PRINCETON. N. J No. Case, -DiyJ^'pn--! N°- Shelf, ^,,-,™„3^.a^, JNo. Book v^ <^^ , C ^ C L C fc^ ^ V v^ re 1 / ^V^>. ^ r X . , C <- '?^ .^^^^ THE DANGERS AND SAFEGUARDS MODERN THEOLOGY. * ' ■ THE DANGERS AND SAFEGUARDS MODERN THEOLOGY. CONTAINIX(i SUGGESTIONS OFFERED TO THE THEOLOGICAL STUDENT UNDER PRESENT DIFFICULTIES' (A REVISED EDITION), AND OTHER DISCOURSES. V^ BY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. 4 LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 186L The riftht of Translaiimi is reserved. LONDON : PHINTEO KV W. CLOWIS AND SONS, STAMFOnD STREET, ANI> CUAKINt! CKOSS. TO THE MASTER AND FELLOWS BALLIOL COLLEGE, IN REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH KINDNESS RECEIVED, AND MANY YEARS OF PLEASANT INTERCOURSE, %\m ITolunu is Instribcb 15Y THEIR FAITHFUL FRIEND AND FORMER FELLOW, A. C. LONDON. CONTENTS. Introduction 1 SUGGESTIONS OFFERED TO THE THEOLOGICAL STUDENT UNDER PRESENT DIFFICULTIES. (1846.) Pkeface 23 UiscouitsE I. St. John's Gospel the Model of Uontroveksy .. 28 ,, II. Variety in Unity 49 ,, III. Dangers and Safeguards of the Critical Study of the Bible G8 „ IV. Dangers and Safeguards ok the Critical Study of the Bible 79 ,, V. Theology, both Old and New 94 Gospel Facts and Doctrines, 184G 120 I. Gospel Facts 122 II. Gospel Doctrines 128 FURTHER SUGGESTIONS, 1861. I. The Ministry of the Word 135 II. The Consolations of the Word 144 III. Faith in Christ's Person 161 IV. Neither Circumcision nor Uncircumcision 171 V. Christian Liberty 178 VI. Conviction of Sin 190 VII. The New Birth 202 VIII. Christ Lifted Up 212 IX. The Book of Life 224 X. The Lake of Fire .. .. 235 VIU CONTENTS. FURTHEll SUGGESTIONS— cfw/iwiterf. I'AGE XI. Trinity Sunday 244 XII. Pabadise * 255 XIII. The First Temptation 266 XIV. Enoch 280 XV. Abraham 290 XVI. The Precious Blood or Christ ;303 XVII. Christ's Priesthood 314 XVIII. Apostolic Preaching 328 ^ ::""^f*^ INTRODUCTION. The first part of tliis book is a reprint of what was published fifteen years ago. The world has seen many clianges since then ; but the Church of England has gone on very steadily in the course which those who carefully observed the current of opinion had then predicted. It may seem unlikely in these changing days that what was written for 1846 can be suitable for 1861. Most men change or greatly modify their opinions and sentiments in fifteen years. The rude test of experiment is continually making shipwreck of many skilfully-constructed theories ; and even he whose views of religion and society are from the bent of his mind most practical, continually finds, as life goes on, that there is something unreal in his opinions which requires, if not to be given up, at least to be carefully revised and altered. The trials of life greatly affect our mental vision : rightly used, they make us more sympathising, more considerate, more tolerant ; but they also more deeply convince us of the priceless value of truths which have been our soul's only stay in terrible emergencies. Few mortals pass any great length of time without sickness and sorrow ; and if a man lias looked death in the face, or, while well in his own bodily health, has been stunned in mind by seeing fond hopes vanish, he will naturally cling with a firmer tenacity to the great rehgious truths which bore him up when all else failed, and will be 1) 2 INTRODUCTION, more jealous of any attempts to tamper witli these truths than he was when he defended them in earlier life on grounds of mere speculative orthodoxy, having not yet learned to prize and love them through — what must be to each prac- tically the surest test — their tried value to his own spirit. Thus our very passage through life imperceptibly modifies our views of religious truth. Moreover, we have not only our own experience, but what we see of the experience of others to influence us. The many changes also which time brings in our position and responsibilities — the enlargement of our knowledge or of the sphere of observation within which we are to form our judgment of the influences of religious truth — all these, imperceptibly it may be, but sm'ely, affect our convictions. It would not, therefore, have been surprising if the author of the following Discourses had found in 1861 that he could neither himself altogether endorse what he had written fifteen years ago, nor, if it did still retain its hold on his convictions, look upon it as applicable to the cir- cumstances of a greatly-changed age. He has not, however, met with this difficulty. Eeperusing what he then put forth, he finds it to be as true an exponent as ever of his real senti- ments; and he thinks that, by God's blessing, the statements he long ago deliberately published may tend to quiet men's hearts even now. Hearing of new disputes and new fears, he feels that he has reason to thank God that his own mind, after some serious consideration, was settled on the points at issue now many years ago ; and he humbly trusts he may do some service to others to whom those questions are new with which it so chances that he has been long familiar. Several of the matters insisted on in the following volume IXTIJODUC'TION. 3 have a peculiar interest at this time. Men need to be tokl now, as much as they ever did, that controversy, to be Cliristian, must be conducted in a Christian spirit of for- bearing love ; and that intolerant judgments of those who differ from us, even on the most vital points, Avill only confirm our opponents in their error, while they are greatly injurious to our own hearts and very little likely to build up either ourselves, or those who are as yet undecided, in a faith- ful conviction of the real truth. Men need to be told now, as much as ever, that the truths of a living Christian faith cannot be made to find their way into reluctant minds through mere protest and negation, far less by tlie mere attempt to inflict pains and penalties on those who are in error. To warn us against what is not true is very difterent from giving us the truth. The Holy Sj^irit of God can indeed alone mould the convictions, but the human advocate of truth will not do his part in upholding it, unless he tries to clothe it in the living form of an embodied and intelligible teaching, capable of warming the sympathies and attracting the affections, at the same time that it appeals, as the case may be, either to the understaujiing or the highest reason. Again, men still need to be reminded that one of the most marked features of the Chm-cli of England is its compre- hensive spu-it. It upholds, indeed, the great Gospel doc- trines in their simple majesty, and clings to them as for life, but it is tolerant of very great liberty of opinion in the mode in which these doctrines are viewed or studied. It is this which fits it to be a National Church, and prevents it from being a sect. Our Church makes room within its system for the simplest expression of uninstructed pious sen- timent, as well as for the acute speculations of a refined b2 'I: INTRODUCTION. or even subtle intellect. Embracing in its formularies at once the old simple outpourings of primitive or me- diaeval faith, and strictly defined statements on the con- troversies of the Reformation, while it brings everything to the test of that Scripture which God caused to be written that it might instruct men of all countries, all ages, and all shades of character, the Church of England is thus Catholic in the best sense. It holds forth to the world a Christianity which is neither all feeling, or imagination, or taste, nor all doctrine systematised by the intellect, nor all moral precept, nor even all earnest faith and love, but which is all these united — each subordinated to the great purjiose wliich God has assigned it — the inferior elements employed as the hand- maids of the higher, that they may all work together for the regeneration of the world into the highest condition of humanity, after the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. To unite a wise and charitable view of our Church's doctrines with a zealous appreciation of that distinctive heavenly truth wliich is the sacred deposit it has received from the Apostles — this is the great problem for an inquisitive yet religious ago. Again, when men tui'n their thoughts from our own Church and its teaching to that by ^vllich we are encouraged and bound to test it — the Scriptures of truth — they require now-a-days, even more than ever before, to have some obvious principles reiterated in their ears. They acknow- ledge the Bible to be " Scripture." They must be warned to reflect seriously what is the full meaning of this term. Speculations of criticism, which cannot be stifled, even if we were justified in wishing that they might, are leading students to think much at this time of the human clement in tlie INTRODUCTION. 5 Bible ; we arc bound to call upon tliem t^) reflect seriously on the full force of that higher element ^^ hich is divine. Wliether it be the critical study of Scrijsture, the liistory of its various books, and the exact construction and meaning- of its statements, that occupies the student ; or whether he is tracing the system of religious and moral teaching which is to be his chart in the journey of life, and tells us that he holds himself bound to test its accuracy, not l)y its accord- ance with Scripture only, but by Scripture, itself tested and weighed in the balance of what he calls the highest philo- sophy — there is much need for our begging him never to forget some fundamental truths. If he overlooks these, he will wander, and is sure to bewilder, in an inextricable maze, both himself and those who trust to him. It may be well to note here, what some of the primary truths are, which a theological student cannot lose sight of without ruin. I. First, Scripture is the Word of God. A man may claim for divines the right to give different definitions of the term inspiration : he' may raise questions as to whether there be such a thing as verbal inspiration, or whether the sacred writers, left free to choose their own language, were merely under a general control from above, which enabled them to speak with authority, as setting forth divine lessons and announcing the divine will : he may insist on piying (it may be \vith an unwisely curious spirit) into the exact mode and degree of these writers' illumination, asking how far their own characters, and the circumstances of their aire, modified both their conceptions of divine tnith and the form in which they taught it. A man may inquire how far God's revelation of Himself has been progressive, or how tar He has given to His people both higher views of morality and a truer 6 INTRODUCTION. insight into the relations of the soul to its Creator and Ee- dcemer, as the world grew nearer to its promised deliverance through the full establishment of the Redeemer's kingdom, so that even the divine teaching of an earlier ag-e seems com- paratively poor when viewed side by side with that fidler light of which it was but the clouded dawn. A man may examine, if he will, into the important and very difticult question, What is the relation between spiritual truth (the essential subject-matter of the Bible) and those other de- partments of knowledge, not spiritual, with which it must be mixed up in the process of its transmission, as physical science, ethnology, history, and the like — he may ask how far we had any ground to expect that the writers of inspired books would be guided supernaturally to an ac- quaintance with those inferior truths which have nothing to do with the saving of men's souls, and on which God usually allows all men to inform themselves by the exercise of their natural faculties and the helps of common learning. It is granted that all these are matters important in their way, on which theologians have always speculated, and have, without any injury to tlieir faith, arrived at very varying conclusions. We shall do great wrong to the cause of truth if we proclaim ourselves afraid to have these questions ven- tilated. We may not wish to raise them om-selves : we may from the very first, by a sort of natural instinct, feel — what probably the wisest men who have most fully and calmly weighed them have come to be convinced of as the conclusion of their study — that such questions, interesting as they seem, are scarcely capable of any accurate solution, and that those who give much time to them usually find themselves neither wiser nor better fqr all the trouble which thev have INTRODUCTION. 7 taken to solve them. But by all means let us be on om- guard against expressions of unreasonable alarm, as if we were conscious of some formidable difficulties which we dare not face, and objected to any examination which came near the foundations of our faith, for fear that free inquiry might shake it to the ground. If men really feel a call to do so, let them sift the questions connected with the nature and limits of inspiration as they please ; but what is demanded is this — let them remember, when they use the word Scrip- ture, that it is synonymous with that other phrase, the Word of God. Of course, if a man hang so lightly to the faith of the Lord Jesus and the Apostles that he looks on the Bible as on Homer or Herodotus, the wdiole aspect of our controversy ^Yit\l him is changed ; he cannot then be sup- ^josed to be arguing within the Church of England, nor within the limits of the Christianity of the Apostles or of Christ; we must arrange our argument on quite different grounds : but if he allows that there is such a thing as what the Lord and his Apostles called Scripture, and that the Old and New Testaments are that Scripture, then we ask him to remember that Scripture is the Word of God. Now if we wish to know the Christian view of Scripture, we shall refer to what the Lord Jesus and the Apostles thought and said of the Old Testament. Certainly no lower view of the united Old Testament and New can satisfy us, than that which the Lord and His Apostles put forth respecting the Old. To judge what this view was, it may suffice to take only a few out of many examples. Consider the common texts, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scrip- tures " * — " Search the Scriptures ; . , . they are they which * Matthow xxii. 29. 8 INTRODUCTION. testify of me"* — "Then opened he their understanding, that they miglit understand the Scriptures." t The Berseans were "more noble," in that they "received the word with Jill readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." ^ Apollos was " an eloquent man, mighty in the Scriptures ;" and he " mightily convinced the Jews, shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ."§ " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope."|| "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is (or ' all Scripture being given by inspiration of God,' or ' all inspired Scripture is also ') profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- rection, for instruction in righteousness : that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 11 What then, with these passages before us, shall we decide that the word Scripture meant to the Lord Jesus and His Apostles when they applied it to the Old Testament ? S.cripture was that, to the ignorance of wliich the Lord traces the rehgious errors of His Jewish countrymen — that, to open His disciples' understanding of which He lingered upon earth after His re- surrection — that, on the testimony of which He grounded the proof of His divine mission — that, the careful study of which ennobled the Christian character — that, a knowledge of which made an eloquent preacher powerful to convince and win men to Christ — that which, by its comforting influence, gives * John V. 39. t Luke xxiv. 45. I Acts xvii. 11. § Acts xviii. 24, 28. j| Konuina xv. 4. ^2 Timothy iii. 15, IG, 17. INTRODUCTION. V the soul sure ground of liope — that which, having been the source and substance of Timothy's training from his child- hood, is joronounced to be able to make him wise unto salva- tion, and keep him safe in dangerous days,* with their many trials — that, with his increasing knowledge of which the man of God will find an increase in his aptitude for his heavenly work, growing more perfect the more his insight into Holy Scripture grows. Let a man consider all the expressions thus quoted, and what they tell us, and say whether those who used them — the Evangelists, the Apostles, the Lord himself — tliought of the Old Testament as anything lower than we estimate it. These expressions must mean that in some sense, being quite apart from all other books, and transcendently above them, it is the Word of God. The book thus spoken of is our own recognised volume of the Old Testament ; and who shall say that, as the Apostles died, and men stored up the written record of what they had taught, and placed it side by side with the history of what both they and their Lord had said, and added it on to the existing volume of the Old Testament, this teaching was worthy of less respect, or any lower title, than that which belonged of right to the books composed by the prophets, seers, and historians of the elder times? Christ had left the earth ; the Apostles were dead ; though dead, they were still to speak. God intended their history and writings to be for His Church the guide of life, the test of doctrine. The new Scripture, like the old, was His Word — the Word of God. It is only natural, then, that our own Church should lay such stress on a reverent study of the Holy Scriptures ; that, while it avoids any over-accurate definition as to what inspi- * 2 Timothy iii. 1. 10 INTIJODUUTION. ration is, or what are its exact limits, it should assign to the sacred books a place which unmistakably marks them as God's Word. Eead the passages in the Ordination Service: — " Do you unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ? "Will you diligently read the same unto the people assembled in the church where you shall be appointed to serve ? * "Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for Eternal Sal- vation through faith in Jesus Christ ; and are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge, and teach notliing as required of necessity to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture ? " Will you be diligent in prayers, and in reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as help to the know- ledge of the same, laying aside the study of the world and the flesh? " We have good hope that you wdll continually pray to God the Father, by the mediation of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost, that, by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures, ye may wax richer and stronger in your ministry." f This, then, is the first great truth with Avliich the theolo- gical student, if he is wise, will never part — that the volume which is the basis of all his study is, in a real sense, the word of God. The feeling of this will greatly affect his motle of studying it. He will speak of it reverently : he will engage in the study in a spirit of prayer, as desiring, through this * Orileiiii;^ of Dcaoons. f Orileiiiift' cif Pricsls. INTRODUCTION. 11 written record of God's dealings and teachings, to liold inter- course with God Himself. He will not indeed, and may not, if called by duty, hesitate to sift the evidence on which each particular portion of this volume rests its claim to hold a place in the august society in which he finds it ; but, knowing the difficulty as well as delicacy of these inquiries, he will never speak or write in such a manner as may shock the honest piety of the unlearned, and do serious injury to his own sold, by accustoming him to tliink lightly, or dog- matise with the easy assm-ance of suj)erior enliglitenment, on matters respecting wliich the best and wisest of men are the most cautious. To demand this is not to stop free inquiry ; nay, it is the only way effectually to further it : for free inquiry on such topics can never be conducted satisfactorily or well, except in a very reverent and cautious spirit. II. Secondly. Other truths follow naturally from this first fully understood. If the Bible be God's word, and tell us all we can learn of Him, except through the natural conscience and reason, it has a very peculiar office. The collected experience of God's Saints in the uninspu'ed ages of His Church is indeed most valuable as a help to us who are feeling our way to heaven with only the same measure of light which they had ; and the rules which they laid down for then- own and their fellow Christians' guidance are entitled to our serious attention. But God's Sauits of the uninspired ages of the Chiu-ch have always had Holy Scripture as the foundation and test of their belief and practice. Even when men have striven to exalt some fancied rival of human tradi- tion or Chui-ch authority to an equality with Holy Scripture, they have been forced to confess the supremacy of Scrip- ture, and have paid an unconscious reverence to it even 12 INTRODUCTION. by the very ingenuity with which they have tried to force its meanino; into accordance with their own traditions. We may say then that Scripture, being the word of God, has sometimes directly, sometimes almost unconsciously, but still really, been recognised by the Church in all ages throughout all Christendom as the guide of life for tlie many millions of men who have lived and died within the reach of Christian influences. This office Scripture holds not as the rival, but as the instructor and assistant, of the conscience and the reason. God's other lights are not extinguished, but made to burn all the brighter, and give the truer guidance to man, when quick- ened by the Word. The written word is hke the stream of pure oxygen causing the dim natural light on which it is poured to burn up with a brightness and clearness which seems almost supernatural. The office, then, of the Word of God is to make the conscience an enhghtened Christian con- science — the reason an enlightened Christian reason. And this account of its office suggests what we are to expect in its teaching : great principles as to God's nature and our own — as to what God has done and is ready to do for us — as to our weakness and its cure — as to the natm-e of sin in its relation to a holy God, and the mode in which man is freed from its thraldom and its punishment — as to the end and object and safeguards of om- mortal life, and the grounds of our hope in death and for eternity : these are the sub- jects on which the Word of God must throw light, if it is to fulfil its high office. It is by what God's Word records on these subjects that the Eeason will become capable of thought and judgment higher than nature gave it, and the conscience \vill grow in its power of approving and commending to the heart a standard of living such as uninstructed natui-e never INTRODUCTION. 13 dreamed of, and which is perpetually growing purer and higher, as Christian principles are more fully supplied from God's Word, and mure reverently received and dwelt on. But if this be a true account of the office of the Word of God, obviously its teaching is to be looked for m the great principles which pervade it. Not in obscure texts of doubt- ful application — not in the minor details of its history — not in the imagery with which God has willed to clothe its heavenly lessons, and adapted them to arrest the fancy or imagi- nation of uninstructed or of refined man — not certainly in its adherence to the opinions on physical science which prevailed in the age when it was written, and according to which God allowed it to be moulded, because He never meant to open a short road to the kno»vledge of common scientific truth through the miracle of revelation — not in these do we look for its teachijio- — it is not to these that the faithful Christian clings, rejoiced to recognise in Holy Scripture the accents of the voice of God speaking directly to the conscience and the reason. All the subordinate elements, indeed, in the Sacred books, which, by God's appointment, play a secondary part, each according to its measure and degree, in conveying to men's souls the great truths revealed by the Divine Will, have rightly gained a certain sanctity since God has thus em- ployed them to further His great pm-pose. Still nothing but confusion can arise from identifying these inferior instruments with the great truths of which they are the vehicle. Further these great truths are few, simple, easily to bo traced, shining with the brightness of the light of God, not in the New Testament only, but all through the Bible, for those who, like us, are privileged to view it as one whole book, perfected and illustrated in its close by the teach- 14 INTHODUCTrON, ing of the Lord Jesus and his Apostles. It eoiild not l)e otherwise with a book which God intended to he the constant teacher and enlightener of tlie whole human race. Those may allow Scriptm-e to be obscure, and may conceive that the truths, which it reveals as necessary for salvation, form a very com- plicated scheme, who deem that its right interpretation re- quires the constant superintendence of an infallible Church : but we Protestants, who believe that through it God in Christ speaks with power to each individual soul, will be prej)ared to find its statements simple, and its doctrines few. It is a favourite device of Rome to represent Scripture as obscure. Granted that there are points m it on which men not only will, but fairly may, hold diverse opinions to the end of time. But these points very indirectly, if at all, concern the soul's salva- tion. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is set forth in its fulness in every book, we might almost say in every chapter, of the New Testament. The Old Testament, lighted up by the brightness of an interpretation reflected from the New, is found instinct with the same spirit of life struggling to make itself understood in ages over which darkness still brooded. The most touching and powerful truths of the Gospel are sometimes wrapped uj^ in a single phrase or name : Christ — Emanuel — Jesus — the Saints — the Elect — the Brethren — the Lamb of God — the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb — the Bride — the New Jerusalem — how powerfully does the mere repetition of these names preach the Gospel to tlie faithful heart ! while the account of the institution of the two Sacraments has embodied as it were in visible form the whole Christian scheme; beginning with the necessity of a new birth, and pointing to the redeemed soul's final and complete union with Christ through the efficacy of His atoning sacrifice. INTRODUCTION. 15 Away, then, vnth the thought that the Bible is obscure. As the instructor of our poor humanity it speaks direct from God in accents intelligible to all ; and it can at once reach all hearts and quicken all intellects, when the Holy Spirit removes the clouds of worldliness and sin, which chill the sympathies and darken the mental vision. This, then, is the second great truth to which the theological student ought to cling. It is of the very idea of the Bible as the Word of God addressed to ignorant and sinfid men, that it must speak in accents few, and loud, and clear. It would have been no boon to give us a so-called guide of life which was obscure as the dark oracles of heathenism. It has few Mords to speak, and these go straight to the heart. Its many books are all taken up in illustrating and enforcing these same truths in many aspects. And here we call to mind what a wonderful cumulative force this view gives to the evidence of Christianity. Our convic- tion of the great verities rests on a solid foundation entrenched in each separate book of the New Testament, nay, almost in each section of each book. If we had only one short Epistle left to us, it would preserve and preach the Gospel ; nay, if the whole record of Christ and his Apostles were lost, we could recover the Gospel scheme, now that it has once been suggested to us, as the only legitimate interpretation of many parts of the Old Testament. The strength of our position may be illustrated by what we are told of those persecuted Christians of Madagascar, whom in our own day a brutal tyranny endeavoured to deprive of all access to the Word of God. They stored up texts here and there, written on scraps and secreted in their garments; and these, conned over by stealth, preached the Gospel to them and to their children, and became their guide of life, enabling them IG INTRODUOTION. not only to live but greatly to increase as a Christian community, in spite of all attempts to plunge tliem in spiritual darkness. Our faith is, as it were, guarded in an impregnable fortress, against which our adversaries can never prevail ; for each few yards of ground is capable of being defended by itself, secure within its own strong walls, and independent of the cluster of the thousand other forts around it which are enclosed within the same outer bastions. What a feeling of strength does this give — how little cause is there to tremble lest we be driven from the ancient stronghold ! And, moreover, when a man has once mastered tliis thought, that our faith in tlie Christian verities is thus unassailable, how do minor difficulties of detail vanish before this great conviction ! If a man cannot but believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its grand features — so marked as they are with the supernatural and miraculous — where is the wisdom or logical consistency of standing hesitating while men scrupulously weigh the separate evidence for each fresh display of God's power in the Bible ? If a man believes that the Eternal Son, in the person of Jesus Christ, lived and died on earth to save sinners, he is, by the very condition of his belief, in such an atmosphere of the supernatm-al, that it is vain to be wasting his time with questions as to the less or more of the strange signs which accompanied the Lord's coming, or from a distance heralded its approach. It seems childish to admit a scheme of religion which in its very essence is supernatural, and which, implies a time when God worked miraculously, and yet to be bargaining as to how many of the miracles recorded in the Sacred Books we can afford to believe. III. But, thirdly, besides these truths as to the office and character of Holy Scripture, the theological student, to be safe, INTRODUCTION. 17 must understand his own nature. With the Bible open before us, Avell versed in its contents, agreeing in the main not only as to the prmciples of its interpretation, but even in the use of the very same words and phrases as expressive of the truths it reveals, we shall still be found to regard these truths in very different aspects — even to attach totally opposed ideas to the formulfie by which the Church has guarded them, according to our knowledge or ignorance of the wants of human hearts. It would not be wise to plunge here into the disputes lately revived on the doctrine of the Atonement ; but let this be considered, that, if we form a high estimate of the unaided moral powers of man, and see not how sin has blighted them — if sin appears to us rather as an in*egularity than as a pestilence, and we have no deep conviction of its loathsomeness and hatefulness in the si^ht of the All Holy — if we perceive no very great difference in point of moral value between the life of a heathen hero and a Christian saint, and express ourselves, therefore, in very different terms from St. Paul as to the perfection of the Christian character, being satisfied to hold up as the model a well-run course of usefulness and benevolence, which has given no sign of the spiritual Kfe within — if we thus show practically, however we may theorise, that we are contented with what adorns this passing life, Avithout attaching it by unseen chords to the world above and the life eternal — then, forming a very inadequate conception of the wants of the human soul, we are likely greatly to err also in interpreting what the Bible tells us of their remedy. If a man is con- vinced, in the depths of his own consciousness, and perceives manifested in the thousand forms of sin and misery around him, that, whatever marks of its godlike origin liis nature c 18 INTRODUCTION. bears, it is greatly estranged from God — if lie knows that sin, clinging close to him from his birth, and ever springing up afresh witliin him, even when it seems most completely vanquished, does in very truth build up some barrier, insur- mountable by human strength, between his soul and God ; he will rejoice to welcome the simple truth, that the sacrifice of the death of Christ was offered to remove this barrier. He may not, perhaps, trouble himself with speculations as to whether this sacrifice was necessitated by God's justice or his love ; he may not be able to tell what great master of theology — Anselm or Aquinas, or Luther or Hooker — has best set forth in logical form the truth for which his heart yearns ; but he will welcome it as breathing all through the New Testament, ever sounding especially from the lips of that Apostle, the memory of whose early life made him feel and confess himself the chief of sinners, and therefore hopeless mthout Christ's sacrifice. He will find that, if he could only enter into that deep loathing with which penitent David looked back on the sin that had debased him, the doctrine of an atoning sacrifice would become a necessity in his theology. To the formalist a stumbling-block, and to the intellectualist ^foolishness, tliis doctrine, to him ^^hose heart is deeply con- vinced of sin, becomes the truest manifestation both of the power of God and the wisdom of God. And round this doc- trine of the Atonement cluster many other truths, giving the soul peace while it turns to God as a reconciled Father, and is gaining a new power to follow Him with the love of a child, and no longer with the half-service of a slave. It will be obvious that this publication has been called forth bv the ' Essays and Keviows ' which have lately attracted INTRODUCTION. 19 SO much attention. It is not necessary to pronounce here whether the writers in that volume on the one hand, or any of those, on the otlier, who have very naturally been iriitated by tlieir statements, have, in the ardour of contro- versy, lost sight of any of the great principles without the guidance of which it has been here stated that real Christian truth is unattainable. Certainly in some passages of these ' Essays and Eeviews ' there is displayed somewhat of a reckless and almost flippant spirit. It would be unfair to regard the several authors as individually responsible for each other's opinions, in spite of the prefatory declaration that each is to be judged by his own article alone. " They are responsible for their respective articles only," and " have written in entire independence of each other, and without concert or com- parison." It is to be hoped that the second sentence of the preface does not bind them to approve each of the other's general tone and spirit. The friends of each will certainly wish that, if they desired to maintain this " limited liability," they had not united in a partnership sure to be damaging to all its members. Each of them would, perhaps, have had enough to do to defend his own opinions: they have each more than enough, when called, as the public, incapable of nice distinctions, is sure to call them, each to defend the opinions and sentiments of all the seven. In fact, the union in such a league is as wrong as it is foolish. It is sure to be regarded as a league offensive and defensive ; and there- fore they have themselves to thank if the public insists on their bearing each other's burdens. Moreover, as eacli of them suggests certain doubts and diffi- culties, the force of each of these difficulties is greatly increased by the others with whicli it is associated. If seven men unite c 2 INTRODUCTION. their force for any deed of bodily aggression, and the subject of their violence feels greatly aggrieved by their united blows, it will scarcely do for them each to plead that he is respon- sible for no more than he has himself inflicted. If he who is assailed suffers in his health or dies, a wise jury will certainly find that they are each and all of them responsible, col- lectively and severally, for the effects which they could not have produced singly, but which have followed from their united efforts. Therefore these seven authors are greatly to blame for having written one large, and not seven small books. Each Essay might have been dealt with far more in ac- cordance with the fair rules of controversy, if it had either stood alone, or been declared to be part of one whole divided into seven parts. As the volume stands, that sort of illustra- tion, which the reader not unnaturally fancies that the state- ments of each author receive from his coadjutors, gives to much they say the appearance of insinuation, for each by comparison with the others seems to mean more than he himself says ; and insinuation is the most unfair of all kinds of argument, as it is the most difficult to me§t. Some of the authors, indeed, speak very plainly in the rashness of their statements ; but these statements, though tliey have much shocked the religious mind of the country, are very little likely to do any real harm. They are capable of being met at once as inaccurate facts or exaggerated inferences. Divines who have leisure will soon be found to confute them y and meanwhile it would be forming a very low estimate of both the faith and the logical powers of the reading public, to suppose that tliese statements will be believed on the unsup- ported authority of their authors. But whatever influence such statements have is reallv INTRODUCTION. 21 derived from the more earnest tone and deeper reasoning of other parts of the volume. So that from this unfortunate partnership the good ^^'hich is in the book goes to strengthen the evil, and the evil makes every one suspicious even of what is good. The authors probably expected that the volume would be judged like other volumes of Oxford and of Cambridge Essays, in which their names had of late years appeared, the several paj)ers of which were not held to be even so much connected as they would have been had they been published in any of our established periodicals If such was the expectation, it has been completely frustrated. The public, however unfairly, certainly not unnaturally, has insisted on regarding this book as one whole, and is irritated by the difficulty of knowing what is the real meaning, and what the force, of the system which it is called upon to con- front. The Avriters are therefore bound in fairness to those who wish to answer them, as well as in justice to themselves, either to draw closer or stand more distinctly apart : let each state what his view of Christian truth is ; and it would indeed be shame to us as a Church if divines were not found with leisure, learning, and ability, ready to examine their system, and refute whatever in it is found to be dan- gerous error. Meanwhile the author of the present publication thinks it right to call attention to old truths which may be for- gotten in the din of controversy, but cannot be disproved. Of two out of the seven Essayists it is impossible for him to speak without affectionate regard, connected as he is with them by a friendship of more than twenty years. He deeply regrets the tone of the alliance in Avhich thev are united : he feels confident that the deepening experience 22 INTRODUCTION. of life, and a larger acquaintance both witli the souls of men and that Word of God on which the soul hangs for its salvation, will modify, and, by the help of the Spirit of God, refine, and exalt, and spiritualise their own views of the relation in which fallen man and God stand each to the other. He prays them to be very discreet and cautious as to what they recommend to the souls over which they are sure to have influence. The Church of Christ and His truth will not suffer by free inquiry ; but no man has a right to remove the old landmarks of thought and religious feeling, wdthout being prepared to point out others, wdiich will enable us to see distinctly where the ground really consecrated by the presence of God lies. The Fathers of the Eeformation were not destructives. They saw distinctly, and proclaimed and embraced with all their souls, the truth which was overlaid by the errors they resisted. It is quite another matter to engage in a warfare against old opinions, without putting forth any clear view of the eternal truth on which we wish the soul to rest. The Church will certainly hail with satis- faction any publication which shall set forth the positive Gospel truths forming the staple of the personal religion and practical teaching of these writers, and disclaim the errors which they appear to encourage. The object of this volume will be gained if, by God's help, it suggests to any a few thoughts which may keep their souls near to God, and to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, in an age when doubts are afloat on all sides, and many know not how to calm them. London House, Februan/, 1861. ( 2a ) SUGGESTIONS OFFERED TO THE THEOLOGICAL STUDENT, UNDER PRESENT DIFFICULTIES. 1846, School house, Itugby, 23rd April, IS-IG. It is stated in one of the following Discourses, that there is a mixture of truth in every attractive error ; and that, there- fore, none can successfully meet such error except those who understand, and are willing to appreciate, the trutli which is mixed up with it. If a man would persuade others not to be Romanists, he must know what the truths are on which the strength of Romanism is built : if he would persuade them not to adopt what is commonly, vaguely enough, called Rationalism, he must have some acquaintance (the deeper the better) with the literature and habits of thought pre- valent in that country to which the system owes its birth. This seems to be a mere truism. Yet so strange are the prejudices which sway even intelligent and good men, that a very general impression seems to prevail amongst English divines, that the very fact of a writer's shoAving any acquaint- ance with the theology of Germany may be taken as an a priori indication of unsoundness. There are of course very few who would have the boldness to confess that they enter- tain so mireasonable an opinion ; but they who act on this 24 SUGGESTIONS OFFERED opinion are certainly not few, and very serious evil may, before we are aware, be tlius done to our Church : for cer- tainly it is not impossible that young and ardent minds may be driven, almost again'^t their will, to look with too mucli sympathy upon errors with which they find themselves un- justly charged. It is scarcely more than might be expected from this pre- judice if some English writers, Avho draw many good thoughts from the Protestant divines of the Continent, seem not un- naturally to have become unAvilling to refer more tlian is absolutely necessary to the sources to which they are in- debted. The author of the present volume is deeply sensible of the very limited range of his own acquaintance with the divines who are thus looked upon with suspicion ; but he has thought it a duty, in order to protest against this prejudice, as well as for other reasons, to refer distinctly to the few of whose assistance he has availed himself. For it is of much im- portance that English readers, if they do not know it already, should learn, that Germany has to boast of writers in almost every department of theology, who unite the deepest learning with a sound and earnest Christian faith ; and that it is to such writers we shall mainly be indebted, if the Infidelity which is commonly associated with the name of their country be smitten and overtlii'own. It is indeed much to be depre- cated that these writers should become directly the guides of the English mind. They have their German peculiarities ; and their whole mode of treating subjects is affected by the controversies whicli are around them in their own land. What is wanted to meet Infidelity in this country is an English theology, which, fully aUve to the peculiar excellences of TO THE THEOLOGICAL STUDENT. 25 our great national Divines, sliall tliaTikfnlly avail itself of the labuiu's of foreigners, while it is still, essentially, our own. And HOW a very few words seem required to explain the connexion and bearing of the following Discourses. Shortly after the author was appointed to the office of Select Preacher, and before he had entered on his duties, it seemed probable to many well acquainted with the feelings prevalent in Oxford, that great changes would soon occur in the theo- logical atmospliere of the place. Symptoms were not wanting to indicate that the opinions which had been for some years dominant were about to disappear almost as rapidly as they liad sprung up ; while notliing was so likely to give tliem for a time a lingering hold over the public mind, as those inju- dicious attempts which are often made to destroy error by more protest, without any efforts to substitute a better system in its room. Subsequent events have certainly confirmed the impression that such a change was approaching, as the erroneous system alluded to did, by the publication of Mr. Newman's Essay on Development, receive its deathblow from the very hand to which it owed its creation. The question then naturally occm-red, what ought to be done to guide the minds of younger students amid that shaking of all opinions which was likely to follow? It seemed that the great object ought to be, to direct attention to some intelligible, enlightened, and well-gTOunded Protestant system, which might, by the blessing of God's Spirit, recal men's minds to the simphcity of the Gospel, and enable them to take their stand on the theology of the New Testament, amid the ruins of that baseless traditional teaching m hich was crumbling around them. To effect this, however, must be the work oi' time, and is 26 SUGGESTIONS OFFERED the great duty of those to whom at this trying- junfturo the University entrusts the task of conducting its daily instruc- tions, and moulding the minds of the young, through per- sonal intercourse, both by precept and example. Meanwhile it became obvious, that, as the transition-state is always one of great anxiety, there could be little doubt of the particular very alarming direction in which thoughtful minds would be not unlikely to hurry, in escaping from the system which they had learned to distrust. The teach- ing of the preceding ten years had completely unsettled men's minds ; and it was certain that they could not quietly return to the old channels. A thousand new thoughts had been suggested to them. New fields of theological inquiry lay enticingly open on every side. It might, indeed, be hoped that such works as Trench's Notes on the Parables and the Miracles, uniting, as they do, an earnest zeal for faithful religion with an inquiring spirit acquainted with the wants and longings of an intellectual age, would tend to give a safe direction to the inquiries on which so many had entered. But no one could doubt that the prospect was full of danger ; and that every man who thought he understood the tempta- tions to which his younger brethren were exposed, was bound to use all his influence, if perchance he might benefit them. The intention of these Discourses then was in connexion with the present tendency of men's minds, to offer some few suggestions which occurred only at spare moments in the midst of the claims of a laborious practical occupation, but which it was still hoped might possibly be of use in showing the spirit in which specidative error ought to be met. They may perchance lend some assistance, however slight, to the efforts of any leading spirits to be found amongst us who TO THE THEOLOGICAL STUDENT. 27 unite an understanding of the present state of feeling in the rising generation of our divines with a real knowledge of that attractive theology which, coming from the early seat of the Reformation, seems likely, for good or for evil, so deeply to affect the highest interests of our own Church ; and who sanctify their acuteness and learning by an earnest love of Gospel truth. Humanly speaking, it is only to such men, if perchance they may be found, that we can look with any confidence as fitted to be the guides of an inquiring age. 28 HT. John's gospel DISCOURSE I.* St. John's Gospel the Model of Conthoversy. St, John xx. 31. " These are writteu that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name," This is 8t, Jolin's own account of the object with which he composed his Gospel, It is doubtful whether we have distinct historical grounds for attributing to him any other motive. The well-]aio\\Ti assertion of IrenseuSjt that the Apostle was induced to write by his desire to oppose the errors of Cerinthus and the Nicolaitans, has been repeated by a chain of early authors, but with such slight variations in the name of the prevailing heresy, as seem to endanger the claims of this tradition to any great historical or chronological accuracy. It is well known that Clement of Alexandria, as quoted by Eusebius,! has asserted, that St. John wrote in order to fill up the deficiencies of the other Evangelists, by the publication of a more spiritual gospel. And Eusebius § has recorded his own opinion, that St. John, having this completion of the Gospel- history in view, effected his object chiefly by a detailed account of the events which happened between our Lord's birth and the imprisonment of the Baptist, This opinion of Eusebius * This and the four following Discourses were delivered before the Univer- sity of Oxford. t I would refer to Liicke's Commentary (Bonn, 1840), ch. iii., in which is collected the testimony of antiquity on tlie facts here juentioned. Any reader of Liicke will see how largely throughout this sermon I have availed myself of las suggestions and references. X Euscb. H. E. vi. 14. § Ibid. iii. 24. THE MODEL OF CONTROVET^SY. 29 is sanctioned by Jerome,* but not to the exclusion of the polemical object- to which Irenseus points. Now, it will be found on examination that probably, as has been well observed, t these several statements rest rather on an exegetical than on any historical or even traditionary basis. I mean that most, if not all of these writers (as is clearly the case with Eusebius), were not so much recording facts which history told them as to the object of St. John, I'ut rather bringing forward conjectures, which they naturally formed for themselves from the study of his Gospel, and from their observation of the uses to which it was obviously capable of being applied. It is not at all intended that these writers ought not to have formed such conjectures, or that there is any incon- sistency between their statements and that of the Apostle himself in our text. When St. John says of his Gospel, that it was written that those to whom it was addressed might " believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they might have life through His name," he attributes to himself a motive which must equally have influenced the other tlu'ee Evangelists ; for all, in obedience to their Saviour's last command, had devoted their lives to the salvation of their brethren. It was natural for the early readers of St. John's Gospel, as it is for us, to seek some further explanation of its marked peculiarities. What we have now to note is, that apparently the earliest writers, whatever reference they may at first sight appear to make to certain outward traditions, did in reality in this matter seek rather for the solution of their difficulty in that intelligent examination of tlie book itself, illustrated by the known * Do Vir. lUust. 9. t Liickc's Comment, vol. i. p. ISO. 30 ST. John's gospel history of the times, to which sound Biblical criticism has ever pointed as the best guide, when used humbly in de- pendence on the Spirit of God, for enabling us to understand His Word. If we endeavour then ourselves, aided by the suggestions of those early writers, so to examine St. John's Gospel that it may as it were speak for itself and tell us of its object, we shall probably come to the conclusion that this object was threefold. First, It may be doubtful, as a matter of history, whether the Apostle wrote with any distinct especial reference to the particular heresy of Cerinthus ; but heresies like that of Cerinthus he had undoubtedly to oppose. Secondly, He knew that the best way to oppose these heresies was by writing an account of our Lord's life, more distinctly spiritual than the histories of the three Evangelists who had gone before him. And, thirdly. As the new errors which had arisen had called for a new gospel, it followed, of course, that the points of view from which he was now to survey the history, and the discourses as Avell as incidents which he must of necessity introduce in illustration of these views, must make his work for the most part supplementary to the writings of his three predecessors. This account of St. John's threefold object in tlie composi- tion of his Gospel — uniting the three early opinions into one whole — has at least the merit of giving an obvious explana- tion of each of its marked peculiarities. I believe, also, that a patient examination of the whole book will confirm our supposition as to the gradation according to which the mem- bers of this threefold object ought to be ranked. The Apostle's main object then is, in the best sense of the word, polemical. His work, being polemical, naturally dwells on those spiritual THE MODEL OF CONTROVERSY. 31 doctrines which are the true antagonists of the errors he confutes ; and the form of a supplementary narrative of the Lord's life and teaching was wisely selected as the best vehicle for confuting erroneous doctrine, by its striking exhibition of positive truth in his heavenly words and deeds. Taking, then, this to be the true account of the object of St. John's Gospe.1, I propose to examine how far the book may be rightly regarded as the Divine model, which the Holy Spirit has given to Ciiristians to direct them in their struggles with erroneous teaching. ■ I. First of all let us note, that there was much in the cir- cumstances of tlie beloved xipostle Avhich pointed him out more than his fellow-disciples as the man best suited to be the champion of truth against these gro-^ing errors. 1. St. John must have been acknowledged, even by his opponents, to be more likely than any other Apostle to be well acquainted with the true doctrine of his Master. It is not meant that there is any ground for drawing dis- tinctions between the different degrees of heavenly illu- mination with which the Apostles were enlightened ; but such distinctions were drawn by heretics at a very early time. To attempt to draw these distinctions is indeed the sure way to sliake the foundations of our faith, by raising questions as to the degree of deference which we owe to each inspired authority; while both the writers of the New Testament themselves,* and, more distinctly, the wisest uninspired Ciiristians in all ages, following then- example, have regarded the book as one whole, the several parts of which God's providence did from time to time cause to be * 2 Peter iii. 15, IH. 32 ST. John's gospel added to the already existing canon of the Old Testament, while the new works, as they were successively written, became invested with the same majesty of an unquestioned authority as belonged to the ypdcj^ac of the elder time. To these elder scriptures our Lord had most distinctly given his heavenly sanction ; and the new writers were even more clearly proved by miracles, than their predecessors of the Old Testament, to form one body, as the others had formed one chain, of inspired teachers accredited from Pleaven. The very gulf by which Christ's overruling providence ordained that the body of these teachers should be separated from the holy uninspired men who came immediately after them, will show, that whatever ^vriter is proved by historical evidence to belong to this Apostolical or canonical body, is to be regarded by Christians with implicit reverence as delivering the oracles of God. And when a man's mind is once satisfied with the historical proof that any writing is a genuine portion of this one book, he cannot, v/ithout danger, draw distinctions of greater or lesser authority between the several members of what God has united, that it may be, not in this or that portion of it, but as one whole, the perpetual record of His will. But still, necessary as it is to maintain the equally inspired authority of all writers who are proved to be in- spired at all, it is certain that, in early as in later times, this principle has been continually neglected. It was not in Corinth alone that men opposed the authority of Cephas to that of Paul; nor is it in our age alone that infidehty Las endeavoured to justify itself by the watchword of " not Pan] but Jesus." Doubtless there were many of the early heretics who considered that the pure philosophical Christianity, which the Lord Jesus came to promulgate, had been cor- THE MODEL OF CONTROVEKSY. 33 rupted by the ignorance or prejudice of his followers. But where could such men expect a true account of what the Lord had taught, if not from the Apostle who had been with him in his secret hours, and whom the Church delighted to honour with the name of his " bosom friend " (iiriaTTjOwi) ? So that, speaking after the manner of human evidence, we recognise, in St. John's intimate friendship with his Divine Master, the first requisite which he possessed above all other men to be the champion of God's truth. Nor will it, I think, be fanciful to maintain that, even in this point, St. John is our model of controversy — that Gospel truth will best be maintained by him who has lived, if we may so speak, in the most intimate society of his now unseen but still present Saviour. 2. Again, the Apostle's time of life seems to point him out very naturally as the fittest champion of truth. It is always an evil sign when the young and inexperienced put themselves forward as the leaders of Christ's Church. Now, it is diffi- cult to doubt that the Apostle wrote his Gospel, if not late in his long-extended life, at least after he had reached and passed maturity. It may be granted that his silence as to the destruction of Jerusalem seems to forbid us to place the date of his Gospel after that event ; for it is scarcely possible that, if the ruin of the old system by the fulfilment -of his Lord's prophecies had already come, he could have failed to allude to it. But the testimony of antiquity as to the country in which he composed his work equally forbids us to place the date much earlier. We have the strongest negative evidence from St. Paul's writings, that, so long as he .lived, St. John had not yet made the Asiatic province the seat of his labours. Now, St. John could not well have been more than ten years younger than our Lord; and if he wrote his Gospel after D 34 ST. John's gospel St. Paul's death, and near the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, he must have been fast approaching to his sixtieth year. Mature in age as well as holiness, he seemed called both by Ms apostolic office and liis time of life to stand forth and save the younger members of his Master's flock from the grievous errors that destroyed so many of them. These, however, are only outward circumstances in the Apostle's history. It is better to note, in the second place, how his own peculiar character fitted him for this warfare. II. First, St. John was, above all his brethren, the Apostle of love; and, unless controversy be carried on in the spirit of love, it is essentially unchristian. Error may, indeed, appear to be rooted out by the sword, or without such harshness it may be crushed and borne down by the mere weight of a stern authority, which seeks to overwhelm at once the erring brother and his doctrine. Speaking gene- rally, however, such a mode of warfare will insure no lasting victory. It may silence the adversaries, and spread the soli- tude which we mistake for peace — it may induce a few to do violence to their convictions, and thus gain for the winning cause the aid of some treacherous waiters upon fortime. But, usually, error checked by force alone will spring up at last only the more vigorously. Heresy, as well as truth, has had its martyrs, and their blood has ever a fertilizing power- Persecution is always ultimately, and, unless it be so thorough as to shock all feehngs of humanity, it is usually, even in the moment of its present triumph, as impolitic as it is unchristian. But St. John's example of love is a practical protest, not against persecution merely, but against all bitterness or vio- lence even of speaking or writing as to those who are in error. THE MODEL OF CONTROVERSY. 35 Setting aside all question as to the comparative truth or falsehood of the opinions ' advocated, we cannot fail to be shocked with that bitterness of satire and invective with which, for example, South assaults the Puritans. Supposing the doctrines thus advocated to be true, they never could be propagated with any benefit to men's souls by such carnal weapons. It is not meant that South is in this matter at all a solitary instance. The opposite party retaliated where they could with equal bitterness, and Christ's Church has been disgraced in all ages and countries by the bitter writings of unloving and unsanctified controversy. To oppose error, except from a love to Christ and liis truth, and the souls of our brethren, is only to be proudly bent on spreading our own opinions. Such opposition to error may, in many cases, be resolved solely into the love of power ; and, taken at the best, it shows nothing better than the proselytizing spirit of the Pharisees, or that which once alarmed the world by the terrible alternative held out by Mahometan aggression. Those who would meet error as Christ and his Apostles met it, must combat it in St. John's spirit. The characteristics, however, of St. John, as the Apostle of love, are by no means so simple as might at fii'st sight be supposed. He was not merely the beloved, but also the loving Apostle ; and active love cannot exist without earnestness — can never be perfect without a depth and in- tensity of zeal. The stern severity of the well-known passage in St. John's 2nd Epistle, v. 10, 11 ("If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed ; for he that biddeth liim God speed is partaker of his evil deeds "), as well as D 2 36 ST. John's gospel the legend of his fleeing from the pollution of Cerinthus, seem but to set forth, somewhat more fully developed, that same element in his character, of which we find plain traces in the history of the Gospels. It is the Apostle of love, of whom St. Luke (ix. 49) and St. Mark (ix. 38) tell us that he was rebuked because, when he saw one casting out devils in his Master's name, he forbad him, since he would not join the disciples' company. It was he, with his brother, who would have called down fire from heaven to overwhelm the Samaritan village which refused to admit Christ;* and this zeal was so prominent a feature as to justify the appella- tion given to both brethren of " the Sons of Thunder." t All who have even begun the study of Church history know Clement of Alexandria's story | of the young disciple rescued from his robber comrades by the aged Apostle's bold exposure of his life, if by any means he might win back his convert's soul to the love of Christ. And whether true, or merely legendary, this story represents the prevailing belief of the ancient Church, that St. John's predominating love was quickened by as active a zeal for his Master's honour as ever burned in the heart of St. Peter or St. Paul. His was, in fact, the very temper from which the best champions of truth are formed. They love Christ, and love him warmly — they are jealous for the honom- of that truth of which his Holy Spirit has convinced them — but their love for their fellow- men, even the most sinful, is never swallowed up by zeal : and therefore they plainly show that they seek to win the sinner's soul, even when they denounce his errors with most severity. * Luke ix. 51. f Mark iii. 17. t Given by Eusobius, H. E. iii. 23. THE MODEL OF CONTROVERSY. 37 The depth of St. John's love was well suited to reclaim. It must at once have enabled him to enter fully into his erring brother's difficulties and peculiar temptations, and thus must have conciliated at the very moment that it op- posed ; while the almost stern earnestness, which at times flashed out from his heart, showed that in essential truth he would admit of no indifference ; and that, while he would willingly die for those with whom he reasoned, he would not sacrifice to conciliate them one iota of God's real word. Now this last point, his zeal for truth, is important to be noted, before we pass on to another, perhaps the most striking of all the characteristics of this Apostle's writings. 2. It has been said that St. Jolm's is the most spiritual Gospel. Certainly St. John's eagle flight does soar directlv up to the throne of God, where he gazes on the most mys- terious truths which concern the divine essence, and that in- comprehensible bond which unites the human soul with the source of its life both spiritual and natural. We need scarcely mention in proof of this the introduction and the manifold discourses. Now we have seen that St. John wrote to con- fute or dispel error arising from the blending of Christianity with the strange transcendental philosophy of the East. But mark the mode which he adopts to combat it. It is the statement of a commentator, already often referred to, that " St. John's relation to the Gnosticism of his time is not merely polemical," but in part also what may be called " accommodative." This word " accommodative " may have a suspicious sound ; but it is here used in the best sense. This writer means that St. John recognises and fully allows the existence of a true divine yvaa-a, such as that which the Eastern philosophy was in vain seeking by mere human 38 ST. John's gospel means, and through the exaltation of the intellect. It is by dwelling upon, and developing and encouraging men to follow after the true Christian r]<; again oppose a difficulty, being scarcely more appli- cable to the doctrine than to our Lord. With this view of the construction of the clause, it would be better to translate it in the order of the Greek : " Considering the end of whose conversation, follow their faith;" their faith, viz., that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. But, on the whole, the passage is taken more naturally, according to that interpretation which is sanctioned by Lach- mann, and those who with him connect our text, not with the 8th, but with the 9th verse, as the beginning of a new sentence, and as laying down the general principle on which the Apostle is going on to ground his exhortation to a par- ticular duty : Thus, " Whose faith follow, considering the end (or result or termination) of their conversation" (or lives). Then " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever : be not ye therefore carried about by divers and strange doctrines." Now, it will be obvious that, Avliichsoever of these two admissible interpretations is adopted, as showing the true graminatical connexion of the passage, the whole words of our text stand out as a well-known Apostolical maxim. Ac- cording to the one, they are considered as the sum of Apostolical doctrine, the grand statement that embodies a Christian's faith : according to the other, they ai-e at least the VARIETY IN UNITY. 51 readily-acknowledged general maxim on which the writer is about to build his particular deductions. Taken either way, the whole sentence seems to be brought forward as embodying a statement well known and liighly prized throughout the Church. Viewed in this light, the words, I think, become more solemn and important. They ought to be familiar to us, as to the early Christians. They speak of the true unity which binds together all the scattered portions of Christ's flock. The object of all our worship is one, the one Saviour, un- changing from eternity; and this, steadily kept in mind, will make our Avorship itself also one, in the only sense in which unity is of real value. The one Christ Avill be wor- shipped in the one acceptable way of a holy self-denying life by all who, being admitted into His church by the one baptism, are led by the one Spirit, in the hope of the one salvation. And this unity of a holy purpose will lead much niore than any enforced rules of outward uniformity — much more than, till they all try it, men can have any thought of — to the great blessing of perfect unity of belief and practice. To exhaust this subject, or to trace fully those thoughts which even a superficial examination of it will suggest, is of course for us here impossible. The point in it to which I would at present direct attention is the following : That this oneness of Jesus Christ, the object of our worship, of which the Apostle speaks, does not exclude that diversity in our modes of con- ceiving of many of His doctrines, and of serving Him, to which the peculiar circumstances or character of each of us may naturally lead. God has not made all men alike : He has made the children of His universal family to differ, race E 2 52 VARIETY IN UNITY. from race, nation from nation, individual from individual, by the grand distinctions of blood, climate, country, political state, and disposition ; and our Ckristianity, though one and unchangeable in its essence, must, in outward appearance, vary with our varying circumstances. There is more truth than might at first sight be supposed in the Eastern simile, that, when the Almighty looks down upon the garden of the universe, which He has planted and waters for His pleasure, He is not delighted with that dull monotony which would force all the beds, however different their soils, to yield the same fruits and flowers ; but what really pleases Him is to see each exhibiting in its own way the product of that better nature which He has given it, and putting forth in luxm-iance its own peculiar riches as an offering in His honour. Doubtless, this statement has often been so understood as to lead men to suppose that the Almighty is pleased, not with the thousand varieties of healthfid flowers only, but also -with noxious weeds, provided they be fresh and vigorous. This is the perversion of the truth which makes men forget that, however various may be the thousand forms of right, there is an immutable and indestructible separation between it and wrong. But however caj)able of being perverted — however fruitful actually in producing error, the doctrine I now speak of does, doubtless, like most other principles which have become sources of heresy, point in itself to a great truth, which it was originally intended to express ; and this truth is, that the one Saviom* will be worshipped, and His doctrines appre- hended, in many varying ways, by men of different natural dispositions and in different circumstances, and that to allow room for such varieties is absolutely necessary, if we would liave any real unity of heartfelt earnest })iety. VARIETY IN UNITY. 53 Now our text, so far from excluding the idea of this variety in the midst of unity, seems rather, when fully examined, distinctly to lead us to the acknowledgment of it, by referring us to the true unity as existing in Christ. If any one doubts this, let him consider the sense in which, in the text as else- where, the Lord Jesus Christ himself is spoken of as one and unvarying. " He is," the Apostle says, " the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever :" yet is there endless variety in the forms in which He is manifested. First, He is the Eternal Word, residing quiescent from the beginning in the bosom of the Father: then He is His Father's active Minister, the Creator of the Universe : then He descends as the Angel of the Covenant to watch over the Jews, and gives them the law from Sinai ; then He stoops still lower to be born at Bethle- hem. He becomes the perfect child ; the perfect boy ; the perfect man : He is the suffering Saviour in Pilate's judgment- hall, and on the cross: He rises the powerful conqueror; reigns now the intercessor, the gracious Head of the Media- torial Kingdom ; and at last A^ill be, for all who have despised Him, the inexorable judge. The same awfully benignant features are doubtless to be traced, whatever be the stage of His existence in which we contemplate His heavenly image ; but how endless is the variety of light and shade in which these features are pre- sented to us ! Holy minds, led by God's Spirit, will not fad, in whatever aspect they view Him, to note those grand cha- racteristics of Him as a Saviour, which make Him one and invariable, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ; but still they will love to dwell, according to their varying tempers or circumstances, each on different points of all that is revealed of Him. The mind of the religious youtli will 54 VARIETY IN UNITY. delight to think of Him as subject to His parents ; as seeking instruction, like other youths, in the regular channels, though astonishing all who heard Him by His understanding and His answers ; as growing in wisdom as in stature, and in favour Avith God and man, and patiently waiting for the good time His Heavenly Father liad appointed, before He began openly to announce His message. Again, in vigorous man- hood, we shall be sustained and taught to sanctify our labours by the thought of Him rising up a great while before day, and retiring to solitude, that, braced by the new energy which communion with His Father gave Him, He might be ready when dawn came to begin that course of ceaseless toil for others, which was to fill every moment of His time till evening. Or if, again, in age we begin to think of rest in our families, we shall see Him in the house of Lazarus, or with John leaning on His bosom. Or, when sickness or death threatens, our continual meditation will be of Him in His agony. Thus, our thoughts of the one Clirist are as various as the varying trials in which we need His example to en- com-age us. In like manner, as in Christ himself, so also in His word, is there this endless variety in unity. Almost each book of the Bible, when attentively considered, will be found to have its own peculiar character of piety ; and probably God has employed the various dispositions and circumstances of the several human authors as the means for bringing out the various features of Divine truth, and thus providing that each sacred writer should speak through all ages with espe- cial force to minds of his own stamp. Thus, the most care- less reader is led to contrast the searching practical wisdom of the Proverbs, with the exalted contemplative piety of the VARIETY IN UNITY. 55 Psalms; and in the New Testament it is scarce needful to mention the most commonly quoted instance of the different turn of thought observable in St. James and St. Paul — the one apparently accustomed, all the days of his manhood, to an unvarying* life of regulated holiness in daily attendance upon God's sanctuary — the other plucked suddenly as a brand from the burning, and sent to wander over the earth, preaching in season and out of season to the lost Gentiles the unspeakable riches of that constraining grace which could save both him and them. Nay, all allow that the very Gospels which give us the details of our Lord's history, have their several characters — that, while one gives us especially the history of His outward activity, as sent to be the long- foretold Saviour of His countrymen, and the promulgator of a better practical law than that of Moses ; another, as we have seen, initiates us into the sublimest truths of His spiritual being, and seems to prepare our minds for such unearthly speculations, by setting forth Divine discourses, in which He no longer insists on particular duties, but rises to those mysterious heights of God's nature and of man's, in which all duties have their springs, but which cannot be ascended by any but the longing spiritual heart. This thought, as to the wonderful variety in the different parts of the Bible, well deserves to be considered further. As the sacred subject of the teaching in the books varies, so does their outuard form. Some would almost regard the Bible as the archetype of all human writings, the great Divine model, exhibiting each species in its pei-fectness. Not, however, to advance for it any such disputable claim, we have without any doubt in this one volume a literature of * Vide Euscb. Hist. Eccl. ii. 2, 3. 56 VARIETY IN UNITY. almost every kind. To look at this in detail : in the Old Testament we have, first of all, the majestic simplicity of the narrative, that describes the patriarchal times with Man- ning grace and power — captivating by its striking pictures the volatile fancy of cliildhood, and charming us in age into forgetfulness of all present troubles, by that freshness which breathes from the acts and words of those who lived when society was young. What legendary tales of Greece or Rome, or of the old Babylonian or Egyptian kings, can compare, even for mere attractiveness, with the holy story, in which God commissioned His servant to trace the origin of the chosen people, through the wilderness, and their slavery, up to the nomad tents of their great ancestor, and through him to the fathers of the human race ? And these simple annals take their rise in a sublime revelation of the creation of matter by the all-governing and all-pervading mind, which separates them from human legends at their very outset, by causing them, in the midst of their childlike simplicity, to solve questions on which we shall in vain look for light in the works of the acutest uninspired intellects of the most cultivated age. Here surely, in the very form of this early history, is a variety in the midst of unity which proclaims itself divine. Again, as we go further, we pass from the peaceful simpli- city of the earliest to the stirring wars of the rude heroic times, in the tale of the gradual conquest of the promised land. Then succeeds the grave history of courts and camps, when Eastern civilisation was at its height ; and interspersed are fair pictures of family and of rustic life, to win those whose homely spirits can scarcely gather lessons for their own daily guidance from God's dealings with the great of VARIETY IN UNITY. 57 the eartli. Besides, we have the laws of the favoured nation in its political, its moral, and its ceremonial code, displayed with a minuteness to be found in no treatise on Spartan, or early Eoman legislation, which, deeply studied, enable us to reahse the daily habits of the people, while they may exercise also the ingenuity of the subtlest political philosophy to classify them, and refer them to their principles. Then come the grave ethical treatises, the experience of a long life passed in active duty, and arranged by a wisdom from above. Then, too, in poetry, we have the pastoral, jjerhaps the drama, and above all the lyric in its highest perfection, interspersed in the earliest history, or standing forth by itself as the model for the holy praise of all generations — various in its psalmody as the thousand varying feelings of the calmly thankful, or desponding, or repenting, or longing, or exulting, or per- secuted, or victorious soul of God's servant : while the vista in this ancient choir is closed by the grandeur of the pro- phetical lyric, which carries on the bold longings of the ardent soul to the end of time. Or turn again to the form in which God communicates His truth in the New Testament. Here are at least two different kinds of the most unadorned biography of the human life of the Redeemer ; interspersed with the simplest moral lessons and the bright imaginative colouring of the parables for the childlike, acute arguments for the subtle, and the highest flights of heavenly philosophy for the contemplative. Then comes the plain history of the planting of the Church, and its struggles within and without, with Sadducaic and Pharisaic Judaism, with the sensuous classical, and mystic Eastern heathenism, again ending in a biography of the most energetic of the sons of men whom God employed to bear His truth 58 VARIETY IN UNITY. through the struggle. Then we have the letters of tliis great Apostle and his brethren, to chm-ches of all kinds : to the holy Ephesians ; to the Corinthians, sorely tempted to make a compromise of their faith with the Epicm'ean luxury and philosophy which surrounded them ; against the stern Judaizers, who beset the Roman or Galatian Christians ; or those who would have misled the Thessalonians into a poli- tical fanaticism. Or think again how, all through these letters, we have the plain practical morality of conscience, mixed up with the holiest and most mysterious of those doctrines which Christ came to reveal, and even with reason- ings on those dark subjects of controversy as to the freedom of man's will and its slavery, which have agitated the philo- sophic mind under every system of faith or intellectual teaching. And here again, as in the Old Testament, the sacred vista closes with that wild prophetic poetry which thrills so deeply through every meditative heart, as it opens to us mysterious glimpses into the final destiny of our race, and the particular mode in which God will award hap- piness or misery to each individual soul. So that, in fact, throughout the whole volume, what is scarcely intelligible and somewhat repulsive to men of one time of life or state of civilisation, is the very point which gives the sacred books their chief power to attract men of another tone. Yet, through all tliis variety of Old Testament and New, we cannot fail to note the perfect all-pervading unity. There are the same lessons of holy living; the same truths as to God's nature and man's — more clearly marked indeed, and of a deeper colouring, as the tide of revelation swells, but still substantially the same ; the same struggle of the fallen VARIETY IN UNITY. 59 human race with its great adversary is shadowed forth in all : but, above all, the whole Scriptm-e is made one by the one holy image wliich every page reflects, the one Jesus Christ, himself the author and the subject of the whole, of whom Genesis S23eaks as the first creator, and the Apocalypse as the final judge — of whom every good man in its history is the type — whose sufferings and victory every prophet foretels — whose glory is hymned in every song of praise — who is set forth as by His Spirit alone giving the power to obey each practical lesson and understand each doctrine. Thus the whole Bible is as it were one heavenly instrument of music, tuned to sing the glory of Him who is the same yesterday, to- day, and for ever. And it has its harmony from the very variety of the notes which are blended in its symphony : and each ear which God's Holy Spirit has prepared to love the sound, has its own peculiar note in which it especially de- lights. Far then be from us the attempt to destroy the harmony by allowing no notes but one. Jesus Christ is brought before us, in the Bible, as all-sufficient to supply all wants, to cheer, sustain, to animate, to lead to victory ; for young and old ; for men of every age, climate, degree of progress in civilisation; of all ranks, professions, talents, tempers. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; but in this sameness there is variety as infinite as that of His own Creation. It would be easy to follow out this thought, and to show that this characteristic is to be found, not only in the mys- terious features of the Lord himself, or in the subjects, or in the fashion of His heavenly volume ; but still further, 1st, in those very different forms of contemplative or active piety, which are embodied in the lives of His chosen servants ; and 60 VAKIETY IN UNITY. 2ndly, in the way in which His universal Church adapts itself to every age and country. In the Bible how many and how different are the cha- racters on which the Holy Spirit has stamped the seal of Christ's approbation ! We have one form in the patriarch- chief, the priest as well as king and general of his people ; another in the priest who in later days had no office but to wait on God's Sanctuary. We have one in the great king who adorns and extends his paternal realm, and cares daily for its laws, its commerce, and its literature ; another in the mysterious prophet who flies from courts to the brook Cherith,* and who seeks converse with his Maker in the dark solitudes of Horeb.f We have one in the courtier-sage of Babylon ; another in the fishermen of Grennesaret. We have X Mary resting at Christ's feet ; and Martha busy with many worldly cares, yet full of faith § to acknowledge with- out any hesitation the coming resurrection. We have Anna and Simeon |1 waiting all their time daily in the temple ; and Cornelius^ full of alms and prayers in the midst of the duties of the Roman garrison. We have Paul the energetic, full of zeal ; and John the meek, full of love. And so, to pass beyond the limits of sacred history, his mind must have little of a real Catholic spirit, who despises the Avild retreat of the strange Egyptian hermit, because his soul kindles rather as he dwells on those public scenes in which Christ's truth was borne victorious in the sight of men, by the poj^ular eloquence of Chrysostom, or the practical vigour of Atha- nasius ; who cannot bear the homeliness of Latimer, because he loves rather to be instructed by the learning which almost * 1 Kings xvii. t 1 Kings xix. + Luke x. 38. § John xi. 24. || Luke ii. 25, 30. t Acts x. VAKIETY IN UNITY. 6] overburdens the piety of Taylor ; who has no admiration for the uncompromising zeal of Luther, because he has more sympathy with that winning gentleness \vith which Leighton sought in vain to teach men of difterent thoughts and tempers to live as brethren. And various as are the characters of Christ's individual saints, so various also are the forms into which His Church has moulded itself, whether it sits in learned leisure, as amongst ourselves, seeking to rear teachers, and afterwards to help them by its prayers ; or, actively engaged in its mis- sionary work, either uplifts a warning voice, as in Apostolic times, in populous cities, or seeks for its scattered converts amid the stillness of American forests, or in the islands of the Pacific. The student of ecclesiastical history recognises the same Church, displaying itself under one form in the second centiu-y, under another in the fourth, under another in the sixteenth, and under another in our own. But in each, keep- ing always steadily in view its grand end, we see that it sub- serves also by its peculiar development some immediate secondary purpose for which its Lord had destined it. In the first and beginning of the second century, we see it gliding on its way silently, attracting but little the notice of the lieathen autj^orities ; in the third, raising its head, and gain- ing outward grandeur as it grows, that it may be the better ready, when God's providence calls it, to receive an imperial convert, and sit as a queen among the nations. We see it moulding itself into one compact body in the fourth century, that when civil ties were burst by the irruption of barbarian hordes, and the whole fabric of imperial civilisation seemed crumbling into ruins, in it the scattered elements of society might be again cemented into one enduring fabric. 62 VARIETY IN UNITY, By its influence we see the nations of Christendom, through the dark times that follow, forced to own another outward bond of union besides that of common wars, and to fear another powerful arm besides that which wielded the sceptre or the sword. Again, in the sixteenth century we see the same Church reformed, becoming in Protestant countries the pledge and safeguard of their separate life and energy for the several nations, as it had been before of the common life of all. Again, we hope to see it in our own day rise to meet our own wants, silencing sceptical doubts by solid arguments, or filling up the unsatisfied longings of the cultivated mind by a deeper philosophy and poetry than infidelity could ever dream of. And, as we look on towards the Lord's second coming, we see it promising at last in time, as the doctrines of love and charity gain ground in spite of all the accidental hindrances which now so much oppose them, to unite all the tribes of Europe, of the east, the west, and the far-distant south, into one holy brotherhood, in which each shall have full scope for the development of its own genius, while all agree to worship Chi'ist, and teach each other to speak His truth boldly, though they speak it in love. The intelligent reader of Ecclesiastical History knows that the forms which Christ's Church assumes must vary with. its duties, and that the field of these duties is as wide as the world which He has willed to save. And now let us think briefly what is the practical result to which these thoughts conduct us. One lesson which they teach is obvious, that we must study to live in Christian peace with all who are bound together in this essential unity. The Apostle urges, " If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men,"* and we make, surely, no great * Rom. xii. 18. VARIETY IN UNITY. 63 demand if we substitute for " all men," all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. As this lesson will teach us not to confine too much the limits of our own communion, so even where circumstances over which we have no control have made outward fellowship impossible, still shall we learn from it to study the fellowship of the heart. The most ardent attachment to our own holy forms, the most full appreciation of their efficiency in guiding our own souls in the way of life, nay, a conviction that under Providence our own Church seems more likely than any other to be our Lord's instru- ment in the great work of spreading a pure, and enlightened, and orderly Christianity throughout the world — our convic- tion of all this can have no natural connexion with any uncharitable feelings towards those who are not able to agree with us. " If," says Jeremy Taylor,* " the persons be Christians in their lives, and Chi-istians in their professions, if they acknowledge the Eternal Son of God for their Master and their Lord, and live in all relations as becomes persons making such professions, why then should I hate such persons whom God loves, and who love God, who are par- takers of Christ, and Clirist hath a title to them, who dwell in Christ and Christ iii them, because their understandings have not been brought up like mine ; have not had the same masters ; they have not met with the same books, nor the same company, or have not the same interest, or are not so wise, or else are wiser ; that is, for some reason or other, which I neither do understand nor ought to blame, have not the same opinions that I have, and do not determine their school questions to the sense of my sect or interest ?" When * Liberty of Propli., Ep. Dedicatory, p. ceccii. Works, London, 1839. Vol. vii. 64 VARIETY IN UNITY. will the day come when Christians throughout the world will remember, that, however great the differences which divide sincere believers from one another, these never can be one- thousandth part so important as those which ought to sepa- rate them by an impassable gulf from all who live in sin ? And here, lest this be misunderstood, it is well to speak plainly, and to state that this lesson must be taken with two limitations : — 1st. It will, of course, often be our bounden duty to protest against the errors of our brethren, and partially at least to withdraw ourselves from acting with them, although we believe them to be, according to their consciences, sincere followers of the Lord Jesus Christ ; because, though they have the right foundation, they may have raised on it the vain superstructure of wood, hay, stubble ; and may thus teach a system, which, though its poison cannot deaden their own ardent faith, has a strong tendency to destroy the life of all who are instructed by them. Thus we are bound to protest against Rome, and stand apart from her, even though we know her annals to be adorned by many noble saints ; and, while we pray for her daily, as included in Christ's Universal Church, and revere with trembling the goodness which we acknowledge to be often growing within her pale, we dare make no compromise with her, nor speak lightly of her sins. 2ndly. The unity which binds us all together has the Lord Jesus Christ for its centre ; with those, therefore, who are not one with us in Him, the text gives us no encouragement to live in Christian fellowship. If any regard the Lord and Saviour, who is to us the source of all our spiritual life, as a mere man, or a mere angel, or, what is almost worse still, as a VARIETY IN UNITY. fiS mere shadowy name — if any, while they profess to revere its author, have reduced Chiistianity to become one amono-st many systems of poor human philosophy, while its words of life are placed in the rank of the early Roman legends ; here is no pardonable variety, but a total change from Avhat the Apostles taught ; these men cannot be united with us in the worship of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. It is always difScult, and would savom* of presumption, to attempt to state distinctly what is essential in Christianity ; but, happily, the most universally revered of the councils of the Church may here be om- guide. The best symbol of universal Cln-istian brotherhood with those without our own particular Church will be that which the Fathers of Nicaea and Constantinople instituted, A\hen they bequeathed to us that Confession which alone has received the sanction both of East and West. And it is not imimportant to remark, in passing, that, in the explanation which the Nicene Fathers appended to then- Creed, they have, as to the great doctrines it was composed to teach, recorded their protest against all attempts to add to, as well as take away from, the fulness of its perfect statements.* Those whose hearts are full of the certain heavenly truths of which this Creed treats, will have * Vide Acta Couciliorum, Harduin, Paris, vol. i. p. 507, fol. 1715 : — "Htuc est ortliodoxorum et probatorum fides. Quorum autem omuium coguitio ex diviiiis Scripturis elare patet, et uos treceuti octodecim profitemur et cou- fitemiir atque cunctos protestamur banc eandem esse fidem quam accepimus. Quamolircm maledicimu.s, auatbematizamus et excommuuicamus cunc- tos qui fidei buic abquid vol addunt vel detrabunt." Tbe original Creed, to wbicli tbe explanation containing tbose words is appended, referred only to tlie doctrine of our Lord's nature, and His connexion -witb tbe Fatber. Tiie Creed was completed, as is well known, wben tbe articles on tbe Holy Spirit (witb tbe exception of tbe " Filioque ") were added by tbe 150 bisbops in tbe Con- stantinopolitan Council. — Vide Harduin, as above ; Mosbeim's Hist. Eccl., Sa)c. IV. Ft. II. § XX. 66 VARIETY IN UNITY. little leisure or inclination to be arguing on matters wliicli are fairly disputable, A second lesson, which the thoughts suggested by the text teach, is not less obvious than the first. In all our efforts to enforce Christ's truth, either on our brethren at home, or still more on men in other countries, we must be most cautious not to press on them a greater resemblance to ourselves tlian the Bible requires. If it be true that every natural tempera- ment must have its fair room to work — that in the non- essential parts of Christianity what is suited to one honest and pious mind is repulsive to another — we must not fall into the error attributed to the Puritans, of forcing on the joyous- ness of childhood the austerity of age, nor strive to cool down all ardent feelings because we are om^selves calm and unex- citable. This surely is to confound our own prejudices with Christ's all-comprehensive truth ; to put new wine into old bottles, and to act in direct opposition to the Apostle's precept of becoming all things to all men, if by any means we may win some. But perhajDS, after all, a third lesson, as it is the most obvious, is also the most important practically for each of us. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, is still, in the varying features of His heavenly character, suited to be the object which delights and sustains men of all natm*al dispositions, and under all circiunstances. His re- ligion also, brought home to our hearts, has as miraculously infinite a capability of adaptation to all our individual wants as He has himself. We can never, then, be in any circum- stances in which we can be excused from acting directly on His example, and according to His commands. Are many of you here now following the calm course of VARIETY IN UNITY. 67 well-regulated discipline, not yet plunged into the world's cares and harassing business ? He is your model now during the thirty years of silent preparation for His mission. It is better to insist on this over and over again, than to point out the particular sins which you must flee from ; for if any of you will steadily keep Christ's example before you, and try to realise the thought that He, your God, is by your side now in His Spirit, to sustain you against temptation, and lead you on to holiness, m the midst of the varied temptations of this place, you must live as Christians. Again, no one can tell of some of you when you leave tliis place, in what coun- tries or professions yom* lot in life may be cast ; but if what has been now stated be true, there can be no place where Christ and His religion will not follow you. There is no delusion more certain to ruin souls than that which so often whispers, that Christ's example and rules may be well suited for those in other circumstances, but do not apply to ourselves. There is, in truth, no place but Hell where Christ does not enter, no profession but the devil's service which He is not ready to sanctify. The soldier, the merchant, the sailor, the lawyer, may be, and often by God's grace has been, as directly employed in Christ's service as the minister of His inner sanctuary. If His Holy Spirit would only enable us to keep the thought of Him and His sustaining grace before us wherever we go, there would be no fear for us, either here or in still more dangerous scenes ; for we might feel secm-e that He would guide us safely, and lead us to His everlasting kingdom. F 2 68 CRITICAL STUDY DISCOURSE III. Dangers and Safeguards of the Critical Study OF THE Bible. St. John xx. 31. " These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might have life through his name." In considering these words formerly, as applied to St. John's Gospel, it was natural to remark, that they set forth the object proposed not by St. John alone, but by all the Evan- gelists. But this statement may be extended much further. The words of the text may apply not to this or that portion merely of the Old or New Testament, but to the whole Bible : and of course they jDoint out the object, not merely of the human authors, but of God. Now I am the more induced to dwell on this point, because in a former sermon, in connexion with this text, we were led to certain historical and critical observations on the com- position of one of the Gospels ; and the tendency of all such study of the sacred books, unless under very watchful guid- ance, must be to withdraw om' minds in some degree from the one great spiritual object with which they were all written. I propose now to examine some of the dangers of those perilous studies connected with the history and criticism of OF THE BIBLE. 69 the sacred volume, in which all iu this place must more or less he engaged. And first of all I would remark, tliat, in these studies, from their very nature, there can be no safety for us, unless by God's help we keep continually in mind that great truth which our text suggests ; viz., that all the objects of the par- ticular books, proposed by the particular human authors, in the particular circumstances in which they or their first readers were placed, are subordinate, and to be reckoned as nothing, w^hen compared with this one great spiritual object of the whole, proposed by the Divine Author, viz., the salva- tion of lost man through Jesus Christ. The chief of the dangers to which I have alluded arise necessarily from the very form in which God has been pleased to communicate the revelation of His will. No one can enter at all deeply on the critical and historical study of the Bible without having his attention very soon arrested by the fol- lowing difficulty : — We hold, that, when the Lord Jesus Chi'ist withdrew His inspired teachers from the Avorld, and left His church to struggle henceforward without miraculous help, He ordained that His Apostles should leave behind them a comj)lete body of Cliristian truth, perfectly sufficient, by the help of His ever-present Spirit, to guide each Chris- tian's belief in all essential points, and thus to save his soul. We hold also that this body of truth is sufficient, by the principles which shine forth everywhere throughout its un- systematic, but perfectly plain teaching, to guide the unin- spired rulers of the Clim'ch, if they will humbly seek to learn, in the formation of those varying rules of discipline, which must from time to time be laid down and changed by their authority, to suit the varying circumstances of each age. 70 CBITICAL STUDY Now, the question which very soon meets every one who studies the Bible critically, is this : How is the idea of this perfect completeness of the sacred volume to be reconciled with what criticism tells us of the gradual, and almost, as it were, fortuitous production of the several books ? The obvious answer is, that the whole of this diflSculty arises from looking merely to the human authors, not to our Lord him- self, who by his Holy Spirit guided and controlled all for His one great purpose of which the text speaks. To examine this more in detail — It is the key-stone of our Theology that Holy Scripture is complete : yet St. John says in the verse preceding our text, " Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book." Many other discourses certainly did the Lord hold with His disciples, both in pubUc and in private, the memory of which has perished. Many others besides the four Evangelists (St. Luke intimates *) took in hand to set forth, in order, a history of the Lord's life and sufferings ; and if St. Luke, in the passage referred to, be speaking of inaccurate written histories, there must besides these have been, if not written, certainly many floating oral accounts of the Gospel narrative, coming from Apostles, and equally authentic, if they had survived, with those which we now reverence. Moreover, even if the lost Epistle to the Laodi- ceans t could be proved to be none other than that to the Church of Ephesus,^ still St. Paul, and St. Peter, and St. James, and St. John, to say nothing of their fellow Apostles, must have written letters to churches and individuals, besides those wliicli have come down to us. All these are lost : the * Luke i. 1, 2. f Coloss. iv. Ki. X Of. Olshauson, Bibl. Coiumcnt. Coloss. iv. IG. OF THE BIBLE. 71 very names of them have perished : the utmost ingenuity of research cannot find either the works themselves, or any account of them in the remains of Christian antiquity. Very few of the many sayings of our Lord not recorded in the Gospels have been handed down to us, and these important only from the heavenly majesty of Him who uttered them.* Now, it may be true that no one now, after the subject has been so thoroughly investigated, expects tlie canon of Scrip- ture to be increased by the discovery of any lost writing of the Apostles. It is allowed that we know now all of the Apostles' teaching that by human means we can ever expect to loiow of it : but men not unnaturally ask, — How can that be considered as a complete code of Clmstian laws, and store- house of Christian principles, perfect in itself, which history and criticism show us to be thus fragmentary ? And from this difficulty may naturally spring many errors. On the one hand, if Scripture be supposed to contain but a small portion of what we may learn of God's revealed word, what more natural than to hold that its deficiencies must be filled up fi-om some other stream of inspiration ? At first, men may strive to gain the aid they need from some supposed remains of the unwritten teaching of the Apostles ; but soon, forced by history and criticism in candour to admit that no such remains exist, they will more boldly throw themselves, with the Komanists, on the aid of an ever-present Chm-ch, which, claiming to be itself inspii*ed, professes to fill up the scanty measure of Scriptui-e-teaching from its own unbounded stores. * Vide Acts XX. 35. Cf. Olshausen, in loc. Cf. also Fabricius, Codex Apocr. Novi Test. (Hamburg, 1719), p. 321, where these sayings are collected and classified. 72 CRITICAL STUDY On the other hand, if men be convinced not only that all the unwritten teaching of the Apostles has perished, but that these founders of Christ's Church have never had any insj)ired successors ; that it was not till very degenerate days that any inspiration similar to that of Scripture was ever claimed for fathers or councils ; that the signs of an Apostle have never been wrought by any but those to whom Christ at first gave them ; what more natural than for one convinced of the im- piety of such pretensions, who still looks on Scripture as very scanty, and knows not where else to turn, to give up the thought of being guided by inspiration altogether ; to make human reason his guide ; and to assign to the Scripture a co-ordinate place in his esteem with Plato, or Aristotle, or the Institutes of Justinian; as others have classed it with Cyprian, or Chrysostom, or the decrees of Nica3a ? Into one or other of these two species of error there is great danger lest all critical students of the Bible fall, if they do not, by the help of Divine grace, keep their eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ as by His providence overruling the composition of the whole book, and making all the various wishes, and powers, and necessities of its human authors and first readers work together for that one grand object which He, its Divine Author, had always steadily in view. The passage of Irenasus,* as to the number of the Gospels, is almost too trite for quotation : "As there are four quarters of the world in which we live, and four chief winds, and the Church is spread over all the earth, but the pillar and support of the Church is the Gospel and its breath of life, plainly the Church must have four columns, and from these must come forth four blasts breathing immortality and giving life to * Adv. HcCics. c. iii. OF THE BIBLE. 73 men." Nor is this mere rhetoric. Each Evangelist, at the time when he wrote, had doubtless his own objects : he ImeAv the wants of those for whom he wrote : St. Matthew, as a Jew to the Jews ; St. Mark, as a compiler for St. Peter's converts ; St. Luke, to edify Theophilus ; St. John, as a disciple of the true Cruosis, to spiritualise and thus destroy the false. But, as all the winds in their various com-ses are but the ministers of God's pleasure — each fulfilling its appointed office in the great work of purifying the atmosphere— so the labours of all fom' Evangelists together produce in unison that one history of the Divine and human perfection with which Christ has purposed to purify His Church. He employed each as a workman to form, according to his capacity, some one portion of that gi'eat statue of Himself, Avhich He intended to be the object of His Church's adoration through all time. The workman might not aspire fm'ther while he worked than to complete his own allotted portion of the task ; but, if we would understand the whole, we must look to the designs of the great Master-builder who employed and directed all. And thus, when St. Paul, roused by the immediate wants of a particular chm'ch in his own day, took up his pen to write to the Christians of Galatia, the Lord Jesus still guided hiu^ and ordained that the Koman, Galatian, Corinthian, Ephesian, and Thessalonian converts should be types of classes to be found in the Church in all ages ; so that all men might in them see their own likeness, and the book of these many fragmentary WTitings might be formed into one perfect whole. Thus our Lord ordained. In this one book (however frag- mentary its original composition) we find that one sufficient guide, for which we shall in vain seek in the works of mere 74 CRITICAL STUDY uninspired reason, whether pretending to no higher title than that of philosoj^hy, or falsely claiming to be divine. And thus keeping our eyes steadily fixed on God's one great purpose, as unfolded in the text, we shall never be distracted by our examination of the human motives which influenced the several human authors, or the circumstances which formed, as it were, the mould in which the heavenly metal was to be fused. We have, then, seen a great danger to which the critical student of the Bible must be exposed. It is a very exten- sive danger, comprising under it many forms of evil, of some of which it may be necessary to sjDeak more in detail. Without a deep conviction of that all-important truth of which the text reminds us, it must, we repeat, be impossible to pass safely through this dangerous field of study. Perhaps there is no period in a thoughtful man's life, in which the crisis of his future spiritual being is more deeply involved than that in which he first begins critically to study God's holy word. So awful indeed are the results which may follow,- and so many are the instances in which faith is alto- gether shipwi-ecked, that men advanced m years, who have tliemselves known the peril, cannot think without fear of the duty of leading their younger brethi-en to enter on this field, when God's Providence has imposed this duty on them as teachers in His Church. The strong practical bias of the English mind may have prevented the danger from being so clearly developed amongst ourselves as in foreign countries ; but still is there, even in our own country, enough to warn us. We need not go abroad to look for instances of men who, having begun with the simple belief of childhood, have plunged thoughtlessly into the enticing field of Scripture OF THE BIBI)E. 75 criticism, reckless of tlie hidden pitfalls which on every side beset their way ; and such men, whose minds are not suffi- ciently imbued with a deep conviction of the sacrediiess of the task on wliicli they enter, have often fallen, first into cold doubts, then into so-called philosophic indifference, and lastly into daring unbelief. No wonder, then, that a man of thoughtful mind should long pause and hesitate before he engages himself, and still more before he leads others to engage, in studies amid the mazes of which his soul may so easily be lost. We may, indeed, feel that perfect conviction which the Holy Spirit works in humble hearts, that the everlasting arms of om- Lord and Saviour will be beneath us to sustain us in every horn' of peril, and that, provided we be in the path of duty in our studies, we must be safe ; but, even with this feeling, there is much to disquiet us. The faith of him who is carried safely through these studies may, it is true, be of a higher order intellectually, and become even morally more perfect, because it has stood some trial, and by the grace of God has gained manliness as it has been kept unscathed ; yet, still in the various steps of the struggle which it has under- gone, there has been unhappiness and danger. When the simple lessons which we learned in childhood are first examined by us with a critic's eye, who shall explain the strange feelings that spring up within ! In self-confident and thoughtless minds, nay, perhaps in all, there will be at first a burst of that enthusiasm with which youth and vigour scarcely ever fail to welcome an emancipation from controlling power. If this feeling continues, the danger is imminent, and the soul must suffer grievous loss. But the humble, faithful, and loving heart, if it gives way to tliis feeling for a moment. 76 CRITICAL STUDY will soon return to sober thought, and will be almost more disposed to long for the return of those happy days of child- hood, in which it never laiew what doubts were, than to look forward with any confident anticipation to that full manhood in which, by God's help, after having known, it will be sure to vanquish them. While the mind is in this perplexed state, it will look almost with envy on the contented ac- quiescence of the uninstructed poor, who have never dreamed of any diflSculties, and whose faith reposes happily on those detached portions of the authorised English version of the Scriptures with which they happen to be familiar, as affording for all their needs a full and satisfying supply from God's living oracles. And if this state of perplexity be not merely a short transition-state of trouble, from which, by God's mercy, our minds soon pass on to more certainty of faith, we may well envy the most ignorant. To these, God's ever-present .Spirit makes their acquaintance with His will, however limited, to be a sure foundation, while we, still doubting, shall be able, in all the wide range on which we seek to build, to find nothing but shifting quicksands. Now, I believe, tliat in all the worst and darkest difficulties of an inquiring mind, even if the genuineness and autlienticity and inspiration of the holy books be themselves brought into question, every man will be comforted and kept in safety who fixes his thoughts steadily on that portion of the great truth suggested by the text which his present unhappy doubts will allow him to receive. The Almighty Father wishes the hap- piness and salvation of all His childi-en : no man with an honest and good heart ever doubted this. These books claim to have been written under His especial guidance, that men OF THE BIBLE. 77 believing them might have life through Christ's name — a claim which the good and wise of all times have been the more ready to admit, the better and the wiser they have become. The books have doubtless a very striking majesty about them, which must command respect ; so that, however we may doubt, it will be madness to refuse to study them witlv reverent attention, and, thus studying them, we must at last, by God's help, be safe. We have seen, then, enough to convince us of the unsettling tendency of the studies of which we are speaking ; how apt they are to lead the mind into scepticism ; and from scepticism the rebound is very natural into that blind deference to authority which shuts its eyes to all reasoning, because, through fear of harassing doubts, it dares not any longer to think. And here two questions now very naturally arise. If the critical study of the Bible be thus beset with very serious difficulties — if in many minds it be very likely to shake their conviction of the perfectness and all- sufficiency of God's holy word — if it suggests, as we advance in it, an infinite number of doubts as to particular passages or particular books — if every man who engages zealously in the study is sure to have his mind, to a certain extent at least, and for a time, unsettled — First, Why should we engage in the study at all ? and Secoiidly, If we are forced to engage in it, can we really pass through it safe ? The answer to the first of these questions is obvious. The study must be engaged in by persons in the circumstances of most of us, because God has willed that it should be indis- pensable. We may, indeed, wish that God had so ordered man's mind that no doubts had ever arisen in it — that the very sight of the Bible had caused a conviction of the truth 78 CRITICAL STUDY and divine authority of every part of it to flash on every mind — that it had been written in some universal language, which required no aid of translations to be intelligible in every land — that there had been no verse in it at all difficult in structm-e or meaning requiring to be illustrated from the human author's habitual mode of expression, or the circumstances of his age and country. But whatever we may wish, this has not been God's plan ; He has given the revelation of His will in such a form as requires the aid of man's other light of reason to make it plain. Nay, He has even ordained that, as an under- standing of His truth is not forced upon us by the mere letter of His word, the mode in which we exert ourselves to obtain an insight into its full meaning shall be, to many of us, the trial of our faith. Thus we may see generally how, for very many of us, this critical study of the Bible is indispensable. And this point, if established, involves also the answer to our second question : God cannot have made it an imperative duty to enter on any course of study in which He is not ready, by His Almighty power, to shield us. But the full answer to these two questions is so important, that it may well occupy by itself a whole discourse. Having now pointed out some of the chief dangers of these studies, we may, by God's blessing, inquire more fully at a future time ; first, into their absolute necessity ; and secondly, into their safety. At present let us conteut ourselves with the prayer, that if we are led by duty to engage in them, we may do so, by the help of God's Spirit, in all humility and never in self-confidence. OF THE BIBLE. 79 DISCOURSE IV. Dangers and Safeguards of the Critical Study OF the Bible. St. John xx. 31. " These arc written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might have life througli his name." In my last sermon I endeavoured to set forth some of the great dangers to which the critical student of the Bible is exposed, from the unsettling tendency of many of the speculations into which he is necessarily led. I mil not now recapitulate what was said in pointing out the nature of these difficulties ; every earnest student will be sure soon to encounter them, and understand their natm-e, whetlier it be to the strictly philological or to the historical department of Scripture criticism that he applies himself. This criticism, whether it speaks directly of the language of the Bible, or of the cu-- cumstanees and habits of the authors by whom that language is employed, or tells us what is known of the history of the several documents which compose the volume, directs oiu- thoughts always to the contemplation of the human vehicle by which divine truth has been expressed. There is danger, therefore, always, lest we forget the divine in our contem- plation of the human — lest, while we leam to handle famili- arly the outward case, our thoughts may be withdrawn from the jewel of countless price which it contains. 80 CRITICAL STUDY Leaving, then, these difficulties to speak for them- selves and explain their own nature, I proceed to a more full consideration of the two important questions formerly proposed. If the critical study of the Bible be thus beset with very serious difficulties, first, why should we engage in a study so confessedly dangerous ? and, secondly, if we do engage in it, can we really pass through it safe ? I. Now, in examining the first of these questions, we must observe, — 1. That the critical study of the Bible must be necessary at all times, for without such study we cannot arrive at its real meaning. This, as has been observed above, is a consequence of the form in which God has been pleased to reveal His will. Not to dwell on the obvious fact, that the Scriptures have been written in languages now dead, which, before they can be understood, must be translated into our own, and that these translations must, from time to time, be tested, if we are to feel any security that they are correct — it is almost equally obvious that, even when translated, the books require aid of illustration and comparative criticism to make their meaning plain. It is granted, indeed, that the great truths on which our salvation depends, are so plainly set forth in the statements of the Bible, that, when once the learned have translated the book into our mother tongue, he who runs may read and understand tliese statements sufficiently, if he read them with a humble heart. It is granted also most fully, that for those great essential truths, which are, I believe, in name at least, and outward profession, assented to by the great majority of those who call themselves Christians throughout the globe, the teaching of God's Holy Sj)irit is a readier and far better OF THE BIBLE. 81 guide, needing but little aid of human criticism. But the truths, a belief of wliich is essential for our individual salva- tion, are very few as they are very simple. And no one doubts that the Bible contains, besides these, many other truths, some plain, and others hidden beneath its surface, which God would not have caused to be written there, had He not intended them to be in some way influential on man's conduct, and therefore, indirectly, on his prospects for eternity. From the passages containing these, all our lengthened dog- matical statements of Christian doctrine are to be at first derived, or afterwards tested. It is very frequently a man's conviction of the truths to be found in such passages, which causes him to adhere to one division of Christ's Universal Church rather than another. And these are the very pas- sages of wliich the true meaning cannot be settled without the aid of criticism. Hence there can be no question as to the necessity of this study for all Christ's ministers, and for all among the laity also to whom He has entrusted leisure and ability and learning to be used in His cause. 2. Again, let it be remembered, that if these studies be discouraged, men will lose a great help which God intended should assist in enabling them to realise the full force and power of both the narrative and the dii-ectly doctrinal teach- ing of the Bible even in its plainest parts. Who is there brought up in a Christian country, who does not find great difficulty in forming to himself a well-defined and vivid pic- ture of those truths, with the expression of which he has been familiar from his childliood ? Doubtless, the power of calling up in our minds these vivid pictures, is something very different indeed from Q 82 CEITICAL STUDY saving Christian faith, which is an energetic habit of onr whole spiritual nature, and not of the imagination, however chastened and directed aright. But neither can it reasonably be doubted, that our faith may be much assisted by such vivid conceptions of the Gospel truths, in the same manner as the usual lifeless and formal way in which we think of them is a serious stumbling-block to many. How many are there of us to whom the several Apostles or Propliets are but names, suggesting no traits of individual character either in their actions or their writings ; who look upon the several Gospels or Epistles but as convenient divisions or heads of chapters, for enabling us more easily to make our references to the sacred book, without having ever realised the particular, definite purpose and distinguishing features of each! How many are there of us before whom the whole sacred history and its doctrines float with all the indistinctness of a con- fused and misty vision, leaving but a vague and dull im- pression, such as intelligent men would never be content to have received in any matter of mere human interest to which their attention had been drawn ! There is not more differ- ence in the study of ordinary history, between that vague catalogue of the names of kings, and the dates of their births and deaths, with which the memories of children are often unwisely burdened, and that clear picture of men's thoughts and deeds and mode of living, which an intelligent student delights to form, from the annals and private memoirs of an age which has excited his keenest interest, than there is between the dull assent which most men give, as a matter of course, to what the Bible tells them, and that lively concep- tion of all its various truths, which a soul, at once faithful and OF THE BIBLE. 83 intelligent, may, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, gain from an earnest study of the whole Bible, with all those many human aids which God provides for us. Doubtless, God's Spirit does compensate for the want of this assistance to His faithful poor and illiterate servants ; but, for those of us whom He has blessed with leisure and ability, there is no human means more likely than this study for enabling us, by His aid, to live with an ever-present feeling of the reality of those unseen friends and interests of which the Bible speaks to us. 3. There is a third reason which obliges us to encourage the critical study of the sacred writings ; even the very fact that many difficulties are known to attach to it. Speaking humanly, there is scarcely anything more likely to spread infidelity amongst us, than the existence of a general sus- picion, that many doubts and difficulties are involved in the criticism of the Bible, which no one has the courage or ability to grapple with. Akin to this, is that miserable distrust which the impolitic severity of the laws has often allowed infidels to spread, by insinuating that they could say much against Christianity, if they were not restrained by the fear of civil penalties. Wherever a general suspicion is engendered, however unfounded it may be, that something is amiss in our system of religion, wliich from policy or cowardice we are anxious to conceal, there hidden infidelity will make rapid progress, and many a man of honest mind will in secret be tortured with anxiety, having no leisure to examine for himself the diffi- culties he has heard of, and be distressed by a painful im- pression that those who ought to examine for him are deliberately or unwittingly banded together to mislead. G 2 84 CKITICAL STUDY Thus, as is usual wherever men take upon themselves to act against God's purposes, that very infidelity, the fear of which scared them from their duty, will grow with tenfold vigour because they have neglected to perform it. And here it seems well to remark, that the critical study of the Bible is more than ever necessary to be encouraged now, from the particular circumstances of our own age and country. Whatever may be thought of the honesty or policy of endeavouring to conceal difficulties and stifle inquiry formerly, the days when such methods of propping up the truth of God were possible, are at an end. Or — not to speak harshly of the well-meant conduct of good men in former times — for us in this country the days when the minds of the mass of men could be directed, as if they were children, and withdra^vn from all dangerous speculations to those thoughts which theii- superiors in education considered to be edifying, have passed away. The old times, with their mingled good and evil — the old ideas of the paternal duty of government both in Church and State to lead the mass of men as it were blindfold, and to shut up knowledge within the privileged caste of those who were thought likely to make a good use of it, have passed. VVe may look back on the retiring scene, and while its less pleasing features are softened by the effect of distance as it fades from our view, we may long to recall it — some may even wish, in their day-dreams, that they had lived four hundred years ago ; but, whether it were good or whether it were evil, the old state of things can never be brought back. It is in our own generation, and amid the men of our own generation — amid their thoughts, bad as well as good, their questionings and doubtings, and shallow disputations, as well as their energetic impatience of con- OF THE BIBLE. 85 cealment and hatred of all formalism, that God has placed the scene of our responsibilities ; and it is vain to think that we can do any good amongst them by attempting to teach them on the principles of a departed state of society, and not as their own characters and circumstances require. It is certain that every man in this country who can read, cither knows already, or may learn any day as he reads, what those difficulties with respect to the Bible are on Avhich infidels uisist ; and it must be well also that he should know their refutation ; or, better still, that he should feel that con- fidence wliich is inspired by a persuasion that good and learned men have candidly met these difficulties, grappled with them fairly, and vindicated the truth. Nor can this service be said to have been performed for us by the able writers on Evidences of the last age ; for, since their time, infidelity has much changed the gi'ounds of its attack. Its objections are much more connected now than in former times with a minute critical examination of the sacred books ; and therefore it is in the field of criticism that it must be met and overthrown. Nor is it for the sake of those beneath us only that such protection is required. A calm review of the history of our Church from the lieformation downwards, will probably con- vince us that almost every generation, as it has had its own peculiar character of theology, has had also its omu peculiar dangers for the learned as well as for the ignorant. One or two men of leading minds have had their thoughts directed in some particular channel by their early education, or the society into wliich they have been thrown, and all the world of their contemporaries, eager for novelty, has hastened in the path they pointed out. Or, again, political events have 86 CRITICAL STUDY occurred which have forced on men a reconsideration of prin- ciples long deemed irrefragable ; or, opening up fresh inter- course with foreign nations, have imbued us with a taste for the theology or philosophy which they admire. Now of course it would be presumption to speak con- fidently as to the particular direction in wliich men's minds are likely to wander during the coming age. But there can be no wisdom in refusing to form reasonable conjectures, because we are not gifted Avith prophetic power. Our atten- tion has been of late so much and so deeply occupied by the unexpected revival of the controversies which were fought out and really settled at the time of the Reformation, and, in this place especially, the errors we deplore, connected with this controversy, have been rendered so deeply interesting, from what we know of the personal excellence of those who have been most prominent in maintaining them, as well as from the many ties of almost sacred friendship which these controversies have burst or rudely tried, that we are apt very naturally to over-estimate the importance of what, for the moment, we see actually aroimd us. Yet, if we examine the real state of our country and of Europe altogether, we must allow that the great conflict of this age is not that between the Eomanist and the Protestant, but between the Infidel and the Christian ; and that Eomanism is for us prin- cipally formidable only from the advantage it must give to infidelity by the false foundation on which it teaches men to bmld then- faith, and the poor human superstructiu-e by which it weakens while it overloads the inestimable power of Christ's simple tmth. It is certain that, as Romanism spreads, InfideKty will spread also. But we must not mis- take therefore the nature of our real contest : and tliere is OF THE BIBLE. 87 much danger lust the noise and interest of our immediate disputatious witli those whose errors we arc right deeply to dej^lore, but who still love the Lord Jesus Christ, and seek, in their own mistaken way, to maintain His cause as eagerly as om'selves, lead us to neglect the greatest danger which tlireatens us from the enemy that abhors Him. Infidelity also, be it noted, is always most active and most to be feared while disputes distract the Church. Now there are many symptoms to warn us that, if such an attack from Infidelity as is reasonably to be apprehended should be made, we are not as yet prepared as we ought to be to meet it. It is sure to come upon us now-a-days in a new and subtle form, often arming itself with its most for- midable weapons from the very storehouse of the Sacred books. And is it not certain that there are many questions connected with the authenticity and authority of these books on which we, in this country, with all our vaunted learning, are not as yet prepared Avith the requisite information and thought to enable us to vindicate the truth ? Is it not too true that the great majority of serious men feel themselves quite taken, as it were, by surprise, when such difficulties are forced upon their notice ? And if the watchmen of Israel have not looked theii" danger steadily in the face, how can they be prepared to meet it ? Moreover, it is well to remark, in passing, that we ai'e our- selves (in many respects very properly) encouraging studies in matters of secular literature, which are sure in time to suggest to all minds that the freedom of inquiry which they engender may sooner or later be appKed also to the Sacred books. And yet, wliile we encourage these studies, and therefore deliberately run the risk of all the danger that 88 CRITICAL STUDY must follow from them, we have taken little pains to provide ourselves ^\itll that knowledge which is absolutely necessary to prevent them from being perverted. How few of those, e. g., whom we train to a free examination and discussion of the early Eoman History, are able to understand and show to others that its doubtful legends have their counterpart in the spurious Gospels or the Eabbinical traditions of the History of Abraham, and that, in trusting the real Sacred books to the rejection of these fables, we are already, through God's mercy, resting on that siu-e basis of historical truth with respect to Christianity and the older Kevelation, on which the great Koman historian wishes to place us as to his subject, by his laborious research ! The difficulties that threaten to come upon us are then to be met, not certainly by closing om* eyes to the danger, and looking with suspicion upon those who would prepare themselves to meet it ; not by lagging behind our age, and allowing om* minds to be engrossed with the refutation of errors which have already had their day ; but by seriously applying oiu-selves to those many and very severe studies which are absolutely indispensable as the discipline that is to train us for the coming warfare. Speaking humanly, if infidelity is to be resisted, it can only be by our opposing the true criticism to the false, and being able to bring as great an amoimt of philological and historical knowledge and deep research to aid the cause of Christ's truth as are sm-e to be employed in the assaults by which it is menaced. The young student of Theology has indeed before him, at this time, a very great and noble task, which, by its very difficulty, may stimulate him to exertion. There is no power of his mind whi(;h may not find an adequate employment in OF THE BIBLE. 89 those great studies to wliicli the exigencies of the Church seem to summon him. It would be ruinous to put off accus- toming ourselves to these investigations till the necessity becomes urgent — to neglect to train our troops till the enemy is at om* gates. Many years must be given to the diligent study of the language and history of the Bible, if we would be ready to defend it when infidelity assails. And even independently of the heavenly nature of the subjects with which we are brought into familiar intercourse, and the promise of God's Spirit, which gives our whole occu- pation an ennobling character, there is no study in which all our powers of memory, judgment, reasoning, imagination, may better find an adequate field for their activity than this criticism of the Holy books. II. But it is full time to tiu'n now to our second question ; Useful as these studies may be, can we really pass through them unhurt ? The answer has already necessarily been in part anticipated. God cannot have made it the imperative duty of His servants to enter on any coiu-se of study, without being ready to shield us, while engaged in it, by His Almighty power. Moreover, we must not too greatly magnify the dangers that beset the critical study of the Bible. Whatever anxiety we may justly feel as we enter on it, we must not forget that dangers, the same in kind, beset the whole field of theological mquiry. If Theology be that science in which man clothes in human language, and classifies under human divisions, what Ilevelation suggests to him of God, there must always be danger for the student, lest he lay a rash human hand on the Divine Ark, and tread with soiled feet 90 CRITICAL STUDY upon the holy ground. Whenever the divine and the human are thus brought into close proximity, it requires no small degree of faithful reverence to enable us, while we probe and examine and test, still to worship with humble adoration whatever is shown to be divine. No man who regards tlie welfare of his soul will dare to enter on theological studies at all without anxiety and prayer — whether his duty call him to the difficult and dangerous task of examining creeds and articles, and, while he traces their history and construction, thus separating between the formal human expression and the divine spiritual essence which it encases; or whether, ascending the long stream of the Church's history, he is called to point out, in examining its teaching, the almost imperceptible line which, in early times, before they had joined in one discolom-ed flood, separated the pure living- waters of life near their source from the foul streams of false doctrine which were continually flowing in and striving to adulterate them. In fact, throughout the whole of Theology there are difficulties similar in kind to that which must have often shaken the faith of the Apostles and of the Virgin Mother, when called to recognise the Eternal Word, the Creator of the world, in Him, whom in his humble fleshly nature they bad so often seen and heard and handled in the intimate familiarity of daily life. This is the very difficulty which has made some inquisitive travellers return infidels from the holy countries — men who have come, from their very fami- liarity, to deem it impossible that God Almighty could ever have spoken in accents of thunder on those mountain peaks, or the Eternal Son have wrouglit His divine miracles on the OF THE BIBLE. 91 borders of that lake, or in the streets of those towns, all of which are now associated in theii' minds with the common- place details of their ordinary travel. In fact, similar dangers pervade our whole life. It is well for us to remark, that the danger of error is not entirely on one side. There is in all the world that strange blending of the divine and human which makes it very difficult for us, thus brought into contact with the two united, to escape the danger on the one hand of superstition, on the other of irreverence. It requires a strong mind and a strong faith to steer between the two. While this man regards the holy countries with the indifference of scepticism — refusing to believe, because of the commonness of their appearance, that heavenly works were ever WTOught in them — another is undertaking a laborious pilgrimage, and paying to their mere soil and locahty that reverence which is due only to Him whose presence once ennobled them. It is in the same spirit that, while some degrade the sacred volume to the level of a profane classic by their irreverent criticism, others would superstitiously warn us not to study it with any real accm'acy, as a thing too sacred to be touched by human learning. Now, without doubt, it is in all cases very difficult for men, in a reverential aud yet intelligent spirit, to examine minutely any compound of the divine and the human ele- ments, and to pay to each its due regard ; but the duty of thus distinguishing is so continually imposed on us in life, that, as has been said already, we may safely trust our Heavenly Master, if we are humble, to keep us right. Look, for example, to God's providential judgments. We need scarcely be reminded of the difficulty of distinguishing 02 CRITICAL STUDY between the influence of human second causes, and that controlling power which proceeds direct from Him. Nom^j in tliis particular instance, to neglect either the -divine or the human element is to run at once into serious error. If we neglect man's part, we seem to be fatalists : if God's, we are practically atheists ; but there is no reason for neglecting either. And so is it also in all our critical study of the Bible. As a frail body and an immortal soul are united in every human being — as the body is allowed to affect and operate upon the soul— as Christian doctrine does not make a sharp distinction between the two elements of body and soul in man, but teaches us to allow each its due scope in fulfilling the object of our compound being, since we know that the Lord Jesus has glorified even that element which is inferior and vile — so in God's word the two elements of the divine spirit, and the human form or expression, are united indissolubly : yet are they not to be confounded, or to be treated both alike. And there is no reason, because we treat the inferior element with that freedom with which God has willed it to be treated, on the very ground that it is inferior — there is no reason for our thereby losing om- reverence for that element which is Divine. We return, in fact, in conclusion, to the point from which we set out. Let us remember, when we begin the critical study of the Bible, that God Himself has been believed by all the best and wisest of men to be in the highest and truest sense its autbor ; that He is asserted, as our text reminds us, to have caused it to be written fur the most imjjortant of all objects : viz., that men may believe that " Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing they may have life through His name :" let us accompany our study with earnest OF THE BIBLE. - 93 prayer for guidance, knowing that we are engaged in a serious task where there are many perils, and the Lord Jesus will Himself lead ns on in safety. If we study critically in this frame of mind, we sliall never forget to adore the Holy Spirit their guide, while we trace the character and style of St. Matthew or St. Paul as modified according to God's pur- pose by the temporal circumstances in which He placed them. We shall be as little likely to admire the poetry without bowing to the inspiration of the Prophets, or to over- look the wisdom of Almighty God while we think of Moses's Egj^tian learning, as we shall be to forget that there is a hand which can du-ect the thunderbolt at will, because we have learned something of electricity, or to deny the divine creation of the world, if geology could teach us to mark the stages of its formation; or to deride the truth that ungodly nations are visited by God's vengeance, because we can trace the gradual progress of their commercial or military decay. In fact, all studies, and the critical study of the Bible, like all others, while they are a savour of death unto death to those who hurry into them in wanton self-confidence of shallowness and pride, may most surely be used to God's glory by those who enter on them thoughtfully with a faithful and praying heart. And both we who teach and those who are taught, and those amongst us, above all, who hve tlie life of speculative students, will do well to remember how solemn a trust the Lord Jesus Christ has committed to us in giving us our acuteness, or our leisiu-e, or our knowledge, to be employed in the study of His Word. 94 THEOLOGY, DISCOURSE V. Theology, both Old and New. 2 Timothy ili. 14-15. " But continue tliouin the things which thon hast leavnecl, a,nvell-attested historical facts. Where miracles are wanting, there we have no proof of inspii-ation, and without inspiration it is impious to add to God's word. The principle is the same applied to the whole word, which St. John laid down with reference to his prophecy and Moses to his law : " If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that * For the way in which such faueied analogies have been employed, see Mr. Newman's ' Essay on Developments.' In pages 108-110, the gradual develop- ment of Christian doctrine, in the successive ages of the Cliureh, is inferred from the case of Uod liavhig first conunissioued Closes to demand of Pharaoh tiiat the people might go three days' journey into the wilderness to sacrifice, and afterwards sanctioned his extending (developing) the claim into a demand to o-o with the children, and flocks, and herds, a claim which finally developed itself into a complete departure from the country, never to return. The same theological principle is inferred from the children of Israel having at first undertaken to leave Sihon in possession of the country east of Jordan ; and aftenvards, on Sihou's refusal to let tliem pass, having " developed " this original ofler into a eoncpiest of his territory. Could the author be writing seriously when he advanced these analogies? What can those who vene- rate Butler say of such a parody of his argument 'i 1.04 THEOLOGY, are written in this book."* "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you." t " What thing soever I command, observe to do it, thou shalt not add thereto." | Or, as Solomon says more generally : " Every word of God is pure ; add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar." § The principle is still the same : None may add to God's word but those whom He has directly commissioned and inspired ; and we dare not allow that any are endowed with this authority, unless, like St. Paul, they can point to the signs of their apostleship. It is absolutely necessary for any sound system of theology, that a marked distinction be drawn between revealed truths and all which does not proceed thus directly and immediately from God. || For it is, as oj^posed to the old truths revealed, that all novelty must be error : where God on the contrary is silent, there He has not intended to prohibit man from seeking out the truth for himself. Men may differ in their judgments of what this directly revealed truth is. To some it may appear, and truly, that the Gospel is very simple ; that it is all to be summed up in an enumeration of those few first principles, which are written in the Bible as with a sunbeam, of the truth of which, almost all exjoerience shows, that every really humble and praying student will be con- vinced by God's Holy Spirit from an earnest attention to the meaning of the sacred books. Others may have so accustomed themselves to refine away the plain meaning of * Kev. xxii. 18. t Deut. iv. 2. X Deut. xii. 32. § Proverbs xxx. 5, G. II Thus the whole force of Mr. Newuiiui's Essay hiy in a studious endeavour to keep this distinction out of siglit. I believe that the book could have no weight witli any except those whose ideas on the nature of revelation were confused, on the one hand by rationalistic, or on the other by Komanizing, teaching. BOTH OLD AND NEW. 105 the sacred text, sitting down to the study of it more with the captious spirit of critics, than as anxious humbly to be taught, that they may miss its heavenly meaning, and reduce it to a mere repetition, from on high, of truths already acknowledged by uninspired philosophy. Others again, and those perhaps good and holy men, never turning to the word of life with full desire to ascertain its true meaning, but looking at it always through the medium of some human gloss, to which they have been accustomed from their childhood, may think that it contains and proves many things which God never intended should be found in it. All these, each to his own blaster, at the Day of Judgment, must stand or fall. Thus varying in our estimates of what the primal revealed truth is, we may not too strongly blame, though we may strongly differ from each other. But this we are entitled and bound to require of all, who, either in theory or practice, would put forth a system of theolog}'', that they treat nothing as a part of the Eternal Gospel, which they arc not prepared, in life and in death, to maintain to be dis- tinctly revealed from God. Otherwise they really degrade the majesty of divine truth, while they profess to elevate it. Every one knows that to see something miraculous in all the ordinary processes of nature, is much the same as to hold that there is no such thing as a miracle : and so also, to class all truths relating to rehgiou as inspii'ed is much the same as to affirm that there is no such thing as inspiration. He who would avoid a universal superstition, which is merely, after all, another name for a imiversal scepticism, must di-aw a marked distinction between statements which ho holds to come directly from God's revelation, and those which he admits to be only human opinions, however true and 106 THEOLOGY, admirable ; as lie must also distinguish between institutions believed to be directly ordained of God, and those which have sprung up and been developed merely by the sanction of His superintending providence, however useful and highly to be esteemed. Now tlie revealed truths of the Gospel, as opposed to which all novelty must be falsehood, are either themselves the great principles or major premises, by the application of which the Christian's conduct is to be regulated, or they are facts of God's nature and man's, by which such principles arc proved. And God's almighty wisdom has taken care that, with all their simplicity, these are abundantly sufficient for the regulation of our lives. Every truth then, be it principle or fact, w^hich thus stands forth in the word of revelation, or, again, which may be inferred by strict and accurate logical sequence from a candid and enlarged comparison of all the Bible's statements, may fairly bo considered an integral part of the eternal Gospel. These are the old truths, in the belief of which, Timothy is warned to continue steadfast ; which are capable, indeed, of a thousand varying applications under varying circum- stances, but which themselves ever remain certain and immutable ; to fall back upon our convictions of which is the great safeguard against novelty and error. With these, man's learning and ingenuity cannot, without danger, tamper. It will be wise for liim to find some other field, on which directly to exercise his imagination or acuteness. But indirectly, even these aftbrd wide scope for the application of human learning and genius; for there is a perpetual fund of never-failing interest in tracing their various combinations when applied to human conduct, and BOTH OLD AND NEW. 107 the modes in which they find admittance, and take up their abode as living principles, by the Holy Spirit's assist- ance, within the thousand different hearts of men. Such secondary speculations on these subjects are, of course, no part of the primal Gospel truth, though so nearly occupied with its principles. But, moreover, beyond the range of such truths altogether, there are many subjects of great interest for man, on which God has not thought fit supernaturally to instruct him ; and these subjects, on which we have no revelation, are often so intimately connected \vitli other points revealed, that passages occur in the Bible which may fairly be regarded as giving us slight hints to guide us in our thoughts of them, though it would be quite rash and illogical to say that on these obscm'e hints alone any certain conclusions can be built. Take, for example, the intermediate state of the soul between death and judgment. Doubtless, 1 Pet. iii. 19, and Eev. vi. 9, 10, 11, giYO some slight hints as to this state ; but anything built on these hints must be merely human. Or, take again the particular mode in which the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is made available for the purifying of the soul. God has told us that the ftiithful soul communicating must receive a spiritual blessing ; but as to the particular mode of blessing- He is silent. Now, on this point, wliich Hooker* seems wisely to regard as, after all, one more of metaphysics than of religion, it has been thought that light may be gained from the few hints which the Bible contains as to the nature of Christ's glorified body ; but any theory built on these is human merely. * Eccl. Pol., book V. ch. Ixviii. 108 THEOLOGY, Such matters as these are the great field of Eome's errors. Her teachers have taken (e. g.) that human theory on these two subjects which suits their own purposes ; and, pointing to obscure hints in the Bible, as the foimdations of their baseless superstructure, have attempted to force us to admire it as an integral portion of Christ's truth. But the error of the Komish Church in all this has lain, not in allowing theories to be constructed, but first, in constructing false theories, contradictory to other immutable principles of the Divine Word ; and secondly, in claiming for these theories, M'hich are false, an honour which would not have been due to them if true. On matters not forming j)art of revelation, men may speculate if they please in an humble spirit ; but they can have no right to confound their own fallible opinions with God's unchanging truth. Here then, as in the particular application of the general principles revealed, is a wide field for men's thoughts to exercise themselves with humility and reverence ; not, per- haps, on such dark and subtle questions as we have now alluded to, but on those various other points where philosophy may well approach and illustrate the subject of religion : still the oj)inions or conclusions of human philosophy, however true, are not to be confounded with the Eternal Gospel which God alone reveals. We may see then, I think, from these distinctions what the field is on which the Aj)ostle will admit of no novelty. The Gospel is the same Gospel now, neither more nor less perfect than it was when St. John died ; and it is in the im- mutable truths which the holy record of Apostolic teaching sets before us, that the text calls upon us to see that we remain steadfast. It is by testing all our human specula- BOTH OLD AND NEW. 109 tions by these, that both churches and individual Christians learn to separate the cliaff from the wheat, regarding all human teaching as part of tlie deceit against which St. Paul is warning us, if it shall be found by the humble inquirer, either in theory, or when carried out and developed in prac- tice, to militate against these. And now it will be seen also that the theological student need have no apprehensions lest, when thus summoned to follow the old beaten path, he must find his journey dull and devoid of all new incident, and giving no opportunity for the employment of his energies. To study God's word devotion- ally by tlie Holy Spirit's help, and meditate on the truths of religion for the dii'cct benefit of om* souls, is the highest employment of the highest element in man ; but it is well, especially in such a place as this, that we should understand that in the province of theology the humble student will find full exercise also for the energies of his intellect. It remains, then, to say a few words which may serve to suggest, with greater distinctness, how inexhaustibly rich is that field of study which still lies open to us. Of course, within narrow limits, nothing but a very vague sketch can be here attempted. Yet may even this, by God's blessing, be serviceable to the young, if, causing them to reflect on the great duty which the Lord Jesus Christ has laid upon them, to use all tbeir best faculties of intellect as well as heart in his service, it shall stir up the zeal of any, more actively to use the many blessings provided in this much favoured place. * And here remark in passing, that this wide range of study goes far beyond the province of the mere professional theo- logian. Theology, in its highest sense, must be the noblest 110 THEOLOGY, study for man as man, since it leads him to the contemplation and fuller knowledge of the Divine nature in its creating, sustaining, redeeming, and sanctifying powers ; penetrates also into the deep secrets of the human heart ; and is, besides, indissolubly connected with both the outward and inward history of those great Societies, which, being the selected depositaries of heavenly truth, have, both in their faithful- ness to this great trust, and their neglect of it, so deeply affected the destinies of our race. It is, in fact, the most distinguisliing characteristic of the system of this University, that it considers* theology not merely as the professional study of the clergy, but, closely connected, as it is, with the only true philosophy, as the great master-science, standing to us in the same relation in which their philosophy stood to the Greeks — apart from which there may, indeed, be a disjointed communication of knowledge on particular subjects, but no education of the whole man. And those who would have our system in this respect altered, scarcely appreciate the true nature of the divine science they are speaking of, or seriously contem- plate the fact, that, in all ages, its truths have been the great motives which have swayed men, and thus hastened or retarded the rise and fall of nations. When they would confine theological instruction to the clergy, these persons must be dreaming of some useless commonplace book filled with the names of forgotten heresies and the tech- nical jargon of the schools, and can have no thought of the true divine philosophy : for those who know most of the nature and the workings of God and of man, with power to use this knowledge, must ever be the real guides of a nation's thought, and must. therefore give its chief direc- BOTH 0LT3 AND NEW. Ill tion both to a nation's will, and to the events that spring from it. Such men do really control that flood which the mere politician can never stem, but wliich he deems it his highest wisdom to moderate, while he clears the obstacles that oppose its course. Wlio doubts that it is, not indeed the clergy, but, in Coleridge's phrase, the cleresy — by which, I suppose, he means the great body of those especially who know most of the science of human nature and have the power to wield it — that must ever be the real controllers of their fellow-men ? It was their exclusive possession even of a very imperfect form of this science, wliich, in the more barbarous ages, chiefly gave to the clergy a power such as no physical force of kings or conquerors could control. The world seeks to train men to such knowledge on false and ungodly principles. To raise them to a pm'e and holy form of it, and thus endow them with a practical wisdom which the world's philosophy vainly strives to imitate, and before which it falls powerless, is the grand object of divine philosophy, that is theology, in its fullest and truest sense. It cannot be of such a science as this that the objectors are speaking, or they would never wish to shut up the most powerful of all kinds of knowledge within the circle of a priestly caste. Yet such is the real natm-e of that theology, to which, however we may fail miserably in practice, the whole theory of our education calls upon us to guide the young. Such knowledge has obviously its deep interest for men of every class. It is not unusual to consider theology as divided into speculative and practical- — the one the province of the student, the other that of the professional pastor, or of every one who exerts himself in any pastoral relation amongst his 112 THEOLOGY, fellow-men. Great exception may justly be taken against such a division, which seems at first sight to imply that it is possible for a man to form right opinions on religion without a zealous practice of them, or to practise its precepts to any real efficient piu'pose in guiding others, without some system as his ride. It must, of course, be granted, that a holy life is the great indispensable requisite for the formation by the Holy Spirit's help of correct views of divine truth ; and that, as all theories of religion formed in solitude must be tested by their applicability in the market-place, so, on the other hand, he who is perpetually occupied in instructing his fellows pubhcly in the resorts of men, must every day strive to gain guidance and new life by retiring within himself, not for devotion only, but for study. The division, therefore, is not one which it is safe to encourage too much in actual practice. It may, however, be suitable enough for assisting us to understand, with logical precision, the various subdivi- sions of our great science. Each branch of theological study must be subdivided according as we propose to view it on its speculative or its practical side. " What," says South,* " is divinity but a doctrine treating of the nature, attributes, and works of the great God, as He stands related to rational creatures ; and the way how rational creatures may serve, worship, and enjoy Him ? And if so, is not the subject-matter of it the greatest, and the design and business of it the noblest, in the world ? It has been disputed," he continues, " to which of the intellectual habits mentioned by Aristotle it most properly belongs, some referring it to wisdom, some to science, some to prudence, * Sennons, vol. iii. p. 31. Oxford, Svo., 1823. BOTH OLD AND NEW. 113 and some compounding it of several of them together ; but those seem to speak most to the purpose, who will not have it formally any one of them, but virtually, and in an eminent transcendent manner, all. And now can we think," he says, " that a doctrine of that depth, that height, and that vast compass, grasping within it aU the perfections and dimensions of human science, does not worthily claim all the prepara- tions whereby the wit and industry of man can fit him for it ? All other sciences are accounted but handmaids to divinity." And this, I think, will be allowed to be no over-charged picture drawn by the professed theologian enamoured of his own jjursuit, if we regard the science in all the breadth and fulness to which it swells when regarded as the enlightener and guide of human nature. Its sphere of study must be boundless, as its practical duties are inexhaustible. In order to see the great extent of its range we might dwell first on the way in which this divine science may be used to hallow those branches of learning which are merely prepara- tory and subsidiary to it. God has wiUed {e. g.) that the study of languages shall be necessary as the first step to enable us to feel any confidence in our attempts to understand the docu- ments on which it is all built. And here in sacred philology is more than enough to occupy the labours of the longest and most energetic hfe. And when the way has been thus cleared, and we can understand the meaning of the words which are to be the ground of our foundation, think stiU how all the other preparatory studies of a liberal education seem each to fall into its own place as indispensable, before we can either ourselves add to the superstructure or even learn to appreciate or comprehend the labours of om* predecessors. To confine ourselves still to the foundation — take any one I 114 THEOLOGY, portion of the Bible, even after the ordinary difiSculties of its language have been surmounted, who shall be able without such instruction to approach to a solution of its many critical questions, to form to himself a vivid conception of its his- torical and biographical sketches, or descend into its deep mines of philosophic thought? Nor, when we leave the mere foundation, can we have any difficulty in seeing how, as we go further, our ordinary human learning must, by the blessing of Christ's Spirit, aid us in a science which, above all others, requires acute and practised powers of reasoning to detect fallacies, imagination and poetic feeling to soar to its empyrean heights, and practical sound sense and an acquaint- ance with the facts of history, to enable us to test its lofty theories by their effects on the lives of men. As all human learning does to the faithful Christian's ear, even in his earliest studies, echo the voice divine, so will the remembrance of it enable him the better to understand these heavenly accents when he is giving himself up entirely to dwell upon their somid. The very faults and ignorance of his heathen teachers (noble even in their fallen state) help him the better to appreciate that truth which they were vainly feeling after. Who sees not a heaven-tauglit Plato in the holy John ; a Stoic not of this earth in the enduring Paul ; who ever allows himself to speculate on the state of the souls in prison without thinking how poet and philosopher of the old times has wandered over the same ground before him ; and who can read the ninth cliapter of the Komans without rejoicing that his own soul's eternal destiny depends on the resolves of his beneficent Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ, not on the iron laws of a remorseless fate which sways even God and all the universe ; or who BOTH OLD AND NEW. 115 reads the account of the wretched state of the lost heathen world in the first chapter of the same Epistle, without revert- ing in thought to the poet or the historian who tells us of the rock of Capri and the miserable old man who made it infamous by his lusts? Here are one or two out of innumer- able instances of the intimate connection of our common pre- paratory studies with things divine. 4gain, when the theologian enters more directly on the distinctly practical portion of his labours, what writer of biography, what sweet singer in our own or any other tongue, who has laid open the secrets of the human heart and gained an undying fame because his descriptions are true to nature, can be useless to him whose pastoral office it is to under- stand man's wants and the mode of their supply, to listen to the murmurs of the craving human soul, and give the food which God in Christ has ordained should satisfy it ? What grave disquisition on the theory of the passions, or historical exemplification of the mode in which they work, can be useless to him who, while he treats of God and things divine, thinks of these ever in their relation to man, and cannot fully understand them unless he has mastered the science of man ? It would be vain to attempt to enter here on another field — the way in which the skilful pastor, bent on his Master's service, will endeavour to make his human learning the source from which he draws an innocent relaxation for bis people, that by Christ's help he may thus wean them from low pursuits, using the lecture-room or school-house, as the week-day assistant to his labours in the Chm'ch. It would be vain also to attempt to do more than hint that our Lord's own example throughout the whole Gospels, as well I 2 116 THEOLOGY, as distinctly in the ISth chapter of St. Matthew, shows how we mnst avail ourselves, in teaching, of all human helps to give ijiterest to the new forms in wliich we set forth old truths. Passing by all these, remember, in conclusion, that theo- logy has departments of study distinctly and peculiarly its own, which are almost boundless. These it would be useless now to attempt even to enumerate. Observe only, that so little are we in the habit of realising this thought, and so much ground of theological study remains still untouched amongst us, with all our vaunted lore, that the very names of many of these cannot easily be expressed in om- tongue. Where amongst us, e.g., is to be found the systematic history of opinions in the Church, marking their development and corruption, and the various causes in history or philosophy that have called them forth at first into prominence, or caused them to be abused ? And without such works how shall we expect to train the polemic to resist error, the most profitless certainly of theologians, but still indispensable in his sphere, so long as the revolving wheel, and the recurrence of the same causes, are sure to bring back old errors, though masked under new names ? Or, to take one more example. We are a great mis- sionary comitry, and profess to be anxious, under God's blessing, at this time to provide more distinctly systematic instruction for the missionaries we would train. But how is the missionary to be well armed to go forth in his Redeemer's service, to combat with the many subtle forms of error which, in the great empires of the East, e.g., are supported by the reverence and accumulated learnings of himdrcds of years, BOTH OLD AND NEW. 117 if be has not studied the histoiy and doctrines of false reli- gions as well as of the true, seen the relations in which these doctrines stand to Christianity, and learned to know at once their weakness and their strength ? Indeed the field is boundless. The student ought to be under no temptation to think that he must stray into dangerous novelties in search of subjects which are to interest him. The danger is not the poverty of our science, but lest w^e be blinded and confused and unable to make any choice amid the superabundance of its riclies. It is necessary to warn each one who would make real progress in theology, that he must select his sj)here and labour in it zealously. It only remains to call to mind last of all, what danger there is when we thus speak of the science of religion, lest, however much we strive to avoid it, we may fall into the great sin of regarding the whole too much as a matter of speculation and intellect. Yet " God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise ; " * and many an uninstructed peasant, by the blessing of Divine grace, has a far deeper and tnier knowledge of God, and Christ, and thmgs divine, and liis own soul, than the most learned and acute theologian. Let us then all receive this solemn lesson : that, above all his other labours and exertions, there is a great work laid on the student, from the fact that no man can be a truly great theologian who is not, by the Holy Spirit's aid, endued with personal holiness. The principle is as true as the Gospel, that no one can understand the word of God who is not himself a child of God : hence the regulations of our colleges have wisely provided that these houses of learning * 1 Cor. i. 27. 118 THEOLOGY, shall be also houses of prayer. Here is after all the great work — to make personal progress, by the Holy Spirit's help, in the Christian life. And the holiness required must be no poor compromise between conscience and worldliness, but something which shall really resemble what it is called, the imitation of Christ crucified. This work no outward circum- stances, no failure of health, or leisure, or other means, can interrupt : a thousand things may prevent us, however willing, from making progress as students; but this work is indis- pensable for us as beings with immortal soids. NOTE.— p. 97. I heave dwelt on this point because persons often argne as if the conces- sion that St. Paul (in the words lepa ypafifiara and ndcra ypaf^rj) is here speaking of the Old Testament, would entirely destroy the applicability of this passage to be used in proof of the all-sufficiency of God's written word. It is often urged that verses 16 and 17, as thus used by Protestants, prove too much : if they prove the all-suf6ciency of Scripture at all, they will prove, it is said, the all-sufficiency of the Old Testament to the exclusion of the New. To this it is answered, that the Apostle is to be understood as saying directly, in verse 16, that even the Old Testament, properly understood, might furnish the man of God thoroughly : just as St. John says of the contents of his Gospel, that they are sufficient to secure eternal life for those who believe In them; but neither Apostle means to imply any exclusion of a future more full explanation of the word of life by other inspired teachers. What I understand St. Paul to be here insisting on is this, that the only security against error will be fox;nd by turning to inspired teachers — to the Old Testament and the inspired teaching of the Apostles of the New. It is not simply because it is written that we uphold the authoritj^ of the Scripture against tradition, but because, being wiitten, it is as a matter of fact the only existing record of inspired teaching. The true Protestant principle is the absolute necessity of tracing BOTH OLD AND NEW, 119 all tliose statements of doctrine to which we bow with implicit reverence to an inspired source, and the impossibility of so tracing any statements but those of Holy Scripture. And from this follows, as a natural inference, the all-sufficiency of Holy Scripture ; for as a matter of fact and history, God has given us no other inspired guide, and we trust His merciful and fatherly care of us not to have given us an insufficient guide. This statement of the Protestant principle will show at once how falla- cious it is to say that Protestants must go to tradition for tlieir own doctrine of the all-sufficiency of Scripture. We hold Scripture to be all- sufficient, not on the authoritative decision of any Fathers or of the whole Church, but because, as a matter of fact and history, it is known to be the only sure record of inspired teaching. ( 120 ) GOSPEL FACTS AND DOCTEINES. 1846. I AM induced to add two very short Sermons to this scries, as connected in subject with the apprehensions I have expressed, lest an insidious form of infidelity may, before we are aware of it, gain ground in this country. It is maintained by some that a marked tendency exists at present in reflecting minds to diverge into one or other of two extreme views, one of which passes necessarily into Eomanism, while the other regards all Christian doctrine as a matter of complete indifference, teaching, that, provided a man rejects the decision of an infallible guide, he may unite with those who entertain any belief, however erroneous, if only they will profess a willingness to be led by Christ's example, and to act in His spirit. A confident hope seems to be entertained in some quarters, especially, I believe, amongst persons of the Unitarian school, that, as the logical faculty is more exercised, Christendom will resolve itself into two churches, one professing to be infallible, the doctrines of which are fixed and promulgated by one irresistible authority, the other embracing all varieties of speculative opinion on Chris- tian doctrine ; in a word, including all who can '■'■ex animo repeat the Lord's Prayer," the only formula, it has been stated, to which the adhesion of Christians can rightfully be demanded. I will not stop to ask why a (so-called) Church which is to be thus comprehensive, should confine itself at last by adopting a confession of belief in dogmas concealed under the form of a prayer. I would rather most solemnly protest against the state- ment, that inquiry conducted in a reverent spirit is likely to lead to any such result. Protestantism is lightly a distinct and definite system, teaching indeed that the number of doctrines necessary to salvation is few, and that these doctrines, as living GOSPEL FACTS AND DOCTRINES. 121 principles of action, may be held by many who cannot express them accurately in words, or who may choose other words than those to which we are accustomed, in which to clothe their belief in the tniths we love, but duly upholding the majesty and para- mount importance of right Christian principles, which it con- siders as but another name for right Christian doctrines. That sort of pseudo-Protestantism which is thus erroneously held up to admiration as the only true antagonist of Eomanism, must, I believe, at last, however little its advocates may wish such a result, end in spreading what is nothing better than a very insidious form of infidelity. If it has no rallying-point but the Christian name, we must remember that that name is happily in the present day too much held in honour to allow even infidels to dispense vnth it. Men may be found who call themselves Christians, who look upon the Gospel as a mere aggregate of unauthoritative legends, and its history as only valuable when regarded as the mythical exposition of certain philosophic truths to which the mind can attain without the aid of revelation.* It would indeed be a miserable prospect if there were no alternative but an unconditional surrender of our reason to the crushing tyranny of Eome, or embarking on this shore- less sea of indifferentism. But God will defend his Church ; and the sure and positive Gospel tnith which has triumphed through so many ages will not be lost now. As it is sometimes implied, in reference to this subject, that Dr. Arnold favoured such a view of the unimportance of correct belief, I think it right to record my conviction, that had that great man been now living he would have been in many ways admirably suited to destroy this most mistaken system. Few men who ever lived have had a more ardent faith in those doctrines which he deemed essential, or have more clearly understood and illustrated how Christian doctrine, if really believed, must afiect practice. Any one who reads his sermons, or follows the record of his daily life, must see that his whole soul would have revolted from a Christianity which was to teach no positive Christian tnath. * For a clear exposition of such errors, see Trench's Notes on the Miracles, Preliminary Essay, eh. v. 122 GOSPEL FACTS. L— GOSPEL FACTS. Acts x. 39. " We are witnesses of all things wliicli he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem : whom they slew and hanged on a tree." These words call our attention to a very important charac- teristic of the teaching of the Apostles. The passage from which the words come is a short summary of Christianity, given by St. Peter to Cornelius and his company. There are others of the same kind in the sacred narrative, and they bear, in many respects, a remarkable resemblance to what we call the Apostles' Creed; giving us thereby a clear proof, that, whatever may be the real history of that Creed as a dis- tinct formulary, it is well entitled to the name Apostolic, from its being so very much a copy in substance, and some- times even in language, of these statements of the Apostles. One of the most remarkable features in which the Apostles' Creed resembles these summaries given us by inspired men, is the way in which it dwells on certain plain historical facts, and represents the belief in them to be a necessary part of Christian faith. It has been remarked, that this important peculiarity accounts for the introduction of the name of Pontius Pilate into the Apostles' Creed. We say, " Crucified under Pontius Pilate," to mark the date and locality of our Lord's crucifixion, and consequently the historical character of our faith ; to record that we are not contented with any transcendental theory of a victory over tiie powers of evil, fiOSPEL FACTS. 123 won by the Son of God in the human soul ; but that we believe in our Lord's birtli, life, death, and resurrection literally and historically as facts. The form of some of those strange mystical errors, which, springing from the meta- physical subtleties of the Eastern mind, vexed the Chm-ch in very early times, makes it probable that this historical allu- sion was introduced into the Creed for the very purpose here mentioned. Certain it is that similar errors of a mystical transcendentalism have appeared again in other coimtries in the present day, and seem not unlikely, in time, to corrupt the simplicity of the faith even in our own Church. Against all such subtle refinements of scepticism the Apostles' Creed contains a plain protest, warning us that he who does not believe historically is no Christian in the sense of St. Peter or St. Paul : nay, it would seem to be against the maintainors of such errors that St. John * is warning us, when he tells us, of him who denies that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, " that he is a deceiver and an antichrist." In fact, every student of the New Testament must come to one of two conclusions, however he may try to conceal from himself the alternative ; either that Chi-istianity is no religion at all as distinguishable from simple Deism, and that its sacred books are a mere cheat ; or that it demands an assent to a number of distinct historical statements which it con- siders the basis of all its teaching, and without which it would be nothing but a name. The plain historical character of the faith which we are required to have in our Lord's life and death and resurrection, is shown, as in a thousand other places, so also in our text. The apostle speaks as a Avitness attesting facts. " We are witnesses of all things which He * Second Epistle. Ct'. verses 7, 'J, 10. 124 GOSPEL FACTS. did, both in the land of tlie Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up and showed him openly unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and di'ink with him after he rose from the dead." Now why, it may be asked, do I insist on this in address- ing you ? * The danger amongst us surely is, not lest any of you should refine away your belief in the facts of Christianity into a mere airy subtlety, which is the most insidious form of infidelity, because it has an appearance both of philosophy and of religion in it ; but lest, while you fully aclmowledge the facts of the Gospel as history, they have no influence on your lives. Such warning, it might be urged, may be need- ful enough for men in the maturity of their education, espe- cially for men of speculative minds, but why force it upon you ? The answer is distinct. It is our business, as Christ's ministers, training the young in this place, not to look merely to those boyish errors, the temptations to which im- mediately surround you, but to endeavour, by God's help, to store your minds with thoughts which, through His Spirit, may keep you safe in the shock of the conflicts of life. Against all bad principles, whether of unsound theology or loose morality, forewarned is forearmed. One of the greatest attractions of error is generally its novelty. It will fall powerless on the man who has known how its sophistry may be detected from his boyhood. There is, however, another plain and more immediate reason why this subject should present itself to us now. The holy season on which we have this day entered is a more than usually solemn and distinct commemoration of historical * Preached at Rugby. / GOSPEL FACTS. 125 facts. When we call to mind this week * the testimony of the Apostles as to the various stages of the Lord's passion, it will be well that we should consider how tnily a belief in these fects is the basis and foundation of our faith. This demand which Christianity makes on our assent to facts of history is a very important point of distinction be- tween it and what is called the religion of natui'e. At first sight, we might be inclined to suppose, that, if certain great principles of morality and religion be admitted, the historical element of our faith must be comparatively unimportant. But all experience shows that tliis is not so, and a little reflection will convince us, that reason would itself suggest what experience thus confirms. The whole scheme of Chris- tian doctrine turns upon facts ; for the atonement which has been made for the sins of lost man by the Lord Jesus Christ, was accomplished by His birth on earth, as followed by His suffering life, death, and resurrection. He who does not believe in these, cannot be, in our sense of the word, a Chris- tian ; neither can he know those motives of deep reverence, gratitude, and love, by which Christian faith is made opera- tive. If we were to select one point as the most distinguish- ing characteristic of a truly Christian heart, it would be the feeling of a real and ardent reverential attachment to the person of our Saviour. But how can this feeling exist in the heart without an acknowledgment of the facts of His history? We must know what He has done for us. We must see in Him one wlio, first, being the Eternal Son of God, has left Heaven, and endured for us the worst sufferings of our mortal natm'O ; and secondly, who has returned to His kingdom in Heaven, Avhere He ever lives to make intercession fur us. * Preached ou Palm Suudav. 126 GOSPEL PACTS. Without the first fact, wliicli is indissolubly connected with the history of His passion, the claim upon our gratitude is lessened infinitely ; without the second, which depends on the liistory of His ascension, our gratitude must be cold, and can- not ripen into love, for we cannot recognise Him as our ever- present friend. Here, then, is enough to show us how the historical facts of Christianity differ from those of common ordinary history, in that they are the sources of the purest Christian feeling. The sparks of holy feeling and of holy living will lie dormant in the soul till these facts strike upon it, and call forth its liidden warmth and light. And he whose heart is reaUy humble and faithful will, by the help of Cod's Spirit, embrace the facts of Christianity when presented to him, for he will find in them, when really apprehended, the satis- faction of those longings of his spiritual nature which were never before able to find their proper vent. He that is of God heareth God's word; and the heart that longs for a Saviour rejoices when it finds him revealed historically in the Gospel. A Christianity, then, without the facts of Clu-istian history, is not only a system quite unknown to the Apostles and first preachers of the Gospel, but has also lost the motives by which they stirred men's hearts. Brethren, we shaU meet together in the mornings this week to have the historical facts of our Lord's passion vividly represented to us before we enter on the business of each day. For those who try to realize these truths, this week is indeed the holiest in all the year ; and we are to mark the close of it by joining in the holiest Christian ordinance. It mav well be said that this week must be a marked stage in the Christian life of every one of us. We cannot be brought GOSPEL FACTS. 127 into that intimate proximity with our Lord and His sufferings which this time with its services implies — we cannot hear the summons of this morning to prepare for the Lord's table, and the further exhortations to the same purpose, which I suppose will be addressed to each of you in your several houses this evening, without being in some marked degree either better or worse. These things, intended by God's Spirit to stir our hearts to a deeper sense of sin, and a deeper feeling of gi-atitude to Him Nvho will save us from it, must either be a savom' of life unto life, or, if neglected, of death. Would that we could all of us, as we follow the spectacle of this week, think how deeply we are ourselves concerned in its history ; thus would every smallest sin of unkindness, evil temper, indolence, self-sufficiency, or seK-indulgence, appear indeed a thing to be hated by us, when we see that it could not be atoned for without the death of Christ. 128 GOSPEL DOCTRINES. IL_GOSPEL DOCTRINES. Philippians ii. 6-8. " Who, being in the foiin of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God : " But made liimself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in tlie likeness of men : " And being found in fasliion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." This remarkable passage was read in the Epistle for last Sunday, having been evidently selected as well suited to pre- pare our minds for the solemnities of this day.* You are aware that there has been considerable con- troversy as to the interpretation of it, and especially that the translation, "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," has been objected to. I am not going now to enter on the controversy ; I shall only state my opinion, that the point in dispute is one of comparatively little moment. The rival interpretations of the words ov)(^ dpirajfjiov i^y^aaro, are that of our version, "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," and that which the Unitarian writers especially, though not exclusively, prefer, " thought it not a thing to be grasped at that he should be equal with God." These, at first sight, appear very different ; but I repeat that the point in dispute is one of little moment, for, which- ever way the words are taken, the same doctrine must be inferred from them. As to our version, there is no mis- * Preached on Good Friday. GOSPEL DOCTRINES. 129 taking its declaration of the Godhead of Christ ; " lie thought it not robbery to be equal with God :" and if we grant, for argument's sake, the propriety of the other translation, " thought it not a tiling to be grasped at that he should be equal with God," the same doctrine still follows necessarily by inference. For observe the context. The Apostle is inculcating a lesson of humility from Christ's example : but what humility could there be in a creature not grasping at equality with his Creator ? The Being therefore who taught us a lesson of humility by not grasping at an equality with God must be himself divine. The doctrine then remains unaltered, wliichsoever of the two interpretations is prefen-ed. In the first, it is clearly and directly stated : from the second, it follows by necessary inference if the passage is to have any meaning. The words remind us then, taken either way, that the Being whose death on earth we are met to com- memorate is Divine, and hence its suitableness to direct our thoughts to-day. We had occasion to observe, last Sunday, that any true belief in the doctrines of Christianity, implies a belief also in its record of historical facts. It is very important to remark that the converse is true also : that the facts of the Chi-istian history are dead and powerless unless accompanied by its doctrines. There is often great confusion on this subject. Men speak of Christian doctrines as if they were mere intel- lectual propositions, mere statements of speculative opinion, without influence upon life and conduct. Such statements have, it is true, sometimes, perhaps often, been intruded into schemes of Christian doctrine ; and the great majority of worldly men will hold even the holiest truths which ought to affect the heart in this cold intellectual way. But the true K 130 GOSPEL DOCTRINES. Christian doctrines, rightly held, are living principles of action, inseparable from our conduct, and give their whole tone and complexion to our thoughts and lives. The acutest of philosophers has analysed that process of reasoning which attends on or precedes all human conduct ; and from his analysis it may be shown that the mind is always swayed in action by the presence of a doctrine.* No man ever acts without a reason of some kind, f.e., without a motive ; that is, in other words, without a doctrine, whether it be good or bad. For by the term doctrine, we mean the systematic statement of the principles of religion, and prin- ciples of religion are principles of conduct.! To say, then, generally, that the doctrines to which a man assents are of no importance, and that his conduct may be right without doctrines, is to maintain a contradiction in terms ; for conduct is only called right because it proceeds from right motives, and right motive is merely another name for right doctrine. But, probably, no one means to deny this, however vaguely he may express himself. What objectors, urging that doc- trines are unimportant, mean, is, probably, that, though of course some doctrines (as those of natural religion) are in- fluential on conduct, those of Christianity are not such. Men, they say, may be all united in heart and sentiment, if they believe the plain outward facts of the Christian history, without troubling themselves as to its doctrines. This would be very strange : the mere dead facts without the * Aristotle Etb. N. B. VI. ch. xii. § 20. Oxford, 1828. f It is not, of course, denied tbat what is essentially the same doctrine may be expressed in more than one form of words. It is the deep importance of the essence, not of the form, that is here contended for. Thefonn lias its valne as the case which is to preserve the essence. GOSPEL DOCTRINES. 131 doctrines, cannot be principles of action : nay, tliey can have no influence on our conduct. The mistake all tlu-ough is obvious. The facts of the Gospel history, as they are themselves the sm-e means of eliciting the peculiar doctrines which our Lord revealed, in their tm-n can only be aj^preciated in their full proper siguificancy, when meditated on and viewed in all their various bearings by the light which is shed on them from the doctrines they have illustrated and proved. We have both a historical and a doctrinal Christianity, and each in truth is essential for the other ; neither can be fully under- stood or appreciated if they stand apart. Just as the New Testament would be imperfect if it did not contain both the Epistles and the doctrinal discourses of our Lord on the one hand ; and the plain liistorical narratives, the Gospels, and the Acts, on the other. Clmstianity without the basis of the historical facts of om- Lord's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, must be a mere system of Deism ; and these facts themselves would be only more strange, not more divine, than those of any ordinary history, if they did not become to every faithful mind the illustration and proof of certain great Christian doctrines, which spring forth from them to be the directors of the faithful Christian's life. Without such doctrine as that of the text, there would be little in the history of the Lord's birth more than in that of Samuel — in His death, more than in that of Jeremiah — in His resurrection, more than in that of Lazarus — in His ascension, more than in the taking up into Heaven of Enoch and Elijah. But all things that are most wonderful in the various histories of the most chosen sons of men meet in Him, and illustrate the doctrine k2 132 GOSPEL DOCTRINES. that He is the Eternal Son of God : and this doctrine pre- sents His earthly history to us, as we read and dwell upon it, in a totally different aspect. The general statement of this matter has too long delayed us from applying it to the especial subject of this day. The text sets before us that great doctrine which gives to the spec- tacle of this day its awful solemnity, and makes the events which were witnessed upon Calvary the crisis of the world's fate. Our Lord's whole life, conduct, and sayings, had been an illustration of this great doctrine of His divinity ; and, on the other hand, it is only when viewed by the light of this doctrine that His crucifixion can be appreciated as the sacri- fice for the sin of man ; while again, it is when so viewed that His crucifixion assumes its proper place as the director of om- lives. He who hung upon the cross this day was the same Eternal Being who had been employed by His Father to create the universe, and was destined to be at last the Judge of all ; and \vho, at the time when He submitted to be thus rejected by His creatures, could have swept the earth and all its inhabitants into annihilation by a word. To say nothing of the enemies who caused the Lord's death, it will be granted, I suppose, that the Jews and Eoman soldiers who stood looking on, could not understand or make a gO(jd use of the event they witnessed, for want of any right doctrinal knowledge of who or what He was : It will be granted that even the Centurion's declaration only showed a good beginning of faith, wliich wanted further knowledge to make it really operative and acceptable : It will be granted that even the Apostles and the Virgin Mother could not at all really understand the mysterious scene, and appreciate its ineffable moment for the race of men, till from the Lord's GOSPEL DOCTRINES. 133 resurrection and ascension, and the fulfilment of His promise to send the Comforter, they had learned the doctrine that He was indeed their God. It is then from the doctrine of the text that the history of this day gains its deep significancy : and thus explained, it becomes at once necessarily the turning point of the whole Christian life. It has been truly said that " the great and awful doctrine of the Cross of Christ {i.e. of His death inter- preted by the belief in His divine nature), may be fitly called the heart of religion. The heart is the seat of life — it is the princijile of motion, heat, and activity — from it the blood goes to and fro to the extreme parts of the body — it sustains the man in his powers and faculties — it enables the brain to think, and when it is touched man dies : and in Like manner the sacred doctrine of Christ's atoning sacrifice is the vital principle on which the Christian lives," and without which the Christian's faith dies.* Hence it is that from the event of this day Christianity has gained its usual name — ^the Eeligion of the Cross. The Cross has become its universal symb.oI. This day's history rightly understood, and the thoughts that spring fi'om it, search the human heart, and stir it from its depths. Brethren, let us endeavour in all our lives to show that we are influenced by it. Deep humility — a deep sense of sin — deep gratitude to the Divine Being who suffered and died as man to save us from sin — a gradually deepening love of Him, and trust in His mercy, and desire to hold commimion with Him — these are the necessary results which, by the Holy Spiiit's aid, must flow from contemplating the history of the Lord's death by the light of the doctrine of His * Newman's Sermons, vol. vi., Sermon 7. 134 GOSPEL DOCTRINES. divinity. And in conclusion, think not that any of us can become the subjects and recipients of such feelings, without showing that they have taken possession of us in our whole conduct. Young and old we all fall prostrate this day at our Saviour's cross, outwardly. If we do so in heart, we shall hate and flee from sin, and gladly seek on Easter- Morning to gain strengthening aid from the same Saviour in His ordinance, that we may rise with Him to a new life of holiness. ( 135 ) FURTHER SUGGESTIONS. 1861. I.— THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. 1 Cor. i. 21. " After that, in the wisdom of God, the world bj' wisdom knew not Gud, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." All through this jjassage St. Paul contrasts the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world. To the wisdom of the world the Gospel of Jesus Christ appears foolishness. The Apostle says (v. 17) that he had preached the Gospel in Corinth, " not Anth wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." " The preaching of the Cross," he says (v. 18), "is to them that perish foolisliness ; but imto us which are saved," he goes on, " it is the power of God." Again (v. 23), " We preach Chi-ist crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." And in the next chapter we have the same strain continued — as (v. 4), " My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spii'it and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. llowbeit wo speak wisdom 136 THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of tliis world." In illustration of St. Paul's meaning in thus writing to the Corinthians, it has been said * — " The same simplicity of teaching which was a rebuke to the superstitious cravings of the Oriental and the Jew {i.e. in St. Paul's time), was also a rebuke to the intellectual demands of the European Greek. What outward miracles were to them (the Jews), a theory, a system, a philosophy, were to their heathen neighbours. The same subtlety of discussion which had appeared already in the numerous schools into which Greek philosophy was broken, and which appeared afterwards in the theological speculations of the fourth and fifth centuries, needed not now, as in the time of Socrates, to be put down by a truer philosophy, but by something which should give them fact instead of speculation — flesli and blood instead of words and theories. Such a new starting-point was provided by the Apostle's constant representation of the simple but startling event which had taken place within their own generation in Juda3a — the crucifixion of his Master. Its outward form was familiar to them wherever tlie Eoman law had been carried out against the slaves and insurgents of the East. It was for them now to discover its inward aj^plication to themselves." There can be no doubt that in all ages since St. Paul's day the same tendency has shown itself which is here ascribed to the intellectually active Greeks. It is chiefly found amongst highly educated men of speculative minds, but is not confined to them. It shows itself in a desire to treat the Gospel rather as a system of philosophy than as a simple message * Vide Stauloy in loc, St. Paul's Epistles to the CoriiitliiaiiB. THE MINISTRY OF THE WOED. 137 respecting their souls, sent from God to the dullest and most ignorant of men as well as to the refined. A somewhat similar tendency is a stumbling-block in the way of all persons who set themselves down, as every man who has sufficient leisure and information ought, to study the Bible, not merely for the sake of having well-known Gos- pel-truths brought back into his thoughts, but that he may examine, so far as he can, the scope, argument, and history of each particular book. As a case in point, consider how those who give or receive what is called, often very inappropriately, religious instruction in our schools will always be in danger of fixing their attention on matters of mere intellectual know- ledge connected with religious truth, rather than on those life- giving truths themselves which constitute Christ's Gospel. Let all who study such matters for themselves, and all who teach or learn them in our schools, be ready at once to face this difficulty. To go through the history of the Jewish kings, or even of the prophets and the patriarchs, is no more in itself a religious exercise than to learn the history of England. To trace the ancient geography of the Holy Land and the journeys of St. Paul has in itself nothing more to do with religion than to trace the same geography in modern times or follow the wanderings of the Crusaders. So also to read the riddle of a very difficult prophecy, or clearly un- fold one of St. Paul's intricate arguments in the Epistles, is very often nothing more than a purely intellectual effort. All these things ought to be done so far as we can do them ; but they must be sanctified by a devotional spirit before they can be of any real benefit to our souls or have a claim to be looked upon as having any direct connexion with religion. Let all of us, in reading the Bible thus intellectually in our 138 THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. own private reading, and in teaching our own cliildren, or in our Sunday Schools, be very careful to remember that intel- lectual knowledge about religious truth will be of no benefit unless the real religious truth itself, by the help of the Holy Spirit, takes possession of our hearts. When we consider what a variety of styles of writing there is in the many books which make up the one volume which we call the book, the Bible — how difficult to explain are many passages in all these books — so difficult that the longest life of the ablest and most learned Divine will certainly not suf- fice to solve one-haK of the questions they raise — we are some- times apt to forget for a moment how it is that this book is capable of being used as the manual of religious instruction for the poorest and most ignorant of mankind. Nay, Avhat says St. Paul in the 26th and 27th verses of the chapter before us? "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." How is this, if the books which teach the Gospel have so much in them that is hard ? Now, there is more than one answer to this question, and all the answers are worthy of attention. First — looking upon these books merely as on any common human books, what is it that gives them, even in this light, their great value ? Amongst mere human books, what is the chief characteristic of those which are in every man's hands, which have lasted for centuries, and been esteemed as full of wisdom by men of many generations and many countries ? As a general rule, their great attraction is not to be fomid in those passages which are very difficult, nor usually in any lengthened and intricate arguments they may contain, but in THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. 139 such separate maxims of wisdom, or well-expressed annomice- ments of true common feeling, as are from their very form easUy apprehended by all readers, and approve themselves at once to the heart. How better wiU you test what are the books in any language which have taken the highest place in its literature, than by observing what are those which have furnished the greatest number of obvious quotations to be applied in the common intercourse of life ? It is the books which have the greatest number of passages understood and felt by all men that stand the highest in a nation's lite- rature ; those which, from the simple wisdom or true feeling which perv'^ades them, have become famihar as household words. Now, any one who had not before considered this point would, I think, be struck if he turned to observe the way in which expressions taken from Holy Scripture have become mixed up with our whole language. Even tried by this test, by which we try mere human writings, no books would seem to aj)prove themselves so much as the various books of Holy Scripture to the common feeling of men, or to be so rich in short passages owned by all to be gems of wisdom. Men in all ages and under all changes, whatever their station or degree of learning, have found something that spoke to their hearts and approved itself to their best thoughts almost in every psalm of David, or chapter of Isaiah, St. John, or St. Paul. Otherwise, the words of the sacred writers would not be so continually in their mouths, even when they are little thinking of their full meaning. Tested in this way, the true value of these books is found to lie, not in anything connected with disquisitions as to their history or the meaning of their obscure passages, but in sim- ple words and short phrases, or plain histories, which bring 140 THE MINISTRY OF THE WOED. thoughts of God and Christ and his Gospel home to the heart of the least instructed of mankind. All this, we say, holds good if we look at Holy Scripture simply as we should look at any other book. Our Lord's, and the Apostles', and the Prophets' short proverbial sayings as to God and man, the simple records of the lives and deaths of God's saints in Old Testament and New, the parables which the youngest children love as setting heavenly truth clearly before them in a picture, the bright glimpses of good things in store for the faithful in Christ's presence in a better world — all these, if they were found even in mere human writings, would be easily understood and in their form very attractive 'even to the least instructive minds. But, secondly, there is most obviously a great difference in this respect between Scripture and other books. The teaching of the Scripture requires to be spiritually discerned. God the Holy Ghost has to apply its lessons to the soul and con- science, and, if they are so applied, the great end for which the Scriptui-e was written is accomplished. Certainly many a humble soul of the unlearned thus feeds, as it were, on short passages of Scripture, thanking God for the gracious thoughts they bring, as he receives them with a prayer that they may be blessed. You will scarcely find any poor peasant who can tell you the distinct bearing of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans regarded as a treatise involving many arguments ; but who knows not that the deep views this Epistle gives of our utterly lost condition without Christ, of our blessed hopes secured through Him, are, as it were, the veiy life-blood and breath to many souls of the least in- structed and most ignorant ? We ought to call to mind con- tinually how these sacred books speak by the Holy Spirit's THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. 141 aid to the heart and conscience, even through their dis- jointed texts. Moreover, thirdly, it ought to be remembered that the words of the Bible, as they address the Clu'istiau soul, are not, like the words of other history or other treatises, the dead record of deeds once done and words once spoken ages ago by men who have long been dead. Clu-ist is called the Word of God lor this amongst other reasons, because through Him God speaks ever to men's souls. And the words of the Bible, whatever may have been historically the con- nection or cu-cumstances in which they were first committed to writing, are words addressed to us directly by Him who is the Word of God.* Consider what a difference this makes in our reading of the Scriptures. Do we esteem it a great privilege which the Apostles enjoyed that the Lord Jesus Christ was about their homes, sharing in their joys and sorrows, and that they had continual access to his advice dm-ing the three years of their earthly intercourse with him ? If there be truth in Christ's promises, we ourselves enjoy no less a privilege. The words which we read in this book are no more the dead words of Moses, Isaiah, John, or Paul, they are no more concerned merely with what happened amongst the people of the Jews some tlu'ee or two thousand years ago, they are the medium through which our Eedeemer speaks to human souls now, quite as truly as in the days of liis flesh, convincing them of sin, teUing them of pardon, urging them to holiness. In all these thi*ee ways then, the books of the Bible are intelligible to the least instructed : First, in that the most valuable of their words are those which in themselves are * Thia is more fully illustrated in the next discourse. 142 THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. plain and full of the expression of feelings easily apprehended and lessons easily applied. Second, in that it is through such plain passages especially that the Holy Spirit leads souls to God. Tliu-dly, in that God the Son— the Word of the Father — to this day speaks through these Scriptures directly to the religious impulses of the human soul, and moves us as dii-ectly as if the words were spoken now, fresh by a human, as they are certainly by a living present, friend. It is of great importance in an intellectual age tliat we should form a right estimate of the office thus assigned to God's Word. The thought of it will fill us with more of deep reverence when we open the volume, which contains, for ignorant and learned alike, the plain words of everlasting life. And now, in conclusion, it will be well to call to mind how great a blessing it is to have messages from God thus conveyed to us. Sometimes, when men hear day after day the long and often apparently difficult lessons of the Old and New Testament read in church in the hearing of a mixed congregation, they are apt to think, even when they do not express the thought, that very many of those who hear can learn little from what is read to them. But from the obvious statement now made it follows, that this is an unwise judg- ment. The Church of England seeks to fulfil a great duty when it sets the whole of God's Word before the Christian congregation every year. Some might think it better to select short and striking passages, like the Gospels and Ejiistles chosen for the Sundays ; but there is certainly an important Protestant principle involved in the deliberate reading each year of the whole Bible in the Lessons of our Church. To-day, on the approach of Advent, we have reached the THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. 143 last Sunday in the cycle of the Cliristian year. Let us pray that the many lessons which have been brought before us so deliberately by our Church from every part of Scripture dm-ing the last twelve months may not be lost to us ; and in the new cycle on which we are entering let us ask ourselves, as to each chapter we hear in order — though there be hard pas- sages in it difficult to understand — what is the one or what arc the one or two plain lessons which it brings to us direct from God? We shall find such in every chapter, if we endeavom* in the spirit of prayer to master their lessons, which have a wonderfully direct bearing for each of us on our own state of heart and life. It is, we have said, a great blessing to have such messages sent to us direct from God. What is it that makes it so difficult for the soul, even when it knows that Christ has died for it, to rise in tliought to that place where Clu-ist sits at the right hand of God ? We need some direct intercourse with God and Christ to save our hearts from being all taken up with common worldly matters. And as in the act of prayer our hearts speak to God in Christ, so, through the ministry of the Word, God through Christ speaks to us. Thus the soul is brought into direct communication with Him, without whom it cannot live. Prayer and the ministry of the Word — these were the things to which the Apostles in their day gave themselves, as the best means of their being enabled to bring blessings on men's souls ; and through these same means now Christ, seated on his media- torial thi'one, raises us to the Father, and brings the Father down to dwell with us. May the Lord Jesus Christ grant us to profit by the ministry of the Word ! 144 THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WORD. IL— THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WORD. St. Matthew xi. 28. *' Come unto me all ye that labour aud are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." First consider ihe Speaker : " Come unto me all ye that labour, and I will give you rest." These words continue, it has been said, the thought suggested in v. 5, " To the poor the Gospel is preached." Chi-ist, the speaker, preaches glad tidings to the poor — the poor in outward cir- cumstances and the poor in spirit — and invites the weary and heavy laden to come unto Him. The words gain great addi- tional force when considered as proceeding direct from Christ. We ought to think of them as so spoken now. We are right in holding that not only historically did Christ once speak these words while He was on earth, but that they have a present as weU as a historical sense, and that He speaks them always. The words are thus repeated in His name every time the Lord's Supper is administered among us ; and every time especiaUy that it is administered by the bed of the sick or dying, the words are felt to proceed fresh and direct from Him, bidding tears to cease and the drooping heart to take courage. " Come unto me all ye that laboui- and are heavy laden, and," as the Prayer-book version gives the words, " I will refresh you." Our Lord's words in the Gospels are, of course, of two THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WORD. 145 kinds, or may be regarded in two aspects, either as having been spoken once for all historically, or as fresh and living, and as it were repeated by Him day by day in aU ages. It is this latter view of Clu-ist's words which gives them their sur- passing power. The Gospels are no mere record of things past, but give forth an ever-fresh stream of inspu-ed truth, quickening men's souls in all ages. In sonie few instances it may be that the record of our Lord's words is but the record of the past, telling us merely what He said to men of His own time, with a reference which is restricted to them and their circumstances. But usually He speaks to them as the representatives of all ages. Often, even when His words seem simplest and most special in their application, they have also a deeper spiritual meaning, by which they address all men. Take the words of the fifth verse, already quoted, " To the poor the Gospel is preached." At first they may seem but the statement of an evidence addressed to the disciples of the Baptist, showing the fulfilment of Old Testa- ment prophecy at that time in Christ's preaching literally to the poor. More closely viewed, they are immediately found to express a characteristic of the Gospel at all times; and further still, they are found to be a very powerful ever-present source of comfort to the poor, since He who at first thus preached has not, like human teachers, done His work in His generation and passed away, but ever lives, not in the system only which He established, but lives really and personally now, as in the days of His flesh, the friend of the poor, bringing glad tidings to their souls. The record in history or biography of what men did or said is only valuable when their deeds and saymgs are not restricted in their application to their own day. One of the best ways L 146 THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WOED. to test whether any writer is a real genius — not a sayer merely of clever things to serve an immediate end in his own generation — is to consider what sentences he has uttered wliich have become household words, and are as true and fresh now as when he first uttered them. Thus it is, e. g., that a great poet is the ever-fresh oracle of nature — ^his words, poured forth at first at random, seem really to have been spoken under the guidance of some higher power : centuries pass and all outward circumstances change, but men still turn to the record of his lightest words, for he seems by an almost superhuman instinct to have caught and embodied those natural feelings which know no change while the world lasts. In the true poet men find an imperishable store of world-wide feelings — in the true philosopher, of eternal truths. But it would be derogatory to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospel, to dwell only on this cha- racteristic which is common to them with other words — a characteristic which they possess most pre-eminently indeed in degree, but still somewhat similarly in kind, with the words of great human teachers. Christ's words are indeed the very truth itself, while the words of great uninspired men are but wonderful guesses at it. But this is not all. Eatlier note how Christ's words are everlasting in their application, not because they are so very true, but, still further, because He himself lives ever and applies them ever fresh to His people, while all human teachers, whose words have come down to us, having served their generation, fall asleep and become powerless. Christ lives ever, and speaks now, as really by His Holy Spirit acting through His Word, as He did in the days of His flesh. It is this we have said which gives to the words of our text their great force. They are no record of a THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WORD. 147 thing past in itself, however great and undying in its conse- quences — they are no mere statement of a general principle, however eternally true. They are to all who hear them in faith still, as in the days when they were first uttered, the kind words of an ever-living, ever-watchful friend. " Come unto me all ye that labom- and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." . Now, though it be pre-emmently the words of oui- Lord Jesus Christ which have so obviously this undying force as the personal appeal of a hving speaker to His people in aU ages, because Christ, who once spoke the words on earth, lives stOl and dies never, and repeats them daily as it were from heaven — giving them by His Holy Spirit an ever- quickening power — though this, I say, is pre-eminently true of the words of Christ, since He is the only human teacher who is divine, still the same thing is really true of all inspired words of warning or of comfort spoken even by mere human prophets. True that David and Isaiah, and the fellows of their noble company, have long smce fallen asleep, and the blessed Apostles too ; and wherever they may be living with God, the greatest saints either of the old or the new covenant have no power now to act upon men's hearts, as Christ has — no power except through the letter of the historical record of what they once spake ; but David, in his inspired moments, or Isaiah, was after all but the instru- ment through wliich He spake who lives for ever to influence His people. No other theory warrants the separation of the sacred from all mere human writings — no other entitles them to their name the Word of God. The inspired warnings and consolations both of the Old Testament and of the Acts of the Apostles, as much as those of the Gospels, are really the words L 2 148 THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WORD. of an ever-present, ever-living friend. Tlie Psalms, e. g., as we use thorn in our worship, are so used not as a mere record of what David once felt: He who inspired David brings them fresh now to His faithful people's hearts — as fresh and powerful as on the day when they were first sung. And the real Author or Kevealer of the truths they tell lives now and works upon His people, though David has been long dead. It is this thought of the living personality and ever-fresh power of the Being from whoni inspired enunciations of truth come that gives them so peculiar a character, and separates them from all mere human statements, even of the highest truth. I suppose that every thoughtful student has been struck with the great difference between the belief in God mani- fested in the Old Testament, and even the purest and highest efforts of mere human Deism. Now here both the human and the Divine systems teach the same great truth of the rule of one Universal Father, who cares for His creatures. • How is it that they teach it with such very different degrees of force ? The reason is, I think, to be found in the very point we are now insisting on, the distinct and du-ect personal appeals of the Great Being Himself, thi-ough the words of inspired teachers ; while the best and truest statements of the mere human teacher seem never to rise above the asser- tion of his own probable conclusions as to a Being who is afar off and shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The dif- ference is in fact as great as, or greater than, that in the book of Job — between, on the one hand, the wandering reasonings of the patriarch and his friends on a question obviously too deep for them, and, on the other, the awful and distinct decision of God Himself, when He speaks to them THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WORD. 149 manifested in the whirlwind : and the distinct personal form of these appeals of God, through the inspired writers, as made at first, assures the mind of the reader that God, their author, does not make them once for all, and then keep silence, but that He is as powerful to give them life and power now as He was when He first uttered them, and is, in fact, through His Spirit operating by His Word, perpetually- reiterating them. Thus the Old Testament speaks to all ages of the being and attributes of the Universal Father with 9, force and power of direct personal appeal, such as the noblest and truest systems of human Deism cannot reach. It is not merely that the Old Testament teaches the clear doctrine of a personal God, endowed with personal qualities, the intelligent and beneficent Father and Kuler of the Uni- verse, while most human systems are indistinct from their more or less losing the thought of the personal God in dim Pantheistic visions of a Spirit of life, scarce separable, except in idea, from the universe which He animates : even where it most distinctly teaches the doctrine of one personal God — a personal Euler and Father — human philosophy wants the force and living power in its teaching which breathes through all inspired enunciations of the same truth. Let any one compare different passages taken at random which teach the same doctrine — from Plato on the one hand, and from tlie Book of Job on the other, or the Psalms. How different are the probable conjectm-es of human reason from that direct appeal of Jehovah Him self, Vhich'we find in the Old.Testament, while He manifests tln-ough the words now, as in former times, His existence and His power. No human reasonings or teaching as to the Great Father of the Universe ever came up to this. How great, in truth, is the quickening force given 150 THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE WORD. " thi'ough this name Jehovah to all Jewish faith in God! Jehovah was a father and a kmg. The patriarchs had heard His voice and spoken with Him as a man with his friend. Sinai had been moved at His presence ; He had divided the waters with His glorious arm. The Sanctuary was His dwelling-place — the Law was written with His finger. Think not that these images had aught in them which lowered the great God of heaven and earth from the pure spiritual con- ceptions which the saints form of Him. The faithful Jews knew as well as we that God was a Spirit, and these images and visible or audible manifestations of Him no more lowered their conceptions than the thoughts which faithful Christians form of God are lowered because they worship Him mani- fested in Jesus Christ. In truth, the thought of these sensible manifestations which God has given of Himself but seem to bring Him more palpably and directly near to them as a teacher and a friend ; so that, when God's Word appeals to them, they recognise in it the tones of the voice of One whom they honour and love. Thus much, then, of the Speaker in the text — the Speaker, also, of all inspired words of consolation both in the Old Tes- tament and New. He is a friend ; He is very near ; He lives and addresses us now, speaking directly and distinctly to all suffering souls, — " Come mito me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Secondly, consider the persons addressed — addressed thus directly and personally, now as in old times, by God in Christ — the weary and heavy laden — those who need rest. " All ye that labour and are heavy laden " (K07ncbvr6'ith the mind of God, that it can never fall again. This is the perfection of a free will, matured to lose itself, through grace, in the holy will of God. But it seems as if this could not be its condition in its early untested state. Thus, for tlie per- fectly happy and innocent beings in Paradise, there was, I think we may say necessarily, still a possibility of falling. This consideration as to the nature of a free will, though it cannot solve the difficulties of the case, may at least give us some useful thoughts in answer to the question, which the account of the Fall forces on us. Why did God allow man to be tempted at all ? Perhaps tliis liability to fall was of the very essence of a free will, not yet matm-ed through trial. THE FfRST TEMPTATION. 273 Moses, however, is commissioned merely to give us the fact, without explaining it, that man in his first perfect state was liable to temptation. Eemembering for what sort of persons he was writing, Moses does not attempt — he was not commis- sioned — to clear up abstruse difficulties. Now, the will of man being thus free, God chose a very simple and easily-resisted trial by wliieh to test its faithfulness and bring it onwards to maturity. It was no great and diffi- cult thing that he required of the first man and woman : the test was merely this, whether in their free will the happy pair would be contented, in a matter in itself indifferent, to obey their Father and best friend, simply because He desired them. There was no difficulty in obedience, or, if they found any difficulty, the Lord Himself — a tried and loving friend — was at hand to give them strength. Moses sets before us the natm-e of the test of obedience which God chose, in the following form : — In the midst of the early abode of man there grew two trees. The one is called the tree of life. Eemember, as we have said, in this condition of our race at the world's commencement all things were, so to speak, mu-aculous. Moses may mean that this tree of Hfe may have been a tree of wonderful healmg and sustaining powers, far beyond what the world has ever known since ; and the other tree, which grew beside it, we may suppose, was full of baleful poisonous influence. Even to this day there are many such trees in various countries very injurious to man's health. God therefore, in kindness, warned the first man and woman not to touch it. But the peculiarity of the tree, as set forth in Scripture, is not from anytliing in its own uatm*e, but from the use for which God employed it. The eating or not eating of it — a 274 THE FIRST TEMPTATION. thing in itself morally indifferent — was to be the test of man's obedience. Moses' account leads us to infer that it became wrong and a moral evil to eat of this tree simply because God said Thou shalt not. The tree of knowledge of good and evil, it is thought, received its name long afterwards, not from any properties inherent in the tree itself, but from the effects that followed fi'om the eating of its fruit. To be perfectly innocent is not to know what sin is. The knowledge of what sin is comes from the commission of sin. Man knew evil as soon as he disobeyed God ; but he could not know what it was till then. But to return. God — Moses sets before us — had pointed to this tree and said, " Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." And the innocent beings whom God had made had no desire to eat of it : they loved Him, and had no wish to do what He forbad them. A blessed state truly they enjoyed, with all bodily good things around them and God very near them, and no unruly desires, living in quiet contented obedience, and with full exercise, in their intercom-se with God, for the highest faculties of which the human soul is capable. This, and neither more nor less, is what Moses tells us of man's first state. But now a new agent comes into the scene, ch. iii. v. 1 : — " Now the serpent," Moses writes, " was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." From comparing together several passages of the New Testament,* we shall probably come to the conclusion that our Lord and his Apostles teach that imder the name and likeness of this serpent is represented the great evil spu-it, the enemy of * 2 Cor. ii. II ; 2 Cor, xi. 3, 13, 14 ; Rom. xvi. 20 ; St. John viii. 44 ; Revel, xii, 9, xx. 2. THE FIRST TEMPTATION. 275 mankind. It is remarkable certainly that Moses does not say this. He speaks simj)ly of the serpent as the tempter, without referring to any spu-itual agency. Evidently it is not his intention to refer directly to Satan. The doctrine of the evil spirit's power is not a part of the teaching which Moses was employed to reveal. And here note that perhaps in speaking merely of the serpent as the tempter, Moses more strikingly sets forth the recklessness of Eve's sin in that she was led astray by what appeared to her nothing more than one of those low animals over which God had given her dominion, by which it was shameful for her to be led. Is there not, my friends, a great moral here — both in Moses' plain account of the temptation, and in that which we gather from comparing it with other Scriptures ? Does Moses represent Eve as tempted and led astray by tliis low animal ? How like is she in this to all her sons and daugh- ters ! How continually, from our sinful weakness, do those things over which God has given us dominion, gain power over us to our soul's hurt ! Those who lead us astray are often not the great and the powerful — not those to whose controlling influence we are subjected, but those over whom we ourselves ought to rule. Often the temptation which is ruinous to us comes to us from something less noble even than the lower animals ; something that is without life at all is powerful to endanger us. How powerful to destroy many thousand souls has been the shining dross of a little gold: and our desires — how often are men of the highest powers enslaved by those of them which they have in common with the lowest beasts ! There is a great moral truth in Moses' picture of Eve falling by the temptation of T 2 276 THE FIRST TEMPTATION. this low animal. She is set forth in this as the visible symbol of the miserable weakness of all her race. And, again, the other view, which sees Satan in the serpent, has also its great moral. All outward things that lead us astray are his instruments. He, the enemy of. our souls, speaks ever by the lips of cunning tempters of our own kind. It is he who uses the beauty and desirableness of all things that lead us astray to suggest thoughts that may be the ruin of our souls. So in this part of the picture of the Fall — both as simply set before us by Moses, and as explained hundreds of years afterwards — there are many useful thoughts. We proceed with the account before us. It would be vain to ask whether, in the latter clause of the 1st verse and in the 4th and 5th verses, Moses intends to represent the serpent as actually speaking to Eve with human voice. Those who look upon the chapter as containing more or less of allegory will have no difficulty in supposing the statement to be dis- tinctly made that the serpent thus spoke. Others may understand that he is represented as using words, only more vividly to set forth in a figure the thoughts which his alluring gestures as he approached the tree suggested to Eve's now wavering heart. These are doubtful points as to Moses' meaning which no criticism can certainly decide. What the picture clearly sets before us is, that the mother of our race, with every motive for obedience, and every help to keep her upright, was led into an act of disobedience to God's distinct command by a veiy mean and contemptible seducer, whom other Scriptures teach that Satan, the arch enemy of man- kind, employed. There is no time to dwell further on this picture here. THE FIRST TEMPTATION. 277 Note only in conclusion, that, as soon as Eve desires to dis- obey God, doubts are represented creeping into lier mind as to whether the threatened punishment will really follow disobedience, v. 4 : " The serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die." Nay, perhaps great good will follow from this little act of disobedience, v. 5 : " Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods." The fond fool listens, half doubting, half believing, to these suggestions ; but note, after all, it is not these that really move her ; they are the signs, not the causes of her yielding. She falls as all her sons and daughters have fallen since — not really deceived by false reasonings, but overpowered by strong desire — desire which might have easily been resisted at first, but which has grown every moment stronger, while she madly listened to the tempter's lies. She yields at last, simply from the love of the forbidden pleasm-e. Bead the text. v. 6 : " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat." And then she is not con- tented with her own ruin, but must have her husband to share in it. Certainly, whatever scoffers may say of this narrative, there is in it a very deep insight into the nature of temptation, the way in which it leads to sin, how its strength grows, and how the' seduced of one moment feels immediately the desire to be in turn a seducer. We shall do well to ponder all these particulars. We have here only pointed to them. Each of them is in itself a sermon. And now, let us think before we close whether we may not gain from what we have examined in this account of the Fall some plain and searching lesson for ourselves. 278 THE FIRST TEMPTATION. The account of the Fall, as we have seen, is not only a nar- rative of what is past — of what took place, once for all, many thousand years ago ; it is a symbolical picture also, from what took place then, of dangers which surround us still. We are no longer, like the first pair, in the paradise of God ; but it has pleased Him to cast the lot of all of us here present in that substitute which He has given for paradise while the world lasts in its ruined and sinful state, viz., in the Church of Christ. Driven out from the first paradise, and waiting till our Saviour's coming for the revelation of the second, we here present have still not been left to perish in a barren wilderness. Through the infinite mercy of our Saviour, we have been bred in Christ's Church. We live with a thousand spiritual privileges around us — with the Lord God ready, in the person of His Son and through the working of His Holy Spirit, to hold communion Avith us and help us every day. Truly, compared with the heathen world around us, this is to be in paradise : as to spiritual privileges at least, it is a sort of paradise in which God has placed us, having called us to the knowledge of His Son. There is enough — far more than enough — of misery and sin to remind us that we are deeply fallen ; but there is enough also of gracious spuitual privileges freely offered in Jesus Christ to save us from the evils of the Fall. Now, in this sheltered spot, in which God through Christ has placed us, the scene of the old temptation is every day re-enacted in our case : it is re- enacted in all its particulars which we have narrated ; and we are in danger every day of falling, fi-om evil thoughts suggested to us from mthout ; but such thoughts have no power unless they are met by a yielding heart within. What in the account before us ought Eve to have done as soon as THE FIRST TEMPTATION. 279 the tempter suggested evil thoughts to her? Kesist the devil, and he will flee .from thee. She ought then to have called at once on the Lord God, her ever-ready friend. He would at once have come and saved her, and the tempter would have fled. All the evil that followed might have been averted by one hearty prayer at first. Keep this in mind, all of us. The tempter is cunning, and on the watch ; and to listen to him is to yield. The Lord God is with us in the Lord Jesus Christ ; and He is ready to save to the uttermost if we call to Him for strength. 280 ENOCH. XIV.— E NOCH. Genesis v. 24. " And Enoch walked witli God, and he was not, for God took him." Theee is something very striking in those glimpses which the book of Genesis gives us into the early history of man. They are but glimpses. A deep mist, spreading thick dark- ness, had gathered over the morning of those early ages. Men in general Imew almost nothing of them, and were lost in vague conjectures or mere fancies when they tried to picture to themselves what had been the first beginnings of the race, and who were the fathers of very old times from whom they were themselves sprung. We can easily understand the natural curiosity which made man anxious, if possible, to gain some information on such matters. When we come ourselves upon the almost obliterated remains of some ancient building, of the history of which we know nothing, or catch faint traces of unintelligible writing on the rocks that overhang our streams, or think of old names which have been given to the places we live in, evidently by men who used quite a different language from that which is spoken amongst us now, we all feel something of a like curiosity, and we desire, if we can, to lift the veil which hides the old days from us, and to learn something of the men so long forgotten, who once, full of life, moved where we now move. ENOCH. 281 Now, common history can help an educated man to gain some knowledge of those comparatively modem times, which we reckon very ancient — for six or seven hundi'ed years with us make a very ancient date. But the really ancient times, thousands of years back, when the race of man was but lately settled on the earth, and when, so far as we can judge, there existed no means of handing do^vn the account of one age to another by writing — of these no common history can give us any information. And there- fore we turn with the greater interest to this very old book of Genesis — and is it not the oldest with which we are acquainted? — which God empowered his servant Moses to write for the very purpose of giving men some knowledge of what must otherwise have been altogether lost and unknown. God, by the book of Genesis, has here and there made, as it were, openings in the mists which had settled so thickly over the early centuries of man's being. He has not thought fit to give us any minute account of these early times. The history of them which He caused Moses to write for us is very unlike the detailed history of a later age. As to the times before the Flood, He has, as it were, only caused the gigantic forms of the ancient fathers of our race to pass one after another before us as if seen dimly in a vision : but still in that brief and poetic history there are truths revealed of the greatest value, and bright pictures here and there, to let us see distinctly what man's nature was, and what his relations to God and his fellow-men, from the earliest times. Now, among the many points which deeply interest us in the book of Genesis is the marked distinction drawn from the first, as ever since, between the children of God and the chil- 282 ENOCH, dren of this world. And here, in the verse before us, we have mention made of one of the patriarchs of our race, on whose memory the faithful in after ages have taken a pecuhar plea- sure in dwelling, as most truly a servant of God. " Enoch walked with God, and was not, for God took him." All that is given us of his history is summed up in very few words ; but twice over (vv. 22 and 24) in the little that is said of him we are told " he walked with God." This is a notable expression: it is found again in the next chapter, v. 9. Concerning Noah, of whom we are told, v. S, that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, we read, — " And Noah walked with God." It is an expression full of meaning. Enoch, like Abraham in after times, was the friend of God : he had a continual calm experience of God's presence with him, and lived always as in his sight. And then we are told of the blessed end of this blessed life, — " He was not, for God took him." No wonder that these simple words should have laid a firm hold on the thoughts of men in after times. The pecu- liarity of the words and expression as to the end of Enoch's life — " He was not, for God took him " — is explained in the 11th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, v. 5 : — " By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death ; and was not found, because God had translated him : for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." Let us now consider, first, the nature of the blessing which God awarded to this faithful servant as his peculiar privilege in the end of his life — " He was not, for God took him ;" and, 2ndly, the sort of life he led, which made him be deemed worthy of this privilege — " He walked with God." I. The words of the text say, " He was not ; for God took ENOCH. 283 him." These words, considered by themselves, might naturally enough be supposed to point out nothing more than that at last, by a very easy death, Enoch glided out of life without any of the pain and misery of dying ; that, as he had lived so fiiithfully, God, in his case, reduced the penalty of Adam's unfaithfulness to the lowest possible amount of suffering; that to the end he went about his daily business in the love and fear of God ; and at last, when men came to call him, as at other times, they found him not, for he had glided away, by the easiest of all possible departures, and God had taken him. This might very well have been supposed by us to be the meaning of the remarkable words ; but from very early times it was felt that there was something more in them than this. From very early times men learned to interpret the words not of an easy death, but of Enoch's having been saved from death altogether. And this is the interpretation which .the Epistle to the Hebrews has stamped upon the words. In Enoch's case, God has shown that, as death is the penalty of sin, so certainly it is no light privilege to be saved jQ-om the trials and the weakness that beset our mortal flesh in dymg. It would be wrong in us to judge of the degree in which any one amongst ourselves has lived a life of faith and walked with God in the days of his health by the ease or the suffering of his death-bed. This depends on a hundred circumstances of mere bodily strength ; but still it is well for us to call to mind that God, for His people who are faithful in Jesus Christ, does, as a general rule, wonderfully lessen the misery of dying. Of course, I do not mean that the faithful now-a-days are to be saved, like Enoch, from the languor of long sickness or the sharp struggles of dissolution ; 284 ' ENOCH. but in the Lord Jesus Christ they have a physician at hand who applies balm to their wounds. Though earthly physi- cians may be unable to give them any ease, often God gives them in the midst of suffering the calmness of a spirit which rests in fidl confidence on a merciful Saviour. And thus the very worst of Iniman evils, while it cannot but bow and afflict then- bodies, loses its power to harass their souls. Thus God, to this day, in such cases, gives a calm departure to those who have walked with Him. It is not denied that quietness in dying is often the portion of the least faithful. There are some forms of death which come so suddenly that there is no time in them for disquietude before all of death the human eye can see is over. There are other deaths in which wicked men pass out of life in the quietness of a hardened con- science. In these cases, let it be remembered that it is only a part of death which can be seen by surviving friends. When the eye of the dead man closes, and his bodily frame is senseless, then begins for the faithless the worst of death's terrors. These wait for him on the threshold of the land of darkness, to which no human eye can follow him. And then it is (if Christ's word stands firm) that the blessedness of a faithful life is most truly felt. " When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." Certainly, for those who have been long faithful to God in Christ through life, death has no pain and ten-ors but those which are inseparable from our fleshly nature, and the moment they have left the flesh the faithful are in peace ; when for the faithless begins that unseen agony of dying which is the sting of death and the foretaste of never-ending suffering. ENOCH. 285 Certainly, then, though the faithful cannot look to enjoy the privilege of being spared death and taken to God without dying, yet, for all who walk with God in life, death, however gloomy, is really- robbed of its terrors. When they have passed it, they will look back upon it as nothing but the means by which God takes them. " Enoch wallvcd with God, and was not ; for God took him." " He was not found, because God had translated him ; for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." These words of the text and of the 11th of the Hebrews naturally suggest some such thoughts as to the way in which God saves those who have long walked with Him from misery in dying. Again; look at this expression, applied to Enoch's case — God took him — in another point of view. Is not the whole account of Enoch's going out of Hfe, both in the text and in the lltli of the Hebrews, well fitted to set before us this great truth — that the more a man walks with God in faith, the more is the separation between this world and the next bridged over ; the more does life on earth become the fii'st stage of that eternal life which is made perfect in God's im- mediate presence in heaven ? It is not well that we should look upon the life of the faitliful on earth as sometliiug altogether separate from their life in heaven. In Enoch's case the two lives were blended in one. It was but as if he had passed the two parts of his one life in two different centuries. He had been for the long term of his earthly years absent from his soul's home, and God called him home by the easiest possible journey, and the good desires with which his soul was filled by the Holy Spirit on earth were not changed when they 286 ENOCH. found their fulfilment in God's presence in heaven. The saint had the very same pursuits and pleasures before and after God took him. All the change which befel him was that he dropped the weakness and sufferings of the body, and was removed from the company of the wicked, who vexed his righteous soul ; and the life begun on earth went on perfected in heaven. The same thing is in a degree true of all God's faithful people. Their life which the Holy Spirit enables them to lead here is the beginning of their life in heaven. They are the only men whose pursuits will not be interrupted by death ; for their pursuits on earth are such as God Him- self delights in, and the holy angels and the saints around His throne ; and therefore these pursuits of theirs will be continued and made perfect where He dwells. How different is this from the account we have to give of those short-lived pleasures of sense and sin, of mere worldly employment or worldly pleasure, on which so very many spend all their energies. These must end with death ; and the man who has sought them as his chief good must at death enter into misery; for all the means of happiness he knows of have escaped from his grasp in dying. II. And this brings us to our second point ; to consider, viz., the sort of life which Enoch led for which he was deemed worthy of such high privileges. He walked with God. How much there is in these simple words! The Jews held Enoch to have been a prophet. Hence St. Jude speaks of a prophecy of his handed down by some tradition amongst the Jews : — v. 14 : " Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints," — v. 15: "To execute ENOCH. 287 judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which migodly sinners have spoken against Him." But it is not in that he possessed any wonderful power as a prophet that he is spoken of in Genesis as having been the friend of God. It is not on account of any wonderful power given to him beyond what other men may receive that he was so pleasing to God. The Jews, who were fond of dwelling on the character and fate of Enoch, could not doubt that he was a prophet. In the passage of their traditions quoted by St. Jude, they represent him as proj^hesying of the day of God's coming, surrounded by His saints, to give them perfect happiness and to execute judg-ment on the wicked. And they naturally supposed him to have sustained his soul, amid the trials which he suffered from the evil tongues of those amongst whom he lived, by looking forward to that day, when all the hard speeches which ungodly sinners had spoken against God and his saints should come back upon themselves. And the pro- phecy thus attributed by the Jews to Enoch may well show us what they justly enough thought the life of faith to be : a life in which the man who walked with God looked always forward to the day when God would rescue His people from all evil, and overwhelm all who had opposed them with shame. The substance, therefore, of the prophecy thus attri- buted to Enoch is well worth our noting, as showing the sort of thoughts which must have been often in his mind. But it is not in that he was a prophet that he is set before us as having so pleased God ; not because he had prophetic power, but because he lived in faith, as the lltli chapter of the Hebrews explains. And, after all, there is nothing so 288 ENOCH. well suited to set before us what his life was as the simple expression, twice repeated in his short history, " He walked with God." Brethren, if we would be partakers of that joy which he and all the faithful know ; if wo would have death cease to be any evil for us ; if we would have our life on earth the beginning of a life in heaven ; if we would learn to look forward to the day of God's "judgment without any fear, and would be sus- tained amidst any contradictions and hard speeches which we may meet with in the world, let us strive, not in Avord§ only and theory, but in our practice, to know what it is to walk with God. If we are walking with God, He is our friend. He is often in our thoughts. We lean on Him. We pray to Him. We keep near to Him by His sacraments and every other means of grace. We try in all questions of right and wrong to be guided by Him, seeking to know His will from His Holy Word. We never deliberately allow ourselves in any course of life, or in any words and acts, in which we know that we cannot ask the pure and holy God to watch us and, as it were, take part with us in what we do and say. God's Holy Spirit enables the faithful thus to walk with God ; and when they fall into forgetfulness and wander from Him, though it be but for a brief space and only in their thoughts, they are filled with deep sorrow. By the same spirit their consciences are pricked, and they are urged to make haste to return to Him. They cannot live without God by night or by day, for God in Jesus Christ is indeed in all their thoughts, and hence their life is peaceful, for they are kept always near to the God of peace. We may know wliat it is to walk with God by think- ENOCH. 289 ing how the wicked and worldly live without God in the world. It is of the last importance that we should know whether we are walking with God or living without God. Without God is without hope ; and a man is without God if God is not in all his thoughts. Not the profane only, the drunkard, the debauched — these, of coui'se, are without God, and the wrath of God abides upon them — but even the respectable, the regular, the highly esteemed, if they are thinking of the world in all they do, if God in Jesus Christ is not the great object of all their thoughts, the guide of all their actions — if He is not loved and honoured by them as their best friend — are without God, and, therefore, while they continue so, without hope : And how miserable is the weakness of the best of us, how great the temptation to wander. God grant more and more of His Holy Spirit to the very best, for the soul that wanders away from Him must end in misery. There is no walking in security unless we walk with God, through Jesus Christ, in a consistent life of real Christian principle. 290 ABRAHAM. X v.— A B K A H A M. Genesis xxv. 8. " Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years, and was gathered to his people." This text is well suited to call to our minds one very im- portant peculiarity of the early books of the Old Testament. In this verse Abraham, the great covenant-head of the Jewish race, is spoken of much as any good old man would be spoken of amongst ourselves : — " He died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people." Very many of the things we are told of Abraham, as well as of the other worthies of these historical books, raise them, as it were, to a totally different atmosphere from that which sustains our life. Not only do they seem to be shrouded from us by the mists of antiquity, and thus to assume colossal forms wliile we gaze at their dim outline, but also they are certainly represented as admitted to privi- leges in those dark days of old to which we cannot aspire, with all the light of a highly advanced civilization. God, in the early ages of the human race, was certainly at times more visibly, if not more really, near to men than He is now. It is right that we should note this, that we should understand how we have distinct historical records of a time when God manifested Himself more clearly than He does now. But it is right also that we should note the opposite phase — that these men — so dimly to be traced, so highly privileged in ABRAHAM. 291 what we can trace respecting them — are no imaginary cha- racters raised above human nature, in the uncertain or adoring recollections of a grateful posterity, but that in their day they lived, felt, acted, sinned, repented, died, even like ourselves : that if they had great privileges granted to them, these privileges, though they might differ in form, were really the same in substance which are open to ourselves. This phase of the sacred history is, we say, much to be noted, if we would avoid a di-eamy, unreal way of reading Holy Scripture, if we would have brought home to our hearts and practice the plain lessons of religion which it teaches for us even in these its oldest books, telling of times when society was most unlike our own. Here in the text we read, Abraham " died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people." The friend of God, the father of the faithful, died like any common man, and nothing can be more simple than this account of his death. Much of his life also is described in the same simple way, showing that, with aU his privileges, he was distinctly one of om-selves, of tbe same passions, with the same weaknesses, tempted like us, having the same joys and soitows, serving God in the midst of trials in the very same way which is open to each of ourselves. Now we say it is good for us thus to contemplate the worthies of the first books of the Old Testament. There is felt to be a remarkable freshness in examples of life taken from those early times. To mention an instance in point — I suppose every one has been struck with this, while reading in our Marriage Service the prayer, " God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, bless these Thy servants, and sow the seed of eternal life in their hearts .... and as Thou u2 292 ABRAHAM. didst send Thy blessing upon Abraham and Sarah to their great comfort, so vouchsafe to send Thy blessing upon these Thy servants." The instance thus brought before us in the service in which we dedicate the wedded pair to God, leads us to disentangle our life from the artificial conventionalities which straiten and confine us. We look back nearly four thousand years, to the tent of the wandering patriarch, for the example which is to teach us how to prize aright a holy, thoughtful, wedded love, lasting through a long life of many vicissitudes. Thus St. Peter's 2nd Epistle also, speaking to the women of its day, falls back on the same primitive example : — " After this manner " (that is, with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit) " in the old time the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are so long as ye do well." * It is certainly a great help to us in endeavouring, with the aid of God's Spirit, to shape our lives and the lives of our families to the model which the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ approve, to have these old examples set before us with their simple, well-marked features, showing us what God has loved from the earliest age — Abraham's faith, his awful venera- tion in the presence of Him who, being his Maker, yet condescended to call HimseK his friend ; his care for his house- hold and his kindred, and his bold zeal in their cause ; and Sarah's simple life-long love to her husband, almost the only characteristic which comes forth in her unobtrusive life : and again, the trust Abraham reposed in his servant, and the trusted servant's faithfulness in return — these things stand * 1 Peter iii. G. ABRAHAM. 293 out in the record of the patriarch's common life, and speak of graces quite open to each of ourselves to imitate, God grant us by His Holy Spirit to profit by thinking of them ! And then, in illustration of that faith with which the patri- arch's name has become identified, it is striking to note, all through that long life of which we have this record, how earthly trials are borne lightly, fi-om a reliance on the sure fulfilment of heavenly promises. We are encouraged, I say, to take Abraham's family life thus simply set before us as our example. Not that it has not its failings — great failings — which there is no attempt in the Sacred writer to conceal or gloss over: but with all its failings it is, upon the whole, a- holy life, a life spent in the realized presence and friend- ship of God, and, as such, meet to be an example always for God's people. But here some one wiU object that our examples had better be taken from distinctly Christian times. What need to go back some twenty centuries before Christ was known ? \A'Tiat need, when we have Apostles of the New Testament, and a whole series of holy men and women adorning the Christian Church from their day to this, in circumstances far more like our own, to go back to the rude Hfe of the wandering Chief, who was rescued, indeed, from the idolatry of liis fathers by God's special providence, and had promises given him of Christ's deliverance, but who still could only see Christ very dimly a very great way off? Why take such a model, from which Christ Himself, the great centre of all examples, is wanting? To speak thus is to misunderstand wholly the teaching of the Bible. The Lord Jesus Christ is set forth in the Bible as a Saviour to the old fathers of our race as to us. They did not know, indeed, distinctly as we do, 294 ABRAHAM. the power of His atoning blood ; they had not before them the bright example of His blameless earthly life : but we learn, from comparing the New Testament with the Old, that the Second Person of the blessed Trinity watched over them to save them, as He watches over us. With Abraham He spake on many occasions, God manifest in visible form. The records of the lives of these men would not have been pre- served in the Church by God's providence, and moulded with the prophecies and the New Testament into one well-com- pacted whole, if they had not been full of many lessons for Christ's people. Nay, with respect to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, these histories, examined by the light of the New Testament, have this especial force — that they show remark- ably in Abraham's case how great strength of religious cha- racter, and what steadfastness and comfort in life and death, followed even from looking forward through the dim future to the fulfilment of the promises of a coming deliverance. And if Christ's salvation was thus powerful even at a distance, are we not led to ask, what ought it to be for us, when brought, as it now is, so very near? But is not the Lord Jesus Christ's power most strikingly manifested, if we regard it as reaching backward to strengthen and redeem those who lived and died long before the Christian era ? All saints who ever lived are Christ's people. The Bible, taken as a whole, clearly sets this forth. No fear, then, that we forget the Lord Jesus Clirist, or the saints of the New Testament, in the worthies of the Old. We rather admhe the more the wondrous power of the Captain of our salvation, while we think what deeds were done through His strengthening in- fluence even by the advanced vanguard of that great army of saints which He commands. Oiu- fixed allegiance to the ABRAHAM. 295 Lord Jesus Christ, and His saving power, will never be inter- fered with by our seeing how even those who lived before He was manifested were strong in His power ; for all human might in resisting sin comes from Him, the Lord. Gazing then, my friends, as Scripture leads us, on Old Testament worthies for our example — feeling that they set forth with a wonderfully simple power graces which become the Christian character as much as that of the ancient wor- shipper of Jehovah — we are in no danger of overlooking the peculiarities of our distinct Christian calling. And here it so happens in the particular case before us, that, in looking to the example of Abraham's family life, the two graces which are most, I think, forced on our admiration, are the most distinctly Christian — his ardent faith, his zealous love. 1st. His faith — Abraham's faith. Of this there is no doubt. Whenever the name of Abraham is mentioned we think of faith. It will be well for us to dwell on each of those characteristics of the patriarch — his faith and love — for his character shows both. His title is the Father of the faithful. St. Paul brings him forward as the great example to ^ow how faith justifies. And if faith be the trusting in God, and in the certainty of His unseen protection and in the fidfilment of His distinct promises, rather than in any power of human strength which seems to be near us, where shall we find any better example of this grace ? Each stage of Abraham's faithful life may help to guide us in our faith. Does he go forth at God's command, putting him- seK under the immediate unseen protection of God, and refusing any longer to trust himseK in society, however dear, where God is not honom-ed ? Genesis xii. 1-4 : " The Lord 296 ABRAHAM. said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I vsdll show thee. So Abraham departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him." Very often has the experience of Christians called for similar sacrifices. The Christian's faith must be like his. We need not speak of missionaries who give up all goodly prospects at home that they may preach Christ's Gospel amongst outcast souls for whom He died, but who never heard of Him. Such men certainly go forth as Abraham did. But quietly in his degree each Christian, even while he remains in his home, must exercise similar acts of self-denying faith. There is indeed nothing morose or unduly exclusive in the way in which earnest Christians separate themselves from a world which has no love for Christ ; yet each Christian must make up his mind as to what the society shall be with which he will cast in his lot. " Ye cannot serve God and mammon." You cannot love Christ and the society of those who are in no ways guided by Him, and have no thoughts of what His death has pur- chased for their souls. You cannot love Him and yet take your ease pleasantly amongst society that is estranged from Him. It may be necessary to make some great effort to free yourselves from the influence of companions who do not love Christ — efforts almost as great as that of Abraham when he left his father's house. In the common walks of life this is much to be thought of. In choosing where we are to live, what is to be our trade or profession, what rules we are to lay down as to our amusements, every man who is a real Christian will, above all things, desire to ascertain, first, what is God's will — what course will give us the best opportunities of serving Him. And wherever we move — whatever we do — ABRAHAM. 297 possessed like Abraham with the distinct conviction that the Lord is watching lis, we shall follow where He guides, for faithful Christians know, even more surely than Abraham, that God is their friend in the Lord Jesus Christ, and if we only trust and follow Him He will keep us in all our ways. Thus Abraham's first great act of faith is an example, when he separated himself from the friends of his early home. Asain, it is of the essence of Abraham's faith that no dis- couragements or seeming improbabilities made him doubt that God's promises would be fulfilled in His good time. What Christian, whose life is prolonged to middle age, knows not how hard it is at times, amid trials, it may be, of poverty, or failing health, or loss of loved friends, or long-deferred hope, to feel convinced that God indeed worketh all things well, and has not forgotten to be gracious to us ? There are many very hard trials of such a kind for those who love the Lord Jesus Christ. Take one for an example. It was hard for Abraham to bring himself to believe that in his son, of whose birth there was so little probability, all the nations of the earth should be blessed ; and yet was he able to feel quiet trust in God, when, after that son's unexpected birth, he seemed to be commanded, according to the not unusual custom of his age, to deliver up to death the being on whom all his hopes centred. How often, my friends, are parents called in our o"\vn day to look to God in Christ, even in ^^•orse trials, when they can scarcely bring themselves to trust Him, with reference to their children. We speak not of the trial to faith which comes when God removes by death one beloved in whom all hopes of happiness seemed to centre. There are worse trials than this. A Christian parent feels it to be bitterer than his son's death when he sees him 298 ABRAHAM. falling into reckless courses as he grows to manhood, and wandering far from his Eedeemer. Even in such trials the Christian, looking to Abraham, may learn quiet confidence in God when his heart is heaviest. The patriarch felt that God could raise up his son, even though he seemed utterly lost to him. Wliatever befel he would not distrust God. Again, is there not displayed all through Abraham's history a reverential sense of God's presence — a bowing of the heart and soul before Him when He appears, wiiicli is of the very essence of the highest Christian faith? This is simply set forth, for example, ch. xvii. v. 1 : " The Lord appeared to Abraham, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God ; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." All through his life we trace this deep reverence of a soul which knows that God is not far from him — which listens to catch his lowest accents, or recognise his features in the messengers he sends. Thus Abraham honours God, not in the angels only who come from the world above, but in the Priest-King Melchisedec. All who come to him with a message from God are welcomed and honoured if they are really God's messengers. And in the patriarch's distinct acts of worship, when he feels that God's presence is manifested, his is no devotion with out- ward gestures only, but comes straight from the heart. What more characteristic of the real Christian than thus to see and reverence God in Jesus Christ — listening to His Word — re- cognising in all who speak to us in His name the marks that they come from Him — being filled with reverential gladness when, either in the congregation or in secret worship, we feel that He reveals Himself as very near ? We need not stay to note further, as St. James does, how ABRAHAM, 299 all through his life Abraham's faith is not a mere matter of feeling, still less of words, but shows itself in consistent ready- obedience. And he who believes really in God, manifested through Christ, not only listens to Him, but follows in obedience. Note but one point more as to Abraham's faith. At first it was apparently a faith in temporal promises. He enjoyed this world, and looked forward for his posterity, that they were to have in it a goodly portion, as God promised them. But had this been all, would not the hopes he entertained have proved at best unsatisfactory ? Abraham, we read in the text, gave up the ghost and died. And do you not think that, if all he hoped from God had reference to this life, he must have felt a chill come over his soul as his body wasted, and he learned that, though it was a good thing to hope for the prosperity of his children when he was gone, yet in the senseless grave he could himself be no partaker in their earthly happiness? Doubtless, if Abraham's faith at first rested in temporal promises, it grew clearer and more un- earthly as life wore on. " In thy seed shall the nations of the earth be blessed." Shall we suppose that as the patriarch's eyes grew dim he had no thought of being himself a sharer personally in this blessedness ? "I am the God of Abraham," says God to Moses four hundred years after the death recorded in our text. I have not forsaken him, though he has been so long dead. The Article of our Church then is right, that these fathers of old in their best moments did not look only for transitory promises. And doubtless, when Abraham came to die, he knew that, though flesh and blood, and all earthly good things, perish, he was safe with the everlasting arms beneath him, that He who 300 ABEAHAM. had sustained him in life was his friend in death also. All earthly good things, promised for ourselves or those we love, Christians who have real faith know are only valuable when they are the tyj)e of things heavenly, and when, through God's goodness, they are made the means of securing to us better heavenly blessings. The promised land, with all its blessings of abundance, what was it to a Jew when he came to die, unless through the privileges he received in it he had good hope of entering then into the heavenly Canaan ? In this, as in other matters, the faith of Abraham was, doubtless, like that of true Christians ; as life wears on, and they feel themselves gradually loosening from its ties, learning, no longer by rote, but from the deepening expe- rience of a growing acquaintance with their unseen Lord, they come more and more to feel, that not here, but in the land unseen, where Christ dwells, and keeps the souls of the blessed in their true home, is to be found the only reality of all those glimpses of happiness which have cheered them on earth — there only is the land in which they are to look for the true fulfilment of all God's promises, that He will comfort them and keep them evermore. Thus a Christian's faith grows, like Abraham's, more spiritual, as he passes through life's trials. Many other points might be noted, but here we have more than enough to show us that Abraham's faith of old, and "the Christian's faith now, are one and the same in essence. 2nd, and lastly, as Abraham was full of faith, so, what is much less frequently noticed, was he full of earnest love. His faith showed itself in love. It was like all real faith, rooted in love to God — its fruit was love to man. E.g. Abraham did not go alone from his father's house, but took with him those who ABRAHAM. 301 were dear to him. He would not leave them where God was unknown. Not his wife only, but his nephew — he took both. And he seems to have loved his servants also, as Eliezer of Damascus, who was to be his heir. God says of Abraham (xviii. 19), "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." Abraham laboured to cultivate family religion, for he loved his family with true spiritual love. It is ever so witli a man of real faith, that his religion shows itself in love, in friendly acts of attention and regard to those brought near to him. He cares for their temporal and their spiritual welfare. We read in the 17th chapter how Abraham took care that all his household should enter into covenant with God: an example for all of us Christians, not to be con- tented to serve God in Christ in the retirement of our own private room, but each of us to strive to bring his family to Christ; by maldng them partakers of outward ordinance, as Abraham in the circumcision of his house ; by family prayer ; by urging the young among them to confirmation ; by leading them to the Lord's Supper, to frequent God's house, and read His Word, and pray to Him by themselves : and not by thus leading them to reverence ordinances only, but by pray- ing for them, and being very careful that the whole example of our own Christian Life shall help them to be real Chris- tians. A true Christian's religion, like Abraham's, will show itself in active love. Nor was it his household only that Abraham thus loved. We are told how earnest he was to deliver Lot out of captivity after he had withdrawn himself from his company. He allowed no remembrance of ungrateful usage to make him forget the claims of blood. He pursued after the kings who had made Lot prisoner, and brought him back with all his goods. So a 302 ABRAHAM. man faithful to Christ loves his kindred, forgiving every cause of offence, and thinking only of their need. Note also, in conclusion, Abraham's zealous love in his earnest pleadings for Sodom. He had no personal interest in the place, but he could not bear that it should perish. He pleaded hard with God to spare it. We have a marked instance here how the faithful servant of. God is ever in- terested in all around him. He cannot bear that the thoughtless, ignorant, or wicked, should perish in their god- less com-se. He prays for them, he strives in every way to help them. If our faith in Christ is real, we shall be stirred to constant exertions for all the thoughtless amongst whom we live. If we in this city follow in the stejjs of faithful Abraham, we shall feel our hearts stirred if haply by any means we can help to rouse the sleeping, and save those who do not know their danger, who are slumbering in peace while God's judgments gather round them. The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, those careless cities of the plain, have too sm-ely their representatives in tliis great metropolis. If we believe what Christ has told us of the value of their souls, of His earnest longing to save them by His precious blood, we shall be urged to do what we can for them by teaching them, and guiding them, and trying to win them by every means. Partakers of the true love and faith of Abraham — if we are real Cliristians we shaU feel as He felt for those who do not feel for themselves. THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. 303 XVL— THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. 1 Peter i. 18, 19, 20. " Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corru[)tible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers ; " But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot : " Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." The services of this tliird Sunday in Advent are supposed to invite our attention to the Christian Ministry. There is nothing so characteristic of this ministry as its office to preach Christ, the Lamb of God. John the Baptist began this office, when, pointing to Christ, he said, " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world." * And here in the text we have the same image of the lamb : " Ye were redeemed .... with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." The image of the lamb is obviously from Isaiah liii. 7, " He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter :" and so appropriate did the image seem when the whole object of Christ's mission was distinctly understood on the close of His earthly history, and through the preaching of the Apostles after the day of Pente- cost, that " the Lamb " became a recognised name for Christ. We find it so used in the Book of the Revelation more than twenty times. * John i. 29. 304 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. Now, it has been the tendency of some recent discussions in the Church to bring into question the exact relation in which our blessed Redeemer stands to us and to the Father, as having given His life as our ransom to save us from our sins. The phrase ransom occurs Matt. xx. 28 — Bovvat rrjv "^v^v^ avTov \vrpov avrl iroXKoiv. The same words occur Mark x. 45. Also we have — 1 Timothy ii. 6 — 6 hov'i kavrov avTiXvrpov virep irdvTwv. In the text we have iXvrpcodrjTe. It would not, I think, be wise for persons who are not pro- fessional theologians to plunge into such discussions ; but when they arise in the Church, it is well for all of us from time to time to refresh ourselves with the calm contemplation of some of those simple views of Gospel truth which stand out everywhere in the Word of God, and everywhere proclaim the death of Christ as that which has rescued man from eternal misery. Let us here first call to mind some passages in which Christ is thus spoken of as having paid a ransom, or offered a sacri- fice, or propitiation, or atonement, to save us from our sins. 1st. Matthew xx. 28, and Mark x. 45, as quoted above — " The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many." Then 1 Tim. ii. 5, 6. " There is one mediator between God and naan, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." Then Heb. ix. 11, 12. " Christ being come an high priest of good things to come .... by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us " (alcovlav Xvrpcoatv evpd/jL€vo<;). 1 Cor. V. 7. " Christ our passover is sacrificed for us " (to Trda-yja, rjfjbwv virep rjfiMV irvdr) X/3tcrT09. Ivomans iii. 23. " All have simied and come short of the THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST. 305 glory of God. Being justified freely through his grace, thi-ough the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Sta t?}? aTrdXvrpcoaeco'i tt}? eV Xpto-rw Irjcrov). Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation {irpoeOeTo iXaanjpwv) through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness (ek evBei^tv T?}? BtKaLO(rvvr)vXi]