opened to us ; showing us the hand of 
 God in our own souls — his converting, saving hand — his hand appre- 
 hending us as his own ; making us feel, as it were, his grasp of love, 
 and feel, too, that it is a grasp which he shall never loosen. 
 
 2. Mark, next, the character of these comforts. 
 
 They correspond with the psalmist's affliction or sorrow. Were the 
 sorrows " within him ; " not supei-ficial, but low down (as his words 
 seem to imply) in his heart ? These comforts also were " within him; " 
 he does not say " they delight me," but " they delight my somZ" — 
 enter deeply within me, get to the diseased, wounded part, and carry 
 comfort there. And were his sorrows great ? was he suffering from 
 " a multitude of thoughts ? " His comforts also were great and 
 numerous ; as he says in another place, " I will go into thy house in 
 the multitude of thy mercies " — surrounded with mercies — carrying 
 within me comforts so many that I cannot count them. You remember 
 how he prays in the fifty-first psalm ; when he supplicates the pardon 
 of his sins, he beseeches God to have mercy on liim " according to the 
 multitude of his tender mercies." He knew his sins to be great ; he 
 wanted a pardon as great. And so here, brethren, with his sorrows ; 
 they were many, but not more in number than the comforts God gave 
 him. He could find something in God to set against every distressing 
 thought within him. 
 
 In some versions of this passage this idea is more clearly expressed. 
 They read it thus : " according to the multitude of my thoughts within 
 me, thy comforts dehght me." " My troublous thoughts I find to be 
 the measure of thy consolations. Thou lookest at my sorrows, to see 
 how many and how great they are ; and then thou takest of thy com- 
 forts, and pourest them into my soul, till thy comforts equal my sorrows 
 and surpass them." Changing disquietude, not simply into peace, 
 observe, but into pleasure : " delight." He does not say, " Thy com- 
 forts strengthen," or " sustain," but " Thy comforts delight my soul." 
 Here is another blessed truth taught us, brethren. We can soon 
 empty earthly things of all the good they contain. We sometimes 
 feel, in trouble, as though we had got from earthly friends all the com* 
 fort they could give us. But God is a fountain of good ; there is no 
 emptying of him. In him there is a well of consolation ; or rather, 
 many wells of it : there is no drawing of them dry. As our sufferings 
 abound, so he can make our consolations also abound ; and superabound, 
 rising above our sufferings, so that we are ready at times to forget 
 
EASE FOR THE TROUBLED SPIRIT. 207 
 
 them. Does he send heavy and deep afflictions ? — then is the hour 
 in which the soul often discovers for the first time how rich the Lord is 
 in consolation, how mighty to comfort, as he had found him before 
 " mighty to save." Then, dear brethren, is the time to look upwards 
 and say — "Now, Lord, comfort me; now let the long looked-for 
 abundance of thy consolations come. Thou hast long sustained, long 
 upheld me ; where should I have been, hadst thou not ? But now, 
 Lord, now in this hour of trouble, ' delight my soul.' There is joy in 
 thee — joy in thee for sinners such as I am ; now, Lord, let my soul 
 receive of it. It has long thirsted, long waited for it ; oh ! let it come." 
 And this joy, brethren, these comforts, let me add, are frequently 
 imparted to the behever at such seasons as these ; when he least expects 
 them. The text seems to intimate this also. The psalmist says, that 
 it was in the very thick of his disquieting thoughts, " in the multitude 
 of them," when his heart was full of them, when they were at the very 
 worst, and he was suffering most from them — it was then that the 
 Lord's comforts came and dehghted him. And look at the eighteenth 
 verse : there is the same idea. " When I said. My foot slippeth," 
 when I thought myself in the very act of falling, " thy mercy, Lord, 
 held me up." The Lord's mercies and the Lord's comforts are often 
 the nearest to us when we think them the farthest away. In this 
 sense, as well as in many others, our extremity becomes his opportuni- 
 ty. So some of you, brethren, I doubt not, have found. There have 
 been times when you have thought, and thought again, on this point 
 and that, and all to no purpose ; you have taken counsel, and much 
 counsel with your soul, but the only fruit of it has been, you have had 
 sorrow in your heart daily ; your hope has failed you, your spiritual 
 strength has failed you, darkness has seemed to be spreading itself all 
 around and within you. Have you never found, brethren, that this 
 has been the time God has chosen for sending relief — for pouring into 
 your souls from himself such beams of light and consolation as have 
 made your whole souls wonder and rejoice together ? There was no 
 delight, no sensible comfort within you, while the crowd was collecting 
 — while only a few disquieting thoughts or things troubled you ; but 
 vrhen the crowd ivas collected — when trouble without, or trouble with- 
 in, or perhaps both together came on you in their full measure and 
 force, then God's comforts came and " dehghted your souls." In the 
 " evening time," when you thought that darkness was about to set in, 
 the thick darloiess of a long night, in the " evening time," he made it 
 " light." 
 
 So it has been with us, brethren, and so probably it will be with us 
 many times again. We must learn to strengthen our faith from our 
 
208 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 past happy experience ; learn to look for " the goodness of the Lord" 
 in the days that are to come, just as we have experienced it in the days 
 that are past. While we make this our prayer — " Thou hast been my 
 help ; leave me not, neither forsake me, God of my salvation ; " let 
 us make this our resolution — " Thou hast been my help, Lord : — 
 therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice." 
 
 Is there a man here who is suffering from " thoughts within him," 
 about which I have scarcely said one word ? a man whom God by his 
 Spirit has made to think of his ways, and who at this moment is dis- 
 quieted with thoughts concerning the sinfulness of those ways, and the 
 end to which they may lead him ? Is there any man here whose chief 
 sorrows are sorrows about a guilty soul, and what he thinks a near 
 opening hell ? Oh ! if there is such a man here, (and would that these 
 walls contained hundreds of such !) I would say to him from this text 
 — not one atom of comfort, real safe comfort, can you ever get, till 
 you look out of yourself, and entirely out of yourself for it. You 
 want pardon, you want help, you want hope, you want salvation; dear 
 brethren, you may think about these things till you drop into the grave, 
 but you will never get one of them till you have found out that mere 
 thinking will never do — will never turn a guilty soul into a pardoned 
 one, will never take off from a man's guilty head the burden of his 
 great multitude of sins, will never close an open hell, nor open a shut- 
 up heaven. These things are all made over — the blessings you want 
 are aU made over to the Lord Jesus Christ ; they are dwelling in him 
 for you : and there is no way of getting them but by looking to him 
 for them, making him your pardon, him your help, him your hope, him 
 your salvation. It is a mercy that you have been led to think ; it is 
 thinking, that through God's mercy has brought you acquainted with 
 your real condition. It has discovered to you the evil ; it has done its 
 work. But it can do no more than that, brethren. It is looking 
 upwards — it is believing — that must bring you the remedy ; a going 
 out of yourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ ; a turning of thoughtful- 
 ness into prayerfulness ; a turning of painful musings within you, into 
 earnest supplications to that Savior who is above you. It is making 
 him, to your souls, the spring of all you want, and all you desire. 
 
SERMON XVIII. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 BY REV. W. M. BUNTING, 
 
 OF BALI r AX. 
 
 " The precious blood of Christ."—! Peter L 19. 
 
 The atonement is exhibited in Scripture, not only as the procuring 
 cause of sanctificatiou, but as the most powerful of motives to personal 
 hohness. The notion that it operates and avails wholly, or chiefly, in 
 the way of persuasion, to the exclusion of its propitiatory value, is one 
 which is unsound and Socinian ; its primary effect is in the mind of 
 God, engaging him to forgive sin, and by his Holy Spirit to restore 
 the forgiven sinner ; but yet, by turning him to a consideration and 
 regard of the righteousness which does so, it undoubtedly exerts a 
 secondary influence upon the mind of the sinner, animating his faith, 
 attracting his love, and stimulating him to duty and obedience. There- 
 fore to trust in Christ as an Jill-sufficient sacrifice is not only the author- 
 itative condition of God's maintaining his fixed design in the salvation 
 of the sinner ; but that adherence to Christ, and affection for him, 
 which such a faith necessarily includes in it, has a natural tendency to 
 assist in maintaining, by its continued agency, habits and dispositions 
 to holiness in the mind of the Christian believer ; who, by contempla- 
 ting the atonement thus set before him, is led, in some degree, to 
 appreciate the value of its offers ; and to draw such inferences with 
 regard to the immensity of the blessings it secures, as well as to the 
 demerits of that moral evil which it expiates, as greatly to heighten 
 his desires after the former, and deepen his abhorrence of the latter. 
 
 And this is the view which the apostle takes of the words in con- 
 nection with the text, " Be ye holy, for I am holy. And if ye call 
 on the Father," — if your hopes are spiritual, consistent, acceptable, 
 — " who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's 
 work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: " such is the 
 practical exhortation of the apostle. And this is the grand motive 
 which he exhibits : " Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed 
 with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation 
 received by tradition from your fathers ; but with the precious blood 
 of Christ." And I hope, in dependence upon your prayers, that it 
 may tend in some measure to promote your growth in holiness, and 
 
210 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 other valuable objects in the Christian life, if we expatiate for a few 
 moments upon the ineffable and inestimable preciousness of that blood, 
 as it presents itself under several separate, essential, and enliancing 
 considerations. 
 
 Suffer me, however, to remind jou that our approach to this sub- 
 ject should be reverential, tranquil, and deliberate ; it is a subject 
 for much thought and much fear. Let us praj that the Holy Spirit 
 may fill our minds with this truth ; that he will prepare our hearts to 
 receive the moral and practical directions it suggests, and that he may 
 enable us to form a proper estimate of the preciousness and value of 
 the atoning blood, as the foundation of all our present hohness and 
 happiness, and of all our future hopes. 
 
 I. Let us endeavor to estimate it in its adaptation to 
 
 ALL THE WANTS OF MAN, AND ITS ANSWERABLENESS TO ALL THE 
 
 properties OF God. 
 
 We must admit it to be important, to be necessary, and to have pre- 
 cisely the relation which it should bear to our interests and hopes. 
 The alternative to the atonement would not have been God's dishonor, 
 but it would have been man's ruin. The redemption of the soul is 
 precious ; and therefore the redemption of Christ must be so. Man 
 of himself has wronged, and would wrong God by his rebellion ; he is 
 a rebel against him ; and if ever that rebel was to be forgiven, if 
 ever Jehovah, — if I may so say, and I think I speak upon the author- 
 ity and with the warrant of the Scripture, — if ever Jehovah was to 
 be justified in forgiving him, it could but be by means of an atone- 
 ment, adequate, appropriate, and acceptable. 
 
 Let us propose to ourselves the necessity of this sacrifice ; and of 
 course the foundation of the value of the sacrificial blood must be 
 more particularly considered and ascertained. We will endeavor, then, 
 in the manner of the great apostle of the Gentiles, to reason out of 
 the Scriptures upon this point, not independently of their principles 
 and tenor, but to reason out of them, by openly alleging, demonstra- 
 ting, and explaining that Christ must needs suffer. 
 
 He who made man has an indisputable right to govern him. Of 
 course he does so in conformity with his own nature, which is infinitely 
 holy, just, and good. He has an essential, unalterable right in him, to 
 uphold his government over him, and to compel his creatures to submit 
 to him. Of course the principles of his government will be embodied 
 in a well-understood law, which will be in its turn the basis of his 
 practical administration. We learn from Scripture that this law was, 
 in its origin, essentially a spiritual law ;. and as the natural effect of a 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 211 
 
 cause, "vvliat his law "was, that his government would be also. To this 
 law was attached the condition of eternal life ; that is to say, by the 
 most scrupulous obedience to it man was to be confirmed for ever in 
 the life which he then had, with the addition of all that was capable of 
 increasing and enhancing liis enjoyments in it ; while the penalty of 
 breaking it was the forfeiture of all his hopes of immortality and 
 never-ending joy, which must of necessity take in the idea of personal 
 snifering, in order to vindicate the perfect proportion existing between 
 the promised recompense of obedience, and the threatened penalty of 
 transgression ; for the loss of immortality alone would be no propor- 
 tionate or correspondent penalty to his disobedience. 
 
 Mark the three immutable and indisputable principles in this law ! 
 It was the express condition of the divine engagement. It was the 
 basis and support of the divine government. It was intended as a 
 manifestation and expression of the divine perfection. 
 
 Plainly, then, by the veracity of God, to take the lowest view of the 
 subject, by his credit as the Creator and Governor of the world, sway- 
 ing the affections of an intelligent and upright creature ; and by the 
 glory of his unchanging nature, he was concerned in the enforcement 
 of that law, by all these he was pledged to the conferment of eternal 
 life, — for it is important to consider that man was then rather in an 
 elementary than in a confirmed state of things, — by all these consid- 
 erations or principles he was pledged to the conferment of eternal 
 life on such as continued obedient to the end of their trial : and to 
 the abjudication of its opposite, eternal death, with whatever it implies, 
 whether of personal and bodily suffering, or of the simple loss of immor- 
 tahty and joy, to those who transgressed it. Equally unrighteousness 
 is impossible with God, either to punish the innocent, or to pretermit 
 the punishment of the offender. No ! the sad fact is, that Avith every 
 thing in favor of his obedience, his capacities, his circumstances, his 
 motives, the powerful bias of his divine destination, his noble and 
 attractive hopes, with every thing, in fact, in favor of his obedience, 
 man transgressed. 
 
 Is God then unrighteous that taketh vengeance ? God forbid. There 
 is every thing in God, there is every thing in what belongs to, and is 
 associated with the idea of him, that forbids, precludes, repels, such a 
 thought. The truth of his word, the rectitude of his administration, 
 the holiness of his nature — which implies universal righteousness, — 
 all this not only justified, to speak in the manner of man himself, to 
 whom the assumption has reference, but rendered it absolutely needful 
 that ho should withhold the remission of the life that was forfeited ; or, 
 what comes to the same thing, of the death which was due. 
 
212 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 But now it was for liis own wisdom and sovereignty to determine in 
 what manner the full amount of satisfaction, owing to justice, should be 
 rendered. And here it was that his own mercy interposed with the 
 ■wonderful work of the propitiation, so contrived that sin should not go 
 unpunished, but that the sinner should be spared : that a substitute 
 should, if possible, be found capable of glancing at his own design, 
 and, by his peculiar merit, paying the penalty incurred by the offender. 
 The whole race of man is comprehended and contemplated in the per- 
 son of Adam. And only granting, for this must be conceded, that 
 the eternal death of innumerable finite persons may be commuted into 
 the temporal death of one infinite person — ■ " Enough," cries Justice, 
 " if condemned millions are to be restored to their forfeited capacity 
 and probation " — for this is all that is included in the idea of an 
 atonement (there is nothing in it beyond this,) " if condemned mil- 
 lions are to be restored to their state of probation for eternal life, and 
 to have their hopes and opportunities given them back again, with 
 grace to influence them to a right choice for the future — give me the 
 blood, the life, the death ! " for these terms are all compatible ; " which 
 render the sacrificial offering of one worthy and adequate substitute 
 a satisfaction for the sins of the whole race." And such a satisfaction 
 ■was the righteousness of Christ : " For it became him for whom are all 
 things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, 
 to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." 
 
 He, who was the Author and end of their being, the Maker and 
 Judge of mankind ; " for whose pleasure they were and are created ;" 
 and who might have justified himself in their condemnation after their 
 fall, he justly requires that in that new and living way, under which, 
 in his own mercy, he proposes to redeem their lives from destruction, 
 his honor should be equally consulted and procured by the vicarious 
 death of the Redeemer. And here we think the argument of the 
 great Dr. Owen on this point is referable. " If it were just of God 
 to demand such a satisfaction, if it were just of him to punish, of 
 course the punishment was incapable of being dispensed with." And 
 we have the incidental testimony of the Scripture, not only as to the 
 fact, but also as to the necessity of the atonement, laid before us in 
 such a manner as may render the great propitiatory sacrifice more 
 strikingly valuable than the most ample and copious direct testimony 
 upon the subject ; and mark how ! Did our blessed Savior pray to 
 his Father in the garden, that the cup might not pass from him ? No, 
 his prayer was, " my Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from 
 me." And was that cup still imposed upon him? Yea, the cup -was 
 drank to its very dregs. The inference is, that it was impossible for 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 213 
 
 the cup to pass from liim, and yet the cup of the wrath of God was 
 to pass into the hands of him who desired to drink it. And the apos- 
 tle declares and asserts, that " God set forth Christ to be a propitia- 
 tion through faith in his blood, to declare liis righteousness for the 
 remission of sins that arc past, through the forbearance of God;" 
 proving that the sacred Majesty of heaven was wilUng to justify the 
 believer in Jesus ; without whose atoning sacrifice (the inference is 
 irresistible,) there would have been no declaration of his righteous- 
 ness ; his righteousness would have been obscured, dishonored and 
 withdrawn from the view of men, and there would have been no moral 
 impression made upon the intelligent universe. 
 
 Can God pardon sin upon any other terms ? Observe two remarka- 
 ble passages in the epistle to the Hebrews, which we think establish 
 this fact : for we are rather eager for the truth than for our own assump- 
 tion, and desire not to overstate our argument. In the ninth, chapter 
 the apostle says, " For Christ is not entered into the holy places made 
 with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, 
 now to appear in the presence of God for us ; nor yet that he should 
 ofier himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every 
 year, with the blood of others : for then must he often have suffered 
 since the foundation of the world." Now, how does this appear ? The 
 apostle draws no inference, he uses no argument, he makes no appeal 
 to the judgment, there is nothing in the passage which shows it to be a 
 conclusion from former premises ; but he lays down at once the hypoth- 
 esis of the necessity of the atonement ; he assumes that there must be 
 an offering for sin world without end, unless the Savior's atonement be 
 perfect and complete ; that unless by " this one oblation he for ever 
 perfected them that are sanctified," it must be a matter of course, that 
 in order to bear away the sins of the world from past and future gene- 
 rations, he must have suffered often from the foundation of the world to 
 the end of it. It is impossible to understand, appreciate, and admit 
 the argument of the apostle in this passage, except by the assumption 
 we are now mahitaining. 
 
 And then, in the next chapter, he says, " For if we sin wilfullj-, after 
 that we have received the knowledge of the truth " — and what is the 
 truth here referred to, but the scriptural truth of the atoning sacrifice, 
 of the atoning sacrifice of Christ — " If we sin wilfully," with regard 
 to this known truth, in the deliberate and ultimate rejection of it ; if we 
 ultimately, wilfully, and deliberately reject it ; not merely Avillingly, for 
 no man sins unwillingly ; but if we wilfully and deliberately sin, in the 
 rejection of that truth — in the great truth of the atonement, the all- 
 sufficient atonement — " after that we have received the knowledge of 
 
214 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins " for those who 
 thus -wilfully reject it. But there is no argument, for we observe he 
 immediately passes over to the conse(|uences, the thing is assumed as 
 true, " there reuiaineth no more sacrifice for sins ;" but, as a matter 
 of course, there is " a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery 
 indignation." Here the apostle obviously assumes the sin of rejecting 
 the atonement of Christ ; he first of all states, " that there remaineth 
 no more sacrifice for sins," no other atonement; then he does not pro- 
 ceed to demonstrate, but assumes, that if a man sins in the rejection 
 of that sacrifice, the consequence is, an absence of that interposition 
 between him and God which such a sacrifice involves in it, and the cer- 
 tain damnation of him who so situates himself: " if there remaineth no 
 more sacrifice for sin, there remaineth nothing but a certain fearful 
 looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation." 
 
 Well then, brethren, God might have justified himself in our con- 
 demnation ; but he was willing, according to the emphasis of the gospel, 
 to glorify himself in our redemption ; and this he could only do by the 
 vicarious death of the Redeemer. 
 
 We cannot but be struck with the coincidence between pardon and 
 justification, as exhibited in the New Testament. Pardon we conceive 
 to be quite peculiar to God. It is there said to be justification ; the 
 meaning of this may be either — that pardon through the sacrifice of 
 Christ places the pardoned man in the condition of the just, or that 
 God pardons him justly. That the pardoned man is so forgiven, so 
 entirely divested from that time forward of blame, on the condition of 
 his faithfulness, of his continued faithfulness in Christ — so entirely, 
 that God puts no more to his account his past sins, but treats him with 
 favor and complacency, and looks upon him as righteous, accounts him 
 as righteous ; this is one sense in which pardon is justification. In the 
 other sense in which we conceive the expression may have a similar 
 meaning, we suppose it to infer that God pardons him justly ; that is, 
 he pardons him in his own way, on his own terms, on the terms of the 
 propitiation to the honor of his justice, " for he is faithful and just to 
 forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
 
 But, then, pardon is not justification, either such as to place the sin- 
 ner in the condition of the just, or to reflect honor upon the glory, 
 righteousness, and excellencies of the Deity, except upon the terms of 
 the propitiation ; for God declares his righteousness through the propi- 
 tiation of the blood of Christ. Oh, precious then, incalculably precious 
 is that blood, without the shedding of which there is no remission ; and 
 after the shedding of which there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin ; 
 he who rejects which has no other hope, no other alternative, and can 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 215 
 
 look only for judgment and fierj indignation, and liis doom, though 
 dreadful, is deserved : -n-hich blood -wanting jou tvould have perished, 
 and which, trifled with and wasted, you will, jour punishment bemg 
 dreadfully aggravated^ in the latter case by the sensibility of your 
 neglect, aggravated into an unspeakable retribution. "Well may we, 
 then, viewing the necessity of the case, exclaim with the apostle, pre- 
 cious blood ! 
 
 II. I EXHORT YOU TO ESTIMATE THE PRECIOUSNESS OF THE BLOOD 
 BY ITS INTRINSIC MERIT. 
 
 Such a sacrifice as this was adequate, and adapted to the case. — 
 There is a passage in the epistle to the Hebrews, with which you are 
 most of you familiar, so well illustrating this point, that we may be 
 excused for confining ourselves to the consideration of it : " Por if 
 the blood of bulls, and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling 
 the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, hoAV much more 
 shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered him- 
 self without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to 
 serve the living God ?" Here you perceive the intrinsic merit of the 
 sacrifice is ascribed to the blood of Christ. 
 
 There are two or three representations of this subject, which may 
 tend to increase your ideas of its meritoriousness and value. 
 
 1. The first circumstance prominent in this description of our 
 Savior's sacrifice, is that it is a direct oblation to God. Christ offered 
 himself to God as a sacrificial offering for sin. This fact is not only 
 stated frequently, but always when reference is made to Christ as a 
 sacrifice in the New Testament. It is recognized too in all our stand- 
 ards of theology, as indicative of a proper sacrifice ; it is repeated with 
 great frequency in the liturgy of the Church of England — in aU 
 which it is shown to be a proper sacrifice and oblation to God, and not 
 a gratuitous gift. It may have been spontaneous., it may have been 
 voluntary ; but still, if the Savior would become a substitute, if he 
 would become an offering for the guilt of the condemned, he must 
 needs suffer. 
 
 2. And this oblation and offering himself to God, contained an ample 
 recognition of the authority of God's laio, and of his right to imnish 
 transgressors. There is an emphasis, both in this epistle, and in that 
 of the Eomans, laid by the apostle on the word obedience in each case, 
 implying Christ's obedience to the law, not his active obedience in his 
 life, but the reference is plainly to his sacrificial offering or oblation ; 
 and this act of obedience to God's law contains a recognition of his 
 authority and right, and hence, in the language of the prophet Isaiah, 
 
216 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 " God is well pleased with him," because of his obedience ; and because 
 in that act he magnified his law ; and made it incomparably honorable 
 in the sight of the universe. 
 
 3. Another circumstance prominent in the description of the Savior's 
 sacrifice, is the intelligence and voluntariness of the victim. Christ 
 offered himself to God through the eternal Spirit. This refers possi- 
 bly, and may be commonly understood to apply to his sacerdotal func- 
 tions, to the fact that the priest and the victim are one and the same 
 person ; or it may be considered as a comparison instituted between the 
 figurative sacrifice and the intelligent victim referred to : " For if the 
 blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the 
 unclean, sanctifieth " — if the involuntary, compelled, reluctant victim 
 sanctifieth, " how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through 
 the eternal Spirit ofiered himself" — by virtue and support of the 
 eternal Spirit that is, his intelligent nature — " to God purge your 
 conscience from dead works to serve the living God ? " You need not 
 to be told that these figurative victims were involuntary, or that if they 
 had apprehended the nature of the doom to which they were devoted, 
 they would have recoiled from it. Every school-boy is acquainted with 
 the fact, that among the Romans, whose system of superstition was a 
 corruption of the Jewish sacrificial system, there existed a belief that 
 it was a most ominous and inauspicious circumstance, if the unwilling- 
 ness of the victim rendered it difficult to bind it to the altar : but there 
 was nothing of this sort in the case of our Savior. No ! he was an 
 intelligent, cheerful, deliberate victim ; what he did he did not by com- 
 pulsion, but by choice ; he freely made this recognition of God's author- 
 ity, and this oblation to God's justice ; he lay in the bosom of the 
 Father, and, therefore, when he felt the beatings of his heart, his own 
 responded to them. He came down from heaven ; he was not hurled 
 from his throne, he was not dragged like the creature-victim ; " he 
 came down from heaven for us men, and for our salvation," and he 
 would re-ascend up into heaven by no other way than that of the cross : 
 and being there, we see in him, not the unwilling victim bound with 
 cords to the horns of the altar, kicking against the fatal and sanguin- 
 ary knife : but the yielding, uncomplaining, cheerful, self-devoted sac- 
 rifice, which is the grand fact on which its preciousness rests ; because 
 he gave himself to God, the Savior's sacrifice was one of a sweet 
 smelling savor to him. 
 
 4. Another circumstance — one which we believe was prefigured by 
 the sacrifices under the law, and one which substantiates the sacrifice 
 of Christ to have been a proper sacrifice — is that he was an unblem- 
 ished victim. In consequence of his miraculous conception by the 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 217 
 
 Holy Ghost, he escaped the common contagion of mankind ; 'and his 
 personal character in after life was holy, for " he was harmless and 
 undefijed, and separate from sinners," and thus he passed to the altar 
 an unblemished, victim. And because Jesus Christ was righteous, on 
 this ground, which was indispensable, as without it he could not have 
 offered himself -to God, his sacrifice became an acceptable propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world. 
 
 5. But the. most prominent and important circumstance in this pas- 
 sage has reference to the value of the victim through his personal union 
 zvith the Deity : Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself to 
 God. I put it to you whether any proof can be drawn from Scripture, 
 of any personal and distinct agency of the Holy Spirit, the third per- 
 son in the adorable Godhead, in the atoning sacrifice of the Savior ; 
 for that notion involves in it a mischievous error. AVe can only come 
 to the conclusion of the presence and agency of the Holy Spirit in the 
 person of Christ ; contrary to the assumption of Dr. Macknight, that 
 the offering must be first made in heaven before it is comijlete ; that it 
 could never be offered to God until Christ had passed into the heavenly 
 place, and appeared before him. It is true that the Spirit had an 
 agency in the offering ; but our assumption is, that it was by the exer- 
 cise, and not by any distinct personal operation of the Holy Spirit, that 
 he was quickened and raised from the dead ; and there is no discord 
 between that assumption and the opinions of the most sound and wise 
 of men : it harmonizes with the language of the Church of England 
 in her thirty-first article, " Of the one oblation of Christ finished upon 
 the cross.'''' " The offering of Christ once made, is that perfect redemp- 
 tion, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, 
 both original and actual : and there is none other satisfaction for sin, 
 but that alone." And we are bold to assert, that there is no proof in 
 all the Scripture of any person of the Godhead represented as person- 
 ally distinct, or of any distinct official agency of the Spirit, in the aton- 
 ing sacrifice of our Lord. 
 
 The expression of this text, therefore, reveals the undoubted presence 
 of the I>ivinity. And there are many parallel passages to this effect ; 
 as for instance, in the opening of the epistle to the Romans, the apos- 
 tle, speaking of Jesus Christ, declares " that he was made of the seed 
 of David according to the flesh, and declared according to the Spirit 
 of holiness " — according to the divine nature which resided within 
 him — " to be the Son of God ; " and was declared to be such, " by 
 his resurrection from the dead." And why ? Because he rose from 
 the dead by his own power, by the exercise of that spirit which resided 
 within him. And perhaps the apostle makes the same reference, in liis 
 
218 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 epistle to Timothy, when he declares that God the Deity, " was mani- 
 fest in the flesh, but justified only in the Spirit." There was then a 
 manifestation of the Deity in mortal nature ; that Deity vindicating 
 itself, and justifying itself as Deity and as God, on several occasions 
 for practical important purposes, putting forth its divine energy and 
 power. And so says the apostle here, " Jesus Christ, by the eternal 
 Spirit," which has been already explained, by virtue, by full virtue, or 
 rather by support, by the special, supernatural support, of his indwell- 
 ing divine nature, oifered himself to God. And I need not tell you 
 that his was a sacrifice which justice required, that it was one which 
 divine mercy only could have provided, and which a divine person 
 alone could have rendered. The Lord of Glory was crucified ! The 
 Prince of life was killed ! The Almighty's fellow was offered up. — 
 " Awake, sword, against my shepherd ; and against the man that is 
 my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts." God shed his blood for his 
 church. Well, therefore, may we arrive at the conclusion of the apos- 
 tle, that " this is the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit 
 ofiered himself without spot to God, which shall purge our conscience 
 from dead works to serve the hving God." " Worthy is the Lamb ; " 
 therefore, precious is his blood ! 
 
 III. Compute the value of this precious blood with reference to 
 THE PERSONAL VALUE OF THE Savior. Compute the value of the sac- 
 rifice with reference to Chrisfs own deity. 
 
 Witli this we can never thoroughly sympathize; but we may form 
 some faint conception of it, we may be impressed with the highest, 
 sense of it at which we can arrive. How precious to himself was his 
 blood! How dear his life! and, therefore, how expensive his death! 
 And now, to furnish you with some simple thoughts on the subject. — 
 Remember that he retained, that he could not but retain, even when in 
 the flesh — his divine and spiritual nature. And, therefore, he could 
 not but be sensible of the transcendent dignity of it. Indeed, what 
 dignifies his sacrifice Is, that he could measure the stoop he made, that 
 he could behold the distance he travelled, and the humiliation to which 
 he bowed. And hence, not seldom during his intercourse with his 
 disciples, and with men upon earth — although it was not his general 
 habit — when it became him he broke in upon his general habit, and 
 vindicated his divinity for the very purpose of exalting and commend- 
 ing his love, for the purpose of expressly impressing the minds of those 
 around him with the fact of his consciousness of the Godhead dwelhng 
 in him, — and his own consciousness, therefore, of the infinite generos- 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 219 
 
 ity of the stoop which he made for the miseries and sins of liis 
 creatures. 
 
 AVhen he became man, he was endowed with all the innocent pecu- 
 liarities, affections, and instincts of human nature, and the strongest, 
 instinct of human nature we know is self preservation, the love of life. 
 And can it be supposed for a moment, that these feelings were less 
 acute in our Lord Jesus Christ than in ordinary men ? they must have 
 been the reverse, because in his case they were never blunted by sin. 
 Oh, what a heart had he ! How harmless were his joys ! How pain- 
 ful were his sympathies ! There was a great deal more of feeling than 
 of philosophy in the character of our Savior when he was upon the 
 earth. Of course his intellect, even in his inferior nature, was unfath- 
 omable : but still it contained in it more developments of the tenderest 
 sensibihties, than of the stern, cold intellectuality of sensibility, of that 
 sensible sympathy which usually associates with the acutest sense of 
 self-value and self-love, the most innocent of our sins. He felt for 
 himself as well as for others ; he valued himself, he loved his life. How 
 pathetically did he appeal to his disciples in terms like these, " Greater 
 love hath no man than this,that a man lay down his life for his friends ! " 
 " I am the good Shepherd " — hear the illustration — " the good Shep- 
 herd giveth his life for the sheep." 
 
 And consider that the Savior's was an iyinocent offering. And this 
 must have rendered his hfe more valuable to himself, as well as his 
 death — death, with all its moral associations, is repugnant ; but the 
 death of the atonement, as an instantaneous recognition of the author- 
 ity of God over a world of sinners, and his predetermination to punish 
 sin, to his purity and innocence must have been pecuHarly revolting. 
 He was not willing to admit for a moment that it was his design to for- 
 feit, — he never forfeited the great gift of life, he never rendered him- 
 self personally deserving of death ; he was tenacious of hfe, he was 
 more afflicted at his anticipated removal than one bowed at the feet of 
 God under a sense of forfeited life and deserved death. We speak of 
 Christian fortitude and humility, and that humiUty constituted by a 
 sense of our demerit. In such a sense our Savior had it not ; in no 
 sense had he deserved the displeasure of God for himself ; and I say in 
 consequence he must more sensitively have recoiled from the death of 
 the atonement, and from death in all its forms, from all its bitter bodi- 
 ly pains, and more especially from the bitter moral associations con- 
 nected with it, as a sacrifice for sins not his own. 
 
 And what do we infer from all this, but the costhness and generosity 
 of the sacrifice; that he who knew himself to be God, " who," as the 
 apostle significantly tells us, " th6ught it no robbery to be equal with 
 
220 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 God" — that he who knew himself to be God, should assume mortal 
 nature, and endowed with all its tenderest sympathies, and loving life, 
 he should hasten to its close ; and that, pure, placid, and peaceful as 
 he was, conscious of his personal innocence, he should submit to 
 receive, not only wounds and suiferings, but to be branded with dis- 
 honor, and to have the impress of divine and judicial wrath stamped 
 upon him, that he might redeem the lost at such a vast expense to God, 
 and to himself such an mispeakable sacrifice ? 
 
 Lamb of God ! was ever pain, 
 Was ever love like thine 'I 
 
 IV". Consider the value attached to this blood by the 
 Father. 
 
 1. We might illustrate this by many tokens and testimonies of his 
 complacency towards his Son, before his sufferings and death. " When 
 he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let the 
 angels of God worship him." At another time, " Lo, a voice from 
 heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." 
 And this is a proof, that in his submission to work the business of 
 redemption, he undertook a task which was dear to the heart of God. 
 When he undertook 4he burthen of the redemption of God's favoiite 
 creation, it rendered him an object of peculiar complacency, in the 
 prosecution of which he never lost his Father's regard : he abode in his 
 Father's love, because he perfectly did his commands in reference to 
 the prosecution of the great enterprise in which he had embarked. 
 
 2. Consider as another illustration of the preciousness of Christ's 
 blood, either in life or death, to the Father — consider, I say, the per- 
 sonal compensation he aivarded to him for his sufferings. The ortho- 
 dox faith has been assailed on two points connected with this subject, 
 by the Socinians. The taunt of, I cannot but say, our unhappy oppo- 
 nents, is directed first in this way : " That it represents God as a being 
 who would not consent to remit the punishment of an offending race, 
 without devolving the burthen of their sufferings upon his own Son." 
 We know easily hoAV to retort this taunt: it is one which argues that 
 our system is unmerciful ; that it is a system which dishonors the jus- 
 tice and mercy of God, who makes no other provision for a righteous 
 and honorable remission of sins ; that it exhibits the divine being in a 
 very revolting light. But is our system so ? What is the truth on 
 this point ? Why, that when the justice, the honor, and the perfec- 
 tions of God rendered an atonement necessary for our salvation ; — 
 which rendered the redemption necessary of the whole world, as sin- 
 ners against the infinite Majesty of haaven ; when a redemption price 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 221 
 
 became necessary, God himself paid it down in the person of his own 
 Son, and thus expressed his love to his fallen creatures, as an expres- 
 sion of his regard for him, he comes from heaven, and dies for their 
 guilt, and to expiate their offences : he expresses his willingness that 
 men should repent and live, and his unwillingness that they should die 
 their deserved death. And this is an expression of his love, unmeas- 
 urably greater than if he could have pardoned sins without such a 
 sacrifice. 
 
 But the taunt then is transferred to the substitute : " Oh, then, still 
 the Deity must take a malignant pleasure in suffering, when he alleges 
 the atonement of his Son to be the only alternative to the misery of 
 his creatures." Our gospel meets this objection too ; it tells us, that 
 though God in mercy spared not his only Son, but freely delivered him 
 up to death for man, he, in justice to that Son, afforded him supernat- 
 ural assistance, to sustain him in his trial and humiliation ; he made haste 
 to raise him from the dead when the atonement was complete, when 
 his death was accomplished, and his blood was shed ; he would not suffer 
 his holy One to see corruption ; he made good speed to recover him 
 from all but necessary, absolutely necessary dishonor ; he would not 
 suffer him " to see corruption." And now he sits at his right hand, in 
 the heavenly places, he is crowned with compensatory glory and honor 
 as the Redeemer of the world, and as the Savior of his people ; and such 
 glory as this would never have accrued to him, as the maker and gov- 
 ernor of the universe. He has assumed a new name, the name of 
 Jesus. He has assumed a new relation, that of the Savior. He has 
 assumed a new dominion, a mediatorial one. Every thing now is medi- 
 atorial. His government is mediatorial. His providence is mediatorial. 
 His official character is mediatorial All these new names have a 
 distinct relation to his sufferings. They are procured, and accorded to 
 him on the ground of his having thus nobly accomplished and submitted 
 to the death of the cross for us. And now his crown sparkles with 
 the tears of penitents, and their lustre far surpasses, in his own esteem, 
 the glory of its other embellishments : his palace resounds with the 
 sighs of broken hearts, and the songs of the rejoicing ones are like 
 music to his ears. Now his train is composed of the redeemed — the 
 liberated captives — the followers of his cross ; he rejoices with pecu- 
 liar satisfaction and complacency ; the name of Jesus .is music to his 
 ear, he loves to hear it echoed ! echoed ! echoed ! It cannot be too 
 often made the subject of appeal to God his Father. It cannot be too 
 often repeated to himself. He loves to hear the sinner address him as 
 Jesus, as his official Lord, upon whom he devolves his hopes, as the 
 responsible instrument of his salvation. 
 
222 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 And uhen he looks upon earth, he heholds the fruits of his redemp- 
 tion, in the conversion of sinners, in the comforting of mourners, in 
 the recovery of the workl, in the propagation of the gospel, and in the 
 edification of his church. And when he transfers his attention from 
 earth to heaven, there he beholds the multitudes around his throne, 
 "whose robes have been washed and made white in the blood of the 
 Lamb ; who through his merit, and the efficacy of his blood, are placed 
 there, far beyond the reach of any earthly toil or danger; who, we are 
 beautifully told, "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." And 
 this we are told in language which has no reference to their past char- 
 acter ; when they are described in the past tense, it speaks of them as 
 those " who have not been defiled ; " and as those who " were redeemed 
 from among men," but when they are spoken of in the present tense, 
 if we may so speak about heaven, it says, " these are they which follow 
 the Lamb whithersoever he goeth ; " their eyes are upon his throne, he 
 is the object and centre of attraction : — 
 
 Jesus, hannonious name ! 
 
 It charms the hosts above ; 
 They evennore proclaim 
 And wonder at his love. 
 'Tis all their happiness to gaze ; 
 'Tis heaven to see oru* Jesus' face. 
 
 When he thus sees the work of redemption on earth, when he 
 beholds the redeemed who follow him with ceaseless songs in heaven, 
 he looks forward to the futurity, when all men shall bless, and be 
 blessed of him ; " he sees of the travail of his soul, and is satisfied." 
 Then his Father puts his seal to the work ; he intimates the unspeaka- 
 ble preciousness of his blood, and his fixed determination that his death 
 shall be a full recompense, a full redress ; and he illustrates the same 
 thing by the propitiatory efiect his blood has upon his own mind. The 
 Scripture sometimes speaks of the Father not merely as the first per- 
 son of the Deity, or as having a personal relation to the Son, and 
 Holy Spirit, but as the fountain and representative of the Godhead. 
 Our Lord speaks frequently as though the Deity subsisted in his per- 
 son ; he speaks of the Deity as subsisting in the person of the Father ; 
 and the Scriptures teach us the effect, the instantaneous effect, of the 
 presentation of the blood of the great atonement upon the mind of the 
 Father as upon the mind of the Deity ; so that his justice is suspended 
 and quieted, and turned aside, when he hears the Son. The blood 
 of Christ once freely shed, now constantly sprinkles the mercy-seat ; 
 the Father hears him with rejoicing, 
 
 The Father hears him pray, 
 
 His deaj- Anointed One ;' 
 He cannot tm-n away 
 
 The presence of liis Son. 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 223 
 
 And the Spirit makes a proper application of the truth : — 
 
 His Spiiit answers to the blood, 
 Ami tells me I am bom of God ; 
 
 SO precious is the blood of Christ in the esteem of the Father. 
 
 V. And need I remind you of the immense good this blood is the 
 MEANS OF PROCURING TO MANiciND, to saj nothing of the lowcr orders 
 of creation, as a further illustration of this subject. AVhen the burst 
 of joy shall rise from many angels round the throne, and the elders 
 saying, ^'ith a loud voice, " Worthy the Lamb that was slain ; " then 
 every creature -which is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, 
 and such as are in the sea, whether at present higher or lower in the 
 scale of creation, every creature shall in some mysterious way subscribe 
 Amen ! to the beneficial effects of their redemption by their common 
 Savior. But if we look to the effect of this blood upon the mind and 
 condition of man generally, what do Ave owe to it ? We owe to it our 
 immortal destination; for, beyond question, had the law taken effect 
 upon the breach of it, if its penalty had been inflicted, our race would 
 have been extinguished. If in the day Adam ate the forbidden fruit 
 he had died, his posterity would have been extinct ; we are, therefore, 
 indebted to our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the language of the 
 New Testament, for our earthly existence ; and by the same testimony 
 we are clearly indebted to him for our resurrection-body ; we should, 
 therefore, have no essential or perfect constitution without him, either 
 in a present or a future state. We are clearly indebted to him for 
 bringing life and immortality to light by the gospel, and putting us in 
 possession of it by his blood. We are indebted to his blood for our 
 salvation, and all Avhich that involves us in, as responsible beings. We 
 are indebted to his blood for our hopes of eternal life ; for all our capac- 
 ities of mind ; for the favorable and auspicious circumstances in which 
 we are placed ; for all the conveniences of nature ; for the arrano-e- 
 ments of providence ; for the lengthening out our lease of life, and for 
 the arrest of judgment, which is made in our favor — all this is to be 
 put to the account of Christ. 
 
 We are indebted to him for all the chastenings of providence, which 
 are parts of God's merciful system. There is nothing in the world 
 which ought not to remind us of it ; man's whole providential history 
 should remind us of our obligation to him : the mercy of God to him 
 in his affliction. We are apt to forget what we deserve when God 
 prospers us ; and when in his providence he chastens us, to prav to him 
 for a right use of it, and to be reminded of the moral cause of all. — 
 
224 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Why are these things so ? Wherefore does God condemn me ? Because 
 I am a sinner. This thought does not often glance into our mind in 
 prosperity. 
 
 unexhausted grace ! 
 
 love unspeakable ! 
 
 1 am not gone to my own place, 
 
 1 am not yet in hell ! 
 
 We do not remember that to deserve mercies we must thank God for 
 crosses, so chastening us by his providence, that we are driven for 
 refuge to the mediatorial interposition of the Savior, and the influence 
 of his precious blood. To this blood we owe his grace, spiritualizing 
 us, and disposing us to welcome all he does. We owe it to this that 
 the pulpit stands a fountain of pure and inspired instruction. To this 
 we are indebted for the gospel, for the ministry, for all our Christian 
 companionship and intercourse, for access to God in prayer, and the 
 leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit — all this we owe to his pre- 
 cious blood. 
 
 And mark its effects upon the penitent and enlightened man : it pro- 
 cures his pardon, for he is justified by his blood ; he has peace in the 
 blood of Christ, it purges his conscience from dead works to serve the 
 living God ; he rejoices in the power of going to the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and that he may be joined to his spiritual church ; and that he, who 
 was once far off, is made nigh by the blood of Christ, that he may have 
 access and boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. 
 
 It i-s our duty, our daily duty, to look into that passage, I mean the 
 first chapter of the first epistle of John. Judge ye if the reference 
 is not to-day needful, and if it is not needful for your ultimate consid- 
 eration ; we have elsewhere described it, as the daily experience of 
 every faithful believer. And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us 
 from all sin ; it keeps us from condemnation, it purifies our hearts, it 
 draws us towards God, and cleanseth us from all sin. And there is a con- 
 temporaneous expression which should be equally habitually our study ; 
 the expression, " if we walk in the light we have fellowship with God ; " 
 we are privileged with entire sanctification ; every day it enables us to 
 walk in fellowship with God, through this precious blood which cleans- 
 eth from sin. perfect influence of the blood of the everlasting 
 covenant, by which God maketh us perfect in every good word and 
 work ! victorious blood ! by which we are made finally conquerors, 
 and more than conquerors ! " They overcame by the blood of the 
 Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." 
 
 Take a comparative view, if you please, of this influence, and you 
 will find it transcends every thing. Compare it with the earthly objects 
 
DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 225 
 
 of men's affections, -with wealth, -with friendship, vrith power, with 
 court influence, with the splendors of state, with intellect, with scien- 
 tific eminence, with personal accomplishments, and what are all these 
 to the blood of Christ ? 
 
 Vain, delusive world, adieu! 
 
 With all thy creature good ; 
 Only Jesus I pursue, 
 
 Who bought me with his blood. 
 
 All thy pleasures I forego I 
 
 I trample on thy wealth and pride ! 
 Only Jesus will I know, 
 
 And Jesus crucified. 
 
 Compare it with religious experience. Some have substituted alms, 
 mortifications, penances, penitence and prayers ; and even works of 
 faith, as an instrument, are too often substituted by the weak and 
 unenlightened mind, for the meritorious cause of pardon ; but Avith this 
 blood all these are unnecessary, and without it they are unavailable ; 
 with it they are superfluous, without it they are absolutely worthless, 
 and of no account in the sight of God. 
 
 Compare this sacrifice with all those by which it was typified under 
 the law. There is a remarkable reference in the context to this sub- 
 ject : " Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with 
 corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of 
 Christ." The reference is possibly to the price at which the sacrificial 
 victims were purchased, and the costliness of the vicarious sacrifice of 
 Christ. " Ye know," says the apostle with reference to the propitia- 
 tory sacrifice, " that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, 
 such as silver and gold " — your lamb is not bought, and his virtue, 
 his merit, is incorruptible ; it always flows — it flows to the uttermost 
 end of time ; it flows for ever ; it will sustain the favor of God through 
 the ages of eternity. It is incorruptible, it does not need to be renewed ; 
 " for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanc- 
 tified." 
 
 Compare — in order that the close of the climax may rise to its 
 highest point — compare it with every other part of the Savior's work, 
 with hi? personal and official character, with his divinity, with his incar- 
 nation, with his teaching, his miracles, his power, his mercy, his acts 
 of obedience, his sufferings, his life, his death : and after death, with 
 his resurrection, his commission to his apostles, with the regal preroga- 
 tive and power which enters into every thing which belongs to him as 
 a mediator. " All," as Bishop Hall says. " have a reference to the 
 atonement, all parts of the Savior's character work by virtue of the 
 15 
 
226 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 atonement," have a relation to it, and have their end in it. ^o that, 
 after comparing it to every thing in the universe, such is its richness 
 and merit, that we must sum all up in the conclusion, that it is the 
 super-eminentlj precious blood of Christ. 
 
 VI. By way of application, let us see w^hether this blood be not 
 precious to every rightly affected human heart. Mark its efficacy and 
 power over every class of sinners, who are resting upon its sovereign 
 influence through the power of the Holy Spirit. " To you he is 
 precious." 
 
 1. Look at the half-awakened sinner, he that is convicted of sin by 
 the power of God ; he anticipates judgment, he anticipates hell beyond 
 it ; the hghtnings of God's wrath flash in the face of his conscience ; 
 he hears the thunders of the broken law, he is disturbed, alarmed, 
 unhappy ; but let him stop here, and then he will soon find that all is 
 hardness and despair ; he wants the thunder-shower, the softening influ- 
 ence — you have it here. He is brought in contact with the cross, he 
 is pointed to Christ crucified, he is led to reflect on what Christ has 
 done and suffered for him, and these sufferings carried home to his heart 
 by the Holy Spirit, he cries, 
 
 By thy Spirit, Lord, reprove, 
 
 All my inmost sins reveal ; 
 Sins against thy light and love, 
 
 Let me see, and let me feel ; 
 Sins that crucified my God, 
 
 Spilt again his precious blood. 
 
 And here comes the thunder-shower, the relieving influence, he sor- 
 rows for sin, he hates it for its own sake ; and because it is obnoxious 
 to God, to God in Christ, to the divine Sa^ior crucified for that sin, 
 and thus he is led to a real and true repentence towards God. 
 
 2. Now take the penitent sinner to the same cross, let him be 
 brought under the same influence ; hope springs up in his bosom ; he 
 sees that God is merciful as well as just ; he rejoices in the hope of 
 pardon and salvation ; he looks and sees the sunshine stealing through 
 the shower, it glistens in the cloud before the shower is over ; and then 
 he looks agaua, he contemplates more attentively, the troubles of his 
 breast are calmed, his fears are removed, and he forms a proper spirit- 
 ual estimate of the preciousness of the Savior's blood. IVhen the 
 sinner can be brought to see the atonement in the light in which God 
 sees it, he believes in his heart unto righteousness ; Christ interposes 
 between an offended God and condemned, self-condemned, miserable 
 man ; he points to his blood, the Father looks down upon it, and then 
 
iXJCTRINE OF THE AlONEMExXT. 227 
 
 he is ready to pardon, he makes haste to be gracious, he burns to spare 
 the sinner, he wishes him to take the same interest which he does in 
 the atonement of the Son of God, and the same impression from it. — 
 What does he do ? he sends his Spirit into his heart, and transfers, or 
 rather communicates something of his own impression of the atonement 
 to the heart of the sinner ; the sinner looks up to Christ's blood, his 
 face is towards liis God, his face is towards it, by the power of God he 
 is induced to look up for pardon, and then he pardons him freely, he 
 freely justifies him, and by that power the sinner is induced to trust in 
 him for the promised pardon : the moment the sinner so trusts he 
 believes in his heart unto righteousness ; he goes home to his house 
 justified, he is made accepted in the beloved, and justified by his 
 blood. 
 
 3. Mark its effects upon the Christian, whether newly made in 
 Christ, or the more established Christian. What is its influence upon 
 that character — for instance upon his worship, he goes to the altar of 
 God to worship him ; he enters into the temple to offer his sacrifices, 
 he bends his way to the altar of Atonement, he approaches it with 
 reverence and adoration, he makes haste to worship God, he finds the 
 altar of incense sprinkled with the blood of that atonement, the incense 
 ascends and mingles with the wreaths of smoke from the altar of the 
 great atoning sacrifice, and thus becomes acceptable to God. What a 
 stimulus to his activity, for the love of Christ constraineth him ! What 
 a support under sufiering, for he believes there is no way for him in 
 the time of trial and sufiering but to lean upon the Lord, to depend 
 upon his tenderest sympathies, arising out of what he has done and 
 suffered for him ; and, therefore, he takes his whole burthen to the 
 cross, and leans upon it with his whole weight ; he does not cast his 
 burthen upon God, he does not expect to do so, he is not to be so 
 entirely disengaged from it, " Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he 
 shall sustain (not it, but) thee." But he does not suffer his beloved 
 to stoop under the weight of it, he sustains him by his cross : — the 
 Christian leans his weight upon Christ's cross, and he finds that prom- 
 ise true. 
 
 And oh, what a support is it in death ! If we read the history of 
 the most evangelical and spiritually-minded Christians in the article of 
 death, whose spirits are just about, to take their flight to their kindred 
 element, what references do we see them making to the atoning sacri- 
 fice of Christ. 
 
 Other title I disclaim, 
 
 This, only this, is all my plea : k 
 
 I the chief of sinners am, 
 
 But Jesus died for me. 
 
228 THE ENGLISH PTJLPIT. 
 
 In these moments of parting nature, it possesses an incomparable 
 charm. All things then are but loss to the excellency of the knowl- 
 edge of Christ Jesus ; their desire is then to be found in Christ Jesus, 
 not having on their own righteousness, but that of him who died to 
 purchase pardon for penitent sinners. 
 
 I was extremely struck with an incident which, as it bears some rela- 
 tion to this part of my subject, you will excuse my repeating. You 
 are aware that the supplement to our excellent and long-established 
 hymn-book was arranged under the direction of my late friend Mr. 
 Watson. I remember that upon one occasion, having the privilege of 
 conversing with him, he distinctly stated that he suffered pain in his 
 mind in mentioning two or three hymns out of the collections of Dod- 
 dridge and Toplady ; and there was one which he expressed the strong- 
 est aversion to introduce into the supplement, chiefly as a matter of 
 taste. The hymn in question had some grammatical improprieties 
 which ought not to be admitted ; and besides that, it held too familiar 
 language in reference to our Savior, which he considered ought not to 
 be sanctioned in any of our standards of theology or forms of worship. 
 But I was struck on hearing my excellent friend in his last days in the 
 habit of referring to that very hymn, more than any other, either in 
 the original hymn-book or the supplement, as, through the blessing of 
 God, a source of consolation to him — of dying consolation. We are 
 not, indeed, to wonder that as piety matures it should exhibit an 
 increasing softness, susceptibiUty, and tenderness : ripe fruit is tender 
 and mellow. This was the hymn which was excluded on the ground 
 of taste, and which was yet found to be so precious a support in the 
 time of trial : — 
 
 < " Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb, 
 
 We love to hear of thee ; 
 No music's like thy charming name, 
 Nor half so sweet can be." 
 
 It thus closes : — 
 
 " When we appear in yonder cloud, 
 With all the favored throng ; 
 Then will we sing more sweet, more loud, 
 And Christ shall be our song." 
 
 This blood will be the plea in judgment, of those who stand in that 
 great day clothed in the righteousness of Christ — the comprehensive 
 merit and all-powerful efficacy of his blood. It will be their theme, 
 their delight, and their song of rejoicing throughout all eternity, to 
 attest how precious it was to their happiness and their salvation, and 
 *how dear to their hearts. Precious is this blood ! Oh, be thankful to 
 God for his bountiful provision ! Oh, tremble at the idea of trifling 
 
THE LAST JUDGMENT. 229 
 
 with it, and trampling it under your feet ! Christian, make use of 
 its powerful influence with God for yourself! Hitherto you have asked 
 nothing in Christ's name, nothing worthy of the plea, and the influence 
 and merit of his death, you have hitherto asked nothing : " Ask, and 
 ye shall receive." Ask something, something proportionate to Christ's 
 merit and his death ; " Ask and receive, that your joy may be full." 
 
 Finally, my brethren, as you have felt the value of this blood in 
 your own case, use all your influence to spread the fame of it among 
 your fellow-creatures. What a shame it is that the world needs these 
 exertions ! What a shame it is that eflbrt must be used to propagate 
 a knowledge of its influence, and that this precious blood is not univer- 
 sally welcomed and confided in, — this state of things must be correct- 
 ed and reversed ; — it can only be so by the combined efforts of those 
 who have experienced the value of the atoning efficacy of this blood, 
 and God working with them as his instruments in the great work, and 
 performing mighty spiritual wonders. 
 
 Lamb of God, who bear'st away 
 
 All the sins of all mankind, 
 Bow a world unto tby sway ; 
 Let thy dying love constrain 
 
 Those who disregard thy frown ; 
 Sink the mountain to a plain ; 
 
 Bring the pride of sinners down ; 
 Soften the obdurate crowd ; 
 
 Melt the rebels with thy blood ! 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 
 THE SCENE OF THE LAST JUDGMENT 
 BY REV. E. W. HAMILTON, D. D., L. L. D. 
 
 " And 1 saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and 
 the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small 
 and great, stand before God ; and the books were opened : and another book was opened, 
 which is the book of life : and the dead were judged out of those things which were writ- 
 ten in the books, according to tlieir works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in 
 it ; and death and hell delivered up the dead wliich were in them ; and they were judged 
 every man according to their works." — Revelation xx. 11 — 13. 
 
 In looking around this congregation, beloved hearers, I feel at this 
 moment well-nigh overwhelmed. So many eyes — so many ears — all 
 the organs and the representatives of immortal souls ! 
 
230 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Suffer me to relieve my emotions by an allusion to a well-knoTvn fact. 
 When Massillori pronounced one of those discourses -which have placed 
 him in the first class of orators, he found himself surrounded by the 
 trappings and pageants of a royal funeral. The temple was not only 
 hung with sable, but shadowed with darkness, save the few twinkling 
 hghts of the altar ; the beauty and the chivalry of the land were 
 spread out before him ; the censers threw forth their fumes of incense, 
 and they mounted to the gilded dome. There sat majesty, clothed in 
 sackcloth and sunk ui grief. All felt in common, and as one. It was 
 a breathless suspense ; not a sound broke upon the awful stillness. — • 
 The master of mighty eloquence arose. His hands were folded on his 
 bosom : his eyes were lifted to heaven ; utterance seemed denied him ; 
 he stood abstracted and lost. At length his fixed look unbent ; it hurried 
 over the scene, where every pomp was mixed and every trophy strewn. 
 It found there no resting-place, amidst all that idle parade and all that 
 mocking vanity. Once more it settled ; it had fastened upon the hier, 
 glittering Avith escutcheons and veiled with plumes. A sense of the 
 indescribable nothingness of man " at his best estate," in that hearsed 
 mortal, overcame him. His eye once more closed ; his action was sus- 
 pended ; and in a scarcely audible whisper he disturbed the long-drawn 
 pause — " There is nothing great hut God.^^ 
 
 It would be in vain for me to attempt his power of impression ; but 
 it may not be wrong to covet his depth of feeling. And while these 
 words are yet vibrating on your ears, and are harrowing up your souls, 
 I take the abrupt sentence and fit it to the present theme. TJiere is 
 nothing solemn but Judgment. 
 
 The thunder-storm is solemn ; when the hghtnings, " as arrows, 
 shoot abroad ; " when the peals startle up the nations ; when the dread 
 artillery rushes along the sky. But what is that to the far-resounding 
 crash, louder than the roar and bellow of ten thousand thunders, 
 which shall pierce to the deepest charnels, and which all the dead shall 
 hear ? 
 
 The sea-tempest is solemn : when those huge billows lift up their 
 crests ; when mighty armaments are wrecked by their fury ; broken as 
 the foam, scattered as the spray. But what is that to the commotion 
 of the deep, when " its proud waves " shall no more " be stayed," its 
 ancient barriers no more be observed, the great channels be emptied, 
 and every abyss be dry ? 
 
 The earthquake is solemn : when without a warning cities totter, and 
 kingdoms rend, and islands flee away. But what is it to that tremor which 
 shall convulse our globe, dissolving every law of attraction, untying 
 
THE LAST JUDGMENT. 231 
 
 every principle of aggregation, heaving all into chaos and heaping all 
 into ruin? 
 
 The volcano is solemn : when its cone of fire shoots to the heavens ; 
 when from its burning entrails the lava rushes, to overspread distant 
 plains and to overtake flying populations. But what is that to the con- 
 flagration, in which all the palaces and temples and the citadels of the 
 earth shall be consumed ; of which the universe shall be but the sacri- 
 fice and the fuel ? 
 
 Great God! must our eyes see — our ears hear — these desola- 
 tions ? Must ive look forth upon these devouring flames ! Must we 
 stand in judgment with thee ? Penetrate us now with thy fear ; awak- 
 en the attention, which thy trump shall not fail to command ; surround 
 our imagination with the scenery of that great and terrible day. Let 
 us now come forth from the gi'aves of sin, of unbelief, of woi'ldliness, 
 to meet the overture of thy mercy, as we must perforce start then from 
 our sepulchres to see the descending Judge. Judge us now, that thou 
 mayest not condemn us then. Let thy terror persuade, that it may 
 not crush us. 
 
 Yes, it is no illusion. The heavens shall be as the shrivelled scroll 
 of parchment ; this solid earth sliull stagger as the drunken man, and 
 cry as the travailing woman. The period is long since determined, 
 when time shall have completed its course, when probation shall have 
 run its measure, and when all the signs in the present system shall be 
 fulfilled : when " the stars shall fall " as the leaves of autumn, when 
 " the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat," and " all these things shall be dissolved." 
 
 It is the day of God. It is " the judgment of the great day." — 
 " And I saw," says the prophet of the New Testament, " a great white 
 throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the 
 heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw 
 the dead, small and great, stand before God ; and the books were open- 
 ed ; and another book was opened, which is the book of life ; and the 
 dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, 
 according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were 
 in it ; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them ; 
 and they were judged e^ery man according to their works." 
 
 I. Let us consider the scenery which shall attend this 
 
 SUELIME event. 
 
 Let us consider the scenery which shall attend this august 
 assize : the multitude that shall be summoned to it : the process which 
 must adjudicate it. 
 
232 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 The " throne " is the emblem of royal dignity. " Only," said 
 Pharaoh to Joseph, " on the throne will I be greater than thou." It 
 is the symbol of Divine supremacy. " The Lord hath established his 
 throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all." 
 
 " His throne is as a fiery flame, 
 Rolling on wheels of burning fire." 
 
 It is a " throne of glory," which he will " not disgrace." It is a 
 " throne of holiness," which he will remember. It is a throne of mer- 
 cy, to which we have access. It is a throne which " is for ever and 
 ever." It is a throne which is " high " and which is " lifted up." 
 Sometimes he holdeth back the face of this throne. Sometimes " clouds 
 and darkness are round about him ; " " righteousness and judgment," 
 however, are alike its " habitation " and its base. 
 
 But this " throne " is new to heaven. It is specially prepared ; and 
 he sitteth upon it, who judgeth right. 
 
 It is "a great white throne." Refulgent in its purity and right- 
 eousness ; formed of the fleecy vapors, burnished with the radiance 
 of sun-beams, woven from the garniture of the sky. Sunrise and sun- 
 set never imprinted that stately purple, that glowing vermilion, that 
 molten gold. It is vast, shadowy, undefined. No rainbow of the cov- 
 enant girdles it ; no suppliants or penitents sue before it ; no pardons 
 are issued from it. It is a tribunal throne. 
 
 It is occupied. There is One that "sitteth upon it." Sometimes 
 it is distinctively the throne of the Father. Here is no room for dis- 
 crimination — there is no manner of similitude. For need we be at 
 loss? " We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ ;^^ 
 " When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy 
 angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory." He 
 is now enshrined with all the splendor, as he ever possessed all the 
 fulness of the Godhead. Sometimes he is " seated with his Father on 
 his throne ; " sometimes we look forth on " the throne of God and of 
 the Lamb." He now " thinketh it no robbery to be equal with God," 
 and as God he is " Judge himself." And yet we are to be called the 
 idolaters of the nineteenth century, because we " honor the Son even 
 as we honor the Father." Blessed Jesus ! if we be idolaters, who — 
 what — are the multitudes bending around thy throne, casting their 
 diadems at thy feet, and crowning thee Lord of all ? 
 
 " From the face " of him who sitteth upon the throne, " the earth 
 and the heaven flee away," He " gave his cheeks to them who 
 plucked oif the hair ; " they " struck him with the palm of their hand," 
 they " smote him with a reed," they " blindfolded him ; " he " hid not 
 
THE LAST JUDGMENT. 233 
 
 his face from reproach and spitting." Those brows -^vere lacerated 
 with thorns ; those eyes ovei-flowed with tears ; blood trickled doAvn 
 those channels which violence had furrowed and grief had worn. Into 
 what expressions must that countenance have now kindled ! with what 
 terrors must it now be clothed ! Things inanimate, insensible, smitten 
 with a strange panic and with a sudden dismay, start back ; and those 
 bright heavens and this fair earth shrink into primeval disorder and 
 anarchy and night. But not so can the sinner " flee away ; " rocks — 
 mountains cannot cover him ; there is no hiding-place for " the workers 
 of iniquity." 
 
 Heaven and earth having fled away, " no more place is found for 
 them." It may denote the dissolution of the whole created economy ; 
 it may simply refer to the dissolution of our planetary system, with its 
 canopied atmosphere and with all that belongs to it. It makes little 
 difference, whether it be the greater catastrophe or the inferior ; the ' 
 larger could not strike a deeper terror — the smaller could not induce 
 a less. It is all to us, though the universe is rolling in its path ; our 
 heaven and our sky " find no more place." What matters to the ani- 
 malcule, that noble streams are flowing, when its own drop is exhaled ? 
 What matters to the insect, that majestic forests flourish, when its own 
 leaf has decayed ? What matters to the emmet, that chains of mag- 
 nificent mountain heights are mingling with the heavens, when its own 
 hillock is overturned ? 
 
 And why do heaven and earth pass away ? and why is no more place 
 found for them ? They have realized their end. They were but as 
 the platform and the scaffolding ; the erection is complete. " The mys- 
 tery of God" is " finished." There is the consummation ; and time, 
 therefore, " need be no longer." 
 
 Another remark is due to the personage who sends forth an aspect 
 BO strange, so glorious, that even heaven and earth cannot endure the 
 sight : it is the crucified One. It is he whose doctrine has been so long 
 a stumbling-block ; it is he, who was put to death in weakness and in 
 shame. Complex was his person ; mysterious was his investure. Eut 
 why is he the Judge ? " All judgment is committed unto him," — 
 " because lie is the Son of man." " God hath appointed to judge the 
 world in righteousness by that man, whom he hath ordained : " of whom 
 he hath given this notification, " that he hath raised him from the dead." 
 The clouds, then, now disperse ; that which was hidden is proclaimed ; 
 that which was perverted is disabused. Jesus is vindicated ; every 
 reproach is rolled away. All will acknowledge that he has made good 
 each challenged right, that he has made clear each suspected trans- 
 action, that he has made honorable each aspersed attribute : while the 
 
234 THE ENGLISH TULPIT. 
 
 cross stands up as the very index and basis and trophy of all, and he 
 who now " comes the second time " throws the renown and the tri- 
 umph of liis second coming over all that was misunderstood and mis- 
 construed in the jBrst. 
 
 Another remark is also due to the whole of this great and singular 
 process : it is incapable of description and embellishment. We take 
 the scenery as it is delineated ; and with that we must satisfy ourselves. 
 It is unsusceptible of exaggeration. If any of us could overleap the 
 boundaries of time, and could see the winding up of the great drama 
 of human events and moral interests, would any of us report that the 
 judgment was too greatly described ? that the clangor of the trumpet 
 was not so piercing, that the conflagration of the elements was not so 
 vehement, that the apparition of the rising dead was not so appalling 
 and so strange ? Should any of us §ay that it was overdrawn, and 
 that it nad been extravagantly represented ? Faint is every metaphor, 
 feeble is every description, unworthy is every imagining, when com- 
 pared — rather when contrasted — with that which the reality shall 
 prove. 
 
 There is "a throne," " a great white throne ; " it is occupied by him 
 whom the people despised and the nations abhorred ; from his face, 
 suddenly transformed and transfigured, " heaven and earth flee away ; " 
 they are superseded in every design and use ; but Jesus is vindicated, 
 beholding the honors of his tribunal ; and the transaction itself it is 
 impossible to overstate or extravagantly to describe. 
 
 II. We ^YlLL TURN TO THE MULTITUDE THAT SHALL BE SUM- 
 MONED TO IT. 
 
 When we have entered a court of justice, there has been one point 
 of concentrated interest and attention. However splendid the forms 
 of its administration, however solemn the functionaries of its exercise, 
 whatever may have been the significance of its types, whatever may 
 have been the. dreadness of its issues, until law seemed built up into a 
 throned state, and to have been covered with a spotless robe, all — all 
 were forgotten by us while intent upon the prisoner at the bar. There 
 he stood ; and what a spectacle ! The excess of feeling had confound- 
 ed every feature, until it had lost its power, and was incapable of its 
 expression ; and yet how keenly alive was he to every glance that was 
 stolen, to every word that was breathed, bearing upon his case ! Then 
 how his eye riveted ; how attentive was his ear ! Every function and 
 organ of sense seemed to vibrate. 
 
 There we saw him — that poor wretch : his countenance of haggard 
 
THE LAST JUDGMENT. 235 
 
 vacancy, his spirit fallen into dark and torpid despair. He awaited 
 the verdict of his suilt and the sentence of his condemnation. 
 
 We were spectators then : Ave felt but from the force of sympathy. 
 We are now arraigned. We ourselves now are cited. We ourselves 
 must confront this inquest ; we ourselves must stand before this judg 
 ment-seat. All are comprehended ; all are summoned. " Come to 
 judgment," " small and great," " the quick and the dead." 
 
 Oh ! this innumerable, this untold crowd. It were to insult its vast 
 itude, to compare it to any of the throngs, of earth : the millions which 
 Thebes attracted — which Godfrey marshalled — over which Xerxes 
 wept : when whole peoples have been stirred, when mighty nations 
 have risen up, when they have said " A confederacy," when the appeal 
 has been made to a contemporary race and to a listening world. 
 
 Who knows the number of that generation of his species, which now 
 fills this earth ? Say that it is 500,000,000, low as is this computa- 
 tion. Begin not to reckon it for a thousand years. Then, from that 
 epoch, you must multiply it at least a hundred and fifty times. Arith- 
 metic has no fictitious figure, by which to include it ; or if it might 
 find the number or the sound, there the index might point, or there the 
 sound might be uttered, but the mind would not be travelling with it 
 — ■ would not be informed by it. Yet some impression may be made 
 upon us, when we think of those that shall " stand in the judgment," 
 by ascertaining the sources whence they are derived. , 
 
 "• The sea gives up its dead." What navies have been shattered, 
 and have been swallowed up by its rage ! Pharaoh and his host : the 
 whole world perished in its overflow. It is insatiable. It has encroach- 
 ed upon the kingdoms and the dwelling-places of men. It is the very 
 emblem of all that is insatiable : human cupidity, aggrandizement, 
 ambition. It conceals that which it has devoured ; but he wlio said to 
 the waves of Gennesaret, " Peace, be still," shall control the multitu- 
 dinous oceans of our earth, and then every cavern shall be searched, 
 and every depth shall be sounded. It shall be exacted of its prey. — 
 Each secret now shall then be wrung from it, and all its captives be 
 restored. " The sea gave up its dead." 
 
 " Death gave up the dead which were in it." The power of the 
 gi-ave, the personification of death. The deep places of the earth ; 
 for the dry land is but the burying-place of man. Let us think, how- 
 ever painted this scene may be, it is only a painted sepulchre ; we are 
 only treading on the dust of our predecessors, as posterity will soon 
 tread on ours. But he who burst the barriers of the tomb, and made 
 death bow before him — he shall send forth his mandate, publish his 
 behest ; and then the vaults, and the catacombs, and the mummy pits, 
 
236 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 and the bone houses, shall disgorge the relics ; and death shall stand 
 extorted as to all it knows, stripped of all it boasts, and the whole of 
 this earth shall seem to stir with motion, and once more to heave with 
 life. The dead shall hve. Death is no longer the keeper of the pris- 
 on-house, but delivers up the dead. 
 
 It was much for the sea to obey him who sitteth on the throne ; it 
 was more, for death — the grave — the sepulchre — to yield its vic- 
 tims ; but " hell " — the place of departed spirits, where the disembod- 
 ied soul of man is to be found, whether in happiness or in woe — Hades 
 has listened to a voice, till then unknown to it. The gates of " the 
 shadow of death " unbar, and its portals fly open. And now, there 
 come — there come — there come — clouds of spirits rolling upon 
 clouds, in swift succession, with impetuous rush ; sumless, but all indi- 
 vidualized ; the consciousness of each distinct, the character of each 
 defined, and the sentence of each anticipated. And Hades sends 
 back spirits to those bodies, which the sea and the grave may no more 
 retain. 
 
 " The small and the great stand before God." All who have been 
 among the mighty, and would not " let go their prisoners," and all of 
 minor name. Attila, Gonsalva, Auringzeb, with their vassals: Cyrus, 
 Alexander, Caesar, with their battalions: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, 
 with their disciples : all who ever achieved a name, and all who ever 
 perished without one. None so great that they can intimidate ; none 
 so httle that they can be overlooked. " The small and the great stand 
 before God." 
 
 And looking at that mighty throne, there is a distinctive circum- 
 stance which must not be overlooked : " Every man was judged." — 
 It seems so vast an occasion, it seems so massive an aggregate ; can 
 " every man" there find a place ? must " every man " there pass an 
 ordeal ? Every man shall there stand apart, bearing his own burden, 
 occupying his own lot. Every man shall there give the account for 
 himself, and not for another. Every man shall there feel as though 
 for him alone that trumpet blast was rung and that blazing conflagra- 
 tion was kindled, and all this sublime tragedy was acted. Every man 
 shall feel that he is noticed, that he is espied, and must be judged out 
 of these books. 
 
 There is sometimes a deception we would practise upon ourselves : 
 we think that we may be lost as in that multitude, overlooked as in 
 that crowd. That objection is refuted; all difficulty is defied. God 
 can say, " All souls are mine; " and all souls, on that day, shall pass 
 In review before him. Each of your " idle words ; " each of your 
 "vain thoughts ; " each of your impure desires: every bias of your 
 
TUE LAST JUDGMENT. 23T 
 
 spirit, every movement of your heart. ^\'Tiat a resurrection is that, 
 my brethren ! Do I speak of the resurrection of the body ! I speak 
 of a resurrection more hideous. We must all " receive the things 
 done in the body, whether they be good or -whether they be evil," All 
 will germinate afresh ; all will develope anew. There will then be 
 understood the full doctrine of consequences, and what is the entail in 
 eternity of all we speak, and all we think, and all we desire, and all 
 we transact in time. All is given back to us. Not only the resurrec- 
 tion of our bodies ; there is the resuscitation of our deeds. 
 
 in. Lastly, let us consider the process that must determine 
 OR adjudicate it. 
 
 What a suspense have we felt when we looked at the flying scroll ; 
 when we looked upon the seven-sealed Book ! But what are they to 
 these registers, on which all our fates depend ? 
 
 There is a " book of God's remembrance." It is accommodated 
 language, that we may better understand that nothing is forgotten by 
 liim. " All our members " are in that book ; and in that book " are 
 not even our tears ? " God " looks upon the heart ; " " God requir- 
 eth that which is past." These are solemn words : " If our heart con- 
 demn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." — 
 " Thou hast set mine iniquities before thee, my secret sins in the light 
 of thy countenance." These are the books. 
 
 But that we may more distinctly analyze the figure, let us consider 
 that these books may describe to us the requirements of God's law. — 
 When Hilkiah found the law, and read it to the people, they rent their 
 clothes, awe-struck that they had committed so many offences against 
 a long-forgotten law. When brought home by the Spirit, that re- 
 bukes " of sin, of righteousness and of judgment," to the conscience of 
 Saul of Tarsus, a zealot and a persecutor, " sin revived " and as to 
 all hope and as to all expectation instantly " he died." Men make 
 very light of God's law, frame their excuses, offer their exceptions ; 
 they have little notion, that this law is " holy and just and good," that 
 it is necessary, that it is inevitable, that it results from infinite perfec- 
 tion, that it is the very goodness as well as the rectitude of the Deity 
 that compels it. They have little notion that it is spiritual in its lat- 
 itude and comprehensiveness. If they do not outAvardly infringe it, 
 they hold themselves freed from every cliarge, though they lust in 
 their heart — though they covet in their heart — though in their heart 
 they comprise every essence and every root of sin. But then that book, 
 which is closed to so many, shall " be opened :" shall be opened in all 
 its requirements, all its penalties, all its sanctions. You will not then 
 
'238 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 think that its bands are small ; you will not then think that its terrors 
 are slight. If the law, by one drop of its present fury, one flash of 
 its present power, causes the stoutest heart and the most rebel con- 
 science to quail, how will the stoutest heart be as tow in the fire, and 
 the most rebel conscience be as wax before the flame, when this book 
 shall be opened ? — shall be opened in all its contents, shall be opened 
 in all its precepts, shall be opened in all its awards. 
 
 Bat are there no witnesses ? Let memory speak ; let conscience 
 appear. 
 
 Let memory speak. Now, very frequently, we know its weakness 
 by the rapidity of its transitions, and by the crowd of its images. 
 Very much that we have known is obliterated ; very much of former 
 times and former seasons we cannot recall. Yet have you not felt oc- 
 casionally that you could live over again ? There is a suggestive 
 power, there is an associating principle ; and one thing seemed to 
 revive another, and though you had not thought upon it and not 
 dwelt among it for years that had transpired, you say it all at once, 
 you felt it all again. And tlien^ my brethren, memory will indeed 
 be a faithful chronicle. Memory will be a living present.' What 
 will be the burst of all its lights, what will be the irruption of all its 
 facts, what will be the harvest of all its long-buried seeds ! Nothing 
 effaced ; nothing weakened as to impression ; nothing confounded, lost 
 in the mass; but every line distinctly drawn, the "jot and tittle " all 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Let conscience speak. Life, with many, is but one prevarication 
 with this, and one endeavor to escape from it. And yet they cannot 
 always prevail. Conscience makes itself to be heard. There are 
 those, who in spite of themselves are at this moment " full of the fury 
 of the Lord." Their souls " meditate terror : " they " roar for the 
 disquietness of their souls." " The spirit of man may sustain his in- 
 firmity ; but a wounded spirit who can bear ?" When all the arrows 
 are barbed deep in that conscience, when all " the fury of the Lord " 
 is poured out on that conscience, when the grievous whirlwind of wrath 
 is pressing upon that conscience, oh ! it will distort no tale, it will cor- 
 rupt no testimony. While memory tells a fact, conscience will only 
 speak a truth. 
 
 Brethren, such a law is to be opened ; and memory will be an un- 
 impeachable witness then, and conscience will be an unimpeachable wit- 
 ness then. How will you meet their report ? How will you counter- 
 work their evidence ? 
 
 But these "books" — (they are many, they are not a single volume) 
 — may refer to the discoveries of the gospel. And these might in- 
 
THE LAST JUDGMENT. 239 
 
 deed cheer, and these ought indeed to fortify, if you have " won Christ 
 and are found in him." But if you are unbelievers still, if you are 
 " enemies in your minds by wicked works," if you are not reconciled 
 unto God, this book is more portentous in its aspect against you, even 
 than the volume of the law. You will be judged " according to this 
 gospel." Christ himself exclaimed — " I judge him not ; the word 
 that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." All 
 the besccchings of mercy, all the remonstrances of authority, all the 
 pleadings of tenderness : — this book shall be opened only the more 
 terribly to convict and to condemn. Mercy will in that day be more 
 terrible than justice. The cross will bo a sight that a sinner will be 
 glad to escape, though by escaping it he sink deeper into the devour- 
 ing flames. Calvary will be a spectacle that he would gladly avoid, 
 for it is more horror-smiting to him than the burning heaven and the 
 dissolving world. 
 
 Brethren, the law brings its condemnation : it is of its nature to 
 condemn the sinner ; but the gospel brings its pardon, its reconciliation, 
 its peace. Oppose not — presume not on it. Trifle not with it, lest 
 you die in your sins. 
 
 And there is " another book." It is like the bow in the cloud ; it 
 is like the halcyon on the storm. It is " the book of life." Then, if 
 we be enrolled in it, it is an act of grace. If we be em-olled in it, we 
 now present a correspondence of character ; we have life in us, it 
 dwclleth in us ; for the apostle could say of his companions — " Their 
 names are in the book of life." And if we be enrolled in it, there is 
 here certainty and guarantee ; for it is " in hope of eternal life, which 
 God that cannot lie promised before the world began." And " the 
 Lamb's book of life ; " our names written in his precious blood ! 
 
 They shall be judged "according to their works." Not as the 
 foundations of their faith, but as its proofs ; not as any thing beyond 
 the symptom, the test, and the trial. But " show me," says Christian- 
 ity now — " show me thy faith by thy works." Christianity, through 
 the lips of its " Author and Finisher," will say the same in judgment 
 to every formalist and every professor : " Show me thy faith by thy 
 works." We shall, therefore, be judged every one according to our 
 works — the form our character has assumed, the caste our life has 
 taken, " what manner of spirit we have been of," what has been the 
 whole state, spirit, practice of our conduct. 
 
 " I saw," said the prophet. He never forgot it. Had we caught 
 a ghmpse, surely we could not forget it too. But men say, it is so 
 distant. Distant ! " It is appointed unto you once to die ; " when 
 will that appointment come ? " This night your soul " may be " required 
 
240 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 of you." " And after death, the judgment." Immediately: not as 
 to its public ratification, but as to its immediate impression and abso- 
 lute effect. Judgment distant ! an hour may place you there. 
 
 You say, it is so vast ; so many are included — the swarming multi- 
 tudes of angels. But your sin is distinct ; your spirit stands out from 
 every other spirit that the Divine inspiration ever breathed. And that 
 self, which you understand, however sophists may attempt to puzzle it 
 — that self of yours inheres in you, and lives in you. And it shall be 
 the same ; so that if you should awaken up in your thought after thou- 
 sands and thousands of years, long after eternity has unfolded itself, 
 you will be compelled to say — I am the very same I was ; this 
 is the same instrument of thinking that I possessed before ; this is the 
 same fa.culty of feeling that I possessed before ; I remember that world 
 in which I first received my life ; I remember my passage through that 
 world ; I am not a transformed being ; there is nothing forgotten, noth- 
 ing evaded, nothing shuffled ; I am tlie same. "What a thought will 
 that be in eternity, to each one who dies in unbelief, and perishes in 
 rejection of the Savior ! " I am that unbeliever, and I am bearing the 
 eternal consequences of that my vile, infatuated unbelief." 
 
 Bu^t you think it inconceivable. " Is it not painted too strongly ? 
 are not the colors overchafged ? " The sun rose upon Sodom ; but the 
 horrible tempest blasted it ere that noon. There were those, doubtless, 
 in the days of righteous Noah, who, as he adjusted plank after plank 
 for a hundred and twenty years, taunted and scoffed at him ! but the 
 world of the ungodly, notwithstanding, was destroyed. Put not your 
 power to conceive against the " sayings " which are " faithful and 
 true." Say not, " Where is the promise of his coming ? " " He is 
 not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness " — as 
 you are counting it likewise. 
 
 And now, go to that Savior, who shall then be the Arbiter and 
 Judge ; and bear with you all that you can bear — your poor, your 
 guilty, your miserable self. Urge — plead the cause of your immor- 
 tal soul. Say to him — " It is unworthy of thy notice, it is encrusted 
 with a leprosy of cririae, but it is my all ; Jesus, Son of David, have 
 mercy on me." Ah ! thouneedest not tell him what is thine all ; thou 
 needest not tell him how precious and how invaluable it is to thee as 
 thine all. Has he not died the death ? Knowcth he not, that " the 
 redemption of the soul is precious ? " Thou hast found thy way, then, 
 to him who " receiveth sinners ; " who will in no wise " cast out." — 
 Thine appeal is to a heart of infinite compassion, and thou must prevail. 
 
 But what if there be those who dcterminately resist the overture of 
 mercy, and set themselves against Jesus as a Savior, and his Spirit as 
 
THE LAST JUDGMENT. 241 
 
 a sanctifier ? My beloved hearers, for a moment pause ; for a moment 
 bear with me. Did you ever think upon these words — " the wrath 
 of the Lamb ? " the wrath, not of " the Lion of the tribe of Judah," 
 but " of the Lamb." Not the wrath of him who goeth forth in his 
 indignation ; but " the wrath of the Lamb " — the Lamb meek and 
 gentle — the Lamb who was "led to the slaughter" — "the Lamb 
 that was slain." " The wrath of the Lamb ! " What ! that emblem 
 of compassion, that incarnation of pity — can there be wrath m him ? 
 Wrath in that eye which wept over the perishing sinner ? wrath on 
 those lips that only spake of kindness and of love ? What meaneth 
 this combination ? " The wrath of the Lamb ! " Exhausted patience 
 then ; inflamed mercy then ; incensed love then. No more compassion 
 in infinite compassion ; no more love in inexhaustible love. The cross 
 no more propitiates ; the blood of expiation no more speaks ; " the door 
 is shut ; " the very office of Mediator is abdicated ; and now there is 
 left but " the wrath of the Lamb ! " 
 
 Go to him, flee to him, ere that wrath shall be" kindled but a Uttle." 
 One flake of it would consume you ; one manifestation of it would 
 destroy you. It will be too late when all this is realized — " the 
 wrath of the Lamb " — to say, " Rocks ! fall on us ; hills ! cover us." 
 " The wrath of the Lamb " pierces all. And though, my brethren, 
 you might conceive of the sternness of the Judge, though you might 
 bear up under the conception of the severity and the vengeance of the 
 Almighty, what a hell is reserved for you — a hell that shuts you up 
 for ever, under " the wrath of the Lamb ! " 
 
 SERMON XX. 
 
 THE DOUBLE TRANSFER 
 BY REV. J. BENNETT. 
 
 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, 
 should live unto righteousness : by whose stripes ye were healed.— 1 Peter ii. 24. 
 
 Were I to announce to you, as an introduction to my sermon, that 
 I am come to make known to you a medicine which should cure all 
 your disorders ; put an end to all vour pains ; make you all immortal ; 
 16 
 
242 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 •what attention should I secure ! And jet, I cayi make such an intro- 
 duction, only with this one remark, that the medicine is for the soul, 
 and not for the body. And if any of you should look blank, and say 
 — Is this all ? I may return to such inquirers, and say — No : this is 
 not all ; for though your bodies be dead, by this they shall live again, 
 and be united in due time to the everlasting Spirit. For this life is as 
 some gallant vessel which takes a little boat in tow ; and not only pre- 
 vents it from being swamped and carried down to the bottom, but causes 
 it to ride safely with it to the destined harbor : thus shall the spirit 
 ransomed bear aloft the body also to a throne of immortality in the 
 presence of Grod and the Lamb. Come, then, and let me invite you to 
 listen to the apostle's proclamation : " Who his own self bare our sins 
 in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto 
 righteousness ; by whose stripes ye were healed ; " for here is a double 
 transfer announced — a transfer of guilt from the sinner to the inno- 
 cent ; while, on the other hand, the benefit is transferred from the inno- 
 cent to the guilty. 
 
 To the first part of the subject, then, let us bend our attention — a 
 transfer of guilt from the sinner to the innocent. If any one be 
 shocked at this language, I call upon him to receive it as truth, unless 
 he would have us renounce our hope, and in despair say, Heaven is 
 lost ! And we are but embryos of lost sjDirits ! for he must acknowl- 
 edge that we are sinners : this all confess ; and, if we die guilty, we go 
 from the place of judgment to the place of perdition. " The soul that 
 sinneth, it shall die." Man being a sinner, in the ordinary and strict 
 course of justice, nothing remains but this. And if you allow these 
 things to be so, I ask you whether you must not be prepared to meet 
 with something strange in the gospel ? And accordingly, here you 
 find it. For, 
 
 1. The sin was ours. This the apostle declares plainly. A preach 
 er is expected to define his subject — but how shall I define sin ? It 
 is too deep to be explained — too dark to be examined ; like the hell to 
 which it leads, too horrible to be dwelt upon. The apostle calls it, 
 •" exceeding sinful." Sin is not only the worst thing in the universe, 
 it is the onlt/ evil thing : take away this, and there is no evil in the uni- 
 versal world. All penal evil is only the consequence of moral evil. 
 There is in sin an intrinsic evil. Sin is an evil which has in it no ame- 
 lioration : it is evil, and only evil, and evil continually. But whatever 
 sin be, we have committed it, and it is ours. And you will observe, 
 that the apostle uses the plural " our sins " they are many : — " My 
 sins," said one, " are more in number than the hairs of my head."-- 
 Who can tell his errors ? Were I to ask the best arithmetician to ca»< 
 
 y 
 
THE DOUBLE TRANSFER. 243 
 
 up the amount, he would declare that he had no powers by which to 
 express the mighty sum. One penitent, when looking back on the 
 sins of his life, cried out, " Infinite, infinite ! " And if one said so of 
 the sins of one, what may we say of them all, when they are all thrown 
 together as in one joint stock, and we say " our sins ! " Who can tell 
 their number then ? Surely, then, we must multiply infinite by infi- 
 nite. Yet such were the sms which were laid on the Lord ; for, 
 
 2. The burden ivas Ms. Yes, though the sins were ours, the bur- 
 den was his; — he, " his own self, bare our sins." The Scriptures 
 employ a variety of figures to denote the same thing : sometimes sin is 
 spoken of as a debt, but he paid it ; — as a disease, but he endured it ; 
 as a burden, but he sustained it. That was a burden which " fools 
 make a mock " of; and which to most men is a " trifle, light as air ; " 
 but O, it will be bitterness in the end ! One cried out, " My sins are 
 heavier than the sands of the sea ! My spirit is drunk up by the 
 poison of the arrows of God ! " 0, my dear hearers, were you awake 
 to a sense of your real state, you would enter into the views of a poor 
 man, who said to a minister, a friend of mine, " Sir, I seem as if a 
 heavy weight of lead were lying on my heart ! " 0, there is no bear- 
 ing up against it, when it is brought home to the conscience by the 
 Holy Spirit ! " The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity ; but a 
 wounded spirit who can bear " " When he giveth quietness, who then 
 can make trouble ? And when he hideth his face, who then can behold 
 him ? And if he make a man to feel that he is displeased ; that the 
 Almighty has no favor to him in his present state ; and that there is no 
 heaven for him hereafter, no language can describe the weight that is 
 on the spirit of such a man ! 
 
 Yet this weight Christ bore ! Not the burden of having committed 
 these sins — not the shame of conscious transgression ! No : he " did 
 no sin, and in his mouth no guile was found." Nothing but a lamb, 
 " without spot and blemish," could be placed on God's altar ; and 
 unless Christ had been a lamb " without spot and blemish," he never 
 could have been " the Lamb of God." But the burden of the agony : 
 the burden of a just sense of the anger of God against sin ; the burden 
 of the ignominy and shame ; — all these laid heavy on his soul. He 
 complained in agony ; he sorrowed even unto death. No pain was 
 inflicted, as yet, on his body; there was, as yet, no stroke to bring 
 forth blood, yet the very anguish of his soul caused him to " sweat as 
 it were great drops of blood." And, through life, he looked not like a 
 man of spotless innocence, all light, and gay, and buoyant ; he was 
 always as a man ashamed. " He Avas oppressed, and he was afflicted : " 
 he looked like a man who was " stricken and smitten of God ; " he had 
 
244 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 the constant appearance of " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with 
 grief." He knew what it was to bear a burden on his spirits ; and it 
 was our sins which lay heavy on his soul. 
 
 But the apostle speaks with emphasis here, and he says, " who Jiis 
 oivn self bare our sins." " His own self! " As if the apostle would 
 remind you of the dignity of his nature ; the purity of his character ; 
 the excellence of his life ; the greatness of his sacrifice. That the 
 king should take upon him the crimes of his subjects ! That the foun- 
 tain of justice and purity should be arraigned at an earthly tribunal, 
 and become hable to suffer as a worker of iniquity. " His own self! " 
 As if the apostle would remind you, too, of his ability ; of one 
 " mighty to save ! " of one whose " own arm brought salvation ; " of 
 one who Avas Almighty ; of one who, when he took this heavy burden 
 upon him, proved clearly that he was able to bear it all. 
 
 The Apostle reminds you, too, that this was done " in Ms otvn hodyP 
 Not that his body suffered chiefly, or only ; the most affecting scene of 
 his agonies was before his body suffered ; and on the cross he com- 
 plained chiefly of mental agony: — "My God! my God! why hast 
 thou forsaken me ? " But it was only by taking a body upon him that 
 he could be made of the seed of David according to the flesh, though 
 he was still " God over all " according to the Spirit. And it was in 
 the body that he was to suffer ; it was during his abode in the flesh 
 alone that he could do this ; and when his body had suffered all that 
 was required, "he said, It is finished ! and he bowed his head, and 
 gave up the ghost." 
 
 The apostle adds, " on the tree^ " Who his own self bare our 
 sins in his own body on the tree ; " alluding to the cross of wood on 
 which he suffered, which was made from a tree, and to remind us, also, 
 it is probable, of the way in which we fell. By one tree we fell, by 
 another we rise. By eating of the forbidden tree we fell ; by believing 
 in the true cross we live. " Christ hath redeemed us from the curso 
 of the law, being made a curse for us ; for it is written. Cursed is every 
 one that hangeth on a tree ; that the blessing of Abraham might 
 come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." 
 
 But you say. How could it he that one could suffer for another ? I 
 return to meet your inquiry. I ask you. Do you believe the account 
 which is given of his agonies and death ? I can account for these but 
 in three ways. First : That Christ w^as guilty, and deserved to suffer ; 
 at this you are shocked. Then the second is scarcely better ; that a 
 just and holy God punished him, an innocent person, without any 
 cause, as a vile, wicked person desei-ved to be treated. And if you 
 reject these two reasons, there remains only a third, which is the doc- 
 
THE DOUBLE TRANSFER. 245 
 
 trine of the text — that Christ endured all these various woes that he 
 might bear the burden of our sins ; that he might offer himself as a 
 spotless victim to the divine justice ; and that God, who cannot pass by 
 sin, might, in visiting in wrath the person of our surety, effectually 
 punish sin, and visit the sinner in mercy and in grace. 
 
 If you still argue, how can this be ? I answer, that God has, from 
 the first, acted towards the human race uniformly in a wonderful man- 
 ner. Angels sinned singly ; they fell singly ; they were punished 
 singly. But with man it was otherwise — the first man was created at 
 the head of all his race. God acts towards men as a kind of mass. 
 God not only in the natural world has made one man, and from that 
 one caused all others to spring to the end of time, but he has acted 
 thus in a moral point of view also. We all fell in the first man ; he 
 sinned, and we are sinners too, because of him. If, then, you regard 
 this representative government in reference to man, where can be the 
 diflSculty of his so acting to Christ ? Surely you can more readily 
 conceive how God can show favor to some, because he is pleased with 
 one, than you can how he should be displeased with many because of 
 the transgression of one ? You admit the first and most difficult part 
 of the subject ; why not admit the second, which is, that God could 
 accept of the sufferings of one for the good of many ? 
 
 Secondly, therefore, let us notice the transfer of benefit from the 
 innocent to the guilty. When the apostle spalce of the consequence 
 of guilt, it was all Christ's ; now he comes to speak of the benefit, we 
 are included. Of the former he says, " Who Ms oivn self bare our 
 sins in his own body on the tree." Of the benefit, he says, " that we, 
 being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness ; by whose stripes ye 
 were healed." And in these words we are taught that the death of 
 Christ must be the death of sin in us ; that the death of sin must be the 
 life of righteousness ; and that this will show that our souls are healed 
 through his stripes. 
 
 1. We are here taught that the death of Christ must he the death of 
 sin in us. " That we, being dead to sin." Before we were alive to 
 him, we were alive to nothing else but sin, though it was the very 
 worst kind of life. Death and life are sometimes strangely mixed — 
 as when a corpse is so putrid as to become the prey of worms, you 
 say it is alive — it is all alive ! A strange expression to use as to what 
 is so vert/ dead ! So the Apostle speaks of " walking according to the 
 course of this world " when we were " dead in trespasses and sins." 
 But to be dead to sin, it is a grand affair ! Let us take care that 
 there be no deception here. Many suppose that they are dead to sin 
 because they are almost dead in body ; or because they are half dead 
 
246 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 through fear ; or because, by old age, they are become weak and 
 impotent. 
 
 Under affliction a man sees himself half dead in body, and then he 
 fancies sin is dead. " Oh ! " he cries, " I see how sinfullhavc been ! 
 0, what an awful thing sin is ! 0, if God does but spare me, how will 
 I live to him ! " Well, God does spare him, and then the proverb is 
 fulfilled, " When the sick man became well he was worse than before." 
 And really such men sin with such eagerness, that they seem to be try- 
 ing to make up for lost time ; they are more greedy after sin because 
 of then- short fast. My hearers, if you are afflicted, and no change 
 takes place, you may be sure that sin is not dead. I warn you, by all 
 the terrors of eternity, against the delusion of supposing, that because 
 you yourselves are half dead by sickness, that therefore sin is dead 
 in you. 
 
 Again ; some suppose that they are dead to sin, because hy alarm 
 of mind, they are half dead through fear. Thus we read of Nabal, 
 that when his wife told him what had been threatened him by David, 
 " his heart died within him, and he became as a stone." When they 
 witness the death of a dear friend, or see some one drop down dead 
 by their side, or hear of some dreadful and alarming accident, and thus 
 they themselves are half killed by terror, they imagine sin is dead. 
 But time does wonders : the terror is softened down ; the fluttering 
 hearts become composed ; and they turn away to iniquity as before. 
 Just as a man about to be gibbeted for his crimes, suddenly receives a 
 reprieve, and then turns to all his crimes again, though he had every 
 mark of penitence when he supposed death near. A poor woman was 
 once about to commit suicide ; she did what she imagined would cause 
 her death ; the Doctor did all he could, though he considered that all 
 would be in vain ; then she died, indeed, to sin ; but some symptoms 
 of returning strength began to appear, s^nd from that vert/ moment there 
 were also symptoms of apostacy ! No, my hearers, there is no depen- 
 dence to be placed on the disgust with sin which is occasioned by the 
 fear of death. 
 
 The same may be said of old age, and of persons going out of the 
 world. Because the power to sin has left them ; because they can no 
 longer eat or drink, or taste or see ; because they are become half 
 dead, a sort of carcases upon the earth ; — they imagine themselves 
 to be dead to sin. But^ 0, if they could have new blood infused into 
 the veins, we should at once see all their sins spring up into vigor and 
 activity as before ! 
 
 The fact is, that there is no death to sin but through the death of 
 Christ. Is it not said, " He bare our sins in his own body on the tree, 
 
THE DOFELE Tr.AXSFER. 247 
 
 that we mlglit be dead to sins ? " And if we could Lave been dead to 
 sin without this, would he have endured all his agony and sliame, and 
 at length have died upon the cross ? No : it is a stab at the heart that 
 is fatal ; and never are we sti-uck to the heart till we see Christ, the 
 innocent, becoming our sacrifice, taking our load upon him, and endur- 
 ing unutterable anguish on our account. Then are we touched to tho 
 heart ; we feel to the quick ; we are alive to a sense of what he endured 
 for us. Then we say, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the 
 cross of Jesus, my Lord ! " Then, when pressed under the load of 
 sin, we behold him bearing our burden, and our hearts are made light 
 and gladsome. Then love melts us, and mercy brings us down : and 
 henceforth we die to that accursed thing which brought our Lord to 
 his death. Then we become " dead to sins ; " as a cancer is not erad- 
 icated from the human frame till every fibre is removed ; so the cancer 
 of sin is not wholly destroyed in our souls till we become dead to sin 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 2. We are taught that the death of sin must he the life of righteous- 
 ness. There is to be a death ; but there must also be a life. Christ 
 said to the Jews, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living ; 
 for all live unto him : " so he that is " dead to sin " by the cross of 
 Christ, is, by the same cross, made " alive to righteousness ^ There 
 is a vitality in religion ; and the soul is not only made alive, but lively. 
 " To be carnally minded is death ; " — a poor, dull thing, at best : — 
 " to be spiritually minded, is life and peace." At the same time, that 
 there is calmness in our own souls, we are all activity for the good of oth- 
 ers. I always pity a man who is going on in a cold, dull, heavy, lead- 
 like manner ; and if it does not speak doubt as to the existence of 
 religion, it speaks a volume as to its want of excellence. There is a 
 life in all true religion ; it has but little of the snail about it. If we 
 are, indeed, dead to sin, we shall be all alive to righteousness. I love 
 to see a people alive ; all among them aiming to do good — good to all 
 around them : their heads full of schemes, their hearts full of love, 
 their hands full of gifts for his honor and glory. 
 
 3. All this shows that our soids are healed hy his strijyes. There is 
 a reference in these words to the 53d of Isaiah — " "With his stripes 
 we are healed." And the words in both places refer to his scourging 
 in Pilate's hall. The word stripe signifies a ivale ; where, in conse- 
 quence of a blow or cut from a lash, the extra vasated blood is seen in a 
 blackish, bluish form, under the skin. But, because this is spoken of 
 as one, the learned Vitringi supposes that it applies to one wound, the 
 body of Christ being wounded all over. He was all stripe and pain ; 
 
248 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 we are all ease and pleasure. " By whose stripes ye were healed." — 
 And how is healing indicated ? By three signs : — 
 
 By disease prevented in action. Physicians aim at this ; time and 
 nature, they say, will do all the rest. what a disease is sin ! All 
 that is seen and s-aid, and acted under its influence, is wrong ! But 
 when we come to be healed by the stripes of Christ, diseased action 
 ceases : we see aright, both as to ourselves and as to our Savior ; we 
 hear aright, for "blessed are the people that know the joyful sound; " 
 we feel aright, there is a pleasant glow through our whole frame ; all 
 our various powers act aright, for the glory of God, and the benefit of 
 ourselves and others. 
 
 By the removal of agonizing sensation^ heahng is indicated. All 
 the disordered actions we perform in a state of nature produce only 
 wretchedness. Many a sinner, who seems happy, wishes he were a 
 reptile or a brute. Colonel Gardiner, who was known by the name of 
 " the happy rake," on seeing a dog come into a room one day, wished 
 he were that dog ! But this disease yields to the healing power of the 
 cross of Christ. Does a child of God, does a man healed by the 
 stripes, by the cross of Christ, wish he were a dog, or wish he had 
 never been born ? No : many times a day he blesses God that ever 
 he was born at all ; and he hopes to live to eternity, and rejoices that 
 he shall live through everlasting ages. Heahng is indicated, also. 
 
 By the obviating of threatening danger. This is an important thing 
 in cases of disease : it is the danger which hangs over the patient that 
 alarms him. It is not merely the pain and languor — at these he could 
 smile ; but he fears that he shall die, and that there is something after 
 death, which, though unknown, makes him wretched beyond measure. 
 There is danger, but healkig removes this danger ; renews the prospect 
 of life for many years to come, and so restores tranquillity and pleas- 
 ure. And so it is here — healing by the wounds of Christ obviates 
 the threatened danger. There is no more fear of death ; no, that is 
 past : there is no more dread of eternity ; no, for that is lighted up 
 with glory. These are' the blessed consequences of healing by his 
 stripes, " who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, 
 that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness." 
 
 And now to apply. And here I shall not proceed according to the 
 usual course of inquiry, and ask you, first, if you are diseased : — this 
 I know ; I know that you are all so. But I will ask you, if you have 
 felt your disease ? A sinner is like a man frost-bitten — he would fain 
 sleep ; he would lie down in the snow though he knows that by so doing he 
 must die ! and his friends are obliged to use great force to rouse him, and 
 to keep him from dropping off to sleep. 0, sin is a lethargy of the most 
 
THE DOUBLE TRANSFEK. 249 
 
 dreadful Idnd ! If physical sounds could waken, I could wish for a voice 
 of thunder, and for lungs of brass, that I might cry, " Awake, thou 
 that sleepest ! What meanest thou, sleeper ? awake, arise ! " 
 But ah ! 'tis not the voice that reaches the ear, 'tis not physical exer- 
 tions that can accomplish this. 'Tis the mind that is diseased ! 'tis the 
 mind that must be brought to see and feel. come, and let mind 
 have intercourse with mind ! let me speak to your immortal spirits. 
 Must not your spirits have been lost, but for him who " bare your sins 
 in his own body on the tree ? come and let us linger round the cross, 
 and mark all the ignominy, the pains, the agony, the blood ! Why 
 was all this ? What had he done ? He had done nothing but what 
 was lovely and meritorious ; it was all for others ; it was all for the guilty. 
 Then, have you obtained an interest in it ? Have you ever become 
 " dead to sins, and alive to righteousness ? " Has there ever sprung 
 up within you a concern for your souls — for righteousness — for sal- 
 vation — for everlasting glory ? If not, you are not yet interested in 
 the death of Christ. 
 
 There must be a union with Christ. In order that he might be 
 united to us, he became a man. Angels were not bettered by his 
 coming, for he never became an angel. There must, I repeat it, be 
 some union with him : we must, ourselves, feel something of the agony 
 of the cross operating upon our minds, and teaching us the evil of sin 
 — the danger of our souls — the wonders of his love — the faithful- 
 ness of his promise ; we must venture our whole souls upon him, we 
 must cast ourselves alone on the mercy of the Savior. Has there been 
 this personal intercourse with Christ ? If not, do not flatter yourselves 
 that you are any better for his bearing the burden of sin, " in his own 
 body upon the tree." But if you are not, such a burden, — a burden 
 at which God so expressed his abhorrence, — still lies heavy on your 
 souls ! And if you go out of the world, and such a burden presses 
 upon you, how low do you suppose it will sink you ? Who can tell ? 
 
 • " in the lowest deep, a lower deep 
 
 Still threat'ning to devour you, opens wide ! " 
 
 " Who among you can dwell with everlasting burnings ? " Your " feet 
 shall slide in due time." Do you exclaim, 'Where then shall I flee ? 
 Flee to him " who, his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the 
 tree." But will he receive me ? Will he not receive you ? Where- 
 fore did he bear that heavy burden ? He did not bear it for nothing ; 
 and when he sees you casting yourselves at his feet as a penitent, he 
 sees " of the travail of his soul." and he will blot out your offences, 
 
250 THE ENGLISH PULriT. 
 
 and say with exultation, " Now I am glad I died, for that poor sinner 
 Uves ! '' 
 
 let those who are alive through Christ, cherish the warmest grati- 
 tude ! Live to righteousness alone. Never trifle with jour souls. 
 Seek to enjoy more and more of that healthful state of mind which is 
 to you a pledge of everlasting bliss in the presence of God. 
 
 SERMON XXI. 
 
 EARTHLY THINGS TRANSITORY, HEAVENLY THINGS SUBSTANTIAL. 
 
 BY REV. JAMES BROMLEY. 
 
 '• The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry ? All flesh, is grass, and aU the 
 goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field : the grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; because 
 the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it : surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the 
 flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." — Isaiah xl. 6 — 8. 
 
 The chapter out* of which my text is taken, is, perhaps, the most 
 magnificent piece of verse ever penned by any author, of any age. 
 Its dignity, its energy, its sublimity, its point, are without parallel in 
 the language of man. By the common consent of Christian exposi- 
 tors, the text and its connection have reference to Gospel times ; and, 
 indeed, we have the authority of the New Testament writers also, in 
 applying it to John the Baptist, as the forerunner of Christ, and to 
 Christ himself. 
 
 It seems to have been the custom of the monarchs of antiquity, 
 whenever they went on any expedition, to send a herald before them to 
 announce their approach, to level mountains, to raise valleys, and to 
 remove every impediment out of the way. King Messiah is here 
 represented as about to commence that career of conquest, of glory, 
 and of salvation, which is destined never to terminate, till all the nations 
 of the world shall become the kingdoms of our God, and of his Christ. 
 His messenger, John the Baptist, is said to go before him to prepare 
 his way : " The voice of him that crieth in the -svilderness. Prepare ye 
 the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our 
 God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall 
 be made low : and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 
 places plain ; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh 
 
EARTHLY THINGS TRANSITORY. 251 
 
 shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.'* 
 When this work was done, command was given to make another proc- 
 lamation : — " The voice said, Crj. And he said. What shall I cry ? " 
 to which the answer seems to be, in order to illustrate the worth, the 
 truth, the excellency, and the dispensation about to be given to the 
 world ; to put it in contrast with all which the world contains — with 
 all that forms the pride, the dignity, the glory of man : cry this — 
 " All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of 
 the field ; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth : because the Spii'it 
 (or wind) of the Lord bloweth upon it ; surely the people is grass. 
 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; but the word of our God shall 
 stand for ever." 
 
 With an authority certainly much less, but, in a sense, as real, every 
 genuine minister of the word of God is called upon to make proclama- 
 tion of the vanity and nothingness, of the fleeting, transitory nature 
 of all worldly good. And, to say the truth, this is one of the excep- 
 tions taken to his character : he is called a harbinger of trouble, of 
 sorrow, and of tears; the plaints of distress are supposed to follow in 
 his train ; and his discourses are often shunned and disregarded. But 
 this does not alter the nature of things ; this does not stamp value on 
 that which is valueless. I smile when I see a gay young man turn 
 away from a discourse on the vanity of earthly things ; but this does 
 not change his state. The patient may chase - from his chamber the 
 honest physician who tells him his real state ; but that does not make 
 him less a dying man. 
 
 I propose to set before you from the text, first, the transitory nature 
 of all earthly things ; and, secondly, the durability of that dispensation 
 of truth with which God has blessed the world. 
 
 I. The transitory nature of all earthly things. 
 
 " All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of 
 the field." Let us consider some of those things which constitute the 
 goodliness and the glory of man, and see how they justify the asser- 
 tion in the text. They are, 
 
 1. Personal endowments of heauty and of form. We make our 
 boast of beauty ; of the sparkling eye ; of comely features. We make 
 our boast of strength ; of the muscular, well-built, form ; of the strong, 
 athletic frame ; of dexterity and activity. Small is our cause for 
 boast ! That body which seemed to concentrate in it all that was beau- 
 tiful and charming ; see it when wasted by accidents and by time — 
 when brought down by sickness — when blasted by the touch of death ! 
 Look at it : — where the eye once danced with joy, the slimy reptile 
 
252 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 crawls and riots ! Where is the beauty of form ? exhaled in putres- 
 cent air ; odious and disgusting. Look at that muscular man, whose 
 shoulder the hand of sickness has brought down to dust, and made food 
 for reptiles and for worms ! Look at him now, and then feel and con- 
 fess the force of the representation in the text — " All flesh is grass, 
 and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." Perhaps 
 it is not possible to choose a more appropriate figure : — a flower is one 
 of the most beautiful objects in nature. In the swiftness of its growth — 
 the delicacy of its form — the elegance of its colors — and the exqms- 
 iteness of its fragrance, — it is an emblem of youth ; but it is an emblem 
 of its dangers too ! Nipt by the chilling wind — or plucked by the 
 ruthless hand — or trodden by the foot of violence ! it is first spoiled, 
 and then cast out as worthless ! 
 
 " So blooms the human face divine, 
 
 When youth its pride of beauty shows ; 
 Fairer than spring the colors shine, 
 
 And sweeter than the virgin rose. 
 Or worn by slowly rolling years. 
 
 Or broke by sickness in a day, 
 Thy fading glory disappears, 
 
 The short-liv'd beauties die away." 
 
 • The text may be illustrated, 
 
 2. By adverting to the wisdom, as well as to the beauty and strength 
 of man. Since the attention of man was first directed to the objects 
 of nature, what an innumerable succession has there been of notions, 
 of systems, of theories, of hypotheses, almost without end. And yet 
 each in their day was regarded as truth : the abettors of them laid 
 down their arguments — came to conclusions — and said, all this is 
 true ; all this is demonstration. And yet we look on these ill-digested 
 systems as belonging only to days which are gone by, and as now 
 utterly exploded ; and we imagine that the perfection of science, the 
 perfection of art, the perfection of philosophy, has been reserved 
 for our times. Alas for us ! there will rise up another generation ; 
 and they will look back on the nineteenth century, and, in their turn, 
 smile at the shallowness of our science, and laugh at the puny 
 knowledge which we acquired. For the fact is, that all knowledge, 
 except that which is derived from the Bible, is destined to pass away. 
 " Whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be 
 knowledge, it shall vanish away." 
 
 3. Advert to the transitory nature of those things which are the 
 jproduce of the imagination and taste. Whatever the pencil of the 
 painter has portrayed ; whatever the chisel of the sculptor has wrought; 
 whatever the skill of the architect has reared ; whatever is accounted 
 rare or beautiful ; whatever general consent has declared to be valuable ; 
 
EARTHLY THINGS TRANSITORY. 253 
 
 all these are destined shortly to be destroyed. This may be demon 
 strated ; the fine arts, as they are termed, were never carried to a 
 greater degree of perfection than in Athens and Greece ; never did 
 science appear so fully to triumph. But time has trampled down all 
 their magnificence and glory ; and barbarians have trodden under foot 
 the monuments of art they were incapable of appreciating. And shall 
 the fine arts of Great Britain share a better fate ? Ah, no ! all that 
 which fascinates our attention, or engages our study, is doomed to be 
 swept away into eternal oblivion by the resistless hand of time. This 
 should convey a very forcible reproof to those who expend so large a 
 portion of their time in the embellishments of life, in dress, and in 
 furniture, and in equipages. I grieve when I see an immortal soul 
 which is to be in a few days in heavenly glory or in hell fire ; when I 
 see that soul convulsed, tossed, elated, by some trifle which the wind 
 of heaven will to-morrow consign to eternal oblivion ! If we must be 
 excited, let it be by something which will remain ! The truth of the 
 text appears, 
 
 4. In reference to the possessions of men, — wealth and fortune, and 
 their concomitants, — grandeur, eminence, pomp, and luxury. It is a 
 remarkable fact, that God has been pleased to make these pass from 
 nation to nation — from family to family — from man to man. " Riches 
 certainly make themselves wings ; they fly away, as an eagle toward 
 heaven ; " — and yet it is on riches that the hearts of men, corrupted 
 and degenerate, generally fix. All men, but those whose souls are 
 purged from low desire and fixed on the things which are above, set 
 their hearts on gold ; and yet, under the sun, there is not another gift 
 more fluctuating. Look at those who came over to this country at the 
 time of the Norman conquest. They took possession of the lands of 
 this fair isle ; they called them after their own names ; they left them 
 to their heirs ; and they enjoyed them for a few generations. But 
 their posterity have sunk into complete obscurity ; other families have 
 been fetched out of the obscure crowd, and from the very dung-hill 
 have come to be kings and nobles in our land. Poets have a very 
 significant way of stating this: — fortune, as they term it, is repre- 
 sented with a wheel in perpetual motion ; the radius that now lifts the 
 individual towards heaven is gradually lowered, till it turns in the dust ; 
 it then begins to rise, and points again to the skies. Such is the 
 succession of grandeur and of wealth ! 
 
 5. As strikingly is this illustrated by the emptiness of that shape- 
 less thing, — that shadow of a shade, in which you have, no doubt, an- 
 ticipated my application, — that thing called /amg. You have observed 
 on a fine sky, a cloud : it has taken this form, and that form, and 
 
254 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 your fancy has given it many forms: you have looked again, and you 
 could not find it — it has passed away for ever ! Such is the form, the 
 something, pursued for years, hestowed by folly and ignorance, enjoyed 
 for a moment, and followed by loss, reproach, and ignominy ! Such is 
 that worthless thing called popularity ! 0, if my soul, in an unguarded 
 moment has fixed its thoughts upon it, forgive the folly ! and let me be 
 placed in any situation, however low, where I may please Him ; rather 
 than in any situation, however eminent, where honor and piety are to 
 be placed at the feet of popular applause ! and yet, how eager are men 
 for it ! The poet's song, the historian's record, the trophied column, 
 the monument of marble or of brass, — have all been employed to per- 
 petuate the monarch's and the hero's fame. But do we know anything 
 so calculated to stamp folly upon this, as the very means which are em- 
 ployed to perpetuate it ? . 
 
 6. See it illustrated, also, as to dominion ayid power . Kingdoms and 
 empires rise and fall — flourish and decay. Thrones are overturned ; 
 crowns are transferred ; sceptres are broken ; dynasties are overthrown. 
 Where are now Persia, Babylon, Assyria, Nineveh, and Rome? Daniel 
 saw the mighty monarcliies represented as a great image, the head 
 of which was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and 
 thighs of brass, the legs of iron, the feet part of iron and part of clay. 
 The catastrophe of this image also is supplied: — a stone cut out of the 
 mountain smote the image and brake it in pieces, and it became " like 
 the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them 
 away, that no place was found for them." An instance of this has oc- 
 curred in our own times : — the day is not very distant when the name 
 of Napoleon was feared by many hearts. Conquest seemed to be given 
 into his hands ; the angel of Victory accompanied him in his march and 
 the angel of Desolation followed in his train. He bestowed thrones at 
 his will, as trifles ; empires were too narrow for him ; and his armies 
 carried their successes over half the world. His dominion seemed to 
 be a fair and beautiful fabric : its foundations were deep — its super- 
 structure rose high — its turrets touched the skies. But it was all a 
 shadow ; and, touched by a spear in an Almighty band, it vanished as 
 though it had never been ! But why do I dwell on these things ? Por, 
 
 Finally, The world itself is an illustration of the sentiment in the 
 text. The globe itself, on which we dwell, after it has borne generation 
 after generation, — the great globe itself, is appointed to be the last 
 and most affecting illustration of this truth. Since the world first 
 came out of the hands of its Maker, what changes has it under- 
 gone, by diluvian waters, or by subterranean fires ! And it is soon des- 
 tined to pass away. The figure in the text is almost as applicable to 
 
HEAVENLY THINGS SUBSTANTIAL. 256 
 
 the woi'lJ, as it is to anything connected ^vith the present life. And 
 as a person, accnstonied to behold a beautiful flower in a parterre, 
 should retire for a moment, and, on returning, behold that beauteous 
 flower gone ; so we may conceive will angels and archangels one day 
 turn their eyes to the spot where they had been accustomed to behold 
 this glorious orb, the world, and, to their astonishment, find it gone 
 from its sphere, struck from the works of God ! " The day of the , 
 Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall 
 pass away Avith a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat ; the earth also, and all the works that are therein, shall be burnt 
 up." 
 
 This may seem to be somewhat of a departure from the object of 
 our present assembly ; yet, as the Holy Spirit has put these things 
 in contact, I thought it right to dwell upon them. It will, however, be 
 a rehef to myself, and, no doubt, to you, to turn from the meditation 
 ill which I have indulged, to a subject more in unison with the high 
 hopes which swell the bosoms of those who are now before me ; namely, 
 
 II. The durability op that dispensation with which God has 
 
 BEEN PLEASED TO BLESS THE WORLD. 
 
 " The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; but the tvord of our God 
 sliall stand for ever.^'' This sentiment is greatly illustrated, and abun- 
 dantly confirmed, by, 
 
 1. The utter impotence of persecution. All that the ingenuity of 
 the devil could invent, or the cruelty of man inflict, has been tried to 
 extirpate the spirit of religion from the world. From the day that the 
 spirit of Antichrist tasted the blood of the first martja*, Stephen, thou- 
 sands have fled for safety to the forest wilds ; thousands more have been 
 shut up to perish in the dungeon's gloom ; thousands more have parted 
 with life upon the cruel rack ; while thousands more, in the midst of 
 flames, have born their testimony to the truth. What innumerable 
 methods, one after another, have been tried to stop the progress of the 
 truth ! but they have been tried in vain ; or, rather, the rage of per- 
 secution has been followed by an increase of the disciples of the Son 
 of God. A learned friend has ventured an opinion, that at no period 
 of the church's history has there been found a real dechne in the num- 
 bers of the friends of truth. And there is considerable weight in the 
 opinion ; such outpourings of the Spirit — such secret influence on 
 the minds of men — such e9"ect from the examples of heroic sufferers, 
 on the consciences of the beholders, — that " the blood of the martyrs " 
 has truly become " the seed of the church." Sometimes, it is true, 
 persecution has appeared to triumph ; the demon has appeared to tread 
 
256 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 the cause of the Redeemer under foot ; but it has only been in appear- 
 ance. Like the fabled Phoenix, the church has risen from the flames, 
 stretched her pinions for a loftier flight, dashed down the monuments 
 which her foes had reared to perpetuate her overthrow ; and gone on 
 from conquest to conquest, spreading the glorj of her Master, and 
 promoting the happiness of men. Nor ought it to escape our recol- 
 lection, that the word of our God has been assailed ; but even heathens 
 have perceived the influence of the sacred writings on the lives of 
 Christians. And where the same spirit prevails, and while the cause 
 of truth is dear to our hearts, the cause must prevail. The sentiment 
 in the text may be illustrated and confirmed by noticing, 
 
 2. The utter failure of the opposition of Infidelity. The manner in 
 which infidelity has stood in the way of the truth of Christ, is highly 
 interesting in itself. It has varied the methods of its assaults ; but, in 
 all, it has only illustrated and proved the excellency of the dispensa- 
 tion of truth. Sometimes its opposition has been coarse, rude and 
 vulgar. Pens deeply dipped in filth have assailed the hoHness of 
 truth. Low jests, loose ribaldry, obscene wit, have been hurled at the 
 Christian's serious thoughts of God — of Christ — of death — of 
 eternity. The sophist's art, also, has been called in to oppose the 
 system of truth ; and that system by which the martyrs were upheld 
 in death ; that system which had triumphed over the attacks of Julian 
 and Porphyry ; that system which had stood successfully against the 
 fury of the Caesars ; that system which had stood the test of eighteen 
 centuries ; that system which had taught so many thousands how to 
 live and how to die ; — that system has been assailed by the fine-spun 
 theory of a Gibbon ; and a finely- wrought syllogism was supposed to be 
 powerful enough to destroy it ! I would respect the man that, with 
 fairness and candor, attempted to oppose the system of revealed truth; 
 but when in a matter so serious, — a matter which involves the ever- 
 lasting interests of immortal men, — 1 am met with a jest or a farce, 
 and a quibble is converted into an attack upon the truth ; a madman 
 is to me the emblem of wisdom ! In many cases, the poison has been 
 mixed up with many sweets ; the serpent lay concealed amidst beaute- 
 ous flowers ; and his fiery aspect, his forky tongue, and his deadly 
 venom, were not perceived till it was almost too late. Yet, in reality, 
 all these attacks have but established the truth which they were 
 designed to overthrow. Christianity overthrown ! My brethren, let 
 us not fear investigation ; let us not fear that there ever can come a 
 time when the truth of God can fail. Fail ! what have we been talking 
 about ? as if the truth of God were to fall before its foes ! It cannot 
 be ; it is like a strong fortress on the summit of an everlasting rock ; 
 
HEAVENLY THINGS SUBSTANTIAL. 257 
 
 some of her friends, through carelessness, have been entertaining 
 suspicions that the fortress -will be taken by storm, or that it "will fall 
 down ; and they have brought to the foot of the rock a quantity of 
 straw and sand to support it ! The affected knowledge of the infidel, 
 the bitter sarcasms, and the haughty sneers of the worldling, have 
 swept away, as with a mighty gale, the straws and sands at the base 
 of the rock ; but what has become of the fortress ? She has stood 
 firm amidst all the storms ; all her proportions are as fair as ever ; her 
 turrets still touch the skies ; and there she stands, more glorious in the 
 eyes of her friends, more terrific to the gaze of her foes ! Let her 
 stand by herself, and she will stand for ever. The declaration in the 
 text may be illustrated, by adverting 
 
 3. To the blessed and delightful spread given to it in our day. "We 
 cannot contemplate, without considerable emotion, what has been done 
 in the days in which we Uve. Since we first saw the light of heaven, 
 •what a wide diffusion has been given to the word of God ! In regions 
 shut up in the darkness of Atheism, or the gloom of superstition — 
 over many such a land has the gospel of our God spread itself. Some- 
 times it has proceeded silently, and at other times visibly, in its course. 
 In many a deep savanna, where nothing was once heard but the war 
 whoop of the savage, has the cheering name of our Emmanuel been 
 sung. Over many a plain where superstition only uttered her melan- 
 choly moans, has Christian prayer and Christian praise been heard, 
 conveying delight to the hearts of men, and joy to the hosts of heaven. 
 An infidel author, of base and execrable memory, undertook what he 
 called an impartial view of Scripture, in order to demonstrate that it 
 was not what it professed to be ; and, after having gone through the 
 books of the Old Testament, he concludes with this language of singu- 
 lar arrogance — "I have now gone through these books ; gone through 
 them as a woodman would go through a wood, with an axe, clearing 
 his way as he went. I have cut them down, and here they are. The 
 priests, if they please, may stick them in the ground again ; but they 
 will never grow.'' ^ It is now nearly forty years since the hand that 
 wrote this has been buried in the dust ; but the soul that indited the 
 sentence has gone to take its stand at the tribunal of the just and 
 righteous Judge ; " the Judge of all the earth," who will assuredly 
 " do right." Whether his body is buried in America or in England, 
 I know not ; but, Lord, gather not the soul of thy servant with the 
 soul of the wicked and profane ! But let us return to the time when 
 these prophets and apostles were said to be '^ cut down." Since that 
 period, the British and Foreign Bible Society has multipUed these 
 prophets and apostles by hundreds and by thousands ! School Socie- 
 17 
 
258 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 ties have risen up to put it in the power of hundreds and of thousands 
 to read the prophets and apostles thus circulated ! Since that time 
 also originated Missionary Societies ! the Church Missionary Society 
 — the London — the Baptists — our own. All these have arisen, and 
 by their active exertions have spread those prophets and apostles wider 
 still! The prophets and apostles '^ cut downf^^ No such thing! 
 They are planted on the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi ; 
 and there they are to be seen, vigorous and sti'ong. " Cut down " the 
 prophets and the apostles ? No such thing ! They have been planted 
 upon the sun-burnt shores of Africa, and there they afford refreshment 
 and shelter to the neglected children of the South. The prophets and 
 the apostles " cut down ? " Nothing of the kind. They have taken 
 root on the populous plains of Hindoostan, and there they are diffusing 
 their corrective influence on the poisonous systems which have hitherto 
 prevailed in those populous climes. " Cut down " the prophets and 
 apostles ? No such thing. They are planted in the islands that speck 
 the bosom of the Pacific Ocean ; and they have been found congenial 
 to the clime — purifying it from its numerous evils. " Cut down " 
 the prophets and the apostles ! Oh no, no ! their roots have struck 
 deep — their branches have spread — their tops touch the sky ; they 
 afford shelter for birds of every wing ; they are continually yielding 
 their fruit, and " their leaves are for the healing of the nations.'" 
 " The word of our God shall stand for ever." This may be illustrated 
 further, if we 
 
 4. Advert to the fact that the dispensation of truth with which God 
 has blessed the world is also the dispensation of the Spirit. If I prove 
 that the Bible is in all your houses, and that it rests on your tables and 
 your shelves, I prove but little, — a mere book is nothing. But this is 
 a) book of the Spirit — a book of inquiry. The word of our God is a living 
 word : it is not only a dispensation of words, addressed to the under- 
 standing and will, but a dispensation of the Spirit coming to the heart 
 of man. If I wanted the proof of this, I would seek it among yourselves. 
 Is there in this large and interesting assembly a man who ever felt the 
 burden of a guilty conscience ? one who ever mourned over the evils of 
 his past life, and the evil dispositions of his own heart ? Was it not, 1 
 ask, by some truth of the Spirit of your God ? Was it not by some one 
 single word, which entered as an arrow into your heart, and the poison. 
 of which drank up your spirits ? It was. Or is there in this assembly 
 one who ever knew what it was to receive the tokens of the forgiving 
 love of God ? one who can come nigh unto his throne — who can call 
 him Father by the Holy Ghost ? one who ever felt the peace, the hope, 
 the joy, the love, of the gospel springing up in the soul ? I ask, Was 
 
HEAVENLY THINGS SUBSTANTIAL. 259 
 
 it not some dear, soul-afflicting word of our God — some gracious 
 promise applied by the Spirit, — that brought thee into this happy 
 state ? Is there here a man who can resist temptation — who can 
 guard the door of his lips and his heart — who, in adversity, can rejoice 
 — who, in a dark and cloudy day, can put his trust in his Father and 
 his God ? Was it not, I ask, because the Avord of our God was applied 
 by the Spirit to the heart, carrying joy and gladness with it ? 
 
 I am glad, exceedingly glad, that " the word of our Grod shall stand 
 for everP I find myself a poor worm of the earth, exposed to a 
 thousand temptations and disasters — exposed to a thousand circum- 
 stances of trial and danger, over wliich I have no control ; I find that 
 I am one of a multitudinous race of men ; I find that this land in which 
 I dwell is but a speck on the face of the globe ; I find that this globe 
 is but one in a system, of which it makes but a very small part ; I find 
 that system to be one of innumerable millions, scattered over the 
 immeasurable regions of space. My heart, mv poor heart, misgives 
 me ! I fear that I am lost amidst these myriads of beings — that it is 
 not possible for such a poor worm as I am to be remembered by the Lord 
 of all! But '•''the word of our God shall stand for ever.''^ That 
 word declares " the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his 
 ears are open to their cry." While he made the universe, and governs 
 it too, he is not unmindful of the work of his hands. " Not a sparrow 
 falls to the ground without his notice. " " The very hairs of my head 
 are all numbered." 
 
 I perceive that life's day is rapidly hastening to a close. " The place 
 that knows me now, will shortly know me no more." I feel that I have 
 an intelligent thinking spirit within me ; but whether it will return to 
 the dust when my body dies, my reason cannot tell. But " the word 
 of our Cfod shall stand for ever." That word assures me that the 
 souls of Abraham and Lazarus are in the abodes of the faithful ; that 
 the souls of the faithful shall live for ever. 
 
 I am going down to the dust ! king of terrors, I am not insen- 
 sible of thy approach ! The gloomy terrors of the grave are before me 1 
 I must go down to " the house appointed for all living ! " But let me 
 not be dismayed ; the word of God assures me, — and " the word of 
 our Crod shall stand for ever," — that all who are in the graves shall 
 live again. " The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves 
 shall hear his voice, and shall come forth ! " " Them that sleep with 
 Jesus will God bring with him." And in the day when God shall 
 come in glory, " he shall change my vile body, and fashion it like unto 
 his own glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to 
 subdue all things unto himself." 
 
260 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 0, I am glad that " the word of our Crod shall stand for ever^ I 
 feel that I have been a sinner ! The proudest infidel feels it. He felt 
 it, who said, " I hate every body ; I believe myself to be about the 
 best of men ; and I know how bad I am ! " Yes ; and as a Christian, 
 with clearer hght, I know that I have been a sinner. Yet let me not 
 sink into despair ! Let me not abandon myself to hopeless wretched- 
 ness ! The word of God assures me, — and " ^7te ivord of our Crod 
 shall stand for ever,''^ — " If any man sin, we have an advocate with 
 the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; and he is the propitiation for 
 our sins ; and not for ours onl}^, but for the sins of the whole world." 
 " Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasked death for every man ; " 
 " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, 
 and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
 
 SERMON XXII. 
 
 THE TRANSLATION OF ELIJAH COMPARED WITH THE 
 DEATH -BED OF ELISHA. 
 
 BY REV. HENRY MELVILL, D. D. 
 
 " Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash, the king of 
 Israel, came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, my father, my father, the 
 chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." — 2 Kikgs xiii. 14. 
 
 Elisha, as you will remember, succeeded Elijah in the prophetical 
 office, having been with him at the moment of his being taken up into 
 heaven, and having caught the mantle which fell from him, as he thus 
 ascended unto God. Elijah and Elisha were both conspicuous by the 
 power of working miracles, and by their efforts at withstanding idolatry 
 and restoring throughout Israel the pure worship of God. It ma}'' not 
 be altogether our part to institute a comparison between men so 
 eminently endowed, or to pronounce as to one being more illustrious 
 than the other ; yet there is more recorded of Elisha than of Elijali. 
 It would appear from the history of EUsha, that he wrought twice as 
 many miracles as Elijah ; as though the parting request-had been liter- 
 ally complied with, and a double portion of the spirit of the ascending 
 prophet had fallen on his successor. Neither is there anything related 
 of Elisha, m which he would seem to have been blameworthy ; and this 
 
ELIJAH AND ELISHA. 261 
 
 is more than can be said of Elijah ; for it would certainly seem that 
 Elijah, after the memorable defeat of the prophets of Baal, abandoned 
 his post upon a sudden fit of despondency, fleeing into the wilderness 
 to avoid the threatened vengeance of Jezebel ; when, by remaining to 
 follow up the impression which had been made, he might have succeeded, 
 to a great degree, in reclaiming the people of Israel from their apos- 
 tasy. We have before had occasion to show you that the manifestation 
 upon Horeb, when the Lord was not found in the wind, the earthquake, 
 or the fire, but discovered himself in and through the " still small 
 voice," appears to have been intended as a sort of parable ; the truths 
 conveyed being such as were fitted to encourage the prophet to perse- 
 verance ^n the course which he had taken, and to admonish him of 
 punishment, if he acted differently in his ofiice. There is nothing of 
 a like kind recorded of Elisha. Doubtless he too had infirmities, and 
 fell into sins ; for you cannot need proof that a man is not to be 
 accounted faultless, because only his excellencies are told us in the 
 Bible. But, so far as the scriptural account goes, it would be diflScult 
 to conceal that Elisha came nearer perfection than Elijah ; that not 
 only was he more distinguished for the number of his miracles, but that 
 he made greater progress in the unreserved consecration of himself to 
 God. There is, moreover, reason for thinking that Elisha was more 
 successful than Elijah had been in reclaiming the Israelites from the 
 worship of Baal. You will recollect that in his fit of despondency, 
 Elijah had complained that he stood quite alone, that there was none 
 but himself to take the side of the Lord. He was utterly wrong in 
 this opinion ; for God said, " Yet have I left me seven thousand in 
 Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth 
 which hath not kissed him." But seven thousand was a very small 
 remnant ; idolatry must still have had a vast preponderance on i'.s side, 
 if seven thousand were all the worshippers of Jehovah. But you find 
 that when Jehu, who was raised up twelve years after, proceeded by a 
 sort of plot to the destroying the idolaters among his people, he was 
 able to entice them into one house or temple ; so that their number 
 must have differed greatly from what it had been a few years before. 
 We know, also, that Elisha continued his labors for at least forty-five 
 years after the beginning of the reign of Jehu ; and though his name 
 is never once mentioned throughout this long period, we may justly 
 suppose that he was as zealous as before, and perhaps not less 'success- 
 ful, in turning away his countrymen from idolatry. He did not, indeed, 
 prevail to the reclaiming their hearts as a nation unto the Lord, from 
 whom they had revolted ; but he would seem to have been far more 
 instrumental than Elijah to the conversion of individuals. God so 
 
262 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 honored his protracted labors, that multitudes far outnumbering, in all 
 probability, the seven thousand in the days of Elijah, were either 
 secretly or openly in the ranks of those who preferred Jehovah to Baal. 
 And thus eminent as were both these servants of the Lord, it were 
 almost difficult not to regard Ehsha as the more eminent of the two, 
 and the more likely to have been singled out for special marks of the 
 favor of Heaven. Let us put it to you to decide, from what is related 
 of the two, which might be the more expected to receive at God's hands 
 extraordinary tokens of acceptance ; and it is only supposing that you ■ 
 will decide by the common rules which must regulate human judgments, 
 if, considering the superior number of recorded miracles, and that also 
 of reclaimed idolaters, we conclude, that you will look to find in the 
 history of Elisha, rather than in that of Elijah, especial evidence that 
 the prophet had found acceptance in the eyes of the Lord. 
 
 But now let us pass from our own conjectures or suppositions, to the 
 actual facts in the case. We have two very different scenes to bring 
 before you. We take you first to the brink of the Jordan, where there 
 is about to occur one of the most marvellous events that ever befel a 
 being of our race. There are two prophets conversing together on the 
 bank of the river. Suddenly, whilst they are yet talking, lo ! a chariot 
 of fire, drawn by horses of fire, descends from heaven — equipage such 
 as, perhaps, mortal eye had never gazed upon before ; a scene too 
 strangel}' spiritual for mortal mind to contemplate. Yet it is for a man, 
 for one of those two seers, that tliis celestial equipage is sent, that 
 comes down in its awful effulgence to convey to the upper world, without 
 allowing him to pass through the scene of death, the "elder of the 
 proj)hets on whom we have gazed. Oh, wondrously favored man ! 
 He is not, indeed, the first to whom has been awarded exemption from 
 the sentence provoked by disobedience. La an earlier dispensation, 
 Enoch was translated so as not to see death ; although we know not if 
 it were under the same circumstances of visible pomp, that this seventh 
 from Adam exchanged earth for heaven. But if the prophet did not 
 first receive this extraordinary distinction, it is difficult to imagine how 
 one of our race could have been signally honored. We must return 
 from the sight penetrated with amazement, and ready with our acknowl- 
 edgment, that God hath given him such a token of his favor and 
 acceptance, as — with reverence be it said — even God himself might 
 hardly surpass. 
 
 But now we take you to a wholly dififerent scene. An emaciated old 
 man is before us, stretched on his bed, patiently awaiting death, which, 
 to judge from the too evident signs of age and infirmity, cannot be far 
 distant. There are no indications here of the equipage of flame : 
 
ELIJAH AND ELISHA. 263 
 
 thougli something of unearthly fire Ughts up the old man's eye, as he 
 is led to predict his country's victory over the Assyrians. It is the 
 prophet on whom fell the mantle of the ascending seer, who lies before 
 us in all the feebleness of approaching dissolution. Years after years 
 have passed, since that wondrous event at the brink of the Jordan ; 
 and now he who was appointed in the stead of hiniAvho went up in the 
 chariot of fire, is about to follow him to the invisible world, that he, too, 
 may rest from his toils. But what a difierence is there in the manner 
 and circumstances of the departure ! Is it possible even to imagine a 
 greater contrast ? In the one case, there is a suspension of all the 
 ordinary laws. There is no death, no wasting and wearing down of 
 the faculties ; in a moment, and with the utmost splendor of mii'acle, 
 the servant of the Lord passes, body and soul, into heavenly places, as 
 though he had not been a child of Adam, or as though Adam had not 
 tasted of the fatal fruit. In the other case, not only are the ordinary 
 laws not suspended, they seem to be carried into force with every 
 distressing accompaniment. There is continued and pining sickness ; 
 there is the gradual decay of strength ; there is that hard and heavy 
 lot, when " the earthly house of this tabernacle " is taken down bit by 
 bit, and the most patient are sorely exercised by the slowness of the 
 process. Ah ! what a contrast between the chariot of fire, and the 
 decrepitude of old age ; between the horses of fire, and the pains of 
 corroding disease. And which, then, is the prophet who ascended so 
 marvellously to heaven, and which the prophet who was to go hence 
 with so lingering a step ? You have already looked at the recorded 
 actioi\s of the two, and, feeling that Elisha seems to have exceeded 
 Elijah in the wonders which lie wrought, and the converts which he 
 made, you expect that if God have a signal mark of favor to bestow, 
 it Avill be given to him who seems to have done the most to advance the 
 cause of truth. In other words, had we merely given you the regis- 
 tered actions of the two, and then placed before you, without naming 
 the parties, the two departures into the invisible world, and asked you 
 to tell us which you should conclude to be that of Elijah, and which 
 chat of Elisha, there is not, perhaps, one of you who would have 
 assigned to Elijah the equipage of flame, and to Elisha the sIoav process 
 of decay. Whereas, such poor judges are men of the designs and 
 dealings of God, that it was for Elijah that the chariot of fire and the 
 horses of fire swept down from the firmament, and it is of Elisha that 
 it is said, in the touching language of the text, that he was " fallen sick 
 of his sickness whereof he died." 
 
 Now we do not mean, by thus comparing the recorded action of 
 Elijah and Elisha, to decide that the one prophet was more excellent 
 
264 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 than tlie other ; and far less do we mean, by comparing the circumstan- 
 ces of their departure out of life, to intimate that God's deahngs with 
 these his servants were not in accordance with their several characters. 
 We are speaking only of what may be called the appearances of the 
 case, and of the conclusions at which, arguing merely from those 
 appearances, we should be likely to arrive. And certainly we hardly 
 know a more remarkable contrast, nor one more fitted to engage a 
 thoughtful mind, than that between the translation of Elijah, and the 
 sickness of Elisha. Though there is not much told us of the sickness 
 of Elisha, you can hardly fail to infer, from the language of our text, 
 that it was a lingering sickness. " Elisha was fallen sick of his sick- 
 ness whereof he died." Evidently he did not die suddenly. He was 
 visited on his sick bed by Joash, the king of Israel, and we have no 
 reason to suppose that Joash was a man likely to be forward in showing 
 respect for the servant of God. And it strikes us as a pathetic circum- 
 stance, so far as Elisha himself was concerned, that Joash, in visiting 
 the dying prophet, addressed him with the words, " my father, my 
 father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." For these 
 were the very words which Elisha had uttered, when Elijah was parted 
 from him, and went up in a whirlwind into heaven. " Elisha saw it, 
 and he cried. My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the 
 horsemen thereof." Now must not this quotation of his own words 
 have most powerfully reminded Elisha of the translation of Elijah, 
 fixing on him the remembrance of the occasion on which they had been 
 used by himself, and suggesting the difference between it and the 
 occasion on which they Avere now being used to himself ? There is no 
 reason to suppose that Joash purposely used the same words ; for the 
 expression may have been a proverbial one, and frequently employed 
 on the occasion of the falling of a great leader. But as Elisha lay 
 there in his old age, and a king bent over him and breathed the words, 
 " My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof," 
 it would indeed be difficult to believe that the mind of the dying prophet 
 did not recall the wondrous scene on the brink of the Jordan, that there 
 did not pass before him the chariot of fire and the horses of fire, and 
 that he did not for a moment, though not in a complaining, yet in an 
 inquiring spirit, revolve the diflference between Elijah's departure and 
 his OAvn. And, whatever may have been the feelings of Elisha himself, 
 there is, as we have said, much to think of, and much to learn, if we 
 simply set before us Elijah and Elisha as at least equally eminent in 
 the service of God, and then behold the one translated without seeing 
 death, whilst the other is left to all the lingering processes of old age 
 and decay. It is a sort of contrast which is still often seen, if not 
 
ELIJAU AND ELISHA. 265 
 
 definitely traced, yet sufficiently marked to attract attention and to 
 excite wonder. For there is a vast apparent difference between God's 
 dealings with his servants, with those who, according to their opportu- 
 nities, seem to be equally earnest in the great duties of obedience and 
 faith. You shall observe that one is suddenly arrested in the midst of 
 a high career of usefulness ; that, without being worn out by age, or 
 worn down by protracted disease, he is quickly, and with every demon- 
 stration of victory and of triumph, borne away from the earth to the 
 presence of God. So visibly, we might almost say, does the Christian 
 pass into the heavenly abode, that you can only liken the removal to 
 that of Elijah, and survivors Avill speak of the chariot of fire and the 
 horses of fire, as though, in burning pomp, the equipage had been seen 
 in the chamber of sickness. But you shall observe that another, 
 eminent also as a servant of God, is left to become infirm and decrepit, 
 to be broken up gradually through the inroads of age, or consumed by 
 pining sickness, so that for months, and perhaps even years, he is 
 confined to his room, and incapacitated for every kind of active employ- 
 ment. And friends cannot here speak of the translation of Elijah. 
 There is nothing in the circumstances of this slow and toilsome departure, 
 Avhieh can be brought into the remotest comparison with the rapture of him 
 who went up in the whirlwind. The original sentence has here taken 
 effect in all its severity, so far as the body is concerned, and though bright 
 thoughts may be shedding themselves through the mind, and the failing 
 spirit sustahi itself with a hope which is " full of immortality," the taking 
 down of " the earthly house of this tabernacle " is but the continued 
 and mournful exhibition of the humiliating truth, " Dust thou art, and 
 unto dust thou shalt return." Yes, but because this case of departure 
 out of life is so widely different from the former, is there anything to 
 wonder at, much more is there anything to murmur at ? Are we to 
 infer, are we for a moment to suspect, that he who is left to linger, 
 must be less prepared to die or less approved of God, than one who 
 goes hence as though borne upon angels* wings ? Nay, this were 
 indeed an unwarranted inference or an injurious suspicion. Who will 
 presume to think that Elisha was less righteous than Elijah, that he 
 had been less obedient to God, or had done less in his service ? Scrip- 
 ture, as we have seen, seems carefully to set itself against any such 
 opinion, by enumerating more of the actions and successes of Elisha 
 than of Elijah ; and yet Elisha died the lingering death, while Elijah 
 left the earth in the chariot of fire. Blessed be God that both cases 
 are recorded. I can now go to the sick room, where a Christian, on 
 whom the summons of departure hence has come unexpectedly, whilst 
 yet he was pursuing a course of undiminished usefulness, is visibly 
 
266 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 trampling upon death, and to whose eyes it may be said that heaven is 
 ah'cady opened, in such vigor is that faith which is " the substance of 
 thiitgs hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I can tell friends 
 and relatives that mourning should be lost in thankfulness. Does not 
 the departure of Elisha remind them of the rapture of Elijah ; and 
 would they shed tears over the chariot of fire ? But I can pass then 
 to another sick room, where an aged Christian is lingering weariedlj 
 through days of pain and nights of watching. Oh ! what a contrast 
 is here. There is, perhaps, dejection. It is a sore exercise of patience, 
 both to the sufferer himself, and to those who are ministering to him, 
 that his removal from amongst the living is by a slow process ; and 
 perhaps the feeling is, that he cannot be ready for his removal, that 
 notwithstanding his long life of piety, corruption must have had a more 
 than commonly strong hold upon him, else would there never have been 
 so protracted a dismissal. He possibly knows that I have just left the 
 chamber Avhere death is experiencing so signal a defeat, and it does 
 but give him a melancholy view of his own case, that it should thus be 
 forced into contrast with one so glorious and triumphant. " Ay," he 
 will saj^ " you do not find here the chariot of fire and the horses of 
 fire. You have been with Elijah on the border of Jordan, but there is 
 no Elijah here, no saint so ripe for immortality, that angels stand ready 
 with expanded wings to bear him to the mansions above. Alas ! for 
 the depraved heart which takes so much longer in being purified. 
 Alas ! for that desperate sinfulness which is not to be eradicated, but 
 by extraordinary and lingering corrections." " Nay, my brother," is 
 the fitting reply, " write not bitter things against thyself, as if 
 protracted sickness and debility were necessarily any evidence of an 
 unfitness to die, or of a more than common share of evil to be mastered 
 within. True, I have just left the river's brink on which Elijah stands, 
 but I have come to the bed on which Elisha lies, and Scripture draws 
 no injurious comparison between Elijah and Elisha. If it furnish 
 material for a comparison at all, the preference seems to lie with the 
 prophet who lingered on the bed, and not with him who went up in the 
 whirlwind. Then be of good cheer. The old infirm man who is left 
 till he might almost think himself forgotten, may be as dear to God, 
 ay, and as fit for his presence, a^ the younger who seems about to step 
 visibly into the chariot of fire. The flaming equipage came down for 
 Elijah ; Elisha remained to be worn away by toil. " Then he fell sick 
 of the sickness whereof he died ; " but the same words, and with the 
 same truth, attended each prophet on his departing from the earth, 
 " My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." 
 Now there is one point involved in these general statements, on which 
 
ELIJAH AND ELISIIA. 267 
 
 we would speak to you with somewhat greater distinctness. It seems 
 often, as we have hinted, to excite surprise, both in the sufferer himself 
 and in others, when a Christian who has long been eminent for piety, 
 and whose faith has been consjiicuous in his works, lingers for months, 
 perhaps even years, in weai'isome sickness, as though, notwithstanding 
 the preparations of a righteous life, he needed protracted trial to fit 
 him for the presence of God. The secret supposition is, that a Chris- 
 tian ought to die as soon as he is quite ready to die, and that, conse- 
 quently, if there be lengthened sickness, so that a man dies by inches, 
 it must be inferred that he requires a more than ordinary disciphne, 
 corruption having been stronger in him than in most, and therefore not 
 to be subdued, but by processes more than usually protracted and 
 severe. But, now, what is precisely meant by a Christian being ready 
 to die ? Is it merely meant that he is in such a state that, were he to 
 die, he would go to heaven ? Then, surely, he must be in that state, 
 in the majority of cases, long before he actually dies. At least, there 
 must be as good reason for believing him in that state long before death, 
 as at the moment of death ; whenever death comes to a sincere believer in 
 Christ, if it surprise him not in unrcpented sin, we have the same reason 
 for a meek though a confident hope that he had been removed home to 
 that " rest Avhich remaineth for the peo2:)le of God." And, as to look- 
 ing on long sickness as that which is gradually to purify the soul, the 
 dismissal of that soul from the body being deferred till a certain point 
 of purification has been reached, and taking place immediately on that 
 point being gained, Avhy this is really little better than the Papal 
 doctrine of purgatory, only that the Protestant puts it before death, 
 and the Romanist after. No doubt sickness, like any other trial, is 
 instrumental, under God, to the ends of moral discipline, to the exer- 
 cising and perfecting of the various graces of the Christian. But am 
 I to suppose that the Christian who is confined for weeks or months to 
 his bed or his room, would not have gone to heaven had he died without 
 this tedious suffering; that this tedious sufiering is appointed him, 
 because there is so much of which to cleanse and disburden his 
 conscienc.e, so much more than in numbers who pass without such sore 
 trial into the invisible world ? God forbid that we should maintain a 
 supposition so unjustifiable and so uncharitable. Shall I presume to 
 think that Elisha was not fit to die when Elijah was translated, or that 
 the " sickness whereof he died," was appointed him as necessary to 
 his being fitted for death ? Not so. There is, we believe, altogether 
 a mistake in the view commonly taken of old age and lingering illness. 
 Because a man is confined to his room or his bed, the idea seems to be 
 that he is altogether useless ; that, in the ordinary phrase, he is quite 
 
268 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 laid by, as though he had no duties to perform, when he could no 
 longer perform those of more active life. Was there ever a greater 
 mistake ? The sick room, the sick bed, has its special, its appropriate 
 duties, duties to the full as difficult, as honorable, as remunerating, as 
 any which devolve upon the Christian whilst yet in his unbroken 
 strength. They are not precisely the same duties as belong to the 
 man in health ; but they differ only by such degrees as change of 
 circumstances and condition will always produce. The patience which 
 he has to cultivate, the resignation which he has to exhibit, the faith 
 which he has to exercise, the example which he has to set, — Oh ! talk 
 not of a sick man as a man laid by. Harder deeds, ay, and it may be 
 deeds of more extensive usefulness, are required from him who lingers 
 on the couch, than from many a leader in the highest and the most 
 laborious of Christian undertakings. Is there any cause for surprise, 
 if the Christian be left to hnger long in sickness, to wear away tedious 
 months in racking pain or slow decay? Nay, as good cause would 
 there be for surprise, that a Christian were not sooner removed from 
 active duties, that strength is continued to him year after year, for the 
 particular work assigned him by God. Why should it be more surpri- 
 sing that God keeps one man for a long time to the duties of the sick 
 room, than that he keeps another man for a long time to the duties of 
 public life ? Each class of duties contributes to the glory of God and 
 the welfare of man ; to each class is annexed high recompense, and to 
 each appertains no ordinary usefulness. Our portion in eternity will 
 be determined by the progress here made in holiness ; and is not sick- 
 ness, by the peculiar nature of its duties, even more fitted than health 
 for maturing us in hoUness ? Shall we, then, wonder if one whom God 
 loves linger long in sickness, when every moment this siclmess may be 
 fitting him for a brighter crown above ? I do not speak of mere fitness 
 to enter heaven. Heaven presents variety of portion, as " one star 
 differeth from another star in glory ; " and if superior holiness prepare 
 for superior blessedness, why think it stranger that God should leave 
 one of his servants to grow holier in sickness, than that he should leave 
 another to grow holier in health, which, of the two, is generally less 
 congenial with inward piety and devotedness. Besides, it is they who 
 " turn many to righteousness," that are to " shine as the stars of the 
 firmament." And is there no sermon from a sick bed ? Has the sick 
 man nothing to do with publishing and adorning the gospel ? Nay, I 
 think that an awful, a perilous trust, is committed to the sick Christian. 
 Friends, children, neighbors, the Church at large, look to him for some 
 practical exhibition of the worth of Christianity. If he be fretful, or 
 irritable, or full of doubts and fears, they will say, " Is this all that the 
 
ELIJAH AND ELISHA. 269 
 
 gospel can do for man in a season of extremity ? " If, on the other 
 hand, he be meek and resigned, and able to testify to God's faithfulness 
 to his word, they will be taught, and nothing teaches like example, that 
 Christianity can make good its pretensions, that it is a sustaining, 
 elevating, death-conquering religion. And who shall calculate what 
 may be wrought through such practical exhibitions of the power and 
 the preciousness of the gospel ? I, for one, will not dare to affirm that 
 more is done towards converting the careless, confirming the wavering, 
 or comforting the dying, by the bold champion who labors publicly at 
 making known Christianity, than by the worn down invalid, who 
 preaches to a household or a neighborhood by unruffled patience, and 
 simple, unquestioning dependence upon God. I, for one, can believe 
 that he who dies a death of triumph, passing almost visibly, whilst yet 
 in the exercise of every energy, from a high post of usefulness into the 
 kingdom of glory, may have fewer at the judgment to witness to the 
 success of his labors, than many a bed-ridden Christian, who is waiting 
 year after year, in the beautiful quietness of a godly submission, his 
 summons to depart. I know not that the brilliant translation of Elijah 
 did as much for Israel as the lingering dissolution of Ehsha. It was from 
 the-sick bed, and not from the chariot of fire, that there went forth 
 " the arrow of the Lord's deUverance, and the arrow of deliverance 
 from Assyria." At all events, God made use of both these servants, 
 made use qf them, we mean, in the very act of their departure from 
 life, so that nothing is to be inferred from the difierence in the depar- 
 ture, but a difference in the Divine purpose, and not a difference in the 
 Divine favor. Elijah was translated, we may beheve, not merely, nor 
 even mainly, as a mark of God's preference of himself, but to give a 
 signal evidence of the truths of resurrection and immortality, and thus 
 to deliver to his nation, as well as to the world, instruction upon points 
 but dimly known, though of the highest possible importance and interest. 
 And Elisha was left, we may venture to assume, not because he was 
 unworthy of so glorious and triumphant a removal, and required for 
 his own preparation the processes of more lengthened trial, but because 
 his remaining might be instrumental to the turning numbers from idol- 
 atry, and even old age and sickness might be employed in services 
 acceptable to God ; ay, services, it may be, which shall be recompensed 
 by a yet brighter glory in the invisible world than had been attained 
 by the prophet who went away so gloriously in the chariot of fire. 
 Thus Elijah did God's work in disappearing, and Elisha in remaining ; 
 the one by mounting in the whirlwind, the other by lingering on the 
 bed, and sinking slowly into the grave. And it is the same still. God 
 has particular lessons to give, and particular ends to answer, when he 
 
270 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 calls away one of his servants in the midst of his strength and with 
 every indication of triumph, and when he leaves another, not even to 
 be employed in laborious exertion, but to spend months, and even 
 years, in the silence of his chamber and in the solitariness of liis couch. 
 Dismiss, then, the thought that there is anything strange in the linger- 
 ing sickness and the long delayed deaths of Christians who have given 
 full evidence of their faith and their piety. They are ready, they are 
 fit to die, if by readiness, if by fitness, we mean such a spiritual state 
 that hope might justly plant itself by their graVe, and smile beautifully 
 as they were committed to its cold embrace. But God has still work 
 for them to do, and heaven has still prizes for them to win. Therefore 
 do they live ; therefore is the lamp so long in going out. They live 
 that they may preach, they live that they may practice, Christianity. 
 The lamp yet burns, that the flickering light may guide some wandering 
 or wavering spirit, and add another sparkle to the crown of righteous- 
 ness which shall be awarded at the judgment. Oh ! then marvel not 
 that death comes so slowly. The mercy is, that it comes not more 
 quickly. And whensoever Elisha, the old and worn down man, " falls 
 sick of the sickness whereof he must die," in place of looking on him 
 as he lingers as on one who can be of no further use, rather regard him 
 as still an efficient laborer in the highest of causes, and breathe over 
 him such words as were breathed by Joash, king of Israel ; words 
 expressive of the blank which his departure must leave — " My father, 
 my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." 
 
 And yet, perhaps, — this is the last thmg I have to say — you still feel 
 as though it were upon Elijah that the great honor was put. He may 
 seem to you to have obtained the better portion of the two. You contrast 
 the bed of languishing with the chariot of fire, and you cannot hesitate 
 as to which were the preferable lot. Well, it has not been the object 
 of our discourse to make you think the departure of Elijah less glorious, 
 but that of Elisha glorious also, because also useful. There was a 
 greater brilliancy about that witness to the truth of a resurrection, 
 which Elijah was removed that he might give, than about that conversion 
 of numbers from idolatry, which Elisha remained that he might effect. 
 And, in like manner, that at the least as much of usefulness appertains 
 to the lingering old age and the sickness of one Christian as to the 
 earlier and more triumphant death of another — this may be proved, 
 without your feehng satisfied that the diversity of God's deaUngs should 
 not be taken in evidence of some diversity in his favor. Now we 
 might safely refer to another life, to the decisions and allotments of 
 another state of being, for full proof that God may as graciously 
 approve, and design as gloriously to recompense, the patience of the 
 
ELIJAH AXB ELISHA. 271 
 
 sufferer on his sick bed, as the boldness of the martyr at the stake. • 
 But even in this life he ■will often provide that they Avho serve him 
 through solitary watching and meek endurance, should share his honors 
 with those -whose virtues have been more conspicuous, and whose actions 
 more brilliant. Seems it to you to have been so glorious a thing to 
 have witnessed, as Elijah witnessed, to the truth of a resurrection ; 
 and would you not have wondered, had Elisha, as he lingered on his 
 bed, sighed for the privilege of giving a hke testimony to so stupendous 
 a fact ? After all, then, which of the two was most honored as a 
 witness to the resurrection, Elijah, who departed in the whirlwind, or 
 Elisha, who went down into the grave ? Know ye not what nan-ative 
 follows immediately on that of the sickness and death of Elisha — 
 immediately, as though God would prevent the suspicion that he had 
 put an honor on one servant which he had denied to another ? It is 
 this : — " And Ehsha died, and they buried him. And the bands of 
 the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it 
 came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a 
 band of men ; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha : and 
 when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he 
 revived, and stood up on his feet." Nay, sirs, was there more glori- 
 ousness in the chai'iot of fire than in this ? Was it a more wondrous 
 thing not to die, than, when dead, to give life ? Was it a greater proof 
 of God's approval, to escape the grave, than to defeat it whilst lying in 
 it ? Was there a stronger attestation to the truth of a resurrection 
 when a living man sprang from the earth, showing that body as well as 
 soul can ascend up on high, than when a dead man took off the grave 
 clotlies, and returned to his fellow men — an evidence that a prophet 
 greater than Elijah or Elisha would yet lie among the buried, but only 
 to despoU the sepulchres of their prey ? It might almost be said, that 
 God showed himself jealous for the honor of his servant Ehsha, and 
 put him, as it were, on a par with Elijah, by giving him, if not mirac- 
 ulous departure out of life, yet miraculous energy after death. If it 
 were as a type of the ascending Christ, that Elijah went up to 
 heaven, siirely it was a type of Christ " through death destroying 
 him that had the power of death," that the bones of Elisha communi- 
 cated life. And God still often effects something similar in regard to 
 his servants. The aged believer, whose closing scene has been regarded 
 as furnishing only material of melancholy contrast, whether with his 
 own more active days, or with the more rapid and joyful transition of 
 his own brethren in the flesh, so debilitated has he been by long sick- 
 ness, — " My heart is smitten and withered like grass, so that I forget 
 to eat my bread," — often wins after death a testimony to his usefulness 
 
272 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 whicli may well compensate for the darkness which seemed to hang over 
 his dechne. The good deeds wrought by liim in his protracted illness, 
 may not immediately appear ; but afterwards we learn that he did not 
 linger in vain, that he did not die in vain, The example is remembered, 
 the patience, the meekness, — remembered by children, by servants, 
 by friends, by neighbors. It is remembered, to be imitated in their own 
 day of sorrow, their own hour of dissolution. Then it administers 
 courage, constancy, hope ; and what is this, but the bones of Elisha 
 communicating life ? Oh ! we may not look with Elijah to escape death ; 
 but we may look with Elisha to work wonders after death. We may 
 suffer much, we may linger long, — no burning rapture may charac- 
 terize our going hence ; but if there be patient submission to the will 
 of the Lord, our memory may survive, and be instrumental to the 
 victories of religion. Oh ! who would complain at not being borne 
 away in the fire of heaven, if, whilst in dust, he should turn others 
 from the fire of hell ? 
 
 SERMON XXIII. 
 
 Ijhe happy man a religious man. 
 
 BY REV EGBERT NEWTON, D. D. 
 
 " Happy is that people, that is in such a case ; yea, happy is that people, whose God is 
 the Lord." — Psalm csliv. 15. 
 
 Man is obviously formed for happiness. Indeed this is matter of 
 consciousness to all ; we all feel that it is as natural for us to desire to 
 be happy as it is for us to breathe. This is nature's first and last wish ; 
 and the desire of happiness forms not noly one of the earliest, but one 
 of the most powerful principles of our nature. 
 
 But although happiness is earnestly desired, and although, in one 
 way or other, happiness is universally pursued, the melancholy fact is, 
 after all, that it is but very partially enjoyed. Unhappy/ man has long 
 since become a general designation for our species. And we are not 
 surprised at this, when we recollect that very many of our race, after 
 devoting many a long year of fruitless toil and labor to the search 
 for happiness, have all but arrived at the conclusion, (if they have 
 
THE HAPPY MAN A RELIGIOUS MAN 273 
 
 not actually arrived there,) that its attainment is impossible — that all 
 that they have heard and read concerning it, is deceptive and unreal 
 — and that, iu point of fact, there is no such thing to be attained or 
 enjoyed by man in this desert world. 
 
 What, then, my dear friends, is to be done ? Are we to sit down in 
 despondency ? and are we, very soon after that, to abandon ourselves 
 to despair ? and, sitting side by side, are we to heave sigh for sigh, to 
 shed tear for tear, and, looking on one another through the medium of 
 those tears, are we to say, Alas ! there is no happiness ? Can we 
 suppose that the wise and benevolent author of our existence has made 
 us capable of that which he has determined we shall not enjoy ? Can 
 we suppose that he, that is the former of us all, has implanted in our 
 bosoms the desire of happiness — created there the intense thirst after 
 happiness — -whilst he has placed the satiating stream yonder far 
 beyond our reach ? It cannot be. Heaven never had created but to 
 bless. What other motive could possibly have induced the Divine 
 Being to give existence to the human being, but that of diffusing happi- 
 ness — making his creature, man, happy ? 
 
 And man was happy when God made him ; but then he was happy 
 in his God, and he was to be happy in nothi^ig contrary to God, and in 
 nothing without God. And while man remained with God, his happi- 
 ness remained with him ; but when by transgression he fell from God, 
 he lost his happiness. And now man is unhappy, because he is guilty ; 
 he is unhappy, because he is unholy ; he is unhappy, because he 
 is unlike God. He wants to be happy independently. He feels 
 painfully that he has lost his happiness, but then he knows very 
 well that he has not lost the capacity for enjoyment ; and he 
 feels — strongly feels — he has not lost the desire after it, but 
 then he seeks it any where — every where — except where alone he 
 can find it. He " spends his money for that which is not bread, his 
 labor for that which satisfieth not." He seeks happiness in very 
 vanity, he seeks happiness in folly, he seeks happiness in sin. But 
 instead of rest and peace, he finds toil and labor ; instead of happi- 
 ness and repose, he finds vanity and vexation of spirit. 
 
 "When abandoning all these earthly cisterns (which are all " broken 
 cisterns, and which contain no water — not a drop of real happiness 
 for the spiritual immortal mind of man,) man betakes himself to God 
 in Christ as his only refuge, and seeks to be accepted of God in Christ, 
 and the Lord becomes his God, then he finds the happiness which he 
 sought in vain elsewhere. Then he comes to the fountain of living 
 water ; and then he drinks and is satisfied. Then he can subscribe to 
 the doctrine which my text contains, " Happy is that people, that is in 
 18 
 
274 THE ENGLISH PULriT. 
 
 such a case; yea, happy," beyond all compare, "is that people, 
 ■whose God is the Lord." 
 
 Now that is our God, to which we are principally devoted ; that is 
 our God which has the first place in our thoughts, and which has the 
 highest place in our affections : that is our God, to which we bow down, 
 to which we continually pay our devotion — whatever it may be ; it 
 may be some idol. Now to have Jehovah for our God is to have our 
 thoughts first of all accupied with him — to have our affections 
 supremely placed on him — to be reconciled to him — to be accepted 
 of him through Jesus Christ — to know him, and to love him, and 
 to live devoted to him. And my text declares, that all such persons 
 are really and pre-eminently happy. 
 
 Now one would suppose that a discourse on the subject of happiness 
 must be interesting to all, because all are in search of it. One would 
 suppose that such a discourse must be interesting to young people ; I 
 see a great number of young people (and with very great pleasure) 
 in this assembly, and I know my young friends are all intensely desirous 
 to obtain happiness. Let me, then, try, in dependence on Divine aid, 
 to show you where it is to be found, and to show you the nature and the 
 excellence of " the people Avhose God is the Lord ;" and having done 
 this, let me endeavor to state, and to lay prostrate some of those 
 objections, which are sometimes urged against the doctrine which my 
 text contains. 
 
 I. The nature and excellence of " the people whose God is 
 THE Lord." They are " happy. ''^ 
 
 And what is happiness ? It is enjoyment, it is satisfaction, it is 
 delight. And, for any thing I know to the contrary, the different beings 
 that inhabit this earth are obliged, by their own nature, to seek for 
 enjoyment, to seek for a bhss suited to their nature ; and for anything 
 I know, they are happy, just in proportion as they are in their proper 
 element, and as they possess and enjoy what may be called their cliief 
 good ; they have an enjoyment according to their nature and capacity. 
 
 And, my dear friends, is it not in this way that we are to ascertain 
 how man becomes happy ? Surely, he cannot be happy till he lives 
 in his proper element ; he cannot be happy till he finds and enjoys 
 his chief good. And need I tell my friends where that is, and 
 what tbat is ? Is it not he, who is the father of the human 
 spirit — the centre and the rest of the soul of man ? Did He not 
 form our spirits for Himself? And is it not there alone that we find our 
 proper element — the element of the soul, for which it was originally 
 formed ? And is it not there — in the enjoyment of God — that we 
 
THE HAPPY MAN A PvELIGl'OUS MAX. 275 
 
 find our chief good ? There, and there alone we find a portion, suited 
 to our nature and equal to our capacities, commensurate with all our 
 wishes, and lasting as our being. 
 
 1. This happiness, however, is all aggregate. There are various 
 ingredients in the happiness of this people, " the people whose God is 
 the Lord." At present I will select three of these ingredients. 
 
 And I begin by remarking, that " the people whose God is the 
 Lord," are happy inasmuch as they enjoy the peace of God. I name 
 this in the fii-st instance, because I believe it is the lowest grade of all 
 true religious happiness. It begins here. 
 
 That " there is no peace to the wicked," is a fact — a truth which 
 reason suggests, a truth which revelation asserts, a truth which expe- 
 rience awfully demonstrates. An old Pagan could stumble upon this 
 truth — " No wicked man is happy." And no wicked man, as such, can 
 be happy, because every thing is out of course ; all is in a state of moral 
 derangement, disorder and chaos, and, therefore, there can be no real 
 enjoyment. What are the wicked like ? The prophet tells you what. 
 I was thinking the other night when on the ocean, and when the raging 
 billows dashed against the vessel — I thought of the language of the 
 prophet, " The wicked is like the troubled sea " — not the sea when 
 it is calm, and serene, and placid, but the ocean when tempest-tossed, 
 one angry wave succeeding another. That is the emblem of a wicked 
 mind, the emblem of an unsanctified heart — all agitation, commotion, 
 and disorder. " There is no peace " — there can be none — " to the 
 wicked." 
 
 Now, this is clearly seen by the enlightened mind, and this is deeply 
 felt by the enlightened conscience. There is not only the perception 
 of what is really the bane of happiness — sin, guilt, depravity ; but 
 there is the painful feeling, too, so that, while we see our sin, we fee! 
 its curse — what " an evil and a bitter thing " it is, to sin against 
 God. The arrow of truth thus penetrates the heart and conscience 
 of the awakened sinner, and he feels the poigiiant smart, writhes under 
 an agonized conscience, and asks. Where shall my agonized conscience 
 find rest ; I am vile ; I deserve to perish ; I am undone, unless divine 
 mercy interpose : myself I cannot save ; an angel's arm cannot rescue 
 me from impending ruin ; I cannot extract this dart ; I cannot heal 
 the wound, I cannot atone for a single sin, I cannot wash out any 
 moi-al stain ; what shall I do ? The gospel tells you what to do : 
 *' Beheve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." That 
 is the'simple, direct, and safe answer given to the inquiry, " What 
 must I do to be saved ? " Whoever you may be, " Believe on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." That is the Scripture 
 
276 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 way of salvation. Come, as a lost sinner, to Jesus Christ, as the onlj 
 Savior, and venture thj soul on the sacrifice of Calvary ; cast thyself 
 upon that atonement which was made for the sin of a guilty world ; 
 believe on him, 
 
 '' Who died, thy sin to atoDC, 
 And lives, thy soul to save." 
 
 and lives to dispense the pardon he bought with his blood ; and believ- 
 ing on him " with thy heart unto righteousness," thy guilt shall be 
 removed, thy burden fall to the ground, thy chains be snapped asunder, 
 and thou shalt enter into liberty, and light, and life. 
 
 And now the penitent believer in Jesus looks up, and that cloud that 
 gathered blackness over him before, is dispersed, and his heaven-born 
 soul drinks in the radiance of the Sun of righteousness. He looks 
 up, and finds that " being justified by faith, he has peace with God " 
 — oh ! what happiness is this ! — " peace with God, through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." And this peace of God, he finds, " passeth all under- 
 standing, and it keeps his heart and mind in the knowledge and love 
 of God, by Christ Jesus." What a change has now taken place ! 
 Conscience now smiles, and whispers peace. A divine peace — a 
 holy, heavenly, serenity — is transfused through his very soul. And 
 you must not go to the angry ocean, to see an emblem of him now ; 
 you must rather go yonder to the margin of some transparent lake, 
 whose placid bosom reflects all the loveliness of surrounding nature — 
 there is the sweet and delightful emblem of a heart filled with the 
 peace of God. " Happy is the people that is in such a case." 
 
 Let me name another ingredient in this cup of bliss ; " the people, 
 whose God is the Lord," are liajpipy in the possession and enjoyment 
 of the love of God. Love is the master-passion of the soul \ and it is 
 of the essence of love, to give delight in proportion to the suitableness 
 and excellence of its object. But we are not now speaking of a merely 
 human passion, but we are speaking of a divine and gracious principle ; 
 we are speaking of the " love of God " (to use St. Paul's emphatic 
 language,) " shed abroad in the heart by the Holy -Ghost given unto 
 us." And no sooner do we believe on Jesus Christ aright, but this 
 " faith works by love." The love of God in Christ is revealed in our 
 hearts ; and it is that, so far as I understand it, so far as the Bible 
 directs me on the subject — it is that love that kindles love in our 
 hearts. Some mystical writers, some century since, said some very 
 fine things on this subject ; some theologians and some poets, said 
 some very beautiful things upon the subject ; they had an idea of loving 
 God on account of his own supreme and excellent loveliness, and I 
 remember one of them going so far as to say, that, were the writer 
 
TUE HAPPY MAN A RELIGIOUS MAN. 277 
 
 sent to tlie bad place, even from thence there must be love to a bemg 
 infinitely amiable ; and some modern writei-s, too, have said, that the 
 human mind, fallen as it is, must admire what is supremely excellent, 
 and fitting, and amiable, and be attracted by it. My dear friends, is 
 it not, (think you,) the very best answer to this, that there is not a 
 word of it, that I know of, in the Bible ? —not one. All this might 
 have done very well, for aught I know, for Adam and Eve in para- 
 dise, before sm was introduced, when th^ir nature was immaculate, and 
 all was right : 
 
 Pure was the body, and the soul serene ; 
 
 And I dare say, those happy and pure intelligences around the throne 
 can dehght in that which is infinitely amiable, and lovely, and beauti- 
 ful ; and seraphs beholding the divine excellence and glory burn with 
 intense ardor, and love, and devotion. Ah ! but man is fallen. Ac- 
 count for it as you will, he is not the c^'eature now he was when God 
 created him. Some sad thing has happened to him ; and the Bible 
 tells me how, and I know no other way of acoounting for it. And my 
 conviction is, that there is too much blindness in the human will, and 
 too much corruption and earthliness in the human heart, and too much 
 frostiness (if I may be allowed the expression,) — too much frostiness 
 and ice there, for that heart ever to rise in love to God, merely because 
 he is infinitely lovely. Oh ! if these hearts of ours ever rise in love to 
 God, the God of Love must come down and touch these hearts of ours ; 
 his love, through Jesus, must be manifested to these hearts of ours, 
 and we must have a vivid impression of it, and then will our love be 
 lighted up in return ; a spark from the fire of divine love must fall 
 upon our hearts, and then will our love be kindled up in return, and 
 we shall say, " We love him, because he first loved us." 
 
 This divine love is completely satisfied with the suitableness and the 
 fulness of its object — the chief good, the supreme excellence, the 
 blessed God ; and the soul, in union with God, and in the exercise of 
 this feeling, rises in emotions of desire, and in emotions of esteem, 
 and in emotions of gratitude, and in emotions of holy complacency and 
 delight. And there are moments, when " the people, whose God is 
 the Lord," in the exercise of th*e love of God, loving that God who 
 has first loved them, can say, with the delighted and devout psalmist, 
 " Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth, 
 that I desire besides thee." But then, come not near, ye sensual and 
 profane. These are delights to which you arc strangers ; this is a 
 holy and divine love, which dwells not in your unhallowed breasts ; it 
 is sacred to " that people, whose God is the Lord." What is it? it is 
 the calm sunshuae of the peaceful mind. What is it ? it is an emana- 
 
278 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 tion from paradise, beaming forth upon the heart of the beUever. 
 What is it ? why, it is the verj element of heaven realized on earth ; 
 for heaven is love. What is it ? why, it is the transporting delight of 
 angels ; for the happiness of angels is the happiness of love, and what, 
 can Gabriel more than love God and be happy ? What is it ? it is a 
 beam of the eternal being. What is it ? it is the very nature and 
 image of God restored to the soul of mahj for " God is love, and he 
 that dwelleth in love " — mar]i you, that is his element, that is his 
 habitation, that is the atmosphere he breathes — " he, that dwelleth 
 in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." " Happy is the people, 
 that is in such a case." 
 
 And then, if the impression be not always so vivid, and if the hap- 
 piness rise not always so high, what then ? why, let me say, that " the 
 people, whose God is the Lord," are always happy inasmuch as they 
 always hope in Crod. Hope ! oh, what a thing is hope ! Poets have 
 descanted on the pleasures of hope ; ah ! but the hope of. the Chris- 
 tian ! that gives pleasure indeed ; that produces happiness — a happi- 
 ness, with which " a stranger intermeddleth not." Hope has some- 
 thing good to look at ; its object must be good, or it is not hope ; that 
 which we do not regard as good, we cannot hope for — we may fear 
 it, and dread it, but we cannot hope for it. Again, hope means 
 desire — desire of that which is good ; hope means expectation — we 
 expect the good that we desire. And then this expectation, and this 
 desire of good promote the most pleasurable and delightful emotions 
 in the heart. Now " the people, whose God is the Lord," hope for 
 the care and bounty of a good providence, while they are in this 
 world. And, oh ! what comfort this brings to the mind 1 what a 
 defenceless, dependent creature is man ! but then, to have a hope in 
 providence, and to believe that there is a watchful eye always upon 
 us, and a good hand with us for our good, and that " the very hairs 
 of our head are all numbered," and that our heavenly Father knows 
 what we need, and that he can take care for us, and provide for us — 
 why, what comfort does this bring to the mind ! And then, again, 
 " the people, whose God is the Lord," hope for all the gi-ace they 
 want, to enable them to be what God" commands them to be, and to do 
 what God commands them to do, and to suffer what God commands 
 them to endure ; they hope for " grace to help in time of need ; " 
 they hope for grace to make them holy, as well as make them happy, 
 and make them happy by making them holy ; and they hope for grace 
 to make them live well, and grace to make them die well ; and God 
 has said, " My grace is sufficient for thee." But, then, they look 
 beyond this world of time and sense. There is the proper object of 
 
THE HAPPY MAN A RELIGIOUS MAN. 279 
 
 hope, and there it sparkles through the sky — "glory, honor, and 
 immortality," " eternal life," the heaven of God, all that heaven is, 
 and all that heaven has to give. Why now, my dear friends, do you 
 not see the men of this world, when they are hoping for something 
 which they greatly desire, and when the way seems clear and impedi- 
 ments removed, and they expect very soon to realize all that which 
 they desire and hope for — do you not see, that that emotion gives 
 way to emotions little less than transport ? and yet it is, perhaps, 
 something perishable and something worthless. What, then, must be 
 the hope of the Christian, who has " Christ formed in his heart, the 
 hope of glory," who is hoping, not for an earthly crown, but for a 
 celestial diadem, and who is hoping for a glorified body as well as a 
 glorified soul, in a glorious heaven of joy for ever ? Can it be, that 
 the man who has this hope, can be a wretched man ? I see not how 
 it can be. Why, it must sweeten all the bitters of life ; it must sus- 
 tain the man under the pressure of afflictions and trials. Oh ! yes, 
 this hope administers a cordial in your troubles ; this hope comes like 
 an angel, and beckons you onward, and points you to the skies yonder ; 
 and you then take 'courage. The hope of the Christian unites and 
 brings together the Christian's double heaven ; for we must have a 
 double heaven, or no heaven — heaven here, and heaven there — 
 heaven on the way, and heaven at home — heaven in reserve, and 
 heaven enjoyed. 
 
 2. Now, then, mark the eminence and the excellence of this happi- 
 ness, " Yea, happy ; " for the psalmist did not satisfy himself with 
 simply stating the fact, that the people of God are happy — " happy 
 is that people, that is in such a case " — but he repeats his words 
 with stronger emphasis, " Yea, happy is the people, whose God is the 
 Lor^." 
 
 Mark the eminence of this happiness, from the circumstance that it 
 is substantial in its nature. It is not a mere phantom ; it is not a 
 name without a nature ; it is not a sign without a thing to be signified 
 thereby. Such, indeed, is all that this world calls bliss ; that is a wild 
 delirium, that is a delusive dream, that is a sort of phantom in yonder 
 void, exhibiting itself under various colors and various forms of fascin- 
 ation, and the eager, infatuated votaries, run after it with all their 
 might ; and they see it dancing before them at some place of public 
 amusement or public resort, and there they run with all possible eager- 
 ness, expecting to lay hold of it — but it eludes their grasp ; and 
 there, again, is another occasion, when it rises before them, and they 
 think it looks more inviting than it ever did before, and they run after 
 it with as much eagerness as if they had never Deen disappointed 
 
280 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 before — again it eludes their grasp ; and again it appears, and away 
 they go, in high expectation that they shall obtain it now, and they 
 grasp the phantom — but they find it air. The bubble is no sooner 
 touched than it dissolves ; and there is not a drop of happiness obtained. 
 Ah ! ye worldhngs, your own consciences bear me witness, that what 
 I say is true. It is so, and it must be so, with what this world calls 
 happmess ; and every thing, under the name of bhss, that is not con- 
 sistent with truth, and with holiness, and with religion. 
 
 But then it is otherwise with religion. This is not a mere bubble, 
 this is not a mere name ; this is no phantom ; it is a reality, it is sub- 
 stance. There is something here on wliich the mind of man can feed ; 
 there is something here to sustain the soul, and nourish the soul, and 
 support the soul. Oh ! yes, " the favor of God is life, and his loving- 
 kindness is better than hfe." Why, that word does not mean mere 
 existence ; for bad men exist, but then they have not the favor of God. 
 Oh ! the favor of God means real enjoyment, means real hajopiness. 
 To have the favor of him, and to look up to him, and enjoy his smile 
 — what a happiness is this ! The good man has not to rove after hap- 
 piness all over the world, like mere men of the world ; oh ! no, happi- 
 ness resides in him ; there is " a well of water " opened there by the 
 power of the Spirit of God, and it is " springing up," and, springing 
 up " to everlasting life." 
 
 Then mark the eminence of this happiness, too, by the consideration 
 of its transcendent degree. There is nothing else to compare to it in 
 'this way. If you could, in your own thoughts and imaginations, col- 
 lect together all the meagre drops of what this world calls happiness, 
 you would find, that all collected together, they are not worthy to be 
 compared with the substantial bliss of " the people, whose God is the 
 Lord." Now, try this for a moment. 
 
 What is, or can be, the happiness of those " whose God is their 
 belly ? " I am afraid there are multitudes of men in this professedly 
 Christian country, who worship at that shrine, and whose first consid- 
 eration, on awaking in the morning, is, now what shall I contrive this 
 day by which I shall get the highest enjoyment ? And then they 
 call in art, and those who are supposed to have the most skill, and to 
 dress up things in order to have a keener relish ; and " what shall I 
 eat? and what shall I drink?" — is their first object day by day. 
 Why, perhaps, that man's four-footed brethren yonder, browsing on 
 the herbage of the field — the simple, suitable food which nature has 
 furnished for them, have a higher relish and a keener zest of the food 
 which Providence has supphed to them, than that man has with all 
 
THE nAI'Py MAN A RELIGIOUS MAN. 281" 
 
 his modifications of art. It humbles one in the dust to think one is of 
 the same species with him. 
 
 What is, or can be, the happiness of that man whose god is his 
 money ? Ah ! Avhat worshippers have found this god — INIammou ! 
 Ah ! and if we were all really ascertained in the hght of truth, and 
 in the light of God's truth, I am afraid that many more would belong 
 to them than would be willing to be acknowledged as such. How 
 many are there who have no idea of any happiness equal to that which 
 results from increasing their worldly property — as though " a man's 
 hfe consisted in the abundance of the things that he possesseth " — 
 happiness in " adding house to house, and field to field " — happiness 
 in loading themselves with thick clay — happiness derived from what ? 
 — why, from getting all they can, and keeping all they get. What 
 do you call this man ? why, he has a name in our language, which is 
 scarcely English indeed, but I can give you the interpretation ; we 
 call him miser ; and w^ho does not know, that that, being hiterpreted, 
 means miserable ? And it is his proper name ; he is a miserable man, 
 wherever he exists. 
 
 Now what is, or can be, the happiness of the man whose god is 
 honor ? Ah ! there are beings of another class, a dififerent make of 
 mind, who despise that low and creeping thing called money ; " let 
 those seek that that like it," say they, " but give us honor, give us 
 promotion, give us distinction." They aspire after this, and they use 
 at least all lawful, (would that none of them ever stepped over that 
 line !) they use at least all lawful means to obtain this world's honor, 
 and they imagine that that can give happiness to the mind. Why, my 
 dear friends, I might go on with these remarks ; I might go on to 
 describe all those different classes of worshippers, " every one walking 
 in the name of his god ; " and I might show you, that instead of hap- 
 piness, there is vanity and vexation ; and that, let a man get as much 
 as this world can give, in the midst of all the heart is not filled — 
 " What, is this all I am to have ? I thought I was to be happj-, I 
 thought I was to have real, solid bliss, but I find it to be all empty 
 
 air 
 
 t " 
 
 Oh ! but look at the happiness of " the people, whose God is the 
 Lord." It is a happiness that comes from heaven ; it is a happiness 
 independent of all things earthly. If, indeed, Providence smiles, as 
 the context describes, and good men have abundance of temporal 
 prosperity, why, they know from whom they received it — they use 
 it with temper and moderation — they pray for the sanctifying bless- 
 ing of God upon that which they have — and the}'- desire to do good 
 with it. And, let me say, that real religion sanctifies what a man 
 
282 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 possesses in this world — gives him a far higher enjoyment of it than 
 the wicked can possibly have with all their unsanctificd possessions. 
 But then this is a bliss which depends not upon the smiles of mortals ; 
 this is within the reach of the poor man, as well as the rich man ; thia 
 is within reach of the man in the mud-walled cottage, as well as in the 
 most splendid mansion. Yes, for it comes from God ; and God " will 
 look to this man, that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trem- 
 bleth at his Word." And were we to examine every case, perhaps 
 we should find a great deal more happiness in the humble walks of 
 life — certainly we should where there is piety — than in the higher 
 -walks, where piety is not found. And then there is something in this 
 that is so satisfactory, something that leaves no sting behind, something 
 that will bear reflection, something that never palls upon the senses, 
 something that makes us, the more we enjoy, the more we would 
 enjoy — and the more we would enjoy, the more we may enjoy. Oh ! 
 how greatly does it transcend every thing of an earthly nature ! Why 
 did the clusters of the grapes of Canaan excel the onions and garlics 
 of Egypt ? not more than the happiness of religion excels all earthly 
 bliss. Does the transparent stream excel the vile, stagnant pool? and 
 does the rich and delicious kernel excel the hard and empty shell ? not 
 more than the happiness of God's people excels all other kinds of 
 enjoyment. And, finally, does the sun, in the zenith of his splendor, 
 outshine the feeble glow worm ? not more than the transcendent happi- 
 ness of religion rises above all earthly happiness. 
 
 Mark, again, the eminence of this happiness by the consideration that 
 it is ever j^resent in its fruition. I remember the celebrated Hannah 
 Mooro, (who deserved well of her country, and whose works will live 
 and be read while the English language is spoken or read,) in some of 
 her valuable works has this remark — " This world's happiness is always 
 in the future tense." True ; it has no past tense, it has no present 
 tense. The mere man of this world, who never had religion, cannot 
 honestly say, " At such a time I ivas positively happy ! " The man of 
 the world, that knows nothing of religion, cannot now say, " I am 
 happy ! " Oh ! no, it is always in the future tense ; so that those two 
 lines, that have been so often reprobated from the pulpit and the press, 
 are true, after all, in the proper appHcation of them — 
 
 / " Hope springs eternal in the human hreast ; 
 Man never is, but always to be blessed." 
 
 " Always to he blest." The man who thinks that the gratification 
 of his palate will make him hapj^y, if you go to him and ask, " when 
 was it so ? " " Oh ! it is not what I have already received, but it is 
 
THE HAPPY MAN A RELIGIOUS MAIST. 283 
 
 something more exquisite that I expect ; " so, that it is " to 5^." The 
 man who looks to money to make him blest — wh}^, now he told you, 
 some years ago, that if he could but realize a certain sum, he would 
 retire from the toils of his business or his profession, and go and live 
 in the country, and be happy the rest of his days ; well, he has realized 
 a much larger sum, and you go and ask him, " are you happy ? " ah ! 
 the truth comes out again ; he tells you, a neighbor of his has been 
 more successful than him, and realized almost twice as much as he has, 
 and he will not be happy till he has as much ; so that it is always " to 
 he." And then go again to the man who told you some time ago, that 
 if he could but obtain this world's honor, and especially if he could be 
 ennobled — if he could get a title — it would be the consummation of 
 his happiness ; well, this man actually succeeds ; he goes from one post 
 to another, and pushes his way in society, till at last he obtains a title ; 
 now you go to him — if you can get an introduction to him you go to 
 him — and you address him by his title, and you say, " My lord, you 
 told me, at such a time, if you could but get a title, jou should be 
 happy ; and now you have got it, I am come on purpose to know whether 
 it has made you happy ; " ah ! he falters too, and he says, " why, no, I 
 cannot say I am happy at present ; for a neighbor of mine has a higher 
 title, and another has a string of titles — and I cannot be happy till I 
 rise as high as them ; " so that you see again — 
 
 !Man never is, but ahvaj-'s to he blest. i 
 
 But, thank God, it is not so with all. No, no ; the happiness of 
 God's people has a present tense, and a past, as well as a future. Oh ! 
 yes, the text is in the present tense ; " happy is the people that is in 
 such a case : yea, happy " — not shall be, or hope to be, but — " happy 
 is that people, whose God is the Lord." Already does the favor of 
 God beam upon their spirits, and diffuse essential joy through their 
 souls. Already does " the peace that passeth understanding," overflow 
 their bosoms. Already is " the 'love of God shed abroad in their hearts, 
 by the Holy Ghost given unto them." Already they rejoice in the 
 prospect of everlasting life. 
 
 And then let me say, too, that this happiness is purifying in its influ- 
 ence and tendency. Not so those things called bliss, which are incon- 
 sistent with religion and holiness. All unhallowed pleasures have a 
 ruinous tendency ; they enervate the human intellect, they dim the eye 
 of the understanding, they vitiate and deprave the heart ; they leave a 
 deadly sting behind ; the cup may be painted and its contents may 
 appear inviting, but, depend upon it, there is poison in the cup, if it be 
 inconsistent with holiness. Oh I but the pleasures of religion do not 
 
284 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 contract the intellectual powers, they do not cloud the understanding, 
 they do not deprave the heart. These pleasures are holy, and they 
 tend to make us holy ; this happiness is spiritual, and it tends to make 
 us spiritual. This happiness comes from God, and it leads to God. 
 
 And here let me say one word, my dear friends. Value this happi- 
 ness, not merely for its own sake, because it is delightful to enjoy ; but 
 value it because of its hallowing tendency and effect. All the pleasures 
 that are to be found in religion are designed and calculated to make us 
 more spiritual and heavenly, more dead to this world, and alive to that 
 which is to come. See to it, then, that while you behold the glory of 
 the Lord beaming from the face of the Redeemer, you catch the 
 impression and are " changed into the same image, from glory to glory, 
 even as the Spirit of the Lord." 
 
 And then, here is another circumstance ; this pleasure — tJiis liappi- 
 ness — is unending — an unending bliss. It not only is to continue 
 with us, while we are in this world, but it is to go with us through the 
 vale of death, and it is to be enjoyed and possessed by us for ever and 
 'Y ever. Now " the pleasures of sin " (make the most of them) are but 
 ( " for a season." And that season, alas ! how short, and how uncertain ! 
 Longer than this short life they cannot last ; up to its final close, they 
 seldom, if ever, remain. Behold the man whom this world has called 
 happy. Ah ! he called his wish, and it came ; and then he called 
 another, and another, and they came, and he lived according to the 
 sight of his eyes, and according to the desire of his heart, and he went 
 on through scenes of sensuality for a few years ; but it is over now ; his 
 poor body is wasted by excessive intemperance, he is dragging about 
 with him an emaciated frame, and his angry conscience, like a spectre, 
 meets him at every turn, and stares him in the face, and makes his 
 guilty blood creep through his veins — while his irritated passions, 
 which can no longer be gratified, gnaw his very soul. And is this the 
 consummation of this world's happiness ? " Oh, m}^ soul, come not 
 thou into their secret ; " with such men, " mine honor, be not thou 
 united." But then the happiness of religion, being pure and undefiled, 
 is " incorruptible and fadeth not away." Here is a happiness that goes 
 with us through the varied scenes of life ; here is a happiness that the 
 rough hand of death cannot strip us of. Death calls upon the man of 
 this world to strip and die, and this world can take away what it gave ; 
 but the world did not give the good man his happiness — it came from 
 God ; and the world cannot take it away, and death cannot take it 
 away. And it sometimes happens, that his happiness at that hour rises 
 higher than ever. Oh! the joy of the Christian is a joy which death 
 increases, and eternity crowns. Then he Avill drink, and be satisfied ; 
 
THE UAPPY MAN A RELIGIOUS MAN. 285 
 
 he will have access to rivers of pleasure at God's right hand for ever- 
 more, where there will he all sunshine, and no cloud or storm ; where 
 there will be a day that shall never be followed by a night, where the 
 sun shall rise that shall never set, and where " the days of mourning 
 shall be ended." 
 
 " ye blest scenes of pennanent delight, 
 
 Full, above measure I lasting beyond bound ! 
 
 A perpetuity of bliss is bliss. 
 
 Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end. 
 
 That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy. 
 
 And quite unparadise the realms of light." 
 
 "Why, the very thought would spread a gloom through the celestial 
 mansions, and cover all heaven with sackcloth. But no ; there is no 
 end ; there is no thought, there is no dread of an end. In short, there 
 is futurity for ever future — life, happiness, heaven beginning still 
 where computation ends. 
 
 II. What, then, are the objections which are urged to the 
 DOCTRINE, which my text contains, and which I have endeavored to 
 state ? 
 
 1. Why, some have said, in the first place, " We remember to have 
 heard you, when you selected another text, insist upon it that a rehgi- 
 ous course begins with sorrow and grief and mourning ; and we have 
 heard you quote such texts as this : " Be afflicted, and mourn and weep ; 
 let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness ; " 
 where, then, is this happiness in religion, of which you speak ? " 
 
 Why, my friends, that, in the commencement of a rehgious course, 
 there must be a " sorrow after a godly sort," we not only admit, but 
 for this we must strongly and strenuously contend ; but it follows not 
 from this, that a religious life is not a happy one. For, let me reply to 
 tliis in the first place, that, even in this bruisedness of spirit, this contri- 
 tion of heart, and these prayers and tears and supplications, there is a 
 relief, there is a satisfaction, far exceeding anything that can be found 
 in a course of sin and intemperance ; why, there are tears that dehght, 
 there are sighs that waft to heaven ; and Jesus Christ has said, 
 "Blessed" — not Avretched — "are they that mourn." There is a 
 blessedness even in mourning ! there is such a thing as " the joy of 
 grief." And let me reply to this, secondly, by saying, that this peni- 
 tent is not mourning and weeping because he has religion, but because 
 he wants it ; he does not mourn and weep because he finds the favor of 
 God, but because he feels himself under the sentence of the law of 
 God, and knows that the sentence must be averted ; he does not mourn 
 and weep because he loves God, but because he does not love God, and 
 
286 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 cannot be happy till lie does love him. And then let me reply to this, 
 thirdly, by saying. Let this man continue to seek, and continue to ask, 
 and continue to knock, and let him cry at mercy's door by faith and 
 prayer ; and, depend upon it, the door ^Yill be opened, and depend upon 
 it, God, whom he seeks, will come to his soul, and he will turn his 
 mourning into joy, and his midnight into day. The Lord will appoint 
 to these mourners in Zion " beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourn- 
 ing, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; " for " they that 
 sow in tears shall reap in joy." So that we find it true, after all, 
 " Happy is that people whose God is the Lord." 
 
 2. But then it is urged, again, from another quarter, " How can a 
 religious life be a happy one, when you sometimes tell us of the 
 restraints of religion, and of the arduous duties of religion ; how, then, 
 is happiness consistent with all this ? " 
 
 Restraints of religion ! austerities of religion ! sacrifices of religion ! 
 Let me say to the mere man of this world, it is with an ill grace that 
 he brings forward this objection ; it is with an ill grace that 
 he says a word upon the subject ; why, who does not know what kind 
 of life he is living — a life ten thousand times more severe ? What 
 mean all those sacrifices of time, and sacrifices of property, and sacri- 
 fices of health, he is making in the way of the god he serves ? what 
 mean all those days of hurry and confusion ? ah ! and what mean all 
 those sleepless nights, not only of folly, but of dissipation ? I say that 
 it is with an ill grace that a man of the world, who is devoted to its 
 follies and its vanities, says a word about the restraints of religion. 
 But admitted religion does impose restraints upon man ; but from what 
 does it restrain him ? — from sin. Its restraints are all salutary. It 
 forbids nothing but what, if pursued, would be a curse to the man, and 
 not a blessing. It forbids sin under all its forms and modifications, and 
 religion does require that a man be " temperate in all things." And I 
 put it to the good sense of this assembly, which has the most enjoyment 
 
 — the man that eats and drinks till his very indulgences pall upon the 
 sense, and fill him with disgust — or the man who " lets his moderation 
 be known unto all men ? " Common sense knows very well how to 
 answer this question. 
 
 Admitted again — duties of religion, duties of piety, duties of justice, 
 duties of charity. But then does it follow, that the people of God are 
 not happy ? Why, they have to read the Bible ; does that make them 
 unhappy ? oh ! how I " love thy law ! " " it is sweeter to me than 
 honey and the honey-comb ; " is that the way a man is made unhappy 
 
 — when he tastes the honey dropping from the comb ? A good man 
 has to pray to God ; does that make him unhappy ? Oh ! prayer opens 
 
THE IIAl'PY MAX A IIELIGIOUS MAX. 287 
 
 heaven, and lets tlie stream of mercy do-\vn. A good man has to 
 worship God with his family ; and docs that make him unhappy ? 
 "What ! when the God he loves smiles upon him, and the fire from above 
 comes down to kindle the sacrifice ? A good man has to reverence the 
 Sabbath ; does that make him unhappy ? Oh ! he counts " the Sabbath 
 a delight, holy of the Lord and honorable." A good man has to go to 
 the sanctuary ; does that make him unhappy? "Lord, I have loved 
 the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth." 
 A miserable infidel, with his book in his hand, sat opposite to me in 
 Lincolnshire, the other day, and there he was reading a book, purport- 
 ing to be written and published by a German, and he read some 
 passages to this efiect — that we English people are the most joyless, 
 mopish people on earth, and that even the little birds we shut up in a 
 dark room, lest they should profane the Sabbath by singing, and that 
 we go to church, not once, but even twice, and many three times in 
 the day, and make it a day of gloom and wretchedness. Why, I said, 
 in the first place, it is not true ; we do not shut little birds up, for fear 
 they should profane the Sabbath by singing. In the second place, you 
 and your author talk about things you do not know the nature of ; it is 
 true that Ave go to places of worship, but we do not go merely because 
 it is our duty, but we go also because it is a pleasure and delight ; and 
 those very men that you and your author describe as gloomy and 
 joyless — why they are the happiest men that breathe. 
 
 Duties of justice, too ; and which is the happy man — he that always 
 makes that golden rule of love the rule of his actions, " As ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye even so to them " — or he that is 
 overreaching and taking advantage wherever he can, taking advantage 
 of the ignorance, the weakness, or the necessity of his fellow-creatures ? 
 Which of the two is a happy man, I need not tell you. And then, 
 again, duties of mercy — duties of charity. Why, a good man is ,to 
 show favor and lend, a good man is to be merciful after his power, and 
 Christian people are " to visit the fatherless and widows in their 
 afiiictiun ; " what, does this make them unhappy? Little do those know 
 of the joys of benevolence, and the pleasure connected with the exer- 
 cise of the various affections of the human heart, who would represent 
 such persons as unhappy. Wlien was it you visited the widow or the 
 fatherless, or some sad fellow-creature in a state of wretchedness, and 
 had it in your power to afford relief ? Why, when you saw the uplifted 
 eye suffused with tears, and when you heard the expressions of grati- 
 tude, first to God for disposing you thus to act, and then to you as the 
 instrument of relief — I put it to you, oh ! what a sweet satisfaction, 
 that you have had the power and the grace, the means and the dispo- 
 
288 THE EXGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 sition, to alleviate the sufferings and the woe of your fellow-creatures! 
 Why, then, I say, all these, instead of hindering our bliss, greatly 
 augment the amount, and still the text is true — " Happy is that 
 people, whose God is the Lord." 
 
 3. But then, it is urged again — Religion sometimes exposes a man 
 to trials, and afflictions, and persecutions, and sometimes even to death; 
 where then is the happiness of " the people whose God is the Lord ? " 
 
 My dear friends, told I you not, sometime ago, in this discourse, that 
 this is a happiness which depends not either upon the smiles of the 
 world, or the frowns of men ? I admit a good man may have " his. 
 name cast out as evil ; " I admit that " all manner of evil may be said 
 of him " (but it is " falsely " said of him, or he is not a good man,) 
 " for the Lord's sake ; " but then he is not unhappy for this ; no, 
 " rejoice and be exceeding glad," the Spirit of God and 6f glory is 
 resting upon you. I admit a good man may be persecuted ; but then 
 " blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, for so persecuted they 
 the prophets before you." Oh ! you are treading in the right path ; 
 you are walking in the high way, in which kings, and confessors, and 
 righteous men went before you. Push your objection to its utmost 
 hmit ; let a pious man be incarcerated in a dungeon, and let him be 
 beaten, and let his feet be made fast in the stocks ; what then ? is he 
 unhappy ? answer me Paul and Silas, blessing God ; they had been 
 preaching the good news of the kingdom, and they had been beaten, 
 and put in prison, and their feet were made fast in the stDcks, and it 
 was midnight — and what then ? at midnight " Paul and Silas prayed " 
 — ah! but they did more than that — "at midnight Paul and Silas 
 prayed, and sang praises to God." Then they were happy ; they were 
 so happy they could not but sing the praises of God, even in a dungeon ; 
 and though it was midnight, perhaps it was the happiest hour they ever 
 spent, up to that period. 
 
 I said, push your objection to its utmost extent ; let the good man 
 be called to suffer martyrdom in the cause of Jesus ; what then ? Oh ! 
 he is not unhappy. I remember a case, where a man whom I could 
 name, a martyr to the truth, said Avhile the flames were consuming his 
 body, " I feel no pain, this to me is a bed of roses." Perhaps the 
 philosophy of the case is this — the sensations of Divine love were so 
 powerful in the man's soul, as to overpower the sensation of pain. So 
 that living or dying, " happy is that people whose God is the Lord." 
 
 4.'' However it is urged again, (and this is the last objection that I 
 will state,) " I have made the trial, and I have not found it so." 
 
 Now, this objection really appears plausible — "I have made the 
 trial, and I have not found it so." You have made the trial. And 
 
THE HAPPY MAN A RELIftlOUS MAN. 289 
 
 let me ask, then, Who are you, that have made the trial ? ^ThJ, ot 
 course, 3'ou say, you are a Christian. And what evidence have you to 
 give that you are a Christian ? Why, you bear a Christian name, your 
 name is registered yonder as a Christian , and, moreover, you have 
 been the subject of a Christian ordinance, you were recognized in the 
 rite of water baptism ; and, moreover, you have attended to certain 
 Christian duties, you have read the Scriptures — a Christian duty, you 
 have attended a place of worship — a Christian duty, you have (occa- 
 sionally at least) approached the table of the Lord — a Christian duty 
 to do so regularly, and you sometimes give a portion of your property 
 to maintain the cause of God at home, or send the gospel abroad among 
 heathen nations — Christian duties these. Well, what more? Ah! 
 but if you falter, I must speak out, AVhat ! do you think nobody 
 knows what more ? Ah ! to-night at the house of God — and to-morrow 
 night yonder at the contaminating house of Rimmon ; in the morning 
 associating with those who keep holy-day — but, before noon or night, 
 commingling with those whose conversation savors not of religion, and 
 of the things of God ; to-daj' engaged in religious exercises — and 
 to-morrow pursuing worldly vanities ; a wordly-minded Christian, a 
 pleasure-taking Christian, a sporting Christian, a wine-bibbing Christian. 
 Oh ! I wonder not that t/our Christianity did not make you happy ; it 
 could not. How can the most sovereign specific restore a diseased man 
 to health and soundness, if all the while he will be eagerly swallowing 
 large portions of contrary aliment, which tend directly to irritate and 
 feed the disease. It cannot be. And let me say to that man. Whoever 
 thou art, God has made no half-engagement with either thee or me. 
 He has not said he will make us happy if we will give half our heart 
 to him, and the other half to the world, and if we try to bring together 
 and to unite what God has put asunder. " Ye cannot serve God and 
 Mammon." Oh ! we must come to a decision. " Who is on the 
 Lord's side ?" The religion of the Bible will not, and cannot make 
 you happy, unless you give up every thing inconsistent with it. There 
 must be the abandonment of all sin. Give up sin, or God will give up 
 you. You must part with all, if you would find all. Oh ! abandon all 
 sin ; and not only renounce sin, but renounce all dependence upon your 
 virtues, and come, stripped of all, poor, helpless, hell-deserving sinners, 
 and cast yourselves upon the mercy of Jesus Christ. Believe on him, 
 who died for you ; believe on him who lives for you, your advocate 
 before the throne ; God will reveal himself to you in Jesus Christ, as 
 your God, and you shall know him, and you shall love him, and you 
 shall delight in him, and, as sure as God is true, and as sure as this is 
 hia book, you shall be happy. 
 
290 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 And then, realizing all this happiness yourselves, you will be 
 concerned that others should be as happy as you are, that others should 
 be as blessed as you are, that others should enjoy the security you 
 enjoy. And I know not the man that enjoys religion himself, and that 
 wishes to keep religion to himself. What ! a monopoly in religion ; the 
 worst monopoly of all, the most unnatural monopoly of all. Why, 
 religion is not weakened by its diffusion. The sun in the firmament of 
 heaven, is not less valuable to me, because it gives Hght to you. No, 
 my friends ; and religion is not less a treasure to me, because it is a 
 treasure to you. If there be any pleasure at all, in giving we receive, 
 and in blessing we are blessed. 
 
 You are come here this evening under the influence of religion. It 
 would be an affectation in this heart of mine, which I should utterly 
 despise, were I capable of seeming to be indifferent to the spectacle 
 now displayed in this house — a week-day evening, and such a crowd 
 of blood-bought souls before me. It is a rich rccompence for the toils 
 of the past night. For I was in the town of Leeds at the same 
 hour, last night, that I entered this place of worship for this service ; 
 and some might suppose that having attended a public meeting there 
 last evening, I was more fit for some other place than where I now am, 
 on arriving in your metropolis this evening. But it is all too httle in 
 the service of God. Besides, we need only come to the fire in order 
 to be warmed ; and we need only meet with those that love our Savior 
 in order to be refreshed ; " iron sharpeneth iron, and a man the coun- 
 tenance ofhis friend." If the Lord be pleased to use even physical 
 strength, (that is his gift, and we must not boast as if we had not 
 received it; " let not the strong man glory in his strength ; ") we owe 
 our blessed master all ; oh ! to him our more than all is due. Permit 
 me to say, however, I am refreshed in meeting you on this occasion in 
 this sanctuary. 
 
 The Trustees of this place make their respectful annual appeal to 
 you. You are aware that they have taken the whole responsibihty, 
 and without having any property in the place themselves, and that they 
 have done so for the glory of God and the good of souls. They have 
 become the guardians of the place, according to the provisions of the 
 Trust, for the benefit of the Society worshipping here, while bricks, 
 and stones, and timber, shall cleave together. Then if they have done 
 this, and from these motives, they ought to be encouraged. I think 
 80 ; and you think so, and your conduct will say the same thing this 
 evening. I know to whom I speak ; and I will not detain you longer, 
 as though to this good work you were reluctant. Let the fire of love 
 glow in your bosoms, and then it will speak to your hearts, and your 
 
COME AND SEE JESUS. 291 
 
 hearts "will speak to your hands, and your hands, thus spoken to, will 
 know where to go, and what to do, (for the heart is intimately 
 connected with the hand,) and then we shall have a noble collection, 
 and glory will redound to the name of the Lord 
 
 SERMON XXIV. 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO CHILDREN. 
 BY REV. A. FLETCHER, D. D. 
 
 " Sir, we •would see Jesus." — .Johx xii. 21. 
 
 I DO not know if there is a child present, who has ever read the 
 whole of the Bible, from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of 
 Revelation. It is probable some of you may have done so ; I cannot 
 tell but some hundreds of you may. Now you know, my dear young 
 friends, that in the Bible there is an astonishing number of names, both 
 in the Old Testament and in the New. But I ask you, did you ever 
 meet in the whole Bible so beautiful a name as that of Jesus ? J never 
 did. You may read the whole of the Bible through, and you will not 
 find in it a lovelier, a sweeter, a more blessed, a more comforting name, 
 than the name of Jesus. 
 
 Do you know the meaning of the name Jesus ? It signifies a Savior. 
 It is a Hebrew name, and it corresponds with the name Joshua in the 
 Old Testament. You recollect the noble captain of the Lord's host 
 — captain Joshua. He was a wonderful man, a very holy man as well 
 as a great captain and a great general, and his name Joshua signifies a 
 Savior ; he got the name because he led the children of Israel through 
 the river Jordan into the land of Canaan, and conducted them in all 
 their battles, and succeeded in getting possession of the land, and 
 delivered it up to the Israelites ; therefore he was called Joshua, because 
 he was their Savior. Now this name is given to the Lord Jesus Christ 
 because he is a Savior. Joshua was a great savior ; but Christ is a 
 Savior infinitely greater. Joshua saved the Israelites from temporal 
 enemies ; but our Jesus saves his people from spiritual enemies. Joshua 
 saved the children of Israel from the giants — the Anakim, as they 
 called them ; great tall men, of such extraordinary size, that if one of 
 them stood in this middle aisle, his head would be as high as that clock 
 
292 THE EXGLISn rULPIT. 
 
 in front of the gallery ; Joshua fought with them, and destroyed them. 
 But the Lord Jesus Christ delivers his people from three greater giants ; 
 their names are — Sin — Satan — and the World. And Jesus is such 
 a mighty Savior that he dehvers from hell. Joshua led the children 
 of Israel to a most beautiful country called Canaan, the loveliest spot 
 upon the face of the earth ; oh ! it was beautiful — beautiful for its 
 mountains and its lovely green hills and its valleys and its meadows and 
 plains, beautiful for its lakes and its streams and its rivers, beautiful 
 for its noble cities, and the chief of them was called Jerusalem ; but 
 Christ gives to his people, and to little children that love him, a far 
 better land than Canaan ; he gives them the heavenly Canaan, he gives 
 them heaven, he gives them the heaven of heavens — 
 
 " the land of pure delight, 
 
 Where saints imniortal reign ; 
 Infinite day excludes the night, 
 And pleasures banish pain." 
 
 Now, my dear young friends, I have " to ask you this question — a 
 very serious one, but a very plain one — and I ask all the teachers too : 
 do you love the name of Jesus ? Every pious child does. You that 
 have loving fathers and mothers, do not you love the name Father, and 
 the name Mother ? — and the name Sister, and the name Brother, you 
 that have loving brothers and sisters ? — and the name Minister, and 
 the name Teacher, you that have loving ministers and loving teachers ? 
 The very names are pleasant to your ears. But if you are the chil- 
 dren of God, the name of Jesus will be more delightful to your ear 
 than any of these, or the name of the nearest and the dearest friend 
 on earth. Oh ! I hope that a great many of these dear httle childreu 
 can join with their hearts in the following beautiful lines : 
 
 " Jesus ! I love thy charming name ; 
 'Tis pleasure to my ear ; 
 Fain would I sound it out so loud, 
 That heaven and earth might hear." 
 
 I must explain to you, before I enter upon the illustration of the 
 text, that these words — " Sir, we would see Jesus" — were spoken 
 by some Greeks, who came to Jerusalem to observe the feast of the 
 Passover. They came a great many hundred miles ; for if you have 
 got in your school the map of Palestine or of the journeys of Paul, 
 you may see that Greece is a very long way off from Jerusalem. Now 
 you know, strangers from the country, when they come to London, are 
 anxious to hear the news that is to be heard in this great city ; and one 
 day somebody told these Greeks, while they were in Jerusalem, that 
 there was a very wonderful person about, called Jesus ; that he opened 
 
COME AND SEE JESUS. 293 
 
 the eyes of the blind and the ears of tlie deaf, made the dumb to sing 
 and the lame to walk, and healed all diseases, and a little while before 
 had gone to a village called Bethany, (about the same distance from 
 Jerusalem that Islington is from London,) and there he went to the 
 burying ground, where a friend of his, of the name of Lazarus, had 
 been laid in the grave, and he stood beside it with the tears running 
 down his cheeks, and he actually raised the dead man to life. But, 
 said the Greeks, is this true ? we never heard such wonderful things. 
 Oh ! yes, says one, it is true, for I have a friend that saw the very 
 man that was raised from the dead. Perhaps one comes up at the 
 time — a most respectable man, of excellent character and piety, and 
 says, I saw the man yesterday ; I went to his house to see him, and 
 there was a crowd of people round the door, and at last he came out 
 and showed himself. Oh ! said the Greeks, we should like to see this 
 Jesus ; where can we get a sight of the performer of these mighty 
 miracles ? Then there was just passing by a plain, decent looking 
 man, and some one said — Do you see that man ? that is Philip, one 
 of his disciples. Oh ! said the Greeks, let us go and ask him ; and 
 they went up to him, and said, " Sir, we would see Jesus." We are 
 not told whether they did see him, but there is every probability that 
 they did ; and I trust they saw him, not only as a wonderful man, but 
 as God and man in one person. Oh ! remember, little children, he 
 was not only a man, but he was God and man — man and God ; his 
 humanity was not his divinity, nor was his divinity his humanity, but 
 both were united in one person — God and man — the Savior of lost 
 sinners. 
 
 Now, my dear young friends, I want to show you Jesus to-day. 
 Do you not know he is in London ? A great many saw him yester- 
 day ; hundreds, if not thousands. But they did not see his body ; 
 that is in heaven, and they will not see it till they get there ; they saw 
 him with the eye of the understanding and the eye of faith — saw 
 him in his divinity. And the Lord Jesus in his divinity is here in this 
 chapel — the very Jesus, whose body was nailed to the accursed tree. 
 And I have come this afternoon expressly to show you Jesus ; that is 
 all my business ; I have nothing else to do ; and when I have given 
 you a sight of Christ, I will leave you in his blessed hands. Then you 
 and I shall part ; but I hope, if we do not meet again on earth, we 
 shall meet in heaven. 
 
 I hope you desire to see him. If I were to ask you. Do you wish 
 to see Jesus ? — I hope you would exclaim with one voice, — Sir — 
 Minister — " we would see Jesus." Then, my dear young friends, 
 I say to you, come and see him. Come and see Jesus in Beth- 
 
294 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 lehem ; come - and see Jesus in Egypt ; come and see Jesus in 
 IsTazareth ; come and see Jesus in the temple ; come and see Jesus 
 on the cross ; come and see Jesus in the grave ; come and see Jesus 
 in heaven. 
 
 I. My beloved little children, come and see Jesus in Bethlehem. 
 
 Do you know the meaning of that word ? It is a Hebrew word, 
 and it signifies the house of bread: heth the house, lehem of bread. 
 Is not that an extraordinary name to be given to a town ? I believe 
 that name was given to it, because the Lord Jesus Christ was to be 
 born in that town, and he is bread. Little child, whenever you see a 
 loaf, remember that — Jesus is bread. When I see the little lambs 
 going along the street, I say to myself. Ah ! Jesus is the lamb of God ; 
 and when you see bread, remember Jesus is bread — the bread of life. 
 Bethlehem was called by this name, because he was to be born in it ; 
 it was prophesied that he should, many hundreds of years before, by 
 the prophet Malachi, and therefore it was even then called Bethlehem 
 — the house of bread ■ — and is called so to the present day. 
 
 Bethlehem is six miles south of Jerusalem ; and it is the town where 
 king David was born, and therefore it was also called the City of David, 
 or David's Town. And now let us, in our meditations, take a walk to 
 Bethlehem, and go and see Jesus. 
 
 Suppose we have passed through the gate of the city, and got into 
 one of the main streets ; how shall we proceed ? If we ask where it 
 is that Christ is born, the person we ask very likely cannot tell. Per- 
 haps some little child present is ready to say, Oh ! surely Jesus, the 
 Son of God, must be born in some great palace, more splendid and 
 magnificent than the queen's palace, where she receives her nobles and 
 her ministers of state. Ah ! my young friend, that was not the case ; 
 Jesus was not born in a palace, though he made the heavenly palace. 
 Suppose we go to the chief hotel of the town, and ask if Jesus is born 
 there ; and the porter answers — " No, I do not know such a person ; 
 but I did hear this morning that a poor woman from Nazareth is lodg- 
 ing in that stable with her husband, Joseph, and that a little child has 
 been born there." Then we enter the stable ; I think I am now walk- 
 ing up to the manger; and there, in the manger that holds the food- 
 for the horses and oxen, while they eat it, we see a beautiful babe, and 
 his name is — Jesus. And there by his side sits his mother Mary — 
 a humble, unassuming, pious individual, not the fine lady represented 
 in Popish pictures in the shop windows, dressed out in fine clothes, but 
 a poor woman in coarse attire, though with meekness and gentleness 
 and humility beaming in her eye. There is Joseph too. the supposed 
 
COME AND SEE JESUS. 295 
 
 father of Christ ; but he was not his father — he was only his protect- 
 ing father, raised up to watch over the dear child, during the earlj 
 years of his existence. Oh ! what a sight, my beloved young friends ! 
 Jesus, the babe, lying in a manger. 
 
 There were a number of shepherds that evening conversing together, 
 and praying, and singing hymns, in a beautiful field in Palestine, not 
 far from Bethlehem ; and on a sudden they thought they heard music. 
 The sun was set, and the stars were sparkling in the sky ; but said 
 one, " I think I hear music ; " and said another, " I think I hear it 
 too ; " but so sweet as they never heard before. Then it became 
 louder, till at last there was a full chorus ; and when they lifted up 
 their eyes to the heavens, they saw a multitude of angels, and heard 
 them singing this hymn to the most melodious music — " Glory to God 
 in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." And one 
 of the angels alighted down upon the earth, and came up to them ; 
 the shepherds were all pale with fear, and ready to faint, but the angel 
 said to them, " Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of 
 great joy." 
 
 " ' Ye shepherds go,' the angel said, 
 To Bethl'em's city fly ; 
 The promised infant, bom to-day, 
 Doth in a manger lie." 
 
 There are some venerable looking men going to the stable, with 
 long robes and long beards, and turbans on their heads, and parcels or 
 bundles in their hands. I do not know how many there were of these 
 wise men, but they came from a distant part of the earth, and they 
 went softly and gently up to the manger ; and when they saw the 
 babe, probably upon Mary's knees, they fell down and worshipped 
 him, and they opened their parcels, and one poured into Joseph's lap 
 a quantity of silver, and another a quantity of gold, and others frank- 
 incense and myrrh and precious ointment ; and in one moment Joseph 
 and Mary were put in possession of great property. And the reason 
 was this. Joseph and Mary had a long journey before them ; they 
 must fly outof the town as quickly as possible, for there is a great 
 murderer upon the throne — murderer Herod — and he will send his 
 men of war, his blood-hounds of death ; and if Joseph and Mary do 
 not escape at once, his messengers will soon enter the stable, and 
 plunge the dagger into the bosom of the infant ; so God sent these 
 wise men, with the gold and the silver and the spices, to defray the 
 expenses of a long journey to a country I am about to mention, where 
 they must remain till the murderer is dead. 
 
296 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 II. I ask you, then, next, come and see Jesus in Egypt. 
 
 Egypt, as some of you know, is situated upon the sea called the 
 Mediterranean, or, in the Bible, the great sea. It is a country that is 
 about six hundred miles long, and three hundred broad ; and there is 
 a great river flowing through it, called the river Nile. That astonish- 
 ing river overflows its banks twice a year ; it becomes amazingly large 
 for a short time, and then it becomes small again, and leaves the 
 ground that it had covered exceedingly fruitful, so that it is never 
 necessary to put any manure upon it, and Egypt produces the richest 
 crops. You recollect, that Joseph was in Egypt, and he rose, from 
 being a slave, to be the second person in the land. And you recollect, 
 that the Israelites remained in Egypt between three and four hundred 
 years ; they were very happy at first, but at last they were very mis- 
 erable, because they were all made slaves ; God, however, sent a 
 deliverer to them, called Moses, who led them out of the land, and 
 they escaped from the hand of their enemies. And now the Lord 
 Jesus Christ was taken to Egypt. I cannot teU you how he was con- 
 veyed there, over the deserts of Arabia ; but so it was, he was con- 
 veyed in safety. And I do not know whether any people went with 
 Joseph and Mary ; as far as I know, they went alone ; but I have no 
 doubt angels were with them, and it is probable (though the Bible 
 does not speak expressly upon it,) that they conversed with angels by 
 the way, as Jacob did at Bethel. However, they reached Egypt, and 
 took a httle cottage on the banks of the Nile. I dare say, the idol- 
 atrous Egyptians were very much astonished ; they could not under- 
 stand where they came from, or why they came to that place. They 
 saw they were very decent people ; they paid for every thing they 
 had, and conducted themselves with the greatest propriety ; and I 
 have no doubt the Egyptians went many times to see the Uttle Jewish 
 child, for they are a people that are rather black in the countenance, 
 and they are very fond of looking upon those that are fair, and that 
 come from a more northerly climate ; and Jesus was a beautiful child. 
 I have no doubt many an Egyptian mother came and dandled that 
 child upon her knee ; and we cannot tell but Christ afterwards saved 
 their souls. 
 
 There they remained a little while ; and then an angel came to 
 them, and said — Herod is dead, who sought the young child's life ; 
 and now you may return. So they took farewell of all their neigh- 
 bors, for I have no doubt they lived in good fellowship with them ; and 
 the Egyptians, I dare say, were son-y to part with Joseph and Mary 
 and the beautiful little boy. But they left Egypt, and passed through 
 
COME AND SEE JESUS. 297 
 
 the deserts of Arabia, and at last came to the Holy Land ; and they 
 went to the place where they originally lived, namely, a place called 
 Nazareth ; and there they remained for a very considerable time — 
 till our Savior entered upon his ministry. 
 
 III. Now next, my dear young friends, come and see Jesus in the 
 temple. 
 
 Do you know what a beautiful building the temple was ? I cannot 
 describe it, it was so beautiful. There was first a temple built by 
 Solomon, and that was beautiful, beyond description ; but that was 
 demolished, and there was another temple built by a great and good 
 man called Zerubbabel — a man of very considerable wealth and a man 
 of great piety. That second temple was afterwards repaired by a 
 very bad man ; for bad kings are sometimes great builders, and I have 
 read in a little history, that many of the worst kings have been the 
 greatest builders — built noble cities and magnificent palaces. King 
 Herod was a great monster of wickedness, but he spent an amazing 
 sum of money in beautifying the temple. There is not such a build- 
 ing in all London, as that temple ; Westminster Hall is larger consid- 
 erably ; but in magnificence and splendor and beauty, Westminster 
 Hall, or St. Paul's Cathedral, is a mere hovel compared Avith that 
 temple, so remarkable was it for its elegance and loveliness. It was 
 as white as snow ; it was built of white marble, as white as alabaster, 
 and the stones were twelve feet square. Some of you little boys are 
 the sons of carpenters and masons, and you can take your father's 
 rule to-night, and measure twelve feet in every direction ; that was 
 the size of the great marble blocks of stone, by which the temple was 
 adorned ; and they were as smooth as glass, so beautifully were they 
 polished. Then there was a grand portico to this temple, and over it 
 was the figure of an amazing vine, made of gold ; all the little twigs 
 and branches and leaves were made of sohd gold, and the clusters 
 that were hanging down were made of precious stones ; and when 
 the sun shone upon it, it was truly astonishing to look at. The Greeks 
 and magicians, when they came and stood opposite to it, were amazed 
 beyond description. Oh ! I think I see these country folks looking up 
 to this vine, and wondering at the beautiful golden leaves, and the 
 multitude of clusters of precious stones. And that vile monster 
 Herod, that sought to murder Christ, gave a considerable sura of money 
 towards completing this vine. Some writers tell us, (and it is not un- 
 likely,) that the Lord Jesus Christ was one day standing with his dis- 
 ciples over against this very portico, and they were looking up at this 
 noble vine, and Peter was saying to John, What a wonderful vine that 
 
298 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 is ! — and John was saying to Philip, What an amazing vine it is ! — 
 but Christ said, laying his hand upon his bosom, " Jam the true Vine : " 
 that vine has no life, it is only the resemblance of a vine, "Jam the 
 Vine, and ye are the branches." 
 
 Come and see Jesus in this temple for a few minutes. Come and 
 see Mary carrying him in her atms, along the marble floor, when he 
 was only eight days old ; and Joseph is along with her. Do you see 
 tliat old man, with his hoary locks, and his snow-white beard down to 
 his breast ? I see him now with the eye of my mind. Oh ! what a 
 lovely, gentle face ! — with all its wrinkles it looks so sweet : I never 
 saw such a pleasant old man. Would you like to know his name ? 
 That is the venerable Simeon. He is walking up to Mary ; he cannot 
 walk fast, he has nearly finished his journey ; he is tottering and 
 feeble, but at last he comes up to Mary, and says, " Give me the 
 babe." Mary looks at him, and without any questioning at once takes 
 her beautiful little babe, and lays him down on those old arms ; and 
 then Simeon kisses the child's lovely lips, and presses him to his 
 bosom, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, exclaims — " Lord, now 
 lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for 
 mine eyes have seen thy salvation." And then he gave up the dear 
 little babe to his mother. There was another aged pilgrim, too — an 
 interesting old lady ; it is not said that she took up the child in her 
 arms, but probably she did ; and there she gazed on him with won- 
 der, love, and admiration. 
 
 But now come and see Jesus in the temple again. I have another 
 sight to show you : I must take you into a retired room in another 
 part of the temple — not the great hall. Do you see those twelve old 
 men sitting there in close conversation ? They look like very learned 
 men, and they are learned men, and they are well acquainted with the 
 Old Testament in the Hebrew language ; for that is the language they 
 speak. But who is that sitting in the midst of them — that beautiful 
 lad about twelve years of age ? Oh ! look at his modest countenance ; 
 look at his gentle eye, look at the affection that beams in his face, 
 look at his whole appearance — the perfection of excellence. Observe : 
 he is asking those old men questions ; not with any degree of forward- 
 ness, but with the greatest humihty. He is saying to one, What is 
 the meaning of this ? — and the old learned doctor is quite astonished, 
 and he says to the next, I cannot answer this question, can you assist 
 me ? Oh no, says his friend, I cannot : that is too hard for me. 
 And then that beautiful lad tells him the meaning of the difficult 
 question ; opens it up, and explains it, to their great astonishment, so 
 that one says to another — What a prodigy ! we never saw such a 
 
COME AND SEE JESUS. 299 
 
 prodigy of learning and of wisdom before. But there is a woman 
 entering in the very midst of the conversation, and she says to him, 
 My Son ! That is Mary. For two days she has lost him ; and when 
 she was returning from Jerusalem to Nazareth — what is very strange, 
 and I cannot explain it — for one whole day she had never seen her 
 Son, nor even so much as asked herself, Where is my blessed Son, 
 Jesus ? — and at last, when she went all through the company, (for 
 there were a great number of them walking together,) she found he 
 was not there, and she returned with Joseph to Jerusalem with a heavy 
 heart, saying, " We have lost our Son ; where shall we find him ? " 
 And they went from one street to another, and from one square to 
 another, but they could not see him ; and at last Mary said — Let us 
 go to the temple ; perhaps we shall find him there. Ah ! my dear 
 young friends, if you go to his sanctuary, you will find Jesus there ; 
 this is one of his temples, and he is here to-day. So they went there, 
 and at last they went into the room that I have been describing ; and 
 there they saw him in the midst of the doctors, answering questions 
 and putting questions, and showing that his wisdom was more than 
 man's — that his wisdom was of God. And when his mother asks him 
 to come along with her, he does not resist ; he does not say — I am the 
 mighty Jesus ; mother, go home, and leave me here, for I must remain 
 about my Father's work. No, but he instantly submits himself with 
 great affection ; he says — I had some work to do with these learned 
 and aged men, but now it is done, and I will go home. And so Christ 
 left the temple, and went home to Nazareth. 
 
 IV. Now, in the fourth place, come and see Jesus at Nazareth. 
 
 Should you like to know where Nazareth is ? It is seventy miles 
 north of Jerusalem — about as far as Northampton is north of London. 
 Nazareth is built (for it still remains,) upon the top of a hill ; and there is 
 a valley all around it, and then hills rise again, so that it is on a hill that 
 stands in the middle of a hollow — as if it rose in the middle of a great 
 cup. And this city was in Galilee ; that was the name of the province, 
 or as we should call it, the county or shire ; and it was not far from a 
 beautiful lake of water, perhaps twenty times wider than the Serpen- 
 tine river in Hyde Park. There the river Jordan empties itself; and 
 from Nazareth you could see the beautiful lake, with the fishermen's 
 boats upon it — a most beautiful sight — and there our Savior walked 
 upon the waves. 
 
 We know very little indeed of what Christ did at Nazareth ; but 
 there he remained till he was thirty years of ago, and he worked 
 
300 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 with his father, in his occupation of a carpenter. Oh ! children, be 
 astonished at this amazing thing : the great God, the Architect of the 
 universe, who made the heavens and the earth, dwelUng in the humanity 
 of Jesus, and working at a carpenter's bench for years ! I cannot 
 utter it, without feehug my mind filled with wonder. I dare say, some 
 of you have fathers that are carpenters ; will you remind them to-night 
 that Joseph, the protecting father of Christ, was a humble carpenter, 
 a hard-working man, and Jesus worked at his father's bench, making 
 pieces of furniture for houses — he who by the arm of his omnipotence 
 made the sun and moon and stars. 
 
 But there is one thing more that I must show you in Nazareth. 
 After our blessed Lord had entered upon his pubhc ministry, he 
 thought he would pay a visit to Nazareth again. He did not expect 
 they would receive him kindly ; if I went to my native village, which 
 is in Perthshire, in Scotland, I should expect they would receive me 
 kindly, but the Lord Jesus knew that he should not be welcome at 
 Nazareth, and that the inhabitants would ill use him. He went into 
 their synagogues ; and preached the gospel to them ; and they were 
 so filled with rage, that they gnashed their teeth at him, and not 
 satisfied with unkind and abusive words, coarse and rude language, 
 they laid hold of him, and said — Now we will put him to death ; we 
 will hurl him over the steep precipice by the side of our city. And 
 away they carried him by main force, and rushed like a torrent till 
 they got him to the top of the hill, perhaps fifty feet perpendicular. 
 But just when they were going to throw him over, he escaped out of 
 their hands ; they could not tell what had become of him in the confu- 
 sion, and they looked at one and another with amazement, because they 
 had not succeeded in murdering the blessed Jesus of Nazareth. Oh ! 
 my young friends, may you feel very differently. I think I can read 
 the minds of some of the little children present, and they are saying — 
 If the Lord Jesus Christ came to London in his humanity, I would 
 run to see him, and fall down at his feet, yea, and clasp his feet in my 
 arms and kiss them Hke Mary ; oh ! how I should like to see the 
 blessed Jesus ! My beloved young friends, you will never so see him 
 upon earth ; but if you are holy children, you will see him in his 
 humanity in heaven. These very eyes, that are now rolling in their 
 sockets, and sparkling with lustre, shall see Jesus ; and you may say 
 with holy Job — " Wbom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall 
 behold, and not another." 
 
COME AND SEE JESUS. 3-01 
 
 V. But now, my young friends, come and see Jesus on the cross. 
 This is a dreadful sight ; but you and I must tarry a little at the cross 
 before we part. 
 
 This cross was fixed on Calvary, a httle way out of the city ; and it 
 consisted of a large piece of timber, several feet longer than a tall 
 man, with a piece of wood across it, to which the hands were nailed. 
 Your Savior was nailed to the cross ; and when it made the blood gush 
 out, instead of complaining of the soldiers for being so cruel as to nail 
 him there, he uttered this prayer — " Father, forgive them, for they 
 know not what they do." 
 
 Do you see those three women standing near the cross ? I will tell you 
 their names. The name of the first is Mary ; and the name of the 
 second is Mary ; and the name of the third is Mary. All their names 
 were 3Iary ; and that word signifies bitterness. There was Mary, the 
 mother of Christ ; there was Mary, the wife of Cleopas ; and there 
 was Mary Magdalen. And there was a young man standing beside 
 Mary the mother of Christ ; and his name was John ; and sobbing 
 bitterly, because of the agonies of Jesus her son. And at three 
 o'clock in the afternoon, a wonderful event took place ; your Lord was 
 nailed on the cross at nine o'clock in the forenoon, and at three o'clock 
 in the afternoon (called, in Jewish calculation, the ninth hour,) when 
 Jesus gave up the ghost, the whole sky became dark. What would 
 be your surprise now, if all on a sudden this afternoon the sky were to 
 l)ecome black, and the darkness so great, that you could not so much 
 as see one another, sitting in your pews. Oh ! I think I hear the 
 children screaming, and exclaiming, Surely the end of the world is 
 come. So great was the darkness, that the boldest men among the 
 Jews fell upon the ground in terror. And the very earth shook ; and 
 the graves Avere torn open ; and the veil of the temple was rent in two. 
 
 But yet there is a sweet voice from the cross ; and it is addressed to 
 every little child. And the voice is this : 
 
 " Come, and welcome ; sinner come." 
 
 " From the cross, uplifted high, 
 Where the Savior deigns to die, 
 Wliat melodious sounds I hear, 
 Bursting on my ravish'd ear ! 
 ' Love's redeeming work is done ; 
 Come, and welcome ; sinner, come.' " 
 
 VI. Next, my young friends, come and see Jesus in his grave. 
 
 There was a funeral procession that evenmg ; and it was the funeral 
 of Christ. There are many that keep a certain day, called Good 
 
302 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Friday, to commemorate it ; that was last Friday. There was no 
 hearse with six beautiful black horses, and no undertakers by the side 
 with their black rods tipped with brass, and there was no coflSn. There 
 was Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, and some of their servants 
 or attendants, and some pious women ; and they washed his body, and 
 applied precious ointment to it ; and they wrapped it gently and affec- 
 tionately in a beautiful web of linen, that Joseph had purchased at one 
 of the shops in Jerusalem ; and they took another piece of linen, and 
 wrapped it round his precious face ; and then they carried his body to 
 a beautiful garden belonging to Joseph, where there was a grave, that 
 Joseph had prepared for himself, dug out of a rock. It was a beautiful 
 place, probably more beautiful than the Cemetery at Highgate, which 
 I greatly admire ; it was adorned with citron trees and orange trees ; 
 and a large stone was rolled to the mouth of the grave, and some of 
 the friends of Jesus watched the tomb. Oh ! children, look at those 
 lips which proclaimed the gospel, now silent in death ; those hands 
 which performed miracles, now motionless ; those eyes which beamed 
 with such love and compassion, now silent in darkness ; that side, with 
 an open wound, inflicted by the cruel spear. 
 
 But I have another sight to show you, — and it is lovely and 
 glorious ; come and see Jesus rising out of the grave. Who is that 
 flying through the skies, brighter than the morning star ? It is an 
 angel. Watch his course. He comes down with his golden wings, 
 and he lights at the door of the grave, and in one moment he rolls the 
 great stone from the mouth of the sepulchre, though it is so heavy that 
 it would require a great many men to lift it. And then the blessed 
 Jesus rises. I think I see him coming out of the grave ; oh ! what a 
 lovely, placid, glorious countenance ! Then is fulfilled that wonderful 
 prediction — " death, I will be thy plagues ; grave, I will be thy 
 destruction." And now join with me, my dear little children, in the 
 following lines — 
 
 " Our Loi'd is risen from the dead, 
 Our Jesus is gone up on high ; 
 , The powers of hell are captive led, 
 
 Dragg'd to the portals of the sky." 
 
 VII. Now, lastly, come and see Christ in Heaven. 
 
 Children, if you have the eye of faith, (and some of you have,) 
 look at him. See him on his throne — a throne higher than the highest 
 of heaven's thrones ; see him in robes, brighter than the sun ; see 
 him with his crown, crowned with many crowns of glory. See him 
 with his attendants, millions of angels, myriads of saints, faUing 
 prostrate in his presence. Oh ! what a sight ! Should you like to see 
 
COME AND SEE JESUS. 303 
 
 CUnst in heaven ? If you have any desire to see him in that glorious 
 place, you must receive him ; by the Holy Spirit you must give your- 
 selves up to him, you must love him with all your hearts. Then you 
 will be able truly to join in those beautiful words, that you have often 
 sung — 
 
 " Oh ! how happy we shall be, 
 For our Savior we shall see, 
 Exalted on his throne : 
 
 Oh ! that will be joyful, 
 
 When we meet to part no more." 
 
 And now, my beloved children, before we part, I have a gift to 
 present to you in the name of Jesus. I have not a purse of gold, to 
 give to each of these dear little boys ; I have not a beautiful necklace, 
 to give to each of these dear little girls. I once saw a necklace, 
 consisting of brilliant diamonds, and valued at £70,000 ; I have no 
 necklace to give you, nor bracelets for your arms, nor any earthly 
 honors, or riches, or title deeds of estates, nor any cup of carnal 
 pleasure. But in the name of Jesus, I have something to present this 
 afternoon, more valuable than the heavens themselves. It is a " Pearl 
 of great price ; " it is an " unspeakable gift ; " it is a Savior — Christ 
 the Lord. 
 
 Little boy, Christ says. Receive me ; Little girl, Christ says, 
 Receive me. Christ says — My son, receive me; My daughter, 
 receive me ; Teachers, receive me ; Ministers, receive me ; 
 Visitors and hearers, receive me ; Parents of these children, 
 receive me. Receive me as your Savior ; I gave myself to death for 
 you, and I now give myself to you as your Savior from sin and from 
 hell. 
 
 Oh ! my beloved young friends, answer — (may God the Spirit 
 enable you! Holy Spirit, give them thy grace!) — Jesus, lovely, 
 Jesus, mighty Jesus, merciful Jesus, glorious Jesus, we now receive 
 thee ; thou art ours, ours wholly, ours only, ours for ever. 
 
304 
 
 SERMON XXV. 
 
 man's happiness dependant on his coming to chkist. 
 
 BY REV. timothy EAST. 
 " Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." — John v. 40. 
 
 You have read, I have no doubt, the memoirs of many wise and good 
 men, and I will venture to say that while reading them you never had 
 suggested to your mind any conception that they were anything more 
 than wise and good men, wise and good men compassed with infirmities, 
 who, with all their excellencies, had corresponding defects. Now if Jesus 
 Christ had been only a man, as some say he was, we ought to be able to 
 go through his memoirs without receiving even the slightest impression, 
 from anything that is said of him or by him, that he was anything more 
 than a wise and good man, who, with all his excellencies, to be human 
 should have had some corresponding defects. But this is not the case ; 
 and I feel myself under no moral obligation, much as I respect the 
 claims of justice, to believe any man who can tell me that he has gone 
 through the history of the Savior's life with attention, and never had 
 an impression that he was anything more than a mere man. But how 
 is this ? There is either some grand error in the writer, or the Son 
 of God occupies a rank higher than a mere son of man. Indeed, my 
 brethren, without dwelling on particular words, is it possible that such 
 language as that which I have now read, could have fallen from the 
 lips of a mere man ? Eternal Hfe dependant on an application to him ! 
 — an implied condemnation of eternal woe against every man who does 
 not come to Jesus Christ for everlasting life ! Did ever man speak like 
 this ? 
 
 In illustrating, my brethren, the words of my text, allow me to notice 
 two things : first, that the final happiness of man is made dependant on 
 his coming to Jesus Christ ; and, secondly, strange as it may appear, 
 men will not come to him that they might have eternal life. 
 
 I. I remark, then, in the first place, that the final salvation of 
 man is made dependant on his coming to Jesus Christ. 
 
 Jesus Christ is unquestionably a unique being, diverse from all 
 others, possessing the essential attributes of humanity without the least 
 tinge of imperfection, and the essential attributes of divinity without 
 
COMING TO CHRIST. 305 
 
 any abstraction from their greatness or glory. He is, my brethren, a. 
 being who exists in a condition unlike that of any other being, not a 
 condition either of simple humanity or of simple divinity, but one that 
 combines the attributes of the divine and human nature in his own 
 person. He is thus constituted a Savior able and willing to " save to 
 the uttermost all that come unto God by him." Hence eternal life is 
 made dependant upon a personal application or coming to him. Now 
 this expression " come " is synonymous with believing in him, trusting 
 in him, depending upon him. To sustain the character of a Savior it 
 was necessary that he should suffer, the just for the unjust ; it was 
 necessary that he should give his life a ransom for men, it was neces- 
 sary that his blood should be able to cleanse from all accumulated guilt, 
 and that he should be invested with power to remit the guilt of sins, 
 and to confer the gift of eternal life. To obtain these benefits the 
 sinner is required to come to Christ. It is not a corporeal act ; it is 
 not, my brethren, a mere bowing at the name of Jesus whenever that 
 name is uttered ; it is not a mere speculative assent to the truth of 
 what is stated respecting him ; but it is a personal application in the 
 exercise of an enlightened faith, trusting to him to fulfil the promise 
 on which faith is founded for the hope of acceptance and eternal life. 
 And you will allow me ere I proceed, to ask you a few plain questions 
 in reference to this coming to Christ. My hearers, have you ever felt 
 the guilt of your own sins pressing heavily upon your conscience ? 
 Have you ever perceived that awful abyss of danger to which they 
 have so justly and inevitably exposed you ? Have you ever been 
 brought to feel deep and ingenuous contrition of soul for having sinned 
 against your own conscience, sinned against your own social and spir- 
 itual interest ? Have you ever adopted the piercing language which 
 once fell from the lips of those who were in conscious danger, " Lord 
 save or I perish?" Have you ever felt every other foundation of 
 acceptance moving from beneath your hold, and been convinced that 
 there is no salvation save through faith in the name and mediation of 
 Christ ? These are preparatory convictions, and preparatory convic- 
 tions qualifying a sinner to come to Christ to be saved. Can you adopt 
 the language, with which I have no doubt you are famihar, 
 
 " Other refuge have I none, 
 Hangs my helpless soul on thee." 
 
 Do you trust in Christ ? 
 
 Now the incidents which are recorded in the history of our Lord's 
 life, are recorded for some other purpose, than that merely of instruct- 
 ing us in what he did and how he acted. The incidents to which I am 
 20 
 
S06 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 about to refer embody great principles, and teacb us on what principles 
 he now conducts his mediatorial power and the administration of mercy 
 and of grace to men. Hence, when a sinner came that was blind ; 
 when a leper came that wanted to be cleansed ; when an apphcation 
 was made to Jesus Christ for any cure on behalf of the suppliant, or 
 on behalf of another for whom that suppliant pleaded, Jesus Christ 
 required, as a qualification for the reception of the blessing, an 
 acknowledgment that he was able to confer it. And though, my 
 brethren, some have taken an objection against this requisition on the 
 part of the Son of God, when in the human form, allow me to say it 
 is one of the common-place principles on which human nature every 
 where acts. You go and ask a favor from a friend. Will he confer 
 the favor unless you express a belief that he is able to do so ? Cer- 
 tainly not. An application to an inefficient power could only be regarded 
 as an insult. Hence, Jesus Christ, acting on the common-place princi- 
 ples of human nature, required that any one applying to him for a 
 favor should acknowledge his ability to confer it. And so now, if you 
 wish to be saved by Christ, when you come it must be in a full belief 
 that he can confer salvation. Mistrust renders an application offensive ; 
 a doubt paralyzes the omnipotence of his power. There must be an 
 implicit, an unfeigned assent. He has no objection to exercise mercy 
 towards the guilty, by compromising his own dignity, or letting down 
 the majesty of his power and his glory to a level with the infirmities 
 and impeachments of human frailty and unbelief. There mnst be the 
 admission of power where there is the prayer of penitence. You must 
 come to Christ under a full belief that he is able and willing to save 
 you, not at some remote period, but now. " Lord save or I perish ! " 
 When ? When I feel in the act of perishing — save now by the power 
 of the Savior's love, and the manifestation of his pardoning grace. 
 There is a question that is often mooted, and which cannot, my brethren, 
 be set at rest too speedily, because it is a question which hampers the 
 opinion and very much disquiets the feelings of a sinner who is under 
 the first impressions of guilt. " May I come to the Savior now ? " I 
 am a guilty, worthless, helpless, hell-deserving sinner. May I venture 
 to come to him now ? The question is proposed, my brethren, under 
 an implied belief in the necessity of tarrying till some pi-e-requisites 
 are obtained to induce the Savior to exercise mercy and grace, if not 
 with more facility, at least with more complacency. Now to set the 
 question at rest, so far, my hearers, as your feeliags are concerned, let 
 me ask what qualifies a pauper to solicit relief ? Is it not his neces- 
 sities ? Does the pauper require a small degree of wealth to relieve 
 him from his indigence before he will go and solicit charity from the 
 
COMING TO CHRIST. 307 
 
 benevolent ? No. The poorer he is, the more urgent -will be his claim. 
 Who solicits the exercise of the royal clemency with the most feeling 
 and in the most earnest manner ? The criminal whose life is forfeited. 
 He who is merely under the liability of being transported from his 
 native country for a term of years, has not such an interest in the 
 exercise of mercy as the man whose life is forfeited, whose life belongs 
 to the sovereign power. It is the extremity of the case justifies the 
 urgency and promptness of the appeal. And therefore you, man, 
 if for example, you came into the chapel to-night a hardened sinner, if 
 the last sentence that ever fell frona your lips passed through lips 
 profaned to the exercise of blasphemy, and you should have felt ere 
 this moment arrived that you were a sinner guilty, condemned, lost, 
 ready to perish, you are now in a condition to come to Christ for mercy 
 before the service closes. Your prayer should be, " Lord save me," 
 and your application should be now under the strong impression of 
 conscious guilt, and your dependence should be exclusive. You, 
 man, have as great a warrant to expect mercy and eternal life as the 
 most eminent saint that ever walked in fellowship with God and glori- 
 fied him with his body, soul, and spirit. And when, my brethren, this 
 act is performed, when, that is, a sinner, with a full impression of his 
 guilt and unworthiness, comes to Jesus Christ, penitent, broken-hearted, 
 relying on his promise for mercy and eternal life, expecting that promise 
 to be fulfilled, something is done which is felt to be of importance on 
 account of its immediate and continued influence over the state of the 
 heart. Coming into contact either accidentally or designedly with 
 friends or even with strangers, sometimes leads to results very unanti- 
 cipated and of vast importance. Many a fine character has been 
 ruined by passing an evening amongst strangers. Many a young man 
 has left his home, comparatively innocent, to take a solitary walk, 
 either in the country or along the crowded streets of this city, without 
 any design to form an intimacy, and under no impression that he shall 
 return home different in taste or in desire to what he was when he left 
 it, and yet having left home comparatively pure, he has gone back 
 corrupted. An accidental association with a fascinating stranger, a 
 designed interview with an old friend who has become corrupt, his moral 
 corruption not previously known except to himself, has led to the 
 destruction of a fine social reputation, to health, to peace, and, alas I 
 to ruin for ever and ever. But, my brethren, no intimacy which is 
 ever formed by accident or design, is ever known to produce such a 
 singular effect upon the human character, both the interior and external 
 development of that character, as a coming to Jesus Christ to be saved. 
 What a wonderful effect it has ! What a singular effect was produced, 
 
308 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 mj brethren, upon the exterior of the man who "was placed at the feet 
 of Jesus, to whom Jesus said, in the first instance, " Thj sins are 
 forgiven thee ; " and after that, " Take up thy bed and walk." The 
 man was borne there a paralytic, under the sentence of divine condem- 
 nation ; he walked away in the possession of health and strength, a 
 pardoned sinner, feeling a full consciousness that his sins were forgiven 
 him at the moment the Savior spoke. Here was an effect. It was 
 not a fanciful impression. No ; nor, my brethren, is that a fanciful 
 impression which is produced upon the heart of the sinner, when he 
 comes to Jesus Christ to be saved. Fanciful illusion ! The burden 
 of his guUt is removed ; the disquietude of an uneasy conscience is 
 allayed ; the virulence of decayed passions is quelled ; the fearful 
 apprehension of coming woe passes away ; there is peace in exchange 
 for guilt ; there is tranquillity in exchange for disquietude ; there is the 
 hope of immortality and eternal life for the fearfulness of coming 
 destruction. And I appeal to you, who are as qualified to judge in this 
 question as myself, whether these efforts do not follow, either instanta- 
 neously or gradually, a coming to Jesus Christ to be saved from wrath 
 to come ? And not only, brethren, are these effects produced on the 
 interior state of the man, but there are other effects manifested in his 
 exterior conduct. What makes the drunkard sober ? What is it that 
 induces the Sabbath-breaker to keep holy the day of rest ? What is it 
 that converts the blasphemer into an attendant at prayer meetings, who 
 ofiers up his supphcations and thanksgivings in a simple, concise, and 
 appropriate style of speech ? What is it that causes the old things of 
 evil to pass away, and makes all things to become new ? Here is the 
 secret of the mystery : it is coming to Jesus Christ, believing in Jesus 
 Christ. Hence the efiects following this application decide that some- 
 thing is done which is felt to be extraordinary. And not only so, it is 
 felt to be satisfactory. There are many of the transactions in which 
 human nature is engaged, which entail a vast amount of regret. 
 Sometimes the regret is unfailing, and continues through life ; and 
 where, my brethren, there is no pungent regret, there is often much 
 uneasiness. A thing is done that is not felt to be satisfactory after it 
 is done ; it requires revision and re-adjustment, even if it entail no 
 lasting and painful regret. But these remarks do not apply, in the 
 slightest degree, to an application to Jesus Christ for acceptance and 
 eternal life. When the application is made, and when the result is 
 known, I appeal to you, my Christian brethren, if there be not the 
 highest degree of satisfaction felt ? You feel that something is done, 
 and you are satisfied that something is done ; you never want it revised 
 or undone. The mind feels at ease, and rises at times to transport. 
 
COMING TO CHRIST. 309 
 
 The eye is suffused with tears of gratitude, and the whole soul seems 
 to bound away before the hour of her actual departure, to have 
 impressed upon her imagination that gi'and and sublime scene, when 
 mortality will be swallowed up in life, and eternal bliss will be in actual 
 possession. And, allow me to say, my brethren, in connection with the 
 result of an application to Jesus Christ, that not only is there a high 
 degree of satisfaction, but this satisfaction is never, never disturbed, nor 
 is there the slightest, faintest wish to have this one great occurrence of 
 our life ever broken up and destroyed. There is a beautiful expression 
 of the apostle on this point, which is illustrated by the practical expe- 
 rience of every believer in Jesus Christ. " To whom coming " — not 
 only " come " to Jesus Christ to be saved, but " to whom coming," 
 indicating, what is in fact experienced, that there is a ceaseless inter- 
 course subsisting between a saved sinner and an Almighty Savior. 
 *' To whom coming," for a fresh application of his pardoning mercy 
 and cleansing blood, when the imagination and the heart are defiled by 
 contact with the world; "to whom coming" for fresh mental and 
 spiritual intercourse with him, who is the fountain of life and joy, and 
 the rejoicing of the heart of all who trust and hope in him ; " coming" 
 to have reiterated assurances of protection ; " coming " to have enlarged 
 manifestations of his love. And, brethren, when the last period of 
 mortality arrives, how sacred, how transporting, how full of ineffable 
 delight are the spiritual communings of the soul with Jesus Christ. A 
 friend of mine, who for a series of years had trusted in Jesus Christ 
 for salvation, who had enjoyed a large share of peace, and whose mind 
 possessed the highest degrees of assurance of future happiness, when 
 within a few minutes of her departure, said to her husband, who stood 
 weeping by her side, " My dear, once more kneel down and let us hold 
 fellowship with the Savior together." He knelt and prayed ; he prayed 
 with difficulty. He commended the spirit of his beloved wife to the 
 care of the Lord Jesus, while passing through the dark valley of the 
 shadow of death ; and he arose, and there sat his Avife, with an inimi- 
 table smile upon her countenance, and she said, " I have through life 
 at times enjoyed the presence of Jesus, but never, never, never till this 
 moment, did I feel what the bhss of communion with him is." She 
 smiled again ; her bend fell, and she entered into rest. " To whom 
 coming," till at length he comes and takes the soul to himself that 
 confides in him for eternal life. 
 
 II. But now, my brethren, I have to call your attention to a most 
 melancholy part of the subject, for melancholy it certainly is. It is a 
 part of the subject which I should very much Uke to omit altogether. 
 
310 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 and which I certainly would omit if I were not constrained by a 
 sense of duty, and by a regard for the spiritual interest of those 
 among you who are yet living without Christ in the world, to press it 
 upon your notice. The melancholy part of my subject is, that although 
 eternal life is made dependent on an application to Jesus Christ, many, 
 the majority, the overwhelming majority of those who hear of Christ 
 — (am I warranted in saying, the majority in this congregation ?) will 
 not come to him that they may have life. Perhaps if I were to adopt 
 this last supposition I should exceed the bounds of truth, I never 
 like to be extravagant, and therefore I will suppose that the over- 
 whelming majority of this congregation have come to Christ, and are 
 safe. [There is nothing, then, my brethren, which you have to fear ; 
 you have every thing to hope for.] Nay, I will go beyond the over- 
 whelming majority ; I will suppose that there are only ten pereons in 
 this chapel to-night who have not come to Christ for salvation. If 
 only ten, what an ecstacy of bliss should we feel that there are only 
 ten — only ten — in this congregation yet unpardoned and unsaved ! 
 Did I say what an ecstacy of bliss ? What a torturing agony of soul 
 ought we to feel if there are ten yet under sentence of condemnation I 
 Who are they that constitute the ten in this congregation, yet under 
 sentence of eternal condemnation ? man ! is it thy wife ? 
 woman ! is it thine husband ? father ! is it thy child ? brother I 
 is it thy sister ? If either of these relative associations have brought 
 to your recollection one who may be supposed to form part of this 
 given number, let your prayer now, whilst I am in the act of address- 
 ing you, be, " Lord, grant that my wife, my husband, my father, my 
 brother, my son, my daughter, may receive impressions that shall force 
 them to come to Christ for salvation." " Ye will not come to Christ 
 that ye might have life." No<V, this is a fact that no one can dispute. 
 There are various reasons to be assigned for it. Some are much too 
 proud to come to Jesus Christ to be saved. There is nothing more 
 offensive to the pride of a man of intellect, to a man of high social 
 virtue, to a man who has formed something like a classic taste for 
 Christianity, to a man who is encompassed with the charm of super- 
 stitious impressions and associations, than to be told that he must come 
 to Jesus Christ with the same spirit and the same feelings, and must 
 utter the same language as publicans and harlots and sinners of the 
 most offensive and obnoxious character. It is this that offends the 
 pride of man. He will not do it. No, he will not do it : and per- 
 haps this may be the case with some of you. You are too proud, too 
 haughty, you have too high a sense of your own moral dignity, to 
 perform such a humiUating act as that of coming to Jesus Christ, 
 
COMING TO CHRISf . 311 
 
 breathing the language of the puhlican, and saying, " Lord Jesus, 
 have mercy upon me." This is one reason ; and, my brethren, the 
 truth is, that the social virtues of some people do more to secure their 
 eternal damnation, than do the vices of others. Ah! many a man 
 continues unsaved because he thinks himself too good to be lost. The 
 social virtues lead sinners on to hell by blinding them to that sentence 
 of condemnation which God has pronounced against them for sins com- 
 mitted against himself. And hence the righteous are lost, whilst the 
 wicked, by being brought to penitence and to Christ, are saved. It is 
 for you to decide, who have not yet come to Christ, whether it is the 
 pride of intellect, or the pride of social virtue that keeps you 
 away. It matters not what it is — the issue will be the same. If 
 you do not come you will be lost, and that for ever. 
 
 But sometimes persons assign as a reason why they do not come to 
 Jesus Christ, that they cannot come. They reason in this manner. 
 " I cannot believe ; I cannot apply to Jesus Christ in the right way : 
 I cannot repose confidence in him that shall secure salvation to my 
 soul ; all this requires divine assistance, and I have it not." Then 
 wait. What will you get ? My friend, this is nothing but an inge- 
 nious device, not in your favor, as human nature generally acts, but 
 against your own interest. It is employing the art and contrivance to 
 render the loss of your soul more certain than it would be, by contin- 
 uing in a course of open profligacy ; it is becoming ingenious to render 
 your damnation awfully certain ; it is offering, my brother, an insult 
 to the very first principles of our fallen nature, which teach us that 
 self-preservation is the grand law by which human nature is every 
 where governed ; it is setting this grand law at positive defiance, not 
 to entail misery on others, but to entail eternal misery on yourself. I 
 remarked, my brethren, and I think the remark is a just one, that the 
 incidents which occurred in the history of our Lord's life, are not 
 only so many facts which demonstrate his power and his compassion, 
 but facts which also embody the great principles of his mediatorial 
 administration. To illustrate this, allow me to appeal to another inter- 
 esting incident in his history. There stood in his presence a man with 
 a withered arm ; his hand hung by his side. There he stood ; it was 
 enough for him to stand there. His useless arm bespoke the com- 
 passion of the Redeemer. And what did the Redeemer do, or rather, 
 what did he say ? " Stretch forth thy hand." Now suppose that 
 man had acted as you have ; suppose he had said, " How can I stretch 
 forth my withered arm ? I cannot use it — the use of the muscles is 
 gone. I have no power ; give me power, and then I will move. Per- 
 form an act, and then I will obey the command. Till that is done, I 
 
S12 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 will do nothing." If the man had talked like this, had he lived until 
 this time, his arm would have been hanging by his side, as when he 
 first appeared in the presence of his Redeemer. But no, that man 
 acted upon the principle of self-preservation, which is, in fact, the prin- 
 ciple of self-interest. He made an effort ; he stretched forth his hand 
 and it was healed. Here we see the principle on which the Son of 
 God acts. We are not only invited but commanded to come to him, 
 and when the command is obeyed, the result is secure. " Come unto 
 me," says Christ, "and be ye saved;" but men will not come, and 
 though the reasons why they will not may vary, the issue is precisely 
 the same. And I would say that this refusal to come to Jesus Christ 
 and be saved, is an act so extraordinary that I hardly know how to 
 account for it. It strikes me as something very singular that human 
 nature does not feel a deep and an overpowering interest in making 
 preparation against a future and a changeless state of existence. How 
 is it, my friends, you think of to-morrow ? The child at school carries 
 on his imagination to a period when he shall go to a business or 
 profession. The youth, in passing through the early stages of prepar- 
 ation, carries his mind forward to a time when he shall breathe the air 
 of liberty, and become a master in his own person. The young 
 tradesman, who meets with difficulties and discouragements, passes on 
 to a future stage of existence, anticipates the hour when he shall rise 
 above all which now oppresses, and perchance, as he revels amid the 
 creations of his own fancy, imagines that he shall sit beneath his own 
 vine and his own fig-tree in the eventide of his life, there to enjoy the 
 reward of his early exertions and labors. And who condemns man for 
 this? 
 
 "Man never is, but always to be blest." 
 
 He passes from the present hour to the future, but unhappily bounds 
 his anticipations within the narrow limits of time. It strikes me as 
 marvellously singular that our nature does not pass the grand boundary 
 into futurity, and feel a deep interest in the solution of this question, 
 " What will become of me after fife has been surrendered to the claims 
 of death ? " 
 
 Again, my brethren, when the sin of humanity, and consequent 
 danger, is so palpable that it cannot be disputed, it strikes me as 
 marvellously singular that man does not feel a deep interest in ascer- 
 taining how the sentence can be repealed and his condition changed. 
 I presume that there are some present who have sometimes been at 
 the Old Bailey and attended to the trials of the prisoners. Perhaps on 
 a capital offence you heard the verdict of guilty pronounced and saw 
 the poor felon led from the dock in possession of his life. But it is not 
 
COMING TO CHRIST. 313 
 
 his own ; he lives now for another, and he lives only against the day 
 of execution. His life he holds in trust, not for his own benefit but 
 for the benefit of the injured and violated law of his sovereign. Now, 
 suppose, after attending such a trial as this, after hearing the verdict 
 and seeing the poor man led back to his cell, after waiting the day of 
 execution, hearing the solemn bell toll — the culprit on the platform, 
 his arms tied behind him, the executioner of death busy in performing 
 his official duties, just stepping back to draw the fatal bolt, standing 
 by the side of the sovereign of the empire — suppose you should turn 
 round and ask this question, " Why is that poor unhappy man permitted 
 to die ? " and the sovereign should say, because he will not ask for 
 pardon — that is the reason. Had he done it, he would have lived ; 
 had he done it, I would have repealed the sentence ; had he done it, 
 the execution now just about to take place would never have been 
 witnessed. I have sent to him, I have entreated him, I have urged 
 him, I have promised to restore his life to his possession, and I have 
 promised even to confer superior favors upon him, but no, he chooses 
 death rather than life. What would you say ? The bolt is drawn — 
 the drop falls — there he struggles ; — what would you say ? The 
 man was not only guilty of imbruing his hands in his brother's blood, 
 but he was also guilty of imbruing them in his own, because he would 
 not ask his sovereign to save that life which he had forfeited. He was, 
 therefore, a double murderer, first, for slaying his brother, and secondly, 
 for slaying himself. He dies and he incurs an awfvd amount of guilt 
 by not asking for the life which was forfeited. And I appeal to you, 
 my brethren, if your condition is not exactly analogous, though attended 
 with more awful and appalling circumstances than those with which my 
 imagination has invested this never witnessed scene. Your life is 
 forfeited to the violated laws of your supreme sovereign. Mercy is 
 offered to you : you are commanded to come and accept it. But no 
 — you will not come to Jesus Christ that you might have life. You 
 choose to perish rather than to pray. You choose to live in sin and 
 accumulate fresh guilt rather than to come to him to be saved, who 
 came into the world to seek and to save them that are lost. And 
 should this be your case, my brethren, allow me to say you will never 
 forget your decision, nor will the result of that decision ever be for- 
 given. If you will not come to Jesus Christ for life, you will not have 
 it. There is no intermediate condition between the possession of eter- 
 nal happiness and the infliction of eternal woe. There is no midway 
 ■where the human soul can exist alternately, partaking of an intermix- 
 ture of good and of evil, of misery and of bliss, the one modifying and 
 correcting the other ; for if you neglect this great salvation escape is 
 
^14 THE ENGLISH PUI4PIT. 
 
 impossible. Nor, mj friends, is it necessary that you should summon 
 up your soul deliberately to the determination, " I will not come." 
 You may not come without deciding by any formal act that you will 
 not. I wish you would brace up your mind to firmness here. Come 
 to the decision, " I will not come to Christ to be saved." Follow my 
 advice when you go home. Have you an album ? Write in it, "I 
 will not come to Christ to be saved." If you have not this fashion- 
 able depository of what is pleasing or striking, get a piece of paper 
 that will withstand the mouldering influence of time and write on it, 
 " Date, the 12th of September, 1841, — I will not come to Christ to 
 be saved." Sign your name. Do it — do it to-night, and then retire 
 to rest. Make the experiment — be honest for once. Let your mind 
 see itself and know your own decision. Practice deception on your- 
 self no longer. Courage ! courage ! courage, man ! and then see 
 whether the re-action of your own courage will not intimidate you. 
 Try the experiment whether a firmness in evil will not even shake a 
 determination to live under the awful spell and delusion. But it is not 
 necessary that you should do this formally, though I would rather you 
 would do so than live on as you have lived without coming to Christ, 
 and without thinking about it. If you do not come the issue is certain 
 • — the loss of the soul. A few winters ago, in passing from my chapel 
 to my own house, residing as I do three miles from it in the country, I 
 rode along with the coachman, he had not his lamps, the night was 
 excessively dark, and I looked and could see nothing, all was gloom. 
 I arrived at home in safety, I had my supper ; my family knelt at the 
 altar of devotion, and I retired to rest ; I fell asleep. It will not sur- 
 prise you to hear, my brethren, that ray imagination retained some- 
 what of the impressions I received in passing through this palpable 
 darkness. I dreamt that I was in the dark valley of the shadow of 
 death, and I dreamt that I was there alone. I saw no object to af- 
 fright me, I heard no sound to appall me, but I was alone ; I was alone 
 in a strange place ; I was alone, and the strangeness of the place, its 
 awful stillness awoke me, and tears of joy fell from my eyes to think 
 it Avas only a dreara, nothing more than a dream. 0, man, to you, 
 dying without coming to Christ for salvation, it will be a reality, not of 
 stillness, not of unbroken quietude — no ! hell from beneath will 
 move to meet you at your coming. The lost soul will sink for ever 
 and forever among lost spirits and devils. To you it will be a reality, 
 and this issue as it will be a reality, so it will not be forgiven. " Think 
 not," says Jesus Christ at the close of this chapter, " that I will ac- 
 cuse you." No, it will not be necessary for Jesus Christ to accuse 
 
COMING TO CHRIST. 315 
 
 you on your passing into the eternal world. If jou die under the 
 sentence of condemnation, and are lost, you will accuse yourself. 
 
 I was engaged the other evening in conducting a reHgious service 
 at West Bromwich ; it was on Tuesday evening. The minister of the 
 place, just before the service commenced, said, " Last Sabbath morn- 
 ing, sir, in that pew sat one of my hearers, looking unusually well ; 
 but he is dead, sir ; he died this morning, suddenly." Ah, my friends, 
 as you have never died, you think that you never shall. If you had 
 experienced this great event, and were permitted to step back into 
 life to correct the errors of which you have been guilty, you would 
 learn wisdom from experience. But no, death has never come, Bnd 
 therefore you think it is yet at a remote distance. This may be the 
 last Sabbath you will ever Uve, the last service you may ever attend, 
 the last appeal you may ever hear. You may go home, and ere to 
 morrow you may be in eternity. And if it should be the case, will 
 you forget this scene ? If it should be the case, will you ever forgive 
 yourself ? Will you not have to reproach yourself fol'ever and ever ? 
 Suppose, my friends, excuse the extravagance of the conception, sup- 
 pose you had existed before you came into being, and suppose that you 
 then had permission to elect the condition in which you should exist, 
 and suppose that, owing either to a want of reflection or to your not 
 taking the advice of wisdom, you had elected a condition of degrada- 
 tion and of wretchedness, so that you had lived all through life a poor 
 instead of a rich man, a man in sickness, instead of a man in health, 
 would you ever have forgiven yourself? Would you not from the 
 dawn of reason to the close of life, have reproached yourself with hav- 
 ing made such a choice, instead of taking the advice of wisdom ? Yes, 
 you would have said, " It is my own fault, I elected the condition of 
 existence ; I have what I chose." It is an awful choice indeed, 3'our 
 own life or death for ever is now placed before you — decide, decide, 
 my friend — decision is your own act. Make a wrong choice, you 
 will not only never forget it, you will never forgive it. And for a man 
 to sin against himself, to ^place himself in a condition where the exer- 
 cise of mercy on himself is absolutely impossible, will be to give an 
 additional pang to every sensation of remorse, and a keener despair in 
 a condition from which nothing will ever be able to release him. 
 that the God of all grace may breathe upon your spirits to-night, for 
 the Redeemer's sake, Amen. 
 
316 
 
 SERMON XXVI. 
 
 THE WISDOM OF WINNING SOULS. 
 
 BY REV. JAMES SHERSIAN. 
 "He that winneth souls is wise." — Proverbs xi. 30. 
 
 Behold, teachers, your -work ! It is to " win souls." Behold the 
 encomium put upon that work ! " ^e that winneth souls is wise." 
 And this is an encomium, pronounced by lips which cannot err, and by 
 one who never flatters. 
 
 You are some of the representatives of the schools of Britain, which 
 contain within their number more than two millions of these souls. To 
 you is entrusted their religious training, the formation of their charac- 
 ters, their habits, and their hopes. Oh ! how responsible — how tre- 
 mendously responsible is the position, which some persons occupy ! 
 The eyes of the church are directed to you, as instruments of pour- 
 ing new blood into it, when it is exhausted — of planting young trees, 
 from your nurseries, in the vineyard of the Church. The eyes of the 
 Church are upon you, to bring about such a state of things, in the 
 coming generation, as shall introduce the millennium, and make the 
 earth once more God's paradise. And if you are faithful to your 
 trust, God shall honor you with this exalted result — " He that win- 
 neth souls is wise." 
 
 The timid and the fearful may, therefore, be greatly encouraged in 
 their work, by this statement ; and I hope I may hereafter be able, in 
 the course of this sermon, to show, that although they may not now see 
 the wisdom or fruit of their exertions, God shall show both, by-and-by. 
 
 Brethren, the times indicate a remarkable fulfilment of that proph- 
 ecy — "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be in- 
 creased." Science and literature never had so many patrons, as they 
 have now ; real reUgion never had so many friends, as she has now, 
 notwithstanding the declensions visible in some churches, and in some 
 individuals. Everything seems progressing, with remarkable rapidity, 
 to a crisis or conclusion, of a remarkable character. And those are 
 wise, in Scripture estimation, who aid this great progression, as it is 
 going forward. 
 
 He who helps others, by schemes and inventions, to grow wealthy, 
 is reckoned wise in his generation ; he who first made a locomotive 
 
WISDOM OF WINNING SOULS. 317 
 
 engine, and brought railways to perfection, to accelerate our speed, 
 from one place or country to another, was thought wise in his genera- 
 tion ; he who imparts learning to youth, to fit them for usefulness to 
 man, and for holding important situations in the government, is justly 
 honored as wise ; he who heals disease, restores health, and prolongs 
 life to individuals, is sought after, as one who is wise ; and the indi- 
 vidual, who lives for the purpose of restoring that to a sorrowing suitor, 
 which fraud has taken away from him, is estimated by the man, when 
 he puts his foot on, as he thought, his once forfeited estate, as one of 
 the wisest men in the world for him. 
 
 Now all these things are united in your own characteristic. Your 
 object and your labor, if you understand it aright, is to win the soul. 
 You are to teach that soul how to grow rich ; your invention is to be 
 taxed, to accelerate it in its speed from earth to heaven ; you are to 
 instruct it, in the great, wondrous, and almighty science of salvation ; 
 you are to administer gospel remedies, to heal its moral maladies, and 
 to prolong its joyful days ; and you are to restore it to " an inherit- 
 ance," that is " incorruptible, and undefiled, and fadeth not away, 
 which it hath lost, and to carry the case from court to court, till you 
 see that soul settled in Canaan for ever. God, what wisdom, what 
 grace, what zeal, and what help from thee, does such a work as this 
 require ! He, my brethren, is no teacher, who does not aim at this ; 
 he does not deserve the name of a teacher. 
 
 Teachers, I want you not to aim at anything new ; neither shall I, 
 in the address, which I am about to deliver to you, — but shall simply 
 endeat or to put you in remembrance of the great things, which you 
 have in hand, and the great duties, which you have to perform. Pray 
 for me, and pray for yourselves, that your reward and your work may 
 both vividly appear before you. 
 
 I shall therefore ask your attention, first, to the subjects, about 
 whom you are to be unspeakably interested : " souls," human souls, 
 young souls. Secondly, I am to point out to you the manner in 
 which that interest is to be expressed ; you are to endeavor to 
 " win souls." And then, thirdly, I will endeavor to place before 
 you the estimate which God puts upon all eiforts, thus exercised, 
 for the accomplishment of this purpose : " He that winneth souls 
 is wise." 
 
 I. First, let us look at the subjects, about whom you are to be un- 
 speakably interested. They are " souls." 
 
 Let us now look at what a soul is, in three aspects. 
 
318 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 1. Let US now look at it, first, in its structure. It is a living thing, 
 distinct and separate from the body. Matter is -wholly passive ; it can- 
 not act, or move, or think, without this vital spirit. " The body, with- 
 out the spirit, is dead." Take mere matter, compound it, alter it, 
 and divide it, as you will, yet you cannot make it see, or hear, or feel, 
 or think rationally. But though the soul acts with the body, it is dis- 
 tinct from the body ; for Dives was in hell, while his body was carried, 
 in state and pomp, in the funeral ; Lazarus was resting in Abraham's 
 bosom, while the poor, wretched carcase was cast out to the dogs, who 
 had formerly " Hcked his sores ; " the penitent thief was with Christ in 
 paradise, while his body was suspended on the cross ; and this has 
 been, and will be, the comfort of the saints, as long as the earth lasts, 
 that when they are " absent from the body," they are " present with 
 the Lord." 
 
 The human soul is spiritual and immaterial ; it is not compounded, 
 or made up of the most subtle matter ; it cannot be touched, or han- 
 dled, or divided, as bodies can. " Handle me and see," said Christ, 
 " for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." 
 
 It is immortal, and cannot be destroyed ; it has no seeds of death 
 within it, as our bodies have. Corruption, it is true, afflicts the soul, 
 spoils its beauty, and damages its powers ; but it cannot reduce it to 
 its original nothing. A soul has a beginning, but no end — a birth- 
 day, but no dying day. 
 
 Its powers and capabilities are some of the most wonderful things, 
 which ever could engage our imagination. Why, what can a soul do ? 
 It can ascertain the relative size, nature, and properties of all the won- 
 ders of creation — from the monad, several millions of which may be 
 found in a single drop of Avater, to the behemoth, which destroys men 
 and cattle, and the varied productions of the earth ; it can mount up 
 to heaven, and ascertain the motion of the planets, foretell the eclipses 
 of the sun and moon to a second of time, count the stars, and discern 
 the system, by which they are governed : it can invent the most inge- 
 nious and useful productions, for the service of man, and even for the 
 destruction of its own species ; it can penetrate the secrets of hidden 
 nature, and abstract from the bowels of the earth the greatest riches 
 and wonders ; it can trace, survey, and enjoy the beauties, the won- 
 ders, and the glories of redeeming love ; it can hold fellowship with 
 the Deity, as a man holds fellowship with his friend ; it can revolu- 
 tionize the feehngs, and hopes, and joys of myriads of individuals, and ^ 
 turn the world upside down, in its tendencies, and in its actions ; it 
 can make the men, who by vice have become like demons, by its 
 agencies and instructions, act like the sons of God, and the friends of 
 
WISDOM OF WINNING SOULS. 319 
 
 heaven ; and above all this, it is capable of an immediate vision from 
 Almighty God, of living in the presence of God, and of serving him 
 in his temple, for ever and ever. 
 
 A man's soul is his all. Take this from him, and he is but a life- 
 less, and soon becomes a formless mass of corruption itself. Or let its 
 powers be deranged, so that he is an idiot or a lunatic ; and what is 
 the man then ? Nay, only derange its comforts, and let anxiety prey 
 upon the spirit ; and what is he then ? His soul, in its powers and its 
 influences, is his all — the chief part, the honor, the dignity, and the 
 glory of man. 
 
 Now this is the object, about which you are to be interested. Is it 
 not worthy of your interest ? 
 
 2. And come from a view of its structure, to view it, secondly, in 
 its lost estate. Our Savior says, that this soul is lost. " What shall 
 it pront a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " 
 Then it is capable of being lost ; and if it continue in its present state, 
 it is lost." " The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which 
 was lost." Hence he describes himself under the figure of a shep- 
 herd, going over the mountains, seeking for a lost sheep, and rejoicing 
 when he has recovered his sheep. 
 
 Originally, mark, this soul was a pure spirit ; it was created in the 
 perfect image, and living hkeness of its Creator, " in righteousness and 
 true holiness ; " but now it has lost this holiness, and has nothing but 
 impurity. " Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul- 
 teries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies : these are the 
 things which defile a man." It has lost its innocence, and now has 
 nothing but impurity. " Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, mur- 
 ders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies : these 
 are tlic things which defile a man." It has lost its innocence, and 
 now has nothing but guilt ; for " all the world is condemned before 
 God." It has lost its wisdom, and now has nothing but ignorance ; 
 " being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is 
 in it." It has lost its communion, and has now nothing but distance ; 
 " far from God, by wicked works." It has lost its comfort, and has 
 now nothing but fear ; " my flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I 
 am afraid of thy judgments." It has lost its paradise, and has now 
 nothing to look forward to, but hell ; for " the wicked shall be turned 
 into hell, and all the nations that forget God." 
 
 And here let no teacher say, " These passages and applications may 
 do very well for adults, but what have they to do with children ? " 
 Thus much have they to do with children : " Death hath reigned over 
 all, even those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's 
 
320 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 transgression." And see the evil passions of children ; see, almost as 
 soon as thej can talk and walk, what proof thej give you of their 
 having lost souls ! I undertake not to tell you, (and perhaps you will 
 not require me,) when the responsibihty of a child commences ; that is 
 a question with which we have nothing whatever to do ; God will settle 
 it with you, and with the world, by-and-by ; it is no part of your work ; 
 therefore leave it entirely with him. You have proofs that they have 
 lost the image and likeness of God ; and that is the great thing which 
 you have to bear in mind. 
 
 Now behold, in the entire school to which you belong, there are five 
 hundred lost souls to excite your sympathy ; souls, which if they be not 
 regenerated and pardoned, must perish for ever ; souls, once the temples 
 of God, but now in ruins — once decorated over with all the emblems 
 of righteousness and glory, but now defaced and dishonored ; souls, 
 which have not lost a single fragment of their powers, though those 
 powers are deranged, and therefore lost to the original intention of their 
 creation. And what was that ? To serve and please God. To this 
 great end they are lost ; " they are all gone out of the way ; there is 
 none that doeth good, no, not one ; " "I was shapen in iniquity, and 
 in sin did my mother conceive me." Can a heart take a glance over 
 a school, feeling this great fact, and not compassionate the case of a 
 soul? 
 
 3. Then, thirdly, take another view of these subjects ; look at them 
 as capable of being recovered. Blessed be God, a lost soul is not past 
 recovery, while it remains upon the earth. That child, which is so 
 wayward, and gives you so much trouble — that boy, about whom your 
 anxieties are excited, and who seems to be fast arriving at manhood, 
 and developing all the powers of his mind, more like a devil than a 
 man, — is not hopelessly lost. Oh ! the comfort of this thought ! 
 
 Let us ask the question — "Wherewith shall I come before the 
 Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? shall I come before him 
 with burnt oflferings, with calves of a year old ? will the Lord be pleased 
 with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? shall I 
 give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the 
 sin of my soul ? " No ; this is too low a price for the soul, to restore 
 it. " We are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold," 
 of which there is abundance in the earth. No, that is not enough : 
 God's justice cannot be satisfied with a bribe ; his law must be vindi- 
 cated, his righteousness acknowledged, and his attributes, in their glory, 
 proclaimed throughout all worlds ; and therefore the scheme of redemp- 
 tion is his own. 
 
 I am afraid we get into the habit of repeating passages to the chil- 
 
TVTSDOM OF WINNING SOULS. 321 
 
 dren, and to ourselves, and hearing them from the pulpit so often, till 
 we forget their value and their sweetness. Now strive, teachers, to 
 enter into this passage, and to feel its force to-night : " God so loved 
 the world, that he gave his onlj-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
 in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Here the claims 
 of justice are not sacrificed at the shrine of mercy, and here the cries 
 of mercy are not powerless at the shrine of justice ; " mercy and truth 
 meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other." " Christ 
 hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for 
 us." And what then ? " We joy in God, through Jesus Christ, our 
 Lord, by whom we have received the atonement." 
 
 How, then, is a soul saved ? By believing in, relying on, and ac- 
 cepting this atonement — by having it so presented and so applied, that 
 it shall welcome it, as a remedy to his own state. Not making an 
 atonement ; (never teach your children that) — that is done for ever, 
 and done completely. All the child has to do as well as yourself, is, 
 to receive what God has provided, and accept the remedy, which his 
 mercy has prepared ; and after he has received the one, and accepted 
 the other, he loves the atonement, delights in it, is pleased with it, and 
 instrumentally strives to save and to bless others, as he himself has 
 been saved and blessed. And when the race is run, heaven is regain- 
 ed, and the soul enters into it, to live with God, who has thus saved 
 it, for ever and ever. 
 
 Teachers, your work is, to present that atonement. God forgive 
 you, if you do not do it, or if you put it into the background, in any 
 way ! This is the good news, the glad tidings, which fills the souls of 
 men with hope and joy — that " Christ Jesus came into the world, to 
 save sinners." Give it, in its fulness and freeness, to the children ; 
 talk about it to them , till you feel your own hearts glowing with love 
 to Him who accomplished it, — and then you warm others, with the 
 very warmth of your own, as you sensibly enjoy it. 
 
 Teachers, this is your work — to try to win this soul ; to set before 
 it that remedy, and to win that soul to accept and rejoice in that 
 Savior. Do you not think you are greatly honored ? 
 
 II. But I now pass to the second part of my discourse, and will 
 endeavor to show you the efforts which you are to make for these sub- 
 jects. " He that winneth souls is wise." 
 
 Let us now apply this " winning," both to the mamier and to the 
 result. 
 
 1. Let us look at it, first, as to the manner, in which we are to win 
 these souls. To " win " suggests something more than mere labor. 
 21 
 
322 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 To " win," a thing, implies the exercise of ingenuity, as those who win 
 at a game of play ; a certain power, as those who win by conquest ; 
 an adaptation of the best means suited to the object, as those who win 
 compUance by persuasion ; an indomitable perseverance, as those who 
 will never give up a conquest, till they have obtained the victory ; and 
 a rule and order, by which you are to proceed, as legal and prescribed, 
 in order that you may win the crown, that is set before you — "for a 
 man is not crowned, unless he strive lawfully." So, then, you are to 
 win. 
 
 And if you will do this aright, the first thing you have to do, in 
 order to win their souls, is to win their attention. Ingenuity may 
 honorably tax itself here. Your voice, your manner, your habits, if 
 you would be good teachers, must all be adapted to win. If your 
 voice is not good, you must aim, as Demosthenes did, to make it bet- 
 ter ; who went to the sea-shore, while the winds were roaring and rag- 
 ing, and recited his themes there, with pebbles in his mouth, to cure 
 his impediments. If your habits are rough or uncourteous, you must 
 mend them, if you would be good teachers. If your manner of teach- 
 ing is not that which impresses your own mind, as best adapted to im- 
 press the mind, and catch the heart of a child, that manner must be 
 improved, from good patterns, which are presented to you. Do not 
 look at these patterns with an evil eye, and with jealousy, but stoop to 
 imitate, wherever they are good and excellent, and you shall find the 
 advantage of them. 
 
 Children are not stones or ciphers ; they are naturally lively. We 
 always think there is something the matter with children, when they 
 sit down by themselves all day, and do not open their mouths and 
 prattle to those around them. Who would wish a child's tongue to be 
 still, or its hmbs to be fixed ? And therefore instniction, to win, must 
 be adapted to their habits. Dull, cold, prosy, long lectures to a child ! 
 Why, teachers, if you attempt this mode, half your time in your class 
 will be taken up by telling the children to sit still, not to be fidgety, 
 and not to move about. They cannot help it ; you are lulHng them 
 into this very state, by your dry manner. 
 
 Oh ! sirs, there is much tact, as well as learning, required to win 
 the attention, especially of a child. Go to an Infant School, and see 
 the methods adopted there. What little child, that can walk; feels 
 weary ? Everything is adapted to its capacities ; its attention is kept 
 awake, and it learns lessons, and has precepts, and psalms, and hymns 
 there impressed upon its memory, which teaching by no other means 
 can accomplish. I am not saying this as exactly adapted to Sunday 
 School instruction ; but tliis mode must be the most useful, for it is the 
 
WISDOM OF WINNING SOULS. 323 
 
 first which David prescribes : " Come, ye children, hearken to me." 
 Get their attention, and you are in a ready way to get their souls ; 
 win their ears, and it is one of the doorways into their hearts. 
 
 Then, secondly, in order to apply this, as to the manner, you must 
 win their affections, as well as their attention. Love does wonders. 
 If you gain the heart, you have, naturally enough, the key to the 
 understanding. A teacher is not likely to win a soul, whose love he 
 does not win. Do you ever write a senior scholar letters, and letters 
 in good English, well spelt, and not badly written ? Letters remain. 
 A child has a letter — a postman comes to the door, with a letter for 
 Master Johnson, or John Thomas, or Sarah Speedwell, from the 
 teacher ; oh ! the little document is treasured up by the child, as 
 something particularly precious ; and it is its own. How the news 
 goes through the house directly — ' I have got a letter from my 
 teacher ; ' and it is read, and read, and read again, till the sentiments 
 contained there find their way to that child's heart. It shows the 
 child that there is one interested in its everlasting blessedness. Ah ! 
 when they can say, ' See what an interest my teacher takes in me ! ' 
 You know what the effect would be upon yourselves. There is some 
 one of your friends takes a particular interest in you ; and what is the 
 consequence ? A corresponding feeling in your own heart, a natural 
 going forth of your heart towards that individual. Would you, then, 
 gain the souls of children ? You must win their affections. 
 
 And then, in the next place, you must win their judgment. Your 
 office is to teach them spiritual things, — how they may be pardoned, 
 regenerated, sanctified, and saved. You must endeavor, then, to win 
 their approval of these blessings, by showing them their guilt and 
 danger, and their destruction without them ; and for this purpose, you 
 must ransack the Scripture of all its similes, its stories, its illustrations 
 of the true effects of their fall, and make them all contribute to your 
 help. Then place before them the necessity of Christ's sacrifice, its 
 merit, and its blessedness — that it has appeased wrath, and satisfied 
 justice on their behalf ; and the love of Christ and the Spirit, as ready 
 to save them. Faith will yield, if they do but embrace these things. 
 And do not be inclined to think, when a child sometimes seems dull, 
 as you are stating these truths, that your labor is lost : impressions are 
 often made, when least suspected, and revived after certain seasons, 
 when it was supposed they were long since buried. 
 
 Then, fourthly, win their confidence. If a child can say, by seeing 
 the habits of the teacher, ' My teacher wants to do me good,' the 
 impression of that child will naturally lead to confidence in that 
 teacher. It is said of Mr. Whitefield, that individuals went to hear 
 
824 THE ENGLISH PULPJT. 
 
 him preach, who were careless about the docti'ines which he preached ; 
 but every one that w^ent to hear him seemed to go away with the im- 
 pression — That man wants to do me good. Display the exercise of 
 authority, and it will not teach the children to comply ; but only let 
 them know, that you pray and watch over them, and delight in the 
 work, and that it will be a happiness and an honor to see them saved 
 with yourselves, and God shall crown these eflforts. It will be the 
 readiest way to win their souls. 
 
 Oh ! what an opening this gives to win them ! They are easily led, 
 by those in whom they confide ; just as we are, if we have confidence 
 in our friends' wisdom or kindness. They may say anything to us, 
 and it is almost an oracle to us ; we are led on almost by what they 
 say. And children of larger growth feel this efiect unconsciously. 
 
 Fifthly, if you would win their souls, you must win their habits. I 
 do not know whether you have been as much impressed, as the preacher 
 has been, with the word which Solomon uses, with respect to instruc- 
 tion: " Train up a child in the way he should go." Not only instruct 
 a child, because an officer in the army may instruct a recruit to no 
 purpose ; but training that recruit is drilling him to habits of exercise. 
 Now this is the difference. 
 
 It is very hard work to enforce those habits, which are proper for 
 children ; for as soon as they leave you, where, perhaps, they have 
 only two hours' instruction, on a Sunday afternoon, they probably go 
 home to their wicked parents and friends, and the impression of the 
 Sabbath's instruction is soon swept away. And how little power the 
 Sunday School Teacher has, in the time which is allotted for instruc- 
 tion, if he use even the best means in his power, to train these minds 
 into proper and suitable habits ! 
 
 Yet you must aim constantly, at training them to habits of obedience 
 to yourself, and of obedience and regard to parents ; and repeatedly 
 must these be insisted upon. Train them to a fondness for God's 
 house, or places where they hear the truths of the gospel delivered ; 
 train them to forethought, and to prudence in their general habits, and 
 to economy in life. I think that in the South, we are very much be- 
 hind the North, in some societies which they have, arising, probably, 
 from children being there, in factories, in much larger numbers 
 than we can find them in London or its suburbs. Among them, 
 little societies, of various kinds, are established ; such, for instance, 
 as a little subscription for funerals, for so much to be allowed 
 them a Aveek, when they are sick, or for so much to be given, when 
 one of them dies. And this breeds a social disposition among the 
 children, and takes away a great portion of that selfishness, which 
 
WISDOM OF WINNING BOULS. 325 
 
 exists in a very large proportion in all our liearts, and teaches them to 
 care for one another, as well as provide for themselves, to a very great 
 extent. 
 
 Habits of this kind have, I think, a wonderful ejQFect upon their 
 minds, as they grow up in life ; the children perceive the temporal, as 
 well as the spiritual interest, which the teacher took in them, while he 
 was among them. And just now, when societies are rising up almost 
 everywhere, one would be delighted to see a society for the promotion 
 of provident habits in children. I hope the teachers will endeavor to 
 inculcate the habits I have mentioned on their children, if they would 
 effectually win souls. 
 
 2. But I have been too long upon this portion of my subject. I 
 said, however, I would look at it in another aspect ; and that is, the 
 result of winning a soul. 
 
 A soul won, is won for Christ. It is a reward for his toil ; it is a 
 fruit of the application of his redemption. He 
 
 " looks dowu and sees 
 
 The purchase of his agonies." 
 
 Formerly, it belonged to Satan, and was giiided and ruled by him ; 
 but now it is Christ's, and now it loves its master, and does his work. 
 Oh ! how the master rejoices when the first tear of sincere repentance 
 falls from their eyes ! " There is joy in the presence of the angels of 
 God," (that is, Christ rejoicing, while the angels surround him,) " over 
 one sinner, that repenteth." Every soul won, then, is an addition to 
 Christ's friends, and a loss, of course, to the kingdom of Satan. Who 
 that loves Christ, would not aim at this ? 
 
 Again ; a soul won, is won for the church. The church is a body 
 of believers, who meet to worship their Lord, to imitate his conduct 
 and example, and to uphold his kingdom in the world. A soul, for- 
 merly full of cursing, or bitterness, or indifference, or irreligion, now 
 full of praise to his divine master ; a spirit, previously " earthly, sen- 
 sual, devilish," now " set on things which are above " — his habits 
 sinful, now righteous — once " darkness," now " light in the Lord " 
 
 — once far from God, now "brought nigh, by the blood of Christ" 
 
 — once, a " stranger and a foreigner," now a " fellow-citizen with the 
 saints, and of the household of God " — now, perhaps, teaches in the 
 same school with you. Now he walks with God, and the church has 
 gained a friend, when the soul is won. Oh ! glorious object ! 
 
 A soul won, is won for the world. Why, when a child is converted, 
 it is like taking a handful of salt, and casting it into the world, to pre- 
 
326 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 serve it from putrefaction ; it is like setting up a new lightliouae, on a 
 dangerous shore, to warn mariners to keep off; it is like " a citj set 
 upon a hill, which cannot be hid," that others may gaze upon it ; it is 
 like dew, falling from heaven, in the midst of many people, to bless 
 them, and make them happy ; it is a peace-maker, cast among the 
 wranglers and contentionists of the world ; it is a guide, for wanderers 
 to the celestial city ; it is a watchman, to warn men away from the 
 danger, which is hurrying them to perdition, and to give them notice 
 of the fires of wrath to come, which are to devour the Lord's adver- 
 saries ; it is a winner of souls to God. You yourselves have won him, 
 and out he goes into the world, to win others. 
 
 Again : a soul won, is won for yourself. Is not this a rich reward 
 for the nights you have sat up, for the candles you have burnt, for the 
 sleep you have lost, for the recreation you have given up, to study 
 God's book, and to prepare yourself in order that you might infuse 
 good principles into that mind ? Will it not be a blessed reward, when 
 they are gathered to Christ ? " Ye are our glory and our joy," says 
 the apostle ; and he says elsewhere — " Ye are our crown of rejoicing, 
 in the day of the Lord." Yes, and Jesus Christ counts those precious 
 souls, that honor him, worthy of better honor — those who are aiming 
 at, and are successful in his blessed work. " They that turn many to 
 righteousness, shall shine as the stars, for ever and ever." When 
 you, in robes of glory,' present them in your Master's presence, and 
 say — " Here am I, Lord, and the children whom thou hast given me," 
 for whom I prayed, and toiled, and labored, and sacrificed, from love 
 to thy precious self, who had saved my soul ; to see him smile upon 
 you, and say, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
 these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," — they will be the 
 words that will enter into your very soul, the joy of which you shall 
 never lose, while eternity itself lasts. 
 
 III. And now I am brought to the third part of my discourse, upon 
 which I must be very brief ; the estimate which God forms of such 
 efforts for souls, " He that winneth souls is wise." And this term 
 seems peculiarly appropriate to such efforts as these. 
 
 1. First, observe, that winning souls corresponds with the conduct 
 of God himself. You are doing the very thing, which God himself is 
 doing, when you are living for this purpose. God the Father is con- 
 stantly engaged in this work of winning souls. All his providences, 
 all his ordinances, all prosperous and all afflictive dispensations are 
 intended to draw men to himself. " No man can come unto me, unless 
 the Father, which hath sent me, draw him." God the Son, by the 
 
WISDOM or WINNING SOULS. 327 
 
 preaching of his gospel, the exhibition of his work, and the influence 
 of his love, is ahvavs at the same work. " I, if I be lifted up, will 
 draw all men unto mc." God the Spirit, by impressions, by con^dc- 
 tions, and by instructions, aims perpetually at the same work. " Draw 
 me ; I will run after thee." " Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, 
 to-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." 
 
 Here is infinite wisdom engaged in winning souls, and having for 
 its object, in all its plans and purposes, the winning of precious souls ; 
 and you, beloved, are coadjutors with God, and co-workers with the 
 Deity, in winning souls. Behold how he strives, and bears with men, 
 repeating his instructions to them, and giving them stroke upon stroke, 
 to endeavor to recover their hearts, and win them back unto himself! 
 Lo ! you go forth with the same object. Oh ! you are wise indeed, 
 if you are a worker with him in this. 
 
 2. It furnishes these souls with real happiness and usefulness ; and 
 therefore they must be wise, that attempt it. " This is life eternal, 
 to believe on thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou 
 hast sent." Pardon, peace, joy, salvation, you are giving to those 
 children — things wliich no wealth could buy, which nothing could 
 compensate for the loss of, and which they must have or perish. By 
 it they are brought into God's family : this is bliss. Why, you could 
 do nothing more wise, as patriots, than to introduce men into happi- 
 ness. 
 
 Tell me, my brethren, what happiness your soul has, when it once 
 comes into this blessed state I have mentioned ; when it knows that its 
 sins are forgiven, when it comes into the presence of God, and enjoys 
 the fellowship of God, your Sav?or. Is not this happiness ? And 
 suppose every child in a class, or in a Sunday school, throughout the 
 world, were converted ; suppose all the talents of these children were 
 employed for the Savior, — how useful, as well as how happy, would 
 the world be! 
 
 Conversion gives a child sympathy, power of utterance, new and 
 well directed zeal, diligence, and devotion to his Master's interest. 
 Then what a change would be produced in our world, if these little 
 missionaries, thus converted by the faith of Chi'ist, were to go forth, 
 and, as in apostoUc days, " enter into every house, teaching and 
 preaching Jesus Christ ! " This is what you have to do. Can you 
 manifest greater wisdom ? J'hat must be wisdom indeed, which would 
 bring them into such a state of advantage to themselves and to others. 
 
 3. Again : it ranks you with the wise and the good of all ages. It 
 is here, that Satan labors to win souls, but not to win them to happi- 
 ness and salvation ; Uke the fowler, he endeavors to win them, to 
 
328 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 destroy them. As the king of Sodom said to Abraham, after his return 
 from the' war, You take the goods, and let me have the pei-sons ; you 
 may have all the spoil of the war, but let me have the persons you 
 have taken captive and I shall be satisfied ; so Satan says. You may 
 take every thing but their souls. What they are, and however sit- 
 uated in the world, I care not ; only let me have their souls ; that is 
 my object. You must be engaged, then, in opposition to all his pur- 
 poses, in winning these souls from him. 
 
 All good and wise men have labored in the same way, before you. 
 " Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied " to all the profligate 
 sinners of his days, and told them that Christ was coming, to take 
 vengeance on their sins. For a hundred and twenty years, Noah, 
 though he had not a single convert, kept preaching rigtiteousness to 
 the people. Lot " vexed his righteous soul every day with the filthy 
 conversation of the wicked." Elijah prayed and protested against the 
 priests of Baal, and mstructed the people in the way to heaven. 
 Isaiah and the prophets labored, and gave their whole lives, to " turn 
 many to righteousness." The seventy, by Christ's commands, went 
 out, two and two, and beheld the devils subject to them, and the power 
 of Satan destroyed, in the conversion of souls. The primitive Chris- 
 tians went every day into the temple, and into every house, teaching 
 the people ; and they not only did this, but they had their representa- 
 tives going every where, over all parts of the earth, telling men how 
 to be saved. Paul, " from Jerusalem, round about, into Illiricum," 
 did not fail to preach the gospel of Christ ; and when one good man, 
 full of zeal and love, took a girdle, and bound him round, he said, — 
 " What ! mean ye to weep and to break mine heart ? for I am ready 
 not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem, for the name of the 
 Lord Jesus." 
 
 Now you are associated with this company ; God puts you among 
 these dear people, who are thus striving to enlist souls in his army, to 
 fight his battles. Never yet was there a good man, who did not aim 
 to win souls. His religion is vain, who would keep these benefits 
 wholly to himself ; it does not belong to the rehgion of Christ, and is 
 not a part of " the wisdom that cometh from above." " The fear of 
 the Lord, that is wisdom ; " and therefore, to make others fear him as 
 well, shows much greater wisdom. 
 
 4. Again : it gains for you the present and future approbation of 
 God ; and therefore is the manifestation of the truest wisdom. He 
 was so pleased with Enoch, and he became such a proficient in his 
 school, that he did not suffer him to pass through death, in the ordi- 
 nary course, but transferred him from the lower form on earth, to the 
 
WISDOM OF WINNING SOULS. 329 
 
 upper form in heaven. He was so pleased with Elijah's zeal, that he 
 exercised his miraculous agency, and made ravens feed him, rather 
 than devour him. Stephen spake boldly of him before the Sanhedrim ; 
 and before he died, he opened heaven to him, and showed him Jesus 
 standing at the right hand of God, ready to receive him. Did John 
 go about saying, " Little children, keep yourselves from idols " — 
 " Little children, love one another ; " and incorporating in these the 
 spirit of love ? John shall be taken to an island, all the purposes of 
 Jehovah shall be opened to his vision, and he shall then see what God 
 is soon to do upon the earth. Does Paul serve him ? He shall be 
 " caught up to the third heavens," and hear words which it was not 
 lawful for him to repeat. 
 
 Do not expect miracles to be performed in your case, or displayed 
 in your behalf; but believe it, teachers, that if you aim to win precious 
 souls to God, he will manifest himself to you, as he does not, ordinarily, 
 to the world. " To him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I 
 shew the salvation of God." 
 
 Oh ! the comforts of his love : are they not better than life ? Oh ! 
 to have the seal of his Spirit in my heart, that I am his ! Oh ! to see 
 that heaven is my own, and that when I die, I shall be with him, and 
 " shall be like him ! " To have this in one's spirit, what bliss does it 
 not impart ! And must not that be true wisdom, which will bring this 
 to me, and seal it in my heart ? 
 
 And bj'-and-by I shall stand before him : the whole world is to be at 
 his bar. Who will he then single out ? The people that have minis- 
 tered to others, and have proved the truth of their religion by their 
 actions. Lord, say they, when the repetition of their deeds is made, 
 when did we this ? We have forgotten it ; they were such slight 
 actions, that we thought but little of them. Oh ! " inasmuch as ye 
 have done it unto one of the least of these, my little ones, ye have 
 done it unto me." And then, while he recognizes the act, to see those 
 eyes beaming beauty and light, darting into my heart and m}' counte- 
 nance, and the voice, in the tenderest and sweetest tones that ear ever 
 heard, saying to me — " Come, thou blessed child of my Father, enter 
 into the inheritance prepared for thee : " 
 
 " Come in, thou blessed ; sit by me ; 
 Witli mine own blood I 've ransom'd thee, 
 Come, taste my perfect favor." 
 
 Oh ! to hear that voice ! Will it not be enough. Christian, will it not 
 be enough, teacher, for you ? God grant you may hear it : that you 
 may live to prosecute your work effectually ; and then you shall see, 
 
330 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 that your teaching, both to others and to yourselves, has not been in 
 vain. 
 
 But now what shall I say ? I have already, I fear, exhausted your 
 strength and patience ; but I cannot part with you, without one word ; 
 it is to impress a thought, which I have already thrown out, the more 
 upon your attention : prepare much for winning souls. Souls are not 
 won by ignorance ; ignorant teachers are not the individuals that God 
 ordinarily employs to win souls. Some have winning manners, but 
 shallow and uninstructed minds. Now if any of you have a class 
 which you have brought on as far as you can, do not look black if the 
 superintendent should one day come and say. It is time some of these 
 dear children were removed from your class to another ! That teacher 
 has better qualifications, he knows, than 3'ourself, for these great 
 objects. I sympathize with you ; I know the pang of parting with a 
 child, after you have had that child sometime in your class ; and yet 
 your feelings are not to be your guide, but that child's salvation is to 
 be your object ; and whether John, or Thomas, or Peter, or Andrew 
 is the best teacher to guide that child to heaven, let him have that 
 teacher so that he is best instructed in his way thither. 
 
 My beloved, I fear that many of us want a great deal of instruction, 
 yet, in the science of humility. Do you repeat that lesson once a-week 
 to yourselves — " Let each esteem others better than himself ? " That 
 is the first round of the ladder ; but a great many persons climb to the 
 upper rounds, and fall down. Begin with that round and you are 
 safe, and shall ascend, gently and surely, to the highest and most dis- 
 tinguished posts that teachers can enjoy. 
 
 Let me beseech all of you, then, as far as lies in your power, to 
 labor to prepare the mind for instruction. Read the Bible with notes, 
 and take all the means which are furnished you, for the purpose of 
 aiding your instruction. Study well those cheap, well-prepared, and 
 judicious notes, published by the Sunday School Union ; and as most 
 children learn the same lessons, take care that those notes, and par- 
 ticularly the practical reflections, with whatever other reflections occur 
 to your OAvn mind, after you have been with God in prayer, are thor- 
 oughly impressed upon your mind, so that you shall have them when 
 you go to the class, ready for delivering ; and you will find the ben- 
 efit of it. 
 
 Then there is one thing, in order to this ; and with that I close. 
 Prayer must be always associated with your labor ; prayer to get God's 
 Spirit, — the spirit of love, tenderness, and sympathy, and forbear- 
 ance, and zeal. If you are much with God, you cannot go among 
 the children without communicating something of these feelings : and 
 
SCRIPTURAL TRUTH. 331 
 
 they soon perceive it. You need not tell a cliild that you have been 
 ^N-ith God in prayer ; persons belonging to a Christian Church have no 
 reason to talk much about having communion ^\ith God. If they 
 have, it is like ointment in their right hand ; it is sure to betray itself. 
 There is something in their manner and temper, that people tell, just 
 as if a dehcious ointment was rubbed on a man's hand, and he goes 
 into a house, and endeavors to hide it ; the smell of it spreads every- 
 where. And if this be the case ^Yith you, my Christian friends, you 
 will show it to the children in your spirit and conduct, which they soon 
 understand. 
 
 Be assured, teachers, from the Book of God, that Divine influence 
 in teaching is every thing to you. You may use all means, and commu- 
 nicate all knowledge, but it will be in vain without this. Therefore, 
 hear this last sentence — " It is not by might, nor by power, but by 
 my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Get that, and you shall " win 
 souls " to your blessed Master. 
 
 SERMON XXYII. 
 
 THE TRANSMISSION OF SCRIPTURAL TRUTH TO POSTERITY. 
 BY REV. J. BELCHER, D. D. 
 
 " I will open my mouth in a parable ; I vnU. utter dark sayings of old ; which we hara 
 heard, and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from tlioir children, 
 showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his won- 
 derful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a 
 law in Israel, which he commanded our fiithers, that they should make them known to their 
 children ; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should 
 be born ; who should arise and declare them to their children : that they might set their 
 hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments." — Psalms 
 Ixxviii. 2 — 7. 
 
 " WiiATSOE^rER was Written aforetime, was written for our instruc- 
 tion, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might 
 have hope." The perpetuity of divine truth, and the enlargement of 
 its boundaries in our world, has ever been an iuTportant object in the 
 arrangements of divine providence. "While the modes of its commu- 
 nication to the world, its constantly increasing splendor, and the 
 happiness it casts around it wherever its light shines, commands our 
 admiration, we cannot be less impressed with the fact, that notwith- 
 
332 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 standing its opposition to our depraved nature, and in spite of the 
 inveterate malice borne to it, it yet maintains its standing and extends 
 its triumphs ; proving that the God of truth will ever assert his suprem- 
 acy, disappoint his enemies, and make man happy. 
 
 In contemplating the history of Scriptural truth, it is truly inter- 
 esting to observe how its great author can raise up instruments to make 
 it known. There have been periods when comparatively little attention 
 has been paid to it, and when ignorance and idolatry have threatened 
 to prevail ; but at such times, he who has the residue of the Spirit has 
 caused holy influence to descend on some of his servants, who have 
 thus been strong to do exploits. Such appears to have been the case 
 in connection with the psalm before us. We cannot be quite certain 
 either as to its author or occasion ; but the opinion of Calmet and 
 others appears quite probable, that it was composed by Asaph, many 
 years after the death of David, in the reign of Asa, the thu-d king of 
 Judah. For twenty years, during the government of Jeroboam and 
 Abijah, had these tribes departed from God ; but when Asa, a pious 
 young man, came to the throne, he adopted means for the revival of 
 true religion, while Asaph reminds his brethren of the blessings of 
 divine Revelation made known to their fathers and handed down to 
 them, and enforces the importance of their being impressed on the 
 minds of the rising generation. Similar instances of the kindness of 
 God in reviving attention to his cause might be referred to in the 
 history both of the Old and New Testaments ; nor scarcely less inter- 
 esting are the circumstances of this kind which have passed before our 
 review within the last sixty years. 
 
 But the passage we have read as a text, has an especial reference to 
 human duty in connection with this great subject. We are fully aware 
 of its comprehensive character, and of the vast variety of trains of 
 thought which it would present to every contemplative mind ; but the 
 one subject, to the brief illustration of which our present attention will 
 be directed, is that of the transmission of Scriptural truth to posterity. 
 And, if we have not mistaken the whole character of our text, it pre- 
 sents to us four grand arguments why we should zealously devote 
 ourselves to this duty. 
 
 The first is derived from the peculiar character of scriptural truth. 
 
 The second arises out of the manner in which we have been put into 
 its possession. 
 
 The third is drawn from the divine arrangements as to its communi- 
 cation from one class of persons to another. And, 
 
 The fourth will be seen in connection with the great results it is 
 intended to produce. 
 
SCRIPTURAL TRUTH. 833 
 
 It will be apparent to all of you, that the utmost which can be 
 attempted bj the preacher, on this occasion, will be a very imperfect 
 glance at each particular of this scheme. 
 
 I. The first argument in favor of zealous exertion for the trans- 
 mission of scriptural truth to posterity, is derived from the peculiar- 
 ity OF ITS CHARACTER. 
 
 The knowledge of temporal affairs, of human sciences, and of the 
 various things which contribute to present happiness, is vastly important, 
 and it would be cruelty to withhold it from the young ; but here we 
 have before us a volume of truth, a series of discoveries, and precepts 
 of duty w^hich angels could not have given us, but which are put into 
 our hands while they are even yet withheld from the vast mass of 
 mankind. When the inspired psalmist speaks of the Holy Volume as 
 a testimony which Jehovah had established, a law which he had 
 appointed, and as designed to show forth his praises, and to exhibit his 
 power, and his wonderful works, we understand the expressions as 
 denoting the whole of the Sacred Records, in all their fulness, and 
 puiity, and beauty. And who can examine this book without grateful 
 admiration and astonishment ? 
 
 Look at its revelation of God. The eternity of his existence, the 
 extent of his power, the penetrating character of his omniscience, the 
 grandeur of his holiness, and the immutability of his perfections, over- 
 whelm us ; his regard to man, the manifestations of his love, and the 
 continuance of his favor, notwithstanding our sins, fill us with grateful 
 delight. The history of what he has done, the statement of what he 
 is doing, and the announcement of what he designs, all inspire us with 
 thankful emotions for the possession of such a Book. We rejoice that 
 we have a testimony which is infallibly correct, as we receive it from 
 truth itself; and though the testimony bears most affecting witness 
 against our wicked feelings and base conduct against God, yet the very 
 pain it excites is salutary, and contributes to the happiness to which 
 the Book of God tends. 
 
 Look at the insti'uction it affords, as to our duty. While it presents 
 God as our Creator and Benefactor, it demands that we love him ; 
 while it describes the whole human race as children of one common 
 fiimily, it calls for mutual and universal love ; it identifies our duty and 
 our happiness ; and deriving its sanctions from eternity, it calls us to 
 the discharge of present duty. It inculcates our pursuit of happiness 
 for ourselves, our bestowment of our regards on our fellow-men, and 
 the consecration of all our powers to God. Oh, how glorious the word 
 of God considered as a law ! 
 
334 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 But above all, consider Revelation as a history of CrocVs conduct. 
 And here the details of creation are lovely, the records of his provi- 
 dence are profoundly instructive; but his acts of redemption are 
 surrounded with a splendor which angels themselves cannot fully 
 contemplate. Here we read of the infinity of his love, which eternally 
 decreed the gift of his Son to atone for our sins, and to open the gates 
 of heaven which we had closed against ourselves. We trace the oper- 
 ations of his love in all the transactions of time, and especially in 
 connection with whatever related to the church. We exult in its exhi- 
 bitions of the incarnation, the life, the sermons, the miracles, the 
 examples, the sufferings, and the death of the Son of God ; and we 
 admire the book which presents all these things to our delighted minds, 
 while it unfolds the present engagements of the Redeemer, and his 
 ultimate design of imparting his own joy to all his followers. We 
 gratefully exult in the recollection that the Book of God invites every 
 sinner to the reception of mercy, and presents Jehovah as waiting to 
 be gracious to the penitent. 
 
 And now, my brethren, let the man who has personally realized 
 these things, and who exults in the faith of the gospel ; who has felt its 
 power in drawing him to Christ, its consoling influence in the hour of 
 sorrow, and its sanctifying tendency in all its operations — let such a 
 man ask himself if this volume of truth ought to be concealed ? or 
 rather, whether it should not be made known as extensively as possible ? 
 Who among us does not feel it a subject for the warmest congratulation, 
 that from a child he has known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to 
 make us wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus ? And what 
 heart, under the influence of the doctrines which are here taught, and 
 the spirit which is here cherished, does not esteem it at once his duty 
 and his privilege to make known these records to the thousands of the 
 young around him ? We should pity the man who possessed the Bible, 
 and who felt no wish for its diffusion ; and should be compelled to assert, 
 that however well he might be acquainted with its theory, he never felt 
 any thing of its temper. 
 
 II. We draw a second argument for the transmission of Scriptural 
 truth to the young from the manner in which we have been put 
 
 INTO ITS POSSESSION. 
 
 We have neither discovered the truth for ourselves, nor have we by 
 our own powers drawn it from heaven : " We have heard it," " our 
 fathers have told us." 
 
 The volume of Divine Revelation is not new. Essential as heavenly 
 truth ever has been to man from the period of the fall, it was not long 
 
SCRIPTURAL TRUTH. 335 
 
 before the " day spring from on high " visited our world. The first 
 portion of Revelation was uttered by the lips of Deity directly to man ; 
 after which, in various modes and at different periods, this knowledge 
 became deeper and more extensive. In the first instance it was commu- 
 nicated from one to another only by the human voice. The memory 
 of man was the only depository of the word of God. After a while it 
 was committed to writing, and holy men of God transmitted from their 
 own generation downwards to others the information which Jehovah 
 had given. It must have been interesting to hear the patriarchs 
 telling their children, and their children's children, the wonderful 
 things to which they had been privileged to listen from the lips of their 
 fathers. We could almost wish to have heard the statements of Noah, 
 Abraham, and of Jacob, when surrounded by their respective families. 
 Well, wc may listen, and not only read their accounts, but the disclo- 
 sure of facts, and of the designs of God to which they would have 
 gladly attended, but died without knowing. 
 
 From the fathers of antiquity we have received the lively oracles of 
 truth. Here is the delineation of human character and misery, and 
 of the divine method of making man happy. Our fathers received the 
 truth from heaven, and tested its character and its power; they felt its 
 happy results in the regeneration and sanctification of their souls ; they 
 exulted in its consolations in the hour of trial ; they made arrangements 
 for its descent from age to age till time should cease to roll round ; 
 they adhered to the truth in defiance of persecution ; they extended 
 it, though human laws combined against them ; and then multitudes of 
 them — to prove their faith and to show its influence — cheerfully met 
 death in its defence. Thus did they show their regard to the author- 
 ity of heaven, their love to the truth as it is in Jesus, and their pure 
 and exalted concern for the souls of their fellow-men. 
 
 Wc grant, that now we have a more sure word than that of tradition ; 
 wc thank God that we have a higher standard of appeal than the frail 
 memory of man, which might be injuriously acted upon by his depravity ; 
 but we will be grateful too, that holy men orally instructed us in the 
 way of salvation. We should deeply pity the youth who would turn a 
 deaf car to the warm and faithful instructions of a beloved parent or 
 friend ; who would close his eyes against the fife which illustrates and 
 adorns Christianity ; and who would barricade his heart against the 
 reception of a spirit of light, of purity, and of joy, which the man of 
 God ever desires instrumentally to communicate. 
 
 There is, my brethren, a feeling of deep interest produced by the 
 recollections of a pious education. After the lapse of many years, the 
 mind seems to place itself in the shades of the scenes it once witnessed. 
 
3S6 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 We recall the features, the words, the tones, the tears, and the actions 
 of our teachers. We connect their instructions with the spirit they 
 manifested ; and the truths they taught are exemplified in the character 
 they sustained. We retrace their lives, and we follow them again to 
 their closing scenes, and feel that our hearts are made better ; that we 
 are more detached than we were from earth, and that we have an 
 increasingly strong desire to " be followers of them who, through faith 
 and patience, are inheriting the promises." 
 
 . Here, then, we take our stand, and say, that as we have received 
 the knowledge of God and the way of happiness from our fathers, who 
 showed us by their lips and their lives the way of happiness, we are 
 bound, by every consideration of gratitude, to give to others what has 
 been so freely given to us. We have never been constituted sole 
 proprietors of the truth of God, but have been made trustees of it also 
 for others. ' Who among us could be so ungrateful, so unjust, so cruel, 
 as to keep back that which has been committed to him for his children ; 
 the withholding of which does not enrich him, but makes them poor 
 indeed ? By the good providence of God our ancestors have enabled 
 us to say, that " the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and that 
 we have a goodly heritage ; " and by that same providence shall our 
 children rise up to call us blessed ; for we " will endeavor that after 
 our decease they shall have these things in remembrance," and be 
 enabled to hand them down with still increased efficiency to their 
 posterity. * 
 
 III. We hasten, brethren, to present a third argument for the 
 discharge of this duty, arising out of the divine arrangements as 
 
 TO ITS TRANSMISSION. 
 
 " He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to 
 their children." It is a doctrine well understood by every true Chris- 
 tian, that we are not to be guided in our conduct by our own sinful 
 inclinations. The very essence of true religion is the submission of 
 the heart and life to the service of God ; every thing will be found to 
 establish the fact asserted in our text, that the Divine being requires 
 us to instruct the young in the things which belong to their peace. If 
 the parent examines his own heart, he will find that all the tenderest 
 feelings of his nature combine to interest him in the happiness of his 
 children, and he cannot withhold from them the information which 
 would add to their enjoyment ; he could not see them exposed to 
 danger without pointing out the way of escape ; he could not behold 
 the way of happiness opening to their view and not point out the bhss- 
 ful road. Humanity, too, enlarges this feeling and compels it to 
 
SCRIPTURAL TRUTH. 337 
 
 comprehend the whole human race. "We sec our fello^Y-men exposed 
 to the same common calamities, we contemplate them all as capable of 
 vast enjoyments, and we feel ashamed of ourselves when we do not 
 intently pursue the objects which will add to their felicity. And when, 
 as Christians, we open the volume of Divine Revelation, we see how, 
 from the days of Abraham downwards, very specific directions have 
 been given from heaven as to the obligations of good men to give 
 instructions to the ignorant ; and we behold the pleasing combinations 
 of the pious in every age to accomplish the important object. 
 
 But our text, and the volume of inspiration generally, shows the 
 duty of Christians to have an especial reference to the young. Fathers 
 are commanded to make known the commands and the character of 
 God to their children. Various powerful reasons might be assigned for 
 this infinitely wise arrangement. The young come into our world with 
 an awfully strong bias to evil, and it is unspeakably important to check 
 the workings of their depravity by presenting the most powerful con- 
 siderations which tend to the accomplishment of such an end. They 
 are exposed to the most awful dangers arising from this depraved dispo- 
 sition, from the manifold temptations of Satan, from the evils they 
 witness in the corrupted state of society, and from ten thousand allure- 
 ments to vice to which they are always exposed. Oh, how needful, 
 then, that we should draw light from heaven to guide their feet in the 
 way of peace, that they may at once be delivered from evil, and led 
 into all that is good. 
 
 There are yet other considerations which should have their full 
 influence in this weighty affair. Those to whom we are called on to 
 give instruction are the hope of the future, they are those who must 
 succeed us in the discharge of the duties of life, they will give a charac- 
 ter to the next age ; nay, their conduct will have its influence on gen- 
 erations yet to come. Who that feels as he ought to do is not desirous 
 of being fairly represented to posterity ? and who, that rolls his eye 
 over the scroll of prophecy, can forbear to witness the important 
 events which are soon to be accomplished, or cease to feel an intense 
 interest in the training of those who will take a part in the still severer 
 struggle to which we look forward, between sin and holiness ? 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten here, that, as immortal creatures, the char- 
 acter of man is usually formed in youth for eternity. Comparatively 
 few cases occur in which the great process of regeneration is known 
 in the heart beyond the middle stage of life. If these children were 
 permitted to grow up in the ways of ignorance and sin, and to pass to 
 mature life in that state, the strong probability is, that they would 
 continue to live neither receiving nor communicating happiness for 
 22 
 
838 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 eternity. The mind derives its character from the transactions into 
 ■which it comes in contact m the first years of its existence. Oh, 
 Christians, what a motive to efibrt ! Oh, teachers, what a motive to 
 diligence ! 
 
 IV. These remarks seem to connect themselves with the fourth 
 argument we deduce from our text in favor of the transmission of 
 Scriptural truth to posterity, it is derived from the great results 
 
 WHICH IT IS intended TO ACCOMPLISH. 
 
 God had a most important object to effect by the donation of his 
 Word to the world, and he intends that by the communication of his 
 truth to the young, " they might set their hope in God, and not forget 
 the works of God, but keep his commandments." It is truly delight- 
 ful to contemplate the possibility, nay, the certainty, of man being 
 again brought into contact with the Most High. Melancholy, indeed, 
 is the fact, that he has departed from the fountain of felicity and fixed 
 his hopes of enjoyment on created objects, that he should have so far 
 forgotten the character and just claims of Jehovah as to engage in 
 actual rebellion against his government, and to have formed an agree- 
 ment with fallen angels to hurl Deity from his throne. But this state 
 of things is not always to continue. He who sent his Son into our 
 world to die for man, graciously engaged that he should see the full 
 desires of his soul in the renovation of the moral world. We are 
 even now contemplating the new creation of earth ; the command is 
 gone forth to that end, and Jehovah calls upon us to behold him making 
 his world anew. The sons of men must be brought to fix their best 
 affections on the great source of all excellence, to study every part of 
 his will, and to give every energy they possess to the advancement of 
 his glory. This is, indeed, a scene on which the attention of angels 
 may be well fixed, and which is every way adapted to call forth their 
 warmest admiration. Over such facts they may again sing, and these 
 sons of God may shout aloud for joy. 
 
 It is eminently adapted, my brethren, to increase and to purify our 
 zeal, to remember that we are not now rejoicing in the mere paintings 
 of imagination ; but that we are exulting in what shall soon prove 
 sober and blessed reality ! He who created the world hath confirmed 
 the fact, staking his very existence upon it, that the whole earth shall 
 be filled with his glory. 
 
 Oh, how blissful the reflection, that a period shall arrive in the his- 
 tory of our race when the evil dispositions which are now the founda- 
 tion of misery, shall be destroyed, when man shall cease to be filled 
 with envy, and wrath, and all uncharitableness, and when he shall be 
 
SPIRITUAL TRUTH. 339 
 
 filled with love to God and man — at once happy in himself, and doing 
 whatever may lie in his power to make others happy. 
 
 Equally interesting is it to remark, that this mighty change is not 
 to be brought about by miraculous agency, but simply by means of 
 man communicating to man the knowledge of God. Those who possess 
 this knowledge will give it to others till all the world shall rejoice in its 
 light. Every individual who receives the knowledge of God, in the 
 love of it, becomes a moral sun, diflFusing light and warmth around 
 him, the glorious effects of which shall be felt through all the changes 
 of time, and in eternity itself. When we contemplate, for mstance, 
 the thousands of the young who, in connection with this congregation, 
 have been taught in the knowledge of the Scriptures ; and especially 
 when we remember the many scores who have been morally renewed 
 by it, it is impossible for us to calculate the good which it has effected, 
 or fully to conceive of the infinite ramifications of this river of life, 
 scattering its blessings through the world, down to the very end of 
 time — and then anew displaying themselves in the eternal world. 
 
 But we must hasten to a close. The very soul of preaching is 
 practical application. We have seen something in the history of the 
 people of God which tends to confirm all that we have said ; and have 
 been fully convinced, that the church of Christ has been most prosper- 
 ous when it has been most attentive to the spiritual interests of the 
 rising generation. But we are desirous of leading you very fully to 
 act on our text. 
 
 Will you permit the preacher to indulge for a moment or two in the 
 narration of a plain, unvarnished tale ? Some three or four and thirty 
 years ago, a little company of the followers of the Redeemer, in con- 
 nection with this Christian church — some of whom continue to this 
 day, but many are fallen asleep — resolved on directing the attention 
 of the children of the poor more fully to Christ. Their number was 
 not large, their attainments, generally speaking, were not great, and, 
 in the esteem of the world, their prospect was not cheering ; but God 
 has always commenced his great proceedings with small means ; among 
 some of the earliest of its scholars was a little orphan boy, 
 
 " The son of parents passed into the skies," 
 
 both of whom once communed with this Christian society. The Sun- 
 day School taught him to read his Bible, to weep over sin, and to en- 
 tertain high thoughts of the Savior ; while its best friends provided 
 for each of his temporal wants. As time rolled along it brought with 
 it new mercies, tiU that boy, it was humbly hoped, became a follower 
 of Jesus, was numbered with his people, entered the Christian min- 
 
340 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 istry, and labored in the Christian cause of Christ it is believed not 
 without success. And now at the end of eight-and-twenty years, he 
 appears among you this morning to erect his stone of Ebenezer in 
 grateful remembrance of divine mercies, to weep over parental and 
 friendly dust, and to avow his increasing attachment to Sabbath 
 schools. The fathers are gone ; the very prophets depart hence ; but 
 turning to these young persons, we say to your pastor, your deacons, 
 and to every Christian, " These same shall comfort you concerning the 
 work and the toil of your hands." 
 
 Pardon, my brethren, this allusion to the personal history of the 
 preacher ; it has been called forth by gi-ateful recollections of bygone 
 days. " If I forget thee," 0, thou Sunday school, " let my right 
 hand forget her cunning, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
 if I prefer not thee to my chief joy. For my brethren and compan- 
 ions' sakes I will now say, peace be within thee. Because of the 
 house of the Lord my God I will seek thy good." 
 
 SERMON XXVIII. 
 
 WHAT IS THE NATURE OF JUSTIFYING FAITH? 
 
 BY THE HON. AND REV. B. W. NOEL. 
 
 "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." — Rom. iii. 25. 
 
 The previous verses of this passage teach us these important truths ; 
 that all of us are, by nature and practice, condemned by the law of 
 God, and consequently that no obedience to that law which condemns, 
 can justify us ; but that there is, notwithstanding, a justification pro- 
 vided for a certain class of persons by God himself, which is here 
 termed " His righteousness : " that this justification is a free gift to 
 sinners — absolutely, divinely free ; yet, nevertheless, that it has been 
 obtained for them by the costly sacrifice of tlie Son of God, and is not 
 granted of 7nere mercy, but is granted to them of mercy " through the 
 redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Having stated these truths, the 
 apostle tells us, in the words which I have read, to what class of per- 
 sons that blessing is restricted. It is not granted to all mankmd, but 
 it is granted to those who believe in Christ ; " whom God hath set 
 forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.^' 
 
WHAT IS JUSTIFYING FAITH ? 341 
 
 The original cause, then, of the justification of a sinner, is the abso- 
 lute mercy of God ; the meritorious cause of a sinner's justification, is 
 the obedience and the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and the 
 instrumental cause of a sinner's justification is faith in that Redeemer. 
 There is but one original cause, — which is mercy ; there is but one 
 meritorious cause, — and that is redemption by Christ; and there is 
 but one instrumental cause, — and that is faith in Christ. "Whom 
 God hath set forth to be a propitiation throngh faith m his blood.^' 
 
 Let us look to God the Spirit, who alone can make his own word 
 profitable, while we consider what is the nature of justifying faith, the 
 extent to which it justifies, and the manner in which it justifies. The 
 whole statement is very simple, but it is of great moment to every sin- 
 gle person of this congregation. It is of the last consequence to us, 
 that we not only know what this faith is, but have it. It is of the 
 utmost moment to you and me, that we have tliis faith ; and it is my 
 object, in the simple exposition which may follow these words, to lead 
 you, as an instrument in the hands of the great God, not only to know 
 what justifying faith is, but to have it. 
 
 Let us think, first, what it is not : because, this may enable us the 
 more clearly to observe what it is. 
 
 The faith, of which the apostle speaks in these words, through which 
 Christ becomes a propitiation for any individual sinner, is not a belief 
 in the truth of the fact, that Christ is come, or that the New Testa- 
 ment is a divinely inspired revelation of that fact and its consequences. 
 Because, faith in Christ is evidently trust in Christ ; it is the meaning 
 of the word. No man can pretend to have faith in Christ, and not 
 trust Christ : just as a person could not pretend to have faith in his 
 physician, and not trust his physician. But a person may believe in 
 the truth that Christ is come, and may believe that the New Testament 
 reveals that fact, its character and its consequences, and yet have no 
 trust in Christ, and therefore not have the " faith in his blood," which 
 is spoken of here. 
 
 It is not, further, a belief in the truth of all the principal doctrines 
 of the gospel. This is a step beyond the last ; for there are many 
 persons, that do credit the gospel to be a revelation from God, and yet 
 know little of the doctrines it contains ; nay, reject most of its doc- 
 trines. But a person may reject none of them — may admit in terms 
 their truth, see the proofs of them in the Scripture, and maintain them 
 all, and yet that person may have no faith in Christ. Because, Christ 
 has come to offer salvation to us as sinners ; but it is obvious, that a 
 person may credit the truth of these doctrines, and not trust in Christ 
 
342 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 to save his soul. And if so, he is an unbeUever : he disbelieves that 
 Christ has come to save liis soul. He may be destitute of all trust in 
 Christ, and yet believe the great facts of the gospel, to a certain de- 
 gree and in a certain sense. And this faith is that which is possessed 
 by fallen spirits, who know very well the great truths of the gospel, 
 and are busily engaged in opposing them in the world. That which a 
 man only shares with the great enemies of God and man, cannot be the 
 faith which saves. 
 
 The same remarks will apply to this further stage — the state of a 
 person, who believes that Christ Jesus is able and willing to save others, 
 but does not believe in Christ as about to save Mm. For this also he 
 shares with fallen beings. " The devils believe and tremble," when 
 they think that Christ has come to save others, but has not come to 
 save them ; and this belief, instead of teaching them to love Christ, 
 only embitters their hatred. It may do so with a sinful man, and con- 
 sequently is not that trust in Christ which will save him. 
 
 And again, to believe in our own personal safety through Christ is, 
 on the other hand, not justifying faith. Because, many an ignorant 
 and criminal enthusiast has believed this, while his whole life was one 
 of disobedience to God's commands, and of manifest enmity to God. 
 To beheve that we are personally safe, that we are the elect of God 
 through Christ, that we are through Chvist children of God, and the 
 favorites of heaven, and sure of being saved, may be to believe a 
 falsehood — a mere delusion. It may be, that the person who has 
 this belief, is none of those things. And it is obvious, that if the 
 great enemy of souls could desire any thing respecting one of his 
 miserable captives, he would mostly desire this ; that while he is living 
 in his sins, and posting down to destruction, he should be perfectly 
 persuaded, that he was one of God's elect, a child of God and an heir 
 of glory through Christ: because, that delusion would prevent repent- 
 ance, and would, more than any thing else, deepen and perpetuate his 
 sleep of sin. 
 
 None of these things can be the justifying faith^^of which our text 
 speaks. But justifying faith is — 
 
 The trust which a sinner feels in Christ, to save him from hell, as a 
 divine Savior, in the method he has revealed, by his atoning sacrifice, 
 and by his sanctifying Spirit. 
 
 This is justifying faith. Let us briefly illustrate its various charac- 
 teristics. 
 
 It must be a trust in Christ to save us. We must see, that the 
 Lord Jesus Christ is able and wiHing to save us. Because, my breth- 
 ren, Christ is come for this purpose. It is this blessing he offers to us. 
 
WHAT IS JUSTIFYING FAITH? 343 
 
 as ruined sinners. He has assured you and me, that he is able and 
 willing to save us. It is the purpose for which he died — for which 
 the Bible has been written ; and to disbelieve that, would be to disbe- 
 lieve one of the very principal truths that he has revealed, the princi- 
 pal act he came to accomplish ; and would be, not faith, but unbelief. 
 To disbelieve that, is not trust in Christ, but distrust of him ; and no 
 one can suppose, that he has justifying faith in Christ, while he dis- 
 believes one of the principal things revealed concerning him. As we 
 have seen, to disbelieve that, is to be in the condition of rebellious and 
 apostate spirits ; and that is not the trust, that he will bless. On the 
 contrary, to believe that he is willing and able to save us, notwith- 
 standing all our guilt, in the midst of all our dangers, with the sen- 
 tence of God's law pronounced against us, in the face of an obedience 
 required which we cannot pay, in the sight of a disobedience which 
 merits eternal death — that is the trust he asks from us all. The 
 eternal Son of God demands of every one of you, and of me, that we 
 do individually trust him to save us. 
 
 It is, in the next place, a trust in him to save us from hell. If we 
 should trust Christ to save us from any thing less, this would not be to 
 credit the great tnith revealed concerning him. We do in fact de- 
 serve to perish ; we are on our road to perdition, till that blessed mo- 
 ment when we believe on Christ ; God's law condemns us, and gracious 
 as he is, he will certainly execute the sentence of his law ; from 
 that Christ has undertaken to save us ; and to disbelieve that, is, again 
 I say, to be an unbeliever. It is not to trust him, but to want trust in 
 him ; it is not faith, but unbelief; and he who should beheve any thing 
 else of Christ, but should not beheve that he Is able and willing to save 
 him from hell — from eternal wrath — from all the consequences of 
 his transgression — would not be a believer in Christ. But if we 
 should actually perish without Christ, and he has come to save us from 
 perishing, as his word continually declares, then we deserve it ; for the 
 Almighty could not inflict upon us that which we do not merit. Hence, 
 to believe that Christ is able and willing to save us from hell. Is to 
 believe that we deserve it ; and it imphes the conviction on our parts, 
 that we are lost without him, that there is no method of salvation but 
 in him, that he alone stands between us and everlasting ruin, that if 
 God gave us our desert individually, we Individually should perish. 
 This is what faith in Christ implies ; and if any man denies that of 
 himself, does not own it, questions it, puts the thought aside, does not 
 explicitly and solemnly confess it to himself and God, he may rest 
 assured he has no faith in Christ. He may believe other things 
 
344 THE ENGLISH PDLPIT. 
 
 respecting Christ ; but the great truth that he has come to save him 
 from eternal ruin, that man rejects. 
 
 I said, again, that justifying faith is the persuasion, that Christ is 
 able and willing to save us from hell, as a divine Savior. Because, he 
 cannot save us in any other capacity. If Christ were a mere man, his 
 obedience and his sufferings could no more save us, than the obedience 
 and sufferings of any martyr, like Paul, or like Bradford. Christ's 
 obedience and sufferings would be no more rational a foundation for our 
 hope, were he but a man, than the obedience and sufferings of other 
 holy men ; and if we were to expect to be saved by Christ as a man, 
 instead of exercising the faith he looks for, we should be unbelievers 
 still. For the truth is, that his love passes all knowledge, as liis merit 
 passes all knowledge, because as incarnate God he died in our stead. 
 And hence, if we were to deny this of iiim, we should deny the principal 
 truth concerning him. We may call ourselves Christians after denying 
 it, but we have altered not one truth — as men pretend — we have 
 altered the whole truth respecting the gospel ; fundamentally altered 
 it ; changed the whole character of a sinner's trust ; swept away at 
 one fell blow all those powerful motives we have to obedience and love ; 
 sentenced man, as the consequence of that denial, to perpetual disobe- 
 dience and enmity to God. And that men call altering one of the 
 dogmas of Christianity ! No, brethren ; if we do not rest on Christ as 
 a divine Savior, who has come in our nature to rescue us from the hell 
 we merited, we have no justifying faith in him. It is such a faith as 
 Nero had when he heard of his crucifixion ; such a faith as Pontius Pilate 
 had, when he sentenced him to death ; the belief that he is a good 
 man : a beUef which does him infinite dishonor. To believe in Christ so 
 as to be saved, is to look to him to save us from hell as a divine Savior. 
 
 I said, again, that justifying faith in Christ is the belief in him as a 
 divine Savior, to save us in the method he has himself revealed, hy Ms 
 atoning sacrifice ; or rather, by his redemption — by his obedience and 
 sufferings on our behalf. If we should look to be saved in any other 
 way than by his atoning sacrifice, we should essentially mutilate his 
 gospel, deny his claim, and discard that which is the principal founda- 
 tion of our confidence before God. The word of God declares, that 
 we are "justified freely, by God's mercy, through the redemption that 
 is in Christ Jesus." To believe that Christ came to set us a bright 
 example, and to give us wise and divine counsels, and to animate us 
 with powerful motives to virtue, and there to end, and there to let our 
 faith terminate, is to deny the one great truth revealed in all this book, 
 for which this book has been revealed — that the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 incarnate God in our nature, died in our place, bore the punishment we 
 
WHAT IS JUSTIFYING FAITH ? 345 
 
 must have borne, and by that punishment borne in his person, has done 
 away the necessity that we should suffer any punishment. If we ex- 
 pected to be saved in any other way, we should not be believing God, 
 but believing a falsehood ; we should not then be trusting Christ to 
 save us according to his own revealed method, but in another method 
 of our own, which would dishonor him, and be a reason for our con- 
 demnation, and not for our acceptance before God. Hence, justifying 
 faith is a dependence on Christ to save us by the merit of his 
 obedience and his suiferings. 
 
 And lastly, justifying faith is an expectation of being saved by him 
 from hell, not only by the merit of his atoning sacrifice, but hy the 
 power of his sanctifying Spirit. This, again, is revealed in Scripture. 
 He has told us, that he means to save us thus, and in no other way. 
 He has never promised a person to save him in sin, but has declared 
 he means to save nsfrom sin. He has not said, that he would save 
 us without the aid of the Spirit, but by giving us the Spirit. He has 
 not told us, that he will save us without the exertion to which grace 
 prompts, but by that exertion. There is no word of Scripture, which 
 states that we shall be saved with unholy hearts, but — " without holi- 
 ness no man shall see the Lord ? " not one word, which intimates that 
 prayerless habits will conduct us to glory, but — " whosoever shall call 
 on the name of the Lord shall be saved ; " and so on, of the whole 
 circle of Christian obligation. To beheve, therefore, that Christ will 
 save us without making us holy, and without conducting us to loving 
 obedience, is to believe a falsehood. It is to deny what he has 
 declared. It is not to trust him — to exercise faith on him ; for faith 
 must rest on his Word ; there is no other foundation for it. It is to be 
 placing a presumptuous confidence in a mischievous and criminal delu- 
 sion. That is not faith. 
 
 To believe in Christ as the Savior of our souls from hell, secures 
 obedience in another way, and leads in another manner to a supreme 
 love to Christ ; but you will observe, that it not only leads to it — it 
 actually involves it. Because, faith in Christ involves submission to 
 his will : just as faith in a guide involves the disposition to follow him, 
 or faith in a commander involves the readiness to march and fight at 
 his command, or faith in a physician the determination to take his 
 medicines. Should a man be lost amidst dangerous precipices, and not 
 know how to effect his escape, and a guide well versed in the mountain 
 paths should point out the road of safety, and assure him that if ho 
 followed it, he would be safe ; faith in that mountain guide would lead 
 the lost pilgrim at once to follow. If an army were surrounded by 
 perils, and expecting to be destroyed, but their commander assured 
 
346 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 them that he would point out the road to victory, if they marched un- 
 der his orders, and fought at his command ; faith in that commander 
 would lead them, necessarily, to march and to fight. If men were 
 persuaded that their physician could save them by the remedies he 
 prescribed, faith in that physician would lead them to adopt those rem- 
 edies. In every instance faith has thus this practical character; 
 leading to submission to those methods, which the person in whom we 
 trust, makes the conditions of safety. And hence, to trust in Christ 
 for our salvation, not only leads to loving him, and leads to obeying 
 him, (as it is most certain it does,) but likewise it includes in the very 
 idea of it the placing ourselves absolutely under Christ's care. He 
 offers to save us in one way and to trust that he will save us in that 
 way, is to submit to that way. So that if we believe in Christ to save 
 us by communicating his sanctifying Spirit, it implies that we seek 
 that Spirit ; if we believe that he will save us by making us holy, it 
 implies that we consent to be made holy ; if we believe that he will 
 save us in the course of obedience to God's law, it implies that from 
 the moment we believe we are ready so to obey. Imagine for a mo- 
 ment the contrary ; that a person should believe that he shall be saved 
 by Christ while he resolves not to obey, not to be holy, not to welcome 
 the gift of his Spirit ; then he would believe in that which was false, 
 instead of beheving in Christ, for Christ has never promised to save 
 any one, who is nourishing those tempers. 
 
 Thus we come to this general truth : that justifying faith in Christ 
 is the trust that any one feels in him, to save himself from eternal 
 death, as a divine Savior, in the method he has himself revealed, by 
 his atoning sacrifice, and by his sanctifying grace. 
 
 To what extent, let us ask, in the next place, does the possession of 
 this faith justify ? " Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
 through faith in his blood." 
 
 I have often dwelt on the scriptural proofs of this point in our sub- 
 ject ; I shall therefore merely remind you in passing, that this faith is 
 spoken of in Scripture, as justifying by itself — as the one sole condi- 
 tion of justification. " Therefore we conclude," says the apostle, in a 
 verse which follows our text, " that a man is justified hj faith ^ without 
 the deeds of the law." This justifying faith is further declared, in 
 Scripture to secure the acquittal of any person who trusts Christ. It 
 is not the less guilty only, but the most guilty may secure acquittal 
 and safety by its instrumentality. As the apostle here tells us — " the 
 righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all 
 them that believe ; for there is no difference." The worst and the 
 
WHAT IS JUSTIFYING FAITH? 347 
 
 best, all maj alike be justified, upon their receiving this inestimable 
 gift of God ; and he who believes, is pardoned and accepted. The 
 Scripture no less declares, that those who possess this justifying faith, 
 are acquitted of all their sins, and are entitled to all the privileges of 
 the new covenant. " By him all that believe are justified from all 
 things." The justification is complete ; so that a sinner is accepted 
 as though he was perfectly innocent, becomes a child of God, and is 
 adopted by his love, and receives all the blessings of his children, in- 
 cluding preservation by his power and grace, and then eternal glory, 
 which he has received for all who love him and obey him. And again : 
 this justifying grace secures all these privileges, the very first moment 
 it is exercised. As there is nothing else — nothing whatever — 
 which is the condition of justification, therefore years of obedience 
 can add nothing to it. The moment a sinner believes, he passes from 
 a state of condemnation into a state of justification. The dying thief 
 beUeved upon Christ, and he merited eternal death, and was within a 
 few minutes of it, but, in that moment when he believed, all his sins 
 were pardoned, and at once Christ said to him, " This day shalt thou 
 be with me in Paradise." And that is the rule ; that is what must 
 ensue. If it be true that faith is the one condition, the one instrument of 
 the sinner's justification, then the moment he possesses that one instru- 
 ment, the moment he has fulfilled that one condition, he is a justified 
 person. To delay it, would be to interfere with that divinely ordained 
 method of justification ; it would be to bring in something else as the 
 condition ; and it could be easily shown, that the introduction of any 
 delay would be the dishonor of Christ. If faith in him is the one 
 appointed condition, the moment that any sinner, however black the 
 guilt which he has contracted, does rest his soul upon Christ as the 
 one great atoning sacrifice, and the prevailing intercessor, that moment 
 are his sins obliterated, and he is adopted into the family of God. 
 
 Let us now, in the last place, consider for a moment the manner in 
 which this faith justifies. 
 
 We have already seen, that a sinner is justified without the deeds 
 of the law ; " and this proves, not merely that a sinner is justified with- 
 out the merit of the law, without the merit of works, but that he is 
 justified without the condition of works ; and that it is as unscriptural, 
 to declare that fiiith on the condition of works justifies, as to say that 
 faith justifies by the merit of Christ and the merit of works. There is 
 no condition of works ; and could there be, it must be obvious to the 
 dullest understanding that two things would follow : first, that the being 
 justified by works, as a condition appointed by God in addition to that 
 
348 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 of faith, would so far obscure the glory of the Savior, through whose 
 sole merit the sinner is accepted ; and next, that it would necessarily 
 and invariably lead each person to trust his own works, rather than 
 Christ. It would be vain, to tell persons that there was no merit in 
 those works, but that their works were the condition of justification, 
 just as their faith was ; inevitably and necessarily, they would attach 
 the idea of their justification and salvation to those works, and on those 
 works they would rest. And thus, both a sinner would be separated 
 from that exclusive confidence in the merit of Christ which he ought 
 to feel, and the merit of Christ would be necessarily obscured by the 
 very fact of such a condition. 
 
 ' Grod has made no such condition. The one condition is faith. And 
 since the Redeemer is the sole meritorious cause of the justification of 
 any sinner, we see that it must be becoming and fitting in the Al- 
 mighty, to grant the sinner's justification in such a way, as shall give 
 Christ all the ^lory. He has, therefore, made faith the sole condition ; 
 because it is most obvious, that by faith as the sole condition does 
 Christ receive, as he ought, all the glory. Let a sinner trust in Christ 
 alone for his salvation from eternal death ; and then, placing himself 
 as a ruined creature under Christ's care, it is what you might expect 
 from the infinite mercy of that gracious Redeemer, that he should 
 welcome such a humble penitent. " Him that cometh to me I will in 
 no wise cast out." If we apply to Christ for salvation with no other 
 plea than this, that we are ruined, and he is a mighty and a gracious 
 Savior. Christ asks nothing else. What else should he ask ? An 
 atonement ? He came himself to atone. Holiness and love ? He 
 came, not to find them in the rebellious, but to create them both. He 
 asks, therefore, nothing else ; but if a humbled sinner feels that he is 
 ruined, and applies to Christ as a gracious and mighty Savior, to res- 
 cue him from eternal death, Christ is gracious enough to welcome him. 
 He becomes Christ's disciple ; he receives all through Christ ; and as 
 a humble penitent, renouncing his rebellion, he both acknowledges his 
 own ruin, trusts the merit of the Savior in opposition to a trust in the 
 mere mercy of God, and in opposition to a trust in any merit of his 
 own, and so submits to Christ's method of saving him, and places 
 himself under his dominion, to be sanctified and guided from that 
 day. For such Christ intercedes ; welcoming the penitent believer, 
 who gives him all the glory, he now intercedes for him ; and God 
 accepts the intercession ; and that penitent believer trusting exclu- 
 sively to Christ, is welcomed through his intercession. At the 
 same time, you may see, that when a person thus trusts in Christ 
 alone, he does what in him lies, to proclaim to the whole world 
 
 9 
 
WHAT IS JUSTIFYING FAITH ? 849 
 
 around him his sense of the enonnitj of sin, Avhich could be par 
 doncd by no other sacrifice than Christ's ; and his sense of the 
 hoUness and truth of God, who would admit him on no other terms ; 
 and his sense of the infinite mercy and infinite merit of Christ, through 
 whom he is accepted ; and his sense of the need that his rebellious 
 heart should be brought back again to God, by his submitting to be 
 saved by his sanctifying grace ; and by this does he give all the glory 
 in a sinner's power to that great and gracious Savior. 
 
 What other instrument of justification can be so suitable as this ? 
 We see, on the one hand, that God will justify a sinner because of 
 Christ's righteousness, and will give to Christ all the glory ; we see, 
 on the other hand, an instrument of justification, by Avhich all the glory 
 is rendered to Christ ; and it must be plain to the commonest under- 
 standing, that that instrument, and none other, is that which may be 
 most honorable to God, to order and establish as the one condition of, 
 a sinner's salvation. Is there merit in this act of faith ? No more 
 than there was in Peter, when, because he was sinking in the water, 
 he trusted Christ's power and love to save him from it. No more than 
 there was in the army of Israel, when they believed that the power of 
 God would divide for them the Red Sea, and carry them in safety 
 through it. No more merit, than there is in the destitute and dying 
 welcoming the alms, that may save them from destruction. There is 
 no merit in faith. It is not by faith as a work, by faith as a meritori- 
 ous attainment, that any sinner is justified ; but it is by the riches of 
 Christ, which faith apprehends, and lays hold upon. It is by that 
 which gives to Christ all the glory, and precludes all merit in the 
 sinner, that God has determined to justify every sinner who is justified. 
 
 If this, my brethren, be the plain, scriptural account of the way in 
 which a sinner is justified by God, it is very easy to see how important 
 it is, that you and I should not alone reason about faith, not alone 
 talk about faith, but should have this justifying faith. In fact, 
 it is impossible for me adequately to state the importance of 
 obtaining this blessing. All blessings flow from it. Once obtain 
 this saving faith in Christ, and we are glorious forever. Once 
 obtain it, and the attributes of God are around us, like a fortress, 
 that no evil can invade. Once obtain it, and the privileges of the 
 new covenant of grace are ours. Without it, we are shut out from 
 salvation, and honor, and happiness. No words can express the 
 importance of every living and thinking soul in this congregation 
 getting this faith. We must have it. We shall be lost without it. 
 We shall hasten down to ruin, if we have not faith ; and the more we 
 know of it, the more convinced we are of it. the worse will it be for us 
 
350 • THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 if we do not get it. That faith must bum in our bosoms, as the prin- 
 ciple of eternal life, or we perish. We must have it, or we die. 
 
 Does any one here say — I cannot have it ; I have no faith, and I 
 cannot have it ? What does that mean — I cannot have faith ? Is 
 Christ deserving your confidence ? Are God's invitations plain and 
 certain ? Is it necessary to escape from hell, and to reach heaven ? 
 Must you be happy ? Have you an indestructible thirst after happi- 
 ness ? Is the way to happiness made plain before you ? Why, then, do 
 you not take it ? What is the meaning of saying, I cannot believe ? 
 
 It means tliis, as you must see if you recall what justifying faith is : 
 I cannot see that I am a lost sinner ; I will not own it ; and therefore 
 I cannot trust Christ's atoning sacrifice, and Christ's sanctifying grace. 
 Is tlds what it means ? Then what fatal pride there is in that man, 
 or woman, or child, in this congregation, that ventures, in the face 
 of facts that will silence all of us when we stand before the judg- 
 ment seat, and ought to silence all of us now, to say — I cannot own 
 that I am a hell-doomed sinner ; I cannot own that I merit my Maker's 
 eternal curse ? We shall see it plainly enough hereafter, if we do not 
 see it now ; and there is nothing to account for the dulness of our 
 vision, but the pride of our hearts. What fatal pride, if we should 
 have to own before God at the last, that in the face of all the clearest 
 demonstration of his word, his attributes, and the workings of our own 
 common sense, we denied that we deserved his eternal wrath ! 
 
 Or does it mean — I cannot trust Christ's great sacrifice, and per- 
 fect obedience, and declared love ? What ingratitude to him ! what 
 causeless unbelief! Is it true, or is it not true, that that unseen, but 
 Almighty Savior is ready to intercede for you, and give you his Spirit, 
 and carry you to heaven ? Is it true, or is it not, that there is not one 
 soul in this congregation, for whom Christ Jesus did not give his blood, 
 and whom he is not now ready to make a child of God and an heir of 
 heaven ? What fatal, what damnable unbelief, if notwithstanding all 
 this, any one in this congregation says — I cannot trust him ! 
 
 Or does it mean, that because he has revealed that he will save you 
 by making you holy, by leading you to obey, by making you mortify 
 your sins, by giving you the sanctifying spirit through which all this 
 may be done, you cannot submit to that ; you must hold your sins ; 
 you must still live in that which God forbids ; you must still cherish 
 that which God's law condemns ? Why, in the face of such fearful 
 sanctions, and notwithstanding such plain and reiterated commands, 
 and when such infinite mercy is extended to you, to refuse salvation 
 because you will cling to sin — oh ! it must silence every one at the 
 last, if nothing else did ; it must strike such an arrow of remorse into 
 
WHAT 16 JUoTIFYlXG FAITH? 351 
 
 the miserable soul, that will have then to own — I might have been 
 rescued and blessed for ever, but I would not give up my rebellion 
 against God. Alas I alas ! it will deepen all the gloom of the con- 
 demnation, that is resting upon you already. 
 
 But if still you tell me that you are obliged to say, I cannot believe ; 
 are you to sit down ki despair ? Here is a fearful load of guilt upon 
 you ; must you sit down in despair ? Do you say — What can I do ? 
 I am lost, I shall sink into perdition, I have not beUeved, I cannot 
 believe ; all this is true, but I must sink into perdition, helpless and 
 hopeless ? You only half believe that ; or you would not sit still and 
 do nothing. Depend upon it, when any man says, I must sit still and 
 do nothing, because I cannot believe, ho has only half a conviction of 
 his melancholy state. A little deeper conviction of the absolute and 
 intolerable misery to which such a state is leading, would make you at 
 once begin to be active in doing what you can. , 
 
 Do you say — What can we do ? There are many things, God's 
 Word declares you not only can, but must do. It is our duty to 
 believe in Christ at once. It is the duty of every man, woman, and 
 child in this assembly, to believe in Christ now. There is evidence 
 that ought to convince every one, at once, vrithout any further exami- 
 nation ; and the obligations resting upon us are such, that not one 
 night ought to be lost ; not one minute's delay ought to be interposed. 
 Christ offers you and me salvation, if we trust him ; and it is our duty 
 to trust him now. We are lost, and he offers to save us from hell by 
 his atoning sacrifice, by his sanctifying Spirit ; and he only asks us to 
 trust him. We ought to trust him 7iow. 
 
 But if the hardness of any heart forbids it ; if the habitual unbe- 
 lief of any heart forbids ; if the devoted love of sin, which still mas- 
 ters any one, forbids it ; then what must follow ? To do nothing ? 
 No. Listen to God's Word, as you hope to be saved. God has 
 required of just such persons — " Wash you, make you clean ; put 
 away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; 
 learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the 
 fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, 
 saith the Lord ; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white 
 as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
 Break off every hal)it of sin. Keep out of the way of temptation. 
 Forsake the company that tempts. Do what you obviously can. No 
 one compels you to seek bad company ; no one compels you to place 
 yourself in the way of temptation ; Satan cannot compel you to any 
 external act. Therefore, break these things off. Break off what- 
 
352 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 ever, in fact, interferes with your seeking salvation. Break it off at 
 once. It is God's command. 
 
 Is there nothing that you can do ? God's Word declares — " Who- 
 soever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Cannot 
 you call on him ? Cannot you at once begin to seek God's mercy ? 
 But you have not faith ; and you have not earnestness. Still, call on 
 him as you can. Begin to pray. Fasten upon your mind the neces- 
 sity of salvation ; and let the cry of your natural distress, if not the 
 prayer of faith, ascend up before God. 
 
 God has said in his Word — " The law is our schoolmaster to bring 
 us to Christ." Then, in other words, it is when men perceive how the 
 law condemns them, that they flee to Christ as the only Savior. Do 
 not get rid of the sense of guilt ; but fasten it on your mind. Medi- 
 tate on God's holy law ; look at all its precepts ; apply them jo your 
 own case ; see how you have violated them ; acknowledge the con- 
 demnation that law pronounces. Let the humihating thought rest 
 there, till it compels you to seek salvation by Christ. " The law is our 
 schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we may be justified by faith." 
 
 Meditate, further, as you can, upon the gospel of Christ: for 
 " faith," we read, " cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of 
 God." When any one will day by day read the Scriptures solemnly 
 and seriously, and endeavor to understand them, and to impress them 
 on his mind, it may be the duty in which God meets him. In the 
 absence of that, how can you expect the blessing ? If you despise 
 God's Word, if you neglect his gospel, can you look for salvation ? 
 Read it ; meditate upon it. You may find, as thousands have, that in 
 that obedience, however imperfect, to God's will, he may meet with 
 you and save you. 
 
 If you feel still, that all this may leave you yet unsaved, because 
 none of these things can sanctify, (which is most true,) remember, 
 faith is the gift of his Spirit. It is not wrought by us ; it is wrought 
 by him, as many passages with which you are acquainted tell you. If 
 it be wrought by him ; if no man can enter heaven except he be 
 regenerate by the Spirit, and it is he who imparts the faith, by which 
 a sinner lays hold on Christ ; then recollect that Christ has said, God 
 is more wiUing to give you that Holy Spirit, if you ask him, than you, 
 if the most loving parent, are willing to give the commonest blessing 
 to your child. Christ has said so, and God will do it. Then wait on 
 him. Ask for that Spirit. Ask it frequently ; ask it day by day ; 
 never cease from asking, for " men ought always to pray, and not to 
 faint." Ask on, till God grants you that necessary blessing. 
 
 These things, at least, you can do ; and there are other similar 
 
ERRORS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 353 
 
 directions in God's Word, for those who are as yet in their sins. And 
 till all these are done, and have been done long in vain, do not say 
 you can do nothing. If you say so, my dear hearer, it is, depend 
 upon it, because you are only half convinced. Once thoroughly per- 
 suaded that you are ruined without Christ, you will gratefully seize 
 the opportunities for these habits, which he has required you at once, 
 as condemned sinners, to exercise and to cultivate. 
 
 But how can we express adequately, my Christian brethren, the 
 gratitude we ought to have to God through Christ, if indeed he has 
 given us this inestimable blessing ? How can we sufficiently deplore 
 the condition of some among us, to whom it seems almost impossible 
 that they should believe ; to whom the difficulty in their way seems 
 almost insuperable ? " And yet God has taught us to believe. Why ? 
 Why do we rest on Christ this night ? Why do we now look up to 
 our most loving Savior, to deliver us from our guilt and ruin, from the 
 curse of the law, from the malice of Satan, from his temptations, from 
 the eternal wrath we have merited, from all evil ; and to place us 
 amongst his people in glory ? Why, with a consciousness perhaps as 
 complete as any one can have, that we are utterly deserving of eternal 
 wrath, have we yet this confidence in Christ ? Oh ! brethren, it is a 
 blessing from God, for which it is impossible we should be sufficiently 
 thankful. Let us day by day exercise that faith. Let not a day go 
 by, without our trusting in Christ still to save us. And may that con- 
 fidence in him become more and more simple and complete. 
 
 SERMON XXIX. 
 
 DUTY OF ASSAILING THE ERRORS OF TEE CHURCH OF ROME. 
 BY REV. JOHN GUMMING, D. D. 
 
 " Pnt yourselves in array against Babylon round about ; all ye that bend the bow shoot 
 at her, spare no arrows; for she hath siuneJ against the Lord." — Jer. 1. 14. 
 
 There can be no question, my Christian brethren, that Babylon la 
 the type and emblem of the popish apostacy. The eighteenth chapter 
 of Revelations, which we have read this evening, and other parallel 
 portions of the inspired record, abundantly demonstrate this. But, as 
 there are several features which confirm this identity, we will en- 
 deavor, in humble dependence on grace divine, to lay them before you. 
 23 
 
354 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Idolatry was the sin emblazoned on the forehead of ancient Baby- 
 lon, incorporated with her laws, and interwoven with her habits. Her 
 idols of silver and gold were commensurate with the fantasies of the 
 human heart, and with the passions of men. Now, if we turn to the 
 antitype, the church of Rome, we find that there is no one character- 
 istic more apparent than her idolatry. If she does not worship Baal, 
 and Chemosh, and Jupiter, and Juno, and the other gods of the 
 heathen, she has at least covered or removed their images, and placed 
 in their niches, in the christened Pantheon, those of Peter, and Paul, 
 and Mary. Jesuits may make metaphysical distinctions between doulia 
 and latria, between veneration and worship ; but the fact is not to be 
 denied, that before these images of gold and silver, papists prostrate 
 themselves, and offer to the idol, and not to the being which it repre- 
 sents, very worship, and very prayer and praise. Thus the second 
 commandment is broken, and idolatry chargeable on the church of 
 Rome, and consequently her identity with ancient Babylon is manifest 
 in one feature at least. 
 
 Again. A feature in ancient Babylon which stamped her guilt with 
 peculiar depth and dye, was her using the golden vessels of the sanc- 
 tuary of Jehovah in her idolatrous rites. It was this attempt to blend 
 the high heavens with hell — this minghng of the cups of the Lord 
 amid the cups of demons — that drew down the wrath of God, and 
 nerved the hand which wrote upon the plaster " weighed and found 
 wanting." Is not this feature clearly developed in the church of 
 Rome ? Are not the rites of ancient paganism — her lustrations, pro- 
 cessions, incense, &c. intermingled with the pure rites of Christian 
 truth ? Are not St. Peter's and the Pantheon made to coalesce by 
 mutual concessions ? Are not the attributes of the Almighty partly 
 attributed to a wafer, and partly wreathed around the temples of a 
 fallible sinner ? If ever the light of heaven and the darkness of hell 
 were made to mingle together — if ever fire from above and fire from 
 beneath burned on the same altar — if ever God and man were 
 made, in creeds and canons, to exchange places, it is in the church 
 of Rome ; and this other feature seals her identity with ancient 
 Babylon. 
 
 Again. A striking feature in the character of ancient Babylon 
 was her persecuting and intolerant disposition. The Greeks and 
 Romans always allowed every man to worship as he liked ; but the 
 Babylonians made the decree, " that whosoever would not fall down 
 and worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set 
 up, should be cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace." Now 
 this is just the very character of popery ; — she makes a corruptible 
 
ERRORS OF THE CHURCH OP ROME. 356 
 
 ■wafer her god ; she elevates the host, and whosoever will not fall 
 down and worship the idol which Rome has set up, for him there is 
 the hlazing faggot, or the cell of the barbarous inquisition. To know 
 this you have not to go far. The blood of martyrs is not yet dry on 
 the streets and market-places of London ; and the wild grey moors of 
 our native Scotland have been drenched by the tears and life-blood 
 of those who preferred death to idolatry, and the vexing of the Spirit 
 of God. 
 
 Again. Babylon was long the prison-house of the people of God. 
 For seventy long years was Jerusalem seen on the tablets of memory 
 only, and the tears of Zion's children were shed on the waters of 
 Babel, and their reft harps hung on the weepmg willows ; and in like 
 manner for centuries did our fathers mourn amid the polluted waters 
 of modern Rome, and even now are there a few in the midst of her 
 to whom we address the echo of Jehovah's voice, " Come out of her, 
 my people." Thus we see that ancient Babylon and modern popery 
 are identified in their character, in their history, aye, and in their fell 
 and dread doom of desolation and dismay. You will, therefore, have 
 a key to unlock many predictions of the prophets, which otherwise 
 would appear inexplicable. We now direct your attention to the grand 
 reason which the Spirit of God assigns for setting ourselves in array 
 against Babylon, namely, " She has sinned against the Lord." She 
 has sinned, first, against the institutions of God ; secondly/, agsanst the 
 character of God ; and thirdl>/, against the functions of God. 
 
 1st. She has sinned against the institutions of God. Under this 
 head we would comprehend the Word of God, which he instituted as 
 a light to our feet and a lamp to our path. This blessed book God 
 wrote not with ink, but with the blood of his Son, and inspired with 
 his Holy Spirit. This he gave as, next to his Son, the best and 
 brightest boon he had to bestow ; and this book he has caused to be 
 bequeathed by the grave of the martyred father, to the bosom of the 
 obedient son ; and this book popery has locked up in a tongue unknown 
 to the mass of the people, or allowed it to be read only by priestly 
 license. " For," says the Council of Trent, " if Holy Bibles are dis- 
 tributed without discrimination, in the vulgar tongue, more harm than 
 good will arise ; " nay, " the regular clergy may not read the Bible 
 without permission of their prelates ! " We do think that this apo&- 
 tacy has herein been guilty of the sin against the H0I3' Ghost ; and 
 we are borne out in this awful charge by the fact, that to Babylon no 
 overture of peace, no promise of mercy is sent in the Scriptures, but 
 threatenings and destinies of blackness and wrath for ever and ever. 
 Adam defaced and marred the pages of the book of creation, which 
 
356 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 beamed forth the glorj, and the majesty, and the goodness of the 
 Almighty ; but popery has mangled and marred the pages of inspiror 
 tion, which do contain the brightness of the glory of Jesus. Adam 
 sinned against a creation God, but popery has sinned against a revela- 
 tion God. From pilgrims and voyagers to eternity, she has filched 
 their chart, their compass, and their pole-star, and left them to thick 
 darkness, and dangerous reefs, and ultimate wreck. From soldiers, 
 necessarily so, she has stolen their sword, their shield, their breastplate, 
 and their helmet, and left them utterly defenceless. Oh ! is there 
 not powerful reason in this for putting themselves in array against 
 Babylon ? 
 
 She has also desecrated the Sabbaths of the Most High. She has 
 appointed so many holidays (in Spain there are nearly 150,) that the 
 Sabbath is come to be regarded as a very ordinary institu.tion indeed ; 
 even priests and cardinals have declared that it is not by half so sinful 
 to follow our own ways and works on the Sabbath of the Lord, as it is 
 to neglect the observance of the holidays of the church. And actual 
 fact is demonstrative of the tendency and the spirit of the system, for 
 in Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy, the Sabbath-day-theatre is shel- 
 tered and fostered by the Vatican, and fairs and revelries are on that 
 day most numerous and interesting. Thus the Sabbath — that frag- 
 ment of heaven let down upon the bosom of earth — that brightest 
 and best interlude amid the weary weeks of our pilgrimage — that 
 foretaste of the eternal rest, is trodden under the feet of popery, and 
 the Lord of the Sabbath thus sinned against. 
 
 2ndly. She has siiined against the character of Crod. The Scrip- 
 tures declare God to be a Spirit, and that " they who worship him 
 must worship him in spirit and in truth ; " — this popery has totally 
 overturned. She commands all worship to him to be presented on the 
 terra incognita of an unknown tongue ; and all praise and prayer to 
 be offered through idols of silver and gold, made like to corruptible 
 man ; and by these most unholy requirements, has she veiled the charac- 
 ter of the Most High in mysticism and in falsehood ; and the God of 
 our Savior is to her victims an unknown God, and the Father of Jesus 
 an unknown Father ; and where and what is revelation if this be so ? 
 
 The church of Rome has, by her division of sin into mortal and 
 venial, encouraged and fostered the idea, that the Almighty is not 
 that infinitely Holy Being which the Scriptures represent him to be, 
 and that there cannot have been so urgent a need for the vindication 
 of this great attribute ; and, therefore, that there is not in the atone- 
 ment all that intense love, and unbending justice, and spotless sanctity, 
 ■which Protestants magnifv and make mention of. She has, in addition 
 
ERRORS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 357 
 
 to this, communicated, as much as canons can communicate, some of 
 the glorious attributes of Jehovah to a mortal and sinful man. She 
 has given the names of Deity to the bishop of Kome ; and the great 
 prerogative of infallibility has she bestowed alternately on councils 
 and popes. This surely is blasphemy of the most expUcit description ; 
 this surely is a process in direct opposition to that which the gospel 
 promotes. Man humbled, and God magnified, is the all-pervading 
 tissue of Christianity. God lowered and man installed in his stead, is 
 the direct result of popery. 
 
 3. She has sinned against the peculiar functions of God our 
 Savior. She has trenched on the Mngly office of the Lord Jesus by 
 abrogating laws which he has laid down for all generations, and enact- 
 ing others at issue with the letter and the spirit of his gospel. She 
 has endeavored to dethrone Christ, and enthrone man in his place. She 
 has invaded also the pro2)hetic office of Christ. He inspired the oracles 
 of truth, and commanded their universal perusal, and presented him- 
 self, their author, as their surest interpreter. But the church of Rome 
 has withheld the whole Bible in some countries, where her tyranny is 
 at its maximum, and locked them up in other countries, in a tongue 
 unknown to the mass of the people ; and in a few countries where 
 Protestant truth is too powerful, she has permitted a restricted peru- 
 sal, or circulated a Bible enveloped in heresy and in perversion of its 
 truths to the destruction of men ; and instead of allowing men, by 
 prayer and diligent perusal, to judge for themselves whether these 
 things be so or not, she has commanded them upon the pain of death, 
 and under the sanction of an oath, to receive and believe the interpre- 
 tations of Councils and Popes, among which there are more contra- 
 dictions than among all the other sects of Christendom. She has also 
 sinned against the priestly office of Christ. She declares that the 
 mass is a true propitiation for the sins of the living and the dead. She 
 declares that the merits of some men are so great, that they can spare 
 a handful for the accommodation of those that can purchase them ; 
 and that the merits of others are such as enable them, not only to 
 deserve the grace of justification, but also to increase it ; and she 
 asserts that the intercession of saints is extremely important, and their 
 prayers vastly meritorious. We contend that these dogmas which I 
 have shown to be held by the church of Rome from her own missals 
 and councils, which I now hold in my hand, are in direct opposition to 
 the most explicit declarations of the inspired record. " Christ was 
 once offered to bear the sins of many." " This man, after he had 
 offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at the right hand of 
 God : " and " without sheddmg blood there is no remission of sins," 
 
358 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 are texts Avhich completely overthrow the sacrifice of the mass, 
 " There is but one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ 
 Jesus," and " all our righteousness is but as filthy rags," are declara- 
 tions which alone overthrow the merits of man on the one hand, and 
 establish alone the intercession and mediation of Christ on the other. 
 We might enter into the records of the Inquisition, with all its crimes 
 committed against the saints, dear to Jehovah as the apple of his eye ; 
 and we might "sum up the history of the doings of the church which 
 have been based on ignorance, and murder, and guilt, but we think we 
 have said enough to prove that Babylon " has sinned against the Lord." 
 All these sins, you will observe, were not the ebullitions of temporary 
 excitement, nor the acts of individuals reprobated by the body to 
 which they belonged ; but the development of the spirit and tendencies 
 of the church, and the legitimate prosecution of her most express 
 enactments. Her sins are interwoven with the system, inseparable 
 from it, and to be destroyed with the destruction of Babylon only. 
 But it may be asked, Avhy are we directed to set ourselves in array 
 against Babylon, while infidelity and atheism, and nominal religion, 
 are equally fatal to the everlasting interests of men. The reason is 
 found in the fact, that popery is more congenial to the fallen nature 
 of man, and on this account more likely to captivate and ensnare. 
 There is something so desolating in the creed of atheism, and some- 
 thing so unsatisfactory in the tenets of infidelity, that few are likely 
 theoretically to embrace them. Annihilation so jars with the feelings 
 of instinctive immortality, that we shrink from it ; and Deism involves 
 us in so many uncertainties, that we cannot be easy in its society ; but 
 popery has a bland aspect and silken meshes, and a far more seductive 
 power than any other earthly system. Popery finds a sphere for 
 every native propensity of man, and withal it pledges a sure reward 
 in eternity. It gives full scope to every depraved desire, and never- 
 theless holds forth unblushing promise of glory. It shows how men 
 may live as devils, and die as angels. It is just the religion which 
 man wishes, but not the religion which man needs. It is the religion 
 of earth surrounded with the drapery, and colored with the tints of 
 real Christianity. It is the coin of Caesar stamped with the image 
 and the superscription of Jesus. It is the form of godliness, but the 
 power of wickedness. It is Satan as an angel of light. Paganism is 
 Satan going about as a roaring lion, but popery is Satan creeping in 
 as a cunning serpent. Popery is the voice of Jacob, but the hand of 
 Esau. 
 
 Before explaining the injunction in the text, we must lay down the 
 nature of the weapons which we are to employ. These are not carnal, 
 
ERRORS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 359 
 
 but mighty to the pvalling down of the strongholds of sin. The sword 
 has been forged and tempered in heaven, and the breastplate is com- 
 posed of righteousness, and the helmet of hope, and our feet are shod 
 with the preparation of the gospel of peace. The less we employ the 
 weapons of earth, the less we enlist human passion and power on our 
 side, the more likely we are to attain ultimate success. Now, at all 
 events, the national barriers are broken down — the national and glo- 
 rious ramparts are removed, and Roman Catholics cannot complain of 
 unfair play. 
 
 Now, then, jjut yourselves in array against Babylon. This phrase- 
 ology does not imply that we are to stand inactive, until we are aroused 
 by the peal of the trumpet, and the clang of conflict bursting on the 
 ear. Inactivity is universally the precursor of defeat. While the 
 husbandman slept, the enemy sowed the tares in the field ; while Saul 
 slept, his weapon was stolen from his side ; while Samson slept, his hair, 
 which was his strength, was shorn away : and if we sleep, our strength 
 and our resources will be dissipated. You are now to make an active 
 and aggressive movement on the battlements of Rome. You are now 
 to open on her heaven's artillery. You are now to urge forward that 
 ploughshare of God's truth, which will turn up her foundations to the 
 withering influences of the winds and rains of heaven. If popery be 
 not actively kept down, it will rapidly spring up. It is a creed indig- 
 enous to our nature. This array commanded in the text, was formed 
 by the Waldenses, when they dashed like waves of the sea, against the 
 strongholds of popery, and retreated like the same, strown with the 
 wreck of beauty, and strength, and health. This array Avas formed 
 by the continental reformers when they sent forth the sound of the 
 glorious gospel which destroyed the walls of Babylon, and razed some 
 of her strongest bulwarks. This array was also formed by the English 
 reformers, when, from the flames, and from the floods, and from the 
 teeth of the lion, and the fangs of the serpent, they snatched the ora- 
 cles of inspiration, and opened their blessed pages in the midst of open 
 day ; and it will be a revival of their spirit and their times if we can 
 prevail on the clergy of the three establishments to preach as becomes 
 them, on the fourth day (Sunday) of October, 1835, which is the 
 third centenary of the completion and publication of the first English 
 Bible by Miles Covcrdale, on the glorious privileges and blessings of 
 the Reformation. This array was likewise formed by the Scottish 
 reformers when they so thoroughly rooted out the man of sin from the 
 land, that in 1611 there was but one aged Roman Catholic priest in 
 Scotland, and about ten families professing the popish faith. Ther- 
 mopykic, and Marathon, and Trafalgar, and Waterloo, are not meet to be 
 
360 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 mentioned in the same breath with these glorious triumphs, these 
 embattled arrays of the noble army of reformers ; and the names of 
 Caesar, and Themistocles, and Alexander, are not worthy to appear 
 next to those of Luther, Calvin, Ridley, Knox, and others, of whom 
 the world was not worthy. Onward, my brethren, in the steps of these 
 martyred but mighty men, and under the shelter of the altars and 
 monuments they raised, and by the graves under which their ashes 
 repose ; onward in the same glorious struggle, and put yourselves in 
 determined array against Babylon. 
 
 " All ye that bend the bow shoot at her, and spare no arrows." 
 This appears to me to be the Spirit's call to the ministers of the gospel. 
 It is on them especially that the duty devolves of standing on the 
 watch-towers of Zion, and of taking thejead in all the battles of the 
 Lord. They are to bear forward that consecrated banner, under the 
 inspiration of which are marshalled the saints of the Most High ; and on 
 no account to retreat till they are called from the arena of contest to the 
 victor's laurels, and the victor's rest. Never will the Christianity of 
 our Protestant people rise to its spring-tide strength while the Christi« 
 anity of our Protestant priests continues so low and so superficial. 
 Let us, then, " spare no arrows ! " Let us use all legitimate weapons. 
 These arrows are mentioned in Psalm xlv. 5, " Thine arrows are sharp 
 in the hearts of the king's enemies ! " Some of these are feathered 
 with love, and some with wrath ; some are the terrors of the Lord, and 
 others are the mercies of the Lord. We are to take one and all from 
 the armory of heaven, and whether they produce plagues or wound but 
 to save, we are to shoot them against Babylon. If there be anything 
 likely to win in the promises of God — if any thing likely to alkrm in 
 the terrors of God — if any efficacy in prayer — if any blessing on 
 means — we are to employ all these and spare none, for Babylon's case 
 is an almost desperate case. This instrumentality we are to employ 
 now. We do not wait till the black cloud has covered the whole canopy 
 of heaven before we run for shelter ; we do not wait till the plague-spot 
 has covered the whole body before we apply for an antidote and a cure ; 
 we do not Avait till danger has attained its maximum before we labor to 
 arrest or to anticipate it, — why, then, should the children of this world 
 be wiser in their generation, than the children of light ? The present 
 crisis calls aloud for active and vigorous efforts. Spare no arrows — 
 support every society that bears upon popery at home, aid and strengthen 
 especially the British Reformation Society, which, in my opinion, is a 
 noble and scriptural array — a glorious phalanx — a mighty vantage 
 ground from which we may shoot the arrows of the Lord against 
 Babylon. If we come short in our efforts now, we shall have to lament 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. , 361 
 
 our neglect -when Babylon has reared her blasphemous head, diademed 
 ■with the crowns she has filched from heaven and earth, and drunk with 
 the blood of martyrs, and rejoicing in the strength and maturity which 
 your apathy and liberalized notions have ministered to her. If it be 
 any privilege to vindicate the glory of God, dishonored and eclipsed 
 by an anti- Christian church — if there be any bowels of mercy toward 
 the souls that are in jeopardy — if any patriotism, Christian patriotism, 
 in the bosoms of men — if any obligation in the commandments of 
 God — then put yourselves in array against Babylon, and the banner 
 over you shall be love, and the rampart round you shall be omnipo- 
 tence, and the glory of God shall be your reward. Protestantism 
 bearded in the lands of its birth and its blessings — truth blended with 
 fables, and popery threatening to subvert the Church of Ireland, that 
 it may have more room to attack the Churches of England and Scot- 
 land, bid you note and ponder the injunction of th© text. Let the fear 
 of darkness enveloping these lands of yet unextinguished light — let 
 the crown, the altar, and the constitution — let the cry of the martyrs 
 from beneath the altar, " IIow long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou 
 not judge and avenge our blood" — let heaven and earth, let eternity 
 and time, be heard, while they cry with one voice, " Put yourselves in 
 array against Babylon round about ; all ye that bend the bow shoot at 
 her, spare no arrows ; for she hath sinned against the Lord." 
 
 SEEMON XXX. 
 
 HUMAN AGENCY IN THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 
 BY REV. ROBERT YOUNG. 
 
 • Let him know, that he which convcrteth the sinner from the error of his way, sliall save 
 a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." — James v. 20. 
 
 There is no doctrine more prominently stated in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, or more strikingly exemplified in the experience of men, than 
 that of human depravity. Revelation boldly asserts, that " all have 
 sinned ; " and history, with its ten thousand tongues, substantiates the 
 fact. Sin is an hereditary disease, entailed upon aH the posterity of 
 the first transgressor ; corrupting every faculty of the soul, and 
 spreading its polluting and deadly influence through the whole mass of 
 
362 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 human society. What was said of the Jews politically, may be said 
 of the world spiritually: " The whole head is sick, and the whole heart 
 is faint." Hence appears the necessity of conversion. Men are 
 guilty, and therefore exposed to the penalties of a violated law ; unholy, 
 and therefore totally unfit for the kingdom of heaven ; and without 
 conversion must consequently perish. Thank God ! they may be con- 
 verted ; for the atonement of Christ, the promises of the gospel, and 
 the influences of the Holy Ghost, bear their united testimony to this 
 exhilarating truth. And to induce those who are happily converted, to 
 labor for the conversion of others, the apostle says, "Let him know" 
 — yes, let him know, for the direction of his talents, and the encour- 
 agement of his heart — " that he which converteth the sinner from the 
 error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of 
 sins." 
 
 Having this evening to plead the cause of The London Female 
 Mission, the text selected for the occasion may be considered — 
 
 I. As describing the object wJiich this mission contemjdates ; 
 
 II. As investing its agents with authority for acting ; and — 
 
 III. As furnishing the most powerful motives to persevering zeal in 
 its opterations. 
 
 I. The text may be considered as describing the object which 
 THE London Female Mission contemplates. Its object is not 
 merely to protect, but to save ; not only to reclaim from one vice, but 
 from every vice, by " converting sinners from the error of their ways." 
 
 The parties for whose benefit this mission has been established, are 
 found in the ways of error ; for they " have forsaken the Guide of 
 their youth, and forgotten the covenant of tlieir God." Does darkness 
 associate itself with error ? They are as degenerate and deeply fallen 
 creatures, said to " grope in darkness ; " to have their eyes " blinded by 
 the god of this world ; " and to be thus rendered incapable of knowing 
 themselves, and of " beholding the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ." Does impurity associate itself with error ? They are " alto- 
 gether as an unclean thing ; " and " the imaginations of their hearts 
 are only evil, and that continually." Does misery associate itself with 
 error ? " Destruction and misery are in all their ways ; the way of 
 peace they know not ; " and in a state of fearful disquietude " they go 
 about, seeking rest, but find none." Does danger associate itself with 
 error ? The curse of a violated law, like the avenger of blood, is 
 pursuing them ; and we are assured, that " their feet go down to death, 
 and their steps take hold on hell." Now, to " convert these sinners 
 from the error of their ways," is to bring them from darkness to light; 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 363 
 
 from impurity to holiness ; from misery to happiness ; from danger to 
 safety ; and in fact from Satan to God. 
 
 The change implied in the conversion of sinners is universal. There 
 is a change in their understanding ; for " God who commandeth hght 
 to shine out of darkness, shineth into their hearts," " opening the eyes 
 of their understanding " to know themselves, and the " things which 
 arc freely given to them of God." There is a change in their will; 
 for being subdued by a Divine power, they no longer resist the author- 
 ity of their jNIaker, but humbly acquiesce in the plan of saving grace, 
 and the various dispensations of Divine providence. There is a change 
 in their affections ; for they no longer wander after forbidden objects, 
 or " cleave to the dust of the earth," but are "set on things above, 
 where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." There is a change in 
 their deportment; for having "put off concerning the former conversa- 
 tion, the old man which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lust," and 
 having " put on the new man, which after God is created in righteous- 
 ness and true holiness," they " walk righteously and godly and soberly 
 in the present evil world." There is a change in their condition. 
 Formerly they were " slaves to divers lusts and pleasure." but are now 
 free from the " bondage of sin and death ; " they were the " enemies 
 of God by reason of wicked works," but now are they his friends, 
 and delight to do whatever he commands them ; they " were the 
 children of wrath even as others," but now are they " the children 
 of God by faith in Christ Jesus," and have " received the Spirit of 
 adoption, whereby they cry Abba Father." Such is the nature of 
 scriptural conversion. It is not a partial change, but extends to every 
 propensity and feeling of fallen nature. Sinners are not merely 
 mended, but " created anew in Christ Jesus." They have as penitents 
 approached the mercy-seat, and in the exercise of simple faith ,»obtained 
 the forgiveness of their sins and an inheritance amongst them that are 
 sanctified ; and thus " old things have passed away, and all things 
 become new." 
 
 Now to accomplish this great work as extensively as possible, is the 
 object contemplated by The London Female Mission. If the class of 
 persons this mission seeks to benefit, be not sincerely converted to 
 God, no scriptural hope can be entertained of their permanent recovery. 
 To attempt the reformation of such characters independently of con- 
 version, would in general, if not always, be found to be as unavaihng 
 as the putting " new cloth into an old garment ;" for such efforts would 
 in all probability be so perverted by them, as to make the moral rent 
 worse. You cannot give them any principle sufficiently powerful to 
 secure their permanent reformation, whilst their old offending nature 
 
364 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 remains ; for how can jou expect the fruit to be good, while the tree 
 is corrupt ? the streams to be pure, while the fountain remains polluted ? 
 The experiment of producing a good life, in connection with an evil 
 heart of unbelief, has been repeatedly tried, but always failed. In a 
 large provincial town in the North, there is an extensive penitentiary, 
 very liberally supported ; but as it does not make conversion to God, 
 by faith in Christ Jesus, the foundation of the permanent recovery of 
 its numerous inmates, I regret to say, that many of them after having 
 filled up their probation, and left the institution, are unable to resist 
 temptations to vice, and in a short time return to their former ways, 
 and in some instances become more vile than before. Another insti- 
 tution was established, of which I had the honor to be secretary ; and 
 as it was established on the principle that conversion to God is indis- 
 pensable to the permanent rescue of unfortunate females, we kept none 
 under its care who did not give evidence of a sincere desire, not only 
 to forsake 07ie sin, but every sin, and to save their souls ; and such was 
 its management, as to render it almost impossible for any but the truly 
 penitent to remain long under its control. During the. first year of the 
 society's labors, the Divine blessing was so richly communicated, that 
 seventy females were rescued from the grasp of the destroyer ; two of 
 whom died happy in the Lord, eighteen were restored to their friends, 
 and thirty-two placed in situations where in general they gave satis- 
 faction, and all of them afforded encouraging evidence of true conversion. 
 We never thought of sending a female from under the society's care, 
 either to her relations or to a situation, without having reason to believe 
 that she had experienced a saving change ; and although in some cases 
 we were deceived, yet generally speaking we had cause to rejoice over 
 those who professed to obtain salvation. See, therefore, my dear 
 friends, l^at you never lose sight of this principle in the operations of 
 the London Female Mission ; but labor to bring the objects of your 
 charity to a saving acquaintance with your Redeemer. Let not the 
 character of their crimes, or the depth of their depravity, discourage 
 you ; for Christ is " mighty to save." Do you say that their " sins are 
 as scarlet ? " God says, " They shall be as white as snow." Do you 
 say that " they are red like crimson ? " God says, " They shall be as 
 wool." Do you say that the objects of your charity are " five hundred 
 pence debtors ? " God says he will " frankly forgive them all." Nor 
 should you forget, that he who hath said " Publicans and harlots shall 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven," graciously beheld, in the days of 
 his humiliation — 
 
 " A harlot in distress ; 
 
 Dried up her tears, her pardon seal'd, 
 And bade her go in peace." 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 365 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that the first convert in the great revival of 
 religion which took place in America, under the ministry of President 
 Edwards and his contemporaries, was an unfortunate female ; and her 
 conversion was made a blessing to many thousands. Mr. Edwards 
 says — " God made it the greatest occasion of awakening to others, 
 of anything that ever came to pass in the town. The news of it 
 seemed almost like a flash of lightning upon the hearts of young 
 people, and upon many others." And the result of the revival so 
 commenced, was estimated to be the conversion of thirty thousa"nd 
 souls. 
 
 II. The text may be considered as investing the agents of 
 THE London Female Mission "with authority for acting. 
 
 It assumes that it is the duty of Christians to labor according to 
 their respective abilities, for the conversion of sinners ; not merely 
 ministers, but private members. For it was not to ministers, but the 
 church generally, that the apostle addressed himself in the words before 
 us ; and thus recognised the pi-inciple of lay-agency in the conversion 
 of sinners, as being consistent with apostolic order. Here, then, is 
 your authority for acting ; and which no advocate of apostolic succes- 
 sion, is able to take from you. 
 
 This view of the subject is supported by other considerations, upou 
 which we shall now enter. 
 
 1. Your duty to labor for the conversion of souls, may be argued 
 from the method of Jehovah's government. 
 
 It appears to be a principle in the Divine administration, for God to 
 accomplish what man cannot accomplish ; but not to perform what man 
 can perform. See this principle exemplified in nature. God does not 
 cultivate the soil, or deposit the seed therein, because man can do that ; 
 but he gives the fruit of the earth in all its variety and richness, and 
 thus effects what man cannot effect. Sec this exemplified in the mira- 
 cles of our Lord. Take his raising Lazarus for an example. When 
 he had come to the tomb of his servant, he directed his attendants to 
 roll away the stone ; and when he had restored his friend to life, he 
 farther instructed them to " loose him and let him go." Now he that 
 raised Lazarus from the dead, could have easily rolled away the stone 
 and loosed his servant from his bands ; but these were things which man 
 could do ; and our Lord, on that deeply interesting occasion, absolutely 
 performed nothing but what man could not perform. Now this appears 
 to be the principle upon whicli he acts in the conversion of sinners. 
 It is true, that you cannot of yourselves do any good thing, much less 
 convert sinners from the error of their ways, as that is a Divine work ; 
 yet you can humbly, and in dependence upon spiritual aid, employ the 
 
366 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 means avHcIi God has appointed for that important end. And we 
 maintain, that you have no more authority to expect that God will 
 convert sinners whilst the use of those means is neglected, than the 
 husbandman has authority to expect a plentiful harvest whilst he 
 neglects to cultivate his land and sow his seed. 
 
 The truth of God, presented to the mind, is the great instrument of 
 conversion ; and it does not appear that a sinner can be converted and 
 saved independently of the truth of God. For instance : are men born 
 again ? It is " not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible ; even the 
 word of the Lord, which liveth and abideth for ever." Are they 
 sanctified ? It is " through the truth." Are they " made clean ? " 
 It is " through the words which Christ speaks unto them." Hence the 
 absolute necessity of teaching, and consequently of human agency in 
 the conversion of sinners. It is undoubtedly your duty, as Christians, 
 to make known, in some way, and to the extent of which you are capa- 
 ble, the vital doctrines of the gospel to those persons whose conversion 
 you desire ; and thus to furnish that divinely appointed instrument, by 
 which the Holy Ghost awakens, converts and saves. For this purpose 
 you are directed to teach the words of the law " diligently unto your 
 children ; and to talk of them when you sit in the house and when you 
 walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up." You are 
 " in any wise to rebuke your neighbor, and not suffer sin upon your 
 brother ; " to " do and teach the commandments of God ; " to " say 
 every man to his neighbor. Know ye the Lord ; " and, in fact, to be 
 " teachers of all good things." Nor is this all ; for as intercessory 
 prayer offered to God, as well as religious truth presented to the mind 
 of man, is an instrument of conversion, it becomes your duty also to 
 pray for the conversion of sinners. " The effectual fervent prayer of 
 a righteous man availeth much ; " and it is clearly intimated in the 
 context, that it may not only " save the sick," but avail in the " con- 
 version of a sinner from the error of his ways." 
 
 2. Your duty to labor for the conversion of sinners, may be argued 
 from the spirit and tendency of experimental Christianity. It not only 
 qualifies its recipients for this important work, by giving them knowl- 
 edge, love, and meekness, but inspires them with a sincere and ardent 
 desire to be so employed. For the truth of this, we might refer you 
 to Andrew, who, on finding the Messiah, hastened home to bring his 
 brother Simon. We might refer you to Saul of Tarsus, who, on obtain- 
 ing salvation, immediately went forth to recommend it to his countrymen. 
 We might refer you to the martj'rs, and confessors, whose hearts so 
 ardently desii-ed the conversion of their persecutors, that they were 
 manifestly more concerned for that than their own safety. We might 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 367 
 
 refer you to the truly pious, in every age of the world, who have wept 
 and prayed and labored in various ways to effect the conversion of 
 sinners. But we need not go further than this assembly for witnesses 
 of this truth ; each Christian present being such a witness. When jou 
 first felt the love of God shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Ghost 
 given unto you, how did you feel respectmg impenitent sinners ? Did 
 you not earnestly desire their conversion ? You did ; and if you 
 obeyed the impulse of your new nature, you strove to effect that con- 
 version. I appeal to your consciences for the truth of this. Nor was 
 this feeling intended to resemble the mountain torrent, that soon 
 exhausts itself ; but the steady flowing stream, deepening and widening 
 as it advances in its course. If jou have lost this feeling, you cannot 
 have retained your religion, it being inseparably connected therewith ; 
 for " he that loveth God must love his brother also," and cannot but 
 desire and labor for his conversion. If such, therefore, be the ten- 
 dency of religion — if it excite an ardent desire for the conversion of 
 sinners, as well as invest you with moral capabilities for this important 
 work — what is the fair and legitimate conclusion forced upon us, but 
 that 3-0U ought to be thus employed ? If you are not, you will certainly 
 prove unfaithful to your principles, hide your talent in the earth, resist 
 the Spirit's influence, and thereby greatly endanger your own safety. 
 3. Your duty to labor for the conversion of sinners, may be argued 
 from tJie Idstory of the church. Church history records the conversion 
 of myriads of sinners — sinners of every character, and age, and 
 nation, and grade in society — and places them before us as the tro- 
 phies of redeeming grace. And do you ask, by what agency so many 
 sinners have been converted from the error of their ways ? Perhaps 
 in some cases God may have effected the blessed work independently 
 of human agency, although that is by no means evident ; but it is very 
 clear that his usual, if not liis invariahle course, has been to employ 
 that agency. If ever there had been a period when human agency 
 vras unnecessary, it must surely have been on the day of Pentecost, 
 when the Holy Ghost descended upon the disciples ; but even then, it 
 was not dispensed with in the conversion of the three thousand souls, 
 who, on that memorable occasion, were added to the Lord. They had 
 mockingly witnessed the effects of the Spirit's manifestation, and were 
 not " pricked in their hearts " until they heard the Gospel message 
 from the lips of Peter. Then, and not till then, did they discover their 
 sin and danger, and exclaim, " Men and brethren, what shall we do ?" 
 Nor can we find a conversion to God after that period, on record in the 
 New Testament, in which human agency of some description was not 
 employed. Was the Ethiopian eunuch converted ? The Spirit 
 
368 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 directed Philip to join himself to his chariot, and to preach unto him 
 Jesus, that he might understand what he was reading ; and the eunuch 
 " beheved with all his heart," was baptized, and " went on his way 
 rejoicing." Was Saul, of Tarsus, converted ? Ananias was com- 
 manded to go into the street, which was called " Straight," and in the 
 house of one Judas, to put his hands upon him, that he might receive 
 his sight, and " be filled with the Holy Ghost." Was Cornelius, and 
 his household, converted ? Peter was instructed in a vision to go down 
 to Cesarea to tell them words whereby they might be saved ; and " while 
 he yet spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word." 
 Now in each of these cases of conversion, the Divine being had nearly 
 effected the glorious work himself, but did not complete it without 
 human agency ; as if to testify to his church, throughout all genera- 
 tions, that it is his rule to bless man by man, and to make " the weak 
 things of the world to confound the things which are mighty." 
 
 If we examine the annals of the church from that period to the pres- 
 ent, we shall find that families and tribes and even nations, have been 
 converted by means of human agency ; and sometimes by that, which 
 in the estimation of the world has been the most weak and contemptible. 
 Hence we are told, that the king and queen of the ancient Iberia, a 
 province in Asia, were brought to embrace the Christian faith by means 
 of a captive woman ; and this event led to the conversion of nearly all 
 their subjects. But we may come nearer home, even to our own 
 experience and observation, for evidences of the truth we seek to 
 establish. There are in this congregation, I have no doubt, many 
 persons who have been converted from the error of their ways ; and 
 perhaps there is not one here, in whose conversion human agency has 
 been entirely precluded. He who addresses you was convinced of sin, 
 and led to the Savior for pardon and acceptance, by the humble but 
 fervent exertions of a lay preacher. Like some others, he " went to 
 mock, but remained to pray." And if you recur to the circumstances 
 of your conversion, you will probably find that it was the sermon of 
 some minister, the biography of some saint, the advice or reproof of 
 some friend, the shining light of some devoted Christian, or the fervent 
 prayer of some sincere disciple, which first awakened you to a sense 
 of your condition, and led you to " flee for refuge to lay hold on the 
 hope set before you." Or if, in the first instance, you were directly 
 moved by the Spirit without any apparent human agency being 
 employed, we venture to assert, that some Philip, Ananias, or Peter 
 was called in by your blessed Savior, as a subordinate agent, as a 
 worker together with him, in the completion of your conversion. 
 Indeed the whole history of the Christian Church proves, that man, 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 369 
 
 feeble man, is God's selected agent in the accomplishment of his gloii- 
 ous purposes of grace. And this is distinctly and clearly assumed, by 
 the different religious and benevolent institutions of the day, which 
 concentrate so much human agency Avith the view of enlightening and 
 saving the world. Bible, Missionary, Tract and Sunday-school socie- 
 ties, all recognize and act upon this principle ; and this is the principle 
 upon which you, as the agents of the London Female Mission, are 
 authorized and encouraged to put forth your most vigorous exertions in 
 behalf of perishing thousands, and to endeavor to " save them with 
 fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by 
 the flesh." 
 
 Now, brethren, if these things be so, if the method of the Divine 
 Government, the spirit and tendency of religion, the history of the 
 church, and the declarations of the Book of God, prove that it is jour 
 duty to exert your powers in the conversion of sinners — how awfully 
 great is your responsibility ! May you feel it. Remember you cannot 
 occupy a neutral position here ; for " he that gathereth not with me," 
 saith Christ, " scattereth abroad." If you do not co-operate with 
 Christ in the great work of saving souls, you do not on that account 
 remain neutral, but place yourselves, by your very omission of duty, 
 in opposition to their salvation ; and instead of converting sinners from 
 the error of their ways, and saving souls from death, you " destroy 
 those for whom Christ died, and the blood of souls will be found on the 
 skirts of your garments." " He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." 
 
 III. The text may be considered as furnishing the London Female 
 Mission with the most powerful motives to persevering zeal in 
 ITS operations. " He shall save a soul from death and hide a multi- 
 tude of sins." 
 
 1. " He that converteth a sinner from the error of his ways, shall 
 save a soul from death." And who can estimate the value of a soul ? 
 We may form some conception of its worth, if we contemplate its ori- 
 gin, as proceeding in a peculiar way from God ; its caimcity, as being 
 capable of knowing, serving, loving, and enjoying its maker in this 
 world, and in that which is to come ; its redemjjtion^ as being " redeemed, 
 not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious 
 blood of Christ ;" and its immortality, as being destined not only to 
 exist through all succeeding generations, but for ever and for ever. 
 Now on the conversion of a sinner, such a soul is saved from spiritual 
 death. In its unrenewed state it is said to be " dead in trespasses and 
 sins ; " and very properly so, for as natural death implies a separation 
 between the body and the soul^ so spiritual death implies a separation 
 24 
 
370 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 between the soul and its Maker ; but on its conversion a resurrection 
 takes place. He who is the Resurrection and the Life approaches, and 
 ■with authority and power exclaims, " Come forth ! " — and the soul at 
 once feels the vital principle, heaves with Divine animation, and thus 
 passes from death unto life. The converted sinner now lives ; and it is 
 the " life of faith in the Son of God, who hath loved him and given 
 himself for him ; " and he performs the various functions and enjoys 
 the inestimable blessings of a spiritual existence. But on the conver- 
 sion of a sinner, a soul is saved from eternal death ; from blackness and 
 darkness ; from tribulation and wrath ; from fire and brimstone ; from 
 the worm that dieth not ; from weeping and wailing, and from gnashing 
 of teeth. Such are some of the Scripture characteristics of death — 
 eternal death — death which never dies, and to which every uncon- 
 verted sinner is exposed. If on the death of a soul, both man and 
 beast should be clothed with sackcloth — if all creatures capable of 
 emotion, should join in the loud and doleful lamentation — if every 
 tree of the forest and herb of the field should immediately droop like 
 the weeping willow — if every dew drop should be mingled with blood, 
 to indicate the agony of maternal nature, and if the sun should put 
 on his funeral robes as the first mourner on the occasion — the expres- 
 sion of sorrow would indeed be affecting, but it would fall far short of 
 giving us any adequate conception of the misery occasioned by the loss 
 of a soul. And will you not endeavor to save a soul from death ? 
 Brethren, if you saw your neighbor's house on fire, would you not 
 hasten to quench the flame ? If you saw a fellow-creature drowning, 
 would you not plunge into the river to his rescue, or furnish him with 
 some means of escape ? Or if you saw numbers in the city dying of 
 the plague, and you possessed an infallible remedy, would you not 
 apply it Avithout delay, that the plague might be stayed ? But what is 
 the saving of burning houses, drowning men, or dying multitudes, 
 compared with the saving of one soul from death ? He who saves a 
 soul from death, performs a greater work than he who saves a land 
 from famine, a city from the plague, and a country from an invading 
 foe. Then, bring all your capabilities to bear upon this important and 
 momentous work. Have you talents at your command ? in this work 
 let them be employed. Have you influence in the world ? in this work 
 let it be exerted. Have you zeal in your hearts ? in this work let it 
 ardently burn. Have you devotion in your spirits ? in this work let it 
 ascend to the throne of heaven. Have you wealth at your disposal ? 
 hx this work let it be liberally expended. INIen ! Brethren ! Patriots ! 
 Christians ! By what inspiring name shall I call you ? Your duty is 
 plain ; and for its performance, humanity is entreating, and Christian- 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 371 
 
 ity exhorting, importuning, and commanding. The case is urgent ; 
 for sinners are perishing whilst I am speaking — perishing by thou- 
 sands — perishing within the reach of help — perishing in your city, 
 and at your doors ! Every man therefore to his work ; and what you 
 do, do quickly, do it with your might ; do it in spite of all opposition, 
 and upon your heads shall abundantly descend the blessings of them 
 that are ready to perish. 
 
 As the agents are supporters of the London Female Mission, you 
 have in this a most powerful motive to zeal and perseverance in your 
 important and deeply interesting operations. 
 
 2. " He that converteth a sinner from the error of his ways, shall " 
 also " hide a multitude of sins^ Every sinner is guilty of a multi- 
 tude of sins — sins of omission, and sins of commission — sins of the 
 heart, sins of the lips, sins of the life ; but when conversion takes 
 place, all those sins are covered by the great propitiatory sacrifice — 
 are blotted out by the precious blood of Christ, and Divine justice sees 
 them no more. But the word rendered " hide," is susceptible of 
 another meaning, and I am much inclined to believe that its meaning 
 in the text is to withhold from sight, rather than to withdraio from 
 sight, or to hide hy prevention, rather than by covering. If this inter- 
 pretation be adopted, the text will certainly read more naturally, " He 
 shall save a soul from death, and prevent a multitude of sins." One 
 sinner, we are told, destroys much good ; and this may especially be 
 said of one of those unhappy females, whose salvation this society 
 seeks to accomplish ; but when converted, a multitude of sins are pre- 
 vented ; and not only sins which she would have committed, but sins 
 in others, who might have been influenced by her example, or been so 
 unfortunate as to fall into her snares. Had any person succeeded in 
 converting Voltaire, Hume, Paine, Robert Owen, or even certain 
 degraded females, whose " paths incline unto death," and " whose 
 guests are in the depths of hell," what infidelity, what blasphemy, 
 what intemperance, what lasciviousness, what murders, and other forms 
 of vice, ruining many famihes, breaking many hearts, and destroying:; 
 many souls, would have been prevented ! And on the other hand, 
 what multitudes of sins have been prevented by the agents, who led 
 Luther, and Wesley, and Whitefield, and other successful ministers, to 
 the foot of the cross, and the enjoyment of salvation ! — sins, which 
 might have brought the fearful judgments of heaven upon families, 
 communities, and nations ! Brethren, if you wish to benefit not only 
 the present generation, but generations yet unborn, and to give a 
 moral impulse to the world that shall live when you are dead, labor t<j 
 convert a sinner. There was a woman in the attire of a harlot, walk- 
 
37!2 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 ing in yonder street, alluring those wlio were void of understanding, 
 and " casting down many wounded ; yea, many strong men were slain 
 by her ; for her house was the way to hell, going down to the cham- 
 bers of death ; " but by the blessing of God upon the exertions of the 
 London Female Mission, she was awakened and converted. The event 
 excited but little interest in this degenerate world ; there was no ring- 
 ing of bells, no flourishing of trumpets, no firing of cannon, no illumin- 
 ation of the city, no display of fire works ; nor was any medal struck 
 to commemorate the glorious occurrence. And yet, it excited a deeper 
 interest among the angelic host, than all the exploits of bravery, that 
 mark the battle field, and throw whole nations into ecstacies of joy ; 
 for while angels pass by all those exploits without ever once stopping 
 to strike their lyre, they rapturously sung the heavenly chorus, and 
 throughout all their shining ranks rejoiced over that one repenting 
 sinner. In the conversion of that unhappy female, you gave a moral 
 impulse to society, which in a few years may be felt at the very antip- 
 odes, and at last appear in tens of thousands of glorified spirits at the 
 right hand of God. What a motive is this for perseverance and 
 energy in the operations of the London Female Mission ! 
 
 In conclusion, we remark — 
 
 1. That the exertions of the London Female Mission are much 
 required. It is stated on what is deemed good authority, that there 
 are within the precincts of this city not fewer than eighty thousand 
 females living upon the wages of their iniquity, supported at an 
 expense of eight millions annually, or something more than twenty 
 thousand pounds per day ; and that one out of every three of the 
 daughters of persons in the humbler walks of fife are found to asso- 
 ciate with these outcasts of society before they have attained the age 
 of twenty years. Oh ! that I had the authors of this appalling evil 
 now before me. I would not only tell them with tears of the numer- 
 ous families they have ruined, the many hearts they have broken, and 
 the unnumbered souls they have destroyed ; but I would implore help 
 of God to seize their blood-stained spirits, and shake them over the 
 pit of hell, that the wailings of their victims might rouse them to a 
 sense of their sins and danger. It is certainly impossible for Christians, 
 jealous for the honor of God, and concerned for the benefit of man, to 
 look upon the state of our metropohs with stoicism, or refuse their 
 co-operation in efforts to renovate it. Ours is the city of the plague ; 
 and if something be not done to stay it in its deadly progress — if the 
 pious rush not in between the living and the dead — it may reach our 
 own famiUes, poison our own cup, and this great and wealthy metrop- 
 olis may become as Admah, and be made like unto Zeboim. Men of 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 373 
 
 Israel, help ! Humanity cries, Help ! Patriotism cries, Help ! Christ- 
 ianitj cries, Help ! And hark, a voice issues from yonder wretched 
 garret, where there is one, who was formerly beautiful, amiable, modest, 
 and the joy of her parents' hearts ; but in the hour of temptation, she 
 fell, and is now degraded, forsaken, broken-hearted, perishing ; and 
 oh ! hear her, for she cries for — Help ! 
 
 The usages of society are such, that when a female wanders from 
 the path of virtue, and abandons herself to a course of infamy, she is 
 prevented from returning to virtuous society, and must in all proba- 
 bility perish in the ways of error, and be lost for ever, independently 
 of the kind interposition of this or some kindred institution. She may 
 be disgusted /with her mode of life, and earnestly desire to forsake it, 
 as is the case with many such characters ; but where can she go ? 
 Her relations, if she have any, feeling that she has so greatly dishon- 
 ored them, refuse to afford her shelter, and even disown her. She is 
 without character, and what family, in her present state, will engage 
 her as a servant ? If charity do not therefore stretch forth its kind 
 helping hand, what, we ask, is to become of her ? We do not sketch 
 a fictitious picture, but believe this to be the true state of thousands 
 in this metropolis. Many are laboring to destroy them ; and will no 
 one labor to save them ? Millions are annually expended to hasten 
 their souls to hell ; and shall little or nothing comparatively be given 
 to save them from that place of torment ? Exasperated relations 
 spurn them from their presence ; virtuous families refuse to employ 
 and shelter them ; and must they look in vain to the followers of the 
 benevolent Jesus, for sympathy and refuge ? The London Female 
 Mission says, No ! The views which have now been given, led to the 
 establishment of this institution. May you also be so impressed with 
 them, as to afford the Mission your utmost countenance and support, 
 in its varied forms and modes of operation. 
 
 2. The exertions of the London Female Mission have been beneficial. 
 This society has met with various forms of opposition ; but the Divine 
 blessing has manifestly rested upon it. It has rescued many a victim 
 from the grasp of the destroyer ; bound up many a broken heart ; 
 healed many a wounded spirit ; reclaimed many a wandering pi-odigal ; 
 protected many a virtuous female ; and saved many a perishing soul. 
 Since its establishment in November, 1836 * three hundred and five 
 young women have been rescued from an evil course of life. This 
 mission contemplates two objects ; for it not only seeks, by the Divine 
 blessins, the restoration of the fallen to their families and to their God, 
 but it aims to preserve the virtuous from the snares and dangers to 
 
 * This sermon was preached Oct. 1, 1840. 
 
374 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 ■whicli they are exposed. For the accomplishment of the former object, 
 it has established a " Probationary House,''' in which there are at pres- 
 ent forty-five females; and three '■' District Asylums, '^ in which there 
 are one hundred and forty-four females. For the accomplishment of 
 the latter object, it not only forms " Grirls' Associations, '^ under the 
 control and direction of Christian ladies, with the view of cultivating 
 moral habits, and checking in its incipient state, and while under the 
 parental roof, every tendency to female profligacy ; and provides 
 " Temporary Refuges for indigent young women,''' who are employed, 
 instructed, and supported, until permanent situations can be obtained 
 for them ; but it has established " Servant's Homes and Registries," 
 where such as are out of place, but have not forfeited their character, 
 are provided with comfortable lodgings at a moderate charge, and 
 where a registry is kept to facilitate their obtaining situations. It also 
 issues two monthly publications, and several tracts, all greatly calcula- 
 ted to promote its benevolent objects. In its labors of love, it knows 
 no distinction of sect or party, of color or clime, but simply aims, 
 under the blessing of the Most High, to diminish the amount of 
 wretchedness and moral degradation to be found in London, and as far 
 as possible to elevate the standard of female character ; and were its 
 funds more ample, it might greatly enlarge the sphere of its opera- 
 tions. The committee of this institution earnestly invite the attention 
 of the benevolent to the following facts : — " From January 1st, 1839, 
 to January 1st, 1840, a period of one year, the number of young 
 women who applied to be admitted into the Asylum of the London 
 Female Mission was 404 ; of these, 109 were received ; the remaining 
 number were sent away principally for want of room, the house then 
 rented by the Mission being able to accommodate only thirty inmates. 
 Since that period, a larger house, capable of receiving eighty beds, 
 has been purchased, and furnished for forty-eight females ; to which 
 number the advantage of the institution is now extended. But though 
 the operations of the society, in this department of benevolence, has 
 been greatly enlarged, and the managers feel that tliey have advanced 
 to the full extent their funds will allow, yet the number of applicants 
 for the society's aid, is still so great, as to amount, in the short space 
 of three days, to twenty-five in number ; to all of whom the committee 
 were obliged to say, " We cannot receive you." What ! are they then 
 to return to their haunts of vice and misery ? thus to be repulsed in 
 their attempts to escape from ruin ? We cannot receive you ! Who 
 then will receive them ? If they have knocked at the door of a Chris- 
 tian institution, and have been refused admittance, though they asked 
 for it with tears of penitence in their eyes, and in the name of the sm- 
 
CONVERSION OF SINNERS. 375 
 
 ner's Friend, what door vrill open to take them in ? We cannot receive 
 you! " Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon," 
 that in the metropolis of the Christian world where truth has triumphed 
 and martyrs have bled, in three days twenty-five females applied to a 
 number of Christian ladies and gentlemen, to interpose their aid to 
 save them from wretchedness and hell, and were refused that aid. 
 We cannot receive you ! Indeed it was true ; and no person's feel- 
 ings can be more deeply affected with the rejection of those females, 
 than were the feelings of the committee of the London Female Mis- 
 sion, in being necessitated, by their exhausted funds, to deny the as- 
 sistance and protection sought for. The committee bring the case of 
 these twenty-five hapless females before you to-night ; and will you, as 
 a Christian congregation, refuse to replenish their funds, and thus 
 practically say to so many imploring outcasts, " We cannot receive 
 you ? " What ! must they then be abandoned to ruin, descend into 
 the pit, and bitterly exclaim, as it closes upon them, " No man cared 
 for our souls ? " Remember, you must meet them at the bar of God ; 
 and if you refuse them help, and they should in consequence be lost, 
 how will you encounter their penetrating and upbraiding glance, as 
 they turn from the judgment seat to meet their awful doom ? Will 
 you rather save money, than immortal souls ? Your money perish 
 with you ; for if this be your feeling, it is easy to perceive that you are 
 "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." A piercing 
 cry for assistance has this evening reached you ; and " if you forbear 
 to deliver them that are drawn into death, and those that are ready to 
 be slain ; if you say. Behold, we knew it not ; doth not He that pon- 
 dereth the heart consider it ? and He that keepeth the soul, doth He 
 not know it ? and shall not He render to every man according to his 
 works ? '* 
 
376 
 
 SERMON XXXI. 
 
 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 
 BY REV. T. ADKINS. 
 
 " The glorious gospel of the blessed God." — 1 Timothy, i. 11. 
 
 Man is an ambitious being : the desire of attaining to some species 
 of real or imaginary excellence is intimately interwoven with the very 
 texture of the human mind. This desire commences with the earliest 
 dawn of our conscious existence — as soon as we are capable of form- 
 ing an opinion respecting our actions and our possible circumstances : 
 and it remains with us through every subsequent stage of our life ; 
 stimulating us to future attainments, and holding out the prospect of 
 greater good. 
 
 But the entrance of sin has beclouded our faculty of spiritual per- 
 ception, and vitiated our moral taste : and hence many seek happiness 
 in that which is not in itself essentially " glorious;" but which only 
 tends to augment the suffering, and to increase the misery of the 
 heart. There are individuals who possess such a perspicacity of pride 
 as to discover in themselves excellences imperceptible to any eye but 
 their own. There are those who are so disposed to attain to elevation, 
 that they are content to occupy a position, even though it be on a 
 dunghill, if they can but secure the attention of their fellow men. 
 There are others who, having no virtues to plume themselves with, 
 boast of their very vices, and glory in their shame. 
 
 My brethren, I have this evening to put before you an object, not 
 of imaginary, but of real glory ; an object, the transcendent splendor 
 of which surpasses all that human ambition ever panted after, or 
 human success ever won. All the productions of nature, and all the 
 events of time — all that has been achieved by the ingenuity of man, 
 or the majesty of God himself, is veiled before its transcendent splen- 
 dor : and in reference to them we may say, what the apostle said in 
 reference to the comparative splendor of the two dispensations — 
 that the former had no glory " by reason of the glory that excelleth." 
 that this evening each of us may purge our abused vision at the 
 fountain of heavenly radiance, that we may be blessed with spiritual 
 perception to behold the unequalled splendor of that, respecting which 
 it is declared, by the voice of infallible truth, that it is " the glorious 
 gospel of the blessed God." 
 
GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 377 
 
 The expression rendered, " blessed," might, with no less propriety, 
 have been translated " the happy gospel." And this suggests to us 
 an important train of thought. All holy beings are happy ; and all 
 happy beings are benevolent : they are happy just in proportion as 
 they are holy ; and they are benevolent just in proportion as they are 
 happy. Angels are holier than men, and therefore they are more 
 happy, and more benevolent. UnaUied to us by the ordinary sympa- 
 thies of a common nature, they yet take an intense interest in all that 
 relates to the well-being of man. God is the holiest being, and there- 
 fore he is the happiest ; and, being the happy God, he is the most 
 benevolent being in the universe ; and his own happiness is augmented 
 whilst he is diffusing felicity through countless myriads of intelligent 
 beings. 
 
 By " the gospel," I understand that revelation of mercy in which 
 the Deity, through the substitution and sacrifice of his Son, conde- 
 scends to bestow blessings on a lost and ruined world. It is the gospel, 
 because it is glad tidings ; glad tidings, inasmuch as it is a scheme 
 through which the Deity bestows the greatest blessings on man — 
 bestows them in a manner correspondent with the perfection of his own 
 nature, and in a manner adapted to the moral impotence of our own. 
 
 Instead, however, of occupying your time with any prefatory re- 
 marks respecting the nature and constitution of this gospel, I proceed 
 to seize on the distinguishing feature which the apostle places before 
 us, and remind you that it is " the glorious gospel : " and it is so 
 
 BECAUSE IT IS A SySTEM OF ETERNAL TrUTH, IN WHICH THE MORAL 
 
 Perfections of the Godhead are most transcendently display- 
 ed. There is but one being in the universe that is sclf-existent and 
 dependent, and who, consequently, can make his own glory the ulti- 
 mate object of his existence : and that being is God. Consequent 
 obligation is the condition on which man receives his existence : " No 
 man Uveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself : for whether we 
 live, we live to the Lord ; and whether we die, we die to the Lord : 
 whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." The sun 
 rfhines, not for his own glory, but for the glory of him who has placed 
 him as a lamp in the firmament of heaven, and for the benefit of those 
 minor orbs that roll round in infinite space. Some men arc suns, and 
 others are only stars ; but all are compelled to shine — to shine, not 
 for their own glory, but for the glory of Ilim who has fixed them in 
 their appointed spheres. And there js a propriety in all this. If a 
 finite creature were to seek his own glory, he would make an attempt 
 to vault into the very throne, and invade the very prerogative of 
 heaven ; he would aim at that which does not belong to the creature, 
 
;j78 the ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 because Ms glory cannot be the greatest good. But for the Deity to 
 aim at this object, and to achieve it, is for him to achieve the greatest 
 good : and at the very moment that this is enhanced to its highest 
 splendor, it becomes the medium through which, in a proportionate 
 deo-ree, the happiness of the moral universe is enhanced. 
 
 Now, in reference to this " glorious gospel," we say, that in it all 
 the oyerfections of the Divine nature are strikingly displayed. "The 
 heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his 
 handy work." The dread magnificence of the stars — the beauty of 
 the varying seasons — the living millions that swim in the seas, that 
 float in the air, that graze in the field, or, in endless combination of 
 color and form, people the regions of infinite space — speak of a pres- 
 ent and a presiding God. But, brethren, where is the record of par- 
 don ? Where is the proof of forgiving mercy ? It is neither written 
 by the sun-beam, nor wafted by the breeze. The sea says, " It is not 
 in me : " all nature says, " It is not in me." " Canst thou, by search- 
 ing, find out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfec- 
 tion ? " These are past man's understanding : how small a portion is 
 known to him ! But when we turn to this " glorious gospel," we see 
 the Deity full robed, in his round of rays complete. In it we see 
 exemplified what is profound in wisdom, inflexible in justice, awful in 
 dignity, and touching in compassion, in their individual excellence, and 
 in their harmonious combination. 
 
 But in this " glorious gospel" there is, besides the exhibition of all 
 the perfections of the Godhead, the most striking developement of them. 
 For though all the attributes of the Godhead are infinite, yet their 
 manifestation may be varied in an endless diversity of degrees and 
 forms : but in this " glorious gospel " there is the most striking display 
 of the whole. Let us look at these perfections of the Divine nature 
 as philosophers do at a ray of light, through the medium of prism : 
 let us resolve them into their original elements (if I may be allowed 
 the expression) , and bring them to this test : and we shall point them 
 towards this "glorious gospel:" there is the most striking display 
 of all the attributes of Jehovah. 
 
 Is love an attribute of the Divine nature ? God is love : he is benev- 
 olence itself ; it dwells in him as its proper seat ; it springs from him 
 as its proper source ; and ever actuates him as a vital and immortal 
 principle. We see it in the fragrance that regales our senses, and in 
 the beauty that charms our eye : as Paley has delightfully said, " Paia 
 is the exception — happiness is the rule : " and in all the varied forms 
 of happiness in which the countless myriads of God's creatures that 
 
GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 379 
 
 people this lower world do possess and exhibit it, we see so many indi- 
 cations of the truth of the maxim that " God is love." 
 
 But this is only as a taper to the sun, compared with the exhibition 
 of eternal love in the cross of the Son of God. That such a sacrifice 
 should be offered — 0, this comes home to our souls with melting and 
 with mighty persuasion. It is not merely that " we have redemption," 
 but, " we have redemption through his blood.^^ It is not merely that 
 wc have eternal Hfe, but that that life cost the Son of God his own. 
 And whether we consider the magnitude of the blessings that we 
 receive, or the price at which they were purchased, it is such a display 
 of divine love as we shall be occupied through the countless ages of 
 eternity in endeavoring to comprehend. Hence it has been beautifully 
 said that it is " the noon-tide of meridian compassion ; " it is " the 
 everlasting display of everlasting love." And hence the apostle of 
 the Gentiles, when he would give us an exhibition of the love of God, 
 does not take us to some lofty mountain, and there spread before us, 
 in beautiful perspective, all the majestic attractions of nature ; but he 
 takes us to the foot of Calvary, and, pointing us to the illustrious suf- 
 ferer, he says, " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he 
 loved us, and gave his Son to be a propitiation for our sins." 
 
 Is justice an attribute of Divine nature ? Where do we see it dis- 
 j)layed so effectually as in " the glorious gospel of the blessed God ! " 
 Justice is that attribute of his nature by which he is made to assigi* to 
 every intelligent and accountable being that which is his due. He has 
 evinced his righteous displeasure against sin in a thousand striking 
 forms. I see it engraven on the arms that are washed on the shores 
 of the Red Sea : I see it in those cities of the Plain that are the 
 blighted and blasted monuments of the eternal ire of God : I see it in 
 that abode where " the worm dieth not, and the fire is not (lucnched ; " 
 where prayer is unavailing, where repentance is ineffectual, where 
 mercy is unknown. 
 
 But in each, in all of these, I have not so awful an exhibition of the 
 inflexible justice of God, as when I go to the affecting scenes of Geth- 
 semane and Calvary. There he hangs, rent with wounds, and racked 
 with pain ; his bones dislocated, his nerves convulsed. A gushing 
 crimson tide flows from his bleeding heart : it trickles down his sacred 
 body ; it stains with purple the very ground on which his cross stands. 
 It is noon ; and yet it is awfully dark. " Moi, Uloi, lama sabacthani ? " 
 " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " And why is all 
 this ? 0, brethren, it is justice sheathing its sword in the heart of 
 mercy : it is Jehovah's Son bearing a weight of woe which none but 
 Omnipotence could inflict, and none but Omnipotence could bear. 
 
380 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 And if I wish for a display, either of the justice of Jehovah, or the 
 moral turpitude of sin, I must view it in the cross of Christ. 
 
 Is wisdom an attribute of the Divine nature ? Where have we such 
 a display of it as in " the glorious gospel of the blessed God ? " Wis- 
 dom consists in selecting the most suitable objects, and in adopting the 
 most efficient means for the attainment of those objects. Now, in this 
 gospel, the Deity has abounded towards us in all wisdom and pru- 
 dence. I can very well conceive of holy and happy beings conferring 
 kindness on holy and happy beings in return : but it is left to the wis- 
 dom of the cross to exhibit the medium in which a being of unsullied 
 holiness can, compatibly with the claims of justice, pardon the guilty 
 and save the lost. I can very well conceive how mercy can pardon 
 the offender, or how justice can punish his sin : but it is left to the 
 mysterious developement of Calvary to unfold the method by which, 
 while the Eternal Legislator maintains, unimpaired, the equity of his 
 moral government, he adopts into his family, and bestows all the marks 
 of love upon that very offender who has trampled on his authority, 
 and hurled defiance at his throne. Here, then, we have the most vivid 
 display of all the perfections of the Godhead. 
 
 We must, however, advance a step further : here is the most har- 
 monious exhibition of the perfections of the Cfodhead. It is necessary 
 for the divine glory, that all the attributes of the Godhead should be 
 illustrated in harmony with each other, and that the scheme of mercy 
 itself should be constructed on the principles of immutable justice. 
 Supposing that there exists a law ; that that law has been violated ; 
 and that the Divine Legislator determines to pardon the offender : it is 
 obvious to a demonstration that he can only do this, compatibly with 
 the claims of justice, through the medium of substitution and of atone- 
 ment, and putting the offender under a course of moral discipline. 
 Were Jehovah to bestow the blessing of eternal life through any 
 medium which allowed his holiness to be sullied, or his veracity to be 
 impeached, such an exhibition would not be the gospel ; because the 
 interests of a part — and that, peradventure, a very small part of the 
 intelligent universe, and that even a guilty part — would be advanced 
 at the expense of the whole : for the various orders of intelligent 
 beings might, from that very moment, imagine that they could, with 
 impunity, trample on his authority, and hurl defiance at his throne. 
 Such an act of indiscriminate lenity, therefore, would not be the gospel, 
 but a mere substitute for it, unworthy the character of the Deity, and 
 unadapted to the moral necessities of the universe. 
 
 There is, then, the great problem to be solved — How can God be 
 just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly ? How can sin be pardoned, 
 
GLORT OF THE GOSPEL. 881 
 
 and yet punished ? How can the law be maintained in its authoritj, 
 and the violator of that law be rescued from unrepealable and eternal 
 death ? From the depth of the Everlasting Mind there arose that 
 scheme by which all these important ends were attained. The Ever- 
 lasting Son of the Everlasting Father stooped from his throne in the 
 heavens, and he became the weeping babe in the manger of Bethlehem, 
 the weary traveller in the journey of life, the agonizing sufferer in the 
 garden of Gethsemane, the spotless victim on the accursed tree. And 
 ■when, by the mysterious oblation on the cross, once offered, he had 
 harmonized all the attributes of the Godhead in one triumphant act of 
 mercy, he opened a medium by which — compatibly with the claims 
 of eternal justice, that looked so high and made so rigid a demand — 
 he could pour the blessings of eternal salvation on the very vilest of 
 the vile. Brethren, this is the moral glory of the Gospel ; and this is 
 the glory of ministers, that they have to preach it. Let the wise man 
 glory in his wisdom ; let the rich man glory in his riches ; let the strong 
 man glory in his strength ; God forbid that I should glory, save in the 
 cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Nor is this a useless speculation ; it is as important as it is true. 
 For the moral character of the Deity is at the foundation of all virtue. 
 If that were to be sullied, virtue would have no foundation, hell would 
 have no terror, obedience would have no authority and no rule. If you 
 could shake the character of the Deity, you would shake his very 
 throne, and unhinge the moral harmony of the universe itself. There- 
 fore it is of the highest importance, not only to the happiness of 
 creatures in this inferior world, but to intelligences that occupy the 
 ilhmitable regions of the universal government ; it is essential to each 
 and to all, that there be a correct exhibition of the character of God. 
 And not only so, but it bears a most beneficial aspect upon the moral 
 happiness of beings like ourselves. For if you and I Avere to cherish 
 expectations of future happiness that were not to be built on the foun- 
 dation of the divine glory, and to be cherished only in proportion as 
 that glory was tarnished, then our hope must termmate in despair. 
 But, when a scheme is resolved upon, is brought before us, is explained 
 to us, in which, at the very moment that Jehovah pardons the guilty 
 and saves the lost, he does, at that time and through that medium, only 
 add an additional ray to his own ineffable grandeur and glory, then 
 despondency itself may hope, and the most forlorn of the human race 
 may cherish a well founded hope of everlasting salvation. 
 
 But I must advance to the second part of the discourse, and remind 
 you that this is " the glorious gospel of the blessed God," because it 
 
382 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 IS ADMIRABLY ADAPTED TO THE MoRAL AND SPIRITUAL NECESSITIES 
 
 OF Man. Those necessities are vast and varied ; but there is no want 
 that it cannot supply, no guilt that it cannot pardon, no depth of misery 
 ■which it cannot explore. 
 
 View man under all the phases of his existence, and you will find 
 there is the fullest adaptation in this gospel to each and to all. Man 
 is an ignorant being ; ignorance is the offspring of guilt ; and when man 
 became a sinner, his mental vision was beclouded. As sin diffused 
 itself, ignorance followed as its attendant, till it thickened on the 
 nations into a darkness that might be felt. In reference to all that Avas 
 of the highest importance, the world was in a state of grovelling igno- 
 rance : conjecture instead of certainty, probability instead of proof, 
 were all to which they could attain. Their poets, it is true, sung of 
 Tartarian gulfs and Elysian fields ; but these were only considered 
 poetic flights of the fancy, while the realities concealed beneath them 
 were not generally believed. All the light that was possessed by the 
 world prior to the disclosure of the gospel was that which was confined 
 to the small nation of the Jews ; and this, compared with the light 
 which was thereafter to be revealed, was as the first ray of the morn- 
 ing struggling with the retiring obscurity of the night. But when the 
 star arose at Bethany, to dispel the darkness of the long evening, and 
 poured its radiance on the path of life, Jesus explained what was ambig- 
 uous, he established what was doubtful ; he elucidated what was obscure ; 
 and he shed an unearthly light on that all-important question — " How 
 can man be just with God ? How can man be pure with his Maker ? " 
 
 But when we say that this gospel is adapted to man as aw ignorant 
 leing, I would remind you that it is so, not merely as adapted to con- 
 vey to him the truth he should understand, but, by a light directed to 
 the understanding and to the heart, first to instruct the judgment, and 
 then to renovate the soul. There is all the difference in the world 
 between mere intellectual and spiritual light ; between that knowledge 
 that may be obtained by the unaided efforts of the human mind, and 
 that which is to be acquired by the teaching of the Spirit of God. 
 The one is as different from the other as the mere picture of a country 
 as it is painted on a map is from the country itself, where, with its hills 
 and dales, and rivers, it stretches itself before your view. A man may 
 have some faint conception that honey is sweet, or music harmonious ; 
 but the individual who has not the power of tasting and hearmg can 
 have no conception of the sweetness of the one, or the melody of the 
 other. Now, there is a species of spiritual perception with which the 
 soul must be invested ere it is capable of seeing the excellences of 
 eternal truth. And here the gospel comes to our aid, to dispel from 
 
GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 383 
 
 our minds the darkness of ignorance, and the delusions of error. It 
 carries the Hght of eternal truth down to every compartment of the 
 inner man : and that God who, in the beginning of time, commanded 
 the light to shine out of darkness, shines into our minds to give us the 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 It is adapted likewise to man as a guilty being. That he is guilty, 
 I need not pause to prove. Our violation of the divine law, our abuse 
 of the divine goodness, our forgetfulness of the divine authority, all 
 combine to fasten on our minds the appalhng conviction that, as by 
 nature we are the children of wrath, so by practice we are the children 
 of disobedience. Tremendous thought ! to be exposed to the displeas- 
 ure of that being, compared with which the concentrated indignation 
 of all the beings in the universe would be only as the displeasure of a 
 child. And yet this is the awful moral predicament in which every 
 sinner is found. He is exposed to the lightning of that eye, he is 
 exposed to the grasp of that omnipotent arm ; and, if he die as he 
 lives, he sinks into a state where the mercy of God is clean gone for 
 ever, and he will be favorable no more. 
 
 Some of you are called upon this evening to pity the condition of 
 the heathen. I would rather, for a moment, call upon you to ])\tj your- 
 selves. But peradventure, you ask, " How will sin be pardoned ? 
 Why will repentance avail nothing ? " And what can you do by 
 repentance ? Can you recall the past, and thereby avert the future ? 
 Can you do more by repentance than acquit yourself of present obli- 
 gation ? Can you produce a surplus of merit that shall be employed 
 for the reduction of your past deficiencies ? Must the pardon of the 
 philosophy which was too proud to submit to the humihating doctrines 
 of the cross, be based on the exploded notion of supererogation ? K 
 we are left in doubt on this subject, how sin can be pardoned, and God 
 yet glorified, the gospel comes in to our aid. It is the precious blood 
 of Jesus which can alone avail. He is " the end of the law for 
 righteousness to every one that believeth." And when the sinner 
 comes and places the burden of his weakness and his woe on his 
 precious blood and prevailing intercession, in that very act, whatever 
 may have been his anterior crimes, he passes from death unto life — 
 from a state of condemnation to a state of acceptation — from the 
 dark, dreary dominion of nature, into the light and loveliness of the 
 kingdom of God: and those perfections of the Godhead which before 
 had lowered upon him with frowns of severity, now relax into smiles 
 of love ; and " there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are 
 in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, bui after the Spirit." 
 
384 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 This gospel is still further adapted to man as a ^polluted being. And 
 we bring the broad and sweeping charge against human nature as a 
 whole — that it is in this state of pollution. We acknowledge that 
 there is a vast disparity as it relates to the exterior man. We know 
 there may be the consistency of friendship, the ardor of patriotism, and 
 the firmness of inflexible principle, even where the gospel has not 
 found its way ; and individuals who admit this truth, Jbring it as a 
 charge that we have underrated the condition of mankind, and, there- 
 fore, the gospel is not necessary for them. We admit that there are 
 in the character of man some appearances more favorable than others : 
 we admit there are some species of excellence to be found where the 
 gospel has not worked its way. But let us come to the point — on 
 what are we to form our estimate of the moral character of man ? 
 Upon principle and motive. Upon that which we designate principle 
 depends the moral virtue of every action, and the moral quality of 
 every mind. Where this principle is wanting, there the character is 
 reduced to one mass of moral depravity : where this principle exists, 
 there is, undoubtedly, a substratum of moral excellence. And when 
 we proceed to the examination, we shall find, that though there may be 
 amiable dispositions, generous feelings, and firm friendships, there is a 
 total destitution of moral principle, in the scriptural sense of the word ; 
 for that principle is, supreme love to God, evincing itself in all its 
 appropriate forms. Bring forth, therefore, the most flattering speci- 
 men of human nature that your imagination can paint, or your expe- 
 rience can produce, whether in Christian or heathen l^nds ; if the love 
 of God has not actuated it, if the fear of God has not restrained it, if 
 a regard to the Divine authority has not influenced it, then, notwith- 
 standing the attractions with which the man is invested, we are com- 
 pelled to reduce him to his own naked deformity, and to say, he is " a 
 child of wrath even as othei'S." Weighed in the balance of the sanc- 
 tuary, he is found wanting : measured by the rule of right and wrong, 
 he comes short of wliat regeneration and pardon imply : and the decis- 
 ions of the last day will award the unhappy outcast his destiny amongst 
 those who had lived without repentance, and died without hope. 
 
 And is this the condition of man, as man, under all the varied forms 
 of his existence ? And has the sin-sick angel of death breathed on 
 the vast family of man ? And are they all spiritually dead ? It is 
 true. And how are they to be made alive again ? The past history 
 of the world is only a mournful record of the triumphs of sin, over 
 every barrier that civilization or philosophy has interposed. But " the 
 glorious gospel " comes in to our aid ; and, at the very moment that it 
 reveals to us an all-efficacious atonement through faith, by which sin 
 
GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 385 
 
 may be pardoned, it exhibits a benign agent who can enlighten what is 
 dark, and cleanse what is impure, and elevate what is earth!}', and 
 carry the very light of heaven into the inert mass of this world's cor- 
 ruption. And this benign agent will communicate himself to the most 
 unworthy supplicant that implores its aid, not only with the sovereignty 
 of a prince, but with the generosity of a friend. So that no man is 
 doomed to live the slave of sin contrary to his will. Wherever ho is, 
 this gospel comes to his aid. Living under a dispensation of mercy, 
 however reduced he may be by the recklessness of his evil propensit 
 ties, the gospel meets him on the very ground to which he is reduced, 
 raises his prostrate spirit, and impresses upon it the long-lost lineaments 
 of heaven. 
 
 It is " the glorious gospel " because it is adapted to man, as a mis- 
 erable being. Misery and guilt are linked to each other in an unbroken 
 chain ; and no man can be the voluntary slave of sin, without, in a 
 proportionate degree, being the victim of wretchedness. To prove this, 
 I need not exhibit to j^ou the many-colored woes which obtain in this 
 lower world ; I need not point out to you the pestilence impregnating 
 the air with poison, and war drenching its sword in blood ; I need not 
 take you down to those haunts where the victims of want retire to die ; 
 I will take you where some of you may be reluctant to go ; I will take 
 you into the interior of an unpardoned sinner's heart, and there you 
 will find misery personified before your view. He has a conscience — 
 a conscience that appears to slumber — and he may even imagine that 
 it is dead. But it is active all the while : with minute attention it 
 notices every action of his life ; it chi'onicles every thought, and waits 
 Only the favorable moment to read the black catalogue aloud, to the 
 confusion of the sinner and the astonishment of the "vyorld. Awaken- 
 ing, by some unexpected incident in the history of his life, his 
 conscience is like rousing the hungry lion in his lair : no power can 
 resist its force, no attempts can mitigate its rage. 0, the horrors of 
 an accusing conscience ! There are some evils which you may escape 
 by going into company ; there are others which you may avoid by going 
 into solitude : but the guUty wretch passes into company, and his guilty 
 conscience dashes the untasted cup of pleasure from his trembling lips : 
 he goes into solitude, and, as a spirit, it passes before him, and " the 
 hair of his flesh stands up." man, whoever thou art, whose con- 
 science is unappeascd by the blood of sprinkHng, peace of mind thou 
 canst not enjoy : 
 
 "The dreadful syllables — death, hell, and sin — 
 Tho' whispered, plainly tell what works within; 
 That conscience there performs its faithful part, 
 And writes a doomsday sentence on your heart." 
 
 25 
 
386 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 And how is tlils conscience to be appeased ? Will philosophy avail ? 
 Will scepticism avail ? Will pleasure avail ? Miserable comforters 
 are they all ; a guilty conscience, like the barbed arrow in the panting 
 sides of the wounded deer, adheres to him wherever he goes, and every 
 attempt to eradicate the fatal shaft only lacerates the wound the more. 
 Am I addressing such a being this evening ; and do you ask, with 
 anxious, pali^itating breast, " How shall I escape the wrath to come ? " 
 0, I rejoice that I stand before you with " the glorious gospel of the 
 blessed God." That very atonement that satisfied the claims of justice, 
 will satisfy the claims of conscience ; that very blood that expiated the 
 guilt of sin, will allay the throbbings of an anxious mind. Here is the 
 balm, the vital and all-healing balm, that alone can reach the emer- 
 gency of your case ; all else is but moral empyricism, that mocks the 
 misery it proposes to alleviate, and deepens the wound it proposes to 
 heal. Come to the Cross ; come, and by faith apply the precious blood 
 of sprinkling, and yoa will have peace within and peace above, " a 
 tranquil conscience and a smiling God ; " a peace which, built on a 
 firm foundation, and supported by principle, cannot be shaken by aught 
 that time can develope,' or eternity conceal ; a peace which, like the 
 unruffled surface of the lake on a calm summer's evening, is not only 
 tranquil, but reflects on its bosom the very tranquillity of the skies. 
 0, could I but persuade you to come and allay the throbbings of your 
 mind, by the application of this precious blood ; then you would feel 
 the truth of the declaration, that it is " the glorious gospel of the 
 blessed God." 
 
 This gospel is adapted to man as an immortal being. That it be so, 
 I need not now pause to prove ; our sense of right and wrong, our 
 insuppressible forebodings, the apparent disorders that obtain in the 
 moral government of the universe, all combine to fasten on our minds 
 the truth that we shall be called to a final and definite account — 
 " Apart from which consideration," (to use the language of the finest 
 orator of his day,) " our life is a shadow, our very existence itself is a 
 riddle, and the mysterious events that obtain in the world around us, 
 are as incoherent as the leaves which are scattered by the wind." 
 
 But what reUef can be afforded to the inquiry — whether it be 
 prompted by the moody spirit of unhallowed scepticism, or the tremb- 
 ling anxiety of unsatisfied conscience — Is this soul of mine immortal, 
 or does it die with the body ? Is this eye, before which the wide 
 domain of nature lies spread in beautiful perspective, to be for ever 
 quenched in darkness ? Is this spirit, that seems like the master spirit 
 of this lower world, that can penetrate the profoundest with the 
 keenness of intuition, and embody the loftiest in the colors of a vivid 
 
GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 387 
 
 imagination, to sink into gloom and annihilation, and to be, notwith- 
 standing all its mental appliances, as though it never had been ? To 
 lull these anxious inquiries — inquiries suggested by the loftiest mind 
 that ever descended on this orb, and to which they found no satisfac- 
 tory reply — we return an unhesitating answer : " the glorious gospel 
 of the blessed God." There we learn that our soul is as immortal as 
 the source from whence it came : that* it may change the mode of its 
 existence, but that its existence can never close ; that it will pass 
 through the valley of the shadow of death, but only to enter its mag- 
 nificent residence, where it will find objects corresponding to its nature, 
 and commensurate with its duration ; and that which pours such a flood 
 on the eternal destination of man, and not only points out heaven, but 
 bestows the boon, must be " the glorious gospel of the blessed God." 
 
 It is so, in the last place, because it is adapted to man as an impo- 
 tent being. For vast and important as are the blessings to which I 
 have adverted, if they were bestowed on conditions with which we 
 could not possibly comply, the exhibition would only serve to mock our 
 misery and enhance our despair ; we should only be in the predicament 
 of the wretch of antiquity, who was suspended over a running stream, 
 which, when he attempted to partake of it, rushed from him, and left 
 him more wretched than before. The blessings to which I have 
 adverted, are not more exalted in their nature than free in their dispo- 
 sal ; they are without money and without price : and to be without 
 money and without price is all that is required on your part and 
 mine, in order to receive them as the express gift of heaven. When 
 our first parents were expelled from Paradise, there was an angel with 
 a flaming sword placed to guard the entrance to that Paradise, and to 
 prevent their return. But here is no angel. I recall the expression 
 — there is an angel ; but instead of an angel of justice with its flam- 
 ing sword, it is the angel of mercy ; and a voice is heard in every 
 passing breeze, exclaiming, " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to 
 the waters ; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat ; yea. 
 come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." And do 
 you wonder, brethren, that our feelings are kindled, when we state truths 
 like these ? It is an impious calumny ; and, whatever might be our 
 feelings, I should blush for myself if I could speak on such a subject, 
 without a desire of speaking thoughts that breathe, and in words that 
 burn, while I proclaim to guilty, rebellious, miserable, dying, immortal 
 beings, " the glorious gospel of the blessed God." 
 
 Thirdly, it is " the glorious Gospel of the blessed God," because it 
 
 IS DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE ULTIMATELY THE MOST IMPORTANT BLESSINGS 
 
 TO TEE World at large. 
 
388 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 The reign of sin and misery is not to exist eternally on this lower 
 ■world ; it is to be brought to a close. Standing on the mount of Scrip- 
 ture prophecy, and looking down the vale of time, we contemplate a 
 scene such as earth never saw ; such as angels stoop down to see. The 
 language of beauty and blessedness is employed to depict, as with the 
 colors of heaven, this unearthly scene. The effects of the Savior's 
 death will flow down the tide of eternity, will increase with the increas- 
 ing gratitude of successive generations, and be prolonged, even after 
 it has been hymned over the habitations of this lower world. But 
 what is to produce this phange ? Will philosophy and civilization 
 accomplish it ? The experiment has been tried : for four thousand 
 years philosophy had its reign ; and it is a well-attested fact, that, at 
 the time in which philosophy shone with its greatest splendor, in which 
 philosophers themselves were men of the highest repute, and when it 
 was the pride of kings and emperors to patronize them, and raise them 
 to honor — at that very time men were sunk in the depth of moral 
 degradation ; sable night spread her canopy over this darkened world, 
 under which the most detestable rights were perpetrated in rapid suc- 
 cession. A by-stander might say, " Philosophy, it is true, instructed 
 their minds, and civilization reformed their manners ; " but there is noth- 
 ing that can stop the course of that infernal pit, the pestilence of 
 which continually rises before our view, and produces all monstrous 
 things. But the gospel will come into our view, and achieve all that, 
 in the praises of which poets sung and martyrs bled. 0, what visions 
 of glory — you who love the Savior, and desire now to encircle his 
 brow with mediatorial glory — what visions of glory rise before our 
 view ! In the prospect of those scenes we discover the truth : eternal 
 truth, which has so long labored through the darkness of an eclipse, 
 shall shine forth in its own splendor ; and men will acquire a knowledge 
 of subjects, equally important in their nature, and imperishable in their 
 duration. " Holiness " — consisting in the supreme love of God, and 
 of conformity to his image — will be written on the very bridles of the 
 horses, and mingle with the commerce of the nations. The heart of man 
 — now a fountain from which all fetid streams are perpetually pour- 
 ing forth — will then give birth to all that is holy in principle, and bland 
 in disposition. The breath of heaven has originated more enlightened 
 systems of civil government than any the world ever discovered. Then, 
 indeed, philosophy shall refine the minds, and civilization reform the 
 manners of mankind : but, above all, the gospel, under its plastic 
 influence, shall mould this world into such a scene of moral beauty, 
 that the Deity shall again look on it with complacency, and pronounce 
 that all is very good. The love of the Savior shall warm every heart, 
 
GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 389 
 
 and dwell on every tongue — no^v rising in solitary strains of gratitude, 
 noiv combining in hymns of praise — till it shall roll through creation, 
 and the very thunder of God awaken the universe to new and raptu- 
 rous delight : the dwellers in the valleys and on the rocks shout to each 
 other ; the distant hills and mountain-tops catch the swelling joy, till 
 nation after nation join in the choir, and earth rolls the rapturous song 
 around. Brethren, these are scenes which we are warranted to con- 
 template, through the medium of the prophecies of the gospel ; and 
 that which the prophecy announces, the truth shall achieve ; and, 
 under the influence of this " glorious gospel," this new and better 
 order of things shall surely arise. 
 
 I must now come to the concluding part of the subject, to deduce 
 SUCH Remarks as its Nature will suggest. 
 
 First of all — for I shall be very simple and obvious in the inferences 
 I shall draw — I remind you both of the jjrivileges and the obligations 
 with ivhich you are invested who possess this gospel. May I not take 
 up the language of benediction in this assembly this evening, and say, 
 " Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 
 For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have 
 desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them ; and 
 to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." You 
 are guilty, and you know the medium of pardon: you are unholy, and you 
 know the medium of sanctification : you are miserable, and you know 
 where to flee for comfort : there is no form of evil to which you are 
 exposed, for which there is not a commensurate remedy in the " glori- 
 ous gospel ; " and you are intrusted with privileges above millions. 
 O, think of them. Your privileges and your obligations keep pace 
 with each other ; and to whom much is given, much will be required. 
 What if this evening I were empowered to stand in the midst of the 
 dense population of India or China — what would be the emotion of 
 some broken-hearted wretch if he could have caught the sounds to 
 which perhaps some of you have listened this evening with unconcern I 
 And what if, still further, I had been commissioned to traverse the 
 hills, and valleys, and plains, of those lands, and pronounce to its 
 wretched inhabitants the invitations of that gospel to which you have 
 listened : would they not rise from their abodes of wretchedness, and 
 make the very vault of perdition to echo with the song of gratitude 
 and praise ? Remember that you possess that, this evening, for which 
 the lost in hell would give millions of worlds. By this gospel you will 
 be saved : by this gospel you will be condemned. " Hell," said a 
 pious writer, "is truth seen too late." Be careful, I beseech you, 
 
U90 THE ENGLISH TULPIT. 
 
 half-hearted, undecided, imiicnitent, perishing hearers of the gospel ; 
 lest jou pluck yourselves, with a suicidal hand, by your own impeni- 
 tence, from the elevation you now occupy ; and smk, like Lucifer, 
 never to rise again. 
 
 Secondly, we infer from this subject how pitiable must be the condi- 
 tion of those inhabitants of the earth to whom this gospel has never 
 been sent ! Ignorance there has no guide, misery no asylum, despair 
 no hope ; society itself is only a scene of wretchedness, where we 
 behold, in awful combination, all that is ferocious in aggression on the 
 one side, and all that is ineffectual or timid in compliance on the other. 
 But it is to man individually that the situation is most terrible, View 
 that hoary savage. He sees about him the scenes of his youth ; his 
 hands are stained with blood ; he sinks at once under an accumulated 
 load of crimes and years. He would look to the grave for succor ; 
 but alas ! all there is dark — the darkness of the shadow of death. 
 See that poor inhabitant of Hindostan. He resorts to the most detes- 
 table orgies to allay the throbbings of a guilty conscience : he offei-s 
 " the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul." And what can meet 
 their case ? They are wretched here, and eternity to them is only a 
 dark and dreary scene, where they are mocked with the unreal illu- 
 sions of a vain imagination, or appalled by the spectres of guilt and 
 sin. Who can meet their case ? In this fearful condition they are 
 passing on from what is temporal to what is eternal ; and, as they 
 vanish from our view, we seem to hear the shout of anguish, or the 
 sullen groan of despair. What can meet their case ? Why, brethren, 
 you possess that which will meet their case, which will enlighten their 
 darkness, comfort them in their sorrow, and pour the very radiance of 
 heaven over the valley of the shadow of death. 
 
 Now, I would ask, while you behold millions of your fellow-beings, 
 allied to you by the common sympathies of nature, perishing in the 
 situation to which I have adverted, and you possess that Avhich will 
 meet the urgency of their case — can you lie down on the bed of 
 repose, and slumber unconcerned and unaffected by the piercing shrieks 
 that arise from the agonized hearts of perishing millions ? Remember 
 that he who refuses to extend the key of knowledge to those who are 
 in ignorance, is, as Johnson has said, guilty of all the crimes that igno- 
 rance may produce ; in the same way that he who extinguishes a light- 
 house, would be guilty of the horrors of the shipwreck. You possess 
 the means by which this gospel may be extended. Institutions have 
 arisen so vast as to embrace empires, and yet so minute as to receive 
 the smallest contribution that may be poured into its treasury. We 
 invite, then, young and old, master and servant, rich and poor, literate 
 
WORTH OF THE SOUL. 391 
 
 ami illiterate — we invite you all to link every energy of your nature 
 with the cause, and to devote yourselves, at once, with the firmness of 
 a j)rinciple, and the ardor of a passion, to those big and busy enter- 
 prises which are designed to tell on the moral destiny of a lost and 
 ruined world. 
 
 SERMOlA^ XXXII. 
 
 THE AVORTH OF THE SOUL. 
 BY REV. TIMOTHY GIBSON. 
 
 " What shall a man give in exchange for his soul V " — JLvtt. xvi. 26. 
 
 Whether man is a merely material being, formed only to eat and 
 drink, to live a few years on earth, and then to perish for ever in the 
 dust, or whether he is the partaker of a higher nature, and formed for 
 a more exalted state of being, are questions of vital importance — 
 questions, which deeply involve our character in time, and our pros- 
 pects for eternity. If, in man, be seen only a material being, whose 
 existence is confined within the limits of threescore years and ten, and 
 who has neither happiness to hope, nor misery to fear, beyond the 
 grave — religion is only, as infidehty has represented it to be, a system 
 of error, encouraging but by delusive hopes, and intimidating by super- 
 stitious fears ; imposing restraints, to which you are bound by no tie 
 to submit ; and enjoining as duties, what you are under no obligation to 
 perform. But, on the other hand, if in man is seen an immortal crea- 
 ture — a candidate for the skies; if, not only death, but judgment 
 awaits him ; if everlasting happiness or misery must be his doom — 
 then, religion is the most important subject that can engage his powers ; 
 and diligently to learn its truths, and patiently to obey its commands, 
 must be, at once, his interest and his duty. ^ 
 
 The worth of the human soul, I propose, in dependence upon the 
 help of Divine grace, to establish on the general principle of its im- 
 mortality. And give me, I beseech you, your careful attention, and 
 your earnest prayers, that God, who alone bestoweth wisdom, and out 
 of whose mouth alone come knowledge and understanding, may afford 
 us that assistance which we require to our profitable consideration of 
 the subject. 
 
 Of the immortality of the soul, we have three kinds of proof: natu- 
 ral, moral, and Divine. 
 
892 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 I. Natural. The iminaterial nature of the human mind, furnishes 
 so strong a proof of its immortality, as to have forced one of the most 
 subtle advocates of infidelity to acknowledge, that if the soul be, 
 indeed, distinct from matter, the inference can scarcely be avoided, 
 that it is immortal ! Let us then shortly examine whether we are, 
 or are not, elevated in the scale of being, above the earth we tread 
 upon, and the gross materials of which these earthly bodies are made 
 — whether we are, or are not, by the original constitution of our 
 nature, the subjects of immortaUty. 
 
 It is a principle, which must necessarily be admitted as the ground- 
 work of all reasoning — that, from nothing, nothing can ai'ise ; and 
 that for every effect there must exist a sufficient cause. It is the 
 province of reason and of philosophy to trace out effects ; to explore 
 the source from whence they proceed, and to ascertain whether the 
 cause which is assigned them be equal to their production. Were an. 
 idolater to inform you, that his god of wood or stone had often heard 
 his prayer, alleviated his sufferings, and supplied his wants, you would 
 reject his testimony, and pity his weakness ; because your own under- 
 standing would convince you, that a mere block of wood, or stone, 
 however elegantly formed, or beautifully ornamented, yet, being inani- 
 mate, could not hear his supphcations, or afford him relief. 
 
 A cause like this, you would perceive, must necessarily be unequal 
 to the production of such effects : the testimony, therefore, however 
 confidently given, you would at once reject. 
 
 In man, we find perception, consciousness, thought, and reason ; and 
 the question presents itself to the inquiring mind — " Do these proper- 
 ties result from matter ; or, have they a distinct, an independent, an 
 immaterial cause ? " The existence of the properties themselves, is 
 unquestionable ; there must therefore exist some substance, or being, 
 from which, as their cause, these effects proceed ; and, as we have 
 before remarked, it is the province of reason and philosophy to search 
 out this cause, and to ascertain, as nearly as possible, its nature. 
 
 Give to the man of science any portion of matter, and let him 
 reduce it to its first principles ; does he find any one of them the sub- 
 ject of thought or reason ? Impossible. Let him examine the nature 
 of the electric fluid, to the instrumentality of which, as some philoso- 
 phers seem to have taught, the visible creation owes all its variety of 
 texture and form. Does reason reside here ? No. Let him investi- 
 gate the nervous system in the human body, with which sensation is 
 unquestionably connected. Do the nerves possess thinking or reason- 
 ing powers ? Assuredly not. The inevitable conclusion, therefore, is, 
 that these powers are neither essential properties of matter, nor in- 
 
WORTH OF TUE SOUL. 393 
 
 herent in any material elements, within the compass of our research. 
 And it would bo absurd to suppose, that the effect can rise above its 
 cause, since that would be to state, that a thing might be produced by 
 a cause unequal to its production ; or, that the mind of man has no 
 adequate cause of existence. 
 
 If, however these absurdities are too evident to be admitted ; if man 
 possess thinking and reasoning powers ; if these powers are neither 
 essential properties of matter, nor inherent in any material element 
 within our knowledge ; and if no union of elements can give a power 
 essentially different from those powers, which those elements separately 
 possess — then, the human mind is produced by no modification of 
 matter ; but must, in its nature, be immaterial and spiritual. 
 
 The intellectual powers of man furnish a second proof, that his soul 
 is immaterial. We have already stated, that no effect can rise higher 
 than its cause ; in illustration of which remark, it may be added, that 
 the motion given to an inanimate body, can only be in exact propor- 
 tion to the force employed. And if no excellency can be communi- 
 cated which is not possessed, it will assuredly follow, that a material 
 mind must be incapable of performing a spiritual act, or of perceiving 
 an immaterial object. But the human mind does perform acts purely 
 spiritual ; and does perceive objects purely immaterial ; therefore it 
 manifestly follows, that, in its nature, it must be immaterial also. 
 
 To think, to understand, to reason, are actions, which it is impossi- 
 ble for mere matter to perform. To see the beauty of goodness, and 
 to feel the force of moral obligation, are also the peculiar prerogatives 
 of man. Truth and falsehood, justice and oppression, benevolence and 
 cruelty, appear to him in widely different colors, and excite in his 
 mind essentially different feelings. He rises higher ; he forms con- 
 ceptions of angels and spirits — of the perfections, and character, and 
 government of God ; he prays and praises, reverences and adores ; 
 rejoices in Jehovah's favor, and fears Jehovah's wrath. Here, also, 
 we discover powers which mere matter cannot possess ; and, therefore, 
 powers, which matter can never communicate. 
 
 But an objection against these conclusions is sometimes raised, from 
 the painful effects produced on the mind by the weaknesses and dis- 
 eases of the body. " Where," says the materialist, " shall we find 
 proofs of the mind's independence of the bodily structui'C ? Of tliat 
 mind, which, like its clay tabernacle, is infantile in the child, debilita- 
 ted in disease, enfeebled in old age, and annihilated by death ? " This 
 objection however, great as it appears at first sight, is not insurmount- 
 able. Though we allow that the mind, during its continuance in the 
 present world, is united to the body, and is so far confined to it, that 
 
894 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 its senses are the only medium through which impressions are commu- 
 nicated from surrounding objects, and its organs the only instruments 
 by which the mind here carries on its visible operations, yet this by no 
 means proves it to be material ; and the objection alluded to vanishes 
 immediately, when we reflect, that the ideas which the mind forms of 
 objects, must, necessarily, be correct or incorrect, in proportion to the 
 perfection or imperfection of the senses ; and that its operations must 
 be affected, in some degree, according to the state of the brain. But 
 the senses and the brain are not therefore the mind ; nor do they on 
 this account produce it. 
 
 This immateriality of the mind deprives the materialist of all positive 
 evidence for its perishableness or its death ! it furnishes, if not abso- 
 lute proof, at least, a strong probability of its immortality ; and also 
 lays a firm foundation, on which other proofs of this important fact may 
 rest. Immateriality seems to imply a natural power of perpetual 
 duration, as a consequence of exemption from all causes of decay. 
 Dissolution is only the separation of the constituent parts of a com- 
 pound body ; and it is effected either by some inward tendency in the 
 nature of that body, or by some outward violence employed ; but an 
 immaterial substance, being formed of no union of material elements, 
 cannot be the subject of inward decays, but must preserve the identity 
 of its nature for ever. No means, short of an annihilating act by him 
 who gave it being, can terminate its existence ; and as in this exemp- 
 tion from inward corruption and from outward violence, we have an 
 apparent assurance that such an act will not be performed, the con- 
 clusion seems just — that the human soul is not the natural subject of 
 dissolution, but was designed by its Creator to enjoy an endless life. 
 
 II. Of this immortahty we have proofs of a moral nature. 
 
 1. The first of these is derived from the wisdom and goodness of 
 God. It is the province of wisdom, to adapt the means used to the 
 ends proposed ; and of goodness, to proportion happiness to the powers 
 of the object for whom that happiness is designed. The Creator of 
 the world, being infinitely wise, the means employed by him must, with 
 the utmost exactness, be fitted to the ends proposed ; and the powers 
 of the beings he has formed, must be precisely adapted to the proper 
 exercise of those powers, and to the final destiny of the beings them- 
 selves ; and, as he is infinitely good, provision must be made by him 
 for the supply of every desire he has implanted. Whether we look at 
 beasts or birds, fishes or insects, all are furnished with organs exactly 
 adapted to the functions they are intended to perform, and to the 
 
WORTH OF THE SOUL. 396 
 
 sphere in -which these creatures are designed to move. Nor is there 
 either defect or superfluity observable throughout the whole. 
 
 Man, we have said, possesses thinking and reasoning powers, by 
 which he understands truth and obtains knowledge ; and even in the 
 present state, much is placed within the limits of these powers. Look- 
 ing upon the world in which he is placed, he contemplates the wonder- 
 ful charm of being carried on, by almost imperceptible links, through 
 the vegetable to the brute, and through the brute to the rational crea- 
 tion : he searches out the order of parts apparently discordant and 
 detached ; refers to its proper class, each moving creature that hath 
 life, and each plant that adorns the garden or the field ; he investigates 
 the nature of things, and renders subservient to his own interests, his 
 health or his comfort, water and air, light and heat. He calls the 
 microscope to his aid, and discovers in every leaf, in every drop of 
 water, and in every grain of sand, beings, diminutive indeed, but 
 which, by the perfection of their life and powers, furnish additional 
 proof of the wisdom and beneficence of God. Rising above the earth, 
 he tells the number of the stars, explains the laws of the planetary 
 worlds, and calculates, with amazing exactness, the periods of their 
 varied revolutions. Passing from nature to nature's God, he beholds 
 in the magnitude and grandeur of the objects that surround him, the 
 majesty and power of God ; in their variety, fitness and order, his infi- 
 nite wisdom ; and in the provision made for the supply of the returning 
 wants of every living thing, his providential care and goodness : and 
 passing from nature to revelation, he finds fuller manifestations of the 
 Divine will. Extensive, however, as man's present knowledge may 
 be, yet compared with what remains to be known, it is as nothing. 
 There are yet innumerable regions which man has never traversed, and 
 mines of inexhaustible richness which he has never penetrated. In 
 the nature and reason of things, in the works and ways of God, in the 
 dispensations of Providence and the plan of redemption, he sees much 
 that is veiled in partial or entire obscurity, and which yet escapes his 
 grasp. He is here but in the dawn of being ; he sees only in part ; 
 not indeed because his powers are unequal to the task of comprehend- 
 ing any more, but because he " sees through a glass darkly," because, 
 though the intellectual eye is strong in many cases, the communicating 
 medium is dim or defective. 
 
 And has Infinite Wisdom given these capacities, yet at the same 
 time resolved that they shall never arrive at perfection ? Has Infinite 
 Wisdom furnished the immaterial vessel with powers to explore the 
 vast ocean of eternity, yet at the same time, decreed that its voyage 
 shall be confined to the narrow straits of this short and uncertain life ? 
 
396 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 Impossible ! Divine Wisdom must adapt the means to the end ; and 
 adjust the powers of beings to the purposes for which those powers 
 were suited, and to the sphere in which those beings were designed to 
 move. 
 
 2. The second proof, of this class, is derived from the moral powers 
 of the mind. That such powers are possessed, we have already seen ; 
 but, alas ! how low is the degree of perfection to which they here 
 attain ! Passing by the thousands, who never emerge from the dark- 
 ness and pollution of sensuality, nor burst the bonds of appetite ; who 
 never seek to attain the perfection of their nature, till the sun of life 
 is on the decline, or about to set ; and turning our attention to the 
 wisest and best of men to be found in the present state ; after all their 
 conflicts with inward depravity, with an alluring world, and a tempting 
 enemy, and after all the conquests which, aided by Divine grace, they 
 have achieved, how low, in reality, are their acquirements ! How 
 defective their piety towards their God ! How weak their sense of 
 obligation to their Creator and Preserver ! How little their reverence 
 for the authority, their gratitude for the mercies, their delight in the 
 favor, and their obedience to the will of their heavenly Father ! In a 
 word, how imperfect their conformity to the law and perfections of 
 their God ! A voice, in every Christian's breast, echoes the language 
 of an apostle, " Not as though I had already attained, either were 
 already perfect ; I count not myself to have apprehended." 
 
 Impelled by the desires which the Spirit of holiness has implanted 
 in his breast, the believer " forgets the things that are behind, and 
 reaches forward to those things which are before." He longs for a 
 state more congenial to the best wishes of his heart ; a state, in which, 
 irregular appetites shall no more corrupt the mind ; in which, tempta- 
 tions shall no more solicit to sin. " I shall be satisfied," he cries, 
 when I awake up in thy likeness." And has the God of infinite good- 
 ness and wisdom fitted his intelligent creature for such advancement in 
 holiness, such high degrees of excellence, and will he allow no sufficient 
 opportunities for the attainment of them ? Yes ! The Wisdom, that 
 gave those powers, designed their perfection : they shall, therefore, be 
 transplanted to a happier soil, and placed under more genial skies, 
 where they shall bloom as the rose of Sharon ; shall flourish in per- 
 petual fragrance and beauty. 
 
 3. The last of this sort of proofs of the immortality of the soul, I 
 shall mention, is founded on the acknowledgment which has been 
 made, by men of all ages and nations, of their decided conviction of 
 the truth of this all-important doctrine. 
 
 Whether we turn our attention to ancient or modern times, to bar- 
 
WORTH OF THE SOUL. 397 
 
 barous or to civilized countries, those have always been found, -who 
 have received the doctrine of the soul's immortality. T\yo striking 
 instances, from heathen writers of antiquity, shall be given. 
 
 Zenophon, the Grecian historian, represents Cyrus, as thus address- 
 ing his sons, before his death : — "Do not imagine, that when I leave 
 you I shall cease to exist. For even when I was yet with you, my 
 spirit you could not discern ; but that it animated this body, you were 
 fully persuaded by the actions which I performed. Be assured, it will 
 continue the same, though you see it not. I can never believe that 
 man lives only while he is in the body, and dies when that is dissolved ; 
 or, that the soul loses all intelligence on being separated from an unin- 
 telligent mass of earth ; but, rather, that on being liberated from all 
 mixture with the body, pure and entire, it enters upon its true, intel- 
 lectual existence ! " 
 
 The great Roman org,tor represents Cato thus speaking to two 
 friends : — "As long as we are shut up in this dungeon of sense, we 
 have to toil through the painful and necessary drudgery of life, and to 
 accomplish the laborious task of a hireling. The celestial spirit is, as 
 it were, depressed, and plunged into the mire of this world — a state 
 repugnant to its true nature and eternal duration. Oh ! glorious day ! 
 when I shall be admitted into the assembly of the wise and good ; ^ 
 when I shall make an eternal escape from this sink of corruption, this 
 den of folly ! " 
 
 If such were the expectations of unenlightened heathens, how much 
 more clearly are life and immortality brought to light by the gospel ! 
 
 III. This is the third source, from whence we would draw some 
 proofs of the soul's immortality. 
 
 The oracles of God expressly teach the immaterial nature, the inde- 
 pendent existence, and the immortal life of the soul. 
 
 The sacred historian, in the account given of the creation of man, 
 has strongly marked the communication of a principle or nature dis- 
 tinct from matter, and different from the gifts bestowed on the various 
 orders of beings which had been previously formed. In the creation 
 of them Jehovah is represented as but speaking, and causing it to be 
 done. " Let the waters, or the earth, bring forth the moving creature 
 that hath life," is the command given, and creatures possessing animal 
 life, Avith all its instincts and powers, present themselves. 
 
 But is man to be formed ? — the three persons of the Deity are 
 called into solemn deliberation. " Let us make man in our own image, 
 after our likeness," is the extraordinary counsel taken, and the resolu- 
 tion adopted. Is man to be brought into existence ? Strongly to 
 
398 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 mark the communication of a distinct and superior nature, God liim- 
 self " breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and he becomes a 
 living soul." A nature is communicated, superior to that possessed 
 by any other creature of earthly origin, and more nearly resembling 
 the Divine : a spirit is given, possessing thinking and reflecting 
 powers. 
 
 In the language of holy confidence adopted by the Psalmist — "Thou 
 shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory," 
 we see an expectation entertained of an admission to the realms of 
 everlasting light, at the close of the present life. The wise man con- 
 cludes his striking description of the infirmities of age and the decays 
 of hfe, with that solemn declaration — " Then shall the dust return 
 to the earth as it was ; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave 
 it." Two distinct parts of man are here mentioned ; and widely dif- 
 ferent statements are made respecting them. The body is called 
 " dust," and it is affirmed, it " shall return to the earth as it was ; " 
 formed of material elements, to those elements it shall again return. 
 But the mind is styled " the spirit ; " and in direct reference to .the 
 account given by Moses of the creation of man it is said, it " shall 
 return unto God who gave it." It shall pass, at the death of the 
 body, into another state of existence, and shall be appointed by its 
 Maker and Judge, to dwell in pai-adise with " the spirits of just men 
 made perfect," or (since the righteous alone can dwell in that king- 
 dom of holiness,) to suffer the miseries of the lost forever. 
 
 The same doctrine was taught by the incarnate Son of God. When 
 arming the minds of his disciples and apostles against the assaults, 
 which he knew that they would have to sustain from the power and 
 mahce of the enemies of his religion, he said — " Fear not them who 
 kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him, 
 who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Here, also, two 
 separate parts of man are clearly pointed out ; and very different 
 declarations are made respecting them. Of the body, the Savior 
 states — " men may kill it." Material in its nature, it is liable to 
 decay ; and by disease, or violence may be deprived of life. And 
 were the soul nothing more than animated matter, and dependent for 
 its existence on the body, the same stroke that kills the body, would 
 necessarily terminate also the existence of the soul ; and, at death, the 
 whole man must die. This, however, the Savior affirms not to be the 
 case : " men cannot kill the soul." The soul must, therefore, be 
 immaterial in its nature, and must not depend, for existence, on any 
 mere bodily powers. 
 
 " We know," says the apostle, " that if the earthly house of this tab- 
 
WOllTH OF lUE SOUL. 399 
 
 emacle were dissolved, wc have a building of God ; a house, not made 
 ■with hands, eternal in the heavens." " Therefore we are always con- 
 fident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent 
 from the Lord ; we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent 
 from the body, and present with the Lord." 
 
 Such are some of the arguments, in proof of the all-important doc- 
 trine of the immortality of the soul of man. It only remains, that we 
 make a short application of the subject to ourselves. And in doing 
 this, I beseech every one of you to put to himself, solemnly and ear- 
 nestly, the question contained in the text — " What shall a man give 
 in exchange for his soul ? " 
 
 What can redeem the immortal spirit ? — a spirit exposed, in conse- 
 quence of its guilt, to banishment from the presence of God, from the 
 glories of his kingdom, from the joys of his right hand ; and doomed 
 to eternal wretchedness and despair ? Were the whole material crea- 
 tion offered as the purchase of its redemption, how inadequate would 
 be the ransom^ how disproportionate the price ! 
 
 Each of you, my brethren, possesses a soul thus invaluable ; a soul, 
 which must live in hapiness or misery, in heaven or hell, for ever. 
 This fact, the careless and thoughtless amongst you may disregard or 
 disbeheve. Be it known to you, however, that if a God of omnipo- 
 tence, of justice, and of grace, has endued you with immortal souls, 
 your neglect or disbelief will neither alter their nature, nor extinguish 
 their being. Enlightened and warmed by the mid-day sun, you may 
 shut your eyes ; and then attempt to deny, or profess to doubt, his 
 existence; but such denials, or pretended doubts, destroy him not — 
 they shroud not tJie heavens in darkness, they consign not the earth 
 to eternal dreariness. 
 
 The poor infidel, who, in the hour of death, stretched out his impious 
 arm, and exclaimed — " I will not die ! " became, notwithstanding, the 
 prey of the last enemy, and found, when too late, that neither his dis- 
 belief nor his power, could withstand the purpose of the Almighty. 
 You, too, may neglect or disbelieve, but you cannot alter your immor- 
 tality. 'You may convert the glory of your nature into an object of 
 alarm ; and turn Heaven's greatest blessing, into your heaviest cm-se. 
 You may ruin, but you cannot annihilate, the soul. Immortality — 
 a resurrection — a judgment day, are appointed to you by that God 
 whose eye you cannot escape, whose purpose you cannot frustrate, and 
 whose holiness requires that (as his word has threatened) " the wicked 
 shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." 
 
 The question returns, with double force, " What will you give in 
 
400 THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 
 
 exchange for your soul ? " Pensioners on the Divine bounty, you have 
 nothing to offer ; and had you ten thousand worlds, they would not fur- 
 nish a sufficient price. It cost more to redeem the soul. 
 
 But, blessed be the eternal name, no price is asked for you. That 
 God, against whom you have so often, and so ungratefully rebelled ; 
 whose holiness you have offended, whose majesty you have insulted, 
 whose goodness you have abused, and whose displeasure you have 
 deserved ; " wonder, heavens, and be astonished, earth ! " that 
 God has said concerning you — " Deliver him from going down to the 
 pit ; I have found a ransom." Yes, " God so loved the world, that he 
 gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should 
 not perish, but have everlasting life." That Son, of whom it is reveal- 
 ed, that " he was in the beginning with God, and Avas God," came into 
 the world, proclaining — " I am come that they might have life, and 
 that they might have it more abundantly." " The Son of man came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minister ; and to give his life a ran- 
 som for many." The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will 
 give for the life of the world. This is my blood of the New Testa- 
 ment, which is shed for many, for the' remission of sins." Well did 
 the apostle say — " Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as 
 silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot." 
 
 Behold, then, my brethren, with the eye of faith, your merciful and 
 Almighty Savior ! See him dying for human guilt ; and rising again 
 for the justification of human hope. " I am the resurrection and the 
 life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; 
 and whosoever liveth and beheveth in me, shall never die." Such is 
 the gracious, yet simple declaration of Jesus, the Savior of sinners. 
 To you is this word of salvation sent. Receive it with that self-appro- 
 priation, earnestness, and gratitude, which so well become guilty and 
 perishing sinners ; and ever remember, that " if any man be in Christ, 
 he is a new creature ; " — that " faith overcometh the world, purifieth 
 the heart, and worketh by love." 
 
/ 
 

 ^'y.