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SERMONS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 
 BY 
 
 y 
 
 EGBERT FLINT, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
 AUTHOR OF 'theism,' ' ANTI-THEISTIC THEORIES," 'HISTORICAL PHILOSOPHY 
 
 in france and french belgium and switzerland," 
 'socialism,' etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHAELES SCKIBNEE'S SONS 
 
 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 
 1899 
 
 All Rights reserved 
 
PEEFATOEY NOTE. 
 
 Some of the discourses in this volume have previously- 
 appeared in print. Most of them are now published 
 for the first time. The occasion on which any of them 
 was delivered has been indicated only where it was 
 deemed necessary to do so. 
 
 For revision of the sheets of the volume in passing 
 through the press I am deeply indebted to the same 
 kind friend who revised my "Theism" in 1877, and 
 " Anti-Theistic Theories" in 1879. 
 
 Johnstone Lodge, Craigmillar Park, 
 Edinburgh, September 1899. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON 1 
 
 CHRISTIAN UNITY 11 
 
 THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OP ART 28 
 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE FAITHFUL WITNESS, THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF 
 
 THE DEAD, AND THE PRINCE OF THE KINGS OP THE EARTH 39 
 
 THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S 56 
 
 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN .... 67 
 
 THE CHIEF GOOD 82 
 
 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN 94 
 
 THE DIVINE WILL 109 
 
 ONE THING NEEDFUL, AND ONE THING TO BE DONE . . . 123 
 
 BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD's LAW 133 
 
 NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD 145 
 
 REST IN CHRIST 155 
 
 SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST 166 
 
 A FAITHFUL SAYING 176 
 
 CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS 184 
 
 THE LAMB OP GOD 196 
 
 ENDS OP CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION .... 204 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM 213 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS 223 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTIFICATION 234 
 
 GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY — MAN'S EVIL EYE 241 
 
 RENDER UNTO C^SAR THE THINGS WHICH ARE C^SAR'S . 254 
 
 WORK WHILE IT IS DAY 264 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO OTHER RELIGIONS . . , 275 
 
 SOME REQUIREMENTS OP A PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS 299 
 
 vii 
 
SERMONS AND ADDRESSES. 
 
 A UNIVEKSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON." 
 
 " Remember the former things of old : for I am God, and there is none else ; I 
 
 am God, and there is none like me." — Isaiah xlvi. 9. 
 "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things 
 
 which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling 
 
 of God in Christ Jesus." — Philippians iii. 13, 14. 
 
 WE have come together at this time to " remember the 
 former things of old." Whether drawn hither by interest 
 in an institution in which we hold office, or by gratitude for the 
 benefits of education received in it, or by a patriotic appre- 
 ciation of the services which it has rendered to our native land, 
 or by a generous recognition of its claims to honour as one of 
 the world's great schools of learning, our common purpose is 
 gladly and gratefully to commemorate whatever in its history 
 we can regard with legitimate satisfaction. 
 
 And surely we may well so regard its history as a whole. 
 When, three hundred years ago, the University of this city had 
 its small and humble commencement, like a tiny, feeble plant, 
 set in a frozen soil, under a wintry sky, and amidst gathering 
 storms, it " scarce reared above the parent earth its tender 
 form." Its development through its earlier stages was slow and 
 precarious, not its prosperity only but its very existence long 
 depending on a multitude of changeful and conflicting influ- 
 ences, any one of which might have been fatal to it, while no 
 human sagacity could have foreseen their real effect on its 
 destiny ; but the needed protection and support were continu- 
 ously vouchsafed it, until at length there came happier days 
 and clearer skies, the abundant dew and the bright sunshine, 
 and the truly astonishing growtli of recent times. 
 
 1 Preached in St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, April IG, 18S4. 
 
 A 
 
2 A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 
 
 It has throughout been ministered to according to its wants. 
 For example, at critical seasons the fittest men to preside over 
 its affairs have always been granted it. Thus, when, at its 
 origin, its feeble vitality could only be preserved and developed 
 by intense religious zeal, Rollock was given ; when the storms 
 of religious passion swept over the land, the most competent 
 directing mind which Scotland then possessed — that of Hen- 
 derson — was placed at its service ; when fanaticism and intoler- 
 ance had converted the country into a well of Marah, in which 
 all sweetness was in danger of being lost, and when safety was 
 only to be had in pious quietness, the saintly Leighton was 
 lent ; when political sagacity was peculiarly required, it was 
 conferred in the person of Carstares ; and when the transition 
 from an ecclesiastical to a literary epoch needed to be wisely 
 effected, no one more suited to direct the movement could have 
 been found than Robertson. 
 
 What has been contributed to the prosperity of the Univer- 
 sity by patrons, protectors, and benefactors ; what measure of 
 strength or renown it has received from the achievements and 
 distinction of those who have filled its higher offices and its 
 special chairs ; what literature, learning, science, philosophy, 
 medicine, law, theology, owe to those who have taught in it or 
 to those who have been trained in it ; what numbers have gone 
 forth from it and what influence they have exerted ; how all 
 bitter controversies within it are at length ended ; how its 
 students have increased ; how its government has been widened ; 
 — these are things to which it would be unreasonable to do 
 more in this place than simply refer, but they are among the 
 things most appropriate for us to bear in mind, and things the 
 contemplation of which may well deepen our sense of indebted- 
 ness to the wisdom and the goodness ever present, never 
 failing, through the three hundred years of history which we 
 commemorate . 
 
 In remembering things like these, must we necessarily 
 indulge in a self-exalting spirit ? I trust not, and cannot see 
 why we should. If, in the proceedings in which we are to be 
 engaged, any one connected with the University should have to 
 descant a little on its glories, or even on those of his own office, 
 must he thereby inevitably lay himself open to the charge of 
 
A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 3 
 
 self-glorification, as having been deemed worthy of association 
 with such an institution, or of succeeding certain famous men ? 
 Surely not. Surely the true and natural consequence of any 
 thoughts appropriate to this time must be rather to diminish 
 than to increase our feelings of individual self-importance. 
 Surely connection with any great historical institution which 
 has been blessed with length of days, with gradually gathered 
 honours, and accumulated means of usefulness, ought to cause 
 a man to realise that the institution does more for him than he 
 can do for it ; that office therein gives to the holder thereof far 
 more of influence and of credit than the holder can give to the 
 office ; that the parts are, in this instance, far more dependent 
 on the whole than the whole on the parts; that while the 
 worthiest and most active of the parts must soon decay and 
 pass away, the whole can so renew itself as still to live on and 
 prosper ; that the work of the individuals in this large and 
 enduring society derives in a great measure its value not from 
 the personal merit of the workers, but from its relation to what 
 has been done by their predecessors and is being done by their 
 colleagues. 
 
 It is one chief reason for not ignoring any real and solid ties 
 which bind us to the past and to our fellow-men, that we are 
 thereby in some measure emancipated from the thraldom of a 
 narrow and selfish individualism. It is one great advantage of 
 connection with institutions which are not the mere products 
 of a day or the creations of an individual mind or will, but 
 truly historical growths, sealed with God's own impress of 
 permanence, that we are, in consequence thereof, naturally, if 
 not necessarily, made to feel that we are sharers with men of 
 many generations in a life far larger than our own. The con- 
 sciousness of membership in such an institution deserves to be 
 cherished just because it so directly counteracts an isolating 
 self-glorification, so naturally tends to a due forgetfulness of 
 self in a true recognition of our relations to others, and so 
 manifestly contributes to generate and strengthen that sense 
 of membership in the body-politic whence springs patriotism, 
 that sense of membership in the holy Catholic Church which 
 finds expression in Christian piety, and that sense of member- 
 ship in universal humanity which is the source of philanthropy. 
 
4 A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 
 
 It may lead us to magnify our offices ; it may render us more 
 sensible of the honourableness of our work ; it may give us 
 assurance that what we do in connection with, and for the good 
 of, the whole to which we belong, will in some form outlive 
 ourselves, and not cease to influence future generations; but 
 it ought to make us think not more but less of our own small 
 individualities. 
 
 Nay, more : to realise aright the significance of the things 
 we would commemorate, and to feel what is implied in our 
 relationship to them, must carry our minds and hearts yet 
 farther and higher, — must raise them even to an apprehension 
 of that ultimate truth which gives unity to all thought, and to 
 contact with that sacred Presence which gives sanctity to all 
 action. The University has grown and prospered. Why ? Is 
 it merely through what has been done within it or by it ? Is 
 all said in explanation of its growth and prosperity when you 
 have spoken of those who have ruled in it, taught in it, studied 
 in it, and conferred benefits on it ? Certainly not. Obviously, 
 one great reason why the University has grown and prospered 
 is, that it has grown with the growth and participated in the 
 prosperity of a life larger than its own. It has been received 
 into and appropriated by the national life, been responsive to 
 and expressive of the national life ; and placed here in this city 
 at the very centre of that life, the organ has shared in the 
 good fortune and well-being of the entire organism. It is 
 what it is this day, after its three hundred years of existence, 
 because these three hundred years have been not only to it but 
 to Scotland what they have been ; hence, although almost two 
 out of these three centuries were peculiarly dark and sad, dis- 
 tracted with civil and religious strife, and crowded with mani- 
 fold crimes, follies, and afflictions, yet throughout the whole 
 period a spirit, a life, large enough to pervade a nation, and to 
 connect and comprehend a series of generations, has ruled and 
 worked, and made for truth and righteousness, and at length 
 brought about that unity and order, that political independence 
 and spiritual freedom, that measure of reasonableness and good 
 feeling, that degree of peace and prosperity which we are 
 privileged to enjoy, and owing to which so many of our institu- 
 tions flourish. 
 
A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 5 
 
 But is even this all ? Has the University lived only in the 
 life of Scotland ? Has it prospered only because it has been 
 enriched with Scottish thought and sustained by Scottish 
 energy? Nay. On the contrary, Scotland itself has lived 
 and prospered only because participant in a life larger than 
 its own, — a life with which its Universities have especially 
 served to connect it, — the life which rules and works in 
 universal humanity — which binds together all generations and 
 peoples — which, during the last three hundred years, has been 
 lifting up not Scotland only but all the nations of Eui'ope into 
 higher regions of thought, into a purer atmosphere of feeling, 
 and marvellously revealing itself in the discoveries of science, 
 in the developments of art, in great social changes, in the 
 increase of all kinds of knowledge, in the history of the human 
 intellect and its ideas, of the human heart and its affections, 
 of the human will and its energies. There has been one life 
 which, although working in many lands and under the most 
 diverse conditions, has never lost its unity ; there has been one 
 spirit everywhere present, which, amidst all follies and per- 
 versities of men, has never contradicted its character as a spirit 
 of truth, of justice, and of goodness ; and this universal life 
 makes of the nations an organic whole and members one of 
 another ; this all-pervasive spirit is the great common teacher 
 of the schools of the world, and causes each to be a debtor to 
 all the others. 
 
 This life, this spirit, what is it ? What but the life and the 
 spirit of God ? Of G od, the unknown, the unknowable, in an 
 infinity of respects ; but also of God, the knowable, the trust- 
 able, the lovable ; the ever and everywhere self-revealing God, 
 who shines upon us from the remotest stars, who acts in every 
 atom of matter, who vitalises every cell of our bodies, who is 
 the light in every true thought and the virtue in every great 
 and good deed, who rules the whole history of humanity from 
 within, determining both its path and its goal; the God in 
 whom we live and move and have our being, and into com- 
 munion with whom we can enter alike by the Hfe of reason, of 
 love, and of duty ; the God whom to serve is highest glory, 
 whom to enjoy is deepest happiness. 
 
 Remember the former things of old, for God is God, and 
 
6 A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 
 
 there is none else ; for He is God, and there is none like Him. 
 It is the traces of the power and wisdom, of the life and love 
 of God in those former things, which make them worth re- 
 membering. It is remembrance of them in relation to Him 
 which is the right remembrance of them, — snch a remembrance 
 of them as can do us no harm, and may well do us great good. 
 
 We do well, then, this day to remember the former things 
 of old, and to commemorate the history of the University. 
 We do well if we seek to appreciate at its full value the 
 inheritance which our predecessors have left us ; to stir up 
 within us the consciousness of participation in the corporate 
 and collective life of this national institution ; to put away 
 from us the shallow and dangerous spirit which ignores or 
 despises the past, and regards even its most helpful ties merely 
 as chains to be broken ; and to cherish instead a spirit which 
 discerns and reverences the reason that has ruled in history — 
 which would retain, apply, and utilise whatever of truth and 
 goodness the past has brought down to the present — which is 
 humble enough to feel and intelligent enough to perceive that 
 it needs whatever strength and wealth it can derive from the 
 past to fulfil the duties of the present and to meet the demands 
 of the future. 
 
 But this is only the half of the truth and the half of our 
 duty. The God who has been in the past — the Spirit of life, 
 and truth, and goodness which has pervaded the past — is in 
 the present and will be in the future, and we must not so cling 
 to the dead past as to lose hold of the life which was in it, but 
 has now risen above it, and is ever rising higher. The past 
 itself has been, as it were, constantly striving to transcend 
 itself, and we should be unfaithful to the whole spirit and 
 teaching even of the past, if we did not, like the apostle, 
 forget the things that are behind, and reach forth unto those 
 things which are before, and press towards the mark for the 
 prize of the high calling of God. While, therefore, we rever- 
 ence all that has been honourable in the past, and utilise all 
 that is useful which has come down to us from the past ; while 
 we distrust all modes of thought and schemes of reform which 
 do not adequately take account of the past, — let us not suppose 
 that we can abide in the past or perpetuate the past ; that we 
 
A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 7 
 
 ought to retain anything which has plainly outlived its useful- 
 ness ; that we can meet new requirements with old resources ; 
 that the problems of the future will not task to the utmost our 
 inventiveness as well as our energy ; that we may afford to 
 shut our eyes to the light which shines from any land, or to 
 reject aid from any quarter. Let the dead bury their dead, 
 but let us follow that which never dies, and the revelations of 
 which are ever increasing in clearness, in fulness, and in beauty. 
 The past has brought nothing to perfection, and the future 
 ought to be in all respects an advance and improvement on 
 the past, since it can start from it and profit by it. The 
 appearance of a pessimistic philosophy here and there, and the 
 still wider prevalence of a pessimistic frame of spirit, do not 
 prevent the present age from being on the whole an exception- 
 ally hopeful one, and, doubtless, it will be its own fault if that 
 hopefulness prove vain. It is not into a dull and uninviting 
 future, not into one which we need fear to find empty or un- 
 remunerative, but into one filled with the promises of discovery, 
 gleaming with the crowns of victory, that we are called to 
 
 enter. 
 
 " Before us shines a glorious world, 
 Fresh as a banner, bright, unfurled, 
 To music suddenly." 
 
 In all directions new fields of thought and enterprise are 
 being opened up to the human mind, and new conquests are 
 being placed within its reach. Old subjects, like the speech 
 and thought of ancient Greece and Home, have come to be 
 seen under new lights, and instead of having lost in value, as 
 the ignorant or superficial may suppose, have acquired in these 
 latter times a previously unknown significance, rendering them 
 more capable than ever of rewarding a life's devotion to them, 
 and more deserving than ever of recognition and support. 
 That in the regions of mathematics great discoveries and 
 useful applications may be indefinitely multiplied, if only an 
 adequate supply of competent minds be forthcoming, and 
 sufficient inducement for them to work be provided, is what 
 no one will dispute. The extraordinarily rapid advance of the 
 physical and biological sciences in recent years, has led some 
 to suppose that their present pace of movement cannot long 
 
8 A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 
 
 be maintained, but the suspicion is only shared in by those 
 who judge them from without, and finds no acceptance among 
 those who are able to see from within, and who are conse- 
 quently aware that, numerous as are the questions which these 
 sciences have of late been answering, still more numerous are 
 the questions which they have been raising and leaving to be 
 answered in the future. This, however, is obvious in regard 
 to them, that in the same degree in which they are developed 
 and specialised, in which their spheres of research are extended 
 and their means of research improved, must there be an addi- 
 tion to the demands on any community which would support 
 them in efficiency to submit to the sacrifices involved in in- 
 creasing the number of their teachers and in providing the 
 more abundant, more elaborate, and more expensive instru- 
 ments and appliances of investigation requii-ed. The mental 
 and moral sciences, historical and social studies, and the various 
 philosophical disciplines, are also becoming inspired with a 
 new spirit, new energy, new hopes, new ambitions, and have 
 manifestly a great future before them. It is a future in the 
 achievements and rewards of which the Universities of Scotland 
 must naturally desire to share in a measure which will be at 
 least not unworthy of their past. But if their desire is not 
 to be an illusion, there must be adequate efforts put forth to 
 realise it. The provision made in our Universities for teaching 
 and study in these departments of knowledge must not be that 
 merely which availed in the past, but that which suits the 
 present and will secure progress in the future. 
 
 The Faculty of Arts has to reach forth unto such things as 
 securing that its entrants be duly prepared, that certain great 
 departments of thought and learning cease to be neglected, that 
 justice to the various studies be obtained through giving free- 
 dom in the choice of studies, and that suflScient provision be 
 made for furthering high special attainments. The Faculty of 
 Medicine has before it the simple but pressing problem of the 
 completion of the new buildings, and what further problem 
 I know not, save how to go on prospering as it has been doing. 
 The Faculties of Law and of Theology both need great enlarge- 
 ment, and the latter perhaps organic changes. This city itself 
 has within it the materials out of which, if wisely used, there 
 
A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON- 9 
 
 might be built up, within the University, to the great honour 
 and profit of the nation, a magnificent school both of law and 
 of theology. Those who aim at this for the Faculty of Law 
 will doubtless press forward towards it with a hopeful spirit 
 as to a thing which is surely, although it may be slowly, 
 obtainable. Those who aim at it for the Faculty of Theology 
 may have less confidence of success, knowing that sectarianism 
 has had in Scotland many a sad triumph over enlightened 
 patriotism, and that the ecclesiastical world has been always 
 peculiarly slow to give heed to the word, " let the dead bury 
 their dead ; " but they can at least strive in the assured faith 
 that they are on the side of freedom and of science, of religious 
 progress and the public good. 
 
 In reaching forward to these things, and to all others which 
 may add to the usefulness of the University, and cause it better 
 to fulfil the ends of its existence — in pressing on to them, be 
 it as members or as friends, as operating from within or co- 
 operating from without — we need have no hesitation in doing 
 so as called of God to the work, and no fear that in yielding 
 ourselves heartily to this or to any calling of His we shall fail 
 to gain the goal of life, the prize of His approval and blessing. 
 There are no ways by which the University can be benefited 
 but ways by which God's work will also be done and His name 
 glorified. Nay, more ; all our work in the University or in 
 connection with it, like all other work to which God calls us, 
 is work to which He calls us in Christ Jesus, and which we 
 may perform in Christ Jesus. For Paul the high calling of 
 God was to the work of directly preaching the Gospel ; but 
 that is by no means the calling of all men, nor is that the 
 work by which all men may do most for the advancement of 
 the kingdom of Christ. A great discoverer in science may 
 contribute, by the light which he throws on the character of 
 God, and by the beneficial effects of his discoveries, far more 
 to the establishment and growth of the kingdom of Christ 
 than a thousand preachers. It is a grievous pity when such 
 a man does not koow the full glory of his own work, owing 
 to his ignoring its relation to the work of Christ. All good 
 work is work which tends to the advancement of Christ's king- 
 dom, and which should be done in Christ's spirit. Every high 
 
10 A UNIVERSITY TERCENTENARY SERMON. 
 
 and honourable calling is in Him, and the blame is ours if 
 it be not accepted and acted on in Him. 
 
 We would commemorate, then, the past of the University 
 with gratitude to God for His goodness, and anticipate its 
 future in the trust that that goodness will be abundantly con- 
 tinued. Its past is, in great part, not dead, but yet living in 
 us and living for us, — a source of strength in the present, and 
 a ground of hope for the future. The hearts of the generous 
 and patriotic turn with trust, with affection, with pride, to 
 old things, around which, while meeting the newest needs, 
 noble memories and dear associations cluster. Look around ; 
 for you can have no better illustration of what I mean. Not 
 long ago there could have been no assembly here like that 
 now before me, so grievously marred and deformed had this 
 venerable edifice been allowed to become, although its every 
 stone speaks, and its every pillar is wreathed with the associa- 
 tions of centuries ; but these stones did speak to the spirit — 
 these pillars did touch the heart — of one, recently removed 
 from among us, who loved well the old things of his country's 
 history, and on this our Tercentenary, but also the anniversary 
 of William Chambers, we are profiting by the restoration of 
 old St Giles', due to his public spirit and munificence. May 
 we not believe that it will not be otherwise with our University ? 
 May we not believe that in the time to come there will be 
 many moved by the remembrance of its past to labour in 
 restoring whatever may have been wrongly allowed to lapse 
 into decay ; in improving whatever is defective ; in enlarging, 
 enriching, and beautifying, materially and spiritually, the 
 edifice which through three hundred years our fathers have 
 been building up, but which still admits of many a useful and 
 fair addition, of many a strengthening buttress, of many a 
 higher storey, of many a hall and chamber, of many a chancel 
 and chapel, of many a pillar and turret ? May it be so. And 
 since the God who has blessed our University in the past can 
 bless it still and evermore — since He it is who was, and is, and 
 is to come — who faileth never, and betrayeth never — let us 
 commit its interests to Him. To Him also let us commit our 
 own interests, our own selves, our own souls. And to His 
 name be all praise and glory, now and for ever. Amen. 
 
II. 
 
 CHRISTIAN UNITY.i 
 
 "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me 
 through their word ; that they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in me, 
 and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe 
 that Thou hast sent me." — John xvii. 20, 21. 
 
 THESE words contain truths and suggest reflections which 
 are manifestly appropriate in the circumstances in which 
 we are met. Any remarks which may help you to enter into the 
 spirit and meaning of them cannot be otherwise than seasonable. 
 Let Christ Himself, therefore, be our teacher ; let the speaker 
 merely repeat what He taught, and may the Holy Spirit guide 
 both speaker and hearers to a right understanding, and a hearty 
 reception of what He taught ; and may the truth thus under- 
 stood and received be profitable unto us for doctrine, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 
 
 The circumstances in which the words of the text were first 
 spoken could not have been more fitted than they were deeply 
 to impress the truth in them on all Christian hearts and 
 consciences throughout all lands and ages. When our Lord 
 breathed them forth in prayer He had just instituted the 
 ordinance which was to commemorate until He came again 
 His own death. He had immediately before his view the cup 
 which His Father had prepared for Him to drink, the agony 
 of Gethsemane, the sufferings and the shame of Calvary ; yet 
 with divine unselfishness His thoughts were occupied about 
 others, and His affections were going forth towards others. 
 He was doing what He could to comfort, to encourage, to 
 enlighten the few sorrowful, perplexed, disheartened men who 
 were beside Him, and whom He was so soon to leave. But 
 His care and His love were not confined to them, or to the 
 
 1 Preached in St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, July 3, 1877, at meeting of the 
 First General Council of the Presbyterian Alliance. 
 
12 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 small number of persons scattered through Judea who had 
 trusted that He would redeem Israel, and whose affections 
 were still not wholly withdrawn from Him, although their 
 hopes were overclouded or extinguished. He knew that the 
 doubts and fears of His disciples were, as far as they regarded 
 Himself, altogether vain. He knew whence He came into 
 the world, and why He came — who sent Him, and for what 
 He was sent ; that His work was one which could not fail ; 
 that the Father would glorify the Son that the Son might 
 glorify the Father ; that the Father had given Him power 
 over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to a mighty 
 people to be gathered out of all the nations of the earth. He 
 knew that the honour of God and the salvation of men were 
 alike dependent on the success of what He had undertaken. 
 He looked, therefore, beyond the apparent defeats and passing 
 sorrows of the present, and beyond the sufferings of the im- 
 mediately impending future, and He saw that despised Gospel 
 which He was about to seal with His blood, spreading beyond 
 Judea, beyond the farthest bounds of Roman rule, over lands 
 whose names His contemporaries knew not. He saw that it 
 was to outlive empires, the foundations of which had not then 
 been laid, to destroy whatever was opposed to it, to pass 
 through the strangest vicissitudes of thought as gold through 
 the fire, and to diffuse light and life through all the coming 
 ages. He saw it gaining to God and to Himself the countless 
 multitudes of the redeemed, and His loving heart embraced 
 them all, and out of the fulness of His heart He prayed 
 for them all, and His prayer was " that they all might be 
 one." 
 
 In praying thus He asked, we may be sure, the very best 
 thing for them which He could. He had already on this 
 memorable night bequeathed to His followers His great gift 
 of peace ; He had laid on them His new commandment, 
 " Love one another " ; and now He asked for them what in- 
 cluded both — that unity which could only be obtained through 
 obedience to His law of love, and which Avas inseparable from 
 such peace as He had to bestow. 
 
 But that we may know the worth of what He asked on 
 our behalf, we must know what it really was. Its nature has 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 13 
 
 often been grievously misunderstood, and the consequences 
 have been most lamentable. 
 
 In every sphere of thought and life there is a serious danger 
 of taking a false unity for the true. The aim of all philosophy, 
 for example, is to reach a true intellectual unity, and the love 
 of unity is its very source and life ; yet it has also been the 
 chief cause of its errors, and all false systems of speculation, 
 like materialism and idealism, positivism and pantheism, are 
 simply systems based on false unities, on narrow and exclusive 
 unities. There is a unity of political life which is rich in 
 blessings ; and there are caricatures of that unity which have 
 only originated cruel and perfidious acts, foolish and unjust 
 measures. But nowhere have erroneous views as to the 
 nature of unity been so mischievous as in the province of 
 religion. In the name of Christian unity men have been 
 asked to sacrifice the most sacred rights of reason, conscience, 
 and affection. Independence of judgment, honesty, brotherly 
 love itself, and every quality which gives to human nature 
 worth and dignity, have been treated as incompatible with it. 
 In former days it was thought that Christian unity could be 
 forced upon men by violent and bloody hands ; and in later 
 times it has often been supposed that it could be promoted 
 by wrathful words and the arts of worldly intrigue. Through- 
 out the whole duration of the Church, the unity which our 
 Saviour prayed that His followers might enjoy has been 
 widely confounded with kinds of unity which have no neces- 
 sary connection with either Christian peace or love, and which 
 may be, and often have been, the occasions of most unchristian 
 discord and hatred. 
 
 What, then, is the unity which Christ prayed for when He 
 asked on behalf of His followers "that they all might be 
 one " ? Well, this at least it certainly is — a unity of super- 
 natural origin. It has its foundation not on earth but in 
 heaven, not in man but in God. It is not of this world nor 
 of the will of the flesh ; it is not a mere expression of the 
 likeness of human nature in all men ; it has its root and 
 source in the eternal nature of God — in the infinite love 
 wherewith He loved us before the world was. It supposes 
 a reception of the word or docrine of the apostles regarding 
 
14 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 Christ, and, consequently, faith in Christ Himself, as the 
 God-man, the brightness of the glory and the express image 
 of the person of the Father. It is the natural and necessary 
 expression of the common relationship of believing men to 
 the one God — the one Saviour — and the one Spirit. There 
 is one faith, one baptism, one hope on earth, because there is 
 one Father, one Eedeemer, one Sanctifier in heaven. Unity 
 on earth below is the result of a unifying work accomplished 
 by God who is in heaven above, through redemption in Jesus 
 Christ. Sin produced disunion. It separated men from God 
 and men from one another. Christ came to undo the work 
 of sin, and to bind together more firmly than ever what it 
 had torn asunder. Through faith believers are made one 
 with Him ; through His sacrifice they are made one with the 
 Father; through being in the Father and the Son they are 
 one among themselves — one in faith and feeling, in spirit 
 and life — in their principles and their sympathies, in their 
 affections and aspirations. 
 
 Such, whatever else it may be, is Christian unity. But 
 this of itself is sufficient to separate it by a broad and clear 
 boundary, yea, by an enormous chasm, from a unity which in 
 the present day is frequently set forth in opposition to it — 
 the unity proclaimed and glorified by Positivists, Humani- 
 tarians, and Socialists — the unity of mere human brotherhood. 
 This is a comparatively new enemy of the faith. It may be 
 said to have entered into general history with the French 
 Eevolution ; it owes its very existence to the Christianity 
 which it is set up to rival. But the signs of the times seem 
 clearly to indicate that, under some form or another, or rather 
 that under many forms, what has been called the religion of 
 humanity — which is just the belief in the brotherhood of men 
 separated from belief in the fatherhood of God, fraternity 
 divorced from piety, unity detached from its supernatural 
 root — will be one of the chief enemies which Christianity must 
 contend with. Merely ecclesiastical questions will probably 
 have far less, and social questions far more, importance 
 assigned to them in the estimation of Christian men in the 
 future than they have had in the past, and all Christian 
 Churches, it is to be hoped, will henceforth realise better 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 15 
 
 than they have hitherto done that their duty is to conquer 
 the world around them, and transform it into a part of the 
 kingdom of Christ — to sanctify society, and to stamp the 
 image of the Redeemer on all the relations of life. But in 
 attempting to accomplish this task. Christian belief will 
 assuredly be resisted by worldly unbelief, and yet in such a 
 struggle, the foe of Christianity, to have any chance of 
 success, must be neither wholly worldly nor wholly unbeliev- 
 ing ; it must have some positive truth, some generous faith, 
 some cause capable of eliciting enthusiasm. The world will 
 not be conquered — not generally influenced and governed — 
 by mere doubts, mere negations. But where is unbelief to 
 get a truth, a faith, a motive which will serve its purpose ? 
 I answer that unbelief, although so fertile in doubts and 
 negations, is so poor as regards the positive truth which can 
 alone support and ennoble life, that it must borrow it from the 
 very system which it seeks to combat, and that it can have no 
 other originality than that which it gains by mutilating the 
 truth which it borrows. To the Fatherhood of God and the 
 Brotherhood of Man, it will oppose the latter alone — to 
 Christian unity what it will call a broader, but what is really a 
 narrower thing, a merely human unity — to the whole truth, 
 the half truth. And for many a long day Christian men and 
 Christian Churches will have no more urgent work to do than 
 to show by words and deeds, by teaching and conduct, what 
 is the whole truth and what is only the half truth ; that the 
 temple of human brotherhood can only be solidly founded 
 and firmly built up on the Eternal Rock on which rests 
 Christian faith ; that the world can only be reconciled to 
 itself by being reconciled to its God ; that human unity can 
 only be realised in and through Christian unity. 
 
 The unity which Christ asked for His disciples is, I remark 
 next, a unity which has not only its foundation, but its 
 standard or model, in heaven. His prayer is not only that 
 His people may be one ; but that " as Thou, Father, art in Me, 
 and I in Thee, they also may be one in us." The union of 
 believers not only flows from the union between the Father 
 and the Son, who is the Mediator between the Father and 
 us, but should resemble it as much as the relationship between 
 
16 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 finite beings can resemble that between infinite beings. The 
 unity which Christ came to realise on earth was one meant 
 to reflect and ex|3ress in a finite form the perfect unity of the 
 Divine Nature. That unity, as Christianity has revealed it, 
 is very diflterent from the mere abstract unity of speculative 
 philosophy — the wholly indeterminate unity of which nothing 
 can be afiirmed except that it exists ; very different also 
 from the solitary, loveless, heartless unity of the God of 
 Mahommedanism. It is a unity rich in distinctions and per- 
 fections ; the unity of an infinite fulness of life and love ; the 
 unity of a Grodhead in which there are Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, a trinity of persons, a diversity of properties, a variety 
 of offices, a multiplicity of operations, yet not only sameness 
 of nature and equality of power and glory, but perfect oneness 
 also in purpose, counsel, and affection, perfect harmony of 
 will and work. It is in this unity, in the contemplation and 
 fruition of which poets like Dante, saints like Saint Bernard, 
 and divines like Melancthon, have supposed the highest happi- 
 ness of the blessed to consist, that we are to seek the archetype 
 of the unity of believers on earth. 
 
 It is one of the most marked and one of the grandest 
 characteristics of Christianity, that it continually sets before 
 us the heavenly, the divine, the perfect, as the law and rule 
 of our lives. As Moses was commanded to make the tabernacle 
 for the children of Israel in all things according to the pattern 
 shown him in the Mount, so, it has been truly said, is the Christian 
 commanded to frame his conduct in every respect according to 
 the perfect model of heaven. To be perfect, as God is perfect ; 
 to do our Father's will on earth, as it is done in heaven ; to 
 love one another, as Christ has loved us ; that is the uniform 
 tenor of the teaching which we receive from the Gospel ; and 
 so here our Saviour's words remind us that we are to be one 
 as the Father and the Son are one. If, as those who would 
 found a mere human brotherhood dream, heaven were empty 
 or wholly inaccessible to our faith — if there were no Father 
 and no Son, or, at least, none to be known by us — if there 
 were not in the Godhead itself an intimate indwelling of 
 person in person, a perfect communion of spirit with spirit, 
 an infinite love, all-comprehensive, all-persuasive, all-unitive — 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 17 
 
 would there be any real and adequate standard assignable 
 to the unity of men with men, to the love of man for man? 
 When one who disbelieves in God and His Son tells liis 
 fellow-men to be one, can he also reasonably and consistently 
 tell them in what measure or according to what model they 
 are to be one ? No. He can find no rule in the history of 
 the past, stained as that has been with hatreds and dissensions. 
 He must not be content with merely pointing to good men, 
 for clearly the best human lives have been very defective, and 
 in many respects warnings rather than examples. If he say, 
 "love and be at one as far as is for the greatest good of all," 
 he gives us a problem to calculate instead of an ideal which 
 can at once elicit and measure, which can at once sustain and 
 regulate love and unity. If he say, " love and be at one as 
 you ought," he forgets that the very question is. How ought 
 we to love and be at one ? Human unity is a derived and 
 dependent unity, and its standard can only be the ultimate 
 and uncreated source of unity — in the indwelling of the Father 
 in the Son, and of the Son in the Father. 
 
 The words of our Lord, I remark next, indicate to us not 
 only the true foundation and the true standard, but also the 
 true nature of the unity which He prayed for. What He 
 asked was that all His followers might be "one in Us," one 
 in the Father and in Himself — one in the Father through 
 belief in Himself, which can only mean that what He desired 
 was that His followers might all possess a common life — 
 might all participate in the mind which was in Him — might 
 all walk not by sight but by faith, not after the flesh, but 
 according to the Spirit — and might all consciously feel and 
 outwardly manifest that they were thus really one. This is, 
 of course, a kind of unity which embraces all Christ's followers 
 without any exception. The Church of Christ, which is the 
 body of Christ, contains every human being of whatever kind, 
 or tongue, or nation who has that life which is not of this 
 world, but hid with Christ in God, and it contains only those 
 who have it. Therefore the Church — the body of Christ — is 
 one. It is one in itself, because one in its Lord ; one in its 
 many members, because these members are all united to Him 
 who is the head of the Church — the sole head of the Church. 
 
 B 
 
18 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 The headship of Christ and the unity of the Church are two 
 aspects of the same truth. Christ is the head of the Church 
 because He is the Hfe of all, the guide of all, and the Lord 
 of all who are within the Church ; their life through the 
 agency of His Holy Spirit, their guide through the instru- 
 mentality of His Word, and their Lord through the redemp- 
 tion of them from sin to His own blessed service. And just 
 because Christ is thus the sole head of the Church, in the plain 
 Scriptural sense of the great doctrine, the Church itself is 
 one. Without Him it would have no centre of unity, no 
 coherence of parts, no sameness of life, no harmony of senti- 
 ments, no commonness of purpose, while in Him it has all 
 these. 
 
 Has them, I say, and not merely will have them. The unity 
 of the Church is not simply a thing to be hoped for, prayed 
 for, worked for ; it is also a thing which already exists, and 
 the existence of which ought to be felt and acted on. Chris- 
 tians are certainly far, far indeed, from being one, as Christ 
 prayed that they might be one — completely one — one as He 
 and the Father are one ; they are far from that, because they 
 are far from being perfect Christians ; but in so far as they are 
 Christians at all, they even are to that extent already one. To 
 be a Christian is to be — through change of nature — through 
 newness of life — one with all other Christians. Now, I know 
 scarcely any truth about Christianity which we are more apt to 
 forget, and which we more need to remember than just this, 
 that Christian unity already exists as far as Christianity itself 
 does ; that we do not need to bring it into existence, but that 
 Christ Himself by His work and spirit brought it into existence ; 
 that any unity which we are entitled to look for in the picture 
 must be merely a development, an increase of that which 
 already binds together Christian men of all denominations — 
 not a something of an essentially different nature. 
 
 The great duty of Christians in this matter, some seem to think, 
 is to ignore their differences, to conceal them, or to get rid of 
 them anyhow ; they appear to find it difficult to understand how 
 there can be a unity co-existing with and underlying differ- 
 ences, and wholly distinct from the uniformity which can only 
 be gained by the surrender or suppression of differences. This 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 19 
 
 is a very superficial view, for it represents Christian unity not 
 as a living and spiritual thing at all, but as a mere dead 
 outward form of doctrine or policy ; it is also a very dangerous 
 view, for it tends directly to the establishment of ecclesiastical 
 despotism, the discouragement of the open expression of indi- 
 vidual convictions, and the destruction of faith in the sacred- 
 ness and value of truth. To me it seems that the chief aim 
 and desire of Christians as to unity ought to be to realise their 
 oneness notwithstanding their differences ; to estimate at its 
 true worth what is common to them as well as what is de- 
 nominationally distinctive of them. 
 
 Christian unity does not require us to undervalue any par- 
 ticular truth, or to surrender any denominational principle, or 
 even individual conviction, which is well founded ; it merely 
 requires that our minds and hearts be open also to what is 
 common, catholic, universal ; that we do not allow our deno- 
 minational differences and individual peculiarities to prevent 
 us from tracing and admiring the operations of the spirit of 
 grace through the most dissimilar channels. There may be 
 Christian oneness where there are also differences which no 
 man can rationally count of slight moment. The differences 
 between Protestants and Eoman Catholics are of the most 
 serious kind, religiously, morally, and socially, yet obviously 
 the feelings to which St. Bernard gave expression in the hymn, 
 "Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts," and those which Charles 
 Wesley poured forth in the hymn, "Jesus, lover of my soul," 
 had their source in the same Holy Spirit, and their object in 
 the same divine Saviour. There is a great distance, and there 
 are many differences, between the Roman Catholic Church of 
 France and the Free Church of Scotland, but Fenelon and 
 M'Cheyne were of one Church and one in their spiritual experi- 
 ence. Saint Bernard and Pope Alexander VI., Fenelon and 
 Cardinal Dubois, were united in the Church of Rome — who 
 will dare to say that they were one in Jesus Christ ? Saint 
 Bernard and Charles Wesley, Fenelon and M'Cheyne, were eccle- 
 siastically far apart — who will dare to say that they were 7iot 
 one in Jesus Christ ? I trust that Protestants will never think 
 slight the differences which separate them from the Church of 
 Rome ; and yet I hesitate not to say that when Protestants in 
 
20 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 general are clearly able to discern the oneness even beneath 
 these differences, and cordially to love whatever is of Christ 
 and His Holy Spirit, even when it appears in the Church of 
 Rome, a greater step will have been taken towards the attain- 
 ment of Christian unity than would be the mere external union 
 of all the denominations of Protestantism. 
 
 As to the differences between these denominations, they 
 might surely exist and yet prove merely the means of exer- 
 cising and strengthening Christian unity. If we can only be 
 at one in spirit with those who agree with us in opinion, 
 there can be little depth or sincerity in such oneness. The 
 love which vanishes before a difference of views and sentiments 
 must be of a very superficial and worthless nature. And, as 
 a plain matter of fact, it is neither merely nor mainly the 
 differences of principle or opinion between the various deno- 
 minations of Christians which mar and violate their Christian 
 unity, but the evil and unchristian passions which gather 
 round these differences. The differences are only the occasions 
 of calling forth these passions. If they did not exist at all, 
 the same passions would create or find other differences, other 
 occasions for displaying themselves. It is not when one body 
 of men holds honestly, openly, and firmly the Voluntary prin- 
 ciple, and another the Establishment principle, that Christian 
 unity is broken, but when those who hold the one principle 
 insinuate that those who hold the other are, simply in virtue 
 of doing so, ungodly men, or men who disown Christ as the 
 life and guide, the Lord and Head of His people. It is when, 
 instead of cordially acknowledging and rejoicing in what is 
 good in each other, each exaggerates what is good in itself, 
 and depreciates what is good in the other, or even rejoices 
 in its neighbour's humiliation or injury ; and when those who 
 represent them contend, by speech or writing, in a manner 
 from which a courteous and honest man of the world would 
 recoil ; it is then that Christian unity is broken — visibly, 
 terribly broken — for then the Christian spirit itself is mani- 
 festly absent, or grievously feeble. 
 
 All the differences of principle which separate most at least 
 of our Christian denominations might redound to their common 
 honour, and reveal rather than conceal their common unity, had 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 21 
 
 their members and spokesmen only a little more justice, gener- 
 osity, and love — a little more grace and virtue — a little more of 
 the spirit of that kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, 
 and joy in the Holy Ghost. They might set a high value on 
 their distinctive principles, and yet rejoice that what they held 
 apart was so small a portion of the truth in comparison with 
 what they enjoyed in common. It may, perhaps, be quite 
 reasonable that for the sake of one principle as to which they 
 difiEer two denominations shall stand apart, although on a 
 thousand other principles they are agreed; but it cannot be 
 reasonable that their divergence of views as to the one principle 
 should shut their eyes and hearts to the fact that as to the 
 thousand others they are agreed. And yet there is, as all 
 experience proves, a very great danger of thus allowing dis- 
 tinctive principles to obscure or prevent our recognition of 
 common principles. It is the penalty attached to all undue 
 exaltation or glorifying of what distinguishes us from our 
 Christian brethren. And met as we are as a General Presby- 
 terian Council, I hope we shall be on our guard against such a 
 danger. God forbid that the Presbyterian Churches of the 
 world should have so little received the spirit or learned the 
 law of Christ as that they should in any degree confound Pres- 
 byterian unity with Christian unity — or vainly boast of what 
 is but an outward form — or say or do anything to hurt the 
 feelings or the usefulness of other Churches which are as dear 
 to the Saviour as themselves, and which are separated from 
 them by so thin a partition wall as a mode of ecclesiastical 
 government. We have come together as Presbyterians, but 
 with the wish to promote Christian unity ; and the very thought 
 of Christian unity, if apprehended aright, must save us from 
 unduly and offensively magnifying any secondary unity, any 
 outward distinction. 
 
 Christian unity we have seen to be a spiritual unity which 
 links together all Christians and underlies all the differences 
 which distinguish them from one another. It is a natural and 
 necessary consequence of this truth that Christian unity, 
 although it may lean to such secondary unities as identity of 
 doctrine, or uniformity of ritual, or oneness of government, 
 ought never to be identified with them. Christian unity may 
 
22 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 be where there are none of these things. It might not be 
 where they all were. Take doctrine. Christian unity un- 
 doubtedly involves in its very essence a oneness of faith, for 
 the Christian life is one of confidence towards God as a re- 
 conciled Father in Jesus Christ — a confidence which is gained 
 through belief in Jesus Christ, while that belief is gained 
 through assent to what Scripture testifies of Jesus Christ. 
 This unity of a living faith naturally finds expression in a unity 
 of doctrine or creed. God and Christ are one, and the testimony 
 of Scripture regarding Him is a self -consistent whole, and the 
 longer, the more impartially, the more freely and honestly, the 
 more reverently and profoundly that testimony is studied, the 
 more likely, or, if you will, the more certainly, is unity even of 
 doctrine to be the result. And it has been the result. The 
 harmony of the creeds and confessions, not of Presbyterianism 
 alone, nor even of Protestantism alone, but of the whole Chris- 
 tian world, is most comprehensive, while the harmony of the 
 chief Protestant creeds and confessions is, of course, far more 
 so ; it shows us a unity of doctrine, surely, abundantly sufficient 
 for almost every want of practical Christian life. One would 
 call this unity or harmony of creed remarkable, were it not that 
 obviously no very different system of the doctrines could be 
 evolved out of the Scriptures by the collective labours of large 
 masses of men one in spirit than that which has been derived 
 from them and embodied in the creeds of Churches. 
 
 But while all this is true, and Christian unity thus naturally 
 tends to produce a doctrinal unity, we must never confound 
 these two things. A man may err very widely in creed, and 
 yet have a sincere believing soul. He may greatly misunder- 
 stand many an instruction of his Lord and Master, and yet 
 reverence^Him far more, and love Him far better — and there- 
 fore, since love is the fulfilling of the law, much more truly 
 obey His will — than a wiser and more instructed brother, whose 
 exegesis of the New Testament is perfect. A Church might 
 have a faultless creed, to which all its members unhesitatingly 
 assent, and yet be devoid of Christian unity because devoid of 
 the Christian faith, of spiritual life. Mere orthodoxy is deadly 
 heresy. The purely intellectual unity reached through its 
 purely intellectual assent is no operation of the spirit, but 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 23 
 
 where the spirit is not, life is not ; and where life is not, death 
 is. Life, however, is unity, and death is dissolution. 
 
 Besides, while Christian unity tends to doctrinal unity, there 
 may never on earth be doctrinal identity. Whenever there is 
 mental activity — free, honest, independent inquiry, such as there 
 is whenever there is either intellectual or spiritual life — research 
 is ever advancing ; and the first results of advancing research 
 into the meaning of either God's book of nature or His book 
 of revelation are always discordant and unsatisfactory. There 
 are conflicting opinions entertained on many questions re- 
 garding heat, light, and electricity ; there are rival schools in 
 geology and natural history ; there is hardly a single subject 
 in mental, moral, or political science about which there is not 
 the greatest possible diversity of opinion. In all these cases, 
 however, the continuance of free research will bring order ov.t 
 of chaos, harmony out of confusion, yet will the perfect order 
 and harmony of nature be discovered and demonstrated only 
 when science has fully comprehended nature, and there is no 
 room left for fresh research. It is not otherwise with regard 
 to revelation. We can only have an absolute harmony of 
 opinion as to the Bible when there are no more new truths to 
 be derived from it, or new questions raised concerning it, when 
 its interpretation is perfected, and research regarding it com- 
 pleted. That will not be, I believe, before the day of doom. 
 Certainly it will not be in our day, for never was Biblical 
 research more actively pushed forward in all directions than 
 just now. Never, therefore, were the Churches more bound, 
 while conscientiously guarding old and assured truths, to be- 
 ware of dogmatism as to new views, or of trammelling un- 
 necessarily advancing research. The free action of spiritual 
 life in the form of investigation and criticism when displayed 
 in fields hitherto little trodden, and in questions hitherto little 
 studied by us, may apparently produce, or really produce, for a 
 season, only contradictory and destructive theories, yet in God's 
 good time it will assuredly bring about unity and peace, and 
 minister to faith and virtue, as it has done in fields already 
 traversed and as to questions now settled. 
 
 Perhaps Christian unity — unity of spirit — also tends to 
 ritualistic uniformity or uniformity of worship. There are 
 
24 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 two grounds on either or both of which this may be main- 
 tained. It may be argued that there is a divinely appointed 
 form of worship defined in the New Testament with sufficient 
 distinctness, and that Christian men will sooner or later be all 
 convinced of this, and will, of course, adopt that form of wor- 
 ship. It may also be argued that there is an absolutely best 
 form of worship, and that when the spiritual life of the Church 
 is sufficiently deepened and quickened it must assume that 
 form as alone fully appropriate. And these two arguments 
 may be combined ; indeed, if there is a divinely-appointed 
 form of worship it can scarcely be other than the absolutely 
 best form of worship — the one most suitable in all lands, ages, 
 and circumstances. 
 
 I have neither the time nor the desire to examine either of 
 these arguments, but certainly I am unconvinced by either 
 of them. I cannot see that there is one exclusively divine 
 form of worship prescribed by Scripture and binding in all its 
 regulations on men in all places and at all times, or that there 
 is one absolutely best form of worship, identical and unvarying, 
 no matter what may have been the history, or what may be 
 the characters and circumstances of the worshippers. Hence, 
 although I can hardly doubt that the more enlightened and 
 earnest our piety becomes, the less value will it attach to acces- 
 sories and imposing forms, the more suspicious will it grow of 
 what is symbolical and artificial, and the higher will be its 
 appreciation of those forms of worship which, with the greatest 
 simplicity, naturalness, and directness, bring the soul into 
 contact with the realities of worship, yet I can feel no certainty 
 that there would be uniformity of worship even if there were 
 perfect unity of spirit. I will therefore judge no man's worship by 
 my own ideal of the form of worship. To his own master each 
 man standeth or falleth. The unity of worship which is all 
 important, is not in its form at all, but in its being in spirit and 
 in truth. The form is entirely subordinate to the spirit. The 
 true spirit is restricted to no one form, for the Holy Ghost has 
 condescended to bless and to act through the most diverse 
 forms. Therefore, let us not rashly pronounce any of them 
 common or unclean. 
 
 Kitualistic uniformity, then, is not only not to be identified 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 25 
 
 with Christian unity, but probably not even to be included in 
 the idea of Christian unity. The same must be said of one- 
 ness of ecclesiastical government or polity. Yet nothing can 
 be more manifest than that within certain limits and conditions 
 Christian unity must work very powerfully towards ecclesias- 
 tical oneness — towards the union of Churches. The main 
 reason why not a few Churches stand apart is unhappily to 
 be sought and found not in their principles, but in their 
 passions. Jealousies, rivalries, recriminations, assaults upon 
 one another, most unseemly and improper in themselves, 
 and most injurious to the Christian cause, are exhibited, in- 
 stead of Christian graces or practices. The strength and 
 energy which should have been applied to the conversion and 
 sanctification of the world are far more than wasted in warring 
 with one another, in "biting and devouring one another." All 
 this is, of course, the very opposite of Christian unity, and 
 must disappear in order that Christian unity may establish and 
 display itself. Wherever there is a real growth of religious life, 
 there a sense of the sinfulness of such a state of things, and 
 of the evil which it causes, must spring up, and the desire for 
 brotherly communion and co-operation be experienced. The 
 spirit of love and peace, of zeal for the glory of God and the 
 salvation of man, working from within, cannot fail gradually 
 to effect many an ecclesiastical alliance and union, and in all 
 such cases there will be a clear gain to Christianity. There 
 may be unions, however, which have no root in Christian 
 unity, which are prompted by worldly motives, and effected 
 from without. These merit no admiration, and are not likely 
 to promote much the progress of the Kingdom of Christ. A 
 true union between Churches must be rather grown into than 
 directly striven for. Just as he who would be happy must not 
 aim straight at happiness, but cultivate piety and virtue, so 
 Churches which seek such a union as God will bless will only 
 reach their goal by increasing in love to God and to all 
 mankind. 
 
 I do not know that we are Avarranted to affirm with con- 
 fidence much beyond this as to ecclesiastical union. There 
 are not a few who hold that the Church, as the body of Christ, 
 must become externally, visibly, organically one. This is the 
 
26 CHRISTIAN UNITY. 
 
 sort of unity which the Church of Rome has ever maintained 
 to be an essential characteristic of the true Church. Thus to 
 be one is the ideal which she has so steadily striven to realise ; 
 and the ambition of attaining that ideal has been the inspiiing 
 cause of most of her crimes. It is a unity, I am persuaded, 
 which would be pernicious if it could be attained, but which 
 fortunately cannot be attained ; an ideal which is a dream — a 
 grandiose dream — and also a diseased dream ; an ambition 
 .which is foolish, if not guilty. The notion of a universal 
 Church in this sense is precisely the same delusion in religion 
 as the notion of a universal monarchy or a universal republic 
 in politics, and, in fact, implies that that Utopia is a truth 
 which can be, and will be, realised. Human hands are utterly 
 incompetent to hold and guide aright the reins of universal 
 sway either in religious or civil matters. A universal Church 
 would be as surely a misgoverned Church as a universal empire 
 would be a misgoverned empire. 
 
 Before we can even affirm with rational confidence that all 
 Churches will come to have the same kind of government, not 
 to speak of the same government, we must have convinced 
 ourselves that there is one kind of Church government which 
 is alone of divine origin and authority. This is not now the 
 prevalent view, perhaps, in Protestant Churches. Most Pres- 
 byterians probably, while claiming for Presbytery that it is 
 " founded on the Word of God aud agreeable thereto," will 
 not deny that the same may be said of other forms of Church 
 government. The unity of the Church, the unity of believers, 
 cannot in their view be bound up with any one kind of govern- 
 ment. It is a unity not to be sought for elsewhere than in the 
 love of God the Father, the cross of Christ, the work of the 
 Holy Spirit, and the hearts of believers. 
 
 There are many truths in my text still unnoticed, but I shall 
 only mention, and merely mention, the one which is most pro- 
 minent. The oneness of Christians is not simply described as 
 a blessing to themselves, but as what would be a blessing also 
 to the world. If Christians sincerely and fervently loved one 
 another, and loved the Father and the Son, and showed by 
 their whole conduct how precious, how joyous, how divine a 
 thing Christian love was, the world could not but be influenced 
 
CHRISTIAN UNITY. 27 
 
 by the sight. The love of Christ's disciples towards one another 
 would guide it to the love of Christ Himself, and the love of 
 Christ to the love of the Father; and so the world would 
 believe that God really had sent His Son, would cease to be 
 the world, and would joy and glory in its Redeemer. If those 
 who call themselves Christians were all really so ; if they were 
 one in Christ, and strove to be perfectly one ; if, amidst all 
 differences and distinctions, they had a profound affection for 
 one another ; if their very controversies were models of courtesy 
 and their very disputings examples of meekness and humility ; 
 if brotherly communion, even with those ecclesiastically widest 
 apart from them, were earnestly sought by them, and brotherly 
 co-operation habitual to them, the effect on society would soon 
 be very visible. The sarcasm of the unbeliever would be 
 silenced ; the native loveliness of the gospel would be made 
 manifest ; and Christians, thus one in heart and life, in affec- 
 tion and action, would come, with a moral might unknown by 
 the world for ages, to the help of the Lord against the 
 mighty. 
 
 "Nothing," said one of the greatest of English philosophers, 
 " doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out 
 of the Church, as breach of unity." " Keep your smaller differ- 
 ences," was the exhortation of the Reformer of Geneva ; " let 
 us have no discord on that account ; but let us march in one 
 solid column, under the banners of the Captain of our Salva- 
 tion, and with undivided counsels form the legions of the Cross 
 upon the territories of darkness and of death." 
 
 May God bless what has now been said. 
 
 And unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above 
 all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in 
 us, unto Him be glory in the Church of Christ Jesus throughout 
 all ages, world without end. Amen ! 
 
III. 
 
 THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART.i 
 
 " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from 
 the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turn- 
 ing." — James i. 17. 
 
 THESE words plainly state that all good and perfect gifts 
 come from one and the same source, — that every good gift 
 and every perfect boon has its origin beyond time, beyond 
 earth and man, beyond all secondary and creaturely causes, in 
 the Eternal Uncreated Divine First Cause, — that all physical 
 beauties, all providential bounties, all gracious influences, all 
 that is true, all that is lovely, all that is pure and righteous 
 and holy, all genuine satisfactions, all real blessings, are from 
 the all-perfect and all-loving Father in whom we and all things 
 live and move and have our being. As all rays of sunlight 
 issue from the sun, so all good gifts are bestowed by the one 
 good Giver. 
 
 But the words of the text mean more than this. They were 
 spoken, as the context shows, to refute and rebuke the notion 
 that God may tempt to evil. And they accomplish their object 
 by describing God as one who not only gives all good, but who 
 gives, and from His very nature can give, only good ; whose 
 "giving" always and necessarily is solely for good; whose 
 " boons," seeing that they must be like Himself, can have no 
 faults in them. His gifts may be abused, but the abuse is 
 no part of the gifts ; the goods He confers may become the 
 occasions of temptations to evil, but as He cannot be tempted 
 with evil, neither tempteth He any man ; in spite of the light 
 from heaven we may stray, but the light from heaven never 
 leads astray. 
 
 God gives only good, never evil, as the sun gives only light, 
 never darkness. He is " the Father of lights, with whom is 
 
 1 Preached in St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, October 27, 1889, before the 
 National Association for the Advancement of Art. 
 
 28 
 
THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 29 
 
 no variableness, neither shadow of turning " — " no variation or 
 shadow cast by turning." The sun in the heavens ever raying 
 forth light and heat, and so beautifying and nourishing all 
 nature, is an emblem of God and His giving ; but bright and 
 glorious although it be, it is only a feeble and inadequate 
 emblem. It is not always visible and present ; it rises and 
 sets ; it is at one time nearer and at another farther from the 
 earth ; it so varies and changes that we have darkness as well 
 as liffht, cold as well as heat. But it is not so with God. He 
 changes not in His being, attributes, or operations, but is the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He is all light, pure 
 light ; has no darkness or shadow in Himself ; can have no 
 darkness or shadow pass over Him ; and His light shines. His 
 good and perfect gifts How forth from Him, without inter- 
 ruption, without cessation. 
 
 Such is the general meaning of the text; and now, with 
 the help of Him from whom all good desires, resolutions, and 
 endeavours, as well as all other good things come, I wish to 
 give it such an application as may be suitable to the occasion 
 on which we are met. 
 
 God as the perfectly good is not only Absolute Truth, and 
 Absolute Holiness, but also Absolute Beauty. He is the source, 
 the author, the giver of all beautiful things and qualities. All 
 the beauties of earth and sea and sky, of life and mind and 
 spirit, are rays from His beauty. The powers by which they 
 are perceived are conferred by Him. The light in which they 
 are seen is His light. As Beauty no less than as Power, as 
 Life, as Truth, as Love, as Holiness, He is ever giving, ever 
 giving good gifts, ever giving Himself, ever revealing Himself, 
 for His giving of Himself is His revealing of Himself, and His 
 revealing of Himself is His giving of Himself, whether it be in 
 the fragrance of flowers and the songs of birds, or in inspired 
 thoughts and sanctified ajffections of men, or in the incarnation 
 and atonement of Him who was the brightness of His glory 
 and the express image of His person. 
 
 And how liberally and incessantly He bestows His gifts of 
 beauty ! And how good and perfect these gifts are ! He gives 
 with the affluence of an inexhaustible because infinite Being. 
 The immeasurable depths of space are strewn with stars beau- 
 
30 THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 
 
 tiful in their colours, motions, and groupings. There is no 
 painter like the sun, no brush like his rays. The sky is ever 
 changing, so as to produce scene after scene, picture after 
 picture, glory after glory. The successions of the seasons and 
 the alternations of day and night bring with them heavenliest 
 visions. Innumerable are the varieties of colour, of sound, and 
 of motion, which please sense and heart and mind. The 
 bleakest parts of earth, the loneliest nooks of the forest, the 
 thinnest crevices of the rocks, are found adorned by flowers of 
 exquisite grace. The tiniest creatures in the depths of the 
 sea are moulded and tinted with an inimitable precision and 
 delicacy. And the beauties of the material and animal worlds 
 are surpassed by those of the mental and moral worlds — those 
 displayed in the workings of human affection, in the move- 
 ments of human thought, in the experiences of human life, in 
 the scenes of human history. Wherever sympathy and gener- 
 osity find expression, wherever there are traces of sorrow rightly 
 borne or of the conquest of the spirit over the flesh, wherever 
 personal worth or Divine grace makes itself visible, wherever 
 there are actions with true human interest, pathos, or signifi- 
 cance in them, there are beauties which the adequately refined 
 and cultured judgment will pronounce higher than any pre- 
 sented by the qualities and combinations of matter. 
 
 Beauty has been scattered with so bountiful a hand around 
 us that there is no need to travel to a distance to find it. It is 
 in all places, on all faces, within all lives. It is on the surface 
 almost everywhere ; it is buried everywhere. To see it requires 
 only the opening of an eye which has a soul behind it. 
 
 " If we have souls, know liow to see and use, 
 One place performs, like any other place, 
 The proper service every place on earth 
 Was framed to furnish man with : serves alike 
 To give him note that, through the place he sees, 
 A place is signified lie never saw, 
 But, if he lack not soul, may learn to know. 
 Earth's ugliest walled and ceiled imprisonment 
 May suffer, through its single rent in roof. 
 Admittance of a cataract of light 
 Beyond attainment through earth's palace-panes 
 Pinholed athwart their windowed filagree 
 By twinklings sobered from the sun outside." 
 
THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 31 
 
 But God not only gives in inexhaustible profusion objects 
 of beauty, He also gives power to see beauty, capacity to enjoy 
 it, ability to express by various means and in various forms the 
 visions of beauty vouchsafed and the feelings which they elicit. 
 He implants, that is to say, in human nature those elements, 
 emotions, and aptitudes, which are the roots of art with all its 
 branches and developments. He bestows them on all men ; 
 and on those whom He destines to serve Him as artists He 
 bestows them in an exceptional measure. They are among 
 the common and essential characteristics of human nature — 
 features of the Divine image in that nature — yea, that nature 
 itself as receptive and reflective of the beauty revealed by God, 
 The aesthetic nature in its own way, like the moral and religious 
 nature, is the whole nature in a special attitude or relation ; 
 it includes head, and heart, and hand. As regards its higher 
 endowments artists are, indeed, God's elected children, but 
 Divine election is only the election of some to special privilege 
 for the greatest good of all. Were not lower endowments the 
 same in kind given to men in general, the artist's influence would 
 have narrow and impassable limits, and his mission among his 
 fellows would be restricted to action on the class or caste which 
 least needed his aid. As it is, while God has given with special 
 graciousness to him. He has also so given to all that the true 
 field of the artist's influence is " the world," and it is only owing 
 to the want of the appropriate culture or the positive degrada- 
 tion of human nature that his public is not all mankind. 
 
 Art is not less a gift of God to men because realised through 
 the efforts of men themselves. It is not less a good and per- 
 fect gift because only slowly and progressively realised. Nothing 
 could be less perfect in relation to man than an unvarying 
 stereotyped perfection. Therefore the perfect, unvarying, 
 changeless God has revealed His perfection through endless 
 variation and change. Therefore His revelation of His beauty 
 has been, like His revelation of His truth, His righteousness, 
 His love, one made " at sundry times and in divers manners " — 
 a vast development always in correspondence with the require- 
 ments and capacities of the recipients. He has gradually guided 
 men to an ever clearer and fuller perception of the beauties dis- 
 played in nature, raid gradually enabled them to build up a 
 
32 THE GOOD AXD PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 
 
 world of beauty of their owu with a charm and an interest in 
 various respects even higher than that of nature. 
 
 This world of art made by men themselves, but by men 
 empowered, inspired, and guided by God, has been gradually 
 built up ever since man appeared on earth. Its beginnings 
 must have been most rudimentary, otherwise they would have 
 given no pleasure, and been of no use to the rude beginners. 
 But already, in the quaternar}^ period of geologists, the Cro- 
 Magnon race had produced true artists. There has been no 
 break in the history of art since, nor has there been any people 
 wholly without art, any more than without morality or religion. 
 From age to age, under Divine impulse and direction, all gene- 
 rations and nations have been co-operating and contributing to 
 rear, to adorn, to fill a structure broad as the earth and rising 
 towards heaven ; and now that Egypt and India, Assyria and 
 Persia, China and Japan, Israel and Greece, Eome and the 
 mediaeval worlds, and all the kingdoms of modern Europe have 
 given of their best to it, now that architecture in so many forms, 
 sculpture at every stage, the painting of all schools, the music 
 of all lands, the poetry of all peoples have enriched it, now that 
 it contains countless immortal and priceless productions of 
 genius, it stands before us a magnificent and glorious fabric, a 
 fitting palace for the Eternal King, a creation evoked by God 
 from the human spirit, and not inferior to the physical cosmos 
 evolved from chaos. 
 
 To dwell on the goodness and perfectness of God's gift of 
 art would be easy, and might be profitable ; but enough has, 
 perhaps, been said to warrant and support the few words of 
 practical application which are all that time will now allow me 
 to speak. 
 
 First, then, seeing that beauty and art are good and perfect 
 gifts of God, things of Divine sacredness and of Divine ex- 
 cellence, they are to be treated as such, to be reverenced and 
 valued, to be cherished and cultivated. They ought to be so 
 treated by all, and all will find abundant reward in gratefully, 
 wisely, and justly appreciating them. In a world like ours, 
 where there is so much to depress, to debase, and sadden life, 
 it is a vast misfortune that any one should not have all the 
 avenues of his soul as open as possible to whatever tends to 
 
THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 33 
 
 elevate, purify, and brighten existence, to give serenity to the 
 mind and peace to the heart, and to reveal God in any of His 
 aspects. But, of course, as wherever there is special privilege 
 there is special obligation, the artist is specially bound to 
 receive those gifts of God's goodness, those aptitudes of his 
 own nature, which have relation to the discernment and realisa- 
 tion of beauty, with a grateful and loyal, an honest and good 
 heart, jealously to guard them from all contamination and 
 perversion, faithfully to improve and develop them, nobly to 
 exercise and use them. He is bound to resist all seductions 
 and temptations which would make his work unworthy of his 
 high calling — less thorough, less sincere, less truthful and 
 significant, less fair and elevating than it ought to be. He, 
 a man generally more susceptible, perhaps, than other men 
 to the shows and appearances of things and the lusts of the 
 eye, the world and the flesh, must be ready and resolute to 
 sacrifice all semblances without reality, all charms and pleasures 
 wliich entice him from the pursuit of the beauty which is a 
 joy for ever, all cheap popularity, all easy triumphs, all short 
 routes to fame or wealth. 
 
 This he can only do if a good and true man, whose heart 
 is high and pure, whose spirit is morally healthy and strong, 
 who loves God and man, and is reverently obedient to the 
 voice of duty. Whatever vitiates the character of the artist, 
 robs him of inner force, of clearness of vision and self-control, 
 must vitiate his work. Whatever ennobles, enlarges, and re- 
 fines himself must enhance the excellence of his productions. 
 He who would bring forth fruits of beauty must strive, there- 
 fore, to have a beautiful life — to be " all beautiful within." 
 From the foul what is fair cannot come; from the mean the 
 great cannot come. There is no law in the universe more 
 certain or inexorable than this. Let no one think, therefore, 
 that he may be a mean and evil man yet a great and good 
 artist ; that he may be true to himself as an artist, otherwise 
 than by being true to himself as a man, and, therefore, also 
 true to his fellow-men and to his God. He who would cultivate 
 art aright must cultivate virtue and religion too. Virtue and 
 religion, indeed, will not enable a man to become an artist 
 who has not received the artist's special gifts, but every 
 
34 THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 
 
 virtuous quality, every religious excellence, will not only be a 
 safeguard to the artist against the perversion and degradation 
 of his gifts, but a source of positive strength and power in 
 the use of them. The triple cord is stronger than the single 
 thread. It is to their united strength that the artist must 
 trust if he would overcome the trials and temptations of the 
 disciplinary and preparatory stages of his life, and attain to 
 that serene and happy region to which they alike attract us, 
 and to which all that is best in us aspires — 
 
 " Wliere love is an unerring light 
 And joy its own security." 
 
 Secondly, the artist has not only to attend to his own self- 
 culture, but also to accomplish an important social mission. 
 Art does not exist merely for the advantage and enjoyment 
 of the artist. Like everything else it may be perverted to 
 selfish ends, but the perversion denaturalises and debases it, 
 for it is essentially a social thing, meant for the good of man 
 as man. The charm of it is not lessened by being shared, 
 but is the better enjoyed for being enjoyed in common. The 
 only appropriate soil or medium of it is one of sympathy, love, 
 brotherliness. Its ends are not individual and class ends, 
 but human and universal ends. Its goodness and perfectness 
 as God's gift is seen in its fitness to be to all men, even to 
 the humblest and the poorest, an enlarger of the range of 
 thought, a refiner of the feelings, a source of impulse and 
 inspiration in work, a soother of sorrow and giver of joy, a 
 revealer of the invisible and spiritual — auxiliary to moral pur- 
 poses, subservient to divine. 
 
 The social importance of art, perhaps, few adequately realise. 
 It is in every way sufficient to entitle it to be ranked along 
 with science and religion as regards beneficent tendency. Con- 
 sider its most direct and obvious function — to give pleasure 
 of a pure and special kind — pleasure which leaves no sting 
 behind, but, on the contrary, evokes good feelings, and 
 strengthens for good works. Is there not in that simply 
 motive enough to stimulate to do his best any artist who is 
 a good-hearted man, who loves his brother men, and wishes 
 to see them happier and better ? Is to dijffuse pure happiness 
 
THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 35 
 
 not a good and godlike work ? But art exists not merely to 
 gratify our senses, and our minds and hearts through our 
 senses, but to educate them, to give them increased power and 
 delicacy, to renew and regenerate them. Art, through the 
 works of artists, is meant to do for mankind in general that 
 service which Wordsworth says his sister had done for him — 
 
 " She gave me eyes, she gave me ears ; 
 And humble cares, and delicate fears ; 
 A heart, the fountain of sweet tears, 
 And love, and thought, and joy." 
 
 This is a great and a blessed service, for men left to themselves 
 have eyes but they see not, ears but they hear not, and hearts 
 but they are most unsusceptible and unintelligent. If they see 
 and hear it is only with their eyes and ears, not through them 
 with their minds and hearts, which is the only way of seeing 
 and hearing worthy of a man ; if they feel and understand it 
 is little beyond what they can weigh and measure, not the 
 inner reality, goodness, and beauty of things. They need such 
 eyes and ears, such hearts and minds, that all sights and sounds 
 in the material world will be seen and heard as they are in 
 relation to the spiritual world, and all the experiences of 
 human life reveal what they imply of the mysteries of destiny. 
 And such eyes and ears, such minds and hearts, it is one great 
 function of art to give and educate. By performing it it may 
 so reveal to us as almost to be said to re-create for us both the 
 worlds of matter and of spirit, showing us 
 
 " The earth, and every common sight, 
 Apparelled in celestial light," 
 
 and causing us to see in the soul and its history wondrous 
 heights and depths, splendours and terrors, the struggle of 
 awful powers, infinite variety, endless contrasts, the most 
 pathetic interests, the most solemn issues. The artist may 
 well seek to be faithful to his calling in this respect. A 
 painter, for example, may well be content to study and labour 
 for years, to show how water ripples over a stone, or how a 
 wind-driven wave breaks on the shore, or how in various lights 
 
36 THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 
 
 different objects loom through vapours, for in so far as he 
 succeeds, mankind succeeds. His triumph is no slight and 
 vulgar one ; but this, what even he, exceptionally gifted and 
 trained, found it so difficult to see, he has made comparatively 
 easy even for common men to see from henceforth for ever. 
 
 But art has still other social duties. It may, for example, 
 oreatly contribute to increase the worth of labour and to pro- 
 mote the prosperity of industry. It is in vain to expect a man 
 to become a good workman, who has not something of the 
 artist's vision, and touch, and sentiment, who has no eye for 
 finish and elegance, no neatness and deftness of hand, no love 
 of and pride in good work for its own sake. A vast number 
 of workmen unfortunately bring to their work merely their 
 physical strength, not intelligence, taste, and skill. Wherever 
 there is a numerous and increasing population, such workmen 
 must be in constant danger of being greatly in excess of the 
 demand for them. In this country the necessity is becoming 
 ever more and more apparent and urgent, that workmen should 
 be not mere workmen, but skilled workmen, artistic workmen. 
 Of such workmen Britain is never likely to have too many, is 
 always likely to have too few. How is she to get them ? How 
 are they to be formed and instructed ? How is British industry 
 to be allied with British art, so as to maintain the supremacy 
 to which Britain owes so much of her greatness? These are 
 questions which concern all, but in which artists have also a 
 special interest, in connection with which they have special 
 responsibilities, and to which they may well be expected to 
 give special consideration. 
 
 One thing is obvious. If labouring men are to do more for 
 art, art must also do more for them. It must come closer to 
 them, and become familiar to them and to their children, in 
 their common surroundings, in their home lives. If men and 
 women are to be socialised and refined, made susceptible to the 
 beautiful and the ideal, we must desire that they be born and 
 brought up amidst very different circumstances than are to be 
 found in the slums of our great cities. It is not beyond the 
 resources of civilisation to make the blessings of art accessible 
 to the poor ; but these resources certainly require to be utilised 
 with far more wisdom and energy than they have hitherto been. 
 
THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. o7 
 
 Art cannot be better employed than in guiding, cheering, and 
 glorifying labour. Wealth cannot be better employed than in 
 aiding art, in this service. 
 
 Finally, the artist has not only to cultivate the gifts within 
 him, and therewith serve his fellow-men, but also therewith to 
 glorify God. He is God's debtor, and he ought to be God's 
 minister. As both all beauty and all power to see and to 
 reproduce it come from God, the artist may justly feel, yea, is 
 bound to feel, that his whole professional life is occupied with 
 the things of God. Even if not dealing with sacred subjects 
 specially so called, if not cultivating some department of what 
 is termed sacred art, he must realise that art is essentially 
 sacred, the pursuit of it essentially a divine priesthood and 
 ministry, and that his professional life ought to be throughout 
 the whole extent of it, a consecrated life, a life lived within 
 God's life, a hallowing of God's name, an advancing of God's 
 kingdom, a doing of God's will. 
 
 The name of God is one which includes beauty as well as 
 truth and righteousness, and will therefore never be fully 
 hallowed without the efforts of art. The true and the good 
 can never be perfected until they are permanently wedded to 
 the beautiful, and the whole of life is transfigured into forms 
 of beauty, and until then the kingdom of God cannot have 
 fully come. The will of God is not a merely cold and stern 
 physical and moral law, but one which lacks no beauty or 
 attraction, which "wears the Godhead's most benignant face," 
 and it cannot be rightly conceived until art has so revealed it. 
 
 If the artist, however, be called to a service so high and 
 sacred as this implies, he ought obviously to be a man filled 
 in his whole being with a sense of the nearness and glory of 
 God, with the presence, power, and consciousness of God. His 
 life should be so hid with God that he may see whatever is 
 pure, good, and beautiful on earth as the outflowings of God's 
 uncreated and ineffable loveliness and perfection. But thus 
 to live with God and to see God the heart must be pure, the 
 spirit right, and God present Himself as a reconciled Father. 
 Thus to live with God and see God, man needs to accept the 
 revelation of God in Christ Jesus, to yield himself up to the 
 regenerating and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, to 
 
38 THE GOOD AND PERFECT GIFT OF ART. 
 
 accept the Divine truth and grace offered in the Gospel. This 
 may God grant that we all sincerely and rejoicingly do. 
 
 " Two worlds are ours : 'tis only sin 
 Forbids us to descry 
 The mystic heaven and earth within 
 Plain as the sea and sky. 
 
 Thou, who hast given us eyes to see 
 
 And love this sight so fair, 
 O give us hearts to find out Thee 
 
 And read Thee everywhere." 
 
IV. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST, THE FAITHFUL WITNESS, THE 
 FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD, AND THE 
 PRINCE OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH.i 
 
 " Jesus Christ, (who is) the faithful witness, (and) the first-begotten of the 
 dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth." — Rev. i. 5. 
 
 JESUS CHRIST is here set before us in three aspects which 
 certainly merit our serious and prayerful consideration. 
 Three most appropriate titles, full of meaning, full of instruc- 
 tion, are given to Him. Let us meditate for a little on each of 
 these titles. Let us try to enter into the signification of them. 
 Let us seek not to have any thoughts of our own about them, 
 but to apprehend the thoughts of God which are already in 
 them, and to accept these thoughts with the whole mind and 
 heart, humbly and sincerely renouncing all thoughts, imagina- 
 tions, and inclinations of our own which are contrary to them. 
 May we — in the light which is from God and through the 
 guidance of the Spirit of God — see the truth of this portion 
 of His Word, and may that truth be to us strength and joy ! 
 
 Jesus Christ our Lord is, then, in this verse, first spoken of 
 as "the faithful witness." This title is one which, on a very 
 memorable occasion, He claimed for Himself. To understand 
 the title we must go back to that occasion. Christ stood a 
 prisoner before Pilate. His Jewish accusers, anxious to obtain 
 against Him a sentence of death, charged Him with treason 
 against the sovereignty of Rome, and alleged in proof that 
 He had declared Himself to be a king. Christ calmly but 
 emphatically repelled what there was of calumny in the charge. 
 By a single sentence of explanation He made it manifest that 
 His enemies had perverted His words ; that no claim to king- 
 ship which He had made implied conflict or competition with 
 
 ^ Preached in St Giles' Church, Edinburgh, May 29, 1881, and published b)- 
 
 request of His Grace the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of 
 
 the Church of Scotland. 
 
 39 
 
40 THE FAITHFUL WITNESS. 
 
 the claims of the Roman emperor. "My kingdom," He said, 
 "is not of this world." He thus gave Pilate an assurance that 
 Roman rule had nothing, directly at least, to fear from Him — 
 that He had made no claim to an earthly crown — that it was 
 not His mission to be the rival or antagonist of Cassar, " My 
 kingdom is not of this world," It is not a sovereignty like 
 that of the emperor; not a visible, temporal monarchy; not 
 a kingdom which can be established, or sustained, or extended 
 by physical power ; not a dominion for the support or spread 
 of which the subjects can reasonably make any use of carnal 
 weapons. 
 
 Yet these words of Christ were not words of mere denial. 
 They involved the assertion that He was of right and in very 
 deed a king. " My kingdom is not of this world." This clearly 
 meant that He had a kingdom. Hence Pilate's next question 
 was : " Art thou a king then ? " — put perhaps in mere wonder, 
 perhaps in sarcasm — perhaps to suggest that it would be well 
 to speak more cautiously, and altogether to avoid the use of 
 dangerous words like "king" and "kingdom," From what- 
 ever motive put, the question led our Lord to state more fully, 
 more distinctly, what His claim was. " I am a king," He said. 
 "For this very purpose was I born, and for this very cause 
 came I into the world, that I might hear witness to the truth." 
 
 This was how He was a king. He was born a king — came 
 forth irom the realm of eternal truth into the world to reveal 
 and confirm truth — that so He might build up over the spirits 
 of men a spiritual kingdom. He was willing to rest His title 
 to rule over men on this, that He was the manifestation to 
 them of the truth. There could be no title so good as that ; 
 and we may even say, no other title can be valid for the spirit. 
 Force can rule the body ; truth alone can rule the spirit. And 
 to rule the spirit is obviously the truest kingship, for the spirit 
 is meant to rule the body, and not the body to rule the spirit. 
 The sovereignty which is based merely on force, and extends 
 merely over the body, is but a superficial sovereignty even of 
 an earthly kind. The highest idea of kingship is the ruling 
 of spirits by the manifestation of the truth to their intellects 
 and affections. This w^as the idea of kingship which Christ 
 claimed to have realised. He presented Himself as a king in 
 
THE FAITHFUL WITNESS. 41 
 
 the highest, and deepest, and truest sense, and in that sense 
 only. By doing so His claims rose above all possible com- 
 petition with those of Ca3sar. No Caesar ventured to claim — 
 no Caesar dreamed of claiming — more than a secondary and 
 superficial sovereignty. No Cajsar even knew what true sove- 
 reignty was. That poor prisoner before Pilate professed to 
 be — knew Himself to be — a king in a sense which placed Him 
 far beyond the rivalry of the greatest and most ambitious of 
 the Ctesars. 
 
 It is not simply, however, to truth in general — still less is 
 it to special sections of truth, and least of all is it to isolated 
 and particular truths — that Christ has come into the world to 
 be a witness ; it is to the truth — the source, the foundation, 
 the vital essence of all truth — the light which shines through 
 all truth, and in which all truth should be aj)prehended — the 
 truth which is of primary and infinite importance — the truth 
 which it is eternal life to know, and eternal death not to know. 
 This truth Christ bore witness to not merely by preaching it, 
 not merely by proving it, but by being it, by embodying it. 
 " / am the truth," He could say. That which in the Divine 
 nature was unknown — which our thoughts and affections could 
 not reach and grasp, yet which was the source whence alone 
 spiritual life could be drawn — was broiight near to us — was 
 made to stand out clearly before our very eyes — was made an 
 object for our minds to contemplate, for our hearts to love, 
 through the Word becoming flesh. The power, the wisdom, 
 the justice, the love, the mercy of God — all these Christ bore 
 witness to, all these He showed forth, by being in Himself the 
 brightness of the glory of God and the express image of His 
 person. For this very purpose was He born ; for this very 
 cause came He into the world. Christ was thus a witness as 
 none other has ever been. He testified of the Father by the 
 direct revelation to us of the Father's character in His own. 
 He showed forth throughout His whole life from Bethlehem 
 to Calvary — from the manger to the cross — the truth of the 
 Divine nature uswards, testifying of all that was in the heart 
 of the eternal Father towards His weak and sinful children ; 
 and this He did through being one with the Father — the perfect 
 manifestation of the Father. 
 
42 THE FAITHFUL WITNESS. 
 
 He thus stood not only pre-eminent but alone as a witness. 
 As to the truth — the deepest and the highest truth — the truth 
 of the Divine nature — the truth which is the soul's life — the 
 witness of the world's greatest teachers has been dependent on 
 that of Christ. He has been the primary and direct witness, 
 while others have been only secondary and indirect witnesses. 
 " No man hath seen God at any time : the only begotten Son 
 who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." 
 "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth 
 any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the 
 Son will reveal Him." Apart from Christ's testimony, no 
 complete certainty is to be had as to God's true character, — 
 as to his Fatherhood, for example, and redeeming love, — 
 although to know God as He is, is to know the truth of 
 truths — the truth. Certainty here, where certainty is most 
 needed — because if not found here, the whole mind and whole 
 life must be uncertain and unsettled — can only be had through 
 Christ. If His testimony can be shown to have failed, there is 
 no good ground at all to hope for that knowledge of the truth 
 as to God which religion implies and demands in order not to 
 be itself a delusion. Whether or not we are to give faith to 
 the prophets, apostles, saints, and martyrs who have testified of 
 God, must depend entirely on whether or not Christ has been 
 "the faithful witness," for their testimony needs to be con- 
 firmed through His. If His testimony be not true, the prophets 
 must have prophesied falsely, the apostles must have been 
 fanatics or deceivers, and the saints must have lived and the 
 martyrs must have died through belief in a lie. If His witness 
 be not true, then there can have been no real witnesses at all 
 to any truth higher than the truths of nature. 
 
 The faithfulness of Christ as a witness being thus the foun- 
 dation of all reasonable trust in revelation and its disclosures — 
 in redemption and its promises — the title of "the faithful 
 witness" assigned to Him is manifestly a most sublime and 
 honourable one. It is also a most appropriate one, as will at 
 once appear if we ask ourselves what faithfulness in a witness 
 means, and how Christ showed such faithfulness. Now, in the 
 first place, a faithful witness to any truth is one who communi- 
 cates that truth with accuracy and fulness ; and Christ was 
 
THE FAITHFUL WITNESS. 43 
 
 thus a faithful witness to the truth. The testimony of a faith- 
 ful witness is true testimony — testimony which accurately and 
 adequately sets forth to those to whom it is given that to 
 which it relates ; and such was Christ's testimony. He came 
 to bear witness to the truth by the revelation of the Godhead ; 
 and He did so truly, accurately, adequately, making known the 
 Father as He really is, so that he who has seen and known 
 Him has also seen and known the Father. His testimony to 
 the Godhead was the truthful, accurate, adequate testimony of 
 one in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He 
 showed forth its power, since man's feeble nature in its union 
 with Him overthrew the dominion of Satan ; its wisdom, since 
 His work of redemption satisfied alike Divine justice and 
 Divine mercy; its righteousness, since He became subject to 
 the law and fulfilled all its requirements; its love, since in Him 
 sacrifice was carried to its utmost conceivable extent — a height 
 and depth, length and breadth, of self-denying affection which 
 cannot be comprehended ; its glory, its beauty, its tenderness, 
 since Divinity expressed itself in Him in a humanity the most 
 attractive, affectionate, and gentle. His testimony to what 
 God is, — to the nature of the Eternal — to the character of Him 
 with whom we have to do — to the disposition of the Father 
 towards us, to the demands of His law upon us, and to His 
 purjDOses concerning us, — is a testimony in all points absolutely 
 true : it may be completely trusted ; not one jot or tittle of it 
 will be disproved. Heaven and earth may pass away, but it 
 will endure for ever. He whose soul rests on it will not be 
 deceived. Were it otherwise, Christ would not be the faithful 
 witness. Since He is the faithful witness, it is assuredly so. 
 
 Further, a faithful witness to truth is not only one who 
 accurately communicates it, but also one who steadfastly ad- 
 heres to it ; and in this way likewise Christ was the faithful 
 witness. Faithfulness is shown by a witness not only in 
 stating the thing to which he testifies truthfully, or as it 
 really is, but in standing firmly and keeping honestly to what 
 he says — in not contradicting his testimony in word or deed, 
 directly or indirectly — in supporting and defending, and if 
 need be suffering for, his testimony. The Greek word trans- 
 lated in the text "witness" originated our word "martyr," 
 
44 THE FAITHFUL WITNESS. 
 
 and even in late Greek usage bore the meaning of " martyr," 
 just because a witness is one who ought to be, and who is 
 expected to be, faithful in the sense now explained. This late 
 meaning of the word lay in it in germ, as it were, from the 
 first. It is not, indeed, the meaning of the word in the text. 
 Christ is not expressly here called what we should term a 
 martyr — that is, a witness whose witnessing lies precisely in 
 His suffering and dying; but in His being called "the faithful 
 witness," it is implied that He was such a witness as would not 
 evade suffering and death if loyalty to the truth required Him 
 to suffer and die. And such a witness He was. The will of 
 God for our salvation did demand that He should suffer and 
 die ; and so obedient was He to that will that He rejoiced to 
 do it — so loyal was He to the truth that He fulfilled every 
 iota of it, every step and stage of it, although it was a long 
 process of humiliation and pain, ending in the horrors of 
 Calvary. To bear His testimony to the Father — that glorious 
 and blessed testimony which constitutes the Gospel — Christ, 
 although very God of very God, took on Him our frail human 
 flesh with its manifold infirmities, was born in a stable, lived a 
 life of poverty and obscurity in a Jewish village for thirty 
 years, came forth publicly among men only to be despised and 
 persecuted, and was at last put to death on the cross. It was 
 at this cost that He bore His testimony; and he bore it meekly, 
 patiently, with perfect resignation, with perfect fidelity, to the 
 very end. It was only on the accursed tree, only when about 
 to bow His head and breathe out His spirit, that He could say, 
 "It is finished." Truly He is well called " the faithful witness." 
 If so, are there any lessons which we ought to draw from 
 this fact? Surely there is at least this very great and very 
 obvious one — that if Christ be "the faithful witness," we ought 
 to listen to Him — that if His testimony be what has been 
 described, we ought to receive it. If for this very purpose 
 Christ was born, if for this very cause He came into the world, 
 to bear witness to the truth, it must be a serious and terrible 
 thing for us to reject the truth, since that implies that we 
 attempt to defeat the great end of our Lord's incarnation and 
 mission — to frustrate the righteous and blessed will of God in 
 the unspeakable gift of His Son. We cannot do so without 
 
THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD. 45 
 
 perversity and guilt. You remember how Christ added to the 
 declaration before Pilate to which I have already referred, these 
 words — " Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice." 
 They were solemn and terrible words for His Jewish accusers, 
 who hated the truth, being blinded by their prejudices and 
 selfish passions. They were solemn and terrible words for 
 Pilate himself, whose very question " What is truth ? " showed 
 that he cared little for truth, and indeed that he deemed it 
 only a sort of phantasm which deluded the ignorant and the 
 enthusiastic, but which cool, clear minds like his own could see 
 through, and see to be only an empty mockery. They are 
 solemn and terrible words for all of us who do not accept 
 Christ's testimony, whether our rejection of it be due to preju- 
 dice and passion akin to that of the Jews, or to a scepticism 
 akin to that of Pilate. "Every one that is of the truth heareth 
 my voice." If we do not hear the voice of the faithful witness, 
 let us beware and repent, and seek another mind and heart, for 
 our disbelief is a sign that we are not "of the truth." This is 
 the condemnation of those who reject Christ's testimony, the 
 glorious Gospel of Divine love and grace, that through per- 
 versity of nature falsehood is more pleasant to them than truth 
 — that owing to the evil which is in them they prefer darkness 
 to light. 
 
 But we must not only accept the truth to which Christ 
 testifies; we must also adhere to it, after the example which 
 He as the faithful witness has set us. Whoever shares in the 
 spirit which He manifested in witnessing to the truth — the 
 spirit of absolute and entire devotion to it, shown in His never 
 for an instant departing from it, but following it onwards 
 step by step although it led Him steadily to the cross — 
 must regard the truth as unspeakably sacred, must feel that 
 to tamper with it is distinctly to deny his Lord, and will 
 not cease continually to strive to realise it more perfectly in 
 the inner and the outer man, in heart and life, speech and 
 behaviour. 
 
 The second title given to our Lord in the text is "the 
 first-begotten of the dead" — "the firstborn from the dead." 
 What does this title denote ? Obviously, it seems to me, two 
 
46 THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD. 
 
 tMngs. The first is seniority of birth. The firstborn is he 
 who is born first. Christ is "the firstborn from the dead," 
 because the first who rose from the dead to eternal life. 
 This is literally and strictly true, according to the repre- 
 sentations of Scripture, although there had been resurrec- 
 tions before our Lord's. Elijah and Elisha had both been 
 honoured to raise the dead, and Christ Himself restored to 
 life the son of the widow of Nain and called forth Lazarus 
 from his grave ; but those who were thus raised were raised 
 merely to a temporal and earthly, not to an eternal and 
 heavenly life. They were delivered out of the hand of death 
 after it had closed upon them, but only for a short time : 
 they made no permanent escape from its power; they soon 
 again fell under its sway ; they still await a final resurrection. 
 Only an entirely different kind of resurrection than theirs — 
 only a resurrection like Christ's own — can satisfy hearts long- 
 ing for a true immortality. By raising Lazarus from the dead 
 our Lord showed a certain degree of power over death ; but 
 only by rising Himself from the dead that He might live for 
 evermore, was death shown to have been completely conquered, 
 alike as regards the body and the soul. He was the first who 
 rose in the body to eternal life ; the first who so rose, and the 
 only one who has yet so risen, as those who aspire to eternal 
 life wish to rise. This is one reason for His being called " the 
 firstborn from the dead." 
 
 It is not, however, the chief reason. The title refers more 
 to superiority of dignity than to priority of time. Christ is 
 "the firstborn from the dead," just as He is, according to the 
 expression of St. Paul, "the firstborn of every creature." 
 These words of the apostle manifestly imply not only our 
 Lord's pre-existence to creation, but His sovereignty and 
 heirship over creation. They mean that as regards creation 
 Christ holds the rank of firstborn Son ; that the rights and 
 honours of primogeniture belong to Him ; that He is the 
 natural and actual head and ruler of the universe ; that as 
 He was before, so is He above, all things. But as He is 
 thus first with respect to the universe, so it was ordained 
 that He should become first with respect to the Church. 
 Having witnessed to the truth even unto death. He has over- 
 
THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD. 47 
 
 come death, and been put in the same relation to the spiritual 
 new creation brought into existence through the truth which 
 He always held to the natural creation. As the first-born of 
 the dead He is the head of His body the Church, the heir in 
 the household of faith ; as pre-eminent in the world which lies 
 beyond death — the world to which only our faith and hopes 
 reach, — as He is in the world on this side of death — the 
 world which our eyes see and our hands handle. Having died 
 and risen again, He liveth for evermore, the firstborn among 
 many brethren, the glorified and exalted elder brother, in whose 
 honours and advantages the others share, bub apart from whom 
 they have nothing. 
 
 Understood as has now been explained, this title, "the first- 
 begotten" or "the firstborn" "of the dead," naturally follows 
 the former title, "the faithful witness," for it is in Christ's 
 being "the firstborn from the dead" that we have the chief 
 guarantee for His being "the faithful witness." Our Lord's 
 resurrection, which involves and implies His deliverance from 
 death, His victory over hiui who had the power of death, 
 and his elevation to the throne of mediatorial dominion, is 
 the seal of God to the truth of His testimony. It is a con- 
 spicuous sign and manifest proof that the Father has accepted 
 and approved the witness-bearing of the Son. 
 
 It is impossible to read the New Testament intelligently 
 without being impressed with the prominence which all its 
 writers give to the resurrection as their warrant for maintain- 
 ing Jesus to have been the Messiah and Son of God. With 
 one consenting voice, in every variety of form and on all 
 occasions, they put it forward as the fact which proved the 
 truth of the Gospel they preached — salvation through faith in 
 Christ. The apostles went forth as the witnesses of the resur- 
 rection, fully acknowledging that if Christ were not risen the 
 whole Christian faith was vain. Could the unbelieving Jews 
 have only disproved that Christ had risen, they would have 
 had no trouble with Christianity. This, however, they could 
 not do, and consequently Christianity rapidly spread. Chris- 
 tianity rose out of the conviction that Christ had risen. The 
 objections urged against it were felt by men of candid and 
 ingenuous minds to avail little if the truth of the resurrection 
 
48 THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD. 
 
 could not be reasonably called in question. How the belief in 
 the resurrection of Christ followed so closely on His crucifixion; 
 how it spread so rapidly ; how those who had every interest 
 to deny its truth dared not do so, but allowed it to pass 
 unchallenged ; and how it produced the wonderful revolution 
 which it effected on the minds and lives of individuals, and 
 in the religion and morality of the world, — are problems which 
 those who deny the reality of the resurrection and the authority 
 of the Gospel, of which it was the most convincing confirma- 
 tion, are still trying to explain, and are still signally failing 
 to explain. The hypothesis of imposture perpetrated by the 
 disciples is now abandoned even by every unbeliever of the 
 least mental refinement or culture. The newer hypotheses of 
 vision and of myth — of hallucination and of imaginative crea- 
 tion — are ludicrously inadequate to account for the facts which 
 demand explanation. They only make it more apparent, if 
 possible, than before, that the only reasonable and sufficient 
 explanation of these facts is the simple one that He who was 
 crucified, dead, and buried, verily rose again. The evidence 
 which we have for Christ's resurrection will be found, when 
 conscientiously examined, to be absolutely conclusive. We 
 may almost as reasonably deny the reality of His crucifixion 
 as of His resurrection. We have the same kind of evidence 
 for both ; and for the latter, as for the former, the evidence 
 is overwhelming in amount, and possessed of all the character- 
 istics of good historical evidence. The hypotheses by which 
 it has been attempted to account for belief in the resurrection 
 on the assumption that it never occurred, might be equally 
 applied to account for belief in the crucifixion on the same 
 assumption. Yet even the most reckless historical scepticism 
 has not ventured to deny the reality of the crucifixion. Those 
 who disbelieve that Christ rose from the dead should, in con- 
 sistency, believe very few historical facts of any kind. But if 
 He rose. His whole testimony as regards both the Father and 
 Himself is indubitable ; the divinity of His Gospel must be 
 unhesitatingly accepted ; the apostles whom He sent forth were 
 heralds of the truth and ambassadors of the grace of God ; and 
 the Church which they built up is founded on an immovable 
 rock, against which the waves of infidelity may beat, but it 
 
THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD. 49 
 
 will only be to make more manifest the contrast between its 
 strength and their impotence. 
 
 It was not merely, however, as an evidence for the truth 
 of the Gospel that our Lord's resurrection was so frequently 
 referred to, and so strongly emphasised, by the writers of the 
 New Testament. It does not seem to me that these writers 
 ever record any fact or incident merely as evidence. I know 
 of no miracle, for example, which is exclusively evidential and 
 not a part of the substance, so to speak, of the Gospel ; which 
 does not illustrate and convey spiritual principles as well as 
 serve the purpose of confirming and attesting them. And 
 certainly the great miracle of the resurrection is no mere 
 warrant of the faith, but also itself one of the fundamental 
 truths of the faith. The apostles continually make not only 
 an apologetic but a doctrinal and a moral use of it. They 
 represent the justification of the sinner, the origination and 
 development of the new life, and the final glorification of the 
 believer, as all dependent upon it. They not only rest on it 
 the Messianic claims of Jesus in so far as they were a response 
 to the promises of prophecy in the past, but they point to it as 
 a saving and sanctifying power in the present, and as the 
 foundation of all hope for the future. They view it as neces- 
 sary to the perfection of Christ's humanity and to the com- 
 pletion of His work ; as the attainment of a fully developed 
 life in the richness and blessedness of which every believer 
 is to share ; as the leading of captivity captive and receiving 
 gifts for men ; as opening to the eye of faith and hope a 
 boundless vision of the renovation of creation, the development 
 of the powers of human nature, the progress of the Church, 
 and the future glory of the whole kingdom of God. 
 
 It is to be feared that many of us fail to follow their guid- 
 ance in this respect as fully as we ought. It is to be feared 
 that we often give to the resurrection in its higher and more 
 spiritual relationships far too subordinate a place in our thoughts 
 and affections. Some who have a firm faith in Christ's work 
 of atonement feel but feebly the power of His resurrection. 
 They seem unable to look beyond His death — beyond the cross 
 and the grave. They realise their interest in His sufferings 
 and humiliation much more adequately than their interest in 
 
 D 
 
50 THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN OF THE DEAD. 
 
 His honours and exaltation. They enter but little intellectually, 
 and far less practically, into the signification of those numerous 
 passages of the Epistles which point us above and beyond a 
 mere trust in the death and the atonement, and which teach us 
 that the life upon which Christ entered by resurrection from 
 the dead is the life in which we must know Him, in which we 
 must daily converse and commune with Him, from which our 
 own life must draw its supplies, and in which our own life 
 must, as it were, be hid. 
 
 This is not as it should be, and it is sure to lead to weakness 
 and imperfection of Christian character and Christian conduct. 
 "We cannot think too much or too highly of the atoning death 
 of Christ ; but we must not forget that the resurrection is an 
 equally essential fact in the Gospel, and that if it be true that 
 Christ died for our sins, it is no less true that He rose again for 
 our justification, and that we are saved through participation in 
 the life which He now liveth as the first-born from the dead. 
 The death of Christ was but a stage in His redemptive work, 
 and we can only view it aright when we consider it not only 
 in relation to the stages which preceded it, but to those which 
 followed it. We must beware lest, with less excuse, we merit 
 the rebuke of the angels to the women, — " Why seek ye the 
 living among the dead ? He is not here, but is risen." Yes, 
 "He is risen," and our hearts must rise up to Him; our faith, 
 our love, our hopes must follow Him ; our souls must rejoice to 
 be with our exalted Brother. " He is risen ; " and we must 
 seek to live under the clear light and full glory of a risen 
 vSaviour. " He is risen ; " and it is for us to endeavour so to 
 die with Him, and so to rise with Him, that we may know the 
 comprehensiveness and depth of meaning in His words, "I am 
 the resurrection and the life." 
 
 The fact that Christ is " the first-begotten of the dead " has, 
 like the fact that He is "the faithful witness," its special lesson. 
 If He be risen, we ought to rise with Him into newness of life. 
 The Christian ought to be so one with Christ as to die with 
 Him unto sin, and live with Him by a new birth unto righteous- 
 ness. He ought to have his affections set on things above, 
 where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God ; to have his life 
 hid with Christ in God, that when Christ his life shall appear. 
 
THE PRINCE OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH. 51 
 
 he also may appear with Him in glory. Let us, then, live with 
 His life ; let us rise to newness of life by living to Him ; for 
 only so, — only through the oneness of our lives with His life — 
 only through the participation of our spirits in His Spirit, — can 
 we become heirs of eternal life. If we would meet death, and 
 triumph, it must be through that spiritual union with Christ 
 which will secure, that as He has risen from the dead, so we 
 shall rise to follow Him and to be for ever with Him. No 
 otherwise will it be given us to say, Death, where is thy 
 sting ? Grave, where is thy victory ? 
 
 The text gives to our Lord yet another title. "The faithful 
 witness " has not only become " the firstborn from the dead," the 
 Head of His body the Church, the Leader and Lord of those 
 who are redeemed by His blood and sanctified by His Spirit, 
 but He has risen to the throne of universal empire — has all 
 power assigned to Him in heaven and on earth, and a name 
 given Him above every name. " He is the Prince of the kings 
 of the earth." 
 
 "My kingdom," He said, "is not of this world;" yet in 
 saying so He claimed to be a king and to have a kingdom. 
 The central idea — the burden and tenor — of all His teaching, 
 was that of " a kingdom " — "the kingdom of God " or "king- 
 dom of heaven." All that He said related to its conditions, 
 laws, government, service, antecedents, or consequences ; all 
 that He did was with a view to its foundation and diffusion. 
 Of the Church itself He said but little ; indeed He expressly 
 spoke of it, so far as we can learn from the Gospels, by the 
 term " Church " only twice. It is most instructive that He 
 should have dwelt so incessantly and so emphatically as He did 
 on the kingdom of God. and that He should have touched so 
 seldom and so lightly on the Church. That He should have 
 done so is no evidence that the Church is an unimportant 
 institution, or that correct views regarding it are unimportant ; 
 but it is evidence that the Church, and the doctrines which 
 directly refer to the Church, are secondary and not primary, 
 subordinate and not fundamental. The Church must be rooted 
 in and spring from the kingdom of God. The doctrine as to 
 the Church must be determined by the doctrine as to the 
 
52 THE PRINCE OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH. 
 
 kingdom of God. It was the doctrine of the kingdom which 
 Christ Himself taught ; the doctrine of the Church He left 
 mainly to others to teach, or rather to evolve from the prin- 
 ciples which He had expounded as to the kingdom. Those who 
 put the doctrine of the Church in the foreground, and find in 
 this doctrine a rule and test by which to measure and judge all 
 other doctrines, have profited little by His teaching. It was 
 strikingly devoid of churchliness. It was so filled with the 
 kingdom as to reserve for the Church merely a ministerial or 
 instrumental position. The Church, as Christ's institution, 
 exists solely for the sake of the kingdom ; it accomplishes its 
 end only in the measure in which it extends and builds up the 
 kingdom of God on earth. To identify it with the kingdom is 
 to confound the means with the end — to disregard the very 
 letter of Christ's teaching — to contradict its whole spirit and 
 character — and to deny His real claims to kingship. 
 
 Christ is king of the kingdom of God on earth, and there- 
 fore " prince " or " ruler " of the kings of the earth. His 
 kingdom claims to comprehend the State as well as the 
 Church. The ecclesiastical and the civU ought to be only two 
 aspects of it. Churches and governments are alike, of right, 
 subject to it, and are both, in fact, often rebellious towards 
 it. His kingdom extends to all the spheres and phases of life ; 
 it transcends all limits of race and language, of time and 
 space ; it combines earth and heaven ; it is deep and broad 
 as the truth, and the will, and the love of God ; yea, it is 
 just the manifestation of God's truth, the doing of God's will, 
 the working of God's love, through the Son, in all the pro- 
 vinces of existence. No individual may blamelessly withdraw 
 a single faculty of mind or power of body from the service of 
 this kingdom ; no Church on earth has any right specially to 
 identify its claims with those of this kingdom ; no state or 
 government on earth ought to dare to separate itself from, 
 or assert independence of, this kingdom. The King of it is 
 Lord over all, — King of kings, — Prince of the kings of the 
 earth, — entitled to wear on His brow all the crowns of the 
 universe. Most foolish are they who, whatever be the depart- 
 ment of thought or action, of life or work, in which they are 
 engaged, venture to say that within it "they will not have 
 
THE PRINCE OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH. 53 
 
 this Man to rule over them." He has a right to rule every- 
 where, and in the end will rule everywhere. No opposition, 
 no resistance, will in the long-run avail to set His rule aside. 
 His rule is the law of the universe ; and every man, every 
 Church, every nation, must be tried by it and judged by it. 
 All who have reigned in this world — all who have exerted 
 power and influence over others — must appear before His 
 tribunal, to be condemned if they have disobeyed Him, and 
 to be approved if they have served Him. Caesar, to whom in 
 the days of His humiliation He paid tribute ; Caiaphas, in 
 whose presence He was buffeted ; and Pilate, who basely 
 banded Him over to death, — will be there. Every hostile 
 potentate, and every friendly potentate, will be there ; every 
 rebellious subject, and every loyal subject, will be there. " Be 
 wise now therefore, ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of 
 the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trem- 
 bling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from 
 the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are 
 all they that put their trust in Him." 
 
 It is a solemn thought, and yet a most consoling and 
 encouraging thought, that Christ is thus " Prince of the 
 kings of the earth." There are times when men are tempted 
 to believe that physical force, or human arbitrariness, craft, 
 and ambition, rule the world, — that there is nothing more 
 powerful than the wills of monarchs, and the schemes of poli- 
 ticians, and the passions of the peoples, — that Providence is 
 always on the side of full treasuries, and big battalions, and 
 the subtlest brains — or that if there be a Divine Providence 
 beneath these things, it is stern, retributive, vindictive, in- 
 different to the fates of individuals, without sympathy for 
 our sufferings or sorrows. But the suspicion is a false one. 
 That which is deepest in the universe, the text lets us know, 
 is the truth, the eternal truth, to which Christ came to bear 
 witness, and which He could declare Himself to be. He who 
 is on the throne of the universe is He who, in infinite com- 
 passion, gave Himself to death for us, but who has risen again 
 and now reigneth for evermore : the principles manifested in 
 His character, and proclaimed in His Gospel, are the true 
 laws of the universe. Whatever may appear to the contrary, 
 
54 THE PRINCE OF THE KINGS OF THE EAETH. 
 
 chance, force, unbending- and unpitying fate, human caprice 
 and human selfishness, justice exclusive of affection, and retri- 
 bution which has its end in itself, so far from being what is 
 mightiest in the government of the universe, are illusions and 
 abstractions, or merely secondary and instrumental agencies, 
 or are limited and restricted in their range of action ; while the 
 absolute beginning, controlling power, and final purpose of that 
 government are only to be found in the truth which comprehends 
 perfect wisdom, perfect righteousness, and perfect love — the truth 
 embodied and exhibited in Christ. This it is which underlies 
 the world, determines its history, and is the goal to which it 
 is moving ; on this hang the whole heavens and the whole 
 earth : and therefore may we be assured that, however dark 
 and perplexed things may at times seem, they will not fail 
 to be guided to a right, and gracious, and holy issue. " Truth 
 is great, and it will prevail." Oh what an increase of meaning, 
 of confirmation, and of efficacy does this ancient adage obtain, 
 when the truth is identified with Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ 
 is known to be the Ruler of the universe ! Who that ade- 
 quately realises this can faint or fail ? Does it not imply that 
 every noble cause, be it of liberty, or truth, or religion, must 
 conquer in the end, since those who struggle for it are on the 
 side of the King of kings ? 
 
 The value of this truth of Christ's kingship our forefathers 
 knew well. The glory of it shone with dazzling brightness 
 before the eyes of the heroes and martyrs of the Covenants, 
 sustaining them under their sufferings and inspiring them in 
 their struggles. It is this which, above all else, gives to their 
 history its imperishable attractiveness and its imperishable 
 worth. But I greatly fear that in later times, through con- 
 fused and wearisome controversies, we have wellnigh reasoned 
 ourselves out of the faith in which they lived and died ; for 
 many in Scotland seem to have come to think that outside of 
 the Church secularism is the true theory of things, and not a 
 few appear to fancy that the sovereignty of Christ is only 
 a something which may be pleaded to secure ecclesiastical 
 arbitrariness from review and ecclesiastical arrogance from 
 restraint. Oh that we would cast off the narrow formulas of 
 recent strifes, the distinctive shibboleths of our immediate 
 
THE PRINCE OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH. 
 
 past, and that we would apprehend, in its natural breadth and 
 fulness, the glorious certitude that, although Christ can never 
 condescend to be a king of the earth, He cannot but be, in 
 virtue of His absolute truth, righteousness, and goodness, the 
 Ruler of all the kings of the earth ! Oh that, with faith in 
 this truth as firm as that of our forefathers, and with greater 
 patience, greater charity, and the greater light in some re- 
 spects of modern times, we were all of us — the highest and 
 the humblest, clergy and laity, men and women — to act on 
 it in our various spheres of life and work, by trying to make 
 what of Scotland we can influence really and thoroughly a part 
 of Christ's kingdom ! Were we so to do, many a martyr's pro- 
 phecy, sealed in blood, to the effect that the Covenants would be 
 Scotland's revival, would yet meet with substantial fulfilment. 
 
 " Prince of the kings of the earth " is the greatest of the 
 titles which the text assigns to our Lord, and the lesson which 
 flows from it is the most comprehensive. He who has uni- 
 versal sway claims a universal obedience. He demands from 
 every individual, every household, every society, every Church, 
 every nation, a strict and steady conformity to the truth and 
 justice, the purity and sanctity, the benevolence and benefi- 
 cence, which are the laws of His kingdom. What He demands 
 may we all rejoice to give. Soul and body — heart and life — 
 every energy and every affection — let us sincerely, lovingly, 
 and completely give. 
 
 I have sought simply to explain my text. I have wished to 
 say nothing except what it says. I know well that I have 
 expressed merely a small part of what it means. What is 
 most essential in it, however, lies on the very surface. 
 
 The text assigns three glorious titles to our Lord, from which 
 three great lessons plainly follow. He is " the faithful witness ; " 
 therefore let us hear His voice, accept His testimony, and re- 
 ceive His revelation of the Father. He is " the firstborn from 
 the dead ; " therefore let us, through communion with Him, 
 rise with Him and live with Him. He is " the Prince of the 
 kings of the earth ; " therefore let us carefully keep His 
 laws, labour faithfully as His servants, and fight manfully as 
 His soldiers. May the Lord seal by His grace these lessons on 
 our hearts ! Amen. 
 
V. 
 
 "THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S." i 
 
 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." — Gen. i. 1. 
 
 "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that 
 
 dwell therein : for He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it 
 
 upon the floods."' — PsALM xxiv. 1, 2. 
 
 THE best of God's gifts are often those which are least 
 valued. We are apt to be unthankful to Him for such 
 things as the light of the sun, water and air, our daily bread 
 and nightly rest, for no other reason than that they are so 
 common. But why are they so common ? Only because they 
 are so precious that God, in His kindness, puts, and has always 
 been putting, all His children in possession of them. They are 
 common because men could not live without them, or could 
 only live in misery. If familiarity with them has unfortunately 
 bred in us contempt for them, it is the very extent of God's 
 liberality to us which has been the occasion of our ingratitude 
 to Him. 
 
 It is quite the same with truths as it is with things. When- 
 ever a truth becomes very common — whenever, that is to say, 
 it is put by Divine Providence into the minds of all — we begin 
 to neglect it, and to forget that God should be praised for it. 
 When we hear of some new and marvellous discovery of science, 
 or of some of those magnificent practical applications of science 
 which form so characteristic a feature of the present age, we 
 stand rapt in wonder and adoration. " Glory to God in the 
 highest," is the spontaneous utterance of our souls. But at 
 the same time we may forget, or fail to appreciate, old truths 
 far more precious, perhaps, than the grandest discoveries of 
 modern science, and far more useful than its happiest 
 applications. 
 
 ^ Preached in the East Church, Aberdeen, on Sabbath, September 18, 1859, 
 
 and published by request of Members of Committee of the British Association. 
 
 56 
 
"THE EARTH IS THE LORD's." 57 
 
 Now, it is right to give all honour to those who discover new 
 truths. Honour to those whom God has made honourable : 
 and God has certainly done high honour to a man when He 
 allows him, first among all the children of men, to look with 
 clear vision on any great law that has been operating from the 
 creation, but of which intellect has not been able hitherto to 
 take any account. God has made a new revelation of Himself 
 to that man, and he may well feel that he is in a sense God's 
 prophet to his fellow-men, and we may well be grateful for the 
 gift which God has made to us in him, and in the truth re- 
 vealed to us through him. But neither he nor we should 
 forget that there have been prophets before him with still 
 more precious messages to mankind than any which science 
 can now disclose ; and that the grandest physical discoveries — 
 those which most largely extend man's power over the material 
 world — do not equal in importance some of those old and 
 familiar truths which yield direct and immediate guidance to 
 the spiritual life, which throw a clear light on the mysteries of 
 onr own destinies, or tell us with precision the duties of each 
 day as it arises. 
 
 It is to one of those old and familiar yet pre-eminently 
 useful truths that I wish to direct your attention at this time, 
 not with any view to prove it, for probably none of you doubt 
 or deny it, but with a view to helping you to feel in due 
 measure the value of it, which probably most of you are far 
 from doing. 
 
 No one of us is ignorant of it. We have all known it from 
 our infancy. We cannot tell when we heard it for the first 
 time. From the earliest dawn of reason in us we were taught 
 that God made us ; that a wise and holy Being, who loves us, 
 was our Creator, and the author of all that exists. And what 
 we were taught we believed, and still believe. However many 
 of our early beliefs we may have outgrown and cast off, there 
 are few of us who have been so unhappy as to lose, so unwise 
 as to reject, that precious portion of our childhood's faith, a 
 belief in the sacred and ennobling truth that " In the begin- 
 ning God created the heaven and the earth," — that "the earth 
 is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they 
 that dwell therein." 
 
58 "the earth is the lord's." 
 
 But while we may all know and believe this truth, nothing 
 is more likely than that owing to its very commonness and our 
 famiUarity with it, we may realise most inadequately the worth 
 of it, and feel very little of that gratitude to God for the 
 revelation of it which we ought to feel. Therefore it is that I 
 wish to speak to you of its worth and its uses. 
 
 It is not even yet a truth known to all the peoples of the 
 earth. It was once unknown, or almost unknown, on earth. 
 It is not a truth which any man if left to himself would be 
 sure, or even likely, to find out. Millions have lived and died 
 without finding it out ; millions are still living and dying in 
 ignorance of it. Men as able as the ablest of those who are 
 living on the earth in the present day have sought for it, 
 grasped and striven after it, amidst the darkness, and yet not 
 been blessed with its light. There have been great men — 
 giants in the intellectual world — men whose names and 
 memories scholars and thinkers still, after the lapse of many 
 centuries, cherish and venerate as those of their profonndest 
 and most stimulating teachers ; and yet powerful as those men 
 were in intellect, and noble as they were in heart, they failed, 
 with all their painful and anxious searchings, to attain to a 
 clear knowledge of God as the alone Creator and Lord of 
 nature. 
 
 The world owes such knowledge, not exclusively indeed, but 
 mainly, yea, almost entirely to God's education of the Hebrew 
 people and His inspiration of the Hebrew prophets and psalm- 
 ists, or, in other words, to that revelation of Himself of which 
 we have the product and expression in the Old Testament. 
 
 But think how much the world thus owes, how vast its in- 
 debtedness, from what a host of errors such knowledge has 
 freed it, what a flood of light it has let in upon it, what life, 
 and strength, and hope, it has brought to it. 
 
 Whatever man or nation has learned to know that the 
 heavens and the earth are the creatures and subjects of God, is 
 thereby necessarily delivered from all the errors of polytheism, 
 from bondage to false gods, from the debasing worship of idols, 
 from the intellectual and moral darkness of heathendom. On 
 that man and nation a great light has arisen, a terrible night, 
 filled with hideous spectres and haunting fears, has passed 
 
"the earth is the lord's." 59 
 
 away, and a serene day shines. They can walk with the 
 freedom, the safety, the joyousness, of those who are in the 
 light. They see that in nature there is nothing to deify, and 
 yet that nature is full of Divine life and energy, of Divine 
 beauty and goodness. They are strong in the Lord the true 
 God, and so tremble not nor grovel before any other gods or 
 lords. 
 
 It is also only through realising the truth affirmed in our 
 texts that the chief and most dangerous forms of false specula- 
 tion are deprived of their power to seduce, ensnare, and destroy. 
 He who believes in God as the Creator and ruler of the universe 
 can be neither atheist, materialist, nor pantheist. His faith is 
 directly antagonistic to that of those who suppose that there 
 is no God ; that matter explains itself, and that there is nothing 
 else ; or that some indeterminate substance or impersonal force 
 has originated all that exists. The only sure protection against 
 any error is possession of the truth which contradicts it ; the 
 only sure preservative against the power of those imposing 
 systems of error to which I refer, and from the consequences 
 which they involve, and which must be so inevitably ruinous 
 to the moral life alike of individuals and of societies, is a firm, 
 well-grounded, carefully tested faith in the truth which is so 
 plainly laid down in the first verse of our Bibles. 
 
 Then, this faith in God as the Creator is the necessary basis 
 of all higher spiritual faith. It is only in virtue of so believing 
 in God that we can also believe in Him as a Heavenly Father, 
 as one who reveals Himself in the soul of man, in the history 
 of the world, in the experiences of the pious. He cannot be a 
 Christian who is not a Theist. The Christian faith, — faith in 
 the love and mercy, salvation and kingdom of God, as revealed 
 through the teaching and work of Christ, — could have been 
 built on no other foundation than on that knowledge of God as 
 the Creator and Lord of the Universe into which ancient Israel 
 was divinely guided and educated to the benefit and blessing 
 of all the nations of the earth. 
 
 I do not wish to dwell longer, however, on such aspects of 
 the truth under consideration as those just indicated, important 
 although they be. Nor shall I attempt at all to show how in 
 this truth alone scientific and philosophic inquiry and thought 
 
60 "the earth is the lord's." 
 
 can find unity and self-consistency, rest and satisfaction, 
 although this also might be made to appear a very good and 
 evident reason for our highly valuing it. 
 
 In what remains to be said I shall confine myself to pointing 
 out how knowledge of the truth in question ought so to affect 
 our mode of contemplating the universe, of viewing nature, 
 as to make the universe a source of spiritual discipline and 
 improvement to us, as to make nature religiously helpful to us. 
 
 This is not a small matter. It is possible, indeed, to expect in 
 this respect too much from nature. There are some who seem to 
 think that if the spirits of our pent-up, toil-worn, city workmen 
 could only be brought into frequent contact with the clear skies 
 and green fields most defects and diseases of their souls would 
 be remedied and healed. They seem to think that nature 
 might serve to them as a substitute for the Gospel. This, of 
 course, is foolishness. Those who think so forget both the 
 natural darkness and the natural depravity of the human heart. 
 They overlook that although nature may in some degree lead 
 us to look aright on the Gospel, the Gospel is in a far higher 
 degree needed to enable us to look aright upon nature. Pure 
 eyes and Christian hearts can alone apprehend the heavenly 
 truths which the book of creation imparts. 
 
 But there is a contrary and more prevalent error. It is the 
 undue depreciation of nature. It is the forgetting that it 
 has spiritual uses at all ; that it is meant to have any real 
 function in our religious education. There are many, it is to 
 be feared, who thus err ; who think and act frequently or 
 habitually as if the universe were but a stall for provender — a 
 place for the supply of our physical wants ; who never realise 
 that it too is a revelation, and that if Nature be not complete 
 without the Gospel, neither is the Gospel complete without 
 Nature. But, surely, this glorious universe was never made 
 merely to satisfy the lower or animal needs of our souls, to 
 fill us with food when hungry, with drink when thirsty, and 
 the like. And indeed, if in truth, as our texts assert, God's 
 creation, God's universe, it must be also the manifestation 
 of God, and address itself to what is highest, divinest, most 
 spiritual in us. 
 
 A few brief remarks may help you to realise this. 
 
"the earth is the lord's." 61 
 
 In the first place, then, the world, being recognised to be the 
 work and manifestation of God, is necessarily invested with a 
 deep religious awe, a solemn religious significance. 
 
 You are aware what an important fact in the Christian 
 system is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the souls of 
 true believers ; what an encouragement and incentive it is to 
 keep your hearts pure and holy, and to present your bodies 
 unto God as a living sacrifice, acceptable and undefiled. It 
 is its final, its crowning trnth ; a fact which gives it an im- 
 measurable superiority over every previous revelation of God 
 made to the patriarchs and prophets ; an inexhaustible source 
 of virtue and holiness. 
 
 But what this truth does for the Gospel, the fact that "the 
 earth is the Lord's " does for religion in general. God's 
 presence with Nature causes the Christian to regard it with 
 religious feelings, less deep perhaps, but essentially the same 
 in kind, as the Spirit's presence with all saints makes him look 
 upon his own body. The emotion in the former case is not 
 so powerful, but its objects are innumerable and boundless. 
 In the latter case it is stronger, but the objects are fewer and 
 limited. The presence of the Third Person of the Trinity to 
 our hearts ought not, however, to make us forget the presence 
 of the First Person to all things. Nay, we may venture to say, 
 that if the truth that "the earth is the Lord's" will not make 
 Nature solemn and sacred to us, we shall be unmoved by the 
 other truth, that we are a peculiar people in Christ Jesus, 
 through the indwelling of the Spirit. 
 
 It is impossible for a rightly-constituted heart to feel the 
 close connection of all things with the invisible and almighty 
 God, and yet not look upon them as bound to be consecrated 
 only to noble uses. The very thought changes at once the 
 universe into a great temple for praise and worship of the 
 Eternal, and all the bounties of Nature into gifts to be laid 
 upon His altar. This is surely no small matter, but the one 
 all-important matter. It is just religion brought really into 
 all that we do. It is just life made a long act of worship ; 
 the meanest things among which we move made sacred ; so 
 that the very stones of the street and the trees of the field 
 witness to us about God. 
 
62 "the earth is the lord's." 
 
 In the second place, the fact that " the earth is the Lord's " 
 is a source of pure and holy joy, from which we may draw 
 whenever we look upon anything in Nature that is fair and 
 well fitted to fulfil the end of its creation. 
 
 When a man looks upon the fields in autumn, laden with 
 yellow grain rich and ripe for the harvest, he cannot help 
 feeling the beauty and pleasantness of the sight ; and when he 
 thinks how many mouths they will fill with food and gladness 
 throughout the land, he must be cold-hearted indeed if he 
 does not feel gratified by reflecting on the amount of happi- 
 ness that will thus be diffused among his fellow-men. All this, 
 however, a man might feel without any knowledge of the truth 
 that God is the Creator and Lord of all things ; but teach him 
 so, and not only will he feel all that I have just said, but over and 
 above, he will see in these harvest-fields a sign of the wondrous 
 love which the Father in Heaven bears to even the humblest 
 of His children on earth. He will learn to trace out in all 
 the visible forms of creation the glorious character of their 
 invisible Author and Possessor. All that is lovely in earth 
 and heaven will be felt more lovely still, because it speaks 
 of a beauty and perfection lying beyond the range of the eye 
 of flesh, but within the range of faith — a beauty and perfection 
 infinite and inexpressible. 
 
 Thus the religious man — the man who practically and 
 abidingly realises the truth of my text — sees in Nature more 
 than any other man. The knowledge that God is its Creator 
 and Lord raises him far above itself. It makes the earth 
 one great symbol of heaven — the visible of the invisible. It 
 brings the human mind into contact with an infinitely higher 
 and better world. The godless man, the religiously indifferent 
 man, sees no more than half of what the godly man sees ; 
 and that half is certainly the lowest and least valuable half. 
 In this respect the godly man alone is a complete, an entire 
 man ; the godless man is but half a man. 
 
 The importance of this truth cannot be over-estimated. 
 It shows that we need not abandon the pursuits of ordinary 
 life to enjoy the delights of a religious life. It shows that 
 all that we need is a vivid, lasting, operative feeling — a steady, 
 practical conviction — of the connection between heaven and 
 
"the earth is the lord's." 63 
 
 earth ; a true appreciation of the meaning and bearing of 
 the opening verse in our Bibles. 
 
 The man of science is not asked, for instance, to turn away 
 from those special investigations which are engrossing his 
 attention, and to engage in a perfectly distinct order of con- 
 templations unrelated to the matters he has in hand. He is 
 simply asked to observe and to investigate in his own special 
 department with a fully awakened nature — to let his religious 
 susceptibilities have free play about what he is doing ; and 
 his special investigations, being thus consecrated, will of them- 
 selves train and educate him for the duties and delights of 
 the heavenly life. 
 
 Not only does the truth that " the earth and its fulness, 
 the world and all that are therein," are the Lord's, extend 
 the range of our thoughts and enjoyments ; it also heightens 
 the value of those that are common to the whole race. It 
 makes us bear a deeper and truer love to all God's creatures. 
 The fact that they are His creatures will do more than merely 
 prevent us from using them with harshness and cruelty. It 
 will give them an interest in our eyes, and make them objects 
 of delightful contemplation. It will make us begin to look 
 upon all Nature with eyes of thoughtfulness and love. It 
 will of necessity constrain us to say — 
 
 " He prayetli best who lovetli best 
 All things, both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all." 
 
 Thirdly, by thus sending men to Nature as well as to 
 Scripture for their religion, our texts tend to give breadth 
 and freedom to the religious character. 
 
 This is what many sincerely good men sadly want. It is 
 often impossible not to recognise their genuine earnestness 
 and spirituality of mind, when we are greatly repelled by 
 their austerities and their narrowness of view. They obviously 
 breathe in the midst of a vitiated atmosphere. There is disease 
 about their very goodness. 
 
 Now, when you turn away from the biography of such a 
 man, or from listening to his conversation, and read such a 
 
64 " THE EARTH IS THE LORD's." 
 
 psalm as that read this forenoon — the 104th Psalm — you see 
 into the whole mystery of the disease. There is a great and 
 felt difference. You have come from the company of one 
 who thinks Religion is the denial of Nature, into the company 
 of one who thinks it elev^ates and perfects Nature. You feel 
 that here, where you are now, there beats a heart pious and 
 spiritual indeed, but also of a large and genial humanity, and 
 delighting in all natural beauty and excellence. 
 
 There is nothing artificial or exclusive, nothing making the 
 life rigid and austere, unsociable or ungenial, in such piety, 
 however deep or fervent it may be : whereas it is impossible 
 to describe how much hardness and austerity and sickliness 
 is given to the religious character by making the Bible alone — 
 the Bible arbitrarily severed from Nature and life — the Bible 
 most unbiblically used — the sole source of spiritual growth. 
 
 I would then, most emphatically, that men would think on 
 the Gospel not less, but on Nature more. There can be no 
 breadth, no geniality otherwise ; no childlike simplicity, no 
 readiness to receive all truly Divine impressions. The influ- 
 ences of Nature are constantly needed to keep alive those 
 feelings of admiration, hope, and love, which enter so largely 
 into spiritual life. 
 
 Again, and fourthly, only through realising our relation to 
 Nature as God's creation, God's work, can we realise our relation 
 to God Himself. Through realising its grandeur, for example, 
 we have the feeling of our own insignificancy forced upon us in 
 the most impressive way not only in relation to it, but also, and 
 still more, in relation to its Author. You will remember how 
 vividly the Psalmist has described this feeling as springing up 
 within him on the contemplation of Nature's magnificence. 
 "When I consider," he says in the 8th Psalm — "when I con- 
 sider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the 
 stars which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou art 
 mindful of him ? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? " 
 
 And in the very psalm from which I have chosen one of my 
 texts, immediately after the words, " The earth is the Lord's, 
 and the fulness thereof ; the world, and they that dwell therein : 
 for He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon 
 the floods," he exclaims, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the 
 
"the earth is the lord's." 65 
 
 Lord ? or who shall stand in His holy place ? " which is almost 
 the same thought ; the only difference being that instead of 
 asking, "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the 
 son of man, that Thou visitest him ? " he here asks, what is 
 man, or the son of man, that he should be permitted to draw 
 near unto Thee, and worship in Thy great and holy presence. 
 
 If the psalmists of Israel with their imperfect knowledge of 
 the greatness of the earth, and their far more imperfect know- 
 ledge of the immensity of the heavens, thus felt, how much more 
 ought we so to feel, whose knowledge of the vastness and the 
 wonderfulness of the universe the discoveries of science have so 
 exceedingly enlarged ? 
 
 Finally, if we really accept what the texts teach us ; if we 
 believe God to be the Creator of the heaven and the earth, the 
 rightful Lord of the earth and its fulness, of the world and them 
 that dwell therein ; then are we obviously bound to acknowledge 
 that we owe all to Him, and can hold nothing as strictly and 
 entirely our own, no foot of land, no penny of our wealth, no 
 hour of our time, no faculty or exercise of body or mind, as 
 independent of His will or exempt from His service. 
 
 If these texts be true — and reason and conscience honestly 
 questioned will not refuse to testify to their truth — it is impos- 
 sible for a man to hold anything justly as his absolute property ; 
 by no price or labour even can you purchase an absolute right 
 to anything. If you believe or say that because you have 
 inherited an estate, or even because you have bought it with 
 the wealth which you have earned by the hardest labour of body 
 or of mind, therefore it is yours to do with it as you please, or 
 that you are anything more than the steward of it, you contra- 
 dict most directly the truth that "the earth and its fulness are 
 the Lord's." You say that they are yours, not His. If a State 
 law or a political economist encourage you in your opinion, it 
 is none the less false, God is, strictly speaking, the sole pro- 
 prietor in the universe. He made "the earth and its fulness," 
 and allows us to enjoy them as stewards — " to occupy until He 
 come." We are not at liberty to use anything for our own 
 purposes. Everything must be employed for the common good 
 of all, for the greatest glory of God. 
 
 We have not even an absolute right to ourselves. It is not 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 only "the world," but "they who dwell therein" that are the 
 Lord's. He is our Creator, and we are bound to work out, by 
 every power and energy of our nature, the will of God in our 
 creation. We are bound to sacrifice life itself in His service, 
 if that be needed. Should I see before me some great work 
 which I can perform to my race, but only by over-exerting 
 every physical and mental energy, so that if I do it I must sink 
 prematurely into the grave ; still, if the work be of higher value 
 than anything else I can do for my fellow-men with my life, 
 then am I morally bound to sacrifice that life, however pleasant 
 and dear it may be to me. We are not our own ; we are the 
 Lord's ; and the law of our lives can be no other than His holy 
 will — that will which we daily pray may be done in heaven and 
 in earth. Let us live as we pray. Let us see to it that that 
 will is done in us and by us. Let us strive that our wills never 
 contradict but ever faithfully obey that sovereign will. God 
 grant us through the strengthening of His Holy Spirit to 
 succeed in this striving. And to His name be the glory, now 
 and evermore. Amen. 
 
VI. 
 
 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN.^ 
 
 " Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established." 
 
 — Proverbs iv. 26. 
 
 nnHESE words tell us that we should not pass through life 
 -'- without serious reflection on what life is and what it 
 means; on what its duties are, and what its issues are likely 
 to be ; but that we should carefully consider how we may 
 make the most of the great gift of life which God has bestowed 
 upon us, and may so live as that God, and the reasons and 
 consciences within us which testify of God and for God, will 
 approve of our lives. They tell us what a multitude of other 
 verses in the book from which they are taken also tell us. 
 Indeed the great aim of the Book of Proverbs is to commend 
 religious thoughtfulness. It is a book written in praise of 
 wisdom, or of moral and religious good sense, as that "the 
 merchandise of which is better than the merchandise of silver, 
 and the gain thereof than fine gold ; " and to which all the 
 things that can be desired are not to be compared. Its burden 
 is, "Get wisdom, get understanding; forget it not: . . . for- 
 sake her not, and she shall preserve thee : love her, and she 
 shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore 
 get wisdom : and with all thy getting get understanding." 
 Such is the advice which is given us, in substance, in verse 
 after verse, from the beginning to the end of the book, as 
 well as in our text. 
 
 It is advice which should not come amiss to any of us — 
 which we all need to lay to heart — for it reminds us of a 
 duty which lies upon every one of us at every moment, which 
 concerns our whole conduct, which is broad as the moral 
 law and our moral life, which we cannot neglect without 
 
 1 Preached in the Bute Hall before the students of Glasgow University, and 
 published by request. 
 
 67 
 
68 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 
 
 sin, or without the shame and sorrow and suffering which 
 follow on sin, and yet which we are all prone to forget or 
 lightly to regard. At the same time, it is advice which 
 certainly cannot be more appropriate to any among us than 
 to those whom I wish to have particularly in view in what 
 I say at this time. Young men do not need the advice less 
 than older people, but rather the reverse. They have, as a 
 rule, some precious qualities of disposition in which those 
 more advanced in age are apt to be deficient, but thought- 
 fulness is not generally their strong point ; the want of it is 
 very frequently their weakest point. Then, not less but more 
 depends on their choice of a path and on their giving heed 
 to their feet. They have a wider choice of paths ; they are 
 freer and likelier to choose either the very best or the very 
 worst path than those who have already gone a considerable 
 way in some particular direction. Nowhere are wrong steps 
 so dangerous or right steps so hopeful as at the outset of 
 the journey of life. A little swerving from the true path 
 and a few stumbles there, may make the whole course of a 
 man's life a disastrous failure, terribly different from what 
 it otherwise might have been, terribly different to himself 
 and to all connected with him. God grant, therefore, that 
 the words which I have to say to you young men this day 
 may have some influence in leading you to accept heartily, and 
 to act faithfully on, the exhortation in the text. 
 
 I do not need to explain it, for it is already as plain as 
 words can make it. " Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all 
 thy ways be established." There is a right course in life, and 
 there are many wrong courses, — there is a line of conduct 
 which God approves of, and there are many which He con- 
 demns — one which leads to blessedness, and many which end 
 in ruin ; and what we are here told is. Choose thoughtfully 
 among these ways, so different in themselves, and so different 
 in their issues, — be careful to keep out of every wrong one, — 
 take the right path, and see well that you remain in it, — let 
 no temptation entice you away from it, — select your every step 
 heedfully, so as not to stumble or fall. It is certainly plain 
 and commonplace advice — "the instruction of a father, the 
 law of a mother " — and yet who can doubt that thoroughly to 
 
CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 69 
 
 receive it would "give subtilty to the simple," and avail us 
 more than silver or gold, power or fame, science or learning ? 
 
 The text is as reasonable and practical as it is plain. It 
 advises us to exercise just that wisdom which, as rational and 
 moral beings, we are able and bound to exercise, and not such 
 wisdom, or so-called wisdom, as may be beyond us. It does 
 not say that we must know much, or that we must have much 
 mental ability. God may have so placed us in life that our 
 opportunities for acquiring knowledge are few, and He may 
 have given us a moderate or small measure of talent. But 
 what is here asked of us is merely to try to find out, in what- 
 ever circumstances we are placed, what our duty is, and how 
 best to do it ; to use what power of thought we have got in 
 the choice and carrying out of such a life as our consciences 
 tell us God demands : not knowledge, thought, ability, either 
 absolutely in themselves or relatively to others, but simply 
 knowledge about what concerns us as moral and responsible 
 beings, to each of whom God has assigned work which we 
 shall find it unspeakable praise and blessedness to do well, 
 unspeakable shame and misery to do ill, — the thoughtfulness 
 which ascertains what God's will as to duty is, and which 
 prevents us taking any step that we have not His warrant 
 for, — the ability to separate between good and evil, both in 
 our inner life of feeling and our outer life of action. Such 
 knowledge as this — the knowledge of God's will as to what 
 use we ought to make of our own lives — no one of us can 
 be excused for not possessing, since all of us are meant to 
 acquiesce in and obey that will ; such thoughtfulness as this 
 is, through God's grace, beyond the attainment of no man 
 who is anxious for it ; such ability as this every man may get 
 who sincerely seeks it from God, and earnestly strives to obtain 
 and exercise it. 
 
 But while the exhortation of the text is thus reasonable 
 and practical, — while it only demands what is not merely 
 possible but clearly binding on us as intelligent and moral 
 beings, responsible to God for the way in which we employ 
 the life and powers He has given us, — it is none the less an 
 exhortation to a duty which is far from natural or easy to us — 
 an exhortation which is very much needed, both because the 
 
70 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 
 
 duty of which it reminds us is extremely apt to be neglected, 
 and because the neglect of it is exceedingly dangerous. There 
 is no reason for thinking that the right path in life is one 
 which a man can hardly miss, or one which it is the exception 
 to be ignorant of or not found in. On the contrary, it is one 
 path among many, and the narrowest of all — to the merely 
 natural man and the will of the flesh, the least inviting of all, 
 the one most apt to be overlooked, the one most frequently 
 overlooked. It needs serious thought and careful pondering 
 to select it ; and unless a man feel how serious it must be to 
 make a mistake as to the path, and unless he will pause and 
 deliberate, consult his conscience, study his Bible, use his 
 reason, prayerfully and honestly, in order to find out which 
 path is the true one, he is certain to err. It is the getting 
 into a wrong road which needs no thought, no pondering. To 
 refrain from thought, to go on without pondering, to do as 
 others do, to let chance or caprice, or pleasure or apparent 
 self-interest decide us, is quite enough to carry us woefully 
 astray. 
 
 Many thus act to their own grievous loss. Although 
 spiritual thoughtfulness be the bounden duty of all, and the 
 indispensable condition, the very root of all true piety, and 
 even of all true manhood, it is yet a rare thing, which many 
 are destitute of, which few exercise habitually and diligently, 
 so that what ought to be our highest glory — the power of 
 intelligent choice between good and evil, God and the world, 
 life and death — is our deepest shame. People who are 
 thoughtful and careful about everything else are often 
 thoughtless and heedless about these, the really needful 
 things. Those whose business it is, as it were, to study and 
 think, to work with their minds, to search for truth, are 
 often as devoid as others of this higher thoughtfulness. The 
 scholar, the student of science, the student even, I fear, of 
 the Bible and of theology ; those, in a word, who engage 
 with diligence and delight in the various kinds of speculation, 
 inquiry, and learning, including even those kinds which touch 
 most closely on the moral and spiritual life, have not un- 
 frequently less of the practical thoughtfulness which consists 
 in " pondering the path of their feet " than the peasant who 
 
CLAIMS OF DIVIXE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 71 
 
 can scarcely read ; and it is an error if any of us con- 
 clude because we have more education than is common, and 
 really like to study and think, and spend much of our time 
 in doing so, that we must, as a matter of course, have that 
 wisdom which the least educated man may have. We may 
 get much knowledge, and yet not get that understanding 
 without which it will do us little good, and deservedly do us 
 little good ; since surely, let our powers of mind and know- 
 ledge be what they may, if all that gives to life its solemnity 
 and significance be habitually lost sight of, our powers have 
 been ill applied and our knowledge is a vanity, and the 
 simplest man whose spirit God's Spirit has awakened to 
 meditate on what concerns righteousness of life and eternal 
 peace is worthy, even as regards intelligence, of far more 
 respect than we. We may know many foreign languages, 
 he not even his own ; we many sciences, he none ; but the 
 root of true mental life, of true spiritual culture, is in him, 
 and it is not in us ; and he is the better educated man of the 
 two, however the education may have been gained. 
 
 " Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be estab- 
 lished." Is there a path where our feet may always move 
 safely, and within which all our ways may be established? 
 Yes ; a glorious and blessed path — the one right path, in the 
 resolute choice of which, and steadfast adherence to which, true 
 wisdom mainly consists. What is this path ? It is — conscience, 
 reason. Scripture all tell us — the highest life we are, with the 
 help of God's grace, capable of, — a life of intellectual truthful- 
 ness, of purity and elevation of feeling, of self-sacrificing love 
 for the good of others, of zeal for the glory of God ; in a word, 
 the hatred and avoidance of all sin, and the love and practice 
 of all righteousness from the noblest motives. Some such 
 answer as this is all that natural reason in itself, and all 
 perhaps that reason even enlightened by the Old Testament 
 revelation, could give ; and it is one which is perfectly true, 
 although somewhat vague. 
 
 But in Christ it becomes as definite as it can be made. " I 
 am the way," says Christ. "No man cometh unto the Father 
 but by Me." Christ has brought near to us the love and mercy 
 
72 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 
 
 of God through the sacrifice of Himself for the putting away of 
 sin ; He has shown us the example of a perfect life, perfect 
 under suffering and perfect in action — a heart transparently 
 pure and full of love to God and man — a mind always in a 
 balance of truth, swayed by no excesses, running to no 
 extremes — a will ever exercised in doing good — a character 
 absolutely harmonious with itself and with the whole spiritual 
 universe ; and He has obtained for us the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit, the strength of Divine Grace, to lift us, as it were, 
 out of our natural state of selfishness and sin, into that close, 
 inner, loving contact with Himself which fills us with a new life, 
 which gives us that communion with God which is eternal life. 
 Life in Christ, and the life of Christ in us — life moulded 
 on His example, life with His principles and aims, life origi- 
 nated, pervaded, enlightened, purified, swayed, strengthened, 
 and develojDed by His Spirit — is true life, the only right way to 
 eternal life, the one path which will take us thither. 
 
 This, then, is the path which God has opened up for you 
 through Jesus Christ, and in which He invites and summons 
 you to walk. This grand and beautiful style of life, far higher, 
 far nobler, far more truly attractive to every eye really open to 
 spiritual grandeur, truth, and beauty, than any king or prince 
 on earth can live, if God does not raise them, too, to a higher 
 than worldly life, — this life, I say, is the path in which He asks 
 every one of you to walk. There is not one young man now 
 hearing me, however mean his surroundings or ordinary his 
 abilities, whom God has not judged worthy of a life far higher 
 and better than any which nobles or sovereigns can live, using 
 merely their worldly powers and resources. This is the equality 
 between man and man which the Gospel sets forth — an equality 
 distant from that of socialism as heaven from earth. The 
 Gospel does not seek to deprive any of their earthly advan- 
 tages, and reduce all to the same low worldly level, but it 
 would raise all to so high a rank of life, that in the glory of 
 the royal priesthood with which it clothes every true follower 
 of Jesus, the greatest earthly distinctions will be seen to be 
 insignificant. 
 
 Here then, young men, is the question which I am bound to 
 press upon you — Will you take this path into which God in- 
 
CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 73 
 
 vites you, or will you be so thoughtless as to try some other ? 
 Will you choose that noblest kind of life which your Father in 
 heaven would have you lead, the life of sonship — the very life 
 which is in His only begotten Son Jesus Christ ; or will you, 
 from the falsest modesty — or rather through the most fatal 
 want of self-respect — deem yourselves unworthy to receive 
 what God does not deem it unworthy of Himself to offer you, 
 and reject the unspeakable gift which would so enrich, ennoble, 
 and bless you? What other path would you prefer to it? 
 What other calling would please you better than this your 
 high calling in Jesus Christ ? Oh, surely you would not rather 
 take the paths which some young men take, — those dark and 
 foul paths of degrading indulgence, in following which men 
 break their mothers' hearts, bring down the heads of their 
 fathers with sorrow to the tomb, and cruelly wrong and injure 
 their wives and children — in which all that distinguishes and 
 honours human nature is lost and trampled in the mire — in 
 which, as a man proceeds, he becomes increasingly debased 
 even in his own eyes, until dead to shame, only because dead 
 to goodness — in which he brings discredit on the class to which 
 he belongs, and disgrace and misery on all connected with him 
 — and at the end of which he finds only an unhonoured grave 
 unillumined with the rays of hope? Surely you will never 
 prefer any of these paths to the one in which God would have 
 you to walk. And yet, my friends, human nature when it 
 trusts only in itself is very weak, and the appetites and pas- 
 sions which prompt to evil are in many a young man's heart 
 very strong, and difficult to restrain or guide ; and the only 
 way, therefore, to be secure against wandering into any of 
 those foul paths, is to choose the path which is farthest away 
 from them — the purest and best path through life — the one 
 true path, — the path of God's grace in Jesus Christ. 
 
 I assume, however, that you will at least choose some path 
 which is outwardly respectable, or, it may be, some path which 
 will lead you to worldly success and distinction ; and I wish 
 you may get all worldly things really for your good in fullest 
 measure. Yet I say that if, knowing as you do of the higher 
 life to which God calls you, you are content with one of mere 
 worldly respectability — that if, knowing as you do of the greater 
 
74 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 
 
 blessings which He would have you strive to attain, you can be 
 so untrue to yourselves and respond so ill to His thoughts to- 
 wards you as to seek only worldly advantages, — you deserve to 
 fail in your poor ambition — deserve to sink below respectability 
 — deserve not to gain the object of your quest, — or deserve to 
 experience how poor your ambition has been — how hollow and 
 delusive mere worldly respectability is — how unsatisfactory 
 mere worldly successes and distinctions are. And you will get 
 what you deserve in the one way or the other. 
 
 Not a young man here, I trust, can be so deficient in intelli- 
 gence as not to see, or so narrow in heart as not to feel, that a 
 far higher and nobler life is possible to him than any merely 
 worldly life — that the truly Divine life of which I spoke lays 
 claim to him. It is generally only the old who have abused 
 their lives, and grown stupid and callous and contracted in the 
 service of the world, who cannot see or feel this. And if you 
 can see and feel it, you are certainly bound to choose resolutely 
 this highest life — the Divine life. It is folly to choose any- 
 thing lower. Thank God that He has called you to so high a 
 destiny, and close joyously with His call. Kealise your own 
 worth in the light of it. Have due respect to your own 
 dignity in the light of it. The best is the best: choose not 
 below the best, when all below it is infinitely below it, and 
 when by choosing it all lower good will be added unto you, 
 and from all lower things you will be able to extract their 
 utmost good. A celebrated modern Italian — the late Joseph 
 Mazzini — was never weary of crying to the young men of Italy, 
 " Young men, cherish high ideals." This day my whole wish 
 would be to persuade you young men before me that your only 
 true wisdom lies in cherishing the highest ideal you can form 
 — in taking it into your mind and heart — in devoting all your 
 powers to express it in your conduct. But the highest ideal of 
 life conceivable has been already completely realised. Jesus 
 Christ has shown us the perfect type of Divine life in human 
 nature — the perfect manifestation and embodiment of Divine 
 love, goodness, and holiness. Therefore, if we would walk in 
 the true path and have all our ways established, we must 
 continually study His life, grow in the knowledge of His 
 excellences, appropriate the features of His character, and 
 
CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 75 
 
 follow in His footsteps. It may be well to study the lives of 
 others who have been eminent for virtues and achievements ; 
 but here, again, let us not forget that the best is the best, — 
 that Jesus alone presents us with a perfect example — that the 
 Christian life is essentially the imitation, the reproduction, of 
 the life of Christ. 
 
 I must not forget, however, that we are living in days when 
 no one addressing an audience of educated young men can 
 safely assume that there are not some of them far from pre- 
 pared to admit the Divinity and Divine Mission of Jesus Christ 
 — and far from prepared, therefore, to seek in His life, doctrine, 
 and grace the true life necessary to every human soul, enlight- 
 enment as to the right path of human conduct, and strength to 
 proceed in it. Some of you, it may be, have the most radical 
 doubts as to Christianity. So be it. Although I have no 
 time to consider how you may have come to your doubts, or 
 what may be the worth of the grounds on which you would be 
 prepared to defend them, I have a word to you also. 
 
 There are some things which, happily, you cannot very easily 
 doubt. You can no more doubt, for instance, the testimony of 
 your consciences than you can doubt the testimony of your 
 eyesight. You can no more help distinguishing between 
 right and wrong — can no more help approving of generosity, 
 truthfulness, justice, purity, and condemning selfishness, lying, 
 injustice, and impurity — than you can help distinguishing be- 
 tween light and darkness, and preferring one kind of colouring 
 to another. It matters not how your conscience may have 
 come to you, or how it may have been formed in your race, any 
 more than how vision originated and has been developed. The 
 inner sense, in whatever way accounted for, is as credible as 
 the outer sense, and you can quite as reasonably doubt or dis- 
 believe your eyes as your consciences, within their respective 
 provinces. You simply cannot refuse to believe the voice of 
 conscience without being condemned by your conscience and 
 feeling degraded. 
 
 Well, let this conscience scrutinise and judge your own 
 moral lives. It is what it ought to do. It is its appro^jriate 
 function and work within you. Under the gaze, then, of an 
 honest conscience, do you think your heart and conduct at all 
 
76 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 
 
 what they ought to be, or are you quite well aware that they 
 are terribly the reverse of what they ought to be ? Ah ! there 
 can be no doubt as to what the answer should be ; no doubt 
 that, unless strangely devoid of moral susceptibility and earnest- 
 ness, your own hearts will condemn you, testifying that your 
 will as regards good is weak and perverse, your affections dis- 
 ordered and diseased, your passions selfish and lawless, your 
 nature corrupt to a lamentable extent. It is not very long ago 
 since those who were then deemed advanced thinkers were wont 
 to teach that all men were born good, and might, if they had 
 only been rightly educated, have been kept good. Darwinism, 
 and a little knowledge of the laws of heredity, have quite dis- 
 credited that nonsense. Now, our advanced thinkers tell us 
 that we inherit not only the faulty qualities of the first men, 
 but the gross appetites and passions of an older and brutal 
 ancestry. Be that so or not, your own moral experience, 
 honestly consulted, will not fail soon to convince you that your 
 natures, far from spontaneously conforming themselves, as they 
 ought, to the requirements of the moral law, show themselves 
 deeply estranged from it, and possessed by tendencies which 
 lead it incessantly to the most inexcusable disobedience to its 
 requirements. 
 
 Now, let the eye of conscience turn from resting on your 
 own actual moral life to that which is set forth in the New 
 Testament as exhibited by Christ, and enjoined by Him on 
 His followers. You may refuse to assume, or even to admit, 
 that Christ ever lived; but you cannot push your scepticism 
 so far as to deny that there is such a book as the New 
 Testament, and that in it there is a picture drawn of one 
 claiming to be a Saviour and to reveal to man the true way 
 of life. Well, let your consciences examine the life exhibited 
 and prescribed, — let them search and try the principles, the 
 motives, the ends of it; let them see if they can find any 
 fault there ; let them honestly say whether it be the true life 
 of man or not. I am convinced that, if sincere and candid, 
 they will not dare to deny that it is in very deed the only 
 life worthy of a man. The conscience, brought into the pre- 
 sence of that light, must pronounce it to be the light which 
 can alone be the life of men. 
 
CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 77 
 
 Conscience then, it seems, certainly pronounces the life 
 which you must lead if left to yourselves an evil one, and 
 cannot refuse to acknowledge that the ideal of life associated 
 with the name of Christ is an infinitely higher one — yea, the 
 only true one. If you find this so, as I am sure you will if 
 you only inquire aright, it will then be for you to consider 
 how you will live as you know you ought to do, if, as you 
 suspect, Christ either were not, or not what He claimed to 
 be. The first and greatest of questions for each one of you 
 is, How are you to be a truly good man ? How you are to 
 overcome the evil in your heart and the temptations in the 
 world, and to attain to the purity, truth, and sanctity which 
 the moral law demands ? Every other question ought to be 
 postponed to this. All doubts as to religion which are of a 
 merely intellectual or speculative character can reasonably be 
 considered only after this directly and intensely practical and 
 moral question has been seriously dealt with — How, being such 
 men as we are, are we to become such men as we ought to 
 be ? In the Gospel of Christ there is an answer given in 
 comparison with which any other which has ever been sug- 
 gested can hardly fail to appear to a morally awakened and 
 earnest mind wretchedly inadequate. Thus, the man who is 
 truly aware of his own spiritual condition, of his own sinful- 
 ness and moral weakness, and who at the same time contem- 
 plates Christ as set forth in the Gospel, may be expected to 
 feel Christ necessary to him ; that without Christ he cannot 
 live, and without Christ he dare not die ; that only in such 
 an one as Christ can be found the purity, enlightenment, 
 strength, and peace which he needs. 
 
 But some person may say, That such an one as Christ is 
 necessary to me is no proof that there ever was such an one 
 as Christ, — no proof that the claims which He is represented 
 to have made were made by Him, or that if made they were 
 true. I quite admit that, but he who says so must also admit 
 that these claims being what they are represented to have 
 been — being that Christ is the only Saviour from sin, and can 
 alone show the true path of life, and alone enable men to 
 follow it — they have an immense and immediate practical 
 interest for him, and he is bound to examine them under the 
 
78 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM OX YOUNG MEN. 
 
 deepest sense of moral responsibility and of personal concern. 
 Now this, it seems to me, is a point of momentous importance. 
 
 We constantly hear of young men having had their faith 
 shaken by, for example, some metaphysical theory of the limits 
 of knowledge, or some scientific or so-called scientific theory 
 of evolution, or certain critical investigations into the origin 
 and composition of books of Scripture, or some ingenious 
 speculation as to the credibility of miracles, &c. ; and it may 
 be that we are asked to indicate how the doubts which have 
 thus been raised should be dealt with. In the vast majority 
 of cases it is, I believe, comparatively useless to deal with 
 them directly, because they have mainly risen from there 
 having been no real faith in Christ, or even serious and 
 reasonable consideration of Christ's claims, to start with. I 
 do not see that much direct good is likely to come from con- 
 troverting such doubts as these, if the doubters have no due 
 sense of what Christ claims to be, and of the relationship 
 especially which He claims to hold to their own souls. If you 
 realise in some fitting measure your own condition as a sinner, 
 and seriously consider how the Gospel responds to your wants 
 as a sinner, then, but only then, can I entertain a good hope 
 that you will see that Christ stands in an altogether excep- 
 tional, yea, unique relation to you ; that from that you may 
 be able to appreciate the uniqueness of His position in the 
 history of revelation, in the history of religion, in the history 
 of humanity, and in the system of the universe; and so that, 
 from the centre outwards, miracles and prophecies, histories 
 and Scriptures, and even theories of evolution and the preten- 
 sions of Agnosticism, may appear in a new light, and your 
 doubts, drawn from the far-off regions of speculation or from 
 difficult critical investigations, vanish away. 
 
 What I would insist on is, that you begin your inquiry with 
 what is nearest to you and most certain — with self-knowledge 
 honestly obtained — and then, that with that you go directly 
 to the contemplation of Christ Himself and to the considera- 
 tion of His claims to be your Saviour, before you undertake 
 to judge of Him by the speculations of Hume or Spencer 
 or Haeckel, or even by the attempted defences of Him by 
 Christian Apologists. Christ addresses Himself to those who 
 
CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 79 
 
 feel the misery, the burdeu, the guilt of sin ; and a man who 
 does not feel these things cannot be converted to faith in 
 Christ by any mere processes of logic. From the very nature 
 of Christ's claims they must, in order to be profitably dealt 
 with, be treated not as objects of pure intellectual controversy, 
 but of earnest moral inquiry. Where, however, there is a 
 deep sense of responsibility and a real eagerness for the true 
 way of life, there may we confidently trust that His highest 
 claims will be found to be amply warranted, and that He will 
 satisfy the intellect not less fully than He does the heart. 
 
 I should now speak of the characteristics of the true and 
 living way in which we are called by Christ to walk, and of the 
 means which He has provided to enable us to walk therein ; but 
 time forbids me even to touch on these great themes. One 
 other thing, however, must be said — for without attention to 
 it all else that has been said will be useless. It is, that we can 
 neither reasonably hope to ponder aright the path of our feet, 
 nor to have our ways established — neither reasonably hope to 
 get into the right path nor to keep in it — if we trust merely in 
 our own wisdom and our own strength. We must place our 
 dependence in a higher wisdom and a greater strength ; we 
 must seek the enlightenment and the power which the Spirit of 
 God alone imparts. While carefully using our own reasons, 
 we must also have the Divine light shining on them ; while 
 sparing no effort we can ourselves make, we must likewise lean 
 humbly on the arm of the Lord. " A man's heart deviseth his 
 way, but the Lord directeth his steps," we read in the Book of 
 Proverbs. " The steps of a good man," says the Psalmist, " are 
 ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in his way." " I know, 
 Lord," exclaims Jeremiah, — " I know that the way of man is 
 not in himself : it is not in man that walketh to direct his 
 steps." One of the greatest and most blessed truths taught us 
 in the Gospel is, that now the Holy Ghost has been fully given, 
 both to lead us into the true path of life, and to enable us 
 to abide in it ; and we shall make a fatal mistake if we overlook 
 this fact, and try to do without the Spirit's aid. 
 
 To take the right path, we must rise above what is merely 
 natural in us, and resist much that is most natural to us ; we 
 must turn from the folly, the self-will, the love of pleasure, the 
 
80 CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 
 
 love of praise, the avarice, the ambition, the worldliness, which 
 inhere in us and beset us : we must quite turn away from them, 
 and fix our eyes and bend our steps in the opposite direction ; 
 we must feel the things we have hitherto been blind to, nearer 
 us, and more sure than what our fingers can grasp — realise the 
 powers of the world to come, deny ourselves, and seek our lives 
 not in ourselves nor in the world, but in Christ. Now assuredly, 
 flesh and blood, mere self-will and natural feeling, are not 
 likely to bring us into such a way as this ; and yet it is the new 
 and living way. On the contrary, to enter it we must renounce 
 flesh and blood, mere will and feeling, and have regard only to 
 the real truth of things. If we do not seriously use our reasons 
 to discover that — if we do not yield them to the guidance of 
 Divine Wisdom, and follow where it leads, — our passions, our 
 pleasures, our interests, are sure to entice and draw us into 
 some other path. Keason alone, and reason only, when guided 
 by the Spirit of God, when seeing and judging in the light 
 which is from above, will observe the true path, and pronounce 
 it to be the true one. 
 
 Even if, by some strange chance, we were to get into the 
 true path without the Spirit's aid, we could not keep in it 
 without His constant help, as we may easily convince ourselves 
 by thinking for a moment of the great number and great power 
 of the influences or forces which are constantly exerting their 
 strength to draw us out of it. There are the senses, and that 
 whole world of sense which is their object, constantly tending 
 to engross our attention to themselves, to make us unable to 
 think about or believe in what we cannot see or handle — unable 
 to feel how awfully real are God and Christ, sin and holiness, 
 heaven and hell. There are all our appetites and passions, 
 requiring to be incessantly watched and strictly controlled, in 
 order that they may not degrade and brutalise the best of us. 
 There are the innumerable cares and demands of daily business, 
 which make so many men slaves and drudges, who sacrifice to 
 business all the powers of their manhood, so that they have 
 none to give to God, the soul, the world to come. There are 
 the pleasures of life, crowding our higher and middle classes 
 especially with swarms of trifling and superficial creatures, 
 devoid of the very idea that God made man or woman for any 
 
CLAIMS OF DIVINE WISDOM ON YOUNG MEN. 81 
 
 worthy end at all, devoid of thought, devoid of self-restraint or 
 regulated feeling, devoid of earnestness. There is surely need, 
 great need, of a thoughtful pondering of what we do when 
 things like these are constantly assailing us in order to make 
 us act foolishly and wrongly, and especially as, our own hearts 
 being evil, — yes, very evil even when converted, — we are so in- 
 clined of ourselves to yield to them. Surely we need to pray 
 for a new heart as the condition and source of an understand- 
 ing mind ; surely we greatly need to listen to the word of St 
 James, this wise injunction followed by a precious promise, " If 
 any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all 
 men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him ; " 
 surely we shall do well to remember that " the God of Israel is 
 He who giveth strength unto His people ; " surely we may 
 ardently desire to be filled with the Holy Ghost, to be en- 
 lightened, purified, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 My message to you is ended. I have sought to give you not 
 merely good advice, but the hest advice. May you accept it and 
 act on it. And may God so bless it, and so bless and guide 
 and keep all of you, that all the duties and trials, joys and 
 sorrows, changes and events which await you, will only bring 
 you nearer to His own immediate presence, and only in- 
 creasingly enrich you with that eternal life which is in Him. 
 Amen, 
 
VIL 
 THE CHIEF GOOD.i 
 
 " There be many that say, Who will show us any good ? Lord, lift Thou up the 
 light of Thy countenance upon us." — Psalm iv. 6. 
 
 THE subject of my address is one which many philosophers 
 have discussed. But the only observations regarding it 
 which I shall submit to you will be of a very simple kind, 
 and they will also be as practical as I can make them. 
 
 A Catechism, which I hope may be long familiar to Scottish 
 young men, begins with the question, What is the chief end 
 of man? It is a question of a kind which I suppose man 
 alone of all the creatures on the earth asks. The other 
 animals fulfil their ends without thinking of what these are ; 
 and, impelled by their particular instincts and appetites, they 
 fulfil them as a rule much better than we do ours, and almost 
 as well as inanimate objects and mechanical forces accomplish 
 theirs. Watch a flock of sea-gulls plying their vocations from 
 morning till night with the energy which characterises them, 
 and you may almost feel inclined to agree with the Greek 
 sceptic Carneades, who argued that reason was a baneful gift 
 which our race would have been much better without. Cer- 
 tainly if men were all as active as those creatures are it would 
 be much better both for themselves and their fellows. And I 
 suspect that the advice, " Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider 
 her ways, and be wise," may apply to many of us who would 
 resent being pronounced either indolent or improvident. 
 
 Yet reason is a glorious gift of God. By the possession of 
 it man is raised far above the other creatures of the earth, 
 although in virtue of the possession of it he may err and 
 degrade himself as they never do. It is by the exercise of 
 it that he is man ; and wherever the creature called man is 
 truly man he asks himself in some form, What is my being's 
 
 1 An Address delivered in the Mitchell Hall, to the Students of Aberdeen 
 
 University, on Sabbath evening, February 9, 1896. 
 
 82 
 
THE CHIEF GOOD. 83 
 
 end and aim ? What should I seek and what ought I to 
 avoid? What is evil for me, and what would be best for 
 me? Of course, so long as reason was only dawning, only 
 germinating, the consciousness of there being such a question 
 could only be vague, obscure, and partial, but wherever reason 
 is active, wherever the claims of morality are acknowledged, 
 wherever there is remorse or shame for unfaithfulness to an 
 ideal, it must be present. Man is not properly man until he 
 asks the question in some form. Until he asks it clearly his 
 mind and nature are immature. 
 
 Universal history attests that for many ages man has been 
 pondering over this question. A Hebrew psalmist tells us that 
 in his day there were " many that said. Who will show us 
 any good?" and gives as his own answer, "Lord, lift Thou 
 up the light of Thy countenance upon us." The writer of 
 Ecclesiastes speaks of many attempts to answer it, utters 
 many daring doubts in regard to it, but ends with this advice 
 as "the conclusion of the whole matter," the true answer to 
 every seeker, "Fear God, and keep His commandments. For 
 God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret 
 thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." 
 
 For the sages of all the great Oriental nations the question, 
 What is the Supreme Good? had an all-absorbing interest, 
 and the answers which they gave to it mightily affected not 
 only their own lives, but the lives of millions of their country- 
 men. You know how in all the Greek schools of philosophy, 
 at least after the revolution in Greek thought which we 
 associate with the name of Socrates, the great and dividing 
 question in dispute among them was just this, What is the 
 chief good? Plato and Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno, widely 
 as they differ in other respects, agree as to the importance 
 to be assigned to the inquiry regarding the end of action, 
 the end in itself, the ultimate good. Even some of the most 
 thorough of the Greek sceptics, although sceptical as to almost 
 all other things, were not sceptical either as to life having a 
 chief end or as to what the end was, but recommended doubt or 
 suspension of judgment as to other things as a means of attain- 
 ing that mental peace, that imperturbability, that freedojn from 
 passion and care, which they considered to be the chief good. 
 
84 THE CHIEF GOOD. 
 
 It is true that even from of old some voices have made them- 
 selves heard, asking, Is there really any good ? Is everything 
 not vanity and vexation of spirit ? Is all search for happiness 
 not folly ? But such voices have been very few, — fewer even 
 than those which have said, "There is no God" or "There is 
 no eternal world." In most cases, too, they have been the 
 expression not of fixed convictions but of transient moods of 
 mind. And among the few theorists of pessimism most have 
 lived as if their doctrine were not true. 
 
 I cannot come to the conclusion that there is no chief good 
 for man, no real satisfaction for the human heart, were it only 
 for this reason, that I can perceive almost no one coming to 
 this conclusion. Manifestly the human heart protests against 
 it. Manifestly all natural human lives belie it. There is a 
 deeply rooted feeling in us all that we have been made for 
 good and not for evil, for happiness and not for misery. 
 Every heart instinctively seeks happiness ; spontaneously and 
 eagerly grasps now at this and now at that in order to get 
 happiness. Disappointment after disappointment cannot eradi- 
 cate this strong desire. " While there is life there is hope," 
 men say ; and at least so long as we live we continue to 
 hope. 
 
 Can a feeling so universal be a delusion? Can a tendency 
 so irresistible in every one of us lead only to disappointment ? 
 Were it so, surely the root of our nature would be a lie, and 
 the author of our nature a deceiver. No ! so long as I see 
 men everywhere, in all conditions of life, with heart and hand, 
 soul and body, seeking happiness, pursuing a good greater 
 than earth ever yields them, cherishing a hope that always 
 transcends present attainment, I shall believe that man has 
 been formed for a good corresponding to his hope, one greater 
 than our weak eyes clearly discern or our dull hearts rightly 
 conceive, a good so grand and vast that it will be ever found 
 better and larger than either our desires or our hopes. 
 
 If man has a chief good, a supreme end, however, we may 
 well ask, Where and how will he find it ? for it is too obvious 
 that he very often does not find it. Indeed there is no man 
 who does not in some measure fail to find it ; who might not 
 attain and enjoy it more fully than he actually does. Even 
 
THE CHIEF GOOD. 85 
 
 the wisest, best, and most zealous of our race would do well 
 to press more earnestly forward than they do towards the 
 mark where is the true goal of human life. The more clearly 
 we see what that goal is, the more anxious we are likely to be 
 so to run that we may not fail to reach it. 
 
 What sort of good, then, must the chief good be ? must the 
 highest end of human life be ? It must necessarily be one 
 than which there can be none higher or better; than which 
 there can be none above or beyond ; none which will satisfy 
 human nature either more or longer. In other words, it 
 cannot but be, if it be at all, a good which will completely 
 meet every real want of every human being ; which will 
 correspond to every faculty and affection of human nature in 
 every individual ; which will never cease to satisfy the human 
 soul; which will yield alike to the humblest and to the highest 
 of the children of men a peace and happiness, a strength and 
 joy, which nothing else can equal. Whatever cannot satisfy 
 all men at all times, in all true respects and in all right ways, 
 cannot be the chief good, the good each one of you ought 
 above all things to seek for. 
 
 If such must be the chief good, you must obviously look high 
 and far ahead before you can be sure of seeing it. For 
 although it be near you, yea, close beside and around you, it 
 is also far off, and there are thousands of things very near 
 to you which you may easily mistake for it, and which if you 
 follow instead of it will lead you to your ruin. All partial 
 and perishing goods, all contracted and petty aims, all ends 
 the pursuit of which will satisfy you only for some particular 
 stage or period of your lives, ought to be clearly distinguished 
 by you from the supreme good, the grand aim, the ultimate 
 end of life, to which they ought always to be subordinate, 
 and with which they are so apt to be in contradiction. No 
 one who does not thus distinguish between the chief good 
 and other goods has yet really got the mind of a man, no 
 matter what his age may be. The thoughtlessness of child- 
 hood is still his predominant characteristic, however long he 
 may have outgrown its innocence. To form a reasonable view 
 of what is the ultimate object and true ideal of life, a man 
 
86 THE CHIEF GOOD. 
 
 must look upwards even to the throne of God, and forwards 
 as far as to the judgment-seat of Christ. 
 
 If what has just been said be correct, it is obvious that there 
 are large classes of things in which we cannot reasonably hope 
 to find the chief good. 
 
 Let us look for a few moments, first, at what is, perhaps, 
 the largest class of the kind, including as it does everything 
 that refers to our bodily life, — all the pleasures of sense, all 
 the beauties and bounties of nature, all merely worldly ad- 
 vantages. Is the chief good to be found there ? 
 
 In answering without hesitation in the negative, I feel not 
 the slightest need or the slightest inclination to disparage 
 any of these things in themselves. They are good, although 
 not the chief good. They are gifts of a loving God, and 
 therefore good. Were they not so, were they merely or 
 even mainly seductions and temptations, I cannot think that 
 He who tempteth no man to evil, would have given them so 
 liberally ; that He would have made our bodies so susceptible 
 of enjoyment as they are, all natural relationships so capable 
 of yielding pleasure, the whole world so beautiful and bounti- 
 ful. The ascetic ideal of life is not the highest, and is certainly 
 not of universal obligation. The lower goods of life may all 
 find a place in relation to the chief good, or, you may even 
 say, within it ; and to give them their due place is a wiser 
 and a better thing than unnecessary abstinence from them or 
 sour disdain of them. 
 
 But the chief good they are not. Experience abundantly 
 shows this. No man with a properly human soul in his body 
 has ever found full satisfaction within the visible world — 
 among the things of time and sense. Where will you find 
 in this world the most miserable of men ? Just among its 
 so-called men of pleasure ; just among those who make the 
 pursuit of worldly pleasure the chief or sole object of their 
 lives. The more exclusively and strenuously men seek this 
 end, and the more abundant their opportunities and means 
 of pursuing it are, the more certain are they to find their 
 labour to have been lost, and that what they have really earned 
 and obtained for themselves are disappointment, shame, self- 
 
THE CHIEF GOOD. 87 
 
 reproach, misery. It is just such men who cry most bitterly, 
 " Vanity of vanities : all is vanity." If a few of them have 
 succeeded in stifling the cry, it is only through having de- 
 stroyed what was distinctively human and left merely what was 
 animal in them. Until then, I believe, a human being never 
 quite silences the voice of the inner man within him which 
 calls for more than mortal food, for more than earth can give. 
 
 Man cannot be satisfied with material goods. He cannot 
 be made happy according to the measure of his possession of 
 them. It is told of Prince Bismarck that when urged to 
 pass a certain act on the ground that it would make dissatisfied 
 workmen contented, he replied that he had never known a 
 contented millionaire. Carlyle had previously declared his 
 belief that the whole world would not satisfy the soul of one 
 poor shoe-black, but that if he got it he would grumble over 
 its defects, and want another. There is no observant physician 
 or clergyman, no man who has been brought much into close 
 contact with diverse classes of his fellow-creatures, who will 
 not tell you that they have found most unhappy people among 
 those who were richest in the world's goods, and wonderfully 
 contented people among those who were exceedingly poor. 
 What is outward in a man's lot is often far from indifferent 
 to his happiness, but the character of his own mind counts 
 for much more. The circle of your acquaintances in life will 
 be limited if there be not among them some who grow only 
 the more unhappy the less reason you, or anybody else, can 
 see for their being unhappy at all. And you may have the 
 great privilege of knowing others who have none of their 
 external, their personal, or social advantages, who are even 
 weak and diseased in body, poor and pinched in their circum- 
 stances, and burdened and tried in various ways, so that you 
 might almost think that God had really done little for them, 
 until you discover that He has given them one of those souls 
 which, as Faber says, " have the gift of finding joy every- 
 where, and of leaving it behind them when they go ; so that 
 joy gushes from under their fingers like jets of light ; and 
 their influence is an inevitable gladdening of the heart." 
 
 It would be strange were experience in this matter other 
 than what it is. It would be so, just because man is man, 
 
88 THE CHIEF GOOD. 
 
 and as such has a soul as well as a body, spiritual affections 
 and faculties as well as animal appetites and powers. No 
 animal of a higher nature can be satisfied with the life of an 
 animal of a lower nature. Much less must man, who is more 
 or less of a truly spiritual nature, and is thereby distinguished 
 from all other living creatures on earth, be capable of being 
 satisfied with what is wholly animal. He cannot but feel 
 degraded in his own eyes, and deserving the contempt of 
 his fellow-men, if he become the slave of his body, if his 
 affections be confined to earthly objects, if he content himself 
 with any ignoble happiness. 
 
 All that is merely earthly man must soon lose. He carries 
 no temporal advantages with him beyond the grave, and only 
 few of them so far. Many of them may have proved to be 
 worth very little. The value of all of them is strictly limited. 
 
 God has, however, put a sense of eternity and infinity into 
 the human heart, which makes it impossible for anything 
 perishable and finite to satisfy it. Hence, even if there were 
 no eternal life, no life beyond the grave, and consequently 
 no good beyond what earth supplies, although such good 
 would be the utmost to which man can attain, and in that 
 sense his chief good, yet it would not be the chief good which 
 sages and saints, which all wise and good men, have sought; 
 not the chief good in the strict sense; not a comjjletely 
 satisfying good ; not the good to which all that is good in 
 man tends, and in which alone his whole nature can find rest 
 and joy. It would give no satisfaction to what is best in 
 his being. To have to content himself with it would prove 
 that his nature is a self-contradiction, and that what is lowest 
 in it must gain the victory over what is highest. 
 
 It may be that some one here has doubts as to whether or 
 not there is an eternal life beyond the grave. Such doubt is 
 possible. But is there any one here who doubts that there is 
 a sense of eternity in his own heart ? Such doubt is, I think, 
 not possible to a mind which honestly interrogates itself. And 
 what I say is that that feeling of eternity, that spark of in- 
 finity, which he has within himself, which you all have within 
 you, will make it impossible for you to be otherwise than dis- 
 appointed with whatever is merely temporal and finite. 
 
THE CHIEF GOOD. 89 
 
 Would that I could get you to believe this here and now, 
 and to act on it henceforth. For if you do not, if instead you 
 seek your happiness only in the goods which earth can give 
 you, your lives must be each a series of disappointments, 
 ending in your being stripped of all which you have toiled for, 
 when you have probably lost any sense of or desire for the 
 good which endureth for ever. But if, on the contrary, you 
 start on your careers convinced that there is within you that 
 which earth cannot satisfy, yet to which there is a full response 
 in God Himself, I feel sure that you will so pass through this 
 world as not to be greatly disappointed with it, for you will 
 not only have refrained from asking from it what it cannot 
 give, but will have learned that even what is deficient and 
 seemingly disappointing in it has been useful to you, and 
 helped to prepare you for the eternal life and the infinite good- 
 ness which you see to be still before you. 
 
 We cannot find, then, the chief good among the objects of 
 sense. Shall we find it within the sphere of mere intellect — 
 in the acquisition of knowledge, the pursuit of truth, the 
 culture of our mental faculties ? Now, undoubtedly, those 
 who do seek for it here seek it in a higher and purer, and 
 therefore likelier region than those whose souls remain always 
 among material things. They are certainly in less danger of 
 utterly degrading themselves. But will they find what they 
 seek? Is the chief good really where they look for it? I 
 answer. No. And for such reasons as the following. 
 
 A very small portion of our race has adequate opportunities 
 for mental culture, and a still smaller portion of it possesses 
 the faculties required for success in intellectual pursuits. 
 There are few so circumstanced as to be able to spend their 
 lives in the search after truth or in the attainment of artistic 
 skill. Originality of thought is a very rare endowment. It 
 requires an amount of labour of which few are capable to 
 become even merely learned in any considerable department of 
 knowledge, and in the course of the labour how often must a 
 mass of rubbish be gathered which is just as worthless as cart- 
 loads of material dross. 
 
 Again, it is easily possible, and very common, greatly to 
 
90 THE CHIEF GOOD. 
 
 exaggerate the satisfaction to be found in intellectual pursuits. 
 There are eulogies of these pursuits which might lead you to 
 suppose that students of all kinds, scientists, and artists, must 
 lead quite Elysian lives. Most certainly such is not the case. 
 Students in general find it diflScult enough to secure an 
 ordinary pass or an average position through a process of 
 preparation far from wholly delectable. And to reach greater 
 eminence means, not less assuredly, more pain rather than more 
 pleasure. I doubt very much if Mr Euskin found as much 
 enjoyment in penning those wonderful and beautiful sentences 
 which he only could write, as his readers have done. We may 
 be certain that he would have been the first to condemn him- 
 self if they had not cost him more toil and trouble than his 
 readers imagined. No thoroughly honest intellectual work can 
 fail to be largely painful work. Those who engage in it must 
 expect to live laborious days, and perhaps to spend sleepless 
 nights, and to find the greater portion of their time as devoid 
 of agreeable emotion, as painful and fatiguing, as little satisfying 
 as, say, even a life of business. 
 
 But further, and this is perhaps the most decisive considera- 
 tion, the intellect is not what is highest in human nature, nor 
 is its culture an end in itself. The intellect is entitled to take 
 precedence of the body. To be intelligent, thoughtful, wise, 
 is better than to be handsome, strong, or wealthy. But you 
 cannot be truly intelligent, thoughtful, and wise, without 
 acknowledging that to be good, pure-hearted, generous, self- 
 denying, faithful to the obligations of duty, is nobler and 
 better, than to have learning, or science, or culture. A man may, 
 indeed, be perfectly justified in devoting himself mainly to the 
 prosecution of scientific researches, or to the study and teach- 
 ing of languages, or to the writing of books ; but it can only 
 be on the ground that he is honestly convinced that he can 
 thereby do more good, benefit his fellow-men, and glorify God 
 more, than if he, with his special aptitudes and acquisitions, 
 employed himself otherwise. This is equivalent to saying that 
 just as the body is inferior to the intellect, and bodily pleasure 
 to mental intelligence, so is intellect itself inferior to con- 
 science, and all its endowments and acquisitions, all learning, 
 science, and culture to virtue and duty. 
 
THE CHIEF GOOD. 91 
 
 We are thus forced to ask, Shall we find in obedience to 
 duty the chief end of man ? Shall we find in the approval of 
 conscience, in the satisfaction which flows from a sense of the 
 fulfilment of the requirements of the moral law, the supreme 
 good of life ? When we ask this question, we cannot fail to 
 feel that we have now come much nearer to the solution of 
 our problem than we have hitherto been. 
 
 Obedience to the law of duty is binding upon all. It is 
 an obligation which rests upon all men, and extends over the 
 whole nature of every man. To have a good conscience, one 
 void of offence towards God and man ; to be blameless before 
 the entire moral law, would indeed be a wonderful blessing, to 
 which no bodily or merely intellectual good could be compared. 
 I am not wholly surprised, therefore, that some eminent men, 
 like Kant and Renan, should have answered the question before 
 us by a decided yes ; and I fully agree with all that they have 
 said as to the sovereignty of conscience, and with the reasons 
 which they have given for regarding obedience to the moral law 
 as clearly required of us by the very constitution of our being, as 
 essentially implied in the end to which our whole nature points. 
 
 Yet I do greatly marvel, notwithstanding this, that they 
 should have been able to imagine their answer to be a sufficient 
 one. Fulfilment of the law of duty, of the will of God? Is 
 that not just what we are failing terribly to accomplish ? Is not 
 one of our chief wants want of earnest desire, of motive force, of 
 spiritual power, to achieve that ? Approval of conscience ! Very 
 good. But what if conscience be daily finding in us far more 
 to condemn than to approve ? What if it inflict more misery 
 by its censures than it affords satisfaction by its commenda- 
 tions? Even the strongest and holiest of creatures must find 
 more in their chief good than mere moral law and the approval 
 of conscience. Assuredly weak and sinful man must. 
 
 Where then shall we find what is needed to supplement and 
 complete the answer ? Only, it seems to me manifest, in the 
 love of the Moral Lawgiver, the love of God, the highest and 
 worthiest object of our Love, Not in the objects of mere sense 
 or of mere intellect, not in mere truth or in mere law, can 
 the human heart completely rest, but only in what will fully 
 respond to its deepest want, its central and most comprehensive 
 
92 THE CHIEF GOOD. 
 
 affection, its very life ; only in an unalterable and undying, a 
 pure, holy, and all-controlling love ; the love of a Person ; of 
 the holiest and best Person the human heart can love, and who 
 will not fail to return its love or to give it the consciousness 
 thereof; the love of God, the Author of all things, and our 
 gracious Heavenly Father ; of God, who is Love, Infinite Love. 
 
 This, then, my friends, I would affirm to be the chief end of 
 man and his supreme good — to love God with the whole mind, 
 heart, and soul — to love Him at the very least so strongly and 
 steadfastly that obedience to His law will be comparatively 
 easy, and grow always easier, until all resistance to it ceases, 
 and communion with Him is perfected. It would be easy to 
 show, if time permitted, that this answer points to a good 
 which has all those excellences for the want of which we have 
 had to set other things aside. It is a good accessible to all ; 
 one on which our whole nature can concentrate itself, with the 
 result that every energy, faculty, and affection, element and 
 principle of it, will thereby be strengthened and improved ; 
 one which, far from lessening the sum of natural pleasure, tends 
 greatly to increase it ; one which gives an additional charm to 
 all that is beautiful and a fresh interest to all that is true ; 
 one which ensures that our intellects will take a noble direction 
 and our benevolence never grow cold; and which is for ever 
 filled from those inexhaustible 'sources of purely spiritual 
 enjoyment which are only to be found in direct and loving 
 communion with God. 
 
 This answer, you will observe, is very much the same as that 
 which is given in the Catechism to which I began by referring. 
 I am not in the least ashamed, however, of its entire want of 
 originality. For there is only one true answer to the question 
 asked, and it was given long ago. There is no other real and 
 adequate solution of the problem, which so many heathen sages, 
 such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, exercised all their in- 
 tellectual power upon, than the Christian one. Socrates, Plato, 
 and Aristotle did not wholly fail ; nay, they came so near to the 
 truth regarding it, and thereby so near to the kingdom of God, 
 that one may hopefully believe that they are now within it ; but 
 only He who clearly revealed the kingdom of God and founded 
 it, made known the whole truth and really solved the problem. 
 
THE CHIEF GOOD. 93 
 
 Of all the questions which philosophy has ever asked, 
 the question, What is the chief end of man ? is the most 
 directly and intensely important to man ; and it is, perhaps, 
 the only one which has got a definitive and authoritative 
 answer. That answer came not from philosophy, but through 
 the life, the death, and the doctrine of Christ. This is no 
 disparagement of philosophy. Nay, I think it is to the im- 
 mortal honour especially of Greek philosophy that it was 
 to so large an extent, like Hebrew prophecy, the forerunner 
 of Jesus Christ. But, I say, the answer to this question has 
 been given, and so given that it is folly to look for another. 
 The answer is complete. But it is not to be concealed that 
 there is one great difficulty connected with it. How are we 
 to get such a love of God as it requires? To that question, 
 Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle had nothing to say, and like 
 the wise men they were silent. And so far as I know no one 
 has come after them who has had anything of worth to say 
 regarding it who was not content virtually to repeat what 
 Christ had said, to point to the love of God as revealed through 
 Him, and to urge acceptance of His Gospel. " Come unto 
 Me." " I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life ; no man 
 cometh unto the Father but by Me." 
 
 The Christian life must begin with a great act of renuncia- 
 tion. Self and the world must be cast out that God may come 
 in. Love to Him must be supreme. Love to self and the 
 world must be crucified in order that Christ may be followed. 
 But thus to renounce all is to gain all ; thus to die is to begin 
 truly to live ; thus to abjure all is to ensure a higher enjoy- 
 ment of all. He that loves God with all his heart and serves 
 Him with all his powers, working here, with a self-forgetting 
 devotion, in the world where God has planted him, willing to 
 forego pleasure, gain, renown, and everything else for the 
 approval of God, shall find that everything comes back to him 
 in its essential strength and spirit and with rich additions, 
 seeing that God is not merely in all, but includes all, is all, and 
 " will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly." 
 
 May He bless what has now been spoken. And to His 
 name be glory for ever. Amen. 
 
VIII. 
 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 " Our Father which art in heaven." — Matthew vi. 9. 
 
 OUR Lord's prayer is the most wonderful prayer which has 
 ever been offered up to God ; as far superior to all other 
 prayers as our Lord to all other men ; so extremely simple as 
 to suit well the lips of little children, so rich and full of truth 
 and feeling that the profoundest mind cannot exhaust either 
 the wisdom or the love of any sentence in it. And its sentences 
 are not more remarkable in themselves for largeness and depth 
 of meaning, combined with brevity and plainness of wording, 
 than for the perfection of their arrangement, each being 
 precisely in that place in which it gets most meaning from 
 the others or gives most meaning to them. 
 
 The sentence on which I would have you to meditate with 
 me at this time — trusting that God may bless our meditations — 
 is what is often called the preface to the Lord's Prayer. 
 Its connection with the rest of the prayer is obvious. It is 
 manifestly intended to bring us into the true spirit and frame 
 of prayer ; to make us feel in whose presence we are ; that 
 we are before the God of the whole world, the Creator of all 
 men ; that while we are on earth He is in heaven, high and 
 lifted up above all praise and all adoration ; yet that He is not 
 severe to us in our creaturely weakness and sinful unworthi- 
 ness, but gracious, and loving, and anxious that we should 
 draw near to Him, and pray to Him as what He really is — 
 a Father to us. 
 
 This frame of mind, this childlike confidence combined with 
 that awful reverence which is due from such feeble creatures 
 as we are to then- Almighty Creator, this rejoicing sense of 
 God's fatherly love to us, along with the deep consciousness 
 of His greatness and holiness, is not a natural and common 
 but a very peculiar and exceptional frame of mind. Thus to 
 
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 95 
 
 pray is not an easy but a very diflScult thing. The whole 
 religious history of the human race proves it to be indeed most 
 difficult. Perhaps wherever men are — certainly almost wherever 
 men are — you will find them with some sort of religion, some 
 sense of a will or wills higher than their own to which they 
 stand in some relation and must yield some sort of homage ; 
 but nowhere outside of revealed religion, nowhere in the whole 
 wide extent of what is called heathendom, will you find them 
 drawing near to God, intelligently and lovingly, without undue 
 fear on the one hand or undue familiarity on the other, as 
 children to their Father in heaven. In every religion there 
 are some elements of truth ; wherever men have sincerely 
 sought after God they have been privileged to get some 
 glimpses of His presence — He has never left Himself without 
 a witness — and yet a clear and consistent knowledge of His 
 Fatherhood has never been attained by any searching of man, 
 and will be sought as vainly in the highest forms of the 
 greatest heathen religions as in the lowest and rudest. The 
 voice of all heathendom is but as the voice of 
 
 " An infant crying in the night ; 
 An infant crying for the light ; 
 And with no language hut a cry." 
 
 The history of all heathendom proves that in vain has man, 
 God's self-willed child, ever tried to get of itself out of the 
 darkness into which it has wandered back to the light, back 
 to the sight of its Father's countenance. It is not the child 
 who has found its father; it is the father who has gone and 
 found his child. 
 
 Under the Old Testament dispensation itself we do not find 
 that men prayed as our Lord has here taught us to do, or even 
 that they were encouraged so to pray. In the Old Testament, 
 God is spoken of under divers names, as God Almighty, the 
 Lord, the Lord God, the Lord Jehovah, the God of Abraham, 
 the Holy One of Israel ; -but these names either indicate what 
 He is in Himself or refer to His relationship not to individuals 
 but to the Je\vish nation as a covenant people. In the com- 
 paratively few passages in the Old Testament where God is 
 distinctly spoken of as a Father, the name is almost always 
 
96 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 used in the latter of these ways ; the child to whom He is 
 Father being no individual but Israel or Ephraim, the covenant 
 people, or some tribe or portion of it. And there was an 
 obvious and sufl&cient reason why this should have been so. 
 It is impossible to take a comprehensive view of the Old 
 Testament dispensation without perceiving that its great aim, 
 alike in its ceremonial observances, moral precepts, and pro- 
 phetic teaching, was to open and deepen the sense of sin, to 
 give reality and intensity to the recognition of moral law, to 
 make known especially that aspect of God's character which 
 we call His righteousness, His holiness. 
 
 It was not possible — nor was it in the nature of things 
 fitting — that the knowledge of God's fatherly love and mercy 
 should go before the knowledge of His holiness and hatred 
 of sin ; it required, on the contrary, to be based on it. For 
 although it is only in the light of God's fatherhood that sin 
 appears as hideous as it really is, and only in connection with 
 it that God's holiness is to be seen in all its beauty, yet without 
 a considerable knowledge of sin and holiness, without a certain 
 depth of hatred of the one and love to the other, the revelation 
 of God's fatherly love, were it intelligible at all, could be only 
 hurtful. Hence a reason, I say, why, although the revelation 
 of God's fatherhood be undoubtedly contained in the Old 
 Testament, it is but little prominent there, whereas the pre- 
 vailing spirit of the New Testament is emphatically a spirit of 
 adoption, a spirit which cries, " Abba, Father." 
 
 And this same fact that we cannot think aright of God as 
 a Father, that we cannot truly go to Him as children, if we 
 leave out of sight His holiness or forget our own sinfulness, 
 makes it a difficult thing even now for any of us to utter 
 as we ought those simple words : " Our Father in heaven." 
 That is a fact the New Testament never allows us to forget. 
 It is no accidental or exceptional thing that God's fatherhood 
 and holiness should be so closely connected as they are in this 
 prayer, that the name of God as our Heavenly Father should 
 be no sooner pronounced than a supplication should follow that 
 it may be hallowed ; no accidental or exceptional thing, but 
 an instance of a principle or rule which goes all through the 
 New Testament. To know how difficult it is to say aright, 
 
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 97 
 
 that is, feeling the truth and preciousness of what we say, 
 " Our Father in heaven," and to feel in consequence how 
 greatly the Spirit is needed to enable us to overcome the 
 difficulty — how large a measure of the Spirit is required in 
 order that we may utter truly that one word, " Abba, Father " 
 — let us, prayerfully, inquire what it means — what our text 
 means. 
 
 Now, first, it plainly means at least this, that God stands in 
 a close living relationship to us ; that He is directly connected 
 with us, and has practically to do with us and we with Him. 
 The relation of father and son is that of person with person, 
 yea, the nearest and most binding which can connect two 
 persons. Well, there is a vast amount of thought and speech 
 in the world about God which overlooks this fact, or at any rate 
 takes no account of it. There is, for instance, a great deal of 
 reasoning about the Divine Existence, as to whether the argu- 
 ments for that are good and sufficient or not ; then, there is a 
 great deal of speculation now, as there has been for ages past, 
 about the Divine Nature, about what we mean when we say 
 God is Infinite. Eternal, the Absolute Being, the First Cause, 
 &c. ; and there is a still greater amount of discussion and inquiry 
 as to what creation, history, and especially Scripture tell us 
 about the attributes and ways of God. And there is certainly 
 nothing blamable in such thought in itself; if wisely con- 
 ducted it is, on the contrary, highly to be commended. There 
 are some here whose daily business it is thus to occupy their 
 minds, and they may justly regard such occupation as a pecu- 
 liarly exalted and noble one ; but let none of us forget this, 
 that we may have our minds full of such thought, full of 
 thoughts about God, and yet that God Himself may not be in 
 all our thoughts. 
 
 For God Himself is no mere problem or conclusion of our 
 minds, no abstraction or doctrine, but an Infinite living Being 
 or Person, one who thinks, feels, and wills, who hates evil and 
 loves good, and who is nearer us, more closely present to us, 
 more concerned and interested in us, than any fellow-creature 
 can be. The knowledge of God which does not bring us, as it 
 were, face to face with Him as a living Person, which is not 
 accompanied with a sense of His real presence, may be in some 
 
 O 
 
98 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 respects deep and subtle and comprehensive, it may include a 
 whole system of religious speculation or divinity, but it will not 
 enable us to utter in a right spirit, or even with true intelli- 
 gence, the first word of Christian prayer. If that be our only 
 knowledge of God we may have the whole of it in our minds 
 when we say " Our Father in heaven," and yet the little child 
 who ignorantly thinks of God as having the form of a man, and 
 as sitting on a material throne above the clouds, but who really 
 feels that God is seeing and hearing and loving him, will say 
 them with far more truth and profit than we. In the heart of 
 sinful man there is a rooted unwillingness to have to do with 
 God Himself, a shrinking from realising that He the Holy One 
 and Father of our spirits, is really here where we are, a sense 
 of restraint and discomfort in the consciousness of His presence 
 if we are following any self-willed course of our own, akin to 
 what a profligate son has under the eye of a wise and upright 
 earthly father ; and so there is a strong temptation on us to 
 substitute for the real and living knowledge of God Himself a 
 mere knowledge of notions and doctrines about Him, a know- 
 ledge which may be quite true in its way, but which is surely 
 not all the knowledge that sons ought to have of a father, nay, 
 which proves, if it be all the knowledge we have of God, that 
 the feeling of His fatherhood, the true life of sonship, is yet 
 unquickened, unborn in us. 
 
 Again, the words under consideration mean that God feels 
 towards men as a father towards his children ; that He regards 
 them as His offspring, and has a deep and tender affection to 
 them in consequence ; that underneath all His conduct towards 
 them is the same sort of love and care which a good man shows, 
 although in a feebler and lower degree, towards his sons and 
 daughters here on earth. The signs or evidences of this being 
 truly the case, of God's having a father's heart towards men, 
 are scattered over all the world, which was made in part for the 
 instruction, comfort, and use of men, may be traced in His 
 manifold dealings with them in providence, and shine out 
 most conspicuously of all in the wonders of redemption. But 
 neither in creation, providence, nor redemption are we to look 
 for more than signs or evidences, than effects or consequences 
 of God's fatherly love. We need not seek in any of them for 
 
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 99 
 
 its causes or sources or explanation. It was before them all ; 
 in some measure explains them all, while in no measure does 
 any one of them explain it. It is the root ; they are its flowers 
 and fruit. 
 
 God's fatherhood rests not on creation and providence, but 
 has its principle in the love which prompted creation and 
 underlies providence. He has not merely made Himself to be 
 our Father by creating and preserving us, but He has created 
 and preserved us because of a Fatherly love to us which had no 
 beginning. It is no superfluous knowledge which the Scripture 
 gives us, but most blessed and precious truth, when it insists so 
 often and emphatically that the love wherewith God has loved 
 us was one which dated from long before the world was, yea, a 
 love which was from everlasting. Out of that everlasting love 
 of the Eternal Father's heart arose redemption ; and only from 
 a love of wondrous depth and tenderness could it have arisen. 
 
 There are those who speak as if God were only in some very 
 cold and distant way the Father of unregenerate men ; as if 
 He were their Father in name merely and not in fact ; as if He 
 were a Father merely because He gave them existence and 
 health, success in business, domestic comforts, and the blessings 
 of civilisation, but all without any real love to them, any wish 
 that these things might do them true good ; but that is surely 
 the hard unjust thought of a heart which knows God ill, and 
 which has got miserably darkened and confused through the 
 working of some evil and ungenerous passion, or of some 
 nan'ow and erroneous doctrine. Were it true, how could any 
 of us ever have come to be saved ? We were all unregenerate 
 — all without Christ once — and if God had only been in some 
 cold and distant way our Father He would assuredly never 
 have made such a sacrifice as sending Christ to die for us. The 
 fact of such a redemption as that having been provided at all 
 is of itself the fullest proof of God having loved us with an 
 everlasting love, and of His having never ceased to be in the 
 most real and loving sense a Father, even in our lowest depths 
 of sin and misery. It was the gift of God's unspeakable love to 
 unregenerate men, and so could not be the cause of His love, 
 while it of its very nature tells us that be we who or what 
 we may we have a Father in heaven truly concerned about us. 
 
100 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 yea, one full of thoughts and feelings of inconceivable love to 
 us ; that if we are living without a Father's love it is because 
 we are wilfully rejecting it ; that however prodigal we have 
 been we have only to arise and go to Our Father, assured that 
 we shall find every word of that great parable of the prodigal 
 son marvellously true, that we shall find that even "when yet a 
 great way ofi^, our Father will see us and have compassion, and 
 run and fall on our necks and kiss us," since His eye has 
 been following us with pity through all our waywardness and 
 wanderings from Him, and His heart sincerely desiring our 
 return, so that He is quick to behold the first movements of 
 our souls towards Him and to hear the first faint sighings of 
 our hearts after Him, and most ready to clothe us with the best 
 robes, to give us the royal ring of the children in His house, 
 and to feast us with the fatted calf, in His great gladness that 
 His son who was dead is alive again ; that His lost child is 
 found. 
 
 I would here guard myself, however, from a possible mis- 
 conception. Through Christ God is seen to be our Father, not 
 made our Father. There was no need that Christ should die 
 in order that God might have a Father's love to us, but Christ 
 died to reveal to us that He had it. Now, some here are 
 aware that those who have done most in recent times by 
 speech and writing to bring this fact into due prominence 
 in Christian thought and life, to confirm men's faith in the 
 fatherhood of God, are blamed by many for unsettling faith 
 in the Atonement. They have so insisted, it is said, on God's 
 fatherly love to all men as virtually to imply that there can 
 have been no other barrier to free and full communion between 
 God and the sinner than the unwillingness of the sinner to be 
 reconciled to God. And I fear there is considerable truth in 
 the charge, although doubtless it has often been exaggerated, 
 and often er still applied where it ought not to have been. 
 
 Since it seems possible then so to look at the truth of God's 
 fatherhood as that it shall overshadow and obscure instead of 
 illuminating and beautifying that of His Son's atonement, let 
 me say that I cannot but think such a way of looking at it 
 must be a wrong one, and that it seems to me as unnatural 
 that faith in God's fatherhood should lead to undervalue 
 
OUR FATHER IX HEAVEN. 101 
 
 faith in Christ's atonement, as that faith in Christ's atone- 
 ment should have been sometimes so inculcated as to confuse 
 and weaken faith in the Eternal Father's love. 
 
 God had always a father's love to us. Does it follow that 
 He has had only love to us ? Has a good father among men 
 no sense of justice, of right and wrong, in the character and 
 conduct of his children ? Has he, because he is their father, 
 no anger against their sins ? Has he no hatred against a vile 
 crime, if only a son of his be the doer of it ? I can ascribe 
 no such character to any good man. And far less dare I 
 ascribe it to God. Some persons tell us that they shrink 
 from ascribing anger, hatred, wrath to God. But I, for my 
 part, shrink with my whole soul from the thought of a God 
 incapable of anger, hatred, wrath. One must have a God 
 whom one can respect, and it is impossible to respect any 
 one — man or God — who has no anger or hatred against sin, 
 who can look upon what is morally vile without that abhor- 
 rence which may justly be called wrath. There are, indeed, 
 an anger, a hatred, and wrath abounding among men, which 
 are evil in themselves and work great evil, being excited by 
 personal and selfish motives, directed on improper objects, 
 and kept under no due regulation ; but there are also a hatred, 
 anger, wrath, which are not weaknesses but excellences, which 
 are as needful in the world as love, and far more needful than 
 much of the superficial benevolence which falsely passes for 
 love ; and these, like all other excellences, must be in God in 
 a supreme degree. A merely amiable God must be like a 
 merely amiable man, a being devoid of moral principle, a 
 being not to be trusted, yea, a being incapable of true love, 
 for love and hate are so far inseparable that the power of the 
 one is ever the measure of the power of the other. 
 
 God loved us even in our lost estate with an inconceivable 
 fatherly love. True. But did He not love Christ, His only 
 begotten Son, still better than He loved us ? And must He 
 not have had the most awful, infinite reasons for giving Him 
 over to death? Could the difiiculties of the case have been 
 overcome in any other way surely that way would not have 
 been taken ; that it was taken is proof that terrible, infinite 
 difficulties had to be encountered. The very nature of the 
 
102 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 atonement, the very magnitiide of the sacrifice involved in it, 
 makes it incredible that it was merely a reconciling of man 
 to God, even apart from the many passages of Holy Scriptures 
 which contradict that view. 
 
 While, then, want of fatherly love in God could never be 
 the hindrance to our receiving the blessings our souls need, it 
 does not follow that the eternal laws of righteousness broken 
 by us placed no difficulties in the way of that love flowing 
 freely forth ; that they were not barriers to its reaching us, 
 which only the atonement could remove ; obstacles not in 
 our nature but in the Divine Nature, and so far beyond the 
 sphere of our influence and control. It may be said that this 
 implies the love which they kept back from us to be limited. 
 But not at all. Love is not so measured. It may turn its re- 
 straints into the proof of its vastness, its intensity, its infinity ; 
 and this, as I believe, is just what the love of God has done. 
 It is not when we think of it as having had no obstacles to 
 overcome in order to reach us, but when we take account of 
 these, that we conceive most warmly and feel most warmly as 
 regards it. 
 
 Yes, God's love had great obstacles to overcome ere it could 
 reach us to save us. No wisdom less than God's could have 
 devised that it should reach us at all. No power less than 
 God's could have carried into execution what His infinite 
 wisdom had devised, and no love less than God's could have 
 taken that marvellous way and struggled, as it were, down 
 to us through the incarnation, life, sufferings, and death of 
 His Son, to rise up on Calvary as a fountain of healing to 
 the nations. But that power has reached us. God, working 
 slowly and surely through ages, has perfected on the Cross 
 of His Son a mighty plan by which He can be just and yet 
 justify His sinful children, ay, and crown them with all His 
 loving-kindnesses and tender mercies. Whatever obstacles 
 previously existed in the righteousness of the Divine Nature 
 to this have now been completely and for ever removed 
 through God's fatherly love having found the mysterious, 
 the awful, the blessed method of atonement and sacrifice to 
 reach us with all its blessings. 
 
 The atonement of Christ, then, far from standing in any 
 
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 103 
 
 relation of opposition or exclusion to the eternal and universal 
 fatherhood of God, can only be regarded as the way which 
 His fatherly love was necessitated to take in order that, con- 
 sistently with the justice of His nature and the moral fitness 
 of His universe, He might seek and find, deliver and save, 
 His lost children. And this leads me to the further remark 
 that it is only in the atoning, self-sacrificing work of Christ 
 that we have perfectly convincing evidence of God's father- 
 hood, an adequate disclosure of His having a father's heart 
 towards us. I have already said that there are signs or 
 evidences of God's fatherly love in creation and providence, 
 and I in no way think I retract or explain away that state- 
 ment when I add that, unless seen in the light reflected 
 on them from redemption, they will appear only an in- 
 complete proof of God's cherishing fatherly love to sinful 
 men. In the light of the Cross it is otherwise ; the man who 
 looks at the works of creation in that light will unhesitatingly 
 and with full reason say, "My Father made them all," and 
 will easily and clearly trace in all the dealings of providence 
 a father's hand guiding His children. 
 
 Suppose, however, that blessed light not shining or shut out, 
 and that creation and providence are before us in no other light 
 than their own, and what then can they teach us about God ? 
 Substantially just this — that He has vast power, since He has 
 created and sustains and controls the whole of this mighty 
 universe ; wondrous wisdom, since He lias arranged everything 
 so well and directs everything so well ; and a goodness corre- 
 sponding to His power and wisdom, since a beneficent purpose 
 may be detected underlying all His works of creation, and per- 
 vading the course of providence. I cannot see, and can scarcely 
 suppose even that any one will seriously maintain, that creation 
 and providence teach us more than that God is thus powerful 
 and wise and good ; and fully granting that they teach us all 
 this, if any one mean by God's being the Father of men no 
 more than that He is as good as He is powerful and wise, and 
 that His power and wisdom have been so employed on behalf 
 of men that good gifts meet them at every step, I readily agree 
 that creation and providence are sufficient to show God to be 
 a Father in that sense and to that extent. 
 
104 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 But is there nothing more, nothing higher than that, implied 
 in fatherhood among men ? Unquestionably there is. Love 
 in the form of mere goodness is far from the noblest and most 
 distinctive quality in a human father's heart ; nay, there is no 
 true fatherliness of heart at all in a man in whom there is 
 nothing better than that. One can by an effort of imagination 
 indeed conceive a man to have children so absolutely innocent 
 and happy, and so perfectly guarded from all possibility of evil 
 and suffering, that love in the form of goodness or kindness 
 would be the only kind of love he could show them ; but would 
 his fatherly love be ever really tested in that case ? Could he 
 ever show the deeper, the truly distinctive feelings of a father's 
 heart, those we so often see manifested in the toils, the hard- 
 ships, the dangers, the sacrifices of wealth, comfort, and even 
 life, which parents undertake and endure for their children? 
 Certainly not. 
 
 Well, apply this to God. In what sense is He a father ? In 
 what sense has He fatherly love ? Among the angels this 
 question could have no place, for they were such perfectly 
 innocent and happy children, that love in the form of goodness 
 was all they required — all that could be shown to them. And 
 it would have been the same with men also if they had not 
 fallen. But as soon as sin, suffering, and death invaded earth 
 and seized on man's body and soul, and help or healing there 
 was none for him in any creature, the most awful of questions 
 for the human race came to be whether or not God was a 
 father in the full meaning of that term, or, in other words, 
 whether or not He had a love which, in order to save men, 
 would submit to humiliation, suffering, sacrifice ? 
 
 Now, that is what I say creation and providence cannot prove. 
 Point to anything in creation or to anything in ordinary pro- 
 vidence which you can show to have cost God anything. You 
 can easily point to thousands and thousands of things and events 
 which you may justly conclude to be signs or gifts of God's 
 goodness, but can you point to one thing in creation, one event 
 in ordinary providence, which you can seriously maintain to 
 come from a self-sacrificing love such as a father displays when 
 he rushes into a house in flames or throws himself into a raging 
 flood to save the life of his child at the risk of his own? If 
 
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 105 
 
 you cannot, you fail to prove God a father in the sense I mean. 
 And in that sense, which is the true sense, there seems to me 
 no possibility of proving God a father from creation and pro- 
 vidence apart from redemption. 
 
 Wherein is it that both fail ? Obviously in this, that they 
 can show us no traces of sacrifice on God's part. But it is just 
 here that redemption comes in. God in the unspeakable gift 
 of His Son shows us a power of sacrifice infinitely above anything 
 known among men, an intensity of tenderest fatherly affection 
 of which the strongest fatherly affection on earth is but a pale 
 and feeble reflection ; and Christ in His incarnation, life, suffer- 
 ings, and death, reveals to us not merely the power, and wisdom, 
 and goodness of God, but the very depths, if we may so speak, 
 of His heart as a father, enabling us to feel without a doubt 
 that now indeed are we the sons of God. 
 
 Leaving unwillingly much unsaid on this part of my subject, 
 I remark, further, that our text distinctly calls us to remember 
 that God while our Father, truly our Father, is, however, our 
 heavenly Father, our "Father which art in heaven." We must 
 not cease to stand in awe of Him because He is our Father ; 
 we must not lose remembranee of His majesty in the thought 
 of His love ; we must still realise who He is and who we are ; 
 where He dwells and where we dwell ; that He is God over all, 
 but specially present so far as the manifestation of His glory is 
 concerned in the high and holy heavens, where His royal 
 court. His presence chamber. His imperial throne are, and 
 where His ministering spirits are the glorious angels and the 
 blessed saints, who offer Him sinless services and spotless 
 praises ; while we are creatures of the earth, worms of the dust, 
 with the pollution of earthly mire, of carnal appetite, of worldly 
 passion on all we do. 
 
 Yet is He nevertheless most truly our Father, and therefore 
 the fact that He is our Heavenly Father, while it should humble 
 and awe our souls in His presence, should also raise and 
 encourage them, elevate them out of the dust of the earth, 
 make them ashamed of all unworthy grovelling therein, and 
 set them instead to soar in contemplation and desire towards 
 heaven, as their true dwelling-place. If our Father be in 
 heaven, heaven must be our home. And we on earth must be, 
 
106 OUE FATHER IX HEAVEN. 
 
 as has been said, King's children, who have been put out to 
 nurse, and sent to school at a distance from the palace to be 
 brought up hardily and disciplined by divers kinds of trials, 
 until we have learned steadiness and self-knowledge enough to 
 be admitted into our Father's glorious mansions. It would 
 assuredly ennoble our lives if we would take this view of them, 
 which is as true as it is grand ; if we would look up to heaven 
 as our true home, where our Father is, and carry the thought 
 of heaven always about us, as of a society closely and mani- 
 foldly related to us, as of a place specially belonging to us, as 
 where we specially belong to, and whither in due season we 
 shall not fail to be called, if only we strive to prepare ourselves 
 for that exceeding great honour and blessing. 
 
 There is yet another truth which has always been seen to 
 be contained in the opening words of the Lord's Prayer, a 
 truth of vastest importance. God's fatherhood involves man's 
 brotherhood. If we have " one God and Father," then " all we 
 are brethren." Christ recognises this truth, and would have 
 us to recognise it when He teaches us to pray " Our Father " 
 or " Father of us," i.e. my Father, but the Father of all other men 
 as well as of me. We can only draw near to the Father in a 
 spirit of sympathy with His other children ; we cannot ask any 
 blessing aright if we ask it selfishly, wishing that we may get it 
 but that others may not. The Father in heaven will not listen 
 to any son who does not wish well to his brothers, much less 
 who wishes any of them ill. This is another reason why, 
 although it is very easy to commit the Lord's Prayer to memory, 
 it is very hard to get the heart to learn it. 
 
 Is it not sometimes a difficult thing even for those who live 
 in the same house, and who on the whole respect one another, 
 or are even in the main sincerely attached to one another, to 
 lay entirely aside, when they kneel together before God in the 
 evening, every petty disagreement which may have occurred 
 during the day, every feeling of bitterness and estrangement, 
 so as to be able to say with all due heartiness of affection 
 towards one another, in spirit and in truth, " Our Father," as 
 the dear children God would have them to be ? And, of course, 
 it is still more difficult sincerely, rightly, to say it in a congre- 
 gation where there are many whom we do not know, more 
 
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 107 
 
 whom we know little, where social distinctions and differences 
 of opinion come in, where there are rich who despise the poor 
 and poor who envy the rich, where there are persons so selfish 
 in disposition, or it may be even so vicious in conduct that we 
 cannot respect them, or persons whose worldly interests are all 
 opposed to our owm, or persons with whom we may have quar- 
 relled during the week, and may know that it is not unlikely 
 we shall have to quarrel with again this week. But if we 
 would be God's children we must be able to say it. We must 
 overcome our indifference, feel that where there may be much 
 to despise there is still more to be affectionately concerned 
 about, and that we must never be so angry with any one, as 
 that love does not underlie and pervade our anger, so that even 
 in our estrangement and opposition we can from the heart 
 wish him every good thing we ask for in the Lord's Prayer. 
 Perhaps we can scarcely ask any better thing than that we 
 may all be able to do this for one another, and may never 
 feel so separated by anything from any one that we cannot 
 truly pray with and for him, cannot carry his sins to God's 
 throne with the earnest wish that they may be forgiven as well 
 as our own. or cannot desire that he may receive everything 
 truly for his good. 
 
 It is only on God's Fatherhood that the brotherhood of men can 
 be surely rested. There is no other foundation strong or broad 
 enough. We have in our own age seen the truth of this illustrated 
 on the vastest scale. We have seen a great neighbouring nation 
 pronouncing with fervent enthusiasm and inscribing on all her 
 banners the word " fraternity " ; we have seen her people, in 
 many respects a most noble and generous people, vowing with 
 the utmost solemnity before Europe to be " brothers " hence- 
 forth for ever ; we have seen following fast on that enthusiasm 
 strife and discord and intestine war, until the great and sacred 
 name of fraternity was a word of light ridicule in the mouths 
 of men ; we have seen despotism arise on the ruins of that so- 
 called fraternity ; we have seen its terrible fall ; and we have 
 since seen long unrest. How came that about ? How but 
 mainly from this, that a multitude of these " brothers " acknow- 
 ledged no Father in heaven, and thought they could make of 
 France a happy household, yet keep out of it and have nothing 
 
108 OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. 
 
 to do with the rightful Father of every household and rightful 
 authority in every nation. They did not believe that " except 
 the Lord build the house, the builders build in vain " ; but it 
 proved lamentably true, and it always will. 
 
 But how has it come to pass, then, that in these last days 
 so many men in France, in Germany, in England, should be 
 believing in human brotherhood and striving to realise it, yet 
 disbelieving in God and regarding Christianity as an imposi- 
 tion, as an enemy ? Oh, my friends, I fear there is no doubt as 
 to what the answer must be ; that it is just because those who 
 have professed themselves to be Christians have not proved 
 themselves to be brothers to their fellow-men. Far more than 
 any other cause that, I believe, is the reason of the infidelity 
 and irreligion which abound. It is one which lies at the door 
 of professing Christians. If we would not have our Father's 
 name more and more dishonoured ; if we would not have 
 Christ's work more and more neglected and despised ; if we 
 would not have the blood of our brethren on our hands, the 
 loss of their souls on our heads, oh let us show that our love to 
 God is real by the working of our love to men. 
 
 Let us love others as He loves us all, so that when we leave 
 the world we shall have brought nearer the day when His 
 Fatherhood will be universally acknowledged, when the wail of 
 the oppressed shall never more pierce the air, when the seas of 
 the world shall never more be dyed with blood, when all human 
 eyes shall have a divine light shining in them, when all human 
 voices shall have a heavenly melody of truth and love singing 
 through them, when no human countenance shall have the 
 mark of the beast or the brand of the devil on it, when the 
 whole family of mankind shall form an electric chain of sym- 
 pathy and love, when from all the nations of men there shall 
 arise one sweet and sacred hymn of praise to Him who hath 
 loved us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood, 
 and hath made us kings and priests unto God and to His Christ 
 for ever. Amen. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven." — Matthew vi. 10. 
 
 IF we ask God only for such things as we ought to ask from 
 Him, it is impossible to ask for more in any prayer, how- 
 ever long, than we ask for in the Lord's Prayer, although it is 
 so very short. It is possible to pray a long time and yet to pray 
 very little, and the Lord's Prayer shows us how much prayer 
 may be in, yea, how all prayer may be in, a very few simple 
 words. It is true that man has wants without number ; that 
 there are countless things which he needs to ask from God ; 
 but it is also true that all these wants may be resolved into a 
 few great wants, and all these things sought for in a few com- 
 prehensive petitions ; and Christ, with His perfect knowledge 
 of all our wants, and perfect sympathy with all our weaknesses, 
 has in this prayer summed up for us all prayer with such a 
 wonderful simplicity and such a wonderful completeness, that 
 while a little child can not only easily remember, but easily 
 understand it, no man among all the millions of the human 
 race can need anything which he may not ask for simply by 
 repeating it in spirit and in truth. 
 
 But in this prayer itself, which is so comprehensive as to 
 contain all prayer, there is one petition so comprehensive that 
 it may be said to contain all its other petitions ; one petition to 
 which all the others may be referred ; into which they all may 
 be resolved. And this petition is that on which, in dependence 
 on God's blessing, I wish to make a few remarks to you at this 
 time. This all-comprehensive petition, the organic and vital 
 centre, the heart, yea, the very sum and substance, of the 
 Lord's Prayer, and of all true prayer, is, " Thy Will be done on 
 earth as it is in heaven." God's name can be hallowed only 
 by His Will being done, — God's kingdom comes only in the 
 measure that His Will is done, — the bread we ask for is only 
 
110 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 what will give us strength to do God's Will, — the sins we pray- 
 to be forgiven are ovir acts of resistance to His Will ; — the 
 temptations we seek not to be led into are whatever things 
 would entice us from obedience to His Will, — and the evil or 
 the Evil One we beseech Him to deliver us from is the enemy 
 of His Will, that wicked antagonistic will which is the awful 
 mystery and the chief cause of the misery of this world. 
 
 And why is this prayer thus central in the Lord's prayer ? 
 Why does it thus pervade and organise it into a beautiful 
 whole ? Just because it is God's Will which is central in the 
 universe, which underlies and pervades the worlds both of 
 nature and spirit, and is the source of whatever order and 
 beauty they possess. Prayer that God's Will may be fully and 
 rightly done is the first of all prayers, and a prayer which in- 
 cludes all other prayers, because God's Will itself is the first of 
 all things and the source of all blessings ; because apart from 
 that will there is nothing which ought to be prayed for ; be- 
 cause only in and through it can any good thing come to us. 
 
 Let us think for a moment what the true place of that Will 
 is in the world. What is its place in nature, mere nature, 
 nature as distinguished from Spirit ? We are far from know- 
 ing either precisely or fully what its place there is. It may 
 perhaps be, as many thinkers have supposed, a far wider one 
 than either ordinary men or the general body of scientific men 
 believe ; it may be not only the cause and preserving and con- 
 trolling power of nature but its substance, its self. It may be 
 that matter is essentially force, and nothing but force; that 
 the whole material universe is ultimately resolvable into forces ; 
 and that all these forces are but manifestations or outgoings of 
 the force of Will. ■ If so, the whole universe is not only de- 
 pendent on but is the Will of God, and has no being of any 
 kind apart from the Will of God. But whether this " maybe," 
 this speculative hypothesis, be true or false, what is certain is 
 that God's Will originated nature at the first, and that nature 
 owes whatever order, beauty, use, it yet has to His Will. 
 Created by His Will, it has been preserved and governed by 
 His laws, and these laws not only do not in any way compete 
 with, exclude, or limit His Will, but they are the expressions of 
 His Will. They are directly or indirectly the modes in which 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. Ill 
 
 His Will works, and works itself out by them into all the love- 
 liness and grandeur, into all the harmonies and utilities, all 
 the serenity, joy, and gladness, which fill the heavens, the 
 earth, the sea. God's Will, then, sustains, pervades, beautifies, 
 and animates nature, — clothes each lily, feeds each bird, 
 uttereth itself in speech day unto day, and showeth knowledge 
 night unto night. We may say of it with all sober truthful- 
 ness — 
 
 " Flowers laugh before Thee on their beds, 
 And fragrance in Thy footing treads ; 
 Thon dost preserve the stars from Avrong ; 
 And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong." 
 
 When we pass from the world of mere nature into that of 
 spirit, we find that God's Will equally underlies, pervades, and 
 rules it. It is true that His Will here manifests itself under a 
 very different form. It no longer appears as laws which are 
 uniform and irresistible in their action, as laws the swing of 
 which is unquestioned and unopposed, but as a something still 
 more worthy of our awe and admiration, as a mighty plan 
 which comprehends within its calculations all the resistance 
 of millions of hostile wills, which realises itself not only in 
 spite of that resistance but through it, which slowly and 
 silently and surely unfolds itself amidst all the selfishness and 
 pride, confusion, and tumult, and war, which abound on this 
 rebellious earth. Dark and chaotic as human history may at 
 first sight look, abandoned as it may have often seemed to 
 brute force, despotic caprice, heartless greed, and ruthless 
 cruelty, not faith only but reason too may find that there is 
 always something deeper in it than these ; an Infinite Will 
 which uses or baffles finite wills ; an Infinite Will which never 
 loses, which unceasingly advances to the accomplishment of 
 its purposes of wisdom, justice, and mercy. Yes, as certainly 
 as the study of nature leads to the knowledge of laws by which 
 God governs nature even in what seems to us most minute, 
 obscure, or remote, so certainly does the study of history lead 
 to the knowledge of a system of order within which God has 
 embraced even the deeds recorded in the darkest and saddest 
 pages of the annals of the world. No thoughtful student of 
 
112 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 history can fail to perceive that in the barbarian invasions, 
 in the feudal system, in the Papacy, in battles, conquests, 
 massacres, revolutions, God has been present, not suffering 
 them to fall out of His hand, but making them work together 
 for good, and compelling the very iniquity and wrath of man 
 to praise Him. Were God not thus ever mightily and merci- 
 fully present it would be impossible to support the sight of 
 such spectacles as the world often presents. Assuredly it were 
 better not to live at all than to live where God's Will did not 
 overrule human wills. But a world of mere human wills, a 
 world of wills not overruled by the Divine Will, is a thing for 
 ever impossible. Were God's Will withdrawn even for an 
 instant from nature, nature would dissolve into chaos, ay, 
 sink into nothingness ; and, not less, were God's Will withdrawn 
 even for an instant from history, would history fall into chaos, 
 into nothingness. 
 
 But God's Will manifests itself in another form than either as 
 laws of nature or plan of providence. It manifests itself in the 
 laws of conscience, the laws of moral and religious life. God's 
 Will as expressed in the laws of nature is not, and cannot be, 
 resisted even in appearance, and as expressed in the laws of 
 providence it can be resisted only in appearance. These latter 
 laws so embrace as to baffle all attempts to put them aside. 
 Acts of resistance to God's Will fall within His providential 
 plan equally with acts of obedience. To defeat every act of 
 resistance, to make it subserve another end than the doer of it 
 intended, and to punish it, — that is a part of His plan. God's plan 
 of providence is essentially the same thing as those decrees of 
 God which theologians often speak of in so abstract and empty 
 a way, but which are notwithstanding very jaractical and awful 
 realities, which we cannot escape from, which we cannot alter, 
 and which are done on earth at this moment, just as perfectly 
 as they will ever be, just as perfectly as they are done in 
 heaven. 
 
 But God's Will in the form of moral law is of a very different 
 nature. It may be resisted ; it may be set aside. That we can 
 set it aside — in that consists our responsibility. That we do 
 set it aside — in that lies our sin. Is this, then, a lower form of 
 God's Will ? less important ? less essential ? Most certainly 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 113 
 
 not. This is the highest form of all ; the holy of holies of the 
 universe. The laws of nature have all a reference to the plan 
 of providence, and are subservient to it ; and the whole plan of 
 providence has a reference to the final triumph of truth and 
 righteousness, and is subservient thereto. God's designs, God's 
 purposes, never let us speak of them as arbitrary, never let us 
 speak of them even as so secret that we must be utterly 
 ignorant of what they are and what they mean. There is much 
 about them which we do not and cannot know, but we do 
 know their essential character and meaning, and know it as 
 certainly as we know that there is a God at all. We know that 
 they are righteous and merciful, and that they mean that 
 righteousness and mercy will prevail in the end, everything 
 which exalts itself against them being certain to be cast down; 
 that God's power and wisdom work to vindicate and establish 
 holiness ; that His laws of nature and of providence have for 
 goal the reign of the laws of righteousness. 
 
 God's holiness has, however, spoken directly for itself. The 
 broken laws of righteousness have had a far more wondrous 
 testimony borne to their inherent sanctity, and to their place in 
 the world, and their place in the thoughts of God, than either 
 nature or ordinary providence could offer. God has left man to 
 find out and glorify His other laws in such ways as he can 
 himself devise, but these laws which you and I can so easily 
 set aside, and which we are so apt to make light of, God has 
 specially and wondrously stooped from heaven in order to 
 magnify and make honourable. The manifestation of Himself 
 which He has presented to us in His Son is from beginning to 
 end a monument to their majesty. Christ, our Saviour, who 
 taught us to pray, " Thy Will be done on earth, as it is in 
 heaven," lived as He prayed. His whole work as our Saviour 
 was a carrying out of His saying, " Lo, I come to do Thy 
 Will, Lord." It was " His meat to do the will of the Father 
 that sent Him." His every act was an act of subjection to that 
 Father's Will ; He suffered no other will to be in Him ; and 
 when it called him to bear the scourging of Pilate, the jeering 
 of Herod, the buffeting of the soldiers ; to give His back to 
 the smiters. His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, His 
 face to shame and spitting ; to carry His cross, to hang on it, 
 
 H 
 
114 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 to die ; He accepted it without a murmur or complaint, assert- 
 ing no will of His own, but saying always, " Father, Thy Will be 
 done," — " Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." His incar- 
 nation, life, sufferings, and death, are the great illustrations of 
 the prayer He taught us, and show us clearly why He gave this 
 petition regarding God's Will the place in it which He did. 
 They tell us, as nothing else could, what place He thought due 
 to God's righteous will or moral law in the universe ; what 
 reverence is paid in heaven to that law, not only by the angels, 
 but by Him who is infinitely higher above the highest angels 
 than they are above us. And no one who has in any measure 
 come under the influence of these facts, no one who has in any 
 measure felt the power of Christ's work and example, can fail 
 to feel that the Will — the moral Law — of God is of all things 
 the most sacred, the most worthy of our admiration and praise, 
 and of our praying and striving to obey, and to do. 
 
 It has by some been deemed a want in the Lord's Prayer, a 
 something which makes it, although it may have been perfect 
 before Christ's death, inadequate now as an expression of the 
 feelings of Christian men, that there is no reference in it to the 
 atonement or sacrifice of Christ. But, perhaps, few will find the 
 opinion well founded. Of course, there is no explicit reference 
 to Christ and His work, but we have only, I think, to remember 
 who taught us the prayer, and how He lived in the spirit of 
 this " Thy Will be done," how He suffered and died in it, and 
 we shall feel His whole life, work, atonement, brought nearer 
 us by these words than almost any other words, even the most 
 explicit, could bring them. Certain it is that only when we 
 can say " Thy Will be done " in the spirit in which it was 
 taught us, that is, when we can say it in truth, has Christ's 
 work of sacrifice and atonement come to have any personal 
 meaning or worth to us. Christ's working out this petition in 
 His life and death was the atonement, and only through bring- 
 ing us into the same life, so that what the petition asks for 
 is the deepest want of our life, has His work, His sacrifice, 
 accomplished in any degree its end in us. 
 
 Having said this much as to the place generally of the 
 petition in prayer and life, and of the place of God's Will in the 
 universe, I have now briefly to consider what is implied in the 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 115 
 
 petition itself. And first, I may say, this is implied in it, that 
 God's Will ought to be done on earth but is not done. The 
 very asking that it should be done is a confession that it is 
 not done. We have reason to rejoice that the Lord reigneth 
 in nature and providence, but we do not need to pray that 
 He would do so as we need to pray that He wonld reign 
 over our hearts and wills ; it is a subject for gratitude and 
 praise that His laws of nature and the designs of His providence 
 are executed as they are, but no subject for petition just because 
 they are executed perfectly, and there is no real possibility 
 of resisting them ; but with His will as manifesting itself in 
 righteousness it is otherwise, for it can be disobeyed, and our 
 prayer for its being obeyed is itself an admission of its being 
 disobeyed. The confession is a very sad one to have to make, 
 but there can be no religion in any man until it is made in all 
 sincerity ; there can be no spiritual good for any man until he 
 feels the bitterness of living in revolt against the perfectly 
 good and righteous wUl of his God and Father in heaven; 
 until he feels that it is a truly horrible thing to be in rebellion 
 asrainst the Infinite holiness and Infinite love of the Will that 
 made and rules the world. 
 
 We all know that although an earthly father may not 
 always command wisely or even kindly, nothing but mischief 
 can come from children discarding his authority and doing 
 only what pleases themselves ; that acceptance of his will is, 
 in general, the condition of everything good, of all happiness, in 
 family life. Well, we shall do no good in this world until it is 
 our sincerest, inmost conviction that the disorder, shame, and 
 misery of a family whose members have thrown off all respect 
 for the law or will of its head, can but feebly represent the 
 disorder, shame, and misery involved in revolt against the 
 Will of our Father in heaven. We all know that rebellion 
 even against a human government is a terrible thing, which 
 can be justified only in the most extreme circumstances, only 
 when the government is thoroughly reckless and immoral and 
 endangers the essential liberties or very existence of a nation, 
 because the horrors of civil war are so awful, and its results, 
 even when the leaders of the revolt are at the outset both able 
 and virtuous, so uncertain ; that a civil government or rule to 
 
116 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 serve as the one presiding, fixed, regular will in a common- 
 wealth is so essential, that were it completely withdrawn for a 
 month, even from a country so far instructed in Christianity 
 and generally enlightened as our own, and were every man 
 thus left to do as he pleased, the evil done in that one month 
 would outbalance the good done in many years, if not centuries. 
 And, assuredly, if we fancy that a recognition of the spiritual 
 government of men is less essential to their welfare than the 
 recognition of the civil government of them, that can only be 
 accounted for by our being spiritually dead and consequently 
 spiritually blind. "Wherever there is a living spiritual eye it is 
 seen that obedience to a governing Will is still more essential in 
 the spiritual than in the family or civil life, and disobedience to 
 it a still more dreadful thing. It is seen that this disobedience 
 has no excuse, since here the law is never foolish, harsh, or 
 wrong, but always absolutely wise, just, and merciful. It is 
 seen that this disobedience must spread out into disobedience 
 in the family, in the state, everywhere. It is seen that nothing 
 but boundless evil can come of it ; that it is explanation enough 
 of all the woes of earth. 
 
 But, in the second place, this petition means that we are 
 prepared to submit or sacrifice our own wills to the Will of 
 God. It cannot mean less to us than this if we present it 
 with the least sincerity. " Thy Will be done," — therefore not 
 ours so far as they are different from Thine. But that means 
 the entire surrender and sacrifice of our wills. For this 
 Will of God which we pray to be done is the will or law of 
 a perfect righteousness. There is no righteous act whatever 
 in any department of life which it does not enjoin, and none 
 which we are not bound to do because it enjoins it. If our 
 own will, therefore, is never to be followed in matters of 
 righteousness where different from God's Will it can never be 
 followed as ours at all, since it must always surrender itself 
 to God's Will. These two facts, that God's Will is the law of 
 a perfect righteousness, and that His Will is the will which 
 is to rule, necessitate the inference, that man's will has no 
 lawful independence in matters of righteousness, no right in 
 any such matter to self-assertion, but is bound always to give 
 itself completely over to God's Will. These two truths, I say, 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 117 
 
 necessitate that inference, and the man who faces these truths 
 and honestly in his heart and life accepts the inference is a 
 religious man ; the man who does not is still a worldling. 
 
 The sort of connection between God and man which I now 
 speak of, and which in our test we ask for, the connection of 
 a living finite will with the living infinite Will, is the only 
 sort of connection which will hold. Any sort of connection 
 less intimate, as, for instance, not only through the mere in- 
 tellectual acceptance of Divine truths, but even through any 
 kind of faith which stops short of an actual yielding of our 
 selves, our wills, to the Will of God, or through any kind of 
 feeling which, however admirable, does not involve the thorough 
 change of nature which God's Will replacing ours supposes, 
 will not hold but will break in the hour of trial. God is a Will, 
 a righteous Will, and as it is the very nature of a will to act, 
 to work, He would act, work, in us and through us, act and 
 work righteousness, and only if we acquiesce in this purpose 
 of God, only if we say to Him sincerely in our lives as well 
 as with our lips, "Thy Will be done," only then will the 
 blessed aim of Christ's redeeming love and sufferings be 
 accomplished in us, and we shall never be put to shame. 
 
 For a man thus to renounce his own will in favour of the 
 Will of God, so far from implying any loss of true manhood, 
 any peculiar weakness or defect of manhood, is to accept and 
 realise his only true state as a moral being, so that the more 
 complete his renunciation the more perfect a man is he. We 
 sometimes hear men in prayer confess it as a sin, " that they 
 cannot of themselves think any good thought or will any good 
 deed," but such inability is no sin, is, on the contrary, the 
 very condition of true moral action in a creature, was in Adam 
 before the fall, and is in every angel now. Were the highest 
 angel to fancy it could think a good thought of itself, and will 
 a good act otherwise than through the Divine Will, the very 
 fancy would be the fall of that angel. Out of God's Will there 
 is no moral strength for man or angel. A will, a strong will, 
 is what we all need. There is no better endowment. Were 
 it given me to choose between a strong and sound intellect 
 and a strong and right will, I should, without hesitation, prefer 
 the latter. I know nothing more lamentable than the spectacle 
 
118 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 of a man of good intellect," but of feeble will, who is afraid of the 
 anger of this man or of losing the favour of that, who cannot 
 be trusted, who deceives others and is untrue to himself, not 
 from ignorance of the right or from malice or to gain any de- 
 cided personal advantage, but from mere weakness of character, 
 weakness of will. We need a strong will, but if such a will 
 in us be anything else than a strong cleaving to the Will of 
 God, if it be merely a strong will of our own, it can be only 
 a selfish, proud, obstinate will. We need a strong will, but 
 strong in righteousness, and so free from selfishness, pride, 
 and obstinacy ; and that we shall only find in the strong and 
 holy Will of God, in our resolute self-surrender in all things 
 to that Will. 
 
 In the next place, the text sets before us the one true 
 ideal of spiritual life. It shows all of us what we ought to 
 aim at and strive after as rational, moral, and religious beings. 
 It shows us the one worthy goal of life and the one way to 
 it. That is an immense service. A man who aims at nothing 
 will accomplish nothing ; a man who aims at what is impos- 
 sible must be baffled and disappointed ; a man who strives 
 after what is unreasonable must prove himself a fool ; a man 
 who seeks what is vicious and degrading must work out his 
 own condemnation and disgrace. A man's actual life always 
 corresponds so far to his ideal of life ; it is in a measure high 
 or low, mean or noble, as that is. The conduct may, indeed, 
 fall very far short of the ideal of conduct which the mind 
 has had before it, but it never rises above it and is never 
 wholly out of relation to it. I know not what fates and 
 fortunes may have been ordained for any of you young men 
 here present, but this I know, that, whatever your outward 
 circumstances may be, your real lives will be very much what 
 you sincerely wish them to be and honestly strive to make them ; 
 and that I consequently can give you no better advice than 
 that you should set before yourselves now, at the most appro- 
 priate age and season for doing so, the highest ideal of life 
 which you can form, and cleave to it henceforth with all your 
 heart and strength and soul and mind. But of such an ideal 
 the fundamental and ruling principle can only be that which 
 pervades the Lord's Prayer and which finds clear and explicit 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 119 
 
 expression in this petition in particular: it must be the prin- 
 ciple of self-sacrifice. It cannot be that of self-gratification ; 
 it cannot be the living for pleasure, wealth, influence, or fame. 
 For the rational and immortal soul to make any of these its 
 end is manifestly to degrade and debase itself. No one not 
 utterly unworthy of bearing the name of student, or being a 
 member of any of the liberal professions, can need to be 
 reminded that the soul itself is far greater than these things, 
 and can never have been meant to be used as a mere instrument 
 for the attainment of these things. 
 
 Self-culture is a much higher aim than self-gratification, but 
 it is still far below the truth, and none need more to be warned 
 of this than those who are occupied as most of you are. It is 
 the special temptation of persons who are engaged in the pur- 
 suit of learning and science to believe that they can attain the 
 end of life by the culture and discipline of their various powers 
 of thought and feeling. They forget that the end of life is 
 not in thought or feeling; that the culture which stops short 
 at thinking and feeling is superficial and incomplete even as 
 culture ; that the thought or feeling which a man cannot em- 
 body in action he possesses imperfectly, and that the thought 
 or feeling which he does not embody in action is no part of 
 his essential self. Culture, so far as true, transforms itself 
 into character, and character into conduct. What is ultimate 
 in man is a will, and his chief end must be in the exertion of 
 will, in doing — such doing as springs from true thinking and 
 pure feeling. Still more do those who make self -culture an 
 end and not a means forget that there is a self in us which 
 ought not to be cultivated, but to be got rid of, and that that 
 self is the very root of our natural life, and can by no means 
 be cast out by the mere discipline and training of our natural 
 powers. Mere self-culture, culture in the strength of self, and 
 for the sake of self, leaves in us the selfish will which mis- 
 directs and abuses all the powers of the mind, however trained 
 and refined they may be. Therefore, with Divine wisdom, 
 the Gospel enjoins not the self-culture which excludes self- 
 sacrifice, but the self-sacrifice which includes all true self- 
 culture. 
 
 To die to self ; to use our own will merely for acquiescence 
 
120 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 in God's Will ; to hold our whole possessions, time, and talents 
 as means whereby to do His work in the world ; to offer our 
 all of existence, without reservation of one thought or feeling, 
 as a gift to Him — this, and this alone, if the Gospel be true, 
 is the great duty and end of life. This is the ideal and law 
 for every human being, and indeed for every spiritual being in 
 the whole universe of God. The same physical laws which 
 rule on earth are known to prevail in the myriads of worlds 
 which people space, and still more certain is it that the moral 
 law is universal in its sway. Of the angelic hosts the one 
 great fact we are made acquainted with is that " They do His 
 commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word " ; and 
 it suffices to show that there is an essential community of 
 nature between them and us, on which may be founded a 
 communion of interest and sympathy, and which explains why 
 they should desire to look into the mysteries of redeeming love, 
 and why they should rejoice over a sinner who repenteth. The 
 ideal of life for the highest angel and for the lowest man is 
 essentially the same ; it is the acceptance of the Will of God as 
 the sole law of their lives ; it is life not to themselves but to 
 God. While thus comprehensive, while thus inclusive of all 
 moral beings, whether angels or men, it is an ideal which is at 
 the same time special and even individual, demanding of each 
 one of us that we act in that particular way in which our 
 action will be most efficient for good, for the glory of God. 
 God has given us very different abilities and aptitudes, and in 
 all the resulting inequalities and diversities He has a meaning 
 and a purpose. He has a plan for each one of us which it is 
 our duty to discover ; a work for each one of us which we are 
 bound to do. It will be well for us if we accept His will 
 towards us by adopting His plan and doing His work ; for His 
 will towards us is full of grace and love ; and glory, honour, 
 and immortality lie before those who follow its guidance. 
 
 It is enough merely to remind you, further, that the petition 
 pledges us to try to spread the knowledge and love of the Will 
 of God. If we believe that the Will of God is the only true 
 and good law for men ; that obedience to it is life, that dis- 
 obedience to it is death ; that the whole conduct of men to 
 one another ought to be regulated by it ; that it forbids every- 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 121 
 
 thing unjust and cruel, and enjoins everything good, every- 
 thing calculated to diffuse happiness on earth, and to lead to 
 happiness in heaven ; we must feel bound by every moral 
 motive to let our brethren of mankind know it, and to com- 
 mend it to their approval and obedience ; and this petition 
 implying or embodying all this pledges us to live such lives as 
 will most honour God's Will, and let the power of it be best 
 seen, and to make all efforts we can that those to whom our 
 influence reaches should be induced to submit to it. 
 
 Our text further tells us, I remark in conclusion, how we 
 ought to do God's Will. It tells us His Will should be done on 
 earth as it is done in heaven. The perfect doing of it is what 
 we ought to aim at : ambition so often appears in selfish and 
 unworthy forms that we are apt to overlook that there is a 
 noble and unselfish ambition which lies at the root of all 
 excellence in life and work, and which, so far from being allied 
 to pride, is inseparable from humility. The ambition which 
 seeks merely to outstrip others or to gain their applause, and 
 to carry off outward honours and distinctions, is a principle 
 which one may not condemn, perhaps, in young and immature 
 minds ; but which is contemptible in a grown man ; and which 
 most assuredly is never appealed to in the school of Christ. 
 But the ambition which has no reference to others, which is 
 entirely distinct from emulation and the desire of superiority, 
 which has its source solely in a keen susceptibility to our own 
 imperfections, and consists exclusively of aspiration after per- 
 fection in life and work, has not only been the source of all 
 that is best and most enduring in art and literature, science 
 and philosophy, but has been the inspiring principle of all the 
 achievements of piety and virtue, of all spiritual grandeur, and 
 of all Christian heroism and devotion. 
 
 If the spirit of this petition, " Thy Will be done on earth as 
 it is in heaven," be in any man, he will never cease striving to 
 become a better man, and to do his work better, so long as he 
 can find a fault or defect either in himself or in his work. He 
 will not compare himself with other men and be satisfied if he 
 is not obeying God's Will worse than they are doing. He will 
 look above earth, as we are in this petition taught to do, and 
 will see in heaven the true standard of his obedience. 
 
122 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 As angels do the Father's Will in heaven, so should we do it 
 on earth. And how do they do it ? " They excel in strength," 
 says the Psalmist, "and obey His commandments." They put 
 out their whole strength on that — " doing His commandments." 
 They have no other use for their strength, and make no other 
 use of it. All their natural power, all their affection, and all 
 their intelligence are fully occupied with that. Such is the 
 obedience we are to aspire after. God give us grace to do so, 
 for if we do and faint not we shall gradually approach it, 
 and at length attain unto it, even at that time when we are 
 admitted into the society of the angels who are in heaven. 
 And now may God bless unto us His word, and work in us His 
 holy Will. Amen. 
 
X. 
 
 ONE THING NEEDFUL, AND ONE THING 
 TO BE DONE.i 
 
 " But one thing is needful." — Luke x. 42. 
 "This one thing I do." — Philippians iii. 13. 
 
 I BRING the words of our Lord in the first of these verses 
 and those of St Paul in the second of these verses into 
 connection, because "the one thing" which is spoken of both 
 by the Master and His servant is the same thing, only looked 
 at in two slightly different aspects, and because it is the thing 
 concerning which I wish to speak to you, with all sincerity and 
 earnestness, at this time. 
 
 In both cases by the " one thing " is meant the blessed and 
 holy life made accessible to us through Christ and in Christ; 
 but in the former case that life is regarded as the alone adequate 
 satisfaction of all desire, and in the latter as the one great end 
 of all exertion. The Avords, "But one thing is needful," are 
 among the words of our Lord in His rebuke of Martha. She 
 was letting the many little things which she thought needful 
 for His proper entertainment fret her temper, make her im- 
 patient with her sister, and deprive herself of the spiritual 
 benefit which His visit gave her such an opportunity of receiv- 
 ing, and so when her own complaint against Mary gave Him the 
 most fitting occasion, gently and faithfully the Great Teacher 
 reminded her that the many things which were troubling her 
 were not worth being troubled about, while there was one thing 
 worth all her care, the very one which she was losing sight of in 
 the many, the one good thing which would never be taken away. 
 
 The words, "This one thing I do," occur in an argument 
 of St Paul warning the Philippians to beware of those false 
 teachers who tempted them to look for salvation from circum- 
 cision and the law, and those evil workers who went by Christ's 
 
 ^ Preached in St Leonard's Church, St Andrews. 
 123 
 
124 ONE THING NEEDFUL. 
 
 name and yet felt no shame in making a God of their belly and 
 minding earthly things. He says he himself had had more 
 reason than any of these to trust for acceptance with God, as 
 he had been born a Hebrew of the Hebrews, been zealous for 
 the old law, and blameless as touching its righteousness ; yet 
 now he counted these things but loss, great gain although they 
 had once seemed to him, and willingly renounced them, and 
 was glad to forget all that lay behind, for there was one thing 
 before him in comparison with which all things else were 
 worthless and vile. That one thing was the excellency of the 
 knowledge of Christ, the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ. He confessed himself unworthy of it and counted 
 himself not yet to have apprehended it, but to apprehend and 
 gain it was the one thing he felt that was worth doing, the one 
 thing he wished or tried to do. That his resolution may be 
 yours and mine, — that feeling like him " but one thing needful," 
 we may like him concentrate our energies on the doing of that 
 "one thing," — may God grant. 
 
 There is, then, one thing needed, and there is one thing to 
 be done. There is one thing to be done because there is one 
 thing needed. Those who do not feel the need of the one 
 thing will never do that one thing. What they feel no want 
 of they will not desire, and what they do not desire they will 
 not strive and labour to attain. Now, there are some who do 
 not at all feel that there is one thing needed, and, consequently, 
 one thing to be done; some who have no one great desire and 
 no one fixed aim in life ; some so distracted by the many pas- 
 sions of their own hearts, and so bewildered among the many 
 objects which appeal to these passions, as not to feel that their 
 natures were made to be ruled and their lives meant to be per- 
 vaded by one supreme central and guiding principle. It is 
 especially the danger and fault of youth to be drawn easily in 
 the most diverse directions, to yield to the most inconsistent 
 impulses, to read and learn, talk and enjoy, work and play, 
 without any due sense of how the many things done are related 
 to one another and to any worthy end beyond themselves, and 
 beyond the hour in which they are performed. In a word, their 
 special danger and fault is to live without plan and purpose. 
 Very probably there are several here whose great error this is. 
 
ONE THING NEEDFUL. 125 
 
 Yet there can be no need to dwell either on the folly or sin of 
 it. For of this I am sure, that if they will but go a little way 
 beyond their merely surface feelings, a little way down into 
 the secret places of their hearts, they will find that they are 
 themselves conscious both of the folly and of the sin of it; that 
 although they may be feeling whatever pleasantness there is in 
 taking life and its responsibilities as lightly as they do just 
 now, they yet shrink from the thought of their being found 
 even at middle age still drifting thus, without a will of their 
 own, they know not where, at the mercy of every wind and 
 wave, and can even now readily believe that in a few short 
 years they may be regretting all time thus spent as a precious 
 season wasted, which they would gladly recall but cannot. 
 
 All but the most frivolous even of worldly men soon come 
 to learn from experience that human nature without a ruling 
 passion is weak and contemptible, and that human life if 
 aimless can result only in sorrow and shame ; while to have the 
 will and the power to concentrate the energies on the seeking 
 and doing of one thing is to have the secret of all success — 
 is the one condition on which man can do anything great. 
 Indeed this truth is one which worldly men in general see 
 more clearly and act on more faithfully than Christians. It is 
 a main respect in which the children of the world are wiser in 
 their generation than the children of light that they see more 
 distinctly the goal they would be at, turn their eyes less away 
 from it, and press more directly and perseveringly towards it, 
 than the latter do as regards the far nobler one set before 
 them. It is not, I think, as a rule, in their not feeling that 
 one thing is needful and that one thing is to be done that men 
 of the world, at least after a certain age, err and are to blame, 
 but that they propose to themselves as the chief end of their 
 lives something altogether unworthy of being the chief end of 
 a human soul, something which is not the good part and will 
 assuredly be taken away, something infinitely short of the 
 prize of that high calling which God has in Christ for every 
 human soul. 
 
 Thus there is a great multitude, the common multitude, 
 who keep constantly asking, " What shall we eat, and what shall 
 we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " a great multi- 
 
126 ONE THING NEEDFUL. 
 
 tude whose whole affections and energies are confined to the 
 procuring of a maintenance, to the bettering of their outward 
 condition, to the acquisition of wealth or position or influence. 
 They throw themselves not only energetically — that might be 
 quite right — but, what can never be right, entirely into the 
 pursuit of these things, seeking them with an exclusive desire 
 and devotion, with the whole heart and soul, to the forgetful- 
 ness, neglect, and rejection of things far better and far more 
 needful. Nothing can be more common than this, and yet 
 nothing can be more foolish. It is labour in vain, the spending 
 of the life and strength of the soul for the temporary support 
 and advantage of the body. A spiritual nature cannot be 
 satisfied with material good. The needs and cravings of a 
 being meant for a heavenly and eternal existence cannot be 
 supplied out of earthly and perishing sources. It is only when 
 the soul is in sorest want and deepest degradation, only when 
 far away from its proper home, its father's house, it is starving 
 in a foreign land where a great famine prevails, that it tries to 
 fill itself with such swine's husks as these. And it tries, of 
 course, only to fail ; for although the gratifications of the lower 
 appetites may dull the sense, may deaden for a time the gnaw- 
 ing pain of spiritual hunger, they can never possibly truly 
 satisfy the soul. There is nothing in them to respond to what is 
 highest and best in us ; to faith and hope, adoration and love, 
 the faculties in the exercise of which we truly live. 
 
 I willingly believe, however, that those of my hearers whom 
 I wish to have especially in my thoughts at present, — those 
 who are still, as it were, on the threshold of life, — are just 
 those who are least likely to belong to this multitude, and most 
 likely to feel the vanity and meanness of su^ch a life as it leads. 
 All generous young minds must. The culture, the aspirations, 
 the affections of their condition and age make it impossible for 
 them not to recognise at a glance that the life of the mere 
 worldling is lamentably narrow and low, and can never be what 
 God designed man for. They are conscious of having in them- 
 selves a great wealth of faculties and feelings for which there 
 would be no place or use in a life of the kind. And yet how 
 often do such as they settle down into just such a life ? The 
 prodigal in the jDarable when he left his Father's house, rich 
 
ONE THING NEEDFUL. 127 
 
 with the goods which his Father had given him, never dreamt, 
 you may be sure, that he would come to feed swine, and try to 
 appease his hunger with swine's food ; and yet he came to it, 
 gradually and naturally, in consequence of his turning his back 
 on his Father's house, and throwing off his Father's guidance, 
 and taking his own way. Like that prodigal, many a youth 
 who started rich in high thoughts and generous feelings, 
 through making the fatal mistake of trying to live away from 
 God has gradually wasted them all, has gradually grown poorer 
 in mind and heart, and at last become among the most worldly 
 of worldlings. Therefore, young men, if you would not 
 become what you now honestly and justly despise ; if you 
 would gladly on the contrary leave the world a little less 
 worldly than you have found it, beware of that first and most 
 fatally wrong step of turning away from God, instead of turning 
 to Him, that He may preserve and increase in you every good 
 and generous feeling, and may not leave you to your own wills, 
 to waste them and work out your own ruin. 
 
 There are some, although by no means so many, who seek to 
 find satisfaction for all their wishes, and work for all their 
 energies in an intellectual life, in the exercise of thought, in 
 the search after truth, and yet while rising thus high in desire 
 and aim do not yield themselves to the love and obedience of the 
 God of truth. These, too, mistake as to the one thing needful, 
 and fail to press towards the one true prize of life. Mere truth 
 — truth apprehended, not as the thought and affection and will 
 of God, but as in itself — will not satisfy the human heart. 
 Suppose a man knew not only all that science has at present to 
 tell, but all that it will ever be able to tell about the world 
 of matter and the mind of man, would it be reasonable to 
 expect that fully to satisfy him ? I think not. Were all that 
 is to be known about the material universe actually known, the 
 man who knew it would simply have within himself the true 
 reflection of what was existing without him — on his spirit which 
 thinks there would simply be a correct picture of that which 
 does not think. Now, I cannot believe that the soul, which 
 would not be satisfied with the very world itself could it have 
 it, will ever be satisfied with that pale reflection of it which 
 constitutes science, and which can only be to the reality as 
 
128 ONE THING NEEDFUL. 
 
 moonlight is to sunlight. I cannot believe that the soul, which 
 is itself so superior every way to the material world, can have 
 for its highest end, merely to serve as a mirror to it, and to 
 show forth, not the likeness and glory of God, but the image or 
 reflection of what is without life, without reason, and without 
 love. And were all that is to be known about the mind of 
 man actually known, the soul which knew it would, after all, 
 only have a knowledge of itself, and surely only a fool would 
 have it rest in complacent contemplation, or bow down in 
 adoration of that. Indeed, a soul which really knew itself, 
 which clearly saw itself as it is in itself, away from the grace 
 and mercy of God, could do neither, but would be over- 
 whelmed by its knowledge with shame and terror. 
 
 The wisdom of the world now, as in the days of St Paul, is 
 foolishness with God, and seen to be foolishness when reason 
 looks at it in the true light, which is that which comes from 
 God; and there is no part of the wisdom of the present day 
 more dangerously foolish than that which sets forth science, 
 culture, truth, as all-sufficient ends of life. Apart from the 
 love and service of God these may lead the soul into a land 
 as waste and famishing as the pursuit of what only concerns 
 the body. They may even lead it into a still more howl- 
 ing and hungry wilderness. There is on earth a greater 
 misfortune than to crave for bread and not to have it, and 
 a sadness more complete than that of bereavement, sick- 
 ness, poverty, even pushed to their extremest limits. There 
 is the bitterness of a soul which has studied, and searched, 
 and speculated; which has pursued truth in many directions 
 with eager and anxious heart ; and yet, because it sought it 
 apart from the light and life which are in God, has only found 
 in all directions doubt and nothingness. This bitterness may 
 you be spared, this weariness of life, this disbelief in any good, 
 by letting God guide you in the culture of your minds and 
 the search for truth, as aware that there is no wise education 
 or true knowledge separate from His operation and blessing. 
 
 God has, my friends, a better portion for you, even the one 
 thing needful of which Christ spoke ; a higher calling for you, 
 even that one thing which the Apostle did. Do you ask. What 
 is it ? It is to accept like Mary, Martha's sister, the message 
 
ONE THING NEEDFUL. 129 
 
 of Christ as the Revealer of the Father's character and will ; it 
 is to try to realise it like St Paul in a life which flows from 
 the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us, and is devoted to the glory 
 of God. It is to know, believe, and do the gracious will of our 
 Heavenly Father towards ourselves and towards our fellow- 
 men. It is to receive and close with that special ojffer of 
 forgiveness and strength which Jesus Christ brought from 
 heaven, which He sealed by the sacrifice of Himself, and lives 
 to make effectual by the gift of His Spirit. It is to be, in 
 consequence, not alien from God, but in communion with Him, 
 both in our secret thoughts and outward deeds ; to be on His 
 side in the great conflict between truth and falsehood, right 
 and wrong, in the world ; to be doing what in us lies to make 
 Christ better known, more honoured, and more loved by those 
 around us, because we honour and love Him in our own souls ; 
 it is by patient continuance in well-doing, undismayed by 
 opposition and unwearied by failure, to advance, each of us in 
 his own sphere, that Kingdom of God, which is righteousness 
 and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
 
 This is the one thing. It is the sole one thing which can 
 satisfy our every desire and be the true and adequate end of our 
 every energy. It is so in opposition to the many things not 
 needful and not to be done. It is so as contrasted with these, 
 as excluding these. It was opposed by our Lord to the many 
 things which cumbered Martha. It was opposed, St Paul 
 felt, to all such remembrance of the past as tended to paralyse 
 his Christian exertions and impede his Christian progress; 
 and so, to gain the aim on which he was intent, he tells us, 
 he forgot the things behind, — would not so much as think 
 of them. To believe and obey the Gospel, the doing of 
 that is our " one need," because it is so unspeakably above 
 and before every other need in urgency, that any desire, any 
 action, which conflicts with it, with the full and entire satis- 
 faction of it, is a desire which we are to refuse to gratify, 
 an action which we are to refuse to perform. It is simply 
 because we do not sufficiently realise the position we are in 
 as related to God and eternity, and so do not feel as we ought 
 our need of the Gospel, that we fancy we have need of many 
 things besides the Gospel. 
 
130 ONE THING NEEDFUL. 
 
 But the one thing needed and the one thing to be done is 
 not only so as excluding all that is not needed and not to be 
 done, the countless crowd of things which we fancy good yet 
 are really hurtful, but as including all that is truly useful, 
 all that is in the highest and best sense profitable for us and 
 others. It excluded the many things belonging to the much 
 preparation with which Martha mistakingly cumbered herself. 
 It would have included, however, everything required for 
 such attention to the bodily wants and entertainment of the 
 Lord as He Himself would have wished. It did not more 
 certainly exclude the excessive and cumbersome than it would 
 have included whatever was reasonable and right. It made 
 St Paul forget and lay aside much, but it also made him use 
 every means and strain his every faculty to gain his end. It 
 does not in the least follow that because the Christian keeps 
 ever one end or aim before him he must be a man of one idea, 
 of a one-sided mind or life. It is, on the contrary, just that 
 which fits the Christian life to be the " one thing " for every 
 man ; that " one thing " in which the broadest minds, the most 
 generous hearts, the most energetic natures may find the 
 amplest scope for all their thoughts, affections, and activities. 
 Nothing is either so great or so little as not to be able to be 
 included in it. It admits of everything, it demands every- 
 thing, which tends to the perfection of our nature and the 
 glory of God. 
 
 It includes, then, all that is needful, and all that ought to 
 be done, and excludes all that is needless and which it would 
 only harm us to do. It is thus that it is the one thing, and it 
 is obvious that to choose it must both simplify and strengthen 
 life immensely. It determines both what is to be done and 
 what is to be left undone. By making us men of a single 
 purpose and aim, by fixing our desires on one single thing, 
 the largest, highest, most desirable and most precious con- 
 ceivable, it does away at once with a vast amount of what 
 would otherwise be hopeless complication and confusion, the 
 source of bewilderment, vacillation, and weakness. If we 
 knew that any man here — and especially any young man 
 here — had firmly resolved that, through God's grace, come 
 what may, he would do this one thing, the will of God ; that, 
 
ONE THING NEEDFUL. 131 
 
 whatever Ccame in conflict therewith, be it in himself or the 
 world, he would oppose it ; and that whatever conscience 
 enlightened by the Holy Spirit told him that will demanded, 
 he would at all hazards do; then should we know also that, 
 although his life might prove no pleasant one, yet would it 
 be a right manly life, one which even those whom it offended 
 most would be compelled to respect because of its singleness, 
 its consistency, its concentration, its simplicity, its strength. 
 Such a man's life, whatever self-denial, whatever hardship it 
 may involve, the heart instinctively feels to be the noblest 
 thing on earth. And yet how few live thus. How few there 
 are, even of those who profess the faith of Christ, who are 
 like St Paul doing just that one thing which makes human 
 nature grand and human life noble ; and how many there 
 are like Martha minding more the many things which make 
 nature little and life mean. It is the best wish I can have 
 for you all that you may resolve to be numbered among the 
 worthier few whom God uses as His salt to preserve and savour 
 the earth ; as lights to dispel the surrounding darkness. 
 
 Set your hearts on the one thing needful, the true chief 
 end of life, and pray God to keep it there morning, noon, 
 and night. Make up your minds not to aim at many things, 
 or even at two things, but at one. Do not try to solve the 
 hopeless problem, How to make the best of both worlds ? but 
 be content to lose, if God will, the earthly world in order 
 to win the heavenly. You cannot serve two masters, you 
 cannot live with two objects, although thousands are foolishly 
 trying to do it. This so-called world of earth is no true 
 world, but only a fragment of God's rightful world. The only 
 two worlds I know of are the world of light and of life, and 
 the world of darkness and of death — the kingdom of God and 
 the kingdom of Satan — and to the one you ought wholly to 
 belong, and to the other you ought to be wholly hostile. To 
 live completely in the one and completely out of the other 
 is just the one thing needed and the one thing to be done. 
 
 Strive and pray also that your aim may not only be thus 
 clear, but that your resolution may be steady and constant. 
 It is in that that many fail. They see the object but they 
 have not the firmness to make for it. They know what the 
 
132 ONE THING NEEDFUL. 
 
 true end of life is, and they are too clear-sighted to substitute 
 another end for it, and yet they are at the mercy of a weak 
 will, of an infirm purpose, so that they cannot do the thing 
 that they would. These are very sorrowful cases. Combined 
 with true instincts and genuine impulses of good, with warm 
 affections, and it may be holy desires, there is a weakness 
 and a bias in the nature which makes all else useless, and 
 causes the man whose eye is set on heaven to drift helplessly 
 and hopelessly into the abyss of spiritual ruin. Strive and 
 pray, therefore, for that grace of a strong and steadfast will 
 without which piety is impossible and hope a delusion. 
 
 And seek yet further a high and holy zeal in the doing of 
 this one great and glorious thing which is to be your life 
 work. Like St Paul, press towards the mark : like St Paul, 
 run with all the eagerness and speed God is willing to give 
 you. The goal which you have before you is the utmost and 
 highest degree of perfection you can attain. God will give 
 you strength enough to reach it, but not more than enough ; 
 time enough to reach it, but none to waste. You are as a 
 traveller the end of whose journey is at once so important 
 and so remote that he must allow nothing to divert him 
 from his path or to arrest or interrupt him on it. Pain and 
 pleasure, good fortune and bad, will, if he is wise, be regarded 
 by him as merely incidents of his journey. The wind blows, 
 the rain falls, the traveller wraps his cloak around him and 
 struggles on ; the storm passes off, the sunshine breaks forth 
 and warms his numbed limbs, he smiles with pleasure and 
 thanks God in his heart; but neither storm nor sunshine 
 changes or stops his course. Be ye such travellers. Press 
 continuously, resolutely, zealously onwards. 
 
 " From strength to strength go on ; 
 
 Wrestle, and fight, and pray ; 
 Tread all the powers of darkness down. 
 
 And win the well-fought day ; 
 That having all things done, 
 
 And all your conflicts past, 
 Ye may o'ercome through Christ alone, 
 
 And stand complete at last." 
 
 May God add His blessing to what has been said, and to 
 His name be glory for ever. Amen. 
 
XL 
 BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD'S LAW.^ 
 
 •' Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy 
 law." — Psalm cxix. 18, 
 
 THE man who uttered these words felt that he was under 
 Divine law ; that clearly to see the glory of that law was 
 a matter of supreme importance to him ; and that he could 
 only hope to see it through God being pleased to enable him 
 to see it. He did not feel that he was without a law, and so 
 he did not pray for a law. He felt, on the contrary, that he 
 was most assuredly under a law, and a wonderful law, — one 
 worthy of God and of the most awful interest to man. He 
 felt that he knew it but badly and that it deeply concerned 
 him to know it well ; that to realise its sublimity and compre- 
 hensiveness, its marvellous wisdom, its perfect righteousness, 
 would be light and strength and life to his soul ; but that so 
 to realise it God must vouchsafe to him a sacred influence, 
 a spiritual enlightenment. And he had sufficient faith in 
 His God to believe that He was able and willing thus to 
 help him ; — sufficient faith to believe that he might without 
 presumption, irreverence, or fear, pray that God would guide 
 him to a correct acquaintance with His blessed will. All 
 that led him thus to pray, however, still exists to lead us 
 to offer up with as much sincerity and earnestness the same 
 prayer, and the design of whatever I have to say at this 
 time is to help you to realise your need of thus praying 
 without ceasing, or, in other words, of living continually in 
 the spirit of this prayer, longing with your whole hearts to 
 have the eyes of your minds at all times kept divinely open, 
 to behold wondrous things out of God's law. May God grant 
 that what I have to say fail not wholly of this aim. 
 
 1 Preached in Lady Yester's Church, Edinburgh, before an audience consisting 
 largely of students. 
 
 133 
 
134 BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD's LAW. 
 
 I may begin, then, by remarking that there are assuredly 
 countless wonders to be beheld in God's law, had we only 
 open eyes to behold them. There is nothing so wonderful 
 as God's law ; nay, it may justly be said to include in itself 
 all that is most wonderful — all that truly merits our admira- 
 tion — all that will really reward our curiosity. For what is it ? 
 The Psalmist here was not thinking merely of the law given to 
 Moses or of the words written in any book, however sacred. 
 He was not thinking of spoken words or written characters, 
 but of eternal realities. He was an earnest man, and his 
 mind sought to be in contact with truth itself ; he was a 
 pious man, and his heart longed for nothing less or lower 
 than communion with the living God. He felt himself in 
 the Divine presence, and he felt that the Divine Law was 
 within and around him. The Bible tells us much about the 
 law of God, but it is only by a figure of speech that we call 
 it the law of God or even say that it contains the law of God. 
 In the Bible and other books we have the statements of God's 
 laws, but these laws themselves are far too real to be in any book. 
 
 I read in the Bible, for example, that God has " set His 
 glory in the heavens," but in merely reading this I do not 
 see that glory ; it is only to be seen by " considering the 
 heavens, which are the Avork of God's fingers; the moon and 
 the stars, which He has ordained." This terrible law — "the 
 wages of sin is death " — has been published in the Bible but 
 it does not exist and work in the Bible; it exists and works 
 in the lives of sinful beings like you and__^me, and if we do 
 not see it in ourselves we shall never see it at all, although 
 we read a thousand times the words which announce it. So 
 with its gracious counterpart, — " the ''gift of God is eternal 
 life through Jesus Christ." These blessed words point us to 
 the most consoling law in all the universe, but they point us 
 away from themselves, and only by our souls coming into com- 
 munion with a living God through a living Saviour can they 
 behold the wonders of mercy and truth which are in that law. 
 
 No law of God, natural or spiritual, can be shut up in a 
 book. The law of God is what keeps the stars in their 
 courses, what regulates the movements of the seas and the 
 revolutions of the earth, what^ develops the plant and orga- 
 
BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD's LAW. 135 
 
 nises the animal, works in our instincts and guides our 
 reasons, marks out the path of humanity and determines 
 the rise and fall, the weal and woe, of nations, and measures 
 out to virtue and vice their due rewards in time and eternity. 
 It is not truly separable from God Himself, but is the whole 
 of the modes in which He manifests His power, and wisdom, 
 and goodness in the universe, — the whole of the ways in which 
 He operates through matter and spirit, in creation, providence, 
 and redemption, as Father and King and Judge. Hence it 
 is that I say it is not only most wonderful but includes in 
 itself all that is wonderful. The wonders of physical nature, 
 of the human soul and human history, and of redeeming love 
 and grace, are all wonders of that law of God which the 
 Psalmist longed and prayed to behold, — that law which ruleth 
 alike in what is least and greatest, — to which all things in 
 heaven and earth do homage, — the seat of which is the bosom 
 of the Eternal, — the voice of which is the harmony of the 
 universe. There is no science cultivated among us which 
 can have anything else for its highest aim than simply to 
 discover and exhibit some part of the Divine Law, The end 
 of every kind of study worthy of our engaging in is, directly 
 or indirectly, to extend our knowledge of laws, which we 
 distinguish from one another by calling laws of astronomy 
 or chemistry, laws of language or history, physical, moral, or 
 spiritual laws, but which all agree in being laws of God, the 
 operations of His will, the expressions of His character, the 
 rules which He has implanted in His creatures and assigned 
 to them as the conditions and limits of their workings. 
 
 We are apt, however, not to feel thus, and our reasons for 
 seeking knowledge are apt to be not thus pious and elevated, 
 but selfish and mean, and then knowledge is degraded, and 
 the life occupied in acquiring it loses all dignity and worth. 
 And this leads me to what I wish to remark on next, viz. 
 that men are prone to separate in their thoughts what are 
 inseparable in fact, God from His law, and to feel as if He 
 had no connection with the law and the law had no connec- 
 tion with Him. And the forms of this error are two, for some 
 lose sight of God while studying the wonders of the law, 
 and others overlook or despise the wonders of the law while 
 
136 BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD's LAW. 
 
 anxious to behold God. Both of these are great dangers. 
 The ocean of life, perhaps, contains none greater. On both 
 many noble and hopeful minds have been wrecked. And in 
 no age, probably, have so many been thus lost as in our own. 
 In order to avoid them men had never more urgent need than 
 now to pray — "Open Thou mine eyes," — and to watch as well 
 as pray. 
 
 There are some, then, who lose sight of God while beholding 
 the wonders of the law. There are some — alas, in our days 
 there are many — the chief occupation of whose life is to 
 discover and declare what are the laws of the world, and yet 
 who do not feel, nay, who deny, that these laws are God's 
 laws, and maintain that they can find no reason for believing 
 in the existence or working of God. One of the greatest 
 astronomers who ever lived pronounced in the name of his 
 science the belief in God a useless hypothesis. A thinker 
 who has exerted an extraordinary influence on recent opinion 
 affirmed that the heavens declare no other glory than that 
 of Laplace and Newton. No week passes but we may read 
 in newspaper or magazine, pamphlet or book, assertions or 
 reasonings of men, whose scientific eminence is undoubted, 
 to the effect that matter and force alone can account for 
 whatever of law and order is to be seen in the physical world, 
 and that there is nowhere to be seen in it any evidence of 
 a God. And this blindness to the presence of God on the 
 part of those whose minds are most occupied with the study 
 of His laws is in no way confined to those who are chiefly 
 interested in the material universe. In proportion to the 
 whole number engaged in the study of mind, there are, 
 perhaps, as many who think there is no occasion to refer the 
 laws of our intellects to the workings of an eternal Eeason, 
 the laws of our affections to the feelings of a Heavenly Father. 
 It is not otherwise in regard to moral laws. Many make them 
 the subjects of elaborate inquiry and discussion, who find in 
 them no traces of having their source in the bosom of God. 
 Keligion itself is studied in our days with a comprehensive- 
 ness previously unknown, its various phases from the rudest 
 fetichism of savage tribes to the highest forms of Chris- 
 tianity are laboriously compared and contrasted, analysed and 
 
BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD'S LAW. 137 
 
 connected, by men who see in it merely a series of creations 
 of the human mind, no gradual unveiling of the Godhead. 
 
 What are we to think of all this ? Doubtless it might well 
 raise many thoughts, but scarcely one, I think, more certainly 
 true or practically important than that our intellectual percep- 
 tion of law is one thing and our spiritual perception of God in 
 law is a very different thing. To see law itself we need only a 
 clear and disciplined understanding. To see God in law we 
 need spiritual discernment. The eye sees only what it brings 
 with it the power of seeing. And neither mere bodily vision 
 nor mere intellectual vision will enable us to behold spiritual 
 reality. Tlie things of the spirit must be spiritually discerned. 
 When on a serene night millions of stars sparkle in the depths 
 of the sky, any man who has bodily eyes, although he may 
 have no talent and no culture, has only to raise them upwards 
 to embrace at a glance all the splendours of the firmament, and 
 thereby to receive into his soul, at least in some measure, the 
 impressions which so sublime a spectacle is fitted to produce. 
 But there may stand beside him one whose intellectual ability 
 is far greater, and who has improved that ability to the utmost 
 by diligent and carefully directed exercise, yet if Providence 
 have denied to him the blessing of sight, in vain for him will 
 there be all that magnificence. There is another sky, and one 
 far grander than the azure vault which is stretched over our 
 heads, and this mystic sky is filled with the stars of Divine 
 truth, the wonders of creative power, the mysteries of infinite 
 wisdom, the bounties of Divine beneficence, the beauties of 
 absolute holiness, the marvels of redeeming love, the riches of 
 the Godhead, the glories of Father, Son, and Spirit, shining far 
 more bright and pure than the sun at noonday. And yet to 
 great men, to the wise of this world, to the most scholarly 
 and the most scientific of men, they may be quite invisible, 
 although they are lighting up with their divine radiance the 
 path of the simple peasant and causing his heart to leap and 
 sing with joy as he beholds them. 
 
 Let no one of us think, then, that by mere force of study, 
 by the mere unaided exertion of the understanding, he may 
 count with confidence on coming at length to see all that is 
 to be seen of God in the laws of the universe. A man might 
 
138 BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOd's LAW. 
 
 know all that is to be known of the laws of matter, mind, and 
 history, and strain to exhaustion the intellectual powers by 
 which he had acquired this knowledge in order to derive from 
 it a certainty of God's presence, power, wisdom, and love, and 
 yet utterly fail. There must be a certain illumination, a certain 
 opening of the spiritual eye, which can only come from God 
 Himself, before we can have any true view of God. Without 
 this no sacredness in His laws themselves will suffice to cause 
 us to see God in tbem. 
 
 But to forget God while we are occupied with His law is not 
 our only danger. There is another scarcely less serious. It is 
 to treat His law as not worth looking at while we pretend to 
 desire to behold Himself. And this is what many people do. 
 They are very ready to cry out about the atheism and impiety 
 of the scientific men who express such sentiments as I have 
 been referring to, and very emphatically profess their own faith 
 that the world is the work of God and its laws but His modes 
 of action, yet show the profoundest indifference as to what 
 its character and laws are. Now, I cannot see that these 
 persons are much better than those whom they blame. It is 
 no doubt most lamentable that any man should be so far left 
 to himself as to affirm that the heavens declare no other glory 
 than that of Newton and Laplace, but is it much more lament- 
 able than that men who profess to believe that "the heavens 
 declare the glory of God," and who live in an age when any 
 man who can read may acquire in two or three hours a know- 
 ledge of the wonders of God's law and glory in the heavens 
 such as the Psalmist had no conception of, should refuse 
 to take even the slight trouble necessary? The atheistical 
 astronomer at least realises that the law, so far as it comes 
 within the range of his science, is very wonderful and tries 
 to let his fellow-men know bow wonderful it is, and thus, even 
 while not acknowledging it to be God's law, unconsciously and 
 unwillingly glorifies God by his admiration of it ; but he who, 
 knowing it to be divine, turns from its wonders with indiffer- 
 ence, thereby dishonours Him whom he professes to reverence. 
 If a little less blind than the atheist, he is much more in- 
 consistent. 
 
 If we really believed all the laws of the universe to be the 
 
BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOd's LAW. 139 
 
 expressions of God's character, the ways in which His will 
 works, we should welcome all discoveries regarding them, all 
 light, from whatever quarter coming, concerning any one of 
 them. We should feel that every new truth we can learn must 
 necessarily be a means of increasing our knowledge of God. 
 But I need scarcely say that a great many professing believers 
 have no such feeling, no such faith, and that it is just the want 
 of this faith in those who ought to have it which has done more 
 harm to the cause of religion among intellectual men than all 
 other causes together. Scarcely can any new truth be an- 
 nounced or new theory raised in any department of inquiry but 
 you find persons rushing forward to assail it under the fear that 
 if it be established religion will be injured or ruined. Let us 
 cast utterly out of our minds every fear of this kind. Nothing 
 ever will be established which will do religion anything else 
 than good. Nothing ever will be brought to light which will 
 do God anything else than honour. The more His works and 
 ways are inquired into the more wondrous will they appear, 
 the more glorious and good will He be found to be. It is not 
 faith in God, but the want of it, which causes any man to look 
 upon nature or science with distrust or aversion or even with 
 indifference. Faith is the confidence that God is true, that all 
 truth is from God, and so that truth of its very nature tends to 
 raise the mind to God and to help it to form a larger and juster 
 conception of His character and ways. Therefore, we shall do 
 well to desire and pray for a keener interest, and a more deeply 
 and directly religious interest, in all truth accessible to us, or, 
 in other words, for eyes more open to the wonders of God's law 
 in the very widest sense of that term. 
 
 And now it is high time for me to observe that while all the 
 laws of God should, as far as possible, be objects of interest and 
 admiration to us, these laws are not all of the same practical 
 importance to us. There are many of them which we must all 
 be ignorant of, and which we may safely be ignorant of. There 
 are many of them which we might know had we only time to 
 make ourselves acquainted with them, yet we cannot, consis- 
 tently with duty, spare the time necessary to ascertain them. 
 On the other hand, there is a class of laws of awful significance 
 to us, which we must on no account be ignorant of, and the 
 
140 BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD's LAW. 
 
 wonders of which we must on no plea excuse ourselves from 
 striving to behold clearly and steadily, and in the marvellous 
 light which God has been pleased to throw around them. The 
 laws which regulate the movements of the heavenly bodies and 
 those which regulate chemical combinations are undoubtedly 
 full of interest both in themselves and as illustrations of God's 
 power and wisdom, and if, without too serious a sacrifice, we 
 can learn what they are, let us do so even as a religious exercise 
 and duty ; still, after all, they concern us little in comparison 
 with the laws which God has given us for the regulation of our 
 own lives. The laws of astronomy are, of course, all-important 
 for the planets; the laws of chemistry are, of course, all- 
 important for such things as oxygen and hydrogen ; but, as we 
 are neither astronomical bodies nor chemical elements, but 
 rational, moral, and religious beings under spiritual laws, by con- 
 forming to which we shall glorify God, bless our fellow-creatures, 
 and secure for ourselves honour and immortality, while by 
 violating them we shall offend God, hurt our fellows both in 
 their bodies and souls, and ruin ourselves both for time and 
 eternity, manifestly these spiritual laws, the laws of rational 
 and peaceable, of righteous and holy, living, are of infinitely 
 greater moment to us. And clearly it was mainly these laws, 
 or what he also describes as the commandments, the statutes, 
 and precepts of God, His righteous judgments and His testi- 
 monies, that the Psalmist prayed to behold ; and it is mainly 
 these laws that every pious man will pray to behold, feeling, as 
 he must, that if ignorant of them, if blind to their wonders, the 
 clearest beholding of the wonders of all the other laws in the 
 universe will not avail him, nay, will only in the end turn to 
 his condemnation. 
 
 In reality, whether we see it or not, there is far more that is 
 wonderful in these laws than in any other. They are, for 
 example, the laws of God in a far higher sense than other laws. 
 The laws of the physical world might have been quite different 
 from what they are. God made them to be what they are by 
 making the physical world itself what it is. If He had made 
 quite a different material world with quite other laws, He 
 would have been none the less God, the true object of our 
 worship. But He did not make the fundamental laws of moral 
 
BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GOD's LAW. 141 
 
 life to be what they are by any mere forthputting of His will. 
 They are eternal and unchangeable. That God should alter 
 them would be for Him to cease to be wise, and righteous, and 
 holy, and loving. It would be for Him to cease to be God. 
 The wonders of these laws are thus the wonders of the Divine 
 nature, and far greater, therefore, than any wonders of created 
 nature. At the same time, these laws are the laws of our 
 natures, of our spirits, of what is much higher and much more 
 wonderful than anything else to be beheld in nature. " On 
 earth," it has been said, "there is nothing great but man, and 
 in man there is nothing great but mind." And certainly a soul 
 is a far more wonderful thing than even a star, a spiritual being 
 than a material world, and its laws far more wonderful. It is 
 spiritual law which determines men's relations to their God 
 and to one another, and it is on obedience or disobedience to it 
 that the weal or woe of individuals or societies chiefly depends, 
 so that all the marvels and mysteries of human life and destiny 
 gather around it. 
 
 If we would see, however, its wonders in the most impressive 
 light we must turn to Revelation. Revelation in its very nature, 
 and from beginning to end, is a testimony to the sacredness 
 of such law as I am now speaking of. Every miracle, every 
 prophecy, every striking dispensation recorded in Scripture, 
 whatever else it may have meant, was always a proclamation 
 from God to man that they should reverence this His law. 
 When this law was republished on Sinai it was out of blackness 
 and darkness and tempest, amidst thunders and lightnings, 
 upon a quaking mountain, before a trembling nation. These 
 things were full of significance. They were no idle, theatrical 
 thunders, meant merely to astonish and frighten a rude and 
 barbarous people. They were the appropriate indications of 
 the majesty of the law. Yet to that on Calvary there was 
 borne another and far more wonderful testimony. To behold 
 fully how wonderful the law is — how sacred God regards it to 
 be — how terrible disobedience to it is — it is to the cross we 
 must look ; to the cross, towering high above all other objects, 
 in the midst of the ages, in the presence of the nations, to show 
 sin in all its hideousness and righteousness in all its perfections. 
 If we can see no wonders in the law which Christ died to satisfy 
 
142 BEHOLDING THE WONDERS OF GODS LAW. 
 
 and glorify, if we do not see it to be unspeakably more wonder- 
 ful than all other law, assuredly our blindness is great indeed, 
 and we cannot too earnestly cry to a merciful God, " Open Thou 
 mine eyes." 
 
 All that I have thus far said has in some measure implied 
 what I have now distinctly to state, viz. that it is not enough 
 to have God's law before us or His truth disclosed, but we need 
 also to have our eyes opened to see the law, our minds helped 
 to understand the truth. The reason of man can no more act 
 aright independently of God than his will can. If a person 
 would do a really good action, his will must renounce itself and 
 submit to be directed by the will of God, and equally if he would 
 really possess the truth his reason must renounce itself and 
 submit to be taught of God. Grace is just as much needed to 
 control and guide the reason as to control and guide the will. 
 Just as the will has been made to find its life in the holiness of 
 God, reason has been made to find its life in the wisdom of 
 God ; neither of them has been so made as to have any true 
 life apart from and independent of God. 
 
 This has been felt to be so by the wise and pious in all 
 ages and countries. Wherever, even among the heathen, a man 
 has attained to any decided religious thoughtfulness, he has 
 always recognised that he and his fellow-men have no true 
 wisdom which God has not taught them, and can only see 
 aright the truth which ought to guide their spiritual life in the 
 measure that their eyes are opened to see it. You know what 
 a multitude of prayers there are in the Book of Psalms like 
 that in the text : prayers for God to give light, to open the eyes, 
 to make His law clear and plain. But prayers of just the same 
 kind are almost as numerous in the Vedas, in the sacred hymns 
 of the Hindus. You cannot read long anywhere in the Bible 
 without coming upon some declaration referring the wise and 
 good thoughts of men to the Spirit of the Lord, and no more 
 can you read long in the Koran without coming on a like 
 declaration. When the Gospel appeared, among all the objec- 
 tions urged against it by the heathen philosophers, no excep- 
 tion, so far as we know, was taken to its doctrine of a direct 
 spiritual action of the Divine mind on the human, for that had 
 been fully recognised not only by the greatest of their own 
 
BEHOLDING THE WONDER& OF GOd's LAW. 143 
 
 teachers in philosophy, but even by their popular poets, like 
 Homer. When, therefore, our wise men nowadays would 
 throw off this belief in the need of the Divine enlightenment of 
 the mind as a mere Bible dogma or Christian superstition, they 
 fall into a mistake. What they would get rid of is one of the 
 essential wants of humanity, one of those universal convictions 
 of the heart which must be true or our nature is a lie. Just as 
 wherever human beings have felt their weakness, have felt all 
 natural and human help fail them, they have instinctively 
 turned to their God for help ; so wherever human beings have 
 been sufficiently quickened in mind to feel their ignorance, to 
 feel their need of having greater insight into moral and reli- 
 gious truth, they have instinctively turned to their God for 
 light. And doubtless not in vain. 
 
 At any rate, a heathen, however great the darkness which 
 surrounds him, who feels the darkness and longs and prays for 
 the light, is nearer to the light and in a less hopeless darkness 
 than the proud and self-conceited man who thinks himself so 
 wise, so possessed of all truth, that he has no need of God's 
 teaching, and is greatly more intelligent than those who pray 
 for it. There is no blindness like to the blindness of that man. 
 Nature may ray out its truths upon him from every object, 
 great and small, which it contains ; all the centuries of civilisa- 
 tion may bring their lessons to him, and every means of edu- 
 cation which human ingenuity has devised may be employed to 
 inculcate and illustrate them ; a completed Bible may be at all 
 times open to him ; the light of the cross may beat upon his 
 eyeballs ; and yet he will remain stone blind to the glorious 
 realities which these things are disclosing to the lowly, the un- 
 lettered, almost to babes and sucklings, and will, perhaps, even 
 say in his heart " there is no God." Unless God open our eyes, 
 then, to behold the wonders of His law no clearness in the 
 outward revelation of its wonders will give us a true view of 
 them. We shall see and yet not perceive. It will be with us 
 as it was with those Israelites to whom Moses said, " Ye have 
 seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt 
 unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land ; 
 the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the sie^ns, 
 and the great miracles ; yet " — mark that " yet " — " yet the 
 
144 BEHOLDING THE WONDEKS OF GOD's LAW. 
 
 Lord hatli not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, 
 and ears to hear unto this day," 
 
 Considerations like these surely show abundantly the 
 reasonableness of praying to God, like the Psalmist, for Divine 
 enlightenment. True prayer is the means of putting ourselves 
 in communion with Him who can alone give inward illumina- 
 tion, and it is the expression of the only frame or temper of 
 mind to which it will be granted. If prayer be true it means 
 that he who prays feels his dependence on God, and surrenders 
 himself to Him. And the feeling of dependence upon God for 
 spiritual guidance, the self-surrender of the mind to be taught 
 by Him, is just what, above all, God asks of us as a condition 
 of our gaining spiritual perception and knowledge, for He is 
 most willing to guide and teach us. Let us thus feel. Let us 
 realise that all true knowledge of God's law must come from 
 above ; that, although in virtue of our freedom of will we can 
 withdraw our powers of perception and reasoning from the 
 Divine guidance, yet if we do so we cannot enjoy the vision 
 and experience of Divine things. Let us with this conscious- 
 ness of our natural ignorance, and in the belief that God is 
 willing to teach us and to turn our inward gloom into glorious 
 day, earnestly seek to have our eyes opened, and the central 
 darkness within us dispelled, and the great blessing will not be 
 denied us. 
 
 May God bless what now has been said. And to His name 
 be glory for ever. Amen. 
 
XII. 
 
 NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 " And be not conformed to this world. . . ." — Romans xii. 2. 
 
 THE great aim of the Apostle Paul in the first eleven 
 chapters of the Epistle to the Romans was to convince 
 his readers that men of no race or class, neither Jews nor 
 Gentiles, could claim eternal life on the ground of their own 
 merits, but, in order to receive it, must be content to accept 
 it humbly and thankfully from the grace of God. His own 
 summary of his whole argument is, " For God hath concluded 
 them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all." 
 To this mercy or grace he traces the calling, the election, the 
 justification, the sanctification, the peace, the joys, the hopes, 
 and, in a word, all the blessings shown by him to be included 
 in the portion of a Christian. These glorious privileges are all 
 mercies, pure mercies of God. 
 
 From the commencement of the twelfth chapter to the close 
 of his epistle we find the Apostle presenting those mercies 
 the nature and fulness of which he had previously unfolded 
 in doctrine, as motives to Christian activity. They do not 
 produce the effect which they ought to have if they do not 
 produce righteous and holy living. It is accordingly on the 
 solid foundation which these mercies supply that the Apostle 
 raises his practical exhortations. He asks us, he beseeches us, 
 to do thus and thus for God because of what God has done 
 for us. 
 
 And as our first great duty, the most comprehensive of 
 duties, he urges us to yield ourselves up in the body, with 
 every power of action, love, and service which we possess, to 
 God as a living sacrifice, a holy, acceptable, and rational offer- 
 ing. He could ask from us no more than he has thus done, 
 
 for he has asked everything. He could ask from us no less, 
 
 145 ,, 
 
 K 
 
146 NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 for all this is due. Those so entirely dependent on God as 
 we are, as all men are — who owe as we do everything to the 
 mercies of God — can only live aright if we live wholly to God, 
 and withhold nothing from Him, 
 
 Closely connected with this all-embracing exhortation or 
 appeal are the injunctions in the verse from which my text 
 is taken. They are implied in it, and they help to explain and 
 define it. The advice not to be conformed to the world, but to 
 be transformed through renewal of the mind, tells us how we 
 are to present to God the sacrifices of our bodies, of our own 
 selves in the body. What is required is that through a radical 
 change in our natures, our affections be so withdrawn from, 
 and raised above, the world, and so surrendered and devoted 
 to God, that our bodies, with all their living energies, organs, 
 and members, faculties and desires, may be directed towards 
 the accomplishment not of low and selfish aims, but of exalted 
 and divine ones. This is the chief demand, the fundamental 
 law, of the Christian life. He who complies with it is a 
 Christian ; he who does not is not. He who complies with it 
 is a man of the highest type to be found on earth ; he who 
 does not, whatever good qualities he may possess, is of a lower 
 type. And, clearly, he who complies with it must be what the 
 Apostle meant by " not conformed to the world." 
 
 " Be not conformed to this world," says he ; or more exactly, 
 as in the Eevised Version, "be not fashioned according to this 
 world " — this age. The spirit of the age in which he lived was 
 evil. The world around him lay in darkness. The Jews had 
 rejected Messiah and were trusting in a righteousness altogether 
 false for acceptance with God. The Gentiles were given up to 
 superstition and vice. The world was emphatically a wicked 
 world, alienated from God, sold under sin, enslaved by Satan. 
 But God in His mercy had called out of it, had redeemed out 
 of it, in and through Christ, those who received Christ. They 
 had been brought into another world ; they had been inspired 
 with the spirit of a new age ; and they were not to follow the 
 fashion of the world out of which they had been delivered, not 
 to be ruled by the spirit of the age which for them should be 
 for ever past and gone. 
 
 When St Paul spoke, then, of " the world " or " age" it was 
 
NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 147 
 
 of it as a system or constitution opposed to another which he 
 wished to see replace it ; as a kingdom contrary to the kingdom 
 of God ; as the world of those who rejected Christ in contrast 
 to the world of those who accepted Hira ; as an embodiment 
 of principles which he hated. It was in the light of its prin- 
 ciples that he looked upon it. Here, on the one hand, was 
 Christianity with all its holy precepts, with all its rich promises, 
 with all its gladdening prospects. There, on the other hand, 
 were self-righteousness and heathenism, the consequences of 
 which were ignorance, unbelief, selfishness, crime, and misery. 
 Here was the Gospel of the Kingdom which came from God 
 and led to eternal life. There were the false principles which 
 ruled in the world and led to destruction. Hence St Paul 
 exhorted men so earnestly by the mercies of God not to be 
 conformed to the world ; that is, not to act on its principles, 
 not to regulate their lives by its spirit. 
 
 This being what he meant by the world, we see what the 
 exhortation meant, and also what it did not mean. Some have 
 understood it as if it required Christians to break the natural 
 ties which bind them to society, to isolate themselves from 
 their fellow-men, and flee to the hermit's cave or the monk's 
 cell ; or at least to set aside the common customs and arrange- 
 ments of society, and to adopt peculiar ways so as to be 
 obviously and outwardly unlike other people. This is a most 
 mistaken view. St Paul does not exhort us to run away from 
 or go out of the world, but not to fashion ourselves according 
 to the spirit of it, — not to live with its life. The noncon- 
 formity to the world which he enjoins is neither withdrawal 
 from it nor eccentricity. Without any violation of its precept, 
 the Christian may act as men of the world do in all cases 
 where his acting does not involve the adoption of worldly, 
 unchristian principles. 
 
 Surrounded although the early Christians, the contemporaries 
 of St Paul, were by a heathen society, there were yet many things 
 which they could do in common with their heathen neighbours 
 without accepting any article of a heathen creed or displaying 
 any feature of a heathen spirit, and from doing no such thing 
 did the Apostle prohibit them. He did not demand that 
 Christians should in any respect do the opposite of what the 
 
148 NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 heathen did merely because the heathen did it. He demanded 
 no unnecessary singularity, for instance, as to food or dress, 
 mode of speech or mode of life. He was in his own conduct 
 far above all littleness of that sort, and he never recommended 
 it to others. He was, as he himself tells us, all things to all 
 men, in order to gain them to the truth. He was too much 
 in earnest, and had too much to do, to create unnecessary 
 obstacles and enemies. He was willing to conform to any 
 arrangement of society which did not include, as it were, in 
 the very nature of it, worldliness of spirit, and so could not be 
 transformed or sanctified by the spirit of the Gospel. 
 
 In perfect consistency, therefore, both with his example and 
 precepts, Christians may do whatever others do, provided the 
 principles of their faith be not compromised and the principles 
 of the world antagonistic to them espoused. There is a kind of 
 conformity to the world to which all may well submit. There 
 is a certain authority in society which, within certain limits, no 
 man of sound judgment will dream of disputing. It is surely 
 a thing on which we may congratulate ourselves that society 
 should take off our hands the trouble of attending to a vast 
 number of matters of trifling moment ; that it should in a 
 general way determine for us the dress we are to wear and 
 rules of behaviour we are to observe in different countries, and 
 ranks, and occasions in life. A man must have either an ill- 
 balanced mind or very little to do if, without attributing any 
 sacredness to these decisions of society, or adhering with any 
 scrupulosity to them, he do not quietly accept them, thankful 
 to be thus not distracted from the real work of life by the 
 occupation of his mind with things unworthy of it. Our 
 Christian warfare is not against the outward forms of the 
 world in any case where these can be separated from the evil 
 of the world. It is against the evil life itself of the world. 
 It is no fantastic and trivial, but a most real and momentous 
 struggle. 
 
 It is a struggle which every Christian is still called on to 
 maintain. The world is yet with us. It has, indeed, we 
 thankfully acknowledge, changed since the days of St Paul. 
 The world around him was almost entirely contrary to the 
 kingdom of God. Now, in a professedly Christian country 
 
NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 149 
 
 like ours, the leaven of the Gospel has pervaded and more or 
 less changed the whole constitution of society, so that in all its 
 elements it has been brought partially within the kingdom of 
 God and taken partially out of what St Paul called " this world." 
 But human society is still everywhere largely worldly in the 
 sense of evil and unchristian. Hence the exhortation to be 
 not conformed to the world has not ceased to be as needful 
 as ever. In one respect it is more needful than ever, because 
 the difference between the worldly and the Christian life is 
 now often in appearance little while in reality immense. 
 
 We have thus far seen chiefly what nonconformity to the 
 world is not. We have now to inquire more specially what 
 it is. How are we so to fashion our lives as not to be con- 
 formed to this world ? What is positively implied in the non- 
 conformity to this world which is enjoined ? 
 
 Well, this at least is implied, that those of us who comply 
 with the injunction belong to another world, and live there. 
 It is implied that " this world " of sense and time is not our 
 all ; that our thoughts are not bounded by it ; that our aifec- 
 tions are not wholly or even chiefly set upon it ; that we have a 
 sphere of existence, of conscious and active existence, indepen- 
 dent of and above it, into which we can withdraw, in which we 
 are most at home, where the real seat and the true springs of our 
 life are, and out of which we can come to influence, dominate, 
 and use this world. There is implied, that is to say, in scrip- 
 tural language, a life hid with Christ in God ; having our con- 
 versation in heaven ; citizenship in the kingdom of God. 
 
 Oh my friends, is this true of us ? Is this in very fact the 
 case with us ? All depends upon it. If we are really only of 
 this world we must be conformed to this world ; if we wholly 
 belong to it we cannot rule it, it must rule us, must fashion 
 us according to its own evil earthly nature, instead of our 
 fashioning it according to the holy and divine nature which we 
 might have in God through Christ. There are many to whom 
 this world is virtually the only one ; who persistently content 
 themselves with it; whose minds are seldom, if ever, intimately 
 and intensely in contact with spiritual things, the realities of 
 eternity ; who have no real and abiding communion with the 
 Father of Spirits ; and for all such it is self-evident that non- 
 
150 NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 conformity to the world is an absolute impossibility. If we 
 would not be conformed to the world, therefore, we must not 
 be as they. We must see to it that we are really living in 
 another and higher world, that our thoughts rise above earth, 
 that our affections stretch beyond time, that our spirits day by 
 day and year by year find their rest and joy in the realised 
 presence and love of our God and Saviour. 
 
 Further, in order that we may not be conformed to this 
 world, the spirit of the higher world to which I have been 
 referring must manifest itself in our characters and conduct ; 
 the life which comes from God and tends to God must make 
 itself perceptible in our dispositions and actions. What is 
 required of us is not that we should withdraw from the world, 
 but that we should overcome the evil of the world with good. 
 It is that we should impress as far as we can the image of 
 Christ on the world, and so, as far as we can, help to restore it 
 to its lawful Lord. It is to exhibit all Christian graces in all 
 the human relations in which we have been providentially 
 placed. It is to exemplify the righteousness of the kingdom 
 of God — the faith and love towards God, the compassion, long- 
 suffering, self-sacrificing kindness, and generosity towards 
 men, the purity, peaceableness, and justice, which are the 
 essential laws and distinctive characteristics of the kingdom 
 of God — where the unrighteousness of the kingdom of Satan 
 is still prevalent, and needs to be rebuked and expelled. It 
 is to walk as children of the light however thick around us 
 may be the darkness. 
 
 In this respect, as in all others, we should look to Christ 
 as our great example. He was in the world but not of it. 
 He lived on earth and complied with all the obligations of 
 life on earth, but kept Himself pure from all earthly defile- 
 ment. He was no ascetic, no eccentric, no abnormal man ; 
 but, on the contrary, the most human of men, the perfect 
 man, the richest in all the affections and sympathies of man. 
 He made Himself the brother of all men as none else has ever 
 done ; humbled Himself and sacrificed Himself to serve and 
 save them as none else has ever done ; bore their burdens, felt 
 their griefs, took on Himself their infirmities as none else has 
 ever done ; and yet, through being and doing all this. He 
 
NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 151 
 
 only showed Himself all the more wonderfully separate from 
 sinners and separate from the world, all the more absolutely 
 holy, all the more absolutely divine. The more that we par- 
 ticipate in His Spirit, the more that we live in Him and He in 
 us, the more shall we be like what He was in the world, the 
 more shall we influence the world for good, and, at the same 
 time, the more shall we be separate from it, the less shall we 
 be conformed to it. 
 
 Nonconformity to the world, I must add, implies two other 
 things which must be mentioned, yet which are so obvious 
 that they may be merely mentioned. 
 
 The first is that no one can fail to be conformed to the 
 world who takes as his standard of judgment and rule of 
 action the opinion and approval of the world, not the truth 
 and will of God. And there are many such persons. There 
 are many among us who feel themselves safe only when think- 
 ing as others think and doing as others do ; only when not 
 differing in sentiment or practice from their neighbours. 
 They do not realise how worthless a thing mere opinion is ; 
 that it has no value at all unless it correspond to fact ; that 
 what God demands of us is to believe what is really true, and 
 to do what is really right, not to believe or do merely what 
 other people believe to be true or right to be done. God 
 would have us to rest only on fact, not opinion ; on reality, not 
 appearance ; on what He has Himself done or enacted, not 
 on what we or others fancy or wish. He requires of us a 
 truthfulness which will be content with no substitute for His 
 truth. And if we would not be conformed to the world we 
 must carry into our religious life, into our whole life, this 
 spirit of absolute truthfulness. We must be of those for 
 whom the great question in life is not what do men say, or 
 think, or do ; not what is the opinion, will, or practice of the 
 world, but what is true and right in itself; what is the judg- 
 ment and will of God. 
 
 Next, the man who would not be conformed to the world 
 must not only refuse to accept a worldly standard of life, but 
 set before himself other than worldly ends of life. He cannot, 
 without conformity to the world, make worldly gain, or honour, 
 or pleasure his chief aim, or waste his strength and substance 
 
152 NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 on what is frivolous, sensuous, sinful. He cannot, without 
 conformity to the world, live exclusively or mainly to self in 
 any form, for living to self is selfishness, and selfishness is 
 the very root of all worldliness. Out of it there springs only 
 a poor, mean, earthly life, in which no human soul can develop 
 itself, but necessarily consumes and destroys itself. To be 
 not conformed to the world man must live to Christ, must live 
 in an atmosphere of love, must live as becomes a spiritual and 
 imraoi'tal being, a child of God, and heir of immortality. He 
 must realise his true relationship to God and man, and his 
 obligations to seek to glorify God and do good to men. This 
 high aim he must strive to carry out consistently and uniformly 
 in every department of life, in every action, and in every word. 
 Only so can he avoid all conformity to the world. 
 
 It will now, I hope, be obvious to you from what has been 
 said that the injunction of St Paul to be not conformed to the 
 world is in its own nature a very broad and comprehensive 
 one. It is so also as regards its sphere of application. The 
 whole of our life, the whole range of our consciousness, activity, 
 and influence, should be ruled by it. 
 
 "Be not conformed to this world." Be not conformed to 
 it in your hearts. The "world" is there, and you have to 
 overcome it there by conforming to the law of God there, so 
 that not the world but God's kingdom may reign within you. 
 The kingdom of God is not to be thought of as merely a far- 
 away world or a churchly organisation. On the contrary, it 
 is essentially humility and meekness of spirit, hatred of sin, 
 love of righteousness, a merciful disposition, a pure, honest, 
 and earnest heart. To be conformed to it, and not conformed 
 to the world, you must have these and not their opposites. 
 Your thoughts must be just, your feelings pure, all your 
 inclinations good, all your aims generous and noble. It is 
 precisely here, in fact, that the main stress, the decisive shock 
 and struggle of the battle which you have to wage in life 
 must lie. Conquer inwardly and you will conquer outwardly. 
 Be conquered within and you will be conquered without. The 
 heart itself is the key of the whole position. Defeated there, 
 no side victories will save you from crushing disaster. Out 
 of the heart are the issues of life and of death. * 
 
NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 153 
 
 " Be not conformed to this world." Be not conformed to it 
 within the circle of the family. That may seem to be a small 
 circle. But it is just within the narrowest spheres that the 
 best and most important work is often done. Were a Christian 
 spirit, a truly good spirit, prevalent in the families of our land, 
 our whole social life would soon be Christian and good. But, 
 alas, a worldly, immoral, irreligious spirit is far more common. 
 The fountains are polluted. How can the streams be pure? 
 Fathers and mothers exert a far greater influence for good or 
 evil on society than politicians and legislators. A celebrated 
 author has declared that " the first seven years of life are the 
 most decisive, because then a mother's discipline lays so firm a 
 foundation that the rest of life is seldom able to affect it." 
 Not improbably he was right. A mother who is herself a 
 Christian may by her example and discipline do, without going 
 beyond her own household, more for Christ's cause than a 
 minister of the Gospel can effect by the preaching of a life- 
 time. But alas, how many mothers take no thought of using 
 their power aright, and so abuse it through conformity to the 
 evil passions and evil ways of this world, as to ruin the souls 
 of their children and grievously to wrong and injure society ! 
 
 " Be not conformed to this world." Be not conformed to it 
 within the Church. The Church should be altogether un- 
 worldly. It may be in reality the most worldly part of this 
 world. The house dedicated to God is not unfrequently one in 
 which those who are wont to assemble in it grievously fail to 
 realise as they ought how those who are united with Christ are 
 united with one another. There was a time, not so very far 
 distant, when the non-official members of our congregations 
 were hardly expected to feel much interest or take much part 
 in their work or welfare. There has certainly been consider- 
 able improvement in this respect during the last half century. 
 But there is room for vast improvement still. What the 
 Church above all needs, what our congregations most require, 
 is an abundant baptism of the Spirit which made the multitude 
 of those who first received the Gospel " of one heart and of one 
 soul." Nowhere is the cold and deadening spirit of the world 
 80 out of place as in connection with the life and work of the 
 Church, where all is vain if the warm, sincere, and invigorating 
 
154 NONCONFORMITY TO THIS WORLD. 
 
 love, which is the most distinctive and precious gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, be lacking. 
 
 Time does not permit me to insist on the importance of our 
 not being conformed to the world in our ordinary business or 
 professional life ; or to indicate how as citizens of a nation and 
 members of general society we ought to exert what influence 
 we can to promote conformity to the laws of truth and righteous- 
 ness, and subserviency to the holy and beneficent ends which 
 God prescribes for nations and society. 
 
 " Be not conformed to this world." It is easy advice, it may 
 perhaps be said, to give but very diflicult advice to take. Yes, 
 my friends, and it may even be said advice utterly impossible 
 for any one to take of himself. The Apostle tells us as much 
 very plainly in the words immediately following those which 
 we have considered. There is no freedom from conformity to 
 the world to be hoped for by us unless through our being 
 transformed by the renewal of our minds. We must have a 
 new nature if we are to live in a new world. The nature we 
 are born with — the corrupt nature of flesh and blood and of 
 the will of man — is capable only of a worldly life. What is of 
 the earth must be earthy. The flesh knows not the things of 
 the spirit, for they are spiritually discerned. 
 
 But to whom does God ever deny a new nature ? To whom 
 does He ever refuse His Holy Spirit ? To none who earnestly 
 ask for them. Of all His gifts He is most willing to give us 
 the greatest of all. His Holy Spirit. Yes, more willing than to 
 allow His sun to shine upon us or to send us daily bread. The 
 Holy Spirit is a gift which He beseeches all men to ask and 
 receive. If we would resist the world, therefore, successfully; 
 if we would conquer it instead of conforming to it ; let us 
 beseech God earnestly and continuously to renew our minds ; 
 to give us holy hearts through His Holy Spirit ; to do this now, 
 and to be ever doing it, until no element of the old nature, no 
 principle of " this world " is to be found in us. 
 
 May God bless what has now been said. And to His name 
 be glory for ever. Amen. 
 
XIII. 
 REST IN CHRIST. 
 
 "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest." — Matthew xi. 28. 
 
 CHRIST here declares Himself to be God and Saviour by 
 the promise of what Almighty God and a Perfect Saviour 
 can alone give. His promise, however, is neither universal nor 
 absolute. It is only made to a specified class of men — the 
 labouring and heavy laden ; and to that class only on a 
 specified condition — the coming to Himself. It therefore 
 cannot be understood by us unless we consider it with refer- 
 ence to the persons to whom it is made, and with reference 
 to the condition on which it is made. When so considered 
 it will be found to contain the very marrow, the substance, of 
 the Gospel. God grant that with grateful and glad hearts we 
 may meditate on, and comply with, the blessed invitation here 
 given us. 
 
 This, then, has first to be noticed, that Christ makes His 
 invitation and promises His reward only to the labouring and 
 heavy laden. He asks nothing from, and promises nothing to, 
 those who feel as if they had no burdens to bear, or as if they 
 had strength enough in themselves to support all that had been 
 or could be laid upon them. Now there are two feelings 
 essentially characteristic of those who labour and are heavy 
 laden. There is a feeling of pressure on the soul, and there 
 is a feeling of feebleness within it. Indifference or insensi- 
 bility in its various forms is in direct antagonism to the former 
 of these feelings ; pride or self-dependence in its various forms 
 is in direct antagonism to the latter. 
 
 There is a feeling of pressure on the soul. Life is realised to 
 involve weighty responsibilities. It is realised to involve tasks 
 difficult and harassing. All who are spiritually quite careless and 
 thoughtless, all who rejoice exclusively in youth or strength, in 
 
156 REST IN CHJEIIST. 
 
 attractions of body or acquirements of mind, in popular applause 
 or worldly wealth, labour not and bear no load because life lies as 
 yet with no weight upon them, — because they fancy it far lighter 
 and far less serious than it is, — because they have never looked 
 upon it clearly and comprehensively, — have never learned the 
 heaviness of its tasks and the hollowness of its promises, — how 
 real its evils are and how false its joys are. They have seen it 
 only when surrounded with the halo of a transient beauty, with 
 a cloudy and delusive glory. Their experience of it has been 
 wanting alike in depth and breadth, has been both superficial 
 and one-sided ; its real nature they have not reached, and its 
 darker aspects, its serious trials, have not come round to them. 
 Hence they have no labour, no heaviness of soul, and hence, 
 also, Christ cannot speak to them, nor can His ministers, in 
 His name, in words of direct invitation, for they have not yet 
 reached the stage of thought and feeling where such words 
 would be intelligible to them. Burdens must be felt before 
 the offer to bear them can be accepted and valued. All that 
 we can do for such persons is to assure them in words of 
 solemn and affectionate warning that this lightness of feeling 
 which they possess, this careless buoyancy of heart and spirit, 
 is a delusion, and that when they have come to take a deeper 
 and more comprehensive view they will find out their mistake. 
 It is a serious and a testing question, then, for us all, Have 
 we in God's good providence been brought even thus far? 
 Have we been brought to a knowledge of the seriousness and 
 responsibility of life ? Have we any real sense of its painful 
 pressure upon us ? For while we may have reached this point 
 and yet not be true Christians, if we have not reached it we 
 are assuredly not Christians, and our whole view of the world 
 and of our position in it must be changed, and even reversed, 
 before we can understand what Christianity is, and what it 
 aims at, — before we can make a meaning out of the injunctions 
 of the Gospel, or lay hold of its promises. 
 
 The feeling of pressure on the soul, the sense of a heavy 
 burden to be borne, may come from various causes. It may 
 come from afiliction, God may dispel a man's illusive fancies 
 about life by sending loss of health and fortune, by sending 
 pain and sorrow. Many have thus been led, and are daily 
 
REST IN CHEIST. 157 
 
 being led, to alter their views about it. They iSnd by experi- 
 ence that it can press with a weight they never dreamed of in 
 other days, never for a moment supposed possible. They find 
 that, let them nerve themselves up to bear its burdens as they 
 may, it needs the utmost tension of every faculty to do so ; ay, 
 and that after all they stagger and grow faint — strength ebbing 
 away, hope dying out, darkness creeping over the eyes, and 
 despair settling down on the heart. 
 
 Or it may come from disappointed desires. So it does in 
 many. They set their hearts on some worldly object or other. 
 They immensely over-estimate the worth of that object; and 
 immensely under-estimate the exertions that must be made to 
 obtain it. It seems within easy reach, but baflBes and mocks 
 their attempts to grasp it, until at length, when their strength 
 is exhausted, they behold it disappear and escape them for 
 ever ; or if they succeed in obtaining it, find that what they 
 took for precious gold is merest rubbish — that what they have 
 pursued as the highest good wholly fails to satisfy them — and 
 that, if their life is not to be one long ruinous error, they must 
 now, when their vigour is gone and their days are near a close, 
 begin the great work of it over again. Thus wearied with 
 their useless efforts, and in bitterness of heart because of dis- 
 appointed desires, they can understand right well the expostu- 
 lations of the Prophet, " Wherefore do ye spend money for 
 that which is not bread ? and labour for that which satisfieth 
 not?" 
 
 Guilt, again, is another cause of painful j^ressure, and, 
 indeed, the heaviest and sorest of all. Multitudes, it is true, 
 have consciences so dull and dead that they never realise that 
 God has claims upon them which they are not meeting, and 
 that consequently their guilt is fearfully accumulating against 
 them. These, of course, owing to their strange and stupid 
 insensibility, are conscious of no burden. But whenever a 
 man has been aroused out of this lethargy and so quickened 
 in conscience as to ask himself seriously. How does this mass 
 of constantly increasing guilt affect me in God's sight and as 
 an immortal being? Is it not all standing against me as a 
 debt for which I am responsible to the uttermost farthing? 
 Do not reason and conscience and Scripture declare that what 
 
158 REST IN CHRIST. 
 
 has been sown in the form of sin must be reaped in the form 
 of punishment? — I say when a man has once been brought 
 seriously to put to himself these surely most reasonable ques- 
 tions, and has found, as find he must, that he has been in- 
 cessantly and zealously treasuring up wrath against the day 
 of wrath, it is no marvel if he feel crushed down by a dreadful 
 load which he can neither bear nor cast off. 
 
 Sin as a present power within us is another cause, and what 
 its weight and might are no man knows until he begins to hate 
 and fight against it. Then it seems to cling the closer and to 
 weigh the heavier, as if its strength were increased by every 
 effort put forth to weaken it. Sin is as certainly stronger 
 than we are, as it is feebler than God is. A single bad habit, 
 when it has once got firmly rooted in the nature, is more than 
 most men can contend successfully against. It requires, for 
 instance, a fortitude of character which, alas ! is very rare, for 
 a confirmed drunkard to free himself from the degrading 
 thraldom of his ruinous passion? What shall we say, then, 
 when the task is not to get rid of one bad habit but of all — 
 not to overcome some single vice but to obtain the victory over 
 a vile heart ? What but that the leopard may as easily change 
 its spots, or the camel pass through the eye of a needle, as a 
 man do this ? What but that the strongest who self-reliantly 
 grapples with sin, resolved in his own strength to conquer and 
 crush it, will soon find himself grovelling as a helpless victim 
 beneath the foot of his antagonist ? Sin as a present power — 
 this too, then, is indeed a burden and a heavy load. 
 
 I have thus described the nature and pointed out the causes 
 of a sense of pressure on the soul. But a state of painful 
 labour supposes a sense of feebleness within as well as a sense 
 of pressure from without. The heaviest load is no burden 
 where there is strength adequate to its easy support. Hence 
 in every labouring and heavy-laden man the consciousness 
 of outward pressure must be accompanied by a corresponding 
 consciousness of inward feebleness. He is one who not only 
 knows the evils of life as they are, but one who knows hiTn- 
 self as he is; one who has obtained self-knowledge in the 
 only way it can be obtained — that is, by laying self-conceit 
 aside ; one who, having searched and tried himself honestly, 
 
REST IN CHRIST. 159 
 
 has been brought to feel that if left to himself in any instance 
 he will fail, whether what is required of him be endurance 
 or performance. It is only to those who have come to this 
 humbling conclusion that Christ addresses His invitation. He 
 will only deal with us as what we are, not as what we in our 
 false pride and foolish self-reliance fancy ourselves to be. He 
 will not begin His work in us by delusion and flattery, but 
 demands that we renounce, at the very outset, our own wisdom 
 and strength, our own will and self-love, as folly and weak- 
 ness, and resign ourselves wholly to Himself ; that we place 
 no trust in our own unaided powers either to accomplish duty 
 or sustain trial, but recognise that apart from His help, His 
 grace, we must remain fettered by the bonds and crushed by 
 the weisrht of miserv and sin. 
 
 We have seen, then, who the " labouring and heavy laden " 
 are. To them Christ says, " Come unto Me." This is what 
 they need ; what will give them the relief, the rest, which 
 they feel themselves so much to require. " Come unto Me," — 
 What does that mean ? Of course, it does not mean any mere 
 bodily approach. That is not possible, nor would it avail if 
 it were. It is not with our limbs and feet, but with our 
 minds and hearts — with our reasons, our affections, our wills — 
 that we have to draw near to Christ. To "Come to Christ," 
 in fact, is neither more nor less than to become a true Chris- 
 tian. What, then, does that imply ? 
 
 Well, it implies, for one thing, some knowledge of who 
 Christ was, and of what He taught, and suffered, and aimed 
 at, and accomplished — some knowledge of the facts, the truths, 
 which constitute the Gospel. I venture not to try to define 
 how much knowledge there must be. That is a foolish task 
 many have laboured at, distributing all the truths of the 
 Gospel under the two heads of essential and non-essential. 
 I think very little of these labours and of the distinction 
 upon which they proceed. But while we may doubt or even 
 deny that there is any fixed amount of knowledge, any in- 
 variable number of truths, essential to all, without respect of 
 persons or circumstances, there can be no reasonable doubt 
 that some knowledge — it may be very different for different 
 
160 REST IN CHRIST. 
 
 men — is essential to Christian belief. Wherever we are bound 
 to believe, we are bound to have as much knowledge as will 
 make our belief intelligent, reasonable. Belief we know not 
 of what nor why is not a religious but an immoral state of 
 mind. There is no coming to Christ possible, then, except 
 through knowledge of what God's Word tells about Him. 
 It is true that this knowledge, this mere head-knowledge, is 
 no more than a condition implied in coming unto Him, but 
 it is nevertheless an essential condition ; and it is, I fear, 
 one not always fulfilled even in this land of Bibles, and 
 churches, and schools. There are many grown-up persons 
 of reputable character who have been in the habit of attending 
 church all their days so strangely ignorant of the contents 
 of the Gospel records that it is little wonder if they do not 
 go to Christ, and that it would be a great wonder indeed if 
 having gone to Him they could contentedly remain so ignorant 
 of Him as they are. We cannot be in the way of going to 
 Christ if knowledge about Him be indifferent to us. 
 
 Besides knowledge, however, the coming to Christ involves 
 the recognition of His supreme importance to us. It is neces- 
 sary that all who come unto Him realise their need of Him ; 
 realise that apart from Him they are undone ; that neither 
 in themselves nor elsewhere, save only in a crucified Redeemer, 
 is there the light, and help, and safety which they need. It 
 is necessary that they recognise that He alone has fully 
 disclosed what must be the true character of God as a Father, 
 perfectly holy yet infinitely loving ; what ought to be the 
 true character of men, as sons of God, spiritual and immortal 
 beings ; what is the true relationship of God to man and of 
 man to God ; and how man should feel and act towards his 
 brother-men ; in a word, that He alone has clearly made 
 known the truth on momentous matters compared with which 
 the grandest results of science are as the dust of the highways 
 contrasted with whatever is of most value among men. It 
 is necessary that they recognise that if what Christ is said 
 to have suffered and done be not true, there is no certain 
 evidence that there may be forgiveness for the past, and 
 happiness for the eternal future ; that, apart from Him, sin 
 neither can be got rid of nor holiness be established ; that the 
 
REST IN CHRIST. 161 
 
 motives which Christ's life and death excite, and the power 
 which the Holy Spirit, one of His gifts, confers, are the only- 
 sources whence spiritual life can either be derived or sustained 
 in corrupt human nature. 
 
 It is not enough, however, merely to recognise all this ; we 
 must further accept and act on it; we must acquiesce in 
 heart and life to the revelation He has made of Himself, 
 allowing the facts and truths of it absolutely to prompt and 
 guide us. Since there is no full light in matters spiritual 
 but His, we must accept it and suffer Him to be made wisdom 
 unto us ; since God's mercy is only manifested to us through 
 Him, we must not look for mercy from any other source ; 
 since strength to resist sin and perform duty is only to be 
 found in Him, we must seek to be always animated by His 
 love and sustained by His spirit. We must not stop short 
 of this submission of will and affection, and obedience of life 
 to Him, for we cannot come unto Him by mere knowledge 
 or mere belief, but must sincerely accept of Him as our 
 wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, not 
 separating what God has joined together, not supposing that 
 we can be in Him unless He be also in us. Salvation has 
 two aspects, but is not two things. Christ is the whole of 
 salvation. We in Him, this is our justification ; He in us, 
 this is our sanctification; we in Him and He in us, this is 
 perfect redemption; and he who comes to Christ at all must 
 receive Him as a perfect redemption — as not only eternal 
 life for him, but a present life in Him. 
 
 Thus Christ is come to. 
 
 We have now to consider what Christ promises to those who 
 come unto Him. He says He will give them "rest." What 
 are we to understand by that ? Text and context both make 
 clear what it is. It is rest from labour and heaviness — rest 
 not from work, but from what makes work painful and toil- 
 some. Rest from work is inactivity, which God never made 
 man for, and which, instead of conferring happiness on him, 
 would make his life intolerable. The rest which Christ offers 
 us is to be found not in the absolute abandonment of work, 
 but in the doing of His work. " Take My yoke upon you, and 
 
 L 
 
162 REST IN CHRIST. 
 
 learn of Me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall 
 find rest to your souls." Come to Me and follow Me ; imitate 
 My example, bear whatever God lays on you in the same spirit 
 as I do, not proudly, not impatiently, but humbly and lovingly : 
 do this, and you will get rest. Look to Me ; learn of Me. I 
 have many burdens to bear, none ever had burdens so many or 
 so heavy, yet, amidst them all, beneath them all, I have rest — 
 true, sure, eternal ; carry your burdens in the same way, and 
 you will enjoy the same rest. That was what Christ said ; 
 rest not from work, but in work, was what He promised. 
 It is a rest like that which God, Christ, and the angels have, 
 who are ever working, and yet ever resting. It is not the 
 merely negative rest of inaction, but the positive rest which 
 flows from the free and orderly exercise of the faculties and 
 the satisfaction of the desires. It is exemption, indeed, from 
 the pain of work, from labour and heaviness, from what makes 
 work a burden, from more work than our strength vdll stand, 
 or work of such a nature that our will and feelings revolt 
 against it ; but it is enjoyment as well, and enjoyment of the 
 deepest and purest kind. He who has it is not so much secured 
 against burdens and sorrows as put in possession of a strength 
 by which burdens are made light, of a secret by which sorrow 
 is made to yield joy, as to the hero of old out of the eater came 
 forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. This 
 rest can be had in Christ by coming to Him, as has been 
 described, and abiding in Him, but from no other source and 
 in no other way can it be had. Christ gives with loving heart 
 and bounteous hand to every labouring and heavy-laden soul 
 that comes to Him " rest " — the beginnings of it in this life, 
 the fulness of it in the future life. Let me show briefly that 
 He does so. 
 
 The sense of weariness and heaviness of soul was referred 
 to four causes — to affliction, to disappointed desires, to guilt, 
 to sin. What, then, does Christ do for His people in regard 
 to each of these ? Afflictions, we are all aware, He does not 
 exempt them from so long as they are in this present world. 
 While here rest from affliction, in the sense of absence of 
 affliction, it is contrary to His plan, contrary both to His good- 
 ness and His wisdom, to grant them. He will fulfil His 
 
REST IN CHRIST. 163 
 
 promise in that sense also when they shall have entered into 
 the perfect rest of heaven. There He shall "wipe away all 
 tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither 
 sorrow, nor crying ; neither shall there be any more pain : for 
 the former things are passed away." But until the former 
 things have passed away, and especially until sin has passed 
 away, sorrow must be, affliction is needed and good. Believers 
 have, accordingly, their share of all the ordinary ills that flesh 
 is heir to, and they have sorrows even peculiar to themselves. 
 The Gospel, when it enters into a heart, brings with it sorrows 
 as well as joys not previously experienced. It deadens none 
 of the sensibilities to suffering — it quickens those that are 
 moral. True, it is not the cause but the occasion of these new 
 griefs ; sin in ourselves or others, sin seen as it never was 
 before, is the true cause ; yet if there had been no spiritual 
 life there would have been, of course, no spiritual pain, and 
 spiritual pain is not pleasant but painful, yea, of all pain the 
 most painful. The Gospel is not the source of moral grief, 
 but it unlocks it, opens it up, and lets its waters flow forth. 
 But notwithstanding all this, Christ gives, even in regard to 
 affliction, to those who come to Him, much rest in this present 
 world. His own life of suffering, and His teaching about 
 suffering, and the strength of the Holy Spirit which He has 
 obtained to enable suffering to be rightly borne, have altogether 
 changed the character of suffering for those who love Him. 
 He has been careful not to destroy it, but He has converted 
 the evil of it into good. He has rendered it precious, so that 
 its preservation to believers is one of the mercies of God. He 
 has, by His example, doctrine, and spirit, enabled them to 
 glory in affliction, and to count it, even when most severe, "all 
 joy " — pure joy, nothing but joy. He has, in a word, given 
 them in affliction a rest, a positive satisfaction, which physical 
 pain or mental sorrow cannot reach either to disturb or to 
 destroy, ^and which may be great in proportion to the very 
 intensity of the pain and sorrow. 
 
 Again, Christ gives those who come to Him rest from all 
 those desires which, being doomed inevitably to disappoint- 
 ment, exhaust the strength and ruin the happiness of the soul. 
 There is no adequate satisfaction for the heart in any created 
 
164 REST IN CHRIST. 
 
 object. It has been made to find its rest in the Creator, and 
 must be restless until it rest in Him, which it can only do 
 through Christ, the union between the Father and the Son 
 being so intimate that no man can come unto the Father 
 except through the Son. When our desires, however, are all 
 centred in Christ, and other things are cared for and followed 
 after only in accordance with His will, and in the measure that 
 the supreme affection due to Him allows, then the soul enjoys 
 rest ; not the rest which results from the absence of desire (for 
 that is the rest of death), but the rest which results from the 
 full and legitimate satisfaction of desire, which is the rest of 
 life in its utmost vigour. Before the Fall man was happy, 
 because he desired only what he needed, and obtained all that 
 he desired. Since the Fall man has been unhappy, because 
 what he needed he has not desired, and what he did not need 
 he has desired. Sin has broken up the proper connection 
 between our desires and our wants. Christ restores it : He 
 leads us through the effectual working of His Spirit to seek 
 everything in Himself, everything in conformity to His 
 righteous will, and then bestows on us everything we seek : 
 He makes every desire the expression of a real want, and then 
 gratifies every desire. He thus delivers us from the restlessness 
 which perverse desires must ever produce, and gives us the rest 
 which the satisfaction of legitimate desires must ever produce. 
 Again, Christ removes from conscience the awful load of 
 guilt. You remember how in "Pilgrim's Progress" it is only 
 when Christian comes up to the cross that his burden loosens 
 from off his shoulders, and falls from off his back, and dis- 
 appears in the sepulchre standing open a little below. Ah ! 
 John Bunyan, "the Jerusalem sinner saved," knew well the 
 truth of that part of his wondrous dream. The sacrifice of 
 Christ can alone give us assurance of the Divine forgiveness. 
 We may doubt every other evidence of God's readiness to show 
 mercy and grace to sinners, but there is no arguing against it 
 possible in presence of the fact that He has given His own 
 Son even unto death for us. Dull, indeed, must be the mind, 
 and hard the heart, that can resist that. Oh my friends, let us 
 not dare to think God cannot love us, great although our guilt 
 may be ; for look to Calvary, and behold there how He does 
 
REST IN CHRIST. 165 
 
 love us — behold there, in those death-agonies of Jesus which 
 were the climax and completion of a life of self-denial and 
 suffering, a proof of God's forgiving love towards us, before 
 which doubt is at once irrational and profane. Christ's death, 
 apprehended by faith, severs the ties that bind our guilt upon 
 us as a burden which exhausts the strength, extinguishes hope, 
 and destroys happiness ; and our souls are able to rise up in 
 joyous consciousness that the light of God's reconciled counte- 
 nance shines upon them with the might of a new life. They find 
 rest — rest from the burden of unforgiven guilt. 
 
 Finally, Christ gives all who come to Him rest from the 
 power of sin. He gradually overcomes and destroys it in 
 them, replacing it with true holiness. The more they live in 
 the contemplation of His character and in dependence on His 
 Spirit, the more deeply they enjoy this rest from sin, this sweet 
 rest of holiness. They experience more and more the sufficiency 
 of Divine grace to regulate their nature and conduct, and as 
 evil grows feebler within them, and their affections come to 
 cling more exclusively and closely to God, the peace and joy 
 of the spiritual life widen and deepen into the great sea of 
 heavenly blessedness, where all is calm because all is holy, where 
 rest is unbroken, where rolls no wave of sin or any trouble. 
 
 Will you come? Will you hearken to the invitation of Him 
 whom God hath sent to save you — whose own most earnest 
 desire is to save you ? God grant that you do. Life and death 
 — the rest of heaven and the unrest of hell — are set before you. 
 Make your choice, as men and women on whom God has con- 
 ferred the gift of reason, and having made your choice, act on 
 it to the end, as well aware how great will be the recompense 
 of reward. Meekly suffer and nobly strive as Jesus has shown 
 you how to do, and 
 
 " Soon shalt thou fight and bleed no more, 
 Soon, soon thy weary course be o'er, 
 And deep the rest thou then shalt take." 
 
XIV. 
 SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 
 
 "He that loveth father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me ; and 
 he that loveth son and daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." — 
 Matthew x. 37. 
 
 THE meaning of these words is obvious. Christ tells us by 
 them that He claims our affections in a supreme degree ; 
 that we are not to love any creature, even among those whom 
 it is most natural for us to love, as we love Him ; that if our 
 love to Him be not stronger and deeper than our love to what- 
 ever else is dear to us on earth, it is a love unworthy of its 
 object. If Christ could approve of our loving any creature 
 more than Himself it would be the loving our parents and 
 children more. 
 
 He had felt as child and youth and man what a blessed and 
 precious thing it was to have a mother's love ; and He had a 
 true son's love to His mother ; and one of the last things which 
 He did as He hung upon the cross was to entrust His mother 
 to the care of one who He knew would watch over her in her 
 declining years with all sympathy and affection. He who took 
 the little children up into His arms and blessed them, who raised 
 from the dead the son of the widow of Nain and the daughter 
 of Jairus, did not undervalue the feelings of a parent's heart. 
 He demands, however, distinctly — here in my text — to be 
 loved with a higher love than is to be given to any other 
 person or thing whatever. " Father and mother," " son and 
 daughter," are mentioned for the very purpose of showing that 
 He cannot tolerate the usurpation by any creature of that place 
 in our affections which is rightfully due to Himself. Parents 
 and children, — there is nothing nearer to human beings, nothing 
 made by nature dearer to them, than these, and yet Christ 
 cannot accept our love as a true and proper love if we do not 
 love Him more than we do even them. Of course, if these, the 
 
SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 167 
 
 natural objects of our tenderest human affections, may not be 
 rightfully put into competition with Him, far less may such 
 things as silver and gold, selfish pleasures, or worldly vanities 
 and distinctions. 
 
 This truth — this condition of the Christian life — St Luke re- 
 presents our Lord as having expressed in a still stronger form. 
 "There went," he says, "great multitudes unto Jesus, and He 
 turned and said unto them, If any man come to Me and hate 
 not his father and mother and wife and children, and brethren 
 and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." 
 These words may well arrest attention. No one can for a 
 moment suppose that Christ requires His followers actually to 
 hate either their relatives or their own lives. But He must 
 manifestly have had a purpose in speaking as if He did. To 
 say that He adopted a Hebrew form of expression which just 
 meant to love less may be perfectly true. The Hebrews them- 
 selves, however, must have had a reason for speaking in that 
 way, when they did so speak ; and Jesus must have adopted 
 that form of speaking because He wished to convey the shade 
 of meaning which alone could justify it. 
 
 What that was it is not difficult to perceive. He evidently 
 wished to teach that He must have from His followers a devo- 
 tion and affection which no creature might share ; that He 
 must rule in their hearts with an undivided, undisputed love ; 
 that even parental love, and filial love, and conjugal love, and 
 the love of life, if compared with love to Him, may be called 
 hatred. This is the truth which He laid down on the occasion 
 and in the words referred to by St Luke, and substantially also 
 in the text. Let us endeavour to realise what it implies. 
 
 In the first place, then, the demand of Christ clearly means 
 that He believed Himself entitled to ask from men a love and 
 homage such as God, and God alone, had hitherto claimed from 
 them. I do not see how we can reasonably doubt that Christ 
 actually used the words which St Matthew and St Luke report 
 Him to have used. I cannot conceive how such words could ever 
 have come to be attributed to Him if He had not really em- 
 ployed them. No prophet had ever put forth such a claim. 
 No other founder or reformer of religion has ever done so. 
 The claim is without a parallel. And yet He who made it 
 
168 SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 
 
 inculcated humility and reverence towards God more earnestly 
 and more effectively than any one else has ever done. He 
 showed a love for the Eternal Father, a continuous sense of 
 His presence and favour, an earnestness of desire to do His 
 will, and a zeal for His glory which are also without a parallel. 
 Yet He obviously thought it nothing derogatory to the Father's 
 honour, no robbery of what was due to Him, to claim from 
 man an equal love, to make Himself in that respect at least 
 equal with God. How could He have done so if He had been 
 a mere man ? How could He if He had not been conscious of 
 a unique relationship to, an essential oneness with, the Father, 
 of such an identity with the Father, that what was given to 
 Him was given to the Father also ? 
 
 This text, then, is one of very many in the Gospels which 
 directly suggest the question, What think ye of Christ? and 
 which at the same time indicates that the only right answer to 
 the question is that which St Peter gave, " Thou art the Son 
 of the living God." 
 
 I remark, in the next place, that Christ in making this 
 demand upon us was revealing God to us. He was giving 
 expression to God's feelings towards us. He was presenting 
 the Divine character to us in one of its most impressive aspects. 
 Was not the first and great commandment given by God to the 
 Israelites that they should love Him with all their heart and 
 strength and soul and might ? Did He not expressly declare 
 Himself through Moses to be a " jealous God, visiting the 
 iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and 
 fourth generation of them that hate Him, and showing mercy 
 unto thousands of them that love Him and keep His com- 
 mandments " ? Do not all the prophets repi'esent God as jealous 
 lest men do not love Him enough ? Do they not represent 
 Him as actually beseeching men to love Him, as indignantly 
 expostulating with them for not loving Him or loving Him so 
 little, as threatening them and punishing them for their lack 
 of love to Him ? 
 
 The fact that they do this to the extent which every reader 
 of them is aware of is the ground of the commonest objection 
 made to the view which is given us of God in the Old Testa- 
 ment. It is said that it is an unworthy view of Him ; that 
 
SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 169 
 
 those ancient Jews conceived of God as far too like themselves, 
 — angry, jealous, jBerce ; that Christ gave a very different re- 
 presentation of God, one quite inconsistent with the threaten- 
 ings and terrors and judgments of which the Hebrew Scriptures 
 tell us so much. 
 
 I answer that the anger, jealousy, fierceness, the threatenings, 
 terrors, and judgments of the God of the Old Testament were 
 simply the expressions and consequences of His Infinite Love 
 seeking the supreme love of man, and incapable of being satis- 
 fied with less ; and that Christ when He said, " He that loveth 
 father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me ; and he 
 that loveth son and daughter more than Me is not worthy of 
 Me," "If any man come to Me and hate not his father and 
 mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea 
 and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple," was simply 
 revealing to us perfectly that in God's character which explains 
 and harmonises all that is objected to in Moses and the prophets. 
 Let men talk as they will, if we only listen to Christ's own de- 
 mands upon us, we must acknowledge that He is " the express 
 image " of the "jealous God " of the Old Testament ; that the 
 central all-comprehensive claim of the one is that of the other ; 
 that in both there is the same desire for the love of the human 
 heart, the same jealousy of that love not being given, the same 
 intolerance, if I may so speak, where that love is not given. 
 
 The question at once arises, What are we to think of this 
 representation of God's character ? Are we to receive or reject 
 it ? Are we to be ashamed of it or to glory in it ? The 
 answer is not difficult, not doubtful. That the God revealed 
 to us by Moses and the prophets, and last of all, and far most 
 perfectly of all, by Jesus Christ, is jealous lest we love parent 
 or child, pleasure or fortune, good name or life, as much or 
 more than we love Him, is indeed a solemn and even a terrible 
 truth, but surely it is still more a blessed and a gladsome truth. 
 There is no doubt, I admit, that it was the reason, the explana- 
 tion, of a multitude of words and acts recorded in the Bible of 
 the most unpleasant kind ; there is no doubt either that it has 
 been equally the reason, the explanation, of a large proportion 
 of the painful events which have happened in history, and of 
 what has been most bitter and grievous in the individual ex- 
 
IVO SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 
 
 perience of all of us; but take it away, and what would the 
 Bible, or history, or individual life be ? Why, without it there 
 would have been no Bible, for a God not jealous for our love 
 would never have revealed Himself to us in redemption ; with- 
 out it, humanity would have had no Heavenly Father, and all 
 our lives would have been comparatively loveless. 
 
 There are some, who fancy themselves to be wise, who ask 
 us to substitute for the God revealed in the written word and 
 in the Incarnate Word a God whom they represent as the 
 Pure or Absolute Idea, or as an Unconscious Will, or as the 
 Unknowable, or as a Stream of Tendency, or as Collective 
 Humanity ; but clearly so long as we give either our reasons 
 or our affections fair play, we cannot hesitate between such 
 thoughtless and heartless representations of God as these and 
 the manifestation of Him in Christ as the God whose love can 
 only be satisfied with a higher love than any we can give to 
 father or mother, son or daughter. We cannot hesitate between 
 such mere idols of the brain, and the true, the living, and the 
 loving God, 
 
 The thought of God as not only an Infinite Living Person, 
 but as one who greatly loves us, is surely a most blessed and 
 comforting thought, yea, the most blessed and comforting of 
 all thoughts. It can contribute to no human being's happiness 
 to believe that God is indifferent to his happiness, cares abso- 
 lutely nothing for him, has no love for him ; while he who has 
 faith in the love of God towards him may with strong heart 
 dare and endure all things, and rejoice through all tribulations. 
 
 Here, however, some one may perhaps think, Yes, I should 
 certainly wish God to love me, but I should wish also that His 
 love had no jealousy in it; that He did not heed whether I 
 gave Him my heart or not ; that my love to Him had no effect 
 on His love to me ; that He blessed me all the same whether I 
 loved Him or did not, whether I loved Him much or little. 
 
 This wish, I imagine, many cherish, although, of course, only 
 in a vague, unconscious, or half-conscious way. But it is an 
 obviously unreasonable wish ; it is a wish even for what is 
 absolutely impossible. To love and to be indifferent whether 
 the love be returned or not are contrary states of mind. They 
 cannot go together ; the one necessarily excludes the other. 
 
SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. I7l 
 
 Love, of its very nature, as certainly seeks love in return as fire 
 tends to burn. 
 
 If God had no desire that we should love Him — were He in 
 no way offended at our not loving Him — there could be no 
 real love in Him to us. If His love to us be at once sincere 
 love and infinite love, He must be unsatisfied with less than 
 our highest and strongest love. From this point of view we 
 clearly see how God's sternest reproofs, most indignant ex- 
 postulations, and severest threats in Scripture, as well as His 
 most painful dispensations in Providence, may be regarded as 
 so many evidences of His love. The stronger love is, the less 
 easily can it content itself to do without love. If two strangers 
 quarrel they simply separate. If two acquaintances give great 
 offence to each other they pass one another without the custo- 
 mary recognition. But it is a very different matter with, say, 
 a mother whose affections for her son or daughter have been 
 thwarted and wounded. The mother's heart within her clings 
 to the offending and unloving child. Her heart must have 
 love in return, and it is impossible for her calmly to resign 
 herself to live without it. Her reproaches spring from the very 
 depth and strength of her affection, and they are passionate 
 because it is sincere and intense. 
 
 So the very vehemence of the Divine expostulations and 
 reproaches in Scripture, and the variety of trials and afflic- 
 tions which Pro\ddence assigns us, are signs of the greatness 
 of God's longing for our love. If He were indifferent to 
 us, if He loved us less, He would not have spoken so nor 
 would He act so. Along with every wrathful word which He 
 addresses to us, we may hear His voice also whispering, 
 " Son, daughter, give Me thy heart." In every affliction 
 which He sends us, we may feel His hand seeking to grasp 
 ours in reconciliation, in mutual love. This representation 
 of God as loving us and longing for our love is the glory of 
 our religion. Other religions set before men gods who offer 
 little or no affection and are content to receive little or none ; 
 who demand a lip homage and outward service but do not 
 ask for the heart ; while the God made known to us through 
 Christ cares for nothing we can offer Him if the heart itself 
 be withheld. 
 
172 SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 
 
 There is a thought closely related to what we have just been 
 saying. When God, when Christ, demands from us a supreme 
 love, a love incomparable with any other love, what is demanded 
 is not a something which might either have been demanded or 
 not, but what could not in reason or righteousness fail to be 
 demanded. You will remark that by St Matthew Christ is re- 
 ported to have said that a man who does not love Him more 
 than father and mother, son and daughter, is " not vjorthy of 
 Him^^ ; and by St Luke, that whoever comes to Him and does 
 not hate father and mother, wife and children, brethren and 
 sisters, and life itself, "cannot he His disciple." That ^^ not 
 worthy" and "cannot he" tell us the same thing, viz. that this 
 claim on our love which Christ as the express image of the 
 person of God makes upon us is no arbitrary claim, but one 
 which has its reason in the very nature of our relation to Him. 
 If we do not thus love God we are simply not His children, 
 and nothing which God could do for us would make us, so 
 long as we are in that state, His children. To have such love 
 is to be His children. If we do not thus love Christ we have 
 not that kind of character which constitutes worthiness of Him, 
 which makes a man Christ's disciple. 
 
 The jealousy of God is an aspect of His righteousness as 
 well as of His love. We are apt to associate injustice with 
 jealousy ; to conceive of it as a suspiciousness, which is un- 
 warranted, that we are not loved enough, or that love to which 
 we have a right is given to others. A great deal of human 
 jealousy is of this kind, but not all of it. The jealousy of a 
 mother that a son or daughter should act less wisely or worthily 
 than he or she ought to do is often a most reasonable, righteous, 
 and sacred feeling, St Paul was nobly jealous with what the 
 Bible calls a " godly jealousy " 
 
 God can only entertain a godly jealousy ; and when He is 
 jealous lest we do not love Him above all things else, it is 
 because not to love the Creator above the creature, not to love 
 supreme excellence supremely, not to love perfectly, or with 
 the whole heart, perfect Truth, perfect Beauty, perfect Good- 
 ness, not to love most Him who has loved us most and done 
 and suffered most for us, is, in its own nature, utterly perverse. 
 It never can be right to love least what is most lovable or 
 
SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 173 
 
 to love most what is least lovable. It never can be right 
 to prefer the lower to the higher, the worse to the better. 
 We can do that, and alas ! we often do it. But God cannot 
 do it; Christ cannot do it; and they can never approve of 
 our doing it. There is no selfishness, no meanness, in their 
 asking from us our best and deepest affection, our utmost love ; 
 God as absolutely good, Christ as the embodiment of infinite 
 love, could not seek from us less, or be content to receive 
 less, than the supreme devotion of our souls. The essential 
 righteousness of the Divine Nature is the ground of the demand 
 on us to love most the Highest, the only Infinite and Perfect, 
 Object of love ; to love everything else only in subordination 
 to it ; to love nothing in competition with it. 
 
 Now, what is right towards God never involves wrong 
 towards man. Therefore, I remark next, that the supreme 
 love due to our God and Saviour, while it requires us to 
 sacrifice all love which is incompatible with love to Him — 
 all love which would put itself in competition with love to 
 Him — far from weakening or injuring in any way any true 
 love kept in its true place, strengthens and fosters it. 
 
 If you make any earthly object, however true and good in 
 itself, the highest object of your love, it will cease to be true 
 and good to you, and because made an idol of it will be 
 morally and spiritually ruinous to yon. And, after all, your 
 irrational and idolatrous love of it will probably not be so 
 strong and will certainly not be so pure as your rational and 
 Christian love of it might have been. He who loves Christ 
 more than father, mother, son, or daughter, yet loves father, 
 mother, son, and daughter more than he who does not love 
 Christ most. Supreme affection to Christ never diminishes 
 and lowers, it invariably intensifies and exalts, all other legiti- 
 mate affections. If you love what is true and good in sub- 
 ordination to the love of Christ, His love will not only bless 
 and sanctify your love but will make it deeper, stronger, more 
 binding, more lasting. It is just the man whose natural affec- 
 tions have been expanded and developed through a continually 
 growing love of God who may be expected to love his wife 
 better in his old age than in his hour of prime, and his grand- 
 children as deeply as his first new-born babe. 
 
174 SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 
 
 It is not on the ruins of our other affections that love to 
 God must be raised but on their summits. The more we 
 dwell in love with those whom He would have us to love, the 
 more we shall be able to love Himself with a still deeper and 
 truer love. While, on the other hand, the more love we bear 
 to Him the more love we shall still have to expend on His 
 creatures, and on every good cause. The most loving parent, 
 the most zealous patriot, the most devoted philanthropist, will 
 receive an increase of parental love, of patriotism, of philan- 
 thropy with every increase of love to God in Christ. 
 
 Christ demanded, I have said, from all His followers, and 
 from all men, for all men ought to be His followers, the 
 supreme love of their hearts, because He could, from the 
 very nature of things, demand no less. But I need scarcely 
 add that this demand was none the less as gracious as it was 
 righteous. 
 
 Supreme love to Christ is not only what is due to Christ 
 but is what alone can give happiness to men. Christ is 
 perfect, infinite love. He desires, therefore, our perfect happi- 
 ness, the highest happiness of which as finite beings we are 
 capable ; and this implies our loving Him above all other 
 beings, and with our whole hearts. It is only on this condi- 
 tion that we can have the happiness which He wishes us to 
 possess, and which He died on the cross to procure for us. 
 It is only through the complete satisfaction of a love which 
 fills the whole soul that we can be completely happy. The 
 mysterious power we possess of doubling our life, of going 
 out of ourselves to live in another, this mysterious power of 
 love is that which can alone enable us to taste of the full 
 happiness and glory of existence. 
 
 But where on this earth is such love as the human heart 
 prays for and longs for ? Where is there on earth any 
 creature capable of satisfying our whole capacity of love and 
 our whole desire of being loved, and so filling with happiness 
 a heart which is in misery when alone and which is ever 
 seeking, with a perseverance as indefatigable as unfruitful, an 
 object to which it may surrender itself with all its affections ? 
 
 There is no such creature. The excellence of the best of 
 earthly beings is soon measured ; the happiness it can give 
 
SUPREME LOVE DUE TO CHRIST. 175 
 
 soon exhausted. But if we can find on earth no creature so 
 lovable and so loving as to fill our hearts, in the presence 
 of our God and Saviour the difficulty is of a quite contrary- 
 character. We seek in vain within ourselves for a heart 
 capable of containing the love with which He inspires us or 
 the happiness with which He floods our souls. He has in- 
 finitely more to give than we have desire to ask or power 
 to receive. The love which cleaves to Him satisfies for time 
 and eternity. The poorest man is rich who has it. The 
 richest man is poor who has it not. 
 
 Oh, let us earnestly seek, and pray, and strive to have it. 
 We cannot take it by our own strength ; we cannot obtain it 
 by our own skill. We can do no such feat as love Christ 
 supremely merely because we are told to do it. But He who 
 makes on us the demand is willing to give us strength to 
 obey it. 
 
 Let us think of the cross of our Saviour and the love it 
 displays. Let us behold the opened arms of the Eternal 
 Father. Let us accept the offered help of the Holy Spirit. 
 Let us use the means of grace. Let us cherish what love we 
 have and pray for more. Let us keep steadily before us what 
 we have to aim at and press towards it in humble dependence 
 on God. And let us doubt not that a time will come when our 
 love will at length be worthy of our Lord, when work in His 
 service will be no longer toil, when action will be no longer 
 conscious of restraint, and existence will be a perpetual joy, 
 an everlasting anthem. 
 
 May God bless what has now been said, and to His name be 
 glory for ever. Amen. 
 
XV. 
 
 A FAITHFUL SAYING. 
 
 "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
 came into the world to save sinners." — 1 TiM. i. 15. 
 
 Or, perhaps more exactly, " Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all accepta- 
 tion, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 
 
 AT the table of the Lord this day what Christ has done for 
 -^^ us has been shown forth to us by sacramental symbols 
 and actions ; and we have shown forth, it is to be hoped with 
 sincerity, — we have outwardly professed, — our faith in Him, and 
 love and gratitude to Him, for what He has done. Let us not 
 turn away our spirits now to any lower or meaner theme ; let 
 us still for a little make His work for us, and our indebtedness 
 to Him, the object of our thoughts. The text is well fitted to 
 help us to do so. May God bless it to this end unto all of us, 
 suggesting to us useful reflections, and producing in us salutary 
 impressions by means of it. 
 
 The saying that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
 sinners is not merely the saying of the text. It is the saying 
 of the whole New Testament. It is the saying which is the 
 consummation of the whole revelation of God. It is the sub- 
 stance of what the whole Christian Church in all lands says. 
 It is the saying which is the very foundation and essence of the 
 Gospel. And just because all this — and no mere sentence or 
 sentiment even of an Apostle — there is all the more meaning, 
 force, and comfort in what St Paul here declares of it. 
 
 This saying which includes so much — this saying which is 
 God's great word of salvation — this saying which had been 
 spoken through so many men, and in so many forms, and, 
 above all, in Christ's own life and death — this saying it is 
 which is "a faithful saying"; a saying, in other words, in 
 which we may place the utmost confidence ; about which we 
 need "have no doubt ; which is beyond all reasonable dispute ; 
 
A FAITHFUL SAYING. 177 
 
 which is as certain as it is wondrous ; which is the expression 
 of real fact, and for which the evidence is ample, clear, and 
 strong. That is what St Paul aflirms, and his affirmation is, 
 I think, one which concerns us all very closely. 
 
 There are, I am aware, not a few nowadays who regard the 
 question of the truth of the Gospel as of comparatively small 
 importance, and the duty of being convinced as to its truth one 
 neither of urgent nor of universal obligation. It is enough, 
 they think, simply to believe and practise it. Ordinary people, 
 they say, have neither the time nor the ability to examine into 
 the grounds of their religion, and all that can be fairly expected 
 of them is merely that they receive and act on it. If they 
 believe and obey the result will be all the same whether they 
 have reason for their belief or not, or whether there is any 
 reason to be had for their belief or not. Thus some represent 
 faith as quite distinct from reason, exalt faith at the expense of 
 reason, and disparage truth as less worth than mere feeling or 
 mere opinion. , 
 
 I can have no symjjathy with this sort of thought and speech. 
 All our interests in the Gospel, it seems to me, depend on its 
 being true. Its ideals and tendencies might be the purest and 
 noblest, but that would not avail if it were founded on a delu- 
 sion. Our Lord never asked men to believe on Him farther 
 than He had given them reason to believe. The Apostles, it is 
 quite certain, wherever they went laboured first of all, and 
 above all, to prove that Jesus was the Christ — to present such 
 evidence that those who did not believe in Jesus as their Lord 
 and Saviour would be without excuse. The Gospel claims to 
 be accepted as the Truth — God's own saving and sanctifying 
 truth — and those only who believe in it as what they have 
 ascertained to be the Truth have Christian faith. Mere faith 
 — blind faith — is a sin against the soul, and a sin against God, 
 who has made the soul to live in and by the truth. It is largely 
 because men are content with such faith, but do not feel their 
 need of finding a sure ground for it, that their faith is the 
 feeble and inoperative thing it so often is. If they got it less 
 easily, if they would not be content to believe as true what they 
 did not see to be true, the truth when once obtained would be 
 grasped by them more firmly, loved more dearly, and acted on 
 
 M 
 
178 A FAITHFUL SAYING. 
 
 more fully. The truth gives light and life only when the soul 
 intelligently apprehends it, and lovingly receives it. This is 
 the blessed peculiarity of the Gospel, that it is pure truth, 
 capable of standing the strictest scrutiny, so that the more you 
 test it by your reason, the more you verify it by your conscience 
 and affection, the more you prove it by application in practice, 
 the more you examine its grounds, its evidences, its declara- 
 tions, the more you honour it. 
 
 The saying that Christ came into the world to save sinners, 
 Paul adds, is "worthy of all acceptation." It is so, of course, 
 because it is " faithful " — of assured truth — of absolute certainty. 
 Were it not thus faithful it would be wrong in us to accept it. 
 But it has other grounds than its mere truth to our esteem. It 
 is not only truth, but truth of vital moment, of unspeakable 
 importance. It is the very marrow of the Gospel, summing up, 
 in one precious sentence, its great characteristic and its great 
 purpose, and whatever concerns the welfare and happiness of a 
 Christian. It is a declaration of what was the central fact of 
 human history and the crowning act of Divine revelation. It 
 announces to us that which the patriarchs desired, which the 
 prophets foretold, which the Apostles preached, — that which 
 the types of the ancient economy prefigured, and which the 
 sacraments of the new economy seal. It tells of pardon and 
 mercy to those who are under the just condemnation of the 
 law ; of a cure for spiritual disease ; of freedom from the 
 slavery of sin ; of strength and grace for the life that now is ; 
 of joy and glory for the life that is to be. Truly, then, it 
 is " worthy of all acceptation," and it must be the extreme of 
 folly not to receive it with readiness and heartiness. From 
 such folly may God preserve us. 
 
 The saying, which is so faithful and which ought to be so 
 acceptable — the saying, " Christ came into the world to save 
 sinners " — first states, you will observe, a fact, and then tells us 
 the design of that fact. 
 
 The fact is, " Christ came into the worldJ' That implies that 
 Christ was before He came into the world. Perhaps, indeed, 
 the expression in itself, apart from all similar phrases, torn 
 from the substance and isolated from the analogy of Scripture, 
 would not bind us down to attach this sense to it. But we 
 
A FAITHFUL SAYING. 179 
 
 must interpret it as what it is, a general expression of the 
 revelation of God which centres in Christ ; we must look at it 
 in the light of other statements plainly kindred to it. The 
 Bible, it has been said, is like the tabernacle, where, in 
 accordance with a regulation of the law, the lamps were to 
 be lighted by one another. And manifestly, if acting on this 
 principle, we would light this particular lamp of the glorious 
 temple of Holy Scripture, we must allow to shine on it such 
 passages as these : " He took not on Him the nature of angels, 
 but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." "The Word 
 was made flesh and dwelt among us." " I come forth from 
 the Father and am come into the world." 
 
 Christ came into the world. He came from the bosom of 
 the Father, where He had from eternity been, the same in 
 substance, equal in power and glory. "The Word was in the 
 beginning with God, and the Word was God." In giving us 
 Him God gave us of His own very self — of His own very sub- 
 stance, His own very life, His own very character, His own 
 very love. " God so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son." And Christ, that Son, came; He came from 
 God ; He was God ; He came " from the bosom of the Father " 
 to " show us the Father." He came from out the Infinite fully 
 to meet and satisfy the cry of the creature after God. He came 
 " in whom dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily " to draw us 
 into a loving communion and transforming sympathy with God, 
 through revealing God to us as just and holy, but also as tender 
 and compassionate, gracious and forgiving. And this He did 
 through taking on Him the nature of man, with all the faculties 
 and affections of the body and soul of man, with all the natural 
 although none of the sinful infirmities of man. For only through 
 such union of the Divine and Human in Christ — only through 
 God coming thus out of the Infinite and revealing Himself in 
 the finite, by a perfect representative, an express image, sub- 
 ject to liability to pain, temptation, and death, like others of 
 mortal mould, could God and man, separated through sin, be 
 reconciled. 
 
 Hence Christ came as man ; a Son revealing a Father ; a 
 human person imaging a Divine person ; a human brother, 
 bound by love, sympathy, and suffering to all His human 
 
180 A FAITHFUL SAYING. 
 
 brethren, participating in their weaknesses, bearing their sick- 
 nesses and sorrows, grieving over their sins, going before them 
 through the death-shade, and presenting that face in which 
 shone the ineffable glory veiled for their sakes in mortal agony 
 and stained with human tears. Verily, " Great is the mystery 
 of godliness, God manifest in the flesh " — God incarnating 
 Himself — God, from holy hatred of sin and ineffable love to 
 sinners, despising not the womb of a woman, shrinking not 
 from sharing in man's uttermost misery, yea, humbling Himself 
 even to the shame and agony of that awful death on Calvary. 
 
 It is that great mystery and yet most certain fact to which 
 the Apostle refers. How have we regarded it, how have we 
 felt towards it and dealt with it in time past? Have the 
 injBnite righteousness and infinite love disclosed by it been 
 responded to with such admiration and love as even our narrow 
 creaturely hearts might well be expected to show ? Or, have 
 we not reason to mourn that it has not been so, and strong 
 reason to pray that in the time to come we may see much 
 more clearly, and feel much more deeply, the meaning and the 
 glory of it ? 
 
 We have thus noticed the fact stated. We have now to 
 consider what was the design of it. Why did Christ come into 
 the world ? There must have been an adequate motive for a 
 procedure so strange. The text tells us what that was. It 
 was "to save sinners." "Christ came into the world to save 
 sinners." The words, you see, are very plain, and they are 
 also very comprehensive. There are no restrictions made — no 
 limitations drawn. All have sinned, and Christ would have all 
 to be saved. There is no sinner, and therefore there is no man, 
 who may not say, Christ came into the world to save me. 
 There is not one person here present who may not feel con- 
 fident that Christ left the bosom of the Father, and toiled, 
 suffered, and died on earth, for him, for her. There is no pre- 
 sumption in any of you believing and declaring that Christ 
 died to redeem you. If the Gospel be true at all that is just as 
 certain as that the sun rose this morning. It is most pre- 
 sumptuous even to imagine that Christ did not come to save 
 you, or any other sinner, for it is to suspect Christ and His 
 Apostles of having again and again declared what was false. 
 
A FAITHFUL SAYING. 181 
 
 Whoever doubts that Christ came to save him, ought to be 
 able to show either that he is not a sinner, or that although a 
 sinner he is not lost. No man can prove either of these two 
 things ; but a great many men foolishly fancy them true, or at 
 least feel and act as if they were true. Many fail to realise 
 with any clearness or depth that they are sinners. They have 
 not awakened to the consciousness of what a terrible evil sin is. 
 Although poor they imagine themselves rich ; although diseased 
 and corrupt, yea dead, they imagine themselves sound and well, 
 and quite alive. They feel no need of salvation, and therefore 
 they despise it, spurn the offer of it, dislike the very sound 
 of it. 
 
 Sinners like these, although they acknowledge themselves 
 sinners, do not feel that they are lost, and hence do not feel 
 their need of Christ as a real and present Saviour. A great 
 many people imagine that Christ came to save them from the 
 danger of being lost, came to save them from the consequences 
 of their sin, came to save them from falling into eternal death, 
 came to secure them a salvation to come — in other words, came 
 to enable them to escape an external future hell and to open 
 up to them an external future heaven. 
 
 This is a most inadequate and inaccurate view of Christ's 
 work and purpose in coming into the world. It turns the 
 Gospel upside down, and makes it of none effect, or of bad 
 effect. Christ came to save us sinners because already lost, 
 not to save us from the danger of being lost. He did not come 
 to do what would have been manifestly unjust, namely, to save 
 us from the consequences of sin, otherwise than by saving us 
 from our sin itself. He came to save us from our sin ; deliver- 
 ance from the consequences of sin, so far as we are delivered 
 from sin, follows as a natural result. He came to save sinners 
 by rescuing them out of eternal death, not by preventing them 
 falling into it, i.e. from hecoviing eternally dead. Every one who 
 is destitute of that life in God which is the only eternal life is 
 already dead, already in the state of eternal death. Christ 
 came to give an actual present salvation ; to deliver us from 
 the hell of sin within us and to fill us with the heaven of 
 holiness. Sin is the source and substance, the fire and the 
 worm of hell, and from it Christ would save us now. Holiness 
 
182 A FAITHFUL SAYING. 
 
 is the kingdom o£ heaven which He came to establish, and so 
 the kingdom of heaven, He said, is within you, is here, is at 
 hand. Noio is the accepted time ; now is the day of salvation. 
 Seek, my friends, a present salvation ; trust in no future sal- 
 vation. 
 
 Have you ever wondered that God should not have made 
 known to the psalmists and prophets of Israel anything about 
 a future state, anything about what we commonly call heaven 
 and hell ? Perhaps if He had, the piety of His ancient people 
 would have been less true, pure, and spiritual, than it was. At 
 any rate we plainly see that professing Christians very generally 
 so dreadfully abuse the doctrine of a future state as to change 
 the perfect religion which Christ taught into one essentially 
 different, one far inferior to ancient Judaism as it appears in 
 the psalmists and prophets, and closely akin to heathenism. 
 
 The salvation which Christ really came to bestow is one 
 which can only be understood, and will only be accepted, by 
 those who feel aright the hatefulness of sin ; who see that it 
 must be its own worst punishment, and that, in fact, all the 
 horrors and torments of hell lie so essentially enfolded within 
 it that nothing can deliver us from them which does not deliver 
 us from it. The primary idea of Christ's salvation is that of 
 healing — the restoration of the soul from spiritual disease to 
 spiritual health ; from deadness and unsusceptibility to the 
 presence and power, righteousness and love of God to a lively 
 sense and appreciation of them. If we would know it and 
 enjoy it we must apprehend and accept it as inherent in holi- 
 ness. We must feel the degradation and bitterness, shame and 
 guilt, of a state of sin, and learn to admire and love the beauty, 
 the peace, the elevation, the glory, the essential blessedness of 
 a state of spiritual purity. If we would enter into the heaven 
 which Christ brought to light, that heaven must first enter into 
 us. It must be within us even here on earth, — within us as 
 the brightness of celestial light, as the fire of a holy purpose, 
 as an energy of divine righteousness, as the music of a well- 
 ordered soul, as the highest form of spiritual life, as rest and 
 joy in God. 
 
 Seek, first and above all, dear friends, this salvation, this 
 heaven, this kingdom of God, in which all things to be desired 
 
A FAITHFUL SAYING. 183 
 
 by you are either included, or to which they will be added. 
 Think of what it would be to you if you fully had it — of the 
 essential peace of it, the elevation above passion and unregu- 
 lated desire, the singleness and simplicity of it, the glowing 
 shapes and glorified visions of a pure imagination, the oneness 
 of your souls with God and their abundant participation in the 
 good which is in God ; think of this, and make it the one grand 
 aim and effort of your lives fully to possess it. 
 
 You will not fail if you seek it earnestly in Christ. Christ 
 is the power of God unto salvation. In so far as Christ is 
 formed within you salvation must be realised by you. Take 
 His example and work, His righteousness and love, home to 
 your inmost hearts. Receive Him, and as ye receive Him 
 walk in Him. Do this, and your souls will live ; sin will die in 
 them, and a glorious quickening will take place in them, with 
 the spreading light of a new creation, shining more and more 
 unto the perfect day. Amen. 
 
XVI. 
 
 CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS.i 
 
 " For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He 
 might bring us to God." — 1 Petkr iii. 18. 
 
 THE Apostle is in the immediately preceding context ex- 
 . horting his hearers to be, amidst all their trials and 
 afflictions, followers o£ that which is good, righteous, kind, 
 peaceable. If they are so he tells them that God will protect 
 and bless them. They may have to suffer, but the eyes of 
 the Lord are over them, and His ears are open unto their 
 prayers, and they need have no fear. Happy are they, even 
 in that they suffer. 
 
 But they must be on their guard not to have to suffer on 
 account of evil-doing. They must be careful to keep a good 
 conscience before God and to have a good conversation in 
 Christ. If they sin it may be well that they should suffer 
 for their sin, but it can never be well that they should sin in 
 order to obtain good through suffering for their sin. No one 
 is entitled to expect God's blessing on the suffering which he 
 brings upon himself by disobedience to God's will. 
 
 In the text the Apostle seeks to confirm and enforce his 
 exhortation by referring his readers to the example of Christ. 
 He, their Lord, suffered, suffered to the uttermost ; and sin was 
 the cause. But not sin of His own. He suffered for sins, but 
 for the sins of others. He suffered, the just for the unjust; 
 and in order to accomplish a great, righteous, and merciful 
 purpose — the bringing of men to God. If His followers are 
 to suffer, as suffer they are sure to do, it ought to be as His 
 followers, as animated by a somewhat similar spirit, as also 
 eschewing evil and pursuing only good. 
 
 Such is the simple but conclusive argument which the 
 
 1 Preached at the re-opening of the Abbey Church, Edinburgh, on Sunday 
 
 forenoon, March 5th, 1899. 
 
 184 
 
CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 185 
 
 Apostle here employs. It is not the argument itself, how- 
 ever, which I wish at present to consider, but only the fact 
 on which he rests it, the marvellous fact on which the whole 
 Gospel of the grace of God to us centres, and on which it 
 depends — the fact that " Christ hath once suffered for sins, 
 the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." 
 
 This fact is supremely worthy of our most serious considera- 
 tion at any time. There can certainly be none more appropriate 
 for our consideration at the present time, met, as we are, to 
 commemorate this fact, and to show forth the sufferings and 
 the death which Christ our Lord, the Holy One and the Just, 
 in His infinite love for us sinners, endured that He might bring 
 us to God, in whom alone our souls can find satisfaction and 
 salvation. 
 
 The fact that Christ so suffered as He did is the central 
 fact in the history of the world. It casts a wonderful light, 
 especially over the whole history of religion. Christ so 
 suffered as to prove Himself to be the one perfect priest 
 of humanity, the offerer of the only perfect sacrifice ; so 
 suffered as to give the only and completely satisfactory re- 
 sponse to all the real wants of human nature which had 
 originated priesthood and sacrifice throughout all parts of 
 the world. Even pagan priesthood and sacrifice did not 
 spring merely or mainly out of imposition, but out of truths 
 which are of the very essence of all religion — man's sense of 
 dependence on Deity and of his need of influence and recon- 
 ciliation with Deity — and these truths have found their ex- 
 planation and satisfaction in Christ alone. In the work which 
 He accomplished by suffering and death, whatever of meaning 
 and of truth there were not merely in Jewish priesthood and 
 sacrifice, but in all priesthood and sacrifice, found fulfilment 
 and perfecting. The entire history of priesthood and of sacri- 
 fice found on the cross of Christ both its judgment and its 
 justification, the condemnation of the errors and evils which 
 it has exhibited, and the realisation of all that it contained 
 of prophecy and of promise. 
 
 To Israel God gave prophecy and the law, a specially 
 appointed priesthood, and an elaborate system of sacrifices. 
 But these all pointed to, united in, and found their completion 
 
186 CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 
 
 in Christ. He was the end or goal, the confirmation, and the 
 substance of them all. They had their Yea and Amen in 
 Him ; but apart from Him they can only be regarded as 
 illusive and untrue, or at least dead and ineffective. They 
 are now either abolished because fulfilled by Him, or retained 
 but vitalised, spiritualised, and magnified by His fulfilment of 
 them and relationship to them. And it was especially through 
 His once suffering, the just for the unjust, that He might 
 bring us to God, that this was effected ; that the local and the 
 temporary gave place to the universal and the eternal, the 
 shadow to the substance. 
 
 The New Testament is throughout a proof of this. The 
 Evangelists occupy about one third of the space which they 
 devote to their narratives of Christ's life to the events of the 
 single week of the Passion. Clearly they attributed to His 
 sufferings and death an interest overshadowing all else re- 
 corded of Him. They show us how Christ Himself worked 
 out His ministry with the consciousness that the great task 
 of His life could only be accomplished through His being 
 crucified and slain ; and how on the night of His betrayal 
 He instituted the sacrament of the Supper, and gave the 
 command which secured that His death should be unceasingly 
 commemorated as a sacrifice for sins until He come again. 
 
 When we pass from the Gospels to the Epistles we cannot 
 fail to see at once that their authors wrote and lived in the 
 firm conviction that what above all gave significance and 
 efficacy to their teaching was the infinite virtue and value 
 of the death of Christ. It was in His Cross that they gloried. 
 They looked at all subjects of which they treated — the nature 
 and character of God, the moral law and Divine government, 
 human sin and its consequences, the Old Testament sacri- 
 fices and prophecies, the whole manifestation and mission 
 of Christ, the functions and duties of the Church, and the 
 destinies of mankind — in relation to it, and in the light 
 which it cast upon them. They felt that it had opened up 
 the one true way of justification and was the great source 
 of sanctification. They saw in it the key to the mystery of 
 the Divine method of salvation, of God's long labour to bring 
 man back to love and obedience, to happiness and holiness. 
 
CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 187 
 
 They recognised with gi'atefulness and joy that His whole 
 procedure with the human race had presupposed the Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the world. 
 
 In the wonderful series of apocalyptic visions with which 
 the New Testament so aptly and grandly closes, the central 
 figure, the object of um^sal adoration and praise, the Judge 
 of all events, of all lives?,' of all nations, the Bestower of all 
 blessings and honours, the Lamb in the midst of the thz'one, 
 is the Lamb which had been slain. 
 
 Such, my friends, is the place which Divine revelation 
 assigns to Christ's "once suffering for sins." It is not the 
 place which man unenlightened by revelation would have 
 assigned to it. That God should have determined so to save 
 sinners is a most striking proof that His thoughts are not as 
 our thoughts. It was the last thing man left to himself would 
 have thought of, to build all his hopes and aspirations on a 
 death of suffering and of shame. 
 
 When Christ was with His disciples He tried to lead them 
 to anticipate the sort of death He would die, and to enlighten 
 them as to the necessity of it. But they could not, and would 
 not be convinced. Their minds revolted against the very idea ; 
 their hearts could not endure it. And when at last what they 
 had been so often told, but never allowed themselves to credit, 
 came about ; when their Master was seized, tried, condemned, 
 and crucified ; when doubt was for ever thus summarily done 
 away ; they were overwhelmed. Although their love did not 
 cease, their faith failed utterly. " We trusted," they said 
 sadly, "that He would have redeemed Israel." 
 
 It needed Christ's resurrection and ascension. His appear- 
 ances during the forty days and the descent of the Spirit at 
 Pentecost, to enable even those who had been His most inti- 
 mate companions to see His death in its true light : to recog- 
 nise that they were erring from dulness of mind and slowness 
 of heart to understand and believe their ancient Scriptures ; 
 that their central difficulty — the crucifixion of Jesus — was in 
 fact an essential part of the counsel of God ; that so far from 
 it being true, as they had thought, that suffering was fatal to 
 the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth, it was necessary that the 
 Christ should suffer and so enter into His glory. 
 
188 CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 
 
 It was only then, and in a way which it is utterly in vain 
 to attempt to ex]3lain naturally, that the great truth of " re- 
 demption through suffering" flashed upon them, filling their 
 minds with a marvellous light, kindling in their hearts the 
 fervid fire of self-sacrificing love, making luminous to them 
 the whole course of their national history, showing them that 
 the old order of things had passed away and one far grander 
 had come in, animating them with a sublime confidence and an 
 infinite hope, and recreating, as it were, their very selves. It 
 was only then and so that there was effected that revolution in 
 the souls of the first Christians which has revolutionised the 
 world. 
 
 Henceforth they preached Christ crucified as " the power of 
 God and the wisdom of God unto salvation." But everywhere 
 they found man's natural tendency was to reject the doctrine 
 with aversion and disdain. To the Jew it was a stumbling- 
 block. To the Greek it seemed foolishness. 
 
 Since then many centuries have come and gone, and the 
 Gospel has gained glorious triumphs in almost all lands. But 
 " the offence of the cross " has never ceased. It has indeed to 
 be admitted, and may gladly be admitted, that "the power of 
 the cross " has made the very world itseK less worldly, or at 
 least less decidedly and openly anti-Christian than it once was ; 
 that even the world's opinion about the doctrine of salvation 
 through a crucified Saviour has undergone a change for the 
 better. The influence of that doctrine has been such that 
 there are now few among us who will venture to express con- 
 tempt for it, or even allow themselves consciously to cherish 
 contempt for it within their own breasts. And even for such 
 homage as this, even for such respectful neutrality of feeling 
 as this, we may well be thankful. 
 
 Yet between this and the homage which is due to it, — the 
 warm, living, and adoring recognition of the Divine wisdom, 
 condescension, righteousness, and love, displayed in Christ's 
 sacrifice of Himself on behalf of sinners, — there is a vast 
 difference, an immeasurable distance, which the merely natural 
 man, the selfish and sensuous man, the unthoughtf ul, unearnest, 
 and unspiritual man, never traverses. Such a man necessarily, 
 so long as he remains what he is, is blind to the real character 
 
CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 189 
 
 and significance of Christ's death. It is not, and cannot be, to 
 him what it ought to be. He does not so view and accept it 
 that it can accomplish in him the gracious and blessed ends for 
 which it was ordained and endured. Instead of being treated 
 by him as the wisdom and power of God, it is dealt with as if 
 it were the foolishness and weakness of man. 
 
 Let us, my friends, not thus err. Let us abide by, and act 
 on, God's judgment. What He deems wise and powerful is 
 really so ; and if we think otherwise it can only be because 
 our minds are so darkened and perverted that they do not 
 perceive and judge truly. The history of the more than 
 eighteen centuries which have elapsed since Christ's death has 
 amply proved God's thought of that death to be true, and the 
 natural man's thought of it to be false. The Divine love re- 
 vealed in the self-sacrifice of Christ has actually succeeded in 
 doing what every other influence is incapable of doing. It has 
 in every variety of circumstances shown that it can change the 
 entire character of the human heart, and marvellously affect 
 the conduct of man. It has dispelled the darkness which 
 brooded over the minds of the most benighted heathens. A 
 sense of it has sufficed to transform the most reprobate sinners 
 into eminent saints. " I, if I be lifted up from the earth," 
 said Christ, "will draw all men unto myself." And we may 
 all now see that it is from the cross on which He was lifted up 
 that He is exerting His greatest influence ; that through the 
 attractive power of the cross He is lifting up the world heaven- 
 wards ; that by His cross He is reigning over His people, and 
 triumphing over His foes and theirs. 
 
 The merely natural or worldly reason may deem this in- 
 explicable, unreasonable. The spiritually enlightened reason 
 will not. Whoever contemplates the death of Christ aright 
 will not. Ah ! the chief cause why men remain alienated 
 from God is, it is to be feared, just that they do not draw near 
 to the cross of His Son and steadily and reverently contem- 
 plate the crowning instance of Divine love there exhibited. 
 Would they only in a patient, humble, prayerful spirit ponder 
 on all that Holy Scripture teaches to be implied in " Christ's 
 once suffering for sins," their own among them, all their 
 doubts of God's infinite fatherly love could hardly fail to be 
 
190 CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SIXS. 
 
 shamed away ; and then sin would begin to wither and to 
 die in them, bad thoughts and feelings to leave them, and 
 bad modes of conduct to drop off. New hearts towards God 
 and man would be given them. They would become new 
 creatures in Jesus Christ. 
 
 The cross of Christ is indispensable to the attainment of 
 a true salvation. Salvation is deliverance from the state of 
 separation from God and of sin against God natural to fallen 
 man, and restoration to such a position of harmony with God, 
 that he who is the subject of it may be said to live in and from 
 God. Nothing short of this is worthy to be regarded as salva- 
 tion. There can be but one true life, one eternal life ; and 
 that life is from God, and characterised by its likeness to the 
 life of God. 
 
 Such conformity to God as is the life and salvation of the 
 soul can only come from God Himself. The nature and life 
 of God to which we are to be conformed He must Himself 
 reveal to us. His revelation of Himself in nature, however, 
 is not enough for the needs of the sinner ; nor even a revela- 
 tion through miracles, visions, voices, institutions, words, such 
 as He made to Israel. The only revelation which can alone 
 meet the requirements of the case is a revelation in one who 
 while representing truly the Divine Nature lives, acts, and 
 suffers under human limitations and conditions; a revelation 
 through a living soul, akin both to God and us, one who 
 can truly " show us the Father," one who was "in the bosom 
 of the Father," and can come with the mercy and love of 
 the Father to draw us thereby into a transforming sympathy 
 with God ; one who comes at the same time as a human 
 person, a veritable brother, that he may show the Divine 
 beauty set in humanity, show the Divine love through suffer- 
 ing, and bind our hearts to his own, through an inter-con- 
 sciousness of temptation, grief, and pain. 
 
 In Christ suffering for our sins the love of God comes direct 
 and close to us, and in the way least possible for us to doubt 
 its sincerity or intensity ; or to refuse to return love for love. 
 But to meet the love of God to us with love to Him is to be 
 brought near to Him. Love is nearness. Enmity is distance. 
 To have enmitv cast out, and love brought in, this is all that is 
 
CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 191 
 
 needed that n^e may live near to God, and enjoy His communion, 
 His abiding presence. When the sonl attains this it has 
 acquired its proper good, its true blessedness, that without 
 which it never can have real rest or happiness. 
 
 But the only way in which it can attain this is the way 
 which Christ opened up through His holy and generous suffer- 
 ings unto death. Only when we truly realise through faith, 
 when we sincerely take home into our hearts the significance, 
 the spirit, of the pure, perfect, infinite, self-sacrificing love 
 of the Son as revealed in the self-humiliation and agony of 
 His death on the cross, can we savingly apprehend, or shall 
 we rejoicingly accept that eternal love of God the Father, 
 to know and abide in which is alone eternal life. Only 
 thus can we attain access and nearness to God, communion 
 with God. 
 
 And only thus can we retain it, and profit by it aright. 
 Even they who have been brought to God may be greatly 
 at fault by not valuing the blessing as they ought; for not 
 delighting in and striving after ever closer communion with 
 God, ever growing conformity to the will of God, as they 
 ought. 
 
 That we might live very near to God; that we might live 
 in the full sense of the love of God ; that the love of God 
 might dwell ridihj in us, and overflow to all God's children 
 and to all God's creatures, was the end of Christ's death ; 
 and we should not be satisfied unless we feel that it is gaining 
 its end in us. Let us beware lest Christ have suffered for 
 us even partially in vain. Let us try to make use with our 
 utmost diligence of the way which He opened up for us with 
 so much labour and pain. Let us seek to enjoy to the full 
 all those blessed influences and privileges of reconciliation 
 and communion with God which He procured for us at such 
 an incalculable cost of sacrifice and suffering. 
 
 To this end may God grant His blessing on what has now 
 been said. And to His name be glory for ever, through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 I have now, my friends, delivered unto you the message of 
 my text, but it is only fitting that I should add a few words 
 
192 CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 
 
 having reference to the special circumstances in which we 
 meet to-day. 
 
 You have, after a lengthened absence from this your own 
 place of worship, the satisfaction of finding yourselves again 
 within its walls, and the satisfaction also of seeing that it has 
 been enlarged, greatly beautified, and in all respects improved. 
 Its interior is now, I think, almost all that could be desired : 
 it is beautiful to the eye, commodious and comfortable, and 
 admirably suited for the various services of religion. You may 
 well congratulate yourselves on the many changes for the better 
 which have been made in it, and may reasonably regard its re- 
 opening to-day as an outstanding date in the history of your 
 Church. 
 
 That history has not been a lengthened one — the Abbey 
 Church was erected in 1875-76 — but it has been all the more 
 largely on that account a history of your own making, one in 
 which many of you must have taken a lively interest and an 
 active share. And it has been a very prosperous and creditable 
 history. Situated as it is where it is greatly needed, it has 
 been an immense boon to this part of Edinburgh. The zealous 
 and faithful labours and self-sacrificing character of its first 
 pastor, Mr. Milne, ought to be long and gratefully remembered. 
 You all know how altogether exceptional has been the increase 
 of its membership and of its general prosperity under the pas- 
 torate of my friend Mr. Sabiston. So far, indeed, as that is 
 concerned there is now nothing to desire. 
 
 Yet you are not so prosperous but that I may reasonably 
 wish, as I do most sincerely wish, that, through God's blessing, 
 you may have uninterrupted and ever increasing prosperity. 
 There is always room for growth in grace. To spiritual im- 
 provement there need be no limit or end. What I above all 
 wish for you, however, is just that as a congregation you may 
 make continuous spiritual progress ; and that as members 
 thereof your souls may always prosper more and more through 
 your connection with it. But if this wish is to be realised, it 
 can assuredly only be so through a steadily increasing faith 
 among you in the truth on which I have to-day addressed you. 
 
 When Emerson visited Carlyle at Craigenputtock, the latter, 
 pointing towards the parish church, said to his American friend, 
 
CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 193 
 
 " Christ's death built Dunscore Church yonder." And so it 
 had. And it has built the Abbey Church here too, and indeed 
 all the churches of Christendom ; and not one of them can 
 firmly stand or truly prosper on any other foundation than that 
 which Christ has laid for them by " His once suffering for sins, 
 the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." The 
 life of all our churches has had its source in Christ's death. 
 
 Churches, we must remember, are not, in any Scriptural 
 sense of the term, merely material houses — buildings composed 
 of dead stones, wood, and lime. We are accustomed, indeed, 
 to call certain of such edifices churches, and to cherish, as is 
 most befitting, reverential feelings and hallowed associations 
 in connection with them ; but, in reality, Chtirches are, as St 
 Peter has reminded us, " spiritual houses " — edifices composed 
 of living stones, savingly united to the one head corner-stone, 
 chosen of God and precious, which has life in itself and is the 
 source of life to all the stones in close connection with it. 
 The one true Christian Church in the world is the whole body 
 of true believers in Christ throughout the whole world. The 
 only true Christian Church in any given place consists of 
 the truly Christian souls in that place — those who belong to 
 the one vast undivided and indivisible body of Christ — not 
 the dead stones of any material house, but the living stones 
 of a spii'itual house. The true Abbey Church is not the 
 material building so called but the spiritual building within 
 that building. 
 
 It is only " spiritual houses " which are truly Christian 
 temples. It is only in them that God spiritually and effica- 
 ciously dwells ; only in them that there is a holy priesthood, 
 and where every Christian is a priest; only in them that 
 spiritual sacrifices truly acceptable to God are offered up, 
 because offered up and sanctified through faith in Christ's 
 sacrifice of Himself. And the prosperity, my friends, which 
 I would above all else wish for you is the prosperity of a truly 
 Christian Church — the prosperity of a growingly spiritual and 
 Christian life. My chief and most earnest wish for you as a 
 congregation is that all your souls may prosper, that they may 
 all become always more closely joined to Christ, and to one 
 another through union with Christ; always increasingly 
 
 N 
 
194 CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 
 
 quickened and strengthened, enlightened and sanctified by 
 communion with Christ. For if it be well with you so, all 
 will be well with you. That will bring with it all real con- 
 gregational prosperity. 
 
 If you have that you will also have, for example, the 
 great blessing of peace and harmony. No petty jealousies, 
 ambitions, or differences will separate and disturb you. You 
 will be kindly affectioned towards one another. You will 
 feel that you have much in common — one Father, one Saviour, 
 one sanctifying Spirit ; that you are all members of the same 
 household of faith, living under the same Divine Law, and with 
 the same great interests and glorious hopes ; that you are one 
 in Christ, one with each other, and bound to subordinate 
 everything to the advancement of the one great cause, the 
 coming of the Kingdom of God. 
 
 Further, if you have the blessing of which I speak there 
 will not fail to be found among you willing workers for Christ 
 in the different spheres in which as a congregation you have 
 need of them. All reasonable calls for Christian service 
 addressed to you from this pulpit will, in that case, meet with 
 ready responses. There will be no necessity for any impor- 
 tunate begging on behalf of any worthy object or scheme. 
 A mere statement of its claims will be sujBficient. Those 
 of you who have the appropriate talents for teaching with 
 advantage in the Sabbath-school, or aiding in the work of 
 the choir, or taking part in district visitation, or co-operating 
 with the minister in the general administration of the affairs 
 of the congregation, will be ready and glad so to put them 
 out to usury in the service of their Lord and Master. Those 
 who have not such talents will be at least ready and glad to 
 give what encouragement they can to those who have them 
 and who are employing them for the general good, and will 
 not forget to pray for a blessing on their endeavours. 
 
 And further, if you prosper in the spiritual life as a 
 Christian congregation may and should, your sympathies will 
 extend far beyond the limits of the congregation itself. You 
 will realise that you have duties to the community around you, 
 to the National Church of which this congregation is a com- 
 ponent part, and to the Christian Church as a whole. You 
 
CHRIST SUFFERING FOR SINS. 195 
 
 will not be backward in giving your support to the cause of 
 Christ in any form. You will desire and endeavour to be 
 always on the Lord's side. 
 
 Seek, pray, and labour, then, my friends, to grow steadily 
 and continually, to grow day by day, and year by year, in 
 grace, in the knowledge and love of your Heavenly Father, 
 in faith in Christ your Saviour, and in dependence on the 
 Holy Spirit, for assuredly if you do so God will withhold from 
 you nothing that is truly for your good either as individuals 
 or as a congregation. 
 
 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 
 through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you 
 perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that 
 which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ ; to 
 whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
XVII. 
 
 THE LAMB OF GOD. 
 
 " The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb 
 of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." — JOHN i. 29. 
 
 ON the day before John had already borne very distinct and 
 impressive witness to Jesus. 
 
 The verses immediately preceding our text tell us of its 
 occasion and nature. John had himself made a great impres- 
 sion on the minds of his countrymen. Many of them were 
 expecting the appearance of some one to raise and liberate 
 Israel. And hence when John, who was known to have been 
 set apart from his birth to a Divine mission, and to have led 
 from childhood a rigidly ascetic, devout, and righteous life in 
 preparation for it, at length came forth from his seclusion, 
 confidently proclaimed the nearness of the kingdom of God, 
 summoned sinners to immediate repentance and an entire 
 change of heart and conduct, and began, without asking leave 
 of any one, to baptize and to gather around him disciples, great 
 multitudes naturally flocked to hear him, and not a few began 
 to think that he might be the mighty one whom they had been 
 taught by ancient prophecy to look for. 
 
 Such being the state of the public mind, it seemed good 
 to those who exercised ecclesiastical power among the Jews to 
 send from Jerusalem a deputation of priests and Levites to 
 obtain from his own lips an explanation as to who he was and 
 by what authority he spoke and acted as he did. 
 
 John had no high opinion of the priests and Levites of his 
 day, and he does not seem to have said more to those sent to 
 him than was just needed to answer the questions which they 
 put to him. But his answers were exceedingly clear and 
 candid. Was he the Christ, the Messiah ? He fully acknow- 
 ledged that he was not. Was he Elijah, who, according to 
 Malachi, was to be " sent before the coming of the great and 
 
 196 
 
THE LAMB OF GOD. 197 
 
 terrible day of the Lord " ? No, he was not Elijah come back 
 to earth. Was he the prophet " like unto Moses " promised in 
 the Book of Deuteronomy ? He was not that prophet either. 
 Who, then, loas he? And since neither the Messiah, nor 
 Elijah, nor the second Moses, what authority had he for 
 speaking and acting as he did, and especially for requiring 
 Jews, the seed of Abraham, the children of Israel, to submit 
 to a rite which implied that they were impure — no better than 
 Gentiles ? 
 
 When thus questioned, his answer was a testimony on behalf 
 of Christ, all the more impressive because of the dignity, the 
 reserve, the coldness which he had just shown towards the 
 priests and Levites. This severe ascetic, this great prophet, 
 when he has to consider his relation to the Christ at once shows 
 how really humble he is, how insignificant he feels himself to 
 be. He the Christ ! No ! he is nobody. He is a mere voice 
 — a voice without worth or meaning apart from the Divine 
 Word to which it refers — a voice calling upon God's people to 
 repentance in preparation for the coming of Him who was 
 already among them although they knew Him not. His own 
 baptism was only one of water merely pointing to another 
 baptism which only the Christ could give. His own mission 
 had all its significance and authority from another Teacher, 
 whose shoe-latchet he was not worthy to unloose. 
 
 John could not have expressed more clearly his recognition, 
 or more strongly his sense, of his own inferiority to Jesus than 
 he thus did. The humility which he showed was soon to meet 
 with its reward. The next day John had the opportunity 
 given him to make his testimony complete and precise. He 
 saw Jesus coming towards him, and near enough for some 
 recognition. When he saw Him, he pointed Him out to those 
 who were around him, and cried aloud, " Behold the Lamb of 
 God, which taketh away the sin of the world." 
 
 His cry was one of joy, the cry of a man who had found 
 what he desired above all else, and what he knew the world 
 needed beyond all else. And the position in which he stood 
 when he uttered it was one of wondrous privilege ; one which 
 fully accounts for our Saviour having said of him that he was 
 "a prophet, and much more than a' prophet"; that "among 
 
198 THE LAMB OF GOD. 
 
 those born of women there was not a greater prophet than 
 John the Baptist." The narrative before us is the best com- 
 mentary on these words. The whole history of true religion in 
 the past, with all its rites and sacrifices, precepts and prophe- 
 cies, had been crying to men to wait and watch for what John 
 was permitted to see. The great distinction denied to the 
 wisest and best men of former ages was reserved for him; 
 even that of looking on the face of the Son of Man, the Hope 
 of Israel, and the Desire of all nations, and as the voice of the 
 whole ancient economy gathering up all its cries of distress, 
 inquiry, and expectation in one cry of joy and certainty and 
 discovery, " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
 sin of the world." Truly he was a prophet, and much more 
 than a prophet. 
 
 Yet we must not forget that Christ also said that " he that is 
 least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." We cannot 
 reasonably suppose that John even in that moment of high 
 inspiration from the living God, when he uttered the words 
 recorded in the text, had in his mind all the thoughts and feel- 
 ings which they naturally call up in us who interpret them 
 in the light of Christ's life and death, of the teaching of 
 the Apostles, and the Christian reflection and experience of 
 centuries. We have no right to attribute to him views and 
 theories of sacrifice and atonement, of substitution and impu- 
 tation, of grace and justification, which have only grown up 
 within the Christian Church. To the very close of his career 
 he would seem to have fancied that Christ was to be a temporal 
 king and conqueror as well as a moral and spiritual reformer. 
 Had he realised as the simplest of Christians, the least in the 
 kingdom of heaven, cannot fail to do, what Christ's being the 
 Lamh of God which taketh away the sin of the world implied, 
 his mind would not have been distracted by the doubts and 
 fears which visited him while he lay a prisoner in the fortress of 
 Machgerus. 
 
 On the other hand, the words of the Baptist in themselves 
 undoubtedly mean more than he can have with clear conscious- 
 ness meant by them. They were more comprehensive and 
 profound than he was aware of. So is it often with the words 
 of a man of genius. Still more so is it with the words prompted 
 
THE LAMB OF GOD. 199 
 
 by special divine inspiration. The prophets of necessity fre- 
 quently gave utterance to truths wider and richer in significance 
 than they or their contemporaries could realise. 
 
 And, I think, we shall assuredly not fall into error if we 
 regard the exclamation of John as an admirable expression in 
 words of what the sacred symbols spread on a communion table 
 show forth in sensible signs. Both the words and the signs 
 convey the same cry. Both tell us to contemplate joyously, 
 reverently, lovingly the Lamb of God which taketh away the 
 sin of the world. The words of the Baptist were the assurance 
 that the goal alike of ancient law and prophecy — that the 
 burden of all prediction and the fulfilment of all promise made 
 to God's people in past ages — was at length found ; and the 
 symbols of communion confirm the assurance, and teach us 
 that whosoever believeth in Christ, feeding on Him by faith, 
 receiving into his soul the benefits of His death, trusting in 
 His merits, and rejoicing in the fulness of His love and grace, 
 is no longer under condemnation, but hath eternal life abiding 
 and working in him. 
 
 Behold the Lamb of God. This mode of speech shows that 
 the Baptist had in his mind some known and special lamb ; 
 some lamb revealed by God, provided by God, pleasing to God, 
 so as to be peculiarly God's lamb ; and at the same time some 
 lamb familiar to John's hearers. 
 
 What lamb was it to which he looked back as a type of 
 Christ? There has been much difference of opinion on the 
 subject. Some have supposed that it was the lamb of the daily 
 sacrifice. But the Baptist's expression is too definite to have 
 so general a reference as to the lambs of the daily morning 
 and evening sacrifice. And, besides, these lambs were not used 
 in sin-offerings properly so-called. 
 
 Others have held that it was to the paschal lamb that the 
 Baptist referred. It has been said that " as the sacrifice of 
 the first paschal lamb procured redemption or deliverance from 
 the plague that smote and destroyed the Egyptians, so did the 
 sacrifice of the Lamb of God procure eternal redemption for 
 His people, or take away the sins of the world." But against 
 this interpretation it has to be said that the paschal sacrifice 
 was, indeed, in the Jewish mind, connected with deliverance, 
 
200 THE LAMB OF GOD. 
 
 but not in any special way with the removal of sin. We know 
 of no mention of sin or of the taking away of sin having been 
 made to "tbe Jews before the time of John the Baptist in con- 
 nection with the paschal lamb. The relationship of the sacrifice 
 of the paschal lamb to the crucifixion of our Lord is, indeed, 
 indubitable and most wonderful, but it was one which could 
 only be distinctly perceived when the antitype as well as the 
 type was present to the mind, or, in other words, after the 
 institution of the sacrament of the Supper, after the death 
 of Christ, and the founding of His Church. Then it became 
 obvious that He was " our Passover," and more, — the Lamb 
 of God through whose sacrifice sin was not merely passed over, 
 but effectively expiated and removed, — no merely temporary 
 shadow or symbol, but the realisation of eternal spiritual truth, 
 of absolute Divine love and righteousness. 
 
 I do not venture to deny that there may have been some 
 indirect reference in the thought and language of John to the 
 lambs of the daily sacrifice, or to the paschal lamb ; but it 
 seems to me that there is very little doubt that the refer- 
 ence was, chiefly at least, to the lamb of the 53rd chapter of 
 Isaiah ; that the Baptist followed the guidance of the prophet 
 who there exhibited the Servant of God as meekly and gently 
 accepting humiliation, misery, shame, and death, in order to 
 take away the sins of the people. " He was wounded for our 
 transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities : the chastise- 
 ment of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are 
 healed. All we like sheep have gone astray^; we have turned 
 every one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on him the 
 iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, 
 yet he opened not his mouth : he is brought as a lamb to 
 the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so 
 he openeth not his mouth." And so on, as you have heard 
 read to-day. 
 
 Nowhere else did ancient prophecy rise to such a height 
 as in this description of the suffering Servant of Jehovah. 
 There is nothing of the same kind which can be put on nearly 
 the same level even in the Old Testament. It was so unique, 
 so inapplicable to any known historical individual, so plainly 
 figurative, so certainly meant to indicate the innermost secret 
 
THE LAMB OF GOD. 201 
 
 of God's method of dealing with Israel, that it could not fail 
 strongly to attract to itself the attention of every pious and 
 thoughtful Hebrew. 
 
 In the New Testament Christ is spoken of as a lamb in 
 thirty-one passages, twenty-nine of which belong to a single 
 book, the Apocalypse. It is quite clear that the source whence 
 the writer of the Apocalypse drew his love for likening Christ 
 to a lamb was the marvellous picture of the Suffering Servant 
 in Isaiah. Certain also is it, I think, that John the Baptist 
 must have had the same picture before his mental vision when 
 looking upon Jesus he exclaimed, " Behold the Lamb of God." 
 
 He knew of the strange events associated with the birth 
 of Jesus. He must have heard of His blameless life. His 
 singular wisdom, His pious zeal. He felt Him to be one far 
 greater and better than himself, and with a higher and more 
 enduring work to do. And now he saw Him come forth 
 publicly to make known and to do the Heavenly Father's will. 
 What more natural than that, while noting His meekness and 
 gentleness, and anticipating the resistance and contradiction 
 which He would meet with from a disobedient and gainsaying 
 people, the whole vision of the Suffering Servant of the Lord 
 should rise before his mind, and that there should spring up 
 with it the thought, Here is the Lamb of God ! Here at 
 length is He in whom all that the great prophet spake 
 will be fulfilled. We know how wonderfully it has been ful- 
 filled. Not a word of it has been allowed to fall in vain to 
 the ground. 
 
 But John did not say merely, Behold the Lamh of God. He 
 added, ivhicli taheth away the, sin of the ivorld. He looked, it is 
 evident, to find in Christ a Saviour from spiritual as well as 
 from temporal evils. Many of the Jews desired to see the 
 Messiah merely because they wished a national deliverer, one 
 who would raise up fallen Israel to higher prosperity and 
 greater power than she had ever had. But, of course, so un- 
 worthy a conception could not, and did not, satisfy the more 
 earnest and pious-minded among the Jews. Although they 
 also looked and longed for Messiah to come as a temporal 
 and national King and Conqueror, they looked and longed still 
 more for a spiritual deliverance to be effected by Him, a 
 
202 THE LAMB OF GOD. 
 
 victory over sin to be achieved, a reign of righteousness to be 
 established. 
 
 So was it with John the Baptist. Patriot although he was, 
 and with all a patriot's zeal for his country's glory, the thought 
 about Messiah which held the first and deepest place in his 
 mind was that he would take away the sin of the world. He 
 felt that of all evils sin was the worst ; that it was the root of 
 all other evils ; that deliverance from it was the only true and 
 thorough deliverance from evil which either an individual or a 
 nation could hope to experience. He had a strong love of 
 righteousness and a strong hatred of sin. Had he not he 
 would have been a most unworthy herald of the coming of 
 Christ ; for to save and purify men from sin was the primary 
 and chief reason why Christ came to earth to suffer and die. 
 
 The word which John employed to denote the action of the 
 Lamb of God on sin is rightly rendered taheth away. It does 
 not mean merely hearing u'p or sustaining but hearing away or 
 removing. The hearing aivay may, however, include the hearing. 
 Christ by bearing sin may bear it away. But undoubtedly 
 John was thinking less of Christ's taking the burden of sin 
 upon Himself than of His taking it off mankind. He regarded 
 that burden as a load weighing upon men, and which they had 
 strength enough neither to support nor to cast off. And he 
 looked on the Lamb of God as carrying it away from them. 
 
 What is the sin which according to John the Lamb of God 
 takes away ? The prophet in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah said, 
 "for the transgression of my people was he stricken." His 
 horizon was that of the Jewish world. He thought only of the 
 redemption of Israel. The view of the Baptist embraces the 
 human race. His words — most precious and blessed words — 
 are that the Lamb of God taketh aivay the sin of the world; that 
 is, the whole enormous mass of iniquity which is in the world, 
 which burdens and blights the world ; the sin of which original 
 depravity is as it were the root, vicious habits the branches, 
 thoughts, words, and deeds of impiety and injustice the leaves 
 and fruits. John comprehends all in one general word. He 
 speaks of sin as a whole. It has parts indeed, but these 
 may all be referred as it were to one body of sin, whether 
 original or actual, whether of feeling or thought, of word or 
 
THE LAMB OF GOD. 203 
 
 deed, whether directly against God's glory or our neighbour's 
 welfare. 
 
 Let any man's sin be what it may Christ has died to take it 
 away, and will take it away if the man will allow Him ; will 
 only accept the help which he needs, and which the Saviour is 
 most anxious to give. Every sin of every sinner Christ is 
 willing to take away, " The sin of the world " is John's expres- 
 sion ; and no man can say that he and his sin are not included 
 therein. God's wish is that every man should be saved. He 
 willeth not the death of any sinner ; and if a sinner perversely 
 refuse life and choose death he has no right to throw the blame 
 or any part of it on a merciful and gracious God. 
 
 We have come together this day to show forth the death 
 of Christ, to celebrate the love and grace manifested to us 
 in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. May the words of the 
 Baptist and the elements of communion conjoin through the 
 power of Divine grace to help us to do so aright ; may they 
 encourage and assist us to contemplate the Lamb of God 
 slain for our offences, and to yield ourselves up to be saved 
 from our sins through His work on our behalf. 
 
 When we think what that work was — when we think, as we 
 should, of all that He endured for our sakes in carrying out 
 His errand of unspeakable mercy towards us, assuredly the 
 liveliest gratitude of which our nature is susceptible should 
 be awakened within us at the table of communion, and may 
 even well be felt by us but a poor offering to bring to it. 
 
 It is, however, all that we can bring to it. Therefore let us 
 lay aside this day all groundless and unworthy anxiety and fear. 
 Let us look away from ourselves and our inherent helplessness 
 to the efficacy of our Saviour's sacrifice and the boundlessness of 
 His love. Let us behold with the eye of a sincere and steady 
 faith the Lamb of God as "taking away the sin of the world," 
 and especially that part of " the sin of the world" which con- 
 cerns us most, even that part of it which belongs to ourselves. 
 Let us behold Him as the Lamb slain for us, who is bearing 
 away our iniquities, who is setting our selves free from sin and 
 death. And may the Spirit of the living God be with us all, 
 and grant to us a time of refreshing, grateful on earth, and 
 gratefully to be remembered in eternity. Amen. 
 
XVIII. 
 ENDS OF CHEIST'S DEATH AND EESUREECTION.^ 
 
 "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." 
 
 — Romans iv. 25. 
 
 THE truths conveyed to us in these words are of vital 
 importance. A Christian life is just a life which is 
 habitually influenced and governed by them. The Gospel 
 so centres in them, and is to so great an extent summed up 
 in them, that it can never be inopportune for a preacher of 
 the Gospel to remind his hearers of them. 
 
 There is, however, a special reason why I should direct your 
 attention to them at this time. 
 
 You are looking forward as a congregation of Christian 
 believers to participating on Sabbath next in the sacrament 
 which Christ Himself graciously instituted as the means by 
 which His people were to show forth His death and their 
 own interest therein. And there can be no more appropriate 
 preparation for a worthy and beneficial partaking of the sacra- 
 ment of the Supper than pious meditation on the nature and 
 significance of the death which it commemorates. But it is 
 impossible to think aright of Christ's death without thinking 
 of it in connection with His victory over death. That He 
 was delivered for our offences would not have availed for our 
 redemption had He not been also raised for our justification. 
 The only truly saving relation of a soul to Christ is one which 
 is rooted in faith both on His dying and on His rising again, 
 both on His crucifixon and on His resurrection. 
 
 I may add that the week on which we have now entered 
 will be regarded by the vast majority of devout Christians 
 throughout the world as the holiest week of the Christian 
 year, because of its associations with the death of Christ, and 
 next Sabbath as the most joyous day of the Christian year, 
 
 1 Preached on Palm Sunday in St Stephen's Church, Edinburgh. 
 204 
 
ENDS OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 205 
 
 the brightest and best of its Sundays, because the one which 
 most distinctly declares to them, "The Lord is risen indeed." 
 It can do us only good if we too are enabled thus to feel. 
 The words of St Paul in our text are directly fitted to help 
 us so to feel. As we meditate on them for a little, may the 
 Holy Spirit so apply them to our hearts that they will pro- 
 duce in us their due effects. 
 
 Christ, the Apostle tells us, was " delivered for our offences," 
 was given up for our trespasses. He does not merely refer us 
 to the fact of Christ's death. He also indicates the origin and 
 the end, the cause and purpose of that death. It is always 
 so that Scripture presents Christ's death to us. And for the 
 obvious reason that to view it otherwise, to contemplate it 
 simply in itself, to regard it merely as an isolated event apart 
 from the grounds and the issues of it, must be an unintelligent 
 and unprofitable way of considering it. 
 
 Hence St Paul here tells us not merely that Christ humbled 
 Himself, suffered, and died for us, but that He was " delivered," 
 given up, handed over, to humiliation, suffering, and death. 
 God gave Him up to death for us all. The true and primary 
 cause of His death was the consent of the Eternal Father's 
 will to His death. The Jewish priests who contrived His 
 death, Judas who betrayed Him, the mob which clamoured 
 for His death, the unjust judge who pronounced sentence of 
 condemnation upon Him, Herod who mocked Him, and the 
 murderers who nailed Him to the cross, had all their share 
 of responsibility for His death ; but the power which they 
 had over Him was a power given to them from above. The 
 Father could at any moment have scattered the counsels and 
 frustrated the efforts of those miserable men. One word, 
 one single movement of Christ's own will would have done 
 so. He Himself tells us that He had only to ask the Father 
 and legions iof angels would be forthwith sent to His aid. 
 But neither the Father nor the Son would exert their power 
 to ward off the pain and shame of the death on the cross. 
 It was necessary that Christ should suffer and die as He did. 
 It was necessary for the sake of mankind, for all our sakes, 
 that Christ should so suffer and die, and therefore the Father 
 willed that He should so suffer and die ; and the Son freely 
 
206 ENDS OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 
 
 and fully assented to the Father's will, and humbly and 
 faithfully acted on it until it was completely realised, until it 
 was "finished." 
 
 This word " delivered " jDoints us, then, directly to the source 
 of the salvation which has come to the world through the 
 death of Christ. It shows us that death not as a mere link 
 in the chain of events, not as a mere fact in the course of 
 destiny, although it was foreordained from eternity, but as 
 a revelation of the mind and heart of the Eternal Father 
 towards His disobedient and rebellious children, a wondrous 
 disclosure of the infinite love which had never ceased to 
 follow them, but had clung to them, never let them go, and 
 at length sacrificed what was dearest to it in order to win 
 them back to itself. 
 
 The death of Christ can only be to us what it was meant to 
 be when it is viewed as at once an exhibition of the wondrous 
 love of Christ Himself towards us, and as the best and greatest 
 gift of the love of His Father to us ; only when we see the love 
 of the Father shining on us in and through the sufferings of 
 His Son, and feel it lighting up and quickening our naturally 
 dark and dead hearts. " God is love." And nowhere has God 
 as Infinite Love been so clearly and fully revealed as in the 
 death of His Son. It is a icnique revelation of the Divine love ; 
 such a revelation as could not be made otherwise, — as could not 
 be made through mere nature or history, through mere miracle 
 or prophecy, through mere inspired speech or writing. It was 
 absolutely necessary for the complete development and dis- 
 closure of the Fatherly love of God, and nothing else can 
 sufficiently show us, or bring adequately home to us, what 
 that love is. 
 
 Our text reminds us, however, that we must trace back the 
 death of Christ to more than mere love of God. It tells us that 
 Christ was " delivered for our offences" God gave Him up to 
 suffer and die on our behalf not merely because He loved us, 
 but also because there was an obstacle to His love resting on 
 us and blessing us which could only be removed through Christ's 
 suffering unto death. That obstacle was a vast and awful one. 
 It was " our offences," the trespasses of the human race, the 
 iniquities of us all. These had to be testified against. Their 
 
ENDS OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 207 
 
 enormity had to be made manifest. The penalties due to them 
 had to be boi-ne. A method of forgiving them consistent with 
 the claims of perfect justice and all the moral interests of the 
 universe had to be found and followed. Sin had to be conspicu- 
 ously condemned, its power decidedly broken, and an effective 
 means of expelling and destroying it provided. In a word, the 
 moral purity, the righteousness, the holiness of God, required 
 not less imperatively than His love, His tenderness, His mercy, 
 to be vindicated and displayed in the redemption of mankind. 
 
 True love and true righteousness can never be opposed or 
 even separated. It is neither reasonable nor scriptural to 
 regard the death of Christ as a manifestation of a justice in 
 God independent of love, and there is no such spurious justice 
 in God. His justice even in the punishment of sin ceases not 
 to be conjoined with love of the sinner, and inasmuch as it 
 seeks the righteousness of those with whom it deals it tends 
 also to their happiness. So equally it is neither reasonable nor 
 scriptural to regard the death of Christ as a manifestation of a 
 love in God which is irrespective of justice, and there is in God 
 no such false love. When He delivered up Christ it was to 
 "take away the sin of the world" ; it was "to redeem us from 
 all iniquity." 
 
 And nothing could be more fitted to do so. The fact that 
 Christ required to be "delivered for our offences" of itself 
 shows as nothing else could conceivably do how terribly serious 
 these offences are in God's sight and in real fact. We often 
 think of our offences with a strange levity, hardly feeling 
 them burdening or troubling our consciences at all. Yet they 
 were what caused Christ to suffer and to die. Yes, as truly 
 as the offences of Judas, Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod, of the 
 Jewish Pharisees and the Roman soldiers, our offences inflicted 
 on Him the indignities and agonies of which we read in the 
 Gospels ; betrayed Him, roused up and armed His enemies 
 against Him ; forced the bloody sweat from His brow and 
 groans from His breast. It was our sins, the iniquities of us 
 all, the ungodliness, the untruthfulness, the unbelief, pride, 
 dishonesty, lust, cruelty, of each and every member of our 
 rebellious race, which tortured His body, pierced His soul, and 
 deprived Him of life. 
 
208 ENDS OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 
 
 And when we are tempted to think with indifference of the 
 sinfulness of our sins we have only to look at them seriously in 
 the light which streams from the cross in order to see how 
 foolish and wrong it must be to regard them in such a way. 
 Calvary shows us what God thought of them, how Christ felt 
 towards them, and what it must have cost us if we had required 
 to atone for all the evil we had done. Well may we glory 
 in "the offence of the cross," were it only that it so clearly 
 discloses to us the hatefulness of our own offences and so 
 impressively warns us to strive to offend no more. 
 
 The phrase " delivered for our offences," I must further add, 
 reminds us that Christ's death stands to our sins in a relation 
 which no other death has held or can hold to them. It indi- 
 cates a specific difference — a distinct difference in kind — 
 between the death of Christ and the death of any merely 
 human martyr. The martyrs have died for our instruction 
 and our good. They have given us by their deaths glorious 
 and affecting evidences of self-sacrifice, courage, and sincerity, 
 of their piety towards God and of their love to their fellow-men. 
 But none of them died for our sins. It would be an utter 
 abuse of language to speak of the death of any of them in such 
 a way. Christ alone was crucified for us ; alone was " delivered 
 for our offences." His death has a character, a glory, and an 
 efficacy which belong to no other death. 
 
 It was a death in our room and stead. It was the death of 
 one who took on Him the nature of man, and became not 
 merely a man among men, but the man as no one else, the 
 second Adam, the spiritual head of a new humanity, which God 
 cannot view as without Christ but as in Christ, and therefore 
 carrying within it the all-availing expiation effected by Christ. 
 No death save the death of one whose love, righteousness, and 
 obedience were perfect, who united Godhead and Manhood in 
 His person, and who freely and fully identified Himself with 
 men, and sacrificially substituted Himself for them, could have 
 been the condemnation of human sin, the satisfaction of Divine 
 justice, and the ground of reconciliation between God and man, 
 which was required. 
 
 The perfect life ending in the holy death of the Incarnate 
 One could alone remove the tremendous obstacle to the loving 
 
ENDS OF Christ's death and resurrection. 209 
 
 action of God's will in the world presented by human wickedness 
 and guilt; could alone open a way in which the Divine love 
 might find full scope and exercise ; and could alone succeed 
 in effectively awakening spiritual life in those who were dead 
 in trespasses and sins. 
 
 Such being the case, there is surely wonderful comfort for us 
 in the assurance that Christ was delivered for our offences. It 
 gives us precisely the information which our consciences most 
 need. It tells us that there is forgiveness for us with God ; 
 that we are free from the curse of a broken law ; that we may 
 reasonably hope to be cleansed from our sins. 
 
 But there is also something very serious in it. It is a warn- 
 ing to us that there is no other salvation for us than that which 
 is offered us through faith in Christ ; that there is no other 
 remedy than the one which He has wrought out. Choice be- 
 tween the acceptance or rejection of Christ is choice between 
 life and death. No one has died for our offences but Christ, 
 and no one else can save us from our offences and their con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Let us now pass to the other truth which our text states. 
 Here I shall be very brief. Christ was raised again for our 
 justification. This is, of course, not equivalent to denying that 
 Christ also died for our justification. It is, however, quite in 
 accordance with the usual language of St Paul to connect 
 Christ's death specially with the believer's sin and Christ's 
 resurrection specially with the believer's justification. Christ 
 died for our sins in order that through union with Him we 
 might die unto sin. Christ rose again that through union with 
 Him we might rise into newness of life. 
 
 Christ, our mediator, being not only very man, but also of a 
 heavenly and divine nature, begotten by the power not of flesh 
 and blood, but of the Holy Spirit, could not remain subject to 
 death. He submitted Himself to its sway for a time, in order 
 to discharge the office which, out of infinite love to men. He 
 had undertaken, but that being accomplished. His nature in- 
 evitably asserted its superiority to such bondage, and returned 
 to its true condition and to the enjoyment of its own inherent 
 divine life. 
 
 
 
210 ENDS OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 
 
 And even apart altogether from the origin and character of 
 His nature, His office and our advantage demanded that He 
 should rise from the dead. And this is what the Apostle had 
 in view when He tells us that Christ was raised again for our 
 justification. 
 
 Christ by His sufferings and death had atoned for our sins. 
 To that atonement as such nothing required to be added. It 
 was perfect and all-sufficient in itself. It needed only to be 
 accepted. But it did need to be accepted. The benefits of it 
 can only be enjoyed by those who believe in it ; who appro- 
 priate the truth and the love and the grace which are in it. 
 The death of Christ must leave in condemnation — and even in 
 many cases deepen their condemnation — those who have no 
 belief in its importance, no real sense of their interest in it. 
 Without faith there can be no justification. 
 
 But could there be faith in Christ at all — any real, ope- 
 rative, and saving faith — had there been no resurrection? 
 No. 
 
 Had our Lord left His body lying in the sepulchre, how 
 could we have supposed that He had been able to raise others 
 from the sleep of death ? How could we have been assured 
 that His obedience and sacrifice had been perfectly acceptable 
 to the Father? Who sees not that in such a case our faith 
 must have remained buried in the same dust which covered His 
 body? Could we fail, had He never risen, to regard Him 
 otherwise than as not the true Son of God but a mere man like 
 ourselves? The death of Christ, had it not been followed 
 by His resurrection, must have seemed simply the calamit- 
 ous end of a strange enthusiast who had undertaken more 
 than He could accomplish, and promised what was never ful- 
 filled. Had Christ Himself not been raised there could 
 have been no Gospel, as there has been, to "bring life and 
 immortality to light," and to make what had been previously 
 only a vague and dreary anticipation a blessed and a welcome 
 certainty. 
 
 It is only through knowing that Christ rose from the 
 dead that we can firmly believe in His Eternal Sonship, 
 in His atoning death, in His now living and reigning with 
 God, and that we can look forward with joyous confidence 
 
ENDS OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 211 
 
 to being for ever with Him, and finding all His promises 
 fulfilled. 
 
 The Christian Church arose out of assurance of the resur- 
 rection. It triumphed through that assurance. It would 
 dissolve and die were it to lose it. And the power of the 
 resurrection gives to the life of each individual Christian, hope- 
 fulness, strength, gladness, and its pure and heavenly character. 
 The life of the Christian is life in the risen Lord, life hid with 
 Christ in God, resurrection life, life which has been raised out 
 of death and the dust and now through its union with the life 
 of the Risen Saviour seeks to be ever with Him and aspires to 
 heavenly holiness. The power of the resurrection raises the 
 soul above the world and produces and sustains in it the life 
 which God approves. Christ was raised again for our jus- 
 tification. 
 
 Let us all, then, my friends, sincerely receive Christ both 
 as delivered for our sins and as raised again for our justification. 
 Let us pray for an ardent desire to share alike in the fruit of 
 His sufferings and in the power of His resurrection. Let us 
 to this end make a good use of the week before us. Let us 
 read and try to realise what the Evangelists have written for 
 our instruction as to what took place in and around Jerusalem 
 in that memorable week ushered in by the day when crowds 
 escorted Jesus into the city, shouting Hosannas, and which 
 ended with the day when, after having suffered many and 
 awful things at the hands and for the sins of men, yea, being 
 crucified, dead, and buried. He rose victorious from the grave, 
 the Conqueror of Sin and Death, the Lord of Life. Let us 
 prayerfully try to take home to our hearts the lessons of every 
 incident connected with our Lord's death and resurrection, to 
 retain them there, and to allow them to bear their appropriate 
 fruits in our lives. 
 
 Let us beware lest Christ have either died or risen for us 
 wholly or even partially in vain. Let us seek to enjoy to the 
 full all those blessed influences and privileges of reconciliation 
 and communion with God which He procured for us both 
 through His crucifixion and through His resurrection. 
 
 To this end may we use aright, and find richly helpful, the 
 sacred ordinance in which we are so soon to participate. To 
 
212 ENDS OF Christ's death and eesurrection. 
 
 this end may God incline and inspire our hearts to join in it 
 aright, humbly to receive the great truths which it so impres- 
 sively proclaims, and eagerly to appropriate the sustenance 
 and the benefits which it is designed to supply for our spiritual 
 nourishment and growth in grace. 
 
 To this end also may God grant His blessing on what has 
 now been said. And to His name be glory for ever, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
XIX. 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 
 
 " Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and 
 sanctification, and redemption." — 1 CoK. i. 30. 
 
 ST PAUL begins this chapter — begins this epistle — by ex- 
 pressing thankfulness for the manifold gifts of knowledge 
 and teaching which the Corinthians had received from God, 
 and hope that the good work which had been begun in them 
 would be continued to the end. He then proceeds to censure 
 them for their divisions, and to enjoin them to free themselves 
 from the spirit of party and to remember their unity in Christ. 
 This leads him to insist that he had not laboured among them 
 to form a party — that he had not baptized into his own name 
 or sought to have men calling themselves adherents of his — 
 that his great object, the aim to which all else had been sub- 
 ordinated, was the preaching of the Gospel, the making known 
 the way of salvation through Christ. This leads him to state 
 and vindicate the subject and manner of his preaching. There 
 seems to have been much unprofitable discussion about that 
 among the Christians of Corinth. Living in a city full of 
 rhetoricians and philosophers, some of them had begun to 
 despise the simple, unadorned, substantial, practical Gospel 
 teaching which he had given them. There was also a strong 
 Je\vish party, and many of its members hankered after signs, 
 wonders of mere power. In the latter part of this chapter St 
 Paul is speaking very directly and plainly to both of these 
 classes, but especially to the former. 
 
 He says, as it were. It is perfectly true that I preached to 
 you plainly and without eloquence about a crucified Jesus only. 
 I glory in that. It is in the tidings of a crucified Messiah, not 
 in human wisdom and eloquence, that the true enlightenment 
 and life of the soul are to be found. What has been done by 
 your philosophers, your logicians, your orators and disputers? 
 
 213 
 
214 CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 
 
 Why, with all their wisdom, they have remained in awful igno- 
 rance of the true God and His blessed will. God has proved 
 their wisdom to be merest folly. And it has pleased Him to 
 manifest His wisdom and saving power by what seems to them 
 folly and weakness. I, therefore, and those who are like- 
 minded, set at nought the wisdom of the world, and proclaim, 
 announce, Christ Crucified. True, that is a message which 
 neither Jew nor Greek willingly accepts ; the Jew craves for an 
 outward miraculous manifestation of power, and is scandalised 
 by the idea of a Messiah who was put to death as a malefactor ; 
 the Greek seeks for a philosophy, for a theory which will exer- 
 cise his intellectual subtilty and gratify his intellectual curiosity, 
 and to him the proclamation of a redemption through Christ 
 crucified appears to be folly; but, in reality, in spite of the 
 imaginations of the natural mind and heart in Jew and Greek, 
 it is to all, whether Jew or Greek, who have been called into 
 God's Church and kingdom, the power of God, — a power far 
 greater than that which could be displayed by any sign from 
 heaven or outward miracle, — and the wisdom of God, — a far 
 greater manifestation of wisdom than any system of speculation 
 ever devised by the human intellect. 
 
 " The foolishness of God " — that way of God which is esteemed 
 foolishness by you Greeks — " is wiser than all the wisdom of 
 men," and the man who chooses it, however unlearned, however 
 ignorant, however little you may esteem his mind, is wiser far 
 than the wisest of your philosophers ; and " the weakness of 
 God " — that way of saving men which is weak in the eyes 
 especially of you Jews — " is stronger than the power of men," 
 delivering from the bondage of sin, subduing and sanctifying 
 the heart, and overcoming obstacles as no human power can do. 
 " For you see your calling, brethren " — you must discern if you 
 look to the manner and circumstances of your conversion to 
 Christianity — how the Divine Wisdom has so ordered it that 
 not many who are wise in the estimation and with the wisdom 
 of this world, not many who are powerful or noble have been 
 " called " — have been put into possession of the hopes and pro- 
 mises of the Gospel or been made use of to propagate it ; but 
 " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world " — that simple 
 way of instructing mankind which many count foolishness, and 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 215 
 
 those unlearned Apostles whom they represent as fools — "to 
 confound the wise " — those philosophers, those searchers into 
 nature's secrets — who, with all their wisdom and searching, have 
 really found so little ; " and God hath chosen the weak things of 
 the world " — poor fishermen and tent-makers, for instance, 
 assisted by no human force — "to confound the things which are 
 mighty " — to break through the opposition of the peoples, the 
 priests, the kings of the earth, and to pull down the strong- 
 holds, cast down the reasonings, and level the heights of the 
 philosophers who exalt themselves against the knowledge of 
 Christ, " And base things of the world, and things which are 
 despised, yea and things which are not, hath God chosen to 
 bring to nought things that are ; that no flesh should glory in 
 His presence." 
 
 This leads the Apostle to the wonderful utterance from which 
 I take my text. Before God, man has nothing in himself, 
 nothing of his own, in which he can glory. Before God, and 
 in himself, he is a being made up of wants which he cannot 
 supply by his own powers and exertions. He has a spiritual 
 blindness which prevents him from perceiving the truth most 
 necessary for his guidance as a spiritual being. He has ten- 
 dencies to sin which can only be resisted by the working of 
 another power than his own sinful self-will. He requires a 
 reconciliation with God not of his own making. The law of 
 God is a law which demands a reasonableness, a purity, a justice, 
 a holiness, which no man renders ; and therefore every man 
 should feel that far from being entitled to glory before God, 
 he is under His righteous condemnation, and cannot hope to 
 escape therefrom by any, even the most strenuous efforts of 
 his own. 
 
 Is there, then, nothing for man but despair, as regards what 
 is of highest concernment to him, his relation to God and his 
 destiny as a spiritual being? Is salvation — not in the mean 
 and narrow sense given to the word in common speech and 
 popular theology, as escape from a future of pain into one of 
 pleasure — but is salvation in the grand and broad sense given 
 to the word in Scripture — is salvation as inclusive of enlighten- 
 ment of mind and purification of heart, of deliverance from the 
 power of sin and the condemnation of the moral law, of com- 
 
216 CHRIST MADE TJNTO US WISDOM. 
 
 munion with God and delight in His service — is salvation as 
 inclusive of whatever is required by man to realise his true 
 destination as a spiritual being, hopelessly unattainable ? If it 
 be so, man is altogether vanity, and it would be better for him 
 not to be. But it is not so. This only is true that his salvation 
 is one for which he must be indebted not to himself but to his 
 God ; it is one which he must consent to receive from God. It 
 must come through Christ whom God has given to be a pro- 
 pitiation for sin, and in whom He has clearly revealed to us 
 His own Fatherhood and glory ; Christ in whom dwells the 
 riches of grace, the fulness of Godhead, and the perfection 
 of manhood ; Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom, 
 righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It is a salva- 
 tion in order to receive which a man must cease to glory in 
 himself, must cease to glory in man, in the power or the 
 wisdom or the goodness of man, and learn to glory in God 
 alone. As saith Jeremiah (ix. 23-24), " Let not the wise man 
 glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his 
 might ; let not the rich man glory in his riches ; but let him 
 that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth 
 Me, that I am the Lord who exerciseth loving- kindness, judg- 
 ment, and righteousness, in the earth." 
 
 It was because St Paul felt that man could only reasonably 
 glory in God as He had revealed Himself through Jesus 
 Christ — that there was no other name than that of Christ 
 given under heaven by which men could be saved, while in 
 Him there was every element of a true and complete salva- 
 tion — it was for this most sufficient reason that he determined 
 " not to know anything among the Corinthians save Jesus 
 Christ and Him Crucified." In himself he did not claim to 
 be wiser than the philosophers of Greece — of itself he did 
 not suppose that his preaching had more power than the 
 eloquence of the orators of Greece — his confidence was not 
 in himself or in anything of his own, but in God and what 
 God had given him to proclaim ; he felt that God's message 
 was superior to any human speculation ; he had faith in the 
 power of the cross ; he was convinced that Christ taken into 
 any human life would carry into it a wisdom, and righteous- 
 ness, and sanctification, and redemption, which would be its 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 217 
 
 perfectly adequate and efficacious salvation, and that nothing 
 else would ; and so he gloried in God alone, and kept closely 
 to the preaching of Christ. 
 
 There were people who thought he might profitably have 
 imitated admired philosophers and popular orators; that he 
 should have had a wider range of subjects and used more 
 enticing words. Those foolish Corinthians have many succes- 
 sors among ourselves, who fancy that the pulpit would gain 
 greatly in power if ministers would only discourse more about 
 science and philosophy, nature and history, political and social 
 reform, and the various so-called questions of the day. But 
 surely for six days in the week we have quite enough of all 
 that, and surely there is something more important even than 
 all that. The power of the pulpit will most certainly not be 
 increased by ministers forsaking their own glorious work, the 
 direct preaching of Christ, for the lecturing on lower themes, 
 or for the work of politicians, or journalists, who are still more 
 plentiful among us than were philosophers or orators in Greece. 
 The power of the pulpit lies in preaching Christ, and will be 
 strong or feeble according as He is faithfully and zealously 
 or faithlessly and coldly preached. 
 
 God has given us in Christ, St Paul tells us, satisfaction for 
 all the wants of our natures. If a man be in Christ, Christ 
 will be everything to him. He will supply every great want 
 of his life, everything which the Divine Law demands should 
 be in his life. He will be " made unto us," as our text says, 
 " wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." What 
 more can a man need than these? We may safely say that 
 he can need nothing more which is really essential to him, 
 and all these every man will receive who believes and abides 
 in Christ. It is a wonderfully comprehensive truth, a won- 
 derfully precious assurance. Time will only allow me to 
 speak of a part of it, "Jesus Christ, who of God is made 
 unto us wisdom." May it be a word of comfort and of help 
 to you. 
 
 " Jesus Christ, of God is made unto us wisdom." We sorely 
 need wisdom. We are by nature foolish as to the highest 
 concerns of our being, and this folly is a heritage of woe. 
 Without wisdom we shall not get any other great spiritual 
 
218 CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 
 
 blessing, for we shall not even know how to seek it. But 
 Jesus Christ is made unto us wisdom — the wisdom that supplies 
 one great want of our natures — the wisdom which is followed 
 by the righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, which 
 supply all the other great wants of our natures. 
 
 " The world by wisdom," St Paul tells us, " knew not God." 
 As a matter of historical fact, reason, unaided by a special 
 revelation, failed to acquire the knowledge of God which man 
 stood in need of as a moral and religious being. St Paul 
 had in view, of course, chiefly what the Greek and Eoman 
 intellect had accomplished in this direction, and clearly he 
 was right in thinking that it had signally failed. The wisdom 
 of the ancient world at its very best fell far short of a know- 
 ledge of God capable of purifying the heart, controlling the 
 passions, stimulating moral ambition, creating a spiritual dread 
 of sin, strengthening the feeling of personal responsibility, 
 and consoling or fortifying the sufferer under present pain or 
 in the prospect of death. The popular religion was strangely 
 childish and mean, and in many respects most sensual and 
 immoral. The worshippers of Jupiter and Juno, of Mars and 
 Venus, and the gods and goddesses who were supposed to be 
 their companions, must have been very often not the better 
 but the worse for worshipping such beings. Certainly they 
 could find no elevating ideal or correct and consistent rule of 
 moral life among the capricious and unrighteous and impure 
 objects of their adoration. It was not from the popular 
 religion, the idolatrous polytheism of Greece and Eome, that 
 the human soul in those lands drew spiritual inspiration, but 
 from philosophy, from reason, apprehending those truths of 
 natural religion which the positive religion disfigured and 
 contradicted. If salvation be deliverance from darkness to 
 light, from sin to holiness, from love of the world to love of 
 God, no sane man will say that the Greek or Roman religion 
 was the way to it or an indication of the way to it. 
 
 There were a few great men, earnest searchers after wisdom, 
 who rose above the popular religion, got wonderful glimpses 
 of many Divine truths, and gave to the world noble moral 
 instructions which are of inestimable value even to this day. 
 There is no need to depreciate those men or anything which 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 219 
 
 they did. But they all failed to turn men from the worship 
 of idols to the service of the true God ; they saw too clearly 
 to be able to believe that the popular religion was true but not 
 clearly enough to know what to put in its place ; they found 
 out many truths but not the ti'uth ; they did not show to the 
 soul a fountain of cleansing, healing, and life. 
 
 But it may be imagined that the wisdom of the world has 
 greatly increased since the time of St Paul, and that as our 
 men of science know far more of nature and history than the 
 ablest and most learned of his contemporaries they may suc- 
 ceed where ancient thinkers failed, and attain to what will 
 be in every respect an adequate wisdom, thoroughly satisfying 
 at once the claims of the intellect and the yearnings of the 
 heart, quickening and guiding the conscience, and subduing, 
 and purifying, and elevating the life. But this is by no means 
 the case. The experience of the centuries which have since 
 elapsed has only made it increasingly manifest that the world 
 by its own wisdom cannot know God or find the way of salva- 
 tion. When the ablest men of our own day unhappily resolve 
 to reject the revelation of Divine Wisdom in Jesus Christ, 
 and to oppose to it a wisdom of their own, do we find this 
 wisdom of theirs to be any truer or better than that of the 
 Greek or Koman sages? No. On the contrary, it is often 
 not even so true or so good. The wisdom which opposes itself 
 to God's wisdom always confounds and condemns itself. Even 
 in our own day this wisdom, when it turns away from a God 
 and Father revealed and reconciled through Jesus Christ, can 
 only point instead to matter and motion — or the Universe — 
 or humanity — or the Unknowable — and fails to tell us whether 
 the sighing of our spirit for life eternal is not an insane de- 
 lusion ; whether facts move towards any goal of moral glory ; 
 whether aught is right but what is strong ; whether love be 
 not imbecility ; whether all men are not made in vain. Self- 
 contradiction and confusion, pretentious feebleness and glaring 
 foolishness, these are the results of the efforts of the human 
 intellect to create out of the conclusions of the most advanced 
 science a substitute for the wisdom offered us in the Gospel. 
 It is now, therefore, more evident than even in St Paul's day 
 that all such efforts are hopeless. 
 
220 CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 
 
 The light of nature and the works of creation and providence 
 cannot show man a way of reconciliation and communion with 
 God. No man by mere human wisdom, by any searching into 
 the secrets of nature or providence, can find it out. Mere 
 human wisdom is utter folly here, and if man may be wise at 
 all in this connection he must confess his natural folly, the 
 powerlessness of his own reason, and consent to be guided by 
 the wisdom of God ; or, in other words, to accept Christ who is 
 the wisdom of God to us for salvation, who is God's solution of 
 the problem of our salvation. The only real wisdom possible 
 to man must from the very nature and necessity of the case be 
 the wisdom of renouncing his own wisdom. If he say, I will 
 solve this momentous problem for myself, without help from 
 any one, and especially without the aid and without the light 
 which God has given in the Gospel, then he in his wisdom is a 
 most manifest fool whose folly will ruin him ; but if he have the 
 candour to confess his own folly, to admit that his own intellect 
 is powerless here, and to acknowledge the wisdom of God and 
 acquiesce in His plan of salvation, then, in the very act of con- 
 fessing himself foolish he is made wise, for Christ is made 
 wisdom unto him. It is a hard thing, undoubtedly, to be 
 brought to confess ourselves in the way I am speaking of fools, 
 but there is a glorious reward attached to this exercise of 
 humility, since it makes us, in a true and strict sense, partakers 
 of an infinite wisdom. Christ is henceforth within us, and 
 unto us wisdom. 
 
 Many of you may have heard this story about Socrates, one 
 of the greatest and best men among the Greeks. The oracle 
 at Delphi pronounced him the wisest of men. Socrates could 
 not understand it, and yet he was unwilling to disbelieve the 
 oracle, so he went about from one person reputed wise to 
 another, in order to be able to say, " Here is a wiser man than 
 I am," or, at least, to find out what the oracle meant. He went 
 to many, but he found that while they in reality knew almost 
 nothing that was worth knowing, they thought they knew 
 a great deal, and were very angry with one who tried to con- 
 vince them of their ignorance. So that at last he came to 
 recognise that there was a truth in what had been said about 
 him. To use nearly his own words, "he left them, saying to 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 221 
 
 himself, ' I am wiser than these men ; for neither they nor I, it 
 would seem, know anything valuable ; but they, not knowing, 
 fancy that they do know ; I, as I really do not know, so I do 
 not think that I know ; I seem therefore to be in one small 
 matter wiser than they.' " 
 
 This quite illustrates what I mean. It is the kind of spirit 
 which, in its degree, and about less important questions, was in 
 the strange man Socrates ; it is precisely this kind of spirit 
 about the things which concern our highest well-being that 
 makes a man wise in the Christian sense. The most ignorant 
 person, provided he only know that he must renounce his own 
 wisdom, as, what on subjects pertaining to salvation it really is, 
 foolishness, and accept what is disclosed in Christ as to salva- 
 tion, is infinitely wiser than the most able or learned man who 
 trusts solely to his own wisdom, apart from Christ's revealed 
 work and will. Both of them are foolish and ignorant, but the 
 one knows it, and, in consequence of knowing it, accepts the 
 salvation which is in Christ, and is made a partaker of infinite 
 wisdom; the other does not know it, and thinking that he 
 is wise while he is a fool, wanders ruinously astray. 
 
 If, my friends, we would thus yield ourselves up to Christ, 
 and would do so, not at one time nor by one act only, but 
 would do so day by day, and in all respects, allowing ourselves 
 to be guided by Him habitually, and in all things, we should 
 not fail to learn by experience that as he who loses his life for 
 Christ finds it, so he who surrenders to Him his reason receives 
 it, enlightened with the only true light, filled with the only true 
 wisdom. The self-surrender of the reason to God is the loss 
 only of what is false in itself, while it is the gain of what is 
 truth in God, in Christ, and in itself. It is wholly different 
 from self-surrender to any finite or imperfect reason, or to 
 a blind self-surrender of any kind. The wisdom of God offered 
 us in Christ is the pure spiritual truth, the perfect wisdom, 
 which is the very light and life of reason. Christ received as 
 our wisdom is alone capable of making us truly wise, and if 
 we receive Him will not fail to do so, working in us the same 
 mind of truthfulness, reasonableness, and wisdom which was in 
 Himself. Oh ! that we may receive Him with rejoicing hearts, 
 and sincere self-surrender of ourselves to His guidance; that 
 
222 CHRIST MADE UNTO US WISDOM. 
 
 we may be emptied of all conceit of a wisdom which is imagi- 
 nary and delusive, in order that we may be filled with the 
 wisdom which is real and efficacious; that we may so deny 
 ourselves as to gain ourselves ; that we may be so impoverished 
 as to be for ever enriched. " Blessed are the poor in spirit ; 
 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
XX. 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 " Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and 
 sanctification, and redemption." — 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 
 MY friends, many of you have this day sat at a communion 
 table, and many of you, it is to be hoped, have there 
 enjoyed true communion with Christ Jesus. If so, the best 
 wish I can form for you — and the most appropriate and useful 
 advice I can give you — is that you seek to maintain that com- 
 munion unbroken ; that you seek to abide in Christ and to 
 have Christ ever abiding in you. There is no other good, no 
 other blessing, so great as that either on earth or in heaven. 
 It is the pearl of great price for the sake of which every 
 wise merchant will not hesitate to sacrifice all else. Christ is 
 Christianity, and only those who are in Christ are Christians. 
 But if a man be in Christ, Christ will be everything to him ; in 
 the very act of receiving Christ he will receive whatever he 
 requires. There is no essential want of the human soul the 
 supply of which is not to be found in Christ ; no demand of 
 the Divine Law, which will not be met through Him ; no 
 requirement of the Christian life which He Himself does not 
 afford the means of fulfilling. 
 
 Such is the great, encouraging, and comforting truth which 
 the text sets before us. " Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto 
 us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp- 
 tion." Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption 
 — what more than these can a man need either for time or 
 eternity ? We may safely say that he can absolutely need 
 nothing more, and all these every man will receive who believes 
 and abides in Christ. If, then, my friends, any of you think- 
 ing of the Christian professions which you have this day made, 
 and feeling at the same time your own weakness and unworthi- 
 ness, are asking anxiously, How may I live as I wish and have 
 
 223 
 
224 CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 vowed to do ? — how may I honour God, follow Christ, love 
 and help my brethren of mankind as a true disciple of Jesus 
 must ? — how is what I have been doing this day to be made 
 not a sin and a shame to me, but the blessing and honour it 
 must have been meant to be ? I would refer you to my text 
 as a full and glorious answer warranting you to rise above all 
 doubts and fears, and to go forward with good hope and 
 courage. 
 
 So long as you look merely at yourselves, at your duties, at 
 your own poor resources and unaided powers, you may well 
 despair, and indeed cannot reasonably do otherwise than de- 
 spair, but when you look to Christ as set forth in the text — 
 when you look to Christ as you are invited and encouraged in 
 God's Word to do — then despair is seen to be foolish and wrong, 
 then a bright and joyous prospect opens up to you, for in 
 Christ you are offered all that you truly need or can reasonably 
 seek. Do you feel your lack of wisdom — your blindness of 
 mind and perversity of judgment as to spiritual things, as to 
 duty and religion ? Well, it is true that you lack wisdom, and 
 certainly you will never of yourselves make yourselves wise ; 
 but turn to Christ so that His light may shine on your dark- 
 ness ; let the mind which was in Him be in you ; accept and 
 follow His offered guidance ; and He will be made wisdom unto 
 you, and you will become divinely reasonable in your mind and 
 conduct ; you will be children of the light walking in the light. 
 Do you feel your lack of righteousness — that your heart is far 
 from being affected towards God and towards His law as it 
 ought to be — that the relation in which you stand to God, and 
 consequently to all the manifestations and creatures of God, is 
 to a large extent a wrong one, a deplorable one, implying a 
 load of guilt, entailing a heritage of woe ? The feeling is only 
 too well founded ; and by no efforts or works of your own can 
 you put yourselves right with God, so as to realise that His 
 love abides in you and your love rests on Him, your guilt being 
 forgiven, and your hearts being renewed. But if you will only 
 practically recognise your moral perversity, your spiritual 
 poverty, your inherent weakness and helplessness as regards 
 justification in God's sight, by laying aside all trust in your 
 own performances and merits, and turning in humble faith to 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 225 
 
 Christ as offered to you in the Gospel, you will become par- 
 takers of His righteousness, and He will be made righteousness 
 unto you, a thoroughly real and a perfectly satisfying righteous- 
 ness, which both the Divine Word and your own consciousness 
 will tell you is accepted and approved of God. 
 
 Do you feel your lack of holiness — that your dispositions are 
 largely selfish, your motives impure, your conduct ignoble? 
 Every one of us has great reason to feel thus, and this want 
 also Christ alone can satisfy. The Christian grows in holiness 
 only by looking steadily at Christ, by making Christ's character 
 increasingly his own, and so manifesting Christ as it were in 
 all the relations of life. An act is good only when it is what 
 Christ would have done if placed in the same circumstances as 
 we are in when doing it, and when our motives to its perform- 
 ance are what His would have been. Only in so far as Christ 
 is taken into the soul, and His principles made ours, and His 
 virtues established in us and shining out in what we do, are 
 our lives sanctified lives. Every feature of true holiness in the 
 believer is one which must have been transferred from Christ 
 to himself — which must have been made his through the Holy 
 Spirit imitating in him the beauties of Christ. The life of 
 Christ in the believer is what sanctifies his life, is the source 
 and substance of his spiritual life, so that there is goodness 
 and holiness in the believer only in the measure in which 
 Christ is made goodness and holiness — in which Christ is made 
 sanctification — unto him. 
 
 Do you think of the powers within and around you, hostile 
 and dangerous to your faith and virtue, to the peace of your 
 souls, to your eternal welfare ? Do you tremble because of 
 the deceitfulness and perversity of your hearts, the lusts of the 
 flesh, the temptations of the world, the snares of Satan ? Well, 
 assuredly these are no weak foes ; they are all much stronger 
 than you ; but, God be thanked, they are also all much weaker 
 than Christ, and Christ is set forth as one who is made of God 
 unto you redemption. Christ has done battle with your ene- 
 mies and conquered them for you ; He is still fighting and 
 conquering for you. The decisive victory was won on Calvary, 
 and now if you will but put your trust in Him who suffered 
 and bled there, and serve under Him, you will find that 
 
 P 
 
226 CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 numerous and powerful as your foes may be, they are really a 
 defeated and flying army, followed by One who has everywhere 
 shown Himself to be irresistible — to have the might as well as 
 the right to rule the w^orld. The victory has been won, and 
 although the conquest is not completed it is going on ; yes, 
 even when you feel it not it is going on, and within a little 
 time it will be perfected, and you will see all the host of your 
 enemies who pursued you vanquished and dead as Israel saw 
 the Egyptians lie dead upon the shore of the Eed Sea, and you 
 will be able to sing as they, " The Lord hath triumphed glori- 
 ously." There is no foe without or within you whom you need 
 despair of being able through Christ to meet. Neither earth 
 nor the gates of hell can prevail against you so long as through 
 reliance on His redeeming work you are in the strong tower, 
 which His name, His mercy, and protection afford you. As 
 the weakest persons, as old men and feeble women and young 
 children, who could do nothing of themselves to resist or repel 
 an enemy, may be in a place so fortified as to be perfectly safe, 
 so is the feeblest of you who is in Christ, whose life rests on 
 the sure foundation of His sacrifice unto death, beyond the 
 reach of harm from any enemy, Christ being made of God unto 
 you redemption. 
 
 If then, my friends, you will only receive and act on the 
 truth contained in the text you need not be dismayed even 
 when you think of the requirements implied in the avowal of 
 allegiance to Christ. The professions of faith which you have 
 this day made at the table of the Lord need not be false nor 
 need they become false. The faith which makes Christ yours 
 can keep Christ yours, and with Christ as yours, the text is an 
 assurance, that you will be found true and faithful disciples, 
 neither deluded yourselves nor deceiving others — as Satan is 
 ready to suggest to you, endeavouring to pervert your con- 
 sciences, and rob you of your comfort of mind, and cast you 
 down from your hopes in Christ Jesus — in no sense that, but 
 true and faithful men and women, sharing in a wisdom, a 
 righteousness, a sanctification, a redemption, infinite and with- 
 out a fault. 
 
 The truth in the text is, however, much too comprehensive 
 for me to treat of it to-night as a whole. I shall, therefore, in 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 227 
 
 what remains to be said consider only one portion of its precious 
 contents. Not long ago, in a neighbouring church, from this 
 same text I tried to show how Christ Jesus is of God made 
 unto us ivisdom. Here and now I would desire to speak of 
 how He is made unto us righteousness. May God grant His 
 blessing on what is said. 
 
 " Christ Jesus is of God made unto us righteousness." Man 
 is a fallen creature ; he has lost original righteousness ; he is 
 by nature unrighteous : he is alienated from the author of his 
 being ; he is disobedient to the higher laws of his being. In 
 the latter part of last century and the earlier part of the 
 present century rationalists and sceptics were wont to de- 
 nounce the scriptural doctrine of man's natural depravity, and 
 to descant on the innocent savage and the native goodness of 
 humanity. In the present day we hear no talk of the kind 
 from those who have any pretensions to thoughtfulness or 
 education ; anthropology, the development theory, acquaintance 
 with the laws of heredity, have swept the nonsense away ; and 
 now the doctrine of original sin is generally recognised to be 
 in complete accordance with the findings even of science ; to 
 be a doctrine which must in substance be accepted, and which 
 is only likely to be denied when the fact which it denotes is 
 exaggerated, or magnified beyond what Scripture warrants. 
 
 Man's nature may have many amiable qualities, but it has a 
 central fault which corrupts it as a whole, which taints every 
 affection and action, however much good may remain. The 
 current of man's will does not naturally run in the channel of 
 God's will, but in a contrary channel, one of forgetfulness to- 
 wards God, of worldliness, of selfishness, of sinfulness. Thus 
 "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God." Thus "the carnal heart is enmity against God," and 
 is "alienated from the life of God." Hence the soul when it 
 follows merely its own will and inclination cannot have com- 
 munion or peace with God, but is in an utterly wrong relation 
 to God, of which it cannot be clearly conscious without great 
 misery, shame, and fear. It, of course, cannot wish to realise 
 its separation and alienation from God by reason of its sinful- 
 ness of nature and conduct, and, in fact, seeks by many poor 
 shifts and artifices to delude itself ; but once it is quickened 
 
228 CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 to see itself truly, to look upon sin as it really is and feel 
 what it means and involves, there is no more possibility of 
 its escaping this most awful and intolerable thought that 
 its guilt must necessarily make it the object of God's just 
 indignation. 
 
 It cannot excuse its conduct. It cannot say it has no sin ; 
 it feels that if it does the truth is not in it. That little sen- 
 tence of St John : " If we say that we have no sin we deceive 
 ourselves, and the truth is not in us," which to the indifferent 
 seems trivial enough, acquires to the morally awakened a 
 terrible significance. He who has once felt the agony that 
 trivial-looking verse can give begins to understand in some 
 measure what the gnawing of the never-dying worm may be, 
 and shudders at the thought of having it for ever tearing at 
 his heart. 
 
 And man can no more atone for his conduct than he can 
 excuse it. He cannot justify himself in any way : neither by 
 outward rites and ceremonies nor yet by works of real righteous- 
 ness and holiness. The outward rites and ceremonies even 
 when done turn out to be of no value. The conscience cannot 
 be appeased by them ; the reason pronounces them vain ; the 
 heart remains unsatisfied. The works of real righteousness and 
 holiness we have not. It is out of our power to perform them, 
 and consequently out of our power to present them. We 
 cannot give to God what we have not, and true holiness we 
 have not. All that we attempt is mixed up with a great deal 
 of evil. We need to pray that God would forgive us our 
 prayers ; and we need to repent of our repentance itself. By 
 the works of the law can no flesh be justified. 
 
 How, then, can we enter into a right relation to God so as 
 to be justified by Him ? What righteousness is accessible or 
 possible to us ? The answer of Scripture is clear, and it is in 
 perfect harmony with the findings of reason and conscience, 
 We can be justified only by faith ; righteous only through union 
 with the righteous Christ. So long as a man deems himself 
 capable of establishing in his own name and strength a right 
 to salvation ; so long as he is under the delusion that he can so 
 obey the law as to deserve salvation ; so long is he hopelessly 
 under the power and curse of the law. But the moment he 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 229 
 
 comes to feel that he has no righteousness of his own ; that he 
 cannot fulfil any one demand which the law makes upon him ; 
 that do what he will the only wages due him must be the terrible 
 wages of sin ; the moment, I say, that he feels this, and in 
 consequence of feeling it, casts himself solely and wholly on 
 God's mercy as revealed in Jesus Christ, that moment — by that 
 very act — the law loses the hold which it had upon him to con- 
 demnation ; Christ's sacrifice thus accepted unloosens its grasp ; 
 Christ's whole mediatorial work stands between him and it; 
 Christ's merits cover and protect him from the consequences of 
 his own demerits. The man who, conscious of his own weakness 
 and un worthiness, renounces all trust in himself and places his 
 whole trust in God as justifying and saving, as giving forgiveness 
 and grace, purity and strength, through Jesus Christ, is a man 
 so attached, or united, to Christ, that God cannot regard him 
 as existing out of Jesus Christ and only in his own sinful 
 individuality ; and he cannot but rise through Christ into a new 
 life of confidence and love towards God, of fellowship and peace 
 with the Father of Spirits. In one word, Christ is through faith, 
 by the gracious ordination of God, made unto him righteousness. 
 It is not necessary to attempt to determine how Christ's 
 righteousness is made over to one who thus, by renouncing 
 every pretension to a righteousness of his own, humbles himself 
 to accept it. It may be by imputation — by a forensic act — a 
 legal substitution. That is a theory for which very much can 
 be said, and which is not to be lightly rejected. But it is not 
 what is afiirmed in the text. The text states a fact and gives 
 no theory about it. It declares even that Christ is made unto 
 us wisdom and sanctification no less than righteousness, although 
 no one would maintain that He is made our wisdom by His 
 wisdom, and our sanctification by His holiness, imputed to us. 
 What is, however, of essential importance to us as sinners who 
 need to be forgiven and received as children of God, is the fact 
 expressed by the words " Christ is made of God unto us 
 righteousness " ; not any theory or explanation of the fact. 
 That fact is the glorious one that, although a self-made 
 righteousness is impossible to us, a perfect God-given right- 
 eousness is placed within our reach. Living faith in Christ, 
 loving union with Christ, makes it ours. 
 
230 CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 The same faith, I must add, which makes Christ this to us 
 at first continues to make Him the same to us ever after. 
 Faith is not merely an act to be put forth only once. The faith 
 which is implanted in us by the Holy Spirit is meant to become 
 a fixed principle and to grow ever stronger, more active, more 
 fruitful. Faith even as appropriation of the righteousness of 
 Christ for the forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God 
 is not to be a momentary, transitory state, but a settled and 
 abiding condition of soul. 
 
 True it may be, as divines say, that one act of faith justifies 
 completely — that justification is not a matter of degrees — but, 
 none the less is it true also that our continued justification is 
 faith. To be one with God in Christ through faith — through 
 a sincere self-surrendering trust which cordially accepts the 
 will of God for our salvation as it is freely offered to us in 
 the Gospel — is the only real righteousness to which we can 
 hope to attain. It is one, however, quite adequate to our 
 needs ; one which sets us in a right relationship to God, frees 
 us from the bondage of the law, and confers on us all the 
 privileges of sonship. Its sufficiency is a most certain, most 
 comforting, and most glorious fact. And that righteousness 
 is inseparable from Christian faith. It is attained through 
 faith in Christ, and can be attained no otherwise. Therefore 
 we may well attach high value to such faith. 
 
 But let us not feel too sure that we have it. Let us not 
 be over-confident that what we consider our faith is genuine 
 Christian faith — the faith which the Gospel demands. It may 
 be, on the contrary, a bare naked assent, a mere intellectual 
 conclusion, in which affection and will have no part. We 
 may mistake for faith in Christ what is an entirely different 
 thing, — not the faith which accepts, receives, and rests on 
 Christ alone, but the faith that we have that faith when we 
 have it not. Our faith may be a delusion and snare, not the 
 real and direct, vital and active, faith in Christ, which can 
 alone unite us with Him and make us the habitual recipients 
 of the redeeming grace of God. 
 
 What has been our own conscious experience as to faith ? 
 Have we always felt it to be as efficacious as we expected, 
 or always found it to be just what we considered it to be ? 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 231 
 
 Have we never, as we thought, surrendered ourselves entirely 
 to Christ ? never at any crisis in our spiritual history so 
 earnestly put our trust in Him as to have then, and perhaps 
 for some considerable time afterwards, felt the strength of sin 
 so weakened in us and the power of grace so operative in us 
 that we could greatly rejoice in God as our reconciled Father 
 and vividly feel ourselves to be His redeemed children ? If 
 we have had no such experience there is reason to fear that we 
 may have had no true faith ; and we ought to make sure that 
 we have it if we would be true Christians. But let me suppose, 
 what is likely enough, that we have really had it. Then I 
 must ask. Has it never been found that there has been a con- 
 siderable amount of self-deception in our experience ? — has 
 it always remained with us ? — has our confidence never gradu- 
 ally, or even perhaps i-apidly, come to be shaken ? — has our 
 faith not sometimes or often failed, and the joy which it had 
 brought with it vanished, and a sense of being under the 
 dominion of sin and the condemnation of the law again laid 
 hold of us ? Comparatively few, I imagine, can affirm that it 
 has not been so in their case. To fall away from faith and the 
 righteousness which is of faith, and to fall into sin and aliena- 
 tion from God and feel one's self in consequence a slave to 
 the law instead of God's child, is no uncommon experience. 
 
 It is, however, a very trying and painful experience, — one 
 very apt to lead to spiritual despair. Those who are in this 
 state are those who know that there is no righteousness unto 
 salvation to be attained except that which is secured through 
 faith. And yet faith as regards them aj^pears to have failed. 
 They can certainly no longer rest on their past faith, sufficient 
 as they once felt it to be, for from that they have fallen away. 
 Hence all their present trouble. But that trouble itself may 
 well be salutary. There are precious lessons in it. It teaches 
 the difference between faith in Christ and faith in faith ; it 
 teaches, that is to say, that what men have to trust in is 
 not faith as mere faith, or faith as theirs, but the object of 
 their faith, God as revealed in Christ. It teaches also that in 
 all such cases as I have referred to what is really to blame 
 is not faith itself, but either error or sin mixed with faith, 
 or the falling away from faith through weakness and instability 
 
232 CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 of character. The best advice, nay the only good advice, one 
 can give to those who have, in the way indicated, become 
 doubtful of the efficacy of faith in Christ, is that they should 
 cast away their doubts, start afresh with a stronger and more 
 earnest faith, renounce all vain confidence in themselves, and 
 turn to Christ with a more entire and exclusive trust. 
 
 The only remedy which can avail them is that which St 
 John has so clearly prescribed, when he says, " If any man 
 sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
 righteous : and He is the propitiation for our sins ; and not 
 for ours only, but also for the whole world." Mark you, it is 
 not, "If any man have sinned before he became a Christian ; " 
 it is " if any man sin " ; if he sin now ; if he sin after having 
 professed faith in Christ and while a member of the Church 
 of Christ; then the remedy is still faith. It is not for "any 
 particular class or classes of men " ; it is for " any man " ; for 
 all men — Christian or non-Christian. It is the propitiation for 
 the sins of the whole Church and of the whole world ; for those 
 who receive and for those who reject it. Faith is the only 
 means of receiving it. And since our sins are so many that 
 we are in constant need of receiving it there is a con- 
 stant call on us for faith, — the faith which renounces sin, 
 secures forgiveness, and can alone bring peace to the troubled 
 conscience. 
 
 Continued faith so as to be always present faith is, I remark 
 in conclusion, the only faith which can give us a true sense of 
 our justification in virtue of acceptance of the righteousness of 
 Christ. It is only perseverance in faith which warrants a man 
 to believe that he ever had true faith. It is said that Cromwell 
 on his death- bed found repose in the thought that he once, long 
 before, had been the subject of Divine grace. I do not know 
 that the story is true, and indeed believe it to be more than 
 doubtful ; but what is certain is that despair itself is to be 
 preferred to comfort resting on so treacherous a foundation. 
 Better pass into the eternal world, like the good and pious poet 
 Cowper, with the dark and horrible conviction that he had been 
 by an eternal decree doomed to perdition, than pass into it satis- 
 fied with so fatally delusive a reason as that you must be saved 
 because you once had faith. The first glimpse of eternity would 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US RIGHTEOUSNESS. 233 
 
 show poor Cowper how needlessly he had been distrusting 
 God's mercy and tormenting himself. The first glimpse of 
 eternity will show also the folly of ever having found 
 any satisfaction in the remembrance of a faith which had 
 been lost. 
 
 The Scriptures teach both faith and perseverance in faith, 
 but they never teach us to say, " I have believed, therefore I 
 shall persevere " ; on the contrary they teach us to say, " I have 
 persevered, therefore I have believed." They do not teach us, 
 that is to say, to argue from faith to perseverance, but from 
 perseverance to faith. They do not make faith a proof of the 
 certainty of perseverance, but perseverance the proof of the 
 genuineness of faith. Abide in faith then — abide in Christ 
 then — if ye would know in any measure the blessedness of the 
 man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin. Christ is made of 
 God unto us righteousness, a complete and continuing and ever- 
 present righteousness, but only through a constantly active 
 faith. An abiding faith can alone secure you abiding com- 
 munion with God in Christ, the abiding peace of forgiven 
 hearts, and that abiding love to God which is the source of 
 holy lives. May God add His blessing to what has been said. 
 Amen. 
 
XXI. 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 " Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and 
 sanctification, and redemption." — 1 CoR. i. 30. 
 
 I HAVE already spoken from this pulpit on the words, 
 "Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom" ; 
 and also on the words, " Christ Jesus, who of God is made 
 unto us righteousness "; and now, not inappropriately I trust, at 
 the close of the sacred services in which you have this day 
 been engaged, I would direct your minds for a little to the 
 great and blessed truth expressed in the words, " Christ Jesus, 
 who of God is made unto us sanctification." 
 
 If you have truly come unto Christ you will assuredly seek 
 to abide in Him ; and to have learned the supreme importance 
 of this — the supreme importance of continuous spiritual com- 
 munion with God in Christ — is to have learned the central 
 and most valuable secret of life, even what true life is, and 
 whence to obtain it, alike for the common needs of every 
 hour and for the highest needs of eternity. Our intellects 
 are by nature spiritually dark and erring, and can only find 
 light and guidance in Christ whom God has set forth unto 
 us as wisdom. Our consciences testify of a broken law, of a 
 wrong relationship to God and all God's creatures, of a thick 
 cloud of unforgiven sin hiding the light of Divine favour, of 
 an ever increasing load of guilt pressing the soul down into 
 despair; and the only sure ground which we can have that 
 law has been vindicated, the wrong relationship righted, the 
 cloud dispelled, the load unloosed, and that pardon and peace 
 have simply to be accepted, is the work and sacrifice of Him 
 whom God has given to be our righteousness. Our flesh is 
 weak and lustful, our hearts impure, our desires corrupt, our 
 wills perverse, and we cannot of ourselves free ourselves from 
 the evil that is within us, from the body of death which we 
 
 234 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTIFICATION. 235 
 
 carry about with us, aud live soberly, righteously, and godly 
 in the present evil world, as we are bound to do ; yet are we 
 by no means left helpless and hopeless, for God has sent us 
 Christ and Christ has sent us the Spirit, and Christ formed 
 in us through the Spirit, is just the holiness demanded of us. 
 From ignorance, folly, and error Christ our wisdom — from 
 guilt, restlessness, and despair Christ our righteousness — from 
 selfishness, lust, pride, worldliness, and all the powers and 
 forms of sin Christ our sanctification — from these and whatever 
 other evils there may be than these, Christ our redemption 
 has been given of God to deliver us — for in Him there is a 
 complete redemption, an absolute salvation. In Him we have 
 all we need ; all the treasures of God's grace and goodness ; 
 the true and full satisfaction of every want. 
 
 Sanctification is closely connected both with wisdom and 
 righteousness. To accept Christ as one of these we must 
 accept Him as all of them. What we have to receive is a 
 whole Christ, not a divided Christ. We cannot, for example, 
 take Christ as our wisdom, the light of our minds, without 
 taking Him at the same time, and in the same measure, as 
 our sanctification, for the light to be found in Him is essen- 
 tially pure and purifying, the wisdom due to His indwelling 
 aud inworking in us is a direct and powerful means of 
 producing holiness of life. Yea, what is Christian wisdom, 
 but, on the one hand, a condition of holiness, the practical 
 knowledge which enables us to avoid what is unholy and to 
 desire and do what is holy; and, on the other hand, a part 
 of holiness, holiness in the understanding and reason ? If you 
 would find holiness in Christ, neglect not, then, to seek in 
 Him also wisdom, right-mindedness, seriousness and sobriety 
 of judgment, power to discern all that regards your moral 
 and spiritual life in the Divine light of the truth as it is 
 in Christ. 
 
 In like manner, pardon and holiness, justification and sancti- 
 fication, are inseparable. It is, at the most, only in idea that 
 we can say the one must go before the other ; in reality, they 
 spring at once from the same root or source. The same faith 
 which obtains for us pardon produces the only genuine holi- 
 ness. Christ presents Himself to us whenever He comes to 
 
236 CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 US as alike our justification and our sanctification. We do 
 not need to wait until we have a certain measure of holiness 
 before we may, without presumption, expect the forgiveness 
 of our sins. Presumption lies all the other way. It is the 
 daring to think of worthiness at all in connection with any 
 measure of personal holiness, instead of trusting solely to 
 Christ's finished work. Unless we consent to seek for God's 
 mercy and grace in the name of Christ and not in the name 
 of works of our own, we can never take one single onward 
 step in the path of holiness. On the other hand, we do not 
 need to wait for a sense of pardon, for some assurance of 
 justification, in Christ, before we turn to Him for holiness, 
 for sanctification. We can have no desire for the pardon of 
 our sins, as distinct from a mere selfish wish of deliverance 
 from their painful consequences, unless we have some sense 
 of the hatefulness of sin, of unholiness, and some desire for 
 holiness, a desire which is itself a commencement, however 
 feeble, of a spiritual or holy life, a seed of grace in which 
 there already lie all the promises and possibilities of complete 
 sanctification. The faith which alone seeks and can alone 
 receive justification, the forgiveness of sins, is a moral faith, 
 a faith in which there is involved sorrow for sin, hatred of 
 sin, desire to be free from sin, a longing for holiness, a 
 stretching and straining after holiness. 
 
 Justification and sanctification ought not to be confounded, 
 but neither ought they to be so sharply separated as they often 
 are. Some speak as if the former were completed before the 
 latter is begun. Surely they overlook that Christian men so 
 long as they sin, so long as they are not completely holy, and 
 consequently so long as they are on earth, must constantly 
 need to be anew forgiven, justified afresh. The first mani- 
 festation of the spirit of regeneration in a man is turning to 
 God in Christ through faith for both pardoning mercy and 
 sanctifying grace, and in the last hour of his earthly life 
 every Christian must still feel these two great blessings 
 equally necessary to him. The author of a popular religious 
 book, entitled, " The Higher Christian Life," has only ex- 
 aggerated a common error, when he maintains that men 
 receive Christ first as their iustification, and then afterwards 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTTFICATION. 237 
 
 — sometimes shortly after, sometimes years after — they receive 
 Him as their sauctification, which last receiving of Him is a 
 kind of neiv conversion and the introduction to a " higher 
 Christian life." The whole conception on which this hypo- 
 thesis rests is false. Christ is not thus divided or divisible. 
 The soul must choose Him and cleave to Him in His unity 
 or not at all. It must so receive Him from first to last, 
 from hour to hour, from day to day, from year to year, 
 throughout its whole Christian life on earth. There can be 
 no accepting of Christ at all unless we accept Him as one 
 whom we desire to work in us all His blessed will and good 
 pleasure. We cannot have our sins forgiven through Him 
 unless we seek to have also the power of them destroyed in 
 us through Him. We must take Him as our King or we 
 cannot have Him as our Priest. He cannot be received as a 
 propitiation by those who would reject Him as sauctification. 
 
 That we must find our sanctification in Christ Himself is 
 as obvious as that we must find in Him our wisdom and 
 righteousness. It is obvious from the very nature of the 
 thing. For what is sanctification but a putting off of the old 
 or carnal man and a putting on of the new or spiritual man, 
 but a putting off of self and a putting on of Christ ? That 
 is what has to be accomplished in a holy life, and all work 
 which does not fill us more and more with the spirit and 
 clothe us more and more with the holy beauties of Christ is, 
 so far as sanctification is concerned, labour lost. 
 
 In giving expression to this truth there is more danger of 
 under than of over-statement. At least we are not to suppose 
 that the appropriation of the character and graces of Christ 
 which constitutes holiness is a mere outward imitation and not 
 a real appropriation. The life of the believer is one which is 
 hid with Christ in God, and Christ truly lives in the believer. 
 Our Christ is not one who merely suffered and died, rose again 
 and lives, for us, but one who lives in us, so that we derive 
 all our spiritual life from His life even as the branch derives 
 its life from the tree to which it is united. We can no more 
 live of ourselves, we can no more think, feel, speak or do what 
 is spiritually good of ourselves, than the branch can live of 
 itself, can bud, blossom, or bear fruit of itself. Whenever we 
 
238 CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 try to work as of ourselves our work has no efficacy or blessing 
 in it. It is only effort wasted, strength thrown away. With- 
 out Christ we can do nothing. His life in ours is what 
 sanctifies our life, is the source and substance of our spiritual 
 life. 
 
 Our sanctification, then, depends on our communion with 
 Christ. It is only to be carried on through that being kept 
 up ; its continuity, progress, and completeness must depend 
 on the constancy, the growth, and the thoroughness of the 
 communion between the soul and its Saviour. 
 
 Now, this communion is necessarily a twofold process, a 
 mutual and reciprocal intercourse, a living of the soul in 
 Christ and a living of Christ in the soul. The soul that would 
 grow in holiness must seek to live in Christ. It must be its 
 constant desire and aim through faith, love, hope — through 
 pious meditation on what great things God has in Christ done 
 for it — through contemplation of the perfect character and 
 example of Christ — through effort to imitate the one and 
 follow the other — through prayer — through intercourse with 
 the pious — through the devout perusal of Scripture — through 
 the ordinances and services of the Church — through all the 
 multitudinous means of grace and of increased acquaintance 
 with Christ which God bestows — the soul, I say, in pursuit 
 of holiness must endeavour thus to be ever with the Lord, 
 abiding with Him, conversing with Him, learning from Him, 
 sharing in His life. 
 
 But this is not all. The believer must not only seek thus 
 to live in Christ ; but must also seek to have Christ living 
 in him, working in him, transforming his whole character, 
 determining his whole conduct, purifying, exalting, and beauti- 
 fying his whole mind, heart, and life. For this, and nothing 
 short of this, is the promise, and nothing short of this can 
 satisfy or suffice. A God and Saviour to whom we can go 
 and speak, into whose presence we can enter, on whose name 
 we may call, whom we are permitted to follow and com- 
 manded to obey, is by no means a God and Saviour completely 
 adequate to our wants ; we need a God and Saviour who will 
 also come to us and speak to us, who will be nearer us than 
 any creature can be, who will take hold of us, live, rule, and 
 
CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTIFICATION. 239 
 
 work in us, giving us a power and a wisdom and a virtue 
 not our own. 
 
 Such is the twofold task, the double problem, of sanctifica- 
 tion. And thanks be to God it is not a hopeless task, an 
 insoluble problem. What is impossible with man is possible 
 with God, and God has made possible for us in this great 
 matter of sanctification all that He demands of us. He has 
 made a revelation of Himself which is a completely adequate 
 agency and surety of our sanctification. He has not only 
 shown us His Fatherhood with its infinite love and mercy, 
 and His Sonship with its atoning sacrifice and perfect example, 
 but He has also revealed Himself as the Holy Spirit, who 
 dwelleth and worketh in us unto sanctification and eternal 
 life. Eighteen hundred years of thought and experience have 
 not yet fully taught the Christian Church how great and 
 glorious a truth it is that God is not only the Father and the 
 Son but also the Spirit, Great as was the advance of the 
 revelation of God in the incarnation and atonement of Christ 
 over the revelation in creation and ordinary providence, it 
 was yet imperfect, it was merely external, it still left God 
 without us. But God has not thus left the revelation of His 
 name incomplete ; He has disclosed Himself as the Spirit, 
 present to and in our spirits, imparting to them from within 
 the light and love, the power and grace they need. It is this 
 which makes Christianity, speculatively considered, the absolute 
 revelation of Godhead ; and it is this also which makes it, 
 practically considered, a perfect salvation, 
 
 God as the Holy Spirit undertakes to work in us the will 
 of God the Father and to conform us to the image of God 
 the Son ; to enable us to live in Christ and to bring Christ 
 to live in us; to sanctify us in body and soul, heart and 
 conduct. The law is spiritual, and we are carnal, but He, the 
 Spirit, is both able and willing to make the spiritual in us 
 triumph ; Christ's example is one of perfect sanctity, and we 
 are most imperfect and sinful, but the Spirit is perfectly holy, 
 and if within us, will not cease to work within us until He 
 has wholly transformed us into the likeness of our Lord. 
 Let us yield ourselves, therefore, in faith and with good hope 
 to His power ; let us not grieve the Spirit ; let us seek in His 
 
240 CHRIST MADE UNTO US SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 strength to depart from all iniquity, to be holy in all manner 
 of conversation ; to press on after perfection. 
 
 Yes, after 'perfection. That is the goal at which we should 
 aim. St Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians — "that they 
 might be sanctified wliolly, preserved blameless in their whole 
 s'pirit and soul and body " — is one which every Christian man 
 and woman should habitually offer up on their own behalf. 
 Sin has vitiated every part of our nature. We need to be 
 sanctified in every part thereof. The mind with its faculties, 
 the heart with its affections, the will with its energies and 
 resolutions, the conscience with its motives and dictates, the 
 body with its corporeal motions and animal appetites, have all 
 been tainted and corrupted, and all require to be purified and 
 renewed until there remain in them nothing contrary to God's 
 law, nothing offensive to God's holiness. 
 
 That goal may be on earth always largely an object merely 
 of aspiration. Let it be to us, however, what it ought to be, 
 an object of sincere aspiration, of earnest endeavour after 
 attainment. Let us see to it that the general course of our 
 lives be always moving towards it — moving in the only right 
 direction. The native and proper tendency of sanctification 
 is to advance. The Christian who is retrograding is a man 
 who is in a most dangerous condition, — a man who is falling 
 away from grace. 
 
 Let us press then steadily onwards towards the mark of 
 the prize of our high calling in Jesus Christ. The way is 
 difficult ; it may be long and toilsome ; we may meet with 
 many disappointments on it ; we may often stumble and fall ; 
 but if we obey and trust our God, a gracious Father, a loving 
 Saviour, a sanctifying Spirit, we assuredly shall not fail to 
 reach our goal, the mark of the prize of our high calHng. 
 May God grant that we all reach it. May the God of peace 
 that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
 Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting 
 covenant, make us perfect in every good work to do His will, 
 working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through 
 Jesus Christ. And to His name be glory for ever. Amen. 
 
XXII. 
 GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY— MAN'S EVIL EYE.^ 
 
 " Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil, 
 because I am good ? "—Matthew xx. 15. 
 
 THIS verse is part of a parable which is in some respects 
 difficult of interpretation, but which had clearly enough 
 the general design of rebuking a vice which has in all ages, 
 countries, and classes of society been very common, — the vice 
 of murmuring at God's goodness towards others as if it were 
 injustice towards ourselves. Hence obviously very much of 
 the meaning of the parable comes out, finds expression, in the 
 text ; and although the parable be hard to understand as a 
 whole, nothing can be plainer than the teaching of the verse 
 which is the text. It brings before us two subjects, — the 
 sovereignty of God and the envy of the human heart, — and 
 indicates that the latter of these is the cause, or at any rate a 
 cause, of the former being questioned, and murmured against, 
 and evil spoken of. These ai'e the things, then, on which we 
 would meditate for a short time, seeking God's blessing so that 
 our meditations may be profitable to mind and heart and bear 
 good fruit in our lives. 
 
 The text teaches us the sovereignty of God. The house- 
 holder in the parable for whom it is lawful to do what he will 
 with his own plainly represents Almighty God. He the Creator 
 of all things, — He the possessor of all things in a far fuller 
 sense than any man is the possessor of anything, — He has a 
 right to do what He will with His own. It is not for man to 
 challenge what God does with His own. Men are very jealous 
 about their rights to what they call their own ; will not readily 
 suffer the meddling of others with what they claim to be their 
 property ; are prone to push their titles to possession to the 
 
 ^ Preached in the Churches of Craiglockhart and of Crathie. 
 241 r> 
 
242 god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 
 
 utmost limits human law will allow and far beyond those which 
 Divine Justice prescribes ; and this although these rights and 
 titles rest often on the poorest, sandiest foundations, being such 
 as cannot be traced far until you come to mere brute force, or 
 fraud, or arbitrary will. Well, surely, if men are so jealous 
 about rights and titles of this sort ; if they are so easily satisfied 
 that this and that other thing is their own, and that therefore 
 they may do with it what they will, none daring to blame them ; 
 if so, surely they will never presume to contest the rights of 
 God over what there is certainly no denying to be His own, — 
 those rights which no one can pretend to have been wrongfully 
 taken from any one or to have ever belonged to any other, — 
 those rights which creation and preservation give Him, — the 
 rights of a proprietorship like unto which for legitimacy there 
 is none other in the universe. But, strange to say, it is just 
 His rights which are most contested ; which are constantly being 
 contested ; which all of us are slow of heart to acknowledge. 
 Our own right to do what we will with what we fancy to be 
 our own, although perhaps not at all our own, and seldom indeed 
 if ever entirely our own, we question not nor suffer others to 
 question ; but God's right to do what He will with His own, 
 with what is indubitably, entirely, exclusively His own, — God's 
 sovereignty, — that we not only often question but often, it is 
 to be feared, censure and deny. This is one of the many strange 
 and revolting contradictions which we find within us, and which 
 will be in us, so long as we have the evil eye, — will be in us 
 until the evil eye is plucked out, and an eye not evil, not double 
 and contradictory but single and making the whole body full 
 of light, is given us instead. 
 
 Let us, however, see a little more closely what this sovereignty, 
 this right to do as He wills with His own, which God here claims, 
 really is. Now, it is clearly a sovereignty, a right, which in a 
 certain sense is not absolute, not unconditioned. There is a 
 sort of sovereignty which some have sought to ascribe to God 
 but which He in His Word often disclaims. A sovereignty over 
 holiness and truth themselves to choose or reject them, a right 
 to disregard or set aside right, a sovereignty of this kind in- 
 consistent with moral perfection, a right of this kind contra- 
 dicting all our highest and worthiest thoughts about what is 
 
god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 243 
 
 right, God nowhere asks us to believe in. Nay, He not only 
 nowhere asks us to ascribe to Him such a sovereignty, but wher- 
 ever He strongly claims for Himself that sovereignty of action 
 which is His due. He is, as it were, careful to guard us against 
 confusing it with the other and thereby forming a false and 
 degrading conception of His character. It is so in the present 
 instance. Are we not carefully instructed that every labourer 
 got his own, got all he was entitled to, that no man was wronged, 
 was unjustly dealt with, — that the reason why some murmured 
 was not that they got less than they were entitled to look for 
 but that others got more, were more bountifully dealt with ? 
 The householder in claiming a right to do as he wills with his 
 own claims no right to disregard or violate justice but a right 
 conditioned by justice, a i-ight which justice gives him, a right 
 against which the sense of justice has not a word to say, a right 
 which only the evil eye, the envious heart, finds painful. The 
 sovereignty, then, which we find God demanding us to recognise 
 is one consistent with justice. 
 
 It is also, I would further remark, one which reason as reason 
 has nothing to say against. The general fact that a certain 
 sovereignty of action belongs unto God, that He is free, that 
 He is under constraint to no one, that He may do as He will 
 with His own, this general fact certainly accords with reason ; 
 nay, reason vouches for the truth of it. If reason prove, as 
 surely reason does, that there is a God, it is that there is a God 
 thus sovereign, independent, and free. A God not so would be 
 no true God. The poorest, feeblest creature who from a feeling 
 of love conldi freely give a cup of cold water to a suffering fellow- 
 creature would be superior to a God who, although eternal and 
 infinite in His attributes, had no freedom. So noble a thing is 
 freedom. And hence the reason which testifies of God that 
 He is infinitely above us in all things else testifies that He is 
 infinitely above us as to freedom also. Then, as to the results 
 of this freedom, the individual instances in which this sove- 
 reignty is manifested, it is true that human reason often cannot 
 account for them, cannot show why they are so and not other- 
 vsdse, but they are not contrary to it in any way ; it is never 
 forced to conclude that they ought to have been otherwise 
 than they are. Why God causes one man to be born rich and 
 
244 god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 
 
 another poor, why He here pulls down and there raises up, at 
 one moment sends prosperity and at another adversity, our 
 reasons may very likely fail to tell us ; but do they ever tell us 
 that any of these things God should not do, or even that for any 
 of these things He has not many and good reasons, although 
 we do not perceive them ? It is not from our reasons that 
 objections to God's sovereignty come but from our feelings, — 
 sometimes from natural feelings, such as dislike of suffering, 
 and at other times from feelings which dishonour our nature, 
 such as envying and grieving at the good of others. 
 
 It is especially necessary to bear this in mind, that God's 
 sovereignty rightly apprehended is never contrary to reason, 
 although it often is contrary to excessive and perverted feeling, 
 because it is not uncommon to use the doctrine of God's sove- 
 reignty in order to put down the reason, to silence it. That is a 
 thoroughly unscriptural use of the doctrine. In all the passages 
 where it is dwelt upon — in the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah, 
 the ninth chapter of the Eomans, and this parable of the house- 
 holder — you will find that it is just by appealing to the reason 
 that God vindicates His claims to sovereignty. He puts down 
 in favour of the truth of His sovereignty the murmurings of 
 perverse affections by appeals to the reason, but the question- 
 ings of reason, and still more, of course, of the moral sense, He 
 never puts down, and those who would do so for Him are but 
 unskilful advocates of His cause. There are a great many people 
 who are afraid lest reason go too far into the study of God's 
 ways, and who think and speak of it as a sin to question very 
 closely the indications we have of His character and dispensa- 
 tions. Well, truly, if a sin, it is one few are guilty of. I do 
 not see it anywhere ; but a dull, stupid, blind indifference to 
 God's ways and workings, that I see everywhere. And it is to 
 be feared that there has been a mistake, and that a virtue has 
 come to be thought of as a sin, and a sin to be thought of as a 
 virtue. Reason cannot go too far in the study of God's ways 
 so long as it remains reason. The Bible nowhere says a word 
 about its going too far. Priests have in all ages preached 
 against that as a sin, and a blinded people has believed them, 
 while what God has always complained of is that men would 
 not study His character and ways closely and diligently enough. 
 
god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 245 
 
 Priests may fear that if reason goes a certain length it will 
 find their dogmas irrational, but God has no fear that if it go 
 to the utmost length it can, it will ever find any of His ways 
 irrational. 
 
 Next I have to remark that this sovereignty of God is not 
 any transcendental, invisible thing, which does not come near 
 UB or much concern us, but a thing which we may see in, over, 
 and all around us, determining the various circumstances of 
 our own and our neighbours' lives. It is not a thing which we 
 are shut out from studying because we cannot obtain a know- 
 ledge of God's secret decrees or eternal purposes ; the study of 
 it only requires that we look at ordinary, every-day facts. It 
 is not a thing that we can only read about in the Bible, but a 
 thing in regard to which we can verify and realise what the 
 Bible says by comparing it with what is to be seen in society 
 or with the experience of our own souls. The way in which 
 the householder is represented in the parable as dealing with 
 his labourers is a way in which God is constantly dealing with 
 men ; the effect it is represented as having, the envious mur- 
 muring, the grieving and grudging of some at the good of 
 others, is one of general and incessant recurrence ; the occasions 
 on which God may well be conceived of as saying to us, " May 
 I not do what I will with Mine own ? Is thine eye evil because 
 I am good ? " are innumerable. It may be of use to show this, 
 as it will show that this portion of God's Word is not one of 
 mere speculative interest, not one about something far away 
 from us in a past eternity or the hidden depths of another 
 world, but very near to us, yea, in our hearts and lives, and 
 most real and practical. 
 
 Now first, then, this is a fact that God sets men in very 
 different circumstances as to outward prosperity, as to worldly 
 comfort, wealth, and influence. Nothing in a man himself, no 
 intellectual or moral qualities of his, but the fact that his 
 parents were such-and-such persons determines whether he is 
 to begin life in the lowest or the highest ranks of society ; 
 whether he shall have perhaps to struggle constantly against 
 starvation or be the j)OSsessor of more riches than he can make 
 use of ; whether he is to toil at manual labour and in menial 
 service or wear gay clothing and dwell in kings' houses. This 
 
246 god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 
 
 God determines, this God does, according to the sovereignty of 
 His own will. It is not according to merits ; no man in pre- 
 sence of the facts of the case will so outrage common sense as 
 seriously to maintain that. God puts this man in a low position 
 and that in a high, causes this man to be born a beggar and 
 that a prince, for good reasons no doubt, but not for reasons 
 that we can discover, and certainly not because of merits. To 
 one man He grants success, and to another, manifestly not in- 
 ferior in worth or ability. He denies it ; the one attaining and 
 the other failing, because circumstances over which neither had 
 control prospered the one and baffled the other. That there 
 are thus many and great differences between the lots of men 
 which are not of man's own creation but of God's sovereign 
 willing and ordaining, are facts as certain as any in the world. 
 But are they not apt to seem very hard, harsh facts ? Do they 
 not occasion a great deal of murmuring ? Are they not very 
 sore and offensive to many an eye? Have we not seen the 
 envy and the jealousy to which they give rise manifested in our 
 own day not only in murmurings but in ruthless murders, in 
 gigantic conspiracies, in ferocious insurrections, in the most 
 extravagant schemes and the most insane efforts to destroy all 
 social distinctions, to level down all social inequalities, even 
 those most manifestly of God's making and not of man's? 
 And are not the mad rage of the Communist striving to reduce 
 a city to ashes, and the dark hate of the Nihilist on the track 
 of his victim, and the insane destructiveness of the dynamitard 
 merely the iutensest forms of a kind of evil passion which 
 is universal, which everywhere sets class against class and 
 divides neighbours from one another, which often separates 
 even brother from brother and sister from sister, which shows 
 its baneful presence in our hearts whenever we harbour there a 
 bitter feeling because some one is more fortunate, more wealthy, 
 more popular, more influential than we are, and which we all 
 need to watch, and pray, and strive against ? 
 
 It is not uncommon but very common for a man to grieve at 
 his neighbour's good, to contrast it with his own lot, and to 
 murmur, " What has this man ever done that he should be so 
 much more comfortably situated, so much more bountifully 
 dealt with, than I am? — why have I been born to all this 
 
god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 247 
 
 poverty and toil and suffering, while he, mentally and morally 
 not better but worse than I am, has been born to ease, honour, 
 and affluence ? " Well, it is a hard question truly ; a question 
 to which no answer of the kind which the repining heart 
 seeks can be given ; a question to which the only direct answer 
 is, God has so willed it and had a right so to will it. He had 
 a right to do as He pleased with His own. Special kindness to 
 one is not injustice to another. If God gives to all, as assuredly 
 He does, as much and more than they deserve, none have a 
 right to complain that He has been more bountiful to others 
 than to them. Let us not delude ourselves when we feel as if 
 God's doing good to our neighbours were doing wrong to us, 
 with the fancy that a sense of justice is at the root of our dis- 
 content with our own condition, for the real root of it is an evil, 
 envious eye, which it is our duty to pluck out, — for if we get rid 
 of it we shall cease our murmuring, accept humbly and lovingly 
 God's will to ourselves, and even rejoice that it seems still 
 more to abound in mercy unto others. 
 
 Then here is a second fact. God does not only place men in 
 different circumstances as to mere worldly prosperity but in 
 different moral circumstances. The moral surroundings of 
 men are of an infinite variety of kinds and degrees, and these 
 are very often of God's fixing and not left to a man's own 
 choosing. One man before his very birth, before he has done 
 any action good or bad, God hates more than He hated Esau 
 because He fixes his lot to be born and reared among African 
 aborigines scarcely elevated above the brutes, or among the 
 devotees of all that is licentious and degrading in Hinduism ; 
 while another, on the contrary, He loves more than He ever 
 loved Jacob, since He determines his lot to be the object of the 
 wise and tender care of Christian parents in our own highly 
 favoured land. And even within this land itself what extremes, 
 what differences there are ! Why, there are souls, immortal 
 souls, sent into this land which from the hour of their birth 
 are acted on by such influences that one might almost doubt if 
 an angel from heaven could pass through them without pollu- 
 tion ; immortal souls which are born and cradled and drilled in 
 crime, so that you can scarcely expect anything but crime from 
 them. There are others who are sent into the charge of those 
 
248 god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 
 
 who surround them with a watchful prudence and tender affec- 
 tion, who set before them good examples, check in them the first 
 risings of evil, and foster in them all that is gentle, and generous, 
 and true, so that one can scarcely see how they could have been 
 more happily placed for virtue and religion. 
 
 Thus God acts in the exercise of His sovereign will. He 
 sends one soul among the influences most favourable, another 
 among those most unfavourable to its moral health. But you 
 know that this is a fact which is apt to stagger the mind very 
 much, and that it is associated with some very dismal specula- 
 tions which would confine God's love to a few and consign the 
 rest of mankind to a hopeless looking for of judgment. I believe 
 these speculations are as ill founded as they are painful, and of 
 this I am sure, that if any man say that God's hate to Esau, to 
 a Hindu, to those born of profligate parents, is incompatible 
 with the most tender and fatherly love to them, — that if any 
 man say that God wishes the hurt or sin or death of any one and 
 that His putting them in unfavourable circumstances is evidence 
 of this, — he calumniates the character of God. God bears the 
 truest love to all, and has the best of reasons for how He acts 
 towards all, and can make the crooked straight and enable the 
 last to be first, and has often done so. Hence in all ages many 
 have been coming out of heathen lands to sit on the thrones of 
 heaven which the children of the kingdom might have been 
 expected to occupy, but did not ; in all ages publicans and 
 sinners have been passing in where scribes and Pharisees have 
 been shut out. 
 
 Now, how has God shown His sovereignty towards us in this 
 respect, and how ought we to feel towards it ? Plainly all of 
 us here are by the ordination of God among the exceptionally 
 favoured in a land favoured above all others. There are mil- 
 lions on millions on the earth ignorant of a Saviour's name, and 
 thousands on thousands in this country scarcely, if at all, more 
 happily situated than the heathen ; not one of us had any 
 higher claim on God's goodness than the wildest African 
 savage or the most degi'aded dweller in the foulest lane of 
 London ; and yet how His goodness has abounded towards 
 us, placing us where many temptations were shut off from 
 us, or could only feebly reach us, where we had countless 
 
god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 249 
 
 inducements to conduct ourselves worthily, where kindly and 
 elevating sympathies surrounded us, where moral aid and 
 encouragement abounded, where all Gospel privileges were 
 free to us and pressed upon us. Clearly we are among those 
 whose habitual feelings should be deepest gratitude to God for 
 His mercies, and a pitying active love for those who have not 
 been favoured as we have been. 
 
 But is it so ? Conscience will say it has often been quite 
 otherwise. God's goodness and the claims of our less favoured 
 brethren we have overlooked or forgotten. Our narrow, envious, 
 selfish hearts, turning away from recognition of the blessings 
 they enjoyed, and giving no heed to the fact that multitudes 
 lacked what they possessed, have singled out this and that in- 
 dividual as morally better placed, better situated than ourselves, 
 and this belief, although not unlikely a delusion, has been 
 enough to cause us to feel as if God had dealt but hardly with 
 us, — as if He might well have done more for us, — as if He ought 
 hardly to expect the whole love of our hearts and the whole 
 service of our lives, whatever He may do from those to whom 
 He has been kinder. Thus instead of responding as we ought 
 to the manifestation of God's sovereignty in the ordering of 
 our moral circumstances with gratitude to God and compassion 
 and help to men, we contrive to respond to it with a charge 
 of injustice on God's part towards ourselves and with envious 
 grieving at the good He has done to others. For such perversity 
 there can, of course, be no excuse, and we cannot too anxiously 
 pray and strive to be freed from it. 
 
 Again, God shows His sovereignty, His freedom of action, 
 in the unequal distribution of mental powers which He makes 
 among men. To one man He gives five talents, to another 
 two, to another only one. This likewise is a trying fact and 
 brings out in many a heart unjust and bitter thoughts both 
 towards God and towards man. It is a painful thing to have 
 the consciousness forced on you that your abilities are inferior 
 to those of others ; that others can do the very work in which 
 you are most anxious to excel, more easily, more skilfully, more 
 successfully than you can. It is a severe trial to many boys 
 at school and young men at college, for example, to find that 
 in spite of their most strenuous efforts to obtain some legiti- 
 
250 god's sovereigxty — man's evil eye. 
 
 mate distinction a fellow-scholar or fellow-student can by an 
 easy exertion carry it away from them ; and that it is a keen 
 trial is made obvious by this, that they will very often rather 
 say that they have not been diligent in trying to succeed than 
 unable to do so ; that they will rather acknowledge neglect of 
 duty than want of ability. 
 
 It requires a very fair and honest mind, and one which has 
 habituated itself to self-denial of the selfishness and evil 
 natural to it, to be able sincerely and fully to confess that 
 another has greater and better abilities than itself, and yet to 
 feel no envy, no discontent. Many a man will not allow him- 
 self to see the superiority of others, but will set himself instead 
 most assiduously and ingeniously to depreciate their gifts, — 
 to convince himself that this and that other talent for which 
 they get credit are no true talents, — and that their reputations 
 are a delusion, while his own merits have been overlooked. 
 The narrow, envious heart of such a man — and there are many 
 such men — cannot bear to let into it the generous thought of 
 another's superiority. And then, if it cannot help letting 
 that thought in, — if the evidence be so strong as to overcome 
 its utmost resistance, — its envy comes out only all the more ; it 
 grudges the man the gifts God has given him, it is jealous of 
 every little petty distinction these gifts may gain him, it is 
 grieved even at the good these gifts do, it has no contentment 
 with or gratitude for what God has given to itself because He 
 has not given it more, and it murmurs against Him as if He 
 had dealt harshly and unjustly with it. Oh ! it is a hateful, 
 a wicked temper of spirit this, and it will be but a mild rebuke 
 of it, although true to the very letter, if God only says to those 
 who cherish it, " I have done you no wrong. Is it not lawful 
 for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil 
 because I am good ? " 
 
 Let us try, through God's help, to free ourselves from this 
 mean and sinful frame of character. Let us discipline our- 
 selves to acknowledge all that is really true about ourselves, 
 and not to be ashamed of any inferiority which is of God's 
 appointment and not the result of our own negligence or folly. 
 It is for God alone to decide whether our natural abilities shall 
 be great or small ; it is for us thankfully to receive and dili- 
 
god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 251 
 
 gently to use them, whether great or small, striving to make 
 the very most of them for the good of others and the glory of 
 Him who gave them. If we do so it will probably in the end 
 matter much less whether they have been great or small than 
 we are apt to think. Two talents made four equal, in Heaven's 
 reckoning, five talents made ten. 
 
 I need only mention another, a fourth class of cases in which 
 the sovereignty of God meets us. He in the exercise of His 
 rights as the Creator gives men very different moral disposi- 
 tions, very different passions, propensities, and tempers. There 
 are instances of persons, unhappy persons, so strangely consti- 
 tuted morally, with such apparently irresistible tendencies to 
 evil, that a great many people now believe that there may be 
 an insanitv which affects the moral nature alone, and hurries 
 into deeds of horror those whose intellects are sound. Let us 
 suppose, however, that those who have come to this conclusion 
 have gone too far, yet I think we shall at least not deny that 
 there are persons approaching in some degree to this state, 
 persons of specially low moral organisation, who have coarse 
 and strong passions, tempers violent and difficult to control, 
 and little intellect, and a feeble power of moral resistance. 
 It is not pleasant to think of such a fact, but we must 
 accustom ourselves to look on many a fact which is not 
 pleasant, and this seems one of them, that God gives men 
 very differently constituted moral natures. 
 
 It is easy to see how it may give rise both to murmuring 
 against God and envying of fellow-men. He who has been again 
 and again overcome and humiliated by a propensity against 
 which he has prayed and struggled is apt to feel as if God had 
 done him wrong by creating him with a passion so wild and 
 strong, as if He had doomed him to degradation and sin by 
 the very constitution of his being ; and he is apt also to envy 
 those who are free from the violent temper or the strong lust 
 by which he has been himself so often enslaved and disgraced. 
 " Why hast Thou made me thus ? " he murmurs against God. 
 "How hard and shameful a lot is mine," he repiningly com- 
 plains, "compared with that of those whom I can see to have 
 been born with naturally placid and amiable dispositions, with 
 equable, unexcitable minds, without keen cravings for pleasure 
 
252 god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 
 
 or indulgence, and for whom it is easy to resist temptation and 
 to practise virtue." But such murmurings and envyings also 
 are unreasonable and unjust. God has a right to make it easier 
 for one to be virtuous than another if He please. He dooms no 
 one to sin or to failure in the struggle against sin, because how- 
 ever strong may be the propensity to evil in any one whom He 
 holds responsible at all, He is ready to bestow on him grace 
 stronger than the propensity — grace sufficient to master and 
 control, to purify and sanctify it. He takes account in judging 
 us of the strength of our passions, and will approve us all the 
 more if those against which we have faithfully contended have 
 been exceptionally strong and perverse. It is a good thing to 
 have a naturally gentle and loving disposition ; but in God's 
 sight it is a far more pleasing and noble thing to have subdued 
 a naturally harsh temper into gentleness and to have con- 
 verted a naturally selfish heart into a generous and self-denying 
 one. The grandest triumphs both of human will and of Divine 
 grace have been seen not in the naturally amiable and consti- 
 tutionally virtuous, but in those naturally and constitutionally 
 the reverse. Here too the last may be first, and there is no 
 respect of persons with God, 
 
 Now, in conclusion, this is the burden of our whole argu- 
 ment. With whatever God is pleased to ordain for us let us 
 seek to be content. He only has a right to determine our cir- 
 cumstances, our abilities, our duties. Let us acquiesce in His 
 will towards us whatever it be, and we shall not fail to find, as 
 our experience grows, that it is a good and gracious one, how- 
 ever far it may at first have seemed from being so. Let us 
 commit our way wholly unto the Lord, assured that the result 
 will always be this blessed one, that although it may still 
 remain so far true that we do not fully know why God has 
 made this and the other circumstance seemingly to our disad- 
 vantage, — that this is one of the Lord's " secrets," — yet we shall 
 also gradually learn to know that this, like many other " secrets ' 
 of the Lord, is "with them that fear Him," for our whole 
 life once submitted to God's will and guidance will turn out to 
 be a reason for what He has done, and seeming disadvantages 
 will be found to have been real helps, seeming signs of want of 
 love real proofs of the tenderest love. Let our care be not to 
 
god's sovereignty — man's evil eye. 253 
 
 choose our tasks but to choose to do them well ; let us not 
 spend our time in idle talking about what we loould have done if 
 God had only given us greatei' powers and more advantages 
 than He has seen fit to do, and still less in sinful complaining 
 that He has not been liberal unto us, and cannot expect much 
 from us ; but let us use honestly and heartily in His service 
 whatever powers and advantages we have. And far, far be 
 from us envy of any advantages which our fellow-workers 
 may have received from God, or of any good which they may 
 be able to do for His cause ; but may ours be the true and 
 loving hearts which rejoice in the good of others as in their 
 own, and to which every advance of Christ's kingdom causes a 
 sacred, sincere, and deep joy. Such hearts as these, and the 
 lives which flow from them, my dear friends, may God of His 
 mercy and love, through His Holy Spirit and for the sake of 
 His dear Son, grant unto us all, that we may do His work here 
 and enjoy His blessedness hereafter. And to His name be the 
 glory now and for ever. Amen. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 RENDER UNTO CAESAR THE THINGS WHICH 
 
 ARE C^SAR'S.i 
 
 " Render, therefore, unto Ca'sar the things which are Csesar's ; and unto God the 
 things that are God's." — Matthew xxii. 21. 
 
 TO understand these words of our Lord we must take into 
 account the circumstances in which they were spoken. 
 His life on earth was near a close ; His trial and crucifixion 
 were at hand. His enemies had resolved on getting rid of 
 Him ; but His enthusiastic Messianic reception by the multi- 
 tude as He entered Jerusalem to keep the Passover showed 
 them the danger of directly employing force against Him ; and 
 so they had recourse to craft, and sought to destroy His reputa- 
 tion in order that they might take His life. Hence the plot of 
 the Pharisees and Herodians of which we read in the verses 
 preceding the text. 
 
 They resolved to put a question to Him which could only be 
 so answered as either to discredit Him with the Jewish people 
 or bring Him into conflict with the Roman magistrates. It 
 was a question which He could not refuse to answer ; which as 
 a claimant to be the Messianic King He was bound to answer ; 
 a question which was troubling many an honest Jewish con- 
 science. Those who devised it seem to have been afraid, how- 
 ever, that He might not answer, and so they approached Him 
 with words of insincere praise of His honesty and fearlessness, 
 hoping thus to deceive Him, and to get from Him such an 
 answer as they wished. " Master, we know that Thou art true, 
 and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for 
 any man: for Thou regardest not the person of men." Then 
 comes their question. "Tell us, therefore, what thinkest 
 Thou ? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Csesar, or not ? " In 
 
 1 Preached in St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, and in the Parish Church of Scone 
 
 during the Parliamentary Election of 1894. 
 
 254 
 
RENDER CiESAR'S THINGS TO C^SAR. 255 
 
 other words, Is it right or not for a Jew, a man under the 
 law and government which God had specially and directly- 
 instituted, a subject of the Theocracy, to pay the poll-tax which 
 the Roman Emperor claimed as the ruler of Israel ; to render 
 to Cffisar the denarius, the silver penny, the ordinary day's wage 
 of a labourer, which he exacted, and thereby to acknowledge 
 himself C£esar's servant? 
 
 This question a vast majority of the Jewish people might 
 honestly have put; but those who put it on the occasion 
 referred to did so dishonestly, hypocritically, with a wicked 
 intention ; not because it was troubling and vexing them, and 
 they wished enlightenment and peace of mind, but because they 
 wished so to entansrle Christ in His talk as to ruin Him. But 
 He perceived their wickedness, their cruel and malicious purpose, 
 and the base and double way in which they sought to accom- 
 plish it, and by a single word He unmasked and exposed them, 
 showed them that they had not deceived Him, and that He 
 really was what they had in flattery and with evil design said 
 He was — one who spoke the truth without fear or respect of 
 persons. For as such an one He now spoke to them — "Why 
 tempt ye Me, hypocrites ? " With His calm, truthful, search- 
 ing eyes resting on these wretched men, that one word, hypo- 
 crites, was all that was needed in the way of rebuke. The 
 significance of it would only have been marred, the impressive- 
 ness of it only weakened, by any addition. 
 
 But He answered the question of these men. For He wished 
 that there should be no ambiguity, no doubt, as to what His 
 doctrine was. Perhaps He indicated, however, by the "Why 
 tempt ye me ? " that the question need not have been asked ; 
 and would not have been asked by any one who had given 
 proper attention to His teaching as to the nature of His 
 kingdom. However, He answered it. He asked for a sight of 
 the tribute money, and when a denarius was handed to Him 
 He inquired of them whose was the image and inscription 
 which He saw on it. Both the likeness and the name inscribed 
 were those of a Cajsar, probably of Tiberius Csesar. The answer, 
 therefore, was " Csesar's." Bat that meant that Caesar had 
 been accepted as their master; that they were circulating 
 Caesar's coin among them ; that they were receiving services 
 
256 RENDER Cesar's things to c^sar. 
 
 from Cfesar, and had engaged to render services to Csesar in 
 return. 
 
 The Jews might have been wrong in submitting to Csesar ; 
 it might be right for them to renounce their allegiance and to 
 endeavour to throw off the yoke of Caesar. Christ was not 
 questioned on these points, and He said nothing regarding 
 them. If He had been questioned on them He would probably 
 have refused to answer, as He had not come to earth to deal 
 with such questions ; or possibly He would have advised them 
 out of humanity not to draw the sword, seeing that if they did 
 they must perish by the sword, as no supernatural aid would be 
 granted to them in a struggle with Rome. But as to the question 
 put to Him He answers it plainly. The coin they had showed 
 Him of itself clearly testified that they were confessedly and in 
 fact the subjects of C£esar, ruled by him, and under obligations 
 to him. So long as the rule of Cgesar and obligations to Caesar 
 lasted they were clearly bound to yield the obedience and pay 
 the tribute which they had promised to give. There could be 
 no opposition between rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar's, 
 and unto God what was God's ; on the contrary, duty to God 
 required them to pay to Caesar, as to every one, all that they 
 owed. Therefore, said our Lord, "Eender unto Caesar the 
 things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which 
 are God's." 
 
 It was a noble, a sublime answer. Christ's enemies thought 
 that they had contrived a trap into which Christ must fall, and 
 declare Himself either a defender or the rival of Csesar. They 
 only afforded Him an opportunity of making it once more 
 perfectly clear that He had not come into the world either 
 to be the defender or the rival of Caesar, or to mingle in any 
 political contentions, and at the same time an opportunity of 
 affirming a principle which should underlie and regulate all 
 / politics — the principle that politics is dependent on morality, 
 and that morality is based on the law of God. 
 
 The nobleness, the sublimity of the answer lies chiefly, how- 
 ever, in its simple truthfulness. Many have so misunderstood 
 it as to see in it a skilful evasion of the question which was put. 
 They have admired the ingenuity by which Christ, as they say, 
 got rid of the dilemma contrived for His hurt, and avoided the 
 
RENDER Cesar's things to c^sar. 257 
 
 snare set to entrap Him. I should be sorry to have to think 
 that Christ ever exercised any ingenuity in skilful evasion. 
 He displayed none of it on the occasion under consideration. 
 His answer was perfectly unambiguous, absolutely honest. 
 He evaded no dilemma. He said, Give to Ceesar this tribute 
 money, and whatever else is his. He tried to escape out of no 
 difficulty. He had taught that He was a King, and He did not 
 withdraw a word of that teaching ; so that His enemies were 
 left able to pretend that He was the foe of Caesar. He had 
 taught also that His kingdom was not of this world, and that 
 He was not going to interfere with Cffisar ; but the people were 
 unwilling to understand Him ; they sang Hosannas to Him 
 because they hoped that He would deliver Israel. Now, again, 
 He speaks ; but it is only finally and bitterly to disappoint 
 them ; only to tell them that He will countenance no revolt, 
 put forth no effort to break the chains which bound Judea, 
 satisfy no patriotic illusion. He speaks freely, plainly, boldly ; 
 but it is to turn away the hearts of the people from Himself, to 
 destroy His own popularity, to seal His own doom. 
 
 Hail, Jesus, Master, we know indeed that Thou art true, the 
 Truth. Thou art the King we need, whom we would honour, 
 love, and obey. Oh, may we live in Thee that we may be 
 true like Thee, fearing no man, neither regarding the person 
 of men. 
 
 " Render unto Ctesar the things which are Caesar's." What 
 do these words mean for us ? We shall see as we proceed. Of 
 course, they are far from meaning to us what they meant to 
 the Jews. We, thank God, are a free people, subject to no 
 alien government, no foreign conqueror. They are far even 
 from meaning to us what they would have meant to the 
 Romans. We are under no Caesar in the sense of an absolute 
 ruler, a personal despot. It is to be hoped that in that sense 
 the whole world may soon see the last of the Caesars. For us 
 here and now in Britain C^sar is simply the Civil Government, 
 or rather the nation, the community, as represented by the 
 Civil Government, or governing itself in civil affairs. But the 
 words, " Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," 
 have not, therefore, lost for us their significance and import- 
 ance. Nay, there is surely a far stronger call on us, as the 
 
 R 
 
258 RENDER Cesar's things to c^sar. 
 
 free citizens of the great historic nation in which God has 
 graciously cast our lot, to remember the civil responsibilities 
 which lie upon us, and the civil ties which bind us to the com- 
 munity as a whole, than there would have been if we had been 
 in the position either of the Jew or the Roman. 
 
 It would ill become us to forget them. For there is not one 
 among us who does not receive great and precious benefits 
 through his connection with the government of the realm. 
 Our quiet, the safety of our persons and property, our work 
 and wages, our freedom of speech, our liberty to worship God 
 according to the dictates of conscience — all these, and countless 
 other advantages, are secured to us by its power, preserved and 
 protected by the might and majesty of the laws. The industry 
 of the labourer, the skill of the artisan, the enterprise of the 
 merchant, the hardiness of the sailor, the valour of the soldier 
 and the wisdom of the statesman, the sweet fancies of the poet 
 and the abstruse researches of the philosopher, talents, virtues, 
 and graces — all these, under that happy constitution which our 
 fathers, having bought and sealed and consecrated it even with 
 their blood, have handed down to us, work together for good to 
 the humble villager in the remotest hamlet, and contribute 
 somewhat to bless and beautify his life, although he may not 
 know whence or how the benefit comes. Responsibility is always 
 in proportion to privilege. Where much is given, there much 
 is required. 
 
 " Render unto Csesar the things which are Caesar's." What 
 are these things ? They are many ; for the precept is of wide 
 application. It gives expression to a comprehensive principle. 
 It enjoins no less than the rendering to the supreme civil 
 authority under which we live all to which it is entitled ; it 
 enjoins no less than the fulfilment of all civil duty. 
 
 It was originally given, as you perceive, with reference to 
 payment of tribute to the Roman emperor. Tribute we are 
 fortunately not called upon to pay. A people which pays 
 tribute is a humiliated people, a people at least partially 
 enslaved, a people extremely likely to seek opportunities for 
 revolt and revenge. The nearest thing to tribute which we can 
 pay in Britain is something which is yet essentially different 
 from it, and in the payment of which there is no humiliation, 
 
RENDER CJESAR's THINGS TO CAESAR. 259 
 
 but only the manifest performance of duty, — I mean the taxes, 
 our shares or proportions of the public burdens, of the expenses 
 necessarily incurred by the nation in performing its national 
 functions. These, it is obvious, we are bound honestly and 
 cheerfully to pay. They are indispensable to the national well- 
 being and the discharge of national duty ; they are so applied, 
 in this country at least, as to benefit every individual in it. 
 In no nation in the world are they more justly apportioned, or 
 more honestly administered, than in our own. Gradually our 
 statesmen of all parties have come to see clearly that the justest 
 and, on the whole, least burdensome taxes are the most re- 
 munerative. There is no excuse for our endeavouring to keep 
 from Caesar this portion of what is his. 
 
 But no one can be so foolish as to fancy that he fulfils all 
 civil duty by merely contributing to the revenue of the nation 
 so far as it is compulsory for him to do so. The nation has a 
 right to much else from us than a little money. 
 
 For instance, secondly, it has a right to our sincere, and 
 intelligent, and unselfish interest in its welfare. It is natural 
 and almost inevitable that we should love the land of our birth, 
 of our forefathers, and of the famous memories which we have 
 been taught from infancy to cherish. He who does not must 
 be wanting in some of the essential feelings of our common 
 humanity, or have done violence to some of its primitive in- 
 stincts. It is in perfect accordance with the will of God that 
 we should possess this love. He desires that our country should 
 be dear to us. He demands only that our love should be purged 
 from ignorance, so as to be no blind instinct such as makes the 
 wild beast defend its forest or mountain lair ; and purged from 
 selfishness, so as to manifest itself not in contemjDt and enmity 
 towards strangers, but in readiness to make whatever sacrifices 
 the good of our own countrymen calls for. 
 
 It is only when the love of country is thus enlightened and 
 disinterested that it is worthy of the name of patriotism. 
 Then it is a most admirable and excellent affection. It is in 
 the State what brotherly love is in the Church — so binding the 
 various individuals of the community together into a single 
 body, that " whether one member suffer, all the members suffer 
 with it ; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice 
 
260 RENDER Cesar's things to c^sar. 
 
 with it." This obligation which is upon us to love our country, 
 and to take a lively interest in the welfare of those who inhabit 
 it, does not in the least imply that there is to be any neglect of 
 private duties through interference with public affairs. It is a 
 grievous misfortune both for individuals themselves and the 
 public when that occurs. It is a sure symptom that the body 
 politic is in a diseased and dangerous condition when the masses 
 of the community become engrossed in political agitation. 
 Patriotism is very rarely the cause of such commotion. It is 
 when the sacred name of patriotism is profaned to ignoble 
 purposes, when under the pretence of patriotism men carry on 
 a mean scramble for personal advantages, or class arrays itself 
 in hatred and hostility to class, it is then that private duties 
 are forgotten or despised ; that individuals start up as teachers 
 on subjects the very elements of which they have never learned ; 
 that the peace of society is endangered and its progress im- 
 peded. A true interest in our country's welfare, a pure and 
 honest patriotism, is never the source of these excesses. What 
 is true of the charity which St Paul eulogises is true of it. It 
 is, in fact, that same charity in a different sphere, and modified 
 accordingly. It vaunts not itself ; it is not easily provoked ; it 
 seeks not its own. It, in other words, carefully conforms to 
 all the conditions on which the harmony and happiness of a 
 nation depend. 
 
 Thirdly, obedience ought to be rendered. The Apostles have 
 enjoined us to do so in a manner so earnest and emphatic, that 
 it was long a prevalent dogma that this obedience had virtually 
 no limits, no measure — that in no circumstances could resist- 
 ance be justifiable. The dogma of " the divine right of kings," 
 as it was called, was maintained in a revolting and debasing 
 form. And as presented it was a mere fiction. God has placed 
 kings and other magistrates in authority to promote public 
 happiness, to carry out public justice; but He has given them 
 no other authority, and that, instead of being a justification of 
 arbitrary and oppressive government, is the strongest condem- 
 nation of it. Caesar has no right to put himself in the place of 
 God. It is at our peril if we obey him at the expense of God. 
 
 In the present day there are those who believe in the Divine 
 right of the people, the so-called sovereignty of the people, in 
 
RENDER Caesar's things to c^sar. 261 
 
 as degrading and servile a manner as their forefathers believed 
 in the Divine right of kings. For them whatever the majority 
 of the people, or of their representatives, decree is to be 
 regarded as ultimately right and absolutely entitled to obedi- 
 ence. I believe in the Divine right only of God Himself, in 
 the absolute sovereignty only of Him who is absolutely just 
 and righteous. I shall, I trust, never acknowledge the Divine 
 right or absolute sovereignty of any one else ; or ever hesitate 
 to disobey any law of monarch, or parliament, or people clearly 
 contrary in my view to that Divine law to which monarch, 
 parliament, and the whole body of the people owe allegiance 
 equally with the humblest individual citizen. 
 
 But while I maintain it to be not only my right but my duty 
 to break any law, passed by whomsoever it may be, which 
 plainly breaks God's law, I must take care so to break it as not 
 myself in so doing to break God's law. I must not in opposing 
 an evil law betake myself to evil ways, to falsehood or treachery, 
 cruelty, plunder, and murder, as, under the plea of resisting 
 evil laws, many did, not long ago, in a part of this empire. A 
 man who respects morality, who honours the law of God, who 
 accepts the precepts of Christ, can have no part in action of 
 this kind ; can have no sympathy with those implicated in it ; 
 must condemn all who would condone it or excuse it. Those 
 who honour God's law never fail to give reasonable obedience 
 to human law, never countenance real disorder or crime in the 
 State. 
 
 The direct demands which the well-ordered government of 
 this realm makes upon our obedience are so few, and light, and 
 just, that it would be inexcusable indeed if they were not cheer- 
 fully responded to. It has come, in fact, to be the case, that 
 instead of troublesome personal services being exacted as in 
 former times, the chief service we can now render to our country 
 is to prosecute, each one of us in his own place and relations, 
 the private pursuits he is engaged in, quietly, diligently, justly, 
 piously. A sober, righteous, godly life — that is now the main 
 .substance of what is asked from us. That which secures our 
 own temporal and eternal welfare contributes most also to the 
 strength of the nation, to the happiness of the community. 
 
 Fourthly, the nation, or the government of the nation, has 
 
262 RENDER Cesar's things to c^sar. 
 
 a right to expect from us careful, independent, disinterested 
 thought as to what is for the real good of the nation ; and that, 
 whenever there is a call on us to do so, we honestly act on the 
 conclusions to which such thought leads us. God also demands 
 this from us. In a country like ours, where public opinion has 
 so powerful an influence, we are obviously bound to try to con- 
 tribute to public opinion only independent and well-considered 
 decisions. When it becomes our duty to take part in a transac- 
 tion which may or must seriously affect the prosperity of the 
 nation, we are bound to realise the greatness of the responsi- 
 bility which lies upon us, and that we shall be unworthy 
 citizens, and sin against God, if we do not prefer the welfare 
 of the nation to the triumph of any party, or to any personal 
 ends. 
 
 My friends, this consideration cannot be too much present to 
 us just now. Not in the days of any of us has there been an 
 election the result of which is likely so seriously to affect the 
 greatness of Britain, its unity as an empire, the future of Pro- 
 testant and still more of Roman Catholic Ireland, the fate of 
 the Church of Scotland, and the prospects of religion in Scot- 
 land, as that which is so soon to be decided. Deeply impressed 
 although I am with the seriousness of the situation, and the 
 magnitude of the dangers which threaten us, and which we 
 may easily bring upon the nation by our inconsiderateness and 
 want of earnestness, yet I shall not depart from that position 
 of political neutrality which befits God's house ; but I only 
 fulfil my duty in this house when I solemnly remind every one 
 who has the function of an elector to discharge that he will be 
 responsible to God for the manner in which he discharges it, 
 and that he will grievously err and sin if in the discharge of it 
 he allow himself to be influenced by any other motive than a 
 desire for the national good, for the advancement of true 
 religion, for the glory of God. 
 
 All that we owe to Csesar we owe also to God. All that we 
 render unto Caesar we should render as unto God. Whenever 
 we have to do with duty we have to do with God. It is He 
 who assigns it ; He who gives power to perform it ; He who 
 will judge how it has been performed, and approve or condemn, 
 reward or punish, accordingly. 
 
RENDER Cesar's things to c^sar. 263 
 
 Therefore, I would say, finally, that prayer to God for the 
 nation, and that He may enable us to discharge aright all our 
 duty to the nation, is itself a duty to the nation. The nation 
 has a right to such prayer. The Lord reigneth. He doeth 
 according to His will among the armies of heaven and among 
 the children of men. He raiseth up and pulleth down, accord- 
 ing as it seemeth good to Him. The issues of prosperity and 
 adversity are in His hands. Therefore prayer will avail much. 
 The earnest prayer of the true Christian at least will avail 
 much. 
 
 Let us, then, prepare ourselves for duty to the nation by 
 seeking from God the enlightenment of mind, the singleness 
 and disinterestedness of heart, the strength of character which 
 we need. His grace is required to make us genuine patriots, 
 loyal subjects, faithful citizens ; let us not fail to seek it. Let 
 us pray that He may show us the folly and danger of any 
 policy which will weaken the nation, restrict liberty, lower 
 morality, increase the power of religious superstition, or check 
 the growth of material prosperity. For all in authority, let us 
 pray that they may have the spirit of wisdom and judgment, 
 and faithfully discharge the responsibilities of their offices, 
 while we, under them, giving them all due respect, may lead 
 quiet and peaceable lives, and adorn the doctrine of God our 
 Saviour. 
 
 For our country, our native land, which so many associations 
 have endeared and hallowed to our hearts, let us pray that God 
 would be pleased to bless and prosper it, at home and abroad, 
 in the persons of all classes, and in all its interests. Especially 
 let us implore that it may be made wholly the kingdom of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that at His name every knee 
 among us may bow, and every heart among us leap for joy. 
 
 May God follow with His blessing what has now been said. 
 And to His name be praise, honour, and glory for evermore. 
 Amen. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 WORK WHILE IT IS DAY.i 
 
 " I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day ; the night cometh, 
 when no man can work." — John ix. 4. 
 
 THESE words, as you will perceive, were spoken by our 
 Lord just before He proceeded to heal a blind man. 
 The time, He knew, was drawing near when His work on 
 earth would be finished, and He wished to leave no part of 
 it imperfect, no act which He had been sent to do undone, 
 no deed of mercy by which He could show forth the glory 
 of the Father and the character of His own Gospel unaccom- 
 plished. The words in the text by which He gave expression 
 to this feeling are as clear and plain as they are striking and 
 beautiful, so that of mere explanation they scarcely need any. 
 The only point, indeed, in regard to which difficulty has been 
 felt in their interpretation is whether our Lord meant by 
 " the works of Him that sent Him," the works given Him to 
 do by Him who sent Him, or such works as He who sent Him 
 worketh, namely, works of power and mercy. But these two 
 meanings, you will observe, by no means exclude each other, 
 nor was there any necessity for our Lord to distinguish them, 
 or to choose the one and to reject the other. He is rather 
 to be supposed to have had both meanings indissolubly in 
 His thought. For the works which the Father sent the Son 
 to do were just the works which the Father Himself worketh; 
 the works which the Son wrought among men were just the 
 works which showed forth the character of the nature and 
 working of Him from whom He came and to whom He was 
 •about to return. To reveal His Father to the children of 
 men for their salvation, that was the great and comprehensive 
 work which His Father had given Him to do, and on which 
 
 1 Preached in St George's Church, Edinburgh, on first Sabbath of a new year. 
 
 264 
 
WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 265 
 
 His own heart was set, and in that work all His particular 
 works, the healing of this blind man among them, were in- 
 cluded, so that we have to take His words in their general, 
 large, obvious sense, and may safely dismiss from our minds 
 the distinctions and discussions of critics and commentators. 
 
 Our Lord spoke these words concerning Himself, not con- 
 cerning other men, not concerning us. Even He found a 
 motive and incentive to His zeal in the knowledge that He 
 was here on earth but for a short time, with a great task 
 to perform before the hour of His departure arrived. He 
 felt that when He had so little time in the world He must 
 lose no fragment of it, but must employ every instant in 
 glorifying the Father and doing good to men. As long as 
 He was in the world, as long as the day of His activity in 
 human form lasted. He was Himself the light of the world ; 
 but that day was fast drawing to a close, and, therefore, there 
 was the more need that He should allow the light which was 
 in Him to shine forth brightly and without interruption. To 
 study the words of our text in this their immediate and 
 primary application with reference to our Lord Himself and 
 to His work might well suggest many profitable thoughts. 
 It is not thus, however, that I wish to-day to consider them. 
 They are words of universal applicability ; words which all 
 men may use, and solemn words for any man to use. There 
 is not one of us who has not had a work given him to do, 
 and who has not merely a short day at the longest in which 
 to do it, and towards whom the night in which he cannot 
 work is not rapidly drawing near. This seems the reference 
 in which it will be most appropriate for us to consider the 
 text now, when we have just crossed the threshold of another 
 year, when thoughts about the shortness, the changes, and 
 vicissitudes of existence, about duty and about destiny, about 
 the past, the present, and future, about the world that is 
 and the world to come, are in many ways naturally suggested 
 to us. 
 
 Each man has a great work given him to do, which he is 
 in great danger of not doing. The contemplation of human 
 life cannot but constantly fill us with sadness, just because it 
 is so seldom what it might be and what it ought to be. When 
 
266 WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 
 
 we look at other things we see each object in the world filling 
 its proper place ; doing what it was obviously created to do, 
 no more and no less ; acting according to and acting up to 
 the true laws of the nature which it has received ; but when 
 we look at the life of man there is a strange contrast, for it 
 ever falls far below and is often utterly unlike what it should 
 be. Man's nature has powers and capacities for good which 
 would produce the most blessed results if well developed and 
 well directed ; it contains in germ an amazing wealth of 
 faculties, to the progress and perfection of which scarcely 
 any limits can be set ; it may rise to the sublimest heights ; 
 it may attain to stages of excellence almost inconceivable ; 
 it may advance from glory to glory without end ; it has the 
 image of God upon it, the seed of an imperishable life within 
 it ; and the firmament with all its stars is mean in comparison 
 with what it would be in any man who was true to his own 
 true self. 
 
 A child is born to a beggar. It may grow up untrained 
 and untaught, ignorant, rude, and brutal ; it may become 
 a thief and a murderer; it may die unregretted in banish- 
 ment or on the scaffold; and yet in that new-born babe 
 there are boundless possibilities of good, although they will 
 never come to be realities ; in that little body covered with 
 a beggar's rag there is a soul capable of containing far 
 more knowledge than ever Newton possessed, with greater 
 powers of action than were exerted even by a Luther or a 
 Napoleon, and with the rudiments of affections which might 
 have flowered into a holiness surpassing that of Edwards or 
 Brainard. There is something more solemn in the soul of a 
 child than in all the victories of kings or the achievements of 
 genius. So much greater is man than any of man's works. 
 
 When we turn from human nature in its true essential self 
 to human nature in its actual results, a terrible disappointment 
 awaits us. This human nature, which ought to be so great 
 and noble, is everywhere seen assuming the meanest and 
 most ignoble forms. There are whole nations where it is 
 utterly degraded and brutalised, their inhabitants bowing 
 down to hideous idols and giving themselves up to the prac- 
 tice of inhuman vices. And even in our own highly-favoured 
 
WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 267 
 
 land there are multitudes dead to infinite and eternal realities 
 and alive only to sensuous objects and selfish interests. When 
 we survey the history of the race we see among all nations 
 and in every age the virtues of truth, integrity, justice, 
 benevolence, unselfishness, and continence, grievously violated. 
 The history of nations has been largely the history of crime. 
 When we leave the wide field of history, when we keep our 
 eyes open to what is going on every day around us, when we 
 observe the conduct of men to each other, when we hear the 
 words they use to and regarding each other, when we mark 
 how they bear themselves in reference to the regulation of 
 their passions and appetites, how much reason have we to be 
 ashamed of our fellow-men ! When we withdraw our atten- 
 tion from others, when we summon up our own past conduct, 
 when we mark the operations of our own minds from day to 
 day, when we consider whether or not we have loved our 
 neighbours as ourselves, done to others as we would that 
 others should do to us, and kept our souls unspotted from 
 the world, unstained from all impure and injurious thoughts, 
 how much reason have we to be ashamed of ourselves ! 
 
 " If human sin confronts tlie rigid law 
 Of perfect truth and virtue, awe 
 Seizes and saddens thee to see how far 
 Beyond thy reach perfection ; if we test 
 By the ideal of the good, the best. 
 How mean our efforts and our actions are ! 
 This space between the ideal of man's soul 
 And man's achievement who hath ever passed ? 
 An ocean spreads between us and that goal, 
 Where anchor ne'er was cast." 
 
 This mystery that while mere physical existences should all 
 be put, as it were, to use, of human souls, of thought and 
 feehng, of knowledge, virtue, and holiness, or, in a word, of 
 all that is highest and most precious in the universe, there 
 should be such seemingly lavish, reckless, inexplicable waste, 
 may well at times present itself to us as perfectly appalling. 
 One of the Hebrew prophets looking at it with earnest eye 
 and troubled heart, considerably more than two thousand 
 years ago, could not, prophet although he was, with clear. 
 
268 WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 
 
 deep glances into God's principles of moral government, help 
 crying out in agony, " Lord, hast Thou made all men in 
 vain ? " Of course, that is a thought from which we must 
 haste to get free. There is light and guidance to be found 
 only in the very opposite conviction. Our life would be, 
 indeed, a bitter mockery, if God had made us only for failure 
 and destruction. If God were against us, who or what could 
 be for us ? But no ! God is for us. God has made one and 
 all of us for eternal life — for the highest destiny to which our 
 natures point, — for the continuous and progressive realisation 
 and enjoyment of the truth, beauty, and goodness, in which 
 alone our souls can find their real happiness, — for that intimate 
 communion with Himself which is at once eternal life and 
 perfect blessedness. 
 
 Only He has given us a terrible power to waste the riches 
 both of our own natures and of His grace. We may exert 
 our faculties or allow them to rust in idleness ; we may exert 
 them rightly or wrongly. We may seek good or evil ; may 
 choose life or death ; may keep the body and its appetites in 
 subjection to reason and conscience or allow what is lowest to 
 rule us, while neglecting and despising what is highest. Life 
 has been given us for good and noble ends, but we can only 
 attain these ends if we aim earnestly and straightly at them, 
 and steadily and strenuously labour to reach them. Life brings 
 with it heavy responsibilities. The work of living well is not 
 meant to be to any one a thing easily done. The works which 
 God gives us to do, and through the doing of which we can 
 alone reach the true goal of our lives, are serious tasks, 
 demanding careful thought, constant watchfulness, incessant 
 self-denial, and the utmost exertion of which we are capable. 
 
 For we have to work our way out of the darkness of 
 ignorance in which we are born into the clear light of thorough 
 knowledge as to the chief relationships of our existence ; out 
 of a region of doubt and uncertainty into that of well-founded 
 faith and settled conviction. We have to subdue the rude, 
 confused, proud, rebellious natures within us into order, peace, 
 gentleness, and obedience to moral and spiritual law. We 
 have to resist and overcome all evil lusts and train ourselves 
 into Christian habits of thought, feeling, and action. We have 
 
WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 269 
 
 to learn to love what the carnal heart naturally hates and to 
 hate what it naturally loves. We have to habituate ourselves 
 to denying ourselves, and to having no will of our own at 
 variance with the holy will of God. Whatever that will de- 
 mands we are to rejoice to do. Wherever it leads we are to 
 be ready to follow. 
 
 We are bound to aim at completely realising the highest 
 ideal of life which reason and conscience honestly exercised 
 set before us, for such an ideal is just the very best or 
 utmost which we, in our circumstances and with our facul- 
 ties, could be or do, — the highest kind of life, the noblest 
 life, which we believe attainable by us were we fully to exert 
 all the powers we possess and fully to avail ourselves of all 
 the Divine grace offered us. It is not any mere fancy or 
 desire about life — it is not merely what a man would like 
 to be or what he can imagine himself to be. The ideal of 
 reason — the ideal in morality and religion — is a very different 
 thing from the ideal of imagination, — the ideal in poetry and 
 romance ; it is what reveals itself to each soul as the true 
 plan of life for that soul, as God's gracious purpose and 
 counsel regarding it, as that which it may and should, yea, 
 as that which it must conform to, if it would escape grievous 
 loss and severe penalties. So understood, it is, strictly speak- 
 ing, absurd to say a man cannot live up to his ideal, for his 
 ideal is just the height to which he can live up, and to which 
 God commands him to live up. What any man absolutely 
 cannot do is no ideal for him, nor does God ask him to do 
 it. It is something with which he has no concern. Therefore, 
 I repeat, it is self-evident that a man ought to live up to 
 the ideal of his duty, of his life. Yet, alas ! we all know, 
 how great is the distance between goodness in idea and in 
 fact, — between the ideal and the actual. We must all have 
 felt the sadness which the poet describes, in the lines I have 
 already quoted, as caused by the sight of the ocean which 
 stretches between these two, — which spreads between us and 
 our goal. But why is there this feeling of sadness, why is 
 there also self-reproach ? Simply because we are conscious 
 that a more steadfast and faithful heart, a more energetic 
 and manful will, might have traversed the intervening space, 
 
270 WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 
 
 might at least have brought us nearer to our goal. We re- 
 proach ourselves because our falling short of our ideal proves 
 to us that we have an evil heart, an evil will. 
 
 The distance between the ideal and its realisation is vast, 
 but it is by no means the whole distance of man's shortcoming. 
 The ideals of men are always lower, less comprehensive, less 
 pure than they ought to be. We are not only under obliga- 
 tion to do whatever we apprehend to be right, but we are 
 under obligation so to study God's revelation of Himself to 
 us in nature and Scripture, so to exercise our reasons and 
 consciences, and to cherish such dispositions, that we shall 
 perceive to be right all of right that we can. If there ever 
 be a perfect moral judgment pronounced on the children of 
 men, as we know there will be, every man will be judged 
 according to his conscience, and yet no man will be judged 
 merely according to his conscience. Unconscientiousness is 
 always wrong, but man's conscientiousness is never as broad 
 as the law of his duty. Man must, if judged justly, be judged 
 not only by his conscience but for his conscience, and when 
 one reflects what conscience is in multitudes of men, yea, in 
 multitudes of nations, it appears not improbable that the 
 judgment for conscience may be as terrible as the judgment 
 by conscience. The unknown sins of men may be even more 
 numerous and grievous than their known sins. 
 
 Therefore the law of our lives can be no other than this, 
 to seek earnestly to know every work which He who sent 
 us into the world would have us to do and then faithfully 
 to do it, — to strive to apprehend God's will concerning us in 
 all its length and breadth and then exactly to conform to it. 
 It is a most comprehensive law, and its requirements will not 
 be met, as they should be, even by the longest and best spent 
 lives. We may work our hardest, and still when our time 
 of labour draws to a close we shall have much reason to regret 
 not having done more. The task is great ; the day for doing 
 it is short ; and the danger is serious that the night come upon 
 us when we have lamentably, shamefully, little done. 
 
 The day is short. When another year has gone into the 
 dead past beyond our recall for ever — when we look back and 
 think how rapidly, and, it may be, how unprofitably it has 
 
WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 271 
 
 glided away — the impression of this truth may be vivid upon 
 us, but we seldom feel it as we ought. It is not useless ad- 
 monition which Scripture gives us when it insists so often 
 on life's brevity, comparing human existence to the most 
 fleeting things in nature ; to the mist which disappears before 
 the sun, to the cloud driven by the winds, to the shadows 
 that flit across the landscape, to the smoke that ascends and 
 mingles with the atmosphere, to the leaf of the forest tree, 
 and to the flower of the field. It cannot be compared to any 
 of the more stable objects of nature. How many generations 
 of men has the earth successively borne on her bosom ; on 
 how many generations have the sun and the moon looked 
 down. There is many a tree still fresh and vigorous, although 
 the hands that planted it have for centuries been dust. Man 
 is far more fragile even than many of his own works. From 
 the pyramids of Egypt more than " forty centuries look down 
 upon us " ; but where are the builders ? 
 
 And the day of our life, I must add, is as uncertain as it 
 is short. It is a day in which there is often no gradual fading 
 away of the light to warn us that it is drawing near to a close. 
 It is often with man's life as with countries in other zones 
 than ours where night, instead of climbing gradually up the 
 heavens and giving evidence of its approach by an ever deepen- 
 ing twilight, overspreads it at once and envelops all living 
 creatures in sudden darkness. In the course we have to run 
 there is no point, however near the one from which we started, 
 where our race may not terminate. In the whole period of 
 life usually allotted to man there is no year, month, week, 
 day, or even instant, but it may be the last to each individual. 
 There is no truth of which we are more frequently or strikingly 
 reminded. There has been many an early and sudden death 
 in the year that is past. So will it be with the year on which 
 we have entered. Some of us here who have welcomed its 
 entry will not witness its departure. It is hid from us who 
 will be called away, or when the call will be given, or in what 
 manner. It may be the feeble ; they are l&ely to be sum- 
 moned soon. It may be the old ; they are certain to be 
 summoned soon. But it may be the strongest here ; it may 
 be the youngest. This only we know, that when God gives 
 
272 WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 
 
 the command for us to depart we must obey, whether willing 
 or not, whether ready or not. 
 
 Having now seen how great is the work we have to do, 
 and how short and uncertain is the day in which we have 
 to do it, I would in conclusion merely state some lessons which 
 these facts, I think, fairly warrant us to draw. 
 
 Let this be the first. We should take in hand no other 
 work than the work which God gives us to do — than the work 
 of Him who hath sent us. That work is obviously of itself 
 quite enough for us ; and if we undertake work which God 
 does not give us, such as work which is not intended for us 
 but for some one else, or evil work which no one should do, 
 or useless work which is a mere waste of labour, then, of 
 course, we shall certainly not have time to work His works. 
 His works demand all our time, all our faculties and energies — 
 our whole heart, strength, and soul. 
 
 This suggests, next, that we cannot do God's works unless 
 we have received His Spirit and accepted His will as the 
 law of our lives so as to have become fellow-workers with 
 Him. It is only those who surrender their hearts in faith 
 and love to God — only those in whose souls God savingly 
 works by His Holy Spirit — who can truly labour in God's 
 service. Otherwise than through regeneration there is no 
 possibility of becoming one of His workmen. His works are 
 spiritual works which can only be performed by spiritual men. 
 If we have not repented of our sins and turned from them to 
 God ; if we have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ ; if 
 we have not come under the influence of the Holy Spirit ; 
 then, no matter how diligently and strenuously we may toil, 
 or how useful our exertions may seem to ourselves or others, 
 the works we do are not the works which God would have 
 us to do, for they are not done in dependence on His Spirit. 
 
 Again, since the day on which we can work is short and 
 uncertain, we should not act as if it were long and certain ; 
 since the night in which we cannot work cometh quickly, and 
 may come suddenly, let us not act as if it were far off 
 and we were sure to have abundant warnings given us of its 
 approach. It is excessive folly so to act, and yet how common 
 it is. Of heaven we do, indeed, read, that " there shall be no 
 
WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 273 
 
 night there,'" but what multitudes would seem, judging from 
 their conduct, to have read is that there shall be no night 
 here. Oh, my friends, it is not so ; the night is coming surely 
 and swiftly to us here, and it may be upon us at any moment. 
 Act on this most certain knowledge. Do not trifle with the 
 concerns of eternity, with the imperishable interests of your 
 immortal souls. Do not add to the bitterness of death the 
 bitterness of regret for work undone and remorse for duty 
 despised. There is a sorrow of nature itself at the prospect 
 of death. It cannot but sadden us to think that all familiar 
 forms and faces must be seen by us no more ; that the sun 
 will never again rise for us ; that the earth will still have 
 her spring and summer, her autumn and winter, but for other 
 eyes than ours. There is a deeper sorrow, however — the 
 sorrow brought home to the heart by the conviction of un- 
 faithfulness ; of life wasted in a world where there was so 
 much to be done ; of things unaccomplished which a little 
 honesty and exertion would have achieved ; of faculties per- 
 verted from noble to ignoble uses. Since life is so short and 
 uncertain it ought to be at least very real and earnest. Short 
 as it is, it is long enough to earn either unspeakable happiness 
 or unspeakable woe, and it will earn either the one or the other. 
 
 " Life is the season God hath given 
 To fly from hell and rise to heaven." 
 
 Finally, let us remember that not only is night coming 
 rapidly to us, but that it is also falling rapidly on others, so 
 as to make it impossible to work for them, even while our 
 own day is still lasting. Think of the heathen ; think, say, 
 of the millions in Hindostan, that in a few short years pass 
 away from the light of day to the darkness of night. Is 
 their rapid passage from day to night not a reason for our 
 hastening to communicate to them the Gospel which has 
 brought life and immortality to light ? And the home heathen 
 around us are not less to be pitied ; and they, too, are passing 
 away every hour into the awful darkness, where human help 
 can no longer avail. Ay, even our own dear friends, the 
 most loved members of our homes, may be summoned away 
 from us, and we shall see them no more in the land of the 
 
 s 
 
274 WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 
 
 living. Will it not bring a bitter anguish to our hearts if 
 they pass away without spiritual good derived by them from 
 intercourse with us? Surely the thought that at an hour 
 the most unlooked for — that at any moment — the night may 
 come upon our loved ones, and hide them for ever from 
 our sight, may well startle us into an anxious and earnest 
 activity. 
 
 Let us say, then, as our Master said, " I must work the 
 works of Him that sent me while it is day ; the night cometh, 
 when no man can work." May God give us grace and strength 
 to do His holy will — to work His blessed works — during all 
 the time He has allotted to us on earth. And to His name 
 be praise and glory, now and ever, through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. Amen. 
 
XXV. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO OTHER 
 RELIGIONS.i 
 
 MY subject — Christianity in relation to other religions — is 
 obviously far too extensive to be satisfactorily dealt with 
 in a single lecture. I am entitled, however, to assume that my 
 hearers do not need to be informed either what Christianity is, 
 or what the chief other religions of the world are or have been. 
 Your acquaintance with Christianity began from infancy, and 
 has been constantly increasing. You know the facts on which 
 it is founded, — the authoritative sources of information regard- 
 ing it, — the general course of its eventful history, — the general 
 character of the doctrinal systems to which it has given rise, — 
 the ordinary objections which have been urged against it, — the 
 chief evidences appealed to on its behalf, &c. As to other 
 religions, eleven of them, comprising the most remarkable and 
 most developed faiths of the world, have been described to you, 
 in careful and comprehensive sketches, and in a fair and 
 thoughtful spirit, by the lecturers who have preceded me. I 
 may therefore confine myself entirely to a consideration of the 
 relationship between Christianity and other religions, on the 
 assumption that the things related do not need to be expounded 
 or explained. This is what I mean to do. 
 
 Christianity is the only religion from which, and in relation 
 to which, all other religions may be viewed in an impartial and 
 truthful manner. It alone raises us to a height from which all 
 the religions of the earth may be seen as they really are. 
 Towering above them all, it is easy to perceive from it how far 
 
 ^ A lecture delivered in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, and in Glasgow 
 Cathedral, in 1882. It is the last of the series of lectures published under the 
 general title of "The Faiths of the World: a Concise History of the Great 
 Religious Systems of the World " (W. Blackwood & Sons, 1882). 
 
276 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 they fall short of it in elevation, magnitude, and beauty, while 
 yet from no other point can their actual grandeur be so clearly 
 seen, their relations to one another so distinctly traced, and 
 the significance of each of them as a revelation of God and of 
 men so readily and fully understood. No other positive religion 
 thus affords us a point of view from which all other religions 
 may be surveyed, and from which their bad and their good 
 features, their defects and their merits, are equally visible. 
 The point of view of a rational theism — of what is called 
 Natural Religion — is, doubtless, next to that of Christianity, 
 the most advantageous position from which to judge of the 
 various " Faiths of the World," but it is certainly far below it, — 
 one from which a large portion of their contents must appear 
 without meaning, — one from which the estimate formed of them 
 can be neither so comprehensive nor so profound, neither so 
 just nor so genial. Christianity alone occupies the lofty and 
 central vantage-ground from which every phase and phenomenon 
 of religion can be appreciated with all the exactness of human 
 science and all the fulness of human sympathy. This is a 
 remarkable fact ; and as it takes us straight to the very heart 
 of our subject, let us endeavour to apprehend the meaning 
 of it. 
 
 Now it certainly means much more than merely that Christi- 
 anity is the centre of religious history. It is true, indeed, that 
 various religions, directly or indirectly, prepared the way for 
 Christianity, and contributed more or less to its contents. It is 
 true, also, that other religions have come into contact with it, 
 and given place to it, at various stages of its course. But it 
 is quite possible to represent the actual historical connection 
 between Christianity and other religions as having been far 
 closer than the facts warrant us to maintain. The religions of 
 mankind are not to be conceived of as so many stages or phases 
 of faith all leading up to Christianity and passing on to it the 
 truths which had been successively but separately embodied in 
 each. This view overlooks one of the most important distinc- 
 tions between the Eastern and Western, the Asiatic and the 
 European worlds. It is only in the latter, and there largely be- 
 cause of the influence of Christianity itself, that a common life 
 and a common development of culture through a series of stages, 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 277 
 
 — that the rise and progress of a truly human history, compre- 
 hending many nations united in the bonds of spiritual brother- 
 hood, — can be traced. The Eastern or Asiatic world, in which 
 Christianity and so many other religions appeared, was essenti- 
 ally a complex or aggregate of coexistent peoples, with separate 
 histories but no general history, each of these peoples being 
 isolated or in little more than external contact with one another, 
 each acting on principles or impulses peculiar to itself, and each 
 proceeding on a different course from its neighbours. The 
 creed of Confucius, so wonderfully correct as regards its moral 
 precepts, was already old when taught by "the Master Kung" 
 in the sixth century B.C., and it still rules the minds of about 
 four hundred millions of human beings ; but Christianity has 
 certainly not borrowed from it a single thought or maxim. 
 Brahmanism and Buddhism far surpass in profundity and 
 wealth of spiritual and speculative thought all other heathen 
 systems ; but it is only in modern times that they have come 
 into contact with Christianity, and only in quite recent times, 
 and in connection with the pantheism and pessimism of 
 Germany, that they can be held to have affected even in the 
 slightest degree the estimates formed of Christianity by any 
 European thinkers. Israel may have derived from Egypt some 
 of her external rites and minor laws ; but it seems clear that 
 she did not derive thence anything of importance in the faith 
 which she transmitted to Christianity. To the ancient Persian 
 religion, the Jewish religion was much more closely akin in 
 spirit than to the Egyptian, and Judaism was manifestly quick- 
 ened and strengthened by its contact with Mazdeism during 
 the Babylonian captivity, and may even, perhaps, have been 
 enriched with certain secondary beliefs, which afterwards re- 
 ceived, in modified forms, divine sanction. It only assimilated, 
 however, what was consistent with its own principles, and 
 returned from exile essentially unaltered, although with a larger 
 faith and fuller hope in the coming of that kingdom which the 
 Christ was to establish. 
 
 Christianity, in fact, so far from being the result or synthesis 
 of all previous religions, or of many previous religions, was in 
 immediate and intimate historical connection with only two 
 religious developments of thought — one Semitic and the other 
 
278 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 Aryan — the Hebrew and the Hellenistic, the Jewish and the 
 Grecian. Its primary and fundamental relationship was with 
 the former. It assumed the religion of Israel as its basis. It 
 professed to be the fulJBlment of the law and the prophets, to 
 have done away with whatever was imperfect in them, to have 
 retained whatever they included of permanent value, and to 
 be the full corn in the ear of every seed of truth sown, and 
 of every blade of promise developed, in them. The more 
 thoroughly we investigate this claim the more we shall be- 
 come impressed with its justice. There is not a prominent 
 doctrine of the Bible of which such propositions as these may 
 not be laid down, — namely, that it was evolved from simple 
 facts or statements of a rudimentary or germinal kind ; that 
 the course of its development was gradual, closely associated 
 with the history of events, and through a succession of stages, 
 in each of which the doctrine was extended and enriched ; that 
 this course was throughout one of progress, constantly unfold- 
 ing into greater clearness and comprehensiveness ; that the 
 evolution was imperfect before the New Testament era; and 
 that the New Testament fulfilment actually gave to the doctrine 
 developed the self-consistency of completeness, so that it there- 
 after only required to be apprehended and applied. These 
 affirmations may almost be regarded as laws of the important 
 science of Biblical theology, because they hold true of all 
 Biblical doctrines. Judaism and Christianity are connected by 
 all the truths of both, and by all the threads or strands of the 
 history of these truths. Judaism brought nothing to maturity; 
 but the whole religion of Israel was a prophecy of Christianity. 
 This can only be fully established and exhibited by the entire 
 science of Biblical theology. But the most cursory survey of 
 the authoritative records of the Jewish and Christian religions 
 is sufficient to show us that the connection of Judaism and 
 Christianity was very peculiar and very wonderful. 
 
 The latest portions of the Old Testament appeared genera- 
 tions before the birth of Christ, — its earliest portions belong to 
 an unknown antiquity — its intervening portions were written 
 at intervals, through many centuries, by a multitude of authors, 
 of every condition in life from prince to peasant, in every form 
 of composition, and on a vast variety of subjects ; yet the col- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 279 
 
 lective result is a system of marvellous unity, self-consistency, 
 and comprehensiveness. It is at the same time a system which 
 is not self-centred and self-contained, but one of which all the 
 parts contribute, each in its place, to raise, sustain, and guide 
 faith in the coming of a mysterious and mighty Saviour — a 
 perfect prophet, perfect priest, and perfect king, such as Christ 
 alone of all men can be supposed to have been. This broad 
 general fact — this vast and strange correlation or correspond- 
 ence — cannot be in the least affected by any questions of " the 
 higher criticism " as to the authorship, time of origination, and 
 mode of composition, of the various books of the Old Testa- 
 ment : by the questions, for example, which have been raised 
 as to whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch ; whether its first 
 book has been made up of a number of older documents ; 
 whether its legislation consists of various deposits or strata; 
 whether the book of Deuteronomy is the work of Jeremiah ; 
 whether there was an earlier and a later Isaiah ; whether the 
 book of Zechariah is the work of several writers ; whether 
 Daniel was composed by the prophet whose name it bears 
 or by a later author. Answer all these questions in the 
 way which the boldest and most rationalistic criticism of 
 Germany or Holland ventures to suggest, — accept on every 
 properly critical question the conclusions of the most advanced 
 critical schools, — and what will follow ? Merely this, that those 
 who do so must, in various respects, alter their views as to 
 the manner and method in wliich the ideal of the Messiah's 
 person, work, and kingdom was, point by point, line by line, 
 evolved and elaborated. There will not, however, be a single 
 Messianic word or sentence, not a single Messianic line or 
 feature, the fewer in the Old Testament Sciptures. The whole 
 religion of Israel will just as much as before be pervaded by a 
 Messianic ideal ; and that Messianic ideal, however differently 
 it may be supposed to have been developed, will be absolutely 
 the same as before, — an ideal which can only be pretended to 
 have been realised in Christ, and which may reasonably be 
 maintained to have been completely fulfilled, and far more 
 than fulfilled, in Him. 
 
 Such is the connection between Judaism and Christianity. 
 It is a relationship which is not only remarkable, but unique. 
 
280 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 Comparative theology cannot show a second instance of it in 
 the religious history of humanity. Brahmanism was, indeed, a 
 development of the Vedic religion ; but no person has ever 
 regarded it as a fulfilment of the Vedic religion. Buddhism 
 was an offshoot of Brahmanism; but instead of being the 
 completion of Brahmanism, it was an essentially antagonistic 
 religion. The religion of Israel and the Christian religion are 
 the only two faiths in the world which have been historically 
 related as prophecy to fulfilment, hope to substance. 
 
 The wisdom of the classical world — a wisdom primarily and 
 chiefly Greek, but considerably modified by the Roman mind, 
 as well as by Eastern thought — must also be admitted to have 
 had historically an influence on the rise of Christianity, although 
 a feebler influence than that which it exerted for many sub- 
 sequent generations on the development of Christian theology. 
 The popular religions of Greece and Rome were too poor and 
 fanciful, indeed, to contribute anything directly to the treasury 
 of Christian truth ; but, unlike some greater religions, such as 
 Brahmanism and Buddhism, which overpowered and enslaved 
 the soul, they allowed, and even signally favoured, a free, 
 simple, and natural growth of the human mind. The con- 
 sequence was the Greek and the Roman man, — the Greek an 
 artist and philosopher, the Roman a conqueror and legislator, — 
 but Greek and Roman alike fully conscious of superiority to 
 the world, and in some large measure conscious of the divine in 
 humanity. Hence the culture of the classical world was far 
 superior to that of the Oriental world, and a magnificent pre- 
 paration for the Christian faith, and for the world which rests 
 upon it. The Greco-Roman intellect achieved marvellous suc- 
 cesses in every sphere of activity, and not least in the highest 
 spheres of thought. The tragedians of Greece had presenti- 
 ments of truth so divine, expressed so clearly a sense of the 
 exceeding sinfulness of sin and of the need of expiation, and 
 breathed forth so pathetically the longing for reconciliation, 
 that they have not inaptly been called " the pagan prophets of 
 Christianity." The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle is not 
 only a deeper and truer, but one might almost say a more 
 Christian exposition of moral duties, than the generality of 
 modern manuals of moral philosophy. When Plato taught that 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 281 
 
 the Idea of the Good is the source of all existence and intelli- 
 gence, and that the Absolute Good is God, he was not far from 
 the thought of Christ, " None is good save one, that is God," 
 nor from the thought of St John, " God is love ;" and although 
 "Platonic love" was but joy in beauty, order, excellence, still 
 the inculcation even of that was a notable approximation to the 
 doctrine, " Love is of God, and every one that dwelleth in love 
 is born of God and knoweth God." The thinkers of Greece, in 
 discovering and developing all the arguments which reason can 
 yet urge for the existence of God, are entitled to the credit of 
 having first explicitly proved rational the truths assumed in the 
 Scriptures as the very foundations both of Judaism and of 
 Christianity. And in labouring to show that the whole heavens 
 and earth depend on the Eternal Reason, they reached conclu- 
 sions as to the self-revelation of that reason, which the Jewish 
 thinkers of Alexandria could easily combine with the intima- 
 tions of the Old Testament as to the "Word of the Lord" 
 and the " Wisdom of God," and which were fitted to lead up 
 alike to what St Paul taught of Christ as "the image of the 
 invisible God, the first-born of every creature, by whom all 
 things were created, and by whom all things consist," and to 
 what St John taught of Him as " the Word made flesh, who 
 tabernacled among men, so that they beheld in Him the glory 
 as of the only begotten of the Father." 
 
 This Greco-Roman wisdom spread into Palestine and the 
 adjacent countries, — spread far as Roman conquest extended 
 and Greek speech penetrated, — so that the atmosphere of 
 thought and feeling which Christ and the Apostles breathed 
 was much less purely Jewish, much less purely native, than 
 that in which Moses, and the psalmists, and the prophets of 
 ancient Israel lived. The spiritual change is reflected in the 
 general difference of tone and character between the Old and 
 the New Testament Scriptures. It is not, however, traceable 
 in the form of definite thoughts, or sentiments, or expressions 
 directly derived by the New Testament writers from classical 
 authors. There was no borrowing of this kind. It was not 
 thus that classical thought acted on Christianity in its con- 
 ception. Christ and the Apostles are certainly not to be 
 regarded as the students or disciples of Greek philosophers. 
 
282 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 They were providentially so circumstanced that no one can 
 reasonably suppose their teaching to have been based on 
 Greek speculation, or reasonably deny that, while proceeding 
 from a Jewish past, they displayed in setting forth a new 
 religion the most marked originality. Greek wisdom in- 
 fluenced them only in the same general way in which German 
 idealism or French positivism may affect the thoughts of an 
 intelligent Scottish peasant, although he has never read a line, 
 or even heard the names, of Hegel or Comte. But its in- 
 fluence is not to be inferred to have been unreal or incon- 
 siderable, because it was vague and general. It exerted an 
 indubitable historical influence, however difiicult it may be 
 precisely to determine what its particular effects were. At 
 the same time, most superficial and erroneous is the notion 
 that Christianity was only a product or compound of Jewish 
 and Grecian forces and elements. Christianity is the religion 
 which has the deepest and broadest historical foundation, and 
 yet it is also the most original of religions, for it is essentially 
 the manifestation and work of the most original of person- 
 alities. Christianity centres in Christ, and Christ's character 
 had no pattern in actual history either heathen or Jewish, 
 nor His mission any parallel in its grandeur and comprehen- 
 siveness. It is vain to attempt to explain them from any 
 resources or by any peculiarities of the age in which He 
 appeared. 
 
 Let us now come back, however, to the point from which 
 we started — namely, the fact that Christianity has relations 
 to all religions, and often most intimate and special relations 
 to religions with which it has had little or no historical con- 
 nection. How happens it that the religions of India and of 
 China, of the Teuton and Scandinavian of Northern Europe, 
 and of the Toltec and Aztec of Central America, can just as 
 well be judged of from a Christian standpoint and in relation 
 to the Christian faith, as the religions of Greece and of Rome ? 
 It can only be because Christianity is in a higher and broader 
 than merely historical manner the centre of the system of the 
 world's religions. All judgments and comparisons of the kind 
 referred to would otherwise be arbitrary and unjust. Christi- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 283 
 
 anity is, however, the ideal or spiritual centre of all religions 
 in two ways, which only need to be indicated in order to 
 explain why all religions look towards it, and can be most 
 clearly seen and most fully comprehended in the light of it. 
 
 First, then, Christianity is the Absolute Religion, in the 
 sense of the perfect realisation of the idea which underlies 
 and gives significance to all religions. Religion is the com- 
 munion between a worshipping subject and a worshipped 
 object, — the communion of man with what he believes to be 
 a god. It is a relationship which supposes both distinction 
 and unity. Were there no distinction between the subject 
 and the object, there could be no religion, whether the self- 
 identical unity were named God or named man. Neither a 
 relation of God to Himself nor of man to himself can be 
 regarded as religion. On the other hand, were there only 
 distinction between God and man, were they absolutely sepa- 
 rate from and indifferent to each other, religion must be in 
 this case also impossible. Religion supposes two factors, 
 which are different yet related, so far distinct and so far akin, 
 a Divine Being and a human being, the worshipped and the 
 worshipper. And as a state of mind and life, it is the man's, 
 the worshipper's, sense of relationship to, and dependence on, 
 the Being whom he believes and feels himself bound to adore, 
 to propitiate, and to serve. This is the generic notion of 
 religion, — the idea of religion which applies to all religions, 
 however rude and degrading, or however spiritual and ennob- 
 ling. It applies to all heathen religions, for they all, without 
 exception, contain some sort of honest belief in a power or 
 powers regarded with awe and reverence. It applies to natural 
 religion, which is the communion of man with God so far as 
 God is discovered by man through the natural exercise of his 
 faculties and from natural objects and events. It applies to 
 revealed religion, which is the communion of man with God, 
 as made known to him, immediately or mediately, through 
 special supernatural manifestation. The rank and worth of 
 a religion depend on the measure in which it approximates 
 to the complete realisation of this idea. Christianity alone 
 completely realises it. It alone shows us the whole grandeur 
 and wealth of the idea. But for it our consciousness and 
 
284 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 thoughts of religion must have necessarily been comparatively 
 poor and meagre, one-sided and perverted. In and through it 
 alone we see what religion really means ; what, in order to 
 answer fully to its own nature, it implies as to God and man, 
 and the relationship between God and man. Because it thus 
 alone presents religion to us at once as a reality and in its 
 ideal perfection, — without error or one-sidedness, with pure 
 and comprehensive truthfulness, — it is the absolute religion, 
 the religion in the light of which and in relation to which 
 all other religions must be viewed, if they are to be rightly 
 and thoroughly understood. 
 
 Christianity, alone of religions, gives a clear, self-consis- 
 tent, adequate view of God. It presents Him as the one God, 
 eternal, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient ; as perfect in wisdom, 
 in righteousness, in holiness ; and yet as merciful, gracious, 
 full of goodness and love ; a true Father in His feelings and 
 actings towards men ; the God and Father of Jesus Christ, 
 in whose character and sacrifice His moral glory has found 
 the highest revelation of its purity and beauty, its attractive- 
 ness and tenderness. It, alone of religions, addresses itself to 
 man as he really is, and in the whole extent of his being, 
 overlooking no weakness, cloaking no sin, making no false 
 concessions, yet denying no legitimate supports, and appealing 
 in due order and degree to faith, reason, affection, and will. 
 It, alone of religions, discloses and promises to man a com- 
 plete communion with God. It shows the perfect union of 
 the divine and human in the person and life of its founder. 
 It offers, on the basis and surety of a divinely accomplished 
 and divinely accepted atonement, full reconciliation with God 
 to every one who will repent and turn from his sins. It 
 demands that the whole soul and strength of man be devoted 
 to God ; and to render possible compliance with the demand, 
 it enriches him with such internal gifts as the abiding presence 
 of Christ within and the regenerating and sanctifying opera- 
 tions of the Holy Spirit, and with such external aids as the 
 Scriptures, the Church, and sacraments. Christian communion 
 with God should be inclusive of the whole receptive life of 
 man, filling him with the peace, and love, and joy of God ; 
 yet equally inclusive of his whole active life, requiring con- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 285 
 
 formity to every precept of the divine will and the exercise 
 of every energy in the advancement of the divine kingdom. 
 
 The idea of religion which Christianity thus completely 
 realises is present in every religion, and the more any religion 
 embodies and expresses it, the higher and the better is that 
 religion. No religion, however, but the Christian, nearly 
 approaches to the complete embodiment and expression of 
 it. Most religions are sadly defective as regards every ele- 
 ment of the idea. All of them, with the one exception, err 
 grievously as to some constituent or aspect of it. Those of 
 them which excel most in one respect often fail worst in 
 others. Yet none of them are wholly false or " without some 
 soul of goodness," and in so far as any religion is true and 
 good, it is akin to the religion in which the fulness of truth 
 and goodness implied in the idea of religion has been realised, 
 the absolute religion, founded by Him who, in the spirit not 
 of narrow exclusiveness but of broadest inclusiveness, claimed 
 to be "the way, the truth, and the life." 
 
 A brief glance over the world of religions will illustrate 
 what has been asserted. At the bottom of the scale a crowd 
 of religions are to be observed, which have not been dealt 
 with in this course of lectures, but which have had much 
 attention drawn to them by the works of Lubbock, Spencer, 
 Tylor, Waitz, and others. They are the religions of the type 
 known as fetishistic or animistic. In these nothing is too 
 mean to be worshipped, nothing more grotesque than the 
 worship, and no end so capricious or selfish but that it may 
 be sought to be attained through worship. It is always easy 
 to see how wretchedly the divine is conceived of in them ; 
 how little conscious of his own true wants and of the worth of 
 human nature is the poor worshipper ; and how dark and gross, 
 how uncomforting and unelevating, are his attempts to gain 
 the aid or avert the anger of the agents on whom he feels 
 himself dependent. It is often difficult to bring one's self 
 to acknowledge that there is any religion at all in these so- 
 called religions. Yet religion there is, and not unfrequently 
 much religion, unless we have greatly erred as to the notion 
 of religion. There is a sense of nature being pervaded and 
 of life being influenced by mysterious powers ; a conviction 
 
286 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 that iu all things and events there is more than can be seen 
 and touched ; a practical faith in mind above and around man 
 answering to the mind within him. Now, as he to whom 
 " a primrose by the river's brim a yellow primrose is and 
 nothing more" can have no poetry in his nature, so he who 
 believes that in wood and stone there is nothing more than 
 what his eyes perceive and his hands grasp, or nothing more 
 even than all that the chemist and mineralogist or botanist 
 can tell him about them, has little piety in his soul ; and if, 
 as Christianity teaches, " in God we live, and move, and have 
 our being," and "by Christ all things consist," the animist 
 possesses truth which such a man ignores, and stands, in 
 consequence, in closer relationship than he to the Christian 
 faith. The vague, feeble, wayward gropings of the fetishist 
 after communion with divine powers are not to be denied to 
 be religious, nor denied to have affinity with what is deepest 
 in religion. Many professed Christians, perhaps, if they had 
 eyes to see and hearts to understand, might learn not a little 
 from the fetishist. And certain it is that Christianity, although 
 the highest of all religions, or rather just because the higheBt 
 of all religions, can convince and convert the devotees of the 
 very lowest religions, and thus speak peace and yield satisfac- 
 tion even to the heart of the fetishist. As in art and litera- 
 ture the utmost perfection may be combined with the utmost 
 simplicity, so is it in religion. The higher heathen religions, 
 like the Egyptian religion, Brahmanism, and Buddhism, are 
 essentially abstruse, and only capable of being intelligently 
 apprehended by speculative intellects. But the absolute re- 
 ligion is so simple, clear, and plain, so adapted to the mind 
 and heart of universal humanity, that the most degraded 
 peoples can discern the force of its claims, and recognise in 
 it the true response to what they were blindly feeling after 
 in their fetishistic state. 
 
 Passing by, because of the limited time at our disposal, inter- 
 mediate phases of polytheism, religions of a fully developed 
 anthropomorphic type like those of Greece, Kome, and Scan- 
 dinavia, present themselves. In these religions the gods have 
 become completely human forms — magnified men and women. 
 Hence the communion of the worshipper with the worshipped 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 287 
 
 is here, on the whole, cordial and familiar. It is a communion, 
 however, which is weakened and divided because there are many 
 competitors for homage ; one in which reason has little share, 
 and which the growth of reason tends to destroy ; one which 
 largely rests also on the sense of sin being imperfectly developed, 
 so that the growth of conscience is as fatal to it as the growth of 
 thought ; one which cannot satisfy the more spiritual affections 
 of the soul, and is very far from including a true ideal or law 
 for practical life. Eeligions of this kind can rule the mind 
 only in its youthful immaturity. But through eliciting and 
 stimulating the free and energetic exercise of men's faculties 
 they may do more for the progress of humanity than religions 
 of a far more profound and serious character. The culture of 
 Greece is the best vindication of the scheme of providence 
 which included the religion of Greece. Without the gods of 
 Greece the works of Phidias and Apelles, of -i^^schylus and 
 Sophocles, would either not have been, or been very inferior to 
 what they were. The Roman gods helped mightily to make 
 those Roman men who conquered the world, and who still 
 "from their urns" so -largely rule the world through Roman 
 law. The followers of Thor and Odin were stern and ruthless, 
 but they were also free, fearless, enterprising — jSt instruments 
 for the destruction of the Roman world when it deserved to 
 fall, and strong materials with which to build up the edifice of 
 another and weightier world. Christianity has made Christen- 
 dom, but it has made it because it could, without inconsistency, 
 appropriate and utilise the culture of the Greek, the political 
 intelligence of the Roman, the Saxon's love of liberty, the 
 Norseman's enterprise and valour. It has dethroned alike the 
 gods of Olympus and of Valhalla, but it has rejected nothing of 
 good which grew up under their sway. Every germ of truth 
 in those ancient pagan faiths may find a place, and every energy 
 which gave worth to the lives of ancient pagan men may find 
 scope, within the sphere of Christian thought or work. 
 
 In the Mazdean or Zoroastrian religion we have the best 
 example of a dualistic faith. It conceived of morality as es- 
 sentially a struggle in favour of Ormuzd, and consequently 
 in favour of light, purity, and truth ; and against Ahriman, 
 and consequently against darkness, impurity, and falsehood. 
 
288 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 It represented the struggle as hopeful, because not a struggle 
 against existence itself, but simply against evil existence, 
 and because Ahriraan and his hosts were doomed to defeat. 
 It afforded scope for a vigorous and manly virtue, man being 
 supposed to have been created by the good God, and to 
 have been placed, endowed with complete personal freedom, in 
 the midst of the moral antagonism of the world, in order to 
 combat the evil god and all his works. Its good points were its 
 recognition of the reverence due to the holy will of the good 
 God, its belief in a kingdom of God, and its hope in the 
 triumph of good over evil. And Christianity has all these 
 merits. Where Zoroastrianism manifestly and grievously 
 erred was in confounding moral and physical good, moral and 
 physical evil, in unduly extending the boundaries of evil, and 
 in exaggerating the power of the Evil One. Christianity is free 
 from all these faults. Zoroastrianism was, moreover, a meagre, 
 rudimentary, undeveloped system ; whereas in Christianity there 
 is the fulness of truth and of grace. 
 
 The best example of a pantheistic religion is Brahmanism. 
 It is as rich in thought as Zoroastrianism is poor. It has 
 sprung from the most profound and earnest meditations on the 
 nature of existence, on the absolute spirit, on the relation of the 
 infinite and the finite, on reality and appearance, on life and 
 death, on suffering and retribution. It has given rise to a vast 
 and peculiar civilisation, to various systems of theology and 
 philosophy, and to an abundant and remarkable literature. It 
 is only of late that Christian scholars have applied themselves 
 to a close study of its principles and doctrines. It may well 
 be that they will find it to have much to teach them and more 
 to suggest to them. It may well be that Hindu thoughts will 
 yet modify considerably European views of religion, and even 
 modify them for the better. But it is clear that however much 
 truth there may be in Brahmanism, it is truth which must be 
 consonant with the spirit of Christianity, and which that spirit 
 can assimilate ; whereas Brahmanism has so conspicuously 
 failed to realise the idea of religion — or, in other words, to meet 
 the requirements of a religion — that it is mere folly to think of 
 it as a rival to Christianity. It conceives of God as so ab- 
 solutely the One Being, that all finite objects, finite minds, and 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 289 
 
 finite interests are deemed illusions, and that not even moral 
 distinctions are supposed to exist in Him or before Him. It 
 denies to Him the intelligence, the freedom, the holiness, the 
 love which can only be found in a person ; indeed it denies to 
 Him all definite attributes, and so leaves to be worshipped 
 merely an empty abstraction, an infinite blank. It regards the 
 worshipper's own consciousness of freedom and sense of respon- 
 sibility as deceptive. It represents the loss of finite being, the 
 absorption of the finite in the infinite, as the perfection and 
 ultimate goal of communion with God. Such being the general 
 idea of religion on which Brahmanism proceeds, it has neces- 
 sarily fallen into the wildest speculative errors and led to the 
 most deplorable practical consequences. 
 
 There are three religions to which it may suffice merely to 
 refer, as showing that great success in certain respects does 
 not preclude great failure in others. Buddhism, by its inculca- 
 tion of charity, self-sacrifice, justice, purity, and all the passive 
 and gentler virtues, and by the moral ideal which it presents as 
 having been exemplified in the character and life of Buddha, 
 far surpasses, on one most important side of the religious idea, 
 all other heathen religions, and might be maintained to have 
 left in that particular direction little or nothing in Christianity 
 unanticipated. Yet it is Buddhism which represents God as 
 a negation, all existence as irrational and vain, and the chief 
 good as eternal nothingness. 
 
 In a somewhat different manner, Confucianism, which reflects 
 and impresses so truthfully the mind of China, was also strong 
 on its practical side. This ancient, singular, isolated nation 
 has from the earliest time shown a most remarkable genius 
 for accurate moral discernment. No nation in the world has 
 displayed the same ability to perceive what was individually 
 and socially, morally and politically right. Its plain, precise, 
 common-sense mind has shown itself to singular advantage in 
 the ethical sphere. There is probably not a single moral pre- 
 cept in the Christian Scriptures which is not substantially also 
 in the Chinese classics. Almost every important principle in 
 Bishop Butler's ethical teachings had been explicitly set forth 
 by Mencius in the fourth century B.C. The Cliinese thinker of 
 that date had anticipated the entire moral theory of man's 
 
 T 
 
290 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 constitution expounded so long afterwards by the most famous 
 of English moral philosophers. But while China has in Con- 
 fucianism a correct and detailed moral code, she has nothing 
 to supply her great want, — the want of a worthy view of God, 
 On the spiritual side this religion is defective in the extreme. 
 Its god is almost a void, without depth or content, without 
 will or affection. And hence, notwithstanding its admirable 
 common-sense and equally admirable moral sense, China remains 
 almost dead and immobile, with its heart and hopes buried in 
 the past, not only not progressing, but not even dreaming of 
 progress ; a vast monument of the insufficiency of earth without 
 heaven, of moral precepts without spiritual faith, of man 
 without God ; an instructive and impressive warning to Europe 
 as to what any gospel of positivism may be expected to do 
 for her. 
 
 As the Chinaman turns to the past, the ancient Egyptian 
 turned with all his love and interest to the future. The 
 present life he comparatively little esteemed — not, indeed, 
 that he regarded it, like the Hindu, as illusory and vain, but 
 because he contrasted it with a higher, and better, and fuller 
 life, only to be realised in the next world. The Egyptians had 
 a strong and steady sense of a divine and righteous government 
 of the world, and a wonderfully firm and operative conviction 
 of a future life dependent in character on personal conduct in 
 the present. To have expressed this sense, to have maintained 
 this faith, was the glory of the old Egyptian religion. But 
 what a dark and dishonouring blot on the system which had 
 such a merit was its debasing animal-worship ! And what 
 injustice was done to all the truths it contained by that abstruse 
 and excessive symbolism which makes it of all religions the 
 most enigmatic and impenetrable ! 
 
 It is unnecessary to compare Christianity with the only two 
 religions which agree with it in being manifestly and con- 
 sistently monotheistic, Judaism and Mahommedanism ; for the 
 former was essentially and in all respects imperfect in itself 
 and a preparation for Christianity, while the latter must be 
 pronounced to have, on the whole, alike as regards its views 
 of God and of man, of worship and of conduct, very seriously 
 degenerated or retrograded even from Judaism, 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 291 
 
 Enough has now been said, perhaps, to indicate what is 
 meant when we maintain that Christianity is the Absohite 
 Religion, or has alone completely and harmoniously realised 
 the idea of religion, present, indeed, in all other religions, yet 
 always merely in some inadequate, undeveloped, deformed, or 
 debased shape. All heathen religions contain some erroneous 
 and evil principles among their essential tenets, and in so far 
 as such is the case Christianity must be hostile to them. All 
 heathen religions are defective and disproportionate, and there- 
 fore ought to give way before Christianity, which is complete 
 and harmonious. All heathen religions comprise elements of 
 truth, features of goodness, disclosures of God, means of spiritual 
 life ; and in so far they lead up to the absolute religion, the 
 full-orbed faith, in which all rays of light are concentrated, and 
 in which there is no darkness at all. Christianity as thus the 
 absolute religion is a religion sui generis, a religion most un- 
 like all other religions, and at the same time related and akin 
 to all other religions, the religion around which all other reli- 
 gions in their better aspects group themselves to do it homage, 
 " saying with a great voice, like the angels round about the 
 throne and the living creatures and the elders, Worthy is the 
 Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and 
 wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and blessing." 
 
 Secondly, the peculiar position of Christianity among other 
 religions arises from its being the only religion which rests on 
 a complete revelation. This is implied in its being the absolute 
 religion. Absolute religion cannot rest on a partial or frag- 
 mentary revelation. Wherever there is religion there is revela- 
 tion. Man does not know God by immediate vision, nor does 
 God act on man by His absolute essence. God manifests 
 Himself to the faculties of man through certain media. These 
 constitute revelation, in that broad sense of the term in which 
 it is the condition and con-elative of religion. Thus under- 
 stood, revelation is either general or special, for both general 
 and special revelation come under the one idea of divine self- 
 manifestation. Both imply that there is a God who makes 
 known to His rational creatures His presence, character, and 
 will. God Himself is the agent and object of both ; He makes 
 
292 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 known what would otherwise be unknown, and what He makes 
 known is Himself. 
 
 General revelation comprises all objects which present them- 
 selves to the eyes, ears, and other senses ; all minds, and those 
 faculties of volition, intelligence, moral discernment, and affec- 
 tion, which make them images of God and enable them to reflect 
 the features of God wherever displayed ; and all the events of 
 history, which is the manifestation of God in time, as the material 
 creation is His manifestation in space. This vast book of general 
 revelation lies open within the reach and in the presence of men 
 in all lands and ages. It is an inexhaustible treasury of truth, 
 and individuals and generations may always find in it what is new. 
 Great stores of spiritual truth have already been drawn from 
 it. Probably it is the source whence all the truth in heathen 
 religions has gradually been derived. Evidence is wanting that 
 these religions have been enriched through special revelation, 
 although special spiritual influence may have opened the eyes 
 of many wise and good men among the heathen to behold the 
 wonders of God's law in creation and providence. The book, 
 however, in which general revelation has been recorded is a 
 difficult book to decipher and interpret. Material objects, 
 mental experiences, and historical events have religious mean- 
 ings, but not meanings which can be apprehended with much 
 clearness or correctness by savage or barbarous men, by un- 
 educated or unthoughtful men, or by any man whose heart is 
 darkened and perverted by evil passions, and whose mind is 
 not already largely possessed and enlightened by spiritual 
 truth. The easiest volume of this book to read is that of 
 physical nature ; it is the volume from which the lower reli- 
 gions, the nature-worships, have been almost entirely drawn ; 
 and yet, although a volume undoubtedly full of wisdom and 
 instruction, its characters are practically in an unknown tongue 
 to the great majority of men. There may be "sermons in 
 stones, and books in running brooks," yet to all but one in 
 a thousand a stone is just a stone, and no sermon, — a running 
 brook simply a running brook, and no book. 
 
 " One impulse from a vernal wood 
 May teach us more of man. 
 Of moral evil and of good, 
 Than all the sages can ; " 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 293 
 
 but only if we are ourselves sages, — otherwise it will probably 
 teach us nothing. 
 
 It is not in the least wonderful that all the heathen religions 
 should have often not only failed to read, but grievously mis- 
 read the book of general revelation, or that not one of them 
 should have found the key to its interpretation as a whole, or 
 the right point of view from which to regard it. It is very 
 wonderful that there should be a religion of which this cannot 
 be said. And of Christianity it cannot be said. 
 
 As regards the physical world, obviously in even the highest 
 forms of polytheism the divine is rather viewed as a revela- 
 tion of nature than nature as a revelation of the divine. 
 The gods have grown out of religious representations of the 
 powers of nature, and are still considered as subordinate to 
 and limited by nature. They are the revealers and not 
 the revealed. The natural world is first; the divine world 
 is second. Nor can nature be consistently and rightly ac- 
 cepted as a revelation of the divine by pantheistic faiths, for 
 pantheism either identifies nature with the divine, or so con- 
 founds the natural and the divine that the divine is thought 
 of as physical, and thereby degraded, or the world is absorbed 
 or dissolved into the divine, and represented as an illusion. In 
 all these cases nature is conceived of both as more and as less 
 than a revelation, but not truly as a revelation. Christianity, 
 however, takes its stand firmly and decidedly, as a fully 
 developed monotheistic faith, which has appropriated the truth 
 of Judaism, on the position that the universe is a creation of 
 God's word, a manifestation of His mind, a disclosure of His 
 eternal power and Godhead. It unreservedly accepts it as 
 such, and thus makes nature's religious teaching also its own, 
 and puts itself into a right relation to all physical science. 
 
 Then, as to the mental and moral constitution of man. 
 There is little recognition in the lower forms of religion of 
 there being any divine revelation in this volume. In Brah- 
 manism man began to seek for God in thought ; Zoroastrianism, 
 Buddhism, Confucianism, discerned the divine chiefly in con- 
 science, and hence have sometimes been classed as ethical 
 religions; in Mahommedanism God was above all conceived 
 of as absolute will, and in Judaism as a righteous will. 
 
294 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 Christianity fully recognises the whole revelation of God in 
 man, and represents the completion of the revelation of God 
 as made through a perfect man. The religion of Greece 
 tended to form artists, and that of Scandinavia warriors; 
 Brahmanism is the religion of priests, and Buddhism of 
 ascetics. But Christianity aims at the production of men, 
 true and complete men, sons of God perfect as their Father 
 in heaven is perfect. It cannot aim at less, for, amidst all 
 the sinfulness of men, it discerns also all the divine features 
 and possibilities which are in him. 
 
 History is the volume of general revelation which the ethnic 
 religions have most neglected. The two greatest of them — 
 Brahmanism and Buddhism — do worse than ignore it ; they 
 take up a decidedly hostile attitude towards it, regarding 
 salvation only as the escape of the individual from temporal 
 limits and social ties. Mazdeism, in spite of its dualism, and 
 its narrowness and meagreness of conception, was probably 
 in this respect the least defective heathen faith. Judaism had 
 its general doctrine of providence and its distinctive Messianic 
 hope. But Christianity came to proclaim and found "the 
 Kingdom of God," as the realisation of the purpose which had 
 been running through the ages, as the fulfilment of the law 
 and the prophets, and as destined to overspread and transform 
 the whole earth. It came not merely to save men, but to 
 regenerate and sanctify humanity. It identified the goal 
 which it set before itself with the chief end of man and the 
 final cause of history, viewing in the same light the fates of 
 the mightiest nations and the events which befell the humblest 
 individuals. It taught men to look in all past history for the 
 evidences of God's sovereignty, wisdom, justice, and goodness, 
 and to believe that from the time of Christ's incarnation, 
 divine truth and grace would be traceable, working ever more 
 mightily until all falsehood should be exposed, all evil ex- 
 pelled, the triumph of holiness and love complete, and the 
 entire world laid as a trophy at the feet of Him who once wore 
 a crown of thorns. 
 
 Christianity, let it be repeated, is the religion which alone 
 has known to place itself in a perfectly right relationship to 
 the whole general revelation of God. It does not keep aloof 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 295 
 
 from it, and still less does it oppose it. It is willing to con- 
 form to it, and to be judged by it, so far as general revelation 
 extends. It cordially accepts it in all its length and breadth, 
 confident that physical discovery, mental science, and historical 
 research can find only what will prove an addition to its own 
 wealth. 
 
 While Christianity, however, accepts the general revelation 
 of God, it does not confine itself to it ; on the contrary, it 
 professes to be a special revelation, and consequently assumes 
 the possibility, needfulness, and reality of special revelation. 
 It is the task of the Christian apologist to exhibit fully what 
 grounds there are for this assumption. Here it may be enough 
 to say, first, that the fact that all the religions of heathendom 
 have so seriously misunderstood general revelation, as they 
 undoubtedly have done, seems of itself to show that a special 
 revelation cannot reasonably be deemed unnecessary; and, 
 secondly, that if any one, with awakened conscience, duly 
 considers man's condition as a sinner — observes how little 
 nature has to tell as to the way in which God will deal with 
 sinners — realises how impossible it is to love God with any 
 real, earnest, steady love, so long as we are conscious of being 
 in revolt against Him — and marks how signally, how terribly, 
 the heathen religions have erred in regard to the nature and 
 means of salvation, — he will probably be little disposed to 
 dispute the necessity of a special revelation, and he will 
 certainly be in the only proper frame of mind to judge 
 of the evidence which can be adduced for the reality of such 
 revelation. 
 
 Special revelation may appear in two forms. The lower 
 form comes first. God may manifest Himself by particular 
 interventions amidst fixed laws, by visions and voices, by the 
 inspired utterances of law-givers, psalmists, and seers ; and 
 the memory of His disclosures may be perpetuated in social 
 ordinances, religious rites, or literary compositions. A re- 
 velation of this kind through words and institutions was what 
 the Jewish economy claimed to be. Christianity admitted its 
 claim. It abolished, indeed, the law so far as it was external, 
 temporary, and superficial, substituting for it one which is 
 
296 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 spiritual, eternal, and sufficient ; but it transferred to itself 
 all that was of permanent value in the Old Testament ; educed 
 out of its particular practices and statements the universal 
 principles implied in them; provided in the work of Jesus 
 Christ satisfaction for the religious wants expressed in its 
 rites, symbols, and sacriiSces; and shed a light over every 
 page of the Hebrew Scriptures which should make them far 
 more instructive and profitable to the Christian than they ever 
 could be to the Jew. While the Gospel frees us from bondage 
 to the letter of the older dispensation, it at the same time 
 enables us to discover, with greatly increased clearness, the 
 true significance of the revelation on which that dispensation 
 rested. 
 
 What Christianity claims, however, as its own great dis- 
 tinction, is another and much higher form of special revelation. 
 God's general revelation of Himself is by fixed laws of order 
 which know no pity, which show no forgiveness, which are 
 indifferent to the interests of individuals, which conceal the 
 divine character in some respects while they reveal it in others. 
 God's special revelation of Himself by intervening among these 
 laws in miraculous acts and inspired words brings Him nearer 
 to individual hearts, and yet it leaves Him far away ; for after 
 all but signs and sounds have been given, not Himself; He 
 is Himself still shrouded in darkness, still hidden where no 
 man can approach Him. Can He come yet nearer man that 
 man may draw closer to Him ? Christianity answers, and its 
 answer is Christ, — the person, the character, and the work of 
 Christ. The highest form of special revelation — the revelation 
 which rests on all other revelation, and in which all other 
 revelation is completed — the revelation which is the con- 
 summation of the whole process of the divine self-manifesta- 
 tion, and which brings with it the realisation of all that religion 
 implies, — is, according to Christianity, revelation through a 
 human person possessed of all human graces and virtues, and 
 exhibiting in human conditions, in human action, and in 
 human suffering, the divine love and sympathy. The perfect 
 union of the divine and human in Christ — the fulness of the 
 Godhead disclosed in perfect manhood, — to the end that, 
 through the putting away of sin and the work of the Holy 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 297 
 
 Spirit, men may be not merely servants but sons of God, 
 enjoying free and entire communion with Him, and living 
 in a righteous and loving relationship to one another, — this 
 Christianity puts forward as its central idea, and at the same 
 time as historical fact. It is impossible even to imagine how 
 in the domain of religion there can be anything higher or 
 more perfect. It completes revelation. It founds the absolute 
 religion. Henceforth there may still be unlimited spiritual 
 progress, but it must be within the outlines of this revelation 
 and on the basis of this religion. Other foundation can no 
 man lay than that which is laid. 
 
 The claim which Christianity makes for Christ is one which 
 no other religion makes for its founder. Confucius is repre- 
 sented merely as a sage, Zoroaster and Mahommed only as 
 prophets. Buddha alone can be set over against Christ as one 
 deemed by his followers both God and man. But what a 
 contrast! Do not these two great solitary figures rise up 
 before us, as if to show how vast is the distance between the 
 wisdom of God and the wisdom of man? Christ — the God- 
 man — God in infinite love and condescension taking upon 
 Him human nature and becoming a human brother: Buddha 
 — the man-God — with his vain and presumptuous boast of 
 having raised himself to Godhead by his own power and know- 
 ledge. Christ revealing the Father : Buddha proclaiming that 
 there is no Father, and that all existence is evil and vanity. 
 Christ bringing life and immortality to light : Buddha setting 
 forth only nothingness. 
 
 I must conclude, not at the close, but at the commencement 
 of my subject. I have sought merely to introduce you into it ; 
 but I have sought to do so through what seems to me the 
 main entrance, where a view is to be had of that general 
 relationship between Christianity and other religions whence 
 all their special relationships diverge. To follow up these 
 latter — to attempt to explore the subject as a whole — is not 
 work for a lecture, or for a series of lectures, but the appro- 
 priate task of a science, the great science of Comparative 
 Theology. It is a science which is unfortunately cultivated 
 by many who endeavour to make it yield anti-Christian and 
 even atheistical inferences, but that is assuredly not due to 
 
298 CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 the real character of the study itself, but simply to the mental 
 perversity of those individuals. The study itself is a magni- 
 ficent demonstration, not only that man was made for religion, 
 but of what religion he was made for. The more accurately 
 the nature of religion is determined, the more thoroughly its 
 various forms are studied, and the more closely they are com- 
 pared, the more conclusively will it appear that Christianity 
 alone is the ideal of all religion, and alone satisfies the spiritual 
 wants of humanity; that Christ is "the desire of all nations," 
 and the appointed Saviour of the world, in whom all perplexi- 
 ties of the soul are reconciled, and in whom alone the restless 
 hearts of men can find peace. If it be true, on the one hand, 
 that the ethnic religions can only be understood when viewed 
 in relation to Christianity, it is also true, on the other hand, 
 that Christianity cannot be fully understood unless viewed in 
 relation to those religions. We must know what questions the 
 human soul has been putting to itself in various ages, lands, 
 and circumstances, and what are the answers which it has been 
 giving to them, before we can appreciate aright the compre- 
 hensiveness and aptness of the response contained in the 
 Gospel. Not one of the features or doctrines of Christianity 
 will fail to appear in a brighter light, and with a diviner 
 beauty, after they have been compared and contrasted with 
 the correlative features and doctrines of other religions. 
 
XXVI. 
 
 SOME REQUIREMENTS OF A PRESENT-DAY 
 CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS.! 
 
 BY a Christian Apologetics I mean a vindication of Chris- 
 tianity which aims at being thorough and comprehensive ; 
 one which includes the theory as well as the practice of the 
 vindication, and which seeks not merely to defend some 
 particular portion of Christianity, but to justify it as a whole. 
 Christian Apologetics proposes to itself a distinctly practical 
 end, victory over all doubt and disbelief as to the truth and 
 excellence of Christianity ; and it presupposes in the competent 
 apologist an extensive and intimate knowledge of Christianity, 
 and an adequate acquaintance with all the exegetical, historical, 
 and theoretical disciplines of theology which contribute to such 
 a knowledge of Christianity as is required for a conclusive and 
 complete defence of it. 
 
 Christian Apologetics as thus understood is of comparatively 
 recent origin. It is the natural and necessary outgrowth, 
 however, of the history of Christian apology, and that may be 
 justly traced back to the advent of Christianity itself. Christian 
 apology is as old as Christianity. The prophecy of Simeon, 
 spoken to Mary, " Behold, this child is set for the falling and 
 rising up of many in Israel — koI eh arj^eiov avriXeyofievov — and 
 for a sign which is spoken against," was constantly verified in 
 our Saviour's life-time ; and so the task of self- vindication, by 
 word and works, was laid upon Him as a considerable part of 
 what was given Him to do. He was His own apologist. 
 
 The earliest preaching of the apostles was mainly apologetic, 
 for it was mainly what St Luke calls it, "a preaching of the 
 resurrection," the fact by which Christ was manifestly declared 
 
 ^ A Lecture delivered in St Mary's Cathedral, to the Edinburgh Diocesan 
 
 Church Reading Union, on Wednesday, 22nd March 1899. 
 
 299 
 
300 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 to be the Son of God, and by which the truth and success of 
 His mission were infallibly sealed. The epistles, and still more 
 the discourses, of St Paul are largely apologetic. Seeing that 
 Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the 
 Greeks foolishness, he had to labour to show that He was in 
 reality "the power of God and the wisdom of God unto 
 salvation." All the evangelists had obviously, in the composition 
 of their Gospels, an apologetic purpose to some extent in view. 
 The key to the special character of the Fourth Gospel, for 
 example, is probably to be found in the words (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." They tell us that their author's record of 
 the words and deeds of Christ was not meant to be a mere 
 general biography, but had also expressly for aim to show that 
 the man known by the name of Jesus was none other than the 
 promised Messiah, and even the Incarnate Word. 
 
 The necessity of self-defence, of apology, imposed upon 
 Christianity from the first has never ceased. Nor is there any 
 prospect of its ceasing in the present state of being. We may 
 even well doubt if it would be for its good to be freed from that 
 necessity. The need of self-vindication seems to be for a true 
 religion a beneficent necessity. Spiritual truth has nothing 
 more to dread than passive, unintelligent acceptance. A faith 
 very easily acquired is one which will be very easily lost, and 
 which will not be of the highest character. 
 
 The continuous hostility which has been manifested towards 
 Christianity may seem to some to be of itself a presumption 
 against its truth. But it is really nothing of the kind ; and, 
 in fact, it is the immediate and inevitable consequence of 
 its truth. The explanation of the aversion still displayed to 
 Christianity is just the same as the explanation of the hostility 
 manifested towards Christ Himself in the days of His flesh. 
 Christianity is, like Christ, the Truth, and as such it makes 
 claims which human nature can ill tolerate. As pure spiritual 
 truth, it demands from man a clean heart and a right spirit, 
 a humility and a piety, and a submission and obedience to the 
 whole will of God, as revealed in Christ, which cannot but evoke 
 resistance and enmity so long as man is what he is. So true 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 301 
 
 is this that we may safely say, that even were the whole world 
 to become intellectually convinced of the truth of Christianity, 
 and outwardly to profess the Christian faith, the need for a 
 Christian Apologetics, although it would be greatly lessened, 
 would not be wholly removed. There would no longer be 
 required an apologetic of Christianity against avowed enemies, 
 but there would still be required an apologetic against the 
 doubts and prejudices which Christianity excites in the minds 
 not merely of nominal Christians, but often even of those who 
 are, on the whole, truly Christian men. It is chiefly, perhaps, 
 such doubts and prejudices, deep-rooted in the natural heart, 
 which give the preacher and pastor a practical interest in 
 apologetics. They may seldom be called to be apologists 
 against the avowed foes of the Christian faith, but they must 
 have constant need to be apologists for that faith in the forum 
 of the hearts of their hearers and people, and perhaps even of 
 their own hearts. 
 
 Christian Apologetics is, however, of all the departments 
 of Christian Theology the one which has been most influenced 
 from without. It is the one which has necessarily varied most 
 from age to age, and that for the simple reason that vindication 
 must always conform itself to the character of the opposition. 
 But the opposition to Christianity has never ceased, nor ever 
 ceased to change from age to age, so that it has in course 
 of time assumed eveiy conceivable variety of form. Hence 
 Christianity, claiming as it does sovereignty over all individual 
 and social life, in every age and under all conditions, has had 
 to vindicate itself anew to every new generation with special 
 reference to its prejudices and anti-Christian tendencies. It 
 has thus had to encounter successively all sorts of evil and 
 hostile powers — wrong modes of thought, corrupt habits of 
 life, despotic governments, anarchist schemes, false philo- 
 sophies, sciences pushing themselves beyond their legitimate 
 limits, rival religions, proposed substitutes for itself, or 
 serious perversions of itself. The story of this conflict 
 running through all the Christian centuries would, if worthily 
 told, be of the highest interest. Probably no department 
 of theology has a more instructive history than Christian 
 Apologetics. 
 
302 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 There will always be need for Christian Apologies as distinct 
 from Christian Apologetics, seeing that there will always be 
 partial attacks on Christianity, attacks on this or that particular 
 Christian fact or doctrine, which need to be repelled. But in 
 our late age of Christian history much more is needed. There 
 are required vindications of Christianity as a whole ; vindications 
 against all really dangerous species and serious forms of 
 assault ; learned, thorough, and comprehensive vindications, 
 capable of affording guidance and aid to partial apologetic 
 labours, and at the same time accomplishing what these 
 cannot effect. Such a Christian Apologetics is manifestly very 
 specially needed at the present day. Now, as never before, 
 what is most demanded in the way of Christian defence is far 
 less to vindicate it against any particular charge or class of 
 charges, than to vindicate its right to be regarded as the 
 Absolute Truth, as the Divine disclosure in essentials of all that 
 is required to sustain, purify, and perfect the human spirit. 
 It is to show that Christ, and Christ alone, is " The Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life," and can alone enable humanity to reach 
 the Absolute Good — the realisation in itself and in the world 
 of the Kingdom of God, 
 
 Perhaps it may seem as if a theological discipline which thus 
 aims at being Christian warfare on a comprehensive scale, and 
 conducted in a scientific spirit, and which deliberately assumes 
 a sort of militant or strategical attitude towards philosophies, 
 sciences, and schemes of individual life and social organisation, 
 must be a bellicose sort of discipline, more likely to provoke 
 than to do away with hostility. But no ! Its real end is peace. 
 And therefore it aims at clearing away misunderstandings and 
 making unreasonable attacks impossible by showing the true 
 relations between Christianity on the one hand, and philosophy, 
 science, and practical life on the other. A scientific Christian 
 Apologetics would set an example to, and would doubtless have 
 a happy influence on. Christian Apologies. The authors of the 
 latter are especially under temptations to do their work in a 
 narrow and unfair manner. The more the thoroughness, com- 
 prehensiveness, and carefulness of science are introduced into 
 Christian self-vindication, the more will it be freed from 
 unchristian characteristics. 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 303 
 
 The remarks just made directly lead me to say that one 
 manifest requirement of such a Christian Apologetics as is now 
 more than ever needed is an absolute truthfulness of spirit 
 which will meet the demands of an age that, professedly at 
 least, admires scientific accuracy. It is all the more important 
 to emphasise this, because the Christian apologist is necessarily 
 in danger of forgetting it. Every apologist is. The desire to 
 do the best he can for the cause or client he defends is apt to 
 tempt him to a one-sidedness and exaggeration of statement 
 wrong in itself, and likely to do harm, yea sure to do harm if 
 the cause be wholly good, the client entirely innocent, so that 
 cause and client stand in need of nothing except to be seen to be 
 what they really are. The literature of Christian Apologetics — 
 of the department of Christian study which has for its special aim 
 the defence of Him who is the Truth — is unfortunately, how- 
 ever, just the kind of theological literature which is the poorest 
 in manifestly truthful books ; just the one which abounds most 
 in works that at once excite suspicion as to their fairness. 
 Perhaps Dr. Arnold spoke somewhat in his haste when he said 
 that, with the exception of Hooker and Butler, there appeared to 
 him to be " in all English divines a want of believing or dis- 
 believing anything simply because it is true or false." But the 
 judgment is, I fear, more applicable to apologetic literature 
 than to any other sort of theological literature. In English 
 apologetic literature Butler's "Analogy" is a unique phenomenon, 
 owing to the perfection of intellectual truthfulness — the com- 
 bination of caution and candour — which it displays. Were 
 Christian apologists to follow the example set by the great and 
 good Bishop Butler — would they only bring to their apologetic 
 labours the self-denial and self-restraint appropriate to them — 
 how much more really successful they would be. 
 
 Another requirement of such a Christian Apologetics as our 
 age needs is that it should be thoroughly Christian. All 
 theologians, I suppose, have now come to see that Christian 
 Dogmatics must be Christo-centric. Christian Apologetics 
 must be equally so. Christianity stands or falls with Christ. 
 What Christ did not reveal or imply to be revealed the 
 Christian apologist is under no obligation to defend. It is 
 
304 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 through its relationship to the revelation of God in Christ that 
 we are to view the revelation of God in physical nature, in the 
 human spirit, in general history, in the religious experience of 
 the race, and in Scripture. Knowledge of God flows through 
 all these channels, and yet a knowledge of God as He really is, 
 a view of Him in the unity, entirety, and glory of His character, 
 is only to be attained by those who stand at the centre and 
 summit of revelation, the manifestation of God in Christ. The 
 significance of Christ's life, and the truth of what He made 
 known as to God and man and their relationships, is essentially 
 what a Christian Apologetics has to aim at making evident, and 
 this aim it ought clearly to avow at the outset, and seek through- 
 out to realise. 
 
 Christian Apologetics ought, therefore, it seems to me, to 
 start with an exposition of the distinctive Christian view of 
 Christ Himself and of His work and teaching, as being that 
 which has to be vindicated. Whatever opposes itself thereto has 
 to be met. Whatever is contrary to essential Christian truth, 
 and only that, is the enemy with which the Christian apologist 
 has to contend. For example, there is the Christian concep- 
 tion of God. It is Christ's own representation of God as the 
 Father in Heaven, whose inmost nature is holy love, and who 
 seeks the holiness and happiness of all His children. But 
 there are other conceptions of God : those on which the ethnic 
 religions rest, the conception given of God even in the Old 
 Testament, seeing that it had so far the limitations necessarily 
 inseparable from an initiatory revelation, the abstract and 
 abstruse conceptions of God set forth by speculative philo- 
 sophers, and the monistic or mechanical conceptions of God 
 which an exclusive study of external nature has often suggested 
 to physical scientists, and the like. Now, it is the idea of God 
 in its distinctively Christian form — in other words, the idea of 
 God as revealed through Christ — that the Christian apologist 
 has to defend against all such other ideas as those referred to 
 whenever they are put forward in competition with it. And 
 the more faithfully the Christian apologist adheres to the 
 distinctively Christian view, neither adding to it nor taking 
 from it, the more easy will he find his task to be, the stronger 
 his cause. There is no other idea of God so defensible as the 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 305 
 
 Christian idea. The eame may be said of all other Christian 
 ideas and disclosures. There is no system of belief which 
 carries with it so much evidence of its truth as the Christian 
 system in its original form. 
 
 With the requirement which has just been indicated there is 
 another closely connected. A Christian Apologetics adapted to 
 meet the wants of the present age cannot be one which pro- 
 ceeds on the dominant presupposition of the " evideutialists " 
 of the last century and of a large portion of the present cen- 
 tury ; namely, the presupposition that the evidence for 
 Christianity is, if not exclusively at least mainly, external 
 criteria associated with its promulgation — physical sensible 
 miracles, definite predictions of particular occurrences, and 
 human testimony. 
 
 Those so-called evideutialists put forth all their strength in 
 the attempt to prove, against Deists and rationalists, that reason 
 was bound to accept all that is taught in the Bible, primarily 
 and chiefly, if not entirely, because it had been adequately 
 authenticated to be a Divine revelation by sensible miracles 
 and definite predictions. They regarded what was most dis- 
 tinctive in it as consisting of mysteries which reason could not 
 directly apprehend or deal with, but which it was bound to accept, 
 whether it had any insight into their truth and meaning or not, 
 on the ground of their having been sufficiently attested by 
 special Divine interventions. Few, if any, of them may have 
 left wholly out of account so-called internal evidence — the self- 
 evidence or intrinsic reasonableness of the Divine oracles — but 
 they laid comparatively little stress on it, and some of them even 
 represented the appeal to it as presumptuous. Prodigiously 
 fertile as the eighteenth century was in apologetic literature, it 
 produced only one treatise of note on the internal evidence,^ and 
 it is said to have been suspected of being the work of a dis- 
 guised enemy. Within the last half-century there has been a 
 remarkable change of opinion in this respect. No theologian 
 would now be regarded as a wise bailder who attempted to 
 raise a Christian Apologetics on the basis which the evideutialists 
 
 1 Soame Jenjm's ''View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion," 
 1776. 
 
 U 
 
306 PEESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 deemed to be alone worthy of confidence. Probably any book 
 professing to treat of the evidences of Christianity under the 
 two heads of external and internal, would at present have small 
 chance of being read except by very old-fashioned persons. 
 
 The evidentialist view, it is seen, did great injustice to 
 such a revelation as the Christian, and was, in fact, neither 
 reasonable nor Christian. A revelation which presents mysteries 
 as its substantive and distinctive message is a revelation which 
 does not reveal, and belief in which is not belief in truth as 
 such. Revelation is the manifestation of spiritual light, and 
 spiritual light is what can be seen and felt by the spirit. There 
 must, indeed, be mysteries involved in every form of revelation, 
 as there is in every phase of existence, but the idea of a revela- 
 tion consisting of mysteries which reason is shut up to believe 
 in, yet has no real insight into, is an unwarranted and unworthy 
 one, and most certainly does not correspond to the revelation 
 given us in the Bible and through Christ. That revelation, 
 rightly and comprehensively viewed, is gloriously self-evidencing, 
 and its best apologists are necessarily those who see and help 
 others to see most clearly that it is so. It is full of reason, and 
 in essentials free from all unreasonableness ; and it is the 
 reasons in it, not reasons extrinsic to it, which constitute the 
 strongest proof of its truth, and of its right to our acceptance 
 and obedience. The evidentialists, therefore, certainly erred 
 seriously when they separated, to the extent which they did, 
 the proof of Christianity from its substance and content ; when 
 they went so near to the identification of merely historical 
 belief with distinctively Christian faith, and rested in so large a 
 measure their hopes of making men Christians on external 
 proofs, which could not bring the human spirit into any direct 
 and immediate contact with the Divine truth necessary to the 
 maintenance of its religious life. 
 
 The Christian apologists of the present day do well to avoid 
 the error of the evidentialists ; a too exclusive reliance on argu- 
 ments which tend merely to prove the credibility of the Biblical 
 records by their accordance with external criteria and historical 
 testimony. But they do, it seems to me, the reverse of well 
 when they fall back into the error of the Deists — the error 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 307 
 
 which the evidentialists justly, and for the time successfully, 
 combated — the illusion that Christian faith is quite inde- 
 pendent of historical facts and probable evidence. And that 
 is just what not a few are again doing. They treat the evi- 
 dentialist attitude of mind towards Christianity as entirely 
 erroneous, instead of only partially so. They represent Chris- 
 tianity as so self-evident, so absolutely certain, to intuition, 
 or feeling, or faith, that reasons or arguments, and especially 
 all weighing of probabilities, are irrelevant to it. Such is the 
 view which has again, after a long interval of discredit and 
 obscurity, become prevalent and popular. It is one which an 
 eloquent speaker or skilful writer may make to seem very 
 plausible, and even get credit for as novel and original, 
 although in fact it is only the old delusion of Deism set forth 
 in fashionable phraseology. 
 
 The erroneousness of this view lies in what it overlooks ; 
 the essentially complex nature of Christian truth, the indis- 
 soluble connection between the ideal and the real in Christian 
 truth. Christianity is a wonderful and glorious fact as well 
 as a sublime and ennobling ideal. While a spirit — the spirit 
 of righteousness, purity, and charity — it is by no means a dis- 
 embodied spirit. It centres in the God -man, in a unique 
 person, in a history of real redemptive acts. Its ideas are, 
 in a sense, facts with a history ; and its facts are media of ideas 
 and sources of spiritual life. Bishop Westcott, in a fine 
 chapter of a very precious work, " The Gospel of Life," declares 
 Christianity to be " the only historical religion," and quite 
 successfully proves it, I think, in the sense in which he uses 
 the words. Christianity is, alike in its antecedents, essence, 
 and realisation, historical as no other religion can be said to be. 
 For in Christianity, Christ Himself is what is most essential ; 
 it is in His own person and character. His deeds of power and 
 mercy, His death for the remission of sins, His resurrection, 
 ascension, and continued agency through the Spirit, and, in 
 a word, in facts, transactions, and experiences, that His Gospel 
 centres. But a religion thus historical can by no means be 
 indifferent to historical evidence. It is vain to tell those who 
 put their trust in such a religion that they should separate 
 "the eternal truths of the spirit from the contingent truths 
 
308 PKESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 of history " ; drop the latter, and adhere only to the former. For 
 that is to assume that only a perishable importance attaches 
 to the historic, a merely casual worth to the peculiar essence 
 of Christianity. And such an assumption a Christian cannot 
 admit. Christ, far from being of transitory significance in 
 Christianity, gives to it its abiding and inexhaustible value and 
 vitality. A faith, therefore, which does not so lay hold of 
 Himself as to embrace the historical as well as the ideal in 
 the Gospel, is no more Christian faith in its truth and entirety 
 than that which rests on the historical alone. 
 
 Next, a Christian Apologetics ought in the present day to 
 be scientific, to the extent at least of being built on a scientific 
 foundation. Let us see what this implies. 
 
 Christian Apologetics has for end the defence of Chris- 
 tianity. But Christianity can only be defended in so far as 
 known. One source — by far the chief source — of a knowledge 
 of Christianity is the Scriptures. Christian Apologetic must, 
 therefore, found largely on knowledge of Scripture. On know- 
 ledge of Scripture, however, in what form ? I affirm on such 
 knowledge in its most scientific form ; which just means that 
 Christian Apologetics should not build on unproved assump- 
 tions as to either the character or contents of Scripture ; that 
 it should be as little assumptive as possible, assumptive being 
 equivalent to unscientific. 
 
 What are the obligations thereby imposed on the Christian 
 Apologist so far as Scripture is concerned ? One such obliga- 
 tion is a readiness to accept the results of all truly scientific, 
 strictly objective and impartial, purely critico-historical in- 
 vestigations as to the age, authorship, credibility, &c., of the 
 documents which are the sources of our knowledge of Chris- 
 tianity. The Christian Apologist ought not to cling to any 
 views inconsistent with such results because they happen to 
 be traditional or prevalent, or to have been long his own. He 
 should fully acknowledge the rights of the kind of investiga- 
 tion referred to, recognise that without it neither the ideas 
 nor the facts distinctive and constitutive of Christianity can 
 be ascertained in a completely satisfactory manner, and thank- 
 fully accept whatever conclusions it seems to him to have 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 309 
 
 established. Such critico-historical iuvestigation is merely a 
 preliminary indeed, yet it is an indispensable preliminary to 
 a scientific Christian Apologetics; and whoever would effec- 
 tively contribute to the building up of a scientific Christian 
 Apologetics must make himself sufficiently acquainted with 
 Biblico-critical research to be able intelligently to appreciate 
 and apply both its processes and conclusions. 
 
 Another obligation, however, is implied. The Christian 
 apologist is bound, in his study of the content of Christianity, 
 with a view to its defence, to follow the appropriate scientific 
 method. There is such a method. It is one which has been 
 gradually ascertained, and the ascertainment of which has in 
 the present century created a new and most important depart- 
 ment of theological science — what is called Biblical Theology. 
 Now, it is on such a knowledge of the teaching of the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures as a correct Biblical Theology will give that 
 the Christian apologist ought to found. There are no assump- 
 tions in a knowledge of the kind. The method by which it 
 is obtained is the method common to all careful study of the 
 contents of works of literature. Biblical Theology does not 
 attempt to give any other truth than that of exposition, but 
 it reaches and exhibits that truth with scientific thoroughness 
 and impartiality. It does not set forth the ideas which it 
 presents as true in themselves, but only as truly in the Bible ; 
 it aims at doing no more than giving a true account of what 
 are the religious ideas in the Bible, of how they are related 
 as set forth in the Bible, and of what their history has been, 
 so far as that can be ascertained. But that is just what is 
 most indispensable to the Christian apologist who would pro- 
 ceed according to a right method. His first want is a know- 
 ledge of the nature or content of Christianity derived from the 
 Christian Scriptures, in a way the scientific legitimacy of which 
 cannot be called in question. 
 
 So long, however, as Biblical Theology, in the modern sense 
 of the term, did not exist, and theologians were without almost 
 a conception of the method on which it proceeds, there was, 
 of course, no sufficient response to that prime want of the 
 Christian apologist, and it was only natural that he should 
 build largely on the conclusions of some variety or other of 
 
310 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 Christian Dogmatics, instead of directly on the essential content 
 of the Christian Scriptures appropriately ascertained. In this 
 respect a Christian apologist of our day has an immense advan- 
 tage over his predecessors. He does not require to start with 
 human dogmas or a questionable method ; he can start with 
 what even those whom he is about to oppose cannot deny to be 
 truly Scrijjtural and Christian. He finds himself at the outset 
 in possession of a knowledge of Christianity immediately, yet 
 scientifically, drawn from its records ; a knowledge independent 
 of any dogmatic system, yet a knowledge of the Christianity of 
 Christ and His apostles, of Christianity in its New Testament 
 form ; in a word, he finds himself in possession of a really 
 satisfactory knowledge of that which is precisely what he 
 requires to vindicate. The more purely, the more exclusively, 
 he confines himself, in the first instance at least, to that which 
 he thus knows, the greater, I hold, will be his success in every 
 way, and the greater even will be the ultimate service which he 
 may render to Christian Dogmatics. 
 
 In order scientifically to base a Christian Apologetics on 
 Scripture, the apologist, I must add, has no need of going to 
 Scripture with any preconceived theory as to the nature of its 
 inspiration. It is enough for him that it is the chief source, 
 and to a large extent the one source, of a knowledge of ideas 
 and facts of supreme importance for mankind ; of a knowledge 
 of what he recognises to have been the most wonderful and the 
 most gracious of all God's revelations of Himself to His rational 
 creatures. It is its essential content which gives the Bible its 
 unique value to the Christian apologist ; and to gain a know- 
 ledge of that he needs to study the Bible through no extraneous 
 theory. The more directly and ingenuously he goes to it the 
 better. 
 
 The Bible itself, however, quite clearly shows us that there 
 is a great deal in the Bible which is not sanctioned by the 
 Bible, and that all that is in the Bible is not of equal value- 
 The New Testament claims to be better than the Old. Much 
 in the Old is abrogated by the New as inconsistent with the 
 Gospel. The sentiments expressed in some of the imprecatory 
 psalms and Hebrew war-songs incorporated — and to our advan- 
 tage and for our instruction incorporated — in the Bible, are no 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 311 
 
 more to be cherished by Christian men than the patriarchal 
 practice and Mosaic legislation as to polygamy and slavery are 
 to be followed. The germs of all New Testament teaching may 
 be discovered in the Old Testament ; but there was nothing per- 
 fected in the Old Testament. All perfection came through 
 Christ. And whatever of the Old Testament has not been 
 taken up into the New Testament ; whatever in it was allowed 
 by Christ, and those whom He sent forth inspired by His Spirit, 
 to pass unsanctioned ; we are not called on, as Christian apolo- 
 gists, to defend. The Bible is a whole unified, and vivified by the 
 Word of God which pervades it ; but that Word is not to be 
 indiscriminately identified with all the words which are in the 
 Bible. The apologist who undertakes to maintain the inerrancy 
 of every statement in the Bible undertakes a task obviously 
 different from the defence of Christianity, and vastly more 
 difficult. 
 
 The Christian apologist requires to distinguish between the 
 letter and the spirit even in regard to the words of Christ and of 
 the apostles. He has no right to treat what they enjoined on 
 certain persons in certain peculiar circumstances as literally 
 and strictly incumbent on all persons in all circumstances. He 
 must distinguish between the circumstantial and the essential, 
 the individual or special and the universal, in their teaching. 
 He must not rest in the letter, but must enter into the spirit of 
 the words contained in the New Testament. Otherwise he will 
 do injustice to the Christian faith and give advantage to its 
 adversaries. 
 
 The Christian apologist, then, should found on the revelation 
 conveyed by the Bible as a whole — the revelation of the glory 
 and grace of God and of the mind and spirit of Christ therein. 
 That is the revelation which it is the one great distinctive 
 aim of Christian Apologetics to vindicate. Any one who sees 
 this clearly will find it easy to show that a multitude of the 
 objections which are urged against the Bible in detail are so 
 irrelevant and weak, when regarded as a disproof of the Bible 
 as a whole — i.e. its essential spiritual content — as to prove 
 merely the inconsiderateness of those who urge them. 
 
 The truth that the Christian Apologetics which our age re- 
 
312 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 quires is one distinctively and thoroughly Christian, must not, 
 I have to remark next, be so understood as to imply that a 
 Christian Apologetics can afford to disregard any serious attack 
 directed against Christianity from any quarter. This is laid 
 down in opposition to an error which the school of Ritschl has 
 done much to foster. The members of that school must be 
 credited with having rendered service to Christian Apologetics 
 by insisting on the reality, importance, and self-evidencing 
 power of what is specifically Christian in theology. They have 
 seen very clearly what, plain as it is, has sometimes been 
 overlooked, namely, that Christianity when endeavouring to de- 
 fend itself must not efface, disguise, or disown itself. When 
 Christianity is summed up in some Hegelian formula, and a 
 plea for the formula is substituted for a defence of Christianity, 
 the latter will gain little even should the plea be brilliantly 
 successful. If, in order to prove the truth of Christianity, a 
 professedly Christian apologist argues as if Christianity were 
 not itself, not the religion of redemption and of the 'kingdom 
 of God founded by Christ, but metaphysics, philosophy, positive 
 science, sociology, ethics, or some ideal or dream of his own, he 
 thereby in reality gives away, injures, and practically betrays 
 the cause which he undertook to defend. The Eitschlians have 
 avoided such errors, but they have fallen into another almost as 
 great when they pretend to possess or demand from others a 
 Christian faith so exclusively drawn from the revelation of God 
 in Christ, and so self-sufficing and self-certifying as to be in- 
 dependent of all objections to it which natural reason, ordinary 
 knowledge, science, or philosophy can suggest. 
 
 To attribute such an independence as that to Christianity — 
 to represent it as so separated and isolated from all other 
 truth — is not to honour and benefit it, as the Ritschlians have 
 supposed, but is to do it grave injustice. Christianity makes 
 no claim to such an immunity from attack as they would give 
 it ; and it has no need of it. The truth as it is in Christ is not 
 a truth peculiarly abstracted and dissociated from all other 
 truth, but pre-eminently the truth to which all other truth . 
 tends as its centre or goal. Truth in every form is intrinsically 
 favourable to Christianity. That holds good of no other 
 religion. Falsehood in every form is unfavourable to it. That, 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 313 
 
 too, can be said of no other religion. All false philosophy, false 
 metaphysics, and science falsely so-called, is necessarily hostile 
 to Christianity ; and a Christianity true to itself can have no 
 wish to be secured against the hostility of what is false. It 
 needs to fear no foe, and can only come forth strengthened 
 from struggling with the strongest assailants. It has gained 
 immensely in wealth of knowledge, in strength, and the 
 consciousness of strength, through having had to test the 
 exaggerated pretensions and combat the exorbitant claims of 
 foes and rivals. 
 
 Instead of its being desirable to attempt to withdraw 
 Christian thought and belief from contact or companionship 
 with philosophic inquiry and speculation, as the Ritschlians 
 would have us to do, it is a very important part of the work of 
 a Christian Apologetics to show how Christianity is related to 
 both true and false philosophy. 
 
 In true philosophy it has a friend and an ally. We may 
 even, I believe, go much further, and maintain that true 
 philosophy and true Christianity are both occupied, although in 
 different ways and with different ends, with the same truth, 
 the same object. The philosophy of the present age generally 
 prefers, and for intelligible enough reasons, to name that 
 object not God, but the Absolute. The absolute of philosophy, 
 however, will only be found to satisfy even the speculative 
 reason when apprehended as essentially identical with the self- 
 existent and self-revealing Triune God of Christian faith. 
 Rational Philosophy and Christian Theology, at their highest 
 and best, are coincident and accordant. Each bears witness not 
 only to itself, but also to the other. It would be an evil day for 
 both were they wholly dissociated. But that day is never likely 
 to come. They have never in Christendom been seen apart. 
 Is it not now impossible even to conceive of them apart ? 
 
 It is only in false forms of philosophy that Christianity has 
 adversaries ; only in philosophies which oppose to the Christian 
 view of God and the universe an agnostic, materialistic, 
 pantheistic, pessimistic or other anti-Christian creed. The 
 Christian apologist is bound to combat such philosophies. Were 
 he, when in the name of philosophy a doctrine is propounded 
 as entitled to displace the Christian faith, not to challenge the 
 
314 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 claims of that doctrine, he would practically disown the 
 Christian faith. And why should a Christian apologist hesitate 
 to attack an anti-Christian philosophy? To combat a false 
 philosophy is to fight for the true. And philosophy, even as it 
 has appeared at its best, cannot reasonably pretend to have a 
 higher truth, a higher authority, a higher certitude, a higher 
 value than Christianity. Speculative philosophy is much more 
 the subject of internal contradiction, and of external distrust, 
 than Christian doctrine. None of the great problems with 
 which it has been always occupied have yet been solved, none 
 of its chief antagonisms harmonised. It may be doubted if, 
 apart from theistic truth, there is much that is sure and solid 
 in what passes for metaphysics ; while there is certainly much 
 in it that is very dubious and nebulous. Yet there are not a 
 few who confidently declare, on no better authority than that 
 of a crude metaphysics, that Christianity has no right to 
 existence ; that all belief in God must be illusion, seeing that 
 the Divine is unknowable ; that all certitude is confined to 
 sense ; that a revelation is impossible ; that a miracle is 
 incredible and unprovable ; and so on. Those who, under the 
 guise of philosophers, thus dogmatise, may be very foolish and 
 superficial individuals, but they find hearers and readers, believers 
 and admirers; and it would be unwise and unsafe to leave 
 ,--<y the dogmas of what they call their philosophy uncontra- 
 dicted. 
 
 Not less incumbent on a Christian Apologetics at the present 
 day than the task which has just been referred to, is that of 
 carefully tracing the natural relations between the positive 
 sciences — physical, mental, and historical — and Christianity; of 
 showing that the various kinds of supposed antagonism between 
 those sciences and Christianity have arisen entirely from un- 
 fortunate misunderstandings, due to the unwisdom either of 
 scientists or of Christians, or of both ; and of making apparent 
 that Christianity may fairly claim to supplement science in 
 important respects, and can unquestionably perform certain 
 inestimable services to humanity which science plainly cannot. 
 
 A truly Christian view of the world cannot be opposed to a 
 really scientific view of it. The world with which Christian 
 faith is concerned is just the world which God has made, just 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 315 
 
 the world as it actually is, and as genuine science shows it to 
 be ; the very same world, although that world, regarded as a 
 medium through which the God revealed in Christ to men 
 as their Father and Redeemer, also manifests to them His 
 attributes, supplies their wants, and conducts their education. 
 Whoever would hold a Christian view of the world must be 
 ready to accept in its entirety the scientific view of it. He 
 is no more free to reject the conclusions of the physical and 
 mental sciences regarding the physical and mental worlds, 
 in any case where those conclusions have been properly reached, 
 than to reject the legitimately attained conclusions of Biblical 
 Criticism, Biblical Hermeneutics, &c., as to the Bible. The 
 conclusions of the former sciences are the most accurate and 
 reliable findings of the human mind as to the data of a theology 
 based on Nature, just as those of the latter are of a theology 
 drawn from Scripture. In both cases alike all reasonings of 
 the theologian which disregard or reject those data are, ijjso 
 facto, condemned. A conflict between the results of those 
 sciences and the findings of theology is thus simply inconceiv- 
 able. It would be for theology equivalent to self-contradiction ; 
 a conflict between its data and its conclusions. Belief in an 
 essential antagonism between Christian theology and positive 
 science necessarily implies confused thinking in those who 
 entertain it. 
 
 Yet the belief is very prevalent, and is the source of much 
 religious scepticism. For its prevalence, and the scepticism 
 to which it gives rise, we may frankly admit that theologians 
 themselves have been largely responsible. They have often 
 assumed very wrong attitudes towards science. They have 
 discouraged, depreciated, and persecuted it ; have sought to 
 restrict its rightful freedom of research, to dictate to it what 
 it should teach, and to oppose to it the Bible as an authority 
 on questions as to which it has no authority, and which can- 
 not possibly be answered hiblically, but only according to the 
 methods of the special sciences. While that, however, may 
 go far to account for so many people readily believing religion 
 or theology to be essentially antagonistic to science, it does 
 not in the least justify their belief. The notion is none the 
 less a crude error into which it is disappointing to find any 
 
316 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 man of real intellectual distinction fall, as sometimes unfor- 
 tunately even such men do fall. 
 
 Let us take note of two examples. An eminent American 
 scientist, the late Prof. J. W. Draper, wrote a well-known book 
 expressly on "The Conflict between Religion and Science," 
 and another, of much greater importance, on " The Intellectual 
 Development of Europe," equally pervaded by the idea of an 
 essential antagonism between religious faith and scientific 
 inquiry. It seems strange that he should not have seen that 
 his central conception or fundamental thesis was absurd ; that 
 he might as well have undertaken to prove that there had been 
 a continuous conflict between science and industrial labour, 
 or between science and aesthetic culture, or between science 
 and moral conduct ; that there cannot, in the nature of things, 
 be inevitable contradiction between any kind of real knowledge 
 and any kind of normal activity, physical or spiritual. No 
 wonder that, with such an irrational dogma as his fundamental 
 assumption, he was reduced to have recourse to an almost con- 
 tinuous identification of science with true science, rightly regu- 
 lated and successful investigation, and of religion with false 
 religion, blind and servile faith. Such a procedure is mani- 
 festly unfair and fallacious, and may justly be held to have 
 made alike the polemic of Draper against religion and his 
 attempt at historical generalisation quite inconclusive. 
 
 Another eminent American, Mr Andrew Dickson White, 
 formerly President of Cornell University, not long ago repre- 
 sentative of the United States at St Petersburg, and now their 
 representative in Berlin, has recently written a work, entitled 
 "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in 
 Christendom." It is far more elaborate, and in every way far 
 more valuable than Draper's "Conflict between Religion and 
 Science." It is prodigiously learned, and, so far as I can judge, 
 is very rarely inaccurate as regards the statement of facts. I 
 know of no book, indeed, nearly so likely to be useful to a 
 theologian desirous of acquiring clear ideas on the relations 
 of science and theology. And yet the author's own ideas on 
 the subject seem to me very far from clear indeed. 
 
 He does not, one is happy to perceive, regard the struggle, 
 like Draper, as one between science and religion. No candid 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 317 
 
 reader or honest critic will attribute to him hostility to religion. 
 His treatment of Christianity is sympathetic and reverent. In 
 his eyes the struggle is one between science and theology. 
 That struggle, however, he represents as having gone on 
 throughout the whole history of Christendom, and as having 
 entered into every department of inquiry ; and he depicts 
 theology as having been always and everywhere the enemy 
 of science, unjustifiably assailing it, arresting for a time its 
 beneficent progress, thereby invariably causing the direst evils 
 both to religion and science, and in the end always suffering 
 defeat. From its commencement to its close the work is occu- 
 pied exclusively with what is supposed to be historical proof 
 of the correctness of that view. 
 
 Considering what the view is, and how largely the truth 
 or falsity of it must depend on what is meant by " theology," 
 Mr White ought surely to have made some endeavour to 
 ascertain how the term ought to be applied. That he has un- 
 fortunately not done. He has not devoted even one of his 
 more than eight hundred pages to the consideration of what 
 "theology" means or ought to mean. Instead he, without 
 any appearance of reason or attempt at justification, identifies 
 "theology" with "dogmatic theology," and "dogmatic theo- 
 logy" with a "theology based on biblical texts and ancient 
 modes of thought " ; in other words, he arbitrarily elects to 
 mean by theology an effete form of a single theological discip- 
 line, contrasts such theology with genuine science of every 
 kind, and describes their opposition as " the warfare of science 
 with theology." Going to work in that way he has, of course, 
 as utterly failed to show that there is any necessary or natural 
 " warfare between science and theology " as Draper failed to 
 prove that there is any such " conflict between science and 
 religion." 
 
 What Mr White represents as theology is, in reality, only 
 theology of an ultra-conservative and uninquiring kind — the 
 unprogressive theology of men incapable of doing justice to 
 ideas and truths which are new to them. He has had in the 
 course of his life to fight a good fight in the cause of educa- 
 tional progress and the freedom of science against a theology 
 of that kind and theologians of that type. And the error 
 
318 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 into which he has fallen is to have unduly generalised his 
 own experience, and identified theology of a crude and unen- 
 lightened kind with theology itself. There are, however, men 
 in America who have had to fight a battle as severe as his 
 own against the same sort of theology and the same class of 
 theologians, and who have fought it as theologians and in the 
 interests of theology. Those men have equally fought for 
 progress, freedom, and science, and yet not ceased to be theo- 
 logians. That fact might of itself, I think, have sufficed to 
 prevent Mr White from concluding that throughout the whole 
 history of Christendom there had been a continual struggle 
 between science and theology. 
 
 It might even have suggested to him that that was not 
 the real struggle at all ; that the real struggle was simply 
 between obscurantism and enlightenment, knowledge and 
 ignorance, candour and prejudice, obstinate adherence to old 
 errors and readiness to accept new truths. That struggle has 
 run through all ages and through all Christendom. It may 
 be traced in every region of thought and department of science, 
 and in none more clearly than in theology. Even within 
 so-called " dogmatic theology " there has always been a con- 
 flict between science and dogmatism. " Dogmatic theology " 
 itself should aim at being scientific. The "dogmatic theo- 
 logian " ought not to be a theological dogmatist in the ordinary 
 conversational meaning of the term dogmatist, but the culti- 
 vator of the special department of theology called " dogmatic 
 theology," one which no enlightened theologian will admit to 
 be correctly described when said to be "based on biblical texts 
 and ancient modes of thought," or desire to see studied in any 
 other spirit than the humble and truthful spirit of science. 
 
 In a word, the facts adduced by Mr White, numerous, accu- 
 rately stated, and instructive as they are, afford no evidence of 
 a warfare of science per se with theology per se. They are all 
 instances illustrative merely of the laiv of progression hy anta- 
 gonism — of the growth of wisdom and order through the con- 
 flict, counterpoise, and co-ordination of divergent tendencies — 
 and if Mr White had formed a clearer conception of that law, 
 he would not have confounded it with, or formulated it as, a 
 warfare of science with theology. 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 319 
 
 While constrained, however, to pass this judgment on his 
 work, I do not consider that the fullest acceptance of it as 
 warranted need lessen to any great extent any one's estimate 
 of the excellence or value of the work. It is a work written 
 in a most attractive style, comprehensively planned, carefully 
 elaborated in every section, and filled with a marvellous wealth 
 of varied yet always relevant learning. The spirit which pervades 
 it is generous, and the services which theologians have rendered 
 to the sciences are exhibited in it with candour and impartiality. 
 And it certainly proves more conclusively and persuasively 
 than had ever been done before the great practical conclusion 
 which its author had chiefly at heart to establish and enforce. 
 No intelligent reader can rise from the perusal of it without 
 having his conviction of the folly and perversity of all interfer- 
 ence with science in the supposed interest of religion deepened, 
 and his confidence that untrammelled scientific investigation 
 will only benefit religion as well as science increased. 
 
 The fact, however, that as regards the general relations of 
 science and theology a man like Mr White shows the same 
 haziness and confusion of vision as Dr Draper had shown 
 regarding those of science and religion, is surely of itself 
 evidence enough that a Christian Apologetics is needed which 
 will clearly and adequately exhibit what the relations of science, 
 religion, theology, and Christianity really are. 
 
 All that I have been saying suggests the further reflection 
 that a Christian Apologetics suited to the wants of the present 
 day must occupy itself with a variety of topics which received 
 little or no notice from the apologetic writers of earlier times. 
 The Christian apologists of those times could not only afford to 
 ignore, but could not be expected to feel the need of a number 
 of inquiries which all who now attempt to present any compre- 
 hensive vindication of Christianity must feel bound to institute. 
 They could get more rapidly and directly to the discussion of 
 the question, Is Christianity what it claims to be, or is it not ? 
 than we can. They could without challenge proceed almost 
 at once to maintain the affirmative on the strength of the 
 evidences attached to the special revelations on which it was 
 held to rest. That their successors can no longer do. To 
 
320 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 proceed so in the present state of philosophical and religious 
 thought would show extraordinary ignorance or disregard of 
 the difficulties and the wants of the vast majority of the in- 
 credulous and the inquiring whom the Christian apologist has 
 now to endeavour to confute and convince. In other words, 
 a Christian Apologetics such as the present age requires is 
 under the necessity of dealing with not a few questions which, 
 although they may fairly, perhaps, be regarded as simply 
 preliminary or introductoiy, are all of real, and some of them 
 of decisive, importance. It must begin with an adequate dis- 
 cussion of such underlying or fundamental problems. 
 
 Let me briefly indicate some of those problems, or rather 
 groups of problems. (1) There are all the questions relative 
 to the necessity and importance, distinctive nature and aims, 
 proper position in the theological system, correct limits, true 
 spirit and appropriate methods of Christian Apologetics. Some 
 of those questions may be of little more than academic interest, 
 but others are of general and very considerable importance. 
 So much depends, for example, on the spirit in which Chris- 
 tianity is either advocated or resisted that a clear and reasonable 
 statement of the way in which the claims of Christianity should 
 be either presented or examined ought certainly to be found 
 in every Christian Apologetics. So a great deal also depends 
 on whether Christian apologists are content that their apologies 
 should be simply Christian, or will not be satisfied unless they 
 are also confessional. In the latter case they will be drawn 
 into ecclesiastical polemics, and that can hardly fail to lessen 
 the effectiveness of their vindication of the common faith of 
 Christians as set forth in Scripture. It is desirable, I think, 
 to keep Christian Apologetics and Churchly Polemics apart, 
 and as a Christian apologist to aim only at the vindication of 
 what is of the very essence of Christianity. 
 
 (2) A Christian Apologetics should not fail to do justice to 
 its own history, and to show the real character and significance 
 of the conflict between Christian faith and its antagonists. Its 
 history is often greatly misrepresented ; often so described as 
 to give the impression that Christianity, in its struggle with 
 secular and hostile powers, had been steadily losing ground ; 
 that each successive stage of the struggle had ended with a 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 321 
 
 result unfavourable to the faith, and indicative of its eventual 
 extinction. Were it so, there could be no stronger argument 
 against Christianity, and hence the Christian apologist should 
 show, as he convincingly may, that that anti-Christian reading 
 of history is a very erroneous one, and that, in reality, Christian 
 faith has steadily grown in self-knowledge, in clearness of 
 vision, in vitality, in range and power of influence for good, 
 through its contact and conflicts with the world and its forces. 
 " The earth," to use the words of the seer of Patmos, has 
 " helped the woman." The world, alike through its good and 
 evil, alike through co-operation and antagonism, has been made 
 subservient to the welfare of the Church, and the progress of 
 the Kingdom of God. 
 
 (8) As the object which Christian Apologetics seeks to vin- 
 dicate is Christianity itself in its essential integrity, obviously 
 one of its tasks is to exhibit the main features, the distinctive 
 peculiarities, the chief doctrines, and cardinal facts of Chris- 
 tianity, in such a way as will most clearly and truthfully show 
 its real character. The best Christian Apologetics must be the 
 one which most fully proceeds on the principle that Christianity 
 is its own best vindication. That the defence of Christianity is 
 essentially its self-defence, and that the attention alike of those 
 who defend and of those who resist it ought to be especially 
 concentrated on what it is in itself, should be made apparent 
 from the outset in every Christian Apologetics. How Chris- 
 tianity may be best represented with reference to the require- 
 ments of a Christian Apologetics is not merely a problem but 
 a complex of problems. 
 
 (4) There are questions to answer as to the nature of reli- 
 gion, and of Christianity as religion. Christianity is religion 
 both as a subjective and objective fact; both as personal piety, 
 a special form of individual spiritual life, and as an historical 
 reality and factor of a definite kind — a religion among religions. 
 But that is of itself sufficient to condemn it in the opinion of 
 many theorists, scientists, and other men of the present day, 
 who have imbibed antitheistic principles and irreligious 
 sentiments. In the departments of anthropology, sociology, 
 and history of religions, for example, a host of books have 
 appeared within the last twenty years representing all religion 
 
 X 
 
322 PRESENT-DAY CHEISTIAX APOLOGETICS. 
 
 as superstition, all piety as abnormal and diseased feeling, all 
 religious doctrines as illusory beliefs, all religrious institutions as 
 being gradually outgrown and inevitably doomed to extinction, 
 and Christianity as in no essential respects a unique religious 
 phenomenon with supreme and exclusive claims on the human 
 reason, heart, and will. It is manifestly incumbent on Chris- 
 tian apologists to examine the presuppositions, generalisations, 
 and arguments from which such conclusions have been drawn, 
 to show wherein they are erroneous, and to indicate what reli- 
 gion and Christianity really have been, are, and are ever likely 
 to be, in the mind and history of man. 
 
 (5) All questions as to religion lead to questions as to 
 revelation. Religion so far as true rests ultimately on general 
 or special, natural or supernatural, revelation. Man knows 
 God only so far as God makes Himself known to man. Hence 
 a Christian Apologetics has in its preliminary work to treat of 
 the general idea of Divine self -revelation, of the distinctive 
 nature of its media or forms, the springs and channels of spiri- 
 tual truth, of their inter-connection, and their relationship to 
 the crowning revelation through Christ. Christian Apologetics 
 should be broad-based on Divine truth. It should take its 
 stand on, and draw its resources from, the whole process of the 
 self-revelation of God, which in the fulness of time reached 
 mankind in and through Christ, and is still with us in its 
 records and results, and in the teaching and working of the 
 Holy Spirit. The God revealed in Christ is the God who is 
 also revealed in physical nature, in the consciousness and con- 
 science of men, in the providential government of individuals, 
 in the history of nations, and in Scripture. The self-revelation 
 of God is the most general form of Divine activity, inclusive of 
 creation, history, and redemption, and so centering in Christ 
 that all Divine revelation is "yea and amen" in Him. And it 
 is on revelation thus understood — a revelation inclusive of all 
 Divine facts and utterances as ascertained and interpreted in 
 accordance vnth the requirements of physical, mental, histori- 
 cal, and Biblical science — that a Christian Apologetics should 
 be founded in order satisfactorily to accomplish its work, the 
 defence of Christianity. 
 
 (6) Holy Scripture as a medium of Divine revelation has 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 323 
 
 peculiarities which raise questions that call for special con- 
 sideration in a Christian Apologetics. There are, for instance, 
 contrary extremes of error regarding it which require to be 
 examined and disposed of. Some affirm its absolute inerrancy 
 and infallibility even in regard to matters clearly within the 
 provinces of criticism, historical research, and positive science. 
 That, however, is to make for it a claim which it has nowhere 
 made for itself, and which it is impossible to substantiate. 
 Others deny to it the supreme normative authority and unique 
 spiritual value which rightfully belong to it as the vehicle of the 
 special Divine revelation that reached its consummation in the 
 redemptive work of Christ. It is necessary to make apparent 
 in what respects they also err. Further, it is especially in 
 connection with the revelation transmitted to us in the Bible 
 that there is a call on the Christian apologist to show the 
 futility of all a i^nori objections to the reality of special re- 
 velation in the forms of inspiration, prophecy, or miracle. He 
 ought to exhibit the unreasonableness of pronouncing it in 
 any of its forms impossible or unprovable, or of denying in any 
 given case its reality, prior to or apart from examination of 
 the alleged or relevant evidence. The limits neither of Divine 
 self- manifestation no?' of human knoidedge can he fixed hy any 
 preliminary theorising. Epistemology has no more certain or 
 valuable lesson to teach us than that. The whole history of 
 knowledge confirms it, 
 
 (7) I must further mention, as belonging to the preliminary 
 duties of Christian Apologetics, an adequate exhibition of what 
 are the kinds of evidence applicable to the proof of Christianity, 
 and an adequate refutation of the views which would confine 
 the proof of it to some only of its real evidences. They are 
 certainly much needed. There are views of the nature of the 
 evidence for Christianity current among the literati and even 
 theologians of the present day, as superficial and defective as 
 those which prevailed in England in the time of the Deists, or 
 in Germany in the time of the Eationalists ; views necessarily 
 leading to a most inadequate and unjust estimate of the amount 
 and weight of the real evidence. With the exception of im- 
 mediate sensuous perception and mathematical demonstration, 
 Christianity is supported by every conceivable form and variety 
 
324 PRESEXT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 of evidence, so that the proof of it, taken in its entirety, is 
 vast and varied, comprehensive and conclusive, in the highest 
 degree. 
 
 The main work of a Christian Apologetics, however, is, as I 
 have already emphasised, the work of proving the Divine truth 
 and excellence of the whole essential content or substance of 
 Christianity. And obviously, in order to accomplish that work, 
 it must so enter into that specific content or substance, and so 
 lay hold of what is therein, as to be able to present it and its 
 claims to doubting and denying minds in the way best calcu- 
 lated to gain them to faith and obedience. 
 
 This department — the chief and properly the largest de- 
 partment — of its work falls naturally into two great divisions, 
 as the essential content of Christianity consists either of ideas 
 or facts, either of religious affirmations or of redemptive acts. 
 The division implies no absolute separation or disjunction, yet 
 it rests on a real, obvious, and important distinction. 
 
 The question may be asked, With which — ideas or facts, doc- 
 trines or acts — should a Christian Apologetics begin in dealing 
 directly with its main work ? It is a question on which I am 
 not prepared to give any decided answer, or to say more than 
 that it seems to me that, in the present state of controversy 
 as to the truth of Christianity, to begin with the ideas or 
 doctrines will be found the more advantageous way. They are 
 general, while the facts are particular. They are more easily 
 ascertainable and less disputable. There are unquestionably 
 a Christian doctrine as to God and His operations, a Christian 
 doctrine as to Man and his relationships and requirements, a 
 Christian doctrine of Morals, a Christian doctrine of Redemp- 
 tion, and a Christian doctrine of the Kingdom of God, not 
 to speak of more special doctrines. So far as his needs extend, 
 the Christian apologist can start with these doctrines without 
 its being possible for any one to deny that they are Christian 
 doctrines. It is also comparatively easy to prove their con- 
 sistency with the findings of true reason and the disclosures 
 of general revelation, and their superiority as solutions of the 
 most momentous spiritual and practical problems to all those to 
 be found either in the religions or philosophies of the world. 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 325 
 
 An intelligent Christian apologist will, indeed, certainly 
 not undertake to show tliat the Christian doctrinal system is 
 xokolly comfrchcnsihlc. He will readily acknowledge the pre- 
 sence of mystery in special not less than in general revelation. 
 The creature can never be rationally supposed wholly to com- 
 prehend either the mode of being or the ways of working of 
 the Creator. Through whatever medium the human soul rises 
 into the presence of its God, it thereby cannot fail to come 
 into contact with mystery, with what is transcendent and 
 incomprehensible. But that no more makes it irrational or 
 presumptuous for a Christian apologist to undertake to show 
 the inherent reasonableness of Christian doctrines, than for a 
 physical scientist to engage to give reasons for his scientific 
 beliefs. The physical scientist confidently teaches many things 
 which he apprehends but does not comprehend, and is quite 
 justified in doing so. The Christian apologist is equally 
 entitled to do the same. 
 
 What, then, may the Christian apologist undertake, without 
 presumption, to prove regarding Christian doctrines? Well, 
 the intrinsic reasonableness of every truly Christian doctrine. 
 There is not one of them contrary to reason, inherently irra- 
 tional ; nor is there any one of them from which an enlightened 
 conscience can revolt as immoral. In equivalent terms, there 
 is no real incongruity between any of them and the legitimate 
 dictates of man's rational and moral faculties. Nor is there 
 any genuinely Christian doctrine which is merely a mystery 
 or enigma, an assertion or utterance which we are enjoined 
 to believe, yet which we are incapable of intelligently appre- 
 hending, accepting, or defending. Nor are men asked to 
 receive any such doctrine merely on authority, even the highest. 
 God speaks to us through the revelation in Christ, as He speaks 
 to us through the revelation in Nature, with authority ; but in 
 the former not less than in the latter with an authority which 
 does not ignore, contradict, or crush reason and conscience, but 
 which continuously appeals to them so as to elicit and educate 
 whatever powers of rational and moral insight the human 
 spirit has received. The more rational and moral insight a 
 man possesses, the more reasonableness, truth, and goodness 
 will he see in all really Christian doctrine. The Christian 
 
326 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 apologist who has any fair measure of it will not find it difficult 
 to show that, although all other religions, without exception, 
 have among their distinctive doctrines tenets which are 
 contrary to reason, inconsistent with conclusions of science, 
 dishonouring to the Divine Being, and harmful to human 
 nature, it is not so with any of the doctrines constitutive of 
 the Christian system of ideas. 
 
 He may do more. He may show that all Christian doctrines 
 are satisfactory answers to questions of the most vital import- 
 ance, which have only been sufficiently answered through Chris- 
 tianity ; that they all relate to most momentous spiritual and 
 practical problems, and that as solutions of those problems they 
 are immeasurably superior in rationality to all others which 
 have been suggested, and have quite naturally and legitimately 
 had an incomparably greater influence for good. He may show 
 that even the most distinctive doctrines of Christianity, and 
 those in which the presence of mystery is least deniable, are 
 abundantly attested by their own Divine reasonableness, their 
 own spiritual light and virtue. The writings of Erskine and 
 Campbell with reference to the Atonement, and of Westcott as 
 regards the Incarnation, may suffice to prove that. 
 
 Of course, what I have thus affirmed applies only to doctrines 
 in so far as they are truly Christian, and only to the extent in which 
 they are ex'pressly or implicitly contained in the Christian reve- 
 lation. The Christian apologist is under no obligation to vin- 
 dicate doctrines in their merely confessional form. Although, 
 for example, he cannot refuse to maintain the intrinsic truth 
 and self-evidencing reasonableness of the doctrine of vocation 
 or calling so prominent in the teaching of Jesus, and of the 
 doctrines of fore-knowledge and fore-ordination so prominent 
 in the teaching of St Paul, he is not bound to do the same for 
 all that Augustine and Calvin have taught as to election and 
 predestination. As simply a Christian apologist, he has no 
 direct concern with any doctrine held either by Christian 
 Churches or Christian individuals in so far as it is either 
 inconsistent with or not implied in Christian revelation. 
 
 The Christian apologist may further prove with comparative 
 ease that the doctrines of Christianity, many and diverse as 
 they are, are not isolated tenets, not disjecta memhra of aught 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 327 
 
 without unity of life and organisation, but elements of a whole 
 claiming to be The Truth. They are constitutive portions of a 
 system of the most wonderful richness and comprehensiveness, 
 in which nothing belonging to it has been found fatally weak, 
 false, or pernicious ; of a vast economy of love and grace, all 
 the parts of which harmonise, mutually support one another, 
 and tend to a single end, and that the greatest and the best 
 conceivable. The truths of Christianity have each an evidence 
 proper and peculiar to itself, but each is so connected with all 
 and all with each, that their united and consentient testimony 
 is strong indeed. 
 
 A Christian Apologetics such as the present time requires 
 should perform in a thorough and comprehensive way the task 
 now indicated. Obviously, it is a very large task. In fact, the 
 division of it to which I am now referring is coextensive with 
 the whole sphere of Christian Dogmatics. It goes over the 
 same ground ; follows step by step along the same route. 
 Hence a Christian Apologetics and a Christian Dogmatics ought 
 to be of rights the most closely connected of companions. Chris- 
 tian Dogmatics deals entirely, and Christian Apologetics deals 
 largely with Christian doctrines, with the same matter, with 
 merely a difference of manner determined by difference of aim. 
 
 Christian Dogmatics seeks so to exhibit Christian doctrine 
 to those who are Christian in faith, that they may know 
 as fully as possible the treasures of truth implied in their 
 faith. Christian Apologetics, so far as occupied with Chris- 
 tian doctrine, seeks so to present it to those who are pre- 
 judiced against it and hostile to it as may most surely and 
 effectively disarm them of their prejudices and win them to 
 the faith. What makes the discipline called Christian Apolo- 
 getics specially needed are the wants of those who do not 
 share in the Christian faith. In vindicating before them, 
 however, the cause of Christian truth, the claims of Christian 
 doctrine, a Christian apologist should find invaluable support 
 and aid in Christian Dogmatics. The success of a man's advo- 
 cacy of Christian doctrine must in all circumstances greatly 
 depend on the extent and thoroughness of his knowledge of it. 
 
 It is only in the next section of Christian Apologetics, 
 
328 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 however, that we get to the very heart of the science. Chris- 
 tianity stands or falls with Christ Himself. Christian faith is 
 faith which receives and rests on Him. The evidences of 
 Christianity, like its doctrines, its morality, and its history, 
 centre in Him. Were Christ a mere man, a mere religious 
 genius like, say, Francis d'Assisi, but greater, the Christian 
 Church has one plain duty before her : it is to make open 
 confession that she has been deluded herself and has deceived 
 the nations, and that Christendom, which was founded and 
 built up and still stands on the faith that Jesus was "the 
 Christ, the Son of the living God," rests on a gigantic fiction. 
 
 Hence the special interest of the arguments from the self- 
 testimony of Jesus, from His sinlessness, from Messianic pro- 
 phecy, from the miraculous attestation of His mission, and 
 especially that furnished by His resurrection, from the origins 
 of the Christian Church and the spiritual endowments of its 
 early disciples, and from the characters and lives of the 
 Apostles, 
 
 Hence, also, the supreme importance apologetically of the 
 foundation of all those arguments, the documents relating to 
 Jesus, i.e. the writings of the New Testament generally, and 
 especially the Four Gospels. No enlightened Christian apolo- 
 gist can wish to have those documents exempted in any way 
 from the most sifting analysis and strictest scrutiny of criti- 
 cism. The more accurately a man estimates the powers of 
 criticism on the one hand, and the strength of the Eock on 
 which the Church is founded on the other, the less, I am per- 
 suaded, will he be inclined to fear that any New Testament 
 criticism will displace the corner-stone of the Kingdom of God 
 on earth. When criticism has done its utmost it will be as 
 apparent as ever it was, that, through the documents of the 
 New Testament, mankind has the means of attaining to a 
 knowledge of Jesus Christ far more intimate, profound, and 
 reliable than it has of any other person in ancient history, and 
 good grounds for believing that He was what the catholic faith 
 of the Church holds Him to have been. 
 
 Besides the arguments which tend directly to prove the 
 truth of the doctrines and the facts constitutive of Christianity, 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 329 
 
 there are others which yield indirect yet powerful confirmation 
 to the Christian system, and which ought by no means to be 
 overlooked or depreciated. They may be called Corroborative 
 Proofs, and regarded as constituting a class. The chief of 
 them are these four : the Analogical, the Historical, the Argu- 
 ment from the Adaptedness of Christianity to Human Nature, 
 and the Experimental. 
 
 The first undertakes to show that the analogies and har- 
 monies between the Christian system and the systems of 
 Nature (the physical world) and of Providence (as displayed in 
 history) either attest in some considerable measure the truth 
 and Divine oriarin of the former, or at least make evident that 
 correct views of the latter systems in no way conflict with 
 belief in such a system of special revelation as Christianity 
 implies. The most remarkable apologetic work in English 
 literature — the "Analogy" of Bishop Butler — only professes 
 to perform the humbler of these two tasks, namely, to prove 
 that the same sort of objections which are urged against the 
 Christian scheme may be equally urged against the constitution 
 and course of nature (including history), and are not valid in 
 either case. But it really does more than it promises, while 
 it admirably accomplishes all that it promises. 
 
 It is a book, however, which requires to be carefully studied, 
 and which has had much injustice done to it even by able and dis- 
 tinguished men. The criticisms passed on it by Dr Martineau, 
 Mr Bagehot, Miss Hennell, Mr Leslie Stephen, Mr Matthew 
 Arnold, and, I regret to add, even the late deeply and most 
 justly lamented Principal Caird, rest mainly on strange mis- 
 conceptions as to its contents and argumentation for which 
 there is hardly any excuse to be found in the work itself. Mr 
 Gladstone, in his " Studies subsidiary to the Works of Butler," 
 did good service by his effective criticism of such irrelevant 
 and misleading criticisms. 
 
 Mr Gladstone was often tempted by his theological leanings 
 to enter into theological controversies on subjects as to which 
 he had no special competency, and could only be at the most 
 a dexterous and impassioned special pleader ; but this was not 
 the case when Butler was his subject. He had been all through 
 his life a careful and earnest student of Butler's writings, and 
 
330 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 he unquestionably knew them better than any of the censors of 
 them whom he took to task. It may appear presumptuous to 
 speak thus, but be it presumptuous or not, I speak as one 
 who has not only studied but also professionally lectured and 
 examined on Butler for more than thirty years, and who would 
 deem it an incalculable misfortune were the study of such a 
 work as the "Analogy" in any degree neglected because of accu- 
 sations and arguments which prove nothing except the inadequate 
 acquaintance with Butler's text of some of Butler's critics. 
 
 Analogical argumentation, however, may in theology as 
 well as in other sciences be so far employed to establish positive 
 as well as negative conclusions, and has been successfully so 
 employed by Buchanan, Gilett, and other apologetic writers. 
 When thus applied it is, viewed generally, to the effect that 
 there are such positive analogies between the Christian and the 
 natural systems, and that the former so supplements and 
 elucidates the latter, that they must be concluded to be depart- 
 ments of one great system, and to have originated with the 
 same author. 
 
 The Historical Proof, consisting as it does of the evidences 
 which may be drawn from the history which directly prepared 
 the way for the rise and diffusion of Christianity, from the 
 ethnic religions with which as historical phenomena it may be 
 compared and contrasted, and from its historical influence and 
 effects since apostolic times, is manifestly a very comprehensive 
 and interesting argument. 
 
 It is also a very powerful one. " The tree is known by its 
 fruits " is the simple general premiss on which it rests. It is a 
 premiss which the common sense, the universal reason of man- 
 kind easily grasps, and which no sceptical subtlety misapplied 
 is likely to succeed in discrediting. Apart from that it rests 
 only on facts which may by historical methods be accu- 
 rately and certainly ascertained, and such facts, when they are 
 abundant and accordant, speak plainly and strongly. 
 
 Closely connected with it is the argument drawn from the 
 adaptedness of Christianity to human nature. That adaptedness 
 is an all-sided and all-comprehensive one, embracing the whole 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 331 
 
 of human nature for good, and only for good, in all its relations, 
 and at all times. Many religions have an adaptedness to 
 human nature which, whUe it explains their success, condemns 
 them, since it is adaptedness to what is false and debasing in 
 human nature. Christianity alone among religions, shows only 
 an ennobling adaptedness ; only adaptedness to the true wants 
 of human nature ; only adaptedness to correct and restrain 
 what is evil, and to educe and perfect what is good, in human 
 nature. Yet it is an adaptedness which corresponds to and 
 includes the entire constitution of man, and which applies to 
 him as an individual, and in his various social relationships, 
 and in the Godward aspects of his being ; for Christianity as 
 the religion of absolute truth is perfectly adapted to his in- 
 tellect, as the religion of absolute holy love perfectly adapted 
 to his heart and its affections, and as the religion of absolute 
 righteousness combined with infinite grace perfectly adapted to 
 his moral and volitional nature. 
 
 The adaptedness of Christianity to human nature is, of 
 course, what it is because Christianity itself is what it is. 
 Christianity satisfies the wants of human nature through the 
 character of its own contents. Its satisfaction of them is a 
 proof of the truth and excellence of its contents. 
 
 Owing to the great interest recently taken in the study 
 of the History of Religions, the argument to which I am re- 
 ferring has been greatly confirmed and enriched, and has 
 probably increased in popularity more than any other of the 
 Christian proofs. Hence, following the spirit of the times, 
 one well-known German apologist treats it as the one all- 
 comprehensive argument, and some of the Ritschlians make 
 the History of Eeligions a department of Christian Apologetics, 
 yet exclude from the latter the greater part of what properly 
 belongs to it. All such narrowness is evil. It necessarily 
 leads to a most inadequate and unjust estimate of the amount 
 and weight of the real evidence. 
 
 No Christian Apologetics which would meet the wants of 
 the age should neglect what is called the Experimental Argu- 
 ment — one which, although often so far dealt with, has never 
 been treated with the care which it deserves. 
 
332 PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 
 
 There is no truth more requiring to be borne in mind by 
 the Christian Apologist than that Christianity is an essentially 
 practical thing, and that, consequently, like every such thing, 
 a real and sure knowledge of it can only be practically, experi- 
 mentally, acquired. No amount of proof, no accumulation of 
 evidence, on behalf of Christianity can be trusted to produce 
 an assured Christian faith, an entire, an active Christian certi- 
 tude, in those who do not comply with its requirements as a 
 moral and spiritual life — who do not so yield themselves to 
 its influences as to experience its practical power. 
 
 This does not imply that Christian experience is a substitute 
 for other evidence, or warrant us to dispense with other evi- 
 dence. We cannot have Christian experience except by appro- 
 priation of Christian truth, and, if there be Christian truth to 
 appropriate, that truth must have evidences by which it may 
 be recognised and by which experience is enlightened and 
 sustained. Yet none the less is the true path to an assured 
 certainty of Christian truth the practical appropriation of it 
 through the will, the practical realisation of it in the life. So 
 experience testifies. And it only confirms the words of the 
 Master, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me. 
 If any man ivill do His luill, he shall knoiv of the doctrine, 
 whether it he of God, or whether I speak of Myself" 
 
 Just a word in conclusion. Christian Apologetics has its 
 limits, and the Christian apologist ought to realise that it has 
 them. He should not be over-confident of its powers. Mere 
 apologetics, even of the highest order, will not suffice to con- 
 vince of the truth of Christianity those who have no germs of 
 natural piety within them, no spiritual susceptibility, no sense 
 of the Divine ; those who only hate what the Gospel demands, 
 and only love what it condemns. The very best exposition and 
 most earnest enforcement of Christian evidences will never of 
 themselves convert a human soul or produce in it full Christian 
 certitude. Mere light, however pure and bright, will not en- 
 lighten where there is no appropriate organ of vision. Only 
 those who have bodily eyes can see bodily things, and only 
 those who have spiritual eyesight can discern spiritual things. 
 
 As for full Christian certitude, it is far too great a reward 
 
PRESENT-DAY CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. 333 
 
 to be given to any mere intellectual assent or exertion. There 
 is an absolute and infallible certainty which is not attainable by 
 any conditioned and fallible creature. Such certainty, how- 
 ever, is not required in religion any more than in science, 
 philosophy, or ordinary life. The vast amount of manifold and 
 cumulative evidence which can be adduced for Christianity 
 is amply sufficient to exclude any practical chance of error, 
 although not all possibility of doubt or denial. Those who 
 urge us to put all probable evidence aside, and fall back ex- 
 clusively instead on intuition, or faith, or feeling, which cannot 
 themselves at the utmost yield more than probable evidence, as 
 sources of absolute certitude, ask us to abandon a practically 
 strong and sure foundation for one which is comparatively weak 
 and suspicious. And those who go further, and ask us to put 
 our trust in the speculative dialectics or metaphysical hypo- 
 theses of some individual philosopher, as, for instance, of Hegel 
 or Green, will generally be found to recommend us to build on 
 what is merely a fog-bank — a process which will assuredly not 
 lead us to a certainty that cannot be subverted or shaken. 
 
 Complete religious certitude is reserved for those who shut 
 their eyes against no kind of good evidence to spiritual truth ; 
 who humbly and honestly assent to the truth as it is in Christ in 
 whatever ways it comes to them ; and who, further, not merely 
 assent to it, but also faithfully strive to act up to its demands 
 day by day, and in all spheres of their life and duty. " Then 
 shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord." Then — if 
 we fulfil that condition — we shall get the perfect certitude 
 we seek. Until then we have no right to expect it, nor is it 
 desirable that we should get it. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
 
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