an αν τι oh τ, πῇ μι yes LIBRARY | Theological Seminary, PRINCETON NEES BR 127. .R38 1861 Rawlinson, George, 1812- 1902; The contrasts of CONTRASTS OF CHRISTIANITY WITH HEATHEN AND JEWISH SYSTEMS. LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO, NEW-STREET SQUARE THE CONTRASTS OF CHRISTIANITY WITH HEATHEN AND JEWISH SYSTEMS : OR NINE SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS. BY GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. LatE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE; ΒΑΜΡΤΟΝ LECTURER IN 1859 LONDON LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS 1861 Ὁ " Yer ΗΕ GA). WUE ae ᾿ . ee ᾿ ᾿ ; ' ὭΣ 4 Ε me i Ὶ δι, gen ἢ "Ἂν st . ω ᾿- RIT, ene f nog, NG ΝΑ he ΧΙ MEG Rese e® we ᾿ ΡΣ - ἜΧΩ ; ee Os cia Gate ΑἹ Van LT δ ὺ ; F . ' a ALD ἀπ Ria? aa 097) C8 aoe Εν» ν μα ar 5s ts ee Rl tee Ap tn AT: Ao πω ΠΑΝ i Cth ; ares s ue : 7 = ἸῸΝ ἢ ! ars) > a Ἂν. εἰ - ἡ "ἢ he 7 fl ΒΕ. γα η ᾿ ζ ᾿ Ἄν. ΕΝ f πω ee : iv ᾿ “ - Υ ' > ' ty LS ᾿" iF Ε ‘ ἣν ᾿ } a ΟΝ ὟΝ, ; j / a :7 oe a th, ᾿ + a, Bi read Cd 7 ᾿ ἐοκξοὰ, one _ Esters τ. ἄν ἢ ig TO GEORGE MOBERLY, D.C.L. HEAD-MASTER OF WINCHESTER SCHOOL, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, AS A TOKEN OF SINCERE REGARD AND ESTEEM, BY THE AUTHOR. γι τύ: Ὁ are eee . Chi . a LAER μεσ Sparen eae MMA Pheri) Roe ce ae Sea i ὧν ee 1 ὁ" i ' , me ot =e > ts τ ‘ τ t με. ἀν Ὁ ἌΓ By | a eet Dee We ie eh ee Aa γ oe r 1 Ge, τ ἡ af or =a} Ye e eye - Fi ee δ ! Ἂ ιν, ? "πῆ 4 A ἊΝ “4 oi ᾿ς ‘4 om eat: , i Ε 5 | ΠΡ or he eg Δ ey De ον, δηρὸν αὐ λυς MERGE” Ch εν δὶ ΝΣ : | ROUEN Wile 8 Se τ THESE Sermons, preached on various occasions, and in many cases at considerable intervals, are not parts of a single scheme, nor even written with direct reference to one another. Yet it was thought that they possessed sufficient unity— if not of plan, at any rate of tone and treatment — to make it desirable that, if they appeared at all, they should appear together. The author has published them at the recommendation of an old and valued friend, who had heard the greater portion, when preached in the University pulpit. He has been induced to give them a title, which is not. strictly applicable to the entire number, by a wish to invite the attention of Oxford students to the earlier Sermons of the series, which he would fain hope may be of some service to them in their philosophical studies. He has endeavoured to illustrate the discourses by a few notes, containing (commonly) passages to which he had made allusion in the text, and to which he desires to call special attention. In a few of the longer notes, he has treated subjects which came nearly, though Vill PREFACE. not quite, within the scope of a discourse ; and which, though they could not claim a place in the text, seemed entitled to form part of the volume. His chief object will be gained, if his labours in any way conduce to a more intelligent appreciation of Heathen systems by students, and a clearer understanding of their points of agreement or disagreement with Christianity. Oxford: January 2, 1861. ΤΥ 44, ἡ (4, PEIN ny Ng G - weve CONTENTS. SERMON I. THE INCARNATION 5 OR CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN VIEWS OF MATTER. * And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” — John i. 11. Subject to be considered, the effect of the Incarnation on matter. -— Matter in its own proper nature: its goodness and deficiencies. — Effect produced upon it by the Fall. — Perception of this effect by the Heathen. — Heathen views of the body: of purity and impurity : of creation, &e.—The Incarnation, a potential purification of all matter : an actual purification of large portions of matter. — Con- trast of Christian and Heathen views. — Practical duties flowing from the Christian doctrine — (1.) Reverence for holy things ne places ; (2.) Importance of bodily aa (3.) "ae of keep- ing our bodies pure. — Conclusion . : wbace: i SERMON II. A FUTURE LIFE — THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE COMPARED WITH THE CHIEF HEATHEN VIEWS. “ Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” —2 Tim. i. 10. Christ’s Resurrection the great proof of our immortality: effect which it has produced in.the world. — Heathen views of a future life defective. — The doctrine of the Resurrection of the body wholly unknown to the Heathen. — The separate existence of the soul after death believed by few.— Belief of the Stoics in the periodical CONTENTS. annihilation of souls, and their reproduction. — Belief in the doctrine of metempsychosis or transmigration. — Theory of the absorption of the soul after death into the Divine essence. — Weak grounds of the Heathen beliefs. — Insufficiency of reason to prove a future life. — Heathen doubts and uncertainties. — Decline of faith in the Heathen world. — State of belief at the time of Christ’s coming. — Belief of the Jews.—Unaptness of the Jews to proselytise. — Effects of Christianity : (1.) Enlargement and purification of the doc- trine of a future life: (2.) Doubt replaced by certainty. — Heathen aspirations fulfilled. — Glorification of the body.—Union of the soul with God. — Conclusion : : : : Page 21 SERMON II. THE SUPERIORITY OF CHRISTIAN OVER HEATHEN MORALS, AN EVIDENCE OF THE TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY. “ Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?’ — John xviii. 38. Spirit of Pilate’s question.— Pilate, the mouthpiece of Heathen scepticism. — Truth despaired of at the time of Christ’s coming. — Revelation of the truth by Christ. — Age of Faith. — Age of Doubt. —Importance of evidences: Proposal to consider the “moral ” argument for Christianity. — Objection answered. — Highest Heathen morality, that of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. — Defects of the Socratic morals. — Defects of the Platonic system. — The Aristotelian morality superior, yet not without a number of blemishes. — High theoretic morality of the Vedas. — Low actual morality of Brahminism. — Still worse morality of Buddhism and Mahometanism. — Moral conduct of Christians and Heathens com- pared : actual fruits of the opposed systems. — Effects produced by Christianity on laws and manners.—Christian charitable institutions: Missions. — Christianity the only steadily progressive religion. — Practical conclusion: obligation upon Christians to maintain a high moral standard : 4 Sa eae : : : . ὍΝ SERMON IV. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IN EARTH AND HEAVEN; OR, THE TRUE RELATIONS OF LABOUR AND REST. “ There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” — Heb. iv. 9. Universal desire for Rest. — Universal fact of Labour, alike in the modern and the ancient world.— Origin of the contradiction, — CONTENTS. XI Labour from the Curse, yet not wholly a curse even in Heathen times. — Labour exalted by Christ’s example. — His manual toil. — His mental labours. — Supposed dignity of idleness disproved. — Idleness a sin—condemned even by Heathen moralists — still more severely condemned by Scripture. — Idleness, not far from robbery. — Work, a duty and a privilege. — Worldly success, the meed of great laboriousness. — Example of the Duke of Welling- ton. — Genuine and spurious industry. — Proper motives of labour : (1.) desire of success allowable, as a secondary motive: (2.) desire οὔ helping others, preferable to this: (3.) the proper final motive, love of God. — Laboriousness not incompatible with Amusement: proper limits of Amusement. — Special importance of laboriousness in the case of Academical students. — No excuse for idleness since Academi- cal studies were enlarged, — Conclusion . : . . Page 77 SERMON V. ASCETICISM; OR, CHRISTIAN COMPARED WITH JEWISH AND HEATHEN PERFECTNESS. “ And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus.” — Luke ii. 21. Aspects of the Circumcision. — Contrast, which it indicates, between Christianity and Judaism. — Jewish rites symbolical. — Significance of Circumcision and of Baptism, contrasted. — Ascetic theory involved in Circumcision. — Asceticism of the Jews: its gradual advance and progress. — Heathen views on the subject. — Aristotle at variance with Plato and the Stoics.— Proofs that Christianity is not ascetic. — Significance and effect of Baptism. — True objects of Christian fasts and vigils. — Danger of will- worship. — Asceticism and self-indulgence, both wrong — thé latter worse. — Abstinence from things lawful obligatory on us, when requisite to avoid offence. —Conclusion . : : : peels SERMON VI. SINS OF THE RICH, AND SINS OF THE POOR. — (AN ASSIZE SERMON.) “ Out of the heart wroceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man.’ Matthew xv. 19, 20. Wide scope of Christianity: its claim to control thought. —Im- portance of thoughts: evil thoughts at the root of all sin, — X11 CONTENTS. Discipline of thought, the special probation of the more respectable classes, — Origin of thoughts: different theories on the subject. — Men not commonly responsible for the first occurrence of a thought. — Our power to arrest and dismiss thoughts: the former more com- plete. — Our duty with regard to our thoughts. — Mastery of thought, an acquired habit. — Occasions when the mere occurrence of a thought is sinful. —Sins of thought in some men worse than crime in others. —Guilt relative to temptation. — Importance of the administration of civil justice : the administration imperfect, but not partial. — Benefits which arise from it. —Employment in the administration an honourable and a solemn task. — Special temptations of persons thus employed. — Advantages which might be derived from the proper conduct of Law Courts. — Responsi- bility of those who speak in them. — Conclusion . . Page 111 SERMON VII. PUNISHMENT — ITS PROPER AIM AND OBJECT. —(AN ASSIZE SERMON). “ And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And He said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.” — Gen. iv. 9, 10. First manifestation of Crime.— All Crime traceable to the root of selfishness. — Ordinary aim of Law, to deter from Crime by fear. — Unsatisfactory results of this system. — Existing condition of the country with respect to Crime and criminals. — Three theories of the proper end of punishment: some truth in each of them. — Claims to consideration of the “ Remedial” or ‘ Correctionist ” theory. — Readiness with which it may be combined with the others. — Modern states under a special obligation to adopt a “ reme- dial” system. — Such a system already adopted to some extent in our country. — Reformatories — improved prisons. — Charge of sen- timentality refuted. — Benefits to be expected from a _ general reformatory system. — Conclusion . : : : : . 133 SERMON VIII. ST. PAUL'S CONVERSION, A LESSON AND AN EVIDENCE. “ Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.” — Acts ix. 19, 20. Importance of St. Paul’s Conversion, strongly marked in the Serip- ture record,—St, Paul the centre of early Church history, — CONTENTS. XIll His great gifts and qualifications.— Conversion, at all times a strange phenomenon. — The miraculousness of a Conversion increases the strangeness. — History of the Conversion. — Paul as persecutor : his fixed and unswerving purpose. — Circumstances of the mira- culous appearance, — The doubts thrown on its objective character, examined and removed. — No important variation in the Scriptural accounts of the appearance. — Its objective character proved by St. Paul’s blindness. — Value of the Conversion as an evidence. — Nature and extent of the change wrought on St. Paul at the time. — Character of the unregenerate Paul continued to some extent in the Apostle. — First change effected, the engrafting of humility. — Second change, the infusion of the element of love. — Both changes in some measure the natwral result of the Conversion and its circumstances. — Neither change complete at first. — St. Paul’s final character formed gradually. — The Conversion a signal proof of Christ’s tender love for man. — Lessons to be drawn from it — of encouragement — of warning. — Conclusion . : . Page 148 SERMON IX. TIME — ITS NATURE AND ITS WARNINGS. “ All things come to an end.” — Psalm exix. 96. (Prayer Book Version.) Nature subjected to two laws, the law of continuity and the law of cessation. — Time so arranged as to come under both. — Object of this arrangement, to be considered. — Inquiry into final causes, justified. — Use and abuse of reason.— Scriptural warrant for the inquiry. — Nature of Time. — Motion not essential to it. —The mo- tion of the heavenly bodies dves not necessarily divide Time into portions. — Contrivances by which Time is actually divided. — Effect of the divisions on our minds: this effect designed: its importance. — Man’s inclination to look forward only. — Need and use of looking back. — The close of the year invites to a two- fold retrospect —(1) personal, and (2) academic. — Review of academic year. — Grounds for thankfulness. —Conclusion . 175 Notes . ς , ν : : : : ν ; 5 PAVE ERRATA. Page 31, line 24, dele the comma after “not” and place a comma after “ even.” » 67, 5 9, for “centered” read “ centred.” » 82, ,, 8, dele the comma after “ fall.” 5 MGI Δ, 75» “ (10) panel 2 (AO ay » 169, ,, 20, for “heathen” read “ brethren.” 35. 2455 τ 8. for are’ nead “were.” » 257, ,, 7, last word, for ἀντὶ read avr’ DABAS penne abe Ata. yee < AAAS Mas, VE OP’ ξ 2, PRS 7 οὐδ᾽ 4 4» Viva , co ΟΝ MO Bey τὸ Gk ach mo, , ἄπ x. vu. §. 8, ΒΕΕΜ. 11.] HEATHEN DOUBTS AND UNCERTAINTIES. 37 lator. Doubt then, painful, harassing, distracting doubt, was of necessity the heathen’s portion. Who of them ever expressed a full persuasion and complete assurance of his immortality? Nay, who but Plato ever declared himself absolutely. convinced that death would not prove his annihilation? Certainly Cicero, with all the accumulated light that could be derived from an ac- quaintance with every form of Greek philosophy, could attain to nothing higher than a hope of the soul’s con- tinuance, which did not allow him to pass by the con- sideration of the other alternative, its utter destruction upon death. (27) And Socrates himself, in that most solemn moment of his life when he was concluding his farewell address to the judges who had condemned him, was forced to allow that death might be the anni- hilation of all consciousness. (28) If then the best and wisest fell thus far-short of certainty, what may we not reasonably conclude concerning the condition of the generality? Must it not have been altogether impos- sible for them to reach to that degree of confidence in this matter which alone practically avails to regulate men’s conduct. One more defect of heathenism remains to be no- ticed; and it is perhaps of all the most considerable, The hight, which they had, continually from age to age burnt feebler—less and less of truth was “retained by them in their knowledge,”® — corruptions prevailed more and more widely,—belief grew weaker, — scepticism advanced with rapid strides,—and but for Christianity an universal Pyrrhonism might eventually § Rom. 1. 28. Ds 38 DECLINE OF FAITH IN THE HEATHEN WORLD. [serm. 1. have overspread the world. When we go far back into the recesses of heathen antiquity we find notions com- paratively pure, and faith unwavering; undoubtedly because the real source of the Heathen’s knowledge was primeval revelation, and so the stream is clearer the closer we approach the fountain. As we proceed, error and uncertainty increase. For a while certain philoso- phies, whose principle it was to pay the utmost de- ference to old traditions, the Pythagorean in part, but especially the Platonic (29) and the Peripatetic (50), continued to propagate notions In the main correct. Plato especially, who loves to speak of the world to come in the very words of the ancient myths (51), taught and maintained a doctrine very nearly approach- ing to the truth. But with the great bulk of the phi- losophies it was otherwise. These, throwing themselves in a proud and self-trusting spirit upon abstract rea- soning to the exclusion of authority, darkened by de- grees the previously existing light, weakened men’s faith, and departed more and more from the true doctrine. (32) And these became the popular systems, against which those purer philosophies struggled all in vain. Pythagoreanism, as a system, had expired by the time of Aristotle (39); and before the coming of our Lord, Aristotle’s professed followers had completely changed his teaching, and Plato’s successors in the Aca- demy had virtually become Pyrrhonists. At the time of the publication of the Gospel two new forms of phi- losophy, both denying thé continuance of consciousness, divided the Roman world, Epicureanism and Stoicism : and of these the grosser, Epicureanism, was fast swal- 5. ΕΜ. 11.] HEATHEN BELIEF AT CHRIST’S COMING. 39 lowing up its adversary. Among the Orientals a strange and subtle form of error, the Satanic counterfeit of that new religion for which the nations were looking with longing eyes towards the East, was starting into being, and threatening to become the creed of Asia; and of this creed the doctrine of metempsychosis, if not also that of absorption, was an essential portion. (84) The very notion then of men retaining permanently their human nature, their identity and the consciousness of it—which is the only doctrine on the subject of a future life of full practical utility—had well nigh perished from among the heathen when the “Sun of Righteousness arose.”" They who professed any dogmatic belief at all expected, either that they were to undergo a number of transmigrations destructive of all real identity, or else that they were, sooner or later, to have their existence merged in that of the Universal Soul, or finally, that at death they would cease to be. The bulk of men were yet more miserable; distracted by the un- certainties and contradictions of philosophers, destitute of any sounder guides, with their natural instincts weakened and deadened by the sinfulness of their lives, without a written revelation, so far removed from that oral one which had once been theirs, that they were ignorant of its authority, they were fast becoming scepti- eal of everything for which they had not the evidence of their senses. The ancient traditions concerning Tartarus and Elysium, rejected even by the advocates of the soul’s immortality (55), were beginning to be regarded by the mass as old wives’ fables, whose falsehood wasself-evident. h Mal. iv. 2. , D 4 40 HEATHEN FEAR OF DEATH. [SERM. II. Men generally looked to this life as alone worthy of their concern or care, and did not deem it necessary to provide for a future the coming of which was so un- certain.” All thought was concentrated on the modes of attaining in this world the utmost possible enjoyment, the infinite capacity of man for enjoyment vainly seek- ing to obtain satisfaction within the narrow term of a mere human lifetime. Even virtue was practised on selfish grounds, and, as time went on, approached more and more to absolute selfishness, while vice became stranger in its forms, and wilder im its licence, as the old characters of crime ceased to afford the same grati- fication which they had furnished when they were less trite and common. A phantom form was constantly before the eyes of men; a dark shadow rested on every object; a sword of Damocles hung over every head. Death, ever drawing nearer, ever snatching away the precious moments of life, leaving men’s store perpetually less and less, and sure to come at last and claim them bodily for his victims, made hfe, excepting in the mo- ments of high-wrought excitement, a continual misery. Hence the greatness and intensity of the heathen vices ; hence the enormous ambition, the fierce vengeance, the extreme luxury, the strange shapes of profligacy; hence the madness of their revels, the savageness of their sports, the perfection of their sensualism ; hence Apician feasts, and Capuan retirements, and Neronic cruelties, and Vitelhan gormandism; they who, “from fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage ;”' they before whose eyes the pale spectre ever stood, waving i “Heb.an 15: SERM. IT. ] HEATHEN FEAR OF DEATH. 41 them onward with his skeleton hand to the black gulf of annihilation, fled to these and similar excesses to escape, if it might be, for a few short hours the thought which haunted them, the terror which dogged their steps. In the wild carelessness of the Anacreontic drinking song, in the mad licence of comedy, in the soul-stirring scenes of the great tragic poets, in the exquisite beauty of all the remains of art, in the magnificence of the buildings where shows and games took place,—in all these we see the efforts made to shut out for a while the sense of the Awful Presence, and to divert the soul from brooding on a woe felt to be intolerable. The slave, amid sports and pastimes, forgets for a space his servitude ; and the thought of death, which, apart from the hope of another life, is a burthen too heavy for men to bear, passed from the mind under the strong excitement of mad revel, or scenic interest, or appreciation of the beauti- ful, or sympathy with the combatants. But the thought soon recurred; and the life of the heathen, instead of being passed in learning how to die, was occupied chiefly with endeavours to discard and put away the feelme that death must come. Thus far I have considered the condition of the heathen world. It follows briefly to inquire what know- ledge the Jews possessed, and what effect it may rea- sonably be supposed that that knowledge would have had upon the rest of mankind apart from Christianity. And here, without having recourse to any theory so extreme, and indeed untenable, as that of Warburton, it will be sufficient to notice three points wherein the knowledge of the Jews fell short of ours. In the first 42 BELIEF OF THE JEWS AT CHRIST'S COMING. [serm. 11’ place, it is generally admitted that the resurrection of the body was unknown to them. (36) Whatever may be thought of that passage in the Book of Job*, which, as we render it, seems to contain the doctrine, certain it is that the Jews failed to gather that doctrine either from the passage in question. or from any other. (37) What the Sadducees were peculiar in denying was not the body’s resurrection, but the soul’s; as is plain from those passages of Scripture which mention their error.(38) In this respect, then, the Jews had no ad- vantage over the heathen. And even in respect of the continued existence of the soul, their knowledge had two deficiencies : — First, it did not exclude the notion of metempsychosis, which seems even to have been ge- nerally prevalent among such Jews as believed a future state at all, at the coming of our Lord (59); and, secondly, it rested upon a basis which was so far doubt- ful and insecure, that it did not compel belief, but only invited it. We know that there were persons who admitted the entire Jewish Scriptures (40), yet “said that there was no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit.”! And they who thus held and taught were become at the first publication of the Gospel a numerous and powerful sect. Nor is it at all improbable that a people so worldly and carnal as the Jews were at that time, might, if left to themselves, have become generally, or even universally, Sadducees. But we need not have recourse to such an hypothesis in order to show, that it 15 scarcely conceivable that any light possessed by the Jews should ever have greatly k Job xix. 26. 1 Acts xxiii. 8. SERM. It. | JEWS NOT APT TO PROSELYTISE. 43 benefited the heathen world. Even had they degene- rated no further, still never was there a nation so unapt to spread its opinions. Sunk in character and depraved in conduct, so that no moral weight could possibly attach to a creed by their support of it, divided among themselves as to the teaching of their sacred books, and, above all, resolutely bent on confining to them- selves those benefits which they expected a knowledge and observance of the law eventually to confer on them (41), they were neither likely to seek to impart their ight to others, nor to be successful in propagating their creed if under any circumstances they wished to proselytise. The contempt in which they were held by the heathen on the one hand, and their own selfishness on the other, must have altogether precluded the pos- sibility of the enlightenment of the world by them. It remains that we consider what has been effected by Christianity. Christianity, then, with regard to the doctrine itself, has freed that portion which was known before from error, and has added besides a new and unheard-of truth. Christianity, wherever it prevails, has swept away the notions of metempsychosis and absorption, teaching that in the life which we at present lead our whole probation is to begin and end, and that after it is over we shall continue for ever the same con- scious beings that we now are; and further, in confir- mation of both of these truths, Christianity has revealed to us the new doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Again, with regard to our assurance of the truth of the doctrine, Christianity, especially by the event this day commemorated, has removed all doubt, and established 44 THE CHRISTIANS ASSURANCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. [serm. 11: in its stead entire and absolute certainty. “ Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept,” is proof sufficient that “they that are Christ's shall rise afterward at His coming.”™ The Manhood joined for ever inseparably to the Eternal Godhead declares with voice as of a trumpet, that man, for whose sake alone that union subsists, shall ever live to profit by it. Thus, then, have “life and immor- tality” been by the Gospel “brought to lght.”” That which of old was feebly advocated in a few schools of philosophy, or whispered occasionally as a conjecture into the mourner’s ear, is now proclaimed openly throughout all Christian lands, and as a topic of consolation is almost too trite to be effectual. Week by week, as the day on which Christ rose returns, from ten thousand thousand pulpits are proclaimed, without one atom of dissonance, without one suggestion of doubt, the great doctrines of a judgment to come and of the soul’s immortality. Day by day, as disciple after disciple is committed to the dust, the declaration is repeated of “sure and certain hope of the resurrec- ο tion.”° And the consequence is, that the humblest and most ignorant of Christians possesses a confidence and assurance on these points to which the wisest philosopher never attained, and which was unknown even to the patriarchs. As in other respects so in this, “ the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater” ” than the greatest of those who lived before the time when “the Dayspring from on high visited us.”* Α Chris- m 1 Cor. xv. 20, 23. nD Dime τὸ 10: ο Burial Serviee. P Matt. xi. 11. 4 Luke i. 78. ΒΕΕΝ. 11.717 CIIRISTIANITY FULFILS HEATHEN ASPIRATIONS. 45 tian knows that as surely as the Only-begotten Son of God is eternal and immortal, so surely is he the same ; for not only does the “man Christ Jesus” * live for ever for the very purpose of securing him eternal lie, but it is the same life in both. For Christ is Himself * Christ “liveth in us.”* He hath made us His members, bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh." He feeds us with Himself, He counts Himself imperfect. without us, we are one body with Him. our lite: How, then, shall we ever cease to be unless He too fail, and corruption begin to seize upon Him “ who is the true God, and the Eternal Life?”” No doubt then mingles with the Christian’s faith, no fear bedims that “lively hope” to which “the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead has begotten him.” He is not more certain of his present being than of his com- ing immortality. He “knows in whom he has be- lieved,” “ and that his life depends on one who is “a quickening Spirit,” * and “hath life ἐμ Himself” * And this leads me to remark, that whatever of erand or noble, whatever of pure or holy, was con- tained in the aspirations and imaginings of Jew or heathen, Christianity has confirmed with a Divine sanction, and delivered to its professors, purified and exalted to a higher excellence. If the hopefulness of affection led some to look beyond the grave for re- newed intercourse with those who had been to them here dearer than their own selves (42), Christianity ἘΠ Mime ee § Col, in. 9. t Gal. 11. 20. u Eph. v. 380. Vv 1 John v. 20. Ὁ Ὁ aim 1. 19 ΧΟ δε πὺ. 455 é Y John v.26. 46 ᾿ς ΠῊΒ DOCTRINE OF THE BODY'S [serm. 11. holds out the consolation of an eternal reunion, and bids us on that account not to sorrow “ for them who sleep in Jesus,” * whom He will bring with Him at His coming. If, again, the misery of the flesh, in which, while it continues such as in this world it must ever be, we cannot but continually “groan, being burdened ;”* if, I say, the misery of being clothed and clogged with a “ fleshly tabernacle” of such a character, caused many to desire and expect with eagerness release from this bond- age as among the chief blessings of death, Christianity likewise bids us look to death for deliverance from all which constitutes the real misery of the body, tell- ing us that we shall then be altogether “changed” our corruptible flesh putting on incorruption, our mor- tal immortality, and “ mortality” being entirely “ swal- lowed up of life. a body, but the wretchedness of being tied to such a 9c It was not the mere fact of having body, that Plato mourned, and Philo thought so heavy a calamity. (43) Plato’s highest angele natures had bodies (44), and in them were perfectly happy, needing nothing external to themselves, and not deriving any taint of corruption or impurity from their connection with an etherial, and (so to speak) “ spiritual body.” * If we can be quit of the burthen of the flesh, if we can be set free (that is) from all the pains, temptations, impurities, grossnesses, restraints, impediments to which our corporeal nature, as it now is, subjects us, plainly there is no reason to desire more, or to wish to be 56 “unclothed ”® and quite stripped naked of all body. 2 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. 2 2 Cor. v. 4. ΤΠ ΘΟΥ αν ΟΝ. ο 2 Cor. v. 4. 4 1 Cor. xv. 44. © 2 Gor.-y.*4. SERM. 11.] RESURRECTION SATISFIES TWO INSTINCTS. 47 And this freedom it is which Christianity promises us ; we are to be reunited with the body, but not with the body as it now is, which were indeed no better than a prolonged imprisonment ; we are promised the spiri- tualisation and glorification of our bodies—the freedom of them from all those evils and maladies which we here lie oppressed under — their “redemption,” * and as- similation to that glorious body which Christ has set for ever at the right hand of God. Here, then, we see the heathen, and Jewish, longing to be released 3 from the “fetters” and “sepulchre” of the body admitted and responded to in the Christian scheme,— responded to, not as they who most strongly felt the longing, for the most part, imagined and desired, but in a better, more comforting, and more readily conceiv- able way. Corporeal beings cannot contemplate incor- poreity without shrinking and shivering (so to speak) at the prospect of being entirely unclothed; and so Christianity, in this portion of the doctrine of the resur- rection, satisfies two instincts: the desire to be free from the foulness and grossness of our present bodies, and the disinclination to be quite divested of all body. « Our house which is from heaven,” ® our spiritual, uncorrupt, immortal, heavenly, glorified, “ isangelical ” body (45), will be free entirely from all that constitutes defect or drawback in “ our earthly house of this taber- nacle;”* walls will not confine it; distance will not delay it; external systems of matter will not hurt it; internal wants and pains will not disturb it—it will f Rom. vill. 23. & 2 Cor. v. 2. h-Tp.-verse 1. + 48 ASPIRATION AFTER UNION WITH GOD FULFILLED. [sero. 11. pass with the swiftness of volition from place to place ; —it will be (as Tertullian calls it) ‘* angelified flesh ἢ (46) ;—it will exalt, not lower, our nature: and it will also be a home for the soul, a dwelling-place, a garment, “so that being clothed therewith we shall not be found naked. ”' That loftiest longing also, that which in one shape or another has, in all ages, formed the stay and hope of the more spiritually-minded of our race, the desire of being united to God, finds in Christianity, and in that alone, full satisfaction and accomplishment. The theory of absorption is not calculated thoroughly to ”k since it content the soul which is “athirst for God, robs the human bemg of consciousness at the very moment when consciousness would be the greatest blessing, — it makes him incapable of perceiving his happiness at the time and in the act of attaiming to it. But Christianity — pointing equally with this theory to union with God as the true end and aim of our exist- ence, teaching however a different kind of union, one consisting rather in unison than unity, and leaving the separate consciousness of the creature untouched, not merging or swallowing up the created in the creat- ing intellect,— allows of our looking forward to a constant perception of the communion which is to con- stitute our happiness, and so makes us not only to be one with God, but to feel that we are one with God, through all eternity. Here again the Christian’s hope transcends the heathen’s. The gift which God _ has } 2NCors τ. 9: k Ps, xlii. 2. SERM. I. ] CONCLUSION. 49 of a truth in store for us surpasses all that man’s utmost stretch of imagination could conceive of as possible. May we then be truly thankful to Almighty God for His goodness to us ;—-may we evermore praise and magnify His glorious name for the “ blessed hope of everlasting life which He has given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.”' And may we-ever bear in mind that it is not to satisfy our curious thoughts that this won- derful knowledge has been vouchsafed us, but to influ- ence our practice — to have its effect upon our lives. Each addition to Revelation adds to our duties — each increase of light increases our obligations. If the faint elimmer that feebly ulumined the obscurity which was spread around the heathen was sufficient nevertheless to point out to him the necessity of making all life a prepa- ration for and practising of death (47),—if the ancient Israelites, amid the clouds and darkness that overhung the tabernacle, lived nevertheless “as strangers and pugrims on the earth,” "—“ what manner of men ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness!” Ὁ How dead ought we to be to the cares, and vanities, and paltry honours of this world! How lghtly ought we to esteem of temporal deprivation or suffermg! How ought owr “conversation to be in Heaven,” ° whither Christ is gone to prepare for us eternal habitations! Again, since godly fear should chasten always the rejoicing of the Christian, it will be well for us to bear also in mind, that if the doctrine which has now been occupying our thoughts be, to the faithful, full of com- ! Collect for Second Sunday in Advent. τα Heb: xi. 19: ne 2 P ete ine: 11: oPhals 11.20; E 50 CONCLUSION. [SeRM. 11. fort, and consolation, and joy unspeakable, yet it has one aspect which is terrible. The eternal union of the manhood with the godhead has conferred on all who are partakers of the nature of man the gift of an eter- nal being, but not on all the blessing of eternal Lie. There is an existence which is endless misery and un- dying death. Let us beware that we turn not God's blessing into our bitterest curse. SERM. III. | PILATE’S QUESTION. δι SERMON IIL JOHN xvi. 38. «ς Pilate saith unto him, “ What is truth ?’” THESE words have been called a jest (1), but there is nothing jesting in their tone. Pilate was not, so far as appears, a scoffer. He presents to us the likeness of a weak rather than a wicked man, and is a warning to us of the lengths to which mere weakness may proceed when bolder and stronger spirits lay hold of it, and bend it to their will. Pilate had, if not a sense of religion, a sense of right and wrong, and shows throughout the whole painful scene which depicts him to us, a wish, not to aggravate our Lord’s sufferings, but, if possible, to spare him. ven the scoureing which he ordered, and the mockery by the soldiers which he allowed, seem to have been sanctioned by him under the notion that they would perhaps be accepted by the clamorous people in the place of a ‘severer sentence. Pilate was selfish and worldly ; he shrank from the guilt of shedding innocent blood ; but he shrank more from the danger of becoming an object of suspicion to Tiberius. His own anxieties occupied him; and while it must be granted that the question, “What is truth ?” was not in his mouth a serious and earnest inquiry after that knowledge without which E 2 52 SCEPTICISM OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. [serm. m1. man walks in darkness, it was at least as far from being a scoff or jest—which it is never regarded by any of the ancient commentators. ‘‘ Christ,” says St. Chrysostom, “by these words attracts and persuades Pilate to listen to his discourse, and at last leads him on to ask this ques- tion, ‘What is truth?’” (2) “He not only,” says St. Cyril, “liberates Pilate from his fears, but engages him to lofty thoughts concerning himself.” (3) “ His words,” says Theophylact, “though short, took such hold on Pilate, that he was led to ask the question, ‘ What is truth?’ For truth had well nigh disappeared from among men, and was unknown to them, since they lay in unbelief.” (4) But why then did he not “stay for an answer ?” Perhaps, as St. Augustine thinks (5), because he now for the first time conceived the idea that Jesus might be accepted by the people as the prisoner to be released at the feast; or, more probably, because although he had not asked the question in the proud spirit of a scoffer, he had asked it in the untrusting and unhoping spirit of a sceptic. Viewed thus the words rmg mournfully back through the long corridors of the past, and the echo of them sounds still more mournfully down the vistas of the future. The natural man, in presence of the Truth itself, perceives not the presence, but utters despairingly the cry, “ What 15 truth?” and having in those words given a vent to the pent-up scepticism of years, turns to practical life and busies himself with action. As if action could stifle thought, or as if there could be any comfort or satisfaction in practical life till its theory is understood, till the true “way” of life is SERM. 111. ] TRUTH DESPAIRED OF. 53 9a “made plain ”* to us, and we know whither our steps tend, what we are to strive to obtain, and how our object may be best accomplished. “ What is truth ?” then, must ever be the first question for the awakened soul; and till we have a firm hold on the answer to be -given to it, to plunge into practical life is like going to sea without chart or compass, and can only tend to an unsettled and unstable course, ending in shipwreck. Long had the heathen asked the question of nature without and of their own souls within them, “* What 15 truth?” and poor and unsatisfying had been the replies given. Nature tells of a God, and witnesses to “ His 9 eternal power” and “ godhead,”” but says little of His justice, and scarce anything of His love and mercy. The soul is too apt to throw upon the image of God the shadow of its own imperfections and impurities ; or if it rises to the conception of a perfect moral being, then to shrink from such a being through the sense of its own guiltiness. “The world by wisdom knew not God;”° and the vain efforts of conflicting philosophies had issued, at the time of our Lord’s coming, in that general scepticism and unbelief, that utter hopelessness of ever attaining to any real knowledge of the truth, which found in Pilate—the foremost Gentile of all those brought into contact with our Lord —no inappropriate nor unfittg mouth-piece. The first phase of scep- ticism had passed away. It was now not so much that men were dissatisfied with all the systems wherewith they were surrounded, and sought for a truth which they did not find in any of them, as that they had ® Prov. xv. 19, b Rom. 1. 20: OR ΘΟ τ 21: E 3 54 TRUTH REVEALED BY CHRIST. [sERM. 111: begun to despair of truth itself; the search after it was abandoned ; and it was thought the highest wis- dom to know that nothing could by any possibility be known. Bred up in a moral atmosphere of this kind, and faithfully reflecting the tone of thought belonging to his class, the Roman magistrate no sooner hears the declaration — conceived in so opposite a spirit — ‘For this cause was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness of the truth; every one that is of the truth heareth my voice ;” than he expresses his astonishment at such an assumption of an absolutely true, as distinct from mere theory and opinion, and responds with his ques- tion, “ What is truth?” not so much by way of inquiry as by way of protest; of protest against the very notion of objective truth, not against any peculiar statement of what the truth is. And this was the state of mind most common among the heathen. A few clung to particular systems, but without any heartfelt trust in them; the mass worshipped after the manner of their forefathers, but without any faith at all in the beings whom they were professing to honour; the ereat bulk of the educated openly professed their scep- ticism, both in the national religion and in philosophy ; and scarcely a hope seems to have been entertaimed in any quarter of emerging from this condition of univer- sal doubt and incertitude into any higher phase of intellectual life where truth and knowledge would be attainable. (6) A change, however, impended— as so often happens —when there was least hope of it. “The Truth” itself SERM. 11.] AGE OF FAITH. 55 became incarnate, and stood upon the earth. One came who said authoritatively, “TI tell you the truth ; ἃ by Him “the truth” was once for all delivered to man- kind, and delivered with such an array of evidence and proof as carried conviction to all honest minds, and produced within the space of three centuries the extra- ordinary spectacle of the conversion of an empire co-extensive with the civilised world. To the universal scepticism there succeeded then an universal faith ; and it might have seemed as if the question “ What is truth ?” would never again have to be asked; as if nothing but wilful blindness could ever again make men unable to distinguish the false from the true, nothing but positive dishonesty cause them to doubt “the truth as it is in Jesus.” ° Yet we know that this isnot so. Eighteen centuries have passed, and from one cause or another—from the cessation of miracles, from the continually increasing distance of the events which accompanied the original publication of the “truth,” from the divisions of Chris- tendom, from the growth of a refining and criticising spirit, and perhaps in part from injudicious and un- skilful reasoning on the part of the defenders of Chris- tianity—it is palpable that a time of doubting has returned, that the question “ What is truth?” is once more asked—not with the same despondency as for- merly, but still with real incertitude—and asked, not, I am. sure, by those alone who desire (consciously or un- consciously) to free themselves from moral restraints, but often by persons who are among the best, the purest, ἃ John viii. 45. © Eph. iv. 21. E 4 56 AGE OF DOUBT. [SERM. IIT. the humblest of our body—by those who most ear- nestly wish for a solid basis of Christian faith on which to rear the fabric of their lives—whom their doubts most grievously distress—and who would be most glad to be free from them. I trust I shall not be thought presumptuous in saying, that I question whether under these circumstances— considering this to be one of the special trials to which persons are at the present day exposed — whether, I say, we do enough in this pulpit, and elsewhere in the University, to meet and combat the danger, to strengthen the wavering faith of our weaker brethren, by pressing upon them the various evidences of Christianity, which are so weighty seve- rally, and in their cumulative force so overwhelming. Secure in our own faith, we generally assume that of our hearers—we do not think it necessary to “lay again the foundations'” of belief—we are for leaving “the principles of the doctrine of Christ,” and “ going on” to those points which seem to us to constitute its “perfection,” forgetting that too many of those who hear us are weak Christians—*“ babes,” in St. Paul’s language "—who have more need of “milk” than of “strong meat”—who though approaching to the time when for their age they should be teachers, yet “have need to be taught again,” the very “first principles of the oracles of God.”" To enter effectively on the entire question of the Christian Evidences within the limits of a single dis- course, 1s plainly impossible. On such subjects vague generalities carry with them but little weight; and f Heb.-vi. 1. Elo 5 191 h Tb. ver. 12. SERM. 111.] PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF EVIDENCES. 57 there is no single one of the many recognised heads of evidence, which, if attempted in detail, would not fur- nish abundant matter for a volume. I hope at some future time, if opportunity shall offer, to bring before you the present state of the historical evidences for Re- vealed Religion (7), which have of late years been much augmented by the progress of cuneiform’ and other discoveries. On this occasion we shall perhaps best employ ourselves by confining our attention to another and a narrower branch of the enquiry—the moral argument, as it has been termed—the argument from the superiority of the Christian morality over any other, firstly and pre-eminently, as seen in the teaching of Seripture and the person of Christ secondly, and in a far inferior degree, as exemplified in the lives of Christians. In connection with the first of these two subjects, there is an objection sometimes taken im limine, which requires an answer before we can properly proceed to the development of the reasoning. If there is a con- trast, it is said, between the Christian morality and the morality of unassisted human reason, by what right do we pronounce the former to be the higher and the better of the two? Is not this a vicious circle? Do we not assume the morality to be higher, because Christianity is true, and then argue Christianity to be true, because its morality is higher? The reply to this objection is to be found in a very plain and palpable fact of our nature—a broad fact, often noticed, and extending to all the subjects on which our minds can be employed—I mean this—that our critical transcend our 58 OBJECTION TO THE ‘“S MORAL EVIDENCE.” [serM. 111. inventive faculties. We recognise excellence when put before us, of which previously we could have formed no idea; and this, because there is nothing in our minds contradictory to truth, as there is nothing in our moral natures “ contradictory to virtue.”(8) In approving a low standard, when a higher one is as yet undiscovered, our intellects show themselves defective, but not dis- torted or depraved; in rejecting a higher standard in favour of a lower, the mind would embrace positive falsehood, which is as contrary to its nature as pain to our appetitive element. As therefore in science we can judge between theories, neither of which we could have elaborated, and can with sufficient certainty select the sounder of the two; and as in art we can appre- ciate accurately the comparative merit of works, the lowest of which our own powers could not have pro- duced; so in the case before us, the human mind, which at its utmost stretch of perfection could only reach to the discovery of a morality such as we find in Plato or in Aristotle, can nevertheless, when the Chris- tian view is set before it, and it compares that view with the teaching of heathen philosophy, pronounce determinately, and with full confidence in its decision, on the superiority of the former over the latter. Here is no vicious circle—the question is not begged—we have an inborn, or infused, moral sense—which judges better than it conceives—and to this moral sense we may properly submit the question of the relative excel- lence of Cltristian and heathen morality, secure in its power to pronounce aright, if at least we have not depraved it by long persistence in evil-doing. SERM. II. ] BEST HEATHEN MORALISTS. 59 Tsuppose that it may, without unfairness, be assumed, that the utmost height to which unassisted human rea- son ever attained in its speculations upon moral per- fection, is made evident to us in those works of the Roman and Greek philosophers with which we are in this place most familar. Oriental scholars are wont to speak occasionally in very exalted terms of the high morality which they discover in the works of Con- fucius, in the system of Sakya Muni, and in the teach- ing of the Vedas. But it has yet to be shown that Confucius surpassed Socrates, Sakya Aristotle, or the Vedic writers Plato and his followers. Had this been capable of proof, the proof would no doubt have been furnished long ere now. We may therefore, it would seem, still properly regard the philosophers of Greece and Rome as placing before us, in their ethical writings, the highest views of morality to which the human mind, without revelation, has shown itself capable of attaining. It is consequently with the sys- tems of these teachers that I should propose especially to compare the Christian morality, without, however, intending strictly to confine myself to this comparison. Of all the names of classical antiquity none stands so high as that of Socrates. The moral honesty of the man—his uncompromising opposition to tyranny, when it strove to make him an instrument of oppression (9)— his boldness in opposing popular views (10)—and, above all, his martyrdom in the cause of truth—give him the foremost position among the sages of Greece, and lead us to expect of him, rather than of any other, a moral system which might compare with the Christian. What, 00 DEFECTIVE MORALITY OF SOCRATES. [8ΕἘΜ- um. however, is the morality which he taught, according to the evidence of the best witness, the unimaginative Xeno- phon? What, for instance, is his temperance? Not ab- stinence from sinful pleasures, not the “ crucifixion” * of those lusts which “ war against the soul;”* but modera- tion in such pleasures, an infrequent indulgence in them and this, moreover, on the mere ground of self- interest ; because the palled appetite ceases to feel pleasure, and loss of health, and loss of goods, and loss of reputation, accompany the unrestrained gratification of the lower lusts and appetites. (11) This, perhaps, is the most gross instance that the “ Memoirs” furnish of plain departure from those moral instincts which nature implants in all; but further, we may observe through- out a low tone, a pervading selfishness, an absence of all nobility of sentiment, a want of any theory of self- sacrifice, which it has been usual to excuse on the plea of condescension to the moral weakness of his country- men, but which seems insufficiently accounted for by that theory, since it would imply an exercise of reserve transcending that, not of Plato only, but even of Aris- totle. Even the very act of martyrdom itself—the act which in our minds associates the name of Socrates with that “ noble army ”' which has spent itself for the truth —is emptied in a large measure of its grace and virtue, by the selfish motives which (according to Xenophon) sustained the philosopher in his hour of trial —the thought that his death was glorious for himself and disgraceful for his adversaries ; and the i Gal. v. 24. EY Pet. ai, ΤΠ: 1 Hymn of St. Ambrose. SERM. III. | CONTRAST WITH CHRISTIANITY. 61 further thought that he was taken away from the evil to come, that he was spared the weaknesses and. infir- mities of old age, dulled senses, failing powers, and that worst and sharpest pang of the advanced in years, the perception of weakened memory and diminished intellect. (12) Contrast with this the thoughts of the Christian under such circumstances. “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you.?™ “T endure all things for the elect’s sake.”" “Tam ina strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.”° And again, the feeling with respect to persecutors indicated in the words : — “ At my first answer all men forsook me; I pray God it may not be laid to their charge.”? “They stoned Stephen calling upon God, and saying... . Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” * Or contrast with it the thoughts of Him from whom Christians have derived alike the knowledge of how they ought to feel, and the power to feel as they ought, at such moments : — “1 am the good shepherd, I lay down my life for the r sheep.” " “It is expedient for you that I go away.” * “JT ρῸ to prepare a place for you.” “ Now is the Son of man glorified, and God ts glorified in him.”* All thought of self swallowed up in thought of others, prayer for others — prayer for the dear friends whom he leaves, prayer for the whole body of the faithful through m 2 Cor. xii. 15. ns 2s Pime-tre 10. Oh Pile ste Ae D2) Rimi. 10: a Acts vil. 59,60: toon x. ΤΊ hey, 5. John xvi. 7. Ὁ ΠΡ. xay2. US τι 9}: 62 DEFECTIVE MORALITY OF PLATO. [seRM. 11. all time, prayers and excuses even for his murderers — “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” * If the Socratic morality is unsatisfying from the low- ness of its aim, and the unworthy compromise which it allows with positive evil, the Platonic is weak and vague, deficient in any sufficient stimulus to action, and apt to produce a mere fastidious and refined sesthe- ticism, instead of that healthy practical tone which the circumstances of this world require. The true Pla- tonist, like his master, will be content with negative good ; he will shrink from the rude shocks and hard struggles which have to be endured, if the great battle of practical life is fought with spirit ; enough for him if he can shelter himself behind a wall (13), while the hurricane of popular frenzy — political, commercial, or religious — goes sweeping past, destroying and making havoc along its path; enough for him if he can but “keep himself pure” (14) by abstaining from the unholy deeds and words which he sees and hears on all sides. He is not “his brother’s keeper.” ” What 15 it to him if the multitude rush madly into crimes, sure to bring about, sooner or later, their own rum? Of what use his attempting to resist or warn them? “They | would kill him” (15); and this is a consummation from which he instinctively shrinks—too happy if he may find some quiet and safe retreat- whereim to sit in silence and gently dream away his existence, amusing himself with speculations on the abstract good, which are to profit no human soul but his own. Υ Luke xxiii. 34. W Gen. iv. 9. SERM. 111. ] ARISTOTLE’S MORAL SYSTEM. 63 With the dreamy speculative life of the Platonic system, the practical life of Aristotle’s good and happy man stands in striking contrast. Here there is no abstinence from the battle of life, no avoidance of difficult duties, no cowardly fear of death, no lazy weaving of fruitless fancies. Life and happiness are energies ; moral character is to be produced by action, and to find a vent in action—all the offices of life, civil, conjugal, parental, social, are to be performed — peril is to be faced, and death itself confronted, alike at the call of private friendship and the demand of public duty. (16) The strong and vigorous spirit of the Aristotelian moral system, its practical character, and direct antagonism to that listless tone of mind always too prevalent in the upper classes of a highly civilised community, have justly made it a favourite in this place; but it is to be hoped that we are not blind to its defects, to which all Christian teachers are bound to eall the special attention of their scholars. Aristotle, in his zeal for action, omits from his account of virtue almost one entire half of what is really comprised in it. The rich, powerful, and prosperous find in his description of the life men ought to lead, and the character to which they ought to aspire, a portrait which they can appreciate, and a rule which they have it in their power to follow. But the weak, the poor, the needy, the oppressed, those whose lot it is to suffer rather than to do, the “bruised reeds” * who need most help, and claim most sympathy, are omitted from his account. Passive virtue, on which Chris- x Matt. xii. 20. θ4 DEFECTS OF ARISTOTLE’S MORAL SYSTEM. [seERM. III. tianity lays the greatest stress, which has the choicest blessigs’, and the most glorious promises, obtains scarcely a recognition from the philosopher of Stagirus, who almost reluctantly admits that in suffering and calamity a few stray gleams of goodness may here and there pierce through the murky clouds, behind which he regards it as bemg then concealed. (17) Patience, long-suffering, humility, self-distrust, resignation, forti- tude, find no place in his catalogue of moral perfec- tions; into which even meekness is received under protest, as a state of mind half way between a virtue and a vice. (18) Nor is this all. The actve virtue of Aristotle, though far higher than that of Socrates, is not free from certain grievous flaws, which are sad blots upon his teaching. His good man will retaliate and revenge injuries; he will msult over his enemy when fallen; he will dislike okligation, and feel a petty jealousy towards those who in worldly rank excel him; he will despise the great bulk of his fellow-men, whose hearts are set on the good things of this life ; and he will meet the proud with their own weapon of pride, to preserve his own dignity. “To endure insult,” Aristotle says, “is slavish” (19); “not to reta- liate a wrong is base servility.” It 15 by retaliation of wrongs as much as by return of benefits that society is held together ; and so the tame-spirited man who puts up with an injury is on a par with the ingrate. (20) Contrast this teaching with the injunctions, “ Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other; and if any man will 5 Matt. v. 3, 5, 7, and 10. SERM. IIT. ] THEORETIC MORALITY OF THE VEDAS. 65 sue thee at law, and take away thy cloak, let him have thy coat also.”* “ Recompense to no man evil for evil; avenge not yourselves; but if thine enemy hun- ger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” * But it is scarcely necessary to show, by means of quotations, how infinitely the morality of the Christian Scriptures transcends that of the best classical moralists ; it is enough to point out defects in them. We are all familiar with the tone and tenor of the Christian teach- ing, and can supply from our own memories the pas- sages which furnish a corrective to the mistakes of unaided reason. I pass, therefore, from this subject, to a brief review of certain of the Oriental systems, which have been ignorantly, or insidiously, extolled as inculcating a morality of the highest order. No doubt it is possible to cull from the Vedas a set of passages which shall exhibit natural religion in its best and purest form—passages almost sublime in their simple majesty, on the nature and attributes of the Most High, as well as passages inculcating various moral duties very clearly and forcibly. For instance, we find in a Veda the following :—*“ This world was as yet in darkness, imperceptible, undiscoverable by reason, indiscernible, as it were altogether asleep. Then He who exists by Himself, the Most High, who is Him- self imperceptible, made the world, composed of great elements, perceptible. He, the Almighty, showed Himself, and dispelled the gloom. He, whose nature z Matt. v. 39. OS Wohi, ἘΠῚ 1h 66 ACTUAL MORALITY OF BRAHMINISM. [sERM. Ill. is beyond our reach, whose essence escapes our senses, who is indiscernible but eternal; He, the all-pervading Spirit, whom the mind even cannot grasp, even He shone forth Himself.” (21) And again, in another place:— “Let us adore the supremacy of that divine light, the _ God-head ; who illuminates all, from whom all proceed, to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our understanding aright in the progress towards His holy seat.” But it is not by the selection of a few detached fragments .carefully picked and chosen from the mass, which is of a very different colour, that a true notion of the moral character of the Vedic or ancient Brahminical system is to be obtained. The whole system must be taken together, and judged, as commonly held and taught among those who profess to regard it as authoritative. Now all who are acquainted with the East will bear witness, that the moral aspect of Brahminism, like that of Gnosticism (which it greatly resembles), is twofold—ascetic and licentious. (22) With the mass it takes the latter shape. Matter being re- garded as either necessarily impure or else unreal, a free license is given to all bodily acts; and even the sanctions of religion are called in, as was the case in the old Pagan world, to authorise and encourage sensuality. With the few, Brahminism is ascetic. To combat the impurity of matter, the Indian mystic either simply withdraws himself from the concerns of men, and seeks to dwell in a continued state of serene abstraction in a sphere above the sensible; or else, made conscious of the weakness of the flesh by vain attempts to free SERM. III. | MORALITY OF BUDDHISM. 67 himself from its influence, has recourse for its subjec- tion to the most painful and disgusting austerities, per- formed usually in the sight of men; as though the satisfaction derivable from gratified pride were necessary to enable shrinking nature to endure such terrible pangs. In either case, the perfect man of this system —the object of a veneration approaching to worship among his co-religionists—1is a man who lives only for himself, whose thoughts, hopes, aims, are centered wholly in himself, who puts aside all the claims of his brother men upon him in order to elevate himself into what he deems a higher sphere ; and undergoes sufferings, not to benefit others, but to obtain more quickly his own imagined good—absorption into the Divine Essence. No wonder that, thus wrapped up in self, he is cruel to others (23); no wonder he sternly forces the shrinking widow into the flames, and having brovght his aged father to the banks of the sacred stream, refuses all his requests for food, and compels him to die. The morality of Buddhism is not very different from this. Buddhism is reformed Brahminism—Brahminism without its most offensive parts. It has, however, the same pervading vice of selfishness ; and it superadds to this a formalism unknown to the earlier system —a for- malism which has its natural development in the inven- tion of praying-machines, which place an additional good work to the account of their erector, each time that the wind turns them. (24) The dim and indistinct knowledge existing among us on the subject of these systems, has alone made it pos- sible to represent them with any plausibility as incul- ἘΠ 9 68 MORAL CONDUCT OF CHRISTIANS [sERM. If. cating a pure and high morality. Our better acquaint- ance with the teaching of Mahomet, precludes, in his case, such misrepresentation ; and its absence will re- lieve us from the necessity of extending any further this portion of our inquiry. The question of the actual superiority of Christian morality, as exhibited in the life and conduct of Chris- tians, over any other, is one the importance of which can scarcely be exaggerated. It has been well said that “ the strongest possible argument for a religion is its influence upon the lives of its professors.” ‘“ By their fruits ye shall know them,”? may be extended from individual teachers to churches, and from churches to entire religious systems. Indeed it is thus only that the words can be broadly and indiscriminately applied ; for, on the one hand, men are better than their systems, and on the other, with individuals, the truth may be “held in unrighteousness.”© Moral improvement is not perhaps the sole end which true religion —na- tural or revealed — proposes to itself; but it is un- doubtedly an end embraced, and a very principal end ; so much so that it is not to be expected a religion should make much way with men, unless the argument from its moral results can be justly used in its favour. Now it has been too much the fashion of late years to allow, with that affectation of liberality which charac- terises the present age, not only that there are good and bad men of all religions, which is true, but also (which I believe to be most entirely false), that about b Matt. vi. 20. c Rom eae 19: SERM. III. | AND HEATHENS COMPARED. 69 the same proportion of good and bad, and the same degrees of goodness and badness exist in each. The point is one which does not admit of strict proof. We cannot count the good and bad of each religion ; neither can we accurately test and gauge the highest goodness produced under one system, and the highest goodness produced under another. What, however, we can do is to judge, as we judge of the superior intelligence of a race or nation, by the general results seen upon the surface of society, 11 manners, customs, Institutions, tone of thought and speech, practices forbidden or al- lowed, and the like. On all these various points recent events have given to our spurious liberality a rude shock. The closer insight obtained during the late war into the state of morality among the Turks, dis- pelled an illusion which many writers had fostered, that there was not much difference of moral tone between a Christian and a Mahometan. And _ now, the calamities which have befallen us in the East are rapidly opening our eyes to the true character of Oriental heathenism. The mild and gentle Hindoo, so soft in speech, so courteous, so deferential, so patient, so blameless in his life, has suddenly shown the ferocity of the tiger, combined with a treachery and a malignity only seen among the worst men. Our writers have often expressed themselves in forcible terms as to the wickedness of the unregenerate heart; but it has re- mained for ws to see it, and to have branded into our memories, ineflaceably, the terrible nature of that de- pravity which lurks beneath the surface, however fair that surface may show, in every land, and almost in F 3 70 ACTUAL FRUITS OF HEATHEN SYSTEMS. [serm. 111. every heart, where the constraining force of Christian motives and Christian faith have not chained the wild beast that is within us, and brought the passions and the will into subjection to the law of God. “ By their fruits ye shall know them.” ‘The Vedic and Buddhist systems, the religions of Confucius and of Mahomet, have been long enough in existence to have shown clearly by this time of what spirit they are, and what effect they are able to produce on men. A dreamy mysticism, an austere asceticism, combined with spiritual pride and a hard callousness to the sufferings of others, these are their best results, and these are but rarely obtained. With the mass they foster and encourage selfishness, pander to lust, increase pride, nurse cruelty. Still to this day, as in Apostolic times, where the Lord Jesus is not known, and His law is not received as the rule of life, men are “ filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ;” “ still are they “full of envy, murder, debate (strife), deceit, malignity ;” still are they “ whisperers, back- biters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, in- ventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affec- tion, implacable, unmerciful.” Vain is civilisation to check these things; for of that there is wellnigh as much in the east as in the west, more in China, cer- tainly than in many of our own colonies. Civilisation cannot soften the heart, subdue selfishness, repress pride, compel purity, introduce the spirit of love. d Rom. i. 393i. SERM. 11.} FRUITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 Christianity, which has stopped polygamy, caused the vice of impurity to hide itself, raised woman to be the companion of man, abolished slavery in most lands, forbidden private revenge, made laws against infanti- cide and suicide, has in all this shown a marvellous power to elevate the moral tone of mankind. Nor is this the whole ; Christianity has transformed that shadow of philanthropy which flitted before the eye of certain of the ancient sages (25), seen dimly and indistinctly, but never laid hold of or made the ground of acts; Chris- tianity has transformed this faint shadow into a living and breathing reality, and has made the whole earth a witness to the transformation. Not only in each Chris- tian land do institutions rise up, schools, alms-houses, hospitals, refuges, penitentiaries, collegiate foundations, and the like, an enduring evidence of that “ love of the brethren ”“ which is made the very mark and test of our being disciples of Christ ; not only are societies for charitable purposes formed and maintained by the voluntary offermgs of the faithful, whose collective income equals the revenue of an empire, while still the work of private charity goes on without interruption, amounting perhaps to more in the aggregate than all that is done openly; not only, I say, does Christian love produce these fruits, and others like to these; but over the whole earth —in the chill regions of the ice- bound north, on the burning sands of the Sahara, in the pestilential swamps of Mozambique — whatever the clime, whatever the physical obstacles, whatever the € John xii. 35. F4 72 MISSIONS. [SERM. III. danger, Christian missionaries are found pursuing their most arduous calling, far from the comforts and solaces of home, in strange lands, among savage races, spend- ing and being spent to spread the Gospel of Christ and win souls to heaven. Making every allowance for secondary motives, for the desire to see new scenes, for the love of excitement, for the mere spirit of enter- prise, for the ambition to have a high calling, there will still remain in the lives of missionaries, and the history of missions, a mass of self-denial and self-sacri- fice, which can be explained on no low or worldly theory, which stands out above and beyond the rest even of Christian excellency, “a spectacle to men and angels,” * unique in the history of the world. When a Francis Xavier, born and nurtured in the richest king- dom of the West, plunges into almost unknown regions, amid idolatrous tribes, with a mere handful of co- adjutors, when he spends his whole hfe in almost incredible labours and endurances, preaching, baptiz- ing, tending the sick, moving from place to place, twice traversing the provinces of Southern India, twice crossing the sea from Cape Comorin to China, and even to Japan; three times, in the space of eleven years, passing over the whole circuit of the globe, and at last, worn out with his toils, perishing just as his perseverance had opened to him a new door, and he had set foot within the charmed limits of China; when a servant of the Cross, “consumed with a quenchless £ 1 Cor. iv. 9: skRM. 111. | MISSIONS. 73 love of souls” (26), thus acts and suffers, it is a sight different in kind from any other which the world has to show, and one which, even alone, is (in my judg- ment) quite sufficient to prove the divine origin of Christianity. But such a case is no lone nor rare one. From the time of the Apostles to the present day, the Christian Church has sent forth a succession of such holy warriors, the champions of the Cross of Christ, who have carried the Gospel into all lands, and made Christianity the only religion which has a universal rather than a local character. Some names stand out pre-eminent from the long and goodly catalogue — St. Martin, the apostle of Gaul, St. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, Saints Columba and Columbanus, the converters of Scotland and Lombardy ; and, in more recent times, Matthew Rogier, in China, Henry Martyn and Bishop Heber, in India, and (perhaps I may be allowed to add) Bishop Selwyn, in New Zealand. But besides these burning and shming lehts, to whom God gave more or less of the blessing of success, the Church has had in all ages an array of men possessed of almost equal zeal and self-devotion, who, without attainmeg to such fame, have given themselves for others. What is there like to this in connection with other systems? Ambition has led some to extend their religion, and with it their kingdom, by the sword. Impatience of opposition, or a desire of consolidating their power, has caused princes to require all their subjects to be of one creed. A wish to increase their numbers and their strength has 74 OBLIGATION UPON CHRISTIANS [seRM. III. led political communities, of a peculiar religion, to labour zealously to obtain proselytes in foreign lands, whom they seek to draw to their own territory. (27) But earnest efforts, sustamed and unwearying, to con- vert separate and independent nations, who are to remain separate and independent, which is the only unselfish proselytising, is a phenomenon peculiar to Christianity. None but Christians even pray for the con- version of others. None but Christians seem to desire, much less to strive, that their religion may overspread the earth. And the natural result follows, itself an additional argument in favour of Christianity being from God, that the proportion of Christians to persons of other religions is perpetually increasing, that Chris- tianity is the only religion which is steadily progressive, and that thus, by the very law of its being, it must in time become the religion of the world. One practical remark may be added to this review. If the moral argument be indeed one of the main grounds upon which Christianity must ever rest, if the influence of a religion upon the lives of its professors be rightly termed “the strongest possible argument for its truth,” under what an obligation is each Christian laid to strive that in his own person this argument be not weakened nor impaired! Indian Missionaries tell us that one of the greatest, if not actually the greatest, obstacle in the way of the reception of Christianity by the Hindoos, has been the flagrant immorality of too many of those nominal Christians whom we have sent out to govern them. Yet they have been a fair sample SERM. III. | TO MAINTAIN A HIGH MORAL STANDARD. 75 of ourselves, neither better nor worse than the classes from which they were taken. We, therefore, at home, are equally to blame with them for this stumbling- block. And it is only by a general elevation of the moral tone of the community, by increased strictness, greater purity of life and conversation, especially in our schools and universities, that we can expect to send out a succession of persons fit to represent the morality of the Christian system before the jealous eyes of hostile heathenism. Could this change be made — could strictness of living become the rule, and immorality the rare exception, in our educated classes — could those who represent Christianity in the East be universally, or even generally, such in heart and life as some of those heroic men whose deeds have been lately much before our eyes, we need not despair of accomplishing that great task which we seem to have been set by God —the conversion of India. The age of miracles is in- deed past, but that need not dishearten us. It is at least doubtful whether the heathen of the old world were converted to any very great extent by miracles. Perhaps the greatest marvel in their eyes — that which wrought with them most, and most disposed them to believe—was, as a great infidel writer of the last cen- tury was fain to allow, “the virtues of the first Chris- tians.” (28) “See how these Christians love one another!” is said to have been their frequent remark ; and such love, with the deeds which flowed from it, and the general purity to which Pliny reluctantly tes- tifies (29), could not but have infinite weight, and gra- 70 CONCLUSION. [SERM. I. dually overcome the prejudice which had at first pro- nounced our religion “ exitiabilis superstitio.” (30) Could we but return, and “repent, and do again the first works,” *® the nineteenth century might perhaps repeat, or eclipse, the glories of the fourth and fifth. & Rev. ii. 5. SERM. IV. | LABOUR AND REST. 17 SERMON TY. Hes. iv. 9. “There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the people of God.” Lapour is our portion, yet rest is our chief desire— rest, from the first moment that his energies are called into play, is ever present to the mind of man as his ultimate haven, the object of all his toils, the end of all his exertions, the satisfaction of all his faculties. Turn the pages, sacred or profane, which convey to us, through God’s providence, the mental history of our race, and there is no leaf but will show the existence of this instinctive longing, ever deepest and strongest in the best and holiest, now struggling to find an ut- terance through the stammering lips of heathen philo- sophy, now bursting in full-voiced choral-song from the inspired mouth of Judah’s prophet band—anon echoed, albeit harshly and dissonantly, from the tongues of worldlings and pleasure-seekers. From the cold Stoic, vainly dreaming of obtaining, by isolation and neglect of duty, the blessing of perfect quietude in this life (1) ; from the man of practical sense and wisdom above all others, reaching onwards to what he saw must be the final condition of beings such as we are (2); from the man of a diviner wisdom than he, the wisest of all the sons of men, that have been, or that shall be, while 78 REST, THE OBJECT OF OUR DESIRES. [sERM. Iy. the world endures (3); from the whole “ goodly fel- lowship” of those who through seven centuries of ever increasing darkness, passed on from hand to hand the torch of prophecy(4); nay, even, strange to say, from the palled modern worldling and voluptuary(5) ; one universal cry goes forth, age after age, a cry for Rest. (6) Strange contrast which the actual condition of the world offers to this ideal perfection! Look abroad upon the whole race of mankind ; take in at one glance the manifold peoples of the earth ; pass in thought from this civilised and enterprising Europe to the broad plains of stationary Asia, the glowing sands of crushed and bleeding Africa, or the busy savannahs of the ever advancing Western World, and on what does the eye look but ceaseless, changeless toil—a race of crea- tures seemingly formed only to pass their lives in never- ending labour—myriads upon myriads perpetually working and drudging, and knowing no rest, except when overtasked nature sinks awhile under its load, and allows the wearied wretches a brief obliviousness ? If there be indeed “ above the highest moveable sphere ” another, wherein there is neither “ alteration, motion, or change, but all things immutable, unsubject to pas- sion, blest with eternal continuance in a life of the highest perfection, and of that complete abundant suf- ficiency within itself, which no possibility of want, maim, or defect can touch,” (7)—how would a being from such a sphere stand aghast at introduction into this world of ours! Like one brought suddenly from quiet pastoral scenes into the turmoil of a mighty city, SERM. 1ν.] LABOUR, THE LAW OF OUR LIVES. 79 or a recluse taken from his cloister, and placed in the midst of all the clang, and whirl, and bustle of a factory, bewildered at the multiplicity of the movements, asto- nished at the noise and tumult, confused with the crowd and hurry, he would assuredly regard this huge workshop of a world in which we live, as the habita- tion of a race with whom unrest and labour were as much objects of desire as peace and quietude to beings cast in his own mould. And this unvarying spectacle of myriads toiling everywhere, even beyond their strength, is no new thing upon the earth. The records of by-gone times, in books and monuments, show us the mass of men yet more ground down by toil in former ages, than at the present time. Assyria’s palaces, Babylonia’s gigantic mounds, Egypt’s temples and pyramids, Gre- cla’s Cyclopean walls, Rome’s amphitheatres and aque- ducts, are evidences of the exaction, from vast classes of the people, of an excessive and oppressive amount of labour, to which modern times afford no parallel. In the ancient world slavery, the lowest degradation of the working class, was an universal institution; and subject races, in almost every country, were employed in servile labours involving heavier work and harder suffering than any to which men are exposed in the present age. What shall we say, then, to this contrast and con- tradiction? Whence comes it that, in this instance, the ideal and the real are so utterly opposed to one another? Why, with so keen a craving for complete repose, are we doomed to such perpetual drudgery? 80 LABOUR, FROM THE CURSE, [seRM. Iv. Why, if toil is to be our portion through life, are we gifted with the desire “to be at rest” ?* Shall we lay all to the curse which “one man’s disobedience” ” brought upon us? Shall we say that the power to appreciate and desire repose is but a chance remnant of that purer nature, and a stray record of that better time, when sinless man dwelt peacefully im calm con- tent, amid the still and stormless shades of the Eden which God had planted for him? Shall we view the toil and travail, which are now the portion of our race, as nothing but the undying brand of the Divine dis- pleasure, stamped upon our miserable human life, mark- ing it as ruined, lost, and fallen, the life of prisoners ex- piating their crimes by suffering, the doom intended and irrevocably fixed by the words of the malediction — “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”? * Doubtless it is true to say that the curse is at the root of the contradiction between our lot and our longings, between the actual life which we lead and the ideal estate to which our hopes and feelings tend. The power to see the beauty of repose, the heart to love it and seek to it, have indeed come down to us from the days of our primeval innocence; and the world-wide necessity of toil, the never-ceasing stir and hum of our life here upon earth, do owe their origin to the change 3 which “ man’s first disobedience ” rendered necessary ; but the one is no chance remnant of a state of things that has wholly passed away, and the other is no mere exaction of a still unpaid penalty. Mercy spoke by the a Ps. lv. 6. b Rom. v. 19. © Gen. ii. 19. -SERM. 1γ.] YET NEVER WHOLLY A CURSE. 81 mouth of God even in the very words of the curse itself; and labour was from the first as much a means of restoring man to the happiness which his sin had lost, as a punishment for his disobedience. The rest, which had been suitable to a perfect nature needing no change, was unfitted for a being who required renova- tion and recovery; and labour, which before would have had no object, was now the necessary, or at least the appointed, means of moral restoration. It was not needful, however, in order to bind men to labour, that they should lose their sense of the excellence of repose ; and so that feeling was allowed to continue, and man was thereby taught to look forward, beyond this life of toil, to another and a better world, where his aspirations after rest might be realised. I say, therefore, that from the first labour was no evil or wholly unblessed thing. Men despised it, hated it, strove to escape from it, thought scorn of those who, by compulsion or choice, passed their time in it. Yet all the while it was doing its work upon them, elevat- ing, Improving, purifymg them. While they cursed it as a degradation and a misery, they owed to it all that rendered life tolerable. I speak not so much of those external appliances, those comforts and conveniences of life by which such as despise labour commonly set more store than others, and which are yet, all of them, the produce of laborious industry, as of the internal capacities of enjoyment, the health, the strength, the moral and mental vigour on which they specially prided themselves. All these were the fruits of exertion, the effect of toilsome exercise. God’s image once marred G 82 CHRIST'S COMING EXALTED LABOUR, [serm. 1Vv.. in man, the decree went forth that only by care and labour, by effort and travail, should the ruin be re- paired, the lost likeness restored in him. And so labour and travail, working towards this blessed end, had, even, in heathen times, a bright as well as a dark aspect, and were capable of beimg contemplated in a hopeful no less than in a desponding spirit, as means of recovery, albeit traces of a fall, from our first estate. And if this were the case, even in heathen times, how much more in Christian! Perhaps among the numerous present blessings which Christianity has con- ferred upon mankind, there is no single one for which more gratitude is due than the change effected by it in the character of labour, the necessary lot at all times of by far the greater number of men. From the moment when the Lord of heaven and earth “took man’s nature upon Him in the womb of the blessed Virgin,” and condescended to be born into the world, the child of one whose husband was a “ carpenter,” from that moment labour lost altogether its character of curse, and became invested with a marvellous dignity,—was transformed into a glorious employ, which no longer only benefited but dignified and exalted men. Un- reasonable and foolish would it be to doubt that He, who, at the age of twelve, went down with Joseph and His mother to Nazareth, and “ was subject to them,” * until, “beginning to be about thirty years of age,”® He was “led by the Spirit” f to commence His ministry, — unreasonable, I say, and foolish would it be to doubt, @ Luke 11. 51. ΕἾ. ἘΠ Pee Ε ΤΡ ιν. 1. SERM. 1ν.} BOTH MANUAL AND MENTAL. 83 that during these seventeen or eighteen years passed by Him in the dwelling of the carpenter, He himself laboured, working with His holy hands “ the thing that was good,”* aiding the aged Joseph in his daily toil. Or, if men will cavil here, because we have no direct account in Scripture of how He passed these years, what other explanation can be given of the fact, that He himself bore among His neighbours and acquaint- ances the designation of “ the carpenter”? “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” " They who knew His daily life knew Him as “ the carpenter.” Doubtless, to thousands upon thousands of wearied souls, worn with the never-ending drudgery of toil, this thought — the thought that He laboured, that He toiled, that He for eighteen years lived the common life of working men, “rising early and late taking rest,” ' “ eating His bread in the sweat of His face” }—doubtless this thought has brought peace and content to thousands who might else have sunk into the pit of despair, and perished through their misery. Thus did Christ redeem from the curse rude manual labour, exalting it high, and making it an employ in which men may well glory. If, however, He had stopped here, may we not say that His work had been but half accomplished? The world must ever contain two sorts of labouring men, those who toil with the hand and those who toil with the brain; and & Eph. iv. 28. h Mark vi. 3. i Ps, exxvil. 2, Prayer Book version. J Gen. ii. 19. G 2 84 SIN OF IDLENESS [serM. Iv. therefore, to redeem all labour, it was necessary that Christ should live both lives, and, giving up His handi- craft, become a labourer of the other kind. So the Carpenter became the Teacher and the Preacher ; and mental labour, no less than bodily, grew bright and full of blessedness. Time was, and that no distant time, when in this country, and even among ourselves in this place, these truths were scarcely recognised. To have no real occu- pation, to be above the necessity of toil, to be rich enough to live without a profession, these were the advantages which formed the boast of the more affluent ; while the secret or open envy of the rest of the world acknowledged them for the choicest of all earthly blessings. Of late years truer views have been put forward, and have spread widely. The dignity of labour, whether mental or manual, is felt and allowed in many quarters; the duty of men with respect to labour is sometimes urged; yet still the old leaven works. The illusion that it is better to be idle than to toil hard is not dispelled from all minds; idleness has still charms for numbers, and is mentioned by those who have been required to examine into the condition of this University as among the besetting sins of the place (8); and I think it may be said that comparatively few of those who are here placed under our care have any deep or strong conviction, or, perhaps so much as areal belief or feeling, that industry and diligence are among their religious duties. Yet few things are more plain, whether we look to reason or to Scripture, than that we are under an obli- SERM. lv. ] CONDEMNED BY HEATHEN MORALISTS. 85 gation to lead an active, laborious life. Heathen moralists, from a consideration of the nature given to man and the circumstances in which he is placed, drew the conclusion that he had undoubtedly a work to do in the world, and that his work was “to ener- gise.”(9) They saw clearly enough that to shrink from all active exertion, to trifle away one’s time, to be an idler in this busy workaday world, however con- genial to our natural indolence, was really a crime against nature,—which bound men together in societies, which gave them social instincts, which endued them with principles of action, which made activity a general law of all being, which attached individual happiness to exertion, and which made the well-being of all men collectively to depend upon the laboriousness of each man separately. Hence the contempt with which they spoke of the lazy and effeminate man(10); hence the anger which they expressed against those whose highest object in life was amusement.(11) They warned these drones in the human hive that their conduct was displeasing alike to gods and to men, and that it could bring them in the end nothing but shame and misery. (12) Scripture teaches the same lesson with equal plain- ness, only adding higher motives and more awful sanc- tions. I have spoken of the example of Him who is to be to us our perfect pattern, whose participation in labour hallows and blesses a// labour,—of Him, for thirty years the Carpenter, for three the Teacher and the Preacher, ever “ going about domg good,” * never pausing on His Kk Acts x. 38. G 3 80 IDLENESS CONDEMNED BY SCRIPTURE. ἴβεαν. iv. work of love, day after day toiling to relieve men’s wants, and turn their hearts unto Himself. I might speak of the example of those who are likewise set forth to us “as ensamples,’' the first and truest fol- lowers of their Blessed Lord, the holy apostles of God, who laboured with such persevering zeal and earnest- ness to spread the Gospel of Christ through all coun- tries. But I scarcely think it needful to prove, what all who have any knowledge of the Scriptures must know so well, that Christianity requires of men a life of active exertion and continued laborious industry. The com- parisons which represent to us our life here below, as that of labourers toiling in a vineyard”, combatants striving at the games", soldiers struggling for life or death in a battle°®, indicate the general tenor of Holy Writ on this matter, and may suffice in lieu of that cumulative proof which it would be impossible fully to exhibit without quoting from almost every page of Scripture. The sum is, that we, being God’s creatures, are placed by Him in this world not to disport or amuse ourselves, not to make life a holiday, nor yet to fold our hands in idleness, and float calmly down the stream of events ; but each one of us to do a work, to “set ourselves in some good way,”” to put the “ talents,” be they more or be they fewer, which God has given to us, “out to usury,’ * to “serve,”" to “labour,”* to “minister” to 1 Phil. iti, 17; 2 Thess. iii. 9. mm Matt. xx. 1. BY Cor.1k., 24% © Eph. vi. 11; Ὁ Tim, ii. 3. Ῥ Ps, xxxvi. 4, αὐ Matt. xxv. 27. r Gal. v. 13. 8 Eph. iv. 28. sERM. 1ν3.}]0 IDLENESS NOT FAR FROM ROBBERY. ο ~J the necessities of others ‘, to help to “bear their bur- thens,”“ to “work in God’s vineyard,”” to fight God’s battle“, to “be about His business.” * Neither as Christians nor as men can we be justified in doing less than this. If we would wish, when life draws towards its close, to look back with tolerable satisfaction upon our past career, we must from our early years act stea- dily upon the principle that, unless as useful beings, we are out of place in this world; unless as helpers of the work of the world, it had been better for us not to have been born into it. God has made the sum total of the happiness of His creatures to depend on the sum total of their exertions. If, then, persons allow them- selves to receive pleasure and benefit from the toils and labours of their fellow-men, while they for their part contribute nothing in return,—if they are content to consume the produce of other men’s industry, yet not themselves to be producers of anything,—they do in fact an appreciable injury to mankind, and the world would be better off had they never lived. Perhaps in God’s sight it is little less than robbery for a man to snatch every atom of enjoyment that he can for his own portion, and yet to have no care to supply in ex- change what may render service or impart enjoyment to others. Livery sip that such a one takes from his pleasure-cup is so much deducted from the general store, to which he has no right, sce he contributes nothing. “ Let him that stole steal no more, but rather t Heb. vi. 10. u Gal. vi. 2. v Matt. xxi. 28. We) ims 11. x Luke 11. 49. a 4 δ8 WORK A DUTY AND A PRIVILEGE. [seRM. Iv. let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good,” ” will apply literally to each idler in God’s universe. They who have set themselves in no good way, who do not their share of the world’s work, may well be said to steal what they take of the world’s enjoyments and advantages, which, if not consumed by them, would remain for worthier men. Work, then, is our duty, and work likewise is our privilege ; not alone in that it is only by laborious exer- tion that we form habits of goodness, but likewise in that no otherwise can we be “conformed to Christ’s image,”” or “manifest,” ever so faintly, “the life of Jesus in us.”* He “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister ;”” He “was among us as he that serveth.” © The “work which His Father gave Him to do”* He joyfully undertook, and slacked not His hand until it was accomplished. And here let it be, observed, that although after we have “set ourselves” in some “ good way,” after we have found and entered upon our work, there be various degrees and varieties of intensity with which we may, in the exercise of our Christian liberty, apply ourselves to our labour, yet, if we aim high, if we would wish to attain to any greatness or loftiness of character, we must make up our minds to use our wtmost endeavours, to exercise the most patient diligence, to give ourselves wholly to the employ, be it what it may, which choice or circumstances have assigned to us. There is no y Eph. iv. 28. = Rom. valle 29. ® 2 Cor. iv. 10. b Matt. xx. 28. ¢ Luke xxii. 27. ἃ John xvii. 4. sERM. Iv.]| NO SUCCESS WITHOUT PAINSTAKING. 89 eminent success, in these days at any rate, to be reached by any man, without vast industry, sustained attention, intense application, and long-continued pains-taking. Brillant talents, unless thus accompanied, are of no real benefit either to their possessor or to the world at large; they flash across the path of humanity with a meteor’s splendour, but neither aid man’s progress, nor sensibly affect his destinies. There has lately passed from among us a name fami- har to all (15), ---- a name which, Sunday after Sunday, sounded in your ears from this place; never, perhaps, will that name be here uttered again, but the memory of him who bore it will live while the world endures : he was a remarkable instance of the connection of ereatness with laboriousness. Never was there a man more bent on thoroughly mastermg the whole of every subject which came before him; never was there one so unsparing of labour, so determined “ whatever his hand found to do,” to “do it with his might.” And so, without perhaps any extraordinary talents, by un- tirmg energy and honest, unflinching diligence, con- joined with firmness, conscientiousness, and great good sense, he achieved his mighty renown, and made him- self a name which will thrill the hearts of generations yet unborn, while hundreds to whom nature gave more splendid powers will have passed into complete oblivion. Labour, then, to meet with any success worth the name, must be both intense and sustained. It must not € Kecles. ix. 10. 90 MOTIVES OF LABOUR, [sERM. Iv. be of that unsteady, fitful character which we too often see, the sign of an ill-disciplined mind, and the certain prelude of disappomtment. Neither must it be mere bustle, which is the activity of the lttle-mimded; nor restlessness, which is the unsteady movement of impa- tience and discontent. In true laboriousness, while there is abundance of hidden energy, there is a won- derful calm and quiet, recalling the operation of all the mightiest forces in nature, which, silent and unper- ceived, accomplish their vast results. Nor, of course, is it enough, in a Christian point of view (however it may suffice for worldly success), that our labour should be intense and unremitting, unless it be sanctified throughout by holy ends and motives. To seek our own success merely; to toil unceasingly, but only for our own advantage ; to look to profit, dis- tinction, fame, as final objects, — this is, indeed, some- what better, both for ourselves and others, than to be mere idlers ; but it is to miss altogether of the blessed- ness of labour; it is to go near to make toil the cursed thing which some have supposed it to be necessarily. Our own success, as a minor motive, is not perhaps illegitimate. The nature which we’ have received from God bids us aspire ; and the general good of society is promoted by the desire on the part of individuals to advance themselves. There is not, perhaps, on the whole, too much ambition among men; rather there is too little. (14) A few have the feeling in excess; but by far the greater number fail of attaining that position among their fellows for which they are by nature fitted, from the want of sufficient love of distinction to stimu- SERM. ly. ] SECONDARY AND PRIMARY. 91 late them to exertion. Desire of success, therefore, may be among our motives, though our sole motive it should never be. Ever side by side with it should be found the desire of doing good to others,—the wish to increase our usefulness, to help forward every good work, to have a real share in aiding that social pro- eress which, among many hindrances and drawbacks, is still, we may trust, proceeding in the world. Few things so sweeten labour as the thought that all our toil tends to give others ease ; that by labouring dili- gently we both actually diminish other men’s burthens and likewise render ourselves more able to give them help in all times of need. Such is the motive for exer- tion which St. Paul puts forward when he says, “ Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”* We should seek to gain knowledge, to gain cultivation, to gain high feeling, to gain a name in the world, in order to give -our knowledge, and our cultivation, and our high feel- ing, and our name to the service of them that need ; that is, to employ them all in behalf of those less pri- vileged than ourselves,—to advocate their claims, to remove their deficiencies, to elevate their minds, to improve their characters. If we work steadily with this object in view, we shall soon find a yet higher motive dawn upon our souls, even the love of God, who has plainly expressed to us, that we best please Him when, like real “faithful servants,’® we trade f Eph. iv. 28. & Matt. xxv. 21. 95 PLACE OF AMUSEMENT IN HUMAN LIFE. [serm. 1Vv. boldly with the talents given us; not being “ slothful”" "1 but “ abounding in all diligence ;”? not “ wearying in well doing,’* not “standing idle” about His vinevard!, but ‘“ working the works of Him 9 Θ nn or “ unprofitable, 2m (44 whose servants we are; doing good to all men, labouring, with all patience, to be of use to others, and to improve ourselves. “ If a man love not his brother, whom he hath seen, he cannot love God, whom he hath not seen:”° but from the love of man the passage is easy to the love of God, the only true jinal motive of all virtuous action. In thus urging labour as the duty, privilege, and true happiness of man upon this earth, I have had occasion to speak with severity of those who pass their lives in amusement. I would not, however, lead any to think that because labour is our true business in life therefore amusement is unlawful. Amusement is a necessity of our nature. There is no power which we possess but tires by exercise (15); and the healthy action of those loftier and more serious faculties and principles which the grave duties of life call into play, can no otherwise be maintained than by occasional periods of relaxation, during which it seems intended that the lighter and less important faculties should have scope to unfold and display themselves. Abso- lute and entire inaction does not rest us so well as such a change of employ. And we may be sure that God » » Heb: va. 12: i Matt. xxv. 30. J 2 Cor, vi. ἡ. K Gal. vi. 9. 1 Matt. xx. 6. m John ix. 4. n Gal. vi. 10. ° 1 John iv. 20. SERM. Iv. | PROPER LIMITS OF AMUSEMENT. Φ- ὧν would not have given us those tendencies which lead men everywhere to allow amusement a place in life, or those faculties which in amusement alone find their proper exercise, unless He had intended that men should, within certain limits, pursue amusement. What these limits are it is not difficult to determine. As the rule of bodily rest is to take just so much sleep as best maintains the healthy discharge of the various functions of our animal nature, so the rule of amuse- ment, which is the mind’s repose, must be fixed at the point which, m each individual, preserves the thinking and working powers at the height of perfection. It is the business of each man to find out the necessities of his own nature, and neither to injure his usefulness by that overstraining and overtasking of the severer powers which in this place are—not seldom—witnessed, nor to enfeeble and enervate his mind by an undue pursuit of what is properly no end, but only a means of maintainmg mental vigour. (16) I conceive that there can scarcely be any real difficulty in fixing sufli- ciently the mean between these two extremes, if men are but in earnest, and conscientiously bent on doing what is right ? In conclusion, let me say to those who have come to this place, professedly for education, that, if these remarks have any special applicability to one class rather than another, it is to them. They are in the ‘full vigour of youthful health and strength, and so are best able to work; they have most manifestly a dis- tinct work to do, about which they cannot doubt ; they, again, are entering life, and according to the 94 IMPORTANCE OF DILIGENCE’ AND [sERM. Lv. beginning which they now make will be, almost cer- tainly, the whole character of their future careers. Would that such as now hear me, would that all who, in each successive year, here take their first step upon the real arena of life, could, even but one half, realise to themselves the immense importance of these few years to their own well-being and happiness! It is here they pass from the jest of life to its earnest ; it is here they bid adieu to boyhood, and first begin to be what they are proud to claim to be—men. Would that they could be brought to follow the example of the great Apostle, who “when he became a man, put away childish things!”’ Would that they could feel that here their characters will be formed for evil or for good, that here they will either incapacitate themselves for future usefulness, not only by acquiring habits of idleness and expense, which they will find it scarcely possible to throw off, but also by dissipating their mental powers, and so rendering themselves incapable of real sustained application ; or, on the other hand, that they will lay the foundation upon which the superstructure of a life of utility may be raised, by forming habits, and gaining powers of mind, which will enable them to take an effectual part m the world’s work, and to be real labourers, doing good service in God’s vineyard! Are there any who feel that they can be content to go through life without being of the slightest use to others? — whatever their wealth or station, despised, as those whom accident alone has P 1 Cor, xi. 11. SERM. Iv. ] INDUSTRY TO ACADEMICAL STUDENTS. 95 elevated into the upper class ; never depended upon for advice, never consulted in emergencies, tolerated be- cause of their manners and connections, but manifestly regarded as supernumeraries by those who are fighting the world’s battles? Are there any whom such a position would satisfy? Yet this is what men bring themselves to, who waste the precious opportunities of mental and moral improvement which this por- tion of their life holds out to them,— opportunities which it is quite impossible they should ever enjoy again,—which, therefore, if wasted, can never be effec- tually redeemed. Do not all wish that others should set some value on them? Now is the time to make themselves of value. Iwill be bold to say that of those admitted to be students im this place, there is not one but may, by a due use of the time of his sojourn among us, by honest, careful study, by attentive, dili- gent attendance upon the instructions offered him, by quiet observance of the established regulations of the place, so form and discipline his mental and moral being as to render himself, in after-life, whatever suc- cess attends him here, a man whom those about him will look up to, whose opinion they will consider of weight, whose advice they will seek in difficulties. Is not it worth while to forego a little amusement, to lay aside foppery and affectation, nay, even (if need be) to stir ourselves to energy and earnestness by a serious effort, when on the labour of these few years so much seems to depend ? Hitherto the class of men by whom exhortations of this kind were chiefly needed, have met them, either 96 CONCLUSION. [SERM. lv. tacitly or openly, with the objection that our studies were not suitable to their needs, that as statesmen, landlords, magistrates, they would derive no advantage from acquaintance with ancient literature, or from a knowledge of the mathematics. This objection, at no time altogether valid, has now at any rate been removed by the enlargement which the university has made in its field of study. (17) Henceforth no excuse of this kind can be regarded as a serious reason, or as anything better than the plainly dishonest plea of wilful and self-recognised indolence. God grant that all of us may, with an honest and true heart, each in our several spheres, labour diligently at our respective works, “ whatever our hand findeth to do, doing it with our might,”* toiling ever, patiently, zealously, cheerfully, as those who feel that toil is re- deemed from the curse, toiling to help our brother men and to please our Father which is in heaven ; not asking or looking for rest as a recompense here, but, in full assurance of hope, lookme onward to that future life, where for those who perform their labour aright in this world there is reserved a rest, according to the apostle’s consoling assurance, “ There remaineth, there- 39. fore, a rest for the people of God. 4 Eccles ix. 10. τ Heb. iv. 9. SERM. V.] ASPECTS OF THE CIRCUMCISION. 97 SERMON V. PREACHED ON THE FEAST OF THE CIRCUMCISION. Luke i. 21. “And when eight days were accomplished for the cir- cumeising of the child, his name was called Jesus.” THE event which we this day commemorate is one of manifold bearings and aspects. It may be regarded as an act of faithful obedience on the part of Joseph and Mary, who, notwithstanding that the circumstances of His birth might have seemed to set this Divine Infant above the law, yet, having no express command to ab- stain, conformed themselves humbly and meekly to the requirements of the law, and brought their child by the appointed mode and at the earliest possible time, within the covenant which God had made with the favoured race. It may be viewed, as our Church views it in the Collect for the day, as an act of obedience on the part of Christ, the first link in that long-drawn chain of perfectly righteous deeds by which He “ ful- filled the law ”* for us, and became capable of offering Himself on the crossa spotless and meritorious sacrifice. Again, it may be looked upon as a sign and bond of sympathy and love, as that act by which communion a Matt. v. 17. H 98 ASPECTS OF THE CIRCUMCISION. [sERM. v. was established between the saints of both covenants, Christ thereby accepting the headship of the circumcised as by His baptism He did the headship of the baptized, and so becoming the centre of unity to the whole world in such sort, that “in Him neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision ”» — “there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.”° Or it may be seen as an act of gracious con- descension, an act by which He would fain have won over His nation, “ His own,” * His “ kinsmen according to the flesh ;”° an act by which He removed a stum- bling-block out of their path, and rendered the Gospel far more acceptable to them than it would have been otherwise. Or, lastly, we may see in it the commence- ment of Christ’s sufferings, the first spilling of that “ precious blood” which He was in so many ways to shed for man, now in a few weak stains, anon “ in great drops falling down to the ground,”* at length freely and fully from the five wounds, and the scourged back, and the thorn-pierced brow, in a spilling like that of water, without let or stint. We shall do well in our meditations on the event of this day to embrace these various aspects. They are one and all well suited to be subjects of devotional thought. Shall I err if I say that they are ill-suited for the handling of the preacher, too simple or too sacred to bear many words, which in the one case would be b Gal. v. 6. Ὁ Colon. 1: ἃ John i. 11. e Rom. ix. 3. £1 Pet. i. 19. & Luke xxi. 44. SERM. ν.]} JEWISH RITES SYMBOLICAL. 99 too apt to “darken” knowledge”, in the other to weaken the feelings of awe and reverence with which this pas- sage in the life of the God-Man is by pious minds con- templated? At any rate I shall prefer on the present occasion to leave the direct fact which we to-day com- memorate to the secret thoughts and meditations of my hearers, and to call their attention rather to the general subject — to the contrast (I mean) between Christianity and Judaism which is indicated by the discontinuance of circumcision under the Christian covenant — not- withstanding our Lord’s example, and the substitution for it of another rite, of so entirely different a character. I suppose it will be generally allowed that the cere- monies of the Jewish law were significant. © With what- ever suspicion or dishke symbolism in religion may now be regarded, it will scarcely be denied by any that the system which it pleased God to give to the Jews was, in its whole extent, and in all its parts, from first to a showing forth, under material last, amighty parable types and figures, images and similitudes, of moral and spiritual verities. This idea is the entire basis and essence of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and indeed it is assumed throughout all the writings of St. Paul (1) as a fact of which there can be no question. “The law had a shadow of good things to come;”? it was throughout emblematical, typical; taken as a whole, it was a long, complicated “allegory.”(2) We may assume, therefore, with confidence that circumcision was not an unmeaning rite, arbitrarily taken to be a h Job. xxxviii. 2. i Heb. x. 1. Hy 2 100 SIGNIFICANCE OF CIRCUMCISION, [sERM. v. sign of entrance into covenant with God, as anything may be of anything; but was expressly chosen and singled out from an infinite number of possible cere- monies on account of its fitness to symbolise that of which it was intended to be significant. If, after this, we ask what it was then which the strange ceremony of circumcision peculiarly typified or signified, I suppose that again, ina vague and general way, there would be an agreement as to the answer to be given on the part of all Christians. All would say that the foreskin signified the natural corruption of the flesh, which was to be cut off and cast away, and that the circumcision made with hands was typical of that “ circumcision made without hands,”! the “ circumcision of the heart,’“ which consists in the “ putting off of the ' in the “ mortification ” body of the sins of the flesh,” (to use the words of our Collect) “ from all worldly and carnal lusts of our hearts and all our members.” Thus much is, I think, generally admitted ; but if we stop here, if we are content with this vague and inexact representation, we shall miss altogether the force of the contrast which seems to me so remarkable; we shall have to regard the abolition of circumcision, and the institution of baptism in its stead, as an unmeaning substitution of one rite for another, a change for change’s sake, akin to the mere human devices which are introduced to mark anew era, and not an alteration which was intended to teach a lesson. Ὁ Chole ri, Wale k Rom. i. 29. Cole ἢ 11 SERM. V. ] AND OF BAPTISM, CONTRASTED. 101 For baptism signifies all that has been here assigned to the Jewish rite. Baptism is the putting away of the filth of the flesh;”™ it represents “a death unto sin,” ἢ the laying aside of all filthiness and corruption, the cleansing from all defilement, the mortification of all evil and corrupt affections. Baptism and circumcision alike imply that we come into the world impure, and need to be set free from our impurity. They differ as to the mode whereby our cleansing is to be effected. Cir- cumcision suggests the ascetic theory of religion. When admission into covenant was through blood and pain, when suffermg was made the essential condition of ac- cess to God, when mutilation, moreover, and disfigure- ment of the body, enduring and irremediable, were required absolutely, that the soul might not be cut off from the congregation’, men were taught in a lan- guage sufficiently clear and intelligible that, in order to draw near to God, they must afflict themselves; in order to please Him and be His favoured children they must chastise their bodies, undergo rigours, abstain from pleasant things, cut off enjoyments. And if, from the inherent materialism and worldliness of the Hebrew race, this lesson had but a very weak effect upon the mass of the people, yet with the better disposed and the more spiritually-minded it always produced a religion of strictness and severity — strictness and severity of the ascetic kind, vows of abstinence (as that of the Nazarite), sackcloth, penal fastings, prolonged watch- ings, rejection of “ pleasant bread.”” And this tendency m ] Pet. i. 21. n Church Catechism. © Gen. xvii. 14. DD πη ποῦ. 103 ASCETICISM PRACTISED BY THE JEWS. [serm. v. increased as time went on. We observe it first in Da- vid (3), and then, as an accompaniment of repentance, and as occasional, not constant or permanent. But in the prophets it becomes the prevailing temper. Sack- cloth comes to be the prophet’s garment*, insomuch that, in the later times, when impostors wished to be regarded as true prophets, they found themselves com- pelled to wear “the rough garment” in order to “ de- ceive.”" The practice of fasting, not commanded any- where in the law, at the same time grows and becomes more settled. We find that m the Pharisaic system, which dates from about the third or fourth century before our Lord’s birth, two days in the week — the second day and the fifth— were made regular fast- days (4), and the keeping of such fasts was considered a very main part of religion. Before the Gospel was published another sect had arisen, which is generally believed to have absorbed into it the great bulk of truly religious Jews —the sect of the Essenes — who carried asceticism in some respects to greater lengths even than the Pharisees. Josephus describes these Jewish monks as living together in village communities under a strict and severe rule, abstaining from marriage, and in some cases forbidding to marry, abstemious in their food, simple in their habits, and altogether exem- plary in their lives. (5) Finally, the Jewish system culminated, as we know, in John the Baptist, than whom there was no greater among them that had been born of woman up to that time; and he “ came neither eat- a Ts, xx. 2. Yr Zech. xiii. 4. SERM. V. | CONDEMNED BY ARISTOTLE. 103 ing nor drinking ”—so that men said he “ had a devil ;”* he was, apparently, “a Nazarite from the womb, drink- ing neither wine nor strong drink;”' his meat “locusts and wild honey;” his “raiment of camel’s hair;”" his habitation “the wilderness of Judea;”” his life from childhood that of a solitary. Such were the tendencies and such the results of Judaism — results symbolised and encouraged by the rite which we are considering, and parallel to those which the highest heathen wisdom had reached by the employment of reason upon the facts of human life and conduct. Asceticism had indeed been condemned by Aristotle (6), who derived from ἃ priort reasoning a system theoretically higher and truer than those of Plato and Zeno, but practically, and for those for whom it was intended, perhaps less true, and certainly less suitable. The philosophies of the Porch and of the Grove, dealing as they did with unregenerate man, were probably more beneficial in their effect, and conse- quently more right, than the philosophy of Aristotle, which cannot be properly applied unless to the un- fallen or the regenerate. Human nature being cor- rupt, man being “ very far gone from original righteous- ness,” perfection will not be reached by “following nature,” by observing the mean, by maintaining the balance even among αὐΐ the various principles of which we are composed. The evil, whatever it be,—the cor- rupt principle, wherever it lies,— will be untouched by 8 Matt. xi. 18. t Luke i. 15; Num. vi. 3. u Matt. i. 4. WA. ν w See the 39 Articles, Art. 9. H 4 104 ASCETIC LEANINGS OF THE BEST HEATHEN. [serm. v. this process. ‘ Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one?”* Thus, wherever among the heathen there has been conviction of sin, a sense more or less deep of the inherent wickedness and depravity of man, ascetic notions of greater or less severity have prevailed. (7) Τῇ human nature was itself in fault, nothing could reach to the root of the evil but an alter- ation of that nature itself; and as man could not add to his nature a principle any more than to his stature a cubit*, no serious alteration seemed possible but by subtraction or mutilation. Hence the proposal to crush, destroy, uproot, the lower appetites and aflec- tions which we find in Greek and Roman philosophy, beginning with Plato (8), and culminating in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius(9); hence the endeavour to mortify and attenuate the body itself which has always prevailed among the Orientals. Perfection, indeed, is not reached in this way, not even where the asceticism is most free from its special dangers of pride and. self- exaltation; but probably by moderate asceticism a nearer approach to perfection is made, while man continues unregenerate, than in any other way. More is done to counteract the evil influences of the fall, which has (among its other effects) given an undue prominence and preponderance to the lower and animal propen- sities (10), while it has checked and stunted the higher. Thus, as the Baptist is the highest type of Jewish cha- racter, so the ascetic heathen — Socrates (11), Zeno, are the most exalted specimens of Seneca, Epictetus the excellence attainable under heathenism. x Job xiy. 4. ¥ Matt. vale 9... SERM. V. | CHRISTIANITY NOT ASCETIC. 105 What now is the “ more excellent way”* which Chris- tianity points out, and which it symbolises by baptism? Is not the Christian doctrine simply this—“ Wash and be clean?” * Surely the lesson that the new covenant conveys by its substitution of baptism for circumcision, is, that the time for asceticism has passed away, that we may no longer think to please God by self-inflicted sufferings—a “voluntary humilation,” which is “ will- worship,”” and not the religion of Christ—but that we are to live, as Christ did‘, in the world, eating and drinking such things as are set before us*, not abstain- ing from wine*, not holding marriage in disesteem’, not flying human society or its harmless pleasures and amusements, not macerating the flesh by austerities(12) ; but still taking care that we deal not with these things as the worldly and the fleshly deal, but in every case purify what the ascetic cuts off and casts away, and only use it after such purification. “To the pure all things are pure;”* and the holiness which Christianity requires of its professors, is not a withdrawal from the world, not a renunciation of rights, or duties, or plea- sures, or amusements, but such inward purity of heart and soul as can keep us clean in our contact with these things, and can prevent the taint of defilement from resting on us. As the bodily frame which is in perfect health may be brought in contact with all the varied forms of disease and get no hurt thereby, being repel- © ΦΓ1 Corn. 91. 2 Kings v. 13. b Col. ii. 18, 23. © Matt. xi. 19. 4 Luke x. 7. CO uimenvan2 os f Heb. xui. 4. 4 ir ear a LS 0Q 106 EFFECT OF BAPTISMAL GRACE. [SERM. v. lent of that subtle and mysterious influence, whatever it is, which lays hold upon our physical powers and pro- strates them; so the pure soul will repel from it moral evil, and come out from contact with “this miserable and naughty world”" clean from all filthy stain, brighter and more lustrous far than those which have sought to escape pollution by separation from all that could de- file. For this result is needed, in the first place, that cleansing of the soul, that renovation of our nature, that recovery in Christ of all we lost, and more than all we lost in Adam, which by God’s mercy we all attain in baptism; when we are first “washed, sanc- tified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”' Cleansed by that heavenly washing — “regenerate and made God’s children by adoption and grace”’—the Christian has a nature which no longer needs, which will not be bettered by, ascetic discipline. For him the theory of Aristotle be- comes true—let him only follow out the bent of his regenerate nature, let him maintain the balance among the various powers of which he is composed, let him moderately use and not abuse the things of this world* —and, by God’s grace, it is possible that he may pass through life with his baptismal garments never so soiled but that the blood of Christ washes away the stain, when the evening prayer-time brings with it repentance, and an entreaty for pardon. And even in the more common case, When the Christian lapses into worse than h Office for the Visitation of the Sick. IG Cor τ delle j Collect for Christmas Day. EK 1 Cor. vil. 31. SERM. ν.7 CHRISTIAN FASTS AND VIGILS. 107 venial sins, and forfeits his baptismal position, it is no longer by the path of ascetic discipline that he must look to return to God. David “wept, and chastened his soul with fasting,’' “made sackcloth his garment,”’™ “lay all night upon the earth,”” seeking, as it would seem, at once to punish his own sin, and to appease God’s wrath by such punishment ; but the Christian has no warrant to use such practices in such a spirit. The Christian may fast and keep vigil, but it is to “keep 9990 under”® a rebellious body, or to train it to “endure hardness” ? — not to torment and punish it, much less to appease God by self-torture. We may not take our punishment out of God’s hand, Whose it is to punish or to remit, as seemeth Him good. We may not hope to appease God by our sufferings, Who has accepted the suffermgs of One as “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” * Again, as it is not for us to torment our bodies, unless they require it that they may be brought to subjection, or unless we are seeking to train them to greater power of doing God service, so it may be doubted whether we are not wrong in seeking to please God by abstaining from anything lawful. We all know what snares vows of abstinence have proved in other times and countries, even when supported by general opinion and approved by the Church. There cannot certainly be less danger in the vows made now, without such support and approval, administered by 1 Ps. lxix. 9. τὰς 70: 110): π ὃ Sam. xii. 16. 9.7 Cor! ix. 27. Bee imei 9. 4 Office for the Holy Communion. 108 DANGER OF WILL-WORSHIP. [sERM. Vv. the officers of a self-constituted society. (13) Nor are resolutions of abstinence without danger. When men, for instance, resolve to abstain from particular amusements, in which there is nothing wrong, and in which many excellent Christians indulge, they are apt to make a merit of such abstinence, and to account it (as the Pha- risees did their unauthorised fasting") for a very m- portant point of religion. They then naturally become puffed up on account of their fancied superiority to others in this respect, and they often uncharitably condemn those others for not adopting their rule. Whereas, in very truth, it is in such matters, as St. Paul says, “ Neither if we do as they are we the better,” nor if we 298 do otherwise “ are we the worse. It is not “ nat ~ ”* neither is it absti- nence from things lawful. It is “the keeping of the commandments of God.” " ΑἹ] will-worship is danger- that “ commendeth us unto God, ous. We have not such an overplus of the religious principle that we can afford to add to the requirements of God’s law a further set of requirements of our own, and make religion consist in the observance of both. If we expend our strength upon keeping the latter, it can scarce be but that the former will suffer. Of course there is a line to be drawn somewhere, between things that are lawful and things that are not lawful. The “vain pomp and glory of the world,” which we renounced at our baptism”, is to be eschewed Ὁ Luke xviii. 12. 8 1 Cor. viii. 8. t 1 Cor, vii. 8. a1 Cor.vaiis 19; Y Office for the Public Baptism of Infants. Address to Sponsors. SERM. V.] DUTY OF AVOIDING OFFENCE. 109 through life as well as the “ sinful lusts of the flesh.” ἡ We must not “follow nor be led by them.” And there is a danger—perhaps even in this place a greater danger—of over laxity than of over strictness in inter- preting these phrases; of too free an. indulgence in amusements than of too stiff a rejection of them; of too tender a treatment of the body than of too great severity. But there is also a real peril of the other kind; and as this peril is but seldom noted, it may not be superfluous to have drawn attention to it here. Again, it must be borne in mind, that there is a ground upon which systematic abstinence from lawful things is not merely justifiable but obligatory. Where, if we took advantage of the “ liberty wherewith Christ ”* we should offend weak consciences, and thereby diminish our own usefulness, we are bound to abstain, by the double obligation of Christian love and of regard for our own best interests. “If meat has made us free, make my brother to offend,” says the great Apostle, “I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.”* We must not allow our liberty to become “a stumbling-block to them that are 2) Z weak. We must curtail our own lawful enjoyments for their sakes, since “if we sin against the brethren, and wound their weak consciences, we sin against Christ.”*. The principle herein involved is equally obligatory upon all; but its application is especially to the Clergy, who are expected to live by a stricter rule than others, and in whom what is thought to be laxity w Church Catechism. xa ΤΕ ΡΞ ἢ 5 1 Cor τῆι. 19. z 1018. 9. 2 Voxel, ΤΣ 110 CONCLUSION. [serM. v. especially offends men. They who love Christ, and in Him love His “little ones,’” will not begrudge their Master the sacrifice of a few things indifferent, in which they might have found a natural and innocent pleasure, when they remember how completely He identifies Himself with His little ones, and how solemnly He warns men to avoid giving them offence. “ Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come, but woe unto that man by Ὁ whom the offence cometh. b Matt. xviii. 10. ὁ Tbid. verses 7, 8. SERM. vI.! WIDE SCOPE OF CHRISTIANITY. 111 SERMON VI. PREACHED BEFORE THE JUDGES OF ASSIZE, MARCH 1858. Marr. xv. 19, 20. “ Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul- teries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man.” Iv is the special characteristic of the religion of Christ that it claims the obedience of the whole man. Not a religious old age only, but a religious manhood and a religious youth, nay, even a religious childhood are among its requirements. The whole life is to be sanctified. Religion, like the precious ointment upon Aaron’s head, which ran down to his beard, and thence descended to the very skirts of his clothing*, is to pervade and interpenetrate the Christian’s entire existence, to distil its perfume throughout his whole bemg. Christianity is no holiday religion, to be put on once a week, like the poor man’s best suit, and then laid aside till the Sunday comes round again. Nor, again, is it, like the ereat man’s official dress, to be worn only in public and upon grand occasions, but put off when we retire into the secrecy of domestic life or the solitude of our chamber. The Bible is inexorable in demanding our a Ps. cxxxiil. 2. 112 CHRISTIANITY CLAIMS TO CONTROL THOUGHT. [serm. vr. complete devotion to God—life-long obedience, daily worship, entire submission of our will to His, a sus- tained and undivided religion. In this Christianity differs from every other religion which either is, or ever has been, professed on earth; it will allow nothing to escape it; it is exacting, all-embracing; it knows no limits to the sphere of its authority ; it claims to rule all things and everywhere. One of the most remarkable exemplifications of the characteristic in question is to be found in the domi- nion which Christianity would establish over our thoughts. We expect that a religion should control our actions; we are not surprised that it should claim to check our speech ; but that it should go further, that it should pierce the veil behind which we show ourselves to the world, that it should enter the very penetrale of our hearts, and require as strict a watch to be kept over our light wishes, our idle and vague imaginings, as over all that we carry out in word or act, is not what we ἃ priort expect, or what we very readily submit to. “Thought is free,” says the human proverb, and free most men consider it; free they deem themselves to expatiate at will over the broad fields of speculation ; free to let fancy present to their notice what images it chooses ; free to judge men’s motives and characters ; free to repine secretly at their lot, and to covet a higher position. What is this but to forget that there are such things as “evil thoughts”? What is it but to ignore the Christian duty of keeping watch over our hearts, and bringing every thought into captivity to Christ ?”? Ὁ, Cores sD sERM. vI.] EVIL THOUGHTS AT THE ROOT OF ALL SIN. 113 What is it, finally, but to miss the very sum and essence of our religion, which in nothing so much shows its exalted and superhuman character as in laying the stress that it does upon what men in general regard as of such little account—the inward and secret springs of action which he deep in the heart—feelings, fancies, wishes, aspirations —the real proofs of what we are, the hidden sources of all that we say or do, the fruit and evidence of all that in our past life we have said or done ? He who knew the heart of man as none other has ever read 10“, when He would put before His dis- ciples the true defilements which separate man from his Maker, gave the first place — not, surely, with- out a purpose—to “evil thoughts.” Without such thoughts there would be no sin at all. The “root of bitterness,”* the fount and origin of all wrong-doing, the head-stream of impurity, and violence, and injustice, and falsehood, and profanity, from which they all flow, without which they would shrink away and be dried up, is an evil heart. If, then, we allow the force of the advice, that the “ beginnings of evil are to be checked; ” if we admit that it 15 vain to lop the branches while the root’ remains full of vigour, it 1s to our thoughts that we must pay special attention, it is over them that we must keep the strictest watch. Here is the seat of our corruption; here is the stronghold of the tempter. Beaten back from his outworks of word and act, here he entrenches himself as in a citadel, resisting to the ¢ John ii. 25. d Heb. xii. 15. 1141. EVIL THOUGHTS, THE SPECIAL TEMPTATION [serm. vi- utmost all attempts to dislodge him, yielding ground only inch by inch, ever looking that we may weary of our efforts to drive him out, that our siege may slacken and cease, and well knowing that in that cause he will sooner or later recover all that he has lost, and once more reign over our whole nature. Till every thought is brought into captivity to Christ our position is alto- gether insecure ; we know not to what depth of evil we may not fall, we know not in what an abyss of guilt we may not lie. God, who is “ of purer eyes than to be- hold iniquity,”® “‘ whose ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts,”* may see in the chafings and strivings of a wayward heart as much rebellion against His will, as in the wild blasphemies of a mad- dened tongue, or in the bold deeds of a ruthless and un- governed hand. Especially in the case of those whom circumstances exempt from the vulgar temptations to open sin, whom interest and education and the tone of the society wherein they live, tend to keep correct in life and decent in speech; especially in the case of such persons (and those whom I address are mostly such) must sins of thought be of the gravest consequence, their probation, in fact, consisting mainly herein. Our ereat moralist observes that there are persons “ gvho “ from their natural constitution of body and of temper, “or from their external condition, have small tempta- “tions to behave ill, small difficulty in behaving well, ‘“‘in the common course of life,’ and suggests that to such men the discipline of thought supplies a probation eo Habawe he. f ITs. lv. 8. SERM. γ..] OF THE MORE RESPECTABLE CLASSES. 115 as real as that which the mass of mankind undergo from “the ordinary motives to injustice or unre- strained pleasure.” (1) Undoubtedly this is the case of numbers here. Education, refinement, taste, self-in- terest, shame, combine to preserve them from vicious acts and coarse or profane speech; but in thought there can be no external or conventional restraint. Here, then, and here alone, they reveal their true selves, showing clearly what spirit they are of, pure or im- pure, proud or humble, charitable or censorious, greedy or contented, loving or selfish ; here they reveal them- selves to God and their own conscience, and (it may be) to angelic intelligences; here, in this inner world, their characters are formed, and they become, on the ”=’ on the other; one hand, idle or “filthy dreamers, “pure in heart,”" and fit for the vision of God. But what, it may be asked, are “ evil thoughts,” and when do thoughts become evil? We cannot think of what we please. We cannot say beforehand what thoughts shall arise in our minds ; our will is powerless here; and it is to a cause external to our will, if not even to ourselves, that we must ascribe the first presen- tation to the mind of each successive thought whereof we are conscious. Circumstances over which we have little or no control are continually placing before us objects calculated to call forth in us wishes, desires, passions, appetites, the first occurrence of which 15 absolutely involuntary, and therefore cannot be sinful The first stir of appetite or affection, the first rise of a 8 Jude, verse 8. h Matt. v. 8. 110 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THOUGHTS. [serm. vi. wish, is a thing as much beyond our power to check or prevent as the presentation to our ears and eyes of the sounds and sights which surround us.(2) And so too, with what are commonly called thoughts, the fancies which flit before eur mind’s eye. We have within us a strange and restless faculty, which, unless we be occupied with external objects, is ever bringing before us, in a long unbroken stream, a series of ideas or phan- tasies. Like the figures seen by the inmates of Plato’s cave (3), or the phantasmagoria of a troubled dream, the train of images floats by, a never-ending still-begin- ning succession, coming whence we know not, vanishing whither we cannot conceive, only interrupted from time to time, when the outward impressions of sense overpower and, as it were, break up their subtle and more delicate fabric, and recurring again without fail the moment that the senses are at rest, and that external things cease to occupy us. 1 will not say that for the presentation of these images to our mind’s eye we are in no case blameable. There are occasions, to be here- after considered, when the very first occurrence of one of these thoughts or fancies is sinful; but these are comparatively rare, and speaking generally we may lay it down that the mere presentation of an image, the mere advent of a thought, is harmless ; that it is neither good nor bad, neither praise nor blame worthy, being beyond the moral pale, inasmuch as it in no sort pro- ceeds from our spontaneity; and that our probation, our trial, our power to act rightly or wrongly, begins after the thought has occurred to us. And this is equally the case, whatever account is to be eiven of the origin of our thoughts. Many curious speculations seRM. vi.] MEN HOW FAR RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM. 117 have been entertained on this subject, into which there is no need that we should directly enter. According to some, laws of association, over which we have no power, determine absolutely the entire succession of our thoughts and fancies, thought following thought by the same iron necessity by which the links of a chain succeed one another when we unwind a coil. (4) Ac- cording to others, physiological causes, external influences acting upon our nervous fibre, states of atmosphere, of the electric current, and of our own bodily health, necessitate the presentation to our minds, at each moment when external objects do not occupy us, of this or that particular image.(5)