' '5,4.06 ^ 
 
 PY 5133 .R6 1883 ^ 
 Robertson, Frederick 
 \illiam, 1816-1853 
 "The human race" and otner 
 sermons 
 
/ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/thehumanraceotheOOrobe 
 
"THE HUMAN RACE," 
 
 AND OTHER SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED AT CHELTENHAM, OXFORD, 
 AND BRIGHTON. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 REV. FREDERICK W.'^ROBERTSON, M.A., 
 
 INCUMBENT OF TRINITY CHAPEL, 
 BRIGHTON. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1883. 
 
( The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved) 
 
,ftEC. DEC laad 
 THSOLOGIG&L 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 There is no need to enumerate the hindrances of various 
 kinds which have combined to defer the appearance of this 
 fifth volume of my father's sermons. But it seems right to 
 explain that chief among the causes contributing to the 
 delay have been the prolonged illness and eventual death of 
 the editor of the four series, already published, a gentleman 
 who possessed exceptional qualifications for the task en- 
 trusted to him, and who executed it with rare discrimination 
 and ability, and with a thoroughness of which the public 
 can in large measure judge for themselves. 
 
 The great majority of the sermons composing the present 
 volume are taken from the outline or skeleton draft which 
 my father usually prepared before delivery, but of which a 
 few specimens only have been preserved. It will be seen 
 by the preface to the fourth series that it was originally 
 intended to issue them as " Pulpit Notes" ; but in arranging 
 them for the press I became convinced that if the volume 
 were to be rendered " sufficiently complete for purposes of 
 home reading," it would be impossible to print the notes in 
 all cases exactly as they stood. On the other hand it was 
 evident that additions of any kind would deprive the notes 
 
vi 
 
 Preface, 
 
 of much of their suggestiveness and concentrated force ; and 
 the question thus lay between the danger of limiting the 
 practical usefulness of the sermons themselves and that of 
 lowering the literary reputation of their author. On reflec- 
 tion, I decided to encounter the latter risk — but at the 
 same time to guard against it as far as possible by this 
 explanation of the manner in which the notes have been 
 treated. 
 
 While adhering, therefore, with scrupulous fidelity to 
 the text — no syllable of which has been either altered or 
 omitted — I have, in certain instances, partly filled up the 
 skeleton, by supplying such unimportant words as seemed 
 requisite to complete the sentence, or render the sense at 
 once intelligible to the hearer. If the sermon should be read 
 aloud. It is hardly necessary to add that in no single in- 
 stance has a whole sentence been interpolated. 
 
 For nine of the remaining sermons now published I am 
 indebted to the generous courtesy of a lady who has placed 
 at my disposal several shorthand reports taken by herself in 
 the years 1850 and 1851. By a comparison with the corre- 
 sponding autograph notes in my possession, I have been in 
 many cases able to satisfy myself that these reports represent 
 with literal accuracy the sermons as actually delivered, and 
 they are, therefore, printed verbatim. But it must, of course, 
 be borne in mind that links in the chain of argument may 
 have been dropped here and there by the reporter ; and to 
 this cause, as well as to the absence of revision by my father 
 himself, must be attributed any deficiencies in style and any 
 want of symmetry which may occasionally be discernible. 
 
Preface. 
 
 vii 
 
 It will be observed that, in addition to five sermons 
 preached at Oxford in 1847, this series contains two which 
 were delivered by my father, before leaving Cheltenham, in 
 1846. They are inserted, not only for their intrinsic merit, 
 but also as illustrating his earlier style, and as throwing light 
 upon the steps of progress by which he attained that mastery 
 of thought and expression which afterwards characterised all 
 he spoke. 
 
 As further bearing upon this point, it has been considered 
 best to print the sermons in chronological order. They will 
 be found, I venture to think, scarcely less bright with 
 " gleams of spiritual truth " — a lustre undimmed by the lapse 
 of years — than those already published. And, in reading 
 them, it seems to me that my father's own words apply with 
 especial strength, as showing the way in which he would 
 himself have wished them to be judged : " Religion is the 
 banquet of the spirit, not the feast of the mind ; and there- 
 fore danger is ever present when men begin to listen to the 
 sermon as a manifestation of intellectual force, and not for 
 its spiritual power." 
 
 I cannot conclude this preface without recording my 
 deep sense of obligation for the assistance in selecting and 
 preparing the following sermons which has been afforded me 
 by a friend, the Rev. J. N. Hoare, to whose admirable judg- 
 ment and literary skill is largely owing the complete form 
 in which I am enabled to present them to the public. 
 
 CHARLES BOYD ROBERTSON. 
 
 British Legation, Stuttgart : 
 September, 1880. 
 
Gj 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 THE HUMAN RACE TYPIFIED BY THE 
 MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 Cheltenham, April 26, 1846. 
 
 Isaiah liii. 3. — "A Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief : and 
 we hid as it were our faces from him. " Page i 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 V 
 
 DEGREES IN GLORY. 
 
 Cheltenham, May, 1846. 
 
 Matthew xx. 23. — " And Jesus saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed 
 of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with : 
 but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but 
 it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my 
 Father." 21 
 
 ^ SERMON III. 
 
 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 
 
 Oxford, June iS, 1847. 
 
 Luke xviii. 9. — " And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted 
 in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." . . 36 
 
X 
 
 Contents. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 n THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE AND DESTINY 
 HEREAFTER. 
 
 Oxford, June 20, 1847. ' 
 
 I John iii. 2, 3. — " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it d oil 
 not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he si lal 
 appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is. h /lo 
 every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he 
 is pure. " Page 43 
 
 SERMON V. ,i 
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION— CHARACTER OF 
 
 MOSES. i 
 
 Oxford, June 27, 1847. 
 
 Acts vii. 20-22. — " In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding 
 fair, and nourished up in his father's house three months : And when 
 he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him 
 for her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the 
 Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. " . . . .51 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 ^ ''^ THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 Oxford, July ii, 1847. 
 
 Luke xvii. 20, 21. — " And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, 
 when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said. 
 The kingdom of God cometh not with observation : Neither shall 
 they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom of God 
 is within you. " 62 
 
 SERMON VII. I 
 
 r 
 
 ' THE SECRET GROWTH OF THE SEED. 
 
 Oxford, July 15, 1847. 
 
 Mark iv. 26. — " And he said. So is the kingdom of God, as if a man 
 should cast seed into the ground." 71 
 
Contents. 
 
 xi 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 THE LAW OUR SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Brighton, September 19, 1847. 
 
 jALATIANS iii. 24, 25. — " Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to 
 bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that 
 faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." . Page 77 
 
 SERMON IX. t 
 
 1 
 
 ELIJAH ON MOUNT CARMEL. 
 
 Brighton, September 25, 1847. 
 
 Kings xviii. 21. — "And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, 
 How long halt ye between two opinions ? If the Lord be God, follow 
 him : but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him 
 not a word." 87 
 
 0 SERMON X. 
 
 GROWTH INTO CHRIST IN LOVE AND TRUTH. 
 
 Brighton, October 3, 1847. 
 
 Ephesians iv. 15. — " But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into 
 him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." .... 94 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 W 
 
 (I.) SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 
 
 Brighton, October 10, 1847. 
 
 OHN iv. 21-24. — *' Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour 
 cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, 
 worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what : we know what 
 we worship : for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, 
 and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in 
 spirit and in truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 
 God is a Spirit : and they that worship him must worship him in 
 spirit and in truth." loi 
 
xii 
 
 Contents. 
 
 SERMON XII. I 
 TEARS OF JESUS. '] 
 
 Brighton, March 5, 1848. 
 John xi. 35. — "Jesus wept." Page 108. 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 u ^ (2.) SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 
 
 Brighton, April 7, 1850. 
 
 John iv. 23, 24. — "But the hourcometh, and now is, when the true 
 worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth : for the 
 Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit : and they that 
 worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. " . . .115 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 
 THE CONVICTION OF SIN IN THE MIND OF 
 PETER. 
 
 Brighton, November 10, 1850. 
 
 Luke v. 8. — " When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees 
 saying, Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." . .125 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 GUILT OF JUDGING.— CONTEMPTUOUSNESS. 
 
 Brighton, November 24, 1850. j 
 
 Romans xiv. 10. — "But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why 
 dost thou set at nought thy brother ? for we shall all stand before the 
 judgment-seat of Christ." 134 
 
 SERMON XVL 
 ^ THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 
 
 Brighton, December 15, 1850. 
 
 Matthew xi. 9, 10. — " But whatwent ye out for to see? A prophet ? 
 Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of 
 
Contents. 
 
 xiii 
 
 whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, 
 which shall prepare thy way before thee." Page 143 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 THE THREE CROSSES ON CALVARY. 
 
 Brighton, December 22, 1850. 
 
 Luke xxiii. 33. — " And when they were come to the place, which is 
 called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on 
 the right hand, and the other on the left." 152 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 THE STATE OF NATURE AND THE STATE 
 OF GRACE. 
 
 Brighton, January 26, 1851. 
 
 Ephesians ii. 3, 4, 5. — "Among whom also we all had our conversa- 
 tion in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the 
 flesh and of the mind ; and were by nature the children of wrath, 
 even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love 
 wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath 
 quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved). " . . 163 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 
 
 Brighton, February 23, 1851. 
 
 Revelation ii. 1-4. — " Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus 
 write : These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right 
 hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks ; I 
 know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou 
 canst not bear them which are evil : and thou hast tried them which 
 say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars : and 
 hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, 
 and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, 
 because thou hast left thy first love." 172 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 1^ 
 
 SERMON XX. 
 (I.) WISDOM JUSTIFIED OF HER CHILDREN. 
 
 Brighton, March 9, 1851. 
 
 Matthew xi. 19.—" Wisdom is justified of her children," Page 182 
 
 "^l" SERMON XXI. 
 
 (2.) WISDOM JUSTIFIED OF HER CHILDREN. 
 
 Brighton, March i6, 1851. 
 
 Luke v. 33. — "And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John 
 fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the 
 Pharisees : but thine eat and drink ? " 190 
 
 ^ SERMON XXII. 
 
 THE WISDOM OF CHRIST, AND THE WISDOM 
 OF SOLOMON. 
 
 Brighton, March 23, 1851. 
 
 Luke xi. 31. — " The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment 
 with the men of this generation, and condemn them : for she came 
 from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; 
 and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here." 199 
 
 SERMON XXIIL 
 
 THE LAW OF SELF-SACRIFICE EXEMPLIFIED 
 IN THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Brighton, August 3, 1851. 
 
 John xii. 23-28. — "And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is 
 come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say 
 
Contents. 
 
 XV 
 
 unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth 
 alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his 
 life shall lose it ; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep 
 it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me ; and 
 where I am, there shall also my servant be : if any man serve me, 
 him will my Father honour. Now is my soul troubled ; and what 
 shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour : but for this cause came 
 I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name." .... Page 209 
 
 SERMON XXIV. 
 \*h PURE RELIGION. 
 
 Brighton, November 2, 1851. 
 
 James i. 27. — " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father 
 is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to 
 keep himself unspotted from the world." 217 
 
 V'^ SERMON XXV. 
 
 (I.) THE PROGRESS OF REVELATION. 
 
 Brighton, November 30, 1851. 
 
 I Peter i. 10-13. — "O^ which salvation the prophets have enquired 
 and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come 
 unto you : searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ 
 which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the 
 sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom 
 it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did 
 minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that 
 have preached the Gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down 
 from heaven ; which things the angels desire to look into. Where- 
 fore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for 
 the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus 
 
 Christ," 228 
 
 a 
 
xvi 
 
 Contents, 
 
 SERiMON XXVI. 
 (2.) THE PROGRESS OF REVELATION. 
 
 Brighton, December 7, 1851. 
 
 Galatians iii. 24. — " Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring 
 us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." . . Page 239 
 
 SERMON XXVII. 
 
 (i.) CHARACTER AND MISSION OF THE BAPTIST. 
 
 Brighton, December 24, 1848, and December 14, 1851. 
 
 John i. 22, 23. — "Then said they unto him, Who art thou ? that we 
 may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thy- 
 self? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make 
 straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. " . . 252 
 
 I SERMON XXVIIL 
 
 (2.) CHARACTER AND MISSION OF THE BAPTIST. 
 
 Brighton, December 21, 1851. 
 
 Luke iii. 3, 4. — "And he came into all the country about Jordan, 
 preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins : as it 
 is written in the Jiook of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, 
 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the 
 Lord, make his paths straight. " 267 
 
 SERMON XXIX. 
 CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 Brighton, March 28, 1852. 
 
 Matthew xviii. 32, 33. — " Then his lord, after that he had called 
 him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that 
 debt, because thou desiredst me : Shouldest not thou also have had 
 compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on 
 thee?" 27S 
 
Co7itents. xvii 
 
 •!0 
 
 SERMON XXX. 
 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Brighton, Christmas Day, 1852. ■* 
 
 John i. 9. — "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that 
 Cometh into the world." Page 287 
 
 SERMON XXXI. 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 Brighton (date unknown). 
 
 Matthew xv. 3-9. — "But he answered and said unto them, Why do 
 ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition ? For 
 God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother : and, he 
 that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, 
 Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by what- 
 soever thou mightest be profited by me, and honour not his father or 
 his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment 
 of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did 
 Esaias prophesy of you, saying. This people draweth nigh unto me 
 with their mouth, and honourcth me with their lips ; but their heart 
 is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doc- 
 trines the commandments of men. " 297 
 
 SERMON XXXII. 
 
 ! ^ ^ THE PEACE OF GOD. 
 
 Brighton (date unknown). 
 
 Isaiah Ivii. 19, 20. — '•' I create the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to 
 him that is far off, md to him that is near, sailh the Lord ; and I will 
 heal him. But th>3 wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot 
 rest, whose waters; cast up mire and dirt." 305 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
PRIKGETOIT 
 ,hhC. DEC 1883 
 
 mm 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE HUMAN RACE TYPIFIED BY THE 
 MAN OF SORROWS. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH MS.) 
 
 Preached forthe Hospital. Christ Church, CMtenham, April 26, 1846. 
 
 " A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief : and we hid, as it were, 
 our faces from him." — Isaiah liii. 3. 
 
 THERE are two aspects in which we may consider the 
 Redeemer of the world. We may think of Him as the 
 Christ, or we may think of Him as the Son of Man. When 
 we think of Him as the Christ, He stands before us as God 
 claiming our adoration. When we think of Him in that charac- 
 ter in which He so loved to describe Himself, as the Son of 
 Man, He stands before us as a type or specimen of the whole 
 human race. 
 
 There is something exceedingly emphatic in that expres- 
 sion, Son of Man; it is a most wide and extensive appellation ; 
 Our Master is not called the Son of Mary; but, as if the blood 
 of the whole human race were in His veins, He calls Himself 
 the Son of Man. There is a universality in the character of 
 Christ which you find in the character of no other man. If 
 you take, for example, the life of Abraham, you have a man 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 The Human Race 
 
 with all the peculiarities of that particular age belonging to him. 
 You have a man moulded into a particular character with par- 
 ticular habits, particular prejudices. Abraham is by no means 
 one to whom the whole human race can lay claim, and say 
 he is our country-man. He was the son of Terah, the offspring 
 of a Syrian stock, the child of that generation. Abraham is 
 full of rigid individual peculiarities. You have a distinct por- 
 trait that represents that one man and no man else. Take 
 again the character of David. It is a life of eminent saint- 
 liness, but you cannot mistake the Jew. There is Jewish 
 exclusiveness, a Jewish way of looking at the world, Jewish 
 faults, Jewish narrowness. He is not the son of man, but 
 the child of Israel. Take once more the character of 
 Paul, a man, if ever there was one, emancipated from exclu- 
 sive feelings, generous, universal, catholic in his character. 
 And yet it is not possible to take the portrait of the apostle 
 Paul, and mistake for one moment to what age and nation 
 he belonged. You could not for an instant say the man 
 was born a Grecian ; you could not take his character and 
 say it is a character of the nineteenth century. You have 
 unmistakably the disciple of Gamaliel, the man of peculiar 
 education, the man of peculiar temperament ; not the son of 
 man, but the son of a certain father and a certain mother, 
 the disciple of a certain school, with the peculiarities and the 
 phraseology of that school. But when you take the charac- 
 ter of Christ, all this is gone. Translate the words of Christ 
 into M'hat country's language you will. He might have been 
 the offspring of that country. Date them by what century of 
 the world you will, they belong to that century as much as to 
 any other. There is nothing of nationality about Christ. 
 There is nothing of that personal peculiarity which we call 
 idiosyncrasy. There is nothing pecuHar to any particular age 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorrozvs. 
 
 3 
 
 of the world. He was not the x\siatic. He was not the 
 European. He was not the Jew. He was not the type of 
 that century, stamped with its pecuHarities. He was not the 
 mechanic. He was not the aristocrat. But He was the 
 man. He was the child of every age and every nation. 
 His was a life world-wide. His was a heart pulsating with 
 the blood of the human race. He reckoned for His ancestry 
 the collective myriads of mankind. Emphatically, He was 
 the Son of Man. 
 
 The task which the master painters of the middle ages 
 for centuries proposed to themselves as the highest aim of art, 
 was to realise on canvas the conception of the Anointed One 
 of God. It was their grand work to paint a Christ. And 
 what they made their business was not to turn off a portrait, 
 but to embody the highest idea which genius could conceive 
 of glorious humanity. If the Italian painter, or if the 
 Spanish painter produced a form which bore the peculiar 
 national lineaments worn by the humanity in his own climate, 
 so far he had failed. He might have idealised the grandeur 
 of the Italian form, or the grandeur of the Spanish form, 
 but he had not given to men's eyes that grandeur of the 
 human species which belonged to a conception of the Son 
 of Man. He had got a portrait to which a nobly formed 
 individual of one nation might have sat, but an individual 
 of no other. He had got the perfection of the Italian or of 
 the Spanish type, but not the perfection of manhood. Now 
 that which the painter aimed at in the outward form, that 
 Christ was in inward character. He was the type of the 
 whole human race. He was the essence, the sublimation, 
 of humanity. It was a noble endeavour of the apostle Paul 
 to be all things to all men. To the Gentile he became as a 
 Gentile, that he might gain the Gentiles; to the Jew as a Jew. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 The Human Race 
 
 But in all this he was acting a single part for a time. He 
 made it his business while the Jew was with him to try to 
 realise the feelings and enter into the difficulties of a Jew. 
 He laid it upon himself as a Christian duty while he was 
 reasoning with a Gentile to throw himself into the Gentile's 
 position, to try to look at things from his point of view, 
 and even to fancy himself perplexed with his prejudices. But 
 directly he had done with the man he wished to win, he threw 
 himself out of his constrained position, he laid aside his part. 
 He was neither Jew nor Gentile, but he was Paul again, 
 with all Paul's personality, and all Paul's peculiarities. That 
 which Paul was for a time, Christ is for ever. That which 
 Paul was by effort and constraint, Christ is by the very law 
 of His nature. He is all things to all men. He is the 
 country-man t)f the world. He is the Mediator, not between 
 God and a nation, but between God and man. He was the 
 Jew and the Gentile, and the Greek and the Roman, all in 
 one. He can sympathise with every man because he has, as 
 it were, been every man. There is not a natural throb which 
 ever agitated the bosom of humanity which Christ has not felt. 
 The aspirations of loftiest genius and the failure of humblest 
 mediocrity, the bitterness of disappointment and the triumph 
 of success, the privations of the poor man and the feebleness 
 of corporeal agony, Christ knew them all. He came into 
 this world the Son and the Heir of the whole race of man. 
 
 It is for this reason that the passage before us is selected 
 for our peculiar purpose to-day. It is our business to 
 dwell to-day upon some of the sufferings common to the 
 human species. And, therefore, we take up words belong- 
 ing especially to Him who was the type of the human 
 species. They were peculiarly true of Him. But they 
 are in their measure true of every one whom the world can 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorrows. 5 
 
 class as a son of man : " a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief." 
 
 Here are two distinct facts which require consideration. 
 
 I. The lot of humanity in this world. This is the portrait 
 of the species — "a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
 grief." 
 
 II. The treatment which depressed humanity commonly 
 experiences : " we hid, as it were, our faces from him." 
 
 I. The lot of humanity in this world was the position which 
 Jesus occupied on earth. For the most part that lot is one 
 of suffering. But suffering is of two kinds. Pain which we 
 endure in our own persons, Christ was " a man of sorrows : " 
 and pain which we know by familiarity with others' sufferings, 
 Christ was " acquainted with grief" 
 
 I. First of all then we are to consider the personal trials 
 of a son of man upon this earth : " A man of sorrows." 
 
 He that doubts whether we live in a ruined world or not, 
 has to account for this fact, that man's universal heritage is 
 woe. Men of poverty we are not all, men of weak ability 
 we are not all — but the man not of sorrows is yet unborn. It 
 was the result of a universal survey of human life — " Man 
 is born to trouble." Therefore trial fell to the lot of Christ; 
 and simply for this reason, that He was man — a man, there- 
 fore "a man of sorrows." In this time-world those two things 
 shall not be severed. Bodily and mentally, the constitution 
 of a son of man is such that escape is impossible. Look 
 at that surface of the human frame which is exposed to 
 outward injury. There runs beneath it, crossed and re- 
 crossed in windings inconceivable, a network of nerves, every 
 fibre of which may become the home of pain. There is no 
 
6 The Human Race , 
 
 interstice large enough to admit between them, in a space 
 that does not feel, the finest needle's point. Beneath all that 
 there is a marvellous machinery. Man anatomised is like an 
 instrument of music. The combined action of ten hundred 
 thousand strings each moving in its moment and in its place 
 is the melody and the harmony of health; but if one chord 
 vibrate out of tune you have then the discord of the harp, the 
 derangement of disease. Our bodies are strung to suffering. 
 That we suffer is no marvel, that we want the repair of the 
 physician is no wonder; the marvel is this — that a harp of 
 so many strings should keep in tune so long. 
 
 Look next at the mental machinery of a son of man. 
 These incomprehensible hearts of ours, my Christian 
 brethren, have their liability to a derangement infinitely 
 more terrible than bodily disorganisation. The spirit of a 
 man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can 
 ])ear? The inner mind, wrapped up as it seems by impene- 
 trable defences, is yet more exposed to shocks and wounds 
 than the outward skin tissue, and the sensitive network 
 which encompasses that mind is a thousandfold more 
 alive to agony than the nerves that quiver when they are cut. 
 There is such a thing as disappointment in this world. 
 There is such a thing as affection thrown back upon itself. 
 There are such things as slight and injury and insult. 
 There is such a thing as an industrious man finding all his 
 efforts to procure an honest livelihood in vain, and looking 
 upon his pale children with a heart crashed, to feel that 
 there is nothing for them but the poor-house. There is 
 such a thing as a man going down the hill that leads into the 
 sepulchre, and acknowledging as the shadows darken around 
 him that life has been a failure. All this is sorrow; and just 
 because of the constitution with which he is bom. In 
 some form or other this is the portion of the son of man. 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorrows. 
 
 7 
 
 And, brethren, we remark this — the susceptibility of 
 suffering is the lot of the highest manhood. Just in pro- 
 portion as man is exquisitely man, he is alive to endurance. 
 There is a languid relaxed frame of body in which pain is 
 not keenly felt. The more complete the organisation the 
 severer the endurance. Strong and able manhood suffers 
 more the division of the nerve than softened and debilitated 
 frames. So it is with the spirit. The more emphatically 
 you are the son of man with human nature in its perfection 
 in you, the more exquisitely can your feelings bleed. That 
 which a base and a craven spirit smiles at, is torture to the 
 noblest and the best. It was for this reason that Christ was 
 in a peculiar sense the " Man of Sorrows." Things which 
 rough and scornful men would have shaken from them 
 without feeling, went home sharp and deep into His gentle 
 and loving heart. The perfection of His humanity ensured 
 for Him the perfection of endurance, " Behold, and see if 
 there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow." 
 
 There is another reason why a son of man is a " man 
 of sorrow — because labour is his heritage. Our Master 
 came into this world to do a work. In sore toil, in weari- 
 ness, in an unresting perseverance, which wore life away 
 and made Him seem fifty years of age when He was but 
 thirty, that work had to be accomplished. It was for ever 
 pressing upon our Redeemer's spirit that He was here to 
 labour. At an age when the boy has scarcely awakened to 
 the reality of life, when the world is still a playground, at 
 twelve years old, this was Christ's feeling when they found 
 Him at work, " Wist ye not I must be about my 
 Father's business ? " Later on in life we have Him putting 
 out the same perpetual conviction in words more pressing as 
 His life was waning to its close, " I must work the work of 
 Him that sent me." Lastly, His career was closed with this 
 
8 
 
 The Human Race 
 
 profession, " I have finished tiie work which Thou gavest me 
 to do." In all this there is one idea — work — unresting work; 
 and for the Son of Man no repose until the grave. He sub- 
 mitted Himself to the universal law in all its rigour, "In the 
 sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." His was the agony 
 of bloody sweat which all men have agreed to call Divine — 
 sweat of brow, sweat of brain, and sweat of heart, through 
 life — that was the Redeemer's sorrow of labour. 
 
 Now in this, my Christian brethren, Christ was a type of 
 humanity. Labour is the destiny which binds us with the 
 iron chain of a law. There are just a few, a luxurious pam- 
 pered few, who have emancipated themselves from this law, 
 and given up Hfe to idleness ; and so, in escaping real 
 distresses, they have found themselves to their astonishment 
 the victims of distresses no less miserable — the fanciful, 
 imaginary, nervous wretchedness of too abundant blessings. 
 But when we have put out of sight these few exceptions, the 
 mass of mankind are forced to drink their cup. Let us not 
 overstate this, there is a blessing in labour, gladly we 
 acknowledge that. There is no health either for mind or 
 body without it. Nothing good was ever done without toil. 
 No book worth the reading was ever written without it. 
 No work that was meant to last but cost the happy man 
 who did it toil. But it is true for all that labour is sorrow. 
 Labour is enjoyment when you have just so much of it as is 
 needful for exercise and no more. Labour is well when you 
 are not forced beyond your strength, and can get relaxation 
 when the strength of frame gives way. 
 
 But it is seldom that labour of that kind falls to the lot 
 of the son of man. It is all well for those of us who are in 
 easy Hfe to speak of the blessing of having something to do ; 
 but, my beloved brethren, it is a very different tale when we 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorrozus. 9 
 
 have something, as the labouring man has, that we must do. 
 To him labour is sorrow all through. It is labour like his 
 Master's from very childhood. The grim earnest work of 
 life-labour begins in the cottage at an age when the rich 
 man's child has not thrown aside his toys. It is sorrow to 
 be looking for employment ; it is sorrow, often and often 
 it is sorrow, to be doing it, sick or well, languid or vigorously 
 fresh; when the head is aching and the heart is sick, still the 
 labouring man must be up and doing. There will be 
 famished lips and tearful eyes next week round an empty 
 grate if he allows himself the luxury of rest. , It is all this 
 which makes the son of man, because born to labour, 
 therefore a " man of sorrows." 
 
 There is one more ingredient in the cup which Christ 
 drank which made Him a " man of sorrows." He was bom 
 poor. He knew what it was to want those solaces of life 
 which alleviate pain. " Foxes have holes, and the birds of the 
 air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his 
 head." And now, brethren, it is part of our special business 
 to-day to recollect what sorrow and sickness are when they 
 come into the cottage of the poor. There are, it may be, in 
 this congregation several who have scarcely had it forced 
 upon their contemplation. Living in sufficiency themselves, 
 they have not suspected how others of the family of man 
 struggle on. Brethren, let us contrast these things. When 
 illness makes its appearance in the dwellings of the upper 
 classes there is a rich abundance of resources to mitigate the 
 suffering. There is all the repose which can be secured by 
 subdued light, and curtained windows, and muffled knockers, 
 and noiseless steps. There is a smoothed pillow, there is a 
 warm room, there are contrivances to suit and stimulate the 
 sickly palate ; the invalid reigns a kind of monarch in his 
 
10 
 
 The Hnman Race 
 
 chamber, every arrangement of the house giving way to the 
 arrangements and the hours of his sick room. Pass on from 
 the comfortable mansion to knock at the low door in the 
 next street. Sickness there exhibits itself in very different 
 attire. Have we ever looked at the poor man's cottage, and 
 pictured to ourselves how that almost den, small and com- 
 fortless as it is, can become the sick room of the invalid ? 
 There is no securing repose, for all the domestic work of the 
 family must be done within a few feet of the bed. The 
 noise of footsteps entering and retiring goes on all day long, 
 scarcely divided by a thin partition from the sick man's ear. 
 We guard our delicate consumptive ones fearfully and 
 affectionately so that not a breath of heaven's air shall play 
 too roughly on the frame. Look at consumption in the" 
 cottage. Through the perpetually opening door, and 
 through the broken window, and through the unguarded 
 chimney the death-draughts pour down hour by hour upon 
 the sufferer, till the fell and painful malady has done its work, 
 and the rough wretched coffin lies prematurely on the bed. 
 The damp strikes through the brick or the mud floor, till 
 rheumatism has stiffened the joints into contracted useless- 
 ness for life. Water from the pond is often all they have to 
 wet the lips of the dying. There is not always one free from 
 work to perpetually wet those hot lips. There is no fire in 
 the bedchamber. Fuel costs too much, therefore to produce 
 an artificial heat in the depth of winter, every aperture must 
 be closed and pasted up, and so in the stifling unwholesome 
 warmth of an overheated cell which takes away the very 
 breath on entering, human life is gasped away. It is in all 
 this that the poor man lives. It is in all this that the inva- 
 lid must be nursed. Let but the sentimentalist go to the 
 sick bed of poverty where there is scarcely bread in the 
 
Typified by tJic Man of Sorrows. 1 1 
 
 closet for a meal, and no surplus money in the drawer to pay 
 the physician's fees, and he will know what awful signifi- 
 cance may be crowded into that one sentence — a Man of 
 Sorrows. 
 
 2. There was another feature in the lot of the Son of Man 
 on earth, that He was familiar with the griefs of others: " He 
 was acquainted with grief." Not merely by personally bearing 
 it, but by continually coming in contact with it. 
 
 Now this acquaintance of Christ with grief was of two 
 kinds. He knew it by passive, and he knew it by active 
 familiarity. When Jesus relieved distress His acquaintance 
 with it was of the active kind. When distress was simply 
 in His presence, obtruding itself face to face, then His 
 acquaintance with it was only passive. The Son of Man 
 knew sadness passively by sympathy ; He knew it actively 
 by benevolence. Concerning both which parts of our 
 human life we have a few remarks to make. 
 
 Christ's first acquaintance with sorrow was by sympathy. 
 To sympathise is simply this, to feel with those that suffer. 
 It is the instinct of a kindly heart. It is the obedience to 
 that law of Christian duty which bids us " rejoice with them 
 that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." It is the 
 rising, the almost spontaneous rising, of the emotion of pity 
 in the bosom. You do not bid the feeling come. It comes. 
 That is passive knowledge of misery. When we have 
 thrilled over the anguish that we see, there is a sense in 
 which we are acquainted with grief. 
 
 And in this knowledge, brethren, our Redeemer's heart 
 was rich. We will take but two cases which belong to our 
 present purpose, the case of poverty and the case of 
 corporeal maladies. It was a most distinguishing feature of 
 the life of Jesus, the compassion which He felt for the 
 
12 
 
 The Human Race 
 
 degraded, neglected, unbefriended poor. It was not, except 
 by invitation, in the rich man's house that Christ was found ; 
 it was not for his ears that His instructions were framed. 
 It was His passion to teach those who were forgotten by 
 the national instructors. There was a burning, almost 
 passionate, indignation in His language, whenever it came 
 in His way to rebuke their oppressors, who shut up know- 
 ledge from them, and would have kept them uneducated, 
 who overreached them, (in Bible phraseology " devouring 
 widows' houses,") who lived in purple and fine hnen, while 
 Lazarus lay forgotten at their very threshold. Political 
 economy has spoken its fine lessons of philanthropic 
 humanity. Demagogues have courted the popular voice 
 by loud harangues against what they call the oppression of 
 the rich. Sentiment has taken poverty under its patronage, 
 and adorned the cottage in touching stories with imaginary 
 graces and purities that are never found there. But no man 
 ever stood up the poor man's champion but Christ, and 
 those who like Christ have lived with the poor and for 
 them. Read the ninth chapter of S. Matthew. It is filled 
 with tales of human suffering and human ignorance. At 
 last there comes before the Redeemer a vast crowd of these 
 poor and ignorant ones. When He saw the multitude, " He 
 was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, 
 and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." 
 That was not the glow of a demagogue's indignation against 
 the rich venting itself in cheap words. It was not the sickly 
 sigh of a novel reader repining that this world is full of woe. 
 It was the loving tenderness of the Son of Man, identifying 
 Himself with the poor, and in deep emotion becoming 
 acquainted with their sorrows. 
 
 Once more, our Lord sympathised with bodily anguish. 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorrows. 
 
 13 
 
 He was walking almost aU His life through the wards of a 
 vast hospital. The hospital was the world ; the sick, the 
 dying, and the mad were lying on their beds, on both sides of 
 Him. At evening "they brought unto Him many that were 
 sick ; " and, it is written again and again, " He was moved 
 with compassion." 
 
 This, brethren, is an acquaintance with grief which most 
 of us have not. Men are not acquainted with the pain 
 which this world contains because it is not brought to them, 
 and they do not go to look for it. There is a drapery of 
 life which curtains away from us the loathsome parts of 
 existence. You pass down the gay and glittering streets 
 where almost all the forms which present themselves are 
 forms of busy, strong, active humanity. Out of doors in the 
 pubhc thoroughfares you see the holiday of life. There is 
 squalid poverty in the bye-lanes and the alleys. There is 
 sickness in the upper chambers. But you do not see that. 
 It is not brought out as it was before Christ, bed after bed 
 lining the pavement as you pass on. You cannot count 
 the houses as you go along, and say this has its one dead, 
 and this has its two diseased. But the physician and the 
 minister can. They can tell you what there is behind the 
 scenes. They can say that within a few yards of where you 
 stand there is one smarting under the torture of an ampu- 
 tated limb, and another stricken by the death-call of in- 
 cipient decline, and further on another feeding with his 
 heart's best blood a disease which is eating life away, and 
 for which there is no chance of ease except in the grave. We 
 see it not. It is shut decently out of sight. The sick man 
 does not sadden the street to-day in which he was walking 
 blithely yesterday. All this is withdrawn from public scrutiny. 
 To become vividly aware of it, is to feel the emotion of sym- 
 
14 
 
 Tlic Human Race 
 
 pathy. To have it perpetually and familiarly before the mind 
 is to be acquainted with grief, but acquainted only passively. 
 
 In Christ's acquaintance there was something infinitely 
 more. His love did not end with a passing sigh. It did not 
 die with a keen emotion. His knowledge of human agony 
 went deeper by the active benevolence of relieving it. When 
 He was troubled by the tears of Martha and of Mary He 
 felt the sensation of sympathy ; but when He went with 
 them to the revolting grave, and gave back the dead man 
 to their embrace, it was another kind of knowledge altogether 
 which He possessed. It was the acquaintance got by active 
 benevolence. This was the reason for which Christ ac- 
 quainted Himself with grief, not to nurse His ovvn emotions 
 but to relieve it. He was perpetually in the presence of the 
 miserable. Why? For this purpose, "The blind receive 
 their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and 
 the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the 
 gospel preached unto them." And here, brethren, we make a 
 most important practical distinction. There is something 
 dangerous in benevolence which is only emotional ; there 
 is something ennobling, and something godlike in active 
 kindness. This is the law of our nature, from which there is 
 no escaping : impressions which are made upon us in the 
 way of feeling get weaker and weaker the oftener they are 
 repeated, but the habits of love which you get by being 
 useful and active in doing others good get stronger and 
 stronger the oftener you practise them. We read, it may be, a 
 touching passage in our favourite author. The first time it 
 thrills us. The second time it moves us less. The tenth 
 time all emotion is gone, except that of mere admiration. 
 The first death-bed you see haunts your recollection all night. 
 See a hundred, and the startling power is gone. You re- 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorrows. 15 
 
 proach yourself. You thiuk your heart is harder than it 
 was. Marvel not ! There is no preventing it. That ac- 
 quaintance with sorrow which is only passive loses its 
 sharpness every time you see it. And if a man wanted to 
 have a th'oroughly callous and hardened heart, we can tell 
 him of no way so sure as this : Let him become familiar 
 with the distresses of his fellow men, and do nothing to 
 relieve them ; let him read of pauper misery, and content 
 
 I himself with theorising about the improvidence of the poor ; 
 let him listen to appeals from the pulpit which attempt to 
 move his charity, and pass the plate without a sacritice — we 
 will promise him his sensibilities .<^.hall soon be placed 
 
 , beyond the power of wounding ; he shall have a heart as 
 cold and dead as if he had been born without human 
 sympathies. 
 
 Let us put this before us, brethren, in an illustration 
 connected with to-day's subject. There are two epochs 
 in the career of medical life. There is a period in the 
 surgeon's existence when he occupies the position of a 
 student, and belongs to a class of men proverbially reck- 
 less. And there is another period in his life when he 
 belongs to a class which all experience forces us to place 
 among the most devoted, the most tender, the most sym- 
 pathetic of his species. How comes it that the young 
 experimentalist is so marvellously transformed into the 
 benevolent physician ? The secret lies in this. In the out- 
 set of the profession a man has to look as a bystander on 
 suffering. The recoil and the faintness of human sensitive- 
 ness pass off He becomes familiar with human anguish. 
 He looks upon the contortions of agony with tiie cold eye 
 of a theorist. The human frame into which the sharj) knife 
 V is pnssing is nothing to him but the material for a lecture. 
 
i6 
 
 77^1? Human Race 
 
 Emotion has dulled itself by repetition. This is the passive 
 acquaintance with sorrow. It would be a miracle indeed if 
 all this did not blunt sensibility. For if by God's wise law it 
 did not blunt it, and if the emotion remained as keen as ever, 
 how could the human heart bear perpetual laceration ? 
 That is the first stage. But as medical life goes on it 
 becomes a duty not to look on but to relieve. And then he 
 begins to feel the blessedness of benevolence, and once 
 more his heart expands when he sets about doing good. 
 And year by year the habit deepens : the shudder of in- 
 experience, and the mere emotional useless sickening of the 
 heart, which comes from witnessing an operation — all that is 
 gone. It was worth nothing after all ; and in its place there has 
 come something nobler, something that can be made use of 
 in this work-day world, something even in its way Christ- 
 like — that habit of prompt love which will enable a man to 
 put up with much that is disgusting, and much that would 
 shock the false delicacy of mere feeling, in order to do good. 
 
 Brethren, all this is practical. If we would acquaint our- 
 selves with sorrow to any purpose we must relieve it 
 Christian love is an active, hardy thing. Let a Christian 
 famiUarise himself with the trials of the poor. Let him hear 
 their tales of distress. Let him see them in their malady. 
 But unless he wishes to ruin his own heart, let him do as the 
 Samaritan did, bind up the wounds, and not pass by on the 
 other side. 
 
 II. We say but two things respecting the treatment 
 which depressed humanity meets with in this world: "We 
 hid, as it were, our faces from him." It is the common lot of 
 the sad to be forgotten by the light-hearted. 
 
 I. We hide our faces from " the man of sorrows" when 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorrows. 17 
 
 we wish to make this world a paradise of rest, when we ne- 
 glect the duty of knowing and acquainting ourselves with the 
 burdens which are borne by men, and begin to plan for this 
 world as if it were a place for happiness and repose. There 
 is no rest here : woe to the man who attempts to make it a 
 place of rest. Oh ! there is a false view of things which we 
 get when we try to shut out the thought of suffering. Think 
 of the young man and the young woman who make gaiety 
 their home day after day and night after night, and think of 
 Christ with the sick and the maimed around Him ; think of 
 one who surrounds himself with the entertainment of this 
 world, and think of one whose day is spent in passing from 
 one sick chamber to another. Observe the infinite difference 
 in the views which they respectively form of life : one sees 
 it all bright, the other sees it (not dark only and not bright 
 only) bright and dark together. Shut out suffering, and you 
 see only one side of this strange and fearful thing, the life of 
 man. Brightness, and happiness, and rest — that is not life. 
 It is only one side of life : Christ saw both sides. He could 
 be glad, He could rejoice with them that rejoice. He could 
 bid men be merry at the marriage. He could take His part 
 naturally in convivial conversation ; and yet he has entered 
 little into the depths of our Master's character who does not 
 know that the settled tone of His disposition was a peculiar 
 and subdued sadness. Take the two brightest moments of 
 His career. When glory encircled Him on the mountain where 
 His form was clothed in the radiance of a supernal cloud, 
 what was His conversation with Moses and Elias — they 
 spake to Him of His decease. When a multitude escorted 
 Him triumphantly into Jerusalem — in the very midst of 
 all that merriment His tears were flowing for Jerusalem. 
 Not the splendour of a transfiguration, and not the excite- 
 
I8 
 
 The Human Race 
 
 ment of a procession could dazzle the view which the Son 
 of Man had formed of life. Life was too earnest for deceiv- 
 ing Himself ; He knew that the son of man is " a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief" He had been behind 
 the gaudy scenes. He stood in the very midst of a wretched 
 and ruined world, and when death and retribution were so 
 near, what had He to do with a gleam of momentary sun- 
 shine? That gave the calm depth to the character of 
 Christ ; He had got the true view of life by acquainting 
 Himself with grief. Life is not for rest, but for seeking out 
 misery. 
 
 And now, brethren, would we counteract the false glare 
 and glitter of life ? Would we escape that selfish hardness 
 which the heart gets from not being personally exposed 
 to want? Would we be calm and wise and loving, not 
 depressed by misery, and not over-elated by gladness ? 
 Acquaint yourselves \\'ith sorrow, know something of the way 
 in which the poor man lives. Association with the poor is 
 a marvellous corrective of the evils of easy circumstances. 
 Real sorrows make us ashamed of imaginary ones, they force 
 us out of ourselves, they make us feel that there is an 
 infinite voice in the suffering of which the world is full, 
 calling out Shame upon the way in which the rich man 
 surrounds himself with indulgences. Brethren, but how 
 much know ye ? how much reck ye of the suffering which 
 is around you? In the brightness which this week may have 
 in store, let this question suggest itself: Am I hiding my 
 face from the " Man of Sorrows " ? 
 
 2. Again we hide our faces from the " Man of Sorrows " 
 when we forget that we are sent into this world to relieve 
 misery. There is an evil which is done in this world by the 
 " want of thought : " that is the sin of those who go through 
 
Typified by the Man of Sorroivs. 19 
 
 life, not suspecting, and not caring to inquire how much 
 there is of human desolation. And there is an evil which is 
 done in this world by " the want of heart " : that is the sin 
 of those who are familiar with all that you can tell them of 
 misery, and still go on feasting, and dressing, and amusing 
 themselves, and doling out the driblets of their income with 
 a grudge in the sacred cause of benevolence. 
 
 Brethren, there is a cause before us to-day, about whose 
 excellence there is no second opinion. A man may have 
 objections to the system of collecting money for the able- 
 bodied pauper; he may not see the stringency of the obligation 
 to send missionaries to the heathen ; he may call it a useless 
 expense to endeavour to convert the Jews ; but a hospital is 
 a common ground on which all opinions meet — to heal the 
 sick who cannot heal themselves ; to soothe real anguish 
 which is not brought on by fault — that is the universal sacred 
 cause of the human race. Suffer, brethren, a personal testi- 
 mony to the tenderness with which the Cheltenham Hospital 
 is carried on. It is a minister's duty from time to time to 
 visit those of his own districts who may chance to be removed 
 within those walls as in-patients — and he has opportunities 
 of observing that the poor are treated with a gentleness, 
 a human consideration, an attention as scrupulous as if 
 costly rewards were theirs to give. " Had I been a prince," 
 said one of these wretched ones to his minister a few days 
 ago, after a confinement there of six weeks, " I could not 
 have had my wishes more quickly obeyed." Oh, it does the 
 heart good to go straight from the comfortless hovel to the 
 clean, cheerful, sick ward. There is human pain before you 
 in abundance, but it is pain soothed : there is something 
 like a resting place for the burning temple ; there is some- 
 thing like quiet for the racked and swimming brain. 
 
20 
 
 The Human Race. 
 
 You are reminded that you are in a world of sorrow ; 
 but you are reminded too that you are in a world into which 
 the Cross and the love of Christ have brought a remedy, and 
 taught men to minister to wretchedness. Brethren, the 
 appeal is made to you to-day on behalf of the man of 
 sorrows, and the appeal is this : acquaint yourselves with 
 his grief ; hide not thy face away from him. 
 
II. 
 
 DEGREES IN GLORY. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH MS.) 
 
 Christ Church, Cheltenham, May 1846. 
 
 *' And Jesus saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and 
 be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with : but to sit on 
 my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given 
 to them for whom it is prepared of my Father." — Matt. xx. 23. 
 
 'T^HERE are errors which belong to the first days of 
 
 X religious life which are to be reckoned in the list of 
 mistakes rather than in the class of sins, and God seems to 
 look upon them mercifully and to treat them leniently, as a 
 father passes over the follies, and the wilfulness, and the 
 outbursts of sullenness in his young children without severe 
 remark. They are wrong, but still they are weaknesses, in a 
 measure to be expected — things to be set right, rather than 
 to be punished. 
 
 Three such mistakes as these were exhibited by Christ's 
 disciples in that conversation of which I have read a part. 
 The first mistake was a misconception of what religious life is ; 
 the second was an entire miscalculation of their own capa- 
 cities ; and the third was a readiness to make a boastful 
 profession of their religion. All these mark the outset of 
 religious life. 
 
22 
 
 Degrees in Glory. 
 
 First of all they had very poor conceptions of what 
 religion is : they reckoned it to be all enjoyment, and 
 blessedness, and reward. Scarcely had their career begun. 
 The hard part of it had not begun. Trial, opposition, per- 
 secution, of all this as yet they had known nothing; and yet, 
 as if it were all over, as if the battle had been fought, and 
 nothing remained except the partition of the conquered 
 territory, James and John, or their mother in their name, 
 came to Jesus with the request that they might sit one on 
 His right hand and the other on the left in His kingdom. 
 The reply that they received was in the first instance simply a 
 charge of ignorance, " Ye know not what ye ask." We take 
 that as the first mark of inexperienced Christians ; ignorance 
 of what awaits them. No marvel that it should be so. It 
 is God's special mercy that hides it from His children, or 
 who would have the heart to persevere? Christ had stood 
 between His disciples and the world — the world's cold 
 sneer, and the world's sharp rebuke. He had borne all this, 
 and they had stood as behind a shield. No wonder if they 
 did not yet recognise what religious life means. Christian 
 life, brethren, is not rest : " It is high time to awake out of 
 sleep." Christian life is not making time pass away comfort- 
 ably : "Woe unto them that are at ease inZion." Christian 
 life is not reward : " If in this life only we have hope in 
 Christ," then " we are of all men most miserable." Christian 
 life is work, trial, earnestness, victory. The disciples mis- 
 took all that. If they had mistaken it ten years later, they 
 would have merited rebuke ; as it was, they received affec- 
 tionate but yet humiliating counsel : " Ye know not what 
 ye ask." 
 
 There was a second mistake in their request : a miscon- 
 ception of their own capacities. It is so with all beginners. 
 
Degrees in Glory. 
 
 23 
 
 We require bitter, humbling experiences before we are per- 
 suaded that there are some situations infinitely above our 
 powers. The disciples were ready at a moment's warning, 
 without anxiety to undertake the responsibility of the 
 highest duty which God might have to lay on mortals' 
 shoulders. They would have taken the right hand and the 
 left without shrinking from the dangerous honour. In God's 
 kingdom there is no such thing as high privilege without 
 high responsibihty. There is no sitting on God's right hand 
 in the place of honour, without at the same time having a 
 high and arduous trust to execute. James and John were 
 ready for that ; they never paused to ask, Are we qualified ? 
 There was a terrible preparatory education ; they never 
 stopped to ask, Can we go through it ? Modesty is seldom 
 the attribute of the untried. Modesty is a thing we learn 
 generally by shame and failure. A young Christian is am- 
 bitious to distinguish himself as a saint at once. It is the 
 aged saint who counts it an honour if he be permitted " with 
 shame to take the lowest place." 
 
 There was yet a third error, characteristic of early and 
 not advanced religion, and that was the readiness with which 
 they committed themselves, by boastful profession, to lead a 
 life which they were then far from able to endure. Their 
 Master replied to their questions by anotlier. They asked, 
 "Let us sit one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, 
 in thy glory." He inquired, " Can ye drink of my cup, and 
 be baptized with my baptism ? " And then it was that these 
 frail novices pledged themselves to bear a trial whose very 
 name they scarcely understood. What knew they as yet 
 of the cup of agony, and the baptism of blood ; and yet — 
 Can ye drink my cup ? — Can ye bear my baptism ? We can. 
 This was boasting. This was ostentation. But let us 
 
24 
 
 Degrees in Glory. 
 
 observe, Christ did not rebuke them. He did not even 
 attempt to make them retract by explaining what it was to 
 which they had committed themselves. He took them at 
 their word : Ye shall indeed drink of my cup. They had 
 erred; but it was an error, not a sin; and He quietly left it to 
 time to teach its own sad, humbling, strengthening lesson. 
 He Icnew well they would find out their mistake, and be 
 ashamed of their confidence, soon enough. 
 
 In passing we make one observation. In all this there is 
 a lesson for us of condescension to inexperienced Christians. 
 It is in the spiritual as it is in the natural life. There is a 
 time when the child passes into the man. We call that 
 period boyhood — the most unruly, the most selfish, the most 
 ungovernable of all the epochs of human existence. But 
 the wise parent is not disconcerted when he discovers all 
 this beginning. There is much of the folly of the child, but 
 there is also much of the strength and dignity of the man. 
 And so he waits till this chaos time is past, till added years 
 have brought added humility, and added experience has 
 taught his boy to distrust himself. So also in religious life 
 there is a time when the spiritual child passes into the 
 spiritual man — a period marked almost always by error 
 and numberless inconsistencies. But by the example of our 
 Master, Christ, we are not to be disconcerted at all this. And 
 if we find much of the old love of worldliness hanging about 
 the young Christian still, a desire for the distinction of 
 religion, a wish for the right hand and the left, we are to wait. 
 Or if we see that with much love there is also little 
 experience of weakness, and therefore much boasting, still 
 we are to wait patiently. The Christian is in process of 
 formation, and by-and-by the child will have disappeared, 
 and the man be established in its place. 
 
Degrees in Glory. 
 
 25 
 
 But now our present point is this : Christ did more than 
 bear with these infirmities, He attempted to remove them. 
 Infirmities are pardonable, graceful, in the child ; they are 
 contemptible in the man. He would be lenient to His 
 disciples, passing as they were from spiritual childhood into 
 spiritual manhood ; but He did not intend them to be for ever 
 in a transition state. The corrective which our Master applied 
 to these weaknesses was the doctrine of the Cross. Instead of 
 ease He told them of trial. When they spoke of enjoyment, 
 He reminded them of the pain without which enjoyment 
 is not safe. To shame them of their boasting, He warned 
 them of endurance. " Can ye drink of my cup ?" — " Ye shall 
 drink indeed of my cup." This, brethren, is tl.e subject we 
 are to examine : the meaning and the results of suff"ering. An 
 appropriate subject for this day on which the Redeemer 
 expressed to the world the Divine significance of suffering. 
 In preparing for the highest attainments the son of man can 
 be perfected only through suffering. 
 
 We shall pursue this subject in two branches : 
 
 I. The difference of degrees in glory ; 
 
 II. The principle on which that difference is regulated. 
 I. There is contained in this passage a very distinct 
 
 intimation that in the world of glory beyond the grave, all 
 saints will not stand in a position of exact equality. There 
 will be degrees in glory. There will be differences of blessed- 
 ness. There will be varying steps of dignity. We are not 
 at liberty to infer that there will be degrees merely because 
 the apostles took it for granted, for it might have been an 
 unfounded fancy which made them dream of places of 
 superior honour. But we do infer it from the Redeemer's 
 answer. His reply was not, Ask not for high places, for all 
 are equal there. Theirs was a serious misconception, if it 
 
26 
 
 Degrees in Glory. 
 
 were a misconception, and one which it was needful to 
 remove without delay. But we look in vain for anything 
 like correction. He gave countenance to their conception, 
 He acknowledged that it was no blind fancy. His admission 
 came to this, that in the kingdom of heaven there is a right 
 hand and a left, which " shall be given to them for whom it 
 is prepared of my Father." 
 
 This, brethren, is the doctrine we have to establish and 
 examine — the doctrine of degrees in glory. And first of all 
 it is most natural that it should be so. If in heaven there 
 were anything like universal equality, it would stand out an 
 exception in God's universe, it would not be like one of 
 God's plans. Everything we know, everything man ever 
 heard of in God's creation, goes by steps, gradually and 
 beautifully smoothing off from the lowest to the highest. The 
 vegetable world slides into the animal world, and you can- 
 not tell where one ends and the other begins. Step by step, 
 from lower organisation on to higher, till you come to the 
 division line where instinct borders upon reason, and you 
 cannot for certain draw the boundary. The animal which 
 possesses highest instinct treads so close upon the man who 
 is gifted with lowest reason, that you hesitate whether the 
 nobler beast has only instinct, and the animalised man has 
 truly reason. This is God's chain, His beautiful chain, of 
 unequal links. This is God's world, God's work. Every 
 spot in which you can trace God at work, there has He made 
 degrees. Each thing in this universe has its own destined 
 place. The thing below it cannot occupy that place, nor can 
 the thing above it Make the experiment and there is a link 
 broken. 
 
 Trace next that principle in one of the single links — 
 man himself. Men are not born equal. Say nothing of 
 
Degrees in Glory. 
 
 27 
 
 circumstantial differences, such as climate, and education, 
 and property ; there are differences between man and 
 man quite distinct from these. Give two characters the 
 same advantages, will any system of education ensure that 
 they shall be equal ? Education can give habits of mind, 
 information, memory, power of attention — can education 
 give the instinctive eagle glance of genius ? Can conditions ? 
 Can circumstances? There are some men upon whose 
 brow nature has impressed the diadem of intellectual 
 royalty ; and there are some men who are marked for 
 intellectual inferiority. There are minds bom to command ; 
 there are minds born to be feeble, except when supported 
 and led by others. There is the first-rate, and there is the 
 second-rate — born so, not made by human will : God created 
 one man to differ from another. Again and again revolu- 
 tions have tried to level all differences ; but in the next 
 generation God's insulted law has vindicated itself; the 
 towering mind has risen into a new aristocracy ; the feeble 
 mind has sunk into a fresh lowest class. Men can make 
 human distinctions to proceed on a new principle ; break 
 down, destroy, level, as they will, equality they cannot get 
 
 Brethren, these are only specimens of a universal law, 
 and the law is found in the heaven as in the earth : "One 
 star differeth from another star in glory." It is God's law 
 of inequality. In earth, in matter, and in mind there 
 will be, and there must be, thrones and dominions, with 
 principalities and powers. Now this does not prove that 
 there will be degrees in heaven, but it makes it exceedingly 
 improbable that there will not. The beauty and the harmony, 
 of this creation consist in each thing having its own ap- 
 pointed niche in the magnificent fabric of the universe. 
 The order of this universe is constructed upon the principle 
 
28 
 
 Degrees in Glory. 
 
 of degrees. Is it likely that God's heaven will be, not a 
 series of steps ascending up to God, but a dead level ? Is 
 it probable that it will be a thing marring this glorious 
 symmetry and this exquisite gradation by being dependent 
 on a principle of equality ? 
 
 So much, brethren, for likelihood. But we have much 
 more than likelihood. Except that excellent men have 
 denied it, it would seem impossible to read Scripture without 
 perceiving that its assertions are distinct upon this point. 
 First of all there is a promise given to the apostles, that in 
 the regeneration they shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the 
 twelve tribes of Israel. Thrones, and something hke the 
 sway of ancient judges — a royal jurisdiction over others. 
 Here is superiority in one class, subordination in another. 
 If we only grant thus much, that there is something pecu- 
 liar reserved for Christ's aposdes, you have introduced 
 the principle of degrees in heaven. Is it conceivable that 
 it should stop there? Once more, there is something in 
 heaven which is represented by the figure of being ruler 
 over ten cities, and there is another something which is 
 equivalent to being ruler over five cities. What is that but 
 gradation of some kind ? Whatever it may mean, this is clear, 
 that there is one position amounting to only half the other. 
 Lastly, brethren, we take the passage before us, and we 
 hold it to be decisive and full upon this point. There is a 
 post of honour. There is an affliction working out " a far more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory." There is a peculiar 
 nearness to Christ. There is a right hand to the throne of 
 God. And there are some for whom that transcendent 
 blessedness is specially reserved : " it shall be given to them 
 for whom it is prepared of my Father." 
 
 There is a difficulty in the way of all this which it 
 
Degrees in Glory. 
 
 29 
 
 behoves us to consider. The doctrine of diversities in 
 glory has seemed to some men to interfere with the Re- 
 deemer's merits. It has appeared to them that if every 
 Christian stands before God complete in the righteous- 
 ness of Christ, there can be no difference in one above 
 another, for the position of one is exactly the same as the 
 inheritance of the other. And so from a most affectionate 
 and loyal zeal for the honour of Christ they have refused 
 to admit that there can be anything like a right hand of 
 God's throne. 
 
 Brethren, the imputed righteousness of Christ gives every 
 man exactly the same title, the same right, to enjoy heaven, 
 but it does not give to every man the same soul for the 
 enjoyment. Each man remains an individual self, not 
 merged and lost in Christ — an individual still, with his powers, 
 his character exactly what his time of education upon earth 
 made him. The thief who had but an hour or two of 
 Christian life, and the aged saint who has been disciplined 
 in Christ for seventy years, stand exactly on the same footing 
 so far as title is concerned. The Redeemer's merits are 
 the passport for the saint, just as entirely as they are the 
 passport for the penitent. Each has the same heaven, so 
 far they are equal ; but unless each can enjoy that heaven 
 with the same intensity, so far they are not equal. Let two 
 men listen to the same swell of glorious music, and yet just 
 because there is a difference in their internal nervous organi- 
 sation, one shall be only moved and pleased, and the other 
 shall be entranced and thrilled. Let two men gaze on the 
 same masterpiece of sculpture or of glorious painting ; one 
 has the perception of the beautiful cultivated by an artist's 
 education, and the other has only the duller associations of a 
 peasant. The same admission has been granted to them 
 
30 
 
 Degrees in Glory. 
 
 both, the same colours are spread out before them — but is 
 their heaven of enjoyment equal? 
 
 These, brethren, are inadequate illustrations, but they are 
 enough to make this thing conceivable. There may be the 
 same heaven for all God's redeemed. There may be the 
 same glorious presence, shedding its blessedness upon ail. 
 There may be the same right to sit at the marriage supper 
 of the Lamb. There may be the same strains of entrancing 
 melody, carrying home the harmonious and the beautiful to 
 the spirits of all who are there. And yet it is perfectly con- 
 ceivable that there may be a right hand and a left. Just 
 because here on earth there has been produced in some a 
 more exquisite meetness for the enjoyments which are found 
 there, and a more enlarged wisdom, and a stronger power of 
 love, therefore one soul may be drawn, as it were, more 
 closely to God, and consequently to blessedness, than another 
 can. 
 
 II. We have now, in the second place, to look at the 
 principle on which all this is carried on. There is a right 
 hand of God's throne. On what principle is that dignity 
 conferred ? 
 
 Now to this, Scripture answers first of all that it is not on a 
 / principle of arbitrary selection. The two apostles seem to 
 have thought that it was. They appear to have conceived that 
 their Master had the glories of the other world lodged in 
 His hands for the purpose of being distributed according to 
 His own personal affections. The prime mitiister of a 
 country is entrusted by his sovereign with certain dignities 
 which he is at liberty to confer. But friendship, family connec- 
 tion, favour, regulate all these. And the apostles seem to 
 have looked upon heaven's honours as distributed in that way; 
 and so, in their spirit of eager manoeuvring, they came as 
 
Degrees in Glory. 
 
 31 
 
 the first applicants to forestall a promise : " Grant unto us 
 that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy 
 left, in thy glory." 
 
 Let us mark our Redeemer's answer, for it is full of 
 instruction : " To sit on my right hand, and on my left, 
 is not mine to give." Did He mean to tell them that 
 the office of dispensing those glories was not His but 
 another's ? Surely not ; for the Son of Man will dispense 
 them as the Judge at the last day. Did He mean to say that 
 He had no authority of His own to give away the glories of 
 heaven ? Surely not, for there is given to Him authority : 
 " All judgment is committed to Him, because He is the Son 
 of Man." But the plain meaning was this, that they were not 
 His to give by absolute or arbitrary right. There were certain 
 eternal principles in the bosom of the Deity which must guide 
 Him in their distribution. John the beloved asked this favour 
 of his Lord, but Christ's personal love to John could not 
 place him one step above another. Personal favour had 
 nothing to do with it, justice everything. Steps of glory 
 are not won by favouritism, if such a word may be reverently 
 used. Not by arbitrary selection : It is not mine to give 
 except to those "for whom it is prepared of my Father." 
 
 The last question, then, we have to ask is. Who are they for 
 whom the Father has prepared the special glories of the life 
 to come ? There seems to be in our Master's conversation a 
 most clear reply to this. They who have borne the sharpest 
 cross are prepared to wear the brightest crown. They who 
 best and most steadily can drain the cup which God shall 
 put into their hands to drink, are the spirits destined to sit on 
 His right hand and on His left. Our Master's question was 
 significant. They asked for honour. He demanded if they 
 were willing to pay the price of honour : Can ye drink of my 
 
32 
 
 Degrees in Glory. 
 
 cup ? Here, brethren, is the everlasting principle which no 
 dispensation of favour can set aside. There is no prepara- 
 tion for any son of man except through suffering. The 
 grandest diadem which God has to bestow upon His selected 
 children of this earth is the crown of thorns. For highest 
 blessedness there is no preparation without unusual trial. 
 
 And now, first of all, Christ submitted to this eternal law 
 Himself. He became " obedient unto death, even the death 
 of the cross, wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him." 
 Prophets spoke in the old days of the " sufferings of Christ, 
 and the glory that should be revealed." One was impossible 
 without the other. Christ, being man, became subject to the 
 irreversible law which binds humanity. Victory over trial, 
 that is man's only glory. Christ had to suffer before it was 
 possible for Him to reign. 
 
 Let us understand what this cup was which Jesus drank. 
 It was martyrdom. Has any man ever tried to realise what 
 it is to be a martyr ? There was the agony of a sharp death, 
 of course, but that was only a part. In days of martyrdom 
 men live with the possibility of death before them. False 
 hearts are apostatising on every side, friends are weakening 
 resolution, life is smiling with its promises of peace, and in the 
 midst of all that a martyr has to steel his soul, and quiedy bear 
 the sickening, harrowing uncertainty; and then, when the cup is 
 put into his hand at last, he has to drink it calmly and cheer- 
 fully as his Master did. All that men have done for the love of 
 Christ That is in the most literal sense Christ's baptism of 
 blood. And it would seem to be the language of the Bible 
 that there is a peculiar coronet of glory for men who suffer for 
 the truth. But now is there anything like this in daily life ? 
 Brethren, viuch. To be a martyr is to witness for Christ's truth. 
 To be a martyr is to take up Christ's cross. The worst part of 
 
Degrees in Glory. 
 
 33 
 
 martyrdom is not the last agonising moment, it is the wear- 
 ing, daily steadfastness. Men who can make up their minds 
 to hold out against the torture of an hour have sunk under 
 the weariness and the harass of small prolonged vexations. 
 And there are many Christians who have the weight of some 
 deep, incommunicable grief pressing, cold as ice, upon their 
 hearts. To bear that cheerfully and manfully is to be a 
 martyr. There are many Christians who know what doubt 
 is, such doubt as Christ experienced on the cross, shutting 
 out light and consolation, and making this world a wilderness: 
 " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " To tread 
 that down, as if with an iron heel, upon the serpent's head, 
 is to be a victorious martyr. There is many a Christian be- 
 reaved and stricken in the best hopes of life : for such a one 
 to say quietly, " Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt," is 
 to be a martyr. There is many a Christian who feels the 
 irksomeness of the duties of life, and feels his spirit revolt- 
 ing from them : to get up every morning with the firm 
 resolve to find pleasure in those duties, and do them well, 
 and finish the work which God has given us to do, that is 
 to drink Christ's cup. The commonest life, brethren, has 
 its cross for him who has the heart to love the cross. We do 
 not want back the days of martyrdom. The humblest occu- 
 pation has in it materials of discipline for the highest heaven, 
 and for the right hand and the left in Christ's kingdom. 
 
 The cup which Christ drank was self-humiliation. This 
 was the peculiarity of His death, that He humbled Himself 
 unto death. God has prepared the right hand in His king- 
 dom for the humble: "Whosoever will be great among you 
 let him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief among 
 you let him be your servant." The longer a Christian lives 
 the more he feels this, that the only true greatness is to 
 
34 
 
 Degrees in Glory. 
 
 destroy our evil selves, that self which cleaves to us, that self 
 which ruins and degrades everything we do. 
 
 To conclude this subject there are two remarks to be 
 made: 
 
 First, let the cross of Christ teach us to look calmly on 
 this suffering world. Life is full of trial, and it is a perplex- 
 ing thing to look around us and see the race of man groan- 
 ing under their burden. We know but one satisfactory ex- 
 planation of that strange mystery, — thoroughly satisfactory, — 
 which calms all doubts. The Cross of Christ is the explanation. 
 The cross is the distinct announcement to us of that wonder- 
 ful law which fills all life, that " through much tribulation 
 we must enter into the kingdom of heaven." Perfection 
 through suffering, that is the doctrine of the cross. There 
 is love in that law. Trial is not the mark of an angry 
 God ; it is the evidence of deepest parental love. This is 
 ever true, that the humblest Christians are the holiest, the 
 most subdued are they whom God has baptized in suffering. 
 Let us learn to take that view of this strange existence, for 
 it is the true and cheerful view. 
 
 Secondly, we learn to leave our own future destinies 
 calmly and trustfully in God's hands. The apostles asked 
 Christ about their place in heaven, and He gave them no 
 information on the subject, He left them upon that point 
 entirely in the dark. He told them that exaltation is won 
 through humiliation ; He warned them that the preparation 
 for a high heaven is sharp trial. But, whether theirs should 
 be a high heaven or not. He did not choose to tell them 
 Now there is a distinct lesson for us here. Present duties, 
 brethren, are ours ; future destinies are in God's hands. 
 Be content to leave them there in trust. The Father hath 
 prepared for them that love Him the right hand and the left. 
 
Degrees in Glory. 
 
 35 
 
 We are to ask no more. Each of us will have his destined 
 place. Each will occupy in the life to come exactly that 
 position in which he can best perform God's appointed work. 
 
 Moreover, we gather from this Scripture that there is a 
 sense in which every man's destinies are in his own hands. 
 It is not by an arbitrary decree that heaven's highest places 
 are given away. Christ bestows them on those for whom 
 they are prepared by the Father. Those things wliich " eye 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard " He has prepared for 
 those who love Him. He has prepared them for the meek 
 and humble in heart. He has prepared them for those who 
 have with the most scrupulous fidelity borne the cross. There 
 is also a sense in which every man's future position depends 
 upon himself. Each place is regulated according to the 
 way in which each man has fitted himself for it. What you 
 are here, that by a most righteous regulation, you will be 
 hereafter. Oh ! let this be our motive to diligence, that 
 our " labour is not in vain in the Lord." Let us not be con- 
 tent with sowing little ; sow much, that you may reap much. 
 Every evil feeling that a Christian crushes is so much in- 
 creased power of being happy. Every self-denying act that 
 gives him more of the spirit of love, is a clear step in 
 blessedness. The more you learn here to understand God, 
 the more you will be able hereafter to enjoy God. Every 
 light affliction, borne as a cross should be borne, worketh 
 out for you a " far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
 glory." Christian brethren, work done faithfully in Christ 
 shall by no means lose its reward. 
 
 D 2 
 
III. 
 
 THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Oxford, June 1 8, 1847. 
 
 " And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in them- 
 selves that they were righteous, and despised others."— Luke xviii. 9. 
 
 'TT^HE subject of this parable is the Beauty of Christian 
 
 X humbleness ; and the Danger of self-satisfaction. 
 
 I. Beauty of Christian humbleness, "He that humbleth 
 himself shall be exalted." 
 
 Humbleness is peculiar to Christianity. Goodness is 
 admired and taught in all religions. But to be good, and 
 feel that your good is nothing ; to advance, and become 
 more conscious of pollution ; to ripen in all excellence, and 
 like corn to bend the head when full of ripe bursting grain; 
 that is Christianity. 
 
 Observe the subtle, insinuating character of pride. It 
 creeps in everywhere. Worldly pride is natural. But re- 
 ligious pride ! To stand aloof because better. The idea 
 of merit in a thing that errs every hour. This is marvel- 
 lous ! 
 
 " He that exalteth himself shall be abased." This shows 
 the falsity of worldly estimation : " He that experiences 
 
Tlie Pharisee and the Publican. 
 
 37 
 
 self-gratification, and he whom the world exalts, shall be 
 abased." 
 
 Here is a Pharisee, counted by his nation as religious. 
 But God looks in ; holds him up as a beacon, and says. You 
 are all mistaken. To see ourselves as others see us, but 
 still more as God sees us : be this our prayer. For there is 
 a fearful day of reversal : " He shall be abased." 
 
 A solemn expression occurs among repeated denuncia- 
 tions of the Pharisees : " Whited sepulchres " — painted with 
 colour of purity. There is a false inscription : " Not what 
 he was, but what he seemed to be." Is there a whited 
 sepulchre among us now ? 
 
 This abasement may take place — 
 
 In life: first, by discovery. The man is found out, for 
 he cannot always stand apart — he gets known in his family, 
 in business, and in society. 
 
 Or, again, by a grievous fall : " Pride goeth before destruc- 
 tion." A thing wafted on high by the wind comes down. It 
 was Peter's boast : "Though I should die with thee, yet 
 will I not deny thee." It is our own experience ; for after 
 what periods did our chief falls occur ? . . . . 
 
 In the dying hour : Man generally does not die an actor. 
 The mask falls off. Man fronts reality. He is going to stand 
 before God, not before an ignorant publican. Think of 
 that, and be self-satisfied if you can ! 
 
 In the jtidgment-day : Sometimes strong delusion holds 
 a man fast on the death-bed. Therefore abasement comes 
 not till trial by fire. Nothing stands then but gold. Gilding 
 will not pass. 
 
 II. Danger of self-satisfaction. 
 
 I. Spirit of self-satisfaction. 
 
 II. Spirit of Christian penitence. 
 
38 
 
 The P/iarisee and ihe Publican. 
 
 I. Spirit of self-satisfaction. The Pharisees Hke all sec- 
 tarians stood apart. This is the danger of party-spirit. When 
 a congregation marks itself off from another congregation, 
 when people get names — Evangelicals, Tractarians, &c. — and 
 make all this minister to self-complacency : this is Phari- 
 saism. 
 
 And against this Christ's indignation was roused. Never 
 did it seem to burst forth but when a hypocrite, an unreal 
 person, stood before Him. It was like the quiet ocean 
 stirred from its depths, and the roar of the surges telling out 
 its might ! 
 
 There are certain marks exhibited in this Pharisaism : — 
 
 I. Satisfaction with negative goodness. The Pharisee in 
 the parable enumerates the faults from which he was free : 
 he was no extortioner, no adulterer, nor yet unjust. Like 
 men now on their death-beds, he was free from glaring 
 impiety. Wretched boast ! Not so bad as you might have 
 been. A highwayman glorying that he is not a murderer. 
 Well — few stripes — less hot hell ! Is that any consolation ? 
 
 And, after all, extortion, injustice : what temptation had a 
 Pharisee to commit them ? It was a comprehensible ground 
 of boast for a rare publican. Government penal colonies, 
 prisons, hulks, are full of the poor. Of course, how could the 
 rich be there ? Will the rich boast of that ? Or will the poor 
 boast that they are not duellists ? Shall we boast of the free- 
 dom which comes from circumstance ! 
 
 Moreover he was free from adultery. Well, there are 
 those who are pure because phlegmatic, and virtuous because 
 constitutionally cold ; and they call that virtue which is only 
 nature. They 
 
 " Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
 By damning those they have no mind to." 
 
The Pharisee and the Publican. 
 
 39 
 
 2. Satisfaction with external ceremonial acts. 
 
 Let us do this Pharisee justice. He put in a claim for 
 something done, as well as something left undone : " I fast 
 twice in the week ; I give tithes of all that I possess." 
 
 But this was ceremonial goodness. 
 
 We must distinguish : moral goodness is goodness always, 
 and everywhere. Justice, mercy, truth, are the same under 
 the tropic and at the pole, in the year 4000 before Christ 
 and 4000 after Christ. But ceremonies are only good at 
 certain times, and under certain circumstances. Fasting, if 
 it make a man peevish, is no duty. Tithes are a way of 
 supporting God's ministers ; but the Church or the State may 
 provide another way, and then tithes cease to be duties. 
 
 Now observe why Pharisaical men find it easier to be 
 content with ceremonial observances than with moral good- 
 ness. They are definite acts, they can be counted. Twice a 
 week the ceremony is done. Go over my fields ; not a tenth 
 sheath or shock is left standing. Search my stalls : not a 
 tenth colt or calf is kept back. 
 
 But moral goodness is more a state of heart than dis- 
 tinct acts. Take the law of love ; you cannot at night 
 count up, and say " It is all done," for love has no number 
 of acts. 
 
 3. Satisfaction with self : tenderness to self coupled 
 with severity to others. 
 
 The Pharisee judges from appearances — "even as this 
 publican " — yet his heart was gushing out to God. We know 
 nothing of motives, nothing of temptations, "Judge not and 
 ye shall not be judged." Let us learn to modify our opinions 
 of others. 
 
 Moreover, contempt shows and produces littleness of 
 mind. 
 
40 The Pharisee and the Publican. 
 
 " He who feels contempt 
 For any living thing, hath faculties 
 That he hath never used ; and thought with him 
 Is in its infancy. " 
 
 He narrows his own heart. There is an enlarging, ennobling 
 power in admiration of others, and in making allowance for 
 them. 
 
 In that contempt the Pharisee was doing more injury to 
 himself than to the Publican. 
 
 4, This satisfaction led to cant : " God, I thank thee 
 that I am not as other men are." 
 
 Religious people have a way of speaking of their past evil 
 life as compared with the present, and of referring all diffi- 
 culties to God's mercy. This is a subtle form of pride. It is 
 former self sacrificed at the shrine of present self. It says, 
 Admire me fiow. And the glory given to God is but a false 
 show of humility, or a mask to admit features of self-praise. 
 
 Consider what cant is. The Pharisee was not a hypocrite 
 in our sense — a wilful deceiver. In the Bible sense, a 
 hypocrite is a false character. How came that ? PubHc 
 admiration is given to religion. We see its beauty ; we wish 
 to be admired as we admire. Now there is a danger of 
 imitating what is admired. Hence, upturned eyes, demure 
 looks, peculiar tone, slang phrases. This is cant. 
 
 Be natural ; clear your mind of cant ; avoid phrases of 
 a party — even Bible phrases. Have no phylacteries, which 
 show that a man is bidding for a character. 
 
 £e rehgious. Be not anxious to seem so. 
 
 5. This satisfaction led, moreover, to the fluency of his 
 prayer. 
 
 It was preaching to God, not praying. Well divided, 
 accurate, regular, fluent. 
 
The Pharisee and the Publican. 41 
 
 " God is in heaven, and thou upon earth, therefore let 
 thy words be few." To men we use rhetoric, eloquence, 
 because they are influenced by it. To God we use the 
 simplest, shortest words we can find, because eloquence is 
 only air and noise to Him. 
 
 What people call fluency, and the gift of prayer, is often 
 delusive ; it is mere excitement from the presence of others, 
 and from the sound of our own voice. Spiritual emotion 
 and external emotion are often hardly distinguishable. 
 
 What are our prayers — the language of a full heart or 
 of a full lip ? 
 
 II. Spirit of religious penitence : " The publican, standing 
 afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, 
 but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a 
 sinner." 
 
 The Publicans were not tax-gatherers simply, but farmers 
 of the Imperial revenue. They paid a certain sum to govern- 
 ment, and reimbursed themselves. Hence the opportunity 
 to oppress, to threaten with action, and to extort by fear. 
 Consequently the profession became disreputable; and 
 its disrepute made the despised men worse. Call a child 
 perpetually a dunce, he will become stupid. Destroy self- 
 respect in a man, he will become what he is thought. 
 
 Moreover it was a low standing, and men were satisfied 
 where all was bad. We see this was almost inevitable when 
 we consider the Publican's temptations \ his exclusion from 
 common hope ; his likelihood to make the most of what 
 litde goodness he had.. 
 
 And yet we see a sense of guilt : " Me a sinner." 
 
 Remark, there is no specifying : not, last week I injured 
 a man ; yesterday I terrified by a threat ; last night I was in 
 riotous society. Conviction of sin cannot stop to enumerate 
 
42 
 
 The Pharisee and the Publican. 
 
 acts. The whole state of heart seems radically diseased. 
 Like a wound in battle, you sicken over it. Let the ana- 
 tomist care to discuss what nerves are contused, and what 
 veins severed ; you cover it up, and look away : " I am 
 wounded." So with the over-sensitive conscience. 
 
 And a plea for mercy : "God be merciful to me a 
 sinner." 
 
 Under the law recollection of sin makes men worse. We 
 live under law when we merely remember condemnation, 
 duty, and transgression ; when remorse and shame are the 
 sole feelings. Then we become degraded in our own eyes 
 and feel helpless; and remorse only prepares for fresh failure. 
 No element of hope finds a place under law. 
 
 To live under the Gospel is to understand God's love in 
 Christ ; to trust, to know that bygone guilt is buried in 
 blood ; to believe in remission of the sins that are past. This, 
 and only this, makes past guilt a stepping-stone to future 
 strength. Humble, tender, broken feeling, and withal 
 loving too. 
 
 And confession : " To me a sinner." 
 
 Confession is the appointed power to relieve the burden 
 of sin. 
 
 Confession does this because it gives the feeling of sin- 
 cerity. We abjure our fault, we say to God, " It is not mine, 
 I disown it ; it is not I, but sin that worketh in me." My 
 whole nature casts it out with throes and convulsions, as 
 my flesh expels a foreign substance lodged in it — a thorn, a 
 needle, with swelling and inflammation. 
 
 There is ease when we are rid of it. Observe, moreover, 
 the instantaneousness of relief : " He wetit down to his house 
 justified." 
 
 Sinner ! go and confess at once. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE AND DESTINY 
 HEREAFTER. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Oxford, June 20, 1847. 
 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we 
 shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." — I John iii. 2, 3. 
 
 THE peculiarity of John's character was love. 
 He was more familiar with Christ than the other dis- 
 ciples ; he had lain in His bosom. Hence he was more 
 like Christ. He had drunk in his Master's looks, tones, 
 character, way of thought, and form of speech. In his writings 
 he is short and sententious; not arguing, but glancing down 
 into the very heart of truth. 
 
 More than any man he was capable of judging what is 
 meant by two expressions here used — " We shall be like 
 him ; " " we shall see him as he is." For he was like 
 Him ; he had seen Him as He was — to him He had been 
 unbosomed without disguise. 
 
 John can tell us what heaven is, and what spiritual life 
 is. For every word of his shows that he considered it a 
 thing of unutterable blessedness to be a Christian, and that 
 
44 The Christians Hope and Destiny Hereafter. 
 
 he was accustomed to look beyond the grave as to a thing 
 
 not dark, to regard it as full of grandeur, beyond what the 
 
 wildest imagination of man can picture. 
 
 We consider — the Christian's hope and destiny hereafter, 
 The Christian's hope and destiny hereafter is partly 
 
 mysterious : " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." 
 
 It is partly certain : " We know that when he shall appear 
 
 we shall be like him." 
 
 I. The mystery of future existence : " It doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be." 
 
 The mystery of future existence arises from three causes. 
 
 1. Our ignorance of the mode of existence. 
 
 There are two states to come — a state without our 
 bodies, and a state with what is called a " spiritual body." 
 
 Here all sensations are connected with organised form. 
 The beauty of this world, and of music, give sensations which 
 plunge us into the infinite. But try to imagine that which is 
 called "I" disembodied, existing apart from form! You 
 cannot. A strange, lonely sensation of awe steals over us 
 even in the attempt to realise " what we shall be." 
 
 Then consider the " spiritual body." Powers existing 
 now only in rudiment, shall then be fully developed. How 
 unlike the oak is to the acorn ! Yet the oak was in the 
 acorn. Who could look at the acorn, and form the wildest 
 fancy of what the oak will be ? Who conceive how earthly 
 bodies will develop into spiritual bodies ? 
 
 2. It is inconceivable what our feelings shall be. 
 
 All life here is associated with persons, relatives, home; 
 there they "neither marry, nor are given in marriage." 
 Relatives are for temporary purposes. There husband, 
 father, wife, and children meet not as relations. 
 
TJie Christian's Hope and Destiny Hereafter. 45 
 
 That state we cannot conceive now ; nay, we ought not 
 to try. An union with God so close as to dissolve all other 
 unions would be inconceivable to us. 
 
 Therefore " it doth not yet appear what we shall be." 
 
 3. The place of that existence is inconceivable. 
 
 What is heaven — a place, or a state ? Wliere — what ? 
 " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard ; neither hath it entered 
 into the heart of man to conceive the things God hath 
 prepared." 
 
 Glory : what is it ? not brilliant light ; not the little 
 drop which men call fame : not shouts, nor processions, nor 
 the homage of the multitude. 
 
 Heaven must be a state — a state of internal happiness. 
 But there will also be external objects ; for we read of floods 
 of melody from everlasting harps, of temples of gorgeous 
 magnificence. 
 
 In describing all this. Scripture speaks of things appreci- 
 able by the senses ; for imagination paints this in vain — we 
 do not understand it. Let us take two illustrations : — 
 A seaman strains through the evening fog to catch a 
 glimpse of land ; just as he makes out the outline, dim and 
 vague, his eyes water, and all is dark. Or you lie on your 
 back on a summer's day, straining into that quivering 
 trembling mass of blue. ... So with that " undiscovered 
 country," we strain till the mind is lost and dizzy. Again, 
 consider the infant unborn. Its future state is inconceivable. 
 I'.ven light, the life and expounder of all things, is unknown. 
 Now this life is the state of human babyhood. Life here 
 is infancy. 
 
 II. The certainty in future existence. 
 
 Consider that part of our future destiny which we do 
 
 I 
 
46 The Christian's Hope and Destiny Hereafter. 
 
 know : " We know that when he shall appear we shall be 
 like him, for we shall see him as he is." 
 
 St. John gives two characteristics of our future destiny : 
 resemblance to God : " We shall be like him _: " and a clearer 
 vision of Him : '* We shall see him as he is." 
 
 I. Resemblance to God — what is it? 
 
 God is the Fountain of Light and Wisdom. To be like 
 God is to become wise, to gain mastery of intellect, to be- 
 come less material, and more purely things of mind. To 
 have our darkness rolled away — the darkness of superstition, 
 of ignorance, of. evil — and to " walk in the Light, as he 
 is in the Light." 
 
 " God is Love." To be like God is to love goodness, 
 purity, truth. " If we love one another, God dwelleth in 
 us." And now understand what love is. Take no earthly 
 notions of weak, foolish fondness. Love is unselfishness ; 
 it is the power of sympathy to " rejoice with them that do 
 rejoice, and to weep with them that weep ; " it is to have 
 something of that spirit of self-sacrifice which led Christ to 
 lay down His life for us ; it is to feel that all powers are 
 given us to make others happy, and to be contriving for 
 ever happiness for others — that is to be like God. 
 
 God is Serenity. Christ the " same yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever." Often have I felt when fevered by earthly 
 excitement, and rufiiled by earthly difficulties, as I looked 
 up to the expanse of heaven above in the pure still moon- 
 shine, that it was an emblem of God's unchanging calmness, 
 rebuking the tumult within, and saying to the storm, " Peace, 
 be still." Beneath that sky nations have maddened ; ages 
 upon ages there have been war, misery, evil passions ; — 
 but the sky is there, as calm as when it looked down on 
 Adam in his innocence. There sits God, enthroned in 
 
The Christian's Hope and Destiny Hereafter. 47 
 
 His everlasting calmness : with no agitation of emotions in 
 Him. To approach this state is to be Uke God. The more 
 serene a man be — the more incapable of being ruffled and 
 agitated by outward circumstances, looking on the universe 
 as God does — the more nearly does he resemble God. 
 And what is heaven ? " There remaineth a rest for the people 
 of God." 
 
 But an objection arises : You will say. How can we be 
 all that — like God ? He is the Creator, we the created : 
 He Infinite, we finite. To this I answer ; There is that 
 within you, even now, which tells that you may be like 
 Him. There is something infinite in man. There is a 
 human grandeur in the meanest here to-day. 
 
 The infinite character of the soul of man is proved by — 
 
 The capacity of remorse, and the anguish of guilt. 
 
 There are two kinds of fear. There is the fear of pain, 
 a base fear, shared with the lower animals. You can keep 
 a dog in order by fear of the lash. But the fear of polluting 
 one's own heart, of darkening a light brighter than the sun — 
 to possess a mind which dreads to wrong, and betray, and 
 destroy itself — only man feels that. 
 
 And, oh, the unutterable anguish of a soul that is con- 
 scious of having degraded itself ! It is a foretaste of the 
 worm that never dieth. A noble mind fears that ; and the 
 nobler the mind the keener the suffering. That is a proof 
 of infinite majesty still remaining. A spirit that is capable 
 of infinite misery is capable of receivmg the infinitude of 
 goodness. 
 
 Let us take as another proof of man's infinitude the 
 examples of noble character of which we read in history, and 
 also our own feelings in our better moments. 
 
 It is no dream, such men have been as Moses, Isaiah, 
 
48 The Christians Hope and Destiny Hereafter. 
 
 Paul. Patriots — men who, while on earth, proclaimed the 
 grandeur of their origin, and showed the divinity within them, 
 by their pure and incorruptible public spirit — men such as 
 Fabricius. Martyrs — men, the energy of whose indomitable 
 will the universe could not subdue. There they stood, the 
 world against them. The tyrant crushed and mangled the 
 body of Anaxagoras ; he could not disturb the deep rest of 
 the hero's soul. The fire crackled in their limbs ; but their 
 last look upwards, till the eye shrivelled in its socket, 
 proclaimed the feeling that God was near and in them. 
 Was this a boundless or a finite nature ? 
 
 Is it in books only that I have read of goodness, gene- 
 rosity, unselfishness ? Nay, in human common life, in loving 
 looks, in gentle words ! 
 
 Meanest here ! Have you never felt the stirrings of the 
 God within you ? — Only now and then ? — Yes, but one 
 glimpse of blue sky is enough as proof. See one gleam of 
 the celestial behind the clouds of selfishness, and the possi- 
 bility of likeness to God is proved. 
 
 Let us take another proof : Man's love of the sub- 
 lime. 
 
 The heavens, the ocean, the rush of wind, the tempest, all 
 wake in our hearts a strange enjoyment, but make the 
 cattle tremble. What is the source of that proud feeling of 
 ecstasy which makes man's spirit rise with the storm } It 
 answers to the Infinite within him. 
 
 Montgomery's child was discovered by his lying down 
 in a splendid bed. The son hears the voice of his father's 
 home, and it has sounds that his spirit understands. 
 
 Never say that the being who feels all this cannot 
 become like God. 
 
 Now Christ came to elevate all this. . . . 
 
The Christian's Hope and Destiny Hereafter. 49 
 
 2. A clearer vision of God : " We shall see him as 
 he is." 
 
 What is meant by seeing God ? You will never see God 
 as form and colour. God is the spirit of beauty in nature 
 at this season of the year, the spirit which makes all glow 
 and burst with life ; the spirit which guides sailing clouds 
 and far glittering star. Never can you see that with 
 eyesight. 
 
 To see a thing is to comprehend its nature. "As he is,' 
 not deceptively : in His real, not distorted, nature. 
 
 The ship in a fog, the fish in the water, are not seen as 
 they are. 
 
 Remove all impediments of sin, and selfishness ; take off 
 the film from your eye, then you shall see God when His 
 character shines as it really is. For example, this world 
 seems evil ; goodness — wisdom — all seems wrong. The 
 ship is hideous, spectral, through the fog. To feel it all 
 right — to see wisdom and goodness — that is to see God. Or, 
 again, God seems your enemy — all wrath. This is a distorted 
 view ; like a crooked stick. See him as love in Christ, then 
 you see God. John saw Christ as he was, the Gadarenes 
 did not. 
 
 Now observe the connection between likeness to God 
 and seeing God. Mark the apostle's argument : No man 
 can see God as He really is unless he resemble Him in 
 character. 
 
 So in earthly life to understand a public character such 
 as a prime minister, for example, and his measures, you 
 must be on his side at least, and hold his opinions. Would 
 you ask one of his political opponents for his character ? 
 Tell of his eloquent speech, all for effect : his wise mea- 
 sures, oh, love of fame : his generous patriotism, all cant. 
 
 E 
 
50 The Christians Hope and Destiny Hereafter. 
 
 So also in common life. An evil man cannot appreciate, 
 or even see a good man. The spiritual man is discerned 
 by no man. The world suspects a sinister motive ; will not 
 believe in disinterestedness. Mark their sneer; listen to 
 their insinuations ; observe their contemptuous scepticism 
 about human goodness. 
 
 And so with God. To see God you must first be like Him. 
 You see Him, feel Him, believe in His existence, just in pro- 
 portion as you resemble Him in goodness. You have the 
 witness in yourself. "We shall be like him, for we shall 
 see him as he is." 
 
V. 
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION.— CHARACTER 
 OF MOSES. 
 
 (from autograph notes.) 
 
 Oxford, June 27, 1847. 
 
 " In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and 
 nourished up in his father's house three months ; and when he was 
 cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her 
 own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyjilians 
 and was mighty in words and in deeds." — Acts vii. 20-22. 
 
 THE subject of national education has, of late years, be- 
 come familiar to us in pamphlets, newspapers, sermons, 
 parliamentary speeches, conversation. " The people must 
 be educated " — this is the echo. Yet with all this popu- 
 larity it is uncertain whether we adequately understand what 
 education means ; and whether, with all this praise of know- 
 ledge, knowledge is loved for its own sake, or only for what 
 it brings — loved because talent is admired, and knowledge 
 helps in life. 
 
 It is my intention to put forward hints to be worked out 
 by yourselves. My way of investigation is, to take the 
 life of a man highly and completely educated ; and so make 
 the subject a real one. A chief personage in Scripture, 
 Moses, stands at the head of a dispensation. 
 
 E 2 
 
i 
 
 52 National Education. 
 
 Our subject divides itself into two branches : 
 
 I. The education of the lawgiver of Israel. 
 
 II. The results of that education. 
 
 I. The education of Moses. 
 
 I. He was instructed by strangers. 
 
 Pharaoh's daughter found him in the Nile, and had him 
 taught Egyptian learning at her own expense. So far this 
 is a parallel to the education of children in schools by 
 strangers. Instruction by parents is not always possible, 
 because of their incapacity, ignorance, poverty, and labour. 
 Moses' parents were crushed down by the laws of Egypt. 
 Therefore education must partly be the work of strangers. 
 
 Observe, God appointed a princess to instruct Moses, 
 as if to honour the teacher's ofifice. There are great mis- 
 takes on this point. People say. Any man will do. But your 
 watch-spring is broken — do you give it to a blacksmith ? 
 Its wheels are deranged — do you confide it to a wheel- 
 wright? No, it is too delicate. Can a common mind 
 guide that delicate, ethereal, mysterious thing, a child's 
 soul? We must understand human nature, read hearts. 
 We want first-rate men. 
 
 Miserable economy in parents ! The poor grudging one 
 penny per week. Esau sold his birthright for a morsel of 
 meat — you weigh your child's mind and soul against copper ! 
 The rich spending on accomplishments and grudging the 
 teacher. Alas ! we do not estimate the teacher. We mea- 
 sure his services grudgingly, and we must for want of 
 funds. 
 
 Consider the influence of teachers. 3,500 years ago an 
 Egyptian princess took a poor man's child and taught it. 
 The result of that education is not over yet. A thousand 
 
Character of Moses. 
 
 S3 
 
 thousand Jews reverence the laws that cliild made. The 
 nation he formed and freed lives on. Compare the in- 
 fluence of Pharaoh's daughter with that of Pharaoh himself. 
 He niled an empire. Pyramids could rise at his bidding. 
 His skeleton is in some pyramid. Nothing else remains ! To 
 rule in a single heart, to form and guide a child's mind, is 
 greater than the grandest sway. I say it calmly, the teacher 
 is greater than the king. The king rules without, the teacher 
 within. It is the influence that is deep compared with the 
 influence that is widely spread in glory, glitter, and noise. 
 Whether is greater, to educate a child or to rule a state ? 
 Let it be tried by the test of blessing your fellow-creatures. 
 Here is a man perched up on high, dressed in a little brief 
 authority, with fingers pointing : That is he ! And here is 
 Christ with children round Him \ " He took them up in His 
 arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them." 
 
 2. He was under home influences. 
 
 By a merciful arrangement Moses' early years were not 
 entirely superintended by Pharaoh's daughter. His mother 
 nursed him. Pharaoh's daughter gave him instruction, his 
 mother education. 
 
 There are mistaken notions on this point People think 
 education to be reading, writing, cyphering ; loading the 
 memory with information, and making preparation for a 
 trade or profession. You may do all this to make your 
 child an expert accountant or a good -engineer ; you may 
 infuse knowledge, and useful knowledge, such as geography 
 and literature, to enable him to earn his bread. Well, is 
 that all ? Nay, it is only the wisdom of Egypt. 
 
 We must distinguish between education and instruction. 
 Education is to unfold nature ; to strengthen good and 
 conquer evil ; to give self help ; to make a man. To draw 
 
 / 
 
54 
 
 National Education. 
 
 out the affections we must cultivate the heart. To awaken 
 great ideas we must generate the spirit of freedom. To 
 direct the soul to God. . . . 
 
 The* teacher cannot do this. Books cannot infuse reli- 
 gion, the catechism cannot. 
 
 You want influence bearing on the heart. 
 
 Now influence is given at home. It is God's plan. He 
 gives the father to impart strength of will, and the mother 
 tenderness of affection. 
 
 Moses owed his lawgiving, his politics, his wisdom, his 
 power of governing, to the Egyptian princess ] his religion 
 he owed to Jochebed. 
 
 Jochebed — that woman of poverty and toil ; her hands 
 black with brickmaking ; bred in ignorance and crushed 
 dowTi. Jochebed, that woman of faith, whom love to God 
 enabled to disobey the laws of Egypt. Mothers, know 
 your work ! You stand at the fountain-head. God has 
 given you the destinies of the world. All great men had 
 mothers high-minded. Our schools fail for want of mothers 
 and home influences. \Vlien your child leaves school he 
 has got instruction ; what he wants is education. 
 
 3. He was disciplined by circumstances. 
 
 Pharaoh's daughter had done something, and Moses' 
 mother something for the child. But to make him the man 
 he was, other things beyond man's control contributed. 
 
 He belonged to an oppressed nation : hence his patriot- 
 ism — that deep, long devotion to one vast cause, which 
 only can be felt in such circumstances. 
 
 He was a banished man : hence his sympathy with the 
 crushed. 
 
 He was a long time in the solitary desert : hence his 
 depth and solemnity of character. 
 
Character of Moses. 
 
 55 
 
 He travelled much : hence his knowledge of the world 
 and man, and his enlarged views. 
 
 But he needed some sudden impulse. It came in the 
 burning bush, which at the age of eighty fixed his destiny, 
 and spurred him on to a new life. The man of learning, 
 the man of contemplation, became the man of public action. 
 
 Observe, therefore, in the first place, education goes on 
 through life. After he left Egypt and home his development 
 continued. Parents and teachers alone do not educate a 
 child. He is given tO' the universe. All life contributes. 
 The aspects of nature : summer and winter, bright spring 
 and sad autumn, day and night, with their thousand sen- 
 sations. 
 
 The lot of many is poverty, with struggling, scrambling 
 life : hence tlieir hardness of character. It is often the lot of 
 the orphan. Hence may spring self-help ; or if the disposition 
 be weak, bad habits. Riches may stunt the child's moral 
 growth, and produce, in spite of expensive education, only 
 indolence of character. 
 
 Again, we are disciplined by public circumstances. We 
 live in time of war or of peace, during a revolution, or in an 
 age of trade, science, and philosophy. All this disciplines the 
 character. Therefore education does not end with the school- 
 room. We talk of "finished education ! " Education only 
 ends when a man is in his winding-sheet. The best teacher is 
 he who sends forth children not only with great attainments, 
 but convinced that education is the work of life, and re- 
 solved to improve themselves. It may be said, " If circum- 
 stances thwart education, and form character, why educate 
 at all ? Great minds have risen without education." Yet 
 observe ; education is useful to call forth power to grapple 
 with and modify circumstances. Trees on the sea-coast or 
 
56 
 
 National Education. 
 
 in stony soil are thwarted, yet they may be pushed by agricul- 
 ture. The best agriculture is in Scotland, which has but a 
 poor soil. 
 
 Observe, in the second place, education is God's work, 
 for circumstances come from God. Teaching cannot do 
 all, we must look for fruit to God. We must wait for our 
 best impulses, which come like a flash, unexpectedly : 
 "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
 the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, 
 and whither it goeth : so is everyone that is born of the 
 Spirit." Look back upon our past lives ; what governed our 
 most remarkable moments and alterations in character? 
 Not systematic education, but some impression like that of 
 Moses in the wilderness, that looked like chance ; an 
 impression from some great kindled soul which expands 
 our hearts ; or an old truth forcibly put. Our grand ideas 
 and alterations of character come we know not how or why. 
 They come as glimpses, or as suggestions. And for this the 
 simple life like that of Moses in the wilderness is the most 
 favourable. 
 
 Teaching the Catechism does not impart religion. You 
 want God's voice. The flash from above ; the bush in the 
 wilderness set on fire without human agency. 
 
 Review what education is. Formation of character — 
 Development of the entire man — To put man in possession 
 of self 
 
 II. Results of Moses' education. 
 
 I. On his own character. 
 
 II. On his nation and on the world. 
 
 I. The result on his own character was twofold, mental 
 and moral. 
 
Character of Moses. 
 
 57 
 
 1. Mentally, it gave him the habit of inquiry. Returns 
 aside "to see this great sight ivhy the bush is not burnt." 
 Other men would have simply seen the bush on fire ; Moses 
 remarks the singular phenomenon. 
 
 The first thing in education is to encourage a habit of 
 observation and inquiry. When your child asks, " What is 
 the use of this ? why is that ? " don't call it troublesome. 
 The best education is that which is the answer to our own 
 inquiries. Cultivate the habit of asking, " Why ? " But, 
 observe, not " why " in duty. " Why," in phenomena of 
 nature and art, is the acknowledgment of ignorance ; "why," 
 in practical duties, is the boast of presumption. 
 
 2. Morally, it gave him boldness and tenderness. Many 
 men are bold, yet tyrannical withal ; many tender, yet 
 effeminate and weak. The perfect character joins both. 
 
 Observe Moses when his fellow-countryman is injured — 
 one moment more, and the Egyptian is in his own blood 
 at Moses' feet. Wild, irregular justice was permissible 
 in those wild times, when there was no legal redress to be 
 had. 
 
 Again, observe him in defence of Jethro's daughters at 
 the well. He is ever the champion of the oppressed. The 
 shepherds drive the women away. Moses says, " Not so ; 
 this is God's well ; you shall not have it. By the law of the 
 Most High God might is not right. I stand one man against 
 you all." 
 
 High and noble spirit ! 
 
 But, now, was this tyranny? Nay. Moses was no 
 quarrelsome person, no seeker out of brawls. Witness his 
 attempt at peacemaking : — " Sirs, ye are brethren ; why do 
 ye wrong one to another?" 
 
 This is a noble disposition ; to be firm, daring, true, a 
 
58 
 
 National Education. 
 
 man that can't be put down in the cause of right ; yet, at 
 the same time, tender, gentle, loving. 
 
 3. But Moses was more. He was mentally great, morally 
 good ; but, besides, Moses was religious. 
 
 This is shown in his reverence : he takes off his shoes in 
 humble adoration. 
 
 In obedience : God says he is to go before Pharaoh, and 
 God's will is law ; he will brave the angry king. 
 
 In meekness : he was humble as a child : a deeply 
 gifted man, but self-distrustful ; " very meek above all men 
 who were upon the face of the earth." 
 
 A beautiful thing it is to see all excellencies crowned by 
 religion. 
 
 And now remember all this was the effect of education. 
 This is what we mean by education : it is to produce mental 
 power, moral worth, and religious character. 
 
 II. The public results of Moses' education, that is, its 
 results on his nation and on the world. 
 
 The result on his own nation was chiefly the elevation 
 of the labouring classes. 
 
 Let us describe the political degradation of Israel. There 
 were two classes in society, a ruhng and a ruled. In all ages 
 there is something similar ; but in this case it was not the 
 question between rich and poor, but between superior and 
 inferior nations, like that between the whites and the blacks 
 in slave countries. The Egyptian policy was to keep the 
 Israelites down, to refuse them educational and political 
 privileges, to prevent their increase of population. And 
 the task of Moses was the emancipation of his people. 
 
 So is that of every Christian. Let us define what we 
 mean by the education and elevation of the labouring classes. 
 
Character of Moses. 
 
 59 
 
 It is not to exempt them from toil ; this were no blessing. 
 Labour is a blessing. The rich would be happier if they 
 were forced to spend some hours each day in manual toil. 
 Labour brings out strength of character. A world where all 
 was rest would make the human race degraded. Neither is 
 it to introduce them into society, for there is the misery of 
 fashionable life. It is not to break down classes. Christi- 
 anity levels ; education levels ; but they level up. Mis- 
 taken men would level down. Elevation of the poor is to 
 give them moral and religious worth ; to strengthen their 
 minds ; to raise them above the almost brute life they 
 lead to the higher life of the spirit ; to make them men ; 
 to make them like the Israelites, free. But observe, free 
 from their own selves, the worst of all tyranny. " He is 
 a freeman whom the truth makes free." Had Moses freed 
 Israel and given them no education and no religion, it would 
 have been but a poor boon. 
 
 And now observe. Egyptian policy prevented all this. 
 The wisdom of Egypt would have been to say, " These 
 Israelites are a great people ; let us treat them as brothers. 
 Let us so treat them that their inventions, their skill, their 
 labour shall be shared by us ; so that when Egypt is invaded 
 they, feeling it their home, may fight side by side with us, 
 the Israelite and the Egyptian, for a common country." 
 They did not do this ; therefore, at last, by apparent 
 chance, the Israelites got intelligence, they got numbers, and 
 they learnt their power. They said, "We will be free." 
 Egypt might have raised them gradually. Raised suddenly, 
 a revolution was the consequence. The hosts of Egypt were 
 buried in the Red Sea as the result of their own infatuated 
 policy ; just because they would not give Israel's lower 
 classes a national education. 
 
6o 
 
 National Education. 
 
 There might have been a pyramid erected on the shore 
 with this inscription : " Here lies a nation which perished 
 because . . . . " 
 
 Let us say a few words of appHcation. Thank God, the 
 time has passed when English policy was the policy of Egypt. 
 Fifty years ago the msane cry was raised, " The people must 
 not be educated because it will unfit them for their station, 
 and teach them to cope with us." Thank God, the echo of 
 that cry has died away. 
 
 Egypt's sovereign said, "The people shall be crushed 
 down." A voice from England's throne has said, " My people 
 shall be instructed." Egyptian aristocracy sided with their 
 sovereign. The horsemen who perished with their chariots 
 in the Red Sea wave sided with their sovereign, and would 
 have kept the Israelites slaves. And English aristocracy 
 have also sided with their sovereign. I speak as the mouth- 
 piece of a society composed of English clergy and English 
 nobles when I say : " Let us raise our poor brethren to our 
 own level." " Sirs, ye are brethren ; why do ye wrong one 
 to another ? " 
 
 Thank God for this. The mighty chasm between rich 
 and poor is filling up. That selfish, useless indolence, that 
 savage, sullen hatred are ahke disappearing, and men are 
 beginning to feel the very reverse of the Egyptian policy. 
 If England is to be happy and great, we must be one 
 nation, not two ; rich and poor joined together in bands of 
 unity and chains of love. 
 
 Yet there is a discouraging aspect also. History tells 
 that the struggle between rank and numbers has sometimes 
 ended in a satisfactory adjustment. But in the struggle 
 between wealth and numbers we have had no example yet ; 
 there has been national ruin in every case. 
 
Character of Moses. 
 
 6i 
 
 Therefore, my first appeal to-day is to you as English- 
 men. The only thing which stands between us and 
 national revolution is to educate our poor, to make them 
 feel that we do not monopoUse wealth and education ; that 
 we are their friends, not their enemies. 
 
 My second appeal is to you as Christians. Egyptian 
 instruction is not education. It must be joined with re- 
 ligion, and that on the basis of the Bible. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 
 
 (from autograph notes.) 
 Oxford, July 1 1, 1847. 
 
 "And when He was demanded of the Pharisees when the king- 
 dom of God should come, He answered them and said, The kingdom 
 of God Cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here ! 
 or lo there ! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. " — Luke 
 xvii. 20, 21. 
 
 THIS passage was occasioned by the sarcastic question 
 of the Pharisees: "He was demanded of the Pharisees 
 when the kingdom of God should come." 
 
 If we ask what was the expression most frequent on our 
 Redeemer's hps, the answer is, " the kingdom of God." It 
 was this which occasioned the fear in Herod, and the 
 slaughter of the Innocents : " Where is He that is born 
 King of the Jews?" It forms the subject of a petition in 
 the Lord's Prayer : " Thy kingdom come." Again, in the 
 parables, the kingdom of Heaven is likened unto leaven, 
 &c. A voice was heard in the wilderness : " Repent ye, 
 for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." It was the definite 
 announcement of a Church to be set up on earth. 
 
 A man who is filled with one idea, repeating it, is looked 
 upon as a dreamer, an enthusiast. People smile when they 
 
The Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 63 
 
 hear his project, as a kind of monomania. So the repetition 
 of " Kingdom of Heaven " became at last ludicrous in the 
 ears of the Pharisees. The same words were repeated again 
 and again. But months and years rolled by. Jesus con- 
 tinued teaching simply as usual, and there was nothing 
 resulting. Then they would smile and sneer. At last they 
 came to Him, and said : " Well, when is this kingdom, that 
 we hear so much of, to come ? We have heard of it long, 
 we should like to see it" 
 
 Jesus then unfolded his own meaning, and explained 
 why they had not seen it. 
 
 His answer divides our subject into two branches : — 
 
 I. What is meant by the " Kingdom of Heaven ? " 
 
 II. The false expectations of men concerning it. 
 
 I. What is meant by the kingdom of Heaven ? — Let us 
 define our notion of a kingdom. Literally it is a place 
 where a sovereign's influence rules ; in this sense it is the 
 reign of a person. Figuratively it means the domain in 
 which one principle predominates ; in this sense it is the 
 reign of a principle. 
 
 The vegetable kingdom is where vegetable life reigns. 
 The animal kingdom where sentient, conscious, feeling, life 
 reigns. And this is not bounded by locality, by earth, air, 
 or water ; not " lo here, lo there." Nor is it limited by 
 form. We see it in the small green insect on the leaf, and 
 in the whale tumbling in the seas. It presents no outward 
 uniformity ; it is a kingdom 7vithin. 
 
 Again take the kingdom of England. — Wherever the 
 laws of the English sovereign are acknowledged, there is the 
 kingdom. Not in this bounded isle alone, on land or water, 
 in Europe or Asia — so that we can say : " Lo here." Nor 
 
64 
 
 The Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 can it be recognised by dress, language, colour, for the 
 kingdom is within — it " cometh not with observation." 
 Wherever a foreign flag is lowered in token of admitted 
 superiority, there is the English empire of the seas ; wher- 
 ever the colonist's axe hews forests away under Government 
 protection ; wherever the royal salute is fired, and the sub- 
 mission of the subject paid, and wherever the offended 
 majesty of British law claims a victim — the hangman's 
 rope drawn, and the hangman's bolt let fall — there is the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Observe, there are four ideas connected with the notion 
 of a kingdom : — The expansion of the kingdom ; the power ; 
 the glory; and the right of judging. 
 
 These four you find in the scriptural notion of the king- 
 dom of Heaven. Wherever God rules, and God's character 
 prevails, and God's laws are recognised. 
 
 We see the idea of expansion in the parable of the 
 mustard-seed ; here is colonisation. 
 
 The idea of power : " He shall reign for ever and ever;" 
 here the flag lowered. 
 
 The idea of glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, and 
 in the archangel's trumpet; here the salute of the universe. 
 
 The idea of punishment : when the kingdom of God 
 came in the destruction of Jerusalem; here the right of 
 execution. 
 
 ;| There is one idea in all this ; the kingdom of Heaven 
 ^■means the rule of God and Righteousness on this earth. 
 " Three characteristics marked the entrance of this king- 
 dom into the world. 
 
 The first is its silence ; it " cometh not with observa- 
 tion ; " it is secret and unostentatious. There is no parade, 
 no display ; but a still small voiee. There stood Christ : 
 
Tiie Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 65 
 
 nothing wonderful in His look; and the Pharisees asked for 
 the kingdom when the King stood before them ! 
 
 And so in all God's great movements. The great revo- 
 lutions in this world are brought about quietly. Look at a 
 conqueror ! His name goes through the world like a peal 
 of thunder. Twenty years elapse, and what has he done? 
 The destroyed towns are built up again, as if he had cut 
 through the ocean. The battle is over, the slain are buried, 
 the cannon silent. 
 
 Look, on the contrary, at the power of a truly holy 
 thought. It lives. That still, small voice — the universe 
 begins to hear it. Which is mightiest, the lightning glaring, 
 or the genial gentle vegetation of this season making all 
 nature burst out in beauty and in joy ? 
 
 The second characteristic is that it was internal : " The 
 kingdom is within you." A day is coming when God's rule 
 shall be felt in crushing, outward power. It will be His 
 execution ; the expunging of evil from the earth. But His 
 real truest kingdom is seen in voluntary submission. 
 
 Look at these two pictures — In the one, subjects kept 
 down by force, tithes and taxes collected at the point of the 
 l)ayonet, rebels marched off under armed escort. In the 
 other, a king issuing beneficent laws from his cabinet ; he 
 himself is not seen but his name revered, no armed police 
 but smiling corn-fields, health, towns stately, and commerce 
 prosperous. Which is the truest picture of a kingdom, com- 
 pulsion, or grateful acquiescence ? The kingflom is within 
 you. 
 
 Christ did reign. When the Pharisees spoke the King 
 had already come. He reigned in the fishing boat, &c. 
 And this is God's kingdom. In one sense we are all sub- 
 jects of God's kingdom, because within His power. In 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 TJie Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 another sense, and that the truest, only those are in it who 
 receive His laws — the laws of love and self-denial, with a pure 
 heart and life. This is a simple truth, but a sublime one. 
 God reigns in the heart ; God's kingdom is a kingdom of 
 goodness. 
 
 But men find substitutes for this " Lo here ! " something | 
 tangible, visible, and localised — forms, creeds, priesthood, 
 &c. Therefore a third characteristic is that it is not local. 
 
 II. False expectations of men concerning the kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 I. The kingdom of God is not a Church kingdom. — 
 Ask men what they mean by extending Christ's kingdom, 
 and we find that many mean extending their own form of 
 Church government. So Rome compelled men to be^ 
 baptised by thousands, and made subjects of the Pope. 
 The Churchman thinks he extends the kingdom if he can 
 get Episcopacy established over the world; the Presbyterian, 
 if he can get Presbyterianism ; the Dissenter, if he can get 
 his own form. This is proselytising not to Christ and good- 
 ness, bat to party. 
 
 Well, it is done. Here you have sacraments all regular, 
 and consecrated buildings, and ministers apostolically or- 
 dained, but worldly men and women come — flaunting, gay, 
 idle persons to stare— is that tTie house of God ? If men •■■^ 
 are here with hearts and lives straining after God, it matters 
 little what the building is — This is no other than the house 
 of God." 
 
 Observe the feverish desire to find the true Church, 
 the anxiety to know. Do I belong to the true Church ? 
 Let us inquire first. Am I a true member of any Church ? It 
 is a matter of some importance to be in the right Church, 
 
The Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 67 
 
 but not of the first importance. Fenelon, Robert Hall, and 
 other such like-minded men, were in wrong Churches. A 
 Church is a society of men for putting down evil. The 
 framework of a Church is a hothouse to ripen and mature. 
 
 ij I believe that a hothouse will nurture grapes better than out- 
 door culture; yet if I find a Hampton Court vine I do not 
 say these are not grapes, but I say, I would not try the 
 experiment again, though it has succeeded here. I say, his 
 Church is a bad system for making Christians ; but it has 
 made a Christian of him. 
 
 Mark, you do not become a Christian by entering tlie 
 true Church, but the Church is made by true Christians 
 entering it. It is not the Church which makes Christians, 
 but Christians which make the Church. This feverish desire 
 to find the true Church, this anxiety to know do I belong 
 to the true Church, arises from the Pharisaical error : the 
 expectation that certain mysterious influences will act upon 
 us from without, independently of our own activity and 
 toil. Dreams ! dreams ! The framework of the Church 
 is a help, not a force ; mere outward culture to nurture the 
 kingdom within you. 
 
 2. Nor is it a state kingdom. — People expect the 
 regeneration of society from political government, and 
 acquired rights. This is another dream. Witness the 
 ardent expectation throughout Europe during the French 
 
 s ^Revolution. 
 
 ' Samuel's sons were exchanged for Saul — was it an im- 
 provement? In Chartism we have seen great hopes and 
 ^ great changes, yet society remains much the same. Life 
 goes on as usual; there is the same struggle. 
 
 How small of all that human hearts endure, 
 The part which laws or kings can cause or cure. 
 
68 
 
 The Kingdom of Heavm. 
 
 You get your darling measure, and then things settle down 
 as before. Evil hearts are not subdued by state regulations. 
 Contentment does not come. Poverty does not vanish. 
 You get rid of the tyranny of an aristocracy, and get the 
 tyranny of a mob. 
 
 Reform yourselves. Often I have thought of this when I 
 have seen political placards in workshops, inscribed with 
 some feverish cry of the day. When will the kingdom of 
 God come ? It is the same old cry doomed to disappoint- 
 ment. Brethren, the Pharisees asked that question. It 
 never came, because they were for beginning outwardly. If 
 they had got rid of the Roman yoke, what then ? Christ 
 was divinely wise, and He said, " Free yourselves ; if the Son 
 shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." Not political 
 oppression, but the slavery of sin is your malady. Christ 
 was quite content with existing forms; there were better, but 
 there were also worse. 
 
 Do I speak to one who burns with the idea of doing good 
 to his country by this measure, or that measure ? Well, I 
 honour it ! It is generous ! A high yearning, but a dream. ; 
 Do not expect more than political improvement is capable'^ 
 of giving. Prepare for disappointment. The sad page of ' 
 history says that countries got free and civilised, and that 
 human happiness was not increased because the kingdom 
 was a state kingdom. There may be happiness in Austria 
 or Russia; Paul, under the Roman Government, was in 
 prison, and was yet happy ; and so are all who have the king- 
 dom within. The natural man strive s from things outward to 
 things .inward ; and hence the Mohammedan kingdom and 
 ifs failure ; hence the failure of desolating pestilences, 
 which only make the reckless more reckless still ; and hence 
 the failure of Rome. 
 
The Ki7igdom of Heaven. 69 
 
 3. Neither does it consist in outward forms. — Some 
 people think tliF kingdom of God will come when we all 
 worship after the same pattern, and when forms are ahke in 
 litirrgles~dresses, and'h'ymns. 
 
 The best intentions in the world are at the bottom of 
 > this mistake. Laud tried it ; he punished and pilloried and 
 , nearly got it, but his sovereign lost his throne, and England 
 ' \was convulsed. A few years before, Elizabeth made dissen- 
 ters. A few years after, two thousand of the best ministers 
 in England were driven from the Church. 
 
 Let us distinguish between Unity and Uniformity. 
 Unity is inward resemblance ; Uniformity, outward. The 
 army is one ; yet is different in arms, dress, and accoutre- 
 ments. Uniformity would destroy its unity. It is complete 
 unity ruled by one will. 
 
 In a garden with box and quickset clipped and squared, 
 we have uniformity ; in another garden with each tree grow- 
 ing in its own natural way, yet planned by a pervading 
 mind which has placed them so as to harmonise, we have 
 unity. 
 
 Artificial crushing forms are not life nor union. Love is 
 the bond of perfectness. Let forms differ ! Forms must 
 be ! But let each Church choose those which most naturally 
 express its own feelings. Christ's kingdom is not in forms, 
 but within you. 
 
 4. Nor is it found in locality. — It is a common error to 
 say " Lo here, or lo there," which binds religion and God to 
 a certain place. It is the old controversy between the Jews 
 and the Samaritans. It is the controversy as to the sacra- 
 ments. There are people who fancy that regeneration is in 
 the water, and Christ in some mystical way in the bread and 
 wine after some magical words. Observe the locaUsation of 
 
70 
 
 The Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 this " Lo here." Or again, people say a Church is a holy- 
 place. So it is if holy people be in it — not else ; the king- 
 dom is within you, not in stones. Where is the holiest 
 place on earth ? Where souls breathe the holiest vows, and 
 execute the most heroic purposes. Where is the Holy of 
 Holies in this city ? Perhaps in some small, dark, miserable 
 room. Where does God reign, where are His splendours 
 felt ? Is it in the pealing organ, or in a good man's soul ? 
 Where music pours out its melody, or where human hands 
 have collected all graceful and all lovely forms ? 
 
 Again, if we speak of locality, people would say where 
 Christ was, or where some pious minister is. But Christ 
 was there to the Pharisees, and yet was no king to them. 
 The kingdom of God is not a thing near you, but a thing in 
 you. 
 
 And so people run about. Salvation is not got in 
 place, here or there. It does not depend on finding the 
 best teacher or the best book. They are like a young 
 boy running about from study to garden, from sunshine to 
 shade, from shade to garret, from posture to posture, trying 
 to fix his mind. He carries desultory feelings within hirn, 
 go where he will. Attention is not got by change of place. 
 Let him sit down where he is, and seek the kingdom of 
 thought within him, and the power of will. 
 
 So in religion. People look to helps, they change from 
 Church to Church. This is the secret of the recent seces- 
 sions to Rome. Men who could not find sympathy and 
 assistances. They become restless, and come back. Try 
 the helps you have. Christ's own presence would not give 
 you what you want. A Christian thrives anywhere. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE SECRET GROWTH OF THE SEED. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Oxford, July 15, 1847. 
 
 " And He said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast 
 seed into the ground." — Mark iv. 26. 
 
 LAST Thursday we examined the subject of the entrance 
 of Divine life into the soul in the case of Jacob. 
 Conversion consists both in impressions and resolves. 
 Jacob's impressions arose from his leaving home, from the 
 direct voice of God, and from feeling the full earnestness of 
 life. His resolves were the fastening upon him recollections, 
 and the devoting self and substance to God. 
 
 To-day we take the subject of the sustentation of the 
 Divine life. 
 
 The Divine life is real. Ask you what it is ? There 
 have been men to whom it was so real that no outward 
 temptation could seduce them from its contemplation, no 
 outward menace deter them. Tyrants let loose the lion and 
 the flame in vain. There are other men who see nothing 
 beyond the present, and who live for it ; men to whom 
 goodness is a dream ; they are of the earth, earthy. 
 
 And the Divine life is supported by discipline here. 
 
72 The Secret Grozvth of the Seed. 
 
 Seventy years are given for the education of the spirit. Life 
 infused in the Infinite is one thing ; life supported another. 
 
 Our subject divides itself into two branches. 
 
 I. Progress of the life of God in the soul of man. 
 
 II. Periods of its development. 
 
 I. I. Real life is that which has in it a principle of ex- 
 pansion. It " springs and grows up." Moreover, it is not only 
 growth, but tendency ever towards a higher life. Life has 
 innate energy, and will unfold itself according to the law of 
 its own being. Its law is progress towards its own possible 
 completeness : such completeness as its nature admits of 
 
 By this we distinguish real life from seeming life. As 
 you cut the stone and carve it, so it remains. But cut a 
 tree ; lop off its branches, strip it ; it will shoot and sprout. 
 Only deadness remains unaltered. Trees in winter all seem 
 alike. Spring detects life. Man can impart motion, and 
 make automatons. Growth and power he cannot give. 
 
 This is the principle of all life. And in the higher 
 life especially there is not only expansion but progress. 
 The limpet on the rock only increases in volume. The 
 plant develops into the flower. The insect develops from 
 the egg into the caterpillar, grows, spins itself a coffin, 
 and becomes hard and shelly. But life beneath goes on, 
 and it emerges a brilliant butterfly. Look at a child, 
 sprawling on the floor, then think of railways, steam ships, 
 manufactures. The power of mind is developed out of the 
 materialism of baby pulp. 
 
 Observe, therefore, the test of the real life of God is 
 growth. 
 
 Amiability dies, grace grows, as life goes on. 
 
The Secret Growth of the Seed. 73 
 
 2. Real life is that which has individual, independent 
 energy : it " bears fruit of itself." 
 
 Observe its hardihood. It needs no petting. It is no 
 hothouse plant. Let the wild winds of heaven blow upon 
 it, with frost, scorching sun, and storms. Religion is not 
 for a cloister, but for life, real hardy life. Observe Christ's 
 religion, and compare it with the fanciful religion of cloistered 
 men. Religious books which speak of fastidious, retiring, 
 feeble delicacy. The best Christianity grows up in exposure. 
 The life of Christ Himself is an illustration of this. So too 
 that of the Apostles in the world, or that of a Christian in 
 the army. 
 
 Again, it can be left to itself, safely. It will grow. 
 Ministers need not torment themselves about the issue of 
 their work, for God gives the increase. It can be left : for 
 it is God in the soul. When once the farmer has sown, he 
 can do little more except weed. 
 
 Moreover, it is apparently left to itself by God. There 
 is no visible interference. God seems to sleep, sleep " night 
 and day." God's work seems left. So was it in the progress 
 of the Church. Christ withdrew, and the Church's history 
 is a perpetual question whence came the tares ? Evil men 
 prosper. There are no lightning flashes ! 
 
 And thus is it in the individual soul. The planting of 
 life is often almost a visible interference of God. Afterwards 
 all is silent : no interposition. Even prayer is left un- 
 replied to. 
 
 Once more, we observe the sacredness of individual 
 character, — of Originality. It bears fruit (///^r^ in its own 
 individual development. The process is never exactly 
 repeated. Life is no mechanical thing. It is everywhere 
 alike, yet different. Count the leaves and grains, measure 
 
74 
 
 The Secret Growth of the Seed. 
 
 the height of the trees, notice the sheep, examine the leaves 
 on an oak ! So in the Christian hfe. No two men think the 
 same, or beheve the same. It is always so in the highest 
 life. Or, again look at national character. There is ever a 
 beautiful diversity. 
 
 3. Its growth is mysterious, secret : " He knoweth not 
 how." 
 
 The law of development is hidden, though real. After 
 long years work is visible. In agriculture you cannot see 
 the growth. Pass that country two months after, and there 
 is a difference. So in a clock. You cannot see it move. 
 But the hand is altered when you look again. It has 
 described a large revolution on the dial plate. 
 
 So we grow. It is marvellous when and where we get 
 our Christian knowledge. Not systematically, but here and 
 there. A man whom you have known young, you meet 
 again in middle age, and you ask, Where did he get all 
 tliis knowledge, this character, this heavenliness ? 
 
 There are Christians who are anxious to see growth. 
 They scratch, and dig away at the root — Wait ! 
 
 4. It manifests itself incessantly, during daily occupations : 
 while " rising night and day." 
 
 Go and stand by a field at night. Men are asleep. No 
 light in yon cottage. But growth and motion are in that 
 field, and more rapidly by night than by day. We learn 
 even when we are doing nothing — contemplating, suffering. 
 
 Our souls do not rest, any more than our bodies. 
 Hearts beat out their life pulses while asleep. 
 
 There comes a solemn feeling at moonlight, by the 
 seaside, or by Schaffhausen. The Spirit of the Universe 
 moving on ! Mighty pulse ! 
 
 So we acquire firmness and experience incessantly. 
 
The Secret Growth of the Seed. 75 
 
 Every action, every word, every meal is part of our trial and 
 our discipline. We are assuredly ripening, or else blighting. 
 II. Periods of development — blade, ear, full corn in the 
 
 ear. 
 
 Sometimes these periods correspond with periods of life, 
 sometimes not. The blade may be in old age, the man 
 born when he is old. Or in very youth there may be 
 maturity of yellow corn. 
 
 1. The blade. Marked by tenderness and negativeness. 
 No distinct views — "blown about with every wind of 
 
 doctrine." The only feeling of life is the desire to live to 
 God. And better so. Men who begin with rigid views of 
 Church, &c., and whose religion begins in opinion and con- 
 troversy, are not so healthy as they who begin with feeling 
 — Divine life rather than Divine creed — Amatida rather 
 than Credenda. Young brethren, we are not anxious to give 
 you views, but convictions, — warm hearts rather than definite 
 opinions. 
 
 Negativeness : no distinct character. What is it to be ? 
 Oats, barley, rye, wheat, tares ? It is an anxious moment 
 when a child is born ; it is an anxious moment when first 
 religious thoughts come. Blade — but what ? Wheat, to be 
 gathered into God's garner, or only a weed ? 
 
 2. The ear. Marked by vigour and beauty. 
 
 Vigour : erect, with decision, fixed principles, and views. 
 
 Beauty. Describe the flowering petals, &c. Solemn 
 season. What promise ! What thoughtfulness. Yet blight 
 is more frequent now — prostration. 
 
 Deep solemn silence in Confirmation. 
 
 3. Full corn in the ear. Marked by maturity and ripe- 
 ness. It has no further stage of development on earth. It 
 must die and sprout again. But its present work is done. 
 
76 The Secret Growth of the Seed. 
 
 The few stalks that stand rot : they have not been 
 ripened. The old man in his imbecility. He might have 
 borne more grains, &c., but his ripeness is over. 
 
 ^Vhat is ripeness? Completeness, all powers equally 
 cultivated. It is the completion of the principles, feelings, 
 and tempers. 
 
 This period is also marked by humility and by joy. 
 By humility ; the head hangs gracefully down in token of 
 ripeness ; always so with men of great attainments. " I am 
 but a little child," said Newton, " picking up pebbles on the 
 shore of the vast ocean of truth." By joy ; the happy aspect 
 of waving corn ! But its beauty is chiefly felt by the 
 thoughtful maa It is the calm deep joy of the harvest 
 being safe, and famine impossible. The food of a nation 
 waves before him. 
 
 Perhaps the green blade might be more beautiful if this 
 association were not felt. 
 
 So is the joy of age. Deep, calm, nearness to God. 
 
 Sickle — harvest — well ! 
 
 There is a truer, deeper happiness of age than of youth. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE LAW OUR SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, September 19, 1847. 
 
 " Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, 
 that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we 
 are no longer under a schoolmaster." — Galatians iii. 24, 25. 
 
 ^ I ^HIS verse contains the information that God's dealing 
 
 with His world is a kind of education. The word 
 
 schoolmaster " implies this. God treats His world as 
 schoolmasters should treat their children. 
 
 Therefore we contemplate the world's development as 
 an education. And from the way in which God brought 
 the world from infancy to manhood we learn the deep 
 principle on which our own system of education should be 
 conducted. 
 
 There was a time of the world's minority, and a time 
 when the world came of age. These times were marked by 
 two different stages of feeling — bondage and liberty ; and by 
 two different principles of action — acting from law and act- 
 ing from faith. There was the time when Moses was the 
 world's schoolmaster, and the time when Christ became the 
 world's higher teacher. 
 
 This principle is an extended one. 
 
78 The Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 It is true in national life. There is the period when 
 laws which grow into a constitution are rigidly observed; 
 and also the period when all these, like a scaffolding, are 
 relaxed in rigour^ because the nation has got that character, 
 good or evil, which the constitution was capable of giving. 
 The old forms have gone, the spirit lives on. 
 
 It is no less true in the single heart's life. In the heart 
 history of every religious man there are two periods, longer 
 or shorter, more or less definitely marked, (for one passes 
 into the other,) the state of pupilage and the state of faith. 
 There is a time when he acts from law, and a time when he 
 acts from a larger, more liberal, more noble principle, that 
 of faith. A time when he is under law, and a time when he 
 is without law. 
 
 Take these verses. Read them. Observe the broad 
 general sentiment. These two stages must be kept sepa- 
 rate and in their right order. One must go before the 
 other. There was a time when God put His world under a 
 schoolmaster, then it would have been preposterous to apply 
 faith. There is a time when a larger spirit has come, and 
 then it would be going back to use law : "After that faith 
 is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." 
 
 Our subject therefore divides itself into two branches : — 
 
 I. The uses of restraint in the heart's education. 
 
 II. The time when restraint may be laid aside. 
 
 I. The uses of restraint in the heart's education. " The 
 law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we 
 might be justified by faith." How was this ? We use the 
 word " restraint," and substitute it for the word " law," as 
 more intelligible. Law to a Jew meant what we mean by a 
 system of checks and restraints. And that whether by 
 
TJte Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 79 
 
 Sfpecial laws, or by the forms in which religious feeling was 
 to be guided. 
 
 1. The first use of law is to restrain from open violence ; 
 to act as a check : "The law is not made for a righteous 
 man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly 
 and sinners, for unholy and profane." That is, it was 
 made to check transgression, it was " added because of 
 transgression." 
 
 As an example of this use let us take the law against 
 coiners. It was not made for us, we are not under it, 
 because we are not restrained by it. Abrogate it to-morrow, 
 we should not coin. The penalty does not prevent us 
 from coining. But some would coin were they not re- 
 strained by that law. They know the penalty, and therefore 
 they abstain. The law was made for them ; it is a school- 
 master to them. The law hangs as a drag on the wheels of 
 evil, not absolutely stopping, but checking it. 
 
 Observe, therefore, the law is a schoolmaster to rule 
 those who cannot rule themselves. It is intended to lead 
 to a state when men may be able to rule themselves without 
 the restraint of law. Therefore we ask, For whom is law 
 necessary, and how long is it necessary for them ? It is 
 necessary for those who feel the inclination to evil ; and 
 so long as the inclination remains, so far must a man be 
 under law. 
 
 In this stage it would be madness to relax from restraint. 
 Imagine a governor amidst a population of convicts trusting 
 to high principle. Imagine a parent having no fixed hours, 
 no rules, no /aw in his household, no punishmerd; for evil ! 
 There is a morbid feeling against punishment ; but it is 
 God's system. Men have often false notions about personal 
 liberty and personal dignity. They are trying the principle 
 
8o 
 
 The Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 of faith when the stage has not yet come to have done 
 with law. 
 
 2. The second use of restraint in heart education is to 
 show the inward force of evil. 
 
 This is best expressed by an illustration. A steam- 
 engine at work in a manufactory is so quiet and gentle that 
 a child might put it back. But interpose a bar of iron 
 many inches thick, and it cuts through as if it were so 
 much leather. Introduce a human limb — it whirls round, 
 and the form of man is in one moment a bleeding, mangled, 
 shapeless mass. Now, observe, it is restraitit that manifests 
 this unsuspected power. In the same way law discovers 
 the strength of evil in our hearts. Not till a man has felt 
 something resisting that evil does he know its force. . . . 
 
 3. The third use is to form habits of obedience. 
 
 Let us thoughtfully try to realise Israelitish life. It was 
 made up of numberless observances and duties which grad- 
 ually formed in the mind a feehng of subjection to a higher 
 Will. Hence was developed the old Hebrew character— that 
 fine, heroic, stern race of chieftains, who had no speculations 
 about right and wTong. Life was with them an action, not 
 a thought. 
 
 In that profession which is specially one of obedience, 
 the military profession, you cannot mistake the imparted 
 type of character. Immediate, prompt obedience ; — no 
 questioning ' "Why." Hence comes their decision of character. 
 Hence, too, their happiness. 
 
 This is a principle of all education that deserves the 
 name. Would you have your child happy, decided, manly? 
 Teach him to obey. It is an error to teach a child to act 
 on reason, or to expect reasons why a command is given. 
 Never suffer a child to ask ' why ? ' For, observe, from 
 
The Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 8.1 
 
 that moment you constitute him judge of your decision. 
 All is well if you convince him now ; but next time he may 
 not be convinced. Then ensues wretchedness, distrust, 
 and scepticism. The first thing a child has to learn is that 
 there is a will above him. Better is it that he should obey 
 a mistaken order than be taught to see that it is mistaken. 
 A parent must be master in his own house. 
 
 4. The fourth use is to form habits of faith : " To bring 
 us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." As 
 Judaism was a system calculated to nurture habits of obedi- 
 ence, so was it one which nourished the temper of faith. 
 Let us take for example the case of the Sabbath-day. 
 Imagine how it was passed. It was somewhat as it was 
 in Puritanical times, somewhat as it is in Scotlan'^ now. 
 The Jew was forbidden to do any work, to speak his own 
 words, to think his own thoughts. He might only walk a 
 " Sabbath-day's journey." Yet consider how all this stern 
 system was calculated to throw a man in on himself. It 
 was a barrier thrown across the stream of his busy, working, 
 noisy life, and forcing him to remember the unseen world. 
 
 This prepared the nation for Christ Judaism was not 
 Christianity, but it was a preparation for it. So God edu- 
 cated His young world. 
 
 If we would view education in a right point of view we 
 must remember that its use is to form faith. All education 
 begins with faith. The child does not know the use of the 
 alphabet, but he trusts. The boy beginning mathematics 
 takes on trust what he sees no use in. In learning 
 science the first principles must be granted, or else there 
 is no progress. Fancy the child, the boy, the tyro in 
 science stopping to comprehend the propriety of the use of 
 scientific or algebraical symbols ! The child has to take 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 Tlic Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 parental wisdom for granted. Happy the child that goes on 
 long believing that nothing is wiser, better, greater than his 
 father ! Blessed spirit of confiding trust, which is to be 
 transferred to God ! Let not the parent infuse suspicion of 
 his teacher in the child's mind. It is the "better part which 
 shall not be taken away from him." 
 
 Noft' let us understand what faith is. It is just this, the 
 conviction "what I do thou knowest not now, but thou 
 shalt know hereafter." Faith is trust — in the midst of the 
 perplexities of evil to feel sure that all is right, to believe 
 that partial evil is universal good ; — in spite of all hard 
 thoughts, and suspicious thoughts of God's goodness and 
 God's love, to dare to call Him Father. That is faith, and 
 that is to be lirst begun in law and education. 
 
 II. The time when restraint may be laid aside : "After 
 that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." 
 
 I. Restraint may be laid aside, in the first place, when 
 self-command is obtained. Then command from another is 
 not needed. Law was, to bring us to Christ ; after that we 
 do not require law. Now to be brought to Christ is, in 
 other words, to have learned to act on principle ; to have 
 got self-command. Hear Christ describe such a one : "If 
 any man will come after me, let him deny himself" 
 
 Let me illustrate the principle that self-command needs 
 no schoolmaster. Some of us surely there are who have 
 got beyond childish meanness : we could not be mean; 
 restraint is no longer needed ; we are beyond the school- 
 master. Some of us there are who have no inclination to 
 mtemperance : childish excess in eating and drinking exists 
 no longer. Some of us there are who no longer love indo- 
 lence : we have advanced beyond it, \\q love labour ; the 
 
The Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 83 
 
 law may be taken away, for we are free from law. Some 
 of us there are who could not steal, or cheat, or over- 
 reach, who would rather suffer loss ourselves, therefore, we 
 are not " under a schoolmaster." 
 
 Now, observe what that expression means : " Free from 
 law." There is a great mistake about liberty from law. 
 Some religious persons think it means free, so that though 
 you sin, law will not punish. This is the liberty >^f devils : 
 free to do as much evil as you will, and yet not suffer. 
 True Christian liberty is this, self-command ; to have been 
 brought to Christ ; to do right, and love right, without a law 
 of compulsion to school you into doing it. If we have not 
 got so far, the law has all its power hanging over us still, we 
 are under a schoolmaster. 
 
 2. Again, restraint may be laid aside when the state 
 of justification by faith has been attained : "The law was 
 our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be 
 justified by faith." 
 
 Let me explain that. Justification is a state of acceptance 
 with God — admitted goodness. There are two states of 
 justification : by the law and by faith. Justification by the 
 law implies a scrupulous and accurate performance of minute 
 acts of obedience in every particular ; justification by faith is 
 acceptance with God, not because a man is perfect, but 
 because he does all in a trusting, large, generous spirit, 
 actuated by a desire to. please God. 
 
 In a state of faith man acts on principle, and he gets 
 below enactments. For instance, David at Nob ate of 
 the shew-bread, which was only lawful for the priests to 
 eat. The disciples ate the ears of corn as they went 
 through the fields on the Sabbath-day. And the apostle 
 
4 The Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 lys, in that state it is not good to go back to the school- 
 laster. It is higher far to act on grand principles, than to 
 ct timorously on small rules. Let me illustrate this. The 
 jown son, living in his father's house, may not hear a com- 
 nand for years. Yet he is in a state of acceptance — neither 
 of commendation nor of punishment for every act. Treat 
 him as a child and he will at once rebel. Again, observe, 
 when a child returns to compulsory forms it is not a good 
 sign. There is a great distinction between Judaism and 
 Christianity. In Christianity there are few or no definite 
 laws — all men are left to themselves. It is an unhappy sign 
 when a Church multiplies her laws and makes them 
 stringent ; when people get zealous for forms and small 
 things, not as privileges, which they are, but as essentials, 
 which they are not. Those are her days of dotage, not of 
 childhood. 
 
 There are two periods when a tree needs propping : 
 when very young, and when very old. In the first case it is 
 a prelude to strength. But in some old park you may have 
 seen a grey, venerable oak, past its prime, but preserved as 
 a relic of past nobleness ; buttresses hold it to the ground, 
 hoops and iron bands are round its giant limbs. It is the 
 weakness not of youth, but of the decline for which there is 
 no second youth 
 
 We live in a day when it is exceedingly difficult to judge 
 fairly whether men are returning to forms for order's sake, 
 or whether from a want of faith to screen them from scepti- 
 cism, and from a want of manHness which loves to cultivate 
 romantic sensibility. Remember " we are no longer under 
 a schoolmaster." " Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty 
 wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled 
 ■\gain- with the yoke of bondage." 
 
The Law our Sclioolinastcr. 85 
 
 3. Lastly, restraint inust be laid aside when the time of 
 faith is come, whether faith itself have come or not. 
 
 It is so in academical education. Childhood and youth 
 are past, the young man is on the verge of manhood. If his 
 heart be undisciplined, his mind unregulated, and his passions 
 unsubdued, then more than a child does he want restraint. 
 And yet he is no longer under a schoolmaster. So also in 
 the religious life. We may have attained the full intellectual 
 comprehension of the Gospel, but religious goodness has not 
 kept pace with it ; and the man wakes to conviction that 
 the Gospel is a name and the powers of the world to come 
 are not in him. You cannot put him to school again. 
 Fear will not produce goodness. Forms will not give 
 reverence. System will not confer freedom. 
 
 Therefore the work of childhood and youth must be 
 done while we are young, when the education is not too 
 late. 
 
 Let me now apply this to parents and teachers. 
 
 It is a sad fact that the children of religious parents so 
 often turn out ill. And this because there has been either 
 no restraint, or restraint used injudiciously. In other words, 
 faith is used when it is the time for law, and law applied 
 when it is the period for faith. There has been an absence 
 of discipline. Now discipline is not severity, but firmness ; 
 calm, quiet training, which has not necessitated one unkind 
 word. There are some who expect God to do all the work 
 of education as by a miracle. 
 
 I address parents and teachers. If there be a man for 
 whom a heritage of misery is prepared, a man who has cause 
 to look bitterly back on his instructors, it is he who grows up 
 with an undisciplined mind and heart. Love is not the only 
 
86 
 
 The Law our Schoolmaster. 
 
 principle in education, nor tenderness, nor faith. Parents 
 make the error of appealing to principles before principles 
 are there. Teachers preach to feelings, instead of issuing 
 commands. Remark that Moses comes first, then Christ. 
 The law is our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. 
 
 Another error of parents and teachers is the application 
 of restraint when there should be an appeal to principles 
 and faith. So did Jeroboam, and lost ten tribes. So does 
 a Church when, dealing with an enlightened intellectual age, 
 she tries severity. So does a parent when he treats the 
 young man like a boy. The poor man says, " I know not 
 how my boy turned out so ill : I corrected him again and 
 again." Yes, it was that correction which lost you your 
 child, and made him a rebel. 
 
 There is one work which is to be done on the character 
 by restraint and law, and there is another work which is to 
 be done on the heart by faith. Let us take care we do no£ 
 mistake them. 
 
IX. 
 
 ELIJAH ON MOUNT CARMEL. 
 
 (from autograph notes.) 
 
 Brighton, September Z'^, 1847. 
 
 "And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt 
 ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if 
 Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word." — 
 I Kings xviii. 21. 
 
 ELIJAH belongs to a class of men specially gifted for 
 special purposes. Their weapon is not love, but truth. 
 They are born not to win, but to coerce by will. Self-con- 
 querors, and therefore subduers of men. 
 
 Hence they are qualified for reformers, — they are stern, 
 inflexible. Such men have few loves, and few private 
 affections. Their life is public ; their interests national, 
 ^ffiot private. Hence their characters are sad, for they are 
 separated from sympathy : but hence also are they elevated. 
 The less they have of a home here, the more they make 
 themselves a home in the awful other world, and find sym- 
 pathy in God. Such a man was the Baptist, and such was 
 P^lijah. The spirit of the old Jewish character had descended 
 on them ; that race of heroes, disciplined by law, iron, — 
 severe, like Jephthah and Joshua. 
 
 Elijah mourned over his degenerate countrymen ; and 
 
88 
 
 Elijah on Mount Carmel. 
 
 blushed for the effeminacy, voluptuousness, and idolatry of 
 his apostate countrymen. 
 
 He gave his challenge. The people came, the court, the 
 nobles, and the priests. One man meets them, with no | 
 nobility but the nobility of earnestness, with no credentials 
 but the priesthood of the truth and the power of the right. 
 
 The first salute — "How long halt ye between two 
 opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then 
 follow him " — expresses two things, 
 
 I. Indecision of character : " How long halt ye between 
 two opinions ? " 
 
 II. Religious earnestness : " If the Lord be God, follow 
 Him ; if Baal, then follow him." 
 
 I. Indecision of character : " How long halt ye between 
 two opinions ? " " Halt," literally, to limp, go lame ; im- 
 plying pain and instability. Pain, the first idea that strikes 
 one on seeing the injured limb come to the ground with a 
 shock The pitiable and cruel state of the man who cannot 
 make up his mind. Instability, the awkward motion 
 between higher and lower ground, with danger of a fall. 
 So in indecision : one moment on the higher ground of 
 principle, the next on the lower one of interest. You can- 
 not calculate on such a man. S. James's comparison is,f^r 
 " wavering like waves of the sea ; " unstable element, a mirror 
 to-day reflecting the tints of heaven, to-morrow turbid, and 
 the day after foaming in fury. 
 
 I. The first cause of this arose from the multiplicity of 
 opinions. There had been a split between Judah and Israel. 
 The' question was one of antiquity as to which is the true 
 Church. The appeal was to ancient documents. Men 
 looked on, and said it was a priests' squabble. A new 
 
Elijah on Mount Carmel. 
 
 89 
 
 religion was now introduced by Jezebel from Sidon, and 
 men asked themselves whether Jehovah's worship or Baal's 
 differed much after all. 
 
 There is too a multiplicity of opinion in our own time. 
 Hence the halting ; the appeal to antiquity as to which is 
 the true Church. Sarcastic men and sad men look on. 
 The sarcastic say : After all is one creed better than another? 
 Sad men doubt : they go to Rome or Dissent; or they remain 
 perplexed and doubting, and ask, "AVhat is truth?" 
 
 2. The second cause arose from religious inconsistencies. 
 Men asked. Which religion produced the most godlike 
 
 characters ? They could arrive at no decision. Jezebel is 
 the type of Baalism. But then there are Nadab and Baasha, 
 Zimri and Omri, and now Ahab ! — not much to choose 
 between them. 
 
 In our own day earnest men are kept by religious 
 inconsistencies at a distance. When they see men standing 
 apart, they watch, and they hear discussions about popular 
 preachers. They observe that in honesty, self-government, 
 punctuality, and such like matters, such men are no better 
 than others. Jezebel was the worldly woman exclusively 
 on worldly principles ; Ahab was the religious man, h\i% 
 worldly withal. The only difference between them is thai 
 Jezebel is the more honest of the two. 
 
 3. The third cause arose from a desire t o please me n. 
 Tliis in three forms produces Thdecisibh. 
 
 First, over-amiability. Nothing falsifies the character 
 like softness^^lhe want of power to say No, when it would 
 ' give pain. Eli was not a bad man, but there was a softness 
 ,'and feebleness of character, which left him powerless to say 
 No, to his sons. 
 
 Secondly, love of popularity. To be the universal 
 
QO 
 
 Elijah on Mount Carmel. 
 
 favourite ! Ordinarily how dangerous : " Woe unto you 
 when all men shall speak well of you ! for so did their 
 fathers to the false prophets." 
 
 Let us paint an universal favourite who offends none. 
 Pilate wished to save Jesus, so far as he could do it consis- 
 tently with his own popularity. The Pharisees knew his weak 
 point, " If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar's friend." 
 He did not dare to be Ctesar's friend without seetnitig it. 
 He tried at the same time not to offend the other party. 
 He washed his hands, and delivered Jesus to be crucified. 
 Remark, this crime was committed not by a bad man, but by 
 one who was made undecided by a love of popularity. 
 
 Thirdly, the wish to please our own party. Some can 
 stand against the world if friends be with them ; but the 
 difficulty lies in acting on conscience against friends. We 
 know the miserable indecision of the statesman who longs 
 to vote against his own party, and will not ; and of the 
 religious man who fears suspicion when he dare not act 
 against his friends. 
 
 4. Thejburth cause arises from selfishness. If we appeal 
 to our own experience, we find that when indecision 
 was wretched, interest and self were the elements that 
 made it so. We put one pleasure over against another, 
 like a child vacillating between grapes and glittering red 
 cherries. Alas ! men for things as wretched, hesitate ; 
 torture self because they fear to lose; and choose wrongly. 
 Or again, when interest is on one side and duty on the 
 other. Never indeed does indecision last long where the 
 question is truly about duty ; then the way becomes clear ; 
 or if a man errs there is no remorse. Balaam saw his duty 
 clear at night; but the ne.xt day he looked again and he saw 
 the glittering bribe; he could not be sure; at last he thought 
 
Elijah on Mount Carmel. 
 
 91 
 
 God's voice said, Go. Marvellous is it that thoroughly 
 worldly men are more straightforward than men half- 
 religious. 
 
 X - Now choose, and choose in earnest. Serve God — but 
 don't regret. If the man of business will be honest he will 
 suffer. But what does he win ? He wins a clear con- 
 science, pure self-approval, God. 
 
 Or else choose the world. But do it thoroughly. Say 
 to pleasure: Be thou my god; say to gain: I worship thee; 
 say to ambition: I consecrate my energies to attain thee. 
 And the world will give you pleasure. Baal has his rewards. 
 Happy while life lasts — and then — aye — what then ? 
 
 n. Religious earnestness. " If the Lord be God, follow 
 Him; but if Baal, then follow him." 
 
 Religious earnestness was marked in Elijah — 
 ' I. By self-forgetfulness. Was Elijah whispering: " Now 
 I am doiiTg a brave thing ; people's eyes are on me " ? This 
 is the finest scene in Scripture. Elijah was quite unconscious 
 that he was making a scene. He had lost himself in his 
 cause. Hence the people understood that it was no contest 
 between Elijah and the priests, but between Baal and (jod. 
 Hence they did not exclaim, " Elijah," but the " Lord," He 
 is God. 
 
 .,j , All sincerity forgets egotism. Moses' skin shone, but he 
 
 I wist not that the skin of his face shone." 
 
 2. By action in stead o f speculation. Remark, Elijah 
 was in a schismatic Church. Speculative minds would 
 have dreamed of outward unity, and thought that nothing 
 could be done till that was got — or of a millennial state. 
 Elijah acted as he was, and where he was. The work 
 given liim was not to restore unity, but to destroy unbelief 
 
92 
 
 Elijah on Mount Carmel. 
 
 in individual hearts. All earnestness does that, it acts. Do 
 the duty next you, leave the rest to develop itself. ^ 
 
 3. By_^ sternness and unmeasured language. Elijah 'jjj" 
 mocked the priests of Baal. He killed them. We are not/s^ 
 concerned to defend this. The Jewish spirit differed from^ 
 the Christian. Yet observe, it marked earnestness. It is 
 
 a precedent to interpret character. Among the charges 
 against Luther was this, that he was not so delicate in his^"" 
 language against opponents as modern softness requires. 
 Were the prophets? Was Elijah? John the Baptist?" 
 Christ Himself? In matters of life and death men cannot 
 pick words. Let cavillers breathe for one hour the air which 
 such men breathed, feel their zeal for God, their hatred of 
 hypocrisy; feel their soul blazing up with earnestness, — then 
 they may judge of terms. 
 
 4. By resting on his own heart and conscience. Consider 
 what might have been said. The world is against you, the' 
 wise, the court, the priesthood; — this is presumption. What 
 was Elijah's answer? Numbers are not the test of truth, 
 but the voice within clear. The world against Elijah. Well 
 then in the name of God and truth, Elijah against the 
 world. 
 
 This opens the question of the Protestant right of 
 private judgment. It has its use and its abuse. Its abuse 
 is seen when young .persons dare to say their Church is 
 wrong ; or when persons in the world of fashion and idle- 
 ness, guiltless of thought, ignorant of the discipline required 
 for investigating truth, venture to decide about opinions, as 
 if it were just as easy as to decide about the last new fashion, 
 and quietly say, The last sermon was not Gospel. 
 
 Young brethren, Elijah judged independently. But 
 remark, Elijah was a grown man; he had fasted and prayed, 
 
Elijah on Mount Car met. 
 
 93 
 
 he had lived alone, pondered ; and when he did defy his 
 Church and country's judgment, he was preparing for 
 probable death. The next time you are inclined to be 
 flippant, remember that Elijah's character alone can qualify 
 for Elijah's judgment. 
 
 Let me say in application — 
 
 1. Remark the power of earnestness to produce a miracle. 
 Who is he that brings down fire from heaven, but he that 
 believes? Its power to gain influence — but observe only by 
 degrees. Its power to diffuse faith. It communicates itself, 
 it works a reformation. 
 
 2. I address boys. Boy, standing alone in school, was 
 not Elijah's a fine character? Yours may be just as fine. 
 
X. 
 
 GROWTH INTO CHRIST IN LOVE AND 
 TRUTH. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, October 3, 1847. 
 
 " But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all 
 things, which is the head, even Christ."— Ephesians iv. 15. 
 
 THE previous verse describes Christian childhood, this 
 verse Christian manhood. The characteristics of 
 childhood are instability of character, unfixedness of opinion, 
 and credulity. All of which, natural and even graceful in a 
 child, are in a man weakness, unfitness for life, and folly. 
 Manhood is truth, love, likeness to Christ. 
 We therefore consider : — 
 
 I. The standard of Christian excellence : " the head, 
 even Christ." 
 
 II. Christian progress towards that standard : " We grow 
 up into him in all things." 
 
 I. Christ's Headship. 
 
 I. The prominent notion suggested is His rank in the 
 universe. He rules as God in Creation. But evidently 
 the Apostle does not mean this in the text. We are to 
 
Growth into CJirist in Love and Truth. 95 
 
 grow into Him as Head. Growth into Christ's Godhead 
 is impossible. Godhke we may, God we cannot even by- 
 truth and love, become. 
 
 2. He is the Head as being the source of spiritual life. 
 
 This is implied in metaphor. The higiiest life-powers, 
 — sensation, feeling, thought, — come from the brain. 
 
 To one who has read the history of those times, there 
 is an emphatic truth in Christ's being the Life of the world. 
 The world was dead when Christ came. 
 
 Look at the Roman world. There is no belief, all is 
 hollow, all pretence. Diana is great; to make her image gives 
 employment to a craft. The capital of the Roman Empire 
 is a metropolis of abomination. Read what was going on at 
 Rome and Baiae. The heathen heart had every fibre rotted. 
 
 Turn to Judaism. The Pharisees were clinging to forms 
 from which life had long since died out, and were hanging over 
 them as you hang over a corpse whose features present the 
 illusion of life. The Sadducees, too honest to believe this, 
 said, "We are infidels." Others, with minds too honest 
 to believe in forms, and hearts too aff"ectionate to rest in 
 infidelity, were gasping, languishing, sadly hoping for better 
 times. 
 
 The world was like a raft becalmed in the tropics : some 
 of its freight dead and baking in the sun, some sucking as if 
 for moisture from dried casks, and some sadly, faintly looking 
 for a sail. Christ's coming to that world was as life to the 
 dead, imparting new impulse to human heart and human 
 nature. It was like rain and wind coming to that bark — 
 once more it cuts the sea, guided by a living hand. 
 
 So also with each man who drinks Christ's spirit. He 
 becomes a living character. Not sustained on dogmas, or 
 taken up opinions, but alive with Christ. . . . 
 
1)6 Growth into Christ in Love and Truth. 
 
 In this sense to grow into Christ is to get fresh spiritual 
 energy. The child and the man become equally alive ; but in 
 the man it is developed life : " I am come that they might 
 have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." 
 
 3. He is Head as chief of the human race. 
 
 Never had the world seen, never again will it see, such 
 a character. Imagine exotics beneath our inclement sky. 
 They grow indeed, but they cannot thrive. A foreigner would 
 scarcely recognise them as intended for the plants of his own 
 country. Imagine one such plant in peculiar circumstances 
 lighting on a kindly soil, in a sheltered spot, and with its 
 innate vigour reaching perfection. That would be the 
 realised idea of the plant. Such was Christ among other 
 men. Humanity found in Him a genial soil, and realised 
 God's idea of what man was meant to be. 
 
 He is chief Nothing comes near Him. 
 
 Last Sunday we contemplated Elijah, and saw that he 
 was no common man, but one unearthly, borne away in a 
 flame chariot. Yet we feel that Elijah is measurable : we 
 can conceive the daring of Carmel; his weakness in the desert 
 brings him near to us. The passionate disappointment of 
 a proud but high spirit we can understand. Now turn to 
 That character ! " The first man is of the earth, earthy : the 
 second man is the Lord from Heaven." Christ is firm, un- 
 conquerable, true to the cause of God and man ; but also 
 loving, tender, gentle. Choose that type. He is the one 
 model, the one type. Have no other. Before that all 
 earthly excellence fedes. All dims before our glorious 
 Head. 
 
 II. Progress towards the standard of Christian excel- 
 lence : " We grow up into Him in all things." 
 
Growth into Christ in Love and Truth. 97 
 
 Let us inquire what progress means : and the approved 
 mode of progress. 
 
 i. Progress is made in likeness to Him, and in com- 
 prehension of His character. 
 
 1. Growth in likeness to Him. The human soul was 
 formed for growth, and that growth is infinite. The acorn 
 grows into the oak, the child into the philosopher. And at 
 death the soul is not declining, it is as vigorous as ever. 
 Hence, nothing but an infinite standard will measure the 
 growth of the soul of man. 
 
 Observe, moreover, the universality in this growth : " in 
 all things," — completeness of character. Completeness, 
 however, is not perfection. Take a field in which in some 
 parts the crop is abundant, in places thin, and low and 
 yellow. Such are some characters. Where the natural soil 
 favours, graces are cultivated ; where it is adverse, the charac- 
 ter is not grown into Christ. The man is generous, but, it 
 may be, bad-tempered, &c. 
 
 Completeness is proportion : the field all grown 
 equally. S. Paul says, " Grow in all things." 
 
 2. Growth in comprehension of Him. Christ is not com- 
 prehensible at first. He is not appreciated in our childhood. 
 Elijah's character is more striking to a child. Christ's is too 
 calm, too pure, too inwardly great for the child's mind. A 
 mountain disappoints at first. You arrive at night full of 
 expectation. You look out next morning and are disap- 
 pointed. But after you have lived beside it for weeks, and 
 seen it in all lights, it qtows upon you. Go where you will, 
 there is the old white peak, shooting up to Heaven, serene 
 and calm, looking down on the smaller peaks — the giant, 
 and the monarch of them all. 
 
 So the young man forms ideals of excellence for himself — 
 
 H 
 
98 Groziith into Christ in Love and Truth. 
 
 only by degrees does he appreciate Christ. Dazzled by 
 military life, he wishes to fall in a cavalry charge ; he knows 
 nothing higher, till the time comes when he begins to feel 
 that to save men's lives is better than to destroy life. His 
 next ideal may be intellectual superiority. He dreams of 
 eloquence, and thinks it dazzling to hold a Senate still. To 
 be an orator, retaining a thousand men as one, eyes speaking 
 to eyes, heart to heart — the dominion of mind ! But this 
 is shared by base and bad men. Or it may be his ideal is the 
 ascetic life. This is a temptation to ardent hearts. Many now 
 go to Rome for this reason. But, after all, it is a useless life, 
 and a refined form of selfishness. 
 
 Then the man turns to Christ. He finds in Him, not 
 the warrior, but " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye 
 are of." Not the man of intellect, but " Become as a little 
 child." Not the ascetic, but a man found in common life, 
 at the marriage-feast of Gana, in the loving family of 
 Bethany. Words cannot express the awe with which a man 
 contemplates that character when it is understood. This is 
 the true heroic, this the only Godlike, this the real Divine. 
 From all types of human excellence I have made my 
 choice for life and death — Christ. 
 
 ii. The approved means of growth, the mode of progress: 
 " Speaking the truth in love." 
 
 Truth and love, — and these joined. 
 
 There are two forms of character. One distinguished 
 by strong love for what is true, the other by vivid percep- 
 tion of what is beautiful. One forming the man of integrity, 
 the other the man of tenderness. 
 
 Each has its peculiar faults ; and each is corrected by the 
 other. 
 
 Compare, for instance, Northern and Southern Europe 
 
Growth into Christ in Love and Truth. 99 
 
 The Northern nations are honest and true ; the Southern 
 nations are tender. The South is the home of beauty — 
 arts, music, refinement. 
 
 Compare Protestantism and Romanism. Truth by itself 
 degenerates into sternness, as in the case of Puritanism. 
 Hard, inflexible — no elegance, no tenderness — it pronounces 
 the sentence of death unmoved. Then look at the Roman 
 devotee, and we find much of superstition, falsehood, and vo- 
 luptuousness. If we must choose, then heart and soul we are 
 for the Puritan. 
 
 But to " grow into Christ " we must have both traits of 
 character. 
 
 Would you be like Christ ? Cultivate love of beauty, and 
 tenderness. His soul was alive to beauty. He noted the 
 rising and the setting sun, the waving com, the lily of the 
 field. His was love which insult could not ruffle, nor ribaldry 
 embitter ; and which only grew sweeter and sweeter. 
 
 Would you be like Christ? Be true. He never swerved. 
 He was a martyr to truth. Would He soften down truth 
 for the young man whom he loved, or make it palatable? 
 No, not for friendship, not for love, nor for all the lovely 
 things this workl has to show : " One thing thou lackest : sell 
 all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou 
 shalt have treasure in heaven : and come, follow me." That 
 was " speaking the truth in love." 
 
 I address the man of truth. You hate hypocrisy, cant, 
 pretence ; you are a man of busines.s, of intellect, you have 
 all the elements of a fine cliaracter, if they are Christianised. 
 But join to them love. Your danger is sternness, wounding 
 men with cutting words. Your character wants the polish 
 of love. 
 
 I address the man of tenderness, of accomplishments 
 H 2 
 
100 Growth into Christ in Love and Truth, 
 
 and refinement. Your danger, if you look in upon yourself, is 
 superstition. The sharp edge of truthfulness is lost. There 
 is only one step between softness and impurity of feeling. 
 Join that tenderness with truth, if you would grow into 
 Christ. 
 
 In conclusion let me add one word of application. — 
 There is no good to be got from Christ except by being 
 made like Him. There is no pardon, no blessing, separate 
 from inward improvement. Sanctity of character alone 
 blesses. Each man is his own hell, and his own heaven. 
 God Himself cannot bless you unless He gives you His own 
 character. 
 
XI. 
 
 SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, October lo, 1847. 
 
 "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, 
 when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship 
 the Father. Ye worship ye know not what : we know what we wor- 
 ship : for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now 
 is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father, in spirit and 
 in truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a 
 Spirit : and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and 
 in truth." — John iv. 21 — 24. 
 
 /'"^HRIST rests on the narrow rocky road between 
 
 Gerizim and Ebal, before entering Sychar, near a well. 
 A Samaritan woman comes to draw water. He asks for a 
 draught. There had been a long controversy between the 
 Jews and Samaritans as to the whereabouts of worship ; and 
 this turned on an antiquarian point as to which was the correct 
 reading in Deuteronomy xxvii. Hence arose theological 
 rancour. The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans 
 except in traffic and business ; no giving or asking kindness. 
 The woman, brought up in this system of malignity, marvels 
 at Christ putting Himself under an obligation to her — a 
 Samaritan. 
 
102 
 
 Spiritual Worship. 
 
 In the conversation that ensued Christ's uncommon cha- 
 racter appeared to her. Instantly, thinking the period was 
 arrived for the solution of the controversy, she puts the 
 question, partly to escape from a conversation which was 
 becoming too personal, partly from that love of controversy 
 which is so common in us all. But Christ had no intention 
 that it should end so. Hence He takes the opportunity of 
 defining spiritual worship. 
 
 Our subject divides itself into — 
 
 I. Errors which have interfered with purity of religious 
 worship. 
 
 II. The nature of the worship which God accepts. 
 
 I. Errors which have interfered with purity of religious 
 worship. 
 
 I. The first error arises from a tendency to localise God. 
 Her question was, in fact, " Where ? " Christ's reply was, 
 " Nowhere in particular — everywhere." 
 
 This question lies at the root of all superstition. It is 
 observable among the heathen, who confine the agency of a 
 god to a certain district : among the uneducated poor of our 
 own country, in their notions of a cemetery ; and among the 
 more refined, in the clinging mysterious idea which they 
 attach to a church, an altar, and the elements of the sacrament. 
 
 Let us define what we mean by sanctity of place. It is a 
 thing merely subjective, not objective ; it is relative to us. It 
 belongs to that law of association by which a train of ideas 
 returns more easily by suggestion in some one place than 
 in another. Worship in a festive room or over a shop, 
 would suggest notions uncongenial with devotion. Hence the 
 use of setting apart, or consecrating places for worship. There 
 is no other sanctity of place. Transfer what is in you to the 
 
Spiritual Worship. 
 
 103 
 
 place and you verge on superstition. Therefore the church, 
 the altar, &c., are not holy — God is not there. 
 
 We hear an objection to this. It is said to be dangerous 
 to say this' : it will unsettle people's minds, a litde of this 
 illusion is wholesome, especially for the poor. To this I 
 reply, in the first place, Christ did not so reason. Consider 
 how unsetdingthis was to the woman. The little religion she 
 had clung to Gerizim. The shock of being told that it was not 
 holy might have unsettled all her religion. Did Christ hesitate 
 one moment ? — And, in the second place, we are only 
 concerned with truth. Some people are afraid of truth. As 
 if God's truth could be dangerous ! The straight road is ever 
 the nearest. People 7nust bear, and shall, what an earnest 
 mind dares to say. Is God there or not? If not, at our 
 peril we say He is. 
 
 The holiest place ! Is this church holy? Yes, if a holy 
 congregation be in it ; if not. it is brick and mortar, \^'hich 
 is the holiest place in it? The altar? Nay; the spirit of 
 the holiest man present. Which is the holiest place on 
 earth ? Not where architecture, music, solemn aisles, or 
 fretted roof, yield their spell ; but perhaps a wretched 
 pallet on which one of Christ's humblest ones is dying, or 
 a square foot of ground on which a heroic Christian stands. 
 
 2. A second error arises from the idea that forms are 
 immutable. " Our fathers worshipped in this mountain," 
 therefore we must. 
 
 Let me explain what a form is. It is the shape in which 
 an age expresses a feeling. The spirit of religion remains, 
 but the expression alters. 
 
 There is for instance the present love of antiquity. Let 
 us do it justice. Enthusiasm is always lovely — it is far better 
 than coolness ; but is it right ? 
 
104 Spiritual Worship. 
 
 There is a wish to restore the observances and the rubrics 
 of the early Church. I will try to show why it is now not 
 necessary. — The times are altered. Religion is domestic 
 now, then it was social. . . . Public daily prayer would be 
 a mistake now. . . . 
 
 3. A third error arises from ignorance : " Ye worship 
 ye know not what." 
 
 There is a feeling of devoutness inherent in the human 
 mind. We hear the solemn tones of a child when repeating 
 his prayer or hymns. Before what is greater, wiser, better 
 than himself man bows instinctively. But the question is, 
 ivhat will he worship ? We distinguish therefore between 
 instinctive devoutness and enlightened worship. 
 
 To many there are three deities, — Power, Wisdom, 
 Goodness. 
 
 The heathen bent before Power. The Universe was 
 alive with deity to him : he saw God in the whirlwind, 
 in the lightning, and the thunder. This is ignorance. 
 
 The philosopher is above this. He bows before Wisdom. 
 Science tells him of electricity, gravitation, force. He looks 
 down on warm devoutness; for he sees only contrivance 
 and mind in Nature. He admires all calmly, without en- 
 thusiasm. He calls it Rational religion. This also is 
 ignorance. 
 
 The spiritual man bows before Goodness, " The true 
 worshippers worship the Father," "We know what we 
 worship : for salvation is of the Jews," that is, God is 
 intelligible in Christ as Love, Goodness, Purity. None but 
 this is intelligent worship. 
 
 4. A fourth error is a mistake about the nature of 
 reverence. 
 
 To have no veneration is to have no religion. But let 
 
spiritual Worship. 105 
 
 me explain what reverence is. This Samaritan woman had 
 what they call reverence, veneration for antiquity, zeal for 
 her Church, lingering recollections of the old mountain, 
 respect for a prophet. But what was her life ? He with 
 whom she then lived was not her husband. In other words, 
 reverence, veneration, awe, are a class of feelings which 
 belong to the imagination and are neither good nor bad : they 
 may go along with religion, but also they may not. A man 
 may kneel to sublime things, yet never have bent his heart to 
 goodness and purity. A man may be reverential, and yet 
 impure. 
 
 [Show this from Tyrolese chamois hunter — and all the 
 nonsense that travellers talk of the devoutness of mountain 
 people.*] 
 
 Next examine a man who is called irreverent. Consti- 
 tutionally so framed that he does not happen to thrill at 
 painted windows, Gothic architecture, and solemn music : 
 is he, therefore, without veneration? Take him out into 
 God's grand universe, or put before him Christ's character : 
 is there no adoration, no deep, intense love ? Tell him of 
 a self-denying action : is there no moisture in his eye ? 
 Tempt him to meanness : is there no indignant scorn ? 
 The man has bowed his soul before Justice, Mercy, Truth, 
 and therefore stands erect before everything else which this 
 world calls sublime. 
 
 II. True character of spiritual worship. 
 
 1. It consists in a right appreciation of God's character. 
 
 Here it is presented in a twofold aspect : " God is a 
 
 * See "Life and Letters." Letter dated Botzen, September 28, 
 1846. (Page 66, People's Edition.) 
 
io6 
 
 Spiritual WorsJiip. 
 
 Spirit ; " and " The true worshippers shall worship the 
 Father." 
 
 What is meant by spirit ? There are false notions which 
 regard it as attenuated gas, a wreath of air or vapour. Observe, 
 this is only subtle materialism. 
 
 Consider the universe, with the sun and stars, the har- 
 mony of the planets. All this force, order, harmony— that 
 is God. This Spring season, with bursting vegetation — its 
 life is God. Our own minds, their thought and feeling — 
 that is spirit. God, therefore, is the Mind of the universe. 
 Force, law, harmony — all this is God. And yet remark the 
 coldness of this, for He is thus revealed only as a God for 
 the intellect, not for the heart. 
 
 Therefore for the heart He is revealed as a Father. Con- 
 sider the endearing meaning of this word — in it tenderness 
 is united with reverence. Let us fasten on one meaning out 
 of many. Let us take the work of a father in education. 
 Consider the use of this rugged, stubborn, material world to 
 invigorate the mind by trying it against difficulties. Agricul- 
 ture, steam navigation, are the result. Consider the use of 
 suffering. The cross is the emblem of life. It is only 
 through struggle, through difficulty, that the soul can be 
 invigorated. All that is a Fatherly work. Who would wish 
 to have his child luxurious, rich, indolent, rather than see 
 him in honest poverty, struggling with sorrow? This ex- 
 plains what would otherwise be this " unintelligible world." 
 We can take the bitter draught thankfully. " The cup 
 which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ? " 
 
 2. Next, spiritual worship consists in spiritual character. 
 The true worshippeas are those who " worship the Father in 
 spirit and in truth." 
 
 That is, holy character is a kind of worship. All true 
 
spiritual Worship. 
 
 107 
 
 life is worship : " Worship the Lord in the beauty of hoH 
 ness;" " Lo, I come to do thy will, O Lord." Before a 
 material God a material knee would have to bow. Before a 
 spiritual God, nothing but the prostration of the spirit can 
 be acceptable. 
 
 " He prayeth well, who loveth well 
 Both man and bird and beast." 
 
 Love is a kind of prayer — the truest lifting up of the soul. 
 
 One word of application. 
 
 1. Christ came to bring man's spirit into immediate con- 
 tact with God's Spirit ; to sweep away everything intermediate. 
 In lonely union, face to face, man's spirit and God's Spirit 
 must come together. It is a grand thought ! Aspire to this ! 
 Aspire to greatness, goodness ! So let your spirit mingle 
 with the Spirit of the Everlasting. 
 
 2. Scripture insists on truth of character. God is made 
 known as a real God. The worshipper is to be a real cha- 
 racter. The Christian must be a true man — transparent, 
 who can bear to be looked through and through. There 
 must be no pretence ; no gilded tinsel — true gold all 
 
 THROUGH. 
 
XII. 
 
 TEARS OF JESUS. 
 
 (from autograph notes.) 
 
 Brighton, March 5, 1848. 
 "Jesus wept." — John xi. 35. 
 
 HRISTIANITY is God manifest in the flesh. 
 
 Christianity is contained in the life of Jesus Christ. 
 
 To adore Christ, love Christ, trust Christ ; that is 
 Christianity. 
 
 Not dogmas about Christ, but Christ This is the 
 Gospel. The spirit of the life with which Christ lived — His 
 character. 
 
 Therefore we must understand Christ. And this as a 
 whole made up of many particulars. 
 
 Imagine a spectator advancing towards the earth — 
 pausing at 10,000 miles distance — contemplating a glorious 
 star. Then alighting on a mountain. Then arriving below, 
 and finding it peopled ; a history to every spot, a science in 
 every stone, in every atom the study of a life. To under- 
 stand this earth, which looked one bright mass, is to be in 
 possession of every science and every history : to know it 
 in its atoms, and to know it as a whole. - 
 
 So with Christ. We by degrees master that character, 
 
Tears of Jesus. 
 
 log 
 
 till we find it boundless. Thought and depth in every 
 sentence. Few men know much of Christ, — none the 
 whole. Christianity dwells entire only in one bosom. 
 
 Some comprehend His reformation of abuses, others His 
 abhorrence of pretence in religion, others His assertion of 
 man's equality, others His purity, His courage, His tnUh ; 
 others the merely human aspect of His character. But His 
 character is a whole. 
 
 There are persons who write treatises on one country's 
 history — others on the structure of a plant. Only a few, 
 like Herschel and Humboldt, can comprehend with some- 
 thing like adequateness the cosmos, or order of the uni- 
 verse. There is no one who cannot read a page of it ; — but 
 to be able to compose " Cosmos ! " * 
 
 Bear this in mind. We contemplate now one feeling 
 only : " Jesus wept." 
 
 Our subject divides itself into two branches : 
 
 I. Causes of Christ's sorrow. 
 
 II. Its peculiar character. 
 
 I. Causes of Christ's sorrow. 
 I. The possession of a soul. 
 
 When we speak of Deity joined to humanity, we do not 
 mean joined to a body. Not a body inhabited by Deity, 
 as our bodies are by soul. But we mean Deity joined 
 to manhood, — body and soul. With a body only Jesus 
 might have wept for hunger, but not wept for sorrow. That 
 is neither the property of Deity nor of body, but of soul. 
 
 Humanity in Christ was perfect. The possession of a 
 
 * Extracted from Lecture II. on " Influence of Poetry." The MS. 
 contains only, "To be able to compose Cosmos." 
 
110 
 
 Tears of Jesus. 
 
 body enabled Him to weary ; the possession of a soul capa- 
 citated Him to weep. 
 
 2. The spectacle of human sorrow. And this twofold : — 
 
 Death of a friend : " Behold how he loved him." 
 
 Sorrow of two friends : " When Jesus therefore saw her 
 weeping. . . . Jesus wept." 
 
 The death of His friend was a cause of the sorrow of 
 Jesus. 
 
 Mysterious ! Jesus knew that He could raise him. All- 
 knowing wisdom : all-powerful strength. Yet, "Jesus wept." 
 
 This is partly intelligible. Conceptions strongly pre- 
 sented produce effects like reality, e.g. we wake dreaming, 
 our eyes suffused with tears — know it is a dream, yet tears 
 flow on. 
 
 Conception of a parent's death. . . . 
 
 Solemn impression produced by the mock funeral of 
 Charles V. . . . 
 
 To say that Jesus wept is only to say that His humanity 
 was perfect j that His mind moved by the same laws as 
 ours. 
 
 Moreover, it was only delay. One day Lazarus would 
 die, and the mourning be real. 
 
 Now, observe, the sadness of Jesus for His friend is what 
 is repeated with us all. The news comes — " He whom thou 
 lovest is sick," and then in two days — " Lazarus is dead." 
 Startling ! Somehow we twine our hearts round men we 
 love as if for ever. Death and they are not thought of in 
 connection. He die ! He die ! 
 
 It is a shock to find the reality of this awful life: that we 
 are swimming on a sea of appearances — floating on an 
 eternity that gives way. These attachments, loves, &c., 
 ihey don't hold ; there is no firnmess in them. We are, 
 
Tears of Jesus. 
 
 and then suddenly are not. Life and death, what are 
 they ? 
 
 Next, the sorrow of His two friends caused the tears of 
 Jesus. 
 
 Look at this family. Three persons: a brotlier lost, two 
 surviving sisters. 
 
 The sisters' characters were diverse. Martha found her 
 life in the outer world of fact ; Mary in the inner world of 
 feeling. They are types of the practical and the contem- 
 plative. 
 
 Their way of manifesting feeling is different. Martha 
 expressed herself outwardly in word, in action, in small acts 
 of attention ; she loved to discuss earnestly with the intel- 
 lect the question of the resurrection — contended how things 
 might have been otherwise. Mary did not express; felt her- 
 self inexpressible; reached truth by the heart, not by the 
 mind — lived in contemplation. In manhood, one would 
 have found life in the storm of the world ; the other in 
 retirement. As students, one would have studied the out- 
 ward life of man in history ; the other, philosophy, the causes 
 of things, the world visible, and the stranger world within. 
 
 Two links bound these diverse characters together : love 
 to Lazarus, attachment to the Redeemer. And this true 
 union — similars in dissimilarity, worlds differing, spheres 
 differing, yet no clashing — bound them together by one 
 common pursuit 
 
 Now one link was gone. Of him, Lazarus, we know 
 little. Only he was one whom Jesus loved, and he had the 
 strong attachment of such women as Martha and Mary. 
 
 His loss was not an isolated fact. The family was broken 
 up ; the sun of the system gone ; the planets no longer 
 revolving round a centre harmoniously. The keystone is 
 
112 
 
 Tears of Jesus. 
 
 removed from the arch and the stones are losing their cohe- 
 sion. For the two minds held together only at points of 
 contact. Points of repulsion too there were, manifest even in 
 life. They could not understand one another's different modes 
 of feeling : Martha complains of Mary at the feast. Lazarus 
 gave rhem a common tie. That removed, the points of 
 repulsion would daily become more sharp and salient. 
 
 Over the breaking up of a family Jesus wept. 
 
 And this is what makes death sad. Let him who calls 
 death a trifle remember this — not that one man is gone, but 
 that Bethany is no longer Bethany. A blight is there. You 
 open a book, there is a name. A day comes, it is a birth- 
 day — the chair is vacant. In reverie you half rise up, but 
 the name on your lips belongs to none on earth. 
 
 II. Character of Christ's sorrow : — Spirit in which Jesus 
 saw this death. 
 
 Calmly: " Lazarus sleepeth." It is the world of repose 
 where all is placid. 
 
 Struggling men have tried to forget this restless world, 
 and slumber like a babe, — tired, yea tired at heart. Lazarus is 
 stretched-out to his Divine friend's imagination, but he lies 
 calm. The long day's work is done — the hands are folded. 
 Nothing to fret now but the " small cold " worm. Waves of 
 shadow are flying over the long grass on his grave. 
 
 Friends are gathered to praise, enemies to slander. But 
 praise and slander on his ear make no impression. Conscious 
 he is perhaps elsewhere : but unconscious of earthly noise. 
 Musketry over grave — requiem mass — minstrels making a 
 noise. ... All this is for the living — the dead hear not. 
 But "he sleeps well." That is the tone of feeling with 
 which to stand over the Christian's death-bed : " Our friend 
 Lazarus sleepeth." 
 
Tears of Jesus. 
 
 113 
 
 Next, sadly. Hence, observe, permitted sorrow. 
 
 Great Nature is wiser than we. We recommend weep- 
 ing, or prate about submission, or say all must die ] Nature, 
 God, say, " Let nature rule, to weep or not." 
 
 Do you say tears imply selfishness — distrust? I answer : 
 Weep. Let grief be law to herself. We infer that grief is 
 no distrust of God— no selfishness. Sorrow is but love 
 without its object. 
 
 Next, hopefully. " I go that I may awake him out of 
 sleep ; thy brother shall rise again." Not merely calmness, 
 nor sadness, nor sorrow, nor despair, but hope. 
 
 Observe, the amount of hope depends on character and 
 imaginative power. 
 
 Sanguine minds are elastic ; it is very easy for them to 
 blame deeper shadow, as if that which is natural-spirits 
 were all faith. 
 
 Allowance too must be made for imaginative power. 
 That is the world of shadows : this the world of experience 
 and recollection. Some persons live in the past more than 
 in the future. Others there are who travel with the sun ever 
 before them, keeping pace with the sun. 
 
 Hope will be small when imagination is scanty ; but 
 feebleness of hope is not feebleness of faith. 
 
 Lastly, in reserve — the reserve of sorrow. 
 
 On the first announcement Jesus speaks not a word. 
 When He met the mourners He offered them no common- 
 place consolation. He is less anxious to exhibit feeling 
 than to soothe."" But Nature had her way at last. Yet even 
 then by act more than by word the Jews inferred He loved 
 him : " Jesus wept ; then said the Jews, Behold how he 
 loved him." 
 
 There is the reserve of nature and the reserve of grace. 
 
114 
 
 Tears of Jesus. 
 
 We have our own English reserve : we do not give way to 
 feehng. We respect grief when it does not make an exhibition. 
 An Enghshman is ashamed of his good feehngs as much as 
 of his bad. In sarcasm, sneer, and hummed tune, tears 
 will be concealed. All this is neither good nor bad — it is 
 nature. 
 
 But let it be sanctified ; let reserve of nature pass into 
 reserve of Christian delicacy. 
 
 Let us add a few words of application. 
 
 In this there is consolation for us. But consolation is 
 not the privilege of all sorrow. Christ is at Lazams's grave, 
 because Christ had been at the sisters' home ; sanctifying their 
 joys, and their very meals. They had anchored on the rock 
 in sunshine, and in the storm the ship held to her moorings. 
 
 The heart is desolate which seeks a Saviour first when 
 cut away by force. He who has lived with Christ will find 
 Christ near in death. 
 
 If you choose duty — God — it is not so difficult to die. 
 
XIII. 
 
 SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, April 7, 1850. 
 
 "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers 
 shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth : for the Father 
 seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit : and they that wor- 
 ship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." — John iv. 23, 24. 
 
 'T^HE conversation between Christ and the woman of 
 
 A Samaria began on common topics. By-and-by it 
 became more deep and interesting. He, to whom all things 
 here were types, could not converse ^\^thout a Divine mean- 
 ing in all He said. A draught of water connected itself with 
 the mystery of life. 
 
 So soon as she discovered His spiritual character she 
 put the question of her day. 
 
 A miserable question had perplexed two nations lying 
 near each other, of the same blood, interests, and hopes. 
 They hated each other : " the Jew had no dealing with the 
 Samaritan." They excommunicated each other. Just in pro- 
 portion to their nearness of relationship was their bitterness. 
 A Jew hated a Samaritan far more than a heathen. Scarcely 
 
 I 2 
 
1 1 6 Spiritual Worship. 
 
 anything in the present day will exactly illustrate this hatred. 
 Protestant and Catholic antipathies are perhaps the nearest ; 
 or just as some orthodox Christians hate a heterodox 
 Christian, and resolve, by the grace of God, to have no deal- 
 ings with him. For the spirit of men is the same in every 
 age. And the intensity of abhorrence between Jew and 
 Samaritan was the measure of their zeal. The more they 
 kept aloof from their " brother whom they had seen," the 
 more they thought they showed their love to " God, whom 
 they had «(?/ seen." As if they could with the same tongue 
 bless the Father and anathematise men who are "made 
 after the similitude of God." 
 
 Before we pass to the consideration of our subject we 
 have two remarks to make. Remark, first, the difference 
 between interest in theology and interest in religion. 
 
 Here was a woman living in sin, and yet deeply inte- 
 rested in a religious controversy. She found, doubtless, a 
 kind of safeguard to rest on in the perception of this keen 
 interest. Her reUgion was almost nothing, her theology 
 most orthodox. 
 
 Theological controversy sharpens our disputative faculties 
 and wakes our speculative ones. Religion is love to God 
 and man. People do not distinguish between theology and 
 religion. They make skill in controversy a test of spiritu- 
 aUty — yet it is but a poor test. However, this is the test 
 we use. The way the woman questioned Christ is a specimen 
 of a common feeling. The moment Christ appears she 
 examines His views. She does not ask whether the Man 
 before her were pure and spotless — His life spent in doing 
 good ; but was He sound upon the vital question of the 
 temple ? 
 
 A man dies, and you ask what were his opinions. Con- 
 
spiritual Worship. 
 
 117 
 
 sider which is worse — a mistake about baptism or a mistake 
 about love to God and man ? The life is the test of faith. 
 
 The second remark we make is, that all that was worth 
 notice in the question had disappeared. 
 
 Formally the Jew was right, the Samaritan wrong : 
 " Jerusalem was the place where men ought to worship." 
 
 But wrong as the Samaritan was, he was not half so 
 wrong for praying on Mount Gerizim as the Jew was for 
 excommunicating him and having no dealings with him : 
 or half so wrong as he was himself for hating the Jew : 
 "And they did not receive him, because his face was as 
 though he would go to Jerusalem." Right as was the Jew 
 in his theology, it was negatived by his hatred of the 
 Samaritan. The duty of being liberal to the illiberal was 
 forgotten. And thus, worship had disappeared in disputes 
 about the place " where men ought to worship." 
 
 This belongs to us : we too have our miserable questions 
 of where ? and when ? Every age has its own special ques- 
 tion. The question once was, whether a miracle was per- 
 formed in the Communion. The questions now are whether 
 a miracle is performed in the baptism of a baby ; whether 
 rule resides in the State or in the Church ; whether the 
 priest is above the law or beneath it. 
 
 The days are coming when these questions will be 
 debated with vehemence ; and in proportion to our contro- 
 versial staunchness we shall estimate our spiritual excellence. 
 And the days perhaps are coming when we shall test each 
 other by these questions, and pronounce all who disagree 
 with us bad men, and refuse communion with them. 
 
 Yet, observe, while we battle about baptism— -how and in 
 what sense it makes us children of God, literally or figura- 
 tively — we are losing all that baptism means. Instead of a 
 
Ii8 Spiritual Worship. 
 
 symbol of unity, "one baptism," it becomes ingeniously 
 converted into a symbol of strife. 
 
 Just as worship disappeared in the miserable controversy 
 about "the place where men ought to worship," Mount 
 Gerizim or Mount Moriah, so is Christianity going while we 
 battle about baptism — when, and where, the Spirit of God 
 comes down. 
 
 Now tell us which was worse — to worship on a wrong hill, 
 or to mistake the very essence of worship ? Which was 
 worse— to err respecting the interpretation of records on 
 which the question rested where God had placed His name, 
 or to err respecting love ? A blunder of intellect, or a lack 
 of charity ? Which is worse — to hold incorrect views re- 
 specting baptism, or to lose the whole of that which baptism 
 was given for ? — to sacrifice before a wrong altar, or to bring 
 wrong sacrifice to a true altar? 
 
 Now Christ speaks of a new worship essentially different 
 from the old. He made religion spiritual, He pointed out 
 the difference between religion and theology, and He re- 
 vealed the foundation on which true worship must rest. 
 
 A new time was coming for a new worship : " The hour 
 Cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship 
 the Father in spirit and in truth." 
 
 Let us consider : — 
 
 I. The foundation, or the revelation on which the new 
 worship rests. 
 
 H. The nature of spiiitual worship. 
 
 I. The foundation on which the new worship rests is a 
 revelation made by Christ respecting the character of God, 
 which contains three points : His paternity, " God is the 
 
spiritual Worship. 
 
 119 
 
 Father;" His spiritual nature, "God is a Spirit ;■" and His 
 personality, " He seeketh." 
 
 I. God is " the Father." This is evidently the emphatic 
 word of the sentence : " The hour cometh, and now is, when 
 the true worshippers shall worship the Father." 
 
 Christ revealed a name : the Father. Great stress is 
 laid in the Bible upon the significance of names. Moses 
 asked, "What is thy name?" — " I am that I am', I appeared to 
 the Fathers by the name of God Almighty, but by my name 
 Jehovah was I not known to them." This was of peculiar 
 importance in Jewish theology. A name was identical with 
 the person ; Moses means drawn out of the water ; Jacob, 
 supplanter ; Israel, Prince of God. So each step in revela- 
 tion added something to the name, first God, then Jeho- 
 vah expressing His Being, lastly Holy Father, revealing His 
 Character. 
 
 Not but what men had in a sense before worshipped a 
 Father. The Greeks and the Romans spoke of the " father 
 of gods and men." The Jewish prophets said, " Have we 
 not all one Father?" But the universality in the Name was 
 wanting. A Father — yes, but of Rome alone, or Athens 
 alone, or the Jews alone. 
 
 Therefore the old question was all in all. Where is He 
 to be worshipped? For the real question hidden under that 
 was. Who are His children ? for if God be localised to one 
 place, then His children are those alone who worship there. 
 Is it the Capitoline Jove, or the Zeus of Olympus, or 
 Jehovah of Mount Zion, or the Father of the family of man 
 who is to be worshipped ? 
 
 The appearance of Christ was the manifestation of the 
 answer : God is the Father of the family of man. 
 
 The incarnation declared that the Son of Man is the Son 
 
120 Spiritual Worship. 
 
 of God. One appeared who was not the Jew, nor the 
 Greek, nor the Roman, but the Man ; One in whose veins 
 ran the blood of the human race ; One in whose character 
 was neither exclusively the woman nor the man, but all that 
 was most manly, and all that was most womanly — One so 
 tender to the publican and the sinner that He could say 
 to Mary Magdalene, " My Father and your Father." 
 
 All are born sons of God into this world. Yet do not 
 mistake. There is a distinction between a son of God by 
 right and a son of God in fact. The last century beheld the 
 son of a royal house taken from his family and compelled 
 to descend into the lowest ranks of life. He was heir of the 
 royal family ; by right, heir to the throne, but in fact, heir 
 to degradation — vile in character, ignorant, and unregal. So 
 is it with the son of man. By right, a child of God ; by 
 fact, a child of wrath, ignorant of his privileges, not knowing 
 who or what he is, or " that imperial palace whence he came." 
 
 2. The second foundation on which spiritual worship 
 rests, is that " God is a spirit." 
 
 We should greatly mistake the meaning of this if we took 
 it as a theological definition of the being of God. It is not 
 theological, but practical. It is chiefly negative. It says 
 what God is not: He is not matter, He has not a form, "A 
 spirit hath not flesh and bones." He is Mind. Mind, 
 properly speaking, has no place. Of love, generosity, thought 
 — can you say when 1 
 
 This, then, was the great truth, that God is a Mind, 
 not separated by conditions of space and time from His 
 creatures. 
 
 3. The third foundation on which spiritual worship rests 
 is the Personality of God : " The Father scekcth." 
 
 There are two erroneous notions, both compatible with 
 
spiritual Worship. 
 
 121 
 
 the idea of Spirit, that God is an idea elaborated out of our 
 own minds, and that God is the Soul of Nature. There is 
 a prevalent notion that God is an idea elaborated out of our 
 own minds ; e.g. we have an idea of justice, truth, mercy ; and 
 this idea or assemblage of ideas we insensibly invest with 
 personality and call God. Notions of this sort more or less 
 float in all our minds, haunting us so that we lose the idea of 
 personality. And then spiritual worship would be only this, 
 cultivating goodness, cultivating truth, cultivating justice. 
 
 The other prevalent notion is that God is the Soul of 
 Nature, the Spirit of the Universe. But at once you feel 
 this is not religion, Oh, no ! that utter loneliness of soul 
 which comes from sin and despair, needs some one near on 
 whom to lean, some one who can feel and sympathise. One 
 is near and feels. No Soul of Nature, no abstract goodness, 
 no ideal of our own minds, no Spirit of the Universe. Not 
 an unconscious mind becoming broken into a myriad con- 
 sciousnesses ; but a living Father who "seeketh." 
 
 This is Redemption. This is the doctrine of Holy Spirit : 
 " God is a Spirit — He seeketh." 
 
 Oh, if in this dreary life, when one is struggling for truth, 
 and struggling to God alone, it is only that we are realising 
 the ideal of our own minds ! 
 
 Here is the value of belief in a Person. Personality 
 belongs to spirit; not less personal because spirit. And, 
 therefore, our Redeemer tells us this truth, "the Father 
 seeketh such to worship Him," — not that we seek God, but 
 that He seeks us ; not that we rise to God, but that He 
 descends to us. 
 
 This it is upon which we base our conviction that there 
 •will be hereafter a spiritual worship. We hear much respect- 
 ing the " advancement of humanity ; " if it meant only this, 
 
122 
 
 Spiritual Worship. 
 
 that there is a law in us rising to perfection, the question 
 would not be woiih doubting, but when we are told that the 
 Creator has interested Himself in His creation, we know 
 that the day shall come when the " true worshippers shall 
 worship the Father in spirit and in truth." 
 
 n. The nature of spiritual worship. Now what we 
 mean by " worship " is the highest reverence of the soul ; 
 adoration, awe ; it may be, even, vague devoutness : " Ye 
 know not what." 
 
 There is a vast difference between a man's creed and his 
 worship. It is not merely what a man professes to reverence 
 that constitutes worship. Moreover, to be spiritual, worship 
 must be intelligent. It must be higher than mere words. 
 It is possible for a Trinitarian to call Christ God, and worship 
 mammon. It is conceivable that an Unitarian theologian 
 may in word — I say conceivable — deny even the Deity of 
 Christ, and yet, like the son in the parable who said " I go," 
 and went not, that he may have learnt to give Him the 
 whole reverence of his soul : "Not every one that saith 
 unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
 heaven." 
 
 Again, it is not a thing which a man can decide, whether 
 he will be a worshipper or not, a worshipper he must be, 
 the only question is what will he worship? Every man 
 worships — is a born worshipper. It is nonsense to say he 
 does not believe in a God. Before what is greater than 
 himself man bows instinctively. The feeling of devoutness 
 is instinctive. Look at the child when he first enters the 
 Church of God, how his soul seems filled with the grandeur 
 of the Service, how he tries to join his voice with the 
 
spiritual Worship. 123 
 
 praises that are being uttered : it is man's necessity that he 
 must love ; he may call himself an infidel if he will, but he 
 must worship something, it may be perchance himself, or 
 the Rights of Man, or even Reason. 
 
 I. The new worship of God is to be a universal 
 worship : " Neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem 
 shall men worship the Father." Are we then to under- 
 stand by this that the difference between the old and the 
 new worship is merely that the one is localised and the 
 other not ? [Observe there was a use of space and place 
 before the Father was known. Zeus of Olympus and Jove 
 of the Capitol compared in effects.] Nay, the distinction 
 is not that ; what is meant here is that it is not in Mount 
 Moriah or Mount Gerizim only, but everywhere that we are 
 to worship the Father. The distinction is between exclusive 
 and universal worship. The time was coming when the 
 question 7vhere would be felt to be unimportant. 
 
 A mistake is sometimes made, and it is said that local 
 worship is here forbidden, that worship in a place is not 
 spiritual worship, and that we must go into the temple of 
 Nature to worship the Father in spirit. We are told that 
 the everlasting hills are pillars far more grand than the pillars 
 of the Church, and that the sky above is far more glorious 
 than the roof of the most splendid cathedral. Certainly 
 a truth to be insisted on ; Nature is the temple of God, and 
 he who refuses to worship there refuses to worship as our 
 Redeemer did. But there is in the worship in the temple 
 of Nature something elevating and grand ; we feel our- 
 selves higher than the Nature we contemplate, and so our 
 pride begins to rise, and when we come back from it to 
 worship among men, we find that we had been forgetting 
 humanity, and the family of spirits congenial to us. There- 
 
124 
 
 Spiritual Worship. 
 
 fore do not fly to Nature for spiritual worship. We must 
 content ourselves with a worship far less grand, but quite as 
 true, and more humble. 
 
 2. Again, the new worship of God must be worship " in 
 spirit." 
 
 This truth the better men among the Jews had gradually 
 seen. The later prophets had clearer and higher notions 
 of worship than their predecessors. This we see from their 
 notion of sacrifice : " Lo, I come to do thy will, O Lord," 
 and, again, " He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, 
 . . . and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
 justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." 
 They recognised that all true life is worship : " Worship 
 the Lord in the beauty of holiness." 
 
 3. Lastly this spiritual worship consists in the worship 
 of truth. . : . When we are told to worship the Lord in 
 truth, it means the correspondence between acts and laws. 
 . . . In spiritual life there are certain laws, obedience to 
 which is truest worship. God dwells in the humble and 
 contrite heart ; to fear God, to be humble, and to love God, 
 that is the spiritual worship of God. 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE CONVICTION OF SIN IN THE MIND 
 OF PETER. 
 
 Brighton, November lo, 1850. 
 
 "When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, 
 TDepart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." — Luke v. 8. 
 
 THIS is one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, inter- 
 views of the Apostle Peter with the Redeemer. It was 
 rendered memorable by the miraculous draught of fishes which 
 attended it. It is worthy of observation that the last recorded 
 interview of our Lord with the same apostle was marked 
 by a set of circumstances precisely similar. In both cases 
 Peter had toiled all night, and had been unsuccessful, and 
 at last was relieved by miracle. In this case evidently there 
 was much that was symbolical and which prefigured — so that 
 the heart might understand many things — the future spiritual 
 success of Peter, and also the unstinted exuberance of the 
 lovingkindness of God, and the utter powerlessness of 
 unaided human effort. 
 
 We have moreover a specimen of the Redeemer's teach- 
 ing. He taught by actions ; He was Himself the Word, the 
 expression of the mind of God ; every action was itself a 
 word. His miracles had a voice, and His life was as it were 
 a magnificent monument sculptured over with hieroglyphics 
 
126 
 
 The Conviction of Sin 
 
 which can only be understood and interpreted by him who 
 has the key, which is the spirit of God. Now the advantage 
 of this symbolic teaching was twofold : — 
 
 First it was a living thing. Our Master came into this 
 world, not to be merely a signpost on which the way was 
 written but to be " the way " itself, not to be the teacher but 
 " the truth." And similarly, for the same reason, there is a 
 special power in symbolic teaching. Sacraments have in them, 
 as they say, more of grace than sermons or mere words. It is 
 possible for a minister to say, "You are all God's children," 
 but it is not possible to say it with so much force as is expressed 
 in the sacrament which represents that fact. It is possible 
 for a minister to say, " Ye are all brethren," and yet it is im- 
 possible for him to state it thoroughly with all that eloquence 
 which is found in this instituted fact of Christ. By this 
 institution rich and poor, great and small, master and ser- 
 vant, kneel together at the same table as brethren. It is 
 possible for the minister to say that everything here is sacred, 
 but he cannot say this as powerfully as it is said in that same 
 sacrament : it is impossible for him to tell out this truth as 
 it is told in our Master's institution, according to which the 
 commonest elements and actions are taken and consecrated 
 to be the most sacred symbols of His religion. 
 
 In the next place this symbolic teaching saves us from 
 dead dogmas. The words of Christ are living words, they 
 speak to the imagination and the heart rather than to the 
 intellect. For example, our Master took bread, and said, 
 "This is my body"; let the imagination and the heart feed 
 upon that, and then you will feel that these words were such 
 that no others could have been substituted for them ; but 
 let the Romish commentator come with his intellect, and 
 force it into literalism, and demand that you should receive 
 
in the Mind of Peter. 
 
 127 
 
 only the external meaning of these words, and then a 
 glorious figure is turned into mere logic, and the life of the 
 thing is gone. Again, our Redeemer here, by a significant 
 act, proclaims to Peter many things on which his heart may 
 feed ; the lovingkindness of God, the powerlessness of man, 
 and the success of the Gospel ; but let the commentator 
 come and force upon it a literal meaning, and its true life is 
 gone ; the poetry of it has fled — for all the highest truth is 
 poetry. The life of Christ is the noblest poetry, the actions 
 and words of Christ are poetry ; with that the mind 
 intensely elevated labours, without power of expressing it in 
 words adequate, and therefore must find for itself figures ; just 
 as God is obliged to speak to us by the symbols of this uni- 
 verse, and just as the universe tells us of the beauty of God ; 
 but try to express in words the beauty, majesty, and love, and 
 it will all fail. So in the words of Christ there is a some- 
 thing for ever beautiful, but it is a beauty too refined for the 
 mind to grasp ; therefore these acts of Christ remain for 
 ever full of a meaning which can never be exhausted ; these 
 words it is our privilege to find each time we look into them 
 as fresh and new as if they had never been interpreted 
 before. 
 
 Our thoughts to-day will branch off into these two divi- 
 sions. 
 
 I. The meaning and object of this miracle. 
 
 II. The effects produced by it on Peter's mind. 
 
 I. This miracle, more than all others, taught God's 
 personality. 
 
 Brethren, at the bottom of all things here there is a law. 
 Now it is the tendency of habit to look upon law, and see 
 nothing below it. We gaze upon this great world of God 
 
128 
 
 The Conviction of Sin 
 
 and see nothing below the vast mass of laws by which it is 
 governed ; then a miracle breaks the continuity of these 
 laws by a higher law. For let it not be fancied that a miracle 
 is a contradiction of these laws, it is simply an interruption. 
 It may be the ordinary law that a man under certain circum- 
 stances of sickness shall die, but if the hand of God be placed 
 beneath that man to save him, there is, if you will, an inter- 
 ruption, but no contradiction. For what is a law ? A law is 
 merely the expression of the will of God, a law is God in ac- 
 tion, there must be a will before there can be a law. God is 
 imminent in this world. He is the life of all that is. The 
 birds move and migrate unerringly from place to place, 
 guided as we say popularly by instinct, let us rather say 
 guided by the law of God. Certain fishes are found in deep 
 water, others in shallow, to each of which they are giuded 
 by an impulse, and that impulse is God. Had Peter let 
 down his net as usual, and without a promise received 
 success, doubtless the will of God would have been working 
 just as much as in the other case ; but when in obedience to 
 a voice Peter let down the net, and in exact agreement with 
 the prediction his net was filled with fishes, then Peter felt 
 that the words he had formerly used were inadequate, and 
 that the " laws of chance " were false, for from this he learnt 
 that there is a living will. And this is the meaning and 
 intention of every miracle, to break through the tyranny of 
 the words " law " and " nature." 
 
 n. We pass on now to consider the effects produced 
 on Peter. These centre themselves in one sentence, the 
 effect ended in the production of a sense of sin, " Depart 
 from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Now this was 
 not mere wonder, nor was it curiosity or surprise ; — it was 
 
in the Mind of Peter. 
 
 129 
 
 the sense of personal sin, his heart was bursting with the 
 feeling, " I am a sinful man, O Lord." 
 
 In this division of our subject we find these two 
 branches : first the cause of this impression, and secondly 
 the nature of the sense of sin itself. 
 
 I. When we come to look at the cause, we see that the 
 impression was partly owing to the apostle's Jewish education. 
 The miracle falling on a Jewish mind produced a different 
 effect from what it would have produced on a heathen mind. 
 For the Jews always recognised the personality of God, 
 therefore this only awoke what was acknowledged before. 
 Had this happened to a heathen, it would have produced 
 nothing but surprise and wonderment ; but the feeling of a 
 Jew in such a case was not merely that he had erred against 
 his nature, but that he had transgressed the will of a living 
 person ; this recognition of God's personality formed the 
 vast distinction between the heathen and the Jew. The 
 Jew felt, " Thou, God, seest me ; " and he was ever haunted 
 by that awful relationship which cannot be put aside, the 
 feeling of the debt and account yet to be gone through 
 between " Thee and me." 
 
 And partly, again, this was produced by the pure presence 
 of Jesus Christ ; He interpreted man, and revealed the 
 thoughts of many hearts, not by instituting any system of 
 painful self-scrutiny, but by placing earthly imperfection in 
 opposition to His own Divine perfection. And therefore, 
 wherever the Redeemer went. He elicited a strange sense 
 of sin— the conviction of sin came instantly on the soul of 
 Zacchffius as soon as Jesus spake to him, and he stood forth 
 and said, " If I have done wrong I restore fourfold the poor 
 sinful woman in His presence poured out her tears in abun- 
 dance ; and the righteous centurion felt, " I am not worthy 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 The Conviction of Sin 
 
 that thou shouldest come under my roof." Even the thief 
 upon the cross confessed that he justly merited his condem- 
 nation ; and Peter, brought before his Master, says at once, 
 " I am a sinful man, O Lord." 
 
 And this is not the case only in our Redeemer's personal 
 ministry, but it is so wherever Christianity is preached, it 
 ever produces a sense of imperfection not felt before, it is 
 the more radiant light making more intense the shadow that 
 had been almost invisible before ; and this shadow has so 
 rested upon the heart, that man could not stand beneath it 
 in his own strength ; and then, from the anguish of a heart 
 pressed down by sin, there rose up the Romish confessional. 
 In such days as these, when men's minds are fevered, it is 
 almost impossible to understand the real meaning of such 
 an institution, but a meaning it must have ; we have seen its 
 infinite evil, but this is no proof that it was originally 
 established without a real and true meaning. The worship 
 of the Virgin, idolatrous though it be, yet tells us a truth 
 that there has been a revolution in society which has made 
 men reverence meekness and purity rather than strength. 
 So does the confessional even through its mass of evil pro- 
 claim to us the truth that through the light of Christ there 
 has come into the world the necessity for a pure conscience. 
 
 2. We pass on now once more to consider the nature of 
 this conviction of sin in Peter's bosom. There is a remorse 
 which is felt for crime, there is a sting, an anguish repre- 
 sented so well by the apostle's words, " The sting of death 
 is sin ; " but this was not Peter's case. There is something 
 very significant here ; it is not merely pain, but a sudden 
 throbbing, making life itself death. Now such as this was 
 not the apostle's feeling, for his had been a life not of crime 
 but of uprightness ; he was a man not only of external regu- 
 
in the Mind of Peter. 131 
 
 larity but of inward devotedness ; he had lived anticipating 
 the Redeemer's advent ; — and this is plain from the fact 
 that when Andrew went to call his brother to Jesus the 
 words he used were these, " We have found the Messiah," 
 thus evidently showing that they had been waiting for the 
 " consolation of Israel." But the language of holy men 
 when they speak of sin is startling ; the world cannot hear 
 them speak of themselves as the " chief of sinners," without 
 surmising that there must be some crime to produce all this 
 contrition. 
 
 In order to understand this, and to comprehend Peter's 
 conviction of guilt, we must look at the three principles 
 which guide the life of three different classes of men. The 
 first is that of obedience to the opinion of the world, the 
 second is the standard of a man's own opinion, and the third / 
 is the hght of the life of God. The first of these makes the 
 man of honour, the second makes the man of virtue, and 
 the third makes the man of saintliness. 
 
 Some men live entirely by the world, so that their very 
 life seems to hang on the opinion of the world — these are the 
 men of honour. Such as these was Saul, the first mon- 
 arch of Israel; he lived by the world's opinion ; when he had 
 done wrong before God he desired Samuel to honour him 
 before the elders of his people ; he did not feel like Peter 
 that he was sinful, but said " I have played the fool exceed- 
 ingly and when his life drew to a close, when his popu- 
 larity was gone and his authority remained no longer, there 
 was nothing left for the mere man of honour but suicide. 
 
 There are other men who live on a principle, and are to 
 themselves a law ; they live by their own opinions — these are 
 the men of virtue ; they often stand as rocks in the midst of 
 a corrupt age, men of firmness, integrity, and strength, and 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 TJie Conviction of Sin 
 
 moreover of self-reliance. Such a man as this was the other 
 Saul at that period when he felt respect for his past life, and 
 looked upon that life as blameless. Such also was Peter in 
 his earliest life ; and this spirit broke out once again in 
 after-life when he exclaimed, " Though all should deny Thee, 
 yet will not I." 
 
 There is yet another class of men, those who walk by the 
 standard of the will of God. It is from the knowledge of 
 that will that men learn the infinite littleness of their own 
 achievements ; this makes them feel as nothing in the sight 
 of God ; and then those actions which before appeared 
 meritorious turn out to be nothing but bare duties, the 
 omission of which is great sin. And here lies the distinc- 
 tion between virtue and saintliness : the man of virtue walks 
 in firmness, resting on the law which he has fulfilled ; while 
 the man of saintliness walks humbly, meekly, lowly, as 
 beneath the infinite heaven of duty that arches overhead. 
 And such was the case with Peter when this new revelation of 
 the majesty and purity of Christ was made known to him. 
 Up to this time he had lived an upright man, full of self- 
 reliance ; from this time he began to walk lowly and learnt 
 self-forgetfulness. Till a man learns that, he never attains 
 to saintliness. 
 
 This is the way in which Christ produces conviction of 
 sin, not by giving us the confessional, not by demanding 
 that we should be thrown back upon ourselves in painful 
 self-scrutiny, as if from the charnel-house of corruption it 
 were possible to extract life ; but rather by placing before us 
 infinite love, infinite lovingkindness, and a perfect humanity ; 
 we fall in the dust before this, and say " We are sinful men, 
 O Lord." 
 
in the Mind of Peter. 133 
 
 And now, brethren, one word in conclusion. I have pur- 
 posely abstained from that subject which is now occupying 
 the mind of all England, the impotent assumption of a 
 foreign prelate to claim spiritual authority over free-born 
 Englishmen. It would have been easy for me to agitate 
 your minds, easy to awake your indignation ; for myself I 
 love not such work. At least let the Sabbath day be free 
 from that ; give the week if you will to the attitude of 
 defiance, let us give one day in seven to the attitude of soul- 
 humbleness. 
 
 I have brought before you a personal subject. We are 
 sinners, we have erred exceedingly, and we have seen the 
 infinite charity of God stream forth in the majesty of Jesus 
 Christ. It is possible for us to bear the splendour of that 
 presence only when love has taken the place of fear, and we 
 feel that we need fear nothing, neither death nor hell nor 
 men. When others are in anguish and bitterness of spirit, 
 what have we to fear, resting on the name of Christ? " For," 
 says the apostle, " I am persuaded that neither death, nor 
 life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
 present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any 
 other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of 
 God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
XV. 
 
 GUILT OF JUDGING— CONTEMPTUOUSNESS. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, Nove?nber 2^, 1850. 
 
 " But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at 
 nought thy brother ? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of 
 Christ."- Romans xiv. 10. 
 
 BY the way in which these words are read the apostle's 
 meaning may be preserved or lost. If you read, " Why 
 dost thou judge thy brother ? or why dost thou set at nought 
 thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of 
 Christ," it simply implies that the apostle, speaking to the 
 same person, blames two things which he might do : why 
 dost thou judge? or why dost thou set at nought? 
 
 Whereas, if we read it thus : Why dost thou judge ? why 
 dost thou set at nought ? then the real sense is kept ; and 
 the apostle speaks to two classes of persons. To the first 
 he says. Why judge? then, turning to the second, Why dost 
 ihou set at nought ? 
 
 In the commencement of the chapter it appears that 
 there were in Rome two sets of Christians, the weak and the 
 strong. 
 
 The weak were those weak in the principles of Christi- 
 anity, who had lingering scruples, the remnants of Judaism, 
 
Guilt of Judging — Coiitempttiousness. 135 
 
 for instance, respecting days and things. They believed in 
 the inlierent sanctity ot' Sabbath days and new moons, and in 
 the inherent pollution of certain things, such as tainted meats. 
 Consequently they observed all the days, and ate herbs instead 
 of meat. The other Christians were the strong — strong in 
 the principles of Christianity. They understood the largeness 
 and breadth of Christianity, and had grasped the truth that 
 it is Christ in the heart, the Spirit of God within the soul. 
 They understood that it is the spirit of man which 
 sanctifies or pollutes what it touches; that no day has 
 any inherent holiness in itself, and no meat any inherent 
 pollution. Hence they esteemed all days alike : and they 
 believed that they might eat all things. 
 
 So far there was no great harm. On the one side a 
 little narrowness which would wear away ; on the other a 
 little more enlightenment was needed ; and the apostle was 
 content to say, " Let every man be fully persuaded in his 
 own mind." 
 
 But, then, these Roman Christians went further. The 
 narrow-minded, scrupulous Christians judged, that is, con- 
 demned, their freer brethren for doing those things from 
 which they themselves abstained. Because they looked upon 
 all days as alike, and ate all meats, they pronounced them 
 unchristian. To these therefore the apostle said, " Why dost 
 thou judge thy brother? " 
 
 On the other hand the enlightened, strong-minded 
 Christians — not necessarily better men, but only more clear 
 in their views — heartily despised the bigotry and narrowness 
 of those who were so particular about days, nay, apparently 
 even v.-ent so far as to insult their feelings by a wanton 
 indulgence in those things which they condemned. They 
 openly profaned the sacred days ; they publicly ate in the 
 
136 Gidlt of Judging — Contemptiwiisness. 
 
 heathen temples meat which had been sacrificed to idols. 
 To them therefore the apostle said, " Why dost thou set at 
 nought thy brother?" 
 
 Our thoughts will therefore best divide themselves into 
 these two branches : — 
 
 I. The Supremacy of Conscience. 
 
 II. The Infringement of the sacred Rights of Conscience. 
 
 I. The Supremacy of Conscience. The principle on 
 which Paul forbade uncharitable judgment and contemptuous- 
 ness was the supremacy of the individual conscience. It is 
 throughout the chapter the keynote, the master-thought of all : 
 " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind," " We 
 shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ," "So 
 then every one of us shall give account of himself to God," 
 " Let us not t/ierefore judge one another any more ; but 
 judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an 
 occasion to fall in his brother's way," " Who art thou that 
 judgest another man's servant? to his own master he 
 standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up ; for God 
 is able to make him stand." 
 
 According to Paul nothing is to supersede personal con- 
 viction. Conscience is the supreme tribunal erected within 
 a man's own soul. There is no appeal to the opinion of 
 privileged persons. The apostle would not allow them 
 to condemn for conscientious acts : " Let no man judge 
 you." Be indifferent to man's judgment. Brethren, for 
 views and opinions and things which belong to our own con- 
 sciences, and do not interfere with the happiness of others, 
 do not mind the denial of your Christian character by fallible 
 men. J?e in no anxiety. Human passions cannot bar your 
 Christian rights. Let them judge or despise. Feel that 
 
Guilt of Judging — Contcmptuotisness. 137 
 
 you owe allegiance to Christ, and in that sacred, solitary- 
 feeling remain calm. 
 
 There is no appeal to public authority. They who are 
 zealous for uniformity would have thought this a great 
 occasion for the Church or the legislator to step in — rule 
 the question, decide it once for all, and so put an end to 
 this variety. What could be worse than that one should 
 keep the day and another not keep it ? Now, therefore, if 
 ever, was the time for an apostle to interfere. But there 
 is a great lesson to be learned from the fact that Paul did 
 not interfere. He did not rule that the weak must give up 
 their scruples or that the strong must yield to them. His 
 own opinion was undoubted ; he would have held with 
 the larger, freer view ; but he would not enforce this 
 his own opinion upon the weaker brethren. And if the 
 inspired apostle would not decide, no Church has a right to 
 enforce rules in these matters ; no legislature has a right to 
 step in to compel such uniformity. No private Christian 
 has a right to ask a legislature to compel others to observe 
 days as he does. 
 
 Let us guard ourselves from a possible misconception of 
 these words. Let us not mistake supremacy of personal con- 
 science for supremacy of individual will. " Let every man 
 be fully persuaded in his own mind." We draw a distinction 
 between the conviction, or full persuasion, which has 
 become part of a man's self, that which he believes as the 
 result of much inquiry ; and opinion, which is but half- 
 conviction. The apostle asserted the sanctity of convictions, 
 they are the solemn solitary positions in which a man stands 
 before God ; but we must not exalt our opinions to the 
 rank of convictions. Some people take up opinions in the 
 lightest way, and expect for them all the deference due to 
 
ijS Guilt of Judging — Contemptiiousness. 
 
 Christian conviction. They say, Think what you like, 
 it does not matter ; your own opinion is just as likely to 
 be true as that of another. The result would be universal 
 anarchy and license. 
 
 St. Paul is very far from saying that ; he does not say. 
 You are not accountable for your opinion ; he simply says, 
 You are not accountable to fallible man. To God you are. 
 " We must stand before the judgment seat of Christ." He 
 does not say. You may observe these things or not, as you 
 like ; he says, " He that observeth the day, observeth it to 
 the Lord, and he that observeth not the day, to the Lord 
 he doth not observe it ; he that eateth, eateth to the Lord, 
 for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the 
 Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks "—provided it 
 is done conscientiously to the Lord. He does not say 
 private judgment is right, he only says there is a right of 
 private judgment, irresponsible except to God. 
 
 n. We pass on now to consider the violation of the rights 
 of conscience, and this in two ways : — 
 
 First, by unchristian judging : " Why dost thou judge 
 thy brother ? " 
 
 Let us explain what judging is. Judging is persecuting; 
 it was the procedure of the Dark Ages ; men were perse- 
 cuted for their conscientious views. Rome assumed infalU- 
 bility, and the secular law burnt or tortured all whose minds 
 were not shaped to the approved standard. 
 
 But let us come home to ourselves, and consider the 
 judgment, persecution, condemnation, which is not peculiar to 
 Rome, but belongs to human nature. We make the measure of 
 our own conceptions the measure and limit of the thoughts 
 and feelings of others. Let us take these very cases cited by 
 
Guilt of judging — Contcmptuousness. 139 
 
 the apostle — the observance of the Sabbath day, and the 
 abstaining from certain things pronounced worldly. What 
 do we with such as do not coincide in our views on these 
 matters? You hear insinuations and surmises, that the man 
 is lax, or a Sabbath-breaker, or a worldly man. If he be a 
 minister or a bishop he is scarcely allowed to be called a 
 Christian ; they say he is a Socinian or an infidel. Further 
 off, his morals are assailed, and a vicious life is charged 
 against him. 
 
 Now this is judging. It is not life or personal liberty 
 that is assailed, but character, which is as precious as 
 life. If you spare a man's life and destroy his fair fame, you 
 cripple his influence, and you make him a pariah and an 
 outcast, till he feels alone. Have you not judged him ? 
 
 Now let us look at the guilt and wrong of this. In the 
 first place there is its arrogance. Such judging can only be 
 defended on the claim of infallibility. Rome makes that 
 claim, and is consistent in persecuting ; but Protestants, 
 who do not make it, are inconsistent. 
 
 Are those who judge others wiser than their brethren ? 
 Are they free from human frailty ? Are they the meek, the 
 learned, the holy, and the wise? or are they not generally the 
 self-instructed, the weakest of both sexes, the impetuous, 
 the talkative, who presume to judge on the authority, 
 perhaps, of some minister, who is to them as a pope? " Who 
 art thou that judgest another man's servant ? to his own 
 master he standeth or falleth." 
 
 And, secondly, it utterly fails in procuring what it aims at, 
 which is uniformity of opinion. 
 
 Uniformity of opinion is the ideal good which men have 
 tried for ages to attain, by judgment, by denunciation, by 
 exclusion. Rome tried it for at least one thousand years ; 
 
140 GuiU of yudging — Contemptuousness. 
 
 England tried it for three centuries in Ireland. Have we 
 got uniformity there ? Is Christendom more united than it 
 was in the time of the apostle ? The airy dream^is further 
 off than ever ! 
 
 And, in the third place, it destroys free inquiry. 
 
 We boast of our Protestant freedom ; we say that 
 Romanists shut up the Bible, but that we give it without 
 note or comment and bid men judge for themselves. Now 
 think, do we not really say: " Here is the Bible : read it for 
 yourself; but these doctrines, and no other, you must find in 
 it ; inquire freely, but at your peril arrive at any other conclu- 
 sion than this ; here is the truth, and here is the Bible to 
 prove it by? " Is it not manifest that this is a bitter mockery, 
 and that it only gives the name of liberty ! 
 
 Hence it comes to pass that men will not bear to hear 
 the truth. They think that they have it already, in the 
 small compass of a single mind, and they come to church to 
 hear it repeated to them in a sermon ; not to get fresh 
 gleams of infinite truth, but, holding all the infinite in their 
 minds, to criticise any departure from it. The multitude 
 dare not think, and they who think dare not speak. And 
 this we call free inquiry ! This is the present case of 
 ChristLm society, to my mind an awful and appalling one. 
 What is there to prevent the spirit of the old times being 
 applied to us ? — " The prophets prophesy falsely, and the 
 priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have 
 it so ; and what will be the end thereof?" 
 
 The other way in which these rights are violated, is by 
 contemptuousness : " Why dost thou set at nought thy 
 brother ? " 
 
 The sin of judging is the sin of the narrow-minded. But 
 
Guilt of Judging — Contemptiiousness. 141 
 
 there is a sin into which the liberal-minded are apt to fall — 
 the sin of contempt for narrowness, and scorn for scruples. 
 
 Now draw a distinction between largeness of view and 
 largeness of heart. A narrow mind is not always a narrow 
 heart. To be strong is not necessarily to be strong in good- 
 ness, only strong in power of grasping a principle. 
 
 There are worse things than narrow views. Nay, often 
 formalism and superstition go along with great earnestness of 
 life. The missionaries often bold views infinitely narrow, 
 and yet these men give their lives and energies to turn men to 
 God, and thus shame those of larger views. Doctor Johnson 
 believed in apparitions, Pascal in modern miracles, Xavier 
 in papal supremacy, Fe'nelon, one of the saintliest of men, in 
 Transubstantiation. Many a good English Christian is as 
 scrupulous about the Sabbath as if he were a Jew. Many of 
 another class are as particular about fasting as if it were a 
 moral duty. 
 
 What, then ? Shall we say that they are very narrow, and 
 feel contempt for them? Oh, but take heed how you despise 
 any of God's little ones, if they acted and believed thus to the 
 Lord. For what is largeness of view compared with devoted- 
 ness of life ? 
 
 " There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
 Would men observingly distil it out." 
 
 I have learned to perceive that where good men have 
 clung to a superstition or a form, or a narrow miserable view, 
 it is for the sake of some deep truth with which it seems to 
 stand connected, and which I believe as well as they. So in 
 the speculations so common in these days, our sin is likely to 
 be contempt. 
 
 In conclusion observe the great principle on which the 
 
142 Guilt of Judging — Contemptuousness. 
 
 apostle forbade contemptuousness, that there is a soul of good- 
 ness even in things evil. By things evil, I mean not things 
 morally evil, but intellectually wrong. Hear what the apostle 
 saith of these, that although those men were wrong in their 
 conceptions yet they did all things to the glory of God. 
 Therefore we ever love to penetrate below the surface, for 
 we are certain of this, that the Spirit of God in the hearts of 
 His believing people is one and the same Spirit. Here were 
 two cases, the one man thought that he might eat all things, 
 the other felt that he was forbidden everything but herbs ; 
 these men, though they thought the opposite, yet in the depth 
 of their hearts were the same, for the object of both was to 
 give God glory. Now this is the only principle on which 
 to found Christian charity, not on that contemptuous indo- 
 lence which holds that all opinions are equally right, nor, 
 on the other hand, on that which looks on all as equally 
 wrong ; but on that love which looks to the good at the 
 bottom of all false views, that love which looks to the heart 
 rather than to the view, that love which, retaining its own 
 convictions, penetrates and seeks to trace the faith, and 
 holiness, and love which lie beneath the different forms of 
 error. It is only when we have learned this that we can 
 cease from judging and love all men as Christ loved us. 
 
XVI. 
 
 "THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY." 
 
 Brighton, December 15, 1850. 
 
 " What went ye out for to s e ? A prophet ? yea, I say unto you, and 
 more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written. Behold, I 
 send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before 
 thee." — Matthew xi. 9, ip. . 
 
 THE Church Services for the first Sunday in Advent fix 
 our attention chiefly on the coming of the Redeemer 
 to judgment ; and accordingly our subject was the principle 
 of the judgment-coming of the Son of Man. On the second 
 Sunday they rather fasten our attention on the Scriptures as 
 the preparation for His coming j and accordingly our subject 
 then was the principle of Scripture interpretation. No one 
 can have read attentively the services of this day without 
 perceiving that the main subject is the Christian ministry. 
 The Epistle is that remarkable portion of Scripture in which 
 St. Paul, after protesting against the exaggerated way in which 
 the Corinthians had exalted their ministry, takes for the 
 Christian ministry far lower ground : " Let a man so account 
 of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the 
 mysteries of God." Ministers and stewards, that is, servants 
 and dependants ; " the mysteries of God" mean, not things 
 hidden, but things once hidden and now revealed. In the 
 
144 " The Christian Ministry. 
 
 Collect a parallel is drawn between the career of John the | 
 Baptist and the Christian ministry ; and turning to the 
 Gospel appointed for the day we find the character of John 
 the Baptist given by lips infallible : " What went ye out for 
 to see ? A prophet ? yea, I say unto you, and more than a 
 prophet." The Church of England has therefore selected 
 as her pattern for the Christian ministry, — not a priest 
 but a prophet, not Aaron but John the Baptist, — telling us 
 distinctly that the Church regards her ministers as typified 
 by prophets, not by priests. This then is our subject 
 for to-day, the Christian ministry, what it is not, and what it 
 is : it is not a line of priests, it is a succession of prophets. 
 
 I. In the first place it is not a line of priests. Let us 
 understand what a priesthood is. A priesthood is based 
 upon the assumption of a spiritual inherent superiority of 
 one class over another, so that the inferior class is incapable 
 of ofi'ering any worship or sacrifice to God. Now this 
 system may be founded upon three supposed grounds, first, 
 on the basis of superiority of race ; secondly, on that of 
 superior character, and thirdly, on the basis of the superi- 
 ority of inward knowledge. Almost all the priesthoods 
 of the East are based on the superiority of race ; they a 
 regard themselves as the mediators between God and ' 
 man, the expounders of the will of God, through whom 
 alone man can ofier sacrifice acceptable to God. It is 
 plain that a priesthood such as this can only be kept 
 up by the priority of race. Another principle is that of 
 personal superiority of character ; but it is evident that 
 such a priesthood is not hereditary, it ends with the man 
 himself ; such a priesthood we find typically in Melchisedeck. 
 The third basis on which such a priesthood may rest is the 
 ground of superiority of knowledge both naturally and super- 
 
" The Christian Ministry'' 
 
 naturally acquired. In either case the only way to keep up 
 a priesthood is by the exclusion of all others from knowledge. 
 Such, brethren, is, will be, and ever has been the mode by 
 which a priesthood has endeavoured to maintain its superi- 
 ority. Thus it was among the Jews ; the prophets declared 
 that the people perished for lack of knowledge. Our 
 Redeemer Himself protested against them, saying that they 
 had taken away the key of knowledge. That which has 
 been done recently by the priesthood in Ireland is by the 
 instinct of self-preservation, because the moment that there 
 is equality in knowledge the priesthood falls for ever. 
 
 Now let us observe that the principle of the priesthood 
 after all rests upon a truth, otherwise it could not so long have 
 held sway over men's minds. There is in a certain sense 
 a mediatorial power which man exercises over man ; it is 
 possible that the superior mind ever must be the medium 
 of communication between God and the inferior character. 
 It is possible that there must ever be a medium through 
 which the idea of God is presented. But the difference 
 between a priesthood and a ministry is this, that the object 
 of the priesthood is to keep up that distinction, while the 
 object of the ministry is to obliterate it. The parent is 
 the medium of communication between God and the child, 
 .jbijit that, in process of years, becomes obliterated when 
 the child knows as much as the father. In ancient times 
 I'Moses was in knowledge, both temporal and spiritual, 
 , immeasurably above the nation of Israel, and he is there- 
 fore called a mediator ; but it was the object of Moses 
 not to keep up that distinction but to break it through, 
 and therefore when one of his followers was indignant 
 because others were prophesying in the camp, the noble 
 expression of the prophet was, " Enviest thou for my sake? 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 " The Christian Ministry^ 
 
 would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and 
 that the Lord would put His spirit upon them." There 
 was an immeasurable distinction between John the Baptist 
 and the nation he taught, but the life of John was intended 
 to do away with that distinction. The apostles were in 
 this respect mediators, and so far priests. But was it their 
 intention to remain so for ever ? Listen to the Apostle Paul 
 in those words of glorious irony, after having grounded his 
 right to the apostleship he says to those claiming knowledge 
 equal to his own, " Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have 
 reigned as kings without us and then, dropping the tone of 
 irony, " I would to God ye did reign, that we might reign 
 with you." In other words he wished that their claim was 
 true. And therefore it was that the prophecy of old was 
 taken up joyfully by the apostles as the richest time in the 
 mediatorial kingdom, when the last offices of the priesthood 
 should be taken away ; the time, saith the Lord, " When 
 they shall no more teach every man his brother saying, Know 
 the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the 
 greatest." This then is the spiritual priesthood. 
 
 Now let us understand what a priesthood so called is. 
 It is the office of the priest to be the representative of man 
 before God ; he takes the mourning and the lamentation of 
 the people for sin, bearing it upon his breast before God, and 
 through his lips that remorse becomes acceptable to God. 
 Now by this intervention the spirit of man is cut off from 
 God, and by the mysterious means of propitiation God is 
 represented as far off ; for you will observe that the office of 
 the priesthood is not to reconcile man to God, but to recon- 
 cile God to man. To reconcile man to God, that is human, 
 and is done by superior faith and love ; but you do not thereby 
 change the disposition of God, that is what the priest- 
 hood pretends to do. Let us observe the effects of this 
 
" TJlc CJiristimi Minist7y." 
 
 .147 
 
 system ; first it removes God far from the soul, whereas God 
 is ever near ; nearer when man prays, when he repents, when 
 he loves, than when he is receiving any ecclesiastical ordi- 
 nance ; but the spirit of the priestly system is to remove God 
 far off from man, to represent Him to us as a far distant 
 sovereign, seated on a throne of splendour. Secondly, it 
 degrades humanity, for its language tells us not of the affinity 
 of man to God, but of the immense distance between the 
 two ; giving also an exaggerated expression of the weakness 
 of man, and of the nothingness of the power of God within 
 the soul. And then the tone and spirit of such a system 
 becomes either depressed and melancholy, or else encourages 
 a vicarious reliance on its ordinances. Once more, its 
 tendency is to produce a slavish worship ; for is it not true 
 that under such a system men come into the presence of God 
 rather to throw off guilt than to pour out the soul in adora- 
 tion and thanksgiving? Theirs is but the trembling of a 
 condemned criminal before his judge. Lastly, it is all 
 retrospective — a retrospective holiness from which we have 
 fallen, a retrospective purity in which we w'ere once, retro- 
 spective sin to be obliterated ; retrospective all, there is 
 nothing of the ennobling of life, telling of times beyond. 
 '/This then is the system of the priesthood, first a distant God, 
 'secondly a mean humanity, thirdly a servile worship, and 
 lastly a retrospective reverence. 
 
 II. We pass on now to consider what the ministry is. We 
 say it is prophetical, not priestly. 
 
 Let us understand what the prophet's ofiice was ; John was 
 a " prophet, yea and much more than a prophet," and the 
 Church of England has compared her ministers to him. We 
 greatly mistake if we think that the office of the prophet was 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 " TJie Christian Ministry^ 
 
 simply to predict future events ; predictors no doubt the 
 prophets were, but this formed a very small portion of their 
 ministrations. Take for instance John ; his sole prediction 
 was, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Even their 
 prophecies were far rather great eternal principles which 
 must fulfil themselves for ever, than a reference to any one 
 particular event. It is far grander to state eternal truths 
 like these, than to state facts which take place but once. 
 This then was the office of the prophet, to teach eternal 
 truths. We observe that this prophetic office was far 
 higher than the priesthood ; for we find that Moses, the 
 lawgiver and prophet, creates Aaron the priest. This is a 
 thing worthy the consideration of those who are shocked 
 at the supremacy of the sovereign ; the lawgiver and the 
 prophet here made the priest, the king was above the priest, 
 the priest beneath the prophet. 
 
 Secondly, we observe, respecting the prophetic office, that , 
 all the most sublime passages in the Bible are from the^ 
 writings of the prophets. The priestly writings were but 
 temporary. Take for instance the ritual of Judaism in 
 the books of Leviticus and of Chronicles ; the first v(t 
 rarely read in our Church Services, the second never. 
 Ask you what the passages are that make our hearts bum, 
 and make the Bible t/ie book, are they not the Psalms and 
 prophetic writings ? The outpourings of a devout soul to 
 God in all its ways, in humbleness, in trust, in aspiration, 
 are the passages in the prophetic writings which make the 
 Bible the book of all the world. 
 
 Lastly, we ob:;erve this difference between the prophet 
 and the priest, that it was the office of the prophet to counter- 
 act the priestly office. Thus saith the Lord by the mouth of, > 
 the prophet Isaiah, " Bring no more vain oblations ; incense is 
 
" The Christian Ministry" 
 
 . 149 
 
 an abomination to me ; your new moons and your appointed 
 feasts my soul hateth ; they are a trouble unto me, I am 
 weary to bear them." And then He goes on to say, " Wash 
 you, make you clean, cease to do evil, learn to do well." In 
 the New Testament we find the priests demanding ritual 
 sanctity and the performance of all the appointed services ; 
 while the voice of the prophet is hearcJ saying " Repent, for 
 the kingdom of heaven is at hand." This was prophetic 
 teaching, and consequently the priest was ever against the 
 prophet. The priesthood stoned Stephen, pr.t John in 
 prison, and it was by sacerdotal orders that the great Prophet 
 of the world was crucified and slain ; for they knew that if 
 the prophets were allowed to remain, the priesthood was at 
 an end for ever. 
 
 We say then that the Christian ministry is prophetical, 
 not priestly. And let us observe that the ministry of our 
 ^t, Blessed Lord Himself here on earth was prophetical and not 
 €'<-.,priestly. I lay a stress on that expression " here on earth" 
 because unquestionably He is a priest in heaven above. 
 The high priesthood of the Son of Man is I believe spoken 
 of in only one passage of Scripture, in the Hebrews ; there 
 His priesthood is denied here on earth, but asserted to be 
 in heaven ; " For if He were on earth, He should not be a 
 priest ; " in other words, there is a priesthood now, but no 
 earthly priesthood. He is the eternal Word in the bosom 
 of the Father, the medium of communication between God 
 and man, the ladder that reaches from earth to heaven, and 
 that which reconciles God to man, and man to God. The 
 Christian ministry is preparatory, and accordingly the Church 
 of England caught the spirit of that ministry and represented 
 it by the ministry of John the Baptist ; the minister of Christ 
 is but a herald to prepare His coming ; and then, and only 
 
150 " The CJiristian Ministry'.'' 
 
 then, has he done his work when he has endeavoured to 
 detach trust and admiration from himself and to fasten 
 them upon Jesus Christ ; and when he feels that he is 
 becoming every day less and less necessary to those whom 
 he has taught because he has imparted to them all he knows, 
 and led them to the everlasting fountain which shall never 
 be exhausted. The very spirit of the Christian ministry 
 consists in these blessed words, " He must increase, but I 
 must decrease." I fulfil my course, it will soon be done, 
 I point to Christ. 
 
 Brethren, in conclusion, I notice two points which seem 
 to favour the notion of a priesthood. 
 
 First, I say a few words on the matter of absolution. 
 Unquestionably there is a power of absolution in the minis- 
 try of the Church of Christ, but I say again, it is the power 
 of the prophet and not of the priest. In the case of John 
 the Baptist men came to him confessing their sins; they were 
 baptized by him in the river, and rose from that water doubt- 
 less absolved, and feeling their justification. Remember, I 
 pray you, what absolution is — forgiveness is the act of God, 
 absolution is the act of man. Nathan conveyed absolution to 
 Dav'ld, " The Lord hath put away thy sin ; " this is absolu- 
 tion, the voice of man echoing here on earth the voice of 
 God in heaven — " the Son of man hath power on earth to 
 forgive sins." Observe, however, that this is prophetical, not 
 priestly ; it is not the ministerial act of the priest, but the 
 prophetic power of one representing God, speaking in His 
 name, and so conveying the feeling of God's pardon. Tell 
 us, brethren, if a man has taken from another superstitious 
 feeling, if he has told him that the only one thing to be 
 dreaded is doing wrong, and if having thereby broken the 
 
"77z^ Christian Ministry r .151 
 
 shackles of superstition he has enabled him to stand erect in 
 the spirit of a son, has not that man absolved his brother? 
 
 Once more, that in which the ministry would seem to be 
 a priestly power is the apostolical succession. This doctrine 
 as stated usually is this, "That by the imposition of hands, 
 through physical contact, the power of God is conveyed and 
 a Divine right given to the priests. A doctrine such as this 
 rests upon a truth like most other errors ; there is an 
 apostolical succession ; but it is a succession of prophets and 
 not of priests, it is a succession never extinct or broken ; it is 
 a race of prophets not a race of priests, the spirit of those on 
 whom God is breathing out the breath of life and love — this 
 is_the apostolical succession. The Son of God was Himself 
 a prophet, the apostles were prophets, and their spirit has 
 not died out ; and so far as we imbibe their spirit, we are 
 their successors. John the Baptist was endued with the 
 same spirit as Elias, and therefore was his successor in a long 
 line : and the great mind of the leader of the reformation 
 was the offspring of the mind of the Apostle Paul ; and so far 
 as we evince the spirit of the apostles and prophets shall we 
 keep unbroken the line of the apostolical succession. . . . 
 
XVII. 
 
 THE THREE CROSSES ON CALVARY. 
 
 Brighton, December 22, 1850. 
 
 " When they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there 
 they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the 
 other on the left. " — Luke xxiii. 33. 
 
 I ^HERE is a twofold solemnity which belongs to the 
 
 X dying hour. It is the winding-up of life, and it is the 
 commencement of eternity. 
 
 It is the winding-up of life ; life then becomes intelligible; 
 most of us go through this life scarcely seeming what we are, 
 one wraps himself up in coldness, another in half hypocrisy; 
 but when it comes to the last, the whole is wound up, and 
 death lays a hand so violent upon the frame that the mask 
 falls suddenly off. 
 
 Again, it is the commencement of eternity, for in a 
 short time the body of the dying man will pass away, 
 and his soul will be in possession of that secret which we 
 are toiling all our lives to find. And the solemnity of the 
 thought that he will soon be in possession of that secret 
 communicates itself in a degree to those around him. 
 It is this which gives importance and solemnity to the 
 dying hour even of the meanest ; around his bed the great 
 and powerful will come as if to read in his countenance the 
 
The Three Crosses on Calvary. ^153 
 
 secrets of their own mortality. It is this which gives even 
 to the dying hour of the suicide something of importance. 
 The veriest trifler that ever fluttered through this awful 
 world of God's, commands for one hour at least the world's 
 attention. 
 
 It is these two thoughts which make the dying hour so 
 solemn ; and a threefold portion of this interest belongs to 
 the scene of Calvary. Upon this Mount three crosses 
 stood ; generally our attention is fixed only upon one, but 
 it becomes us to remember that there were three, and that 
 upon each a human soul was breathed away. From each 
 there is its own peculiar lesson to be gathered. 
 
 Here, then, there is opened for us a subject for contem- 
 plation, dividing itself into three branches : first, the dying 
 hour of devotedness ; secondly, the dying hour of impeni- 
 tence and hardness ; and thirdly, the dying hour of penitence. 
 
 I. First we look at the central cross ; on that cross of 
 Christ there was that transacted which never can be ex- 
 hibited in any dying hour of ours. There was exhibited the 
 grandest expression of that greatest law of ours, that law 
 according to which life cannot be, except through death. 
 But it is not on this, the atonement, that we dwell now ; we 
 look upon Jesus now simply as a dying man, and the first 
 lesson that we learn is the conquest of suffering. 
 
 He was as much bound to perform the law of God as 
 the meanest creature upon earth. He was as much subject 
 to the law of suffering as we are ; there was a work to be 
 done upon His own soul ; and of Him in His private, and 
 not in His public capacity was it said that " the captain of 
 our salvation was made perfect through suffering." This it 
 is which throws so much force on those inspired words, 
 
154 '^^'■^ Three Crosses on Calvary. 
 
 " He became obedient even to the death of the Cross." It 
 was not death alone, but death through the Cross. The 
 work of the Saviour's soul would have been left imperfect if 
 one single drop of agony had been left untasted ; and this 
 seems to be shown by His refusing the mixture of gall and 
 m}Trh offered to Him in order to dull His sufferings : for it 
 IS wTitten that " after He had tasted thereof He would not 
 drink." He knew the strength and blessedness of suffering, 
 and would not meet His death without intensely feeling it ; 
 He would bear all. He would suffer all ; the Father had put 
 into His hand the cup to drink, and He had, as it were, 
 carried that cup, though brimful of agony, to His lips with a 
 hand so steady that not one drop of all its suffering trickled 
 down. 
 
 Here is a lesson for us. Part of our obedience and 
 work here on earth is to be done in vigour and in health, part 
 when laid aside in suffering. Much of this must be unin- 
 telligible to us here. There is not one present who will not 
 some day exchange the vigour of life for a broken constitution 
 and a suffering frame \ no one can know what suffering is till 
 he has knoAvn mental torture ; and no one can know the 
 extremity of corporeal suffering till, like his Master, he has 
 counted the long hours of torture one by one, and through 
 night after night has heard the clock strike in protracted 
 anguish. This is what we are called upon to endure, and 
 then often it is that fretfulness and impatience break across 
 our souls, and we wish that the whole of our future could be 
 concentrated into one sharp hour. Brethren, a man's work 
 is not done upon earth, so long as God has anything for 
 him to suffer ; the greatest of our victories is to be won in 
 passive endurance ; in humbleness, in reliance, and in trust, 
 we are to learn to be still, and know that He is God. 
 
The Three Crosses on Calvary: 
 
 155 
 
 In the next place we learn from that dying hour the 
 influence of personal holiness. The Son of Man came not 
 to the Cross to preach, but to suffer; yet in that hour two at 
 least were added to the Church, two at least were enrolled 
 in the number of those that shall be saved hereafter. 
 
 When God threw Christianity down upon the world to 
 win her way through almost insuperable impediments, the 
 weapon which He put into her hand, the only weapon, was 
 the talent and eloquence of a life of holiness. Brethren, let 
 the distinction be drawn between the life of holiness and 
 the life of mere blamelessness. Blamelessness and accuracy 
 are beautiful to look upon, but they do not save the soul. 
 The world has enlisted into her service the power of talent 
 and eloquence, but these are not the things that lead to 
 God ; men listen to your talent and your eloquence, and 
 recognise the power of your influence ; but they know that 
 all you say may be unreal and unfelt ; and therefore they 
 come merely as looking upon a picture, and admire, but 
 nothing further. It is not this, it is the divine mysterious 
 power of holiness that tells upon the world. 
 
 What these two men saw upon the Cross was different 
 from what they had ever seen before. And in the one case 
 contempt was softened into adoration, " Truly this man was 
 the Son of God ; " in the other case, hardness was changed 
 into adoring love, " This man hath done nothing amiss.'' 
 Now what was it that produced this change? it was not the 
 courage, for thousands had died upon the cross before. And 
 if they w anted recklessness they had but to turn to the other 
 cross where was one dying bravely enough, but where was 
 none of the marvellous meekness that was seen on the 
 centre cross, none of those words of infinite tenderness, 
 "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do;" — 
 
156 The Three Crosses on Calvary. 
 
 there was a recklessness there which enabled him to meet 
 pain with defiance, but none of those words of meekness 
 and trust, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." 
 
 Brethren, it is not talent, nor power, nor gifts, that do the 
 work of God, but it is that which lies within the grasp of 
 the humblest : it is the simple, earnest life led with Christ in 
 God. 
 
 II. We are now, secondly, to consider the lesson which 
 comes from the dying hour of impenitence. 
 
 Round the cross of the dying thief were accumulated 
 such means as never before met together to bring a man to 
 God. He had felt the power of pain, that power which is 
 often exerted in the soul to soften it. He had heard the 
 truth preached by one recently converted, and we all know 
 the intensity and earnestness of fresh love ; preached also 
 by a dying man, whose words are generally received with a 
 kind of veneration, or at least attention. There was one 
 beside that cross, moreover, a teacher such as no other man 
 had ever had in his dying hour. And yet, with all these 
 means and advantages, there was nothing but a soul steeled 
 against the truth. 
 
 Brethren, the lesson we learn from this is the impro- 
 bability of a late repentance. There are some men not 
 looking for anything of the kind, but desperately looking 
 forward to certain ruin hereafter, who can receive the 
 announcement of approaching misery even with calm- 
 ness. But this is not the feeling of most men towards 
 death. The oldest among us here thinks there is yet space 
 enough between him and death for a Avork still to be done ; 
 the day is to come when his present pursuits will be given 
 up, and the things of this world exchanged for the care of 
 
The Three Crosses on Calvary. 
 
 157 
 
 his immortal soul ; that which he loves now, he thinks he 
 shall hate then, forgetting that what is pleasant now, will 
 be pleasant to the last. And this is what, more or less, we 
 are all doing ; there is not one of us who can lay his hand 
 upon his heart and say, " I have given up all, I am livmg 
 now as I should wish to die." 
 
 Now let us endeavour to remember some of the arguments 
 which make a future change improbable. The first argu- 
 ment is this, that there comes a dulness and rigidity of the 
 intellect as life goes on ; in the old man's mind channels cut 
 themselves, channels through which thoughts flow ; the 
 opinions of the man become fixed; rarely does a man change 
 his opinions after forty years of age. And then add to this 
 the feeling of insecurity which comes from trembling between 
 life and death, the agitation which comes with the dying hour. 
 The probability of repentance is thus removed to a distance 
 almost infinite. For either delirium comes, or else sharp 
 acute pain which dissipates the faculties. 
 
 Even looking at it intellectually it becomes improbable. 
 The dying thief had lived for years with the prejudice that 
 Jesus was an impostor ; and then, when racked in torture, was 
 not in a state in which to change his opinions. As he had 
 lived, so he died. 
 
 Again, the improbability of this change arises from the 
 fixing of the affections. All life long this man had lived 
 with his affections fixed on earth ; this is the secret of 
 that expression with which he taunted his Redeemer, " If 
 thou be Chriet, save thyself and us ; " life is all he asks ; if 
 he could not save his life all other salvation to him seemed 
 useless. Brethren, grant it for one moment that reason 
 should remain at the last steady to judge of the question 
 then before us, yet this were not enough ; even if a man 
 
158 The Three Crosses on Calvary.^ 
 
 could hear the spade hollowing out his grave, and could look 
 upon the coffin-lid with his own name engraved thereon, 
 with the date of birth and the date of death, there might be 
 much in this to disengage his heart from earth, but would 
 there be in it one element to fasten his soul on holiness ? 
 
 Lastly, there is an improbability of change in the deaden- 
 ing of the conscience. There was an appeal made to the 
 conscience of the dying thief, but made in vain : " Dost 
 thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemna- 
 tion ? " It was made in vain, because his conscience was in 
 a state of deadness. We find it written that God hardened 
 Pharaoh's heart. It is the greatest evil, and worst penalty 
 of doing wrong, that at last a man ceases to distinguish 
 right from wrong. This was the state in which this man was, 
 and oh ! I pray you to remember that towards this state we 
 all are hastening who are hardening our hearts. If there be 
 one among us doing that, putting off the time of repentance 
 to a more convenient season, let him remember that there 
 are two questions to be asked : whether it is likely that 
 the change would come ? — and, whether there is anything 
 in pain that will make holiness more lovely and more dear? 
 And if in defiance of all experience he answer in the 
 affirmative, then there is another question, whether God will 
 be trifled with so long, and whether He will suffer a man to 
 go on enjoying life until he has no fresh emotion left, and 
 then will be permitted to give the dregs of a polluted life, 
 and a worn-out heart to the God whom he has despised all 
 life long. The ancient prophets spoke emphatically against 
 offering God services which cost us nothing. The meaning 
 they intended to convey is clearly that God will have our 
 best — Christ gave the best. Himself. 
 
 My young brethren, now, wliile emotion is fresh and your 
 
The Three Crosses on Calvary. 1 59 
 
 affections are worth the having, before the time comes when 
 you are worn and weary, " remember your Creator in the 
 days of your youth ! " 
 
 III. We turn now to consider the dying hour of peni- 
 tence. We have said that repentance at the last is a thing 
 improbable. Blessed be God, it is not a thing impossible. 
 It has been well said that there has been one instance of a 
 late repentance given us in order that none may despair, 
 and but one that none may presume. The penitent thief 
 expressed his sense of guilt in these words : " We suffer justly 
 the due reward of our deeds." We can lay down no rules 
 for the amount of grief and sorrow ; to do so would be as 
 absurd and futile as to lay down laws as to how often a 
 ! forgiving spirit might pardon an offending brother. There 
 can be no law here, for it is decided by many things, by age, 
 by sex, and by constitution, 
 j We believe that the Church of Rome has erred in sub- 
 I stituting penance for penitence ; and yet here Rome has 
 1 in her way expressed a truth, that the natural result of great 
 sin will be the expression of great grief. Perhaps we in our 
 Protestantism have erred in making the way to holiness after 
 sin unnaturally easy. We present a few doctrines to the 
 soul, and then, on the acceptance of a few intellectual truths, 
 it is expected that the great sinner will become the great 
 saint without a tear of agony for the past. Great nature 
 i refuses to be thus trifled with. In God's dealing with the 
 \ soul, there is something analogous with the cure of wounds. 
 Ij When the cut is deep and the blood flows freely, its first 
 j| effect is to close the wound by its coagulation. So it is with 
 j, grief : if it is allowed to flow freely, the wound may soon be 
 I healed ; but if instead cf grief and son-ow we expect a few 
 
i6o The Three Crosses on Calvary. 
 
 doctrines to do the work alone, then we shall soon see the 
 blood break forth afresh. 
 
 We also remark here the penitent's zeal for Christ ; he 
 spoke as if he himself had been offended, " Dost thou not 
 fear God ? " We talk much of toleration ; if we mean by that 
 a generous sympathy with the different forms of opinion, 
 then it is Christian ; if toleration mean compassion for 
 frailty, and a willingness ever to make a distinction between 
 tempted weakness and deliberate evil, then toleration is 
 nothing more than another name for the mind of Christ. 
 But if it mean that we are to reckon one form of opinion as 
 good as another, and look upon sin merely as a disease 
 against which we cannot feel indignation, then most unques- 
 tionably Christianity has in it no toleration. And I remark 
 that zeal, even though it exceed the bounds of righteousness, is 
 a more hopeful thing than lukewarmness ; better far to be like 
 the Apostle Paul before he was an Apostle, better to be like 
 the Sons of Thunder, better to be like the ancient prophets 
 using the stern language of denunciation, than like Pilate, 
 unconcerned as to the fate of his prisoner so long as he 
 himself was absolved from blame. In the former case, the 
 persecuting Saul became the large-minded Paul, the most 
 liberal and the noblest of all the spirits that have been given 
 to man ; and the Son of Thunder became the Apostle of 
 love. Years and experience will by degrees soften zeal into 
 love, but there is no remedy for lukewarmness. 
 
 Moreover, we observe, in the dying hour of the penitent 
 thief, the missionary spirit of doing good. One opportunity 
 only of doing good was given him, and he used it with all 
 his heart. 
 
 If we were asked what mark distinguishes Christianity 
 from the world, our reply would be, charity. It is not faith, 
 
Tlic Three Crosses on Calvary. i6r 
 
 for the religion of Jesus has faith in common with other 
 religions, but it is charity. " By this," says our Master, 
 " shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love 
 one to another." The man of love may be guilty of many 
 blunders of doctrine, while cold-hearted men may always be 
 intellectually right ; but in the last great day love will be 
 recognised as the one thing needful. The faults of the 
 men of love shall soon disappear in the Redeemer's blood, 
 and leave nothing there, save the love of one who loveth 
 much because much has been forgiven. 
 
 In conclusion, we have two remarks to make. 
 
 First, that the intermediate state is not a state of uncon- 
 sciousness. It may be replied, " What signifies this ? " this 
 is interfering v.-ith things unseen ; we can be calm in only 
 knowing that the soul is with God. Our answer is, that if 
 God has revealed it, it is our duty to receive it; and it is bv 
 no means unimportant, for though there may be those 
 among men who can leave that matter undecided, feeling 
 certain of the love of God, and can throw themselves into 
 the arms of God, knowing that they will be with Him ; yet 
 there are others who cannot so think, and who feel "all their 
 life-time subject to bondage" in the thoughts of the long last 
 sleep. Therefore it is that we point to this, and show how 
 far Christianity thus differs from Judaism ; for Judaism spake 
 of the grave as dark, the place where the dead praise not 
 God ; while the New Testament speaks distinctly of a state 
 of consciousness, for in the parable of Dives and Lazarus 
 the rich man is represented as fully conscious in the world 
 beyond of the condition of his sinful brethren. The Apostle 
 Paul, too, longs to depart that he may be with Christ — another 
 proof that the grave is not unconsciousness. And in addi- 
 
 M 
 
1 62 The Three Crosses on Calvary. 
 
 tion we have the example of the dying thief now before us, 
 to whom our Blessed Lord says, " To-day shalt thou be with 
 me in Paradise." 
 
 And secondly, we learn from this the completeness of 
 the sacrifice of Christ. Some have so mistaken the meaning 
 of their Master's death as to believe that, when the soul has 
 departed from the body, there is still a penal fire to finish 
 the Saviour's work. But look at the dying thief forgiven by 
 his Lord ; up to that time he had done nothing to make 
 himself meet for glory, after his conversion he could do 
 nothing ; and yet, forgiven and redeemed upon the Cross, 
 he passed straight to Paradise. 
 
 My Christian brethren, we set this truth before you: " Ye 
 are complete in Christ." He reconciled God to man, our 
 work is therefore to become reconciled to God. To him 
 that is in Christ there remains neither speck nor spot to be 
 imputed. 
 
XVI I L 
 
 THE STATE OF NATURE AND THE STATE 
 OF GRACE. 
 
 Brighton, January 26, 1 85 1. 
 
 " Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the 
 lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind ; and 
 were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who 
 is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when 
 we wf re dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By 
 grace ye are saved." — Ephesians ii. 3-5. 
 
 THE prominent point in these verses, manifestly, is the 
 contrast between nature and grace. " By nature," says 
 the apostle, " ye are the children of wrath, by grace ye are 
 saved." Every one of us knows that these words are cardinal 
 points in Christian theology ; they have been the cause of 
 bitterest controversies ; controversies in which men under- 
 standing each other have differed, controversies also in 
 which men really meaning the same thing have expressed it 
 in different words. For example, if one man speaks of the 
 majesty of human nature, it may be that another feels 
 shocked at such an expression ; and yet it is more than 
 possible that a man may speak of the majesty of the huma- 
 nity that God has given us, and still be deeply, intensely, 
 convinced of the reality of his fallen nature. Therefore, in 
 all teaching, more especially in public teaching, in which it 
 is impossible to ask for an explanation, it is important that 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 The State of Nature 
 
 from time to time terms should be accurately defined. For 
 want of such definition there may seem to be confusion 
 where none really exists. As a proof of this we look to our 
 Redeemer's teaching : let us take the memorable occasion 
 on which He said, " I am the living bread which came down 
 from heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for 
 ever : and the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I 
 will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore 
 strove amongst themselves, saying, How can this man give 
 us his flesh to eat ? " — they understood in one sense what 
 was spoken in another. And thus often it may seem that 
 the teaching of the minister of God is self-contradictory. 
 
 Therefore, brethren, what we shall do to-day will be to 
 define the meaning of two terms : the state of nature and 
 the state of grace. 
 
 I. The state of nature. 
 
 In the first place we observe that there is a twofold 
 sense in which we use the expression " nature." When we 
 speak of "nature" we may mean either what it is by right, 
 or what it is by fact, what it is meant to be or what it is. 
 Let us take as an illustration of this, the fig-tree whereof our 
 Redeemer spoke : in one sense it was its nature to bring 
 forth fruit, but in another sense it was the nature of that 
 tree to bring forth no fruit. Because it was the nature of 
 tlie fig-tree to bring forth fruit, therefore was the demand 
 made, a demand which, if such had not been its nature, 
 would have been most unjust. Take as another instance 
 the case of the soil which God has made : the nature of the 
 soil is to bring forth weeds ; they spring up naturally, and 
 yet no one would say that it was created for that purpose — 
 the weeds are rather its perversion. Precisely in the same 
 
and the State of Grace. 
 
 165 
 
 way the evil tendencies in the soul of man are there, yet 
 they are not the nature of the soul. 
 
 It is on this principle that we find passages in Scripture 
 respecting nature which seem to contradict each other. 
 There is one class of passages in which the right is called 
 natural, and the unnatural is reckoned wrong. To live 
 according to nature is to live according to the will of God ; 
 for example, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, respect- 
 ing a matter of mere propriety in dress, the apostle refers 
 himself to first principles, " Doth not even nature itself 
 teach you that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto 
 him?" Again, in the Epistle to the Romans, that which is 
 against nature is spoken of as the worst of crimes. Nor 
 is there any way in which we ourselves can speak with 
 more reprobation of a human being than to say, for instance, 
 that he is an " unnatural " son or an " unnatural " father. 
 Similarly, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, SL Paul speaks 
 of it as one of the worst sins of the last times that men 
 should be " without natural affection," and, when we refer 
 to the teaching of our Redeemer Himself, we read — "Why 
 do ye not of yourselves judge that which is right ? " So 
 that, according to Christ's idea of human nature, to judge 
 wongly was not natural Now, turning to another class of 
 Scripture passages, we find human nature spoken of in a 
 different way ; that which is natural is called evil, and to 
 live according to it is to tend to certain ruin. Accordingly, 
 the Apostle Paul says, " The natural man discerneth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God ; " and here, again, in the verses 
 I have selected for the text, " By nature " we are the children 
 of wrath. The great question, therefore, is this : in what 
 sense do we use the term " human nature " ? If by human 
 nature you mean nature as seen in this man or in that, then 
 
166 
 
 The State of Nature 
 
 unquestionably, nature is evil, — individual nature, personal 
 nature, is contrary to God's' will ; but if by human nature 
 you mean nature as God made it, as it has been once, in 
 one man of our species and only one, and as by God's grace 
 it shall be again ; if you mean nature as it is according to 
 the idea of the Creator as shown in Jesus Christ, as it is in 
 the eyes of God imputed, not as it is, but as it shall be ; 
 then that nature is a noble thing, a thing divine : — for the 
 life of the Redeemer Himself, what was it but the one true 
 exhibition of our human nature ? 
 
 Having premised so far, we now remark the two things 
 that Paul says respecting this human nature. He says 
 that by nature we fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the 
 mind.' I pray you to observe that it is in the second and 
 not in the first sense that he here speaks of nature. The 
 " desires of the flesh," mean the appetites ; those " of the 
 mind," mean the passions : to fulfil the desires of the flesh 
 is to live the life of the swine ; to fulfil those of the mind 
 is to live the life of the devil. Imaginations given to 
 ennoble the spirit degraded to the sensualising of the spirit 
 till they become the agents of the lowest vices, that is to 
 fulfil the desires of the mind. But let it be observed that 
 this is the partiality, not the entireness, of human nature. 
 Where is the conscience, where the spirit by which we have 
 communion with God ? To live to the flesh and to the 
 mind is not to live to the nature that God gave us : we can 
 no more call that living to our nature than we can say that 
 a watch going by the mere force of the mainspring, without 
 a regulator, is fulfilling the nature of a watch. To fulfil the 
 desires of the flesh and of the mind is no more to fulfil the 
 nature which God l:as given us than the soil fulfils its nature 
 when it brings forth thorns and briars. This distinction is 
 
and the State of Grace. 
 
 167 
 
 strongly drawn by the apostle in the Epistle to the Romans. 
 He there speaks of himself in his unregenerate state, and 
 reckons that it is not his nature ; he draws a distinction 
 between himself and his false nature, and says it is " not I 
 that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me ; " sin is the dominion 
 of a false nature, it is a usurped dominion. The second 
 thing that Paul tells us in connection with this subject is 
 that by nature we are children of wrath. Some commen- 
 tators have tried to explain that expression away, and have 
 said that when he uses the words " children of wrath," he 
 means men prone to anger. We cannot adopt this view, we 
 take the popular idea, which in this case I believe to be the 
 true one ; it is the wrath of God which is here spoken of. 
 And a great truth is thus laid down ; that in the state of 
 nature we are in the way to bear the wrath of God. Doubt- 
 less the expression used is a popular one, God is spoken of as 
 He is felt by us, not as He is in Himself Just as when we 
 see the sun gleaming through the mists of evening it seems 
 to us a red mass and we say " the sun is red," so God, seen 
 through the mists of our prejudices and passions, appears to 
 be a God of wrath. And yet, brethren, God is not wrath. 
 He is infinite love ; the eternal serenity of His nature does 
 not feel our passions. He remains for ever calm, yet such is 
 our nature that we must think of Him as wrath as well as 
 love, to us love itself becomes wrath when we are in a state 
 of sin. To say that the sun is red may not be philosophically 
 true, but it is red to us ; to say that God is wrath may not be 
 metaphysically true, but for all practical purposes it is so. 
 
 Here is an eternal truth with which we would not part : 
 God must hate sin and be for ever sin's enemy. Because 
 He is the Lord of love, therefore must He be a consuming 
 fire to evil ; God is against evil but for us ; if, then, we sin 
 
The State of Nature 
 
 He must be against us \ in sinning we identify ourselves 
 m\h evil, therefore we must endure the consuming fire. 
 Oh ! brethren, in this soft age in which we live, it is good to 
 fall back on the first principles of everlasting truth. \Vc 
 have come to think that education may be maintained by 
 mere laws of love instead of discipline, and that public 
 punishment may be abolished. We say that these things 
 are contrary to the Gospel ; and here, doubtless, there is an 
 underlying truth : it is true that there may be a severity in 
 education which defeats itself, it is true that love and ten- 
 derness may do more than severity ; but yet under a system 
 of mere love and tenderness no character can acquire 
 manliness or firmness. When you have once got rid of the 
 idea of public punishment, then, by degrees, you will also 
 get rid of the idea of sin : where is it written in the Word of 
 God that the sword of His minister is to be borne in vain ? 
 In this world of groaning and of anguish, tell us where it is 
 that the law which links suffering to sin has ceased to act ? 
 Nay, so long as there is evil, so long will there be penalty ; 
 and woe to that man who attempts to contradict the eternal 
 system of God ; so long as the spirit of evil is in the world, 
 so long must human punishment remain to bear its testi- 
 mony that the God of the universe is a righteous God. This 
 is what we have to feel : sin, live according to the lusts of 
 the flesh, and you will become the children of God's wrath ; 
 live after the Spirit, the higher nature that is in you, and 
 then the law hath hold on you no longer. 
 Pass we on now to our second subject : 
 
 II. The state of grace. " By grace ye are saved." 
 As in the foimer case we had one word to explain, so 
 now we have two ; the llrst is " saved," the second " grace." 
 
and the State of Grace. 
 
 169 
 
 And, first, we observe that salvaticn according to the 
 apostle originates in the love of God. " God, who is rich 
 in mercy." It is not that we loved God, but that He loved 
 us; not that we nieuted the love of God, — f r when we 
 were yet in sin He loved us ; not that the sacrifice of Chiist 
 has bought off the wrath of God, but that it was Flis love that 
 designed the sacrifice of Christ, as it is written,-" God so 
 loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, to the 
 end that all that believe in Him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life." This, then, is the first principle from 
 which we start, salvation originates in t!ie love of God ; and 
 if we ask the reason, there is but one, the love itself, " For 
 His great love wherewith He loved us." The second thing 
 Paul tells us respecting salvation is that it consists in eman- 
 cipation from evil. " Quickened us together with Christ," — 
 that is, gave life. Remark, the apostle says not " saved 
 from suffering," he says "quickened." Salvation, and the 
 love and mercy of God seem to us, often, no more than 
 rescue from personal suffering ; such a notion entered not 
 into the apostle's mind ; according to him the love and 
 mercy of God were shown in this, not that He saved from 
 penalty but from sin. If love be merely the prevention of 
 pam, how is this world governed by the love of God? It 
 may be that it is God's intention hereafter to produce a 
 state of painlessness, we know not, but this we know : that 
 God's best and dearest servants have had the cup of suffer- 
 ing placed in their hands and been made to drain it deep. 
 His beloved Son's reward was the cross ; " the Captain of 
 our salvation was made perfect through suffering." . . . And 
 that, Oh ! my Christian brethren, is what we want ; life, 
 more life, spiritual life within us ; to know in all things the 
 truth of God and to speak it, to feel in all tliings the will cf 
 
1/0 
 
 The State of Nature 
 
 God and do it ; and to give us that, to impart that Spirit 
 to us, is the mercy and the love of God. 
 
 The next word to explain is " grace." It stands opposed 
 to two things, to " nature," and to " law : " to nature in the 
 text, and to law in this, " we are not under law but under 
 grace." Whenever " nature " means the dominion of our lower 
 appetites, that state in which we feel left to ourselves, then 
 nature stands opposed to grace. In the second place grace 
 stands opposed to law. Now let us remember what Paul 
 says respecting law : its language is " thou shalt and must ; " 
 right words and glorious, but words incapable of arresting 
 sin ; and according to Paul what the law does is to exaspe- 
 rate sin into greater vitality, " I had not known sin but by 
 the law : " all that the law can do is to manifest sin, just as 
 the dam thrown against the river shows its strength ; law 
 can arrest sometimes the commission of sin, but never the 
 inward principle. Therefore God has provided another 
 remedy, — "Sin shall not have dominion over you;" is it 
 because ye are hemmed round with greater penalties ? nay, 
 but because " ye are not under law but under grace." 
 
 And now, in conclusion, the application we make of 
 this is contained in one remark ; Paul states salvation here 
 as a fact : " By grace ye are saved." These Ephesians were, 
 many of them, most imperfect Christians, of none of them 
 could the apostle be sure that they would reach the kingdom 
 of God, and yet there is no word hinting the possibility of 
 their non-election, but, broadly, of all he says "ye are saved." 
 Now there are two systems, the one begins with nature, the 
 other with grace, the one treats all Christians ns if they were 
 the children of the devil, and tells them that they may perhaps 
 become the children of God ; the other declares that the in- 
 carnation of Christ is a fact, a universal fact, proclaiming that 
 
and the State of Grace. 
 
 171 
 
 all the world are called to be the children of the Most High. 
 I need not say that the system I have last described is that 
 of the Baptismal Service of the Church of England, that 
 precious Service which we hold so dear, and through which 
 we are taught to say " I was made by baptism (that is, not 
 magically created, but declared by the voice of God to be) 
 the child of God, a member of Christ, and an heir of ever- 
 lasting salvation." 
 
 It is thus that the Church of England speaks, but it is of 
 more importance to observe that thus also the Bible speaks. 
 The apostle here speaKs of the baptized Ephesians, not 
 hypothetically, but actually, as God's redeemed children. 
 It makes an immense difference in education and in later 
 life which of these views you may adopt ; in the one case, — 
 if the first be true — we work with a faithless heart : that 
 child of mine may be the child of God or he may not, he 
 may be elected or he may not ; I tell him to call God his 
 Father wiien perhaps He is not so ; we thus go working on 
 as if we had to work against nature, instead of with God, as 
 if our work were merely to eradicate something from the 
 soil instead of seeking to bring forth fruit. Brethren, from 
 such a system as this what can come? Let us rather 
 believe in grace, instead of beginning with nature ; let us 
 believe that we are God's children, that God is our Father, 
 and that Christ has redeemed the world ; and then let us 
 seek His grace to keep us steadfast in our faith, that we lose 
 not these inestimable privileges. Let us remember that it 
 is said, " Work out your own salvation with fear and tremb- 
 ling," not because we dread damnation, but because " it is 
 God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good 
 pleasure." 
 
XIX. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS. 
 
 Brighton, February 23, 185 1. 
 
 " Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write ; These things 
 saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in 
 the midst of the seven golden candlesticks ; I know thy works, and 
 thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which 
 are evil : and ihou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are 
 not, and hast found them liars ; and hast boi ne, and hast patience, and 
 for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Neverliilless 
 I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." — 
 Revelation ii. I -4. 
 
 IN the Eible high vakie is placed on the lehgious affec- 
 tions ; in the world and in ordinary life almost none. 
 In matters ecclesiastical and political we are satisfied with 
 results ; we care little for the principle, spirit, or feeling which 
 has led to it. And even among religious people a very 
 inadequate view is entertained of these aspirations, as is 
 evident from the tone in which declension in religious feeling 
 is spoken of. We hear it said that it is a matter of regret 
 that these feelings will not last ; but that it is inevitable, 
 the thing is unavoidable, and, therefore, not to be greatly 
 lamented ; sometimes a tone more philosophical is adopted, 
 they tell us that the flower must pass away in order that 
 the fruit may come. Emotion and religious feeling, they say, 
 are intended merely to bridge over the distance between duty 
 
The Church of Ephesiis. 
 
 173 
 
 and performance, and to make that easy which would have 
 been difficult at first; so that when the flower has passed we 
 have the fruit, and when the feeling is gone we have got the 
 habit of duty, and the feeling may then be dispensed with. 
 
 Brethren, a sentiment like this stands in diametrical 
 opposition to the language of the Bible. Beneath it, how- 
 ever, there lies a trutli, for by degrees as love becomes more 
 deep it will become less emotional ; but to say that in pro- 
 portion as wisdom and faith increase, in that proportion will 
 love and tenderness abate, is to proclaim ruin to the 
 Christian character. In the first place, we find it written in the 
 Epistle to the Philippians, " This I pray, that your love may 
 abound more in knowledge and in all judgment." Simul- 
 taneous with the growth in knowledge was to be the growth 
 of t^,e affections. Again, in the Epistle to the Thessalonians : 
 "We are bound to thank God, as it is meet, because that your 
 faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of everyone of you 
 all toward each other aboundeth." And in the Second of 
 Peter we find these religious affections made the ground 
 of Christian grace : " Add to your faith virtue, and to 
 virtue knowledge ; and to knowledge temperance, and to 
 temperance patience ; and to patience godliness, and to 
 godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness 
 charity." Where we remark at first the mere externals of 
 religion, then by degrees the growth of particular and active 
 habits, then the emotions, and, finally, the grand consumma- 
 tion of all. Christian charity. If it were not tnie that 
 religious emotion was dear to God, how should we be able 
 to explain that rebuke of the ascended Saviour to His Church 
 of Laodicea, that it was " lukewarm, neither hot nor cold " ? 
 
 And in the text you will observe that the Church of 
 Ephesus had many m.arks which outwardly establish the 
 
174 
 
 The CJiurch of Ephesus. 
 
 claim to be a Church of God. She had orthodoxy, for she 
 had tried those that said they were apostles, and, having 
 found them liars, had put them from her ; she had the spirit 
 of martyrdom ; she had activity and zeal, and much of out- 
 ward earnestness ; her patience and labour are acknowledged ; 
 yet there was one thing wanting : her emotions towards God 
 had lost their strength and vividness, and therefore her 
 Lord declared that He would not have the outward husk 
 without the inward kernel. From which it is manifest that 
 the flower is not merely valuable from being the precursor 
 of the fruit, it has an inherent worth in itself ; and thus love 
 has an inward grace and beauty, preciousness and value, in 
 itself ; the act is dear to God simply because of the affec- 
 tion that has prompted it. This, then, being the value of 
 religious emotions, and this the danger of their decline, the 
 passage which I have chosen for the text marks out for us 
 these two branches into which our thought may flow. 
 
 I. The origin and marks of declension in religious 
 feeling ; and, 
 
 II. The apostolic remedy. 
 
 I. We must begin by understanding what is meant by this 
 " first love to God." When we speak of love to God we 
 mean not an emotion different from what we call love to 
 man ; affection towards God is precisely the same feeling as 
 affection towards man, but it is purified, exalted, concentrated. 
 We are here for the very purpose of learning how to love 
 God ; without this we could not see the meaning of the 
 manifold affection given us in this world. The love of 
 parents and children, brothers and sisters, varies almost to 
 infinity ; those on whom our affections have been lavished 
 pass away, they die, but behind them is left the unburied 
 
The Chnrch of Ephcsus. 
 
 power of love ; and we find at last that we ha\'e been here 
 in training for the love that knows neither age, nor sex, nor 
 individuality ; our powers of loving are all concentrated and 
 thrown on One ; this infinite power of the educated sou! we 
 call the love of God. Therefore this love to God is marked 
 by universality. God is truth, and the soul that loves God 
 loves all that is true. God is goodness and purity, and in 
 love to God we rest on all that is lovely, pure, and good as 
 images of the infinite splendour of this love. God is the life 
 of all that is, and when we love God, that love is felt in the 
 delight that the Christian spirit takes in the blessedness and 
 happiness of all that is ; that feeling which makes the 
 Christian merciful to his beast, and which forbids him to 
 find his joy in the pain of the meanest thing that lives ; love 
 to universal being, love to the great All, that is love to God. 
 Now, there are moments in our existence when this feeling 
 dawns with a fresh power on the soul. " Our mortal nature 
 doth tremble like a guilty thing surprised." It is a lovely 
 thing to see the love of the young Christian, the startling 
 warmth in the bosom of one whose heart is throbbing with 
 first fresh love to God ; there has come down upon his soul 
 a flood of light so fresh, so pure, so new, that in the radiance 
 of that light all seems fresh, the very world seems to be 
 created over again ; so that in him is fulfilled that which 
 shall be hereafter ; in the renewed love of that soul is pro- 
 duced a " new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness." And a man in such a state feels as the 
 apostle did on the transfiguration-mount— it seems as if it were 
 almost impossible for him to descend from his high ground ; 
 we are ready to exclaim, " It is good for us to be here ; let 
 us make for ourselves resting-places." In that feeling there 
 is not a shadow of a shade of selfishness ; let theologians say 
 what they will, in that first love to God there is no selfish- 
 
176 
 
 Tlie Church of Ephesns. 
 
 ness. Immortality, heaven itself, all that belongs to personal 
 enjoyment, is lost in one burning desire to educate the soul 
 and live afresh to God ; to go, like Elijah, on the strength of 
 sacred feast and staff, through the wilderness, asking only 
 for God. We feel that God is our portion, our everlasting 
 and all-sufficient portion, in this world and in the world to 
 come. That is first love to God. 
 
 And this is the feeling, it may be, that the Ephesian 
 Christians enjoyed to an extent which it is almost impossible 
 for us to realise now ; for in that day the iron hand of 
 Rome was compressing the whole human race into one 
 militaiy empire ; all domestic feelings were giving way, and 
 even patriotism could scarcely subsist, for how is supreme 
 love to be shown for a man's own country when none other 
 exists to divide his affections ? Then there burst upon the 
 world a fresh feeling, a new love ; and words such as these 
 were heard, " He is our peace, who hath made both, that 
 is, Jew and gentile, one." To us it is a thrice-told tale ; 
 but conceive it as a new truth — one God, one Father, one 
 Mediator, one family, giving room for the heart's best affec- 
 tions — and then you may conceive the intensity of the first 
 love of the Ephesian Church. 
 
 We will now consider the origin and progress of this 
 declension. 
 
 I. The first cause and mark of it is the spirit of the 
 world. Ephesus was at that time the metropolitan city 
 of proconsular Asia ; it grew and flourished long after the 
 cities that had surrounded it had decayed ; it is known to 
 us now as having contained one of the seven wonders of 
 the world — the temple of the great goddess Diana. And 
 there all that was refined in Asia and in Europe met To ' 
 tliis brilliant and dazzling influence was it that the young 
 converts were exposed ; and that which persecution could 
 
The Church of Ephesus. 
 
 177 
 
 not do, refinement and ease soon effected ; the iron of the 
 Christian spirit was softened, the soul was robbed of its 
 manlier part ; they could no longer love their God with the 
 strength they had formerly devoted to His service. 
 
 In that which we call the world we will now confine 
 ourselves to one branch, of which Ephesus was an example, 
 the love of worldly society and enjoyment. And, first, let us 
 listen to what the Bible says on this subject, " He that liveth 
 in pleasure is dead while he liveth," " Lovers of pleasure 
 more than lovers of God," " If any man love the world, 
 the love of the Father is not in him." The explanation of 
 this is plain : in the hfe of pleasure we lead the life of excite- 
 ment, and thus it soon follows that emotions will not rise 
 at the call and bidding of excitement ; the history being 
 inevitably this, first sensibility of feeling, then excitement, 
 then callousness, then apathy, and lastly hardness. 
 
 In the parable that we read to-day we are told that the 
 seed which sprang up rapidly was sown on rocky ground; deep, 
 profound is the knowledge of human nature expressed there ; 
 the superficial heart is the stony heart ; where there is easily 
 roused capacity for excitement there is often little real depth ; 
 frivolise the heart by pleasure, and thus you make it cold 
 and hard towards God. There is nothing more remarkable in 
 early religion than the scrupulous avoidance with which the 
 young convert shrinks from the world. It is, however, often 
 carried to extremes ; then comes the reaction ; and the 
 recoil is strong just in proportion to the strength and exclu- 
 siveness with which the world has been avoided. And a 
 history such as this has doubtless been the lot of more than 
 one here present, either of himself, or of those whom he has 
 loved. At first there was warmth of religious zeal ; and 
 then by degrees have appeared the symptoms of decline, 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 The Church of Ephesus. 
 
 frivolity, lightness of tone or dress or demeanour ; little by 
 little loss of zeal, and then a deadening of religious sensi- 
 bility. It is a change which is at first imperceptible except 
 to the eye of earnest, zealous friendship ; for such a man is 
 by no means less orthodox than before, no less regular in 
 . his outward duties, perhaps much more so, till by degrees 
 the film and the veil become so thin that they can be 
 worn no longer — the man ceases to profess ; why should he 
 encourage the spirit and habit of hypocrisy ? and then 
 comes a cold, deadly, creeping despondency ; and then the 
 void of that soul is filled up with the extremes of sin, it may 
 be with the extremes of crime. 
 
 2. The second cause we assign for religious declension 
 is the neglect of devotional habits. Sometimes the history 
 is what I have already stated, that religious acts survive 
 religious feeling ; in other cases it is the reverse, the decay 
 of religious habits precedes the loss of religious feeling. In 
 some unguarded moment the Christian man gives up his 
 devotional habit, and then once the habit is broken in upon 
 it is not renewed, and the result is a loss of zeal and a loss 
 of love. Let us understand what is meant by this expression, 
 devotional habits. Let us not narrow it in to mean one 
 thing only. By devotional habits we do not mean that a 
 man must have the habit of attending daily prayers or the 
 like ; devotional habits depend upon all the varieties of 
 age, sex, and temperament. To one man the devotional 
 habit of every day is to consider a chapter in the Bible ; to 
 another man, according to the necessities of his tempera- 
 ment, it may be the attendance on public daily prayer ; to 
 another it may be wandering by the seashore, calming there 
 his agitated spirit and throwing open his mind to all the 
 influences which God has shed so abundantly on the world. 
 
The Church of Ephesus. 
 
 179 
 
 Sometimes it is a habit like that of Isaac, the wandering 
 alone and meditating in the field at eventide ; sometimes 
 it is the voiceless lifting of the solitary soul to God in the 
 chamber, in the crowd, and in society ; but unless that habit, 
 whatever it be, is kept up in some way or other, the life 
 will inevitably decay. 
 
 And this seems to be the pecuHar danger of this age. A 
 few centuries ago the danger was a different one ; it might 
 be that in the hermitage the solitary, leading a life of con- 
 templation, forgot that of action. Our danger is the opposite 
 one : it is to substitute religious benevolence and the excite- 
 ment of the pubUc meeting and of the sermon for that for 
 which they never can be substituted— the secret prayer, and 
 the broken spirit, and the laying the soul before its Maker, 
 imploring Him to search it thoroughly, "to see if there be any 
 wicked way in it." 
 
 3. The last cause we assign for religious decline is the 
 indulgence of the intellectual spirit. Ephesus was the seat 
 of that form of corrupted Christianity which we find so often 
 alluded to in the Acts of the Apostles as " science falsely 
 so called," " vain philosophy," &c. Here let us make a 
 distinction : confuse not the philosophy of those days with 
 that of the present day ; they are alike in name alone. The 
 science of these days is a reverent investigation of the laws 
 of God, and it is marvellous how men can fail to gain from 
 it something of the love of God ; but the philosophy of those 
 days was simply the craving of the intellect for amusement 
 and enjoyment in the things of God. And let it be remem- 
 bered that religion's self may become a mere matter intel- 
 lectual, and men may examine the evidences respecting the 
 being of a God, or the proofs of immortality, with the same 
 apathy and coldness with which we consider the evidences 
 
i8o The Church of Ephesus. 
 
 of the existence of some volcanic crater or of some distant 
 nebula. But let us beware ; I say not that an intellectual 
 religion is therefore no religion, for the intellectual man 
 must have an intellectual religion, since he will give his 
 energies to that which he most loves ; but remember, I pray 
 you, that intellect is one thing, heart is another. Religion is a 
 thing of the heart and not of the intellect ; as the Bible so 
 strongly tells us, " the world by wisdom knew not God." 
 Religion is the banquet of the spirit, not the feast of the 
 mind — and therefore the danger is ever present when men 
 begin to listen to the sermon as a manifestation of intel- 
 lectual force, and not for its spiritual power. 
 
 II. We pass on, to consider the remedy suggested by the 
 apostle ; it was this, " Remember from whence thou art 
 fallen, and repent, and do the first works." 
 
 In this we observe that the centre of it all is " repent." 
 But that is precisely what man cannot do ; it is alone the gift 
 of the grace of God. The soul is powerless when it acts 
 upon itself, the heart cannot produce one emotion simply by 
 volition ; therefore the apostle wisely gives us the means by 
 which repentance may be produced ; the first is, " Remember 
 from whence thou art fallen," the next is, " Do the first 
 works." 
 
 You may go back in thought to the moments in which 
 you were more loving, more holy ; you may compare 
 the sums you then spent on charity with those you now 
 lavish on some selfish enjoyment ; you may compare also the 
 different way in which you spend your time now with what 
 you did then ; you cannot force the feeling, but by degrees, 
 in such a way as this, the feeling will come : first, remorse, 
 and then bitterness ; and then, gradually, it will perhaps pass 
 
The CJmrcJi of Ephcsus. 
 
 i8i 
 
 into something gentler and more holy, till at last to 
 " remember from whence thou art fallen " will be almost 
 equivalent to this, " repent." 
 
 The other remedy is to " do the first works." The wis- 
 dom of this advice is profound. It is not such as would 
 have been given by us ; we should perhaps have said, 
 Think on the sufferings of Christ ; or. Think on the reality 
 of your adoption, remember that you are the child of God. 
 The apostle knew far better ; he knew that to refer a man in 
 sin to the fact of his adoption is to tell him to look at what 
 is to him invisible ; therefore he says, "Do the first works;" for 
 just as feeling will bring about action, so, when feeling is 
 become cold, acting, by God's blessing, will bring back the 
 feeling. It is not by meddling with the emotions or by con- 
 sidering our adoption, but by acting in earnest under the 
 grace of God that we get back the warm feeling we had lost, 
 and return to the duties we had left, with such words as 
 these, " Father, I have sinned against heaven and before 
 thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." 
 
 Brother men, if there be any among us now who has " left 
 his first love," know you what that is which is dragging down 
 your soul ? Be honest in your Father's sight. Be it business, 
 or pleasure, or intolerance, be it what it may that stands 
 between your soul and Christ, there shall neither be peace to 
 your spirit, nor joy of love within your heart, till you sternly 
 tear it out. 
 
XX. 
 
 WISDOM JUSTIFIED OF HER CHILDREN. 
 
 (!•) 
 
 " But Wisdom is justified of her children." — Matthew xi. 12. 
 USTIFIED" means acquitted, recognised, or acknow- 
 
 J ledged'. "Of" means "by." And Christ says, 
 " Wisdom is recognised by her children." 
 The wisdom of a Divine Hfe had appeared in two forms : 
 ascetic in John the Baptist, social in Christ. The world 
 recognised it in neither. In John they said it was insanity: 
 " He hath a devil ; " in Christ worldliness and irreligion : 
 " Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of 
 publicans and sinners." 
 
 To the world Christ rephed in simple and deep words, 
 that they were incompetent judges of the question. None 
 could recognise the Divine life but those who lived it ; none 
 justify v/isdom except her children. The Divine life was 
 always the same, but it expressed itself outwardly in no special 
 single form of life. Wisdom, under whatever form she might 
 appear — the life of asceticism or the life social — would be 
 justified or recognised by her children. 
 
 (from autograph notes.) 
 
 Brighton, March 9, 1 85 1. 
 
Wisdom ytistified of her Children. 183 
 
 On last Sunday • I expounded the principle that the 
 judgment of doctrine is made possible by an obedient life. 
 In every department of life there is an organ for judging. 
 In the world of sense the empiric intellect. In the world of 
 spirit another organ altogether is needed ; not the under- 
 standing, but the heart : " with the heart man believeth " 
 Neither astronomy, nor mathematics, nor scientific analysis, 
 will enable you to reach God. You must feel Him : " Eye 
 hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them 
 that love Him." Obedience is the organ by which you judge 
 of things not seen or heard One act of charity will teach you 
 more of God, "of moral evil, and of good, than all the 
 sages can." " My judgment is just : because I seek not 
 My Own Will, but the Will of the Father which hath sent 
 me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the 
 doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of 
 myself 
 
 This is the only ground on which we can stand against 
 Rationalism. Rationalism says : By evidence of the un- 
 derstanding, by historical investigation, by scientific research. 
 We say : By the evidence of the heart. The mightiest 
 chemist knows nothing about immortality or about God. 
 
 I then applied this principle to three cases — speculative 
 truth, morals, and the understanding of character. A pure 
 heart and a self-surrendered will clarify the heart to judge 
 rightly. When all selfish motives for choosing one view 
 rather than another are destroyed, speculative truths, such as 
 those of Calvinism, become clearer. So also in moral truths, 
 such as slavery, or the Epicurean " Let us eat and drink, to- 
 morrow we die." 
 
 ' Second Series, Sermon viii. 
 
184 Wisdom Justified of her Children. 
 
 I omitted one case, "I judge no man, and yet if I judge 
 my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I and the 
 Father that sent me," — which omission I now supply. 
 
 The humble desire to know and do the Will of God 
 is the condition on which we gain insight into human 
 character. " If any man will do His Will, he shall know " 
 of the Teacher as well as the doctrine. The life Divine 
 can only be recognised by the children of that life. You 
 must be a child of wisdom before you can justly judge of 
 the Teacher. You cannot otherwise say broadly asceticism 
 is right, or social life right. 
 
 Therefore we consider, I., The tone of mind which capaci- 
 tates for judging human character ; and, II., The tone of 
 mind which incapacitates for judging. 
 
 I. The tone of mind which capacitates for judging 
 human character. 
 
 The children of wisdom possess an unerring judgment of 
 doctrine, and an unerring insight into human character, 
 gained by a childlike spirit of obedience, and not by 
 intellect : " I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and 
 earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
 prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." The children 
 of wisdom are here called " babes." 
 
 By sympathy alone can you judge of character. Children 
 are those who are like children. By pure sympathy and by' 
 pure character you discern what is pure. Delighting in good, 
 you discern it not as a rival, but as a friend, recognising 
 its characteristics. This is the doctrine of the metaphor. 
 A mother, changing her garb, may be mistaken by strangers j 
 but under every metamorphosis she is recognised by her 
 children, who know her voice by the secret tact of sympathy. 
 
Wisdom Justified of her Cliildren. 1 85 
 
 And this is the universal doctrine of Christ. He never 
 taught on personal authority, " Yet if I judge my judgment 
 It true, for I am not alone, but I and tlie Father that sent 
 me " ; but on the authority of truth, evident to true minds ; 
 and on the authority of a pure life, evident to pure minds : 
 " Which of you convinceth me of sin ? and if I say ihe truth, 
 why do ye not believe me?" You cannot separate the 
 teacher from the doctrine : they are believed together. 
 Therefore we believe Christianity because we believe Christ, 
 feehng that He was true by intuitive perception. And we 
 believe it, because we feel it true that God is love, and 
 that we are immortal : " He that believeth on the Son of 
 God hath the witness in iiimself." Thus, then. He taught 
 the doctrines of Christianity : eternal life, the dignity and 
 spirituality of the soul, the relation of humanity to God, 
 the laws of self-sacrifice, and the paternal character of God. 
 His was no long-drawn scheme of evidences, for " He hath 
 the witness in himself." They that were of God would 
 hear Him, they that were not of God would not hear Him. 
 " He that is of God heareth God's words ; ye therefore hear 
 them not. because ye are not of God." 
 
 "Wisdom is justified of her children." Sympathy is a 
 test and example of this. Our judgment of Christ's actions 
 depends on our sympathy with His mind. We must share 
 His indignation against the Pharisees, and the strong ex- 
 pressions of His anger against the sticklers for the Sab- 
 bath, and against those who neglected justice, judgment, 
 and truth. We must get into His atmosphere if we would 
 breathe His spirit. By no other organ but that of sympathy 
 can you judge of the character of Christ. Wisdom is 
 justified by her children, i.e. by those who have the child- 
 like spirit of obedience, and by none else j the things of 
 
1 86 Wisdom Justified of her Children. 
 
 wisdom are revealed to babes, but they are hidden from 
 the wise and prudent, " I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of 
 heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things 
 from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
 babes." Clear intelligence fails here. It is common to 
 say that the mind must be like a sheet of white paper in 
 order to judge of truth. This is true in matters of sense 
 and mere understanding, such as whether this world's duration 
 has been ten thousand or ten million years ; but in matters 
 moral and spiritual this same white-paper tone of mind is 
 not the best for arriving at truth. I cannot investigate 
 whether there be a God, or whether God is love or not, in 
 the same way as respecting a sea-serpent. Just fancy the 
 evidence nicely balanced : " Nature red in tooth and claw " 
 shrieking against the creed ; while a strong, mighty throb of 
 the heart, kindred with God, declares itself in defiance, and 
 is indifferent to all evidence. Evidence comes after, not 
 before. 
 
 Much more is this the case in judging of human cha- 
 racter. I feel that a man is pure by sympathy. I must 
 judge the action from the man, almost more than the man 
 from the action. For example, there was such a man before 
 whom the evidence of Christ's character was placed — Simon 
 the Pharisee. It is a touching incident. A sinful woman, 
 weeping, shedding costly ointment ; Jesus throwing Himself 
 \\\ mighty trust on the new sympathy of a regenerate heart : 
 " Thy sins are forgiven Thee." Upon this the Pharisee 
 looked with a clear intelligent eye, as cold and tearless as 
 if he were summing up the evidence on some question of 
 accounts. What was wanting in this man? Intellect? 
 There never was argument more logical : " This man, if he 
 were a prophet, would have known who and what manner 
 
Wisdom Justified of her Children. 187 
 
 of woman this is that toucheth him." Moral character ? 
 He would not touch a sinner. No ! what he wanted was 
 heart, living sympathy. Can you estimate music by mathe- 
 matics ? The child would have judged unerringly where 
 the man failed. Generous impulses overleap a thousand 
 steps of argument. It was hidden from the wise and pru- 
 dent. It was revealed unto babes. " Therefore the publicans 
 and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." 
 
 " What think ye of Christ ? " Some said, " He is a good 
 man ; " some, " He is more than man, a prophet ; " but Simon 
 Peter said, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
 The candid Pharisee Simon said, " This man is not a 
 prophet." 
 
 You judge of Christ ! Feel Christ " Learn to love one 
 living man." *' Flesh and blood cannot reveal it unto you, 
 but my Father which is in heaven." 
 
 II. The tone of mind which incapacitates, and the 
 hindrances to right judgment of human character. " Wisdom 
 is justified of her children," implies that they who are not 
 wise will not recognise wisdom. 
 
 I. The habit of insincere praise incapacitates for forming 
 a right judgment of character. During the life of Jesus the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees alike flattered Him : " We know 
 that Thou art true, and tea chest the way of God in truth; 
 neither carest Thou for any man, for Thou regardest not the 
 person of men " — " Good Master " — " Blessed is the womb 
 that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked." To 
 these unreal flatteries He returned indignant replies : " Why 
 tempt ye me, ye hypocrites ? " — " Why callest thou me good ? 
 There is none good but one, that is God " — " Yea, rather 
 blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." 
 
1 88 Wisdom Justified of her Children. 
 
 By these unfelt praises men were unfitting themselves from 
 the power of estimating Him. 
 
 This is a habit which grows upon us, for it is easily 
 acquired. We use courtly phrases, well-turned sentences, we 
 write notes and letters which mean nothing The temptation 
 is great because we know it pleases ; until at last, finding that 
 these delicate insincerities succeed, writing and language 
 become voluble. The worst injury is done, not to others, 
 but to ourselves. We despise the man we praise too much; 
 our genuine reverence for him is gone, and a secret con- 
 tempt takes its place. We indulge in a language of admira- 
 tion which means nothing ; we praise that which does not 
 merit it, until we believe that there is nothing deserving of 
 praise. Goodness becomes a thing of fiction — a fiction in 
 our praise, a fiction in itself. Accordingly these unwise and 
 unreal children of the world, on whose lips the unfailing 
 phrases of politeness sit, are precisely those who are most 
 sceptical of human goodness. And they who weht out to 
 be baptized by John and gave lip-reverence to Christ, were 
 saying in their hearts that John was mad, and that the Re- 
 deemer was a common worldly man. 
 
 2. A light, satirical, and irreverent spirit also incapaci- 
 tates. The irreverent said, " He hath a devil — He is a com- 
 mon worldly man" — " How can this man give us His flesh 
 to eat ? " — " Ah, Thou that destroyest the temple, and build- 
 est it in three days, save Thyself, and come down from the 
 Cross " — " He saved others. Himself He cannot save." See 
 how ribaldry unfitted them for judging, and how even a 
 Divine character could be made to seem ridiculous ! That 
 such cannot judge of character is intelligible. One reason 
 is because excellence of character is not shown them. 
 Who would give utterance to a generous emotion when 
 
Wisdom Justified of her Children. 1 89 
 
 he knows that it will be heard with a sneer, or pour out 
 his heart when he knows that patriotism is reckoned pre- 
 tence, religion cant, or man's honour and woman's purity 
 childish fables ? 
 
 Another reason, moreover, is because this spirit withers all 
 that it touches. Hence wisdom of heart is necessary, moral 
 earnestness, reverence, and belief in goodness are indispen- 
 sable elements in a child of wisdom. You cannot judge 
 rightly unless you feel that the heart of man is holy ground, 
 and his emotions sacred. " Hollow smile and frozen sneer, 
 come not near." Except in this spirit, dare not to judge 
 your brother. 
 
 3. Jealousy incapacitates for forming a right judgment. 
 The Scribes were jealous of Christ because His teaching was 
 on a principle different from theirs ; the Pharisees, because 
 His righteousness was of a different stamp. It is melan- 
 choly to see how this jealousy blinds. The excellences 
 which we are most capable of appreciating because they are 
 kindred with our own are the very ones which we cannot 
 see. It is melancholy to think of Joseph's brethren jealous 
 of their father's love, and seeing in him only a dreamer of 
 dreams ; or of Haman unable to enjoy life because of Mor- 
 decai. 
 
 It is more melancholy still to see a high and good mind 
 poisoned by some mean and ungenerous rivalry. 
 
 % * * * % 
 
XXI. 
 
 WISDOM JUSTIFIED OF HER CHILDREN. 
 
 (2.) 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, March i6, 1851. 
 
 " And they said unto Him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, 
 and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees ; but 
 thine eat and drink ? " — Luke v. 33. 
 
 THE outward religious life of Christ differed from that 
 of John. One was social, the other ascetic. To 
 the astonishment created by this difference, among worldly 
 people and Pharisees, He vouchsafed no reply. When they 
 said, " Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend 
 of publicans and sinners ! " He merely replied, " Wisdom 
 is justified of her children," — by her children and by them 
 only. You must have sympathy with a life before you can 
 understand it. You must do the will of God before you 
 can judge the doctrine of God. You must have the spirit of 
 the life of Christ in you before you can recognise the Divine 
 character of the life. 
 
 This was our subject last Sunday. For judgment of 
 character, sympathy is necessary. He only can understand 
 who resembles : " For what man knoweth the things of a 
 
Wisdom Justified of her Children. 191 
 
 man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? even so the 
 things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." 
 
 Once, however, Jesus condescended to explain the 
 difference between His hfe and the hfe of John. On the 
 present occasion the question was asked by John's disciples,' 
 not captiously, but for the sake of information : " Why do 
 the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and like- 
 wise the disciples of the Pharisees ; but thine eat and 
 drink? " Therefore He replies : " Can ye make the children 
 of the bridecliamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? 
 But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken 
 'away from them, and then shall they fast in those days." 
 And that reply goes deep into the grounds of a religious life. 
 Our business is with the question and the reply. 
 
 I. The reasons for the astonishment which caused the 
 question. 
 
 II. The reasons for the form of life adopted. 
 
 I. The divine life was social. He came eating and 
 drinking, He lived the common life of men — outwardly 
 nothing remarkable. There was nothing in His habits of 
 dress, living, or worship, to distinguish Him from those of 
 His own rank, or to manifest eminent religiousness. 
 
 Therefore the world was astonished, because the popular 
 vulgar conceptions of religious life are drawn naturally from 
 those evidences which are most visible, fasting and prayers. 
 
 Now the two main elements of religious life are self- 
 denial and love. The highest form of self-denial is self- 
 sacrifice. Both meet in the Cross — self-surrender in love. 
 The highest form of love is communion with God : " He 
 ' Matthew ix. 14. 
 
192 Wisdom yustified of her Children. 
 
 that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." 
 Where these are, rehgion is ; where these are not, religion is 
 not. 
 
 Hence these two acts, fasting and prayer, express the 
 whole of religious life — fasting, self-denial ; prayer, com- 
 munion with God. These are expressions level to every 
 apprehension, translations into popular language. 
 
 All can understand the self-denial of fasting, because 
 hunger is a low want, known to all. But all cannot under- 
 stand the self-denial of hard mental work, or that of asso- 
 ciating with uncongenial minds, or that of honestly pursuing 
 a disagreeable occupation or profession. 
 
 Hence in rude ages this told. John's ascetic life was a 
 power with the vulgar. Had Bernard been less emaciated 
 by fasting he had never led Europe to the Crusades. 
 
 All can comprehend that a man is praying when he 
 kneels down, when he repeats Church prayers, or is at his 
 place during the service. But not all can understand that 
 the highest prayer or communion with God is a life of love ; 
 that, 
 
 " He prayeth well, who loveth well 
 All things both great and small. " 
 
 The self-denial of Christ was not abstinence from 
 food, but the putting aside every soft temptation which 
 turned Him from the Cross. His prayer was a life of love. 
 Accordingly when these forms were missed, which were 
 the best known because the most visible expressions of 
 religious life, to the coarse popular mind religion itself was 
 gone. 
 
 Here, however, a distinction must be drawn between 
 the conceptions of spirituality which were false and those 
 which were merely limited. The disciples both of the 
 
Wisdom Justified of her Children. 193 
 
 Pharisees and of John led the life ascetic. In the first 
 case there was a false conception of spirituality, in the 
 second a limited one. We must distinguish between those 
 who are zealous for a definite form because it is all, and 
 those who are zealous because of their affection to the Truth 
 Divine which is linked with it. Oh, sacred be the form to 
 which such affections are linked, and through which such 
 truths are received, be it bread, or wine, or coloured glass, 
 or a crucifix, or a priest's white robe ! 
 ' Beware, therefore. Nothing can be more uncharitable 
 than that coarse, rude, indiscriminate, vulgar tone, in which 
 all that is formal in religion is treated as Jesuitry, Puseyism, 
 or unspiritual feeling. Before we dare to use such lan- 
 guage, if we have a faith which has " centre everywhere, nor 
 cares to fix itself to form," let us be sure that we are opposing 
 ourselves to Pharisees, and not to the disciples of a Baptist. 
 For it is just as narrow to be blind to the spirituality which 
 exists in a formal life, as to think that it cannot exist sepa- 
 rate from form. They were Pharisees who called Christ's 
 life worldly ; but, remark, they too were Pharisees who said 
 of John Baptist, " He hath a devil." The children of wisdom 
 only were able to recognise the spirituality of the Baptist's life. 
 
 Again, there is a tendency in disciples to copy and idolise 
 the peculiarities of a master. You may know the school 
 to which a man belongs by a single conversation, by his 
 tone, phraseology, and manner. That great religious 
 teacher who led the Romanising section of the Church, 
 and who for years wielded a wondrous influence over 
 the most intelligent young minds of England, impressed 
 his manner on his followers. Even now, in churches 
 where his influence survives, you may recall the master's 
 tones, gestures, silver voice, and the few faults of his ex- 
 
 o 
 
194 Wisdom Justified of Jlcv Children. 
 
 quisite, pure English. So also the Puritan manners still 
 burvive. Now in this it is easy to copy, it is hard to 
 imitate. In the noble life of John, the disciples might 
 copy the food, dress, indifference to comfort, of the 
 Baptist ; but they did not thereby get his zeal, his lofty 
 love of justice and of truth. The peculiarities are missed 
 sooner than the spirit. Hence when the breath is not 
 bated, nor the usual cant expressions heard, nor the accus- 
 tomed whine, nor the forced unction, a man is counted 
 irreverent. But by using the brush and colours of a painter, 
 you do not get his power. 
 
 Again, the indifference of Christ to ascetic forms 
 astonished, because there is a real influence in asceticism. 
 
 The principle of Christianity is from within outwards : 
 " The kingdom of God is within you," " Except a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 
 The sacramental principle, the ascetic principle, the pa- 
 tristic principle, reverse this. They proceed from things out- 
 ward to things inward. Hence, they say the sacraments are to 
 pour God's Spirit into you, fasting is to make you pure, the 
 habit of saying prayers is to give you the spirit of prayer. 
 Now there is a truth in this. The outward world does tell 
 upon the spirit within us. Prayer persevered in will bring a 
 calm, passion-subdued feeling. Fasting will not suggest one 
 high motive, but it will produce lowness of animal energy, 
 and keep down strong feeling for a time. It will give a 
 sense of hardness, and make a man independent of comfort. 
 
 The passions distort the countenance. And when the 
 actor distorts the features a simulation of the feeling of 
 anger ensues, and real tears flow. So, no wonder that men 
 habituated to an ascetic system, and feeling by experience 
 its power to a certain extent, should have been sceptical of 
 
Wisdom Justified of Jicr Childreyi. 195 
 
 any good without it, or should have doubted the power of 
 elevated feeling to do that which asceticism could not do. 
 Accustomed to believe in the power of the flesh, no wonder 
 they doubted the power of the spirit. " This I say then. 
 Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. ' 
 " Bodily exercise profiteth little : but godliness is profitable 
 unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and 
 of that which is to come." 
 
 II. The reasons for which Jesus did not impose the life 
 ascetic on His disciples. 
 
 I. Because it is unnatural : " Can the children of the 
 bridechamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with 
 them ? " Fasting was the mark of grief. The usual accom- 
 paniment of fasting was " to afflict the soul, and to bow 
 down the head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and 
 ashes under him." The time might and would come when 
 sorrow and dismay would be their portion. Then the forms 
 of religious woe would be natural, and correspond. But 
 now, while buoyed up with hopes of the Messianic king- 
 dom, it would be unnatural and incongruous. There is 
 grief enough in store for them. But to force grief, to 
 pretend grief which they did not feel, would be like mourn- 
 ing at a bridal. 
 
 Here then is a principle laid down. Let the manifesta- 
 tion of religious life be natural. Christ imposed no form, 
 and ordained no ritual. He simply left a place for future 
 feeling to expand and express itself He provided no hard 
 unelastic case for the soul's affections. 
 
 Let us never use words or forms for ourselves merely 
 because they have suited other men. John's locust food 
 and camel's-hair garment were graceful in him because 
 
ig6 Wisdom Justified of her Children. 
 
 natural, but in a copyist simply falsehood. The dropped 
 voice of reverence, so real in one, in an imitator becomes a 
 sanctimonious whine. Be natural, be yourself, be real ! 
 David's sling was better for David than Saul's armour. 
 
 There will come a time when the sad experience of life 
 will surround the soul with sombreness and mystery; a time 
 when the insoluble riddle of this unintelligible world will 
 press heavily on the spirit, and the soul must keep its solitary 
 fast with God. But do not anticipate that time. 
 
 In the education of children let this principle be borne in 
 mind. The religion of the man is different from the religion 
 of the child. The matin-hymn of early life is full of joy 
 and praise, like the disciples. If you put into the child's 
 mouth the language of penitence, and force him to acknow- 
 ledge himself a miserable sinner, whose crime has been the 
 murder of a butterfly, and whose omission the over-enjoy- 
 ment of a holiday, all becomes unnatural. The penitential 
 strains of after life, the sorrow, and the sense of failure, and 
 perpetually foiled effort — let them come, but not yet. 
 
 2. His second reason was because of the results. These 
 are given in two parables : the new wine put into old 
 bottles, and new cloth put upon the old. Wonderful how 
 the plain meaning of these parables has been missed by 
 commentators. They have thought of new doctrine and 
 old of Christianity and Judaism. And the doctrine taught 
 seemed to be to avoid mixing new and old. Whereas the old 
 cloth and the old bottles represent young novice disciples — 
 the resemblance lying in the weakness, not in the age. New 
 wine, new cloth, represent austere duties and doctrines. 
 The lesson is not the avoidance of mixture of old and new 
 doctrine, but the necessity of not forcing severe duties and 
 forms on those unprepared to receive them. 
 
Wisdom Justified of her Children. 197 
 
 Now the result of that forcing system is twofold. 
 
 First, the destruction of religion. The weak old wine 
 skin-bottles, the weak old cloth, are rent. Therefore avoid 
 dropped tones and over-spiritual expressions. They are 
 bad symptoms of the present day, they are the forcing of high 
 doctrines and expressions of high spirituality. Force nothing, 
 let us be true and simple, what we are and nothing else. 
 Content, if need be, like Christ, to be reckoned worldly. 
 
 A second result is hypocrisy. The piece "agreeth not." 
 There is want of harmony ; no agreement between the 
 form and the life. 
 
 Hence result such startling incongruities as daily prayer, 
 with austere judgment of others — religious missionary meet- 
 ings, with gossip and scandal — fasting with pride. 
 
 At last the discordance becomes too plain even for the 
 man himself. Then we say this must be for example's sake ; 
 and so we sham and sham till we become hypocrites. 
 Example ! Do we think that men take example from one 
 form or from one spirit ? 
 
 Now understand from this the Life of Christ. His was 
 the hfe of God under the limitations of humanity. To that 
 life we return at last. Understand that, and you understand 
 Christianity. Misunderstand that, and you misunderstand 
 Christianity. 
 
 The life of Christ differs in nothing outwardly from ours. 
 He ate and drank. The difference was within, in the 
 central deeps. 
 
 Christianity is love to God and man. To love the Lord 
 our God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and to love 
 thy neighbour as thyself. This is the life that is hidden with 
 Christ in God. 
 
198 Wisdom Justified of her Children. 
 
 The shape in which that Hfe will show itself varies with 
 age, and sex, and circumstance. It manifests itself in the 
 stern Reformer or in the daily Friend. 
 
 You are not religious because your life is encompassed 
 with form, or because it is enlarged and liberal and in- 
 different to form. 
 
 The Life of God is in the soul of man. 
 
XXII. 
 
 THE WISDOM OF CHRIST, AND THE 
 WISDOM OF SOLOMON. 
 
 Brighton, March 23, 1851. 
 
 "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the 
 men of this generation, and condemn them : for she came from the 
 utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; and, behold, 
 a greater than Solomon is here." — Luke xi. 31. 
 
 THAT which lies at the root of many of the controversies 
 of the present day is this, whether for the production 
 of national greatness we are to rely on the illumination of 
 the understanding, or on the training of the heart and the 
 discipline of the affections. This question in the matter 
 of education has divided the people of this country into two 
 great sections. The first are those who, to borrow a Con- 
 tinental phrase, may be called the friends of light. With 
 them light is equivalent for all that is good, darkness the 
 equivalent for all that is evil ; with them light is knowledge, 
 and darkness ignorance ; let there be, they say, an expulsion 
 of intellectual darkness, and with it you will banish every 
 form of moral ill. The second class are those who are 
 disposed to undervalue this secular education. According 
 
200 
 
 The Wisdo7n of Christ, 
 
 to them, to instruct the children of the poor, to give to the 
 working classes a taste for the beautiful, is to do positive 
 and actual harm. Extensive information they regard witli 
 jealousy. The inspired judgment contained in the text 
 coincides with neither of these views. It does not agree 
 with the view of those who would neglect or undervalue this 
 secular education, for it declares that the wisdom of Solomon 
 was great, and that the Queen of Sheba, who came to listen 
 to it, was to be commended. Neither does it agree with the 
 view of those who make secular illumination everything, for 
 it says that there is something far higher than this. It says 
 to intellectual illumination that she is to know hei place, 
 that she is second, not first ; that Christ is greater than 
 Solomon ; it says that apathy A\ath respect to spiritual know- 
 ledge is just as much more criminal than apathy with 
 respect to intellectual illumination, as the wisdom of Christ 
 transcends that of Solomon. 
 
 I am to appeal to you to-day on behalf of the Diocesan, 
 Training School in this town ; I therefore choose this as the 
 most suitable subject for our contemplation. We shall ha\e 
 two things to consider : 
 
 I. The value of secular knowledge ; 11. The transcending 
 value of spiritual wisdom. 
 
 I. First, then, the value of secular knowledge. 
 
 The Queen of Sheba was commended for having come 
 'to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; this commendation is 
 manifestly implied, for it is said that she shall rise up in 
 judgment with the men of this generation. Now the 
 wisdom of Solomon was chiefly secular — the knowledge of 
 the objects of this world, and the materials whereof com- 
 posed. We have a description of his wisdom, " He spake 
 
and the Wisdom of Solomon. 
 
 201 
 
 three thousand proverbs ; his songs were a thousand and 
 five." Here the first branch of his knowledge is a store of 
 practical wisdom ; but that wisdom is chiefly prudential, by 
 no means the highest ; it fits a man only to live in this world. 
 We pass to the next verse, where we find that " he spake of 
 trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon, even unto the 
 hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of 
 beasts, and of fowl, of creeping things, and of fishes." All 
 that is contained in the encyclopedic range of knowledge, 
 all that is useful, and all that belongs to this world and its 
 objects, with respect to their beauty — all this Solomon 
 possessed abundantly. 
 
 Again, we are told that God gave him an under- 
 standing heart, to enable him to guide the people; here 
 was the branch of political knowledge. To this he added 
 a knowledge of the arts and sciences, and of all the means 
 whereby he could extend, the commerce of his nation, 
 sending out his ships to Tarshish to trade there, and uniting 
 by the same means Tyre and Jerusalem. 
 
 Once more, the reign of Solomon is chiefly remarkable 
 for the building of the Temple ; an edifice that proclaims to 
 us that then the arts and sciences had grown to an extent 
 scarcely known before or since. So that all that could 
 adorn the metropolis, all that could gratify taste the most 
 sublime and the most refined, met in Jerusalem ; this era 
 was for ever celebrated in Jerusalem's annals. It was not 
 the age in which Israel was noblest or bravest, nor was it 
 remarkable for the pureness of Jehovah's worship ; neither 
 was it the age in which the people were the most happy,' 
 but it was the age in which intellect had attained its acme, 
 it was the age in which civilisation was complete, and in 
 which wisdom had shown all that she could do here. 
 
202 
 
 The Wisdom of Christ, 
 
 2. We pass on to consider that this knowledge is 
 good in and for itself. The Queen of Sheba came, not 
 to see the wealth of Solomon, but to hear his wisdom. 
 True it is they showed her the wonders of his reign ; but it 
 was not for these that she came ; neither did she come to 
 hear his wisdom that she might turn it to her own purposes ; 
 it was not for the utilitarian application of his wisdom, 
 but to hear the wisdom itself From this, therefore, we 
 infer that this wisdom is good in and for itself, worthy of a 
 sovereign to gaze upon. 
 
 We draw a distinction between the gifts of wisdom and 
 wisdom itself. Knowledge is power; but if, you worship 
 knowledge for the sake of power, it is power you love, not 
 knowledge. Therefore, if we are to be followers of the 
 Queen of Sheba, we must seek truth for its own sake, and not 
 for the sake of the power that it gives to make this life happy. 
 Remarkable as this age is for the spread of knowledge that 
 is useful, it may be doubted, and must be, whether know- 
 ledge, that mere secular knowledge which men worship now, 
 is worshipped with a worship as disinterested and as pure 
 as that of the Queen of Sheba. The ancient architects and 
 artists built and painted for the sake of the pure idea of 
 beauty they loved to realise ; modern ones do it' merely for 
 the sake of aggrandising their names. The result is, that, 
 degraded by mammon worship, their works have lost their 
 position in the scale of arts. Therefore we say that to wor- 
 ship knowledge for itself has in it its own blessing. They 
 only who thus seek wisdom can understand the flash of 
 surprise and the beating and heaving of the heart, and the 
 sense of joy with which such minds can rest in the contem- 
 plation of pure truth, unpolluted by any selfish consideration 
 as to how that eternal truth can be made to promote their 
 own interest. 
 
and the Wisdom of Solojnon. 203 
 
 3. In the third place we remark, respecting this secular 
 wisdom, that it is utterly insufficient. In the interpretation 
 of the writings of Solomon it is common to force upon them 
 a spiritual meaning, knowing that he was inspired. We take 
 it for granted that he must have been inspired with spiritual 
 wisdom. But in so doing we lose the lesson he was designed 
 to teach— we lose the infinite difference between the wisdom 
 of Christ and the wisdom of Solomon. We gain most instruc- 
 tive lessons from seeing what Solomon could not reach, we see 
 ] the frightful want in all that Solomon ever wrote or taught. 
 
 Now to descend to particulars. The first thing that we 
 1 • observe here is the utter insufficiency of mere secular know- 
 ledge ; Solomon was the earthly wisest of mankind, yet, 
 when he comes to the close of life, we find him saying, 
 "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity; "or, in other words, "Empti- 
 ness of emptiness, all is emptiness." It became a question 
 to him whether that gift which God had given was worthy of 
 being called a gift at all — " Of making many books there is no 
 end, and much study is weariness of the flesh." 
 
 The second thing we notice is the tendency that there 
 i is in mere knowledge to end in scepticism. There is an 
 1 appalling darkness in the old age of Solomon. That dark, 
 mysterious Book of Ecclesiastes was inspired by God to show 
 us the fearful end of wisdom. If you take the concluding 
 verse of that book you would say that faith had triumphed : 
 ] " Fear God, and keep His commandments." But if we 
 I take the entire book, the conclusion we come to is that 
 j wisdom ended in scepticism ; for you find the deepest truths 
 I and the most Epicurean untruths side by side together, and 
 I, had we been without the exposition of the New Testament 
 I we should have been left in uncertainty as to which was 
 ; right and which was wrong : " Be not righteous overmuch, 
 
 Ml 
 
204 
 
 The Wisdom of Christ, 
 
 neither be overmuch wicked," — mere Epicurean prudence, 
 the quenching of every noble feehng. In another place we 
 read, " There is nothing better for a man than that he should 
 eat and drink." That is the history of Solomon's wisdom, to 
 that end he came at last. So may science set out at first 
 with God, and end at last with dark, deplorable, miserable, 
 desolate Atheism. 
 
 The last thing we observe of this earthly wisdom is 
 its tendency to surround life with luxury and sensuality. 
 When wisdom has left its centre, God, it has no centre 
 left but self,; more especially is this the case when com- 
 mercial enterprises and manufacturing activity have taken 
 hold of a nation's heart. This was the case in Solomon's 
 reign ; the end of that worship of the beautiful in arts and 
 science is the soft, enervating, feeble unmanliness that 
 degraded the last years of Solomon. Ask you the danger of 
 this age ? — some will say, Popery ; nay it is not that but the 
 reaction of Popery that we fear ; the result of the educa- 
 tion, going on now, of the mind without God. Ours is an 
 age in which science works her miracles, an age in which we 
 measure earth and heaven, an age in which we command the 
 sun to be our painter and bid the lightning go upon our 
 errand — if there is nothing in our souls but that, know you 
 the result ? If to that there be added nothing, the end in- 
 evitably must be Atheism, an Atheism in which God shall be 
 dethroned from His place within our hearts, and the adora- 
 tion of the Creator be succeeded by self-worship, mammon- 
 worship, ease, luxury ; and from that all the wisdom in the 
 breast of Solomon cannot and will not save us, 
 
 II. We now consider the transcending superiority of the 
 spiritual wisdom of Christ. 
 
mid the Wisdom of Solomon. 
 
 205 
 
 There is a contrast drawn—" a greater than Solomon is 
 here." Had not our Master drawn the contrast we should 
 not have dared to do it. To draw a contrast between the 
 human and divine, between Solomon and Christ, would savour 
 of irreverence ; but as His blessed lips have done it, there 
 can be no- irreverence in our following it out in detail. 
 
 Observe, the contrast between them does not lie in this, 
 that Solomon was human and Christ divine, for that is too 
 manifest. There are two points in which we believe in the 
 divinity of Christ : the divinity of His nature, and that of His 
 character, Divine by nature, the Eternal \\'ord made flesh, 
 the Everlasting Son of the Everlasting Father manifested 
 here on earth; that is, as it were, His physical divinity. But 
 He was also divine, because in Him was the manifestation of 
 the divine character ; and that is His moral divinity. Now it 
 is in that respect that the contrast is here drawn between the 
 characters of the two wisdoms ; and therefore what we have 
 to say on this point shall divide itself into these two branches 
 — the contrast between Christ the teacher and Solomon the 
 teacher, and the contrast between Christ the King and Solo- 
 mon the king. 
 
 First, the teaching of Christ was not what we call in- 
 tellectual teaching ; the very mention of such an expression 
 seems to us a kind of irreverence, from which we shrink. His 
 superiority did not consist in that He taught deeper truths of 
 science than Solomon. Solomon spake of the cedar of 
 Lebanon and of the hyssop springing out of the wall. So 
 spake also Christ, but in a different tone and manner. He 
 spake of the grass that to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into 
 the oven. His heart and eye were open to the sky : He saw 
 the bright burning red of evening, that foretold the fineness 
 of the future day. He saw the glorious sun come forth in 
 
206 
 
 TJie Wisdom of Christ, 
 
 his majesty. He spake of the splendour of the Oriental lily. 
 He saw the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, and 
 " yet it abideth not alone." He spake, too, of the corn, and 
 its many lessons — its gradual growth, first the blade, then the 
 ear, and after that the full corn in the ear ; also of its various 
 lots and vicissitudes, sometimes to be cast on dry and stony 
 ground, sometimes among thorns, and sometimes in the good 
 ground, where it might bring forth fruit abundantly. But 
 in all this He spake not as the naturalist, not as the man of 
 science, but as the Son of God. Where Solomon saw the 
 truths of nature, the Redeemer saw and taught the truths of 
 spirit. If He saw, for example, the rain falling on the just 
 and on the unjust, and the sun shining on the good and bad 
 alike, He discerned in that the character of the Father, and 
 told His hearers to be " merciful, even as their Father also 
 is merciful." If He saw the corn of wheat fall into the 
 ground and die, He discerned there the great principle of 
 self-sacrifice. So that herein, brethren, lay the difference — 
 where Solomon taught simply truths natural, facts and laws, 
 the Redeemer saw and taught truths spiritual. 
 
 Again, there is a contrast here between Christ the 
 King and Solomon the king. The apathy of the age for 
 the wisdom of the Redeemer is easily accounted for : for 
 whatever is simple, whatever is really great, requires time 
 before its majesty can be understood. The really great 
 cathedral is not appreciated at once, some gay and gaudy 
 pile will be admired first ; and so too he who sees a snowy 
 mountain for the first lime is disappointed, it is not so large 
 and grand as he expected, it appears as if he could in half- 
 an-hour attain the summit ; but when he tries to ascend it, 
 then he finds its height ; it is not till he has gone to a dis- 
 tance, and seen it from some standpoint ten, twenty, or a 
 
and the Wisdom of Solomon. 
 
 207 
 
 hundred miles removed, and finds it still there, in all the 
 majesty and purity of its eternal repose, the monarch and the 
 king of all around — it is not till then that he begins to feel for 
 it sometliing like affection. Precisely so, if it may be said with 
 reverence, is the divine character of Christ. There is some- 
 thing almost amounting to blasphemy in the tone with which 
 we dare to call him God. God, yes ! but to an extent and 
 with a depth of reality which that expression does not reach. 
 There are perhaps few of us who do not remember what we 
 thought of Christ when we were young. He seemed to us 
 then as something commonplace ; there was a poorness and a 
 lack of brilliancy, for His was not the victory or the triumph 
 of the senator, or of the conqueror ; and in our boyish love 
 of enterprise this simple life of Christ seemed to us tame and 
 cold. But life has gone on, and we begin to understand, 
 when disappointment has saddened the heart and grief has 
 sobered it, when we have comprehended the littleness of all 
 here below, when, after weary struggles, we find ourselves 
 infinitely below one single thought that ever passed through 
 His mind — we begin to understand that there is a depth in 
 that expression, "A greater than Solomon is here." We 
 leave the men of the world to marvel and wonder at the 
 Solomon of intellect and wealth, of success and influence ; 
 we have found a shrine at which our souls may worship 
 the King whom we revere, the God whom we adore. 
 
 Now, in conclusion, I have two or three things to say. 
 First, from this let us learn the error of those who are in- 
 clined to sneer at intellectual illumination. The Queen of 
 Sheba was praised for coming to hear this wisdom. The 
 language which some men use v\ ould almost leave it to be 
 supposed that the less a man knows the nearer he is to God ; 
 
2o8 The Wisdom of Christ and Solomon. 
 
 if so, then the best soil in which reUgion can grow is the soil 
 of ignorance. 
 
 And, secondly, we learn the error of those who make 
 intellectual illumination all in all. Here has been taught 
 us a sad and solemn lesson : remember this, intellect may be 
 cultivated at the expense of heart. There is an awful 
 expression following the text — " the light of the body is 
 the eye, therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body 
 also is full of light, but when thine eye is evil, thy body also 
 is full of darkness." If the intellectual eye within us be made 
 diseased or feeble by unbelief or impurity, the light is turned 
 into darkness. The deepest darkness is that which follows 
 the brilliancy of the lightning flash at night ; the deepest 
 darkness of the soul is that which follows the illumination of 
 the mind. It leads to God, say you, but it will be through 
 darkness and degradation, the fearful price which Solomon 
 had to pay. If it does lead a nation it will be through 
 anarchy and reigns of terror. The illumination of the under- 
 standing must be joined to the training and discipline of the 
 heart by God's Holy Spirit. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 THE LAW OF SELF-SACRIFICE EXEMPLIFIED 
 IN THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 
 
 Brighton, August 2), 185 1. 
 
 \ 
 
 "Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son 
 of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a 
 corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone : but if it 
 die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it ; 
 and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 
 . . . Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, save 
 me from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father,^ 
 glorify thy name." — John xii. 23-28. 
 
 I HAVE read all these verses, because to have separated 
 them would have broken the connection of the thought ; 
 taken together they contain a history of one of the mental 
 struggles of the Redeemer. The occasion of the utterance 
 was this : certain Greeks, who had come up to one of the 
 annual feasts, entreated for admission to the presence of the 
 Lord. Now in this request there was something exceedingly 
 unusual, for they were Gentiles, and on them apparently as 
 yet no impression had been made. 
 
 The verses I have read contain the reply of our Lord to 
 this announcement. At first sight there is no connection 
 between the announcement and the reply ; but on looking 
 
 p 
 
210 The Law of Self- Sacrifice Exemplified 
 
 more closely we perceive a most intimate connection Had 
 our Redeemer been a mere man, intelligence like this would 
 have produced joy, for it told of success and popularity. 
 But the Son of God looked deeper, and saw in the approach 
 of these Greeks the first coming of the Gentile world ; and 
 together with that thought came also the remembrance of 
 the condition without which the ingathering could not 
 take place, that condition being the Redeemer's own death. 
 For the Spirit, we read, could not be "given until Jesus 
 had been glorified;" the Divine life which was in Jesus 
 could not expand itself so as to become the world's life till 
 the shell in which it was contained was broken down : 
 according to His own simile, the corn of wheat must die 
 before it can bring forth fruit. Then began one of those 
 inward struggles of the Redeemer of which we read two or 
 three times, preludes, as it were, to the Garden agony ; the 
 idea of death vividly presented. 
 
 And now, brethren, we will endeavour to examine this 
 in a real way ; we are about to enter on the real history of a 
 re^^ spirit. We are in the habit of shrinking too much from 
 the investigation of the mental struggles of Jesus, because 
 it seems as if it were profanation to believe that the laws of 
 His mind were the same as those of ours. But in this we 
 commit two errors. First, by this method we entirely lose 
 the notion of the proper humanity of the Saviour, a humanity 
 which did not consist-3:lone in having flesh and blood like, 
 ours, but in this, that He had a mind governed like our own, 
 by the laws of association, and that He had a heart and 
 sympathies which throbbed as ours. It contains also another 
 error, that it is a false conception of true reverence. It is 
 reverential to be cautious of approaching too closely the •x^'- 
 secrets of an earthly sovereign, because to approach too near 
 would only produce familiarity, and make us Lei that he, like i 
 
in the Death of Christ. 
 
 211 
 
 ourselves, is but a frail and sinful man. But the majesty of 
 Jesus requires no precaution like this, it requires not to be 
 defended by earthly rules of distance ; the nearer we approach 
 to Him, the more we track His thoughts and feelings, the 
 more we feel the truth of His Divine Majesty. Nay, it is 
 only so that we can believe in Jesus as the Son of God : 
 only so far as we love and understand the character of Jesus 
 as the Son of man shall we be able to feel, and therefore to 
 adore, Jesus Christ as the Son of God. 
 
 We divide these verses into two branches : 
 
 I. The law of the atonement ; and, 
 n. The mental struggles through which that law was 
 accepted by the will of Christ. 
 
 I. In the law of the atonement the first thing that these 
 verses tell us is the gloriousness of suffering. The Saviour 
 does not say, " Verily I say unto you, The hour is come that 
 the Son of man should die," but, " The hour is come in 
 which the Son of man should be glorified." 
 
 There are two ways of looking at every act : the one is to 
 look at the appearance, the other at the reality. And 
 hence it comes tcrpass that that which to man seems mean 
 is often inwardly glorious; and that which, as regards external 
 circumstances, is surrounded with glory, in the sight of God 
 is mean and miserable. Let us take an instance of this 
 ^om common life : the soldier dies a ruffian's death, the 
 lineaments of humanity crushed beneath the tramp of the 
 war horse. There is nothing in the outward circumstances of 
 his death to distinguish them from a mere ignoble brawl ; but 
 over the soldier's death is shed the glory of that cause for 
 which his life was offered, and so that which seemed outwardly 
 
212 TJie Law of Self-Sacrifice Exemplified 
 
 mean becomes a glorious death. Precisely in this way, only 
 in a far higher and deeper sense, was the death of the 
 Redeemer ; in external circumstances a mean thing, but in 
 inward principles glorified by God. In outward circum- 
 stances most mean — dragged and driven like a sheep to the 
 slaughter ; but through the long vista and the lapse of ages " 
 all the meanness of these circumstances has disappeared, 
 and now we behold only the Divine love, and truth, and 
 obedience which prompted to that death ; so that even 
 the circumstances themselves become glorious. The very 
 cross, which was associated with an idea no more noble 
 than that which is now connected with the scaffold and the 
 gallows, has become to us the most glorious word in all our 
 language. 
 
 Now, we observe that that which in the sight of God 
 glorified the death of Christ was not the outward pomp of 
 circumstance, for of this there was none ; but it was the 
 spirit of that death ; and so we say of every life and death, 
 that it is not the outward circumstance but the inward spirit 
 which makes it mean or glorious. According to our common ' 
 human way of speaking, a throne is glorious and a coronet 
 noble ; but there is nothing that can ennoble cowardice, or 
 meanness, or selfishness. According to our mode of speak- 
 ing, the dungeon and the scaftbld, and the lower arts of life 
 are base and mean ; but the death of the Redeemer has 
 sanctified the cross, and the life of the Redeemer has shed 
 a glory over the trade of a carpenter. 
 
 The second thing we are told respecting the law of the 
 atonement is that it is part of the same great law upon 
 which God has constructed the universe — death for life, the 
 death of one for the life of many. The instance selected by 
 our Lord is that of a corn of wheat. If there is to be a crop, 
 
in the Death of Christ. 
 
 213 
 
 there must first be the destruction of the seed. Now, let us 
 not suppose that this is a solitary instance, it is one case out 
 of many ; go where vegetation is the rankest, go where 
 verdure waves the thickest, and there lies beneath decay and 
 death ; but out of the destruction that lies below has been 
 deduced the glory of the petals of the flowers. And not 
 only so, but our very daily and hourly life is supported by 
 death. The lives of vegetables and animals are given in- 
 voluntarily for us. We stand on the graves of the ages that 
 are past. Remember, then, we rest upon a fact ; we do not 
 seek to explain the fact, we are content to admit it ; but 
 admitting it, we have-no right to be surprised if the Bible 
 tells us of another corresponding with it, that the death of 
 Christ was the life of the world. 
 
 Observe, therefore, I pray you, this doctrine of the atone- 
 ment is no strange, new, arbitrary principle, it is a principle 
 existing all around us ; it is not unnatural, but most natural ; 
 the world of grace corresponds with the world of nature. 
 The Father who made the law by which the flesh of living 
 things sustains the life of others, is the very same Being 
 who made and obeyed the law by which the flesh of Christ 
 is to the world " meat indeed." To enforce this law Christ 
 finds a parallel for the principle of His own sacrifice in the 
 destruction of a corn of wheat. 
 
 The next thing that we remark in the law of Christ's 
 atonement is that it involves the condition of self-devotion. 
 The way in which He states it is this : " He that loveth 
 his life shall lose it, and he that loses his life for my sake 
 shall find it." There is one thing that must have struck us 
 as failing in the parallel we have named. We do not thank 
 the grain of wheat for dying, because its death is involuntary ; 
 and therefore in order to constitute a true and proper sacrifice 
 
214 1^^^^ Law of Self- Sacrifice Exemplified 
 
 another element is needed. When that which exists in 
 nature by a mere unconscious law or by a blind instinct is 
 accompanied by a living will that could reject it if it chose, 
 then you have an idea of proper self-devotion. And this is 
 the law of our highest life, pronounced by Christ to be also the 
 law of His existence. The sacrifice of Christ was a voluntary 
 one, else had it been no sacrifice at all ; therefore we read, 
 " No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of 
 myself," — " Therefore doth my Father love me, because I 
 lay down my life that I might take it again." The death of 
 Christ is the world's life ; the flesh of Christ was given to 
 be meat and drink spiritually to us. This_is_ the^ fact ; the , 
 explanation of it we do not venture to give. There are many' ' 
 popular exi^lanations, that tell of infinite sin demanding 
 infinite suffering, and assert that the death of Christ saved 
 the world because it was punishment. When men speak 
 thus they know not what they say; these are human argu- 
 ments which are not written in the Bible. The Bible says 
 that the death of Christ saved the world because it was the 
 highest instance of that law which makes death necessary 
 for life, and because it was voluntary self-sacrifice. The 
 Bible facts about the atonement we receive with all our 
 heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. 
 
 II. Pass we on, secondly, to consider the steps of the 
 mental struggle by which the law of the universe was em- 
 braced as the law of the Redeemer's life. For, brethren, it 
 is one thing to understand a law and another to obey it. 
 There is no truth that our young men have to learn more 
 important than this, that to admire that which is right 
 is one thing, but to do what is right is another quite; 
 and so we read of the young man in the parable who 
 
in the Death of Christ. 
 
 215 
 
 said to his father, " I go, sir, and went not." Now the 
 Divine life of Christ subordinated innocent human desires to 
 itself by degrees ; had it not been so, His would not have 
 been a real humanity, it would have been an emptying 
 Himself of all human feelings, because He would have then 
 been merely Deity in human shape. The struggle in the 
 mind of Christ is expressed in these words, "Now is my soul 
 troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this 
 hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, 
 glorify thy name." He was literally distracted between 
 two feelings, the innocent feeling, the natural craving after 
 life, and the higher feeling which desired to embrace the 
 will of God ; the one is expressed in the first of these prayers, 
 " Father, save me from this hour," the other in this, " Father, 
 glorify thy name." 
 
 And now let us perceive the steps through which this 
 victory was won — it was through the efficacy and force of 
 prayer. Prayer is by no means a mere talisman through 
 which we substitute our will for that of God, but it is more 
 truly that communion of the mind with God through which 
 our will becomes at last merged into His will. If there is 
 any condition necessary for the perfection of prayer it was 
 that of this prayer of Christ, for it was an innocent, humble 
 prayer, one of submission and of faith, — " Father, save me 
 from this hour." But that prayer was not granted, if to 
 grant a prayer be to fulfil the longings of our humanity ; 
 but it was answered in a higher sense, for by degrees the 
 wish itself passed away, and the wish of the man became the 
 wish of God. And so there was one entire perfect will, the 
 will of the Father being that of the Son, — " Father, glorify 
 thy name." 
 
 Here, then, in conclusion, is given to us the one perfect 
 
2i6 The Law of Self- Sacrifice Exemplified. 
 
 specimen of a true battle of a human soul, and the soul's 
 true victory ; here is given us the one perfect pattern by 
 which we may understand the true efficacy of prayer ; and 
 here is also given us the true sacrifice of personal will, the 
 sacrifice of " Him who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered 
 Himself without spot to God." This sacrifice is most truly 
 expressed in the Psalmist's words, " Lo I come to do thy 
 will, O God." That is the one atoning sacrifice through 
 which the world's life comes ; and that becomes our life 
 when the spirit of that sacrifice has become ours, and we 
 have learned what is meant by the apostle when, writing to 
 the Romans, he beseeches them " to present their bodies a 
 living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is their 
 reasonable service." 
 
XXIV. 
 
 PURE RELIGION. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, November 2, 1 85 1. 
 
 " Pure religion and undefiled, before God and the Father, is this 
 To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep him- 
 self unspotted from the world." — St. James i. 27. 
 
 THIS is evidently a protest ; pure religion in opposition 
 to impure or corrupted religion. 
 There were perversions of the Gospel in early times, 
 such as that of licentiousness, of which we spoke last Sun- 
 day. In St. James's time God's sovereignty was corrupted 
 thus : " He is the Cause of everything, therefore of sin. Sin 
 is His plan to salvation. Sin, therefore, is a phantom, a 
 nothing. Don't make yourselves uneasy about it. If a man's 
 person is accepted, his acts do not signify. Christians are 
 free from all restraints on the affections of the heart." This 
 was evidently the doctrine to which St. James refers when 
 he says, " Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted 
 of God ; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither 
 tempteth He any man." Observe how arguments are sought 
 for sin : it honours God ; or God has decreed it ; or our 
 nature is weak ! 
 
2l8 
 
 Pure Religion. 
 
 0' Now St. James's answer was an appeal to first principles, 
 ''for this doctrine outrages them; "Do not err, my beloved 
 brethren. 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 turning." And 
 there is no other answer. If you choose to say, " I am 
 fated," there is no reply. God foreknows it ; it will be ; 
 therefore it must be. But we can appeal to conscience ; and 
 every healthy conscience says there is a flaw in the reason- 
 ing, though no reason can show you where the flaw is. 
 I appeal to those principles which govern common life. 
 Make that defence before a judge. If you make it inso- 
 lently, you are condemned ; if in earnest, you are put in a 
 mad-house. 
 
 So in religion. And remark, whatever encourages sin or 
 makes light of it is not religion. All these fine boastings 
 about being the elect of God are vain : — " If any man 
 among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, 
 but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. 
 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is 
 this : To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, 
 and to keep himself unspotted from the world." St. James 
 comes down to the practical. 
 
 And now beware of tampering with that difficulty. It 
 will be a snare leading to ruin. We lay the blame on God ; 
 we say, " Why had we these appetites except for gratifica- 
 tion ? " I have a firm conviction that this thought when 
 yielded to treads down all distinction between right and 
 wrong. We think we are fated, and we charge God with 
 our sins. 
 
 Let us recur to the deepest feeling of the heart, which 
 says, " Good is from God." 
 
Pure Religion. 
 
 219 
 
 St. James shows us religion in two branches : bene- 
 volence and self-government. 
 
 I. "To visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictioa" 
 Here is Charity. 
 
 II. "To keep himself unspotted from the world." 
 Here is Purity. 
 
 I. Duty of Charity. 
 
 1. Its first principle is benevolence. Now benevolence 
 is always active. I lay stress on the word "visit." Ob- 
 serve the necessity of interpreting Scripture according to 
 its spirit, and not its letter. This in the letter would be 
 impossible. It would cut off from religion the afflicted and 
 the young, who, from want of experience, and because of 
 the offensiveness of visiting, could not. Besides, imagine 
 the time of sadness taken up in condolences ; the poor man's 
 house made a public receptacle for rich folk practising bene- 
 volence. Therefore, interpret this passage in its spirit. Go 
 to seek, do not wait till affliction offers itself. This is the 
 peculiar spirit of Christian philanthropy. It is illustrated 
 by the example of the Sccurs de la Cliaiite, of Howard, and 
 of Ashley. 
 
 The time is coming when the warrior's WTeath will be 
 seen to be blood-dabbled, and the law-lord's coronet only a 
 homage to talent. Real bravery is active goodness. These 
 are the grander walks. But on a large scale or a small, this 
 is your principle : " Be active in good." 
 
 2. The second principle of Charity is sympathy. 
 
 " Visit:" do not relieve, do not advise. There are 
 times when relief is an impertinence and advice an insult ; 
 times when pressure of the hand and a glistening eye are 
 more eloquent than gold. 
 
220 
 
 Pure Religion. 
 
 Observe the exquisite delicacy of Job's friends : "They 
 made an appointment together to come to mourn with 
 him, and to comfort him. . . . They sat down with him 
 upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none 
 spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very 
 great." 
 
 Visit, that is acquaint yourselves with suffering. What 
 we want is more sympathy. Let us do the rich of this 
 country justice. They are not oppressors, hard, exacting ; 
 all their duty is not done, but they do much, and are willing 
 to do more. What, then, do M'e want? It is a fatal fact 
 that the rich and the poor know nothing of each other. 
 Hence such things as " pepper-water," advice in times of 
 famine on the one side, and bitter indignation on the other 
 side, as if the rich were mocking. It is hard to feel with 
 people when we are not in the same circumstances. We 
 preach temperance when we neither toil nor thirst ; cleanli- 
 ness when we know not what it is to return jaded to a home 
 in disorder ; frugality — have we ever computed a labourer's 
 expenses ? We say the peasant should not be a poacher 
 or a pilferer. Why is the rich man never tried for theft ? 
 Oh, we say, sin leads to misery. X)o we remember misery 
 leads to sin ? 
 
 Now this is sympathy. To feel with the poor we must 
 understand them first. Don't think it always necessary to go 
 with your purse or your advice. " Visit " as a friend. 
 
 3. The third principle of Charity is condescension: "Visit 
 % the fatherless and the widow." 
 
 The widows and the fatherless were defenceless in Judea. 
 
 Condescension has two branches ; considerateness for 
 the desolate : condescension to the friendless. 
 
 For an illustration of considerateness take Christ's ex- 
 
Ptire Religion. 
 
 221 
 
 ample. He is found by invitation in the rich man's house ; 
 He is found by choice at Bethlehem, in Bethesda, at Bethany. 
 Especially mark Him at Simon's house, in His intercourse 
 with the desolate, degraded one. This is considerateness. 
 So in society. Seek not the great. See the awkward one in 
 the corner, the man of no birth, wealth, or pretensions — 
 Christ would have drawn that one out. This delicate Chris- 
 tian considerateness is to be shown not merely for those 
 whose misery is gross and palpable, but for those who suffer 
 in a more subtle form, from neglect. 
 
 To illustrate condescension, take Christ at the well in 
 Samaria. Observe, condescension is not difficult from the 
 highest to the lowest. The rich landlord can give his hand 
 to his tenantry at the annual feast, and get credit for it. 
 Condescension flatters our love of influence ; we stoop from 
 a height. 
 
 But condescension is difficult between those with whom 
 we are in constant intercourse, such as our servants ; and 
 difficult also with those who are in a grade near us. Ancient 
 noblesse is shy of parvenus ; the gentleman of the trades- 
 man ; the rich tradesman of the second-rate. Here, then, 
 is the test. If you have, the spirit of visiting the fatherless 
 and the widows you would stoop to those lower than your- 
 self It is just the difficulty that was between the Jew and 
 the Samaritan. The Jew could aftord to condescend to the 
 Gentile, for the law separated him from them. But when 
 Christ broke through the wall of partition between the Jew 
 and the Samaritan it was genuine condescension. 
 
 And observe condescension does not lower. Mistake 
 not. We draw the veil of mystery and etiquette to protect 
 ourselves. Evil lowers, and vulgar familiarity, and coarse- 
 ness ; but not condescension. You may be affable and yet 
 
222 
 
 Pure Religion. 
 
 have a sacred spell of dignity around you that none would 
 wish to break through. 
 
 Was the Godhead lowered by condescension ? " Where- 
 fore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a 
 name which is above every name." So with us. Haughti- 
 ness and reserve leave the heart barren. Condescension is 
 the true dignity of man. 
 
 II. Duty of Purity : " To keep himself unspotted from 
 the world." 
 
 St. James specifies a distinct form of evil, the world ; not 
 other forms of evil. 
 
 Let me define what the world is. It is not this beautiful 
 world, which weaves for God the living garment in which 
 the Invisible has robed His mysterious loveliness. Drink in 
 beauty and heaven as much as you will from that. Yet a 
 narrow mind has sometimes been tormented with a scruple 
 about the lawfulness of enjoying the world, even in this 
 sense. 
 
 Nor, again, does the world mean domestic affections. 
 Let us guard against a common mistake. Men tell us when 
 we love our children they will be taken from us. Awful 
 picture of a tyrant God ! When we weep they bid us dry 
 our tears ; they forget that Jesus wept. We love little 
 enough; let us bring in no cold, desolating, stoical theory to 
 make that little less. Desecrate not the sacred home of love 
 by the name of the forbidden world. 
 
 The world that spots is the spirit of evil around us. 
 Wherever men congregate for pleasure, business, or amuse- 
 ment there is evil. It belongs to the town rather than to the 
 country ; to large societies rather than to small. A mixed, 
 strange, many-headed mons.ter is it. It is like the miasma 
 
Pure Religion. 
 
 223 
 
 of a marsh. Each single pleasure is harmless in itself till the 
 noxious juices are drawn out. It differs in different ages ; 
 persecuting and soft, money-making, infidel and superstitious; 
 — a torrent which we must stem. 
 
 Observe, distinct effort is required in a man to " keep 
 himself unspotted from the world." You are spottable ; the 
 world can spot you, — '■'•keep " yourself. 
 
 Moreover, we may not decline the danger. We must go 
 right through. Christians must be soldiers, tradesmen, 
 citizens. There can be no luxurious shutting ourselves up 
 with our devotional books. The snow-river flows through 
 the lake without imbibing its warmth. We must transmute 
 the evil. 
 
 Out of the innumerable influences of that multiform evil 
 we select only three. 
 
 , I. The world s tainting influence upon delicacy of heart. 
 This tendency is universal. There are manufactories 
 
 ' where the evil and the well-disposed mix in dangerous 
 proximity for hours together ; bold vice and modest virtue. 
 Go higher still. Enter gay society ; look at young persons 
 at the end of two seasons. Observe the influence upon them 
 of newspapers, novels, and conversation, in producing fami- 
 liarity with evil. They have tasted of the " tree of knowledge," 
 and havegained knowingness. Oh, the degradationand agony 
 of a heart which feels itself naked ! When the drapery is 
 torn from life, we know what lies beneath. 
 
 A' I this comes from the world ; not from your own heart 
 only, but from the miasma of many hearts. In a marsh each 
 single plant is harmless ; the festering, noxious juices come 
 out of the many. The retired life is safe; in the crowd 
 danger straightway rises. 
 
 This is the natural tendency, unless it be counteracted 
 
224 
 
 Pure Religion. 
 
 by the effort here spoken of, " Keep yourself unspotted 
 from the world." 
 
 2. The world's power to make artificial. 
 
 Define the world as the not-natural. Picture the man of 
 the world seeming to be what he is not, a well-bred person 
 with every emotion under control, with features immovable. 
 We are as sure of meeting consideration from him as if he were 
 influenced by the Gospel. Yet all this bland courtesy is on 
 the outside ; it is the smoothness of coin caused by friction 
 in the purse. The edges, the cornets, the salient points, all 
 individuality rubbed away. This species of worldliness 
 begins early. The boy at school dares not speak of his 
 mother and sisters ; at last he becomes brutalised enough 
 to ridicule his home. It is an unnatural control, as well as 
 an unnatural affectation of feeling. So in after life. The 
 world honours riches ; we are feverishly afraid of being 
 detected in poverty. If our fortune be diminished we adopt 
 meanness and artifices at home, that we may seem the same 
 abroad. 
 
 The world honours politeness ; hence compliments and 
 flattery ; oh, the crushing sense of degradation that comes 
 from it. 
 
 The world honours feeling, hence sentimentality. 
 
 The world honours high birth, hence the attempt to seem 
 familiar with good society. 
 
 This is the world. Men and women who have not kept 
 themselves unspotted from the world are not what they seem. 
 Hollow and unreal, their affectation appears everywhere in 
 accent, motion, and sentiment. 
 
 And do what we will we imbibe this. Dykes intended 
 to keep out salt water still admit some. The precept to be 
 natural makes us unnatural ; we affect nature. 
 
Piwe Religion. 
 
 22$ 
 
 Now there is no remedy for this but what St. James gives 
 Firstly, some familiarity with suffering ; and, secondly, in- 
 tercourse with God ; we must live " before God the Father." 
 Live in the splendours of the next world till this world is dim. 
 The man living in sunshine is not dazzled by the oil-lamp. 
 One who hears in his inmost soul the harmonies of everlasting 
 harps will not mistake the discord of this world for music. 
 One looking out for death and judgment to come will not heed 
 the judgments of this world. Feel the powers of the world 
 to come ; that is the secret of keeping oneself unspotted 
 from this world. 
 
 3. The power of the world to destroy feeling. 
 
 It is a common expression to speak of the heartlessness 
 of the world. Let us trace the history of the decay of feel- 
 ing. We passionately crave a more lively life. Life gene- 
 rally is a dull, vegetating existence. There are times when 
 we get out of this ; whea the blood runs fast, and thoughts 
 and imaginations crowd, and hurry, and precipitate, as if we 
 had gigantic energy. It is the delightfulness of animal 
 exhilaration. There are the different excitements of con- 
 versation, society, music, or of the stimulant of wine ; all 
 those things which the world offers ; " all that is in the 
 world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the 
 pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." There 
 is the craving of the drunkard. Life would be robbed of 
 its exhilaration, so he cannot give up drink. Now this is the 
 consequence : unsettlement and deadening of feelings. 
 
 So in the body. In the tropics man is matured early 
 and decays early. He is old at thirty ; the sensations of life 
 are all felt early. 
 
 Similarly in the heart. Early maturity of feeling is pre- 
 mature decay of heart. Existence does not depend on time, 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 Pure Religion. 
 
 One man at twenty-five has lived longer than another at 
 fifty. 
 
 Observe, all God's pleasures are simple ones ; health, the 
 rapture of a May morning, sunshine, the stream blue and 
 green, kind words, benevolent acts, the glow of good-humour. 
 It is the time when you need nothing stronger than bread and 
 water to be intoxicated with happiness. 
 
 But look at other excitements. The great calm presence 
 and beauty of creation does not come forth to the sorceries 
 of artificial excitement. Stimulate the jaded senses with 
 town-life, and then there is no radiant wisdom left in the 
 simplicities of life. 
 
 This is the lesson we press upon the young. Keep 
 unspotted from the world. The keenness of wonder is by 
 degrees lost early, and is followed by exhaustion of feeling ; 
 and men become blase of life. 
 
 Oh, that the young would learn from the experience of 
 those who know it. Remember Solomon's state. Is there 
 anything whereof it may be said, " See, this is new?" Ye 
 that live in pleasure, to this you are coming ! 
 
 There are peculiar features in the present time. The 
 world is moving fast, and we with it. There are a multi- 
 plicity of pleasures; a cheapness in their purchase, and change 
 in their varietj'. Thousands see foreign lands now. There 
 are the excitements of railways, speculation, and literature. 
 These produce exhaustion of feeling and of interest. Compare 
 the patriarchal times, and we find the man of one hundred and 
 fifty had not lived so much as the man of forty now. Let 
 Christians therefore be on their guard. They have need of 
 calmness. They have the power of the Gospel and duty to 
 soothe them. Remember the Cana feast. Would you have 
 your best last? Avoid stimulus; live plainly. You will 
 
Pure Religion. 
 
 227 
 
 drink the rich body of heavenly wine, and feel the refresh- 
 ment of its sacred joy. 
 
 And now a word of application. 
 
 St. James gives a distinct view of religion. It is practical 
 charity and purity. God's sovereignty and eternity are 
 nothing without this. You are no'favourite of heaven to be 
 exempt. 
 
 And observe, both charity and purity are joined together, 
 not kept separate. There is a difficulty in their union ; but 
 observance of the one cannot excuse neglect of the other. 
 
 The active must be unworldly. 
 
 The strict, pure, quiet, dreamy must be active. 
 
 External benevolence and inward purity go hand in 
 hand. 
 
 Q2 
 
XXV. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF REVELATION. 
 
 Brighton, Advent Sunday, Nffveinbcr 30, 1 85 r. 
 
 "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched 
 diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you : 
 searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was 
 in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, 
 and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that 
 not unto themselves, but unto us they did mii^ster the things, which 
 are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto 
 you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ; which things the 
 angels desire to look into. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, 
 be sober, and hope to the end." — i Peter i. 10-13. 
 
 IT is plain that the Apostle Peter in these verses speaks 
 of two epochs of God's revelation to the world, one that 
 has been, another that is to be. The prophets, he tells us, 
 of the elder dispensation dimly and indistinctly foresaw a 
 coming day, a day of glory, preceded by human suffering. 
 Similarly St. Peter announced the approach of another day 
 of grace and glory, far more blessed and glorious than any 
 that earth had yet seen. The anticipations of the first were 
 realised in that which is called the first coming of the 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 229 
 
 Redeemer ; the anticipations of the second dispensation shall 
 yet be realised in what we call the glories of His second 
 advent. We are led from the text to assume an analogy 
 between the two dispensations : the first did not come 
 without expectation ; and according to analogy we are en- 
 titled to expect that neither shall the second come on us 
 without anticipations of its approach. It is with this as 
 with the dawning of the natural day, you see not the land- 
 scape in its detail, but yet the general outline of the whole 
 is visible, though it is in part dim and indistinct. 
 
 Our subject, then, this morning is an extremely large 
 one, so far as it can be contained or sketched in the limits 
 of a single sermon ; it is no other than this, God's plan in 
 His revelations to the world. It divides itself into these 
 two branches. 
 
 I. The mode of that dispensation which was imperfect, 
 and is past. 
 
 II. The dispensation of that revelation which is yet to 
 come. 
 
 I. First, then, we remark that the former dispensation 
 was based on a system of mediation. Putting aside all 
 theological terms, let us endeavour to understand this. A 
 mediator is simply one who acts between two parties as a 
 medium ; a mediator is one who through things visible 
 conveys instruction on things that otherwise would be mis- 
 understood. Now, God's revelation to man is mediatorial j it 
 could be none otherwise. Human nature being as it is, 
 God could not, or, to speak more reverently, God did not, 
 reveal Himself singly to each individual. But His plan was 
 this : He took a single nation, that through that nation He 
 might reveal Himself to the world — a nation that of all 
 
230 
 
 The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 others was at the outset the rudest and the coarsest, for God 
 would begin from the very beginning \ and one of His objects 
 in so training that nation was that out of it the choicest 
 spirits might be formed, becoming the teachers, first of the 
 Jewish nation, and through them of the world : it is these 
 men whom St. Peter calls the prophets. 
 
 And, now, before proceeding further, let us endeavour to 
 gain a distinct notion of what we mean by inspiration. An 
 inspired man is a higher kind of man ; he is one whose 
 aspirations are more generous, more unselfish, more pure 
 than those of ordinary humanity. The difference between 
 him and common men is this : that of the twofold nature 
 in which we all participate, the fleshly and the spiritual, 
 the lower predominates in others, but in him the higher, 
 the heavenly and the spiritual. What they felt feebly, almost 
 unconsciously, he felt mightily and consciously. 
 
 Now, let us take a few instances in which this marvellous 
 contrast between inspired and uninspired men is shown. 
 When the whole nation of Israel were content to remain in 
 bondage, if they might only have the flesh-pots of Egypt, 
 the voice of God came to one among them telling him that 
 the life of freedom, even though the way to gain it lay 
 through the wilderness, was so immeasurably superior to 
 every other life, that no sacrifice could be too great to 
 secure it. Again, when the people trembled at the blaze of 
 the lightning from Mount Sinai, and feared when they heard 
 the trumpet voice of thunder, among them there was one 
 heart which desired to see God face to face, and to gaze un- 
 dazzled on His intolerable splendour. When the pleasure- 
 loving crowd sat down to eat and to drink, Moses came down 
 from the Mount where he had been with God, struggling 
 and wrestling for Duty and Right and Law ; and when he 
 
TJie Progress of Revelation. 231 
 
 saw what they were, and felt how immeasurably his aims 
 were above theirs, and how hopeless the distance, the 
 prophet dashed the tables to the ground. Take another in- 
 stance from the case of an inspired warrior. When Nahash 
 the Ammonite offered peace to the besieged inhabitants of 
 Jabesh-Gilead, it was on terms of obloquy and disgrace ; 
 they asked a respite of seven days, in which they might send 
 the message to all the coasts of Israel ; the craven people 
 when they heard the message lifted up their voices and 
 weptj but there was one heart in Israel which looked for 
 better things for God's nation ; when Saul heard it, the 
 Spirit of God came upon him, and he sent back this 
 message to the men of Jabesh, "To-morrow by that 
 time the sun be hot ye shall have help." And when 
 the morrow came and the inhabitants looked out, sud- 
 denly beneath the walls of Jabesh-Gilead the battle-cry 
 of Saul was heard, and the rays of that sun were flashed 
 back by the swords of the thousands that he had brought, 
 burning to avenge their country's wrongs, led on by one 
 noble inspired heart. This, brethren, is what the Bible calls 
 inspiration. There are different kinds of inspiration, that 
 of the lawgiver, as Moses ; that of the artisan, as Bezaleel and 
 Aholiab ; that of the warrior, as Saul and Gideon and Barak, 
 men who delivered their country not by brute courage but 
 by inspired valour. Lastly, there was that of the prophets, 
 whose office was not so much to predict future events 
 as to interpret the present ; they did not read the fate 
 and fortunes of empires as mere soothsayers, but it was 
 given to them, with burning hearts, to reach grand first 
 principles which are true to-day and for ever. They were 
 partakers of the larger humanity of Christ, just as the Apostle 
 Peter here says, "They were searching what, or what 
 
232 Tlie Progress of Revelation. 
 
 manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did 
 signify." 
 
 Now the means whereby they arrived at that perfect 
 knowledge of the future were twofold : first, the materials of 
 the revelation that had been already given to them were 
 with others as well as with thena, the difference lay in the 
 spirit that was within them. Let us look at their materials •; 
 manifestly they were the Jewish Scriptures. God's revela- 
 tion to the world is God's education, for " what revelation 
 is to the race, that education is to the individual." A 
 revelation begins, as education does, with the first elementary 
 principles. The elementary principles taught directly to 
 the Jewish nation were few ; the direct truths might almost 
 be compressed into these, the unity of God, the holiness 
 of God, the blessedness of doing good, and the misery of 
 doing wrong. It was long before lessons as simple even as 
 these were learnt. How long was Israel in learning the 
 unity of God ! how many tmies is it repeated, " Hear, O 
 Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord ! " Though the power 
 of God was so plainly shown to be superior to that of the 
 Egyptian gods, yet still idolatry continued in Israel for long 
 years, and it was not till after the Babylonish captivity that 
 they were entirely weaned from it. This will show us why 
 other truths were not taught, for so childlike a nation was 
 as yet unable to bear them. 
 
 Immortality was but indirectly taught to Israel. I 
 say not that in the Old Testament Scriptures immortality 
 is not named, but in the primitive revelation of the five 
 books of Moses it is not directly spoken of ; for all the 
 system of Moses rested on temporary rewards and punish- 
 ments : if they were obedient, they were to eat the fruit 
 of the land into which they were led ; if disobedient, the 
 
TJie Progress of Revelation. 
 
 ^11 
 
 nations among whom they dwelt were to be pricks in 
 their eyes and thorns in their sides. Contrast the two 
 revelations. St. Paul says, "To them who by patient 
 continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and 
 immortahty, the reward shall be eternal life ; " Moses says, 
 " Honour thy father and thy mother, and thy days shall 
 be long in the land." Yet though not directly taught, it 
 was taught indirectly ; just as in the elementary book 
 of the child the higher truths are neither shut out 
 nor distinctly told, but are implied, so it is with God's 
 revelation. In the Book of Genesis we find it written that 
 man was made of the dust of the earth ; and God breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life ; — not one word here of 
 immortality. Now consider how a pious Jew must have 
 reasoned on this when he stood by the grave of some 
 beloved one ; would not this have been his inward reasoning? 
 — Dust to dust, yes, but the breath of God breathed into his 
 nostrils, what has become of that ? I give to you now the 
 actual reasoning of an inspired man on this subject. In the 
 Eook of Ecclesiastes we find Solomon saying, " The dust 
 shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return 
 to God who gave it." Again, when God spake to Moses in 
 the bush. He said, " I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
 and of Jacob ; " that was not to teach immortality ; the direct 
 object of it was to encourage Moses in his mission to 
 Pharaoh with the assurance that the God of his forefathers 
 would be with him. Nevertheless, consider once more how 
 an earnest and religious heart would reason on that, — God is 
 the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, where then are they, 
 are they no longer in existence ? Is this the God of love ? 
 Can annihilation be His reward to those who have served 
 Him best ? Does He say to His most faithful servants, 
 
234 
 
 The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 " Return to the nothingness from which you came " ? Our 
 hearts demand it of us that an immortaUty there must be. 
 And this was precisely the mode of reasoning our Lord 
 used when asked by the Sadducees concerning the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead. He produced no direct testimony to 
 immortaUty, because there was none found in the writings of 
 Moses. The proof he produced was an indirect one, even 
 this, that God is the God of the Hving, not of the dead. 
 And when, brethren, you add to this the many other 
 passages in which the same thing was imphed, passages such 
 as that common formula by which death was described when 
 it was said that a man was " gathered to his fathers," passages 
 by which the Jew was forced to live out of the present and 
 for the future, and to familiarise himself with that which 
 was to come, it will then become evident to us that through 
 all the system God was preparing the highest minds by hints, 
 and by imperfect expressions, for that revelation, in after ages 
 to be made manifest, when life and immortality should come 
 to light through the Gospel. These were the materials on 
 which the imaginations of the prophets had to work. 
 
 There was, however, another source from which they 
 derived their knowledge, that which St. Peter calls " the 
 Spirit of Christ which was in them," the Jewish Scriptures, 
 and these Scriptures interpreted by spiritual hearts. 
 
 " The Spirit of Christ " is, in other words, the spirit of self- 
 sacrifice ; for, just in proportion as a man is great and good 
 is that spirit strong in his soul. The measure of a man's 
 goodness is the measure of his self-devotion. These men 
 turned to the Jewish Scriptures, and found there the prin- 
 ciples of Jewish sacrifice, the externals of which differed not 
 much from those of heathen sacrifice, for the gross Jew had 
 probably much the same notion as the heathen concerning 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 235 
 
 it ; he felt that God was angry, and congratulated himself 
 that another had felt the pain of punishment instead of 
 him. To the prophets it was not so, for it gave them a 
 desire to dedicate themselves to God. And so, when we 
 turn to the Psalms or the Prophets, we find passages with 
 which we are familiar, and in which they speak indignantly 
 of mere sacrifice : "Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would 
 I give it thee ; thou delightest not in burnt offerings." " The 
 sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite 
 heart thou wilt not despise." And, again, " Sacrifice and 
 offerings thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared 
 ; me." Thus the deep desire of the soul was replied to and 
 e.xpressed by the faithful in the Jewish sacrifices. 
 
 II. We now pass on, secondly, to consider the dispensa- 
 tion of the day of grace and glory which is yet to come. 
 
 Now first, brethren, I have to observe, as before so now, 
 that God's plan of revelation is partly by truths direct, partly 
 by truths indirect. The direct truths of the Christian 
 revelation are those which in the Jewish were indirect ; for 
 instance, immortality and self-devotion. But there are 
 indirect truths also, which in the fulness of ti«ie shall be 
 revealed hereafter. Take the testimony of our Blessed 
 Lord : " I have many things to say, but ye cannot bear them 
 now." Consider the testimony of Moses : " A prophet shall 
 the Lord raise up unto you like unto me." Christ is spoken 
 of as a prophet, but in what sense, if not as preparatory to a 
 greater revelation ? Again, the text says, " Be sober, and 
 hope to the end." In other words, it is that which it is our 
 
 \ business to celebrate to-day — our anticipation of the gloiy 
 
 i of the revelation of Jesus Christ. 
 
 \ Now, let us take an uistance of these truths. The first 
 
236 The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 we give is one which in the early ages of Christianity was 
 indirect, but has become direct now ; it is the doctrine of the 
 admission of the Gentiles ; not distinctly taught by Christ, 
 but taught by implication, for it was long before the apostles 
 themselves perceived that it followed from the doctrine He 
 had taught. In process of time it was admitted, with reluct- 
 ance, by the Apostle Peter ; but it did not become a direct 
 truth until proclaimed in all its breadth and fulness by St. 
 Paul — " There is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor 
 uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, but Christ 
 is all and in all." 
 
 Next, we come to a subject more delicate, the conside- 
 ration of some of those truths which are to be revealed here- 
 after, and of which we have now only a dim foreshadowing. 
 Out of the innumerable thoughts that here crowd upon us I 
 have selected but three. First, there is given us in the Scrip- 
 ture this hint, " One is your master, even Christ, and all ye 
 are brethren." That, we dare to say, has not in almost any 
 sense or form yet been realised in a world where power and 
 wealth produce hatred instead of love, and the religion of 
 Christ is a sword instead of peace. But is there, to an 
 earnest and a loving heart, no pregnant intimation of a human 
 brotherhood yet to come, more deep, more broad, and far 
 more spiritual than has ever yet been exhibited in this 
 world ? 
 
 Again, in the history of the early Church we find that " no 
 man said that ought that he possessed was his own." On these 
 words the wildest schemes of socialism have been founded ; but 
 is there here no hint, no intimation, of a system far more 
 generous than any we have yet conceived — does it not tell of 
 a mode of life higher far than our present system of rivalry 
 and competition ? 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 237 
 
 Take one hint more. In the beginning of the Gospel 
 we read this declaration to Mary, " Hail ! thou that art 
 highly favoured, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou 
 among women." Upon that hint the Romanist has elaborated 
 Mariolatry — the worship of one single woman. There are 
 many among us who can sneer at Mariolatry ; but it is not 
 from the sneerer that the deepest truths are learnt. Instead 
 of sneering let us look at the truth so miserably caricatured 
 by Rome. Out of these pregnant words, the blessing of the 
 virgin, is there no hint given ? Remember these were new 
 words in this world of ours. The masculine qualities, 
 courage, wisdom, strength, had been revealed, but now was 
 given to the world a representation of the divine character 
 of purity, modesty, and self-devotion ; are there in these 
 words no anticipations to give the Christian heart a hope of 
 a coming day when woman shall yet be what her Creator 
 designed she should become ? 
 
 Now, let us close this subject with the two practical pieces 
 of advice that the Apostle Peter gives : " Be sober, and hope 
 to the end." First, a lesson of hopefulness, then of 
 sobriety. 
 
 There are dark views held by many respecting the future 
 of the race. Men talk gloomily of a flood of Romanism and 
 Rationalism; but the only question we ask is this, whether 
 God is guiding the race or not. If He guide it, then it is 
 on its way to good, and not to evil. The Apostle Peter, in 
 the midst of persecution, encourages the disciples with these 
 views and with strong faith in God. Let men sneer, call 
 these dreams, ask for something practical, — it is good to get 
 away into God's Future from our own selfish interests and 
 hopes. This, then, is the remedy for all our fears for the 
 
238 The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 future, to trust with unwavering faith in the God who guides 
 the destiny of our humanity. 
 
 The other lesson impressed on his converts by the Apostle 
 Peter was sobriety: "Be sober." For be assured that we 
 know little except in outline of that which shall be hereafter. 
 The tree of our humanity has blossomed once, but the fruit 
 is yet to come \ it is not for us to anticipate and prematurely 
 grasp that fruit, it will ripen in God's good time. 
 
 Hints are given for us to ponder on them, and to hope in 
 God, not to scheme and rave. 
 
 " God is His own interpreter, 
 And He will make it plain. " 
 
XXVI. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF REVELATION. 
 
 (2.) 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 BrigJiton, Advent, December 7, 1851. 
 
 " Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ 
 that we might be justified by faith." — Galatians iii. 24. 
 
 IT may be well to follow out the subject of last Sunday. 
 The principle laid down last Sunday was that the 
 plan of God's revelation to the world has been to teach 
 some truths directly; others indirectly, by implications, 
 hints, allusions. So that the indirect truths of one dispensa- 
 tion become the direct truths of the next. For instance, 
 immortality and self-sacrifice, which were the indirect truths 
 of Judaism, are now the direct truths of Christianity. 
 
 The services of the day seem to invite us to examine 
 this subject further. In the Collect we pray that " we may in 
 such wise read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the Holy 
 Scriptures, that by patience, and comfort of thy Holy Word, 
 we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of 
 everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour 
 
240 
 
 The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 Jesus Christ." And, again, in the Epistle, we read, "What- 
 ever things were written aforetime were WTitten for our 
 learning, that we, through patience, and comfort of the 
 Scriptures, might have hope." Therefore the subject offered 
 for our contemplation by the Church is the Holy Scriptures 
 as furnishing a guide, a hope, a consolation preparatory to 
 Christ's second advent. This seems the leading thought 
 which regulated the selection of the services of the day. 
 
 The Epistles to Timothy, the last Paul wTote, are of 
 a darker shade of thought than his earlier ones. He sees 
 perilous times coming, for the grace and love of Christianity 
 would be received by men of undisciplined hearts. It be- 
 came evident that the Advent was not near, but far off, and 
 that the conflict between good and evil would go on for a 
 long time. And yet in the midst of all this there is one 
 ground for consolation. St. Paul is assured that Timothy 
 would struggle against the evil in his day ; and this, because 
 he had from a child known the Holy Scriptures, which were 
 able to make him wise unto salvation : knowing the truth, 
 he would be resolute in contending for it 
 
 The objection raised by the Jews against Christianity was 
 that it contradicted the earlier revelation. And, in truth, there 
 was much to favour this objection. For, in the first place, . 
 Judaism declared the Jews to be God's chosen people ; 
 whereas Christianity catered into the world, proclaiming God 
 to be the universal Father. And even Christ's teaching 
 seemed to corroborate this view, " Ye have heard it was 
 said by them of old time — that is by Moses — an eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth : but I say unto you, that ye 
 resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right 
 cheek turn to him the other also." 
 
 St. Paul replies to such an objection in the text. The 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 241 
 
 reply amounts to this : The human race had been under a 
 system of education, and the spirit of Christianity was not 
 more contradictory to that of Judaism than the duties, the 
 treatment, and the education of a man are contradictory to 
 those of a child : " The law is our schoolmaster." This, then, 
 is our subject, God's preparation of the world for the first 
 advent of the Redeemer. 
 
 We divide it into two branches, on the present occasion. 
 The law is our schoolmaster : 
 
 I. As giving precepts in which principles were involved, 
 but not expressly taught. 
 
 II. As teaching inadequate and not perfect duties. 
 
 1. The law gives precepts, not principles. 
 
 Every wise teacher begins so. He gives rules, not 
 principles. And the first duty of the pupil is blind obedi- 
 ence. At length, when the pupil discerns the principle, he 
 may dispense with the rule or not as he pleases. 
 
 Of the mode of teaching in the Jewish law the first 
 instance we select is the second Commandment. It runs 
 thus : " Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, 
 nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in 
 the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. Thou 
 shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them." 
 
 According to this law the Israelite was not only not to 
 worship a graven image, but not even to make one. The 
 possession of an image or a statue was unlawful. Those 
 adornments of our houses and cities, which we freely use, 
 were forbidden him. Yet we all know it was not this but 
 idolatry which the law was intended to forbid. The spirit of 
 the second Commandment is the prohibition of idolatry ; the 
 ktter is thou shalt not make a graven image. 
 
 R 
 
242 Tlie Progress of Revelation. 
 
 Idolatry is the worship of anything as the Highest Avhich 
 is not the highest— the admission of any conception of God 
 which is either false or else unnecessarily inadequate. For 
 example, to worship God as cruel would be idolatry, because 
 false. Such is the worship of Juggernaut. To worship God as 
 the mere source of life is idolatry, because it conveys an 
 inadequate idea of God. Such was the Egyptian worship, 
 which reverenced life in its lowest forms. The idea was not 
 false : God is the Principle of Life; but, then, God is much 
 more. 
 
 But here observe. It is only idolatry when unnecessarily 
 inadequate — that is, when the man might and ought to have 
 had higher views. All conceptions of God are inadequate : 
 that of the highest Christian is inadequate to represent the 
 All-Perfect truly. But it is one thing to think inadequately 
 of God because the powers are feeble, and another to think 
 so when light is given to form nobler conceptions and to 
 think more justly. The conception of the Jew was an im- 
 perfect mental image, because he knew not God as Love ; 
 but it was not idolatrous, because there was a kind of " it 
 must needs be " in the inadequateness. 
 
 But, if a Christian were now to acknowledge as his 
 Highest an image of God as vindictive, jealous, partial, or 
 tax, or as a mere Creator, when He has been revealed as 
 Love, he would tread on the very verge of idolatry, because 
 he might have a higher image in the Divine Humanity of 
 Christ, who is the " express Image of God's Person." And 
 so a Protestant who quotes the second Commandment against 
 the Romanist to prove the Romanist idolatrous because he 
 reminds himself of God by graven images, may be himself 
 idolatrous in a deeper sense ; he may think of God as partial 
 —loving him and his small sect only. The Romanist breaks 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 243 
 
 the letter of this second Commandment, many a Protestant 
 the spirit of the law. 
 
 Now what we are concerned to observe is tint the Jew 
 was not taught this principle of idolatry ; he was trained 
 to it by a precept. He was not to make images, like the 
 Egyptian, of the ibis or the crocodile, because it was 
 degrading to the idea of God ; nor images, like the Assyrian, 
 of those strange winged human figures which we see in the 
 Museum, because they are inadequate ; nor images like the 
 devil-gods of the Philistines, because they were a slander upon 
 God. 
 
 And thus by degrees excluded from all lower forms, the 
 Jew would reach that state to produce which the law was 
 given, the state in which he could form a worthier concep- 
 tion of the Almighty. Then he would be no longer under 
 a schoolmaster. Having reached the spirit of the law, 
 the law would be no longer binding on him. 
 
 Do you think any intelligent, wise Christian considers 
 that law in its letter binding upon him? Is there any 
 but the narrowest mind who would quote the second Com- 
 mandment to a Christian, " Thou shalt not make to thyself 
 a graven image," as forbidding sculpture and imitative art? 
 Yet it was forbidden by the second Commandment. 
 
 The second instance of this principle which we allege 
 may be found in the law of Moses : "Thou shalt not muzzle 
 the mouth of the ox which treadeth out the corn." 
 
 Consider for a moment the not uncommon interpretation 
 of this law. There is a favourite mode of interpreting the 
 Old Testament Scriptures, especially among Puritan divines, 
 which looks on them as a collection of oracles or types out of 
 which a recondite meaning was to be developed. The spiri- 
 tual sense of Scripture is regarded as the hidden connection of 
 
244 The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 these types with some Christian mystery, and the spiritual 
 interpretation of Scripture is the discovery of such a resem- 
 blance. On this principle, because St. Paul extracts out of 
 this command the duty of the Christian Church to make pro- 
 vision for its ministers, therefore, under his guidance, they 
 say oxen were the type of Christian ministers ; and wherever 
 the word occurs, so they read it. The oxen supporting the 
 brazen sea were types of a Christian ministry; and their 
 looking east, west, north, and south was typical of the uni- 
 versal spread of Christianity. 
 
 For one moment let us stop to think. All the Old 
 Testament Scriptures were intended to teach some one. 
 For whom, then, was this command given ? Was it for the 
 Jews of old ? Could it be that the Jews were from this to 
 guess that in after times a Christian ministry were to be sup- 
 ported ? And if so, what was that to them ? Or was it to 
 teach Christians ? Can the plain duty be left to be spelled 
 out of a recondite and debatable enigma ? The danger of 
 this mode of interpretation is that it turns Scripture into a 
 collection of trifling littlenesses, makes it a set of riddles, 
 and tlie expounder of it a riddle-guesser. And just as the 
 eye loses its power by ever looking through a microscope, so 
 does the mind lose the comprehensiveness of its grasp by 
 straining after these infinitesimal littlenesses. 
 
 The true spirit of the law is this, the ox is a toiler for 
 man's good. God says, Muzzle him not, he has a right to 
 feed. But observe the principle involved. The ox has a right 
 as a labourer, not as an animal. Then it follows that "every 
 labourer is worthy of his hire; " the minister is worthy because 
 a labourer ; not because of a Scriptural type, but because of 
 a Christian principle. It is thus that St. Paul reasons : 
 *• Doth God take care for oxen ? " Tliat is, is this law merely 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 245 
 
 meant to inculcate benevolence to animals, or is there a 
 principle in it ? " Saith He it altogether for our sakes ? 
 For our sakes, no doubt, this is written." 
 
 Now, many a man who would accept this application 
 of the principle because it was made by Paul, might miss 
 the great teaching of his principle. For, read it only as a 
 type, and then many a man who would scrupulously pay his 
 minister because commanded by a Bible type, would be 
 severe and rigorous on his labourers. In that case he would 
 be a slave to the letter, instead of being made a freeman by 
 the principle. 
 
 II. We pass on to consider the second way in which 
 the law was education by a schoolmaster. 
 
 It was so because it prescribed inadequate duties — a part, 
 instead of the whole, which was to develop into the whole. 
 
 Of this we select three instances. 
 
 I. The institution of the Temple worship. 
 
 The Jews were to hallow the place which the Lord 
 should choose to put His name there. The place where the 
 ark rested, and where the Temple stood, there God was, 
 there were men to worship. 
 
 Now this might mean either of two things. 
 
 It might mean that God was more there than elsewhere. 
 This idea lay at the bottom of that miserable question 
 between the Samaritans and the Jews — Which was hoher, 
 Mount Gerizim or Mount Moriah ? And this lies at the 
 root of all modern wrangling as to whether a church be 
 holier than a hill-side, whether the consecration by a bishop 
 imparts actual intrinsic sanctity to stones and walls. And, 
 observe, exactly in proportion as one place becomes more 
 holy in our eyes, others become less holy. When God 
 
246 
 
 The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 is confined to one spot, He is banished just in that pro- 
 portion from all other spots. To sanctify your church you 
 profane God's world. Whatever peculiar degree of accept- 
 ableness you add to the prayer offered up in one place, you 
 take from the prayer offered up in all other places. 
 
 But, again, it might be that God was teaching the Jew 
 this: that if He put in a claim to part He had a right to the 
 whole ; that if God were in Jerusalem, He was also in thf; 
 desert. And assuredly God did teach the Jew this. For, 
 there were times when, driven from his country, the partial 
 truth was insufficient, and he was forced to realise the more 
 adequate one. So Daniel, exiled in Babylon, prayed ; the 
 old feeling still clinging to him, his windows therefore open to 
 Jerusalem; but still persuaded that although far away from 
 Jerusalem yet that God was hearing him. In a very touch- 
 ing psalm David yearns after the ordinances and the Temple 
 service he had once enjoyed, " As the hart panteth after 
 the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." 
 But before the psalm is finished he realises the truth that 
 even in his banishment God will "command his lovingkind- 
 ness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with 
 me, and my prayer unto the God of my life," and that he 
 may therefore pray from " the land of Jordan, and of the 
 Hermonites, snd from the hill Mizan" 
 
 When faith was well-nigh extinct and forms dead, there 
 was one man at least in Israel who from the localised 
 worship had extracted the deeper truth. The iron-hearted 
 Baptist goes into the wilderness, and with no temple but the 
 sky, no symbols but the solemn trees, the moaning night- 
 winds, and the roll of Jordan, an emblem of the eternity into 
 which his soul was passing, feels that God is there as truly as 
 in the Temple of Jerusalem. And the Son of Man Himself 
 
TJie Progress of Revelation. 
 
 247 
 
 said, " The hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor 
 yet at Jerusalem shall men worship the Father. God is a 
 Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit 
 and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." 
 Thus, then, through a most inadequate truth, the Jew was 
 led on to the larger truth that God is here, and therefore 
 to be worshi]:>ped. But then, God is everywhere, and His 
 true temples are infinite space and the soul of man. 
 
 2. The second instance is taken from the fourth Com- 
 mandment, " Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath 
 day." 
 
 So runs the law, one- seventh of all time is God's. But 
 see how inadequate this is. It is a truth, but only a part of 
 the truth. For if that one portion be exclusively God's, then 
 just in that proportion the rest of time is not God's. This 
 is what Pharisaism, ancient and modern, perpetually tends 
 to. It purchases the sanctification of the one-seventh by the 
 profaning of the six-sevenths. The Sabbath is God's, then 
 Monday is not God's, but yours and the world's. 
 
 Assuredly this was not God's teaching by that Divine 
 institution of the Sabbath day. But, just as now a " right 
 of way " is often secured to the proprietor by shutting up 
 a road one day in the year, not to declare it his only on 
 that day, or more on that day than others, but simply to 
 vindicate his right in it for every day ; so did God shut up 
 one-seventh part of time, that it might be understood that 
 all belonged to Him. 
 
 Accordingly when we come to the New Testament we 
 find that revealed which had been so long implied. St. 
 Paul says, " Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in 
 drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or 
 of the Sabbath days. One man esteemeth one day above 
 
248 
 
 Tlie Progress of Revelation. 
 
 another : another esteemeth every day alike. Let every 
 man be fully persuaded in his own mind. Ye observe days 
 and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest 
 I have bestowed upon you labour in vam." As if the whole 
 labour of the past had been in vain, so long as they were 
 still cleaving to the inadequate truth, instead of embracing 
 the higher and expanded one, that all time is God's ; every 
 day of life to be consecrated to Him. 
 
 3. The third instance we adduce is that of the third 
 Commandment. " Thou shalt not take the name of the 
 Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guilt- 
 less that taketh his name in vain." 
 
 This is commonly quoted as prohibiting blasphemy and 
 cursing ; but originally it had nothing to do with this. To 
 take the name of God in vain was to use it in asseveration, 
 to call God to witness, and then by breaking the oath to make 
 that invocation vain or void, and thus render the name of God 
 a worthless and frivolous thing. It was equivalent to " Thou 
 shalt not forswear thyself, but perform unto the Lord thine 
 oaths." 
 
 In this spirit the whole Jewish law was framed. If a 
 man was put upon his oath by the priest he was bound to 
 utter truth, under tremendous penalties : " And if a soul sin, 
 and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he 
 hath seen or known of it ; if he do not utter it, then he shall 
 bear his iniquity." 
 
 It was in obedience to this law that Christ responded to 
 the High Priest's question. At first He held His peace, but 
 when " adjured by the living God " to say if He were the 
 Son of God, He immediately replied, " I am." 
 
 Thus, then, the lesson God taught the Jew was truth, but 
 truth inadequate, truth under certain circumstances. It was 
 
TJie Progress of Revelatmi. 249 
 
 an exceedingly inadequate exposition of duty: truth wlien the 
 priest was by, truth when God was present, or when God's 
 name was invoked. Now here, too, the Hmitation of the com- 
 mand was most dangerous. In proportion as a Jew thought 
 himself peculiarly bound to be true when on his oath, he 
 would feel freed from obligation when not on oath. So now, 
 men who would shudder at perjury think comparatively httle 
 of untruth. 
 
 Nevertheless, though originally inadequate, see how this 
 law taught deeper views of truth. So long as the Jew 
 believed that God was limited to one- seventh of time, or 
 limited to a portion of space, so long, of course, was the duty 
 of truth limited too : truth only where God is — you must not 
 lie on the Sabbath, nor perjure yourself in the court of justice. 
 But when the Jew learned that all time was God's, and all 
 space ; that He is ubiquitous in time, omnipresent in space; 
 then the lesson he had been learning came into a more 
 extended application. And the pious Jew must have reasoned 
 thus, " I was taught to be true where God is ; but God is 
 everywhere, therefore woe is me if, in the Awful Presence that 
 fills each moment of time and every corner of space, my 
 lips or heart should utter an untruth." 
 
 And precisely such was the expansion which Christ gave 
 to the third Commandment : " Ye have heard that it was said 
 by them of old time. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but 
 perform unto the Lord thine oaths : but I say unto you. 
 Swear not at all : neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, 
 nor by the earth, for it is His footstool ; neither by Jeru- 
 salem, for it is the city of the great King." In other words 
 God is everywhere, heaven His throne, earth His footstool 
 — the very hairs of your head are counted by Him. And 
 so in Christianity the sm of lying is equal to the Jewish 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 crime of perjury. The Christian word is as sacred as the 
 Jewish oath, being fenced by sanctions precisely the same. 
 You speak in God's presence, speak where you will. And 
 hence the Christian "yea" is to be "yea, indeed," and the 
 Christian " nay," " nay, indeed." 
 
 In the application of this subject we have three things to 
 
 say. 
 
 1. The first truth at which we arrive is this, revelation is 
 education. We ask no better definition than this of St. 
 Paul's. The human race has been under a schoolmaster. 
 What education has been to the individual that is revelation 
 to the race. God is revealing Himself to His world. 
 
 And herein lies the difference between the Atheistic and 
 the Christian view of the progress of the human race. Atheism 
 infers it from the qualities of the pupil, Christianity from the 
 love of the teacher. Atheism — that Atheism at least which 
 puts God out of the question- — talks of the majesty of the 
 human intellect, counts up the triumphs of past discoveries, 
 and infers the future from the past. But it is not so we reason. 
 We begin with God, not man ; we do not say, man will reach 
 all truth, but God will teach him all truth ; not, man will 
 find out God, but God is seeking man. In other words, we 
 believe in revelation. 
 
 2. The second thing we arrive at is that revelation is 
 progressive. 
 
 Understand what we have in the Bible. Not truth abso- 
 lute, but truth relative. If we think that inspiration means 
 the communication of the highest spiritual truth, or the 
 power of communicating it, we utterly confuse the meaning' 
 of inspiration. If we think that Moses, Job, David 
 knew, except most dimly, what we know, we confound the 
 
The Progress of Revelation. 
 
 251 
 
 different ages of revelation. Or, if we suppose that even the 
 truths we have now are aught but the dimmest dawn of that 
 blaze of truth which shall be in the coming revelation, we 
 lose the doctrine of this text. For there is no revelation 
 but the ever-continuing. 
 
 3. Lastly, let us learn that the training of the character in 
 God's revelation has always preceded the illumination of the 
 intellect. The truths I have spoken of are contained in a 
 few sentences : God fills all space, all time. To have low 
 notions of God is idolatry. God being everywhere, man's 
 life should be everywhere true. 
 
 But it took God four thousand years to teach these truths 
 to the human race. And here, again, therefore, we are in 
 diametrical opposition to the, modern systems. It is the 
 fashion now to rely upon the illumination of the intellect for 
 the perfecting of the character. God's way from old time 
 has been to rely upon the training of the heart and habits 
 for the illumination of the understanding. 
 
 You may teach a child these truths in ten minutes ; but 
 to teach them as God would have them taught, to teach 
 them in any way that shall not be worthless, that demands 
 a long, holy, obedient, humble life. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 CHARACTER AND MISSION OF THE 
 BAPTIST. 
 
 (COMPILED FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES FOR TWO SERMONS.) 
 
 Brighton, December 24, 1848, and December 14, 1 85 1. 
 
 " Then they said unto him, Who art thou ? that we may give 
 an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He 
 said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight 
 the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias." — ^John i. 22, 23. 
 
 TO those who merely accept a truth because it is written, 
 the life of John the Baptist presents nothing much 
 more significant than the fact that it pleased God, we know 
 not why, to send a prophet to prepare the way for Christ. 
 
 But to those who love to realise the Past, to bring it 
 near, and reproduce it with the same distinctness in which 
 it would have been seen had they lived in it, not only is the 
 figure of the Baptist one of the most striking of all which 
 stand out in Bible history, but also the necessity of his 
 appearance is most intelligible, and his life one with the 
 peculiarities of which they can most deeply sympathise. 
 
 We say John had a special mission. Let us understand 
 what we mean by that mission. 
 
Character and Missioyi of the Baptist. 253 
 
 God's missions are not like ours. It is not the office 
 which makes the man, but the man whose character creates 
 the office. The office arises out of the circumstances which 
 mould the character. Looking at him, when life is done, 
 in a worldly point of view, men would say his life was the 
 result of all the circumstances which made him what he was. 
 Looking at the same facts, religion says : True, circum- 
 stances made him ; but circumstances are God's appoint- 
 ment. This is what we mean by a mission, — God sent 
 him. 
 
 The significance of the Baptist, his life, the place he 
 occupies in the world's history, the peculiarities of his cha- 
 racter, we shall never understand by merely referring them, 
 with seeming piety, to an arbitrary fiat of the Most High. 
 We must understand the day, before we can comprehend the 
 man. We must understand the circumstances which made 
 him what he was, before we can comprehend in what sense 
 God " sent him." 
 
 Our subject will therefore divide itself into three 
 branches — 
 
 L The circumstances which made the man, 
 IL The man John. 
 IIL His mission. 
 
 L The circumstances which made the man. John was 
 the exhibition of his age — the transition point between the 
 old and the new. 
 
 The symptoms of an old religion breaking up were 
 evident ; unity was succeeded by diversity. We may 
 compare with it the state of Catholicism when St. Bernard's 
 voice moved Europe to the Crusades. When a multiplicity 
 of sects arose, previous to the Reformation, men miglit 
 
254 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 know that reformation was near. The " fulness of the 
 time was come," visible to all who observed the signs of the 
 times. 
 
 There were four divisions of society in Judsea : Phari- 
 sees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Herodians. 
 
 1. The Pharisees. — The Pharisees were the formalists of 
 their day. Consequently their religion had slumbered into 
 habit. They mumbled prayers, bowed their heads, quoted 
 maxims having lost principles, and had a sharp-defined 
 creed. The inner life of conscience had passed into the 
 life of outward habit. 
 
 The Pharisees endeavoured to keep religion alive by 
 scrupulously and reverently retaining the past. God did 
 not speak to them, but He had spoken to Rabbis of past 
 days. Their faith amounted to this ; that for four hundred 
 years God had been silent ; that since Malachi, He had not 
 inspired the sons of men. But inspiration was real once. 
 It was a kind of antique reverence for the symbols of a 
 faith which once was, but was evidently extinct now. These 
 were secular, scheming, worldly politicians, joining great 
 zeal for religion with laxity in duties. 
 
 It is an evidence of something gone when antiquarians 
 collect and prize relics of the past. Strong symptoms of an 
 expiring religion are seen when men value the printed Word 
 of God more than His Living Voice, when they worship the 
 Bible instead of the God of the Bible. 
 
 Pharisaism is the religion of habit 
 
 2. The Sadducees. — The Sadducees were of another 
 order. Theirs was the cold heart and clear intellect. They 
 were the rationalists of their day. Sadduceeism is the 
 reaction of Pharisaism in every age. Wherever there is an 
 unquest'oning formalism or a wild fanaticism, there a spirit 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 255 
 
 will rise asserting the rights of the understanding. Rational- 
 ism is a dry, critical, negative spirit. It is Protestantism 
 merely. It protests against all that cannot be proved. It 
 reduces everything to an intelligible system. So the Sadducees 
 said, " We can find no proofs of the authenticity of any books 
 beyond the five of Moses ; consequently, we reject them. 
 We will hear of no veneration for antiquity ; that is mere 
 feeling, and books are not to be received on the authority of 
 feeling." They cut books and chapters out of the canon 
 ruthlessly ; examining them as coolly as they Avould some 
 old record— not with a patient, reverent criticism, but with a 
 cold-blooded sneer. They took their stand on a narrow 
 creed indeed. Again they said : " We can find no proof of 
 immortality. We throw on you the burden of proof. It 
 may be ; we do not know. These are simply aspirations of 
 your own ; the belief of good and wise men before you. 
 All well, but possibilities are not proofs." 
 
 Here, observe, was the religion merely of the intellect. 
 
 3. The Essenes. — There was a third party in Judaea at 
 this time, the Essenes. There were some who could not 
 bear this formalism or this scepticism. That life-weariness 
 which is found in refined ages— scarcely known in earlier, 
 but felt when men begin to look in as well as out — sent 
 many into the desert, to lead a simpler, calmer, austerer 
 life. They could not bear the awful blank which the 
 Sadducees had made by cutting out of the canon all the 
 spiritual words. They could not feed their souls on the 
 trifling fripperies which made up Pharisaic religion. They 
 tried to find God in contemplation. They were what we 
 should call mystics. They felt the infinitude of all truths, 
 and recoiled from the sharp dogma which would put truths 
 into words. They retreated into the inner shrine of our 
 
2S6 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 humanity, and said, God must be felt, not talked about, nor 
 imderstood. Nay, even the steady, consistent life of practical 
 duty was merged by them in vague feelings, tender or 
 mysterious. 
 
 There have always been such tendencies. Protests 
 against what is hard. Glorious assertions of that which is 
 boundless and deep, and imaginative, and awful in the 
 soul. Such is the silent quietism of the Quakers, who wait 
 mutely for the effluence of the Spirit ; and such the source 
 of that profound stillness which breathes through Thomas k 
 Kempis. 
 
 Here then was the religion of feeling. 
 
 The defect of such religion is that its tendency is to lose 
 at last the actual fact of outward truth — God, religion, all, 
 become a feeling, not a fact. 
 
 4. The Herodians. — Respecting them we know little. 
 They were probably a political party, who desired to make 
 Herod king. Their existence tells, of course, of a large 
 number of men who had turned aside from questions merely 
 ecclesiastical and religious, to those which concerned man's 
 social and political existence. 
 
 And such there will ever be : men of active mind who 
 seek realities, and to whom religious subtleties seem 
 shadows. Men of stern Roman integrity, like Gallio, who 
 will bend all their energy upon causes of property, or 
 wrongs, but if it be a matter of questioning about your 
 matters, will say, " See ye to it, for I will be no judge of such 
 matters." Men who are weary of disputes between Pharisees 
 and Sadducees, and turn their attention to facts of science, 
 on which they can find firm resting ground. Such an one, 
 > perhaps, was that mental giant of modern times, Humboldt, 
 who, almost alone of men, was capable of writing a history 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 257 
 
 of the universe ; and who has told us, — a sad, memorable 
 confession, — that in the pursuit of science only can the 
 mind find refuge from the mysteries of Being and the pain 
 of questions which are insoluble. 
 
 Thus, then, Jewish society had separated itself into four 
 departments, the religion of habit, of feeling, of intellect — 
 formalism, scepticism, mysticism — and of interest respecting 
 the affairs of this present life. 
 
 Now religion is meant to impregnate all of men. But 
 there ever is a tendency in our religion to narrow itself 
 into one of our faculties, and then exhibit itself as only 
 habit, or feeling, or intellect. The consequence of this 
 tendency was that Jewish society was rent into fragments 
 and fractions, and therefore was its unity lost. 
 
 II. The man John. 
 
 Now consider how it was impossible for a man like John 
 to find a home in any of these parties. 
 
 Should he join himself to the Pharisees? 
 
 How, with his impatience of all that was unreal and the 
 iron earnestness of his nature, could he belong to those 
 whose life was droned away in litanies and frittered into 
 genuflexions ? 
 
 Or the Sadducees ? 
 
 Can you conceive him resting in mere protesting nega- 
 tions ; satisfied with their cold intellectual system ; pleased 
 to hear some protesting orator demonstrate how superstitious 
 and idolatrous the Pharisees were ? 
 
 Or, again, should he become one of the Essenes ? 
 
 That iron man, with his practical sense of duty, his 
 terrible sense of wrong ; whose words fell from him like a 
 warrior's, with soldier-like brevity, sharp and trenchant, 
 
258 Character and Mission of tJie Baptist. 
 
 every sentence a half-battle ! Think you he could go and 
 dream life away in contemplation, in stillness, and in sickly 
 feeling ? 
 
 Well, then, the Herodians? 
 
 Surely, for one so real, a patriot's life offered what was 
 wanted. A Jewish patriot to emancipate his people. Was 
 not John the man for the hour ? 
 
 But this was equally impossible. What his spirit burned 
 and yearned for was, not a mere civil liberty, nor a polity, 
 but a kingdom of God on earth. What was it to him whether 
 a licentious emperor or a licentious viceroy sat on Israel's 
 throne ? What to him whether his province groaned on 
 still beneath the Roman yoke, or that rebellion should 
 succeed, and popular excesses and popular vices follow 
 imperial despotism and royal vices ? 
 
 He loved humanity almost more than men. He felt his 
 country's degradation. But his was one of those spirits 
 to whom God is dearer than humanity. And therefore for 
 such an one in mere political existence there was no career, 
 among such parties there was no home for him. No wonder 
 he stood aloof from all. 
 
 It is only by a consideration of such circumstances that 
 the Baptist's peculiar life becomes intelligible. 
 
 III. Let us now consider : The mode of preparation, 
 and its effect on the mind of John- — this latter first. 
 
 i. The effect produced on the mind of John by his 
 dwelling in the wilderness. 
 
 This was not a desert of rocks and sand, but wild, unin- 
 habited forest-land. Amid such scenes the spirit of John 
 was disciplined for his peculiar work. He was there thirty 
 years, " till his showing unto Israel." Think of this ! Thirty 
 years' preparation for one year's work ! So natural was this 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 259 
 
 that when he came into the world of men his last hour soon 
 struck. 
 
 Consider the testimony of such a life as his to the 
 existence of another world. I do not mean one future, but 
 present — around us ; a world of thought, feeling, contem- 
 plation. "Man does not live by bread alone ;" a man's 
 life " consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he 
 hath." Look at John's childhood. From his birth this had 
 been his choice : " The child grew, and waxed strong in 
 spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his shewing 
 unto Israel." We live feebly ; we cannot believe except we 
 have truths echoed again and again. From Sunday to 
 Sunday is too long to believe in God without evangelical 
 props and means of grace. There are souls which God has 
 made who can expatiate in that invisible world where others 
 can scarcely breathe ; growing like hardy plants upon the 
 rock, like the heather in the sand. 
 
 In the wilderness the child shrunk not from the awful 
 solitude. He was not alone : all around him were the 
 types of the Invisible. The river flowing by, the storm- 
 shaken trees above, and the grass not bent beneath, breathed 
 into his soul a deep peace. He had no forms to worship 
 by ; but the world was the great form which shaped his 
 ideas of God. And then, beyond, beyond, the Presence 
 " whose dwelling is the light of setting suns." 
 
 Observe the effect produced on such a mind by the 
 conventionalities of society. Pharisees and Sadducees came 
 to him — the men without a faith, and the men without a 
 heart ; and indignation, as of an ancient Hebrew prophet, 
 awoke against them. Rapacious publicans, the discontented 
 populace, the haughty soldier of the Roman armies, came 
 to hear of a higher life. And he showed them all how false 
 
26o diameter and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 their life had been. Then came his life at the court of 
 Herod ; all around he saw a conventional, artificial morality, 
 There sin that was condemned in the poor publican was 
 considered venial in the great man. But John knew no 
 such distinctions. He had been living alone with God, 
 reading his Bible, looking at the heart of things, hoping for 
 the kingdom of God ; and this was no kingdom of God 
 at all. So, of course, all fell away from him : such a man 
 was not fit for life. Accordingly, when he came into the world 
 and spoke of things by their real names, the end soon came. 
 
 So is it always. No one sees how the battle goes while 
 he is in it : no one ever understood the world except by 
 getting out of it from time to time. How a short contact 
 even leaves us in levity and earthliness, how we find ourselves 
 acquiescing in its false maxims ! And we return to wonder 
 how hollow and false a thing our life has become. 
 
 Observe again how the Spirit of God in such a. mind passes 
 into life. 
 
 Had John died before his thirty years were over he had 
 discharged no mission. But he differed from the Essenes 
 in the practical character of his call ; it was not to medita- 
 tion, though he was an anchorite himself So the Spirit of 
 God, buried in the heart, passes out into action. This is 
 Christian life. Beginning in the resolution of a firm, 
 solitary heart, passing into life, ending in deep peace : 
 brings the desert into the world, the hermit into life, and 
 sends him, with a strong, self-conquering heart, through the 
 manifest duties of life— in the world but not of the world. 
 
 John was prepared for his work in the loneliness of the 
 wilderness. 
 
 From a very early age the young soul began to ask those 
 deep questions which are deepest. But he got no help from 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 261 
 
 Rabbi or Scribe, so he went into the desert, to be with God 
 — alone. 
 
 Losing the solaces of an earthly home, he found in God 
 his everlasting portion. Like a single trunk of an alpine 
 tree rising solitary from between the interstices of some 
 lonely rock and throwing its branches over the cataract. 
 You look for soil, there is scarcely any to be seen ; and 
 yet that gnarled root has fastened its tenacious grasp on 
 the bare stone, and tossed its green branch^^s in the air, as 
 if it needed nothing but the breath of heaven for its support. 
 So this seul flourished where less hardy spirits would have 
 starved, and he breathed freely the atmosphere of heaven 
 while yet on earth. 
 
 Then consider the reality of his life. His food, locusts 
 and wild honey ; his dress, camel's-hair and a leathern 
 girdle ; his drink, the chance brook. These are the sim- 
 plicities of life that force men to be real 
 
 On two previous Sundays I spoke of the Advent in 
 reference to the development of our humanity : — God's 
 education of the race, and God's education of the individual. 
 For religion deals not only with man the social, but with 
 man the individual besides. Christianity is a church— God's 
 relation to humanity ; but it is also a religion — a matter of 
 personal experience. We stand alone, separate from all 
 other beings. We partake of common influences. But our 
 individuality separated from all other lies based deeply in 
 that 
 
 And this is one of the great lessons taught by the 
 Baptist's life : the solitary character of the relation between 
 God and the soul. 
 
 It is a mournful prospect for the man who is timorously 
 asking the formalist and the ritualist to tell him what it is 
 
262 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 reckoned by the majority safest to believe, which is the 
 right Church, and such hke questions. 
 
 Mournful, too, for the spirit who is trying by sharp 
 intellect to cut into the heart of truth, and finds layer after 
 layer and covering after covering taken off, till he comes to 
 Jhe central nothing ; who is trying to penetrate the mystery 
 of being with subtle intellect, clear and sharp, and finds truth 
 after truth untenable and unprovable. 
 
 Then in the hour when the timorous are dismayed, when 
 habit is broken by some shock, and the intellect darkened, 
 the brave soul of faith dares to look into the Awful Darkness 
 and feel God. 
 
 Believe in God, your own soul and God. Dare to be 
 alone. Dare to be as Christ was. Do not go about asking 
 what this man believes, and what that. Dare to enter into 
 that solitude which is peopled by the spirits of "just men 
 made perfect." Be sure that God is nearer than you think. 
 Be true to Him, and brave. One thing real amidst a world 
 of shadows. 
 
 The second lesson taught by that life is the necessity of 
 falling back on first principles. 
 
 Consider the simplicity of John's life and creed. 
 He had enough to supply life ; and no more. From artificial 
 pampered life he falls back on the fact, " Man wants but 
 little." His creed was simple as his life — "Repentance," 
 and " judgment to come." 
 
 The deepest truths are always the first and simplest. 
 
 In this age the real questions are, not the frivolous ones 
 discussed in religious journals — baptism, surplices, and such 
 like — but. What is God, and where ? What is human life ? 
 Whither are we tending ? 
 
 Be sure that in a dying hour the questions will narrow 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist, 263 
 
 into a very few : God — Eternity — the Soul — Judgment — 
 and the Cross. 
 
 ii. The mode in which John prepared the way for Christ 
 — his mission. 
 
 I. John calls himself a voice. 
 
 A voice is the utterance of a meaning sound— an articu- 
 late expression. The wind is called God's voice, whicli 
 shaketh the cedars " — where a meaning is fancied. John 
 was the world's voice. Four centuries had passed, and yet 
 no man could speak the word. Simple enough it seems : 
 " Repent," if God's kingdom is to come. Regenerated 
 society comes not from regenerated institutions, but from 
 regenerated hearts. Changed hearts will produce changed 
 character and changed institutions. But none till John had 
 found the tongue to express this, though all acknowledged 
 it when it was spoken. The dim, vague longing, the restless 
 tossing of that age, had found a voice at last. John spoke 
 out what it wanted ; felt deeply what all were feeling. What 
 we want, said he, is not political reformation, nor a more 
 accurate creed, nor more hberty, but alteration of heart and 
 life — in one word, Repentance. So spake the Voice of the 
 Age — in articulate tones at last. 
 
 There is a great distinction between eloquence and 
 fluency ; fluency is command of words, eloquence of words 
 which express thought. Fluency John had not ; short, 
 sharp, decisive words were his — no ornament or trick of 
 oratory there. Let us never covet fluency ; it is a fatal gift. 
 Let every man covet eloquence. It is to speak the right 
 thing, at the right time, in the right way. And that is done 
 ( sometimes in a way which it seems a contradiction to call 
 eloquence. Silence may be eloquence, and stammering lips 
 may be eloquent Let a man be earnest and true. The 
 
264 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 heart will feel the expression of itself Those very few- 
 words of John were not spoken to the world in vain. 
 
 And this was the secret of his marvellous success. 
 Pharisees and Sadducees came. How little you would have 
 thought this was the voice that spake what they wanted ! 
 And yet they came. 
 
 John himself marvelled — why were they there? The 
 Pharisee, satisfied with himself, what had he to do with " re- 
 pentance ? " The Sadducee, satisfied with the present, what 
 did he care for " wrath to come " ? " One touch of Nature 
 made the whole world kin." 
 
 Reality had fronted them, and the veil fell off. We are 
 not happy, they said, we are miserable. Prophet of tlie 
 Invisible, what hast thou to tell us? 
 
 2. John was " the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
 Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight." 
 
 The metaphor is drawn from the custom of Eastern 
 kings sending heralds and pioneers before them to clear a 
 road. 
 
 At the period of the Jews' return from captivity, we hear 
 the sublime language of Isaiah : " Prepare ye the way of the 
 Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 
 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill 
 shall be made low." 
 
 The King was coming, all obstacles were to be removed. 
 Observe, there was to be levelling: There was to be an 
 elevation of that which had been unduly depressed, a 
 depression of the unduly exalted. 
 
 There was the mountain of Caste. The Jews prided 
 themselves on their hereditary descent from x'\braham : " We 
 have Abraham to our father." Yes ; they were of Abraham's 
 family without Abraham's faith. The voice of the herald 
 
Character mid Mission of the Baptist. 265 
 
 spoke : " I tell you, God is able of these stones to raise up 
 children unto Abraham ; " and then that mountain fell. 
 
 There was the mountain of Religious Sectarianism. The 
 Pharisee stood on an elevation. He was above others, on 
 the strength of certain formulas of expression, of breadth of 
 phylacteries, of length of prayers. Then the voice sjjoke, 
 " O generation of vipers," and another mountain fell — that of 
 religious separatism, on which a man exalts himself above 
 his fellows. 
 
 There was the mountain which gave impunity to WTong- 
 doing. Herod took his brother Philip's wife. In a common 
 man — a poor publican — Herod's offence would have been 
 great. Many a wretched sinner was condemned by Pharisaic 
 sanctimoniousness. But Herod being in power, great allow- 
 ance was to be made for his sin. Therefore spake again the 
 same dauntless voice that never quailed before the face of 
 man : There can be no kingdom of heaven on earth while 
 this is allowed ; sin is sin, wrong is wrong, in the greatest as 
 well as in the smallest. Covered by the imperial purple of 
 Rome and surrounded by the fasces of authority, sin is vile, 
 ju5t as much as in the unfriended and outcast. The stern 
 voice of the prophet says to the king, " It is not lawful for 
 thee to have her." 
 
 Thus before Joha's teaching all mountains went down. 
 The mountain from which a man looks down on others in 
 virtue of derived worth, or that from which he claims dis- 
 tinction by a correct creed, or that of ra.ik and station. 
 
 But, observe, the Gospel did not teach abolition of dis- 
 tinctions, but established them on a true basis. It depressed 
 the proud, it elevated the humble. The time had come 
 when the " vile man was no longer to be called liberal, noi- 
 the churl bountiful." 
 
256 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 Jesus once stood at the Temple gate. He saw the rich 
 men cast in their offerings and a widow cast in a farthing. 
 " Honour to the splendid offerings of the rich," was the 
 world's cry ; " Glory to the widow's mite," was the voice of 
 Christ. 
 
 Note, again, the wondrous way in which this preaching 
 did level. All were humbled together. The awful voice 
 proclaiming judgment to come had levelled all in the 
 dust before God. For when man comes to front the Ever- 
 lasting God, the dream of self-righteousness, the fine-drawn 
 logic of scepticism and infidelity, what can they do for him ? 
 When sorrow touches the false heart and the strongest 
 totters, how shall they stand ? Ask the waves, when they 
 are swept flat before the hurricane. What is all in front of 
 the blaze of our God who is as a Consuming Fire ? 
 
 Now let us apply this. 
 
 Such was John's mission — terrible, searching, levelling. 
 He was not the king of love, but of law. His office was not 
 to give God as a Father. He preached Him as he knew 
 him — the All-holy, All-just. The Father was preached 
 afterwards — revealed through the Son, our elder brother. 
 
 Meanwhile observe, this must be the order ever. The 
 baptism of John must precede the baptism of Christ : the 
 baptism of water unto repentance that of the Spirit unto 
 life. 
 
 Lastly, just in proportion as the work of repentance is 
 deep, the work of grace is permanent. Peter and John 
 were disciples of the Baptist before they became disciples of 
 Christ. 
 
 I 
 
XXVI II, 
 
 CHARACTER AND MISSION OF THE 
 BAPTIST. 
 
 Brighton, December 2\, 185 1. 
 
 "And he came into all the country beyond Jordan, preaching the 
 baptism of repentance for the remission of sins ; as it is written in the 
 book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying. Prepare ye the way of 
 the Lord." — Luke iii. 3, 4. 
 
 '' I ^HESE words, my Christian brethren, quoted by John 
 
 _L the Baptist, had been spoken seven hundred years 
 before by Isaiah himself. Nearly three hundred years after 
 that, Malachi closed the canon of Scripture with these 
 remarkable words : " Behold I will send you Elijah the 
 prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord ; and 
 he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the 
 heart of the children to their fathers." Then intervened a 
 period of four hundred years, during which the voice of 
 prophecy was mute, and all that was left to guide the 
 Israelite was that of which Malachi reminded him in the 
 previous verses : " Remember ye the law of Moses my 
 servant." And then, when these four hundred years were 
 closed, suddenly, immediately before the Messiah's advent, 
 there appeared in the wilderness a wonderful man, living a 
 
268 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 life like that of Isaiah and Elias, applying to himself thi.. 
 prophecy of Isaiah, and having applied to him by Christ 
 that of Malachi concerning Elijah. 
 
 I propose as the subject for this day's contemplation to 
 endeavour to return an answer to these two questions ; first, 
 by what right and in what sense are these two prophecies, 
 the one originally spoken by Isaiah of himself, and the other 
 distinctly marking out a particular man Elias, referred to 
 John the Baptist? and secondly, in what sense was John the 
 forerunner of the Redeemer, preparing His way before Him ? 
 
 I. Now to understand on what principle these words are 
 applicable to John the Baptist, we must carry along with us 
 the leading principle of prophecy ; it is not merely a pre- 
 diction of separate events, but, far rather, an announcement 
 of principles ; through the interpretation of the present, the 
 prophets predicted the future ; for the announcement of 
 every principle connected with a fact is a prediction of all 
 future events that shall occur under similar circumstances. 
 For instance the astronomer in the announcement of the 
 eclipse has so plainly discovered the principles that regulate 
 it as to be able to foretell without a doubt the very moment 
 of its return. Again, when a philosopher lays down any law, 
 such as that of gravitation, he may say that every stone falls 
 to earth, there he announces a principle ; or he may make it a 
 prediction and say, every stone shall fall. And again, when the 
 physician traces the laws that have regulated pestilence and 
 marks out the course on the map that it has taken, in 
 announcing the facts he is predicting the course of evtry 
 future pestilence that may occur under similar circumstances. 
 Now thus it was that our Lord and the prophets applied 
 their prophecy. The prophet Malachi uses the name of 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 269 
 
 Elijah, and says, before another great and dreadful day come, 
 another man shall rise up in the same spirit as Elijah. If 
 you take it as a prediction, then you are driven into those 
 endless questions which have occupied commentators so 
 long, as to whether Elias shall himself return to earth ; or 
 else are compelled to criticise the correctness of the 
 Redeemer's application of it to John. Therefore there 
 remains for us another way to understand these words, as 
 an announcement of a principle. 
 
 Now let us look at past times. When Israel had fallen 
 from God another such as Elias appeared, Isaiah demanding 
 justice, mercy, truth. The prophet Malachi therefore tells 
 us that before every such judgment of the Lord, before every 
 such event called in Scripture a " day of Christ," when 
 artificial civilisation is succeeded by a great reformation and 
 \ social reorganisation, before every such time there will be a 
 falling back upon first piinciples. The call for a simpler 
 and a purer life is made sometimes by a single individual, 
 such as Elijah, Isaiah, or John the Baptist, men who have 
 felt more deeply than others the wants of their nation and 
 their age, and have dared to stand out alone, separated from 
 I the mass, demanding a reformation ; sometimes again it has 
 I been made not by an individual but by a spirit pervading all 
 classes. 
 
 Now our Blessed Lord applies this prophecy to John the 
 I Baptist Some came and asked Him, " Master, why say the 
 Scribes that Elias must first come ? " He told them that " Elias 
 truly shall first come and restore all things." But that the 
 Elias that was to come was not the Elias they had expected, 
 but one in the spirit and power of Elias, who should turn 
 the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of 
 t!ie children to their fathers. He thus reminded them that 
 
270 Character and Mission of tJie Baptist. 
 
 what the prophet meant was not a resurrection of the man 
 but of his spirit. 
 
 Brethren, we live in an age which in many respects is 
 parallel to the times of Elias, Isaiah, and John the Baptist; 
 a day in which manifestly we are on the eve of great and 
 mighty changes, changes perchance more deep and radical 
 than any the world has yet seen, a day in which the margins 
 of old parties are melting into each other, and those few who 
 have remained steadfastly attached to some old principles 
 are becoming more bitter against others — a manifest proof 
 of the decrepitude of an opinion. What that coming day 
 shall be none but a prophet can decide ; some tell us that it 
 will be an age of warfare and convulsion, others are looking 
 merely for an age of light. The significance of the Baptist's 
 message can never pass away. Therefore it becomes us to ask 
 what that message meant, and what steps must be taken to 
 prepare for the coming advent. 
 
 II. In the next place we return an answer to the second 
 question proposed, in what sense was John the forerunner 
 of Jesus to prepare His way ? It is quite plain that the 
 expression of the prophet is a figurative one. It alludes to 
 a custom well known in those times. It appears that in 
 Eastern countries when a monarch desired to pay a visit to 
 a distant part of his dominions, he was accustomed to send 
 his messengers before him to demand of the inhabitants of 
 every part through which he was to pass that they should 
 make his road easy by filling valleys and cutting through 
 hills. Precisely in the same way was John the Baptist to 
 prepare the way for Christ ; he came proclaiming a King, he 
 came declaring the conditions without which the Kingdom 
 could not come, and without which the King could not 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 271 
 
 reign. Now the first of these conditions was this, he pre- 
 pared the way for Christ by declaring private righteousness 
 preparatory to pubhc reformation. 
 
 Brethren, a message most significant I He did not 
 announce this Kingdom thus : " There is a Kingdom 
 coming whose internal regulations shall be so perfect that 
 misery and vice shall be banished, and happiness shall come 
 without any effort j" instead of this he says sharply, "There 
 can no Kingdom come to you without the preparation of 
 the heart" And herein do the expectations of the Church 
 of Christ and the predictions of Christianity differ from 
 all other anticipations and expectations whatsoever. The 
 peculiarity of Christianity is not the expectation of better 
 times, for every one — the whole world — looks forward to 
 something of that description. But the difference lies in 
 the order in which the millennial glory is expeeted ; the 
 world expects better times through the alteration of institu- 
 tions, the Church expects better times through the alteration 
 of individuals ; the one begins from without, the other from 
 within. 
 
 Now to take an example ; there are none looking forward 
 to better times more earnestly than the working classes, and 
 they are taught to expect it through the instrumentality of 
 government ; their leaders tell them that all their miseries 
 come from bad government, and that Parliament is omni- 
 potent to convey to them all the blessings of which they 
 have been so long deprived. To them the message of John 
 the Baptist must be again and again repeated, the old severe 
 message, that kings, and law, and governments can do little, 
 almost nothing ; and that the advent of better times for the 
 working classes depends on their own personal reformation, 
 chastity, sobriety, and self-conlrol. But then it will be said, is 
 
272 Cliaracter and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 this your message to the poor — this severe heartless message ? 
 Yes, even so, the laws of the universe are very stern, alter 
 them you cannot ; it would be far more easy, far more 
 palatable to lay the blame on their oppressors rather than 
 on them, the only objection to such a course is the stern 
 unalterable law of God's universe. The law of life is this ; 
 no man can be good, or great, or happy, except through 
 inward efforts of his own, sustained by faith and strengthened 
 by the grace of God. The message of the Baptist must be 
 repeated, " Change yourselves, or to you at least no kingdom 
 of God can come." 
 
 Let us take for example an expectation much talked of 
 now. It is held by enthusiastic men that half the evils of 
 the world come from rivalry and competition, and if we 
 could substitute for this the system of love we might then 
 have blessedness. Brethren, we deny not, that beneath all 
 this there is a truth ; but we say the Baptist's words remain 
 true, and that if we get rid of rivalry, we shall have selfish- 
 ness remain. 
 
 Again, it is the hope of numbers that science will do for 
 them what politics cannot do ; we are told to expect that 
 science will by degrees banish superstition, and that it will 
 do away with all those maladies and miseries which come 
 from popular ignorance. We honour science in its place, we 
 honour it as the discoverer of many of the laws of the creat- 
 ing God ; but we must remember that it has its own place. 
 No man could have stood last summer in that structure 
 where all the works of man were exhibited in one place, 
 without hoping great things for the human race. But, 
 brethren, again, let not these expectations go too far, let us 
 remember the Baptist's message ; science can do something, 
 but science cannot bring us God's kingdom. Wherein con- 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 sists the misery of life, — in sickness, or in selfishness? 
 Science may by degrees banish superstition ; it will at last 
 banish among Romanists the belief in miracles and relics, 
 and among Protestants the belief in the magical power 
 of the baptismal water ; but can science answer to the 
 heart suffering alone, can science give to that aching 
 heart a home, a faith ? If not, then what we want is not 
 a kingdom made comfortable by art and science, but a 
 kingdom of the Redeemer, a kingdom of the cross and 
 of humbleness. Therefore to the philosopher we tell of a 
 wisdom wiser than his own, we speak to him of one whom in 
 his wisdom he would despise — that stern, uneducated man 
 who led a simpler, humbler, and purer life, and whose 
 whole life's philosophy uttered itself in one expression, 
 which was the voice found for our humanity, " Repent, for 
 the kingdom of heaven is at hand. " 
 
 The next manner in which John prepared the way for the 
 advent of the Messiah was by a simple assertion that right is 
 right, and wrong is wrong. In the text we find it written as 
 the characteristic of that preparation that " the crooked shall 
 be made straight and the rough places plain." In John at 
 least there was no crookedness, he was plain and straight- 
 forward at all times, he called things by their right names. 
 You remember the stern fidelity with which he dared to say, 
 in most uncourtly phrase, " It is not lawful." You remem- 
 ber the stern fidelity with which he dared to say out to the 
 popular religious party of the day, in language which to ears 
 polite must have seemed strange indeed, " O generation of 
 vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to 
 come ? " 
 
 One of the evils ever attendant on human progress is, 
 that of over-civilisation, a tendency to make life artificial 
 
 T 
 
2/4 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 and from that which is artificial to pass on to that which is 
 false. Let us look to our own time ; we scarcely know how 
 deeply our own common life is saturated with falseness. 
 Our very language is false ; we address one another as if 
 plural, it would be considered an insult to any one to 
 address him in the singular number; we write to one 
 another, signing ourselves "humble," "faithful," "de- 
 voted ; " we accept the social falsehood of permitting it to 
 be said that we are " not at home," because we are perhaps 
 too tender to the feelings of our friends plainly to deny them, 
 and are too occupied or too unwell to see them. I say not 
 these are absolute falsehoods, but they are on the road to it ; 
 and so our standard comes at last to measure sins b-y their 
 publicity, and not by their turpitude ; and then comes the 
 time designated by the prophet when " the vile man is called 
 liberal and the churl is said to be bountiful." We start at 
 the vices of the poor, while among the rich licentiousness is 
 denominated by the tender name of wildness, we say it is 
 a bad habit contracted in youth. O brethren, it is notorious 
 that the standard of our society is not that of the life of 
 Christ. 
 
 Nov/ you will observe that that which prepared the 
 Baptist to be so true was the simple, austere life which he 
 led in the wilderness. Had he identified himself with any 
 of the parties of which we spoke last Sunday, then doubtless 
 he would have been so accustomed to their evils that he 
 would have been unable to see them as he did, and would 
 have felt so bound up with one party or another, that had he 
 spoken he must have hurt the feeling of a friend. But 
 standing aloof from all, he could protest in the wilderness 
 against all the vices of the age. 
 
 And now, brethren, if there be any of us who would 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 275 
 
 desire to see these things in their true Hght, the principles 
 of the Baptist's life must be his ; something of solitariness, 
 of loneliness, and something that forbids us to identify our 
 selves with any faction or party, a willingness to stand by 
 and see the game of life played without us. Then and only 
 then, alone with God, determining to view things as Christ 
 would have viewed them, can man be real and true. 
 
 The last way whereof we have to speak in which the 
 Baptist prepared the way for the Messiah was by teaching 
 simple truths, falling back upon first principles. We find in 
 the chapter from whence the text is taken, that when John 
 spoke to his nation, by degrees the people came and asked 
 him, " What shall we do then ? " To which he said, " He 
 that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none ; 
 and he that hath meat let him do likewise." When the 
 publicans asked the same, the reply was only this : " Exact no 
 more than that which is appointed you." And to the same 
 question from the soldiers he replies, *' Do violence to no 
 man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your 
 wages." You will say it needed not a prophet to tell them 
 these things, nor can we call this a revelation. And yet 
 such have ever been God's revelations, to call men back 
 to simple, first, forgotten principles. You marvel that a 
 prophet was required to tell them these things, but let us 
 remember what life then was. If you had asked a man what 
 was religion, he would have said that it consisted in daily 
 services, in fastings, and in giving alms. Nay, if the same 
 question were asked now, would not the answer be greatly 
 similar ? Conceive then with what a sense of marvellous 
 astonishment men must have listened to that simple prophet 
 of the wilderness, saying to them in a voice of thunder, these 
 are not what God requires at the hand of man ; His service 
 
 T 2 
 
276 Character and Mission of the Baptist. 
 
 is " to love mercy, to do justly, and to walk humbly with his 
 God." In other words, religion and goodness are things 
 identical. Such words must have come to these artificial 
 men with a strange freshness and novelty. 
 
 Brethren, observe that this was to prepare the way foi 
 Christ — it was preparatory to Christ, but not Christ. We 
 draw the distinction between the baptism of John and the 
 baptism of Christ, that it is one thing to bathe the soul with 
 the laver of duty, another to bathe it in the laver of self- 
 sacrifice. And yet in all ages of the world the baptism of 
 John must precede the baptism of Christ, the baptism of 
 repentance and of an altered life must go before the baptism 
 of self-surrender. There are two things which are appa- 
 rently Christianity, but not really so, the spirit of devout- 
 ness and the spirit of moral uprightness. Take the conduct 
 of the upright judge Gallio as an instance of this : he was 
 a strenuous supporter of all things pertaining to law and 
 order, but when it came to matters of religion, he cared for 
 none of those things. Devoutness also may exist separate 
 from morality, as we find in the case of Jacob, who sought 
 the blessing of God at the same time that he was defrauding 
 his brother. It is even so now with the enthusiasm of those 
 who will applaud denunciations of Rome in the morning, 
 and spend the evening in calumny and slander. Brethren, 
 the history of John the Baptist seems to tell us that it is not 
 a matter of indifference which of these two comes first in 
 order; it is not a subject for the self-congratulation of a 
 parent if his child exhibit strong symptoms of devotion 
 unaccompanied by right feeling, or if he show great love for 
 his Bible, and is yet a lying, false, undutiful child. God's 
 order is the opposite, " not first that which is spiritual but 
 that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." 
 
Character and Mission of the Baptist. 277 
 
 Better to begin with those quahties which are apt to be 
 derided by the name of worldly qualities and virtues, such 
 as simple truth and integrity, than to begin with the warmest 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 This, brethren, is the preparation of the way for Christ, 
 to begin at the beginning ; a man must have learnt to be 
 just before he can be liberal, honourable before he can be 
 generous ; he must have learnt self-denial before he dare to 
 use the words self-sacrifice. The foundation of the cross 
 must be laid deep — deep in these simple worldly virtues of 
 honour, integrity, justice ; then and only then is the way 
 made smooth for the Redeemer to enter into our hearts, then 
 and only then, virtues now inconceivable will become not 
 only possible, but absolutely familiar. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, March 28, 1852. 
 
 " Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou 
 wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst 
 me : shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow- 
 servant, even as I had pity on thee? " — Matthew xviii. 32, 33. 
 
 THE subject of this parable is the danger of the indul- 
 gence of a vindictive spirit. 
 The necessity of enforcing its lessons arises from the 
 fact that Christian forgiveness is not the natural growth of 
 the heart, but an exotic in an unkindly soil. 
 
 It also arises from the circumstance that the whole 
 temper of the world around us thwarts that spirit. The 
 natural stiffness of persons who are at variance, and their 
 unwillingness to be reconciled, are so encouraged by the 
 condolences and sympathy of mistaken friends, that our 
 society in one cardinal point exhibits few lineaments of the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 The occasion of this parable of the unmerciful servant 
 was Peter's question, " Lord, how oft shall my brother sin 
 against me, and I forgive him ? till seven times ? " 
 
Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 279 
 
 Now, this was the language of human nature, somewhat 
 modified. The Rabbinical law of forgiveness was until 
 three times. Peter doubled this ; and gave, as he thought, 
 large latitude for the Messiah's more loving system. 
 
 Now, remark, this was exactly the principle of modem 
 honour. A court of honour would decide, as Peter did, points 
 of etiquette and satisfaction. Up to a certain point, forgive- 
 ness ; beyond that, revenge. Blows, for example, must be 
 wiped out with blood. The question put to such a court 
 would be, what is satisfaction ? 
 
 This allows something to Christianity. There is to be 
 forgiveness. But something is due to personal rights ; there- 
 fore forgiveness is to be limited. And hence our modern 
 honour, great as it is in the way of advance over old 
 heathen or savage codes, the law of the woods — over 
 such a proverb as that chanted in old times, " If Cain 
 shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and 
 sevenfold " — yet can only be called half heathen half 
 Christian. 
 
 To this question Christ replied : " I say not unto thee, 
 until seven times ; but, until seventy times seven." 
 
 Now here we have the very essence of Christianity. 
 Christianity is a spirit, not a set of rules. " Seventy times 
 seven " is a Hebrew expression. It is not a definite, but 
 an infinite number, — a number impossible. Love refuses to 
 be trammelled. Can you prescribe to a parent the number 
 of embraces he shall give his child ? Love dies in captivity, 
 as the caged bird of open air pines. Love is free as the 
 expanse of God's own heaven, unlimited and illimitable. 
 
 In illustration of this, Christ spoke the parable of the 
 unmerciful servant. 
 
 Let us collect what it suggests respecting — 
 
280 
 
 Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 I. The Christian duty of confession. 
 
 II. The principle of Christian forgiveness. 
 
 I. Confession is of three kinds : 
 
 Confession to God of sins committed against God. 
 
 Confession to man of sins committed against man. 
 
 Confession to man of sins committed against God. 
 
 It is only of the two first that this parable says anything. 
 The lord of the servant represents God, and the acknowledg- 
 ment of the debtor to him is parallel to confession to God of 
 sins against God. But the acknowledgment of the second 
 debtor to his superior servant of a debt owed to him, is 
 parallel to confession made to man of sins committed against 
 man. 
 
 I. Duty of confession to God. 
 
 The necessity for confession arises from the load of 
 unacknowledged guilt. As it is expressed in our Church 
 Service : " The remembrance of them is grievous unto us, 
 the burden of them is intolerable." 
 
 Let me appeal to you. You cannot move unforgiven ; 
 you cannot resist temptation ; you cannot pray. Is it not 
 so ? A spell holds you, night after night, that will not let you 
 kneel ? 
 
 But do not fancy yourself safe and forgiven because you 
 feel no burden. There is such a thing as a laden slave 
 sleeping on his burden. The first stages of mortification 
 alone are painful ; after that, the benumbed senses cease to 
 warn. The frostbitten man is warned by strangers. So is 
 it in paralysis of conscience — in the benumbed heart. 
 
 Now, there are two ways in which confession relieves. 
 
 First, by confession we sever ourselves from our sin, and 
 we disown it. We say : " I put it from me, I repudiate it 
 
Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 281 
 
 Not I, O Lord, but sin that dwelleth in me. I plead to 
 Thee against myself. I struggle to the foot of Thy Cross, 
 though I be bound in chains." Such was the immediate 
 relief of David : " I have sinned." Instantly does the 
 answer come : " The Lord also hath put away thy sin ; 
 thou shalt not die." Such the relief of the publican : " he 
 went down to his house justified." 
 
 Next, confession relieves by giving a sense of honesty. 
 So long as we retain sin unconfessed we are conscious of a 
 secret insincerity. 
 
 WTien we have made a clean breast we feel : " I can do 
 no more : all rests now with God. At least, I am true, not 
 trying any longer to appear what I am not." Just as a 
 captain, bringing his ship into port, is sleepless and restless 
 till he has put the helm into the pilot's hands ; but then 
 folds his arms, and stands aside, responsibility no longer 
 resting with him. He may perish, but it will be with no 
 self-reproach. He has done all he can. 
 
 Therefore, let confession be instantaneous. We are 
 tempted to procrastinate. We say that we cannot confess 
 yet ; we will wait till we are better. 
 
 Now see the lesson of this parable. The servant had 
 one warm moment, infinitely precious, before imprisonment. 
 He seized that. With warm, urgent, impetuous feeling, he 
 pleads : " Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all." 
 
 And such, in the strange history of the human soul, is the 
 moment for mercy or hardness, brief as the interval in which 
 the dark cloud in passing shows the moon's disc — when it is 
 once past, all is dark. Seize the moment of strong convic- 
 tion, of tenderness, of apprehension. Quick ! Quick ! it 
 will not come again. 
 
 2. Confession to man of sins against man. 
 
282 
 
 Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 The inferior servant freely acknowledged his debt. 
 Observe a peculiar feature in the case ; the other " took him 
 by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest." It might 
 have seemed that injury cancelled obligation, or that ac- 
 knowledgment gave an ungenerous foe a legal hold upon 
 him. Yet still he admits the debt. 
 
 So in quarrels. It often happens that he who ha-s offended 
 most is not the one who has offended first. Whereupon the 
 first offender thinks himself exonerated from the duty of 
 acknowledgment. And this makes the real difficulty of 
 mediation. The case is complicated. There are intricacies 
 and recriminations ; the first simple aspect is changed. 
 
 Now, the plain Christian rule is, the man who has done 
 wrong has no right to consider consequences. Have you 
 wronged ? Repair. Have you erred ? Apologise. You may 
 put a weapon into an ungenerous adversary's hand of which 
 he will make unfair use. You may have been injured 
 beyond the injury you did. It is galling to humble yourself 
 to a man who has you at advantage ; yet still a Christian 
 man has one thing only to consider. His Christian honour 
 can only be tainted by what he does, not by what has been 
 done to him. 
 
 Now contrast with this the principle of modem honour. 
 
 To that principle which is called honour let us do all 
 justice. It was an immense gain and step beyond the old 
 heathen and savage life, which said, Revenge when and how 
 you can. It was a great gain to say, Revenge only .... and 
 commendable too, in that it taught courage, and made life 
 second to honour. For in all its forms courage is to be 
 honoured. A brave man has risen above some of the most 
 besetting weaknesses of our nature. None but a brave man 
 can be a good man. The very tenderness of the coward 
 
Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 283 
 
 will be pitiful. Even when it only bares its breast to an 
 adversary's sword, honour courage. 
 
 But now look into this world's honour. A man of honour 
 resents the charge of meanness. He will not refuse to pay 
 a gambling debt, but he will live extravagantly when he can- 
 not pay his debts. He is indignant at an imputation on his 
 courage ; but he will injure in lower ranks of life where 
 redress is too expensive to be possible, and no father or 
 brother's bullet can avenge the injury. 
 
 These are the laws of honour ! These be your men of gentle 
 blood ! This is the personal dignity at whose shrine lives of 
 others are to be sacrificed, and the blood of God's creatures 
 to be held cheap — personal dignity separated from personal 
 worth — of which the Gospel of Christ knows nothing. 
 
 Now, with this modern honour contrast the spirit of 
 Gospel honour — the honour which feels itself degraded by an 
 acknowledgment of error with the honour which teaches 
 through the Cross that wrongs received cannot shame, that 
 nothing can disgrace but wrongs done. 
 
 Contrast the courage which can risk life, with the courage 
 which for Christ's sake dares to be called a coward and 
 bear shame. 
 
 The first noblest attitude of man is innocence ; the 
 second noblest, apology. The manliness of saying, " I have 
 done wrong, forgive me," is as high above that of a mere 
 man of honour as the brilliancy of heaven's sun transcends 
 the glitter of an earthly lamp. 
 
 II. The principle of Christian forgiveness. 
 
 God's forgiveness is a type of ours : " O thou wicked 
 servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst 
 me." 
 
284 
 
 Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 First. It is a free thing : " he had nothing to pay," 
 " and the lord was moved with compassion, and forgave him 
 the debt." This is precisely our state. 
 
 The sum was enormous, 10,000 talents ; the revenue of 
 a province, the upper servant being a viceroy. It was a sum 
 in comparison with which offences of any man against us are 
 as nothing. 
 
 And oh, that coming to account ! Opening the debtor's 
 books, and finding how much we owe ! Yet one day the 
 reckoning must come. 
 
 Next, God's forgiveness is suspended on the condition of 
 our forgiveness. 
 
 This pardon was cancelled. Here is a difficulty. How 
 can we be really pardoned if the past is remembered after 
 all ? How can salvation be by grace, if there be a condition ? 
 
 First, let us prove the fact. All forgiveness is con- 
 ditional : " If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly 
 Father will also forgive you ; but if ye forgive not men 
 their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive 
 your trespasses." Now then proceed to understand it, re- 
 membering it is a fact whether we can explain it or not. 
 
 Forgiveness implies two things : favour, and remission of 
 punishment. God forgives if He heals with favour, and also 
 if He remits punishment. You may be m favour, and yet 
 punished. David was forgiven, but the child died. Sins of 
 youth are visited on the justified Christian. Or, you may be 
 excused punishment, and still not be forgiven. As Ahab, 
 who "went softly," and the penalty did not fall ; but still he 
 was not finally accepted. The tree in the parable was con- 
 demned, and yet respited. 
 
 So we are alive by sufferance. Is not that forgiveness ? 
 You have escaped danger, sickness, death ; and you are 
 
Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 285 
 
 treated as God's child ; a favour or forgiveness that would 
 be eternal if not forfeited. 
 
 Next, observe that a condition is not a merit. A con- 
 dition is only that without which something else cannot be. 
 The tree cannot be struck without thunder, but thunder is 
 not the cause of the tree's fall. Man cannot be saved with- 
 out forgiveness, but his forgiveness is not the cause of his 
 salvation. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord, yet 
 holiness is not merit. Man is not saved by them, yet not 
 without them. 
 
 And in this particular case it is quite intelligible. Salva 
 tion is a state of love. An unforgiving, vindictive heart ts 
 in hell. How can it be saved? It is "delivered to the 
 tormentors." 
 
 Our forgiveness therefore is to be : 
 
 I. Unlimited even as God's, "seventy times seven." 
 There is no sin which man can do which may not be 
 pardoned. The Gospel is built on unlimited forgiveness. 
 
 We say every night, "forgive us our trespasses, as 
 we forgive them that trespass against us." Think what 
 the revengeful man ought to feel when he prays thus. Ten 
 thousand talents ! such are my transgressions against God, 
 and yet God has forgiven. But there is a man who has 
 injured me not a thousandth, not a ten-thousandth, part ; 
 and I will take him by the throat, and say " Pay me that thou 
 owest." And now, O Lord, forgive me my transgression 
 and my sin ! 
 
 Observe now the qualifications. 
 
 I. It is supposed that he has acknowledged his fault 
 You are bound to be ready for a reconciliation. But there is 
 a just anger which you are not commanded to relax against 
 an impenitent man. " If thy brother trespass against thee, 
 
286 
 
 Christian Forgiveness. 
 
 go and tell him his fault batween thee and him alone : if he 
 shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will 
 not hear thee .... and neglect to hear the Church, let him 
 be unto thee a heathen man and a publican." 
 
 2. God forgave David. He suffered retribution without 
 wrath. Yes, and it may be that although forgiving a man 
 we cannot receive him as before, with perfect, hearty, entire 
 forgiveness. He has forfeited a right to friendship, and is 
 refused admission to your home. You have no rankling 
 feeling. You would do him a service. But you have no 
 foolish, weak sentiment, which would let off the criminal, or 
 break down boundaries. 
 
XXX. 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 Brighton, Christmas Day, 1852. 
 
 "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh 
 into the world. " — John i. 9. 
 
 OUR subject is the Incarnation of Christ. On this day 
 the Word was bom into the world ; but the text for- 
 bids our supposing that He existed then for the first time. 
 This chapter speaks of a Word which had been for ever with 
 God ; which had created the world ; which was Light ; which 
 had illumined all men, specially one class whom it calls " His 
 own;" which at last appeared in Humanity, and was "made 
 flesh," and was seen, "We beheld His glory, the glory as 
 of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." 
 
 According to this view the history of God's human race 
 is the history of His revelation of Himself He has revealed 
 Himself through that portion of His essence which is called 
 the Word — that which, like the Reason in us, expresses 
 itself sometimes in a word, sometimes in a symbolic act. 
 But the Revelation has been ever clearer, nearer, truer. 
 
288 
 
 Tli£ Light of the World. 
 
 There has been a threefold revelation of the Word : — ' 
 
 I. Through Nature : " He was in the world, and the 
 world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." 
 
 II. Through Man : " That was the true Light, which 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world." 
 
 III. Through the Incarnation : "And the Word was 
 made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, 
 the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace 
 and truth." 
 
 I. The Revelation of the Word through Nature. 
 
 " In the beginning," — before the world was, before there 
 was ear to hear, or mind to understand, — the Mind of God 
 was speaking with Itself. There was a Word. 
 
 Then the Word is spoken of as mediating between the 
 Creator and the creation ; bringing the world into being, 
 fashioning it, giving the world its laws; dwelling in brute 
 unconscious matter as a living force ; in lower creatures as a 
 life and instinct ; imparting reason and conscience to the 
 higher beings. 
 
 God's Word found utterance in the material world, in 
 Creation. The time came when He had to speak to others, 
 and take them to share His secrets. God said, " Let there be 
 light ; " and, as the seal impresses its own self on the wax, 
 light thrilled through the universe. 
 
 He spoke a world into existence. 
 
 Now observe, — truly this is a word : " Without him was 
 not anything made that was made." A word is an expression, 
 or a work. But there are many kinds of words. The most 
 expressive of all words are not those which the lips speak. 
 
 The American sculptor gazed upon the sky on a 
 summer's morning, which had arisen as serene and calm as 
 
 II 
 
The Light of the World, 
 
 289 
 
 the blue eternity out of which it came ; he went about 
 haunted with the memory of that repose ; it was a necessity 
 to him to express it. Had he been a poet he would have 
 thrown it into words ; a painter, it would have found ex- 
 pression on the canvas ; had he been an architect, he would 
 have given us his feelings embodied, as builders of the 
 Middle Ages embodied their aspirations, in Gothic archi- 
 tecture ; but being a sculptor, his pen was his chisel, so he 
 threw his thoughts into marble, and said that was his word 
 to his fellow-creatures ; here the words and syllables were of 
 stone. ' 
 
 So this world is God's sculptured work, whereby He 
 speaks out Himself Every night the curtains are rolled 
 away, and we see what daylight had hid. Every morning 
 the curtains of light are drawn again, and we look down on 
 a world of speaking beauty. 
 
 And observe, this creation is represented as a pervading 
 immanence. " He was in the world," an indwelling of 
 Deity in matter, which is unconscious of His presence. 
 Creation was by indwelling. I ask you to remark how this 
 stands contrasted with the unscriptural conception of creation 
 which men often have. What do people mean generally by 
 Creation ? They mean that God made the world as a watch- 
 maker makes a watch. The watchmaker makes the watch, 
 winds it up, goes away from it, and leaves it to go by itself ; all 
 connection between him and it then ceasing, except when 
 from time to time he regulates and repairs it Just so God 
 made the world, wound it up, and then projected it from 
 Himself, and left it to go on by itself ; interfering now and 
 then in great emergencies called Miracles ; and so at some 
 
 ' Extracted from Lecture I. on " Influence of Poetry." MS. 
 contains only the words " American Sculptor." 
 
 U 
 
290 
 
 The Light of the World. 
 
 spot far distant from the whole the great Maker sits ! Very 
 different is the view of Creation which Christmas Day pre- 
 sents. God is " in the world," the Life of all that is, the 
 Vital Force ; not giving laws, but Himself the Law. And it 
 is the very fault of brute materialism that it does not recog- 
 nise this august Presence — the " world knew him not." 
 
 See the practical value of this truth. All have learnt to 
 talk of the beauties of Nature ; but with most men it is a 
 mere sentiment. If they loved Nature they would seek her. 
 But they descant upon her ; and then show their love of 
 Nature by going away from her to the more congenial atmo- 
 sphere of the ball-room. And, indeed, to anyone who does not 
 feel God everywhere, Nature ought to be repulsive. Have 
 we not felt it ? Do we never remember a time when, in 
 lonely wood, on seashore, or wide plain, far from human 
 dwellings, we shrank from Nature as from a dead, soulless 
 machinery, plunging rather into the throngs of men and the 
 crowded street, because in the one place there was deathful- 
 ness, and in the other life ? 
 
 Well, now, the Bible reveals that Christ, the Eternal 
 Word, is in Nature. This world is but the form, of which 
 Christ is the Personality ; the body, of which the soul is 
 God ; the outer appearance, of which the reality is God, 
 and which mediates between God and us. Beneath it all is 
 Life, and that Life is God. The beauty of the sea-shell and 
 of the field-flower is the loveliness of God ; the Force which 
 moves the waters everlastingly is the mighty movement of 
 the One Living Being ; the instinct which brings the wild- 
 birds in long lines through heaven at the appointed season, 
 is the order of the mind of God in them even though unknown 
 to them, " He is in them, and they were made by Him, 
 and know Him not." 
 
TJie Light of the World. 
 
 291 
 
 And hence we find that in those passages of Scripture 
 which many have explained away as figurative, there is a 
 deeper, truer meaning. All Nature has a voice, every 
 created thing is a syllable or sentence of the Word : " The 
 heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmament 
 sheweth His handywork." They are the mediating Word of 
 the Father. It is the Living Word which dwells in them, 
 and makes them eloquent of God to us. This world is an 
 everlasting anthem hymning God's secrets. 
 
 II. The Revelation of the Word through Man. 
 
 •The Word was revealed through man universally and 
 specially: — universally, "the Light which lighteth every 
 man ; " specially, " He came unto His own." 
 
 I. Universally — " the Light which lighteth every man." 
 Through the senses Christ mediates in the World ; through 
 man in the Reason and the Conscience He mediates between 
 us and God. Remark, this was not a limited Revela- 
 tion, it is to " every man." Just as the sunlight shines on 
 all, — more intensely in the tropics, more feebly at the 
 poles, yet stfll shines on all, — so Christ speaks to all who 
 are sane. 
 
 Now, here we are apt to speak Atheistically. We talk 
 of Nature, Natural Reason, Light of Nature, &c., as if these 
 were contrasted with the light of Revelation, contradicting 
 it, and were not themselves from God. It is not so that 
 Scripture speaks : " Every good gift, every perfect gift, is 
 from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." 
 The light in^you, whence did it come ? — Your Reason and 
 your Conscience, what are they but the God within you ? 
 
 Thus the old Fathers, when considering Plato and the 
 wiser heathens, spoke of their wisdom as the unconscious 
 
292 
 
 The Light of the World. 
 
 Christ within them. And thus, too, in the Old Testament, 
 rulers and judges are called "gods " : " If David called them 
 gods unto whom the word of the Lord came, and the 
 scripture cannot be broken, say ye of Him whom the Father 
 hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, 
 because I said, I am the Son of God ? " 
 
 To the Society of Friends has been granted the honour 
 of vindicating this truth with more prominence than any 
 other body. Their apostle, Fox, took his stand on this text : 
 " The true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into 
 the world." He asserted an universal Light. And it is only 
 at our peril that we deny it. Rightly do we pray, in the 
 Communion Service, " Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by 
 the Inspiration of thy Holy Spirit." 
 
 2. Specially. — " He came unto His own." 
 
 There is here a distinction drawn between those who re- 
 ceived the light common to every man and woman, and those 
 who received the special illumination which entitled them to 
 be called " His own." These we know were the Jewish people 
 — His chosen. His own — the nation which had the Light, the 
 inspired people. 
 
 Here, then, we reach at once the great question of 
 Inspiration. It has been of late years the fashion to talk 
 of the inspiration of genius, to recognise the poet and the 
 inventor as inspired men. We rejoice that it is so. It is 
 good that men have got out of the old Atheism, to recognise 
 all light as from God, and all wisdom as the breath of His 
 Spirit. It is good, therefore, that at the great gathering of 
 nations last year the prayer of the archbishop, in presence of 
 all the marvels of human invention, expressly acknowledged 
 them as the results of Divine Inspiration. 
 
 But, still, let us clearly keep in view an essential 
 
The Light of the World. 
 
 293 
 
 difference. God acts out of the spirit, in Nature — within 
 the spirit, in the soul. All He breathes there is inspiration 
 Yet, still, what we peculiarly mean by inspiration is God's 
 acting on man's higher spirit : — his worship, his reverence 
 of moral excellence and beauty. Genius is from God ; so 
 is invention, reason, imagination ; but a man of genius is 
 one thing, a prophet is another. In this peculiar sense, the 
 Jewish was the inspired nation. The Jews were not great 
 statesmen, artists, men of science. But the thought of God, 
 the sanctity of duty, moral and spiritual truth, were in them 
 as in no other nation on earth. Hence they are called God's 
 chosen people — " His own." 
 
 There is a " Light that lighteth every man," and there 
 is a special light from God's Spirit, which does not make 
 them more clever, nor more eloquent, nor wiser, but holier 
 men than others. 
 
 III. Revelation of the Word through the Incarnation. 
 *' The Word was made flesh." 
 
 A time came when not in outward form and sound, but 
 through the life of man, God was to speak : " The Word 
 was made flesh." From that moment the hfe of a man was 
 God's expression of His mind to us. It is not what Jesus 
 said, argued, proclaimed, — but what Jesus did. The 
 eloquence of a Life, not of mere syllables ; nor yet the 
 system of theology which you can make out of His sayings. 
 The one perfect WORD which earth has heard, her Creator's 
 Voice. " The Word was made flesh." 
 
 Let us distinguish the doctrine of the Church on this 
 subject from other doctrines resembling it. In the Old 
 Testament we read of certain mysterious appearances ; as 
 when God appeared in the form of flame — in Exodus this 
 
294 
 
 The Light of the World. 
 
 is called the Lord ; in Hebrew speech, the angel or mes- 
 senger of the Lord. Again, a man appeared to Abraham, 
 yet it is said Abraham began to commune with Jehovah. 
 Now what these appearances were we do not know — 
 whether material or visionary — but certainly they were not 
 incarnations. The form of flame or of humanity so as- 
 sumed was only assumed, and that for a teniporary purpose. 
 Certain early opponents of Christianity taught this as the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation. They said that Christ was an 
 Appearance of God ; that He came in phantom or vision, 
 not in actual flesh and blood, not with a human soul. 
 
 Again : in the Old Testament we read of God localising 
 Himself for a time in the Temple as a Shechinah of glory : 
 and in the pillar and the cloud. We read, too, of His dwelling 
 in human beings, in Prophets, with a transient and irregular 
 inspiration, so that sometimes they spoke of themselves 
 falllbly, sometimes of God infallibly. Certain early heretics 
 taught this as the doctrine of the Incarnation. They said 
 that God dwelt in Christ as an individual, precisely as 
 in the Shechinah, or as in the prophets. But that the 
 Eternal Word and Jesus were two distinct beings, sepa- 
 rable ; and that when the Word was gone the man was left 
 to die. 
 
 And again : in the Old Testament we read of the term 
 " god " given to men because of their performajices. Thus 
 Jah added to Oshea became Joshua ; and thus in Psalm 
 xlv. 12, addressed to a royal bride, her husband is spoken 
 of : " He is thy Lord God, worship thou him." And also 
 in Psalm Ixxxii. 6, " I have said [of judges] ye are gods." 
 In the same way some early heretics affirmed that Jesus was 
 God only in this sense, that He was called God because 
 of His spiritual and godlike excellence. 
 
T]ie Light of the World. 
 
 The doctrine of the creed which we read to-day ' con- 
 tradicts each of these views. It says that He was " God of 
 the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds," i.e. 
 He had not merely a nature holy like God's, but He was the 
 Word with a human body and soul. It says that He was 
 " man of the substance of His mother," i.e. He was not merely 
 a phantom or angelic vision. It says that though He was 
 " God and Man," yet He was " not two but one Christ," i.e. 
 the Eternal Word did not enter into Him and depart, but 
 the Human and the Divine are one for ever, just as the 
 leason, body, and soul are one complete man. This is the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation. 
 
 Now see the application of it. 
 
 I. All that can be known of God is through a Revelation. 
 What is the doctrine of these verses ? An Eternal W ord 
 within unfelt or felt, and an Eternal Word external to us, 
 making the Word within felt consciously, and kindling it 
 into higher life. 
 
 For the light of Revelation is not contrary to the light 
 of Nature, but the completion of it. It is no more contrary 
 than flame is contrary to heat. Heat within takes fire and 
 blazes when external flame is applied. So the Life of God 
 within is kindled by the Life of God manifested without in 
 Christ. And this is the great doctrine of St. John. An 
 inward susceptibility of life made alive : an inner Light 
 kindled by an outer Light. " Christ in us " developed by 
 Christ manifested without. " As many as received Him, to 
 them gave He power to become the sons of God." Ob- 
 serve, they were the sons of God before : unconsciously. 
 But when they received Christ they got fresh power, they 
 
 ' Athanasian. 
 
296 
 
 The Light of the World. 
 
 knew themselves God's children, and got strength to live as 
 what they were by right. 
 
 2. The character of this Revelation of God is that it 
 is progressive. 
 
 All history is the account of God's revealing Him- 
 self to man. We connect together these three facts, — 
 He was in the world : He was with the world : He 
 was made Flesh. Remember the gradations. God is in 
 the world, unconsciously in the brute animals, nearer in 
 human beings, nearer still in the higher specimens of the 
 race, nearest — awfully more near — in Christ. And Advent 
 has taught us to look for a nearer Revelation still, a day 
 when " we shall see Him as He is." 
 
XXXI. 
 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 (FROM AUTOGRAPH NOTES.) 
 
 "But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress 
 the commandment of God by your tradition ? For God commanded, 
 saying. Honour thy father and mother : and. He that curseth father 
 or mother, let him die the death. But ye say. Whosoever shall say 
 to his father or his mother. It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest 
 be profited by me ; and honour not his father or his mother, he shall 
 be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect 
 by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, 
 saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and 
 honoureth me with their lips ; but their heart is far from me. But in 
 vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrine the commandments of 
 men. " — Matthew xv. 3-9. 
 
 I ""HE key to the understanding of this passage is sym- 
 
 X pathy with the heart of Christ. It is impossible to 
 understand this, or any passage, except by realising the 
 standing occupied by Christ. To understand Christ is to 
 understand Christianity. Misunderstand the life of Christ, 
 and all controversies become unintelligible — word-fights, not 
 realities. You have not got the key. 
 
 Now, the exact contrary to the mind of Christ was the 
 mind of the Pharisee. The antagonism between them was 
 
298 
 
 Righteousness. 
 
 complete. They stood opposed as pole to pole. There was 
 sympathy between Christ and misery, between Christ and 
 error, between Christ and the sin-entangled. There was 
 no sympathy between Christ and Pharisaism ; because there 
 is none between the real and the unreal, or between the 
 true and the false : " What fellowship hath light with dark- 
 ness ? " 
 
 Consequently, the strife between them was to the death. 
 Between His life and theirs there could be no compromise 
 and no quarter. They saw and felt this as well as He. 
 With unerring instinct they discovered their foe. Whatever 
 ^ He did offended them. Every act, every word, was a con- 
 tradiction of their life — ^jarred on them — went against the 
 grain. 
 
 This particular instance is only one out of many. At 
 the first superficial view it seems only a question respecting 
 the degree of observance due to customs. They complained 
 that He transgressed the Jewish customs, or observed them 
 too Uttle. He said that they observed those customs too 
 much, and superstitiously. But that which lay at the root 
 of the controversy was something deeper. The quarrel was 
 no trifling one of words and ceremonies. It was the great 
 ancient quarrel — properly, the only quarrel — the quarrel be- 
 tween the real and the unreal. 
 
 Therefore our subject divides into two branches : — 
 
 I. The real righteousness which God accepts. 
 
 II. The seeming righteousness which, in the sight of God, 
 is vanity and nothingness. 
 
 I. Real righteousness, what is it ? 
 
 In one word it is surrender to the will of God. The 
 main thing insisted on by Christ is, God commanded. 
 
Righteousness. 
 
 299 
 
 Now, distinguish well. A duty is commanded by God 
 which is spiritual and eternal. To honour father and mother 
 is an everlasting obligation, spiritual and moral. The essen- 
 tial peculiarity of this commandment is, not that it is written 
 by God in the Bible, but that it is written by God on the 
 heart. God commanded circumcision. But Christ would 
 not have put circumcision on a level with obedience to 
 father and mother. The one was goodness ; the other, not 
 goodness. The one, a law of the heart for ever ; the 
 other, the requirement of a certain institution for a time. 
 The righteousness of forms is not the righteousness of 
 faith. 
 
 This, then, is the peculiarity of the righteousness which 
 is evangelical. It is from within : it is life : it is God in 
 the soul of man : it is the life of the spirit. It is not a 
 creed got by heart : it is not a set of habits acquired : it is 
 not a circle of customs scrupulously observed. It is a life 
 within working outwards, as Christ has himself described 
 it, " The water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well 
 of water springing up into everlasting life." 
 
 This is the righteousness which in other parts of Scripture 
 is called the " righteousness which is by faith," or the right- 
 eousness which is a "walking in the Spirit." It is not a 
 righteousness done, but an infinite yearning after a righteous- 
 ness which is ever doing. It is not a self-satisfaction which 
 numbers up its performances, but an infinite humility which 
 reckons its best performances as nothing. 
 
 A man righteous in the Christian sense may seem to 
 the world proud, reserved, and distant. But go to him in 
 his secret moments, and overhear his soul pouring out its 
 secret consciousness, and you will hear language startling 
 from the intensity of its self-abasement. Not, " God, I 
 
300 
 
 Righteousness. 
 
 thank thee, that I am not as other men ; " but, " God, be 
 merciful to me a sinner." 
 
 Now, observe a pecuUarity of this righteousness. 
 
 There are times when it can set forms at nought, 
 neglecting them. It can afford to make nothing of them. 
 Christ's disciples neglected the observance of the very 
 honoured custom of washing the hands when they eat 
 bread. Consider what might have been urged. This is an 
 old time-honoured observance. You owe respect to consti- 
 tuted authorities. Who are you that presumptuously set 
 yourselves up against the customs of your Church and 
 country? Such things were said. But the disciples minded 
 them not, and Christ supported them in their neglect. 
 
 I^et us understand this. Doubtless it is a duty to com- 
 ply with customs, social and ecclesiastical. A man who 
 sets them at defiance is a man of a presumptuous spirit. 
 But there are periods when the forms of society become 
 thoroughly false. Then the strong true man breaks through 
 the cobwebs of etiquette, asserting the real courtesies of 
 the heart. And there are times when priests and parties 
 multiply observances till life is trammelled, and make 
 things essential which are not essential. Then it becomes 
 a duty, if we would imitate Christ, to assert Christian 
 liberty ; and to refuse to be bound by the cry of custom, 
 modesty, or constituted authority. There is a time when 
 it is right to say, " Don't wash hands." 
 
 II. The seeming righteousness, which, in the sight of 
 God, is vanity and nothingness. 
 
 The Pharisee placed righteousness in obedience to 
 tradition. Tradition is something handed down, passed 
 on : in other words, sanctified by custom. 
 
Righteousness. 
 
 301 
 
 Observe, when Christ distinguishes between God's com- 
 mand and tradition, it is not a distinction between written 
 and oral, but between essential and customary. Obedience 
 to parents was an obhgation of everlasting life. To wash 
 the hands was an obligation due to venerable custom. 
 
 The spirit of tradition says : It is old, therefore it is 
 sacred ; it has been, therefore it should and shall be. And 
 so religion becomes stereotyped. 
 
 And, again : Observe, it is not a distinction between 
 ceremonies commanded by God, and ceremonies invented 
 by men ; but between ceremonies and life. Men com- 
 manded washing of hands, cups, pots, brazen vessels, and 
 tables. But it was not because men commanded it, but 
 because it was an outward act, that Christ depreciated it. 
 God commanded circumcision and sacrifice. But prophets 
 spoke lightly of circumcision, and Christ abolished it. In 
 his Sermon on the Mount, He spoke as lightly of ceremonies 
 imposed by Moses as of ceremonies imposed by Rabbis : 
 " Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, . . . 
 but I say unto you." A ceremony was not sacred because 
 imposed by Moses, and profane because imposed by a 
 Rabbi. A ceremony is but a ceremony, even if imposed 
 by God or Christ. Circumcision was imposed by God, 
 yet St. Paul says, " Circumcision is nothing." Baptism 
 was ordained by Christ ; but baptism is sprinkling with water, 
 and it stands for ever distinguished from the obedience which 
 is life. 
 
 Now the religion of Pharisaism makes custom paramount 
 to moral and spiritual life. It identifies religion with arbi- 
 trary rules and customs of worship. And the steps by 
 which Pharisaism makes the commandment of God of 
 none effect, are two : — 
 
302 
 
 Righteousness. 
 
 1. It begins by insisting on obedience to customs as 
 necessary. 
 
 Here the first stand is to be made. Here the first 
 danger begins. After periods of irregularity and laxity, 
 reformers begin with restoring customs, insist upon them, 
 lay stress upon them. You cannot insist on them long, 
 without leaving an impression that they are essentials. 
 
 A Pharisee of former times would have doubted a man's 
 goodness if he did not wash before meals. A formalist of 
 modern times would think the omission of baptism a crime 
 as great as disobedience to a parent. 
 
 Now let it be said plainly, God will not send a soul to 
 eternal perdition because the man was not circumcised ; 
 God will not give eternal hell because a man has not been 
 baptized. 
 
 2. The second step is, to insist on customs as tnore ne- 
 cessary than spiritual life, till gradually they supersede moral 
 obligation. 
 
 Let us explain this particular case. There was a habit 
 of devoting property to the priesthood —God's ministers ; 
 therefore to give to a rich priest was religion. To give to 
 a poor layman was only moral. To touch the money or 
 property so devoted was sacrilege, it was " corban." At 
 last a curious perversion came. If a man wanted to evade 
 the obligation of supporting parents he announced his pro- 
 perty to be corban. It was then sacred. Thus a distinction 
 was made between the religious and the moral. And the 
 so-called religious superseded the moral duty. 
 
 Now this is a tendency of human nature : it was not 
 Jewish only. Here, it is said that Isaiah prophesied it. But 
 that does not mean predicted. Isaiah was speaking to the 
 men of his day, not of Christ's day. But because inspiration 
 
Righteousness. 
 
 303 
 
 deals with principles, not with special cases, what he said was 
 just as true in Christ's day. This is prophecy, and prophecy 
 is of all ages. This tendency, then, did not belong to Christ's 
 day only. There is a great proneness in human nature in 
 every age to ei^ade a duty under pretence of religion. 
 
 [Early mistakes. — Mother at prayer-meetings. — Refusal 
 of a duel. — Bequests of charity.] 
 
 The results of this Pharisaical scrupulosity are twofold. 
 
 I. Moroseness of disposition and censoriousness. The 
 Pharisees were scandalised by Christ's behaviour. They 
 held up their hands in pious astonishment : " Why do thy 
 disciples trangress the tradition of the elders ? " 
 
 Singular how inevitably Pharisaical scrupulosity ends 
 in a snarling censoriousness ! From the days when the 
 Pharisee numbered his observances in the temple, and 
 turned round on " this publican," until now, it has ever 
 been the same. 
 
 Goodness expands the heart and makes it humble. 
 The larger, the better, the nobler your heart is, the more 
 you will be inclined to make allowance for others, and the 
 more you will say and feel, " God be merciful to me a 
 sinner." But the more you indulge the notion that you can 
 please God by customs, be they ever so time-honoured, the 
 more you will contract the Pharisaical habit of watching and 
 blaming others. You will go away from church with pious 
 astonishment that some neighbour was not there who ought 
 to have been. You will kneel month by month at the 
 Lord's Supper, miss neither Easter Day nor Good Friday, 
 and go away to wonder what were the reasons for your 
 neighbour's absence. And then your religion will be the 
 religion of the Pharisees. You will be evading the eternal 
 
304 
 
 Righteousness. 
 
 law of charity under the pretence of what you call re- 
 ligion. 
 
 2. A second result of this scrupulosity Is Hypocrisy. 
 
 " In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines 
 the commandments of men." In vain — i.e. their religion is 
 no religion, but emptiness. As St. James says, " If any 
 man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not 
 his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, that man's religion 
 is vain." 
 
 Observe, we use hypocrisy not in the modem sense of 
 pretending to be what men know they are not — the Pharisees 
 thought they were religious — but in the sense of wearing a 
 mask, according to the original derivation of the word. 
 
 And see how dangerous, then, what the man calls his 
 religion becomes, because it hides him from himself. 
 Faultless in the etiquette of social life, without one omission 
 in those ecclesiastical observances which are to him religion 
 alone, how shall he know that he is not religious in the 
 sight of God? How shall he be made to feel that his' 
 religion is a mask which covers his want of goodness ? 
 
 Religion is goodness. To love God and to love man 
 is Christianity ; all else is only husk and shell. 
 
XXXII. 
 
 THE PEACE OF GOD. 
 
 *' Peace, peace, to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith 
 the Lord ; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled 
 sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There 
 is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." — Isaiah Ivii. 19, 20. 
 
 THERE was a time when religion was the healthy and 
 the natural state of man's soul. Whatever may be,the 
 literal meaning of those strange passages which tell of a 
 garden in Eden, and God walking in that garden, this, at 
 least, is plain, that man's pulse once beat with love to God 
 as naturally as the current of blood ran which carried health 
 and vigour through his frame. And this, besides, is plain, 
 that over all that there has passed a change. Man's religion 
 then was the religion of spontaneous innocence ; the only 
 religion left open to man now, the only religion possible, is 
 the religion of penitence. It is this, my brethren, which 
 makes the Gospel from first to last to bear the character of 
 a system of cure. It is not a work of improvement for a 
 nature which is already good, it is a work of remedy for a 
 nature which has become diseased. There is one word in 
 this passage which marks out the peculiar character of the 
 Gospel of Christ : " I will heal him." It is a healing pro- 
 cess. And it is this which so peculiarly endears the Gospel 
 
 X 
 
3o6 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 to every man who is conscious of frailty and inward pollution. 
 For if it be asked in one word wiiat the Gospel is, we answer, 
 it is all that apparatus of remedy by which a weak, erring, 
 and guilty spirit may get back again the strength and the 
 purity which it has lost. 
 
 There is one thing which we all want, and one thing 
 which, in different ways, we are all seeking after. When 
 religion passed away from man's bosom, it was only accord- 
 ing to the necessities of his constitution that peace should 
 pass away with it. And now the history of all the tumult 
 that this world exhibits is just this, that men are in pursuit 
 of rest. Restless ! Why ? because not at rest. Rest is the 
 great want and the passionate craving of our nature. We 
 are here in this world tossing about in the dark dream of a 
 most feverish existence ; not satisfied with ourselves, and 
 venting our dissatisfaction on the circumstances in which 
 God has placed us. We want something new, and the 
 satisfying toy never comes. That is the history of a life of 
 excitement ; that is the history of the gambling earnestness 
 of mercantile speculation ; that is the history of every 
 rivalry, and every disappointed attachment, and every life 
 weariness, which this world exhibits. Men want peace, and 
 the world has said, " Peace, peace ! " and they find that 
 " there is no peace." And so it comes to pass that we go 
 on through boyhood, and manhood, and old age, struggling, 
 and hoping, and disappointed ; ever seeming near to peace, 
 and never placing our grasp upon it, till there is but one 
 chance of rest left — the quiet and the silence of the grave. 
 
 And now, brethren, we observe there are two ways of 
 seeking peace ; there are two promises made to the craving 
 human heart exactly'the same in words, diametrically oppo- 
 site in meaning. There is the word promised, " Peace, 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 Z07 
 
 peace," and God answers that, in the words of this text, 
 " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked ! " and 
 there is, besides that, Christ's promise, " Peace, peace to him 
 that is far off, and to him that is near." The world proposes 
 to fulfil her promise by gratifyiiig nature ; the Gospel pro- 
 poses to fulfil its promise by expelling nature. The world's 
 method is this, " Gratify the desire that burns within you. 
 So long as it lasts, it is your passion and your torment. 
 Slake it by indulgence, and be at rest. My peace means the 
 satisfying of every inclination." There is a meaning and a 
 truth in that promise, brethren, and if only there were no 
 other world but this, and if only there were no judgment to 
 come, and if only there were no such thing as conscience, 
 the man who denies himself nothing would be the man who 
 gets rest from himself and from the fever that burns within 
 him. It would be wise and well to live as men live on the 
 world principle : " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die." Now the peace which Christ proclaims is not this 
 peace at all, but another altogether. The world's peace is 
 the indulgence of the heart as if it were in a state of health : 
 " Let nature have her way," Christ's peace is the healing of a 
 disordered heart. It does not consist in giving the rein to 
 desires, but in mastering them. It consists in placing the 
 whole soul under the discipline of the Cross, and " bringing 
 into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." 
 We are " sick to death," sick of our own selfishness and our 
 own unregenerated hearts ; and we are here in this world 
 to be cured. 
 
 These, brethren, are our only two hopes of rest. The 
 world's peace comes by adding fuel to the fever ; Christ's 
 peace comes by curing it. And there is not a man in this 
 congregation who is not resting his faith and his expectatioa 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 of rest on one of these promises or the other. There is not 
 one who has immersed himself in business, and there is not 
 one who has hidden himself like Adam in the trees of this 
 world's garden of enjoyment, who does not hope to find in 
 his own way the rest which his spirit needs. Through the 
 path of guilt, or through the path of restlessness, we are all 
 seeking rest. In life's retirement, or in life's bustle, it is the 
 same pursuit in different forms. Seek on, we must, till we 
 win or miss for ever. 
 
 In considering the promise of rest which comes from the 
 lips of God, we shall examine two connected subjects which 
 are contained in these verses : 
 
 I. The struggle of an earnest soul towards peace. 
 
 II. The exclusion of a guilty soul from the possibility of 
 peace. 
 
 I. The struggle of an earnest soul towards peace. 
 
 I. Now the first step in the struggle of man's soul to- 
 wards peace is made by treading on the ruins of human 
 pride. One source of human restlessness — one reason, at 
 least, why men pass through this world chafing, fretful, and 
 dissatisfied with their lot in life, is just this, that they have 
 formed an overweening estimate of self, and they find that 
 neither God nor man treats them as they think that they 
 deserve. And then when a man comes to the close of his 
 existence, he begins to feel as if he had not had justice done 
 him — he has not been rightly valued, he has not been im- 
 derstood, he is not where he ought to be, and so he bears 
 on his countenance the marks of a disappointed man. It is 
 the adoration of self that makes men miserable. It is that 
 strange greediness of praise which gives contempt its power 
 to wound us. For, only let it be known to a proud spirit 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 309 
 
 that one man has sneered, it matters not that the world is 
 deafening him with its admiration, that sneer will shoot 
 a pang of wretchedness through the hour of his proudest 
 triumph. 
 
 And now, brethren, the first thing the Gospel does is to 
 crush that spirit of self-esteem. At the foot of the Cross 
 there is no room for pride. The Cross read out this lesson 
 to the world : merit is impossible before God. We are not 
 claimants for reward, we are but suppliants for life — a life 
 which has been forfeited by guilt. Once get that truth by 
 heart that you are nothing, and you can never suffer again 
 from wounded pride. Has this world neglected you, my 
 Christian brother ? Has it not appreciated you, not honoured 
 you, not given you the position to which you thought your- 
 self entitled ? Well, my brother in sin, and what right had 
 you to demand that it should give you anything? Learn 
 this first, how much do you deserve on God's earth ? And 
 if it should turn out that you deserve nothing, and have re- 
 ceived little, then calculate whether you have been defrauded. 
 Oh, my brethren, when we have passed through the first 
 humbling smart of that conviction, and when we are content 
 to stand, as it were, unclothed before God, without one 
 claim upon Him except the righteousness of Christ, there 
 is one step made towards peace, and then our hot, swelling 
 hearts may find rest ; and all that burning, seething tumult 
 with which our proud bosoms throb over our fancied slights 
 and our imaginary injuries, will be at rest When first the 
 humility of the Gospel takes possession of our souls, it is 
 the dawn of a morning which goes before an everlasting day 
 of calmness and serenity. 
 
 2. The second step which a Christian makes in his 
 progress towards peace, is the attainment of a spirit of 
 
TJie Peace of God. 
 
 reconciliation. If there were nothing else to make men 
 wretched, uncertainty respecting their future destinies would 
 be enough. We are going down into eternity, and its waves 
 are rising to engulf us, every day nearer and darker ; and 
 if we have only a " perhaps " to meet it, and all beyond the 
 moment of engulfment is utter and confused uncertainty, 
 and a most vague ignorance whether the God whom we are 
 to meet for the first time be satisfied or not, I say not that 
 there is not steel and manhood enough in the heart of man 
 to meet that calmly : there is — hundreds are doing it every 
 hour, timid women and resolute men, quietly watching their 
 own decay and fronting death unflinchingly — but I say this, 
 that there is no peace, there is no rest, in the prospect of 
 eternity, unless there is something very much more than a 
 guess that God is loving us. It is one thing to meet death 
 intrepidly, and it is altogether another to meet it peacefully 
 and trustfully. 
 
 Now there is an observation that we have to make 
 respecting this peace of reconciliation. There are two 
 classes of persons who are privileged to feel reconciliation 
 with God; but the character of their peace is somewhat 
 different. Peace is enjoyed by those who have been in 
 covenant with God, as it were, during all their lifetime ; and 
 peace is attainable by those who have only received His 
 forgiveness late. There is this difference distinctly asserted 
 in the text, " Peace to him that is far off," and " Peace to 
 him that is near." 
 
 In the first place, then, we draw this doctrine from the 
 text, that there is peace for those who have remained 
 through life near to God. Such men there are spoken of in 
 the New Testament as the " ninety and nine just persons 
 who need no repentance." And such a one seems repre- 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 sented to us under the character of the elder son in the 
 parable, who had not wandered from his home to seek his 
 fortunes in the world. There are some in this world whose 
 religious growth has been so quiet, so regular, so steady, 
 that they are altogether unconscious themselves of the vast- 
 ness of the work that God has been doing in their souls. 
 For the fact is, we are not conscious of those changes which 
 go on quietly and gradually in the soul. We only count 
 the shocks in our journey. And if there has been no 
 sudden conversion, no impetuous and tumultuous feeling of 
 reconciliation, you may speak to such men of what are 
 called religious experiences, but they have very little account 
 to give you. And this is the history sometimes of those 
 who have been nurtured in religious families. They have 
 imbibed the atmosphere of religion without knowing it; and 
 so they go on loving God quietly, unostentatiously, doing 
 simple duties happily, without speaking of them, till duty 
 has become a habit, and religion has become the very ele- 
 ment of life These are not the conspicuous Christians, 
 but they are the affectionate, cheerful, tender ones in the 
 family circle ; they are the Christians of that strict integrity, 
 that high-mindedness, which governs hospitality ; that 
 scrupulous attention to, what some call contemptuously, 
 moral duties, which more impassioned Christians often fail 
 to exhibit. 
 
 Now there is something peculiar, brethren, in this peace. 
 The peace of men who have been religious from childhood 
 is a very different thing from the keen luxury that attends 
 the return of a prodigal son, but it is the best on the 
 whole. It has more of heaven's deep tranquillity. It has 
 more of childlike intimacy with God. The deepest peace 
 is that which is scarcely conscious of its own peacefulness ; 
 
312 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 " Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine," 
 but he did not know this till he was told. Oh, there is a 
 great mistake that we make about this. We think this 
 peace a dull thing. We look down upon such men, and 
 smile at their simplicity, and despise the monotony of their 
 existence. There is a purity and innocence of heart, a 
 simplicity, an ignorance of evil, which men who have got 
 their minds enlarged by eating of the " tree of the knowledge 
 of good and evil " look down upon with a contemptuous 
 pity. But, brethren, it is God's best peace, enjoyed by 
 them that are "near." Let us remember this. Serenity 
 and pure-heartedness are the kind of peace that has most 
 of heaven. It is better than religious rapture. The rap- 
 ture that comes from pardoned guilt is like the fire-rocket 
 that streams and blazes through the black sky, making 
 everything brilliant for a moment, and forcing men to look 
 at it ; the peace of him that has lived near to God, is like 
 the quiet, steady lustre of the lighthouse lamp, starthng no 
 one, very easily mistaken for a common light, but never 
 quenched, ever to be found when wanted casting the 
 same mild ray through the long night across the maddest 
 billows that curl their crests around the rock on which it 
 stands. That is the kind of peace enjoyed by him that is 
 near. 
 
 There is another class of men to whom the grant of 
 peace ia possible. " Peace to him which is far off, saith 
 the Lord," by which we understand those who have lived 
 for a time in the alienation of guilt from God. Brethren, 
 we claim attention to this. Peace is not the exclusive lot 
 oi consistent men. It belongs under the Gospel to guilty 
 men. It has been said in language somewhat daring that 
 it is almost worth while to have sinned in order to taste the 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 315 
 
 deep luxury of penitence. Rightly taken, those are not 
 rash words. They are not more than Christ has sanctioned 
 by His own declaration, " There is more joy among the 
 angels of heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over 
 ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance." 
 It almost seems as if the joy of returning to God had in it 
 something more rich, more ecstatic while it lasts, than the 
 peace which belongs to consistent obedience. It is just 
 that feast of the fatted calf, with the robe, and the ring, and 
 the dancing, which disconcerted the elder son in the treat- 
 ment of his brother. . . . Men who have sinned much, is 
 it not so ? Is there not such a thing as loving much, be- 
 cause much has been forgiven ? Is there not in God's 
 strange dispensations a kind of balance of blessedness 
 which almost seems to make uj) to a guilty penitent for the 
 v/retchedness that is gone by ? And, after all, for most of 
 us, this is the only Gospel. One here and there in this 
 congregation there may be who has lived near to God from 
 childhood ; but if there is only peace for him, we have no 
 Gospel for the mass. We, the majority — we, brethren, God 
 knows, we have lived far enough from God at some period 
 or other of our lives. Things that will not bear speaking of 
 — things that it is well not to think about — belong to the 
 history of our past lives. . . . Shall we be told there is 
 peace for innocence ? — peace for those who have received 
 the Spirit and not grieved His intimations? Ah, my 
 Christian brethren, that is not the Gospel for us ; we want 
 a Gospel for the guilty. " Peace for him that is near," that 
 we can understand ; but the words at which our hearts 
 exult are these : " Peace to him that is far off." Man's noble 
 attitude is that of consistent holiness from the moment that 
 he turns to God ; and most of us have forfeited that. Man's 
 
3U 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 noblest attitude is earnest penitence, and that is opened to us 
 still ; and with it there is opened "peace." 
 
 It is a mercy that the Scripture record of human life is 
 painted to us in such dark colours as it is. It has been the 
 infidel's sneer that the Bible saints are men whom even a 
 novelist would scorn to take for his heroes. It is a small 
 and pitiful sneer. The Bible saints were not the heroes of 
 romance, for then they might have been painted spotless. 
 They were the men of real life, and the details of that life 
 sometimes guilty enough. But, then, life was an earnest 
 thing with them. It was transgression, if you will ; but 
 then it was sore, buffeting struggle after that — much toihng 
 and wandering in sharp suffering, that none knew but God : 
 it was the penitence of men bent manfully on turning back 
 to God. And so they fought their way back till they 
 struggled out of the thick darkness into the clear light of 
 day and peace. Let us lay this to heart. It is not the 
 having been far off" that makes peace impossible. It is 
 not siri, — No ; not the darkest, that shuts out from resto- 
 ration : " Being justified by faith, we have peace with 
 God," — it is languid indecision, desperate sullenness, any- 
 thing which keeps a man away from Christ, that prevents 
 peace, — but in all this world there is nothing else. 
 
 3. The last step in a Christian's progress towards peace 
 is the attainment of a spirit of active obedience. There is 
 a mistake that men make respecting religious unhappiness. 
 They think that it arises only from the fear of punishment. 
 And they suppose that if you could but convince a man of 
 his personal safety before God, if he could but know that 
 his salvation was secure, straightway all religious uneasiness 
 would be calmed ; and so men sit down to look into them- 
 selves as if the one great question they had to answer were 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 315 
 
 this, " Am I saved or not ? " But it is not so. It is not 
 the dread of hell that makes men miserable. That is only 
 a part of human restlessness. There is an eternal law that 
 man cannot be happy except in keeping God's command- 
 ments. Make a man sure of heaven, and leave him with a 
 soul not reduced, to harmony, not humble, not pure, not 
 obedient, he is a wretch still. There is a corroding, mad- 
 dening sensation which comes from the feeling of useless- 
 ness ; there is something that almost amounts to torture in 
 the start with which we sometimes awake to the conviction 
 that life is gliding away and nothing done ; there is an un- 
 easy, gnawing, self-reproach that comes from duties left 
 unfulfilled. What is misery? It is the boundless law of 
 duty written on the heart, and the accumulated self-reproach 
 of not obeying it. Do we want the picture of a restless 
 heart? Infinite duty, infinite transgression, infinite woe — 
 that is the restlessness of man. 
 
 And now let us ask what is the remedy provided by 
 God to heal this restlessness ? God's remedy, brethren, is 
 to write His law by the spirit upon the heart, so that we 
 love Christ, and then we love what Christ commands. It 
 has been well remarked, it is not said that after keeping 
 God's commandments, but in keeping them, there is great 
 reward. God has linked these two things together, and no 
 man can separate them — obedience and peace. And it 
 seems to be for this reason that when the early years of life 
 have been spent in those professions which demand implicit 
 obedience, the religion of riper years so often puts on a 
 character of peculiar brightness. The religious soldier and 
 the religious sailor are generally happy Christians for this 
 reason, it may be, among others, that they have transferred 
 to God's service the habit of unquestioning, prompt, ready 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 obedience, which was taught them in their professions. 
 For them there is no speculating about difficulties ; there 
 is none of that discursing into the whole world of motives 
 which so often, in men trained to think rather than to act, 
 disconcerts and saddens the whole life. Theirs is a life of 
 action, and what is peace but this : " If a man love me he 
 will keep my commandments," and " I will manifest myself 
 to him ? " 
 
 But let us place this in the form of direction. Does a 
 man want faith ? Let him not excruciate his mind by 
 questionings about his own salvation, whether he is to be 
 saved or not. He may ask that question till he is on the 
 verge of insanity, and get no answer after all. There are 
 two things that a man has to look at in this world : one is, 
 God seen through the cross of Christ : there is no mistake 
 what God means by that, He means that He is reconciled. 
 The other is the duty that lies immediately before him; 
 let him bend himself anxiously and earnestly to that. But 
 as he values peace let him not look at self. It is not well 
 to be too anxious about the certainty of pardon. Pardon 
 would not make you happy. God's law written on the heart 
 makes you happy. There is no argument in all the world 
 by which doubts can be made to pass away except this — 
 action. There is no hope of rest for an infinite soul except 
 in this — earnest obedience. 
 
 When a man has attained these three things, a spirit of 
 humility to accept the righteousness of Christ instead of his 
 own, and a spirit of faith to trust in God's reconciliation, 
 and a spirit of activity to do the will of God, there has been 
 fulfilled the promise prophesied to him that is far off and to 
 him that is near. 
 
 II, We pass on now to the reasons which exclude the 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 317 
 
 guilty heart from the possibility of peace. There are two 
 reasons assigned in these verses : one is because of the 
 heart's own inward restlessness, and the other is because of 
 the power of memory to visit transgression with remorse. 
 The first reason is given in these words, " Like the troubled 
 sea, the wicked cannot rest ; " this is the heart's own inward 
 restlessness. The second is, " Like the troubled sea, there 
 is that within them which casts up mire and dirt ; " this is 
 the heart's power of bringing up again what has been sunk. 
 
 T. And now with respect to the first of these, the soul's 
 own natural restlessness, "They cannot rest." 
 
 This impossibility of rest arises partly from the soul's own 
 majesty. God made the spirit of man like the ocean in its 
 vastness. Ten miles deep the Atlantic depths go down 
 where human plummet never sounded, and the billows that 
 roll their wild tumult above have ten miles of water beneath 
 to heave them up. A pond may be without a ripple ; as to 
 the troubled sea, just because it is vast, it cannot rest. And 
 so is it with the soul of man. It is its own magnificence 
 that makes it intensely miserable. Take the meanest and 
 the weakest in this congregation, and in that frame that we 
 gaze on, it may be with contempt, there is a spirit which 
 has a capacity in it for heaven and for hell. Rest ! 
 Brethren, shall we talk of a thing like that resting? Why, 
 man's soul rocks and billows itself with an eternity beneath 
 it. It is that which makes human suffering a thing of 
 grandeur, because every pang that contracts a human brow, 
 and every quiver that distorts a pale lip, are only indications 
 of what may merge into the unresting doom of infinite wail. 
 When God put man in possession of a self, and made that 
 self immortal, he only made him master of a tremendous 
 heritage of woe. 
 
318 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 Partly, again, this impossibility of rest comes from the 
 soul's power of being acted upon by heavenly influences 
 and by earthly ones together. The sea rests not because 
 of the attraction of the heavenly bodies, which keep it in 
 an endless ebb and flow — drawn towards the earth and 
 drawn towards the sky alternately, and obeying neither im- 
 pulse solely, it cannot rest. Know we nothing of this in our 
 own bosoms ? There is a tide of feeling which ebbs alter- 
 nately to heaven and earth. " The flesh lusteth against the 
 spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." We are conscious, 
 surely, of high instincts that tell of God ; conscious besides 
 of grovelling propensities that drag us down to earth ; — 
 low wants and lofty longings. So long as these hold man's 
 soul alternately, is rest possible ? Nay, brethren, one force 
 must overcome the other before that can be. The love of 
 God must master the world's attraction, or if not, then the 
 soul is " hke the troubled sea when it cannot rest." 
 
 Partly, once more, the impossibility of rest arises from 
 outward circumstances. There are winds that sweep along 
 the ocean's surface and fret it into agitation. A small gust 
 raises a single wave on the surface of the water, and before 
 that wave has passed over a thousand miles, it has become 
 a swell which may swamp a navy. Something like this, 
 man has to make him restless. Besides his own inborn 
 passions, there are circumstances from without in this world 
 to fret, and agitate, and discompose his spirit — small trials 
 of temper that make up much of the weariness of life — 
 reverses of fortune — all that men call annoyances and 
 sorrows ; and then we lay the blame on these and ask, 
 " How could the man have been otherwise than as he is ? 
 He is disappointed, miserable ; well, but the circumstances 
 of his earlier years, faulty education, others' neglect, made 
 him so." Ah, my brethren, the man who has not peace in 
 
The Peace of God. 
 
 319 
 
 himself cannot get peace from circumstances. Place him 
 where you will, he carries an unquiet heart along with him. 
 Can you keep the ocean from the wind ? Can you bid the 
 gust and the hurricane be still, and not play their wild 
 game over the face of the waters ? Can you save man from 
 circumstances ? Nay. We are here to control the circum- 
 stances in which we are placed, and transmute them, and 
 get good and spirituality out of them. It certainly may be 
 true that a man is made restless and miserable by circum- 
 stances. It certainly may be that the ocean is ploughed 
 into billows by the tempest-blasts, but all that they did was 
 to lash the ocean and show that it was yielding water and 
 not firm rock. All that circumstances have done when they 
 make a man restless is just this, to show that he is not 
 incorporated with the Rock of Ages. 
 
 2. The second reason assigned for the exclusion of the 
 guilty soul from the possibility of peace, is the power of 
 memory to recall the past with remorseful associations ; and 
 this seems conveyed in these words, " Its waters cast up 
 mire and dirt." It is the bringing to light again what has 
 once been buried. For it is one result of ocean's restless- 
 ness that the ravages which it makes are not engulfed in 
 its depths for ever. You may see the surges wear and fret 
 away the basement of the cliff against which they dash 
 themselves, and the mass of broken rock falls into the depth 
 and disappears, and then it is carried away by the tide as it 
 retires. But a thousand miles off there will be shingle, and 
 mud to fringe the sea-foam. The fragments may have 
 rolled for many a long month at the bottom of the ocean, 
 engulfed, unseen, but they are still there, ready to appear at 
 the appointed moment. Navies may sink, and the waters roll 
 above them as if they were to appear no more ; but the 
 wanderer on some distant beach is startled in his ramble to 
 
320 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 read the dismal tale of shipwreck in the planks that are 
 stranded on the shore. 
 
 Now there is something fearfully like this in the consti- 
 tution of our souls. Deeds that we have done, and thoughts 
 that we have dwelt upon, sink like stones into the ocean, 
 and we expect that they will appear no more. But, my 
 brethren, it would seem that a thing once lodged in the 
 memory never can be lost. It may sink for a time — long 
 years — as in the ocean depths, but there are tempests which 
 may bring it up again some day. Have we never known 
 those moments of existence when we seemed endued with 
 an unusual, startling power to recall a long train of past 
 occurrences, when the mind seemed almost supernaturally 
 . active, not at the bidding of our will ? By night, alone, 
 when music had touched the string of long-forgotten associa- 
 tions, when conversation had left a strange excitement in 
 the spirit, have we never known what it is to find a marvel- 
 lous rapidity in tlie power of thought, and all the past come 
 as freshly before us as if it were yesterday ? Brethren, with 
 a mind like that, man is not one moment secure of rest ; he 
 is doomed to recollect. A dull and heavy body blinds his 
 senses, and so buries his misery for a time ; but it is there, 
 and God can cast it up at any moment in the shape of mire 
 and dirt. This is the misery of remorse — the worst torment 
 of man's stormy mind. It only needs that the body which 
 buries recollection for a time shall be dissolved, and then 
 there begins the eternity of a hell of recollections — when 
 every act of bygone guilt which has not been sunk in the 
 blood of Christ shall be as fresh and vivid before a sinner's 
 eyes as it was at the moment when it was committed. 
 
 In conclusion, the first thing, brethren, that has to be 
 urged upon us from this subject is the connection wliich 
 subsists between peace and cure : " Peace, peaces and I will 
 
TJie Peace of God. 
 
 321 
 
 heal him." Peace and cure must go together. No peace ^ 
 for the soul where there is no cure. And now the question 
 is this, If you have peace, what is your peace worth ? And 
 the answer to that depends upon the answer to another 
 question : Is the spirit healed of all its malady ? There is 
 an absence of apprehension, and there is a freedom from 
 self-reproach, which are not Christ's peace, but only the 
 calm of forgetfulness. There was a time when Herod's 
 spirit was at rest. A single guilty inclination, a single un- 
 manly, unhallowed tenderness stood between his soul and 
 its perfect cure. One man prevented his enjoying that 
 tenderness in peace. Herod removed that man from his 
 way, and then came a calm. What was the value of that 
 peace ? Brethren, only this, that the Saviour's preaching, 
 or rather a mere rumour of it, brought back the apparition 
 of John the Baptist to his remembrance, and with it all the 
 unquiet consciousness of guilt. A little silence, a summer's- 
 day calm, and then the ocean cast up again its mire and dirt. 
 
 There is a law in this world that sin and sorrow shall be 
 joined together. It may be a long time first, for God has 
 an eternity before Him to strike in, a7id He can wait. There 
 is another law in this world, " There is no peace, saith my 
 God, to the wicked." And there is only one thing in all the 
 universe that interferes with the stringency of these laws. 
 That one thing is the blood of Christ so applied to the 
 character, and so sunk into the affections, that the guilty can 
 go free, and the sinner be at peace. Brethren, each of us 
 knows what his own past has been. I ask you will it bear 
 to come up again? Or do your hearts tell you there is 
 meaning of terrible emphasis in these words " mire and 
 dirt " ? If so, there is but one way to keep it all hidden in 
 the heart's depthSc It is to have it buried there by the 
 
323 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 transforming, purifying, calming power of Christ. Be healed, 
 and you may be at peace ; but if the heart is not cured of 
 its evil, your peace is worth nothing. 
 
 We also press this truth — there is no amount of sin that 
 bars from the attainment of sairitliness. There is a peace 
 which " passeth all understanding " for those who have kept 
 their garments undefiled ; but be this remembered too, God 
 speaks peace, aye, rapture, to those who, having soiled their 
 garments, have made them "white in the blood of the 
 Lamb." The truth is, that when the heart is entranced with 
 unexpected love, and yet the man's head hangs down with 
 more than ordinary shame, he sometimes outstrips in holiness 
 those who have advanced more leisurely. It is the " eleventh 
 hour " with him, and if others may walk he must run, and 
 so sometimes he more than makes up lost ground. It is the 
 evening of his day, his night is closing in, and there is not a 
 moment to be lost. Brethren, sinful and beloved ! if I speak 
 to those whose early years were those of immorality, be this 
 your consolation — it is well to trust in the cross of Christ 
 for pardon ; but there is a rarer faith, a faith little exercised, 
 to trust in Christ for strengthening. Expect much, and you 
 will win much. Where sin hath abounded, there often 
 grace much more abounds." It is your peculiar prerogative, 
 my erring brethren, to love much, to feel much, to do much. 
 Only remember this, that there is no step of sainthest excel- 
 lence, and there is no thrill of purest peace, that is impossible 
 to you, if only you have placed yourselves in earnest under 
 the discipline of Christ. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Spoitiswoode Co., Printers, Nau-sireet Sqttare, London. 
 
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