^JES 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON. N. J. 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Princeton University library 
 
 ia 
 
 BV 4310 .T45 1870 
 Temple, Frederick, 1821- 
 
 1902. 
 Sermons preached in Rugby 
 
 School Chanel, in 1ftR8- 
 
C V -^^J^^tty^ 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN RUGBY SCHOOL CHAPEL, 
 
 IN 
 
 1858, 1859, i860. 
 
SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN RUGBY SCHOOL CHAPEL, 
 
 1858, 1859, i860. 
 
 BY THE RIGH^ KEV. 
 
 7 
 
 FREDERICK TEMPLE, D. D. 
 
 Lord Bishop of Exeter. 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 l£onDon: 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1870. 
 
OXFORD: 
 
 By T. Combe, M. A.. E. B. Gardner, E. P. Hall, and H. Latham, M.A« 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
Rugby ^ loih April, 1861. 
 
 It would be natural when sending a Volume of 
 Sermons to the Press to correct blemishes of 
 style, to supply omitted links of argument, and 
 to make any other alterations which a careful 
 perusal had suggested. But I have thought it 
 better for various reasons not to do so in this 
 instance. These Sermons are printed exactly 
 as they were preached. 
 
 F. T. 
 
TO THE BOYS OF RUGBY SCHOOL 
 
 AND TO THEIR PARENTS 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY ONE 
 
 WHO WOULD GLADLY SACRIFICE EVERY OTHER AIM, 
 
 IF, BY SO DOING, HE COULD HELP 
 
 ANY OF HIS PUPILS 
 
 TO LIVE IN THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE 
 
 AND M 
 
 TO LOVE THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 J'- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY. 
 HosEA xi. 4. — I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of 
 
 love PAGE I 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 EASTER DAY. 
 
 Romans viii. 38, 39. — For I am persuaded that neither death, 
 nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
 present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
 other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
 God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord . . . .12 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 Revelation ii. 4. — Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, 
 
 because thou bast left thy first love 20 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 LOVE AND DUTY. 
 
 St. Matthew v. 19. — Whosoever therefore shall break one of 
 these least command7iients, and shall teach men so, he shall be 
 called the least in the kingdom of heaven . . . .29 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 COMING TO CHRIST. 
 
 St. Matthew xi. 28. — Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are 
 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest . . . . '37 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 I Thessalonians V. 19. — Quench not the spirit . . .46 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 GREAT MEN. 
 
 Hebrews xii. I. — Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about 
 vjith so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every 
 weight, and the sin vjhich doth so easily beset us, and let us 
 run with patience the race that is set before us . . • 55 
 
 SERMON VIIL 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 Hebrews xi. i. — Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, 
 
 the evidence of things not seen ...... 64 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 St. John xx. 29. — Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou 
 hast seen Me thou hast believed : blessed are they that have 
 not seen and yet have believed 73 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 SCRUPLES. 
 
 Romans xiv. 5. — Let every man he fully persuaded iv. his own 
 
 mind .82 
 
 SERMON XL 
 
 CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW. 
 
 Romans vii. 12. — Wherefore the Law is holy, and (he Command- 
 ment holy, and just, and good 90 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 
 ORIGINAL SIN. 
 
 Romans vii. 20. — Now if I do that I would not, it is no more 
 
 I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me . . . -99 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 
 SINS OF SURPRISE. 
 St. Luke xxii. 62. — And Peter went out and wept bitterly . . 108 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 St. Matthew v. 19. —Whosoever therefore shall break one of 
 these least commafidments, and shall teach men so, he shall 
 be called the least in the kingdom of heaven . . . • li7 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Proverbs xxvii. 17. — Iron sbarpenetb iron : so a man sharpenelh 
 
 the countenance of his friend . . . . . .126 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 
 TEMPTING OTHERS. 
 
 St. Matthew xviii. *].~Woe unio the world because of offences! 
 for it must needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man 
 by whom the offence cometb 134 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 
 HELPING OTHERS. 
 
 Galatians vi. 2. — Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil 
 
 the Law of Christ 144 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 CONFESSING OF FAULTS. 
 St. James V, 16. — Confess your faults one to another . . . 153 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 
 god's PRESENCE. 
 
 Psalm cxxxix. 1-3.— Lord, Thou hast searched me, and 
 known me. Thou hnowest my down-silting and mine up-rising ; 
 Thou tinderslandest my thoughts afar off. Thou cofupassest 
 my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all 
 my zvays ........•• 162 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XX. 
 
 RESIGNATION. 
 
 St. Matthew vi. lo.— Thy will he done in earth, as it is in 
 
 heaven 171 
 
 SERMON XXI. 
 
 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 
 
 St. Luke viii. 15. — But that on the good ground are they, which, 
 in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep 
 it, and bring forth fruit with patience . . . .180 
 
 SERMON XXII. 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION. 
 
 St. James i. 12. — Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: 
 for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which 
 the Lord hath promised to them that love Him, . . .188 
 
 SERMON XXIII. 
 
 ALL LIGHT GOOD. 
 
 St. John xiii. 17. — If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye 
 
 do them 197 
 
 SERMON XXIV. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 Hebrews v. 14. — But strong meat belongeth to them that are of 
 full age, even those who, by reason of use, have their senses 
 exercised to discern both good and evil .... 206 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XXV. 
 
 THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 Romans ii. i6. — The day when God shall judge the secrets of men 
 
 by Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel . . . .215 
 
 SERMON XXVI. 
 
 PRESSING FORWARDS. 
 
 Philippians iii. 13, 14. — Brethren, I count not myself to have 
 apprehended : but this one thing I do, forgettiiig those things 
 which are behind, a7id reaching forth to those things which 
 are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the 
 high calling of God in Christ Jesus 224 
 
 SERMON XXVII. 
 
 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 
 
 2 Corinthians i. 20. — For all the promises of God in Him are 
 
 yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us . '235 
 
 SERMON XXVIII. 
 
 STRENGTH A DUTY. 
 
 Philippians iv. 13. — I can do all things through Christ which 
 
 strengtheneth me 244 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 SERMON XXIX. 
 
 SEASONS OF PENITENCE. 
 
 Psalm xlii. 1-3. — As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, 
 so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for 
 God, for the living God : when shall I come and appear before 
 God f My tears have been my meat day and night, while they 
 continually say unto me, Where is thy God 7 . . -254 
 
 SERMON XXX. 
 
 god's inexhaustible love. 
 
 Romans v. 8, — But God commendeth his love toward tts, in that, 
 
 while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us . . .264 
 
 SERMON XXXI. 
 
 SECRET SINS. 
 
 St. John iii. 20, 21. — For every one that doeth evil hateth the 
 light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be 
 reproved. But be that doeth truth cometh to the light, that 
 his deeds may be made manifest, that they are tvrought in 
 God 273 
 
 SERMON XXXII. 
 
 WORLDLINESS. 
 Romans xii. 2. — Be not conformed to this world . . .282 
 
x\\ CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON XXXIII. 
 
 ILL TEMPER. 
 
 Ephesians iv. 3 1 . — Lei all bitterness, and torath, and anger, and 
 clamour, and evil-speaking, he put away from you, with all 
 malice 289 
 
 SERMON XXXIV. 
 
 THE THREE CROSSES. 
 
 St. Luke xxiii, 33. — And when they were come to the place, 
 which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the 
 malefactors, one on the right band, and the other on the 
 left 298 
 
 SERMON XXXV. 
 
 THE BURIAL OF THE PAST. 
 
 Romans vi. 11. — Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead 
 indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord 306 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 HOSEA xi. 4. 
 
 ' I dre^u them (with cords of a ma?i, ^ith bands of lo've.^ 
 
 nPHIS is not a day for difficult doctrines but for the 
 simplest and humblest feelings. The great work of 
 this day is quite beyond the reach of our understanding. 
 What it was that was done for us we are not able to 
 comprehend, nor why it was needed to be done. There 
 was much that was mysterious, but it is not the mystery 
 that we find the chief topic in the account four times 
 repeated of our Lord's last days and death. In very 
 plain language the facts are minutely told. The 
 doctrines we hardly see. The appeal is not made to 
 our understanding, nor even directly to our conscience. 
 With the cords of a man we are drawn. The human 
 affections in which all men share, the feelings which even 
 the poorest, the meanest, the most ignorant partake in, 
 the pity, the tenderness, the love that can only be called 
 forth by love, these are now the cords by which our Father 
 draws us, the cords of a man. Not our admiration for 
 
 B 
 
GOOD FRIDAY. [sERM. 
 
 greatness, nor for energy of soul ; not our reverence for 
 wisdom, seeing into secret things, and forcing conviction 
 on us as it speaks. We see not here that which makes 
 our hearts applaud. We dare not here admire as we 
 should an ordinary man. He whom we think of is above 
 our admiration. If He is calm and dignified before a 
 weak judge and an angry mob, yet His bearing has no 
 proud consciousness that many eyes are on Him, and 
 that he has a high part to play. All this is out of place. 
 The dignity is the dignity of a simple purpose, of a mind 
 too lost in other thoughts to have room for any thoughts 
 of self. We can admire St. Paul before the Sanhedrim, 
 or before the magistrates at Philippi. But here we 
 cannot feel admiration. It is not a great man whose 
 history we are reading. It is not greatness of soul, or 
 commanding will ; to call it noble-minded does not ex- 
 press our feeling. We cannot think of this history at all 
 in the same way that we do of those tales of noble en- 
 durance which sometimes make our hearts beat quick. 
 There are times in our Lord's life when we can find 
 passages that seem like touches of what we call greatness, 
 the indignation which denounced the woes on the wicked 
 party that ever resisted God's work, or the sternness 
 which reproved the ruler of the synagogue who forbad 
 men to come and be healed. But here we find no trace 
 of such feeling ; not even of that anger which a man 
 might feel at treachery and falsehood. Here is not the 
 will which compels men to bow down before it. His 
 bearing is not the bearing of a strong man resolute in 
 liis purpose, His resolution is not of that kind which 
 
I.] GOOD FRIDAY, 
 
 triumphs in opposition, and rejoices in victory. In all 
 human greatness there is something Hke exultation in 
 the strength that makes the greatness. But here we see 
 nothing of this. Not to high feelings does it speak; not 
 to the man who is conscious of a lofty purpose nobly 
 followed; not to him who rests with complacency on 
 the thoughts of his own success, or his own struggles for 
 the right. If such thoughts are ever right, they cannot 
 enter here. To the heart that loves like a child, to the 
 sinner deeply laden with his burden of unhappiness, to 
 the broken spirit that secretly longs to escape from fetters 
 which it is powerless to break, to the soul that is ready 
 to despair, yes, to the thief and murderer at the hour of 
 public doom, this Gospel speaks, and tells of hope, and 
 love, and eagerness to forgive, and embracing arms, and 
 falling on the neck, and tears of joy, and the welcome of 
 the Prodigal Son. 
 
 We cannot study here. We can but surrender our 
 hearts to the love which is too much for them to con- 
 tain. We have not to brace ourselves up with much and 
 hard endeavour. We have not to clear our hearts of 
 folly, and to prepare to receive hard sayings. We have 
 not by much meditation to arrive at truths too deep for 
 common understandings. We need no hard words, or 
 well-taught minds, or sharpened heads. The wretchedest 
 sinner that ever longed for death to free him from his 
 anguish, the most ignorant and darkened soul that can 
 hardly understand human language, can here find what 
 will speak to him, as his mother's caresses once did 
 in his childhood, as nothing has ever spoken to him 
 
 B 2 
 
GOOD FRIDAY. [sERM. 
 
 since. The soul that could never make the effort to 
 aim at what was noble, the mind that could never take 
 in a wider reach of thought than his own poor daily life, 
 are here on a level with the wisest and the noblest. 
 They too are drawn, as all are drawn, with the cords 
 of a man, with the cords of human love by a loving 
 Father. When all else has failed; when examples fail 
 to rouse them, and precepts fail to guide them ; when 
 sin has proved too strong for reasoning, for the sight of 
 the wretchedness it brings with it, for fear of hell here- 
 after, for bitter experience of hell here ; when we have 
 fought and been beaten, and at last have given up 
 hope ; when our hearts are grown too cold for words 
 of eloquence to reach them ; when we have settled down 
 despairingly in sinful habits, still fretting inwardly at the 
 horror that lies before us ; even then the Cross of Christ 
 may yet save us with its simple story ; if we have strength 
 for nothing else, we yet may have strength to fling our- 
 selves at the foot of the Cross ; to think not of the future 
 but of the past ; to Hve, not in resolutions of amendment, 
 but in love of Christ ; for He loved us and gave Himself 
 to die for us. 
 
 We are sometimes cold and dead. There are times 
 when our feelinsfs towards God seem to lose their warmth. 
 Perhaps we neglect our prayers : or perhaps we repeat 
 them carelessly as a matter of form, even an irksome 
 form. We wander to various thoughts and never fix 
 our minds on God. We are not easy. We feel not 
 quite happy. And we wonder at our own dryness and 
 hardness. We wish for any state of mind rather than 
 
I.] GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 what we have. In the midst perhaps of outward activity 
 our religious life seems lisdess and dull. We almost long 
 to rush into open sin, fancying that the excitement of 
 that will be better than our present lethargy. We are 
 weary, and yet we know not the way to better things. 
 We cannot resolve, and we procrastinate, and say to- 
 morrow, or bye-and-bye. Or we try to turn our eyes 
 another way and not to think about it. Sometimes, 
 indeed most often, all is not right with us when things 
 are so ; we are doing something wrong, and we know it. 
 Sometimes we are not conscious of anything like that; 
 we only know that we feel nothing to draw us to God ; 
 we see reason enough for serious thoughts, but our 
 hearts seem turned to summer dust, and we cannot love. 
 We can obey and we do, but we feel like servants not 
 like children, and we are unhappy because we cannot 
 rouse any warmer feelings in ourselves. 
 
 And when this is so, where can we go but to the Cross 
 of Christ.? Can our hearts long resist the pleading of 
 that story, or can we refuse to come when the Father 
 begins to draw us with the cords of a man, with bands 
 of love } 
 
 Perhaps under a decent exterior we hide some sinful 
 habit which has long been eating into our souls. It is 
 possible that we may be discharging every duty as far as 
 human eyes behold us. We may even have better 
 thoughts at times, and offer up most earnest prayers. 
 We may be most sincere in our wish to serve God, and 
 may have striven long and hard to subdue what is evil in 
 us. Perhaps it is a fault which leaves us entirely free 
 
GOOD FRIDAY. [sERM. 
 
 sometimes, and gives us leisure to prepare our hearts 
 against it. And yet time after time the temptation has 
 proved too strong ; or we have been found too weak. 
 We have slipped back again we hardly can tell how ; and 
 sin reigns unopposed. Unclean thoughts return upon us 
 and we indulge them ; or it may be an unkind temper 
 makes us harsh to those around us ; or a foolish tongue 
 wanders from the truth; or indolence overpowers our 
 will, and we spend in some pleasure the time that ought 
 to have been devoted to honest labour ; or conceit makes 
 us say and do things of which we ought to be ashamed ; 
 or angry pride has filled our souls even in the presence 
 of God. Our besetting sin has clung to us, and we can- 
 not get rid of it. At times we seem to have won the 
 victory ; we are ready to exclaim, ' I shall never be 
 removed; Thou, Lord, of Thy goodness hast made my 
 hill so strong.' And then the enemy has found us in an 
 unguarded moment, and when once we give way our 
 strength to resist seems lost. Has not this happened 
 again and again, not once only but many times, and are 
 not we tempted to make no effort in what seems a hope- 
 less case.? We have resolved, and resolved again, and 
 have prayed to God for aid, and we have endeavoured 
 to watch ourselves, and have avoided many occasions 
 which experience had told us were dangerous. And it 
 has been all in vain. 
 
 And now if this be so, yet once more let us turn to 
 God, and gaze upon the Cross of Christ. Let us not on 
 this day make resolutions, or look forward in anticipation 
 of battle. Let us think only of that sorrow which was 
 
I.] ' GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 beyond all other sorrows, and that love which caused all 
 the sorrow. Let us think of our Lord sadly grieving at 
 our weakness, and longing to help us, and praying for 
 our recovery. Let us think of the bitter pain for Him to 
 look forward, and see how little all His toil and pain 
 would teach us. What is bitterer than to love and to 
 love fondly, and to see one whom you love descend step 
 by step into sin and folly.? And this He saw, and yet 
 His love was not made cold or feeble. And His bodily 
 frame was weak, so weak that the fear of what was 
 coming, and the weight of His sorrow, brought from Him 
 the Bloody SAveat, and the prayer which He knew could 
 not be granted. And yet he shrunk not away from 
 what He had undertaken. Let us look on this till our 
 thoughts are filled with the sight, till our hearts answer to 
 the affection which thus could suffer, till we feel the cords 
 draw us, the cords of a man, and we sit at the foot of 
 the Cross, and never wish to leave it. Let us carry this 
 with us henceforward, and turn to this whenever we are 
 sore beset. It cannot be in vain that all this love was 
 shewn. 
 
 Or perhaps we have never really striven to serve God 
 at all. We have lived as best suited the society in which 
 we were, as most conduced to our own pleasure. The 
 garden of our soul has been filled with noxious weeds, 
 and we have never endeavoured to root them out. We 
 have never prayed alone. We have but given our pre- 
 sence to the common prayers of Christians. And in 
 church our thoughts have not turned to God, but have wan- 
 dered to pleasures, to worldly hopes, to dreams pleasant 
 
8 GOOD FRIDAY. [sERM. 
 
 to our fancy. We have thought little about another 
 world. We have thought little about the hour of death, 
 and the day of judgment. We are not wicked in the 
 world's sense of wicked. We commit no murder or 
 theft. We break no human laws. We respect all the 
 rules of society. But whenever the thought of God or 
 conscience comes across us, we immediately find that but 
 a dull subject to think on, and we turn to pleasanter and 
 more exciting themes. 
 
 What then shall warm our hearts but this plain story 
 of sadness ? If we have human feeHngs still left us, and 
 sympathy can yet touch our souls, it will be impossible 
 to read of the Cross of Christ without emotion. Let us 
 follow our Lord from the Supper table, where His Be- 
 trayer ate with Him out of the same dish ; to the garden 
 where He prayed for what He knew He could not and 
 would not have ; to the judgment-hall where the people 
 of His love cried out, ' Crucify Him, crucify Him ;' to 
 the Cross where He seemed to have been forsaken by 
 God, as He had been forsaken by all men. Here shall 
 all men find the medicine to heal their sore disease. 
 Who could sin in the presence of this depth of suffer- 
 ing .? Who could refuse to be touched at heart ? Proud 
 thoughts, self-conscious contentment, cannot stand here. 
 Cold hearts, callous feelings, must either turn away or 
 melt; and alas, that so many should turn away. The 
 sinner and the saint may here kneel down side by side : 
 for the love which flows from those wounds washes the 
 sinner as clean as the saint. We cannot cleanse our- 
 selves. O Christ, do Thou cleanse us, as we kneel 
 
l] good FRIDAY. 
 
 before Thee. Here may come the sinner sure of accept- 
 ance. He may have felt quite unable to sell all and 
 follow Christ preaching and Christ working miracles. 
 He may have been unconvinced by all the wisdom of the 
 parables. The threats and the warnings, nay, the pro- 
 mises of mercy and the moving words, may have found 
 his ears dull of hearing. But here he will kneel and 
 think no more of himself, but only of his Lord, and be 
 lost in the memory of this dark time. When nothing else 
 has converted the sinner, this many times has been too 
 much for him, and many times will it be again. 
 
 We come not here with desire to stand right in God's 
 sight. We come not thinking of His justice, and asking 
 to be made holy, that His justice may have nothing to 
 find fault with. We come not asking to be spared His 
 wrath. Who could ask for anything for himself in the 
 presence of all this suffering, all this suffering on his 
 behalf.? No, we come asking to be taken to His heart; 
 for the love of a Father we beg, for the pardon which 
 brings us to His bosom ; not for that pardon which only 
 spares the rod ; we cannot here think of punishment ; we 
 cannot ask simply that our own pain shall be lessened; 
 we do not think of that, but of Christ, We have been 
 away from Him. We long to come back to Him. Lord, 
 receive us once more to Thy love and do with us what 
 Thou wilt. 
 
 We come as sheep that have gone astray. We hasten 
 to the Shepherd whose voice we hear calling us from afar. 
 He hath sought us long. We think not of the pastures, 
 but of Him ; to lie in His bosom, to be carried in His 
 
lO GOOD FRIDAY. [SERM. 
 
 arms, to hear His words of comfort once more, to see 
 His face, to feel that we are pressed to His heart. 
 
 We come as the Prodigal Son. We think not of the 
 pleasures of our Father's house. We think not of the 
 joys which belong to the saints. We think not of heaven 
 nor of hell now. We think of Him, of our Father. We 
 long once more to be near Him, to see Him, to hear Him, 
 if that at least may be ours which we so little deserve. 
 We come not asking for holiness, nor for forgiveness, 
 nor for happiness, nor for peace, nor for protection. We 
 come asking to be let once more to live with Him, and 
 for nothing else. Christ is all in all, and here we can 
 think of nothing else; if only we may be permitted 
 kneeling at His feet to embrace the Cross on which 
 He hangs, and never again to move from His sight. 
 
 We come not here with fears. We come not trem- 
 bling with anxiety how we shall be received. We come 
 not because we are terrified by the thoughts of the wrath 
 to come. Nay, these things we think not of at all. We 
 come not because we find sin is unhappiness ; if it was 
 that which brought us to Jerusalem, it is not that which 
 makes us hasten to Calvary. We come because love 
 constraineth us, and we are drawn with the cords of a 
 man. 
 
 We come not with high hopes, with thoughts of future 
 usefulness, or of high rank and place among the children 
 of God. We come not now with dreams of saintliness 
 that we shall win by long and patient striving. We 
 think not of fighting a noble battle, and of self-applause, 
 and of a happy consciousness that God has been work- 
 
I.] GOOD FRIDAY. 
 
 ing in us. We come not in the strength of a firm will 
 and a determined purpose. We cannot look at these 
 things now. All these are good, but now we have no 
 thoughts to spare for them. To be with Christ, the 
 love of Christ, to be accepted as His, to be embraced by 
 His arms, that is what v/e ask. There is nothing else in 
 the whole world but He alone. We come to be with 
 Him. 
 
 O Lord Jesu Christ, take us to Thyself, draw us with 
 cords to the foot of Thy Cross ; for we have not strength 
 to come, and we know not the way. Thou art mighty 
 to save, and none can separate us from Thy love. Bring 
 us home to Thyself; for we are gone astray. We have 
 wandered; do Thou seek us. Under the shadow of 
 Thy Cross let us live all the rest of our lives, and there 
 we shall be safe. 
 
SERMON IL 
 
 EASTER DAY. 
 
 ROMANS viii. 38, 39. 
 
 ' For I am persuaded that neither death., nor life., nor angels, nor 
 principalities., nor po'duers, nor things present., nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 
 able to separate us from the lo've of God, ivhich is in Christ 
 Jesus our Lord' 
 
 nPHE return of Easter should be to the Christian 
 Hfe the call of a trumpet. It is the news of a great 
 victory. It is the solution of a great perplexity. It is the 
 assurance of a great triumph. It is the capture of an 
 enemy's last stronghold. It crowns the work of Christ. 
 It exhibits the love of God. It demonstrates the truth of 
 conscience. It was expected by prophets ; it was wit- 
 nessed by apostles; it is the foundation of apostolic 
 doctrine ; and the chief purpose of the apostoHc office, as 
 St. Peter declares, was to bear witness to the resurrection 
 of Christ. When conscience has reiterated the message 
 that she brings from God, when she has bid us believe in 
 spite of sight and in spite of experience, when the contra- 
 diction of things around us has only made her voice 
 more peremptory, there still remains, as it seems, one 
 fact which she cannot touch, an unanswerable source of 
 
EASTER DAY. 13 
 
 doubt. Conscience is ever talking of truth, of justice, of 
 purity, of unselfishness, of absolute self-devotion. The 
 visible world seems to mock her message with examples 
 of its falsehood. We see and we cannot help seeing the 
 lie very often successful, and justice very often set aside ; 
 the hypocrite trusted, and the oppressor popular ; the 
 simple frowned upon, and the ill-treated scorned; we 
 see impure pleasures unpunished, and selfishness attain- 
 ing its ends ; presumption making others yield, and con- 
 ceit winning undue praise. We see wrong stronger than 
 right, and selfishness more blessed than self-denial, and 
 conceit more honoured than humility ; and still the voice 
 within, unsilenced by the evidence of facts, repeats with 
 increasing emphasis that, in spite of all that we see, right 
 is stronger than wrong, and truth is better than falsehood, 
 and purity shall prevail over sensual indulgence, and 
 meekness shall inherit the earth, and the persecuted 
 shall reign as kings. But then the world, within which 
 our senses and our outer experience are confined, seems 
 to reply by one unanswerable argument, the argument of 
 death. Can conscience or obedience to conscience save 
 a man from that universal doom, or fulfil its promises 
 before that doom shall come ? After all that conscience 
 preaches, what becomes of her disciples.? Is there any 
 difi'erence between the end of a wise man and the end 
 of a fool, between the end of holiness and the end of 
 profligacy.? Will self-denial make life longer.? Will 
 justice send death away? Conscience herself passes 
 away with the spirit in whom she has dwelt; the body 
 that her possessor dwelt in turns to dust. However 
 
14 EASTER DAY. [SERM. 
 
 good he was, however upright, we see him no more ; 
 we have no more evidence of his existence. Men may 
 remember him, but what is memory to the dead ? His 
 work may live that he hath left behind him ; but he 
 himself is gone. Gone without having received any 
 measure of that' absolute justice which conscience 
 promised. Absolutely perished as far as our senses or 
 understanding can tell, without any chance of having the 
 injustice of the world towards him set right. The wicked 
 man dies in the full enjoyment of the success won by his 
 wickedness; the good man without any of that redress 
 which conscience is never tired of telling us is the funda- 
 mental law of all things. 
 
 And no doubt if this had been all that God had 
 vouchsafed to give us, it would have been enough. 
 Conscience would still have repeated her proclamation 
 even in the face of death itself, and not the visible 
 destruction of the earthly frame, nor the absolute de- 
 parture of the enlivening spirit, would have silenced her 
 voice or justified us in disobeying her commands, or 
 refusing to believe His promises. 
 
 But God, who always gives in greater abundance than 
 we need, has this day supplied us with a fuller answer, 
 and hath brought life and immortality to light through 
 the Gospel. On this day it has been shewn by visible 
 proof that the spiritual power cannot be held in the 
 chains of the earth, and that death itself, in spite of its 
 apparent universality, is not the Supreme Ruler of the 
 universe. There is a power which can burst its bonds. 
 The voice of conscience is right. This life is not the 
 
II.] EASTER DAY. 1 5 
 
 end of all things, and the course of this life is not 
 enough to measure the reckoning of eternal justice. 
 Right is stronger than wrong, and truth lasts longer 
 than falsehood, and purity is more precious and more 
 enduring than sin ; for right and truth and purity are 
 summed up in their champion Christ, and He has this 
 day vanquished death, the one unconquerable champion 
 of the enemy. 
 
 There is nothing new in all this; for indeed the 
 highest truths can never be new. But this is not a day 
 for new truths, but rather for forcing upon the mind the 
 deep unchangeable certainty of those lessons which we 
 have heard so often before ; lessons whose novelty in fact 
 depends not on our ears having never before heard 
 them, but on our souls having now begun to feel their 
 power. That Christ's resurrection opens to us a gate 
 through which we can as it were look into another 
 world ; that this day breaks down the wall which shuts 
 us in on every side, and shews us there beyond it God, 
 and the angels, and the spirits of the just, and Christ our 
 Redeemer and our Master; that this day promises a 
 certain entrance into the kingdom where conscience 
 shall no longer contradict experience, a certain share in 
 the triumph wherewith the power of holiness shall trample 
 down the power of evil ; this is no news to the mind. 
 But you can make it new and thrilling to the heart in 
 a day, aye, or in a moment. Try to live by it ; try to 
 live as if that other world were immediately before your 
 eyes ; try to Hve as if you were following your great 
 Captain on the road to. victory; and believe me you 
 

 
 1 6 EASTER DAY. [sERM. 
 
 will never find the doctrine stale or commonplace or 
 powerless. 
 
 Live by it in the first place by making that foresight 
 of another world the standard by which you measure this 
 world. Think of all pleasures, of all solicitations, of all 
 pursuits as you will think of them then. A few years 
 more, and how utterly indifferent you will be to the chief 
 enjoyments of this world. You will be standing in the 
 presence of Christ ; how little you will care how success- 
 ful you may have been, how rich you may have been, 
 how admired, how delighted with abundance of applause. 
 How absolutely nothing will seem the most important 
 concerns of this life. But will all that has happened here 
 seem nothing .? No, indeed. Christ will remind us of 
 the work that He gave us to do. He will remind some 
 of us that He put us under guidance appointed by 
 Himself. He will say to one, ' I put you under parents 
 whose words you were to obey. They gave you the task 
 appointed for you. The issue of your work is not of the 
 slightest consequence. Whether you succeeded or not is 
 of no moment whatever; that was in My hands, not in 
 yours. But the spirit in which you set about it, the 
 diligence, the cheerfulness, the earnestness with which 
 you obeyed, what was that ? ' He will say to another, 
 ' I gave you a work to do in the world. The whole 
 world is Mine, and all the various pursuits of men are 
 My ordinance. How your work turned out I do not ask. 
 But how did you do it .? ' He will say to another, ' I 
 bid you wait for Me; I required no work; I only 
 required your heart's devotion. How was that devotion 
 
n.] EASTER DAY. 17 
 
 paid?' At that hour, my brethren, we shall care very- 
 little for past success or failure, for past pleasure or pain. 
 To have missed this distinction, to have lost that enjoy- 
 ment, will be facts totally without interest in our memory. 
 But with what feelings shall we then remember the lie, 
 the scoff, the impatient outbreak of temper, the impure 
 thought, the pilfering what was not ours, the act of 
 cruelty, the act of unfairness I Such things which now 
 just give our conscience a passing twinge, with what 
 burning weight shall they then press upon our hearts 1 
 A new mode of measuring all things shall then be taught 
 us. A new balance shall be put into our hands. Nay, 
 it is put into our hands now, if we will but use it ; but 
 then we shall have no other. To live by the memory 
 of the Resurrection is to begin at once to use this new 
 estimate; to begin at once to declare ourselves soldiers 
 of Christ, of Christ our conquering Captain, who shall 
 lead us at last into the Kingdom of Light, and enable us 
 to overcome whatever bars our passage. 
 
 Once more, to live by the doctrine of Easter is to have CV 
 done with cowardice and half-heartedness. We make 
 our victory a great deal more difficult than it ought to be 
 by want of courage. There are many faults and many 
 weaknesses which require nothing more than a decisive 
 effort, a determined push, to overcome them at once and 
 for ever. If you want to live a Christian Hfe do not dally 
 with your purpose ; do not fancy that you will find it 
 easier to win your way by degrees, and that by a gradual 
 change you may attain to the same end with less pain 
 than you fear will be given by a sudden wrench. Nothing 
 
 c 
 
EASTER DAY. [sERM. 
 
 can be a greater mistake. Press into the enemy's 
 citadel at once : do not wait outside till he has had time 
 to shoot you down. In with you heart and soul. If 
 your faults are open and known, then at once make it 
 clear to yourself and your friends, not by foolish boasting, 
 but by quiet firm self-control, that you mean to make a 
 thorough change. If your faults are secret, cut them off 
 by one vigorous effort. Be assured that God will help 
 you. Be assured that Christ will give you strength. If 
 there is any truth in the Bible at all, this must be true, 
 that neither past sins nor present and future temptations 
 can prevail against you; for Christ's Atonement has 
 crossed out the one, and Christ's power will trample down 
 the other. I know you will meet with many failures 
 between this and the grave ; but I am sure that you will 
 meet with fewer failures in proportion to your courage, 
 for this kind of courage is but another form of fahh, and 
 faith can work any miracle whatever, even the greatest 
 ^miracle of all, bringing your soul to God. 
 \y Lastly, to live by the doctrine of Easter is to fill your 
 service with happiness. We often make our duties 
 harder by thinking them hard. We dwell on the things 
 we do not like till they grow before our eyes, and at last, 
 perhaps, shut out heaven itself But this is not following 
 our Master, and He, we may be sure, will value little the 
 obedience of a discontented heart. The moment we see 
 that anything to be done is a plain duty, we must reso- 
 lutely trample out every rising impulse of discontent. 
 We must not merely prevent our discontent from inter- 
 fering with the duty itself; we must not merely prevent 
 
II.] EASTER DAY. 19 
 
 it from breaking out into murmuring ; we must get rid 
 of the discontent itself. Cheerfulness^ in the service 
 of Christ is one of the first requisites to make that ser- 
 vice Christian ; for among the works of Christ's Spirit, 
 wherever they are enumerated, you will always find joy 
 mentioned among the very first. This joy in obeying, this 
 happiness in the sense of Christ's help, this cheerfulness 
 in the sight of God and man, is one of the great mis- 
 sionary powers on earth, second only to the power of 
 love. And if we would ask how, without any ostentation, 
 we can best obey our Lord's commands, to let our light 
 shine before men, so that they shall glorify our Father in 
 Heaven ; how we can combine such a command with 
 the direction not to let our left hand know what our right 
 hand doth ; the answer is, let all men read in your face 
 the happiness of a Christian that loves his Master. Let 
 them see in your unvarying cheerfulness, the assurance 
 of your faith, and the certainty of your hope, and the 
 blessedness of your love. 
 
 These three, thoughtfulness, courage, and cheerfulness, 
 are the lessons of Easter Day. To carry about with us 
 the thought of the other world ; to go boldly to our duties 
 in the strength of our victorious chief; to wear upon our 
 faces the cheerfulness which our faith deserves ; these are 
 the lessons that we should carry from this day into our 
 daily life. And not all that is in heaven or in earth 
 shall rob us of the strength which God will impart to 
 those who have once learnt such lessons as these. 
 
 C 2 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 REVELATION 11. 4. 
 
 * Ne'vertheless I have some<what against thee, because thou hast 
 left thy first lo've.^ 
 
 "\"\ TE do not know very much of the early Church 
 ^ of Ephesus, to which these words are spoken, but 
 all that we do know harmonises with the position assigned 
 to that Church in this pajt of the Book of Revelation. 
 Whether the seven Churches mean seven ages of the 
 Church, or seven phases of its character, or seven marked 
 epochs in its life, I do not mean now to discuss. But I 
 think it plain that, in some way or other, these seven 
 Churches represent the Church as a whole, and that each 
 is typical of a special state of feeling, of life, of thought, 
 either pervading that whole or to be found in it. This 
 seems to me particularly indicated, not merely by the 
 lesser touches which distinguish what is said to each 
 Church in succession, but also by the regularly arranged 
 series of promises which accompany the Epistle, for it is 
 an Epistle from the beginning. The blessings of Para- 
 dise before the Fall, of deliverance from the Flood, of the 
 
FIRST LOVE, 21 
 
 manna in the wilderness, of the triumphs of Solomon's 
 vast empire, are promised to the first four Churches ; the 
 blessings of Baptism, of Church membership, of a seat in 
 the great Court of Justice which is to judge the world, are 
 promised to the last three. Thus the blessings promised 
 cover the whole space from the Creation to the Judgment- 
 day, and make the seven Churches correspond with the 
 entire range of God's government of mankind. 
 
 In this scheme, then, the Church of Ephesus occupies 
 the place of the Garden of Eden, and has the blessings 
 and the dangers, the weakness and the strength, of the 
 dwellers in that garden. It is the type of the first love, 
 not of the last love ; the love, that is, of untried and inex- 
 perienced innocence, not the love of tried and veteran 
 holiness : the love that knows no fear not because it has 
 learned to trust, but because it has not yet learned that 
 there is danger before it; the love that anticipates no 
 slackening of its own warmth, that dreads no down- 
 fall, that expects no defeat, that sees no difficulty; the 
 love of Peter exclaiming, ' Bid me come unto Thee on 
 the water,' or saying that he was ready for prison 
 and for death; the simple unforeboding love of child- 
 hood, content with the present sense of being in favour 
 with its father, and never thinking of losing that favour 
 again, or its sense of that favour. Of such love and 
 of such religious feelings, this Church of Ephesus is 
 here the type. And the little that we know of its earliest 
 history agrees with this. There had been up to this 
 time, as far as we know, in the Church of Ephesus no 
 disorders such as had troubled Corinth; no fanaticism 
 
2 2 FIRST LOVE. [SERM. 
 
 such as had troubled Thessalonica ; no violent schisms 
 such as rent in twain almost every Church that St. Paul 
 had founded. The Epistle to the Ephesians is the only 
 one of St. Paul's Epistles in which we find no trace of 
 the need for grave rebuke, the only one in which the 
 warnings and the precepts do not seem to imply grave 
 disorders. The tone of that Episde implies moreover no 
 ordinary state of religious feeling in the readers. Not to 
 every Church could St. Paul have written on such a 
 subject as the Communion of Saints, which is the subject 
 of that Epistle ; still less in such an exalted and extatic 
 strain. But he seems to have thought that they could 
 enter into all that he said, and could appreciate, by the 
 aid of their own experience, the power of that indwelling 
 Communion which makes all saints one, and knits them 
 into the Body of Christ. 
 
 Such was the Church and such its blessings ; and here 
 we find it receiving a warning because it had left its first 
 love. 
 
 What Christian is there who does not feel pierced 
 through by the words .? What Christian is there who 
 does not repeat the warning in his ears, ' I have some- 
 what against thee, because thou hast left thy first love ? ' 
 Sometimes we are uplifted by high-wrought feelings till 
 no service seems too hard, no self-denial too severe : our 
 resolution appears sufficient for a repetition of all previous 
 trials and many beside them : in the warmth and earnest- 
 ness of our feelings old temptations fall off like a gar- 
 ment, and we are more disposed to wonder that we were 
 ever enslaved than to fear that we shall be enslaved 
 
III.] FIRST LOVE. 
 
 ^3 
 
 again. Selfishness, impurity, cowardice, falsehood, indo- 
 lence, these seem impossible thenceforward for ever. 
 Sometimes too we draw for ourselves pictures of what 
 we shall one day be ; how true and trustworthy, how pure 
 and unselfish, how high-minded and generous, how 
 devoted and self-denying. And sometimes we are fain 
 to surround ourselves with fences on all sides, and to 
 refuse this, and to abstain from that. And sometimes 
 we propose to ourselves noble models, and make new 
 models still beyond them in our fancy. Our first love is 
 sometimes to love much, and sometimes to serve much ; 
 to be beyond most other men in strictness of truth, and 
 generosity of character, and unswerving justice ; or, if we 
 have been much vexed by faults, our first love is a will 
 so strong that it is unshaken by all the assaults of temp- 
 tation, and moves unscathed through the most trying 
 dangers. 
 
 I have called this, first love. But yet it is not once 
 only in life that such high-wrought feeling seems for a 
 time to transport us out of ourselves. It may return 
 often, and it may come late, and it may take occasion of 
 every outward change; it may fill us with hope each 
 time that we are raised by voices within or by circum- 
 stances without. It may gain even strength each time 
 over the last, so that each time we shall feel as if all 
 previous occasions were but preludes to this. 
 
 And then comes the languor which is almost sure to 
 follow ; the return to our ordinary ways and habits ; the 
 gathering of old temptations with new ones added; the 
 discovery that these high impulses have not made after 
 
24 FIRST LOVE. [sERM. 
 
 all any, or any great, difference in our character; the 
 sense of weariness at our prayers ; the want of all delight 
 in worship, public or private ; the loss of all keen sensi- 
 bility of conscience. Wrong which we know to be 
 wrong yet seems not so very wrong as it did. It seems 
 folly to fence ourselves in by such strict rules. Resolu- 
 tions once made with great fervour seem the fruit of 
 mere excitement. Perhaps our own warmth and earnest- 
 ness when we look back on it seems to wear a kind of 
 theatrical air; and we begin to think it was unreal, senti- 
 mental, vague. And, perhaps, in some degree it was so. 
 And so we are in danger of being untrue to our first 
 love ; because when we come into this world our eyes 
 are not strong enough to pierce below the surface, and 
 see the truth of God behind the unreality of things, and 
 our memory is not able to retain the impression of our 
 purer and better moments. We seem as it were, after a 
 little while, to forget ourselves. Yes, it seems like a 
 lapse of memory; for we did look for a moment into 
 the perfect law of liberty, and we did see there in that 
 word sent from heaven what we might be, what we have 
 the capacity to be, and we have come away and straight- 
 way forgotten what manner of men we were. 
 
 And above all other fluctuations, who has not passed 
 through the sad, the dangerous recoil of repentance? 
 Who has not been at some time or other — nay, every 
 Christian is so more than once in every week — keenly 
 sensible of sin, and penitent before God, and unhappy 
 till he has regained something like a sense of forgiveness ? 
 And that sense of forgiveness which is generally given 
 
III.] FIRST LOVE, 25 
 
 by God in answer to a clear resolution, and a heart laid 
 quite open before Him, very often gives a peace even 
 greater than we had experienced before we sinned. We 
 are like children that have been away from home, and 
 come back to it with a new affection. How easy seem all 
 duties at such moments ; how weak all temptations ; how 
 ready we are to thank God for our freedom, and to exult 
 in what He has given, and to silence the warning doubts 
 that will sometimes come across our minds, by repeating 
 that it is God's doing and not ours that we are free. We 
 feel as if now for the first time we really loved the ways 
 of holiness ; now for the first time have we learnt to the 
 full the misery of sin and the tenderness of our Saviour. 
 And then this very happiness brings the reaction, and the 
 very passion of our penitence seems to prepare us for a 
 fall by weakening and enervating our whole being. We 
 fall away from this our first love, and neglect to do our 
 first works. 
 
 Now let us clearly understand what it is that God will 
 give us, and what it is that He requires of us. These 
 feelings that I have been describing, this warmth, this 
 sense of safety, this freedom from temptation will fluc- 
 tuate. God bestows it, and God will not bestow it con- 
 stantly, nor just when we ask for it, nor even just when we 
 fancy that we most need it. He gives it as He sees to be 
 best for us. At tifnes He will fill our hearts with religious 
 peace and joy. At times He will leave us as it were to 
 ourselves, and allow our sky to be darkened with clouds. 
 It is no doubt better for our growth in grace, for our 
 spiritual education, that it should be so. It is better that 
 
26 FIRST LOVE. [SERM. 
 
 we should learn to serve Him both in sunshine and in 
 shade, to cling to Him both when He seems to smile on 
 us and when His face seems to be turned away. We 
 must not allow ourselves to be cast down, nor to de- 
 spair because our hearts seem colder at one time than 
 at another. The test of the cold heart is the yielding to 
 sin, and if we are clinging to Him, and to His will, we 
 may be quite sure that what we take for coldness of heart 
 is a trial, not a treason. It is not inconstancy to our first 
 love that we are not so passionate as we were, if we have 
 not given our hearts to any other love, or swerved from 
 the duties which love imposes. 
 
 But if so, why is this first love given ? Why are we so 
 exalted only to be cast down .? Why are we so deeply 
 stirred only to harden, as it seems, once more .? I need 
 hardly put the question. No one who has really felt the 
 power of such moments will ask why were they sent. 
 What if they go so soon ? Yet their memory never goes. 
 They are the hour of insight, the hour of revelation, when 
 the truths of the other world can be seen for a short 
 time, when the path in which God means us to walk is 
 traced as it were on a map before the sight, when the 
 task and work of years are commanded. 
 
 And tasks in hours of insight willed, 
 In hours of gloom may be fulfilled. 
 
 Whether the light they give spread far or near, whether 
 they shew us our way for the moment or point to a dis- 
 tant future, they teach us a lesson which does not lose its 
 value when the teacher has left our side. The will does 
 
III.] FIRST LOVE. 27 
 
 not really lose its strength to obey because the hour for 
 feeling is past, and the hour for real obedience is come. 
 The power to serve is still left, though the service no 
 longer seems easy or delightful; and the knowledge to 
 serve remains behind as well as the power. Through life 
 shall a man be recalled from apathy, from selfishness, from 
 folly, from sin, by the memory of that first love. Through 
 life will he be awoke from slumber by remembering what 
 he once meant to be, and by contrasting it with what he 
 is. Through life will holy resolutions, even though their 
 fulfilment has sadly fallen short of their idea, yet spur him 
 out of sinful rest, and compel him to pursue his heaven- 
 ward course. 'Are these your promises to yourself.?' 
 will conscience ever be saying; ' Is this the purity and the 
 truth which once you meant to make your own ? Is this 
 the service that you vowed in the warmth of your first 
 love.? Remember from whence thou art fallen, and 
 repent and do the first works.' 
 
 But is there any one aid which may assist us to keep 
 constant to this love when God has put it in our hearts .? 
 which may help us if not to retain its warmth, for that we 
 know we cannot always do, yet at any rate to retain the 
 power of its memory and the firmness of its purpose .? 
 There are two chief aids to this ; prayer to God and com- 
 munion with the good. Prayer to God regular and 
 earnest, never intermittent for any reason, never hurried 
 over for any weariness or for any coldness ; this is one 
 chief means of keeping our spiritual growth healthy and 
 alive. And the friendship and companionship of those 
 who shew a desire to live Christian lives is the other. In 
 
28 FIRST LOVE. 
 
 reality they are both one. For both have their power 
 from the communion which they give us with what is 
 good. In prayer we have communion with God as He is 
 revealed to us in our consciences and in the Bible ; in the 
 friendship of His servants we have communion with the 
 fragments, as it were, of His brightness reflected from 
 human lives. But of these two I would lay especial stress 
 upon prayer, because its power is generally both greater 
 and more sure. If we would live in any degree by that 
 ideal which our better selves sometimes set before us, if 
 we would maintain our constancy to that first love which 
 God gives as one of His chiefest blessings, and which is 
 indeed in its measure a revelation of Himself, we must 
 steadily maintain the habit of regular prayer. For 
 whether or not we are conscious of it at the time, there 
 is a calm and unceasing strength which can be thus 
 engrafted on our souls, and thus only. Thus only shall 
 we be able, even though we may never realise all that our 
 first love dreamed, yet to fill our whole lives, from end to 
 end, with the power which that first love gave, and, even 
 if we fall, return once more to those first works which that 
 love taught. Thus shall we find in that first love the 
 tree of life which standeth in the midst of the paradise 
 of God. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 LOVE AND DUTY. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW V. 1 9. 
 
 * Whosoe'ver therefore shall break one of these least command- 
 ments^ and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in 
 the kingdom of hean)en^ 
 
 n^HERE are two chief instincts implanted by God in 
 the soul as seeds out of which our spiritual life is to 
 grow; one of these is the instinct of duty, the other is 
 the instinct of love. Throughout the New Testament we 
 are taught that of these two the instinct of love is the 
 greater. The instinct of duty prompts us to do what 
 is right for its own sake ; to think of no consequences, 
 of no disagreeables, of no allurements, but simply to 
 hold fast to what we know that we ought to do and to 
 be. The instinct of love prompts us to try to please 
 our parents, to please our Lord, to think of God as a 
 tender and loving Father, to come to Him in sorrows, 
 in difficulties, to feel sure that He will help us, and to 
 count upon His help. The instinct of duty, when it is 
 come to its full strength, thinks first of that great Law 
 which governs all the universe, the Law of Holiness and 
 justice. The instinct of love ever turns its eyes not so 
 
30 LOVE AND DUTY. [sERM. 
 
 much on the law as on the Lawgiver, not on holiness but 
 on God. To feel not proudly but humbly, not with any 
 exaltation but with simple sincerity, that we have kept 
 the path in which we ought to walk, that is the highest 
 reward of the instinct of duty. To feel that God loves us, 
 that we are His children, that we are as it were holding 
 by His hand, that His eye is resting on us with tender af- 
 fection, that is the highest reward of the instinct of love. 
 
 Now, as I have just said, the instinct of love is the 
 higher, the more heavenly. Our nature is more lifted 
 above itself by that which unites us to our Maker than 
 by that which keeps our path straight. There is a 
 purifying, a penetrating power in the thought of God 
 which can never flow from the bare thought of duty. 
 We express this in various ways in our common 
 speech. We say, and say rightly, that the religious 
 character is higher than the moral character, and that 
 religion ranks higher than morality. We mean the same 
 thing when we put the Gospel above the law, and grace 
 in the heart above correctness of life. We constantly 
 make all sorts of allowances for the faults of those who 
 shew underneath their faults a heart susceptible of real 
 love, the love of God and of Christ. For we know that 
 there is a life and a genial heat in the instinct of love 
 which can work miracles on the soul, and change a 
 man into a new creature. 
 
 All this is plain enough. But the text, — and remember 
 that the text was spoken by our Lord Himself, — so far 
 from saying that the commandments are of no con- 
 sequence in comparison with the spirit which rules our 
 
IV.] LOVE AND DUTY. 31 
 
 life ; so far from telling us that if we give our hearts 
 to God all faults and neglects of duty are trifles hardly 
 to be thought of; so far from encouraging the notion 
 that obedience is a small matter, that the affections are 
 everything and the conduct nothing, declares that neglect 
 of even the least commandment lowers a man's rank 
 in the kingdom of Heaven, And the words which follow 
 are, if possible, stronger still, for the disciples are told 
 that unless their righteousness, that is plainly their obedi- 
 ence, exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Phari- 
 sees, they should not enter the kingdom of Heaven at 
 all. Our Lord, you see, is by no means satisfied with 
 those who are ever pleading, 'I mean well; I try my 
 best ; I wish to do right,' and who fancy that their faults 
 are therefore trifles because of their good intentions. 
 We are justified in feeling sure that we are forgiven if 
 we have honestly repented of anything wrong, but we 
 are not justified in fancying that the wrong was there- 
 fore nothing. Whatever may be the value of love, duty 
 has still its place, and must not be lightly thrust aside. 
 
 The fact is, that if duty be not so holy a power as 
 love, yet, as long as we remain here, we need the 
 strength of duty as much as we do the fire of love. 
 If we compare our characters to our bodies, duty cor- 
 responds to the bones, love to the veins, and nerves, 
 and vital organs. Without duty our character becomes 
 weak, loose, inconsistent, and soon degenerates or even 
 perishes for want of orderliness and self-control. Without 
 love our character is a dead skeleton, with all the frame- 
 work of a living creature, but without the life. There are 
 
32 LOVE AND DUTY. [sERM. 
 
 moments in our lives (I suppose all have felt them at 
 different times) when we seem not to need anything to 
 keep us right but our own hearts. Sometimes after more 
 earnest prayer than usual, after sincere repentance, after 
 being touched to the heart by some incident that has 
 happened to us, or, perhaps, for no reason at all that 
 we could name, we have felt as if we should hardly ever 
 go very wrong any more : we have felt as if we hardly 
 needed any very great care of ourselves : we have felt so 
 deeply happy, so strong, not in our own strength but in 
 God's; so free from temptation, that our great danger 
 seemed to ourselves to be entirely over. Our insight into 
 God's truth, our hold upon His help, our surrender of 
 our wills to His, have seemed such as to warrant a 
 well-grounded hope that we need not fear any more. 
 At such times it often seems as if all rules and prescribed 
 duties were useless; we might safely trust to our own 
 impulses. And sometimes it really is the case that high- 
 WTOught feeling will for a time render all thought about 
 duty quite unnecessary; we shall do right from a spon- 
 taneous impulse, and shall not need to force ourselves 
 or to thwart our inclination. But all this lasts but a 
 brief, generally a very brief space ; and when the eager- 
 ness of this unusual warmth has gone, when our hearts 
 are chilled again and dead, when our wills are languid, 
 and temptations resume their old power, what shall up- 
 hold us.? Certainly there is no steadier stay in such 
 moments than a strong sense of duty. The steady 
 discharge, even the mechanical discharge of the duties 
 of the day, saves our religious life from being a mere 
 
IV.] LOVE AND DUTY. 33 
 
 weak alternation of fits of warmth and fits of coldness, 
 fits of joy and fits of depression. The resolute will that 
 allows no mere mood ever to interfere with the appointed 
 work of the present moment is, as it were, the backbone 
 of the truly religious character. The instinct of love, 
 glorious as it is, yet may degenerate into mere dreamy 
 feeling, into sentimental sorrow for sin, and sentimental 
 longing for a hoUer life. That which saves it from this 
 degenerate end is the strong steady sense of duty. 
 And there is no one quality which it is better for us, 
 in every sense, to form, to retain, to cherish in our 
 souls, than this. 
 
 This much is to be said of a sense of duty with 
 reference to our own religious character. But much, 
 very much more value must we assign to it when we 
 remember that our service to God in this world in 
 which we are placed is not the mere off"ering our own 
 individual wills, but the fulfilling in concert with our 
 fellow-men of those many wise purposes which are to 
 be here worked out. We " are meant to work together. 
 No man can serve God well quite alone. And a great 
 deal of our service depends to an almost infinite degree 
 on the concerted action of those who have to render 
 it. Now, there is certainly no quality which is more 
 indispensable for all joint labour than a strong sense of 
 duty. There is nothing which is more absolutely essen- 
 tial to any man who could serve his country, or the 
 Church of Christ, or his neighbours. When you are 
 at work with a man who shews a strong sense of duty, 
 you know beforehand that you have no need to provide 
 
 D 
 
34 LOVE AND DUTY. [sERM. 
 
 against the possible contingency that he may fail you; 
 you know that he will do his part to the best of his 
 power, and that you may give your whole attention to 
 your own part; and often, very often, the power of 
 thus confining your attention to what you have to do 
 makes all the difference between success and failure. 
 In public life a man who shews a strong sense of public 
 duty will invariably do more, and will eventually command 
 more respect by far, than one who with more talent can 
 less be relied on. In private Hfe it is the same character 
 which carries the highest estimate, and consequently 
 exercises the widest and best influence. And these are 
 visible tokens by which God plainly marks out the kind 
 of character that He would have us emulate. 
 
 This, too, is the cause that some professions which 
 one would not naturally have supposed to rank high in 
 any Christian estimate, yet do rank high, and always 
 have ranked high. Who would have supposed that the 
 profession of arms, the profession of fighting and blood- 
 shed, could be rendered noble by any kind of influence ? 
 But yet all men respect it, and are right in respecting 
 it. And the reason is that in a very peculiar degree it 
 is the characteristic of that profession to put a strong 
 sense of duty above everything else. A soldier may 
 require many other qualities to make him professionally 
 perfect. But this is the first, and without this he is fit 
 for nothing. And so, although military duty is after all 
 but a poor and narrow thing, yet because it is so 
 firmly upheld, because those who profess it are pre- 
 pared to sacrifice to it comfort and pleasure and even 
 
IV.] LOVE AND DUTY. 35 
 
 life itself, at a moment's notice, therefore we honour 
 the soldier. We honour him, and we cannot help 
 honourin;^ him, as a man who puts everything else at 
 once aside in comparison with the duty of his calling. 
 The duty is not the best nor the loftiest; it permits 
 much evil of the very worst kind; but such as it is, 
 it is real and it is supreme, and therefore our hearts 
 respect it. 
 
 Love is higher than duty, just as it is more excellent 
 to worship God than to hold fast by a rule, however 
 excellent that rule may be. But the reason is that love 
 in reality contains duty in itself. Love without a sense 
 of duty is a mere delusion from which we cannot too 
 soon set ourselves free. Love is duty and something 
 more. Love is a noble tree of which duty is the trunk. 
 Love is a beaudful plant with a beautiful flower of which 
 duty is the stalk. 'This is the love of God,' says St. 
 John the apostle of love, * that we keep His command- 
 ments.' Feelings come and go, and impulses are some- 
 times excellent, and sometimes base, and sometimes 
 noble, and sometimes silly ; and the value of any man's 
 character depends quite as much on his concealing and 
 repressing what ought to be repressed, as on his acting 
 upon what deserves to be acted on. The devotion to 
 God and to God's service, which will gradually grow 
 to greater and greater strength and ripeness in the heart 
 of any Christian, includes most assuredly a certain bent 
 and direction of the feelings and impulses, but it is not 
 itself made up of them and of them alone. It includes 
 also something deeper than all feelings and steadier than 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LOVE AND DUTY. 
 
 all impulses. And especially it includes that sense of 
 duty of which I have been speaking. The instinct of 
 love and the instinct of duty appear to be distinct, and 
 the loving affectionate character is not the same as the 
 carefully obedient character. But if the instinct of love 
 is ever to reach its true perfection, it must absorb the 
 instinct of duty into itself, and make the sense of duty 
 stronger, and deeper, and keener, and the obedience 
 more careful and more inflexible. 
 
 This sense of duty is just the very part of our cha- 
 racter which God puts particularly into our own hands. 
 We can form it within our hearts, and there is nothing 
 else that we are more bound to do than this. We are 
 to build up within our souls a temple fit for the Lord 
 to dwell in. And the material out of which we are to 
 build it is left very much to our own choice ; gold, 
 silver, precious stones ; or wood, hay, stubble. That 
 which is required above everything else to give it 
 strength and firmness is a strong sense of duty, that 
 sense of duty which resolutely does the appointed duty 
 of the hour, even with mechanical exactness ; simply 
 and quietly; because it is the duty of the hour, and 
 needing no other reason. Such a character if it be 
 dedicated to the service of Christ, and so learns to add 
 love to duty, becomes the highest that we know on earth. 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 COMING TO CHRIST. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW xi. 28. 
 
 * Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heanjy laden, and I ivill 
 give you rest^ 
 
 /^^OMING to Christ is the crown of repentance. It is 
 the only kind of repentance that really gives rest and 
 peace. It is the only repentance that stills the tumult of 
 the soul, and makes repenting sweet instead of bitter. 
 And yet there is much other and genuine repentance be- 
 sides this ; and as we know that every good gift comes 
 from God, so we may be sure that even repentance that 
 falls short of this standard is still His work, and is in its 
 degree accepted with Him. It is not perhaps a very noble 
 thing to be cured of a fault by punishment. And yet in 
 this way faults are often cured, and in many cases the cure 
 is quite complete. Whether the punishment be inflicted on 
 us by our parents and our teachers in the discharge of 
 their duty towards us as servants of God entrusted with 
 our guardianship, or by our fellow-creatures in the work- 
 ing of human society and intercourse, or by the law of the 
 land, or by the operation of natural causes bringing on us 
 either in body or in mind or in fortune the consequences 
 
38 COMING TO CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 of misconduct, punishment inflicted in these various ways 
 is a medicine provided by God, and often with God's 
 blessing cures a disease in the will or in the soul. To be 
 cured of falsehood, of violent temper, of fleshly appetite, 
 of indolence, of selfishness, by such means as these is 
 unquestionably good as far as it goes. Such a repentance 
 is not much, but yet it is not nothing. Nay, so deep is 
 the gulf which separates wrong from right, that to be cured 
 of one's own sin any how, by any motive, by any means, 
 would be an almost priceless gain. With deep thankful- 
 ness let us acknowledge our debt to the Providence of 
 God, whenever the working of that Providence has freed 
 the garden of the soul within us from any noxious weed. 
 Let us with the Psalmist thank the Lord for giving us 
 warning, whatever form the warning may have taken. If 
 you have been set free from the temptations to any habi- 
 tual sin by any motive whatever that is not positively 
 wrong, by fear of punishment, by self-interest, by pain, 
 you have gained infinitely in the bargain ; and you owe 
 the deepest gratitude to the God who has thus set you 
 free. This kind of cure may be of little value ; but it 
 admits of many degrees, and it may be, ah ! far more 
 valuable than aught else that our lives can shew us. Many 
 a Christian has in after life been able to look back and 
 recognise God's hand first stretched out to save him in 
 some merciful punishment. 
 
 Again, there is a still higher form of repentance, which 
 proceeds not from punishment, but from affection. We 
 are cured of faults not by the pain which they have 
 brought on ourselves, but by the pain which they have 
 
v.] COMING TO CHRIST. 39 
 
 given to those that love us. How often has a mother's 
 sad face done far more than could have been done by all 
 her anger, by all her punishment ! How often has the 
 hope of pleasing a father or a mother turned back the 
 wandering feet, bent the knee in prayer to God, saved 
 the soul from approaching too near a dangerous tempta- 
 tion ! To do right to please others is not certainly the 
 highest of all motives. The desire to please can be 
 indulged too much ; and as the world stands it quite as 
 often leads us wrong as right. The mere liking to be 
 liked, the delight in the pleasure of those whom we are 
 fond of, is a dangerous guide. But it is a powerful 
 impulse. And if it be enlisted in the service of God it 
 will often keep us straight when few other powers can. 
 And the more entirely we are led, not by mere liking, but 
 by real love, the higher and the more excellent is this 
 impulse sure to be. And when it leads us to live in the 
 spirit of the fifth commandment we know that it stands 
 all but at the highest ; for our parents are by God's will 
 declared alike by nature and by revelation the representa- 
 tives of God Himself. To do right not because you feel 
 it to be right, not because you love it, not because the 
 desire so to live has kindled it in your heart, but simply to 
 please father or mother ; to avoid wrong, not because it 
 pains or disgusts you, not because you shrink from it as 
 evil, not because you feel the wrong of it, and cannot bear 
 to have your soul defiled, but simply because you have 
 before your eyes the grave look of your father, the keen 
 pain written in your mother's face ; this is not the most 
 excellent ; yet still even this is an angel of God sent 
 
40 COMING TO CHRIST. [sERM. 
 
 down from heaven to strengthen the fainting Hmbs, to 
 guide the blind eyes, to bring home the wandering steps, 
 and for this too the Christian will be deeply thankful. 
 
 Yet again there is a form of repentance in some senses 
 
 higher still than the repentance of human affection, and 
 
 yet even that is not the highest. For there are natures 
 
 with a natural tendency to obey a Divine law rather than 
 
 a Divine person. And these if they repent, full often are 
 
 sorry for what wrong they have done simply as wrong, 
 
 and not because it has brought punishment on themselves, 
 
 or because it has pained those whom they love. You 
 
 may say that they fret and cannot bear to feel lowered in 
 
 their own eyes ; or you may say that their conscience has 
 
 reproached them, or you may say that their eyes have been 
 
 fixed on a pure and holy ideal which they know that they 
 
 have not realised. The fact is, that on the one hand they 
 
 see that they have done wrong, and are deeply, seriously 
 
 sorry for it, and are resolutely determined not to do it 
 
 again, and will keep this resolution ; and so by slow and 
 
 steady steps they will in the strength that God supplies be 
 
 ever mounting near to Him. And yet on the other 
 
 hand they are not much drawn personally to Christ 
 
 Himself. I do not mean that they are proud, or that they 
 
 repent in their own strength, or that they fail to cherish 
 
 a deep sense of their own dependence on God's help. 
 
 But they are always thinking more of having done wrong 
 
 than of having pained Christ, and they are always longing 
 
 rather to be cleansed than to be forgiven. They seek 
 
 for God's help rather than for His love. They want to be 
 
 guided rather than to be carried. They make their ideal 
 
v.] COMING TO CHRIST. 41 
 
 to consist rather in obeying Him with a pure and a 
 humble soul than in clinging to Him like a little child to 
 a much loved father. They wish to be good rather than 
 to be God's : to be Christ's servants rather than to be His 
 children. They long to be free ; free from the bondage 
 of their own sin and sinful nature, free from the corrup- 
 tion and weakness which mar all their lives ; free from the 
 backslidings which fill their souls with bitterness and 
 shame to think on ; free from the repeated falls, the sense 
 of evil in themselves, the terrible contrast between them- 
 selves and the holy law of God. They long, in short, for 
 the glorious liberty of the children of God ; and it is an 
 excellent thing to long for ; but excellent as it is, it is far 
 better still to be filled with the love of God and of Christ. 
 This repentance is excellent, but what does it lack? 
 It lacks a child-like faith. It lacks, after all, that simple 
 faith which realises the other world in the midst of this, 
 and which feels Christ's hand as it walks by Christ's side. 
 Such Christians are often deep and true and religious 
 men. They go from strength to strength, and with the 
 God of gods appeareth every one of them in Zion. They 
 climb ever higher by God's strong help : and they have 
 many most excellent gifts : but one gift they almost 
 always have not, and that is the gift of joy in the Holy 
 Ghost. Their religion does much, nay, it does every 
 thing for them. It upholds them; it purifies them; it 
 humbles them; it chastens them. But it rarely makes 
 them quite happy. What happiness or cheerfulness you 
 see in their faces is either brought there by a sense of 
 duty, duty to their fellow-men and to their vocation as 
 
42 COMING TO CHRIST. [sERM. 
 
 Christians, or is the fruit of innocent enjoyment of the 
 pleasures that God has provided in this present world. 
 But they do not find a well-spring of gladness in their 
 religion. No doubt they are far happier with their 
 religion than they would be without it. No doubt their 
 conscience does not sting them as it does the impenitent. 
 Even when conscience stings them there is always a 
 sense of an upright aim ; and the pain of conscience is 
 altogether changed in its very nature, and the burden of 
 it almost removed, the moment you have resolved to 
 forsake for ever that which conscience has disapproved. 
 And so these men have a real relief in their religion, 
 and they share in the peace which Christ bestows on all 
 who are His, whether near or far off. But real gladness, 
 delight in the sense of Christ being close at hand, and 
 their friend; delight in the love of Christ, such as they 
 feel in the love of a loved relation ; this they have not. 
 They do not walk through the world with an abiding 
 sense that Christ, though they cannot see Him, yet is 
 always with them ; that they have a warm and affectionate 
 Friend close to them at every turn ; that if they speak 
 He will be sure to hear, and in His own way to answer ; 
 that He is putting on every burden, and He is watching 
 the effect of every trial ; that He is holding out His hand 
 to save in every temptation, and that we have but to lay 
 hold of it; and that if we sin. His sad face wears the 
 token. 
 
 Such is the highest of all repentance; the repentance 
 that comes to Christ as to a Friend who is able, and who, 
 we are sure, is willing, to save and to comfort. 
 
v.] COMING TO CHRIST. 
 
 43 
 
 At such a season * as this, when day after day we read 
 the narrative of the sufferings which made repentance 
 possible, we must endeavour to rise to this. We must 
 endeavour not merely to see that we have done wrong — 
 much grievous wrong — but to come to Christ Himself to 
 be forgiven. We must endeavour to think of Him as of 
 one who deeply loved us, who still yearns after our love, 
 whom we have not thought of as we ought. We have 
 done wrong, but let all other wrong be swallowed up in 
 the thought of the pain that we have given, that we are 
 giving, to the soul of the most loving Friend of ours that 
 ever lived. We read of His passion, and surely our 
 hearts are touched by what we read. We read of a week 
 of sorrow ; sorrow foreseen, and doubled by being fore- 
 seen ; and yet, day by day, adding to the weight. And 
 in all these sorrows what is it that is most sorrowful? 
 Surely the pain of seeing the sins by which He was sur- 
 rounded. At His Last Supper, what is the bitterness with 
 which His cup is filled } It is the treachery of one of His 
 disciples. In His last discourse, what is the pain which 
 cannot be drowned even by His love.? It is, 'All ye 
 shall be offended because of Me this night.' In His 
 arrest and imprisonment, what is the blow which we 
 know as we read it must have struck most deeply to His 
 heart 1 It is the kiss of the traitor ; it is that His disciples 
 forsook Him and fled. In His trial before Pilate, what 
 is the greatest aggravation of His sorrows .? It is the cry 
 ringing in His ears, ' Crucify Him, crucify Him.' There 
 
 * Sunday before Easter. 
 
44 COMING TO CHRIST. [serm. 
 
 beneath Him, as He stood in the governor's presence, 
 was gathered the mass of His own countrymen; for 
 every soul that was there He was ready to die, He was 
 longing to suffer ; and He looked and saw savage faces 
 upturned towards Him, and mad voices demanding His 
 blood ; and what more could be added to the bitterness 
 of His grief? And when He hung on the cross, we 
 know that no pain v/hich His body suffered could wring 
 Him like the angry taunts of the thief by His side, of 
 His countrymen gazing at His death. 
 
 Shall we perpetuate that awful sorrow by our coldness 
 and hardness, and by forgetting all that we owe to 
 Him? He is grieved with an unutterable grief when 
 we do wrong, and His cross was the expression of that 
 grief. Though we cannot see Him He is still here 
 present ; as present as when He was on earth, as sorrow- 
 ful for the sin which separates us from Him. Let this 
 week be a time of reconciUation to Him when we shall 
 pray somewhat more than usual ; and not only more but 
 more earnestly, more personally ; seeking not only to be 
 cleansed but to be forgiven, for His forgiveness is unlike 
 all other forgiveness and cleanses while it forgives : seek- 
 ing for His friendship, for He is willing to be our friend ; 
 teaching our imaginations to realise His presence, our 
 hearts to lean on His aid ; teaching ourselves not only to 
 obey Him, but as far as we can to know Him by living 
 with Him. That only will give us rest. All other re- 
 pentance, believe me, is hard work; wearisome, cheer- 
 less ; at the best it gives a sort of relief from pain. But 
 coming to Christ gives real joy to the heart and life. It is 
 
v.] COMING TO CHRIST. 
 
 45 
 
 excellent to repent in any way ; and I would not bid yoii 
 slight God's gifts by thinking litde of any real amendment 
 that God may work in you. But yet shew I you a still 
 more excellent way. Come unto Christ and He will give 
 you rest. 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 I THESSALONIANS V. I9. 
 * Quench not the Spirit* 
 
 n^HERE is no need to dwell on the differences which 
 •^ distinguish the gifts of the Spirit in these days from 
 the similar gifts in the days of the Apostles. To each time 
 God will of course assign such forms of His Grace as 
 suit that time. And we may be quite sure that at all 
 times He gives the gifts of His Spirit to His servants, 
 and that if in some respects we cannot compare ourselves 
 with the early Church, in other points we have advantages 
 of our own equal to theirs. It is a foolish and mis- 
 chievous mistake to exaggerate the blessings of the pre- 
 sent day ; to be puffed up because of our superior know- 
 ledge, our greater clearness of understanding, our wider 
 range of thought. It is an equally mischievous mistake 
 to exaggerate the blessings of the past ; to dwell upon 
 the faith, the fervour, the heavenly-mindedness of the 
 early Church, until we fancy that it is useless to endea- 
 vour to live in their spirit, or to be guided by their rules. 
 In whatever sense and in whatever measure they had 
 God's most precious gifts, in the same sense and in 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 47 
 
 equal measure are the same gifts within our reach 
 also. And hence their lives are still our models ; their 
 encouragements, their warnings, still apply to us. 
 
 I have no doubt that when St. Paul bid the Thessa- 
 lonians not to quench the Spirit, he was thinking of that 
 deep fiery impulse which seems to have seized and moved 
 those early converts, to have ruled their affections, their 
 thoughts, their Hves, and, more like a passion than a prin- 
 ciple, to have made them consciously and visibly new 
 creatures. In reading the records of that time, especially 
 the chief records, St. Paul's epistles, the gift of the Spirit 
 seems rather to have laid hold on the men than the men 
 to have received the Spirit. They were carried out of 
 themselves, and though just as capable of doing wrong 
 as we are now, they seem to have been at any rate in- 
 capable of being cold and lukewarm. It was not till some 
 time later that the temper of the Church of Laodicea, that 
 temper neither hot nor cold, which has so often seemed 
 to a Christian reader of modern days the very mirror in 
 which he saw his own character ; it was not till St. Paul 
 was near his end that we find traces of this or anything 
 like this. The gift of the Spirit in the earlier times was 
 more like an impulse than a guide ; more like an in- 
 tuition than a clear understanding ; had more feeling 
 than thought, more instinct than reflection. 
 
 But still it was in reality the same One Guide, the 
 Light which lighteth every man, the Revelation of the 
 one truth. Whether it comes like an altogether new 
 faculty, a new sense seeing what was not before seen, 
 and feeling what before was never felt; or whether it 
 
48 THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. [sERM. 
 
 comes like a new enlightenment of an old faculty, 
 clearing up what before was dark ; whether it be a new 
 eye, or a new light to lighten the old eye ; it is still the 
 same gift, the guide sent down from heaven, the mes- 
 senger from the very presence of God. To us it takes 
 the form of the enlightenment of a faculty common to 
 all men. All men have some sort of conscience. The 
 gift of the Spirit always, or almost always, comes to us 
 as an enlightenment and a strengthening of that universal 
 possession. Even those who have turned to God quite 
 suddenly will always now describe their own change as 
 an awaking, an opening of their eyes, rather than as 
 a gift of new eyes which they had not before ; while the 
 great majority of Christians who cannot fix on any 
 one moment of their lives as the absolute turning-point 
 from evil to good, find it impossible in any way to dis- 
 tinguish between the voice of natural conscience and 
 the warnings of the Spirit. 
 
 It is when we look at what those warnings are that 
 we recognise unmistakeably the identity of the Divine 
 Gift in all ages. That prompter which always holds 
 before our eyes the purest and loftiest ideals of resolute 
 devotion, of absolute unselfishness, of unstained purity, 
 of loyalty never failing to the King that never fails in His 
 word, that can be none other than the messenger of God. 
 We know, as we talk of the right, and the true, and 
 the pure, and the heavenly, that there never was, there 
 never can be, anything higher or nobler to live by. We 
 know that there is no love higher or more divine than 
 that which is ever drawing us up above ourselves and. 
 
VI.] THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 49 
 
 teaching us to look and to long for greater purity, for 
 more entire self-surrender. If the messenger comes to 
 us wearing a different dress, a dress so different that we 
 hardly recognize him to be the same with the inspirer 
 of the early Church, yet his message is the same, and 
 when we hear his words we cannot mistake. Still to us, 
 as once to them, whatsoever things are honest, what- 
 soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
 soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
 report, are the aims which He sets before us ; still to us, 
 as once to them, every time that we read the Bible He 
 bids us look to Jesus the author and finisher of our 
 faith. 
 
 The message is the same, and the messenger is the 
 same; and the warning how to treat Him is the same, 
 ' Quench not the Spirit.' Put not out that heavenly 
 fire which you did not kindle, but which you can ex- 
 tinguish. Put not out that holy fire which is the real 
 heat of your life, and without which spiritual death is 
 sure to follow. Put not out that fire by sensual pleasures 
 and indulgence of fleshly appetites, as did Sodom and 
 Gomorrah ; by love of the world, as did Demas when 
 he forsook St. Paul; by careless neglect, as did the 
 lukewarm Church of Laodicea. 
 
 The fire can be put out. You may put it out by in- 
 dulgence of the body. The brutalising power of fleshly 
 sins, of whatever sort, always blunts the conscience, and 
 makes the spiritual eye unable to discern the true nature 
 of God's requirements. A man who has given himself 
 up to these becomes coarse. If the sins be such as men 
 
 E 
 
50 THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. [sERM. 
 
 can see he becomes visibly coarse and earthly. If the 
 sins be of the far wickeder and yet more secret sort, 
 he often retains much outward refinement — refinement 
 and even softness of manner, but coarseness and earth- 
 liness of soul; with little sense of disgust at impurity, 
 with a low and animal idea of the highest of all affections. 
 There is little room in such a soul for the loftiness of 
 true generosit}'', for the humility of a heavenly mind, 
 for the self- surrender of a loyal subject of God. Nar- 
 rower and narrower through life become his aims and 
 wishes, and still more his sympathies ; poorer, and 
 meaner, and coarser his best feelings ; till the very 
 highest that you ever see coming from him is a kind 
 of earthly good-nature, and the purity and saintliness 
 of the Christian character he not only cannot imitate, he 
 cannot even understand it — perhaps not even admire it. 
 
 Yet, again, the fire can be put out by worldliness and 
 a life devoted to self and selfish hopes. And surely of 
 all modes of quenching the Spirit what can be more 
 painful than this.? For in such men it often happens 
 that their light is not put out though their heat is. As 
 time goes on they still can see with ever-increasing 
 clearness an ideal which they are prevented from reach- 
 ing — aye, or even from seeking, by their ever-increasing 
 weakness. What can be more miserable to think of 
 than the condition of that man whose powers of mind 
 have shewn him the truth of God, whose understanding 
 has been too highly cultivated to allow him to shut his 
 eyes to the eternal laws of heaven, who can appreciate, 
 perhaps, till his very heart thrills with admiration, the 
 
VI.] THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 51 
 
 high examples of love, of self-sacrifice, of a pure and 
 brave service which history has recorded, and yet who 
 cannot be, and who feels that he never can be, what he 
 himself admires; who feels that while he admires the 
 noble and the true, yet he is not attracted by it ? No ; 
 he is attracted by the splendour, by the praise of men 
 which accompanies such lives in after-times ; by the satis- 
 faction to his yearning vanity which such glory would 
 supply ; but not by the character itself, nor by its inner 
 worth and substance. This is a painful state, and yet 
 this is not the end. The end of such a character 
 generally is to lose even this much appreciation of what 
 is good, and to retain admiration for nothing but refine- 
 ment without and resolute will within ; to despise all 
 self-sacrifice, all generosity, all nobleness as romantic 
 and weak; and, of course, either to give up religion 
 altogether, or to make a superstition to suit the worldly 
 temper. 
 
 Lastly, and most often of all, the fire of the Spirit can 
 be put out by mere neglect. The lukewarm Church of 
 Laodicea, which neither lived for this world nor for the 
 next, is the type of the commonest of all characters. 
 The Spirit holds before the sight, time after time, soul- 
 stirring visions of what our lives and characters might be. 
 Thoughts start up unbidden before us and bid us walk 
 in a new path, take up a new burden. As we read, as 
 we live with our fellows, as we worship, as we listen, 
 we are touched, we are enlightened, we are half roused 
 to real resolution. But we hear not, or if we hear 
 we make no effort ; or if we make an effort, we 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. [sERM. 
 
 soon give it up. The greatest thoughts, the noblest 
 
 thoughts flit before the minds of men in whom their 
 
 fellows suspect nothing of the kind ; but they flit 
 
 across as clouds flit across the sky, and those who 
 
 share in them, yet feel them to be as unreal as those 
 
 clouds. There is no waste in nature equal to the waste 
 
 of noble aspirations. We see and are astonished at the 
 
 wonderful prodigality of all creation; at the millions of 
 
 animals which just come to the birth and yet are never 
 
 born; at the minerals scattered everywhere in seemingly 
 
 useless profusion ; at the infinite space of heaven ; at the 
 
 countless host of the stars. But we cannot see the still 
 
 more wonderful abundance of good and lofty thoughts — 
 
 of visions of purity and holiness — of ideals of love and 
 
 unselfishness, which the Spirit of God scatters like seed 
 
 in the hearts of men, and scatters in vain. In vain, from 
 
 simple neglect : from neglect, like that of the virgins in 
 
 the Parable who were quite satisfied so that their lamps 
 
 burnt while men were looking on, and cared not for the 
 
 want of oil which would surely put out their fire at last : 
 
 from neglect such as is described in the Parable of the 
 
 Sower ; they hear, and then cometh the Devil and taketh 
 
 away the word out of their hearts. Christ stands at the 
 
 door, and they hear Him knock, but they turn aside and 
 
 never think of going to the door to let Him in. They 
 
 hear the voice of truth, but it is no more than the sound 
 
 of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well upon 
 
 an instrument. What is the end of such coldness .? The 
 
 end is an incapacity to hear what they have so often 
 
 heard in vain. In such men there comes at last an utter 
 
VI.] THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 53 
 
 inability to understand that the message of God is a 
 message to them at all. They hear and they understand, 
 but they find no relation between their lives and what 
 they learn. They will be selfish and will not know that 
 they are selfish ; they will be worldly and will not be able 
 to see that they are worldly ; they will be mean and yet 
 be quite unconscious of their meanness. 
 
 The last, the final issue of 'Quenching the Spirit' 
 I cannot describe. A fearful condition is once or twice 
 alluded to in the Bible, which a man reaches by long dis- 
 obedience to the voice within him, and in which he can 
 never be forgiven, because he can never repent, and he 
 cannot repent .because he has lost all, even the faintest 
 tinge, of the beauty of holiness. What brings a man into 
 such a state as this we cannot tell ; but it is plain enough 
 that the directest road to it is by ' Quenching the Spirit.' 
 What God can do, what He will do, with those who thus 
 quench the fire that He lights in their hearts, how can 
 man say 1 How often, nay, whether at all He will re- 
 kindle once more a fire which we have persisted in 
 putting out, who can tell ? Enough for us that nothing 
 is so marked with tokens of this worst of all dangers as 
 this sin of ' Quenching the Spirit.' 
 
 To quench the Spirit, to go on disobeying the calls of 
 your own heart, to stifle the perpetually repeated warn- 
 ings that recall you from sin and folly, to persist in sins 
 which you know to be sins, to seek temptations which 
 you know to be temptations, to harden your heart when 
 you feel it to be softening, to let pride uphold you in evil, 
 to let indolence or appetite seduce you from good, is as 
 
54 THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 great a sin now as when St. Paul warned his converts 
 against it, and is Hable to the same condemnation. Great 
 bursts of sin, sudden and unexpected falls, giving way 
 to some torrent of temptation, this is fearful ; and this 
 when it happens costs us bitter tears and most painful 
 repentance. But much more dangerous is the habit of 
 disobedience which marks the soul with a slight mark 
 every day, and heaps these marks one upon another till 
 the whole soul be stained unawares. 
 
 Quench not the Spirit. You who are young, in whose 
 souls there are ever heard new voices, before whose eyes 
 there are ever shining new visions of what is your true 
 life, to whose sight are ever coming fresh lessons not 
 yet faded by frequent appearance. Quench not the Spirit. 
 Let not your hopes of attaining to a pure and Christian 
 character be either worn out by neglect, or dashed aside 
 by other aims, or daunted by many failures. In spite of 
 all, keep still before you the brightness which is shewn, 
 and every day will be more fully shewn to your sight, the 
 brightness of the souls of the sons of God. For this 
 gift of the Spirit here on earth is the earnest of a still 
 richer possession in Heaven, when we shall have received 
 the adoption, and shall see our Father face to face. 
 
SERMON VI L 
 
 GREAT MEN. 
 
 HEBREWS Xll. I. 
 
 * Wherefore seeing lue also are compassed about qvith so great a 
 cloud of nvitnesses, let us lay aside every 'weight, and the sin 
 nvhich doth so easily beset us, and let uj run <with patience the 
 race that is set before us^ 
 
 nPHE witnesses that God has set before the eyes of men 
 are twofold, the witness of greatness and the witness 
 of goodness, the witness of the hero and the witness 
 of the saint. To name these two together is at once 
 to put the one far above the other. Without any argu- 
 ment we feel at once that the hero and the saint belong 
 to different spheres, the hero to nature, the saint to 
 religion; the hero to the earth, the saint to heaven. 
 We look for heroes in the annals of this world; in 
 pagan times, in heathen countries, in statesmen, in sol- 
 diers, in great thinkers, in great discoverers. We look 
 for saints in the annals of the Church of Christ; in 
 apostles, in missionaries; perhaps, too, in secret "and 
 hidden retreats, in domestic Hfe, in the sick bed. We 
 expect saintliness to last in some way or other into 
 the other world beyond the grave ; we hardly ever think 
 of heroism except in connexion with this world. We 
 
56 GREAT MEN. [sERM. 
 
 reverence saintliness, giving it an honour in some way 
 kindred to the honour which we pay to God ; we admire 
 heroism, but most often do not reverence it at all. But 
 for all this let us not make the mistake of fancying 
 that greatness does not testify to God's truth in its proper 
 place and measure quite as truly as goodness. Let us 
 not forget that there can be a Christian hero as well 
 as a Christian saint. Let us not fancy that that admira- 
 tion for heroism which the God who made us has kindled 
 in our hearts, and not only kindled but fanned into a 
 powerful and Hving flame, is after all counter to His will, 
 hostile to His service, hurtful to all loyalty and devotion. 
 These great men, even if they are not good men, but 
 infinitely more if they are good men, are all witnesses 
 to the truth of God, and leaders in the path of His will. 
 What we have to do is not to quench our inborn admira- 
 tion for greatness, but to see that the flame that it kindles 
 in our hearts is an altar fire for the worship of our 
 Master. The admiration that we spontaneously feel for 
 great men either past or present is too deep, too universal, 
 too powerful an impulse not to be meant for great pur- 
 poses, and capable of holy uses. 
 
 If we examine what sort of a man we call great, we 
 shall always find that it is one who leads his fellow-men. 
 We do not call a man great simply for cleverness, nor for 
 worldly success, the fruit of cleverness. Nor, again, do 
 we call a man great for exceeding goodness, if he have 
 nothing in him which makes that goodness a guide, and 
 not merely a reverenced wonder to his fellows. A great 
 man is he who stands out from others, not for some 
 
VII.] GREAT MEN. 57 
 
 accidental difference, but for something which makes 
 others follow his lead, acknowledge his power, accept 
 his teachings, admire his course. Such a man will be sure 
 to be marked with these characteristics ; he will have a 
 large mind, a strong conviction, and a firm will. 
 
 He must have a large mind to take in, and feel in 
 full force the truths or the impulses which are dimly 
 and dumbly moving in the minds of his fellow-men. 
 This is the necessary condition of his being able to 
 take the lead. A man can only have a real lead by 
 virtue of saying what thousands are thinking but know 
 not how to say ; by virtue of doing what thousands are 
 blindly trying but know not how to do. Hence it is 
 that it is the commonest thing in the world to hear great 
 men accused of a want of originality. Anticipations of 
 their most original thoughts are sure to be found here 
 and th€re in the world before they give them clear utter- 
 ance. Prophecies of their most striking deeds are sure 
 to be met with, some clearer, some obscurer, all around 
 them and before their days. It cannot be otherwise. 
 The great man is sent not to teach or guide some distant 
 race, some yet unborn society, but the men of his own 
 day. If he cannot do that, it is all the merest chance 
 whether he will ever guide any one at all. And since 
 all true guidance consists in calling up from within the 
 souls of men the powers that are living and working in 
 the secret abysses of those souls, so the great man's chief 
 work will lie in putting into clear language the secret 
 voices of many minds, in kindling into vigorous activity 
 the secret longings of thousands of hearts. The great 
 
58 GREAT MEN. [SERM. 
 
 man is he who has in him in fuller force that which 
 other men have in weaker force. The little-minded man 
 is swayed to and fro by passions, by hopes, peculiar to 
 himself. In the great man all that is narrow and confined 
 to himself is overpowered by what is large, what is shared 
 and felt by thousands beside. He has room in his heart 
 for many interests, for many impulses, for many aims; 
 and he has that within him that shall comprehend and 
 reconcile them all into one great purpose. Upon this 
 largeness of soul depends in fact the sphere of his 
 greatness. If he is to sway many he must have in 
 him the aspirations and the deeper passions of many; 
 if his sympathies are confined within a narrow range, 
 so also will be his power. 
 
 To this large soul he must add deep convictions. 
 For he will be sure to meet with such obstacles as 
 none but leaders ever meet. He will be sure to need 
 the same kind of faith as that which sent martyrs to 
 the stake, and once scattered apostles and missionaries 
 over all the known world. For in spite of saying just 
 what men are secretly thinking of doing, what men's 
 spirits are driving them to do, the great man will assuredly 
 fin^ that even those whose consciences are compelled 
 to acknowledge him, will often resist him with all the 
 force of prejudice, of interest, of passion. The great 
 man by the very fact of being moved by the deeper 
 impulses of his time will find himself in direct opposition 
 to all the shallower impulses. He will be aiming at that 
 which is to last for centuries; but he will find straight 
 in his path the passing passions of the day, roused to 
 
VII.] GREAT MEN. 59 
 
 fiercer enmity by their own shallowness. Even when 
 he is following the deep current, which none but himself 
 is deep enough to feel, he will be stemming all the shal- 
 lower currents which bear on their surface those that are 
 living in his day. Hence it often happens that as long 
 as he lives he sees no signs of success. He works his 
 work ; he sows his seed ; but he never sees the harvest. 
 He is a leader of men but he never knows it. He has 
 reached a thousand consciences, but he has never met 
 with one that answered to his call. Like Elijah of old, 
 he has been all his Hfe a Prophet of the Desert; he 
 believes that there is no hope left ; the people have for- 
 saken the covenant — have thrown down the altars — have 
 slain the prophets ; he only is left, and his Hfe is sought 
 to be taken away. He sees not the seven thousand left 
 in Israel, the knees that have not bowed down unto Baal. 
 He sees not Elisha's long labour and final triumph. He 
 is ready to say — ' It is enough ; now, O Lord, take away 
 my life; for I am not better than my fathers.' What 
 shall carry a man through all this.? Nothing but faith. 
 Be the great man a good man or a bad; be he like 
 Elijah, a prophet and a faithful servant ; or be he like 
 Balaam, a prophet and a traitor, nothing can carry him 
 through what he must often encounter but a deep con- 
 viction of the truth by which he lives ; that truth, what- 
 ever it may be, of which he is the messenger. It is a 
 fact, and a very awful fact, that the great man may 
 abuse his greatness to mean and selfish aims ; but still 
 so much faith he must have as to believe in the truth 
 on which he is borne along, to believe in it when the 
 
6o GREAT MEN. [sERM. 
 
 hearts of other believers waver and the opposition of 
 unbeHevers is terribly threatening, or he cannot be great 
 at all. At the bottom of a great man's greatness always 
 lies some insight into truth; not enough, it may be, 
 to make him good as well as great; not enough, it 
 may be, to save him from very wickedness. But by truth, 
 and truth only, can he be great, and corresponding to 
 that truth which he sees must be the strength of the 
 conviction of his soul. 
 
 But it is not enough that he should have a deep 
 conviction. Men sometimes fail for want of faith; but 
 they also sometimes fail for want of will to hold that 
 faith when they have got it. To see the truth clearly; 
 to see it in spite of universal clamour against it; in 
 spite of apparently plain proofs of its practical failure; 
 in spite of the denial of wise and profound men, and 
 yet to be too weak to live by it ; if this is rare, yet it 
 is certainly not impossible. And in lesser degree it is 
 extremely common. In choosing how we shall live, we 
 are much more often deficient in strength than in sight. 
 We see our path; but we see all its difficuUies and 
 disagreeables, and we are not bold enough to face them. 
 The great man will need, besides a large heart and a 
 deep conviction, a strong will. This is so indispensable 
 a condition of greatness that we frequently fancy that 
 strength of will is almost the whole of greatness, and are 
 prone to admire that beyond all else that we see in a 
 great man. And, indeed, if not the highest element in 
 a great man's nature, it is yet the one which saves the 
 others from downright degradation. What spectacle is 
 
vii.J GREAT MEN. 6i 
 
 more contemptible than clear knowledge combined with 
 weakness ? What character is more universally despised 
 than that of a coward? So absolutely necessary is 
 courage to all true service that we have been made by 
 God with a natural admiration even of wicked courage, 
 in order, no doubt, that we should learn early to put 
 on a piece of armour which we cannot do without, and 
 that even nature should assist us in the first element of our 
 spiritual lesson. 
 
 Now, if these are the characteristics of true greatness, 
 a large heart, a deep faith, a strong will, is it wonderful 
 that we should have been so framed as to admire them 
 and wish for them, and, in our measure, to imitate them ? 
 Is it wonderful that they should be used to make our 
 hearts burn; to fill our imaginations; to colour our 
 thoughts? These great gifts may be misused; may be 
 fearfully misused. The man who leads others by his 
 deep sympathy with their deeper impulses may turn 
 those impulses to purposes of ambition, of revenge, of 
 rebellion against the God who made them. But for all 
 that the power which he possesses is a power given by 
 God, and in its very errors betrays from what source 
 it came. We need not fear to admire and admire 
 heartily; we need not fear to let the fair beauty of all 
 greatness, of whatever sort, sink into our minds, and 
 widen our thoughts, and give life to our emotions ; for 
 all that is noble and excellent can find a place and a 
 work under the Gospel of Christ, and the lesson that 
 we learn from those whom all the world admires may be 
 used in the service of the Lord of truth. 
 
62 GREAT MEN'. [SERM. 
 
 What is the crown that must be added to all these 
 qualities to make the great man true to his own great- 
 ness ? It is loyalty to his true master. The great man 
 who is simply borne along on the stream of his own 
 large impulses, or again, the great man who uses his 
 greatness for selfish and personal ends, and debases the 
 truth which uplifts him into a ladder for his worldly 
 ambition, he is no doubt still great; but in the real 
 work which he himself is doing he has no abiding in- 
 terest. He is a tool in the hands of a mightier power, 
 which uses him for the advancement of the truth and 
 will at last cast him away. His greatness is put on him 
 like a garment; it belongs not to his inner spirit. 
 But the great man who dedicates his greatness to the 
 cause which makes him great, who not only is borne 
 along by the truth which is working in his soul, but 
 surrenders his will and his life to its service, this is the 
 man whose greatness is a part of himself; this is the man 
 whom we honour with more than mere admiration, because 
 he seems to rise above the hero towards the saint. 
 
 Whenever we can compare by any chance these two 
 kinds of great men, we feel at once what it is that we 
 really admire in true greatness. We are caught by the 
 brilliant glory which always attends success. We read 
 with delight of one who could force his will to be 
 obeyed in spite of a whole world in arms. We long 
 to share in the triumphs of those who have made them- 
 selves illustrious by compelling nations to submit to 
 them, by guiding great questions to great issues, by 
 turning as it were the streams of history this way or 
 
VII.] GREAT MEN. 63 
 
 that. We follow their career with eagerness and throb- 
 bing hearts. We triumph in their success. We are 
 pained when we read of their failure. But is our ad- 
 miration ever the same in kind as that with which we 
 read of some extraordinary act of self-devotion, some 
 astonishing self-sacrifice 1 We admire mere success, but 
 the moment we come across stern self-control, calm 
 brave self-sacrifice, generous devotion to a cherished 
 cause, an admiration of mere success seems a vulgar 
 feeling, of which we are half ashamed. Is it possible 
 in reading Roman history to admire Julius Caesar in 
 the same sense in which we admire Regulus or Decius ? 
 Is it possible in reading of Athens to admire Themis- 
 tocles in the same sense as we admire Socrates ? 
 
 That which we really admire in greatness is that which 
 tve also admire in the servants of heaven, and great men, 
 even if they are wicked, are still lights to shew us the 
 truth of God. The service of Christ needs heroes and 
 heroism as much as the work of the world. Fill your 
 souls by all means with large-hearted generosity which 
 can find brotherhood with all mankind, with deep con- 
 victions which cannot be shaken by the opposition of 
 all the world, with strong will and fixed purpose that 
 shall never fail in stedfast perseverance. And then add 
 to all this the heroism of utter self-sacrifice which knows 
 no other aim than to consecrate all to the Waster who 
 gives it, loyally laying at His feet the tribute of loving 
 self-devoted obedience, in answer to His ever-lQving and 
 ever-upholding guidance. 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 HEBREWS XI. I. 
 
 ' Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the e'vidence 
 of things not seen.* 
 
 'T^HIS is the only place in the Bible where we have what 
 we can call a definition of Faith. That faith which 
 is the foundation of all other Christian graces— the title 
 by which we keep our place as Christians — the inward 
 working which has its fruit in good works, that is, 
 in our sanctification — the hand by which we lay hold on 
 God and on Christ, is here said to be the substance of 
 things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen : and by 
 substance, no doubt, is here meant firm confidence, and 
 by evidence is meant conviction. Faith is the laying hold 
 of the future in the midst of the present, of the unseen in 
 the midst of the seen. It is this which marks the true 
 disciple of Christ, that he walks by faith and not by sight. 
 This faith has taken the place in the Christian mind which 
 was occupied by the Law in the Jewish mind. The reli- 
 gious Hebrew was never tired of singing the praises of 
 God's Holy Law. We have many Psalms in which the 
 Law of God is exalted above all else ; as, for instance, the 
 
FAITH, 65 
 
 19th, where it is compared with the glories of nature, and 
 ranked beyond them in excellence ; and we have one 
 Psalm, the longest of all, the 119th, which speaks of 
 nothing else. To have kept the Law is the highest praise 
 a Hebrew could imagine ; to have learnt the Law, the 
 surest way to find strength and protection. But St. Paul, 
 when he is not far from death, expresses his confidence 
 in God's mercy to him, by saying, not as a Jew would 
 assuredly have said, ' I have kept Thy Law,' but, ' I have 
 fought a good fight ; I have kept the Faith.' 
 
 If the world were what it ought to be, there would be 
 litde trial of this Faith. But though the world w^as made 
 very good, and though all that cannot be touched by the 
 influence of our sins is still very good, yet the world, 
 as we have made it, is by no means like the handiwork 
 of God. We see all around us a strange contradiction 
 to what we are told, that justice, and truth, and goodness 
 are the most precious of all things known to man. We 
 see often wrong prevail over right ; we see falsehood 
 often successful, and a lie often gains its end ; we see the 
 highest honour constantly given to what we know not to 
 be the highest desert ; we see mere strength, whether of 
 body or mind, receive the consideration which ought to be 
 reserved for real goodness. It is right to value strength ; 
 strength of mind certainly, and, in its proper place, 
 strength of body too ; for they are God's gifts, and the 
 natural inclination which leads us to admire them is His 
 gift also. But we constantly see such gifts as these carry- 
 ing away a respect out of all proportion to their value. 
 The weak good man, the little one, of whom our Lorc| 
 
 P 
 
66 FAITH. [sERM. 
 
 says that the angels of such do ahvays behold the face 
 of our Father in Heaven, is thrust aside and despised. 
 How often do we see plain instances of the success of 
 mere rude strength; sometimes of forwardness; some- 
 times even of cunning and want of strict truth. Even 
 in a society like this it is impossible not to notice it. 
 And in the world outside it is still worse. There injustice 
 is still more often successful, and wickedness still more 
 often unpunished. And even the very laws of nature 
 tell the same tale. Death, as the Book of Ecclesiastes 
 remarks, comes alike to all men. All things come alike 
 to all ; there is one event to the righteous and to the 
 wicked; to the clean and to the unclean; to him that 
 sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the 
 good so is the sinner; and he that sweareth as he that 
 feareth an oath. 
 
 Nor is this all. Besides this incessant evidence that 
 good does not govern the world, we are perpetually 
 betrayed into the same thought by a traitor within our- 
 selves. At every moment temptation comes; and the 
 temptation is ever close at hand ; the evil consequences 
 of yielding seem far away. However much we may be 
 convinced that in the end obedience to duty is better than 
 sin we find it hard to remember our conviction at the 
 moment that it is wanted. The temptation comes and 
 makes all things look quite different ; and our sure con- 
 viction melts away within us, or seems to be hid behind 
 a veil. 
 
 But in the midst of all this, in spite of what our eyes 
 perpetually tell us, and in spite of the strange forgetfulness 
 
VIII.] FAITH. 67 
 
 which our inclinations perpetually cast over us, in spite 
 of contradictions without and weakness within, there is a 
 voice from the depths of our own souls that never ceases 
 to repeat that right is really stronger than wrong, and 
 truth is better than falsehood, and justice is surer than 
 injustice. There is a voice which produces no evidence 
 and appeals to no arguments, but with the authority of 
 one who needs neither the one nor the other calls upon 
 us to believe its bare unsupported word, and on that alone 
 to hazard everything if need be, but at any rate to hazard 
 all that sin may have to offer, in the certainty that above, 
 and beyond, and beneath all that exists or can exist is 
 the eternal and unchangeable law of right, and truth, 
 and goodness, and that this law is the real though unseen 
 ruler of the universe, being in fact the will of its Creator. 
 To believe this voice, and to obey it; to surrender to 
 it the guidance of the life in the firm conviction that 
 it will guide us to the true end of our being; to do 
 this is faith. 
 
 This trusting to the voices that speak within, even when 
 they flatly contradict the voices that speak without, is 
 obviously not peculiar to Christians. This faith is that 
 which was required in men before a revelation had yet 
 been given ; and no doubt this too is what is required in 
 those to whom no revelation has yet been preached. By 
 this no doubt were those great heathens upheld, whose 
 hves we read with admiration, and take in various ways 
 as examples for our own. They could not be judged by 
 that which they had not received, namely, the precepts 
 of the Bible ; but they can and doubtless must be judged 
 
 F 2 
 
68 FAITH. [SERM. 
 
 by that which is given to them no less than to us, the 
 revelation of natural conscience, bidding them put the 
 unseen above the seen. 
 
 But the Jew, and still more the Christian, cannot of 
 course stop here. The faith which is enough for the 
 heathen is not enough for those whom God has expressly 
 called by the preaching of His word. That seed which is 
 implanted in all men alike is required to prove its vitality 
 by its growth when the needful supplies for its growth are 
 given to it. It is no doubt still the substance of things 
 hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, which is 
 required in us as well as in them ; but the things hoped 
 for have a new and a fuller meaning, and the things not 
 seen give a brighter and more excellent light. 
 
 The Jew had put into his hands the Word of God as 
 far as it was then written. He was put under a system 
 which God had commanded to be observed. Both in one 
 and in the other he found much that was unintelligible, 
 much that seemed either without a purpose or with a pur- 
 pose not worth pursuit. He found indications of a hidden 
 mystery. He found anticipations of some future revela- 
 tion, without which his own could not be thoroughly 
 understood. But through all this he could not fail to 
 recognise the accents of the same authoritative voice 
 which claimed his allegiance from within his own soul. 
 Through all that was strange and dark, and even con- 
 tradictory, it was impossible not to know in his heart that 
 the Spirit which inspired the Bible was the same Spirit as 
 that which sometimes whispered and sometimes thundered 
 in his own conscience, an authority which he could not 
 
viil] faith. 69 
 
 awe, and could not influence, entering into the very secrets 
 of his soul, and yet no part of himself, and that this Spirit 
 was the voice of God. To throw himself unreservedly on 
 the power which was thus revealed to him, both from 
 within and from without, to accept with unconditional sub- 
 mission the guidance of that Word of God which was, 
 in fact, the fuller expansion of the message given by con- 
 science, to trust in Him who was thus revealed, in spite of 
 every trial and every temptation ; this was the faith of the 
 Jew. Its most perfect utterance is given us by the Prophet 
 whom St. Paul loves to quote — 'Although the fig-tree 
 shall not blossom, neither shall the fruit be in the vines ; 
 the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield 
 no meat; the flock shall be cut off" from the fold, and 
 there shall be no herd in the stalls ; yet I will rejoice in 
 the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation/ 
 
 Their revelation was imperfect. There stiU remained 
 one question unanswered. The enemy which is hardest 
 for us to encounter is not after all the sight of this world's 
 wrong and injustice ; it is not the triumph of evil, or the 
 martyrdom of good, that puts the greatest stumbling- 
 block in the way of him who fain would walk by faith. 
 It is not when our trials are hardest ; nor when our path 
 is beset, if it be beset, with perplexities and darkness; 
 nor when our obedience to God brings trouble on our 
 heads, that we find it most difficult to cling to Him, whom 
 both the Bible and the never-dying voice of conscience 
 still call our Master. It is when conscience, at the very 
 moment of demanding our obedience, proclaims also our 
 sinfulness. Not the course of the world, but the weakness 
 
70 FAITH. [SERM. 
 
 of ourselves, makes it difficult to trust our lives to that 
 holy guidance which it seems out of our very power to 
 follow. We can attain to the law of the mind, but we 
 find a law in our members warring against the law of our 
 mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin 
 which is in our members. We would believe, and live by 
 our belief, in spite of all the contradictions and evil with 
 which the world is filled : but we are so weak, so wicked, 
 so hampered with the fetters both of nature and of habit. 
 Will that awful voice, whose authority we dare not doubt, 
 really lead us to peace or to our own destruction ? 
 
 The Gospel gave the answer. We read there of one 
 whose life, and words, and death force us to confess that 
 He is the express image of that Father of whom our own 
 conscience, and the prophets of old, have ever told us. 
 We read of one who laid hold on human nature and 
 made it His own, and consecrated it with a divine power. 
 We read His promises exactly corresponding to that very 
 need which our souls feel every day more keenly. We 
 read of a power flowing from Him and entering our souls, 
 and surely conquering the very enemy, sin, of whom we 
 are in dread. And all this is written down not merely in 
 words but in the deeds of a history such as never man 
 passed through beside, of a history whose every word 
 touches some feeling of our heart, echoes some whisper 
 of our spirit. He bids us surrender ourselves to Him, 
 follow His leading, trust in His protection, His power ; 
 He promises us by sure, though it may be by slow 
 degrees, but with the certainty of absolute assurance, to 
 join us to His Father and to Himself: He promises not 
 
viil] faith. 7 1 
 
 merely to undo some day the riddle of the world, and 
 give the good and the just a visible triumph over the evil 
 and the wrong, but, what we need much more, He 
 promises to give us the victory over sin within ourselves, 
 and to prove to us that God has forgiven us by the in- 
 fallible token of His having cleansed. us. He promises 
 not merely that no outward stop shall hinder our reaching 
 the Father Who can satisfy all our wants, but that not 
 even our own sin, dark though it be, shall keep us away 
 from His unchangeable love. To throw ourselves on 
 these promises, to purify ourselves in the full assurance 
 that Christ's love can carry us through all that we 
 shall encounter, to cling to Christ not only in spite of 
 pain and darkness, and strange perplexity, but in spite 
 of our own sins also, this is our substance of things 
 hoped for, this is our evidence of things not seen, this 
 is Christian faith. 
 
 This is, St. John tells us in the epistle which was read 
 this morning, the victory which overcometh the world. 
 This is the power which, both in great things and in small, 
 both in hard trials and in easy, ever supports the disciple 
 of Christ by bringing within his reach all the strength of 
 his Master. And no doubt we see its virtue most plainly 
 in those great crises of life when our cause seems to 
 involve a choice between heaven and hell. The eleventh 
 chapter of the episde to the Hebrews, from which my text 
 is taken, sets before us a series of glorious examples, who 
 once proved the strength of their faith by the victories 
 which that faith enabled them to win. But though these 
 may be the most glorious, these are not the most precious 
 
72 FAITH. 
 
 victories of Christian faith. To resist some trivial temp- 
 tation, to tell the truth when fear or nervousness has 
 almost betrayed the tongue into falsehood ; to turn away 
 the eye from what might provoke a wrong thought; to 
 fasten the attention down by force to some unpleasant 
 labour because it is a duty ; to oppose a steadfast resist- 
 ance to a frequently recurring inclination to evil, and not 
 to be wearied out, even when the inclination seems never 
 to be completely killed ; these are victories which are not 
 held up for human admiration, no, not even in the pages 
 of the Bible ; not because they fall below admiration, but 
 because they rise above it, and can only receive their fit 
 reward from Him Who seeth in secret. 
 
 And that reward they will surely have. This faith, 
 which, resting on the certainty of Christ's help and striving 
 to hold fast His Spirit, Hves in us throughout our daily 
 life, and secretly influences our works and deeds and 
 thoughts, will gradually build up within the soul a temple 
 to the Lord, not of hay, wood, stubble, but of gold, silver, 
 precious stones, a calm, firm, pure character, knit to our 
 Redeemer by the hidden bonds of a Christian purpose, at 
 peace with God, and master of itself. The final victory 
 indeed which enables a man to say as St. Paul said, ' I 
 have kept the faith,' is a gift which God alone bestows, 
 and we never know when He may see fit to bestow it 
 upon us; or how long it may be before the sense of 
 struggle with ourselves shall pass away, and peace shall 
 fill our hearts. But soon or late we know that we sh?li 
 win if we hold fast our faith, for God has promised and 
 we believe His word. 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 ST. JOHN XX. 29. 
 
 ^ JesKs saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me thou 
 hast belie'ved: blessed are they that have not seen and yet ha've 
 belie'ved.' 
 
 nPHE unbelief of St. Thomas, and the way in which our 
 Lord treated it, are full of lessons of deep interest to 
 every Christian, of peculiar interest to us here at Rugby, 
 because of the impression which the narrative made on 
 the mind of Arnold. St. Thomas is a type of very many 
 Christian minds, and the reception which his doubts met 
 with has been at once an instruction and a comfort to 
 all of them. This Sunday* seems a natural occasion 
 for recalling the record to our memory and reflecting 
 on it, because it was, as it were, on this Sunday that 
 these doubts were set at rest. It was on the evening 
 of Easter Sunday that our Lord came in, as we read in 
 the Gospel of this morning, and gave His peace to the 
 disciples as they were assembled in a private meeting. 
 And it was on the Sunday after, that is the first Sunday 
 after Easter, that He came in once more and said to 
 
 * Sunday after Easter. 
 
74 DOUBTS. [SERM. 
 
 Thomas, ' Reach hither thy finger and behold My hands, 
 and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My side; 
 and be not faithless but believing.' Then Thomas 
 answered and said unto Him, * INIy Lord and my God.' 
 Jesus saith unto him, ' Thomas, because thou hast seen 
 Me thou hast beheved: blessed are they that have not 
 seen and yet have believed.' 
 
 Now, I wish you to observe in the first place what 
 Thomas had done. He had doubted. He had not dis- 
 beUeved; he had only refused to believe. It is impos- 
 sible, in reading this narrative, to identify the doubt of 
 St. Thomas with the disbelief of those Jews who de- 
 manded a sign from heaven. He evidently wished to 
 believe if he could ; they evidently did not. He was 
 a warm-hearted generous man, ready, as he had shewn 
 once before, to die, if need were, for his IMaster's service. 
 When our Lord proposed to go into Judea at a time 
 at which the Jews were ready to murder Him, in order 
 that He might awake Lazarus out of sleep, St. Thomas 
 was the first to say, * Let us go also that we may die 
 with Him.' But though St. Thomas was not wanting 
 in devotion, his faith was slow. He could not believe 
 without very clear proof. Once before he had shewn 
 this. When our Lord had said, '■ Whither I go ye know, 
 and the way ye know:' St. Thomas had replied, 'Lord, 
 we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know 
 the way.?' In fact, he would have everything made quite 
 distinct and unmistakeable. And so on this occasion he 
 was not satisfied with the evidence of the ten other 
 Apostles and of the women; he was not sure that he 
 
IX.] DOUBTS. 75 
 
 could rely on their inability to be misled ; he must have 
 overwhelming evidence or he would not believe. It was 
 not the wilfulness of one hardened in his own theory 
 which he would not quit ; nor yet of one who could not 
 bear to accept a truth which would unsettle his life. It 
 was honest doubt; such doubt as naturally grew out of 
 his state of mind. 
 
 And how then was it treated? Our Lord does not 
 treat it as a sin. There is not the slightest trace of fault- 
 finding in what our Lord says to him. He only tells him 
 that his is not the most blessed state. The most blessed 
 state is that of those who can believe without such proof 
 as this. There are such minds. There are minds to 
 whom the inward proof is everything. They believe 
 not on the evidence of their senses or of their mere 
 reason, but on that of their consciences and hearts. 
 Their spirits within them are so attuned to the truth 
 that the moment it is presented to them they accept it 
 at once. And this is certainly far the higher state — the 
 more blessed — the more heavenly. I do not mean that 
 such believers never are mistaken. Quite the contrary; 
 they are very often mistaken, and accept a great deal which 
 has no foundation at all, because their faith does not stop 
 to separate the chaff from the grain. But they are not 
 mistaken in the substantial thing. The form of words 
 in which their faith has clothed itself may not be defen- 
 sible. The particular history which they have made a 
 part of their belief may not be quite accurate. But the 
 inner power of what they hold is God's truth, and knits 
 their souls to God. And so they are in a higher and 
 
76 DOUBTS. [sERM. 
 
 a more heavenly state than their slower brethren who, 
 while they are obliged to wait for a fuller proof of some 
 historical fact, or some revelation from God, have to 
 wait also for the doctrine which that fact has to teach. 
 St. Thomas was slow to believe our Lord's resurrection ; 
 and, of course, that slowness would delay also his full 
 belief in his own resurrection hereafter, and in all the 
 consequences that are to follow on it; it would take off 
 the keenness of his sense that we are in God's hands, 
 and that God our Father is making all things, even such 
 fearful things as the death of Christ must then have 
 seemed, work together for good: it would keep a bar- 
 rier standing between himself and his Master, Who 
 seemed to him to be absolutely taken away from him. 
 St. Thomas most assuredly had not attained the blessed- 
 ness of those whose souls were ready to accept the 
 resurrection at once. But still his doubt was not a sinful 
 doubt, or it would have been met, as the disbelief of the 
 Jewish rulers was met : ' An evil and adulterous genera- 
 tion seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given 
 to it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas.' 
 
 This was not the way in which our Lord dealt ^\ith His 
 loving but honest disciple. The proof that he asked for 
 was given him. He asked to have his senses convinced, 
 and his senses were convinced. He had not asked any- 
 thing presumptuous ; he had not asked for any miracle. 
 He asked for the same evidence that had already been 
 given to others, and which he might fairly suppose was 
 within his reach. And he got it. The coming of our 
 Lord is told as if indeed it were expressly for St. 
 
IX.] DOUBTS. 77 
 
 Thomas's sake. He came in and directly addressed 
 Himself to him. He reminded him of the very words 
 that he had used. He offered him the very proof that 
 he had wanted. And St. Thomas's words express, if 
 anything could express, the fulness of the deepest con- 
 viction ; the fulness of a faith that could never again 
 be shaken, because it had reached down to the very 
 central truth of the fact before his eyes. He saw our 
 Lord and he knew that not only was He that Jesus, the 
 Son of Man, with Whom he had lived, and to Whose 
 teaching he had listened for some years past, but that 
 He was indeed his Lord and his God— the Lord of Life 
 and the Conqueror of Death. 
 
 St. Thomas's doubt is a type and his character an 
 example of what is common among Christians. There 
 are some indeed who are never troubled with doubts 
 at all. They live so heavenly a life that doubts and per- 
 plexities fall off their minds without fastening. They 
 find enough in their faith to feed their spiritual life. 
 They do not need to inquire into the foundations of 
 their belief. They are inspired by a power within their 
 hearts. The heavenly side of all truths is so clear to 
 them that any doubts about the human form of it are 
 either unintelligible, or else at once rejected, or else dis- 
 regarded as unimportant. But that is not always the 
 case. There are very many who are startled at times 
 by strange perplexities. Doubts arise in their minds, 
 or are suggested by others, about doctrines which they 
 have always taken for granted, or about facts connected 
 with those doctrines. Perplexities trouble them in reading 
 
78 DOUBTS. [SERM. 
 
 the Bible. They cannot understand, or, perhaps, they 
 feel that they can understand but cannot accept. And 
 these doubts and perplexities belong to no age and no 
 class. Even when very young we are liable to strange 
 feelings of wonder; and we never grow too old not to 
 be liable to be startled if what we have never before 
 examined is called in question. I can remember when 
 I was quite a child wondering and feeling perplexed at 
 the imprecations in the Psalms. I have no doubt that 
 others have felt other perplexities. And greater expe- 
 rience, and greater reading, and intercourse with others 
 who really think on such subjects, and are unable to 
 merely acquiesce in what they have learnt, all this does 
 not make doubting or perplexity impossible, but quite 
 the contrary. What shall we do with these difficulties 
 when they arise "i 
 
 In the first place let us not permit them to shake our 
 hold of God and of conscience. However far our doubts 
 may go, they cannot root up from within us, without 
 our own consent, the power which claims to guide our 
 lives with supreme authority. They cannot obliterate 
 from within us the sense of right and wrong, and of 
 the everlasting difference between them. They cannot 
 silence, unless we join in silencing, the voice that bids 
 us believe, that in spite of all that can be said, or seen, 
 or felt, the law of right is the eternal foundation on 
 which all things are built. By this a man may yet live 
 if he have nothing else to live by, and God will assuredly 
 give him more in His own good time. 
 
 But yet, again, let us not treat such doubts as sins, 
 
IX.] DOUBTS. 79 
 
 which they are not, but as perplexities, which they are. 
 As we must not quit our hold on God, so do not let 
 us fancy that God has quitted His hold on us. To fancy 
 that every doubt is of itself a sin, is altogether to mistake 
 God's love and mercy. Rather let us endeavour to see 
 why such doubts are sent. Doubts are, in many cases, 
 the birth-pangs of clearer light. They are the means 
 by which we grow in knowledge, even in knowledge of 
 heavenly things. Better far, no doubt, to grow in know- 
 ledge by quiet steady increase of light, without these 
 intervals of darkness and difficulty. But that is not 
 granted to all. Many men, perhaps most men, have 
 to grow by often doubting and by having their doubts 
 cleared up. In that way only is the chaff separated from 
 the grain, and the pure truth at last presented to their 
 minds. In that way are prejudices, false notions, frivo- 
 lities shaken off from the substantial truth, and they are 
 blessed with the fulness of the knowledge of God. These 
 doubts are often the fiery trial which burns up any wood, 
 hay, or stubble which we may have erected in our souls, 
 and leaves space for us to build gold, silver, precious 
 stones. They are in fact as much the messengers of 
 God's Providence as any other voices that reach us. 
 They may distress us, but they cannot destroy us, for 
 we are in the hands of God. They may hide God's 
 face from us, but they cannot stop the flow of His love ; 
 for He is our Father, and Christ hath redeemed us. 
 
 Yet once more in all such cases remember St. Thomas, 
 and feel sure that what is wanting Christ will give. He 
 does not require you to say that you believe what 
 
8o DOUBTS. [SERM. 
 
 you do not believe; for that would be dishonest. He 
 does not require you to force yourself to believe by an 
 act of your will ; for that would be only self-deception, 
 and nothing could justify that. You are not called on 
 to believe till you are fully able to do so ; but you are 
 called on to trust. To trust is in your power. To resign 
 yourself lovingly to God in the full confidence that His 
 love will do all that you can need, and that out of dark- 
 ness He will be sure to bring light; to walk to the 
 uttermost of your power by the light that you already 
 have ; to hold fast by God's hand, and to trust the pro- 
 mises that He whispers in your conscience; that you 
 can do, and that you ought to do. 
 
 But are there no other doubts but these ? Are there 
 no such things as sinful doubts which cannot expect 
 enlightenment 1 Assuredly there are. Doubts may come 
 from mere levity of mind which will not see the deep 
 truths revealed within the soul ; doubts may come from 
 conceit, delighting to find something new and different 
 from the rest of the world; doubts may come from a 
 hard heart which has been warned by conscience of 
 its sinful state, and cannot bear to admit the reality of 
 a truth which imperatively demands a change of hfe; 
 doubts may be like those of the Pharisees who were 
 resolute not to believe, and only asked for proofs that 
 they might have something to attack. Such doubts are 
 fearful sins, and as we indulge them we know that they 
 are sins. 
 
 Moreover, doubts which come of themselves, and are 
 not sinful at all, we may make into sins ; by being irre- 
 
IX.] DOUBTS. 8[ 
 
 verent in dealing with them ; by suggesting them lightly 
 and wantonly to others; by finding pleasure in enter- 
 taining them; by fastening our hearts to them, till we 
 are unwilling to give them up, even when we have full 
 evidence that they are groundless. 
 
 Such doubts are sinful: of such we must beware, as 
 we would beware of any sin accompanied by peculiar 
 danger. But the natural doubts that come unbidden, 
 and demand to be heard, are not sins at all, and we must 
 not treat them as sins. One word will tell our duty in 
 dealing with them all : Wait : wait in full trust that God 
 will give you light as you want it; will teach you what 
 is needed for your soul's health by ways of His own ; 
 will make clear at last what part of your doubt was a 
 mere mistake, what part was well founded ; above all, 
 will make the very doubt of the loving soul the founda- 
 tion of a faith that can never more be shaken. Can we 
 suppose that to the end of his days St. Thomas ever 
 needed again any arguments to convince him of our 
 Lord's having risen from the grave, or that he would 
 ever forget the thrilling moment when his hand touched 
 his Master's wounded side t So, too, the Christian 
 finds in the perplexities that God clears up a light even 
 beyond the brightness of his earlier faith, for it is the 
 light of the Face of Christ. 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 SCRUPLES. 
 
 ROMANS xiv. 5. 
 ^ Let every man be fully persuaded in his onvn mind* 
 
 ^1 yTE are all liable at various times to be troubled with 
 perplexities about our duty, not because we find it 
 hard or unpleasant, but because we cannot clearly see our 
 way. And this perplexity sometimes amounts to something 
 like darkness, and causes much fear. It is sometimes a 
 doubt about the past, whether we have done right ; and 
 sometimes about the present, whether we are in the right 
 way ; and sometimes about the future, what we are hence- 
 forward to do. It sometimes embraces our amusements, 
 making us doubt how far they are lawful ; and sometimes 
 it extends to our more serious employments, making us 
 doubt whether they are really God's service, and if they 
 be plainly a part of His service, making us doubt whether 
 we are discharging them in a right spirit. Perplexity of 
 this kind is not perhaps very common at any one moment. 
 There may not be more than a very few who suffer from 
 it at one time. But we are all liable to it, and few alto- 
 gether escape it at some period or other of their lives, 
 and some, from natural disposition, are much haunted by 
 it, and find it a sore trial. Such questions as these will 
 
SCRUPLES. 83 
 
 occur at some time or other of their lives to most men : 
 Is it right in me to give so much of my time to mere 
 amusement? Is it right, considering how fearfully dan- 
 gerous this world is said to be, that I should allow myself 
 any amusement at all ? Is it right that so very small a 
 portion of my thoughts should be about God and about 
 my own soul ? Is it right to spend so much money on 
 myself? Is it right to allow any personal aims, ambition, 
 for instance, or love of distinction, to enter into my plans, 
 and prospects, and hopes in life ? Is it right to spend so 
 much time on what is not directly religious ? These and 
 a thousand similar questions will arise, and will trouble us 
 sometimes much. And not only general questions like 
 these, but minute questions about trifling acts of conduct ; 
 distress about sins which, however sinful, yet are not to be 
 mended by such mere weak distress ; doubts about feel- 
 ings which can never be brought to any definite test; 
 these are sometimes added to our burden, and at times 
 may prove a very painful addition. 
 
 Now all such scruples and perplexities as these must 
 be judged, as all other things must be judged, by their 
 purpose, and how they fulfil that purpose. They are sent, 
 or they are permitted to come, it matters not which, by 
 God. And it is intended that with these, as with all other 
 opportunities that come in our way, we should fulfil some 
 end which God would have fulfilled. And their purpose 
 is too plain to be mistaken for a moment. 
 
 We are all very apt to sink down into a foolish, and 
 sometimes even a sinful, acquiescence in what we find 
 going on all around us, in what we find settled and 
 G 2 
 
84 SCRUPLES. [SERM. 
 
 customary. We are apt to acquiesce in whatever is 
 customary very often to a very dangerous degree, until 
 our consciences are positively blunted. If it is the custom 
 to indulge in language such as no Christian could approve ; 
 if it is the custom to be not quite upright in our dealings ; 
 if it is the custom to prefer private interests and selfish 
 wishes to the public good ; if it is the custom to think 
 very lightly of particular sins ; we are very apt indeed to 
 fall into the stream, and defend ourselves by saying, that 
 we do as others do. Thus every profession, every country, 
 every class of society, gradually forms a code of religion 
 and morality peculiar to itself, and very often extremely 
 different from God's code. Each of these little circles is 
 keen enough to find out the flaws in the code of the 
 others ; but very blind indeed to the flaws in its own. 
 The gentleman is quite shocked at the practices which 
 are common in trade, while he thinks very lightly of 
 horrible sins which are common in his own class. The 
 tradesman is indignant at what gentlemen will do, but 
 smiles at things which he does himself. So too the 
 physician, so too the lawyer, so too the clergyman, is very 
 liable to form a professional code. Families often seem 
 to have a code of their own, and each is shocked in turn 
 at what passes unquestioned in others. And so, too, the 
 whole of society, at different times, settles down into a 
 code of its own, and applauds this, and tolerates that, for 
 reasons quite peculiar to itself. These special codes are 
 inevitable, but they are very dangerous, and if allowed to 
 harden quite unquestioned, would end with subverting all 
 rules of right whatever, and reducing both religion and 
 
SCRUPLES. 
 
 morality to a sort of honour among thieves. That which 
 prevents this, and perpetually breaks up the gathering 
 crust, is the never-ceasing restlessness of our consciences, 
 demanding to be satisfied upon a thousand points, great 
 and small, and sometimes giving extreme pain, until the 
 demand be satisfied. I do not mean that these special 
 codes are in all cases wrong. They are very often quite 
 right, in spite of not seeming so at first. They are very 
 often no more than the summing up of the voices of 
 many generations of religious men. They are very often 
 the best settlement of a dispute which has lasted quite 
 long enough, and has been decided as well as human 
 intellects can decide it. But for all that, our consciences 
 are quite right in stirring us up to examine for ourselves 
 whether the decision is right or not. Even granted that 
 the decision is right, still we ought to obey it, because it 
 is right, not because society has so decided it ; and for 
 that reason we ought to examine whether or not it really 
 is right. The same spirit which leads a man to acquiesce 
 in what is right, simply because he finds it an established 
 thing, would of course lead him to acquiesce in what is 
 wrong, for the same reason. The restlessness and scru- 
 pulousness which is perpetually starting doubts and diffi- 
 culties, and sometimes giving us much distress, prevents a 
 man from giving a wrong allegiance to a power which has 
 no right to claim more than a conditional and qualified 
 submission, the legislative power of ordinary society. We 
 ought not to be quite contented until, in the words of the 
 text, we are fully satisfied in our own minds. Now, since 
 this is plainly the use of these doubts and scruples both 
 
86 SCRUPLES. [serm. 
 
 about ourselves and about the society in which we live, 
 we are always bound to ask about them all, whether they 
 are really doing that for which they come. For there 
 can be no doubt that great and noble as the faculty of 
 conscience is, we may pervert it and misuse it, if we 
 allow it to waste on trifles and useless details the energies 
 which ought to be spent in filling our minds with great 
 living principles. 
 
 The first point always is — the first, I say, because the 
 easiest to judge of — whether these doubts and scruples 
 are enabling us to do our ordinary duties better than 
 before ; whether they are strengthening or weakening us 
 for the business of life ; whether they act as a stimulus to 
 do well what we are sure to be right. For very often 
 they have just the contrary eifect ; they make us neglect 
 important matters for our own fancies; they make us 
 neglect the comfort, or even the happiness of others, 
 while we are pausing to settle some difficult matter of 
 practice which, at the best, has little effect whichever 
 way it be setded. Now, it is quite certain that we are 
 sent into the world to be a blessing to our fellow-men; 
 to contribute, to the utmost of our power, to their com- 
 fort and well-being ; and not to weigh minute points of 
 casuistry. And if the latter interferes with the former, 
 there need not be a moment's hesitation; we must decide 
 such doubts instantly as they arise and turn our minds 
 from the subject ; this is just one of those cases not at all 
 uncommon in life, when a delayed decision, even if right 
 at last, is a great deal worse than a wrong decision at the 
 moment. If such difficulties stand between us and our 
 
X.] SCRUPLES. 87 
 
 duties we must simply settle them at once and dismiss 
 them, and resolutely refuse to re-open them. 
 
 Scruples and difficulties which come in the way of duty 
 are of the wrong kind ; they are perversions of con- 
 science ; and they require a satisfaction which we have 
 no right to ask. Very often they ask to have setded by 
 reason what really is a matter of feeling. Very often they 
 ask to be blessed with feelings which God chooses to give 
 or withhold at His own pleasure, and which we cannot 
 demand at our pleasure. The time is spent in lamenting 
 past sins which ought to be spent in attending to present 
 duties ; the heart is given up to fears which ought to be 
 given up to God ; weak regret takes the place of vigorous 
 resolution : longings for a sense of God's presence, or 
 for a sense of our own love, fill up our souls when we 
 ought to be proving our love by the proof which He 
 has named, that is keeping His commandments. All 
 such scruples and such inward difficulties are not healthy, 
 and to indulge them is not right. 
 
 The second point for consideration is not merely 
 whether these inward quesdonings, these 
 
 Blank misgivings of a creature, 
 Moving about in worlds not realized, 
 
 elevate the general tone of our minds, not merely for the 
 discharge of immediate duties, but for the formation of 
 nobler and higher purposes in life ; whether they fill us 
 with loftier and purer aims, with a more unselfish and 
 heavenly ambition ; whether they strengthen our deter- 
 mination that whatever work in the course of God's 
 
SCRUPLES. [SERM. 
 
 providence it falls to us to do, shall be well and manfully 
 done. Unless this be the case these self-questionings are 
 simply of no use whatever. There were no men in the 
 whole of the world's history who devoted themselves 
 more entirely to questions of this sort than the Jewish 
 Pharisees. And it ended in their case with the grossest 
 and worst hypocrisy. It ended with tithing mint, and 
 anise, and cummin, and neglecting mercy, and judgment, 
 and truth. It ended with an endless tangle of subtle 
 distinctions perilous to the souls of those who ventured 
 among them. And why ? Because they drove the 
 enquiries of their consciences in the wrong direction. 
 They enquired not for the sake of God, but for the sake 
 of themselves. They sought not for a means of bringing 
 them nearer to their Maker, but for a plan by which they 
 could finish, and fill up, and round off the pattern of life 
 which they had sketched for themselves. They wanted, 
 not to serve God and man, but to gratify the petty pride 
 of having done exactly what they had to do ; a pardon- 
 able feeling in mere trifles, a mischievous feeling when it 
 goes beyond trifles, and downright ruin when it takes 
 possession of the whole life. Something of the same 
 sort is very possible still. And the only way to avoid it 
 is, always to press the gaze of our consciences towards 
 God and God's will, rather than towards ourselves. 
 
 For we must never forget that however much we may 
 be disturbed by questions and perplexities, we are respon- 
 sible through it all. It will be vain to plead before our 
 Judge, 'I did not endeavour to fulfil Thy will because 
 my heart was torn by doubts and my mind clouded with 
 
SCRUPLES. 89 
 
 difficulties.' He will assuredly answer, ' Those doubts 
 and difficulties were My messengers sent for a purpose of 
 My own. You and not they were made responsible for 
 your own life. What have you done with it.?' 
 
 The more we enquire into all questions of duty and 
 of right ; the more we examine into all the rules and 
 practices of society, in order to understand them and 
 maintain them if they are good, and to do our part in 
 our proper place and degree in setting them right where 
 they are not good ; the more we seek to recognise the 
 difference between the seen and the unseen, between the 
 conventional rules of social life and the living laws of 
 God, between the artificial distinctions of classes and the 
 real distinctions of Chrisdan gifts; the more we bring 
 every action, and every thought, and sdll more every 
 habit of our own to „the standard of God's will, the 
 better ; provided always that in so doing we do not sacri- 
 fice the very end of so doing, namely, the better discharge 
 of daily duty, and the godlier tone of purpose and of 
 mind. Misgivings, and doubts, and scruples are in- 
 tended to make us think, but not to make us waste all 
 our energy on thinking; they are intended to make us 
 pause, but not to make us stop ; they are intended to 
 make us repent, but not to make us give up everything 
 else to fruitless sorrow. And if we cannot attain peace 
 or light all at once, we must not for all that complain, 
 lag, or despair ; we must simply obey and wait. For we 
 may be sure that God hath not called us to bondage and 
 fear, but to the adoption of children whereby we have a 
 right to say, Abba Father. 
 
SERMON XI. 
 
 CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW. 
 
 ROMANS Vll. 12. 
 
 ' Wherefore the Lanv h holy, and the Commandment holy, and just, 
 and good^ 
 
 TT would certainly be a mistake to attribute to St. Paul 
 anything like a formed philosophical system. There is 
 no trace in his writings of what we should call a system 
 of doctrine ; he taught from the fulness of a full heart, 
 and precise formulae had not yet been rendered necessary 
 by errors or false teaching. The spirit of his teaching 
 is to him so much more than the form of it, that he 
 seems to disregard the form altogether. But a man pos- 
 sessed with his subject will often express himself in 
 precisely accurate language without intending it. And 
 still more likely will this be in the case of one to whom 
 God's truth has been directly revealed, and who describes 
 what has been shewn him. Even when there is no 
 demand on him for logical precision, he will often be 
 logically precise simply because he sees the whole truth, 
 and tells exactly what he sees. 
 
 The three epithets by which St. Paul characterises the 
 commandment or government of God appear to be an 
 
CHARACTER OF GOD'S LA IV. 
 
 instance of this. Ttiere is certainly no need for the 
 argument of the context that these epithets should be 
 exhaustive. But when examined they appear to be so. 
 It would be impossible to find three characteristics which 
 more fully describe God's supreme Law, the rule by 
 which all things are made and governed, than these three, 
 holy, good, and just. 
 
 These three characteristics are, in fact, the aspects 
 under which, and under which alone, the Law of God 
 is revealed to men, such as men are. What may be 
 the fitting description of that Law, as seen by God 
 Himself, we cannot say; but when we have called it 
 holy, good, and just, we have precisely defined its rela- 
 tions to ourselves. 
 
 We are compound beings, and our fall has made us 
 conscious of the fact. We have within us a higher 
 nature which is ever drawing us away from earth and 
 earthly enjoyment ; bidding us live not for this life but 
 for immortality ; bidding us take as the law of our 
 action, a law which shall last through all eternity ; bid- 
 ding us unite ourselves with the inhabitants of heaven; 
 bidding us reduce all our earthly and animal impulses 
 and aims to absolute subjection to a higher purpose. 
 Such a purpose we call a holy purpose ; such a life, if 
 we could but attain to it, we call a holy life. The Law 
 which corresponds to this higher nature we call a holy 
 Law. The Law is holy, because it is perpetually call- 
 ing on this part of our souls to rule our lives with 
 absolute supremacy ; because it is perpetually demand- 
 ing the expulsion of every thought and imagination 
 
92 CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW. [sERM. 
 
 which can sully or weaken this Divine gift. To be 
 untrue, to be impure, to be selfish, to be frivolous, are 
 inconsistent with this holiness of the Law. For the 
 holiness of the Law requires that all who know the 
 Law shall be holy like itself 
 
 Again, we have also a lower nature; not necessarily 
 evil, but yet distinctly belonging to a lower rank in 
 God's creation. We have appetites and passions of 
 various kinds perpetually demanding to be gratified, and 
 plainly meant to be gratified. We have bodily impulses 
 and social impulses, which lead us to seek for appro- 
 priate pleasures. And when we look out of ourselves 
 we find that God's creation is full of everything that 
 can meet the wants of this lower nature. The universe 
 abounds with pleasures, and no created thing that is 
 capable of pleasure is found to be out of all reach of 
 the pleasures of which it is capable. And if we turn 
 from nature to revelation, we find, running through the 
 Bible, from one end to another, a tenderness, a fulness 
 of love, a recognition of human feeling, an adaptation to 
 every variety of human need, which indicate that the 
 pleasures scattered through the creation are not intended 
 for our trial but for our enjoyment. Nor is this all. 
 The Bible teaches v/hat our experience of life could 
 not teach perhaps, but abundantly confirms, that even 
 what seems to contradict this love and this tenderness, 
 is but a further proof of it. Even the very pains which 
 we have to bear still are meant for our happiness, and 
 will work for our good. All- things work together for 
 good to them that love God. Trouble and anxiety, and 
 
XI.] CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW. 
 
 93 
 
 bodily pain, and keen disappointment, which would seem 
 to prove that our happiness is counted for nothing, yet 
 rightly understood are discovered to be means towards 
 that very happiness. Thus the Law of God, while it calls 
 on all men to be holy, provides also that all shall be happy. 
 And it is this that we call the goodness of the Law. 
 
 Goodness does not sit on so high, so awful a throne 
 as holiness. We reverence what is holy : we love what 
 is good. But goodness, if not so high, is larger. It 
 takes in not men only, but all living creatures. It lays 
 hold not of our conscience only, but of all our humanity. 
 It speaks not only in the whispers of the spirit, but 
 through every faculty of our being. It enters into our 
 souls by a thousand entrances. It surrounds us with 
 its own atmosphere. It draws us with cords — yea, even 
 with the cords of a man. And weak and sinful as we 
 are, it still follows us into our weakness and our sin, 
 and, taking the form of mercy, it speaks of hope to 
 the despairing, of healing to the wounded, of peace to 
 those that are haunted by remorse, of the promise made 
 to the thief on the Cross, and of the welcome given to 
 the prodigal son. 
 
 Were we perfect according to our degree, I do not 
 see how we should have any distinct perception of any 
 other characteristic of God's Law than these two. They 
 would exhaust our whole nature. But we have fallen, 
 and, in consequence of that fall, the two parts of our 
 being meant to be in harmony are perpetually at strife. 
 Happiness and holiness are not always identical. The 
 demands of our higher and our lower nature do not 
 
94 CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW. [sERM. 
 
 always agree. The lower nature is rebellious, and often 
 misuses that very goodness which has so abundantly 
 provided for its needs and its desires, to procure im- 
 mediate enjoyment at the expense of conscience. We 
 forget the requirement to be holy in the attempt to be 
 happy. And this discord must not be. And so the 
 Law assumes a third face, and declares itself to be just ; 
 and by virtue of its justice, it ever apportions the hap- 
 piness to the holiness, and the pain to the sin. By an 
 eternal decree the one is linked to the other. Hap- 
 piness and holiness cannot be parted; neither can 
 punishment and guilt. 
 
 Now it is plain that the revelation of the Law is made 
 to assist us in copying the pattern which is there set 
 before us. Let me describe to you the defect of cha- 
 racter which is the natural consequence of not being 
 fully impressed with each one of these three character- 
 istics of God's government of His creation. 
 
 A man may be deficient in a sense of the holi- 
 ness of the Law. Of course he who does not feel the 
 holiness of the Law will not fully feel its goodness, still 
 less its justice. Holiness, goodness, and justice are not 
 three distinct things, but three different sides of the same 
 thing. But it is quite possible for a man to lose the 
 due proportion between the three, and in so doing to 
 lower them all, and yet to retain one much more clearly 
 before him than the other two. So a man may still 
 have a strong though not so true a sense of the good- 
 ness of God's rule, though he has very much lost sight 
 of its holiness. The defect of such a man's character 
 
XI. I CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW. 
 
 95 
 
 is a tendency to be earthly : not always to be worldly, 
 but to be earthly. To have his hopes, his aims, his 
 labours bounded by this present life; to lose all hold 
 of the heavenly, unearthly side of religion ; to be much 
 more moral than devotional; to cut out all his duties 
 by an earthly pattern ; to be over-particular in demand- 
 ing that everything that he does shall have a use, and 
 to forget that in very many cases the highest use of a 
 good deed is the doing of it. A man of this sort is 
 tempted to call all unearthly tendencies fanatical. He 
 is content with the world as he finds it. He has no 
 aspirations; no longings to be ever purer, ever more 
 unselfish, ever truer. The outer life is more to him 
 than the inner. Sins of thought, unless they are very 
 gross, seem to him of Httle consequence unless they 
 lead to sins of act. He wishes to do what is right ; 
 but he has no desire to be ever more and more a child 
 of God. This is the form w^hich this character takes if 
 the man have lived a very decent and well-conducted 
 life. If, however, he has fallen into gross outward sins 
 at any time, he is ever after more taken up with keep- 
 ing himself out of these sins than with striving to at- 
 tain to a purer air of life. He relies on God's love; 
 he longs for forgiveness; he clings to his Saviour; but 
 while he longs for forgiveness, he thinks little of cleans- 
 ing. He feels the pain of not being reconciled to his 
 God; but he has little sense of the pollution which 
 sin leaves behind in the soul. He does not realise to 
 himself the impossibility of bringing a defiled soul into 
 the presence of God. This defect of character admits, 
 
c6 CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW. 
 
 SERM. 
 
 of course, of many degrees. But it is plain that such 
 a man is not fashioned on the highest type. His 
 service may be genuine as far as it goes, but it is 
 imperfect ; not only as all human service is imperfect, 
 in the execution, but imperfect in the very conception 
 and idea. 
 
 Again, a man may not have a strong sense of the 
 goodness of God's Law. Such a man, of course, has 
 but a poor and narrow idea of holiness. But still he 
 may have much more sense of that than of God's 
 goodness. The danger in this case is a tendency either 
 to narrowness, or to worse than narrowness, hardness. 
 Such a man cannot find anything here in this life which 
 at all falls in with his narrow creed. He not merely 
 recognises the unearthly character of true religion, but 
 he recognises no other. The pleasures provided in this 
 life, even the beauties which abound on every side of 
 us, seem to him to be intended for mere trials. He is 
 grateful to God; but he is grateful for one thing, and 
 for one thing only, that is for spiritual blessings. He 
 shuts himself out from much that is tender, much that 
 touches the heart, much that softens and blesses, because 
 he will not open his senses to receive the gifts of his 
 Maker. Such a man is often undeniably religious; so 
 religious that he does harm to weaker men by making 
 them identify religion with his narrowness of mind; so 
 religious that he makes many mourn that he will shut 
 them out from himself, and rob them of the aid which all 
 Christians ought to get from the presence of a good 
 man among them. But narrowness of this sort may go 
 
XI. 1 CHARACTER OF GOD' S LAW. 
 
 97 
 
 further. A man who strives to live by the law of holi- 
 ness without the help of the law of goodness, finds that 
 he cannot do it. If he is very humble this will merely 
 make him strive the harder. But there is a danger, 
 and a very real danger, lest when he finds that he can- 
 not raise himself up to the level of this unearthly life, 
 he will pull that level down to him, and so lower his 
 standard of holiness itself. 
 
 Lastly, a man may be wanting in a sense of the justice 
 of God's government. And perhaps for us imperfect 
 creatures this is the most dangerous deficiency of all. 
 Such an one generally shews his want by a weak desire 
 to bury the past. When he has done a very real wrong 
 he wishes to be forgiven, and have done with it, and 
 commence afresh, exactly as if nothing had happened. 
 He has no sense of a sin once done being a substantive 
 thing tied inevitably to substantive consequences. And 
 for this very reason he cannot feel any need for a 
 Redeemer or a redemption. That he should need any- 
 thing to be done for him, to enable him to stand in 
 the dread judgment of God, is never strongly present 
 to his soul. He can see something of the beauty of 
 holiness ; he can feel attracted by the goodness which 
 never deserts even the most sinful creature. But he 
 sees only one side of either of these. The holiness 
 which condemns every sinful act with an irrevocable 
 brand, a brand which only Almighty Power can remove, 
 and that only by a mysterious atonement, the true nature 
 of which the angels of heaven cannot fathom to the 
 bottom ; this holiness he does not understand. The 
 
 H 
 
98 CHARACTER OF GOD'S LAW, 
 
 goodness which pursues the sinner into the last recesses 
 of sin with the offer of the Hfe-blood of the Son of God, 
 and yet is so absolutely checked by a higher law that 
 it will never tolerate a single unforsaken sin ; this good- 
 ness he cannot understand. For to see these is to see 
 the justice in which they are comprised. Hence he 
 passes his life, as long as he has any religious life at 
 all, in vain attempts to do what cannot be done; to 
 cleanse his heart by forgetting its defilement, or at the 
 best by a weak sorrow. And so he never comes with 
 a full acknowledgment of his guilt to the foot of the 
 Cross, resigning soul and body to Him Who alone 
 can cleanse. 
 
 These three then are the characters of the law which 
 is to guide our life. By these we must form our own 
 characters. It has not always so direct and immediate 
 an effect upon our lives to contemplate in this way the 
 features of God's truth, as to think of special faults 
 which we are in danger of committing, or of special 
 graces which we have need to seek for. But such 
 truths as these if they sink into our hearts will not the 
 less bear fruit, if not immediately, yet long after. And 
 through them we are the better able to rise towards 
 the contemplation of that one character, in whom all 
 this is fulfilled, not in words, but in fact. Him who 
 reveals to us not God's Law only, but God's Person, 
 the Son of God, the Man Christ Jesus. 
 
SERMON XII. 
 
 ORIGINAL SIN, 
 
 ROMANS vii. 20. 
 
 ' Noav if I do that I rjuould not, it is no more I that do it, but sin 
 that dwelleth in me.^ 
 
 '\'\ THAT do we mean by Original Sin? We mean to 
 say that sin is not something \yhich has penetrated 
 into our nature from the outside ; that it is not a garment 
 thrown over our shoulders, which may therefore be 
 stripped off like a garment; that it is not the mere 
 result of evil example, or of any external influences 
 whatever; that it is not learnt like a lesson of evil, 
 nor caught like an infectious disease. It is a part of 
 our very selves. It has its springs in the very sources 
 of our being. It mingles its poison with the very first 
 beginnings of our life, whether spiritual or natural. It 
 cannot be cast off. It cannot be torn up by the roots. 
 It cannot be treated by any medicine which discipline, 
 or education, or example can supply. Penetrate into 
 a man as deep as you will, and you cannot reach its 
 origin; drill him almost into a machine, and you will 
 not kill the life of this fatal power. Nay, it sometimes 
 seems as if, by long drilling, you might kill everything 
 
 H 2 
 
100 ORIGINAL SIN. [SERM. 
 
 else: kill affection, and stifle impulse, and dry up the 
 imagination, and convert the reason itself into a mere 
 engine for producing arguments at need; and yet you 
 will not kill the inborn spirit of evil; some day, by 
 some accident, it is roused to unusual violence, and 
 bursts through all fetters, and reasserts its independence 
 as the last, but in this world imperishable, token of 
 humanity. 
 
 This is what we mean by Original Sin. The source 
 of this is another and a different question, which we need 
 not mix up with this. It may be not merely an interest- 
 ing, but even sometimes and to some minds a very pro- 
 fitable study to examine in what sense this mysterious 
 infection is connected with the history told us of our 
 first parents in the Garden of Eden. But this is not 
 the part of the doctrine of which I would now speak. 
 The essential point for us is, not how the sin came, but 
 the fact that it is there. There, deep within, rooted in 
 that spiritual nature whose issues we behold when we 
 look into our souls, but whose hidden substance God 
 only sees, — there, in the invisible, inscrutable depths of 
 our being, is the power of Original Sin. 
 
 It is this on which ultimately rests the doctrine of 
 justification by faith. When we say that we are justified 
 by faith, and not by works, we mean that the power 
 which is to bring us to God is not any human device, 
 however excellent or however useful; it is not instruc- 
 tion, or example, or exhortation, or education, though 
 all these have their part to play; it is not anything 
 that is to act upon our outer conduct, or that is to reach 
 
XII.] ORIGINAL sin: lOi 
 
 US through our senses ; it is the direct influence of God 
 and of God only. By faith as opposed to works, is 
 meant the inside as opposed to the outside, the spirit 
 as opposed to the letter, the heart and conscience as 
 opposed to a system of rules and of discipline, the gift 
 of God as opposed to the work of man. These various 
 influences which act upon us from without are excellent 
 in their place. They are, we may say, the work of the 
 husbandman on the soil. But they are all in vain unless 
 the seed have life in itself. No work of the husbandman 
 can make dead seed grow ; and so no work of man can 
 make a soul which had not God's grace into a servant 
 or a child of God. There is one power, and one only, 
 which can lay hands on the enemy with whom we are 
 coi^tending ; and that power is the power that first made 
 the soul itself. He who stands as it were behind the 
 secret fountains from which our being issues, He and 
 He alone can deal with this awful disease by which we 
 are all afflicted ; He and He alone can attack sin in 
 the very citadel of its dominion, and win the victory 
 which we could never win. Our justification must come 
 from Him, and therefore must begin with that which He 
 puts into us, that movement of the heart and conscience, 
 which we call faith; and cannot come from man nor 
 begin with what man can do for us, that is the regulation 
 and discipHne of our habits and our deeds, which is what 
 is meant by works. The regulation of the deeds is ex- 
 cellent, but it is still absolutely and always subordinate. 
 The real power which knits us to God and to Christ, 
 which enables us either quickly or by slow degrees to , 
 
102 ORIGINAL SIN. [SERM. 
 
 purify our hearts, which makes us victorious over trials 
 and temptations, is not man's training but God's inspira- 
 tion ; for God, and God only, can lay His hand on the 
 origin and source of our weakness. Man may do much 
 in his appointed way ; he may discipline the life so as 
 to break the force of many temptations ; he may evoke 
 from within what God hath planted; he may cherish 
 and foster those gifts and graces which God hath given ; 
 but the work of redemption must still be really God's 
 work and not man's; for God and not man can help 
 us against such an enemy as the sin which is in our 
 nature. 
 
 What, then, are the lessons of life which we have to 
 deduce from this doctrine.? First, of course, there is 
 that dependence upon God's help, which we can never 
 too often repeat to our hearts as our only stay. We 
 have to learn not merely as an abstract truth but as 
 a living fact, as a principle which will check and con- 
 trol and yet uphold our hearts throughout the day, 
 that we are in God's hands and not our own. We are 
 not the real combatants in the great battle ; rather our 
 souls are the battle-field, and Christ and sin fight there 
 for supremacy, and we can but surrender ourselves to 
 one of these two. We are weak and helpless, except 
 inasmuch as God may help us. It is by no means easy 
 to feel this, however easy it may be to see it. It is by 
 no means easy to arrive at that absolute consciousness 
 of our weakness which makes us litde children. And 
 many, perhaps most, Christians have to learn it by a 
 very painful experience, by the experience of repeatedly 
 
XII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 1 03 
 
 falling into sin, until it has been as it were branded into 
 us that our strength is absolutely nothing. Most men, 
 I say, have to learn the lesson so, because they will not 
 and cannot learn it otherwise. But plainly we ought to 
 learn it by impressing it upon our consciences, by habi- 
 tually distrusting ourselves, by habitually guarding against 
 everything like boasting, above all, by a habit of walking 
 through the world with a consciousness that God is 
 looking on us and willing to lead us. And if we would 
 ask what are the tokens of our having learnt the lesson, 
 the answer is, that besides the quiet trust in God, (about 
 which each must judge for himself,) the chief token of 
 our having learnt to lean on God and not on ourselves, 
 is the avoidance of all unnecessary temptation. The 
 man who goes into temptation in the way of duty may 
 well feel certain that God will help him ; for he may well 
 feel that God sent him, and that He who sent will also 
 protect. But any one who goes into temptation without 
 any need cannot feel this. He must rely, if he relies 
 on anything, on his own strength. And so he proves 
 that he has not yet learnt the truth — that his own 
 strength is a prop rotten at the foot, and incapable of 
 upholding him in any real trial. The humble Christian 
 — humbled by many defeats if not by the teaching of 
 the Bible — will so distrust himself that his life is con- 
 stantly, though secretly, checked by the same thought 
 which he expresses in the prayer, 'Lead us not into 
 temptation.' He will avoid what he has found dangerous 
 or hurtful. He will turn away his steps from the road 
 which is convenient for doing wrong; his hands from 
 
I04 ORIGINAL SIN. [sERM. 
 
 the book which has before now overcome his resolution ; 
 his eyes from the picture or the scenes which assail 
 his purity. For he knows that his enemy is one that 
 he cannot master, and he will therefore go nowhere 
 unless Christ will go with him. 
 
 But, secondly, as on the one hand we learn this abso- 
 lute dependence on God, so do we learn a great comfort 
 in our Christian warfare. We learn that there is a sense 
 in which we can, like the Apostle, disclaim our own 
 faults, and say as he did, 'It is not I that do it, but 
 sin that dwelleth in me.' No doubt there may be here 
 a great danger of abuse. There may be great danger 
 that we shall lightly pass over faults with the excuse that 
 they are our sinful nature, and not our own. But look 
 well into the Apostle's description and you can easily 
 see how we are to guard against such a mistake. The 
 question always is : Have we consented to them ? The 
 Apostle is here arguing that even, at the very best, man 
 cannot achieve his own freedom. No, not even when 
 he struggles against sin so earnestly that he can honestly 
 say, ' It is not I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' 
 Not even then can any human aid deliver us from the 
 body of this death. So in this passage the Apostle will 
 not allow us to use his words unless we can honestly 
 put ourselves in the position which he has supposed. 
 Can we honestly say that our sins were involuntary.? 
 There are some that we may fairly call by that name; 
 sins which slip from us in the surprise of the moment, 
 and which we would not have committed had we a mo- 
 ment more to think ; sins which we did not see the full 
 
XII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 105 
 
 nature of when we did them, and which we immediately 
 endeavour to set right as far as they can be set right; 
 sins which we are trying honestly to cure, but which are 
 still making a hard fight to retain their place ; such sins 
 as these we may very often say are really not our own. 
 And with regard to all these we may rightly feel that 
 God, for the sake of Christ, will wipe them all away, and 
 entirely forgive them. These are the tokens of that 
 fearful infirmity of our nature, whose origin we know 
 not; whose power over us Christ only, and the atone- 
 ment of Christ, and not we ourselves, can break down; 
 whose marks will remain with us as long as we live, but 
 whose fetters shall not hold us from coming to our God, 
 nor take away from us His love. Such sins are not 
 ours; they are the sin that dwelleth in us. And though 
 if we have any Christian feeling we must grieve over 
 them, and be pained at them, yet they ought not to 
 fill us with any unfilial fear, as if God would love us 
 no more, or would cast us away, or would refuse us His 
 aid, because we are not all at once what we ought to be. 
 In so far as we do not consent to our own faults, in so 
 far they are not our own ; in so far as we yield to them 
 they are ours. And God, who is greater than our heart 
 and knoweth all things, can see when we have honestly 
 striven, and assuredly will not deny His help to such 
 a struggle. 
 
 Lastly, there is one lesson more that belongs to this 
 doctrine. And that is, that we must not be disappointed, 
 or cast down, or disheartened, or sulky, because we find 
 our self-improvement very much slower than we expect 
 
io6 ORIGINAL SIN. [sERM. 
 
 or like. The evil to be cured is past human remedy. 
 God will cure it if we wish. But He will cure it in His 
 own way and at His own time. We must be content 
 to fight the batde in His name and in His strength, and 
 leave the issue in His hands. We must not complain 
 if a temptation, which we have had much trouble with, 
 becomes stronger instead of weaker. We must not com- 
 plain if we fall after we have begun to think ourselves 
 tolerably safe. We must not complain if we try all 
 manner of helps and aids and find them not enough. 
 We must not complain if we find that very earnest and 
 warm prayers are followed in a very few hours by feel- 
 ings so cold that we can hardly keep in the strait path 
 for want of impulse to do so ; if very sincere repentance is 
 followed by a sort of reaction which makes the fault seem 
 after all not nearly so bad as it did ; if very determined 
 resolutions gradually wear out until, when the moment 
 comes for acting on them, we even forget that we made 
 them. Such results we shall surely find ; for our enemy 
 can take many shapes and still retain his power; and 
 all our best endeavours will never repel him. God only 
 can really give the victory; and God assuredly will. 
 But God will not give it in the precise way that we ask 
 for it ; for He knows better than we can know the best 
 way and the best time. And hence it is, that beyond all 
 other graces, the grace of perseverance is the one to 
 which victory is promised: that perseverance which en- 
 ables us in spite of disappointment in ourselves, and of 
 seeing no fruit of all our endeavours, and of coldness 
 in the heart, and of poorness in the devotions, still to 
 
XII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 107 
 
 continue in the path which He has commanded; that 
 perseverance shall one day be acknowledged as a title 
 to His love, and a proof of our being His children. 
 
 These are the lessons which I would draw from the 
 doctrine of Original Sin, and I would sum them all up 
 in this : Cast all your care upon God, for God careth 
 for you. It is, no doubt, to knit us more closely to God 
 that the doctrine is revealed at all. The true life of the 
 soul is to be found in union with its Maker. Whatever 
 thoughts, whatever truths bring us in spirit to Christ and 
 lead us to join our hearts to Him ; whatever casts before 
 us the shield of His memory, and supports us by the sense 
 of His presence ; whatever makes it easier for us to put 
 ourselves in mind of Him, to feel that He is looking 
 at us, to dedicate to Him both our daily work as His 
 appointment, and our daily pleasures as His gift; what- 
 ever brings us to the foot of that Cross on which He 
 finished the work of our salvation, these things, brethren, 
 must be good and profitable; think therefore on these 
 things. 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 SINS OF SURPRISE. 
 
 ST. LUKE xxii. 62. 
 * And Peter ivent out and ivept bitterly.^ 
 
 'T'HE sin of St. Peter, which was read to us in the 
 Second Lesson of this morning, is the most marked 
 instance that we have in the Bible of a peculiar and very 
 trying class of sins, sins of surprise. There can be no 
 question at all that St. Peter was a really brave man. 
 Long before his fall he had shewn this when, seeing our 
 Lord walking on the water, he had exclaimed, ' Lord, bid 
 me come unto Thee on the water.' The confident de- 
 claration that he was ready to follow our Lord to prison, 
 and even to death, was not the boast of a vaunting coward 
 covering a faint heart with bold words ; nor was it even 
 the fooHsh self-confidence of one who did not know him- 
 self. He came armed to the Garden of Gethsemane, and 
 prepared to use his weapon. Weak as the band of dis- 
 ciples was, he plainly was quite prepared to head them in 
 defending his Master against the Jewish soldiers ; and 
 when Judas had betrayed our Lord, and the soldiers were 
 going to arrest Him, St. Peter commenced resistance, and, 
 
SIJVS OF SURPRISE. 
 
 109 
 
 no doubt, would have persisted in it but for our Lord's 
 own command. Here there was no lack of courage. 
 Nor, again, was there in his following our Lord into the 
 Palace of the High Priest, impelled by eager interest to 
 know what would happen to the Master Whom he loved. 
 Why then did he fall 1 Why did he fall in spite of precise 
 warning .? Why did he use almost the very words which 
 our Lord had told him he would, which he himself had 
 said he would not utter ? ' Woman, I know Him not.' 
 Plainly, because he was taken by surprise. He did 
 expect temptation ; but not there ; not then ; not from 
 that quarter. Suddenly, as he was listening with eager 
 interest to the trial going on in the remote part of the 
 hall ; when he had forgotten all about himself, and all 
 about his own danger, and all about his own temptation, 
 a maid looks him in the face and says, ' Thou art also 
 of them.' The answer rises to the Hps before the will 
 has time to act : ' Woman, I know Him not.' It was a 
 lie ; a He all the more base because he had been warned 
 against it ; because our Lord was just in the circumstances 
 to need the testim.ony and moral support of friends ; 
 because, above all, he must have known that if there was 
 one thing which would add to our Lord's burden of woe 
 at that moment it must have been the lie of a loved 
 follower. No foresight of the sin could prevent that 
 wound from going deep, even to the very heart ; no sense 
 of the sins of the world in general, or of the fierce Jewish 
 authorities then standing round, could blunt the feeling of 
 being betrayed and deserted by such a cherished follower. 
 But all this which St. Peter must have known and felt, 
 
no SINS OF SURPRISE. [sERM. 
 
 not as much certainly as our Lord knew and felt it, but 
 yet quite enough to take away all excuse of ignorance, 
 all this was not enough to check the ready lie, which 
 seemed at the moment the only escape. Once the first 
 lie was told, we hardly need to ask why the second and 
 third followed? He seems at first to have hastened to 
 the door, and then to have been challenged again; he 
 repeated the sin ; indeed he had not, perhaps, had time 
 to recover his nerves; but afraid of being arrested, or 
 whatever else he feared, he turned back once more to the 
 crowd round the fire and remained quiet for some time 
 undistinguished among the others. But about an hour 
 after, when time had lessened his alarm, he began again 
 to enter into the conversation, and again he is suddenly 
 and unexpectedly crossed by the assertion that his speech 
 proved him a Galilean, and that he was, no doubt, one of 
 the party. Who that has ever been surprised into wrong 
 has not also experienced this second, or even third, sur- 
 prise following so soon .? Who has not felt something 
 almost like indignation that the temptations should come 
 so thick upon him } Who has not felt something like 
 anger that the very same trial should be repeated within 
 so short a time .? Our being warned does not prevent our 
 being taken by surprise ; no, nor our having lately fallen ; 
 no, nor our having felt deep shame and self-reproach : 
 sometimes that very shame and self-reproach may so 
 absorb our attention as to make it still more easy to sur- 
 prise us than before. Brave as he was, St. Peter had 
 stumbled into an act of cowardice — of base cowardice ; 
 and he did not see his way out. We may fancy him 
 
XIII.] SIA'S OF SURPRISE. 1 1 1 
 
 going back to the fire in bitter anger with himself, ner- 
 vously silent at first, and then, perhaps, joining in the 
 talk about his Master, and, perhaps, even venturing to say 
 something in His defence, when the eyes of all are sud- 
 denly turned upon him by the random reply of one whom 
 he was contradicting. This last time was enough. He 
 caught our Lord's look turned on him from the other end 
 of the room, and hastened out and wept bitterly. 
 
 These sins of surprise have given rise to the remark, 
 that almost every great saint in the Bible is recorded to 
 have fallen into the very sin from which his character 
 seemed likely to guard him. Closes, the meekest of all 
 men upon the earth, whom hardly even God's own com- 
 mand could encourage to put himself forward as the 
 leader of God's people, burst out into the arrogant excla- 
 mation, * Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water 
 out of this rock.?' David, the tenderest of all hearts, is 
 betrayed into committing murder. Solomon, the wisest 
 of all intellects, stoops to the folly of idolatry. Such 
 falls as these are almost always, in the first instance, sins 
 of surprise. The very fact that our nature abhors such 
 sins, or that we have completely subdued them, throws 
 us off our guard. We should be startled if we were on 
 the verge of doing some wrong which we had but half 
 subdued. Our consciences would warn us with a sharp 
 pang that we were running into danger. But sins which 
 we have never yet been tempted to commit, or which we 
 have not committed for very long, seem to have nothing 
 in them to frighten us. And so we are tripped up before 
 our enemy is in sight. You have, perhaps, by nature a 
 
1 1 2 SIA^S OF SURPRISE. [sERM. 
 
 mild temper, or, perhaps, by hard struggles you have so 
 subdued it that you do not ever think of that as a serious 
 danger. Suddenly you are annoyed, apparently without 
 any reason at all, and when you had not expected it; and 
 before you quite know what you have done, your self- 
 command has deserted you. You have, perhaps, learnt to 
 be steady in doing the duties of the day ; you are known 
 to yourself and others to be punctual and careful. But 
 suddenly some seduction which you had never thought of 
 steps in, and you have wasted your time before you have 
 reali*zed the fact that you were doing so. These are the 
 temptations of every day. But there are much darker 
 ones possible, and alas ! not only possible, but not rare. 
 How very common, for instance, is this very temptation 
 under which St. Peter fell; a sudden temptation to 
 untruth. How common is the temptation to say what 
 will shake the friendship of years ; a misunderstood word 
 or look makes you utter what you can never forget, and 
 what you would give worlds to recall. How common is 
 the temptation to fleshly sins — such as greediness, or 
 even worse ; the temptation coming so unexpectedly as 
 to carry away the will for the moment, as some bursting 
 torrent sweeps away an obstacle in its path. 
 
 Now such sins as these will often make a Christian 
 sadly ask why they are permitted ! It is impossible not 
 to feel that they are not all our own. We are not respon- 
 sible for them at all in the same sense in which we are 
 responsible for habitual sins or for deliberate sins. A 
 deliberate sin obviously stands on a footing of its own. 
 No man's conscience will look back on a planned and 
 
XIII.] SAVS OF SURPRISE. 1 1 3 
 
 intentional piece of wickedness, or carelessness of plain 
 duty, and say it was the fault of the temptation, not of 
 the man. And habitual sins, though they sometimes 
 seem like a series of sins of surprise, yet are not so really, 
 and our conscience readily distinguishes them. For habi- 
 tual sins always settle down into definite tracks which we 
 can avoid if we choose. They always give us the oppor- 
 tunity to provide against them by proper precautions. 
 We can avoid the temptations which we know will bring 
 them. We can anticipate almost the precise moment 
 when the temptation will come. We know pretty accu- 
 rately the shape which the temptation will take. For 
 such sins we are fully responsible, and we know it. 
 They are known and open enemies whom it is our special 
 business to fight, and whom we can certainly and shall 
 certainly defeat. But the true sins of surprise seem more 
 than any others to realise St. Paul's words, ' It is no more 
 I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' Why are these 
 permitted to torment us, and what are we to do with 
 them ? Of course when we ask why they are permitted 
 to torment us, we do not mean to deny that if we were 
 what we ought to be, they would not, indeed they could 
 not, be permitted. If we were as truly servants of Christ 
 as we are all pledged to be, such temptations would never 
 lead us beyond mere mistakes, would never lead us 
 into downright sin at all. It is by laying hold of some 
 weak point that such sins usually prevail against us. 
 Look at St. Peter's courage. Was it yet perfect.? He 
 was ready, no doubt, for prison and for death. But it is 
 plain that when he said that, he did not mean such a 
 
 I 
 
114 SINS OF SUJiFRISE. [sERM. 
 
 death as our Lord's ; he meant a hard-fought fight, and 
 death either in battle or in all the glory of martyrdom for 
 an honoured cause. But death without a stroke struck 
 for the right, the death of a common felon, death on the 
 gallows with all the ignominy that would attend it, and 
 without the consciousness of having first fought a noble 
 fight, for that he was not ready, for that he had not 
 courage. So he fell because his truth and his courage 
 were not truly sound. There was still mixed in them 
 much that was unheavenly, much that was selfish. This 
 is almost always the case with such sins. They are too 
 much for us, because the very best parts in our character 
 so very often have something in them unsound. Now 
 this will answer our question. For such temptations are 
 expressly and plainly intended to test the unsoundness 
 of our armour. We are apparently free from some fault : 
 either we were free born, or we have set ourselves free 
 in the spiritual battle. But is our freedom complete : are 
 we really free ? What is it that we care for, the thing or 
 the appearance? There is no test like a sudden and 
 quite unexpected trial. This probes a man to the very 
 quick. It puts him out of all the shifts by which he may 
 have hitherto either rightly avoided the trial, or wrongly 
 covered his yielding to it. It forces him to grapple with 
 the enemy. But the trial does not end because the man 
 is defeated. A second trial then begins, quite as hard 
 or harder. You have fancied yourself free. A sudden 
 temptation has proved to yourself and to others that you 
 are not so free as you thought and seemed. And now 
 what will you do with the discovery? You have been 
 
XIII.] SIA'S OF SURPRISE. 1 1 
 
 surprised into violence of temper, into injustice, into 
 indulgence of the body, into a lie. What will you do ? 
 Have you still left behind the Christian humility, and the 
 Christian manliness, which accept the shame and strive to 
 be more careful for the future ? Your weakness is exposed. 
 You can no longer challenge the respect of your fellow- 
 men in the same way that you might have done before. 
 You can no longer feel that though your own conscience 
 may lay much, your fellows can lay little to your charge. 
 If you really did not care for being, but only for being 
 thought, good, all that you cared for is gone. You may 
 win a second reputation, a higher reputation in the eyes 
 of the true Judge, but it will be a different reputation, 
 no longer one that will enable you secretly, and almost 
 without your own knowledge, to foster anything like pride. 
 You will for a long time feel that you are not where you 
 once were. If you really cared to be and not merely to 
 seem, you will humbly and quietly do your best, and look 
 upon your fall, so far as it is your own, as a thing to be 
 guarded against and mended, and so far as it comes from 
 God, as a merciful revelation to you of your own true 
 nature. But, meanwhile, you will be tempted to sullen- 
 ness, you will be tempted to recklessness, you will be 
 tempted to apathy. And if you yield you will, indeed, 
 make the first fall all your own by working it into your 
 nature. 
 
 This, however, is not all that is to be said of such 
 sins of surprise. They are particularly the sins which 
 St. Paul commends to the care of Christian friends : * If 
 any man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual 
 
 I 2 
 
]i6 SI.VS OF SURPRISE. 
 
 restore such an one in the spirit of meekness/ It is by 
 these sins of surprise that a man is rightly said to be 
 overtaken. It is from the consequences of such sins 
 that any really Christian society can do much to save its 
 members. And how? — Chiefly by not judging harshly. 
 Society in such matters is generally right in the abstract 
 rule, but wrong in applying it to individual cases. Society 
 is always ready to acknowledge the repentance of one 
 who has steadily faced all the consequences of wrong- 
 doing, and has never allowed those consequences to 
 turn him from his purpose of repenting. But these are 
 the strong, who hardly want any help at all. It is the 
 weak soul that has fallen into sin partly from surprise, 
 partly from weakness, that really needs the help of fellow- 
 Christians. And that help must be given by intimate 
 friends, and by older or stronger Christians. And it must 
 be given by shewing a sympathy with the pain which such 
 sins bring in their consequence, by shewing a readiness 
 to welcome every effort towards repentance, by eagerness 
 to judge as favourably as it is possible to judge, by a 
 generous forgetfulness of whatever is plainly forsaken ; in 
 short, by giving that sort of help which each man's con- 
 science will tell him would be best for himself in the same 
 circumstances; not a help to think lightly of what is 
 wrong, but a help to be braver and firmer in doing right ; 
 that help which restores self-respect, and revives hope, and 
 unites the fallen to the company of his fellows. 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW V. 1 9. 
 
 * Whosoe'ver therefore shall break one of these least commandments^ 
 and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the 
 kingdom of heauen.^ 
 
 INDIFFERENCE about little duties; indifference about 
 little faults ; a sort of laxity and carelessness about our 
 lives ; a perpetual stepping on the verge, or just over the 
 verge of evil; this is what our Lord here speaks of as 
 reducing even Christians to the lowest rank, and robbing 
 them of their true place. He is speaking not to wilful 
 sinners but to careless disciples ; not to men who had lost 
 their hold on God's law and God's love altogether ; but 
 to men who, to use St. Paul's words, run uncertainly, and 
 fight as one that beateth the air. Carelessness may go so 
 far as to forfeit a man's place entirely ; it always lowers a 
 man's place, and, as our Lord says here, makes him the 
 least in the kingdom, even when it does not eject him 
 from it. To say this to an unbeliever, to one who has 
 no real love for Christ, would indeed be useless. There 
 are men w^ho would reply at onp e : * So as I am only 
 saved, I care not whether I be high or low/ Such men 
 
Il8 LITTLE TILINGS. [sERM. 
 
 shew by their reply that they are beyond the limit of the 
 argument. To them these words are not said. To such 
 men we must award a different sentence. Their careless- 
 ness has gone so far that they are not in the Kingdom of 
 Heaven at all. A man who really feels that so as he is 
 saved, he cares not whether he pleases God much or 
 little, such a man may take it for granted that in his 
 present state of mind he is not saved. He is not the 
 least in the Kingdom of Heaven ; he is outside the king- 
 dom altogether. To him these words have no meaning. 
 But to the Christian who is in earnest, yet careless not- 
 withstanding ; to the Christian who loves God, and loves 
 God's law, and feels the power of conscience, but does 
 not love enough to be strict with himself, these words 
 are a warning. Carelessness always drags a man down ; 
 and if carelessness increase till it become a consistent 
 principle of action, it drags a man down to the lowest 
 place ; and when a man is there, obviously enough there 
 needs only a little more movement in the same direction 
 to thrust him quite out. To break little commandments 
 is bad ; to do so consciously is worse ; to do so avow- 
 edly and to defend it, to maintain it as a principle 
 before others, this is worst of all; when we come to 
 that we are at the lowest, and are at the point of falling 
 away. 
 
 Now, of course our Lord does not mean here deliberate 
 sins. He means just those little, hardly noticed trifles, 
 which make up a very large part of our lives; which 
 determine to a very large extent the complexion of our 
 characters; which conscience clearly enough decides in 
 
XIV.] LITTLE THINGS. 119 
 
 one way and not in the other way ; but any one of which 
 taken alone seems hardly worth considering. The uncon- 
 trolled tongue; the slight neglect of strict duty; the 
 wandering eye in the House of God; the wandering 
 thought at public prayer ; the careless utterance of private 
 devotions ; the giving way now to a slight fit of temper ; 
 now to a slight fit of laziness; now to an impulse of 
 conceit ; now to the momentary indulgence of an impure 
 thought; such things as these may be very slight, each 
 taken by itself. As we pass through these temptations 
 we are inclined to make very little of them. What great 
 harm if we are overcome in so mere a trifle t What is 
 the good of being so excessively particular } Is it really 
 consistent with the liberty of the Gospel to be always 
 watching our way .? Do we not see after all not a few 
 who are very strict with themselves, and yet are not so 
 true, not so solid, not so real, as others who move more 
 freely .? Is not this scrupulousness a mere mistake .? And 
 so we persuade ourselves, and persuade others too, that 
 it is not a bad thing, that it is, perhaps, even a good 
 thing to break these least commandments. But not so 
 saith our Lord. 
 
 There is of course a strictness which is a mere mis- 
 take ; there is a strictness which interferes with the liberty 
 of the Gospel. The exaggeration of this strictness was 
 seen in the Pharisee. And though nothing is ever re- 
 peated in the world, and Pharisaism having once appeared 
 and passed away cannot ever return precisely as it was, 
 yet of course the same spirit is possible still. But there 
 is no mistake about the true nature of this kind of 
 
I20 LITTLE THINGS. [sERM. 
 
 strictness ; it can be known by infallible marks. It puts 
 the mere rule above the principle ; expediency above kind- 
 ness ; a dead law above the true human impulses. It was 
 that which taught man that it was not right to heal on 
 the Sabbath; that giving to God's treasury was better 
 than succouring parents; that the sanctity of oaths de- 
 pended on the form in which they were taken; that 
 eating unclean meats was a greater defilement than think- 
 ing bad thoughts. There is no mistaking the kindred to 
 which such doctrines as these belong. Indeed such strict- 
 ness as this is not merely a mistake; it is peculiarly 
 blinding. A strictness which hardens the human feelings 
 is sure to be evil. 
 
 And there is yet another strictness which may rightly 
 be called a mistake; that is, not the strong self-willed 
 strictness of the Pharisee, but the weak cowardly strict- 
 ness of the morbid. There is such a thing as not recog- 
 nising God's abundance of love, and fancying that it is a 
 pleasure to Him to see us refusing pleasures. He is our 
 Father ; but we are sometimes tempted, in morbid states 
 of mind, to feel towards Him as if He were rather our 
 Taskmaster, and as if He did not delight in the enjoy- 
 ment of His creatures. We shrink from thinking that it 
 pleases Him to see us happy ; and so we deny ourselves 
 what He puts within our reach, not in order to train and 
 harden ourselves, which would be a very good reason, 
 but from a sort of feeling that all enjoyment is somewhat 
 sinful in its nature, which is a mistake. This kind of 
 strictness is not so much to be blamed as to be pitied ; 
 yet it certainly is a mistake. But this, too, has its marks. 
 
XIV.] LITTLE TILINGS. 1 21 
 
 Any strictness which sours our temper, which makes us 
 dislike our fellow-creatures, which shuts us up in our- 
 selves; or, again, any which interferes with our duties, 
 and oppresses us with little fidgety difficulties, instead 
 of carrying us along in obeying the laws of our state 
 of life, is almost certain to be a morbid strictness. The 
 object of all strictness is to fence duties round, so as 
 to make their performance more sure, and to fence our 
 heart round, so as to make the feelings more human and 
 so more heavenly; and if our strictness do not give us 
 these results, we must look to it that wt are not making 
 some great blunder. 
 
 But after making these deductions, and allowing that 
 these two kinds of strictness in hfe are mistakes and 
 ought to be discouraged, the substantial truth still remains, 
 that he who would do good service must be strict with 
 himself, and the man who is not strict will surely sink 
 into the lowest place, and may sink out of Christ's 
 kingdom altogether. 
 
 There are two blessings which are especially attached 
 to strictness of life. One is cheerfulness, the other is 
 security. 
 
 Just at first sight we might look on cheerfulness as 
 more likely to be found with the free and careless life 
 than with the strict and watchful. But there cannot be 
 a greater mistake. Strictness is the indispensable con- 
 dition of cheerfulness. I do not mean of mirth and 
 gaiety, of course. Boisterous spirits may often enough 
 be found in one who lives carelessly. But these boister- 
 ous spirits are quite compatible with much unhappiness. 
 
122 LITTLE THINGS. [serm. 
 
 The uniform calm and cheerfulness which lights up the 
 face of a true Christian, the happy expression of coun- 
 tenance, the sunshine on the brow, — these are never to 
 be found where the life is not careful. I do not mean at 
 all that strictness will always make a man cheerful. God 
 sometimes permits His truest servants to be afflicted with 
 depression of spirits for many reasons. But, assuredly, 
 though you may sometimes see strictness of life without 
 cheerfulness of spirits, you never see cheerfulness of 
 spirits without strictness of life. 
 
 And if you think of it, this stands to reason. What 
 is so depressing as the perpetual recurrence of small 
 pangs of remorse ? The careless man is never free from 
 some litde thing which embitters his religious happiness. 
 He cannot approach God without a constant sense of 
 not having really tried to please Him. He always carries 
 about with him a sense of having neglected his Lord's 
 wishes. A great sin is something to be definitely repented 
 of, and the sorrow of penitence seems to bring a man 
 close to Him who alone can forgive sins and take away 
 sorrows. But to have no one definite thing to repent of, 
 only a general sense of having neglected God's love 
 altogether, how can that fail to stand between us and 
 Him.? Cheerfulness, to be true and lasting, and not 
 a mere passing flush of high spirits, must come from 
 within, not from without. How can any one find cheer- 
 fulness within who is conscious of being neglectful of 
 himself, and careless of his Master's work .? The care- 
 less Christian is sure to be discontented with himself. 
 He is never what he feels he might be. He just takes 
 
XIV.] LITTLE TILINGS. 123 
 
 off all the beauty and grace from his service, and so 
 robs himself of the very thing which would make that 
 service happy. And he has, too, a perpetual sense that 
 he makes a dear bargain. The little irksomeness of 
 being strict is nothing to the great irksomeness of being 
 displeased with his own life. The man who has been 
 a great sinner is sad; but the careless Christian is 
 gloomy; and gloom is a heavier burden than sadness 
 by far. 
 
 The other special blessing of strictness, namely, secu- 
 rity, follows partly from the first. For there is no greater 
 danger to a religious life than gloom. If you find religion 
 gloomy, the temptation to find brightness in some other 
 direction becomes enormously strengthened. Religion 
 seems to present no satisfying pleasures ; so a man seeks 
 satisfaction in what is distinctly wrong. But besides this 
 it is quite obvious that the careless Christian is like a 
 man who never allows himself a margin in guiding his 
 course. No failure is more certain in the end than 
 that of the merchant who makes his calculations on 
 the supposition that he will never make a false specu- 
 lation, and allows himself no reserve for a time of 
 reverses. No defeat is more certain in the end than 
 that of the general who invariably hazards all, and 
 never counts on even a partial repulse. And certainly 
 the same rule applies to religious life. Some day 
 or other, in your carelessness of how you live, you 
 come into a sudden torrent of temptation, and are 
 swept away. 
 
 It is quite natural that now, at the beginning of a new 
 
124 LITTLE TILINGS. [SERM. 
 
 half-year, we should begin with new resolves. We will 
 brace ourselves up. We will make this half-year a de- 
 cided improvement on the last. We will not neglect 
 the many blessings that Christ pours down upon us in a 
 place like this. We will make this half-year a little better 
 at any rate, even if we fail in making it much better. 
 We will not allow our consciences to reproach us so 
 severely again. In God's name we will win the victory. 
 Is not this the hope of many a Christian when he gets 
 an opportunity of making a new start } Now, then, let 
 me add to these resolutions this word of warning, Despise 
 not small things. Try to make your service strict and 
 careful. No doubt the bent of your will is chiefly shewn 
 in the great duties ; but the sense of love and of wishing 
 to be loved is chiefly shewn in the small duties. The 
 son who would win his father's heart, the son who is 
 full of his mother's love, shews this not so much in great 
 sacrifices : these may often come from other motives : 
 but in little attentions, in smafl unobserved sacrifices, in 
 secret kindnesses, in hidden devotions. Of course it 
 would be foolish to invert the proper order of duty and 
 to put the little above the great, and the ornament as 
 it were above the substance. But let each have its place. 
 The great sterling duties, the exact truth of word, the 
 resolute refusal to countenance wrong, the command of 
 temper, the mastery of indolence, the unstained purity, — 
 these, and such as these, form the character, and fashion 
 our souls into instruments in God's hands for high and 
 heavenly purposes in His Providence. But the careful- 
 ness over details, the watchfulness against faults which 
 
LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 we know to be faults, but which, notwithstanding, seem 
 venial, the devout regularity and attention in our private 
 prayers, the invariable good-humour of our manners, the 
 seeking for occasions of kindness and unselfishness, the 
 avoidance of little temptations, the care not to cause 
 little annoyances and little troubles, — to attend to all 
 this for the sake of Christ our Master is the natural 
 and fitting expression of a loving heart. And such 
 love is always repaid ten thousand- fold. It is repaid in 
 itself, for the consciousness of it is one of the greatest 
 of all blessings ; but it is repaid still more by the ever- 
 growing sense of belonging to Him to Whom all this is 
 offered. Servants and subjects offer labour, but only 
 children come near enough to offer trifles. If we would 
 be children, we must love like children, and choose any- 
 thing rather than to be least in the love of our Father. 
 
SERMON XV. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 PROV. XXVll. 17. 
 
 ^Iron sharpeneth iron : so a man sharpeneth the countenance 
 of his frieyid.^ 
 
 'T^HESE words express what one friend should be to 
 ■^ another ; a whetstone to give keenness to the edge of 
 his energy. And this use of friendship, valuable under 
 all circumstances and in all undertakings that belong 
 to earth, does not lose its value in the service of Christ. 
 In that service too a friend can encourage his friend, 
 when duty is difficult, or wearisome, or painful; can 
 comfort his friend when the discharge of duty has 
 brought painful consequences, as it very often will ; can 
 advise his friend when there are real or fancied per- 
 plexities in the path ; can help his friend to repent when 
 repentance has become a necessity. In that service, 
 more than in any other, the conviction of a true heart 
 and thorough sympathy close at hand is the greatest 
 help that any man can have. But it is undeniable that 
 friendship is too often made the stepping-stone to the 
 worst falls, and that many a sinner has his friends, 
 perhaps his dearest and most intimate friends, to thank 
 for his having fallen into sins which, left to himself, he 
 
FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 127 
 
 would have shrunk from with horror. God has mer- 
 cifully hedged round most sins with many barriers. 
 There is first the barrier which, while it lasts, is so 
 very powerful, and when it has once been broken down, 
 can never be set up again — the barrier of ignorance. We 
 are tempted — sorely tempted ; but, fortunately for our- 
 selves, we are as yet quite ignorant how the desire that 
 tempts us can be gratified. The sin may be in itself 
 perfectly easy, but from pure ignorance the way to it 
 seems to us inaccessible ; and so the wrong desire dies 
 out from mere hopelessness. This ignorance of inno- 
 cence cannot last, and is not meant to last. It is the 
 protection of childhood, and is intended to fall away 
 from our eyes as we grow older. But the natural way 
 for us to attain the knowledge of evil, which must come 
 some day or other, is simply by the experience of life. 
 Instead of that, how very often do we gain an unhealthy 
 acquaintance with a needless knowledge from the lips 
 and example of friends. Instead of learning evil when 
 we are strong enough to resist it, when we are in cir- 
 cumstances not to be allured by it, how often is the 
 unholy revelation made in conjunction with the very 
 worst incentives to give way to temptation. A friend 
 teaching his friend the way to sin is the most shocking 
 use of friendship that can be imagined. And yet it 
 is not uncommon : not uncommon from mere thought- 
 lessness; the thoughtlessness of the soul that having 
 plunged into evil thinks little of seeing another plunge 
 after him. 
 
 The second barrier in the way to evil is shame. And 
 
128 FRIENDSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 if a friend takes away the first, how still more often does 
 he help to take' away the second. This shame is not 
 like ignorance ; it is not merely a shield thrown by God 
 around our childhood ; it is part of the defensive armour 
 which we are to wear through life. It is deeply worked 
 into our very nature. And even after it has been torn 
 away, it may yet be replaced, and indeed, if we are to 
 be God's children, it must be replaced. But for a time 
 it may often be torn away; and who has the same 
 power of tearing it away as a friend } A friend may 
 do worse than tear it away; he may turn it against 
 the truth, and may make us ashamed of doing right 
 instead of ashamed of doing wTong. We are con- 
 stantly restrained in evil by an unwillingness to expose 
 the evil to other eyes. What a change comes over 
 us as soon as we have discovered that the eyes of 
 whose contempt or disapproval we were afraid, have no 
 contempt or disapproval for evil, but rather for good. 
 But still more fatal is the countenance of the friend who 
 supports us against the call to repentance. For times 
 come when shame bids us repent; perhaps the shame 
 of our own consciences ; perhaps the shame called up 
 by the presence of others : and then a friend who stands 
 by to encourage us to bear and not to yield to shame; 
 is worse than the worst enemy that we can ever have. 
 
 And then as the soul goes on from one sin to another, 
 there is yet another, a third, powerful barrier which 
 checks its folly : the affection that we feel for parents, 
 for home, for those natural friends whom God's Pro- 
 vidence has given us. And this, too, a friend is better 
 
XV.] FRIENDSHIP. 129 
 
 able than any one else to break through. A friend can 
 supply us with another affection near at hand to take 
 the place of that distant affection on which we are turning 
 our backs. A friend's voice can check the whispers of 
 memory and of true love. A friend can shew as much, 
 perhaps more self-devotion, more generous preference, 
 more sympathy, more warmth, in helping us along in 
 wrong than we ever found anywhere in helping us to 
 keep to the right. 
 
 Such is what friendship may do. And the worst of 
 it is, that the friendship which does all this, which en- 
 lightens us with bad knowledge, which helps us to 
 conquer shame, which helps to break down the affection 
 which God has blessed, is by no means insincere or 
 selfish. It is very often really generous, really hearty 
 and unselfish and devoted, really true in its sympathy 
 and warm in its affection. It is to this truth and warmth 
 that it owes its power ; for whenever a hollow and false 
 friendship would lead us astray, it does not lead us nearly 
 so far without being found out. This friendship does 
 not lead us into evil with any wish to do us harm, but 
 simply for the sake of our companionship. The friend 
 who indulges in wrong pleasures wishes his friend to 
 share them, not because they are wrong, but because 
 they are pleasures, and because he wants companionship. 
 And he thinks little of the mischief that he is doing to 
 his friend, precisely in the same way that he thinks little 
 of the mischief that he is doing to himself. 
 
 But this makes it all the more shocking. It is shock- 
 ino: that what is in itself so beautiful, so excellent, should 
 
1 30 FRIENDSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 be perverted to such deadly mischief. And it is still more 
 shocking to think how very often a little strength of mind 
 in either one friend or the other would prevent the mis- 
 chief altogether. You who have yielded so readily to 
 your friend's persuasion, and have joined him in doing 
 wrong because he pressed it on your friendship, you 
 know not how many times a very litde resistance would 
 have saved both him and yourself; you know not how 
 many times he was hesitating already, and would have 
 drawn back altogether if you had but given him an 
 opening to do so ; you know not how often, at the 
 very time he was arguing with you, he was in reality 
 arguing with his own conscience, and might have been 
 turned back with ease if you had not given way ; you 
 know not how often the apparent tempter has been the 
 tempted, and he has led only because he knew you would 
 follow, — he has been unable to resist the tacit flattery 
 of your being willing to follow him, and had you refused 
 that would have found no pleasure in the evil indulgence. 
 It is sometimes, but not often, the duty of a true friend 
 openly to find fault with his friend. And when that duty 
 comes, a servant of Christ must not be so cowardly as 
 to flinch from it. But the occasion is very rare. In most 
 cases all that is wanted is to hold to the right, and you 
 will do more towards holding your friend to the right 
 than by all manner of exhortations. It is almost im- 
 possible to over-estimate the power with which a quiet 
 and resolute obedience to conscience will prove an 
 anchor to a friend even more than to a man's own 
 self. But if we can add to that the cheerfulness which 
 
XV.] FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 131 
 
 brightens all the troubles of the day as they come, the 
 simplicity which never leaves room for suspecting a hid- 
 den purpose, the generosity which never judges hardly 
 but always interprets all things in their best sense, — such 
 a friend as that is, more than almost anything else that 
 this world can give, a help to a Christian life. 
 
 I believe that there are few things which can give 
 acuter pain to the soul in after years than the memory 
 of friends misled by our friendship. To see one whom 
 you once cared for, even if you cannot care for him as 
 much as you did, following a steady course of sin, 
 and to know that you helped him to set out on that 
 course ; to trace definite faults in his character to defi- 
 nite acts or habits of yours ; to know, as far as human 
 knowledge goes, that your words first taught him im- 
 purity, and that he has never since been pure ; or that 
 your suggestion first made him conceal a fault with a lie, 
 and that his word cannot now be relied on ; or that your 
 example and encouragement first initiated him in indul- 
 gences which have now become settled habits of sin ; — 
 to know all this, and to be utterly powerless to check it, 
 and to see it going before you, as it were, out of this 
 world into the other ; an evil work which is not all yours, 
 but which carries into eternity the marks of your hand ; 
 to see all this, and to feel bound up by your share in 
 it beyond all power of escape (for who can recall the 
 past ?) — what can be more deeply painful, however much 
 you yourself may have repented of your sins and have 
 surrendered your soul to God .? I believe that of all the 
 repented sins whose remembrance sometimes saddens 
 
 K 2 
 
132 FRIENDSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 even the enjoyment of God's forgiveness, there is none 
 which cuts the Christian's heart so deeply as such 
 remembrances as these. 
 
 And the memory of friendship ought to be, and might 
 be, so very different. Friendship, and sympathy, and 
 cheerful example might help us more than any teaching 
 in the world to grow up soldiers and servants of Christ, 
 and "to fight His battle when we were grownup. Iron 
 cannot sharpen iron more than we might sharpen each 
 other. The very differences in our character might be 
 such a help to us in making friendship valuable, because, 
 when one friend is much tempted, the other is strong 
 and can uphold him, and yet, when another kind of 
 temptation comes, will receive back as much support 
 as he gave. And this has double force while we are 
 young and are ready to give and receive sympathy. 
 Friendships made at school often last through life, and 
 only grow warmer and stronger as life lasts. And such 
 friends find a tie in having been at school together which 
 seems firmer than any other tie that has ever bound 
 their hearts. 
 
 It is a delight to them to look back on school days 
 and remember the beginning of their friendship for each 
 other. But how tenfold is it greater if each can remem- 
 ber the support that he got from the other in doing right 
 when temptation or perplexity made it difficult ; if each 
 can recall to himself occasions when he might have fallen 
 had not his friend, by advice, or warm-hearted sympathy, 
 or good-humoured but firm plainness of speech, upheld 
 him. When right is unpopular, how much help a friend 
 
XV.] FRIENDSHIP, 133 
 
 can give; when sinful disobedience is very tempting, 
 how great a check a friend can be. At such a time 
 we are not unfrequently on the brink of a precipice, 
 and we see afterwards, what we do not see at the 
 time, that a fall would have been utter ruin. And to 
 remember that our friend saved us from that fall ; perhaps 
 by voluntarily sharing our difficulties, perhaps by earnestly 
 standing in our way, that is a memory that is never re- 
 called without gratitude. How often it must happen that 
 a man, looking back on his younger days, remarks that 
 he was going wrong, and as far as he could see would 
 have ended in utter loss of himself and his own soul, 
 when he was saved by falling in with one whom he first 
 learnt to like, and then to appreciate, and then to imitate. 
 And perhaps this very one looks back in the same way 
 on the same first meeting, and is thankful for lessons 
 just given when they were needed. Sometimes, again, 
 it happens that a man or a boy is called away, and yet 
 has sown seed behind him in the hearts of friends which 
 shall spring up in his absence to a harvest of thanks- 
 givings in the sight of God: the example of a simple- 
 minded and quiet discharge of duty, or of a steady eff"ort 
 to raise the tone of his ow^n mind. Such are what 
 friendships have been ; such are what friendships may 
 always be. Blessings they are, given by God's Pro- 
 vidence ; blessings which we may sadly misuse if we 
 will; blessings which we shall be likely to remember 
 for the rest of life, and to the memory of which. God 
 has attached the highest and purest pleasure, the bitterest 
 and most stinging pain. 
 
SERMON XVI, 
 
 TEMPTING OTHERS. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW XVlll. 7. 
 
 ' Woe unto the <worId because of offences ! For it must needs be 
 that offences come ; but ^voe to that man by (whom the offence 
 Cometh* 
 
 TF there is any work in the world which peculiarly 
 deserves the name of the work of the devil, it is the 
 hindrance which men sometimes put in the path which 
 their fellow-creatures are called by God to walk in. Of all 
 the temptations which surround us in this world of temp- 
 tations, the most difficult, in almost all cases, to deal with 
 are those which our fellow-men cast in our way. Tempta- 
 tions of the devil, springing from within the soul, can 
 generally be evaded even if they seem irresistible in their 
 direct encounter. Temptations from bodily appetite, the 
 most terrible of all temptations in the moment of their 
 power, can almost always be foreseen and a means of escape 
 provided. But our duties will not let us quit the company 
 of our fellows, and if they choose to tempt us there is 
 nothing left but to bear the temptation as best we may. 
 And so exposed to its full brunt, betraying, as we are 
 almost sure to do in course of time, our assailable points, 
 
TEMPTING OTHERS. 135 
 
 we lie at their mercy, if not to ruin us, yet to make our 
 way upwards unhappy, difficult, sin-stained ; to pierce us 
 with remorse; to cloud us with perplexity; to rob us of 
 self-respect ; to take from our service, if not its substan- 
 tial truth and devotion, yet all its grace and beauty, all that 
 might cheer our hearts in the discharge of it. Surely, as 
 I said before, if there is any work of man which peculiarly 
 deserves the name of the devil's work, it is this. And yet 
 it is so common that our Lord treats it as the order of 
 nature : ' It must needs be that offences come.' 
 
 Indeed, this sin of hindering struggHng sinners in their 
 weak endeavours to do right, is so common that its com- 
 monness is made its excuse. There is a sort of feeling 
 in those who put their fellow-men to such trials which 
 may be thus expressed : ' I have done him little harm ; 
 if I did not, somebody else would. And, after all, what 
 is his goodness worth if it will not stand such a temptation 
 as this?' A man sneers at obedience to conscience; and 
 justifies himself by saying that conscience must, in reality, 
 be a very worthless thing if it cannot hold a man up 
 against a sneer. Another offers seducing allurements 
 to entice his fellows from a plain duty, and justifies him- 
 self by saying that, if he did not, some one else would. 
 Another does the devil's work without excusing himself at 
 all, and simply puts every obstacle that he can in the way 
 of his fellow-creatures being more obedient than himself. 
 It must needs be that these offences, that is, these 
 stumbling-blocks, will come. It must needs be ; that is, 
 it is quite certain to be. It is quite certain that, wherever 
 we are, we shall find our duty beset with such stumbling- 
 
136 TEMPTING OTHERS. [SERM. 
 
 blocks as these. It is quite certain that we shall meet 
 with occasions when to do right will be painful to our- 
 selves, resisted by all around us, perhaps encouraged by 
 no single soul of all whom we have expected to aid us. 
 It is quite certain that, even of those who ought to make 
 duty easy, some from weakness, some from blindness, 
 some perhaps even from wilfulness or wickedness, will 
 make duty difficult. And so we must not plead these 
 temptations as any excuse. We must not fancy that when 
 we are so tempted we shall be forgiven for yielding ; or 
 that God, in denouncing sin, has forgotten these tempta- 
 tions, and will therefore retract His condemnation in the 
 case of those who are so tempted. No ; the temptation is 
 common and not extraordinary, and we shall be punished 
 for giving way to it. The temptation is so sure to come 
 that we must count upon it ; and when we read of God's 
 judgment of sin, we must understand that it applies to sin 
 committed under such temptation. It is the order of the 
 world ; it is the fire in which we are to be tried ; it is the 
 touchstone of our truth and our faith; it is the experi- 
 ment of our love ; it is the test by which our souls must 
 be valued. But for all that there is no excuse for the 
 tempter. Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh ; 
 woe to that man who makes himself the instrument of 
 putting his brothers to their hardest probation; woe to 
 him even if his wicked work end in confirming the saint 
 in his holiness, or in strengthening the weak against his 
 own weakness. Whatever the end may be, woe to the 
 man that puts a stumbling-block in his brother's way. 
 It were better for that man if a millstone were hanged 
 
XVI.] TEMPTING OTHERS. 1 3 7 
 
 about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth 
 of the sea. 
 
 The most glaring form of this sin is that of persecuting 
 and ridiculing the conscientious. It is almost always easy 
 to find means for doing this. No one, however con- 
 scientious, is infallible. Every one who endeavours to live 
 as God would have him is quite sure to lay himself open 
 to ridicule, if to nothing worse. There is mixed up with 
 our very best actions quite enough of weakness, of folly, 
 of human motives, of human self-seeking, to give a good 
 handle to any one who seeks for a handle, and supply 
 materials for a bitter jest, for a scoff, not quite undeserved. 
 There is always something in the conduct of the very 
 best which may well merit even contempt. And how 
 easy to extend the treatment of this fault to the whole 
 conduct ; how easy to sneer at what is good because it is 
 mixed up with bad ; how easy to merge it all in one indis- 
 criminate condemnation, and ridicule the imperfect virtue 
 because it is imperfect ; how easy this is, and yet how very 
 wicked. Granted that the poor sinner's imperfect strug- 
 gles are defiled with all kinds of false and self-deceitful 
 motives, yet is the best help given to him by sneering at 
 all that he does, good and bad alike .? I will take the case 
 of one who seems most of all to deserve this treatment, 
 the conceited and affected, the pompous and pretentious, 
 who yet is trying in a sort of way to do his duty. His 
 folly deserves severe reproof; and even ridicule is per- 
 fectly justifiable if it be carefully and plainly directed 
 against his silly conceit, against his affectation and 
 self-righteousness. But when it goes beyond that and 
 
138 TEMFTIiVG OTHERS. [sERM. 
 
 interferes with his weak endeavours to be a Christian, as it 
 too often does, what can we say of it but that the devil has 
 his own special work in hand, and is employing some of 
 his servants to keep for him a soul that longs to escape ? 
 And how rarely does this tempter stop here : how com- 
 mon it is for ridicule and persecution not to attack the 
 conceit of superior goodness, but the very endeavour to 
 be good, however humble, however simple. In particular, 
 how very frequently does this kind of persecution throw 
 obstacles in the way of repentance. Any one who has 
 got a sort of character is, perhaps, in all societies allowed 
 after a time to keep it up. He does no more than is 
 expected of him, and he is left alone on that account. 
 But if any one feels that the life he has been living is not 
 quite what it should be, and endeavours to lift himself out 
 of it, what difficulty that he has to encounter is equal to 
 that which his companions and acquaintance throw in his 
 way .? How often do they sneer at his pretending to be 
 any better than he was, or, as they are apt to say, any 
 better than other people ! How much has he to encounter 
 in cold looks, in scoffs, in bitter reminders of past follies, 
 in sarcastic allusions, in every kind of petty persecution ! 
 And how much wickeder does wickedness become when 
 it thus aims not merely at the indulgence of its own 
 desires, but at keeping all others down to its own level ! 
 Christ came from Heaven ; He bore the pains of poverty, 
 of persecution, of a whole hfe of humiliation, of a death 
 of shame, of the agony of a forsaken soul, all to keep and 
 save that which was lost. Christ's chief work is to enable 
 the penitent to repent. The chief joy in Heaven is when 
 
XVI.] TEMPTING OTHERS. 139 
 
 the sinner is found in the desert by the Shepherd and 
 brought home, when the prodigal son comes back to his 
 Father's house. If this be Christ's work and the angels' 
 joy, whose work must it be to make repentance hard, and 
 keep the prodigal son away, and turn the sheep aside that 
 is returning to the fold ? Christ specially announces it as 
 His peculiar character that He will not break the bruised 
 reed nor quench the smoking flax. However faint the 
 hopes of the sinner, however weak the struggle in his 
 heart, however poor his efforts to return, yet Christ watches 
 all tenderly, eagerly, helpingly. What shall be said of him 
 who tramples out the flame of heavenly love just when 
 its first faint spark shewed that it was alive 1 
 
 Now, of course I do not mean that there are very 
 many who deliberately and maliciously set to work to sneer 
 down goodness or even repentance. Such sins are very 
 rare; and the devil's work in the world is not done 
 so unskilfully as that. This sin, just like other sins, is 
 generally an act of weakness. A sort of indignation rises 
 in the minds of not a few at seeing examples of a higher 
 standard of morality than their own. There is a sort of 
 inward anger at the raising of the average rate. And 
 this of course all the more, if he who raised it has hitherto 
 been on their own level ; ' if he does this it will follow 
 that we shall be expected to do as much.' And this 
 anger is vented in various forms of persecution; not 
 deliberately employed to hinder him, but bursting out as 
 it were spontaneously, the outbreak of inward soreness. 
 A Christian who may be surpassed in nobleness of con- 
 duct, in self-devotion, in truth, in courage by one whom 
 
MO TEMPTING OTHERS. [SERM. 
 
 he had hitherto deemed his inferior, will feel perhaps a 
 generous shame; but he would indeed be cut to the 
 heart if he were to detect himself in indulging envy, or 
 anger, or mean jealousy. Such feelings belong to those 
 who are seeking not the praise of God but the praise 
 of men. 
 
 But are Christians quite safe from doing this great and 
 sinful mischief.? I fear not. In the first place, Christians 
 are not exempt from that common failing of all men, but 
 peculiarly common failing of our own day, to condemn 
 and dislike everything which is unlike the ordinary fashion 
 of their own lives. Any man who is led by his con- 
 science to live differently from those around him is sure 
 to annoy them, simply because he is different. And that 
 may sometimes be a sore stumbUng-block in his way. 
 
 Again, Christians are quite as liable as other men to 
 be misled by the customs of their own society, and to 
 confound the laws that have grown up among themselves 
 with the law of God. Every circle of men is in danger, 
 and that not a slight danger, of forming a peculiar code of 
 morality quite distinct from, and sometimes even contrary 
 to, the morality of the Bible or of reason, and of resenting 
 any attempt to interfere with it as not merely annoying, 
 but wrong ; and if any one endeavours to set himself 
 against it, of defending it not merely by argument and 
 high example, but by persecution in various forms. These 
 conventional codes are of use and must not lightly be 
 set aside. But it is a dangerous thing if we allow 
 them so to enslave us that we become their defenders 
 at all hazards and by all means. 
 
XVI.] TEMPTING OTHERS. 141 
 
 Again, Christians are very often liable not, perhaps, to 
 put obstacles into the way of efforts to do right so much 
 as to refuse them the needful help, without which they 
 have little chance of succeeding. To look coldly on 
 while our fellows are struggling in the waves of this evil 
 sea and never to hold out a hand or to say a word of 
 encouragement, is very often most cruelly to depress all 
 energy of repentance. The strong virtue that can go on 
 its own way without being shaken by any ordinary temp- 
 tation too often forgets the duty due to the weakness close 
 to its side. By stern treatment of faults which were yet 
 much struggled against, by cold refusal to acknowledge 
 any except plainly successful efforts, by rejecting the 
 approaches of those who have not yet learnt the right 
 way, but are really wishing in their secret hearts to learn 
 it, those who are strong not unfrequently do much harm 
 to those who are weak. 
 
 Again, Christians are quite as liable as any, in some 
 cases more liable than any, to give wrong things untrue 
 names, and to take away the fear of sin by a sort of good- 
 natured charity towards particular faults. In all societies 
 there will be peculiar temptations to particular faults, and 
 since a fault is much worse when the temptation is little 
 than when the temptation is great, it is unquestionably 
 true that faults to which there are peculiar temptations are 
 not so bad as others. And hence it is quite natural to 
 make excuses for such faults, and to treat them much 
 more leniently than they would in their own nature deserve. 
 And all this is perhaps defensible. But then we go a 
 step further and treat them lightly as if they were not in 
 
142 TEMPTING OTHERS. [SERM. 
 
 themselves faults of a deep dye at all. Now nothing 
 lowers the standard of social morality more than this. It 
 is a great duty to be charitable ; to put the best possible 
 construction on every one's conduct; to suspend the 
 judgment and condemn no one unless the evidence be 
 unanswerable ; to allow all fair palliations of what is un- 
 deniably wrong. But it is a terrible perversion of charity 
 if we extend it from the sinner to the sin, and allow a 
 deed to be thought lightly of because we judge the doer 
 leniently. We are bound by every means in our power 
 to uphold the moral standard ; to call sin by its right 
 name ; to condemn boldly and unhesitatingly sins which 
 are common before our eyes, and never to allow our 
 gentleness towards the sinner to grow into softness or 
 weakness in regard to the sin. 
 
 Lastly, Christians are liable to that which is the most 
 common form of tempting amongst those who are not 
 Christians; not to persecute or ridicule what is right, 
 but to seek for companions in what is wrong. Christians, 
 we all know too well, are tempted to do wrong often ; 
 nay, every day. And they are tempted to be not alone 
 in doing it ; for there are very few pleasures that we can 
 enjoy to the full without the aid of others. And so they 
 are tempted, whenever sin is too powerful for their own 
 wills, to double it by dragging others with them on the 
 same path. To go wrong oneself is sad enough; but 
 to do precisely what the devil has always been doing, 
 to drag souls towards hell, simply because we are going 
 there, is too shocking to think of, and yet is one of the 
 commonest faults. 
 
XVI.] TEMPTING OTHERS. 143 
 
 Brethren, this week* we commemorate our Lord's con- 
 summation of His earthly work, the passion whereby He 
 redeemed mankind. This week we commemorate the 
 pains which it cost to set us free, the exceeding love which 
 bore those pains. Side by side with this commemoration 
 put the mischief that we do in spoiling all that work ; in 
 making those pains fruitless; in hardening the souls of 
 our fellows against that love. Side by side with the Cross 
 and the Garden of Gethsemane, put the sneer at a fellow- 
 creature's efforts ; the mocking laugh at his repentance ; 
 the coldness that meets his struggles, and his instinctive 
 wish for help ; the seductions wherewith we lead him 
 wrong, simply that we may have companions. And say 
 whether we can dare to call ourselves by the name of 
 Christ, to come to Him for forgiveness, to ask Him to 
 take us to His arms, as long as such sins as these stain 
 our own lives and thwart His heavenly work. 
 
 * Preached on the Sunday before Easter. 
 
SERMON XVII. 
 
 HELPING OTHERS. 
 
 GALATIANS vi. 2. 
 
 ^ Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the laiu of Christ.* 
 
 'T^HERE is a Christian duty which in its degree is in- 
 cumbent upon all men, but is peculiarly the duty of 
 members of a community, and yet which I think does not 
 receive as much notice as it deserves, — the duty of help- 
 ing one another to do right. Of course no one can put off 
 his responsibility upon the shoulders of another. In this 
 very passage from which the text is taken, the Apostle 
 goes on a few verses further to guard against any possible 
 mistake on the point by saying, ' Every man shall bear 
 his own burden.' Yes, every man shall bear his own 
 burden ; when we are all called up before our Master's 
 throne to hear His final judgments, we shall not be 
 allowed to put the burden of our sins on our brethren ; 
 we shall not be allowed to say, ' I knew what was 
 right; but I got no help, but rather hindrance, from 
 all my neighbours and acquaintance, and so I did not 
 do it.' We shall not be allowed to plead that our fellow- 
 men tempted us, still less that they did not guard us 
 
HELPING OTHERS. 145 
 
 against temptation ; we shall be told that we were sent 
 into the world expressly to meet these temptations ; and 
 that we must be responsible for meeting them. The 
 difficulties which friends or neighbours may have put in 
 our way will only be reckoned as part of the very proba- 
 tion by which we are to be tried. We are not sent 
 into the world to find everything quite smooth. Least 
 of all things shall we find our duty smooth. And one 
 of the difficulties in the way of doing our duty will 
 assuredly arise from the companions among whom we 
 have to pass a great part of our lives. So I say each 
 man will have in that sense to bear his own burden. 
 Yet that does not prevent the Apostle from saying, 
 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law 
 of Christ.' 
 
 In fact, the truth in this matter is the precise counter- 
 part of that which our Lord teaches us in regard to 
 offences or stumbling-blocks. Our Lord says, 'That 
 it must needs be that offences come, yet woe to that 
 man through whom the offence cometh.' Just so it 
 must needs be that men will neglect the plain duty of 
 helping each other to be Christians, yet a duty it still 
 remains. The neglect of it by one man will not be any 
 excuse for another man's falling into sin ; yet that neglect 
 is itself a sin. 
 
 We are bound to bear one another's burdens. Let 
 me mention some ways in which we plainly can and 
 ought to do this. 
 
 First, one great way in which we can help each other 
 is by doing our own duties cheerfully. Cheerfulness 
 
 L 
 
146 HELPING OTHERS, [sERM. 
 
 does not seem at first sight so important as it really is. 
 We are apt when we find our duties at all disagreeable 
 to think that if we do them that is enough. But that 
 is not enough : and there are two very good reasons 
 why it is not enough. One is that if we do them sulkily 
 or moodily we shall certainly not do them well. There 
 is only one way that I know of to do duty well; 
 and that is to do it as if you liked it. You cannot 
 always like it; if you did, it would not be nearly so 
 good for you as it is meant to be. If duty were 
 always easy, we should never learn the hardness which 
 is requisite in every soldier, but especially in a soldier 
 of Jesus Christ. We cannot always like our duty; but 
 we can always do it as if we liked it; and unless we 
 do so we shall certahily not do it really well. That I 
 say is one reason for being resolutely cheerful in what- 
 ever we have to do. The other is that which is founded 
 on my text. There is nothing which gives a greater help 
 to any one who is tempted to flinch from his duty, than 
 to see others doing that very duty cheerfully and heartily : 
 and there is nothing which proves a greater hindrance 
 than to see others grumbling and sulky. It is for this 
 reason, no doubt, that God has covered the world with 
 materials for happiness ; so that there is no age of life, 
 there is no season of the year, there is no condition of 
 society, which has not appropriate means for enjoyment 
 in great abundance. Tihs enjoyment not only sweetens 
 all good service to him who serves his Master faithfully, 
 but contributes in an especial way to that fellowship in 
 our common service, which Christ blessed and conse- 
 
XVII.] HELPING OTHERS. 147 
 
 crated when He founded His Church. We might think 
 it superfluous to exhort men to be happy ; yet St. Paul's 
 Epistles are full of such exhortations. He is perpetu- 
 ally bidding us rejoice. • Rejoice, that is, in doing our 
 Master's work; repress all discontented feelings; turn 
 our thoughts resolutely to what is cheerful and right; 
 for by so doing we contribute to make that w^ork easier 
 for all around us. 
 
 Again, we can help each other very much by being 
 more especially careful to avoid joining in what is 
 wrong. There is a sense in which we may say that 
 he who does wrong in company is somewhat less to be 
 blamed than he who does wrong alone ; for very likely 
 the temptation is very much greater. He feels perhaps 
 very strongly drawn to do what others do, and finds it 
 very difficult to stand alone ; and there are many cases 
 in which we all look upon this as a little palliation. But 
 if we measure faults by the mischief that they do, whether 
 to the doers or to other men, faults committed in com- 
 pany are among the very worst. Those who bear the 
 chief part in such faults inflict on their companions the 
 fatal injury of weakening their sense of shame, and hard- 
 ening them in evil. To do wrong openly is at first 
 difficult, for conscience makes it very painful to avow 
 a sin and defend it, or scorn those who rebuke it : but 
 this pain soon wears out when we once get accustom.ed 
 to see others looking on while we are doing wrong. But 
 the injury of such faults to the chief doers is slight in 
 comparison with that inflicted on the weaker spirits thus 
 induced to sin. If we could only see our past lives with 
 
 L 2 
 
148 HELPING OTHERS. [sERM. 
 
 the eyes wherewith Christ beholds them, how many and 
 how terrible should we find the wounds that we have 
 inflicted in this way, often perhaps without knowing it. 
 How many have been led into .lying or bad language, 
 into unseemly jesting, into sinful disobedience, simply 
 because they found others willing to join them and shew 
 them the way. How often has it happened that two 
 coming together have done what neither would have done 
 by himself. How often have two weak souls given each 
 other strength in sinning, and by their union have laid the 
 foundation for themselves of a life of deep unhappiness 
 and a death perhaps worse than unhappy. 
 
 Yet, once more, we can do much to help those who 
 are weaker than ourselves, whether from age, or position, 
 or character, by avoiding what they are likely to misin- 
 terpret, and so to use to their own hurt. Thus, for instance, 
 St. Paul tells the Corinthians that if he found his eating 
 meat would lead his brother into sin, he would never eat 
 meat again. They were often in difficulties in those days 
 on this subject. According to the practice of the Hea- 
 thens, a great deal of the meat that was sold in the market 
 had been formally offered to some idol ; and many Chris- 
 tians feared that if they ate it they would be sharers in the 
 idolatry. St. Paul himself had no such scruples ; but he 
 knew that it would be very hurtful to those who had, if 
 they acted in disregard of them. So, rather than lead 
 them into sin, he declared that he was ready to give up 
 meat altogether. Precisely parallel cases are constantly 
 occurring amongst ourselves. Particularly is this to be 
 observed in regard to our common conversation. In the 
 
xyil] helping others. 149 
 
 freedom of ordinary talk we are constandy liable to say 
 things which, if rightly interpreted, are harmless, but 
 which are very liable to be wrongly interpreted, and so 
 to do much harm to those who hear them. Free words 
 may often have an appearance of folly or levity, and may 
 perhaps encourage others to real folly or levity, and per- 
 haps to profaneness; a few words hardly meant at the 
 time may encourage a weaker soul to disobedience, or 
 to downright and gross sin. I do not say that we are 
 to hold ourselves responsible for all the mischief that 
 may possibly come out of our words ; nor do I say that 
 we are to push scruples of this sort so far as to interfere 
 with our own Christian liberty. But I do say that we 
 ought to bear in mind that whatever we say or do has 
 an affect upon all around us, and that we are bound 
 by the duty which we owe to each other as members of 
 the Church of Christ to see that that effect be not evil. 
 The real safeguard in such cases is to fill our hearts with 
 the spirit of Christian uprightness and devotion, and then 
 we may be sure that any misinterpretation of what we 
 are doing will be surely prevented by the impression 
 produced by our general bearing. He whose whole life 
 is inspired with Christian hopes of self-conquest, and 
 Christian purposes of self-devotion, need not fear that 
 a few chance words taken wrong will do grave mischief; 
 but he who hangs but loosely to the service of Christ, 
 and yet indulges himself in all the freedom that belongs 
 to the Christian character, would do well to see whether 
 he is not asserting that freedom before he has a right 
 to it. 
 
I50 HELPING OTHERS. [sERM. 
 
 Once more, let me point out to you what is always 
 painful to see, yet I fear is too generally true, that 
 combination for evil is much more rapid than combina- 
 tion for good. And yet, if we are to help each other 
 as Christians, we ought clearly to be ready to give that 
 help with a willingness surpassing the alacrity to help each 
 other in sinning. Combination for evil is so exceedingly 
 natural, that unless we guard specially against it we are 
 sure to slip into it. Those who do not choose to do 
 what is right, instantly and instinctively band together 
 against any one who stands out against them. And we 
 are all liable to a little of the same spirit even if we 
 do not definitely surrender our souls to it. We are all 
 liable to feel somewhat angry at any one, who takes a 
 different view of his duty from that which we take our- 
 selves, and who by so doing tacitly reproves our conduct. 
 We have a right, if our conscience supports us in doing 
 so, to act independently, and not to judge our conduct 
 by another man's standard ; but we have no right to be 
 angry with another who does the same, and applies his 
 own standard, and not ours, to his own conduct. No- 
 thing, however, is more common than a sort of feeling 
 that he who acts by a high standard is raising the mea- 
 sure for all of us, and must therefore be compelled to 
 abandon his principles. Yet, in reality, he who truly 
 raises the standard of general morality is doing the great- 
 est conceivable service to his fellows ; there is no service 
 in the world for which all Christians ought to be m.ore 
 grateful. Clearly, then, if it is easy to combine for evil, 
 it becomes an imperative duty to combine for good. And 
 
XVII.] HELPING OTHERS. 1 51 
 
 by combining for good, I mean readily and heartily recog- 
 nising and supporting the efforts of any one who, in a 
 cheerful simple manner, is endeavouring to do his plain 
 duty. Such support may be given by words, may be 
 given by resistance to anything like oppression, may be 
 given by silently and simply copying the example. What- 
 ever raises the tone of feeling amongst us, whatever 
 contributes to make the right rather than the wrong the 
 accepted thing to be done, whatever contributes to iden- 
 tify the code of honour, which will always rule in every 
 society, with the law of God which ought to rule, is 
 so much done in the way of combination for good. And 
 such combination has power to save many an one from 
 very painful falls, and perhaps from all manner of evil 
 consequences. 
 
 I have spoken as if to Christians. Let no one say 
 in reply that he has not yet so far advanced in his own 
 repentance as to be able to help others. Let no one 
 say that he must be better before he can take a part, 
 even a quiet and unobserved part, in making others 
 better. On the contrary, there is no duty which may 
 not be made the gate of the road to Christ. Begin 
 here, and you will find that this way leads, where all 
 such ways always lead, to your Master's presence. Do 
 not fear that you are unworthy to serve Him, for serving 
 Him in any way is the sure means to make you more 
 worthy. Do not say, 'I have myself to attend to, 
 and that is enough;' for you cannot attend to yourself 
 without attending to this. Look rather to see whether 
 you have yet attended enough to this, and whether the 
 
152 HELPING OTHERS. 
 
 want of attending to this be not the very cause that you 
 are making no better progress in the purification of your 
 own soul. For the central source of Christian life is 
 the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ ; now, the Spirit 
 of Christ is the Spirit of One who gave Heaven, and 
 the Throne of God, and a life on earth, and a death 
 upon the Cross, all for a blessing on the race of men ; 
 and how shall we share His Spirit if we do nothing for 
 our fellow-creatures ? 
 
SERMON XVIII. 
 
 CONFESSING OF FAULTS. 
 
 ST. JAMES V. l6. 
 * Confess your faults one to another? 
 
 T AM not going to speak at length on the question of 
 what good or what evil there may be in a systematic 
 practice of confessing faults to a spiritual adviser. The 
 system has been tried by the Church, and by our part 
 of it deliberately abandoned : and before it was aban- 
 doned, it had left behind it such a sense of the mischief 
 that it could do, that the very mention of it makes men 
 angry. Even if under better regulations the system were 
 desirable, it is for the present impossible, and not only 
 impossible, but with men's feelings such as they are 
 about it, positively mischievous. There is something 
 in it imder any circumstances hardly consistent with 
 Christian liberty ; and it is only when we remember 
 our own personal weakness, our want of props and 
 supports of every kind, our many falls and the mis- 
 chief that has come of them, that we are tempted to 
 think that perhaps we could tread our difficult path 
 better if we leant on another man's arm, and never 
 walked alone at all. But if there be much to be said 
 
154 CONFESSIiVG OF FAULTS. [sERM. 
 
 in its favour, experience has for the present condemned 
 it unmistakeably. As far as we know of it, it does 
 harm of the worst kind; even in the cases in which it 
 does a great deal of good, it appears in the end to 
 do still more harm than good. 
 
 But yet this practice was once universal in the Church. 
 And we may be quite sure that nothing was ever an 
 almost universal practice without containing within it 
 some elements of good; and we are bound, whatever 
 we may think of the practice in its bad state, to find 
 out and to keep what is good in it. There must have 
 been some very real need which this practice was fitted 
 to satisfy. Men must have found in it some real help 
 towards serving God and working out their own salva- 
 tion. In all such cases, even if the practice be bad, 
 the spirit and purpose out of which the practice originally 
 grew, must be good, and that spirit we must preserve 
 even when the practice is abolished. 
 
 That spirit is expressed in the text, ' Confess your 
 faults one to another.' 
 
 These words imply, in the first place, that our reli- 
 gious life is not an isolated thing between each man and 
 God, with which no other man has anything to do. All 
 Christians are members of a Body. If they come much 
 in contact they are nearly related members. And no 
 one has a right to fancy that his faults concern himself 
 alone, and that no one else has an interest in his being 
 a good man. It is true, that for the sake of Christian 
 Liberty, there are few cases in which one man has a right 
 to interfere with the faults of another ; but it is not at 
 
XVIII. J CONFESSING OF FAULTS. 155 
 
 all true that because no one has a right to interfere with 
 us, therefore we need not regard any one, but simply 
 ourselves in this matter. There are many faults for which 
 you are not responsible to any authority but your own 
 conscience ; but among these faults far the larger part 
 affect your neighbour as well as yourself; and though 
 your neighbour has no right to interfere, you will have 
 to answer to God for the mischief that your faults have 
 done to that neighbour. 
 
 But this is not the only bond which binds us to our 
 neighbour. The text implies further that we may get 
 much help by being open about our faults. The Apostle 
 goes on to say, ' Confess your faults one to another, and 
 pray for one another, that ye may be healed/ Prayer 
 is a means by which every one can help his neighbour, 
 and prayer is not the only means, but only one amongst 
 many. Our friends can give us sympathy ; can some- 
 times give us advice ; can always give us encouragement ; 
 very often a friend's experience will help out ours, and 
 make us see more clearly than we could do alone what 
 we ought to do. 
 
 But the chief benefit of being ready to confess faults 
 which our conscience urges us to confess is, that we clear 
 our own minds and strengthen our own wills. It makes 
 a wonderful difference in your power of avoiding a fault, 
 and it makes a wonderful difference in the mischief which 
 a fault can do to you, if you will only have the courage 
 to tell it to some one who cares for you. 
 
 In the first place, a concealed fault has a most extra- 
 ordinary power of infecting the whole character. It 
 
156 CONFESSING OF FAULTS. [sERM. 
 
 spreads its mischief far beyond itself. You do not pray 
 so calmly or so simply, because this secret sin seems 
 to mock your prayers. You do not go about your 
 ordinary duties with any heart, because even if done, 
 and well done, you feel as if they would be all spoilt 
 by this one secret fall. You can have no enjoyment 
 in religion, because your conscience mingles reproaches 
 with all that you do. The fault may not really be half 
 so bad as you fancy it. Yet because it is secret, it will 
 take away all the springs of your desire to do right, 
 and will rob your heart of its chief attraction towards 
 God. The sin, while it is concealed, seems to enter 
 into all that you think or do. It seems to be a part of 
 yourself. You cannot say, 'It is not I that did it, but 
 sin that dwelleth in me.' No, the fact of your concealing 
 it seems to make it peculiarly your own. It is not your 
 fault merely; it is you. And all that comes from you 
 partakes of it. All this is changed the moment you have 
 told it. The act of telling it seems as it were to circum- 
 scribe it within its own proper limits. It is wrong ; but 
 there is the whole of it clearly in view. It no longer 
 affects the rest of you or of your life. You have not 
 got rid of it by telling of it. But you have got rid of 
 this infection which it formerly carried with it. You have 
 shut it up within itself. You have separated yourself 
 from it, and it from yourself. It has lost its power to 
 taunt and mock. You need no longer feel that it is 
 living and growing within you. You are still bound to 
 be sorry for it ; but you have no longer reason to fear it. 
 While it is concealed, you feel like a hypocrite; you 
 
XVIII.] CONFESSING OF FAULTS. 157 
 
 seem to be false, and whatever you do right only adds 
 to this feeling; what business have you to do right, 
 and pretend to be a servant of God, while you are 
 secretly cherishing an unclean thing ? But when the 
 fault is confessed, you are a hypocrite no more, but 
 a penitent. 
 
 Again, closely connected with this, is the fact that 
 a concealed fault lays a peculiar and very heavy burden 
 on the soul. The remorse which you feel every now 
 and then for a secret fault is far beyond what you feel 
 after you have told it. All men agree in this, that to 
 tell a fault lightens the burden at once. And in extreme 
 cases it has been found that great criminals have been 
 driven even to face the gallows, in order to obtain this 
 relief. The burden of a secret fault has been found to 
 transcend in pain all other punishments that God's Pro- 
 vidence brings on crime. Men have found it impossible 
 to live without seeking this relief; and confession has 
 almost always brought it. And this experience of great 
 crimes is but the magnified experience of all faults, how- 
 ever small. A secret fault always lays some additional 
 burden on the soul, simply because it is secret. Over 
 and above the remorse for the fault itself, the shame of 
 having it hid in the heart, and unknown even to dear 
 friends, always makes the hider feel as if he were acting 
 a lie ; and he despises himself in the midst of every word 
 of praise that he may win. 
 
 Again, once more, confessing the fault pledges the will 
 to try to prevent a return of it, and no other pledge is 
 equally strong. The man who is hiding a secret fault 
 
158 CONFESSING OF FAULTS. [sERM. 
 
 says to himself, ' I will not tell of this, but I will never 
 do it again/ I do not say this always fails ; but it very 
 often fails. The temptation returns stronger than before. 
 He feels that to do twice what he has done once will 
 not make much difference. It will not very much lower 
 his self-respect, for that was already struck down by the 
 first fault. It will not affect the respect in which others 
 regard him ; for they know nothing of what he has done, 
 and of course he means them to know nothing of what 
 he is now tempted to do. So the fault is repeated ; and 
 another temptation brings another fall. But when you 
 have confessed a fault, you have by that very act put 
 a barrier between yourself and the past. Next time the 
 temptation comes, you have upon you the double check 
 of your own conscience and of your professed resolution. 
 The second fault seems not a slight addition merely to 
 the first; but as if it would be an altogether new and 
 much worse fall. You know your path. You are pledged 
 to it. And this knowledge, and this pledge, will certainly 
 do much to uphold you. The resolution of the man 
 who is hiding within him the memory of wrong is sure 
 to be weak, wavering, fitful. The resolution of the man, 
 whose repentance has been stamped and marked by con- 
 fession, is clear and strong. However weak he feels, he 
 feels, too, that he knows what he has to do and means 
 to do it. 
 
 And all this applies particularly to secret faults, which 
 are hidden from all eyes but those of the doers. But 
 much of it applies also to faults which are not hidden; 
 but being known to all who know us intimately, yet are 
 
XVIII. J COXFESSI.VG OF FAULTS. 159 
 
 not confessed to be faults. There is a great difference 
 between the repentance which simply endeavours to 
 change, and that which not only endeavours to do so, 
 but openly yet humbly confesses that it means to do so. 
 There is often a foolish pride which makes men, even 
 when they know they have done wrong and mean to 
 do right, yet very unwilling to acknowledge that they 
 have done wrong. They will do right for the future, but 
 they need not say anything about the past. By this 
 pride they cut themselves off from all the help which 
 Christian sympathy could give. Of course very often 
 the best way of confessing that you were in the wrong 
 is to do right for the future, and leave your confession 
 to be understood from that. But this always implies 
 that you do not defend the past, that you do not wear 
 the manner of one who acknowledged no charge, that 
 you do not foolishly gloss over your change of con- 
 duct, by talking of it as if it were merely a new whim 
 of your own instead of an endeavour to obey your 
 conscience. 
 
 Two questions remain : To whom you should confess 
 your faults .? and how .? And both of these questions 
 must be left very much to your own judgment. As a 
 general rule, it may be said that one great duty of inti- 
 mate friends is to supply each other with that help which 
 Christian sympathy can give. A man has almost always 
 among his friends some one, to whom he would not be 
 utterly unwilling to tell all that lies on his own con- 
 science. There may be some matters that require more 
 experienced advice. There are some confessions which 
 
i6o CONFESSING OF FAULTS. [SERM. 
 
 we are bound to make, not for the sake of ourselves 
 and for our own spiritual improvement, but for the sake 
 of justice : thus, for instance, if you have either pur- 
 posely or unintentionally accused your neighbour falsely, 
 it is to himself that you are bound to make the con- 
 fession. All these points must be left to your own 
 decision. 
 
 So, again, it must be left to your own judgment 
 how you will confess a fault. Nothing is more mis- 
 chievous than to confess it in any such way as to give 
 yourself a pleasure in doing so. It is peculiarly mis- 
 chievous to take such an opportunity for indulging your 
 love for talking about yourself. And you may be sure 
 that to confess faults is always wrong, when you are 
 conscious that it is in some way not unpleasant to do so. 
 Analysing your own character, talking about it, confess- 
 ing not your acts or words but your feelings, confessing 
 what you are not really ashamed to confess, confessing 
 trifles as if they were serious sins : all these are very weak 
 and mischievous forms of egotism. What you will some- 
 times need to confess (and it will only be sometimes) 
 are deeds or words; definite acts of the will; such as 
 you feel to be a burden to you, such as you fear to have 
 detected, such as make you feel ashamed to be praised, 
 or esteemed, or liked. 
 
 If you ever have a secret burden of this sort, if you 
 have done wrong and it weighs upon you, if you feel 
 that it would be a relief no longer to carry your evil 
 recollection hid within your own soul, do not flinch from 
 seeking the help that St. James points out. The first 
 
XVIII.] CONFESSING OF FAULTS. i6i 
 
 authority to whom we are bound to confess is God. 
 But often that confession is not enough. We are not 
 yet in God's immediate presence. He is hid from us 
 behind the veil of our mortal flesh. It is with men that 
 we are living, and it is to men that we have to discharge 
 most of our duties, even our duties to God, and it is 
 from men that we have to obtain most of the help that 
 we get, even that help which God gives. And for this 
 reason it is that God has given such strength to the 
 honest truth of character, which will walk uprightly 
 before his fellow-men, and will be true in their sight. 
 It is something to be quite true and open, even to one 
 fellow-creature. It is something to tear off every mask 
 and shew your real self, even though there is but one 
 man by to see you. To such truth God gives special 
 strength ; on such Christian friendship God bestows 
 especial blessing. 
 
 M 
 
SERMON XIX. 
 
 GOD'S PRESENCE. 
 
 PSALM CXXXIX. 1-3. 
 
 * Lord, Thou hast searched me and kno'VJn me. Thou knowest 
 my dowon- sitting and up-rising] Thcu understandest my thoughts 
 afar off. Thou compassest my path ajid my lying do^vn, and 
 art acquainted mjith all my <^'ays^ 
 
 nPHE fact that God is always present and knows every 
 minute trifle in our lives, and that His unerring 
 judgment will assuredly take count of every detail of our 
 character and our conduct, neither exaggerating nor 
 omitting, but applying absolute justice ; this truth is one 
 of those which lose force from their very universality. We 
 are very much influenced by the presence or absence of our 
 fellow-creatures. We have often much to conceal from 
 them, and we would often make great efl'orts to prevent 
 their knowing much of our lives. We are keenly sensible 
 to the pain of having any faults exposed to their view which 
 are not already known. We are checked by the fear of 
 exposure from indulging in other faults, into which we 
 should otherwise probably plunge. We are put on our 
 guard by the nearness of other eyes and ears ; and there 
 are many faults which we never dream of committing if 
 
GOD'S PRESENCE. 163 
 
 Others be looking on. But we feel no such fear of 
 exposure before God, and we are little checked by the 
 knowledge that He sees and understands all that we do, 
 or say, or think. And indeed it is obvious that fear of 
 exposure must be out of the question , how can we any 
 longer fear exposure before One who knows all already ? 
 But that we should be so little checked, so little awed, 
 in the course of our daily lives by this perpetual and 
 awful presence ; that we should know God to be looking 
 at every motion and every impulse, and should be so 
 unmoved; that we should do so many things before 
 God's face, which the opening of a door and the en- 
 trance of a fellow-creature would instantly stop; this is 
 an instance of that weakness of faith which proves the 
 fall of man. 
 
 There is no need to exaggerate in this matter. We 
 may recognise to the full that it is a part of God's own 
 ordinance that we should be, as it were, unconscious of 
 His presence during the greater part of every day of our 
 lives. He has plainly made us so. We become uncon- 
 scious of everything by long use. Our very bodily senses 
 are quite capable of being so dulled by perpetual repeti- 
 tion of some one sight, or sound, or feeling, as to 
 perceive it no more. And in the same way, if we Hve 
 perpetually in any presence of any kind, we become at 
 last so familiarized with it that our natural character 
 comes into play almost as if it were not there. Not only 
 is this God's ordinance, but we can see why He has made 
 us so. For we could never discharge our duties properly, 
 if we were liable to be perpetually distracted by the 
 M 2 
 
164 GOD'S PRESENCE. [SERM. 
 
 consciousness of what was around us : and, above all, 
 we might be daunted by the perpetual thought of the 
 presence of God, and so be paralysed instead of helped. 
 If we could keep full before our minds this awful remem^ 
 brance, it would make it very difficult indeed to do every 
 litde duty just as it came; it would make it not only 
 difficult but impossible, weak as we are, to indulge quite 
 unrestrainedly in that mirth and cheerfulness which God 
 has bestowed for the plain purpose of making our duties 
 easier and smoother. 
 
 There is, therefore, nothing wrong in our forgetting 
 that we are in the presence of God any more than there 
 is anything foolish in our forgetting that we need air 
 to breathe or light to see by, or that if we fall we may 
 hurt ourselves : just in the same w^ay as we very often, 
 and quite riglitly, forget that we are in the company of 
 men who will take notice of our faults. In fact, the in- 
 nocent and pure heart is the first to forget the presence 
 of any kind of check on its conduct, because to an 
 innocent and pure heart the presence or absence of 
 others makes very litde difference. It is quite right to 
 forget that you are in God's presence, just as it is quite 
 right to forget that you are in the presence of father 
 or mother, as, no doubt, you often do when you are 
 in that presence. 
 
 But that which is quite peculiar in this case is the 
 nature of the forgetfulness. In the presence of father 
 or of mother, or of any one else for whom you care, 
 though you forget, yet the slightest real temptation, still 
 more the slightest open sin, is sure to put you instantly 
 
XIX.] GOD'S PRESENCE. 1 6 
 
 in remembrance. You talk, and laugh, and jest quite 
 freely, though a parent or an older friend be by, without 
 thinking particularly of the presence of any one who 
 has a right to check you. But the moment you have 
 said or done what ought not to have been said or done, 
 or even have been tempted to say or do so, you are 
 awake instantaneously and quite conscious of the pre- 
 sence that you had forgotten. There is, as it were, a 
 secret fence around you which you never see till you 
 come quite close to it, or, perhaps, till you actually touch 
 it. But though you do not see it, it is always there, and 
 seems to start up full before your eyes just at the moment 
 when you were going to stray. We forget, but we gene- 
 rally manage to remember at the precise moment when 
 remembering is wanted. The mere fact of approaching 
 the forbidden limits reminds us of those limits, and 
 though we seem to forget, there is a latent consciousness 
 ever ready to act if it be called upon. 
 
 Now, I fear, there is no such perpetual readiness in 
 us to remember the presence of God. We forget His 
 presence in the absorption of our daily employments and 
 amusements. And forgetting it we approach some sin 
 which we know that He has forbidden. But our approach 
 to the forbidden path rarely puts us in mind of the awful 
 eye that is ever silently marking our steps. We actually 
 sin ; we sin in a way that would instantly awake us, and 
 cover us with painful shame, if we had been all the time 
 in the company of a fellow-creature. But we awake not 
 to the presence of our God. We experience no sense 
 of immediate confusion at having proved our folly and 
 
1 66 GOD'S PRESENCE. [sERM. 
 
 sin in His very presence. There is little of the keen 
 pain which attends the knowledge that another eye was 
 secretly looking on while we went wrong. We do not 
 blush to find how we have done wrong in His very sight. 
 Our forgetfulness lasts on through our sin, and very often 
 only disappears when detection has brought human eyes, 
 and not God's only, to witness our disgrace. 
 
 This, I say, is not merely the working of that nature 
 which God bestowed on us. It is a weakness, and a 
 weakness which we ought not to indulge in. It is a 
 veil which the devil put before our eyes. It is the 
 blindness of our fallen state. And if we are Christians, 
 it is a weakness and blindness quite inconsistent with 
 our calling. 
 
 The right state of mind plainly is, to have the thought 
 of God's presence so perpetually at hand, that it shall 
 always start before us whenever it is wanted. So that, 
 whenever we are on the point of doing or saying any- 
 thing cowardly, or mean, or false, or impure, or proud, 
 or conceited, or unkind, the remembrance that God is 
 looking on shall instantly flash across us and help us 
 to beat down our enemy. This is living with God. This 
 is the communion with Him, and with Christ, which 
 unquestionably helps the struggling, the penitent, the 
 praying, more than anything else we can attain unto. 
 We cannot be always in the presence of our fellow-men. 
 It is not good for us to be so, chiefly because then they 
 prevent us from ever being quite dependent on ourselves 
 and on God. But when no one else is by, or no one who 
 can or will check our faults, then, above all other times, 
 
XIX.] GOD'S PRESENCE. 167 
 
 this recollection of God's presence is most needed. 
 From His presence we cannot escape. If we go down 
 to Hell we shall find Him there; if we cUmb up into 
 Heaven He is there also. And whenever we are left 
 to govern ourselves, we are so left in order that we may 
 be all the more unchecked by any presence except His, 
 and that we may learn to walk by His laws even when 
 none but Himself can see whether we are keeping them 
 or not. 
 
 And this perpetual though not always conscious sense 
 of God's presence would, no doubt, if we would let it 
 have its perfect work, gradually act on our characters 
 just as the presence of our fellow-men does. We cannot 
 live long with men without catching something of their 
 manner, of their mode of thought, of their character, 
 of their government of themselves. Those who live much 
 in a court acquire courtly manners. Those who live much 
 in refined and educated society acquire refinement insen- 
 sibly. Those who are always hearing pure and high 
 principles set forth as the guides of life, learn to value 
 and to know them even faster than they can learn to 
 live by them. From the just we learn justice ; from the 
 charitable we catch an infection of charity; from the 
 generous we receive the instinct of generosity. So, too, 
 by living in the presence of God and, as it were, in the 
 courts of Heaven, we shall assuredly learn something 
 of a heavenly tone, and shake off some of that coarse 
 worldliness, that deeply ingrained selfishness, that silly 
 pride and conceit which now spoils our very best service. 
 
 But the efforts of perpetually endeavouring to remem- 
 
1 68 GOD'S PRESENCE. [sERM. 
 
 ber God's presence go very much beyond mere manner 
 of thinking and tone of mind. This habit, beyond all 
 others, strengthens our faith. For we believe much more 
 easily what we are familiar with than what is strange to 
 us. Strange things make us incredulous by their very 
 strangeness, quite independent of the evidence for them 
 or against them. And as long as God is very strange 
 to our thoughts, we find it very hard to believe in Him 
 in any real sense, very hard, indeed, to live by His laws, 
 harder still to love Him. St. John reminds us that it is 
 much more difficult for us to love that which we do not 
 know than that which we do : ' If a man love not his 
 brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom 
 he hath not seen?' And so we may go on still further, 
 and ask how still harder must it be to love God Whom 
 we never think on .? The less we think about God and 
 remember His nearness to us at every moment of our 
 lives, the more do we make Him a stranger to us, and 
 ourselves strangers to Him. Our prayers become more 
 formal and mechanical, as addressed to One with Whom 
 we have little in common ; our quickness of perception 
 about what He will approve or disapprove becomes 
 blunted, because we seem not to know Him, or the 
 expression of His countenance; we are removed far off, 
 and the life which should flow from Him to us is tardy in 
 coming. We believe ; but we believe weakly, coldly, hesi- 
 tatingly. We know that there is another world ; but we 
 care little about it, because we seem to know little about 
 it. We slip more and more into the habit of measuring 
 right and wrong, not by God's pure will, but by the 
 
XIX.] GOD'S PRESENCE. 169 
 
 voice of the society in which we live, by the demands 
 of our personal interests, even by strong wishes of our 
 own hearts, wishes which are only strong because we 
 have never looked at them fully with the sense of God's 
 eye watching us while we did so. 
 
 In short, to live with God is to be perpetually rising 
 above the world ; to live without Him is to be perpetu- 
 ally sinking into it, and with it, and below it. And lest 
 the presence of God should be too much for us, Christ 
 has taken human nature on Him, and has provided that 
 He will be always with us as long as the world shall last. 
 It is not the unbending majesty of a law of holiness, it 
 is an eye which is full of the sympathy of humanity, that 
 sees every step and every thought, and yet can make 
 allowance for every weakness, and would now fain be 
 our daily companion. How shall we learn to walk by 
 His side.? — No doubt by regular prayer, and by frequent 
 reminders of His presence. The daily prayer in the 
 closet, the endeavour to keep the attention fixed when 
 praying with others, either in our regular services or in 
 family worship, the regular habit of reading the Bible 
 at a fixed time, the occasional reminders of ourselves 
 that God is looking on, — these are our chief means of 
 learning to remember His presence. But yet there is 
 another, not less powerful than any, which deserves still 
 more special mention. Our hearts will put us in mind 
 of God's eye being upon us every now and then involun- 
 tarily. The thought will "flash across us that God sees 
 us. And this will generally be just when we are tempted 
 to do wrong, or perhaps just when we are actually 
 
I70 GOD'S PRESENCE. 
 
 beginning to do it: some secret sin of which no one 
 knows or dreams perhaps, some self-indulgence, which 
 we dare not deny that God condemns. Then is the 
 moment to choose whether or not we will live in the 
 presence of God; then when the finger of conscience 
 is pointing to Ilim, and saying, * He is looking at you.' 
 Then if you persist in doing wrong even in the very 
 presence of your God; then if you shut your eyes and 
 go just as you were going, in spite of being warned that 
 His eye beholds you; then, assuredly, do you disable 
 your conscience from reminding you. Persist in so doing 
 once or twice, and conscience will certainly at last omit 
 the useless warning, and you will lose your best oppor- 
 tunity to lift your soul above the mire and clay into which 
 it has fallen. You will go on sinning, insulting the 
 majesty of God by sinning, though you know Him to 
 be seeing you, but not touched by any sense of your 
 sin, because, when you were warned, you refused re- 
 peatedly to listen. Let us not despise these momentary 
 impulses, these voices that come from afar, these , distant 
 echoes of the sounds of Heaven. Let us not be deaf 
 when we suddenly hear the call that Christ is at our 
 door, that God is in our chamber ; let us turn quickly 
 from the sin, and remember our Master. 
 
SERMON XX. 
 
 RESIGNATION. 
 
 ST. MATT. vi. lO. 
 ' Tby civill be done in earth, as it is in bea'ven* 
 
 nPHIS prayer, as our Lord has taught us by His own 
 example, ought to accompany and to penetrate all 
 other prayers. We are taught the efficacy of prayers. We 
 are taught that our Father invariably hears all our peti- 
 tions, and not only hears them, but is as willing to grant 
 them as a father is willing to grant the prayers of his 
 children. ' What man is there of you, whom if his son ask 
 bread, will he give him a stone .? or if he ask a fish, will he 
 give him a serpent.?' And when we are told this we can- 
 not but be struck with the difficulty, how can God grant 
 all the prayers of such weak and blind creatures as 
 we are ? If we ask what is mischievous to our fellow- 
 creatures, if we ask what is mischievous to ourselves, is it 
 to be supposed that God will still grant the prayer.? If in 
 our ignorance we were to ask for what would ruin our 
 souls, are we to suppose that His love would incline Him 
 to give it ? No, surely. God will hear every prayer of 
 an earnest heart. He will hear it as a father hears the 
 
172 RESIGN A no .v. [SERM. 
 
 prayers cf a loved child. And that prayer will assuredly 
 have weight with Him. But He will grant it just as a 
 father would grant it, with the outpouring of His love, 
 and not always with the mere hard fulfilment of our foolish 
 wishes. Our Lord has expressed a sense of this in the 
 prayer which He has given to us to use. He has also 
 expressed it in the prayer which He once used Himself. 
 For He, too, once felt a human longing for something 
 which it was not good for Him to have. He prayed that 
 the cup which His Father was holding to His lips might 
 pass from Him. Yet He forthwith added, ' Not My will 
 but Thine be done.' So, too, is every Christian prayer 
 filled with the same thought. And if it ever occurs to us 
 to complain that our Lord's words are not literally fulfilled, 
 and that we do not always find our prayers answered 
 exactly as we offer them, here is the solution of the 
 difficulty. Our Lord gave this promise to Christians. 
 He presumes that the prayers are Christian prayers. He 
 does not mean, and cannot mean, that any wishes that 
 may enter our weak hearts will be satisfied. But He 
 means that every Christian prayer, offered in a Christian 
 spirit, shall assuredly find its answer, as assuredly as 
 the prayer of a child would meet with an answer from 
 a father. 
 
 Of course it is possible to say at once, what is the 
 value of such a promise as this 1 It would be something 
 to be quite sure that you would have everything that you 
 asked for ; but it appears that you are sure of nothing. 
 If you ask for what it does not please God to give, it will 
 not be given. How, then, does the promise help you.? 
 
XX.] RESIGXA TION. 1 7 3 
 
 A man who makes this objection in a scoffing spirit simply 
 proves that the promise was never made to him at all. It 
 is made to those who would approach God as children ; 
 children who, though they have wishes, yet still love their 
 Father better than anything else; better than any wish 
 that they can form. It is not made to those who put 
 their own wishes above even their love of their God. 
 But if the objection occur to any man who loves God, 
 but is perplexed by receiving a promise which cannot be 
 literally fulfilled, let him think a little, and he will see how 
 large, how gracious a promise is yet made, even when we 
 see that the literal meaning of it is not intended. 
 
 For our God is the Ruler not of one small circle only, 
 but of the whole universe. How natural it would be to 
 think, that in guiding this vast machine there could be no 
 place left for caring about the wishes or the happiness of 
 any individual being in it. How natural it would be to 
 say, ' God surely cannot take thought of me, an insigni- 
 ficant unit among His creatures. He will govern the 
 whole for the happiness of the whole ; but if the happiness 
 or the well-being of millions requires the sacrifice of me 
 and of my happiness, how can I expect that His eye will 
 notice me, or that if His eye notice. He will spoil all for 
 my sake.' It is natural to say this or to think this, because 
 we think of God as a colossal man, whose powers, though 
 unbounded in degree, are yet like ours in their kind. 
 And certainly if a man, be he infinitely wise and infi- 
 nitely good, had to govern the universe, it would seem 
 sometimes inevitable that he must sacrifice the interests of 
 individuals to the interests of the whole body. 
 
174 RESIGNATION. [sERM. 
 
 But if we take such fancies into our minds, if the 
 apparently ruthless march of events in the world's history 
 seems sometimes to thrust us and our concerns all out of 
 sight, here is the answer. God is not a man, to whom 
 there is a difference between great and small. He can, 
 and He alone can, reconcile the happiness, the holiness, 
 the true interest of every soul with the real good of the 
 whole ; and though He is ruling the world. He is still the 
 Father, and the loving Father, of every one of us. That 
 yearning prayer which brings us nearer to Him, because 
 it expresses our dependence on Him, shall assuredly be 
 satisfied, even if it appear to be refused. A day will come 
 when we shall look back on all the prayers which have 
 gone up from our inmost hearts, and shall see that even 
 those which have been most plainly denied have yet been, 
 wonderful to say, most plainly granted. We shall see 
 that, had we known what we then shall have learnt, 
 precisely that very thing has been done which our con- 
 sciences would have bid us pray for ; and that our prayer, 
 so far from being unheard, has been treasured up in the 
 counsels of God. It is this ; this tender regard for each 
 man's own longings, own wants ; this watching over the 
 movements and the needs of every separate soul; this 
 fatherly care ; this never-sleeping love ; which Christ 
 promises in His Father's name. We know not precisely 
 what is best for us. We know not what will make us 
 truly happy. We know not what will help us best in our 
 struggle against temptations. And if we were to try to 
 make a distinction between our mere passing wishes and 
 that which our souls really needed, we should utterly fail. 
 
XX.] RESIGNATIO.Y. 
 
 But we need not try. Let us take all our wishes, all our 
 longings, all the promptings of our consciences, to the 
 feet of our Father. He will hear and He will do. He 
 will hear all we say. He will know what parts of our 
 prayer are best for us to have, and what are not. And 
 He will give us w^hat His Fatherly love will choose. And 
 therefore to all our prayers we will add, ' Thy will be done 
 in earth, as it is in Heaven.' 
 
 For this is the corresponding feeling on our parts. 
 The answer to absolute care and infinite love is absolute 
 resignation and absolute trust. The resignation and the 
 trust are bound together. We must be resigned because 
 we trust. There is a resignation conceivable which simply 
 expresses the despair of a creature in the hands of a 
 Being, a Law, mightier than himself. * I will be resigned 
 because all struggle is hopeless, and I will not fight 
 against what is inevitable.' Such might be the resignation 
 of one who beheved that all things were governed by a 
 fixed fate, regardless of all but its own certain course ; or 
 of one who believed that all things were the sport of 
 chance, and contained no spark of intelligence to guide 
 them. But our resignation is the resignation of children 
 absolutely trusting a Father Who knows us, and knows 
 what is best for us, and Whose love guides even His 
 wisdom. The certainty that is given to us if we will 
 make it our own is, that every wish we utter has an 
 answer in His Fatherly heart, and that, having uttered 
 it, we may contentedly leave it in the hands of Him 
 Who has thus received it. 
 
 Now this doctrine is not hard to accept. We are not, 
 
176 RESIGXATIOX. [serm. 
 
 perhaps, unwilling to welcome the thought that God is 
 our Father, and that He loves us, and that He hears us 
 when Y/e pray, and that if He will not give us our prayer 
 because it is not good for us, He yet will not disregard it, 
 but that in some way or other it will be answered. But to 
 accept such a doctrine, and to live by it, are very different 
 things; and to keep our minds quite cheerful and con- 
 tented when we are suffering from heavy disappoint- 
 ments or trials is not easy. To say, ' Thy will be 
 done,' is not hard when that will is merely thought 
 of; but it is very hard when we seem to be suffering 
 from it. 
 
 It is very hard often to believe that temptations are good 
 for us, when we meet with them, and fall before their 
 attacks. Our consciences reprove us for yielding. But 
 we put off the burden of our guilt upon the temptation, 
 and com.plain that we should have been tried so sorely. 
 Especially is this the case with sudden and violent 
 temptations, which assail us unexpectedly, just when we had 
 made many good resolutions and had fancied ourselves 
 safe; or, again, with small but numerous temptations, 
 which beset our path and seem to make escape from them 
 an impossibihty. Then, when we have fallen, we are apt 
 to get discontented with our place, and to feel as if Pro- 
 vidence had not treated us fairly. We say that we have 
 not had a fair chance. We look with envy on others 
 whose trials are not so visible as ours, or it may be (for 
 who can setde such a point.?) not really so severe as ours. 
 We fancy that we alone have these impulses to wrong ; 
 we alone fall into such tempting opportunities to sin ; we 
 
XX.] RESIGNA TION. 1 7 7 
 
 alone are hampered and fettered, and cannot tell how to 
 get free ; we alone have longings which we cannot gratify 
 rightly, while others can; we alone do not get the sym- 
 pathy that our nature needs. And when we feel all this 
 it is sometimes hard to say, in the sense in which our 
 Lord meant us to say it, ' Thy will be done in earth, as it is 
 in Heaven.' It is hard to accept what Providence gives, 
 to use it to the very utmost for our spiritual needs, and 
 then to say, I am quite certain that this is of all things 
 that could happen the very best for me. I cannot see it, 
 but I am certain of it ; for I am in the hands of a Father 
 Who governs all things and loves me. 
 
 And so again it is very often hard when not our spiritual 
 growth, but our immediate happiness is marred, to be 
 able to say at once, ' Thy will be done.' Disappoint- 
 ments in our wishes for our own pleasure do not perhaps 
 perplex us so much as trials which have caused our fall ; 
 but they try us keenly for all that. To have some dread- 
 ful thing happen to ourselves or to those whom we love, 
 to have a very painful thought ever present to the mind 
 the moment our attention is not occupied by what is 
 before our eyes, to bear a dead weight about, which can- 
 not be quite forgotten even when it is not quite con- 
 sciously remembered, this may sometimes be the lot of a 
 Christian, and may make it very hard for him to say, 
 with full and entire resignation, *Thy will be done.' 
 And even short of this there are sure to be many trials of 
 this kind which are quite capable of trying our faith, and if 
 our faith fails, of souring our temper. Not to get what 
 you had set your heart upon, to see another obtain what 
 
RESIGNATION. [s 
 
 you had hoped for yourself, to find others more highly 
 appreciated, and yet, as it seems to you, without fair 
 reason, to find others more successful, to be tormented 
 with all kinds of unsatisfied longings, perhaps for more 
 affection than you get, perhaps for more trust, perhaps 
 for more praise, perhaps for more distinction, — these are 
 common trials, but they are hard to bear. For when they 
 come on us, the duty of cheerful and hearty resignation is 
 plain. But it is more plain than it is easy. To believe at 
 such times that still God is watching over you and giving 
 you what, if you would use it rightly, is best for you, is 
 very hard. Rather it is natural to take refuge in a kind 
 of heathenism ; and if we do not go so far as to complain 
 of God's Providence, yet we complain of the course of 
 things, and feel sore and discontented instead of feeling 
 submissive and resigned. 
 
 For this duty of resignation is peculiarly a duty of 
 faith. If we look simply out on the world, we shall cer- 
 tainly not find that God's ways are made so plain, that 
 all who watch can see the guidance of His hand. I 
 do not promise that either in your own life, or in that of 
 others, you will ever be able to trace the truth which St. 
 Paul teaches us, namely, that all things work together for 
 good to them that love God. There is enough, no doubt, 
 to indicate the truth ; and especially in the inner and 
 secret experience of his own life will each man find, if he 
 chooses, plain marks that God has been guiding him. 
 He will see, if he look back and observes closely, times 
 when mere accident kept him from a fearful fall into some 
 dangerous sin, times when a change in his outer circum- 
 
X X .1 RESIGN A TION. 
 
 79 
 
 stances came just in time to save him from being hardened 
 in some evil habit, times when a word from the Bible, or 
 from God's ministers, exactly suited his need, times when 
 a new friend or a new teaching opened his soul just when 
 it was wanted, times when some sin was mercifully de- 
 tected, times too, perhaps, when it was mercifully hidden. 
 Such experiences as these every Christian has ; but they 
 are enough to support faith, not enough to give it. The 
 doctrine ultimately rests, not on such experiences, blessed 
 as these experiences assuredly are, but on the ever-deepen- 
 ing sense that God is our Father, and that no Father ever 
 loved children more than He loved us. 
 
 Thus it is that whether we are tried with pain and 
 unhappiness, or with besetting temptations, we shall be 
 able still to rest in the everlasting arms of our Father's 
 never-wearied love. We shall say when allurements to 
 sin beset us, that since, when we were enemies, we were 
 reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more 
 being reconciled shall we be saved from sin by His life. 
 We shall say, when we are unhappy, that God chastiseth 
 every one whom He receive th. And however clear it 
 may be that His will is not what we think happiest for 
 ourselves at the time, nor, indeed, so far as we can see, at 
 all. He will give us strength to say, ' Thy will be done i^ 
 earth, as it is in Heaven.' 
 
 N 2 
 
SERMON XXI. 
 
 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 
 
 ST. LUKE Viii. 15. 
 
 ' But that on the good ground are they, 'which, in an honest and 
 good heart, having heard the <word, keep it, and bring forth 
 fruit <with patience.' 
 
 'T^HE parable of the Sower, which we read in the Gospel 
 this morning, is the beginning of parables. It stands 
 out from all the rest as the beginning of a new and higher 
 method of teaching. Before that our Lord had not 
 veiled His meaning. There is nothing like a parable in 
 the Sermon on the Mount. And it was so new to His 
 Disciples that they asked Him why He taught in this way, 
 and what His parable meant? There are no such questions 
 afterwards ; this parable and the parable of the Tares, which 
 immediately follows it, are the only ones which are accom- 
 panied with an explanation. I suppose that, after that, 
 the Disciples had caught the meaning of the new method 
 of teaching and needed explanations no longer. 
 
 Nor is it a mere accident that this parable stands first. 
 It is the natural preface to all parables, and, indeed, to 
 all teaching. The parable of the Sower is the guide to 
 
PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. i8i 
 
 what we all have to expect when we set ourselves to learn 
 or to teach. It is true of other subjects besides God's 
 truth ; as true of mathematics or of history as it is of 
 religion and the religious character. And so Christ has 
 made it the beginning of that part of His teaching which 
 especially refers to His kingdom ; for His kingdom, the 
 Kingdom of Heaven, is the subject of all the parables 
 without exception, and even where it is not mentioned, 
 is always understood. And if among all that we assemble 
 here to learn, there is one subject which stands out above 
 all the rest ; one lesson which is not merely to be learnt by 
 you, but by me also, and by all who hear me — namely, 
 the knowledge of God and of Christ, and of the Kingdom 
 of Christ, this parable is the fitting introduction to it. 
 
 This parable is addressed to all whose consciences are 
 alive enough ever to speak to them. There are, no doubt, 
 unhappy creatures, strange mystery that it should be so, 
 who are not touched by this parable, because the truth 
 of God has never really reached their ears, much less 
 their understanding. Men brought up in utter ignorance ; 
 with their natural affections stifled by early sin, or, at any 
 rate, never warmed to a Diviner fire than can be seen in 
 the natural affections of brute animals ; living ever among 
 examples of vice ; on such as these we cannot say that 
 the Sower of the seed of God has ever scattered His 
 heavenly gift. But all we the rest, wherever, or however, 
 or whenever we have learnt that there is a difference 
 between right and wrong, we know, and we cannot deny, 
 that the seed has reached our souls. 
 
 The Sower is the Providence of God. There may be 
 
1 82 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. [serm. 
 
 many instruments employed by Him ; teachers whose 
 duty it is to interpret and enforce the Scriptures ; parents, 
 and tutors, and guardians, whose duty it is to guide the 
 steps, to warn from temptation, to impress by punish- 
 ment the lessons which conscience has already uttered 
 in vain, companions whose example and opinions are 
 ever being poured into our minds. But these are all 
 instruments. Of them all may be said what St. Paul 
 said of himself and of Apollos : ' I planted, Apollos 
 watered, but God gave the increase.' The real Sower 
 is the Providence of God. The God who governs all 
 things in a wonderful order has filled the world with 
 lessons which reach us without our seeking them ; and 
 perpetually our hearts respond, and we see what is right, 
 and we feel a power commanding us to do it. Every 
 such warning within, every such inviting or forbidding 
 whisper, is the sound of the seed of God falling on the 
 heart. You are quietly sinking to sleep at night; it 
 suddenly flashes across you that you have neglected a 
 duty, and that you ought to attend to it the first thing 
 in the morning; you remember that you have been 
 untrue or unkind, or have led a companion into sin, 
 and you feel that you ought to set this right at what- 
 ever cost to yourself, either of pain or disgrace. You 
 are reading the Bible, and you meet with some sentence 
 which precisely hits yourself, and shews you how you 
 are wrong, and how you ought to set yourself right. 
 You are talking with a friend, or working at something 
 you have to do, or engaged in some active game, and 
 in the very midst of it an unwelcome thought comes in, 
 
XXI.] PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 183 
 
 and demands obedience to a most unpleasant command 
 of duty. What are all these thoughts which come to 
 us so unbidden ? They are the seed of God falling on 
 the soil of our hearts. Sometimes we seem to see the 
 hand that scatters them; we are listening to a teacher 
 or a preacher, and his words reach us. But I think 
 more often we never see the hand at all. But the seed 
 falls, and we recognise it. 
 
 We recognise it. For the seed of God is quite unlike 
 any other. A new truth of politics, of language, of mathe- 
 matics, is never like this. Nay, we may have new truths 
 in religion suddenly made plain to our understandings; 
 new, that is, to us, though old enough in themselves ; 
 and yet they will not be at all like the seed of Heaven. 
 The seed of Heaven, when it enters the soul, is ever 
 accompanied with a peculiar pain, a peculiar pleasure. 
 It seems to belong to itself, and to be of the same kind 
 with nothing else. It does not go to the intellect, but 
 to the conscience. It does not affect the speculations 
 except indirectly, but it affects the life. All other truths 
 I feel to be as it were subordinate to myself; I cannot 
 alter them, but I can use them. I learn mathematics, and 
 whatever I learn I know to be fixed, unchangeable, abso- 
 lute. But my soul does not bow down. I guide myself 
 by these truths, but I do not feel that they rule my life 
 and being. I make them my servants ; I buy and sell 
 by them ; I guide ships by them ; I make machines by 
 them. Or, again, I learn politics ; but political truths, 
 though they are lofty in their nature, are still not supreme 
 over my conscience. I learn that men are governed 
 
1 84 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. [sERM. 
 
 by such and such instincts ; that they require such and 
 such guidance ; that they pursue such and such paths. 
 And in learning all this I reverence the God that made 
 man so fearfully and wonderfully; but here, too, I feel 
 that all this learning is under me, not over me ; and that 
 when I have got it, I am to use it as I use a lamp or a 
 compass, but, if need be, even to defy it. I learn the 
 laws of physical science. I learn that some drug is a 
 poison, and having learnt that fact, of course I am for- 
 bidden by my knowledge to swallow the drug. But yet 
 a case may arise when, in defiance of the physical law, 
 I shall swallow it; some imperative duty may interfere, 
 and I shall set the physical law at defiance, and die 
 with my eyes open. Thus, I say, all other truths are 
 subordinate to myself. But not so the truth of God. I 
 cannot use this truth ; I must obey it. I cannot guide 
 my steps by it, in order to rise to something else. I must 
 submit to it for its own sake. It is above me. And as 
 it enters the soul, I feel a reverence for its voice which 
 I cannot feel for any other voice. 
 
 Such is the nature of the seed, and the parable tells 
 us why it does not always grow. The parable does not 
 speak of those whom it does not reach. You will not 
 be touched by this parable on account of truths which 
 have sounded in your ears, or have flashed before your 
 eyes, but have never touched your conscience. You 
 need not distress yourself with fearing that want of 
 understanding will be a ground for condemning you. 
 The parable speaks only of those whose consciences 
 are touched; of those who have felt and heard within 
 
XXI.] PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 185 
 
 their souls, warnings, and whispers, and faint calls, and 
 passing stings of remorse, and wishes for liberty; of 
 those who have done wrong and been reproved for it, 
 have been in temptation and have been warned by con- 
 science against it, have felt occasional doubts whether 
 their careless, idle neglect of duty were quite right. To 
 such as these the parable speaks, and tells them why 
 the seed fell in vain. Look back, and remember any 
 warning your conscience gave you ; remember any prayer 
 that you made for help ; remember any good resolution 
 that you made ; every instance that you can remember 
 was a seed from heaven. Has it grown ? If it has not, 
 the parable will tell you why. 
 
 It tells us three causes which prevent or injure the 
 growth of the heavenly seed: the careless heart, the 
 shallow character, the divided mind. You felt the touch 
 of the heavenly seed; your conscience pricked you; no 
 one can mistake the sting of conscience for anything else, 
 and you knew at the time that you ought to listen. But 
 your careless heart trampled down the thought, and would 
 not let it take root, or turned away and left the next pass- 
 ing imagination to pick it up. Or, again, you seemed not 
 quite so bad. The warning of conscience did move you ; 
 move you much, perhaps to tears, to passionate resolu- 
 tions, to prayers, to more fervour than a more confirmed 
 Christian would have shewn. But there was no depth. 
 Some temptation came across you, and forthwith all your 
 resolutions seemed gone into the distant past, half-for- 
 gotten, seen through a mist, dim, faint. You slip back and 
 feel no shame at your own weakness. Or, once more, you 
 
1 86 PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. [SERM. 
 
 seemed better still. The seed did grow. It took real, 
 perhaps deep, hold of your soul. But you had in that 
 soul so much besides ; so many other hopes, so many 
 other aims, so many other delights. The heavenly seed is 
 not killed ; you do not lose all sense of religion ; but the 
 seed is choked and becomes unfruitful : a barren, useless, 
 weak religion is the only produce of the divided mind. 
 
 These three are the causes that God's seed often does 
 not prosper. These are the causes why, in spite of all 
 the lessons that are poured into our souls, we do not 
 learn. And so the world abounds with men who have 
 been taught much, and taught by God Himself, and 
 yet have learnt little or nothing : men who have had the 
 finest opportunities of being great and noble characters, 
 and have become weak, and poor, and selfish souls : 
 men whose history might seem to have marked them 
 out for lights to all their fellows, and who have ended 
 with losing even the light that was needed for them- 
 selves. Every trial that we pass through is capable of 
 being the seed of a noble character. Every temptation 
 that we meet in the path of duty is another chance of 
 filling our souls with the power of Heaven. Every in- 
 spiration to do right, however trivial it may seem, is sent 
 to us directly from Him Who sows the word of God. 
 But there is not a man living who has not to blame him- 
 self for wasting many such seeds in his carelessness, his 
 shallowness, his double-mindedness. And there are some, 
 and they not a few, who have allowed but very few to 
 grow out of many that they have received. 
 V Now this parable then should be the preface to our 
 
XXI.] PREPARATION FOR LEARNING. 187 
 
 life, as it is the preface to our Lord's teaching about 
 our life. Here are the three things that we have to 
 guard against: the careless heart, the shallow character, 
 the divided mind. And here is the picture of what we 
 ought to be : ' they which in an honest and good heart, 
 having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit 
 with patience.' Can we make ourselves all this at once ? 
 No ; but we can do much towards it. It is just in 
 these preparations for the work of life that a resolute 
 determination is of real value. You cannot make your 
 heart honest and good as the parable requires. But 
 the resolution to do your best towards it will do a 
 great deal towards it. Resolve to be honest with your- 
 self, and not to throw away the messages of God, which 
 will come to you day after day. Resolve not to stifle 
 your conscience, when it happens to command what is 
 not pleasant for you to do. Resolve not to let your- 
 self cool down from the warmth of your first hopes ; 
 but when you find yourself sinking back, to hold stead- 
 fastly to what you determined in the day of fervour. 
 Resolve not to let any other thought be higher with 
 you than the thought of duty. Prepare your heart in 
 this way, and you may be sure that your preparation 
 will not be lost; for God blesses such preparations as 
 these, and Christ assuredly did not tell us this parable 
 simply to give us some interesting information on the 
 causes why the heavenly seed so often failed, but be- 
 cause He would have us take care that it do not fail. 
 Thus shall we work out our own salvation; for it is 
 God that worketh in us both to will and to do. 
 
SERMON XXII. 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION. 
 
 ST. JAMES I. 12. 
 
 * Blessed is the man that endureth temptation : for 'when he is tried, 
 he shall recei've the crown of life, 'which the Lord hath promised 
 to them that Icve Him.^ 
 
 ^^ ^E pray that we may not be led into temptation ; and 
 in using that prayer we acknowledge that it is an 
 imperative duty not to go into temptation. And our Lord 
 speaks more strongly of avoiding temptation than of 
 almost any other duty, bidding us even cut off the right 
 hand or pluck out the right eye, if the right hand or the 
 right eye shall have proved a temptation. And our own 
 experience agrees with this ; and in too many instances 
 where we have fallen, we are compelled to confess that 
 we might have avoided the fall by avoiding the tempta- 
 tion. In fact, this is the chief mark which distinguishes 
 the veteran soldier of the Cross from the novice; that 
 the former never wastes his strength and perils his ser- 
 vice by going into needless temptation. All this is so. 
 And we cannot too often repeat it, or too vehemently 
 drive it down into our inmost hearts, and make it the 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION. 189 
 
 undeviating rule of our lives. But still temptations are 
 not scattered all about us without a purpose. And if 
 it is true on the one side that we have no right to run 
 into temptations, so is it true on the other hand that 
 temptations are the necessary discipline of our lives. 
 As far as we can see, it is by temptations that we are 
 educated. I do not mean that God could not educate 
 us in any other way if He thought fit to do so ; nor even 
 that He does not educate some men altogether, and all 
 men, in some degree, without temptations. But the 
 exceptions are not to the point. It is quite certain that 
 the ordinary discipline provided for the soul is the dis- 
 cipline of temptation. If two men hold precisely the 
 same principles, and mean to act in precisely the same 
 way, and if one has been tempted to forsake those prin- 
 ciples, and has withstood the temptation, and the other 
 has never been tempted at all, then the principles and 
 character of the two are in reality quite different. I do 
 not mean merely that you do not yet know whether the 
 untempted man is thoroughly sincere or not. I mean 
 more than that. I mean that the passage through temp- 
 tation actually makes a change in a man. The very 
 same principles which he held before he was tempted 
 he may, to all appearance, hold still; but though they 
 are the same in form, and if you were to put them into 
 words, you would have to put them into the same words, 
 they are not the same in reality. The passage through 
 the fire of temptation has ennobled — has sanctified them. 
 In passing through temptation we grow. The tempta- 
 tion may not have shaken us from the place where we 
 
I90 THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION, [serm. 
 
 had taken our stand. But though it has not shaken us, 
 it has not left us as it found us. We are different from 
 that day forward ; it may be very different ; it may be 
 not more than slightly different; but for certain really 
 different. And this, as far as we can see, is, as I said, 
 an appointed education. To pass through temptations, 
 never seeking them, never yielding to them; never 
 seeking them, for that would be downright rashness, 
 or even treason to our own souls ; never yielding to 
 them, for that would be to surrender to the devil: this 
 is the discipline of the Christian man's will. 
 
 Of course it will be inevitable, if we are to be dis- 
 ciplined by temptation, that v>^e shall sometimes fall. 
 How often, must depend on the energy with which we 
 fight. But to none is it given never to fall. Yet, if 
 we fall, the need of these temptations must teach us 
 not to seek silly excuses, by pleading to our own con- 
 science that we were tempted so sorely. It may be all 
 quite true, and, as far as it is true, it does palliate the 
 fall to this extent, that he who falls under severe 
 temptation is not so guilty as he who falls with little 
 temptation or none. But what is the use of seeking 
 palliations ? Seek as we may, the fact remains, that 
 here was the means provided by the Providence of God 
 for disciplining our souls ; and, instead of using it as 
 M^e ought, we have made it an occasion of doing our- 
 selves harm. What is the use of thinking what we might 
 have done if we had not been tempted? The tempt- 
 ation came to us to do us good, and if God watches 
 over the very sparrows, assuredly He did not allow this 
 
XXII.] THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION. 191 
 
 temptation to come to us except at the right time, and 
 when it was just needed. We look back afterwards and 
 say that it came at the wrong moment ; it took us un- 
 awares; or it was too much in itself; or it was when 
 we were particularly weak. But that is easy to say after- 
 wards : we say it because we fall. Not so. God, who 
 governs the world, takes care of all that. And when, 
 instead of looking to our part of the business, we take 
 to judging His, we are silly and worse than silly. It 
 is silly for a man to talk to his own heart in a tone which 
 implies that he could have contrived a better arrange- 
 ment of the circumstances of his own life; and that 
 if he were left to arrange his own trials and his own 
 temptations he could give himself a proper discipline 
 without the same dangers. We must take the circum- 
 stances of our lives as we find them, and make the best 
 use of them. And. if we have failed to make the best 
 use of them, we must still learn not to lay the fault on 
 them ; for whatever they were, we might as well have 
 done the best that could be done. Even after you have 
 fallen you may still make a better use of the temptation 
 than trying to lay the fault upon it. You may seek out 
 how far you can avoid it, and take care to do so. You 
 may seek to prevent it ever assailing you unawares 
 hereafter. You may humble yourself before God who 
 allowed it to come. And this is far better than com- 
 plaining of it. What would be said of a soldier who, 
 being defeated, complained of having been sent into 
 danger? Why, if there were no danger where would 
 be the soldier's honour or reward? where would be his 
 
192 THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION. [SERM. 
 
 means of proving his devotion to his duty? why should 
 he even exist? And so too, without temptation, where 
 would be the Christian's crown ? or why should men be 
 Christians at all? Resist, brethren, earnestly resist the 
 inclination which always comes over you when you have 
 done wrong, to lessen the fault all to nothing by dwelling 
 on the severity of the temptation. If you have been tried 
 severely, then remember that the greater the danger the 
 greater the honour to him that was sent into it. A 
 general does not send a soldier whom he cannot trust 
 into a service of difficulty. Neither does Christ employ 
 servants whom He does not love on difficult acts of 
 obedience. If you have sinned, do not exaggerate the 
 sin, or try to make it out to your own conscience worse 
 than it is. But try to look at it as it is. Try to think 
 how your father or your mother would judge it. And 
 do not throw away even the good that you may yet 
 obtain from it by dwelling on the soreness of the trial. 
 
 On the other hand, it is very important to notice that 
 it is not every apparent victory over temptation that is 
 a real victory. There is a seeming victory which is a 
 real defeat, and I fear a very dangerous defeat, and it 
 is for this reason that we sometimes find that those very 
 temptations, which we are disposed to reckon as our 
 occasions of victory, have after all done us harm instead 
 of good. There are two ways of resisting and over- 
 coming temptation. You may turn away from the tempter 
 with a cheerful resolute will, heartily throwing yourself 
 into your duty, endeavouring to find there, not your duty 
 only, but your happiness also, turning out of your head 
 
XXII.] 777^ DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION. 193 
 
 cheerfully but resolutely even the thought which hankers 
 after what is wrong. Or you may resist the temptation, 
 and even overcome it, with anger at your heart, and an 
 eager longing for the forbidden pleasure still ruling your 
 soul; with eyes looking back to what you are quitting, 
 with discontent at the hard duty which has divided 
 you from your wish, with secret complaining and bitter- 
 ness at the hardness of your trials. Now this last way 
 of overcoming temptation is not that which St. James 
 declares to be blessed. The type of the character is 
 Balaam, the wicked prophet. He obeyed; exactly 
 obeyed what he was plainly commanded. But it is 
 clear as day that his obedience was merely outward. 
 He did not surrender himself heart and soul to the 
 command. He was hankering after the rewards that 
 Balak offered ; and he could not bear to give them up. 
 And so although he would never curse God's people, 
 since he was told that he must not, he did the very 
 wickedest thing recorded in the Old Testament; he 
 deliberately told the Moabites how they could seduce 
 God's people into sin. Was he much benefited by 
 having overcome the temptation of Balak's offers.? Or 
 was he not rather hardened in a subtler but wickeder 
 sinfulness ? 
 
 Yet this kind of victory is by no means uncommon. 
 You are, for instance, plainly called to do some act of 
 unselfishness. Your conscience points out to you that 
 here is an occasion for self-sacrifice; perhaps not only 
 points out that here is an occasion, but that here is a 
 distinct call which you cannot rightly turn away from. 
 
 o 
 
194 THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION'. [sERM. 
 
 You are too conscientious not to listen to the call. You 
 sacrifice your own wish to the wish, the pleasure, the 
 feelings of others. But in what spirit ? How very natural 
 is it to indemnify one's self, as it were, by cherishing an 
 angry discontent at having been called on to make such 
 a sacrifice ; perhaps to despise the one who has benefited 
 by it, even though he is not in the least degree conscious 
 of the benefit ; perhaps to long for some happy turn of 
 accident that shall make the sacrifice unnecessary, and 
 give one the double satisfaction both of enjoying one's 
 wishes and of having sacrificed them ; perhaps to brood 
 over it often afterwards, and complain of one's lot, or 
 even of life altogether, so full as it is of hardships like 
 these. How can we expect that unselfishness like this 
 will strengthen the character, will bring us nearer to God, 
 will make us feel that we are in the arms of Christ, will 
 give us an idea of the beauty of holiness, will make us 
 more ready for the next occasion when Christ shall call 
 us to take up the Cross. 
 
 I have spoken of acts of self-sacrifice as giving in- 
 stances of this false victory over temptation, because 
 I believe that unselfishness is peculiarly the duty the 
 fulfilment of which is exposed to this danger. Of all vic- 
 tories, the victories over selfishness are those which most 
 often leave behind them a discontent which utterly spoils 
 them, and makes them positively mischievous to the soul. 
 It is in these cases that we most often see that strangest 
 of all results, a man who has passed through much suffer- 
 ing for conscience sake, and yet is not the better for his 
 suffering. What can be sadder— a soul that has given 
 
XXII.] THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION. 195 
 
 up much for God's service, given up, it may be, its own 
 chief happiness as it seemed at the time, persisted in this 
 self-sacrifice for years, and yet after all is not sweeter 
 but sourer, is not more loving but more discontented, 
 is not more peaceful but more querulous ? But the same 
 issue is also possible in fighting with other temptations. 
 Temptations to vanity, frivolity, idleness; to indulgence 
 of bodily appetite ; to pride ; to love of power ; to wrong 
 ambition, may be resisted, and may be overcome; and 
 yet he that overcometh may not be blessed, because he 
 has not overcome the inward enemy but only the out- 
 ward. The evil spirit may have been driven out, and 
 yet may have left behind him a spirit of discontent to 
 keep his place; and that spirit, if left unmolested, shall 
 do as much harm as the spirit that has been expelled. 
 
 To overcome temptation, not in outer act merely, 
 but with heart and soul, that is what wins the crown 
 of life; the crown emphatically of life, for he who has 
 passed through temptations victorious, he it is who em- 
 phatically lives. He has in him the richness of his own 
 experience. He is not using words without meaning, 
 or words with a vague, hazy, indistinct idea, when he 
 speaks of the battle of the Christian, or of the help of 
 his Redeemer. The house which he is building rests 
 not on the sand of mere emotion, but on the rock of 
 Christ's presence in his soul, which temptations have 
 laid bare for him to build on. His principles are not 
 mere sentiments, but living powers, whose strength has 
 been tried and proved. His doctrines are not mere 
 forms of speech ; they correspond with needs of his soul, 
 o 2 
 
196 THE DISCIPLINE OF TEMPTATION'. 
 
 which he has probed to the bottom in the hour of diffi- 
 culty. The Bible is not to him a beautiful and awful 
 book, full of wonderful promises which sound like words 
 in a foreign tongue, full of awful threatenings which seem 
 too fearful to be literally true; but a record of realities 
 into which he has himself entered, a world of spirits 
 where he can find his own place, see his own work, 
 obtain his own helps. God is not to him the mler of 
 the Universe in which he himself is a little unconsidered 
 fragment, which it is strange to think of as noticed in 
 the mass; but his own Father, Who has told him, and 
 still tells him, what he is to do, and Who will not and 
 cannot forget him even if Himself be all forgotten. 
 Christ is not to him the Redeemer of mankind. Who 
 died for the sins of the whole world, and is still bringing 
 sinners to repentance; but the Friend Whose love sur- 
 passes all other love, W^hose sympathy embraces all other 
 sympathy. Whose help cannot fail, Whose indwelling 
 Spirit is ever bringing into his heart, up from the eternal 
 fountains, the waters of eternal life. This is the crown 
 which buds here and blossoms hereafter, and fills all 
 the soul on which it falls with the power of its beauty; 
 and this crown is given to him who, when temptations 
 come, gives himself mind and soul, and will and heart, 
 to fulfil the love of Christ. 
 
SERMON XXIII. 
 
 ALL LIGHT GOOD. 
 
 Preached on WTiit Sunday, 1859. 
 
 ST. JOHN xiii. 17. 
 ^ If ye kno'vj these things^ happy are ye if ye do them* 
 
 T T is very sad to fail in duty from ignorance. And when 
 that ignorance is very gross, the failure is generally so 
 complete and so visible, that it is sure to meet with its 
 appropriate punishment. The utter worthlessness into 
 which men can sink who have never been taught any 
 portion of the truth, is a visible proof to us how much 
 we owe to the light which has been shed over our own 
 lives. The extinction not only of the feelings which we 
 commonly call human, but even of those which we share 
 with brute animals ; the want of natural affection ; the 
 want of natural decency ; the violence, the grossness, the 
 obstinate hardness of heart, the recklessness even of im- 
 mediate consequences, which sometimes astonish us in 
 the characters of unhappy fellow-creatures, left entirely 
 to themselves to work out their own evil nature without a 
 suggestion of help or of warning, without a hint of the 
 
198 ALL LIGILT GOOD. [sERM. 
 
 coming judgment, of the life beyond the grave, of the 
 power, the hohness, the mercy of God; these sights, 
 which are never far to seek, tell plainly that light of any 
 kind is a gift of God, and has a power beyond the power 
 of miracles. It is awful to be quite dark; to have no 
 thought beyond the present world and the needs of earth ; 
 to have never heard of God ; to know absolutely nothing 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ; to know nothing, or worse than" 
 nothing, of the laws of righteousness ; to be without all 
 conscience — without all higher impulses — without all 
 appreciation of what is noble or pure ; to be filled heart 
 and soul with a wretched cunning, or, perhaps, to be 
 cowed by a still more wretched superstition ; to have no 
 more feeling than just what a brute beast may have for 
 its young, and, perhaps, not even so much as that. Such 
 unhappy victims of the neglect either of parents or society 
 at large, stand where they do, visible marks to prove to 
 our eyes what we owe to light and knowledge, and how 
 much of God's goodness is wrapped up even in that 
 worldly refinement which educated heathens had before 
 Christ came, which many attain to now who never come 
 to Christ. These unhappy creatures assuredly get terribly 
 punished for their share of the fault which degrades them, 
 and how far they are to be excused for their ignorance 
 we shall never know till the Judgment Day reveals all 
 secrets. 
 
 Their condition clearly tells us what education does for 
 us : what we gain from mere unassisted light. Mere light 
 of intellect, without any direct consciousness of God or of 
 Heaven, or of Christ, or of conscience, does a great and 
 
XXIII.] ALL LIGHT GOOD, 1 99 
 
 visible work. It sets a man free from many temptations, 
 so that without making him, as far as we can see, at all 
 a better man, it puts him in a better position. There are 
 many gross sins which lose all their power over him, 
 simply because other attractions are presented which are 
 still more powerful. There are many which not only lose 
 power, but become positively disgusting, because, while 
 they appeal to his lower nature, they repel his higher. 
 Some sins are killed by the refinement of education : 
 some by its unconscious discipline : some by a sort of 
 growth in the understanding : some by their being con- 
 nected with disagreeable associations. There cannot be 
 the slightest doubt that light poured in upon the under- 
 standing not only gives greater strength to resist tempta- 
 tions, but removes a great many altogether. The possible 
 pleasures within reach of a thoroughly uneducated man 
 are so few, that sinful pleasures must form a large 
 proportion of them. His range of thought is so 
 narrow, that self must occupy a large space. He is 
 tempted to gratify appetite, simply because he has no 
 other indulgence within reach. He is tempted to let 
 the body rule him, because the soul has so little to 
 employ him about. Those who have learnt better, 
 if they have nothing else, yet have their time and 
 their thoughts more filled, and not so much room left 
 for evil. 
 
 But this is not all, though this is much. Light of any 
 kind invariably throws light upon duty, and if we know 
 anything, we are sure to have thereby a clearer knowledge 
 of right from wrong. The mere awakening of the under- 
 
200 ALL LIGHT GOOD. [SERM. 
 
 standing must awaken the conscience in some degree. 
 You cannot gain more intellectual power without also 
 gaining moral light. Just as the coming of the daylight 
 shews you the beauty of nature at the same moment that 
 it shews you the position of surrounding objects, so, too, 
 even the merest science must reveal in some slight degree 
 the beauty of the Will of God. 
 
 I know not how those shall be judged who have never 
 had any such aid, and have therefore sunk into the con- 
 dition of brute beasts. God, who seeth not as man seeth, 
 will one day do absolute justice to all, and their unhappy 
 lot shall meet at once with His unbounded mercy and His 
 unerring judgment. But their condition proves to us, 
 that the education which we obtain from intercourse with 
 one another is the appointed machinery chosen by His 
 Providence for fashioning our hearts according to His 
 will. Even those who have never yet been touched at 
 heart by the power of His Word written or spoken, even 
 souls that have not yet opened to receive His revealed 
 truth, even those who have never heard of Christ, or from 
 whose cold and hard hearts that name has glided off 
 without a trace, even they have received a precious gift, 
 if their understandings have been awakened by the light 
 of the knowledge of this present world. And for that 
 gift they will certainly be responsible. 
 
 And how much more shall we. 
 
 It is well on such a day as this to force ourselves to 
 consider what a thing is that every-day, that commonplace 
 gift which we call Conscience ; and what a thing it is to 
 have had that stirred into life, and inspired with heavenly 
 
XXIII.] ALL LIGHT GOOD, 20I 
 
 thoughts, and armed with heavenly weapons, and instructed 
 to convey to us a heavenly message. It is every-day and 
 commonplace. In other words, it is like the air we 
 breathe, like the food that we eat. Shall we then never 
 know its value, except, perchance, by losing it .? Or is it 
 not enough to compare ourselves with those to whom it 
 has never been taught to speak? with those who, losing 
 the Light, have lost so much besides } with those of whom, 
 if we have human feelings, we cannot think but with the 
 profoundest pity and pain t 
 
 We are taught better. Do we think how much better ? 
 Do we realise how much, in a place like this, we receive, 
 all of us. Masters and Boys, which we can never repay ? 
 Do we endeavour, in any measure, to make our service 
 keep pace with the blessings that are given us, or have 
 we at all improved ourselves in proportion to what Pro- 
 vidence has done for us .? I cannot help often contrasting 
 this place with what schools were when I was at school 
 myself. I cannot help seeing, day by day, how many 
 blessings both you and I have here which then were not 
 to be obtained. The mere fact that every Sunday we 
 meet in this Chapel and consecrate the week and the 
 week's work to God, the mere fact that every Sunday 
 this whole School unites in the service as the centre of 
 its common life; this alone makes such a difference as 
 ought to have its effect on every soul amongst us. It is 
 ever the temptation of Masters to forget the other world 
 in the constant demands of a most engrossing profession, 
 and to forget wisdom in teaching knowledge. It is ever 
 the temptation of Boys to forget the future in the present, 
 
202 ALL LIGHT GOOD. [sERM. 
 
 and to let the pleasure or the business of the day drive 
 out all other thoughts. What is it to be reminded every 
 week, almost whether we will or no, of a higher aim, of a 
 truer glory, of a nobler business ! It is quite impossible 
 that all this should not penetrate into our consciences. 
 We must learn, we cannot avoid learning, something of 
 the truth of God, and the love of Christ. It is as certain 
 as our bodily growth, that thoughts will be suggested 
 which will point to God and to Heaven, that words will 
 stick in our memory which will often check a sin or 
 help a prayer, that whatever may be our after lives, we 
 shall never again be able quite to quench the un- 
 quenchable light that is slowly but surely kindling in 
 our hearts. 
 
 But here, above all other places of the kind, what an 
 involuntary education there is in the very sound of the 
 name, in the associations of its history. On this Sunday 
 morning seventeen years ago Arnold died. He died, as 
 surely it was best that such a man should die, in the very 
 midst of his labours, in the very fulness of his energy. 
 He was cut short, and his work suddenly cut short with 
 him. But that work, as we well know, died only as 
 the seed dies which the husbandman scatters on his 
 fields. His work died only to spring up in a miraculous 
 harvest ; and it may be truly said that, from the moment 
 of his death, his power over England began. His 
 thoughts, his words, his nobleness of life, above all his 
 spirit, have never ceased to work ; and you can find the 
 traces of his teaching now, where, while he lived, his 
 name would have been a word of offence and anger. 
 
XXIII.] ALL LIGHT GOOD. 
 
 203 
 
 The power of his presence has grown in visible stature 
 within the memory of those who knew him. And 
 there is no place in England where a Christian can 
 hear his name without a heartfelt recognition that he 
 was a true and faithful servant of God. 
 
 And here surely, if anywhere, his former presence must 
 still be working, and we cannot, with all our shortcomings, 
 have yet lost all touch of his true-hearted manliness. 
 Nay, it is impossible for one who came here as I did, a 
 stranger to the place, not to recognise on every hand the 
 visible marks of what he did. I am reminded of him, and 
 of his sayings, and his loftiness of purpose, almost every 
 week. I can see at times the reflection of his thoughts in 
 minds that surely do not know from whom they have been 
 learning. I can catch the echo of his words in many 
 forms around me. Even much that I well know is far 
 older than his time, yet bears his impress unmistakeably, 
 and will bear it long. 
 
 And with all this stirring our souls, sometimes con- 
 sciously, sometimes unconsciously, shall we not acknow- 
 ledge our responsibility to the God who gave it .? Shall 
 we think little of the abundant light shed over our eyes, 
 and refuse to fill our life with that which already fills our 
 intellects and consciences } Let me charge you on this 
 day, the day of Arnold's death, to think what it is that is 
 most striking in his example, and in the spirit of his life. 
 I will not try to describe his character, nor give you and 
 myself the pain of feeling how much is needed entirely to 
 appreciate him ; but I will only ask you to think if at any 
 moment of his life, from the time that we know anything 
 
204 ALL LIGHT GOOD. [sERM, 
 
 of it, to the day when he was suddenly called away, if 
 at any moment of life one who knew him could have 
 had a moment's doubt on which side he was fighting? 
 Was there ever a moment when it could be said that he 
 wavered or paltered with his conscience, or allowed another 
 hope, another aim, to guide his life, and not the service 
 of his Master ? He doubtless had his faults, and God, 
 the just Judge, will make him see them, and will cleanse 
 them all away. But could any one, by any sort of mis- 
 judgment, fancy him not in earnest, or believe that he 
 had private ends to serve? Did he ever trifle with 
 himself, or hesitate for a second between clear right 
 and wrong ? 
 
 The legacy of his spirit he has bequeathed to us, and 
 we are called upon not to neglect so precious a gift. It 
 is just one of those gifts which I would rather remember 
 on Whit Sunday than on any other day, because it is just 
 by such gifts that God awakens in the souls of His children 
 the power of the Holy Ghost. The memory of such a 
 man, of all his truth and nobleness and courage, of all 
 his untiring self-devotion, of his absolute unselfishness, of 
 his lofty spirit, is given to us to awaken our slumbering 
 consciences, and to enable them to give us the message 
 of God. 
 
 And this message, then, let this day ring in our ears, 
 and let us never forget it. Trifle not with the conscience. 
 Trifle not with the one voice which always speaks with 
 the authority of Heaven, the one guide which is com- 
 missioned to bring you to Christ. Trifle not with the 
 representative of the Holy Ghost, speaking in His Holy 
 
XXIII.] ALL LIGHT GOOD. 205 
 
 Name. You will certainly often fall into sin, and live as 
 you will, you will never be allowed to forget, till you 
 reach your death-bed, the meaning of repentance. Sins 
 of sudden impulse, sins of temptation not foreseen, sins 
 of temptation proving far stronger than we had expected, 
 sins of temptation almost irresistible in their violence; 
 to such as these you must be liable. But never pass by 
 or palter with the clear voice of conscience, the plain 
 command of duty; never let it be doubtful to your 
 own soul whether you belong to the right side or wrong, 
 whether you are a true soldier or a false traitor. Never 
 deliberate about what is clearly wrong, and try to persuade 
 yourself that it is not. Never trifle with the verdict of 
 your own soul, and make excuses for your sin to your- 
 self, or try to palliate and forget what you ought to 
 forsake with hearty contrition. For remember that 
 the voice within is the very voice of God; and if 
 you play false with that, you are a traitor to your 
 Master. 
 
SERMON XXIV. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 HEBREWS V. 14. 
 
 ^ But Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, e-ven 
 those ^juho, by reason of use, ha've their senses exercised to 
 discern both good and e'viU 
 
 nPHIS verse, like another well-known verse in the same 
 Epistle, seems to contain in few words the solution of 
 a difficulty which accompanies us throughout the writings 
 of St. Paul. For all through St. Paul's teaching a pro- 
 minent doctrine is what we now call liberty of conscience. 
 The inner principle is always recognised by him as 
 supreme over the man : so much so that even he, though 
 an inspired Apostle, in writing to the Corinthians, refuses 
 to claim dominion over their faith, but declares that it is 
 his business to be a helper in their joy; and again, in 
 writing to the Philippians, distinctly acknowledges that it 
 is possible that they may not see the truth of what he 
 is telling, but that he has no doubt, that if in anything 
 they be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this 
 unto them. 
 
 Now, it is not difficult to see why the Apostle thus puts 
 
THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 207 
 
 the inner voice above all outer voices whatever. For 
 the inner voice, and that voice alone, speaks personally 
 and individually to the soul. Any other revelation can give 
 only general rules. The Bible suppHes us with principles, 
 with precepts, with examples, but we know well that in 
 the actual conduct of hfe the application of all these to 
 the details of our daily deeds, and thoughts, and words, 
 is quite as important as the principles themselves. A 
 man's conscience may be mistaken; but still, after all, 
 it is the only light that he has got which will enlighten 
 him in each separate case where he has a choice of 
 conduct. A man's conscience may be mistaken; but if 
 so, obedience to it is a mistake and not a sin, and we 
 know that mistakes are very different from sins. If our 
 conscience be mistaken because we have not taken due 
 trouble to enlighten it, then for that neglect of cultivating 
 our conscience we are responsible. But even then the 
 conscience claims our obedience, and if to obey is a mis- 
 take, to disobey is a sin. All other authorities speak to 
 men in general; this voice speaks to the very soul that 
 hears it and to none other. All other authorities speak 
 of the general rules by which we must live ; this voice 
 speaks of what is to be done now, here in these circum- 
 stances. Now, no one can help feehng that a command 
 given to him personally to do, or not to do, a given act at 
 the moment, must have more weight than a general com- 
 mand given to all men, or given for all times. It is as if 
 God Himself had interfered for our guidance, and had 
 thereby superseded all other guidance. And though the 
 messenger who thus comes direct from God may after all 
 
208 THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. [sERM. 
 
 be mistaken, yet surely we can do nothing but obey him, 
 and pray to God to guard him against mistakes. 
 
 This is the claim of the conscience, and of this claim 
 St. Paul never loses sight. Indeed he sometimes states 
 the claim in language which he himself is obliged to 
 guard. 'All things are lawful for me,' he says in more 
 than one place, and he says it in such a way as to imply 
 that he had said it often before. And he means plainly 
 enough, 'I may do anything which my conscience does 
 not condemn.' But he adds in one place, 'All things 
 are not expedient ; ' and again, ' I will not be brought 
 under the power of any;' and again, 'All things edify 
 not.' He never gives up his principle ; but he modifies 
 its application by many warnings ; some, such as T have 
 quoted; some still more strong, denouncing sins and 
 bidding his hearers not be deceived into fancying that 
 such sins are permissible ; some implied in the course of 
 his argument rather than distinctly stated. For the prin- 
 ciple cannot be surrendered. Mistaken or not, the con- 
 science must rule the life. To do right in disobedience to 
 conscience would be (if it could ever be done) more fatal 
 to the character by far than to do wrong in obedience to 
 it. But nevertheless, the Apostle feels, and every one 
 must feel in reading what he says, that surely here is a 
 serious difficulty. 
 
 The difference between making conscience supreme, 
 and making any outer law or authority supreme, depends 
 in fact on this. Which is it that God would have here on 
 earth, good actions or good men ? Does His Gospel pro- 
 pose to redeem and sanctify men's deeds or their souls ? 
 
XXIV.] THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 209 
 
 Does He desire to see a series of good acts — acts, that 
 is, regulated in their outward form by His holy Law ? or 
 does He desire to see a number of His servants striving to 
 obey His will ? If you want a number of right acts, then 
 your business is to lay down a number of fixed rules and 
 get men to obey them. But if you desire to have a number 
 of good men, then it is tolerably plain that you must 
 awake within them a power that shall guide their lives 
 independently of mere rules. The acts of such men may 
 not be quite as good as those of the men who are com- 
 pelled to walk in a more defined path. But the men are 
 men, and not machines, and as such are truer servants of 
 God. To procure such men, the voice within themselves 
 must be entrusted with the absolute dominion over all 
 their Hves. 
 
 The difficulty is, how far this principle is to apply. Are 
 all consciences in a state to claim this liberty ? Is it to be 
 given to bad men as well as good } Is it to be given to 
 children of six years old .? Are all men equally fitted to 
 decide on all practical questions .? And this difficulty was 
 even greater in some respects in those days than in these. 
 Those new converted heathens, with their very low no- 
 tions of the duty of purity, were they to be told at once, 
 All things are lawful for you 'i Granted that the law was 
 not made for a righteous man, is it not made for any 
 one } What will justify a man in relying unreservedly on 
 his conscience .? 
 
 The answer is supplied by the verse in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews with which I began. Those who, by 
 reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both 
 
 p 
 
2IO THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. [sERM. 
 
 good and evil, are fitted to use strong meat. They may 
 trust themselves to decide on their own conduct, to choose 
 their own opinions ; not certainly in confidence that they 
 cannot make mistakes, but that their mistakes will not be 
 ruinous to their character, and will, on the contrary, con- 
 tain ever more good than evil. The conscience, like the 
 other faculties that God gives, is not implanted perfect all 
 at once. It has its infancy, its age of weakness ; and it 
 ought to have and can have its age of maturity. When it 
 is full grown, it may and it must be trusted unreservedly. 
 We may seek to enlarge it, to enlighten it, to inspire it, 
 still; but we may and we must obey it. We may still 
 need caution to guard us against confounding other voices 
 with its commands. We may still need to consult wiser 
 friends; we shall surely always need to feed it with the 
 nourishment given in the Bible, namely, the doctrines, the 
 precepts, the examples there held up before us. But we 
 cannot dethrone it from its rightful place of judge and 
 guide of all our conduct. 
 
 This is its claim when it has grown to its full strength. 
 And how, then, does it grow ? Will it grow entirely of 
 itself, or does it depend entirely on our own exer- 
 tions ? 
 
 Its growth is like the growth of all our other faculties, 
 the result of a combination of what is without with what 
 is within. It will grow partly, on the one hand, by the ex- 
 perience of our lives, by the intercourse of our fellows, by 
 the truth that we learn in our studies, by the new thoughts 
 that flash upon us unbidden we know not whence, by the 
 mere lapse of time and growth of our whole framework, 
 
XXIV.] THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 211 
 
 both of body and soul, but, above all and through all, by 
 the constant use of God's Holy Word, without which it 
 would hardly be the same faculty; partly, on the other 
 hand, by our own greater or less co-operation, by the bent 
 which we have given to our wills, by the purposes which 
 we have cherished as the hope of our future days, by the 
 passions and impulses that we have fostered in our secret 
 hearts. On the one hand, every day will probably enable 
 us to see more distinctly the consequences and the bear- 
 ings of every separate act, the extent and Hmits of every 
 rule of Ufe, the true meaning of every precept in the Bible, 
 the appHcation of our Lord's commands, the various doc- 
 trines of the Gospel of God. And this, to a great extent, 
 without any co-operation on our part at all ; simply be- 
 cause we are older and more experienced, and our in- 
 tellects have attained to greater power. But, on the 
 other hand, the power of the Gospel, the true nature 
 of sin, the hatefulness of evil in God's sight, the love 
 of Christ which passeth knowledge, — these, and truths 
 like these, are quite invisible, except to the soul, which 
 opens to receive the grace that flows into it from on 
 high, and rises to meet the blessings that God is ever 
 giving. 
 
 The conscience is in fact a double faculty. It requires 
 for its perfection not only light, but power. You will 
 sometimes meet with men who, partly from much know- 
 ledge of the world and of their fellow-creatures, and partly 
 from a peculiar clearness of intellect, have a singular 
 insight into right and wrong, and can often give a judg- 
 ment on points of conduct which convinces the reason 
 p 2 
 
212 THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. [sERM. 
 
 the moment it is uttered. And yet these very men 
 shew by their words, and still more by their lives, that they 
 have never really grasped the true nature of God's law. 
 They seem to deduce what is right from general prin- 
 ciples, just as a mathematician deduces his result from the 
 data, without caring about it when they have got it. They 
 deal with questions of right and wrong as if playing 
 with counters. They come surely, but mechanically, to 
 a right conclusion. They will see at once what is the 
 generous thing to do; but they indulge in a secret 
 smile at the folly of generosity. They condemn at once 
 anything impure, as contrary to God's law; but they 
 think lightly of it all the time, and treat it as a comparative 
 trifle. They see what is right and what is wrong ; but 
 of the fearful gulf which separates these two things, 
 of the eternal war whereby each endeavours to over- 
 power the other, of the fact that these two things, and 
 these alone, are the substance of the world, and 
 reach into the everlasting kingdom and to the very 
 throne of God, of this they have not the slightest 
 conception. 
 
 And hence, indeed, even their insight into points of 
 conduct cannot always be trusted. In all those less usual 
 cases where feelings and motives come into play, when 
 you cannot absolutely decide the right or wrong, but 
 must make it depend on the temper and spirit of the doer; 
 in all those cases where consequences seem to point very 
 strongly one way, though principles point the other; in 
 cases where an apparently small evil will bring about an 
 apparently great good; in all such cases these clear- 
 
XXIV.] THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 213 
 
 sighted but worldly-hearted men are almost sure to be in 
 fault. For, after all, they have the form of godliness, but 
 not the power thereof. 
 
 The real growth of the conscience requires more than 
 this. It requires all this indeed, for without this it would 
 be narrow. It requires all the light that the intellect can 
 get ; all the light that can be supplied by experience, by 
 study, by thought, by personal growth. For if it cannot 
 get this, it is narrower than it ought to be, and is apt to 
 condemn what ought not to be condemned, and so to 
 shut its owner out from sympathies which would be useful 
 to him. But all this is not, after all, anything in com- 
 parison with that inward opening of the soul to the Holy 
 Spirit which ever binds the heart to Him, and makes the 
 conscience the reflection of His will. The religious man 
 may not see so clearly as the worldly man, and in any 
 given case the religious man may be wrong, and the 
 worldly man right, in deciding what ought to be done. 
 And yet how infinite the gulf which separates the two, and 
 how far does the wrong decision of the one stand above 
 the right decision of the other. For the religious man 
 carries into his decision the spirit of his heart ; he sancti- 
 fies and purifies what he does by doing it to God ; he 
 exorcises the evil of it by the name of Christ, Whom he 
 serves. And so high does the spirit ever stand above the 
 letter, that most assuredly the mischief of his mistake will 
 never do half the harm that is done by the emptiness of 
 the other man's heart. And in far the majority of cases 
 there will be no such mistake at all; but the religious 
 man's want of clear intellect will not prevent him from 
 
2 14 THE GROWTH OF THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 finding the right, where the clear-sighted man of the 
 world has been misled for want of depth of feeling. 
 
 The true condition of the growth of the conscience is 
 to live in it. To obey it is not enough, if, by obedience, 
 is meant simply doing what it bids. What is wanted is to 
 live in its spirit. That voice is ever calling us to Him who 
 gave it ; to God the Father Who created it ; to Christ 
 Whose Gospel redeemed it, purifies it, fills it with power ; 
 to the Holy Spirit speaking in the Word of God, and re- 
 vealing the everlasting truth. The constant habit of refer- 
 ring our fives to the will of Christ, the habit of living in the 
 thought of His presence, of trusting" entirely to His love, 
 of feeling an absolute confidence in His protection and 
 care, of doing His will, as far as we know it, cheerfully 
 and resolutely, of opening our hearts for Him to see, of 
 fining our intellects with the lessons which He has written 
 for our learning, — this is the Hfe which exercises the 
 senses to discern both good and evil. Without this, we 
 shall certainly increase daily in the knowledge of our duty, 
 but not in that knowledge which specially marks the ser- 
 vant of God. We shall see what is right, and care fittle 
 for it when we have seen it; we shall know what is 
 wrong, and yet find no shock of horror come over us if 
 we do it ; we shall have large minds and narrow hearts ; 
 and then we shall find that it is even a loss to us that we 
 are nominally Christians, because the Christian system is 
 constructed for those who have strength to be free, 
 and it would have been better for us to be still under 
 the Law. 
 
SERMON XXV. 
 
 THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 ROMANS ii. 1 6. 
 
 '''^he day qjuhen God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ 
 according to my gospel.'' 
 
 T^HE thought of the coming of Christ to judgment almost 
 inevitably leads the mind to the two great revelations 
 which will then be made, the revelation of the secrets of 
 the hearts of men, and the revelation of the true sub- 
 stance and nature of things. We shall see and we shall 
 be seen. At present all things are under a veil ; no man 
 knows his neighbour's real character except by inference ; 
 no man knows the truth of the universe except by faith. 
 But then both these will be known by sight. At present 
 there is a perpetual contradiction between faith and ex- 
 perience ; justice does not rule the world, and obedience 
 to the Law of God, which ought to be, as it seems to us, 
 the one supreme force in the w^orld, is thrust aside by 
 what is plausible, by what is resolute, by mere accident 
 even and blind chance. But on that day the higher 
 harmony which rules all these discords shall be revealed ; 
 
2i6 THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. [sERM. 
 
 the wrong shall either be set right before our eyes, or 
 shall be shewn never to have been wrong, but only to 
 have been misunderstood. So, again, at present we live, 
 each man in his own den, with good and with evil, which 
 none knows except the man himself, and even he but 
 imperfectly and fitfully. But then we shall be seen and 
 known of all men; for the judgment will be a public 
 judgment, and all will acknowledge its justice. 
 
 Let us look at one of these strange facts to-day, the 
 secrecy in which we all live, and the certainty that that 
 secrecy will not last for ever. 
 
 We live, I say, in a strange secrecy, even hidden from 
 our most loving and most intimate friends. If any one 
 of us were asked to relate his own life, he might relate 
 two lives which would seem all but independent of each 
 other. He might tell when he was born, where he had 
 lived, where he had passed year after year, what persons 
 he had lived with, what persons he had met, what he 
 had done in the way of study or of amusem^ent, what had 
 happened to him that was remarkable, what events had 
 made a great difference in his life. He might anticipate 
 the future, and calculate what profession he was likely 
 to be employed in; what were his chances of success 
 in it; what openings seemed to lie before him in his 
 path; what old age he looked forward to, and how he 
 expected to end his days. Or, again, he might tell quite 
 a different story. What he remembered of his own early 
 character; what were his real affections; what did he 
 secretly like, and pursue, and hope for; what changes 
 had passed over him; what events had influenced the 
 
THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 217 
 
 general current of his hopes, of his day-dreams, of his 
 thoughts ; what persons had left a deep impression on 
 him; what books had strengthened his will, his con- 
 science, his nobler impulses ; what companions, what 
 reading, what accidents had strengthened the evil or the 
 lower parts of his nature, and had given him trouble in 
 his spiritual combat. He might tell to what thoughts his 
 mind naturally turned in the moment of leisure; what 
 unfinished pictures were, as it were, hung up all round 
 the inner chamber of his soul. He might tell what 
 struggles he had been engaged in, and what had been 
 their issue : some still going on, not yet fought out ; 
 some in which the victory of conscience had been com- 
 plete enough to fear no further opposition, although 
 there still remained the wounds and weakness of the 
 once fierce battle ; some too, perhaps, in which, if not 
 evil, yet at any rate the lower nature had triumphed, and 
 the fight had ceased because the standard of holiness 
 once aimed at had been declared too high, and a lower 
 standard had been, either in painful humility or in 
 cowardly and contemptible weakness, accepted for the 
 rest of life. He might tell of the very beginnings, un- 
 known to all save himself, of habits of sin never since 
 quite shaken off. He might tell of deeds done in dark- 
 ness, which, though actual deeds and not mere thoughts, 
 yet are part of this secret inner life by virtue of their 
 absolute concealment. He might tell why some names, 
 some associations, some memories make him uncom- 
 fortable without any visible reason ; why he wishes, in 
 his secret heart, some subjects to be forbidden subjects, 
 
2i8 THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. [serm. 
 
 and is always conscious of an effort to seem indifferent 
 when they are mentioned. 
 
 Now how different these two lives would often be ! 
 How events of the highest importance in the one would 
 be of no importance at all in the other ! How persons 
 who play a large part in the one would disappear in 
 the other altogether, or almost altogether ! How strange 
 it would be to see that a man who had succeeded in 
 the eyes of his friends and acquaintance in a particular 
 path had meanwhile been cherishing within him quite 
 foreign thoughts and other longings ! How strange to 
 find that a fair character was only fair because the 
 best side of it was worn outwards ! How strange to 
 see the completely new judgments that would be re- 
 quired, and how entirely at fault would often be the 
 ordinary estimate ! Those who had always been highly 
 praised would, in many cases, not win more at the very 
 best than deep pity ; and some few who now suffer from 
 shewing ill to men's eyes would be found to rank far 
 above the level at which they had always been placed. 
 Most certainly it would not unfrequently be the case that 
 the recital of a man's inner or secret Ufe would completely 
 change our opinion of him. But still more often, nay, 
 perhaps always, we should be astonished to see, even 
 when no change was made in our judgment of the man, 
 how entirely these two lives were separated from one 
 another, and how they seemed to run side by side almost 
 without mingling. 
 
 The revelation will one day be made, and Christ will 
 decide, and He alone can decide, on the evidence which 
 
XXV.J THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. 219 
 
 each will give. Neither tells the whole man. The outer 
 life only tells, what we are under all the influences of the 
 eyes of others; those eyes call into force a completely 
 different set of faculties and a different set of motives : 
 the desire to be thought well of, the desire to please, the 
 desire to win praise, or popularity, or love, then begin to 
 act; the sense of dignity and self-respect, the sense of 
 being members of a larger body, become more powerful. 
 Our consciences, too, are strengthened in some ways by 
 the sight of each other; and there are some duties which 
 we see much more clearly when our outer life is affected 
 by them. On the other hand, the inner life tells what 
 we are when quite left to ourselves. At first sight it 
 might seem as if this might stand for the whole man. 
 But it is not so. No man is complete while alone. There 
 is a large part of his nature which is made to fit into the 
 society of his fellows ; and if this part of him does not 
 find its proper complement, the nature of the man is not 
 all called out, and only half of him, as it were, is in real 
 action. Moreover, what goes on in our secret lives is, 
 to a great extent, the very consequence of our believing 
 that it will end where it begins. Many a man indulges 
 passing thoughts ju^t because they are thoughts, and the 
 same man would not put these thoughts into actual deeds 
 even if tempted by the certainty of perpetual concealment. 
 Such a man is wrong, very wrong ; but it would still be a 
 mistake to judge him as if these secret thoughts repre- 
 sented evil deeds, which he only refrains from doing 
 because he fears detection. It would not be possible 
 therefore to judge a man either by the secret life or by 
 
2 20 THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. [seem. 
 
 the public. But Christ will unveil them both, and we 
 shall see and feel the justice of His decision. 
 
 Now we can easily see why God Who made us has thus 
 shut up a large and important part of our lives in this 
 absolute secrecy. God has made us to be members one 
 of another, and our religious and moral life is bound up 
 in each ther ; but He will not have us to be nothing but 
 members one of another. Every soul shall have an indi- 
 vidual life, with an individual history, and shall come at 
 last to an individual judgment. Our whole character is 
 not intended, and will not be allowed, to be absorbed in 
 that of a larger body. God requires that each Christian 
 soul shall have a separate and independent strength sup- 
 plied by Himself, and by Himself alone. The Church 
 is much. The Church is a channel of grace. The 
 Church shall inspire, shall support, shall instruct, shall 
 restore. But the Church shall not be everything. You 
 shall, if you are to call yourself a servant of Christ, 
 devote to His service something more than what you 
 give in common with all around you. You shall give 
 something which you and you alone can give, which 
 you and you alone can know whether you give or not. 
 From this responsibility you cannot escape. Another 
 may ask you whether you have done it, whether you 
 are doing it or not. But he must depend for his" answer 
 on what you tell him, and he cannot know, and never 
 can know, whether your answer is the whole truth. God 
 and God alone can tell that ; and between yourself and 
 God the secret must remain till the judgment-day. Much 
 may ooze out; and much that you would rather conceal 
 
xxv.J THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 will probably be discovered; and shrewd guesses will 
 penetrate even that part of your secret which you would 
 most wish to keep. But still the bulk of that secret life 
 shall remain untouched. To God your whole soul lies 
 open. To man very litde of it can be shewn. 
 
 But this secret will not be kept longer than enough to 
 serve its purpose. And woe betide the soul that uses 
 it ill. This sacred veil cast by the Creator in front of 
 a man's Holy of Holies can be used ; nay, we must con- 
 fess it, such is our fallen state, that it is used to hide evil 
 of every kind. And how utterly this is contrary to the 
 intention with which it is given, is proved by the terrible 
 mischief which such a use of it causes, and the terrible 
 punishment which such a use of it often brings. The 
 sin, which if confessed, would be repented of, and after 
 a time might safely be forgotten, rankles and festers in 
 the concealment of the guilty soul worse than any hidden 
 disease in the body. Nothing gangrenes the soul like 
 concealment. The falsehood; the sense of duplicity; 
 the snares ; and, as it were, the net-work of new conceal- 
 ments perpetually demanded ; the painful recollection ; 
 the stoppage of honest sympathies ; this, and much more 
 than this, haunts the spirit of the unhappy man who has 
 not courage to tell upon himself. Everything goes wrong 
 where there is this burden weighing on the spiritual walk. 
 There is no steady cheerfulness, but only a fitful imita- 
 tion of it ; there is no brightness ; there is no fearless- 
 ness. And the pain is almost as great as the mischief. 
 What pain, in the whole experience of life, is like the 
 fear of detection ? No punishment that can fall upon 
 
2 22 THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. [serm. 
 
 a sin is equal to this which a man inflicts on himself. 
 And then add to this the length of time through which 
 it lasts. How, among all the faults of the past, these 
 stand out in the memory, the faults which we concealed ! 
 How many years they continue to dog us ! How they 
 make us blush, or feel tmcomfortable, at slight associa- 
 tions which recall them ! And, perhaps, the time comes 
 when it is no longer right to confess them ; when con- 
 science interferes and bids us bear this burden hence- 
 forward. This may be rare ; but it is so sometimes ; 
 and the burden does not cease to be a burden because 
 this is so. All this comes not of the sin by itself, but 
 of its secret character. The very same sin which would 
 be but httle if known, becomes very serious, simply 
 because it is secret. 
 
 God has hidden a part of our lives; and this conceal- 
 ment we can cast over much more than He has hidden. 
 But again and again are we warned against it. It is 
 the man whose deeds are evil that loves darkness rather 
 than light. It is every one that doeth evil that hateth 
 the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds 
 should be reproved. It is the special characteristic of 
 Christians that they are not of the night nor of dark- 
 ness. It is with the unfruitful works of darkness with 
 which we are to have no fellowship. It is the works 
 of darkness that we are to cut off now that our day is 
 at hand. And what is the voice of God's word, that 
 is also the voice of natural feeling. The man who is 
 fair outside and foul within, is condemned of all men 
 as a hypocrite. Men reserve all their strongest terms 
 
XXV.] THE SECRETS OF THE SOUL. 223 
 
 of reprobation for the dark, reserved, and secret sinner. 
 Men hunt down, as if impelled by an appointed in- 
 stinct, with tenfold eagerness the secret criminal. Men 
 refuse their love to the reserved and secret character ; 
 and that, too, even while they respect with a religious 
 carefulness the secret which a man has a plain right to 
 conceal. Nature and Revelation both warn us against 
 the danger we run if we pollute our inner and secret 
 life with w^hat we dare not tell. 
 
 In view of this awful coming judgment let us determine 
 to force all our faults outwards. At whatever cost let us 
 keep sacred to God that inner shrine which He has thus 
 hidden with a secrecy of His own making. Let us avoid 
 a secret sin with thrice, with a hundred times more eager 
 avoidance, just because it is secret. Let us jealously 
 guard against that doubleness of face which begins in 
 a slight concealment, but will ever grow till it makes 
 us into two utterly different men, a fair character for 
 our fellows, and a foul character for the eyes of God 
 and Christ. If we can be fair anywhere let it be in 
 that which God has reserved for Himself, and where 
 Christ is willing to dwell. 
 
SERMON XXVI. 
 
 PRESSING FORWARDS. 
 
 PHILIPPIANS 111. 13, 14. 
 
 ^Brethren, I count not myself to ha-ve apprehended : but this one 
 thing I do, forgetting those things ^.vhich are behind^ and reach- 
 ing forth to those things <which are before, I press to^uard the 
 mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus' 
 
 nPHESE words would be interesting under any circum- 
 ^ stances, since they are the words of St. Paul speak- 
 ing of him self. But they become doubly interesting when 
 we remember the time at which they were written. For 
 the Epistle to the Philippians, in which these words 
 occur, belongs to the time of his imprisonment at Rome. 
 He was no novice giving vent to the enthusiasm of a 
 recent conversion. He had been a Christian for some- 
 thing like thirty years. He had been an Apostle not 
 far short of twenty. He had founded church after church 
 in the wisest and most intelligent cities in the world. 
 He had again and again traversed Greece and Asia 
 Minor. He had borne every kind of persecution, and 
 shrunk from no kind of labour. Fasting, and weariness, 
 and perils had been long familiar. He had long given 
 up all pleasure, all honour, all ambition, to the one hope 
 
PRESSING FORWARDS. 225 
 
 of serving the Master who had shone upon his eyes on 
 the way to Damascus. He had given up what, to his 
 sensitive nature, must have been the hardest of all to give 
 up, the tried affection of many a tried friend, and the 
 deep delight of recognised patriotism. He had chosen 
 a path in God's service which made his countrymen call 
 him a traitor, which turned the feelings of all his early 
 friends and admirers either into contempt or into bitter 
 and fanatical hatred. And the result of all this miracle 
 of self-sacrifice was now being written down on the 
 world's surface in a glorious list of Christian Churches, 
 of which he was at once the founder and the chief. 
 Surely if any man had any right to think he had done 
 enough, it was such a man as this. Surely if old age 
 gives the privilege of repose on the way to Heaven, the 
 aged Apostle, such an one as Paul the aged, might claim 
 the blessing of rest. Not so thought St. Paul. For- 
 getting all this, forgetting his labours and his sufferings, 
 all that he had given up, all that he had done, now in 
 old age, he was still pressing forward, pressing forward 
 to the mark for the prize which he did not consider that 
 he had yet attained. 
 
 Now the example of St. Paul here set before us by 
 himself contains a warning and an encouragement, and 
 of both these I would wish to speak. 
 
 It contains a warning against a sin into which we are 
 all prone to slip almost unawares : the sin of standing 
 still. For I would have you consider whether it is at all 
 likely that if St. Paul in old age, after all he had learnt, 
 and done, and suffered, still found it necessary to be 
 
 Q 
 
2 26 PRESSING FORWARDS. [sERM. 
 
 pressing forward, still found it necessary, as he says only 
 a few years earlier, to keep under his body and bring 
 it into subjection, lest he might be a castaway, whether 
 it is likely that we should ever attain to a state in which 
 we might rightly cease from our warfare against sin. 
 And yet we do very often give up the battle long before 
 we have won it, and make a sort of truce with evil, and 
 endeavour to content ourselves and to content our con- 
 sciences with repressing what we ought to root out, and 
 with cutting off the evil act when we ought to cut off 
 the evil thought, and sometimes with confessing and 
 lamenting without any effort to amend. It seems, indeed, 
 at first sight almost inconceivable that a Christian should 
 allow any sin to remain an undisturbed tenant of his 
 heart. But, alas ! Christians are strangely inconsistent. 
 And it is marvellous to see how, in the same heart, much 
 good and much evil will sometimes grow up side by side, 
 and how a treacherous peace will sometimes be made 
 between them ; and the man who is under a vow to ex- 
 tirpate all evil from within him will be content if he can 
 keep the evil within the limits which his habits have 
 imposed on it, and will flinch from doing more. It is 
 marvellous to see how long the two powers, the Spirit 
 of God, and the spirit of the devil, may apparently divide 
 the man's soul without contention. We know, when we 
 think of it, that it cannot be right ; we know that it can- 
 not end well ; we know that this sort of peace is a peace 
 in the devil's favour ; but, brethren, for all our knowledge, 
 we are apt to slip into the delusion, and sometimes to 
 remain in it for years. 
 
XXVI.] PRESSING FORWARDS. 227 
 
 Thus, for instance, there are faults which we confess 
 and lament and never make any real effort to cure. 
 How often does a bad-tempered man, after his fit is over, 
 lament over his ill-temper, and yet never once have a 
 regular battle with it the next time that he is tempted. 
 He will even plead his own infirmity to his friends as an 
 excuse, and the excuse would be reasonable if he were 
 really trying to mend. But the same excuse that he 
 pleads to others to extenuate his conduct, the same he 
 pleads to himself as a reason for his spiritual indolence. 
 He assumes that it is his nature, and that it is useless 
 to dream of changing it. Perhaps he has once in his 
 life made an effort ; perhaps he has made many efforts ; 
 and made them hitherto in vain. Nay, perhaps he has 
 struggled with it till he has been driven to despair, and 
 has given up the battle, not because he has lost the'lvish 
 to fight, but because he has lost all hope to win. Now, 
 what is his sin ? — is it the being beaten in his endeavours 
 to subdue himself.? No; it is in his ceasing from those 
 endeavours. Whatever was the reason, whether weak- 
 ness, or sluggishness, or even despair, he had no right, 
 he has no right, to stand still and say he will fight no 
 more. He had no right to despair, for God hath pro- 
 mised us the victory ; and though, for our own good,. 
 He sometimes will delay the fulfilment of those promises, 
 yet most certainly He will not break them. And even 
 if the victory over infirmities be not given (as in some 
 instances it will not be given) till we have reached the 
 other world, still we must fight to the last, and never 
 be content to lament what we ought to resist. In the 
 Q 2 
 
2 28 PRESSING FORWARDS. [sERK. 
 
 same way are we often tempted to treat vanity and con- 
 ceit. We are tempted to feel annoyed at our weakness 
 afterwards, and yet to yield without a struggle to the very 
 next temptation. The opportunity for indulging our own 
 love of display finds us ready for display ; when the op- 
 portunity is over, and the fault is done, we feel vexed 
 that we should have been so silly. But our vexation 
 refers to the past and not to the future, and hardly 
 prompts a single vigorous effort to escape from the 
 dominion of so degrading a weakness. In the same way, 
 again, do we often treat indolence. We are idle at the 
 time when exertion would be useful; we regret the 
 neglect of duty when it is too late to retrieve it ; but our 
 regret is not strong enough to make us energetic when 
 next we are called to labour and tempted to idleness. 
 Brethren, this captivity to which we submit so con- 
 tentedly, this captivity whereby one man is a slave to 
 his temper, another to his vanity, another to his idleness, 
 is the same sort of thing as the abject slavery of the 
 drunkard, who passes his miserable days between a bitter 
 but unavailing remorse and a repetition of the sin which 
 he hates but cannot quit. In his case, unhappy wretch, 
 you see the true nature of the sin ; you see how he 
 groans under his burden, how his days are divided be- 
 tween wretchedness and brutality, how his nights are 
 either full of the horrors of hell or of degrading stupidity. 
 But take care lest you have a litde, perhaps not a little, 
 of the same condemnation. For if his sin be the greater, 
 so is his temptation : see whether half his efforts would 
 not be enough to set you free at once. And be you 
 
XXVI.] PRESSING FORWARDS. 229 
 
 sure that sorrow without resolute effort at amendment 
 is one of the most contemptible of all human frailties; 
 deserving to be despised by men, and certain to be 
 rejected by God. 
 
 But this is not the only way in which we are tempted 
 to stand still when we ought to be pressing forward. 
 Sometimes our sins sit so easy on us that we do not even 
 lament them. We do not sorrow without amendment, 
 because we do not sorrow at all. Thus, for instance, 
 how very easy it is to be selfish, and yet hardly to be 
 aware of our own selfishness. It is possible to persist 
 in so perpetual a preference of our own whim, our own 
 pleasure, our own indulgence, that at last we take the 
 largest share of everything that pleases us, just as if it 
 were our natural right. It is possible so systematically 
 and invariably to claim a selfish precedence, that at last 
 we forget that it is selfish. And still more is it possible 
 to indulge an unacknowledged selfishness in pleasures 
 and enjoyments which God has put absolutely into our 
 own power, and which therefore we need not claim at 
 all, but simply keep. Think of the parable of the rich 
 man and Lazarus. What was the sin for which the rich 
 man was punished with torments of fire? Was it not 
 a selfish life ? We hear of no positive breach of God's 
 commandments; we are told of no single gross sin. But 
 the man broke all the commandments at once by the 
 character of his life. He was God's steward, entrusted 
 with worldly goods for the benefit of his fellow-creatures ; 
 and he spent all on his own selfish enjoyment. Now all 
 men, whether rich or poor, can copy this rich man. All, 
 
2 30 PRESSING FORWARDS. [sERM. 
 
 whether rich or poor, are tempted to spend on themselves 
 much, and on God's service Httle. I have seen many an 
 instance of a very poor man doing precisely the same 
 thing ; spending at the ale-house what he ought to spend 
 on his family, and indulging himself at the cost of his 
 wife and children. All, whether rich or poor, are tempted 
 to be selfish. But the point that I now wish you to ob- 
 serve is, that the selfish man is too often very little aware 
 of his own sin. You may depend upon it that such a 
 rich man as is described in the parable would have been 
 very much astonished if you had accused him of sinful 
 selfishness. ' I do not take what belongs to others,' he 
 would say ; ' I only spend on myself what belongs to 
 myself. How can that be sinful .? ' Such selfishness does 
 not pass unreproved by conscience ; every now and then 
 secret whispers will disturb the soul, and, blessed be God, 
 any man who is but half a Christian will often be stung 
 and roused by such whispers, asking whether this is really 
 the self-sacrifice which Christ requires, whether we are 
 really taking up our cross, whether we are really loving 
 Christ above everything on earth. But yet, though such 
 whispers will every now and then with a gentle sharpness 
 sound in our souls, such is the lulling power of selfishness 
 that even a good man will often be only half aware how 
 selfish he is, and will not battle with it half as much as 
 he ought. Another sin, which we cherish almost without 
 knowing it, is pride. A man who rarely shews, or indeed 
 feels pride at other times, yet will feel it directly if fault 
 be found with him, even by one who has right and 
 authority to do so. He will not only feel pain, which 
 
XXVI.] FRESSI.VG FORWARDS. 231 
 
 is right, but he will feel anger and resentment, which is 
 wrong. He will not only look into himself, which he 
 ought, but he will be inclined to accuse his reprover. 
 This is unquestionably pride, and yet so little seen that 
 it is little resisted. Once more, in regard to all those 
 sins about which no one knows but ourselves, we are 
 very apt to be lamentably weak, and to forget their real 
 sinfulness. There is a terrible danger to the soul in 
 secrecy. A sin which comes before the eyes of our 
 fellow-men is sure to awake our consciences. A look 
 from another man's face has a wonderful power to reveal 
 to us how wrong is the wrong that we have done or are 
 doing. A word of condemnation from another man's 
 lips will sometimes arm the conscience with a whip, 
 wherewith we are scourged for weeks together. A fault 
 of which we had thought nothing, often assumes its true 
 proportions in a moment when we have heard how 
 another man regards it. And so, too, when our con- 
 sciences are deprived of this help, they are often not 
 half severe enough, and we think Htde of most grievous 
 sins. A secret sin may go on perhaps for years, and the 
 sinner shall wear a face of seriousness, and shall win the 
 respect of his fellows, and shall be earnest in the dis- 
 charge of many duties ; and then, when the sin is found 
 out, men will say. What a hypocrite! No, brethren, 
 the man was not a hypocrite. But he got so accustomed 
 to his sin that he never felt how sinful it was till detec- 
 tion and the shame of detection awoke him on a sudden. 
 Secrecy was his snare ; and let every Christian look well 
 that his own secret life be such that he shall not himself 
 
232 PRESSING FORWARDS. [sERM. 
 
 pass a very different judgment on it when it is laid 
 bare on the Judgment-day from that which he passes on 
 it now. 
 
 I have given you these instances to shew you what 
 I mean by standing still. I mean being content with 
 yourself; content to struggle no more against the evil 
 within you ; content with the poor victory you have al- 
 ready gained, and making no effort to lift yourself ever 
 higher and higher, nearer and nearer to the pattern of 
 Christ. This is a sin ; and you may not plead that you 
 had done much ; for much is not enough if you could 
 do more. While there is left in you a trace of ill 
 temper, or of vanity, of pride, or of selfishness ; while 
 there is left in you a single sin, or germ of sin, you must 
 not rest from the battle. God does not require from 
 you to be sinless when you come before Him, but He 
 does require you to be unceasing in your perseverance. 
 He does not require that you shall never have fallen; 
 but He does require unwearied efforts. He does not 
 require you to win, but He does require you to fight. 
 
 This is the warning which we get from St. Paul's 
 example, but we also get encouragement and comfort. 
 For surely it is no slight encouragement to know that 
 this battle which tries us so sorely was once fought by 
 great Apostles and Saints. The battle with sin differs 
 in different men. With some, perhaps, it is no more 
 than an occasional sharp conflict : with some it is a ter- 
 rible agony : with some men it lasts very long and leaves 
 on the heart grievous wounds ; scorching memories of 
 mischief done long ago to their own souls or to the souls 
 
XXVI.] PRESSING FORWARDS. 233 
 
 of Others ; an abiding weakness which makes many an 
 innocent enjoyment a snare because associated with evil 
 thoughts, and, perhaps, defiled with evil indulgence : with 
 all men it is a never-ending fight in which victory only 
 leads to fresh contests, and not to fight is the worst of 
 all defeats. And if any man compares his own soul with 
 the picture drawn in the New Testament of what a 
 Christian ought to be ; if any man fixes his eye on the 
 pattern of self-sacrifice, of purity, of truth, of tenderness, 
 and measures his own distance from that standard, he 
 might be ready to despair. But let him think of St. Paul's 
 confession about himself and take comfort. To find a 
 thorn in the flesh ; to find that even prayer will not get 
 rid of it; to find the battle lasting into old age is not 
 your lot only, O, trembling and fainting Christian! but 
 it was once St. Paul's ; and the grace which was sufficient 
 for him will be sufficient for you. Fear not, because 
 you are far from being like the pattern set before you ; 
 fear not because your faults are painful to think of: 
 continue the battle and fear not. If, indeed, you are 
 content with yourself, and are making no endeavour to 
 rise above the poor level at which you now stand, then 
 there is reason to fear. But if you are fighting with all 
 your might, fear not, however often you may have fallen, 
 however deeply, however ungratefully, however inex- 
 cusably. He will not quench the smoking flax. The 
 spark which still burns feebly in your soul was kindled 
 by Himself, and if you do not quench it yourself, be sure 
 that He will not do so. He will not break the bruised 
 reed. The burden of sin which now bows you down 
 
2 34 PRESSING FORWARDS. 
 
 is a blessed weight sent in mercy from His own hand, 
 and He will adjust it to your strength. Fear not because 
 you can give to God no more than such an imperfect 
 service. Such a service is all that we have to give, all 
 that God asks. In return for the love which brought 
 the Son of Man down from heaven, in return for the 
 love which led Him to die for us on the Cross, we can- 
 not give Him holy lives, for our lives are not holy ; we 
 carmot give Him pure souls, for our souls are not pure ; 
 but this one thing we can give, and this is what He asks, 
 hearts that shall never cease from this day forward, till 
 we reach the grave, to strive to be more like Him; to 
 come nearer to Him ; to root out from within us the sin 
 that keeps us from Him. To such a battle, brethren, 
 I call you in His name. And even if at the last day you 
 shall not be able to shew any other service, yet be sure 
 that when thousands of His saints go forth to meet Him, 
 and to shew His triumph, He will turn to embrace with 
 arms of tenderness the poor penitent who has nothing 
 to offer but a life spent in one never-ceasing struggle 
 with himself, an unwearied battle with the faults that had 
 taken possession of his soul. To him will Christ say 
 what He once said to the poor widow : ' She hath cast 
 in more than they all ; for she hath cast in all that she 
 had, even all her living.' 
 
SERMON XXVII. 
 
 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 
 
 2 CORINTHIANS 1. 20. 
 
 ' For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, 
 unto the glory of God by us.'' 
 
 '\ 7^ THEN St. Paul was accused by his opponents at 
 Corinth, of caprice and levity of purpose, his an- 
 swer, of which the words that I have just read are a part, 
 appeals to the fixedness of purpose in Him Whom the 
 Apostle preached and served, and by Whom he was in- 
 spired. He had intended to come to Corinth somewhat 
 before the time when he was writing; and he had let the 
 Corinthians know of his intention ; but for reasons of suf- 
 ficient weight he changed his intention, and so his oppo- 
 nents accused him of lightness, and with saying yea one 
 day and nay another. He replies that the Son of God, the 
 object of all his preaching, and, therefore, at once the 
 orderer and the pattern of all his steps, was incapable of 
 anything like vacillation. An unchangeable purpose could 
 be read in the life and character of the Lord, and that 
 purpose was the fulfilment of the promises of God — a 
 fulfilment which God Himself was ever working out, both 
 
236 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. [sERM. 
 
 in Christ and in all Christians, by the power of the Spirit, 
 whereby we are all sealed as His. St. Paul could not be 
 capricious, because his Lord and Master could not, and 
 because that Lord and Master had sent His Spirit into the 
 hearts of His disciples to be their guide and strength. 
 
 Now, there are here two things which I wish to speak 
 of more at length. On the one hand, there is the fixed 
 purpose of our Lord Christ, and on the other, there is the 
 corresponding steadiness of purpose, which marks, or 
 ought to mark, all Christ's servants. 
 
 The fixed purpose of Christ is described in the text. 
 ' All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him 
 Amen, unto the glory of God by us.' In fact. He came 
 on earth to fulfil the promises of God. And, no doubt, 
 when the Apostle, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, spoke of 
 the promises of God, the first thought that would arise in 
 his mind would be the promises to the people of Israel : 
 the promises of dominion and supremacy ; the brilliant 
 pictures of the Prophets ; the glories foreshadowed in the 
 lives of David and Solomon ; the majesty and excellence 
 implied in the very fact that they were the people of God's 
 choice. And if this thought passed, as of course it must 
 have passed, beyond the limits of Israel after the flesh, 
 still the promises would be the same, only in a spiritual 
 form : the glory of the new Israel, the new Jerusalem, 
 the new Law, the new Covenant ; promises made under a 
 figure, but holding good in their essence even when the 
 figure exists no longer. Such, perhaps, would hardly be 
 the first thought suggested to one of us by the promises 
 of God ; and, indeed, would not be the last or the crown- 
 
xxvii.J FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 237 
 
 ing thought in the mind of the Apostle of the Gentiles. 
 Far deeper and older than these are the promises which 
 God has written with His own finger, not on tables of 
 stone, but on the fleshly tables of the heart of man. 
 These promises, the earliest of all God's revelations, made 
 to mankind before even the oldest Book in the Bible was 
 written ; these promises which the loving heart finds 
 repeated in every page of the Bible; these promises 
 which the Bible often reveals to us in so strange a 
 way, making us quite unable to tell whether the word 
 within or the word without, whether the yearnings of 
 conscience or the oracles of the Scripture, first pro- 
 nounced them in our spiritual ears ; these are above 
 all the promises which Christ came to ratify and fulfil. 
 Far deep in the heart of man there speaks a voice which 
 calls us to God, and promises to take us to Him. And 
 in former days, no doubt, when it spoke to heathens who 
 had no revelation to interpret or confirm its sayings, what 
 it said must have been often strange, inarticulate, even 
 unintelligible. In dumb instincts rather than in plain 
 commands, in voiceless longings, in yearnings for some- 
 thing unearthly, in strange doubts and questions did it 
 often speak to men who had no other teaching. And 
 even now, to those who have the Bible in their hands, but 
 are still unawakened, or only half awakened, the voices 
 that call from the deep abysses of the soul are faint, and 
 strange, and hard to understand, and often seem hope- 
 lessly impossible to obey. The Bible is, as it were, the 
 grammar and the dictionary of this spiritual language, and 
 teaches us to interpret its accents into duties, and prayers. 
 
238 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. [sERM. 
 
 and hopes, and battle, and assurance of victory. But 
 even when we have the Bible, hmv much study we need 
 before we can fathom the depths of spiritual meaning 
 contained in the everlasting promises which God's finger 
 hath written on the soul of man. I said that men, still 
 unawakened, or only half awakened, could not, even with 
 the Bible in their hands, always translate the language of 
 the spirit that speaks within them. But even the awakened, 
 in our human sense of the word awakened, what can they 
 do but see in a glass darkly the dim reflection of the 
 truth of God.? Yet what they see is the never-dying 
 truth, and that truth received its final seal in the Hfe 
 of Christ. 
 
 It was to confirm and fulfil these ancient, these un- 
 dying promises, that Christ came down to earth. The 
 Heathen, who only knew the promise as revealed within 
 himself, who only heard by accident, as it were, by fits 
 and starts, faint calls from a distant land, faint promises 
 of an unknown perfection, may well have doubted whether 
 these strange voices so like, and yet so unlike, to all the 
 world around him, did really come from a Power that 
 could fulfil its words, and could work the strange miracle 
 which those words seemed to promise. To such a seeker 
 after truth, the life and death of Christ, the love and 
 sufi"erings of Christ, were the fullest answers. Here 
 written, not in the human language of speech, but in the 
 Divine language of a life and character, were those 
 promises repeated, interpreted, and confirmed. Here 
 could be seen the proof that the promises of the heart 
 and conscience were the promises of God ; for here were 
 
XXVII.] FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 239 
 
 seen in one Person at once the beauty of life which 
 belongs to Divinity, and the love which answers to these 
 yearnings of the human heart. He who studied the 
 pattern set before him in the Person of Christ could never 
 fail to recognise that He came from God ; and at the same 
 time, in answer to every anxious question whether the 
 spirit of man spoke the truth when it promised a higher 
 being, and a purer happiness, and a larger nature, that 
 life of Christ, as it were, with the authority of God, for 
 ever answers yea, and for ever Amen. 
 
 And so, too, if the Jew sometimes read his law with 
 doubts and unhappy, though repressed, self- questioning, 
 and wondered why God tarried so long, and whether 
 indeed the promised redemption were to ever come, and 
 whether perhaps, after all, the whole might not be a 
 fearful delusion ; if he began to give way to his repeated 
 disappointment, and to think that if the oracle were not 
 absolutely false, yet at any rate the promises had some- 
 how been forfeited for ever, to him the same life of Christ 
 would give the same everlasting yea, the same never- 
 changed Amen. 
 
 And we, too, find the same promises, and, side by side 
 with them, the same doubts and hesitations. We, too, 
 feel these impulses and hear these voices. And though 
 the revelation of God makes their meaning clear to us, 
 with a light unknown in Heathen or in Jewish days, yet 
 we, too, can very often hardly feel sure of all that the 
 promises mean, still less that all their meaning will be 
 fulfilled. We find these promises of God perpetually 
 speaking to us in the invitations of conscience, and we are 
 
2 40 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. [sERM. 
 
 perpetually reading them in the Bible. We find them, 
 too, in the very resdessness of our souls discontented 
 with ourselves and with our own characters ; in strange 
 longings for some great change ; in desires to live unlike 
 all that we see around us; in wishes for greatness, for 
 strength, for liberty ; in hopes that we cannot define ; in 
 admiration of noble characters whom we know not how 
 to imitate ; in disappointment with ourselves ; in a con- 
 sciousness that our secret souls are quite unHke what our 
 lives make them appear to be. And besides these general 
 promises to every man that has a heart, we ever seem to 
 hear a special promise, each for his own self, of some one 
 peculiar pattern. And then the very character of such 
 inward impulses and hopes would make us doubt their 
 value. We aim at what we cannot accomplish. We fail 
 in the very easiest spiritual tasks. We are beaten where 
 we felt secure. Our highest and best impulses seem 
 always to turn into dreams when we try to put them into 
 practice. And this goes on long after we have begun, by 
 the aid of the Bible, to understand what all these inward 
 voices mean, and in what direction they point. We under- 
 stand, in fact, quite enough to give us light and guidance. 
 But still we doubt. We doubt whether these promises 
 have strength as well as truth, and whether they are not 
 mocking voices calling us over mountains which we can 
 never climb. And still to us there is the same answer, 
 and that answer is the life of Christ. To every doubt 
 about our duty, and about our Father's love, and about 
 our own hope of reaching Him, the life of Christ for ever 
 answers, ' Yea/ and for ever, ' Amen.' 
 
XXVII.] FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. '241 
 
 Yea, they are the promises of God; yea, they are 
 certain to be fulfilled; yea, you shall have strength to 
 share in their fulfilment ; yea, they can lift you out of the 
 deepest mire ; they can uphold the most crippled limbs ; 
 they can fetch you from the furthest distance. You may 
 trust them when they call ; you may follow them where 
 they lead ; you may hold by them in the darkness ; you 
 may call upon their aid when you are defeated : for to all 
 of them the life of Christ, the love and holiness that speak 
 in His life and death, for ever say, ' Yea,' and for ever, 
 * Amen.' 
 
 This is the fixed purpose of Christ, to fulfil the promises 
 of God ; and so the servants of Christ will reflect in their 
 lives the same fixed purpose, which shall grow with their 
 growth, and increase with their strength, and give steadi- 
 ness to their youth, and energy to their manhood, and fire 
 to their old age. For how can he vacillate or change 
 who has the deep purpose of his life at once called into 
 activity, and upheld with unchanging firmness, by the 
 knowledge of the power of Christ 1 
 
 And yet is this a true picture ? We who are the 
 servants of Christ, can we say that one growing purpose is 
 filling our lives with its power, and bearing us along in 
 one unswerving course ? The steadiness of purpose in 
 very bad men; the neglect of no opportunities, of no 
 instruments, through their lives ; the sacrifice of inclina- 
 tions, and sometimes of cherished inclinations, for the 
 sake of some one paramount object; their labour and 
 toil, their vigilance and self-control, have in all ages put 
 to shame the weakness and inconsistency of those who 
 
 R 
 
242 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. [serm. 
 
 profess to be children of God. There are not a few who 
 have no purpose at all, who simply care for the pleasure 
 of the moment. There are some who have, perhaps, 
 learnt not to be quite indiscriminate in their choice of these 
 pleasures ; who will avoid those which bring punishment 
 of whatever kind. There are some, again, who care enough 
 for conscience to use it as a sort of negative guide, and 
 obey it when it positively forbids. But is this to be all ? 
 Is there to be no aim before our eyes ? — is there to be no 
 prize which we are to win ? 
 
 Do not let any one fancy that he is too young as yet 
 to have any purpose at all. Want of years, and conse- 
 quent want both of knowledge and of strength, may make 
 the purpose that suits our life a more childish one, or a 
 narrower one, or in some sense a lower one. To form 
 plans for future life, to determine on devotion that you do 
 not yet know will be wanted, to imagine sacrifices, and 
 propose to yourself to make them, — these, indeed, are 
 purposes unnecessary and unsuitable. But no one is too 
 young to wish with all his heart to please God and to 
 obey His commandments. And this, in the various forms 
 which it will assume as we grow older, is the one purpose 
 that absorbs all others. This suits all ages, and to all 
 ages wiH assuredly bring a gradual but firm assurance 
 that Christ will one day fulfil it. This purpose will ever 
 expand as our souls expand ; will ever shew us, in larger 
 and clearer characters, the true reading of those promises 
 of God, to which Christ has answered ' Yea ;' will ever 
 give us a more positive certainty that Christ's answer is 
 the truth. And in making it our purpose to please God, 
 
XXVII.] FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE, 243 
 
 we have not to think so much of what we are to do, but 
 what we are to be : what we are to be now, this very 
 moment. We are to be His children ; we are not to go 
 in search of work to do for Him, or fanc^ that we must 
 wait for further guidance. But we are to be His children ; 
 and, holding that purpose fast, we are to try to please 
 Him, not so much by heavenly work, for He hath not sent 
 us any to be done, but by the perfection, the heavenliness, 
 the simple-heartedness of our daily obedience. If your 
 duty calls you to kindness, make that kindness, however 
 trifling, as truly kind, as free from taint and selfishness, as 
 you possibly can. If your duty calls on you for truth, let 
 your truth be exact and careful. If your duty calls you 
 to avoid temptation, make your avoidance as complete, as 
 ready, as cheerful, as it can be made. Into every duty 
 pour the completeness of a Christian act. And if you 
 think of the future, endeavour to write on your soul the 
 steady determination to make your secret character as 
 near as you can to the pattern which God's hidden pro- 
 mises shall tell you was meant to be yours, and which 
 Christ's everlasting ' Yea' shall offer for your own. 
 
 E 2 
 
SERMON XXVIII. 
 
 STRENGTH A DUTY. 
 
 PHILIPPIANS iv. 13. 
 
 * I can do all things through Christ ivhich strengtheneth me* 
 
 T T is quite certain that the Apostle is not here speaking 
 -^ of a gift given to him as an Apostle, in which other 
 Christians did not, and do not, share. He means to 
 say the same of all Christians that he says of himself. 
 He had the weaknesses that other Christians have. In 
 particular he had that thorn in the flesh which made 
 him beseech the Lord thrice that it might depart from 
 him. But the answer that was then given to him is 
 also given to us : ' My grace is sufficient for thee, for 
 My strength is made perfect in weakness.' No Chris- 
 tian has a right to say or to think that a temptation 
 has been too much for him. His fellow-Christians may 
 pity and even palliate ; his fellow- Christians may feet 
 doubtful whether in the same trial they would not 
 equally have fallen. But neither his fellow-Christians, 
 nor, still less, he himself, can dare to say that the needful 
 strength was not given him, and that he was simply 
 
STRENGTH A DUTY. 245 
 
 unable to obey his conscience. This, indeed, is not, as 
 a general rule, a conviction for which we need a reve- 
 lation. If ever we do wrong, our conscience, if we 
 will but listen, will invariably tell us that we need not 
 have done the wrong, and that if we had chosen to 
 use it, the strength was within our reach. Nay, even 
 in those rare instances where the temptation so falls in 
 with our weakness, that a bystander, who knows us 
 thoroughly, would anticipate our fall with something 
 like certainty, even in those cases we know that we 
 have it within us, if we but choose, suddenly to rise 
 up stronger than all anticipation, and to falsify even 
 most intimate knowledge by our resolute refusal to sin. 
 It is, indeed, by such unexpected victories over foes 
 whom all that know us would expect to triumph over 
 us, that we make those starts in our spiritual growth 
 which more perhaps than anything else give us an im- 
 mediate consciousness that God is carrying us along. 
 But whether we do gain such victories or not, we 
 know that we can: we know it with a certainty that 
 no experience can utterly obliterate. For even when 
 a life of sin has bound us with chains of iron, 
 there still remains a faint whisper deep within, which 
 declares that these chains can and ought to be 
 broken. 
 
 This power of the human will to rise above all circum- 
 stances, all fetters of habit, all seductions of pleasure, or 
 association, or custom, is older even than the Gospel. 
 It is the secret working of the power of the Atonement 
 of Christ, working even in those who have never heard 
 
246 STRENGTH A DUTY. [sERM. 
 
 of that Atonement, It is the mysterious grace of God, 
 shed even on men who never heard His name, just as 
 He causeth His sun to rise on the evil and on the 
 good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust. But 
 unaided by the power of revelation on the heart, it is 
 so weak a power, so bare a preponderance on the side 
 of human strength, that we might, humanly speaking, 
 not go far wrong in denying its existence, and might 
 almost say broadly, that no man without the aid of the 
 Bible, and the teaching of the Bible, could live a holy 
 life. The great lights of Heathen History would refute 
 us indeed if we ventured to make our assertion univer- 
 sal. We could not, in the face of our knowledge, deny 
 that even in Heathen times God's grace has sometimes 
 prevailed over blindness and weakness, and kindled bright 
 lights which Christians would do well to walk by. But 
 these were extraordinary men; acknowledged in their 
 own day to be extraordinary ; just numerous enough to 
 shew the possibility of obedience to a higher law, but 
 no more. Let it be granted, that unaided by Revelation 
 the human will is generally too weak to walk on the 
 straight and difficult path, still this will not avail as an 
 excuse for us who have the aid of Revelation, and know 
 the source of our strength. 
 
 There are two quite different reasons which make men 
 plead that they are too weak to obey God and their own 
 conscience ; one is, that they have never really tried ; the 
 other, that they have tried often, perhaps very often, 
 and failed. 
 
 This plea, when made by those who have never tried, 
 
XXVIII.] STRENGTH A DUTY. 247 
 
 is of course worthless ; and at first sight we are inclined 
 to dismiss it, as one that we do not make, and do not 
 mean to make, and which, indeed, is only made by the 
 worldly and profane. It is, of course, the plea of the 
 worldly and profane. The worldly man, when pressed 
 to live unto God, habitually takes refuge in a disbelief 
 that any one ever does anything of the sort. Some 
 will call an attempt to live by a really high standard, 
 hypocrisy ; and will eagerly pick out faults and inconsis- 
 tencies in those who profess it, and endeavour to expose 
 them. Others, again, will look upon such lofty attempts 
 as silly dreams ; romantic endeavours to compass impos- 
 sibilities; folly, and perhaps worse than folly, because 
 taking the mind away from realities. Others, again, will 
 prophesy the speedy end of such foolish and high-flown 
 visions. And all this is especially to be expected if, by 
 any chance, a Christian feels called upon to differ from 
 the current opinion of the place and society in which 
 he is living. If he condemns what has generally been 
 allowed, if he condemns severely what has generally 
 been treated as a trifle, if he refuses to join in what 
 he thinks wrong, though all his fellows think it quite 
 allowable, the opposition that he provokes often takes 
 the form of a denunciation of an impossible standard. 
 I am not now speaking of the case of a real difference 
 of opinion: when one thinks wrong what the rest, in 
 their consciences, do not think wrong; or when one 
 considers a downright duty what the others, even in 
 their secret hearts, do not think a duty at all. But I 
 am speaking of the common case of our condemning 
 
248 STRENGTH A DUTY. [SERM. 
 
 and discountenancing what the rest cannot defend and 
 yet refuse to condemn. The refusal to condemn gene- 
 rally takes the form of a protest against impossible 
 standards; and therefore they involve a plain contra- 
 diction of the Apostle's teaching, that a Christian can 
 do all things through Christ that strengtheneth him. 
 And this protest against impossibilities is by no means 
 confined to those nice and difficult cases where there 
 really is room for argument on which side the precise 
 duty lies. Those who are not in earnest about religion 
 will protest against impossible standards even when the 
 standard called impossible is plainly and unmistakeably 
 set before their eyes in the Word of God ; even when 
 there is no doubt, and can be no doubt, about the fact 
 that the standard is set up by conscience. When we 
 read in an old author of men who imposed strange 
 tasks on themselves, — such as to speak no untruth for 
 a whole month together, to keep the body pure for 
 several weeks, and the like, — we cannot help smiling. 
 But in reality it is not difficult to bring yourself to 
 such a state that resolutions like these should seem 
 strange and almost impracticable. I said just now that 
 we were inclined to dismiss, as inapplicable to ourselves, 
 the danger of pleading impossibility when, in reality, we 
 had never tried to do the so-called impossible duty, and 
 therefore could not know whether it is impossible or not. 
 But, indeed, if we are tempted to treat the danger as 
 no danger to us, we are much mistaken. There is no 
 commoner danger than that of accepting the code of 
 the society in which you live as the rule of right. And 
 
XXVIII.] STRENGTH A DUTY. 249 
 
 every society, of whatever kind, almost invariably forms 
 such a code. Every profession makes a code of its 
 own. Every district in a country makes a code of its 
 own. Every class in society makes a code of its own. 
 A school like this makes a code of its own. And these 
 codes do not always, perhaps, differ from the code of 
 duty given in the Bible, except that each of them alters 
 the relative importance of duties very much, and lays 
 great stress on this and little stress on that, not in 
 accordance with the greater or less degree of godliness 
 or sin in each case, but in accordance with quite other 
 reasons, dependent generally on the interests, or wishes, 
 or pleasures of the little circle from which the code pro- 
 ceeds. But sometimes they go beyond this, and distinctly 
 differ from the law of God, and perhaps even contradict 
 it. For instance, in the morality of trade, how often do 
 we see conduct treated lightly which is plainly wrong; 
 in the morality of gentlemen, the code of honour as it is 
 called, how much there has often been, and still is, which 
 meets with positive applause, and yet is indefensible. And 
 so, in all cases, even if the morality of the circle to which 
 we belong is not plainly against God's Law, it very often 
 indeed falls miserably short. And what is the temptation 
 when any one endeavours to rise above it or calls others 
 to do so ? Is it not to answer, I am only doing what 
 others do, no man could live if he followed your rules ; 
 life would be unbearable; or, you would rob us of all 
 pleasure; or, you would break down our spirit; or, the 
 like ; in short, what you ask is impossible. Brethren, all 
 good has been, at different times in the world's course, 
 
250 STRENGTH A DUTY. [sERM. 
 
 impossible. Nothing worth doing has not at one time 
 seemed quite impossible. If ever a plain duty is called 
 impossible, then be you sure that no time must be lost in 
 doing it. If once things have come to such a pass that 
 a plain duty, I do not say a great or important duty, but 
 a plain duty, though ever so small and unimportant, is 
 called impossible, that proves that instant change is 
 needed ; and the way to begin is to do the impossible 
 thing at once, and be you sure that Christ will make 
 it possible. 
 
 How very, very different is the same plea of impos- 
 sibility in the mouth of one from whom it has been wrung 
 by repeated failures. He generally is the very last that 
 would have called anything impossible beforehand. One 
 generally that began by exulting in the strength that God 
 had given him ; often faulty, perhaps, yet with no con- 
 sciousness of habitual sin, but able to turn instantly to his 
 Lord and to get forgiveness and strength, and to go on 
 once more, humbled and yet rejoicing; confident, perhaps 
 too confident, and therefore careless into what temptation 
 he went, because he felt so sure that God would uphold 
 him; not forgetful that he needed God's help, but far, 
 very far removed from that trembling, clinging depen- 
 dence which he needed in the path that he chose. Upon 
 his troubled conscience first comes the knowledge that 
 sins, which he fancied were so superficial that a few 
 years running in the race appointed for him would 
 shake them off, were in reality deep-rooted in his very 
 nature, and would need a life-long batde. And then 
 comes the more earnest struggle; not a mere repentance 
 
XXVIII.] ■ STRENGTH A DUTY. 251 
 
 which is satisfied with tears and resolutions of amend- 
 ment, but something like a consciousness of the terrible 
 power of his foe, and a more guarded walk, and an 
 avoidance of temptations, now at last discovered to be 
 temptations. And then comes the thick gathering of the 
 power of evil on his weaker side : the frequent fall, the 
 bitter remorse, the apparently unavailing prayer, the pas- 
 sionate repentance, so passionate and yet almost despair- 
 ing in its passion. And then come the fits of despair, 
 not settled perhaps, but alternating with calmer moods 
 and with stray hopes. And his besetting sin seems to 
 leaven all his thoughts, and to mix itself with all his occu- 
 pations, and to fasten associations of evil on every inci- 
 dent of his daily life, and to fill the whole world with new 
 temptations which he cannot avoid. If his sin be a bodily 
 sin, how it will haunt his thoughts, and leave no repose 
 to his imagination. Nay, how it will torment him by its 
 very remissions ; leaving him absolutely for a time, and 
 making him fancy that he had at length gained a victory, 
 and then returning irresistible hke the tide, and washing \tt]^^ 
 away all the good that he had built on such a sandy 
 delusion. If he be tempted to untruth, how often he will 
 be entangled in it, almost by mere custom, mechanically, 
 without quite knowing it; and then be led on step by 
 step till he finds himself uttering a deliberate falsehood. 
 If he be tempted by violent temper, how it will come back 
 on him all in a moment, making him do what he would 
 give worlds never to have done, still more making him 
 say what all his life long he will reproach himself for 
 having said. If he be tempted to idleness, how will good 
 
252 STRENGTH A DUTY. [sERM. 
 
 resolutions melt away, as it were, in the very act of use ; 
 how will little disappointments rob him of all heart, and 
 throw him back, and undo the work of weeks, or even 
 months. Even from real children of God, even from 
 those who have longed, who still long, to be servants of 
 Christ, such experience as this will wring the plea of 
 despair, ' I cannot do the things that I would ; to will 
 is present with me, but how to perform that which is 
 good I find not/ 
 
 And yet through it all there is ever the warning and 
 condemnation of conscience, which we cannot and dare 
 not silence. You had the strength, if you had only had 
 the will. Did you, do you now, really will? Are you 
 not praying, as St. Augustine once tells us that he prayed, 
 ' O Lord, give me purity, but not yet .?' Do you not 
 still cling to some part of the sin? Do you not still 
 hope, by some magic, to save the pleasure of it while 
 you give up the sin itself? You wish for freedom from 
 the bondage of evil habits and an evil nature. But 
 are you willing to pay the price that God has put 
 upon it? God will give you strength if you are really 
 in earnest; but He will not accept any proof of 
 earnestness short of absolute surrender. If you dally 
 with the temptation; if you still wish to keep what 
 the sin gets for you, whatever enjoyment that may 
 be; if you still indulge in kindred faults which have 
 not, as yet, troubled your conscience so much, but are 
 still plainly forbidden; how can you say that you have 
 the will ? 
 
 Oh, look not for the reason of your fall to your 
 
XXVIII.] STRENGTH A DUTY. 253 
 
 weakness ; you are weak, but God is mighty, and your 
 weakness shall only bring down a double portion of 
 Christ's strength. Say not, when you Fall, that you 
 cannot stand upright; for God will certainly hold you 
 up. Look not there for the evil; but look to the 
 want of singleness in your aim, to the divided hopes, 
 to the double service. Unless you make your duty 
 your first consideration, with which nothing else shall 
 ever interfere ; unless you make the love of your Master 
 the spring of your life, and allow no other thought to 
 weigh one moment against His approval; unless you 
 look forward to playing your part in the world where 
 He has placed you, as a true soldier, in His Heavenly 
 Host, and bend all your energies to fit yourself to be 
 a Christian man, — you cannot say that you have done 
 your part. 
 
SERMON XXIX. 
 
 SEASONS OF PENITENCE. 
 
 PSALM xlii. 1-3. 
 
 * As the hart panteth after the <water-brooks, so panteth my soul 
 after Ihee, God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the li'ving 
 God: <when shall I come and appear before Godf My tears have 
 been my meat day and night, nvhile they continually say unto me^ 
 Where is thy GodV 
 
 'T^HIS Psalm expresses the feelings which first induced 
 men to keep seasons such as Lent. The Psalmist is 
 evidently writing in the greatest distress ; perhaps he was 
 a captive at that moment, being hurried away from home ; 
 he is in the land of Jordan, and near the hill of Hermon ; 
 and he is longing all the while to be at Jerusalem joining 
 in the worship that he loved. When, he asks, shall I 
 come to appear in the presence of God ? And his ene- 
 mies taunt him in his distress, saying continually, ' Where 
 is thy God?' ' Where is the Deliverer whom thou servest } 
 and why cannot He save thee from suffering such misery?' 
 And so his tears are his meat day and night, and the 
 reproaches of these bitter foes are like a sword going 
 through his bones. In such a case it is that men forget 
 to eat their bread and mingle their drink with weeping. 
 
SEASONS OF PENITENCE. 255 
 
 In such a case the children of the Bride-chamber fast 
 because the Bridegroom has been taken away from them. 
 In the bereavement of their souls how can they do any- 
 thing but mourn ? 
 
 The Christian must often share feelings such as these. 
 The iron fetters of his oppressors, namely, the sins which 
 are ever besetting him, are sore and heavy. These 
 fearful foes which he bears within his own bosom ; sins 
 of unrestrained appetite ; sins that spring of past habits ; 
 sins of criminal weakness and cowardice; they triumph 
 over him sometimes, and when he falls, they seem to say, 
 'Where is thy God.?' And what pain is equal to the 
 sting which they can thus inflict on a religious con- 
 science ? And is it not indeed like a sword in the bones ? 
 But it is not his fall only and God's absence that afflict 
 him. It is that he knows how these enemies are carrying 
 him away — carrying him into captivity — and he knows 
 not how or when he shall again return to appear in the 
 presence of his God. He mingles prayers with expres- 
 sions of trust. At one moment he says to his God, * Why 
 hast Thou forgotten me ? Why go I mourning because 
 of the oppression of the enemy.?' At another he ex- 
 claims, * Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? and why 
 art thou disquieted within me.? hope thou in God: for 
 I shall yet praise Him Who is the health of my coun- 
 tenance, and my God.' And through it all the one great 
 desire is to dwell in God's presence; to feel that God 
 is with him, and he with God ; to wake up and do the 
 duty of the day, conscious of God's tenderness ; and to 
 lie down to sleep at night trusting to God's care. 
 
256 SEASONS OF PENITENCE. [sERM. 
 
 And such feelings must often pass through the Chris- 
 tian's heart; for often do our sins appear to bear us 
 away from our Redeemer, and often are we tempted by 
 repeated falls to say to ourselves, 'Where is thy God?' 
 Where is that redemption which was to sustain thy soul ? 
 Where is the promise of Christ to grant His grace, suffi- 
 cient for thee in thy need ? Where is the promised help 
 in the hour of temptation and weakness ? alas ! ' Where 
 is thy God ?' And, again, there are times not assuredly 
 of equal pain, yet of much real suffering, when the 
 thought of what we have had done for us, and what we 
 have received, and how we have received it; when the 
 contrast between what we might be, and what we ought to 
 be, with what we now are ; when the accumulated proofs 
 thickly scattered over our life, of a weak will, and a poor 
 shallow love, and a heartless selfishness of spirit; when 
 all these thoughts bow down our souls, and bid us go to 
 Christ, and the Cross of Christ, and kneel down in sorrow 
 and in penitence. Such emotions must be stirred within 
 us whether we will or no, in some degree, as the returning 
 year brings back the memory of the great events in the 
 life of our Master. Can we quite unmoved enter upon 
 this season of Lent which commemorates the approach 
 of His Passion.? Can we recall the forty days in the 
 Wilderness of Judea without a throb of feeling .? Think 
 of our Lord, as at this time, retiring to the long fast and 
 prayer with which He commenced His public life. Think 
 of Him in the Wilderness for those forty days; alone 
 with God in fervent prayer ; without thought of food ; 
 seeking no shelter; in the midst of the wild beasts of 
 
XXIX.] SEASONS OF PENITENCE. 257 
 
 the forest ; His whole soul wrapped up in the redemption 
 of our souls which He was then to begin. Think of the 
 depth of love implied in all this suffering, of the earnest- 
 ness and reality of purpose, of the utter self-denial. Is 
 it possible for a Christian, even if sins lately committed 
 have not bowed down his head in shame, not to feel 
 how poor and worthless he is in comparison with the 
 price at which he has been purchased? Is it possible 
 not to join from sheer sympathy in something like the 
 same disregard of personal comfort, in something like 
 the same contempt for all pleasure and all worldly honour 
 in comparison with the soul's demands, with the high 
 and holy duties which God's Spirit preaches within our 
 hearts ? 
 
 No Christian can help feeling this in some degree. 
 It may, indeed, be needful to keep this feeling, as it is 
 needful to keep all feelings, within due limits. A mere 
 succession of emotions, even if we could ensure such 
 a succession, would bear no such fruit as Christ requires 
 from us. But yet, in their place, we know full well that 
 these emotions are the very mainspring of our religious 
 life. When apathy has silently crept over our souls till 
 we begin, not exactly to disobey, but to be careless 
 about obedience; when we have wandered away from 
 Christ and from the Cross, not indeed on purpose, but 
 simply from not heeding our steps; when we have 
 allowed little faults unawares to grow into serious sins ; 
 when we have let bad habits blunt our consciences till 
 we no longer think much of what once would have made 
 us start; when prayers have become colder and colder, 
 
258 SEASONS OF PENITENCE. [sERM. 
 
 till all the life is gone out of them ; when the bustle of 
 the world and the routine of daily tasks have, as it were, 
 filled up our hearts and left no room for God ; what shall 
 startle us and bring us back, better than to have our 
 hearts touched and our feelings stirred by the return of 
 a Festival or a Fast unlike common days ? 
 
 But there are dangers, it may be said, in such obser- 
 vances, and the observances themselves are more like 
 Jewish discipline than Christian liberty. Both these 
 things are true. All observances are, of course, far 
 short of that high state in which no observances are 
 needed. It would be, no doubt, better for all Christians, 
 if we were so perfect that we never needed special re- 
 minders. It would be better, for instance, if we were 
 so truly religious that Sunday were no longer necessary 
 for us, if every day were a Sunday, and every day alike 
 witnessed a most religious uplifting of the soul to God 
 and to Christ; if work and worship were so melted 
 together that there was no need to set apart one special 
 day for special worship. But we know perfectly well 
 that we are in no such state, and that, if we were not 
 to observe Sunday, instead of making the week days 
 more like Sunday, we should assuredly make them even 
 less like Sunday than they are. So, too, is it with 
 seasons of Christian joy or Christian penitence, with 
 Easter and with Lent. We may say that we will not 
 have a special season for penitence ; but will make our 
 penitence extend over our whole life, and as we are 
 always sinning, so also be always repenting. But if we 
 try it, we find that the result is, that if we are much 
 
XXIX.] SEASONS OF PENITENCE. 259 
 
 engaged, as many of us ought to be, in the work which 
 God has given us to do in the world, the penitent spirit, 
 instead of being spread over our lives, threatens to dis- 
 appear altogether, and our characters sink down to a 
 lower level, less spiritual, less pure, less lofty, less self- 
 denying. We need such seasons in order to keep alive 
 in our minds the high standard by which the pure con- 
 science ought to judge. It is with our souls as with 
 much of our world's business. We know that few things 
 are done well that have no recognised time assigned to 
 them, but are left to be done when occasion serves. 
 And the purifying of our conscience^ by steady and 
 earnest meditation on our own lives, is a duty which 
 needs a recognised time as much as anything else that 
 we have to do. 
 
 But there is a danger, it is said, lest such observances 
 occupy a wrong place in our minds; lest we begin to 
 lean upon them, and attach value to them ; lest we forget 
 that Christ and the Cross of Christ be the one source 
 of all salvation, and dream that we can cleanse and save 
 our souls by seasons of penitence, and win Heaven by 
 careful keeping of stated seasons. There is such a 
 danger, and a very real danger it is ; and there has been 
 a time when the danger was so very serious, and the 
 mischief had already spread so far, that it shook the 
 Church to pieces to set the evil right. But let us not 
 forget that precisely the same danger attends the practice 
 of prayer; and yet no Christian would propose to give 
 up praying, for fear he should be tempted to make 
 .a form of it Nay, even if we found a Christian who 
 
 s 2 
 
2 6o SEASONS OF PENITENCE. [sERM. 
 
 had fallen into the snare, and had built his hopes of sal- 
 vation on the regular performance of his prayers, we 
 should never think of suggesting to him to pray no more. 
 The fact is, that there is no duty, and no devotion, and 
 no expression of religious feeling, which is not liable 
 to this danger. The liability to danger must make us 
 cautious, but if it has done that, it has done all that it 
 was meant to do. 
 
 How then ought we in our days to observe seasons 
 such as this of Lent? Not certainly by searching out 
 what men did in old time and copying their conduct; 
 nor by devising strange observances out of our own 
 brains. What comes naturally to us as the fittest ex- 
 pression of serious and penitential feelings, that is at 
 all times the fittest observance of a season of penitence. 
 Religious life in modern times has, as all observant men 
 know, retired inward, as it were, and is much locked up 
 in a man's own bosom. There, where the religious life 
 has retired, there too, of course, must the religious ob- 
 servances follow. In former days, men used at such 
 times to abstain from food. Such an abstinence would 
 not be natural to us, although we might feel quite as 
 keenly and quite as truly as they did. The natural ex- 
 pression of our feelings is rather that expressed in the 
 verse of the Psalms, ' To commune with our own hearts, 
 and in our chambers.* Real earnest self-examination 
 has taken the place of all other penitential expressions. 
 To force ourselves into the very presence of the great 
 questions of life ; to take opportunity to ask, ' Am I really 
 what I ought to be } Am I what, in the bottom of my 
 
XXIX.] SEASONS OF PENITENCE. 26 1 
 
 heart, I honestly wish to be ? Am I living a life at all 
 like what I myself approve ? My secret nature, the true 
 complexion of my character, is hidden from all men, 
 and only I know it. Is it such as I should be willing 
 to shew? Is my soul at all like what my kindest and 
 most intimate friends believe? Is my heart at all such 
 as I should wish the Searcher of Hearts to judge me by ? 
 I have been redeemed, and I know that a power greater 
 than my own is always by me, and that I have but to 
 put out my hand and I can get help to walk even in the 
 worst of paths. Am I remembering this, or frantically 
 forgetting it? Years are passing over me, and every 
 year making me more responsible, bringing me nearer to 
 manhood or nearer to the grave. Is every year adding to 
 my devotion, to my unselfishness, to my conscientiousness, 
 to my freedom from the hypocrisy of seeming so much 
 better than I am? When I compare myself with last 
 year, am I more ready to surrender myself at the call 
 of duty? am I more alive to the commands of con- 
 science? have I shaken off my besetting sins?' These 
 are the questions which this season of Lent ought to 
 find us putting fairly and honestly to our hearts; on 
 Sundays, when we have time to think much and ear- 
 nestly ; and in the evenings, when we can at least question 
 ourselves upon the events of the day and the character 
 of our present life. 
 
 The use of all this questioning is to press nearer, if 
 we can, to the presence of our Master; to shake off the 
 fetters of the world, and escape from the sins which hold 
 us captive, and come back to Him Who is the source 
 
262 SEASONS OF PENITENCE. [SERM. 
 
 of our life. And therefore all this self-searching must 
 be accompanied with prayer, that at every moment we 
 may be reminded of what we really need. There is 
 a wonderful power in the prayer which follows a real 
 searching of the heart. There is a wonderful support 
 to weakness, a wonderful force given to resolution. He 
 who lays bare every thought and deed before God, and 
 then, with the shame and sorrow of one who neither 
 wishes to palliate the fault nor to shun the merciful chas- 
 tisement, resigns himself to his Redeemer, and, with 
 a prayer that comes from the bottom of his soul, asks 
 for aid against his temptations, — such an one, whether 
 he knows it or not, surely has made a step onward in 
 his spiritual path; such an one surely has not prayed 
 in vain. 
 
 This then is the advice that I would give you for this 
 season of Lent: to add a short petition to your usual 
 prayers that God would give you grace to find out and 
 amend the faults that spoil your character; and to look 
 regularly and closely into your lives, with the best desire 
 to do what you pray God's help towards doing. It may 
 be that when you have looked into your own soul for 
 a little, you may begin to feel that longing for the sense 
 of God's presence, which has ever been the mark of the 
 religious mind in all ages of the world. It may be that 
 you will learn how sins damp the warmth of love, and 
 carry captive the heart, and bring floods and storms upon 
 the soul, and hide away the face of God. It may be 
 that you will learn the depth of the consolation that the 
 thought of Christ can give when it has overshadowed, 
 
XXIX.] SEASONS OF PENITENCE. 263 
 
 the soul with its wings of healing ; and that, even while 
 tears more than ever fill your eyes at the memory of your 
 sinfulness, you will be able to say, 'Why art thou cast 
 down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within 
 me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him who 
 is the health of my countenance, and my God/ 
 
SERMON XXX. 
 
 GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. 
 
 ROMANS V. 8. 
 
 'But God commendeth His love forward us, in that, ivhile lue 
 nuere yet sinners, Christ died for us^ 
 
 T 1 /"E cannot too often repeat to our hearts that truth 
 which lies at the bottom of all God's dealings with 
 man, that He loves us with a Father's love ; that in spite of 
 ignorance, and the deadness and corruption, that is the sure 
 consequence of ignorance ; and in spite of pain and sorrow, 
 which sometimes make men doubt His Providence; and 
 what is more than all, in spite of the sin which casts a 
 thick cloud between us and Him, between our weakness 
 and His Holiness, still He is our Father. He does not 
 become our Father by our love, by our obedience, by our 
 sanctification ; He is our Father already. Even if we 
 have ceased to be His children, and our spirits have 
 wandered far from His presence, He does not therefore 
 cease to be our Father. Even if we have brought upon 
 us His anger, still it is the anger of a Father ; the anger 
 not of indifference, nor, still less, of hatred, but the anger 
 of love. We men, when we are angry, are sometimes 
 
GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. 265 
 
 angry with the anger of hatred, which does not even desire 
 a reconciliation, nay, which would be further provoked if 
 reconciliation seemed likely ; the anger which hates noi 
 the sin but the sinner, and is better pleased that the cause 
 of offence should be maintained, than that all just ground 
 for refusing forgiveness should be taken away. Still more 
 often again we men, even the best of us, must often feel 
 the anger of indifference; the anger which is provoked 
 with the sin, and cares nothing for the sinner either one 
 way or the other. This anger, in its lowest form, is an 
 indignation at some personal annoyance, some invasion 
 of our rights, or supposed rights, some affront to our 
 dignity; in its highest form it is indignation at some 
 wrong act done within our knowledge, some great crime 
 of which we have heard, and which seems to us an out- 
 rage on human nature ; some perverse self-willed dis- 
 regard of a plain duty done before our eyes. But in 
 either case the anger implies no regard either of tender- 
 ness or of dislike to the doer; it is satisfied with the 
 wrong being either set right, if it is a wrong that can be 
 set right, or properly punished, if it is a wrong that ought 
 to be punished, and, in any case, prevented from recur- 
 ring ; if satisfied in this way, it asks no more. But God's 
 anger against sin is not of this sort : it is the anger of 
 love; the anger of the deepest, purest, tenderest love that 
 can be ; of a love which we faintly describe by calling it 
 the love of a father ; that is the best type of it that we can 
 find on earth, but even that falls short of it. God's anger 
 never for a moment forgets the sinner in the sin ; never 
 for a moment ceases to draw us all with the bands of a 
 
266 GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. [SERM. 
 
 man, with cords of love. Even His anger is the anger of 
 a righteous Father who must, by virtue of His absolute 
 Holiness, insist on our living by the laws of Holiness, but 
 whose heart is not turned away. 'Why will ye die, O 
 House of Israel V was the message which He once sent 
 to His chosen people by the voice of His Prophet. I 
 have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, was His 
 account of His own wrath against sin. And if words 
 were not enough to prove to us His unquenchable love, 
 the whole New Testament records a proof surpassing all 
 that could be imagined. It was not to bless the righteous 
 with a fuller measure of blessedness ; it was not to crown 
 the strong with His approval of their victory over sin and 
 evil; it was not to lead the holy to the mansions of a 
 Father whom they had never forsaken, that He sent His 
 Son to earth ; it was to save sinners from their sin, it was 
 to bring back the weak, the silly, the wandering, to purify 
 the unholy, to give peace to the wicked, for whom, as He 
 had said Himself, and as without His Divine aid must 
 ever have been the case, there is no peace. Man did not 
 win His love ; it was not, as once He was ready to do for 
 Abraham, for the sake of a few righteous, that He con- 
 sented to spare the world, and not only to spare, but to 
 save and bless. He loved in the midst of His righteous 
 anger ; in the midst of the same anger He loves still. A 
 father must be angry with a child that does wrong ; he 
 must speak sternly; he must maintain his anger while 
 the wrong continues ; he cannot sacrifice the eternal and 
 unchangeable laws of right, not even to the love that fills 
 and racks his heart ; nay, it is just because he cannot 
 
XXX.] GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. 267 
 
 sacrifice the laws of right to His love that He is able to 
 love so much ; for love flows out of holiness, and holiness 
 flows in its turn out of love, and they cannot exist apart. 
 A father loves ; and just in proportion to his love is his 
 pain when the children of his love do wrong ; no other 
 pain can be like that pain ; no disappointed affection, no 
 separation to distant lands, no loss by death, can cut the 
 soul with the same wound as the wrong-doing of one on 
 whom the heart is set. A father who sees a loved child 
 dishonour all his love, a sister who sees the brother whom 
 she admires disgracing the picture of him that her mind 
 had drawn, the mother who watches with agony the son 
 of her affections cast himself away on profligate pleasures, 
 is thrilled with a pang whose bitterness stands quite alone. 
 Such pains as these are the measure of that wrath with 
 which God, our Father, tells us that He regards our sins. 
 But in spite of wrath He is still our Father, and still 
 He draws us by all the cords of an infinite love back to 
 Himself again. 
 
 Would that we could remember this always. But we 
 let the feeling slip out of our minds, and not merely forget 
 it, but forget it as if we had never known it, as if, indeed, 
 it had never been true at all. 
 
 We forget it sometimes in our sorrows. In the troubles 
 that beset our life, whether early or late, God's love is 
 still every moment with us, and every pain is a message 
 from Him. We need such messengers or we should not 
 have them. And their purpose is not to make us unhappy 
 and discontented, but to brace and harden us, to warn 
 and guide us. And since they all come from His hand, 
 
268 GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. [sERM. 
 
 nothing on earth can be more absolutely certain than this, 
 that they shall not last for ever. A day will come, 
 assuredly come, when they will not only pass away, but 
 we shall look back upon them with gratitude. Perhaps 
 we shall say, as the Psalm says, ' I will thank the Lord 
 for giving me warning.' Perhaps we shall say, ' It is good 
 for me that I have been in trouble.' It is certain that we 
 shall say, if our hearts are God's, ' Out of them all hath 
 the Lord delivered me ; ' * The Lord is my strength and 
 my song, and is become my salvation.' Surely even the 
 youngest here as well as the oldest has already learnt that 
 no troubles last for ever. In our earliest childhood we 
 are troubled with griefs which a few years' experience 
 prove to have been but passing clouds ; as we grow older 
 we ever meet with griefs which seem for the moment 
 overwhelming, and yet these too pass away ; and so, too, 
 will all sorrows work together for good, for they all come 
 from Him, from our Father, Whose love is veiled behind 
 them. Young and old are alike His children. Let not 
 the youngest fancy that his griefs or his pains are in- 
 different to God. We men speak of childish sorrows as 
 trifling matters. But in God's eyes what are we all but 
 children ? whose childish sorrows He views with com- 
 passion. He tempers with mercy, He blesses with the 
 power of drawing the soul to Himself 
 
 We forget that God is our Father when sorrow over- 
 whelms us. We forget it still more when all is prosperous 
 and happy. Nay, it would be truer to say that in sorrow 
 we are not tempted to forget this truth but to deny it ; in 
 happiness we are tempted to forget it. There is, indeed, 
 
XXX.] GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. 269 
 
 such a thing as an innocent forgetting. Just as a child 
 may forget the presence of a loved earthly father, because 
 that father is so completely a part of the happiness which 
 is shed around ; so, too, the Christian may go on his way 
 rejoicing in what God has bestowed, health and strength 
 and happy thoughts and enjoyments suited to youth, and 
 certainly will not be blamed for letting his thoughts be 
 full of the innocent pleasures that his Father gives. But 
 this forgetfulness of God, which may be innocent in the 
 beginning, is liable to slip into a coldness of love simply 
 by its own continuance. And there is hardly any hard- 
 ness of heart more impenetrable than that crust which has 
 gathered round the soul from the indulgence, through 
 many years, of an earthly spirit in our pleasures. If we 
 cannot season our pleasures with the salt of unselfishness 
 towards others, of frequent communion with serious 
 thoughts at proper times, of aspirations rising above mere 
 enjoyment, of regular and cheerful discharge of daily 
 duty as its turn comes, above all, of entire surrender of 
 the heart to God when the time comes for prayer and 
 devotion, they will assuredly change their nature; and 
 though God will not cease to be our Father, we shall im- 
 perceptibly cease to be His children. It is the regular 
 daily prayer, it is the serious reflection on what we wish to 
 be and do, it is the serious examination of our own con- 
 duct, it is the frequent thought of Christ and of the voca- 
 tion to which He has called us, which lift our life above 
 the life of beasts or of birds, and fashion us to the mould 
 which God's Spirit is ever striving to create in our souls, 
 the pattern of the mind of Christ. 
 
270 GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. [sERM. 
 
 But above all are we tempted to forget, or to disbelieve, 
 or even to deny that God is our Father, when we have 
 done wrong. And indeed there is a kind of truth in 
 what we feel. For we rightly feel that our wrong-doing 
 has taken us away from Him. His love never ceases for 
 a moment ; and behind the veil which our sin has cast up 
 between us and Him, He still is worldng to bring us back, 
 and still yearning over us as a Father viust yearn over His 
 children. But we cannot see it. We are shut out of His 
 sight by the frown of our own conscience. Either we 
 dare not, or we feel as if we cannot, claim to be treated 
 as His children. We hold back, with a sort of notion 
 that we have something to do before He will love us 
 again. We feel cast off; out of His sight: we feel as if 
 it were useless now to try to hold a place in His love, that 
 place which our misdeed has forfeited : too often we add 
 sin to sin in a kind of recklessness, because it seems not 
 worth while to batde for a completely lost cause. But 
 this is a temptation of our weak nature ; and not the 
 direction of conscience, nor the teaching of the Bible. 
 Remember the case of David. He had committed two of 
 the very worst sins that a man could commit; and a 
 Prophet was sent to reprove him. ' Thou art the man,' 
 said Nathan to David. David's immediate reply was an 
 expression of repentant confession ; and David said unto 
 Nathan, *I have sinned against the Lord.' And then 
 follows immediately, * And Nathan said unto David, The 
 Lord also hath put away thy sin.' This David was called 
 the man after God's own heart ; not certainly because he 
 lived a holier life and fell into fewer sins than any other 
 
XXX.] GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. 271 
 
 saint whose life is recorded, but because throughout his 
 life, even when past sin was bowing down his soul with 
 its terrors, he never forgot that God was his Father. The 
 ready, instant, complete repentance, the repentance so full 
 that never afterwards is there a trace in his character of 
 anything like the same sin again ; the repentance that did 
 not wait for some token to prove that he might return, but, 
 like the prodigal son, went straight home to surrender him- 
 self absolutely to his Father, — that was the most marked 
 act in the reHgious life of the man after God's own heart. 
 And this is the true repentance of a loving child that 
 knows the love of its Father, and has offended against 
 that love : not a slow, lingering repentance doubtful of its 
 own acceptance, but an instant return to absolute sub- 
 mission, an instant prostration of the whole soul before the 
 feet of God, an instant utterance of shame and grief, an 
 instant abandonment of the discovered evil : not a sullen 
 unwillingness, which gives time for faults to engrain 
 themselves in the character, but an immediate stripping 
 off of the garment spotted by the flesh, that is, of the 
 temptation which has proved too strong for us. 
 
 For why was Christ sent but to take on Himself the 
 iniquities of us all, and to make our repentance possible ? 
 His work is not left unfinished. If we will but turn to 
 Him, He will bring us to God, even if our sins be scarlet, 
 and even if they be red like blood. I know it may be said 
 that there is danger in telling Christians that, however sin- 
 ful they may be, God is still their Father, and Christ is 
 still their Redeemer, and God and Christ are yearning for 
 their return. But all doctrines are dangerous in this sense, 
 
272 GOD'S INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE. 
 
 that they may all be perverted. Yet, nevertheless, this is 
 a truth which the Bible repeats too often to leave its cer^ 
 tainty doubtful for a moment. Nay, if God had not still 
 been the Father of sinners, in spite of all their sins, what 
 hope would have been left for us, or how would Christ 
 have come down from Heaven, or how could He have 
 died on the Cross, or what but a Father's love could have 
 sent Him ? Yes, even if we sin, let us remember that He 
 is our Father ; even if He is angry, and too justly angry, 
 let us remember that it is a Father's anger. And though 
 we may have wandered from His presence, and for a time 
 forgotten that we are His children, let us not wander 
 further away through any sullen doubt of His tenderness, 
 but instantly come back, come back to His arms. And if, 
 weak as we are, we shall often offend Him, yet let us not 
 make our sin worse by persisting in keeping our hearts 
 away from Him. If we feel cold in heart, let us turn to 
 Him for warmth ; if we feel doubtful, let us beg Him to 
 increase our faith ; if we have done very wickedly, let us 
 be all the more sorrowful, and all the more earnest in our 
 endeavours to cast out the evil spirit. But let us never 
 forget that He is our Father, and that without our prayer, 
 out of the depths of His love. He sent His Son to bring 
 us back to His Home to Himself, 
 
SERMON XXXI. 
 
 SECRET SINS. 
 
 ST. JOHN 111. 20, 21. 
 
 * For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither comet h to 
 the light, lest his deeds should be repro'ved: but he that doeth 
 truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest^ 
 that they are 'brought in God.^ 
 
 T^HE context of this passage shews, that by the word 
 'light/ the Apostle here understood chiefly that Light 
 of Light Which had come into the world to light the steps 
 of men; and by coming to the light, he meant that 
 openness towards our Master, that surrender of all our 
 thoughts, all our feelings, all our wishes to His eye, 
 which more than any other attitude of mind distinguishes 
 the real child of God. We all know that God sees and 
 knows every motion of our hearts. No one among us 
 has any doubt of this as a general statement. But the 
 child of God not only knows this, but feels a blessing 
 in the knowledge ; not only is willing that God should 
 search out his heart, but of his own accord lays it 
 bare, and feels a deep comfort in the thought that be- 
 low his own faults, and underneath a life of which he 
 
 T 
 
274 SECRET SINS. [sERM. 
 
 is often ashamed, there lies a heart that loves and clings 
 to his Father, and that his Father can see it. To the 
 evil-hearted, to him who is conscious of secret sin wilfully 
 indulged, of a fair outside and a foul soul, there is no 
 sentence more terrible than the words of St. John : ' If 
 our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, 
 and knoweth all things/ He is greater than our hearts ; 
 He sees through the silly excuses with which we defend 
 ourselves to ourselves ; He sees through the veil of dead 
 slumber in which we wrap our souls close round. The 
 doubtful, whispering, fitful accusation with which our 
 hearts condemn us becomes a clear unwavering judg- 
 ment when pronounced by Him, a judgment that is 
 sure to execute its own doom. But that very word is 
 a comfort and a support to the child of Christ ; his heart 
 condemns him, yes, condemns him often ; condemns him 
 for many a sin, for many a wilful disobedience ; condemns 
 and punishes, too, with very real shame, and with bitter- 
 ness of spirit, and with self-contempt. But through all 
 this great pain he still knows that his accusing conscience 
 is not his final judge; he knows that there is One even 
 greater than his conscience Who loves him, and Whom, 
 in spite of all, he loves ; he knows that there is One Who 
 knoweth all things, Who knoweth his struggles. Who 
 knoweth his sorrow, Who knoweth his most secret aims, 
 and hopes, and fears, and on that knowledge he rests. 
 The very essence and test of all true and intimate friend- 
 ship is confidence. We measure the degree in which 
 we are brought near to one another by the degree in 
 which we are trusted with each other's secrets, of thought, 
 
XXXI.] SECRET SINS. 275 
 
 of hope, of anxiety, of circumstances. The last and fullest 
 proof of Love is perfect openness. And as in human 
 love, so too in divine. To come to the light, not to know 
 that the light is piercing through you, but to come to it 
 of yourself; not to know that God sees your heart, but 
 to strip off all disguise in His presence, to kneel before 
 the Cross, and without waiting till He shall see through 
 you, to ask Him to search out your heart, — that is the 
 token of being God's own child. 
 
 This, I say, seems to be the full meaning of the text ; 
 but yet the words cover much more than this, and imply, 
 as do many other passages in the Bible, an approval of 
 the open, a disapproval of the dark and close character ; 
 an approval of the man whose whole life will bear the 
 full light of . day, a disapproval of him who cloaks and 
 hides away all that he can, and wears a face to others 
 which he cannot shew to his own conscience. The deeds 
 of darkness — deeds, that is, whose natural and accustomed 
 place is concealment — deeds that the doers do not wish 
 any other' eye to see, are the deeds which God hates. 
 Darkness is the constantly recurring word to denote all 
 that is evil. The kingdom of darkness, the powers of 
 darkness, are the titles of the most evil of all evil things 
 or beings. To deliver from darkness is the office of the 
 Gospel. To love darkness is the fatal mark which be- 
 tokens God's rejection. To be of the darkness is the 
 characteristic of not being God's : for God's children 
 are children of the light. 
 
 These expressions in the Bible are a voice to which 
 our own natural feelings supply the echo. We have a 
 T 2 
 
276 SECRET SINS. [sERM. 
 
 natural tendency to dislike with peculiar vehemence the 
 life which always hides its deeds in secret places. We 
 have a peculiar admiration for the man whose whole 
 conduct is of a piece, whose faults are visible, who 
 never seems to wear a mask. I know nowhere a praise 
 to which every feeling within us more immediately re- 
 sponds than that which the Poet of our time gave to 
 the late Duke of Wellington, 
 
 ' Whatever records leap to light, 
 He never shall be shamed.' 
 
 There must be much in every man's life which cannot 
 be known, not because it is hidden on purpose, but be- 
 cause some mere accident has concealed it, or rather 
 because there was no particular reason for telling or pub- 
 Hshing it. How much you say of a man when you say 
 that if all these the secret passages of his Hfe were brought 
 before all eyes, still you would find nothing to shame him ! 
 And this, observe, implies no superhuman perfection. It 
 is not that the man was faultless either before God, or 
 even before his fellows. It is that he loved not the dark- 
 ness which cloaks bad deeds, and he lived in secret as 
 he Hved in public : it is that he was real in all that he did ; 
 and his every action, good be it, or bad otherwise, was, at 
 any rate, true to himself; it is that there was nothing in 
 him hollow or mean, nothing double, nothing false. To 
 such a character we all pay involuntary homage, and the 
 God who made us has thus written in our hearts this sure 
 testimony, that He loves light and not darkness, nor the 
 character that seeks the darkness. 
 
XXXI.] SECRET SINS. 277 
 
 Yet, again, look on the other side. There is hardly 
 any kind of sin to which God has affixed so severe a 
 punishment here in this life as sins done in secret. Every 
 sin has its appropriate punishment here in this world; 
 not certainly always visible, perhaps not always even cer- 
 tain, for on this I would not dare to pronounce ; but yet 
 always in prospect, and almost always inflicted. Sins of 
 appetite generally bring fearful punishment on the body; 
 sins of indolence bring bitter regret for wasted time, loss 
 of due place, inability to reach just and natural hopes, 
 sometimes terrible privation; sins of untruth bring loss 
 of all respect and honour, and deep self-contempt; each 
 sin can be traced out to consequences enough to appal 
 the doer on the very threshold of his folly, if he could 
 but see them full before him. But over and above the 
 punishment which God thus in His mercy inflicts upon 
 every sin, He adds another scourge to the same sin if 
 done in secret, and that is the fear of detection. It is 
 strange that the fear of detection should be so much 
 more hard to bear than the detection itself; but so it 
 certainly is. What can be more miserable than the agony 
 which every now and then besets the secret sinner when 
 he sees exposure close at hand.? What scourge can be 
 more painful than the haunting dread which hunts him 
 up and down like a ghost ? It leaves him sometimes, and 
 his spirits return and his face is happy. But the slightest 
 allusion, the slightest hint, though all unintended, is 
 enough to pierce him like a knife. His face burns, his 
 heart beats, if the subject be but approached. His friends 
 can never tell why there are things of which he never 
 
278 SECRET SINS. [sERM. 
 
 loves to speak, which make him always uneasy. But 
 he knows that these subjects are full of danger : he finds 
 them beset with snares : the very mention of them brings 
 back, in all its weight, the burden which his soul cannot 
 shake off. I believe that it rarely, very rarely happens, 
 that secret sins remain always secret. I believe that 
 almost invariably their proper punishment follows, and 
 that years of concealment only dam up the current of 
 recompense, and make its power all the more over- 
 whelming in the end. And thus the unhappy sinner 
 heaps upon his head a double measure ; he is punished 
 at last by the sure working of his own misdeeds, and 
 he has borne all the time this miserable burden of a 
 guilty secret. But even if all other punishment could 
 be avoided, still the long-continued, the never quite for- 
 gotten dread is in itself so heavy a weight, that hardly 
 any scourge can be conceived equal to its pain. 
 
 And along with this fear of detection must be taken 
 the sure self-contempt that invariably attends untruth, 
 and the thick, thick cloud which stands between the soul 
 and God. Self-respect is impossible as long as we know 
 that we are not what we seem. And the more we strive 
 in all other ways to win a title to our own honour ; the 
 more we lift our thoughts above all that is mean, and 
 selfish, and base; the more we fix our affections on 
 things above, where our Master sits on the right hand 
 of God; the more we endeavour in all other ways to 
 surrender our lives to pure and noble purposes, the more 
 bitter still becomes our humiliation at the thought that we 
 have within us a fatal shame, a blot which we dare not 
 
XXXI.] SECRET SINS. 279 
 
 shew, a degrading knowledge which, if it were published 
 among our fellows, would blast our fair name and rank 
 us even among those who are now classed far below 
 us. In striving against the sin which doth so easily beset 
 us, we are soon taught how hard the struggle is, how 
 deep the root which sin plants in the soul, how many- 
 times we have to fall before God will give us the final 
 victory. But, alas ! how tenfold harder is the struggle 
 if our besetting sins be secret. The sin itself binds us 
 with cords ; but the secrecy converts those cords to chains 
 of iron, and makes them cut into our very flesh with a 
 keen and biting wound. With shame again and again 
 must we confess to God that we have deserted Him and 
 forsfotten all His tenderness. But how one sin mocks our 
 very confession when we have succeeded in concealing 
 it ; how our evil nature taunts us with confessing to God 
 what we have taken care to hide from men ; how our own 
 souls despise us when we pour forth our remorse for 
 a sin which our own contrivance has hidden away from 
 the natural punishment of it. It is hard to confess sin 
 to God. It is hard to be quite open in His sight, to lay 
 bare deliberately the evil that we have done, and not 
 to hide away our faces from looking on our wickedness. 
 But how tenfold harder to confess a hidden sin, and 
 to ask God for help while we are conscious that our 
 lives are not true before our fellow-men. 
 
 My brethren, the temptation to secret sins is always 
 most severe. And few men can quite come up to that 
 high praise of being perfectly true in all their lives. The 
 evil instinct which bids us hide a wrong thing that we 
 
2 8o SECRET SINS. [serm. 
 
 have done rapidly grows into a still worse instinct, which 
 bids us specially guard against those sins which are Hable 
 to be found out. Against this let us strive with all our 
 might. Let us press on ourselves this truth, that there 
 is no stronger reason that can possibly be given against 
 doing what is wrong than the fact, if it be a fact, that 
 no one will know it. No one will know it ; no one will 
 know anything about it ; that is the most seducing argu- 
 ment towards evil when addressed to one whose soul does 
 not belong to God. No one will know anything about 
 it ; that is the most conclusive argument against sin when 
 addressed to a child of God. The very fact that it will 
 be secret should make us shrink from any deed that our 
 consciences would not approve. The very fact that it is 
 a deed of darkness should make it tenfold blacker in our 
 eyes. The very fact that it will make us worse in reality 
 than we are in appearance, the very fact that we shall thus 
 be wearing a fairer character than we have a right to 
 wear, should stamp it as mean and degrading. 
 
 My brethren, let us strive to come to the light and live 
 in the light. To live so, that if our most secret conduct 
 were read by all the world, we should be better, not worse, 
 than we are thought to be. To Hve so, that when our 
 lives are summed up at the Last Day, we shall not be 
 found hollow masks, whited sepulchres, fair to look upon 
 outwardly, but within full of all uncleanness. I<et us strive 
 against all sin ; but above all other sins, strive against that 
 which is covered by the darkness. If we find any evil in 
 us which especially shuns the light, let us make it our 
 especial task to correct that above all else. Let it be our 
 
xxxl] secret snvs. 281 
 
 fixed purpose to win for ourselves that open character 
 which all men can read, whose deeds are laid before all, 
 never to be mistaken. Let us win for ourselves that truth 
 of life which scorns to hide, and hates to be overvalued. 
 Let us, in spite of the pain which it will assuredly give, 
 endeavour with all our might to prevent our life from 
 misleading our fellow-men into respecting what does not 
 deserve respect. Let us shun above all other things, as 
 we would shun a serpent, let us shun the darkness which 
 covers evil. 
 
 And He, the Light of Light, will certainly give His 
 especial help, in no ordinary measure, to the man who, 
 for His sake, is striving to live in the light. He will 
 certainly give. He always gives, a double strength and 
 a deeper sense of His Almighty presence to the soul 
 which is determined never to wear a double character, 
 never to shame our name of Christian by the disgrace 
 of falsehood. He will assuredly be with the soul which 
 determines thus; in the spiritual warfare He will wage 
 the fiercest, the most unremitting war against the enemy 
 that hides in the dark, and wishes to shame him with 
 cowardice added to all other sin. He will be with us, 
 and will make even the pain which follows upon openness 
 of soul a wholesome medicine of strength to knit our 
 muscles for greater services. And, above all, He will 
 bless the open-hearted man with the highest of all bless- 
 ings, the sure sense of His presence with him. 
 
SERMON XXXII. 
 
 WORLDLINESS. 
 
 ROMANS Xii. 2. 
 ' Be not conformed to this ^vorld^ 
 
 nPHIS may be called the New Testament form of the 
 Second Commandment. The Second Commandment 
 was directed against material idolatry; this is directed 
 against spiritual idolatry. The Second Commandment for- 
 bad the worship of stocks and stones, of images, and by 
 implication of all created things. This precept of St. Paul's 
 forbids the submission of the conscience to the rules and 
 ideas of this present world. And so both stand upon the 
 same footing. For in both the mischief to be prevented 
 is the lowering of the idea of God and God's nature. You 
 shall not form your spirit, your conscience, your higher 
 being by any pattern lower than itself. You shall not put 
 what in your secret heart you know to be lower, above that 
 which you know to be higher. You shall not exalt a 
 dead image above your own living spirit. You shall not 
 put the voice of the multitude, among whom you live, 
 above the whisper of God's messenger in your heart. 
 When the Second Commandment was given, Idolatry, 
 
WORLD LI NESS. 283 
 
 the worship of mere images, was a very different source 
 of temptation from anything that we experience now, or 
 from any thing- that St. Paul experienced. This is one of 
 the matters in regard to which the past is past, and can 
 never return. The impulse which led to idolatry is prob- 
 ably just what it was. For there is no evidence to justify 
 us in concluding that human nature is in itself changed. 
 But though human nature is not changed, society is. And 
 every one born into the world now is brought under new 
 influences, and grows up to manhood under quite different 
 conditions. And the idolatry of ancient days is now im- 
 possible among civilized nations. Faint resemblances of it 
 may be seen in abundance ; every superstition is a sort of 
 idolatry in the strict sense of the word ; and even among 
 Christians superstitions will sometimes grow to a most 
 mischievous strength. But these, after all, are nothing in 
 comparison with the idolatrous worship against which the 
 Second Commandment was directed. 
 
 The issue of that idolatry is described in the most fear- 
 ful language by St. Paul himself in the beginning of this 
 Epistle to the Romans. Men changed the glory of the 
 uncorruptible God into an image made Hke to corruptible 
 man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping 
 things ; wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness 
 through the lusts of their own hearts. Even as they did 
 not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them 
 over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not 
 convenient. In short, the result of that old idolatry was 
 the indulgence of fleshly lust. And the language of the 
 Apostle precisely describes the connection between the 
 
WORLDLINESS. [sERM. 
 
 cause and the effect. They did not like to retain God 
 in their knowledge. They had supplied to them ever by 
 their conscience a higher ideal; not perhaps the highest, nor 
 even in itself very high, but still higher than could be repre- 
 sented by their gross worship. They felt higher instincts, 
 higher impulses. But they put the lower above the higher, and 
 the end was the downright dominion of the lower nature. 
 All this in its gross, material form has passed away. 
 But the essence of the temptation remains the same, and 
 it is described in the Apostle's words, * Being conformed 
 to this world.' By being conformed to this world he 
 plainly means the moulding of the life and character 
 by the system which prevails around you, and not by the 
 higher teaching which, through and above that system, 
 reaches your heart and conscience. There is in the world 
 the highest and truest teaching ; for the world was made by 
 God, and we can see His finger in every corner of it. But 
 this teaching speaks to the conscience and the reason. The 
 world has another voice which does not come from God 
 at all, and which speaks to our weakness, to our folly, to 
 our vanity, to our love of popularity, to our fear of offend- 
 ing. And this is the voice which we are now tempted to 
 make our guide, and even to enthrone above our own 
 consciences. We are not tempted to make the absurd 
 blunder of fancying that God can be confined in an 
 image of wood or stone, or even that He can walk the 
 earth in the form of some irrational animal. We are not 
 tempted to put the material above the spiritual, or to de- 
 grade the glory of God by likening Him to corruptible 
 creatures. But we are tempted still to put the lower na- 
 
XXXII.] WORLDLINESS, 285 
 
 ture above the higher, and to look for the decision between 
 right and wrong, not in the pages of the Bible, not in the 
 warnings of conscience, but in the voice of the crowd. 
 
 The world, in fact, presents a convenient halfway-house 
 between living by the right and surrendering to the wrong. 
 To judge with the convenient laxity which the thoughtless 
 verdict of the multitude will always urge, seems to give us 
 all the freedom of undisciplined life without the pain of a 
 wounded conscience. And yet this half-way house is rarely 
 more than a half-way house. Those who begin with the 
 world almost always end with the flesh, or sometimes with 
 what is worse still. Men begin by talking lightly of seri- 
 ous faults because they are common, because they are not 
 thought much of by careless men, because the temptations 
 to them are great. And such men invariably, if they do 
 not repent, go straight on, from mere laxity of judgment, 
 to downright indulgence in fleshly sins. Indeed, so plain 
 is the connection between conformity to the world and 
 sins of this kind, that over-indulgent feeling in regard to 
 these very sins is the prevailing fault of the judgment of 
 ordinary society. And hence conformity to the world does 
 the same kind of mischief now that idolatry did long ago. 
 It leads, by a very direct and rapid course, to a low moral 
 standard, to stifling the higher nature, to a weak and 
 perhaps a positively corrupt form of religion, and to a 
 degradation of the life and character. I do not say that 
 this is the invariable issue; but it is the tendency, and 
 a tendency requiring to be jealously guarded against. 
 
 Now, in a place like this, there are few more constant 
 temptations than the one that I have been describing. 
 
2 86 WORLD LINESS, [serm. 
 
 There will grow up, where so many are living together, a 
 peculiar code of morals, not altogether wrong, and yet by 
 no means altogether right. It does not represent precisely 
 what any one deliberately thinks. It is, in fact, not the 
 deliberate opinion of the majority, but only their common 
 talk. And very often, if you could look into the inmost 
 heart of one who was defending the wrong and scoffing 
 at the right, you would find that even he had a better and 
 truer judgment of what was right than he chose to tell. 
 Some faults will be very decidedly condemned, no doubt. 
 But there will be many that will not be condemned at all ; 
 and there will be very many, indeed, that will not be con- 
 demned at all as they ought to be. It is not to be expected 
 that the young, who have had no experience of life, 
 should be able to see all the bearings of wrong with the 
 same clearness as their elders. In particular, no one at 
 the age of school-life can at all fully enter into that deep 
 horror of all fleshly sins which a grov/n man, if he be 
 right-minded, is sure to learn. But making all these allow- 
 ances, still it is quite undeniable that the code of right and 
 wrong, by which faults and characters are judged in such 
 a society as ours, is very far from coinciding with the de- 
 crees of conscience or the rules of God's Word. 
 
 Here then is a very real temptation; namely, to put 
 this voice of the multitude above the voice of conscience. 
 And a dangerous temptation it is. It is a temptation to 
 put the lower, which we know to be the lower, above the 
 higher, which we know to be the higher. For remember 
 this voice of the crowd is not the real opinion even of the 
 crowd that utters it. If it were, it would deserve respect. 
 
XXXII.] WORLDLINESS. 287 
 
 But it is not. Those who are loudest in uttering it, only 
 half believe it ; many who join in uttering it, do not be- 
 lieve it all. Those who say of some serious fault, ' Oh, 
 everybody does so ; there is no great harm in it,' and the 
 like, yet feel in their souls the sting of conscience reprov- 
 ing them for saying so. And when you follow the voice 
 of the crowd against the voice of conscience, you are 
 doing what the very crowd that applauds yoii secretly 
 condemns, and sometimes even despises. 
 
 We must not be conformed to this world. Conformity 
 to the world does not consist in joining in the pleasures 
 with which God, who made the world, has filled it. It 
 does not consist in pursuing the occupations by which the 
 work of the world is done. It does not consist in allowing 
 proper play to the natural impulses, which make us all de- 
 light in success, in distinction, in victory. All these things, 
 though they can be made worldly, yet are not worldly in them- 
 selves. But it is conformity to the world to lower your heart, 
 your character, your life, to the model which may command 
 the favour of the crowd that happens to surround you. 
 
 Against this conformity you will have to fight. And 
 that not only in deeds, but in words also. It is your duty 
 not only not to do wrong when the crowd encourages you 
 to do so ; but quite as much not to give wrong judgments, 
 and call things by soft names, because it is the fashion to 
 call them by soft names. There are no doubt many occa- 
 sions when you ought not to give any judgment at all; when 
 it would be stepping out of your place to condemn others, 
 or disagree with them. But under such circumstances, can 
 it be right to echo wrong sentiments uttered bj others, or to 
 
WORLDLINESS. [sERM. 
 
 utter them yourself ? Even though your conscience knows 
 better at the time, such outer conformity tends rapidly 
 towards inner conformity, and your very conscience may 
 become blinded at last. I do not call upon you always to 
 be differing from the general judgment. On the contrary, 
 the general judgment is often right. But I call upon you 
 not to submit your own conscience to what you can see is 
 merely the talk of those about you. You can find higher 
 teaching if you will. You can find higher teaching 
 even in the midst of that very crowd that threatens to 
 mislead you; and you must not put the lower above the 
 higher, at the peril of doing harm to your own character, 
 and even to your own conscience. 
 
 There will be, there must be, great evils every now 
 and then among so many brought together from such 
 different associations, such different homes, such different 
 previous teaching. • But whether such evils shall do deadly 
 harm to all of us depends on this, whether we are doing our 
 best to submit ourselves to the best influences in the place 
 or to the easiest influences. The best influences, those 
 to which our conscience attracts us, are sure to be full 
 of the power of God ; and even if they be not all that we 
 could wish, yet assuredly they can be a great help. But 
 the easiest influences, those that give the least trial to 
 our moral courage, to our perseverance, to our self- 
 control, will inevitably be lowering, and savour of the 
 world. And the young Christian should ever bear in 
 mind that he has within him a power and a vision 
 which is far above the mere judgment of the mul- 
 titude, and by it he must mould his soul. 
 
SERMON XXXIII. 
 
 ILL TEMPER. 
 
 EPHES. iv. 31. 
 
 ^ Let all bitterness, and ivrath, and anger, and clamour, and 
 e'vil-speaking, be put away from you, nvith all malice.' 
 
 n^HE sins to which we are most liable fall into three 
 different classes, and are exposed to three different 
 kinds of condemnation from our natural conscience. The 
 type of the one class is lying, which falls under the con- 
 demnation of contempt. This sin is the most cowardly, 
 the weakest, the most unmanly of all sins. And so I say 
 it is the type of the cowardly and unmanly sins. And all 
 these sins, lying at the head of them, we regard, and can- 
 not but regard, with contempt. And if we fall into them 
 ourselves, our conscience compels us to despise ourselves. 
 And this self-contempt continues till our souls can live 
 above the sin ; till we begin to feel not only sorrow for 
 the past but determination for the future ; till, in fact, we 
 have separated ourselves from the sin altogether, and have 
 become, and know that we have become, incapable of 
 doing such things again. When we are able to say, ' I 
 once told a lie, and I am ashamed of having done so, but 
 
 u 
 
290 ILL TEMPER. [SERM. 
 
 I know now that nothing would induce me to lie again ;' 
 then, and not till then, do we quite escape from the feel- 
 ing of self-contempt. Lying, I say, is the chief and type 
 of all these, but there are many others belonging to the 
 same class. All that is in any way mean, petty, weak, 
 cowardly, vain, belongs to the same class, and each in its 
 degree merits the same contempt. Again, there is 
 another class of sins which our consciences regard, not 
 so much with contempt, as with horror, and disgust, and 
 loathing. These are the sins of the flesh. Such sins not 
 only degrade but brutalise. They put the animal nature 
 altogether out of its place, making it govern the life and 
 direct the whole soul. Such bodily indulgences may, of 
 course, be very various in degree, and the condemnation 
 that they meet with is also very various in degree. They 
 may be sometimes very slight faults, but they can touch 
 upon the most fearful sins of which our nature is capable. 
 Bodily laziness, greediness, selfish love of comfort, exces- 
 sive delight in permitted bodily enjoyments ; and thence 
 up to indecency and sins of which a Christian does not 
 speak ; these, I say, inspire us, some more some less, with 
 disgust and loathing, and in their worst forms with horror. 
 Last of all there is a third class of sins which are described 
 in the text ; sins which are not properly objects of con- 
 tempt, nor yet of disgust, but rather of righteous indigna- 
 tion, the sins of the temper. These sins do not always 
 lower a man and degrade him, as lying and such like sins 
 do. They do not corrupt him and poison his whole being, 
 as sins of the flesh do. But they have a peculiar power 
 of thwarting and injuring God's work in the world, and 
 
XXXIII.] ILL TEMPER, 
 
 291 
 
 of giving pain to our fellow-creatures. They do not so 
 immediately and directly hurt the character of the doer, 
 but they hurt, more than any other, the right action of 
 the Body of Christ. He who falls under the contempt of 
 his conscience, and he who brings on him the disgust and 
 horror of his conscience, does a terrible injury to his 
 own soul. But his injury to his neighbour is not so 
 immediate nor so sure to follow\ Indirectly, these degrad- 
 ing and corrupting sins are the w^orst cankers that can 
 possibly get into society. Any people thoroughly infected 
 wdth them is hopelessly and irretrievably lost. But in each 
 individual case the mischief is chiefly to the soul of the 
 doer, and not to those among whom he lives. But the 
 sins of the temper produce their worst results at once in 
 our neighbour and not in ourselves. 
 
 It is for this reason that I would speak of such sins at 
 this season."^ Just because these sins of ill temper do 
 not stain the soul with so black a mark at the moment as 
 other sins, we are tempted to pass them over very lightly 
 w^hen we are judging of our owm conduct. Self-contempt 
 is a most terribly painful thing to bear ; and if we have 
 done anything to merit it, our conscience punishes us with 
 a sting which will not easily be forgotten. The sense of 
 having poisoned and corrupted our nature, when we begin 
 to feel it, is very awful ; and if our conscience be aw^ake, 
 we are sure to be warned v/ith the most solemn warnings 
 against the sins of the flesh, and the depth of our feeling 
 is sure to increase with increasing years, as we better 
 understand the true relations of the soul and the body. 
 
 * Preached in Lent. 
 U 2 
 
292 ILL TEMPER. [sERM. 
 
 But sins of the temper leave their most visible marks out- 
 side us and not inside us; and when the immediate 
 temptation and our own heat or sullenness is gone, we are 
 very apt to judge them too leniently. They do not im- 
 mediately stain the character ; they are consistent with a 
 brave and strong will, with a pure heart and imagination, 
 with much true generosity and unselfishness, with a high 
 purpose, with much warmth and depth of religion. And 
 we are very apt to repent of them very earnestly, and 
 then forget them so completely as to be ready to fall into 
 them again at the very next temptation. 
 
 Moreover, there is another reason why our consciences 
 pass over such sins lightly, in comparison with their 
 importance. They are punished and checked by society, 
 and to the discipline of society the conscience accord- 
 ingly abandons them. If they were quite unchecked, 
 they would obviously make society quite impossible. If 
 men are to be brought into any social relation at all, some 
 sort of peace is the very first condition ; and without some 
 discipline of the temper, no peace is possible. The very 
 commencement of all laws is the provision of some means 
 of putting an end to quarrels, and to the acts which lead 
 to quarrels. And what civil society does by law and force, 
 that is done in the ordinary intercourse of life by custom 
 and public opinion. And so all the worst excesses of ill 
 temper are repressed, and there is a perpetual tendency to 
 repress them still more. Of all the discipline that we get 
 from the ordinary working of social intercourse, far the 
 larger part consists in teaching us to keep the temper 
 under some sort of control. 
 
XXXIII.] ILL TEMPER. 293 
 
 But it is quite obvious that this is not nearly enough 
 for the Christian. The Christian will have to remember 
 that one of the very first duties that he owes to his neigh- 
 bour is the thorough subjugation of his own temper. 
 This requirement appears again and again in the New 
 Testament. There is hardly an Epistle in which it is not 
 expressly enjoined. It is repeatedly commanded by our 
 Lord. And it is implied even more often than it is 
 expressly commanded. 
 
 For what is the chief burden of our Lord's teaching in 
 regard to our duty to our neighbour .? Is it not to pro- 
 mote his happiness ? So prominent is this requirement 
 above all other duties that we owe to man, and second 
 only to those which we owe to God, that Christians are 
 sometimes surprised to find so much more stress laid on 
 our labouring for our neighbours' material than on our 
 labouring for his spiritual good. Is it not a greater thing, 
 it is often said, to convert a soul than to visit the sick, or 
 to feed the hungry .? How is it, then, that our Lord says 
 so much more about the latter than about the former.? 
 Obviously, for this reason, that the latter is much more 
 put in our power than the former. God has put the 
 happiness of our neighbour into our hands much more 
 directly and completely than He has put their holiness. 
 It is a greater thing to make a man holy than to make 
 him happy, and you must never forget this. But re- 
 member also that you can do but very little to make him 
 holy, for God has kept that chiefly in His own hands ; but 
 you can do much to make him happy, for God has put 
 that a great deal into your hands. It is greater to convert 
 
294 ILL TEMPER. [serm. 
 
 a soul than to make a fellow-creature happy ; but to the 
 one you are called rarely, and to the other every day of 
 your life. 
 
 And if this be one of our chief duties, most certainly 
 there is nothing which so entirely runs counter to it, and 
 makes it impossible, as an undisciplined temper. For of 
 all things that are to be met with here on earth, there is 
 nothing which can give such continual, such cutting, such 
 useless pain. The touching and sensitive temper, which 
 takes offence at a word ; the irritable temper, which finds 
 offence in everything whether intended or not ; the violent 
 temper, which breaks through all bounds of reason when 
 once roused; the jealous or sullen temper, which wears 
 a cloud on the face all day, and never utters a word of 
 complaint; the discontented temper, brooding over its 
 own wrongs; the severe temper, which always looks at 
 the worst side of whatever is done; the wilful temper, 
 which over-rides every scruple to gratify a whim, — what 
 an amount of pain have these caused in the hearts of men, 
 if we could but sum up their results ! How many a soul 
 have they stirred to evil impulses; how many a prayer 
 have they stifled ; how many an emotion of true affection 
 have they turned to bitterness ! How hard they some- 
 times make all duties ! How painful they make all daily 
 life ! How they kill the sweetest and warmest of domestic 
 charities ! The misery caused by other sins is often much 
 deeper and much keener, more disastrous, more terrible to 
 the sight ; but the accumulated pain caused by ill temper 
 must, I verily believe, if added together, outweigh all other 
 pains that men have to bear from one another. 
 
xxxiil] ill temper. 295 
 
 But further, the undisciplined temper is not merely 
 mischievous because it gives pain, and very often, if not 
 always, the wrong sort of pain. Although it does not 
 stain the character like some other sinful states of the 
 soul, yet it, too, is not free from that condemnation. In 
 particular it makes prayer either impossible or half use- 
 less. Whether we know it or not, the prayer that comes 
 from a heart indulging in evil temper is hardly a prayer at 
 all. We cannot really be face to face with God ; we can- 
 not really approach God as a Father; we cannot really 
 feel like children kneeHng at His feet ; we cannot really be 
 simply affectionate and truthful in what we say to Him, if 
 irritation, discontent, or gloom, or anger, is busy at our 
 breasts. An undisciplined temper shuts out the face of 
 God from us. We may see His holy Law, but we cannot 
 see Himself. We may think of Him as our Creator, our 
 Judge, our Ruler, but we cannot think of Him as our 
 Father, nor approach Him with love. 
 
 And, lastly, this want of discipHne makes it quite im- 
 possible that we should use the natural impulse from 
 which ill temper springs in the way that God meant us to 
 use it. For the impulse of anger was not given us for 
 nothing. It, like all else within us, was given for a pur- 
 pose in the service of God. So the Apostle bids us 
 * Be angry and sin not,' plainly implying that there are 
 reasons which will justify anger, but such reasons will not 
 justify our letting that anger degenerate into sin. There 
 are reasons which justify anger. For instance, there is 
 such a thing as anger with ourselves when we have fallen 
 by what is no more than a momentary lapse from right. 
 
296 ILL TEMPER, [SERM. 
 
 There are cases in which anger with ourselves, and indig- 
 nant shame are better than soft sorrow. There are cases 
 in which the highest and truest repentance will rather take 
 the form of brief and stern self-reproof than self-abasement 
 and humiliation. And these cases, when it is right to be 
 angry with ourselves, will shew also when it is right to be 
 angry with others ; for sharp and stern dealing with wrong 
 the moment you meet with it, is often the best and fittest 
 way to deal with it. A very great deal of wrong-doing is 
 simply made worse by dwelling on it, by talking much 
 about it, by lengthening out the punishment of it. Again, 
 there is a great deal of wrong-doing that is merely the 
 consequence of the doer being morally half asleep, and 
 not quite realising what he is about. And in such cases 
 very often nothing but the short and sharp dealings of 
 anger will awake him. And there are natures habitually 
 sluggish which cannot otherwise be stirred. We all have 
 a tendency to shade off evil into good, and by so doing to 
 weaken our sense of the distinction between them ; and 
 anger is very often the best means of cutting the Hne 
 broad and deep once more, and stamping with reprobation 
 that which deserves reproof But such a use of anger as 
 this plainly implies that the temper shall be under the 
 absolute control of the conscience. How can that anger 
 be employed as the servant of God and of the awful law 
 of right, which the next moment we use as the servant of 
 our own jealousy, or pride, or irritability ? How can that 
 anger be used to bring men to a sense of right which is 
 itself not subject to that sense of right ? How can that 
 anger be used to uplift the soul above what is mean, or 
 
xxxiil] ill temper. 297 
 
 earthly, or weak, which is itself the slave of personal feel- 
 ing ? Righteous anger is the servant of the Law of God. 
 Then only will it serve God when it bears on its very 
 face that it is itself absolutely subject to the will of God. 
 You may perhaps be justified in resisting your neighbour, 
 and in resisting him with anger ; but certainly not unless 
 your anger is rigidly just and absolutely self-controlled. 
 
 Now ask whether this is at all like the anger that we 
 commonly mean when we speak of undisciplined temper ? 
 Could this sort of anger be sullen, or irritable, or gloomy, 
 or passionate .? Could this anger utter cutting words, or 
 take offence at trifles.? Could this anger be selfish or 
 proud? Is this the temper which would rebel against 
 reproof? Is this the unsocial character that would always 
 hold itself aloof from the pleasure of others, and contri- 
 bute nothing to the general happiness ? No two characters 
 can be more opposed than his whose zeal for the service 
 of God sometimes stirs him to brief anger or indignation, 
 and his who indulges his temper because he does not 
 choose to control it. 
 
 Finally, let me warn you that ill temper is a sin requir- 
 ing long and careful discipline. You cannot get it into 
 order at once. Long after you have seen the duty of 
 controlling it, you will find your control of it very im- 
 perfect. God gives some victories speedily : this victory 
 He rarely gives till after many battles. Look well, then, 
 how you stand with such an enemy, and for the sake of 
 Christ, and for the sake of all whom you love on earth, 
 learn to subdue what Christ condemns so often, and 
 what gives others so much pain. 
 
SERMON XXXIV. 
 
 THE THREE GROSSES. 
 
 Preached on Good Friday. 
 
 ST. LUKE xxiii. 33. 
 
 ' And (when they civere come to the place, <vjhich is called Calvary , 
 there they crucified Him, and the malefactors ; one on the right 
 hand, and the other on the left* 
 
 T T has been said with some truth, that besides its own 
 proper and most awful meaning, the scene which this 
 day once beheld upon Mount Calvary, was a type of 
 God's sure judgment on the whole world. On that 
 mountain, on this day, there stood three crosses : one 
 of these was the Cross of Holiness, which has to be 
 borne by the righteous for the sake of the wicked; 
 another was the Cross of Penitence, the only gate left 
 open by which men, such as we are, can ever enter 
 Paradise; the third was the Cross of Condemnation, of 
 that terrible doom which punishes but does not soften, 
 which chastens but does not mend. One of these three 
 was laid on all men; all men without exception; all 
 men even including Him Who shared our nature, but 
 did not share our sin. Sin brought pain into the world. 
 And from this pain none can escape ; not even He Who 
 
THE THREE CROSSES. 299 
 
 did not sin. In taking our nature upon Him, He took 
 with it the burden that is fastened to it ; and that misery 
 which comes on us, because we are sinners, He had 
 to bear because He was a man. From the Cross, in 
 some form or other, could no man be free; not even 
 He. And so since He could not bear the cross of His 
 own sins, He bore the cross of other men's. A faint 
 shadow, a resemblance, an echo, of that pain is felt by 
 all those whose hearts are pierced by the sins of those 
 whom they love. The grief which a father feels over 
 the misconduct of a son, the pang of a mother when 
 her child has proved unworthy, these may give us some 
 idea of the burden which He bore, upon Whom our 
 Father in heaven laid the iniquity of us all. And as 
 there is no human power which can so deeply touch 
 the soul of a sinner as the sorrow which his sin has 
 brought on a loved and loving heart, so we may recog- 
 nise in this sorrow the human counterpart of that His 
 one Atonement, which heals all the sons of men and 
 brings them back to God. Just as a man can often do 
 more by his sorrow than by his anger, so the Cross 
 of Christ has reached many whom the terrors of judg- 
 ment could never have reached, has brought them home 
 like Prodigal sons returning to a Father; has brought 
 them to repentance instead of remorse, and to loving 
 submission instead of despair. The Cross of Christ is 
 indeed the one unapproachable source of all spiritual 
 healing ; but yet the Cross, like all else in the economy 
 of God's government, does not stand alone, but has 
 its types and shadows, its copies and counterparts, scat- 
 
300 THE THREE CROSSES. [SERM. 
 
 tered through God's works; and these, while they are 
 resemblances of its character, are also channels of its 
 power. The saints whom God hath sent, and, as we 
 know, will continue to send, for the edification of His 
 Church, can do their appointed work chiefly by bearing 
 the Cross which Christ once bore; the cross of living 
 purely in a world of sin; of being just and true, and 
 loving, in a world of iniquity, and falsehood, and hatred; 
 of suffering, when need requires it, for the sake of 
 truth; of sacrificing all else at the call of duty for the 
 love of God; of caring, beyond all other things, for 
 God's service and God's glory, and kindling, where they 
 can, the same desire in the hearts of others. And even 
 those who know full well that they have no title to be 
 saints, yet, if they will be God's children at all, must 
 expect to bear the same cross ; must expect to give up 
 their own will, even when innocent, for Christ's sake; 
 must count on meeting with burdens and trials which 
 do not seem to belong to them ; must be ready not to 
 complain, but rather to rejoice, that God thus gives them 
 tokens of claiming them for His own. All Christians 
 have, in their degree, to bear the Cross of Christ. But 
 yet, when we think of those three crosses, we know 
 that the Cross of Christ is not ours. in the same sense 
 or the same degree as the other crosses which stood by 
 the side of it. 
 
 The true Cross of Holiness He and He alone could 
 bear. Real as that Cross may be to us on occasions 
 few and widely separated, yet it vanishes altogether 
 when we think of His. The true Cross of Holiness 
 
XXXIV.] THE THREE CROSSES. 301 
 
 He alone could bear; but between the Cross of Peni- 
 tence and the Cross of Condemnation, it is still ours 
 to choose. 
 
 How many there are that choose the Cross of Con- 
 demnation! How many there are who, when God in 
 His mercy inflicts some gende chastisement, rebel against 
 His hand, and bear all the pain without obtaining any 
 of the blessing \ The impenitent thief, you may be sure, 
 did not now hang on that Cross for the first time. He 
 had had, we well know, many a warning, many a sharp 
 correction, before it came to that. He must have often 
 felt the sharp chastisement with which the Providence 
 of God surrounds such paths as his. But the punishment 
 only hardened him in sin, and the very sight of the gates 
 of the grave still left him as hard as ever. We think 
 this awful when we see the end of it. But how lightly 
 we pass it over as we meet with it in our own lives. 
 God meets us at every turn with His Cross, which we 
 may make at our own will either into the Cross of Con- 
 demnation or of Penitence, either into the chastisement 
 of a loving Father, or into the vengeance of an angry 
 Master. God teaches our own sins to scourge us. The 
 still small voice of conscience will not rest. The hours 
 of darkness in the night haunt us with the memory of 
 our own sinfulness. The results of our folly bring pain 
 on us, disgrace, loss of friends, stern treatment from 
 those set over us, unkindness from our companions, 
 disappointment of some cherished hope, injury to our 
 health, sorrow in the faces of our parents. If we would 
 but look at it, we could see that we suffered justly. 
 
302 THE THREE CROSSES. [sERM. 
 
 receiving the due reward of our deeds. But how often 
 is our heart defiant and discontented; angry at the 
 punishment ; questioning the justice ; comparing our lot 
 with that of others who seem more favoured ; unsoftened ; 
 unsubdued ; unresigned ! The impenitent thief had not 
 fewer means than his brother in guilt for learning the 
 mercy and the love of God. He, too, must have seen 
 the face, must have watched the bearing of the Holy One 
 so close at hand. He, too, m.ust have heard the prayer, 
 ' Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' 
 He must have seen the sorrow and love th-at shone forth 
 from a countenance where love was ever reigning. He 
 must have seen the unearthly presence, the calm, the 
 self-forgetfulness. He must have heard the words, few 
 but full of Heaven itself, which dropped from the Sa- 
 viour's mouth. He must have felt their tones go through 
 his soul. But neither his own pain nor the Redeemer's 
 voice could soften his heart ; and where love would not 
 grow, hatred sprang up of itself; and he mocked One 
 who promised to save and seemed unable to do it. It 
 is awful to think of. And yet have we nothing like it ? 
 Have we never, when persisting in sin, and r hardening 
 ourselves in disobedience, and indulging a sulky defiance, 
 found at our side a presence which spoke of the power 
 of Heaven ? Have no voices come to us from the Bible, 
 from our Church, from our own hearts, nay, from Christ 
 Himself, to tell us of the mercy of God .? Have we never 
 seen in our fellow-Christians a cheerful submission to 
 the very duty which we hated, a cheerful acceptance of 
 the very burden which we would fain throw off.? And 
 
XXXIV.] THE THREE CROSSES. 303 
 
 oh! has it not sometimes happened that when we were 
 doing wrong, and others were doing right, we have been 
 tempted to relieve any pain which came on ourselves, 
 by adding as much as we could to the pain which came 
 on them? Have we never, while hardening our own 
 hearts to the lessons which our conscience gave us, en- 
 deavoured to harden the hearts of others, and joined 
 in persecuting that which we would not follow ? 
 
 In almost all the crosses that come on us, we have 
 but this choice left, — the choice of the reckless rebel, or 
 the choice of the heart-stricken penitent. 
 
 The penitent thief stands before us as the type of all 
 the penitents who have been taught by the lessons of 
 suffering. He was, we may say, the first Christian; 
 a Christian when no one else dared to be a Christian ; 
 a believer when no one else had the strength of soul 
 required for belief. Consider this man's wonderful faith. 
 All the disciples had fled, and though their loyalty to 
 their Master remained, their faith in Him was altogether 
 gone. They expected to see Him no more. Though 
 they had once hoped that it should have been He that 
 was to redeem Israel, they now hoped no more. The 
 women still shewed their attachment; but these, too, 
 shew no signs of having retained their faith. No support 
 had the penitent thief from the sympathy of others ; no 
 help to his faith from the belief of others. Think how 
 hard it is to believe anything which all around you dis- 
 believe; and how much harder then to believe what 
 the whole world disbelieved, and to believe in spite of 
 all the world, in spite of all that had happened to our 
 
304 THE THREE CROSSES, [SERM. 
 
 Lord before his eyes, on the pure evidence of what he 
 may have known of our Lord's history before, and of 
 what he saw of his character now : to believe that the 
 man who now hung in agony on the Cross close by, 
 and sadly complained that God had forsaken Him, to 
 believe that this was the very Lord of all creation, and 
 could, at His will, take His followers into Paradise, this 
 is an act of faith which the world never saw before and 
 can never see again. This man, for the time that he 
 hung there, was the whole Christian Church in himself. 
 Others were just outside, to be admitted in a few days 
 more, but at that hour none was within but he alone. 
 The first, the pattern of all Christian penitents, he recog- 
 nised his Saviour when no other eye could know Him, 
 and underneath the sufferings which then crowned that 
 sacred Hill he saw the Hand of God. In this peni- 
 tence we cannot equal him, but we can follow. We 
 can recognise in the Providence that guides our steps, 
 and sometimes chastises our backslidings, the loving 
 hand of a loving Father, whose correction is meant to 
 open our eyes and shew us what Mount Calvary had 
 to shew. 
 
 For this is the end of the Cross which is borne by us, 
 to bring us to the knowledge of the Cross which was 
 borne by Christ. The depth of the mystery of the 
 Atonement who shall fathom ? All that has been written 
 on the subject only leaves behind the sense of the wonder 
 of the mystery, and every explanation that has been 
 attempted is overthrown with an ease which warns us 
 that explanation is impossible. Every statement of the 
 
XXXIV.] THE THREE CROSSES. 305 
 
 doctrine which has ever yet been made always contains 
 those self-contradictions, those manifest breaches of the 
 plainest rules of logic which indicate that the human 
 intellect is baffled. But what the head cannot compass 
 the heart can feed on, and every act of repentance, every 
 acknowledgment of God's mercy and love, every sense 
 of our own helplessness, our own darkness, our own sin, 
 brings us nearer to the power of the Cross of Christ. 
 We cannot understand it, but we can be thrilled by it. 
 We cannot say how or why we needed it, but we can 
 feel our need of it. We cannot explain its strange power 
 to help us, but we can walk by its help. We cannot tell 
 all that it does for us, but we can drink in life from the 
 thought of it. When we think of the Cross of Christ, 
 and think Who He was that bore it, we can draw from 
 it the assurance of God's love ; for if He gave us His 
 own Son, how shall He not with Him also freely give 
 us all things : and the assurance of our own forgiveness ; 
 for God hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all : and the 
 assurance of present help; for He is with us always, 
 even to the end of the world : and the assurance of our 
 own victory; for we can do all things through Christ 
 that strengtheneth us : and the assurance of future 
 blessedness; for He is gone to prepare a place for 
 us, and we shall be ever with the Lord. 
 
SERMON XXXV. 
 
 THE BURIAL OF THE PAST. 
 
 Preached on Easter Day. 
 
 ROMANS vi. II. 
 
 ' Like^jj'ise reckon ye also yoursel'ves to he dead indeed unto sin, but 
 ali've unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.'' 
 
 T IFE, almost from the beginning to the end, is a series 
 ^^ of fresh beginnings. We not only have to take the 
 past as a starting-point for the future ; we have, in a cer- 
 tain sense, to be perpetually going back and undoing the 
 past, and commencing once more afresh. We cannot 
 really undo the past, in spite of all our longing ; vs^e cannot 
 undo either our acts or the consequences that have followed 
 from them. But still we have to do as much towards it 
 as we can. Nothing is more natural than to say to our- 
 selves, ' Let me begin again ; all this has been a very 
 foolish mistake; it has brought a great deal more pain 
 than pleasure ; it has never given the satisfaction that it 
 promised ; it has caused me a great deal of unhappiness ; 
 it has turned out quite unlike what I meant; or rather, 
 I had not much meaning in what I did, and, now that I 
 see what I have been doing, I am very sorry that I took 
 the turn I did ; let me begin again.' The beginning again 
 
THE BURIAL OF THE PAST 307 
 
 is made impossible by the indelible character of what we 
 have done. We could not put everything else back again, 
 even if we could put ourselves, and we cannot put our- 
 selves. Besides the reputation, good or evil, as it may be, 
 that we have acquired in the eyes of our neighbours and 
 acquaintance, there is the memory of our past life, capri- 
 ciously fastening on this detail or that ; but however capri- 
 cious, always retaining enough to make going back quite 
 impossible. If we could but wipe out the past both from 
 the memory of other men and from our own, and retain 
 the experience that we have gained without the pain and 
 the sin through which we gained it, that would, as it 
 seems, wholly satisfy our need, and we could really com- 
 mence afresh. We do not quite ask to be put on the 
 same level as we might have reached if we had been more 
 careful, more in earnest. The ideal state of the soul 
 would no doubt be never to do wrong at all ; not to grow 
 in the fitful, losing, dangerous way, but steadily upward 
 from grace to grace till our day of departure came. But 
 as we have missed, very much missed, this ideal growth, 
 we do not ask to have that done for us which we know 
 ought to have been done in us : we do not ask to have 
 the prize of victory without the struggle. What we ask 
 for, is to be enabled to fight the next battle without the 
 burden of the past hanging like a weight about our necks, 
 clinging like a chain about our arms. We want to feel 
 that we have not lost our self-respect, or the respect of 
 our fellows. We want to get out of past defeats, not the 
 hindrance of a cowed and craven spirit, but the aid of a 
 clearer experience, and a better knowledge of our danger. 
 X 2 
 
3c8 THE BURIAL OF THE FAST [sERM. 
 
 We want, in short, to bury a great deal of the past ; to 
 bury it out of sight, and not have its presence haunt us 
 any more. We wish to reckon a great deal of the past 
 as so completely past as to belong to another life, from 
 which we are separated by as broad a gulf as that which 
 divides the dead from the living. 
 
 To this need, which no man ever lived without some- 
 times feeling, Easter Day is the answer. You are at full 
 liberty to do all you ask. Bury the dead past by all 
 means. Let not the memory of sin haunt you with 
 any such daunting terrors or shames. Let not your 
 heart sink down in self-contempt, and despair of itself, 
 and of God, and of the love of God. Let not the 
 shame which sin always leaves behind it be of the 
 kind which hides away and joins the company of sin 
 and of sinners, because of its own unworthiness. Let 
 not the weakness of nature persuade you to be con- 
 tented with a lower standard than you had once hoped 
 to reach. Bury the dead past with all its sins; on 
 this one condition, that you are ' alive unto God through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord.' 
 
 If you can draw from the past the lessons of the past ; 
 if you can learn from it your temptations, your weak 
 points, your besetting sins ; if you can gather out of it 
 that which came from God, and that which you can use 
 in the service of God, — then, by all means, bury the rest. 
 The memory of the past sometimes mocks our repentance 
 by pointing secretly to some irrevocable deed which we 
 can do nothing whatever to mend ; sometimes it calls forth 
 the smiles or even the scoffs of foolish companions, who 
 
XXXV.] THE BURIAL OF THE PAST. 309 
 
 laugh at our repentance, and at the presumption of our 
 setting up for righteous who have been perhaps in the 
 front ranks of evil ; sometimes it talks of the uselessness 
 of renewing efforts so often defeated ; sometimes it simply 
 dogs us with the restlessness created by old habit, and 
 drags us back into sin for want of something else to fill 
 a vacant hour. And if we try to forget it, we are mocked 
 by the recollection that what is past cannot be undone, 
 and will follow us through all our life. Whether this be 
 some one or two deeds of evil standing out from the rest 
 of our life, and marring it with an indelible stain, or 
 whether our whole course has been so bad, so careless, 
 or so silly, that we can see no encouragement in all of it 
 to make a change, still we must deal with it in the same 
 way. Bury it as dead, and defy its power ; and live in 
 the power of the Son of God. 
 
 Bury past sins with a resolute will ; knowing that they 
 are still there though buried ; knowing that they can yet 
 rise from the grave ; knowing that, at the Judgment-day, 
 they will rise again when you do; knowing that the 
 eternal records have noted them all down; knowing all 
 this, bury them still and live henceforth unto Christ. It 
 is true that every deed that we do passes into the sub- 
 stance of our being, and we can never be- afier it what we 
 were before it. But for all that, the sins that we have 
 committed must not be allowed to work upon us beyond 
 the measure that God has assigned to them. You have 
 sinned, and you cannot be what you were, nor what you 
 might have been. But you still can be a servant of God, 
 and even your past sins can become in His hands instru- 
 
3 TO THE BURIAL OF THE PAST, [sERM. 
 
 ments of His will. The fall of David gave us the thirty- 
 second Psalm ; the fall of St. Peter fitted him to strengthen 
 his brethren. The weakness of St. Paul taught us the 
 lesson, * My grace is sufficient for thee ; for My strength 
 is made perfect in weakness.' These men, no doubt, 
 would have done still more if they had had neither falls 
 nor weaknesses ; but as it was, even falls and weaknesses 
 were of use in their service. There is even in evil a good 
 element ; for no evil in this world so entirely destroys the 
 inherent goodness of all God's creations as not to leave a 
 germ of good behind. And so out of sin shall we draw 
 strength; and when we have drawn out all that may 
 help us for the future, we need not fear to bury all the 
 rest. Christ has expressly taken all that on Himself. 
 We need not enquire how. Enough for us that we 
 have, in the death and resurrection of Christ, the cer- 
 tain assurance that they who Hve unto Him need fear 
 no condemnation. 
 
 Not with the past is our chief business, but with the 
 present and the future. Let me then give a few cautions 
 to those who really desire to reckon themselves to be 
 dead unto past sins, but alive unto God and to Christ 
 their Saviour. 
 
 It is not at all uncommon to find that a high festival 
 like Easter, with all its associations and memories, shakes 
 us free all at once from much sin, and gives us a sense of 
 recovered freedom, and a sort of confidence, not a 
 boasting, yet perhaps hardly a safe, confidence in our 
 strength to win the battle. And then this excitement 
 wears off in a day or two, and we are not only back 
 
XXXV.] THE BURIAL OF THE PAST. 311 
 
 where we were before, but have the additional weakness 
 caused by an additional defeat. 
 
 Now, the first caution that I would give the soldiers 
 of Christ at such a time is to beware of confounding a 
 slight repulse with a regular defeat, and of allowing your 
 enemy to win, not because you are really beaten, but 
 because you fancy yourself beaten before you really are. 
 A temptation comes to you in the shape of an evil thought. 
 You hardly know whether the thought is really yours, or 
 whether it came of itself. But at any rate an evil thought, 
 though always distressing, and always in its nature kindred 
 to sin, is not necessarily sinful. Do not immediately yield, 
 as if the evil thought were as bad as the evil word or deed. 
 As soon as your conscience awakes you, endeavour to 
 cast out the foe, and let him not drive you to sinful 
 actions because he has sullied your passing fancies. Or, 
 again, if you have actually given way, and have allowed 
 evil thoughts to dwell in your mind till there can be no 
 doubt that they are really your own, do not say that this 
 is just as bad as complete defeat, and that you may as 
 well commit much sin as Httle. Fight every inch of 
 ground within your heart. However much you may 
 be defeated, the mere fact of your having kept up the 
 batde retains you on Christ's side and ensures you His 
 help. Above all, strive, strive to the uttermost, not to let 
 your sin come to actual outer deed. As far as the sin- 
 fulness of the will is concerned, thoughts and imagina- 
 tions are very often quite as bad as deeds. But in their 
 reaction on the doer, deeds have a power of mischief 
 which nothing else has. The outward and visible act of 
 
312 THE BURIAL OF THE PAST. [sERM. 
 
 sin is a sort of devil's sacrament which seals the evil and 
 makes it real. Thoughts come and go, and evil that has 
 simply passed through the thoughts, though it may be 
 very terrible in itself, yet will sometimes pass away and 
 leave the soul unweakened for the fight. But deeds leave 
 a sting behind them. Many temptations will wear out 
 of themselves if you can but prevent them from coming 
 into outward shape : but if they ever lead you to outward 
 acts they will cling round you for years. 
 
 And I am not speaking only of new temptations. Old 
 temptations which have already led to evil deeds or words, 
 to deeds or words of disobedience, of uncleanness, of 
 selfishness, of ill temper, of hatred ; when these tempta- 
 tions return, as return they will, learn to cut them off by 
 not letting them ever mount up to deeds again. Whilst 
 the temptation is assailing you within, whatever advan- 
 tage it may gain over you, you will still have the sense of 
 standing. But let the deed of evil be done, and you will 
 feel prostrate under the enemy's feet. 
 
 Again, in recommencing the battle with sin, despise 
 not the day of small things. At such times as these we 
 are particularly liable to the temptation of Naaman the 
 Syrian. We want different trials, different battles, different 
 demands on us from those that we get. Life to our fool- 
 ish eyes seems not so earnest, not so solemn as we had 
 thought it. We had been prepared for something extra- 
 ordinary, and we find nothing that is not common-place. 
 We are like soldiers who have been drilled for a pitched 
 battle, and then find nothing but a war of outposts, and so 
 become discontented and careless. We cannot believe 
 
XXXV.] THE BURIAL OF THE PAST. 313 
 
 that life is so serious a thing as it really is, because it 
 is not adorned with fine trappings, because it has lost the 
 pomp and circumstance in which our imagination would 
 wish to clothe it. Is all this preparation only to keep us 
 from some trivial act of selfishness, from some hasty slip 
 of the tongue, from some half an hour of idleness when 
 we ought to have been at work ? Yes, for the present it 
 is. When more is wanted, more will be required. But 
 the power of the Spirit of God is as much shewn in small 
 things as in great. In objects of nature, no research that 
 we can make into the minutest creatures of God detects 
 the slightest appearance of a want of finish. The micro- 
 scope proves that God's Hand will fashion the wing of an 
 insect, which our eyes never could see at all without help, 
 as carefully and as finely as the grandest and most com- 
 plicated animal structure. So, too, is it in the spiritual 
 world ; and the Creator would have the slightest impulse 
 of the will as perfect and as pure as the deliberate choice 
 of the reason. 
 
 Lastly, be not content with negatives. Do not only 
 resist temptation, but seek to serve God. Seek to serve 
 Him by diligent discharge of duties, by kindness to your 
 fellow-Christians, by turning your thoughts occasionally, 
 and not unfrequently, to your Father in Heaven, to the 
 Cross of your Redpemer. And I put the first of these 
 first, though the last is the most important, because it is 
 with the first, the outer duties, that we always have to 
 begin. Begin with such duties, for those you are justified 
 in even forcing yourself to do, and however much your 
 inclination may lead you another way, still these duties 
 
 Y 
 
314 THE BURIAL OF THE PAST. 
 
 are to be done. I cannot, in the same sense, bid you 
 force yourself to love God and Christ ; but God will most 
 assuredly give you at last, if not at once, the power of 
 loving Him if you are doing your best to obey Him, and 
 when thoughts of Him and of Christ enter your heart, do 
 not turn away. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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