m 11m mJggk |ji[ J'" 11 jtiiipls 1 ;!] ililli!liii''li|i:ii':iiiliillttJHl[li|C Mil V [ ^MMff iiillMmLii qi:^ifi:^' , !i.iilllliIiliill ,,HH,HK Wlltf' i 1! l f !: ,!! ( ! ! ,i'fi ,„!! nijlr Iirnntitr iiiiiitliitfHi!iii:; : - : ! Srom f#e fetfimrg of (profeeaor ^ifftam JE) ent 2 our Maker. How careful, then, ought we to be as to what standards we adopt, when we would estimate the relative guiltiness of sins ! If we must distinguish sin from sin — though it were perhaps safer to con- fine ourselves to the truth, that all sin is infinitely heinous — let us take good heed that we always go for our rule to the Divine word, and not to humar. opinion. And much the same may be said in regard of duties, and of actions which God may graciously be pleased to ap- prove. It is not to be thought, that be- cause no human action can deserve re- ward from God, all actions performed in his service must be of equal account. With virtues, as with vices, God may acknowledge great differences : He will not overlook, as too small for notice, the cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple ; but he does not necessarily put this act of benevolence on a level with every other achievement of faith and of love. Yet here we have the same remark to make as with reference to sins. The Divine decision will, in many cases, be wholly different from the human ; whilst actions are classified by the one as well as by the other, the su- periority may be assigned in a contrary order. The act of righteousness, which we should select as most worthy of commendation, and most demonstrative of piety of heart, may not be that on which the Almighty would fix, when signifying his approval of one of his servants. It may rather be, that some sacrifice which the world never knew, some exertion which was limited to his own home, and perhaps even his own heart, has been the most approved thing in the sight of the Lord, of all wrought by one whose time, and substance, and strength, have been wholly devoted to the cause of religion. It may not be when, like Paul, he is fighting " with beasts at Ephesus ; " nor when, like Stephen, he is laying down his life for the truth, that a man of God does what specially draws on him the smile of his Maker. There may have been quiet and unobserved moments, moments spent in solitude and prayer, in which he has fought what God accounted a harder battle, and won a nobler victory. And in the arrangements of his household, in meeting some domestic trial, in subduing some unruly passion, he may virtually have displayed a stronger trust, and a simpler preference of the promises of the Most High, than when he has stood forth as the champion and confessor, amid all the excitement of a public scene, and gained for himself a deathless renown. " The Lord seeth not as man seeth :" and mightily should it console those who THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON HIS DEATH-BED, are not so circumstanced as to have great opportunity of making efforts and sacri- fices on behalf of Christ and his cause, that it is not necessarily the martyr whose self-surrender is must accepted of God, nor the missionary whose labors and endurances are most held in remem- brance ; but that the private christian, in his struggles with himself, in his morti- fication of his passions, in the manage- ment of his family, in his patience under daily troubles, in his meek longings for a brighter world, may be yet dearer to his Father in heaven, and be thought to have shown more of faith, than many a man who has entered boldly the desert of heathenism with the cross in his hand, or even ascended the scaffold to seal with his blood his confession of Christ. Now all these remarks on the different standards by which God and man judge actions, will be found to bear directly on the words of our text. In this 11th chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul collects from the histories of patriarchs, and other worthies, instances and examples of the power of faith. And the question, in reference to our foregoing remarks, is whether he has fixed upon those which we should have fixed upon ourselves. Inspired as the Apostle was, so that he must have been directed to facts most worthy of commemoration, we may not doubt that what he takes to show the faith of any one of the patriarchs, must be at least as strong an instance as his history contains. And if the instance selected by the Apostle be not that which we should have selected ourselves — if there be any other which we should have decidedly pre- ferred — it is evident that our judgment differs from that of God ; so that we have precisely the case on which we have been speaking, the case in which what man would account best is not so ac- counted by Him who readeth the heart. But this, we suspect, is exactly what may be alleged in regard of our text. We give you the history of Joseph, a history more than commonly eventful, and which is narrated in Scripture with special minuteness. We set you down to the examining this history, in order that you may take out of it the incident, or the action, which shall most clearly demonstrate that Joseph had faith in God, and that this faith was a principle of great energy and strength. Do you think that you would make the same selection as St. Paul makes in our text? passing over all the trials of Joseph ; all the afflictions which he bravely and meekly endured ; his confidence in his interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams, though on the truth of that interpreta- tion depended his credit, and even his life ; his eagerness to receive his father and brethren into the land, though every shepherd was " an abomination unto the Egyptians," and they were but likely to lower him in the general esteem — passing over, we say, all this, and having literally nothing to commemorate of Joseph, save that when he was dying, he " made mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones." Would this, we ask, have been the fact on which an uninspired writer- would have fastened, when choosing from the history of Joseph what might best illustrate the Patriarch's faith in God ] Hardly, we think, — and if not, then you have a clear exemplification of the truth on which we have endeavored to insist, that the actions which seem to men most conclusive, as evidences of righteousness of character, may not, after all, be those to which God would attach most worth and importance. It is one thing, however, to allow that the selected proof is not that on which we ourselves should have fixed, and quite another to conclude, that when pointed out, we cannot see its force. We may believe that you all concur with us in the opinion, that had an uninspired writer had to choose the best pi-oof of faith from the history of Joseph, he would not have chosen that selected by St. Paul. But, nevertheless, we may be able to determine that the proof is a strong proof: if we cannot show it to be the strongest which the history fur- nishes, we may at least ascertain that it establishes the power of the principle which it is quoted to illustrate. This then it is which we must propose as our object through the remainder of our dis- course. We have already drawn one vaJuable inference from the text, in that, through showing that God and men do not always judge alike in regard of righteous acts, it teaches us that the obscure individual, and the unnoticed deed, may be more approved above than the conspicuous leader, and the THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON HIS DEATH-BED. dazzling performance. But we have now to examine whether that for which Joseph stands commemorated by St. Paul, did not strikingly demonstrate his faith. We put out of sight the surpris- ing and varied occurrences of the patri- arch's life ; and standing round his death-bed, we will simply consider whether he did not display extraordinary faith, as we hear him make " mention of the departing of the children of Israel," and give " commandment con- cerning his bones." Now who amongst you is unaware of the power which posterity has of attach- ing men to earth 1 of the unwillingness felt by those who have every gratification within reach, to submit to any change, or even to contemplate its possibility ! It is not necessary, in order to this con- sciousness, that you should yourselves abound in what the world has to offer, for then there would be comparatively few to whose feelings we might venture to appeal. But you are all judges as to the tendencies of our nature,, when acted on by certain causes and circum- stances ; and you may all therefore de- cide, from what you have experienced in yourselves, whether, in proportion as temporal advantages accumulate, man is not disposed to settle himself below, and to prefer the present to the future. If I were looking out for strong proof of the power of faith, of faith as dictating that eternal and invisible things be preferred to temporal and visible, I certainly should not go to the hovel, whose wretched inmate has scarce sufficient for subsist- ence ; I should rather turn to the palace where gorgeousuess reigns, and all that our nature can desire is lavishly spread. It is not but that the inmate of the hovel has a wide field for the exercise of faith, a far wider, in some respects, than the owner of the palace; but in the particular respect of a preference of the future to the present, of a readiness to give up the visible on the Btrength of a promise of God, which refers to the invisible, the trial of faith is evidently with the man of abundance, rather than with him whose whole life is a series of Struggles. The pauper may be said to have nothing to leave; there is nothing in his portion which can come, even in appearance, into competition with what is promised by God ; whereas the noble has to separate from all that is most attractive in this lower creation, and to exchange a felt good for an unseen and untried. And, therefore, if we found the noble quite in- different to what he had to abandon, so possessed with a persuasion of the im- measurably greater worth of invisible tilings, that he was all eagerness to enter on their enjoyment, we should say that here had faith won one of the finest of its triumphs, and that perhaps no where could its display be more conspicuous or convincing. But it is something of this kind of display which is furnished by the death- bed of Joseph. We do not precisely mean to speak of this death-bed, as though it presented the same facts as that of a Christian, who, with his eye firmly fixed on the glories of heaven, is almost impatient to break away from the possessions of earth. Joseph lived when there were yet but dim notices of a world beyond the grave, and we may not too confidently assume his acquaintance with a state of everlasting happiness. But there was every thing to make Joseph desire the settling his children and brethren pemanently in Egypt ; so that he had somewhat of the same diffi- culty to overcome in contemplating their removal, as the man who has to resign great present advantages, that he may enter on those promised in another state of being. The scene indeed soon changed : there arose another king " who knew not Joseph," and oppression weighed down the children of Israel. Had this change occurred before Joseph died, there would have been compara- tively nothing striking in his making mention of the departure of his posterity, and showing that it occupied his last thoughts upon earth. It would then have been quite natural that he should have desired this departure, and pointed out, with his dying breath, the promise which ensured it, as the most precious of the legacies which he had to bequeath. But when Joseph died, he was at the very summit of prosperity, scarcely second to the monarch on the throne, with a vast inheritance of honor and wealth to transmit to his children. He had, moreover, established his brethren in the land ; so that he, who had been brought into Egypt a captive and an exile, saw himself at the head of a nu- merous tribe, which seemed growing to a power which scarce another could rival. THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON HIS DEATH-BED. I know what, in such a case, would have been the dictate of human policy and ambition. I know what the dying man would have said, had he known nothing, or thought nothing, of the de- clarations of God, in respect of his family. He would have advised that the colony so successfully planted, should studiously avoid the uprooting itself from so congenial a soil, and take all possible pains to deepen and strengthen its hold. He would have contrasted the mean estate of his race, whilst they sojourned in Canaan, with the wealth and greatness acquired in Egypt, and have argued, from the comparison, that the true wis- dom would be to remain where they were, rather than to return to the home of their fathers. You have only to think of Joseph as having risen from the lowest to the highest condition; as the founder, to all appearance, of a mighty dynasty, of a family possessed of almost regal power; and you will readily admit that the thoughts most likely to have occupied his mind were thoughts of the future for- tunes of his house, fortunes of which he might augur well if his children continued in Egypt, but which would be altogeth- er perilled by their quitting that country. And had there not been a higher principle in Joseph than that of world- ly policy or ambition ; had he been mere- ly a leader who sought aggrandizement and distinction for himself and his pos- terity ; it is not credible that his dying words would have been those which were calculated to unsettle his tribe, and to lead their thoughts from the land where they were most likely to be great. For Joseph might, at the least, have kept silence in regard of the predicted change of residence : if, with the consciousness that God had spoken of a going back to Canaan, he could not have distinctly advised the settling in Egypt, yet whilst there seemed so much to recommend the remaining where they were, he might have abstained from speaking to his children of their being removed. But Joseph was something more than the founder of a powerful line ; and the feelings which actuated him were not those of policy and ambition. Joseph was a man who feared the Lord, and with whom the word of the Most High prevailed against all dictates of carnal wisdom or desire. It was nothing to Joseph that he had wonderfully attain- VOL. II. ed to lordship over Egypt, and that now, in quitting the world, he seemed to have that lordship to hand down to his children. He knew that God had re- vealed to his fathers a purpose of giv- ing another laud to them and to their seed ; and that it was not in Egypt, fair and fertile though it was, that he design- ed to carry on the mysterious dispensa- tion which should issue in the redemp- tion of the world. And therefore were Joseph's thoughts on Canaan rather than on Egypt ; on Canaan, in which as yet his family possessed nothing but a burial-place, rather than on Egypt, where already they were masters of houses and lands. Oh, my brethren, before you pronounce that there was no great trial or display of faith, in Joseph's making mention, under such circumstances, of the departure of the Israelites, consider the difficulty, experienced by yourselves, in preferring what is future to what is present, in giving up a good, of which you have the possession, for another of which you have only the promise. For it was this which Joseph had to do: and that, moreover, at the least in as great a degree as it ever imposed upon us. You know very well that you find it hard to make up the mind to a separa- tion from objects, sought perhaps with eagerness, and obtained with difficulty ; though you profess to believe, that on passing away from earthly possessions, you are to enter upon others a thousand- fold more desirable. And you would perhaps find it yet harder, to make dis- tinct arrangements for the destruction of the fabric which your whole life had been occupied in perfecting, and which, after long trial and struggle, seemed complete in every part, just because there was a saying, referring to a yet remote time, which seemed to pledge God to the building up that fabric in some remote place. But this was exactly the task assign- ed to Joseph on his death-bed ; and the more you suppose that the patriarch had but little knowledge of heaven and its joys, the more surprising do you make it, that he should have endanger-, ed, on the strength of the Divine word, the temporal prosperity of his tribe. For, where eternal sanctions were but dimly revealed, temporal considerations must have had great weight ; and the dying leader, who could hardly speak 2 10 THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON HIS DEATH-BED. of afflictions as leading to glory, would be strongly moved to the hiding afflic- tions, to the leaving them, at least, to be found out by experience. But Joseph was too much penetrated by confidence in the declaration of God, to allow of Ins conferring with flesh and blood, or being deterred by probable conse<| uni- ces. It is a fine, a noble scene, which is brought before us by the simple re- cord of the historian ; and I call upon you to behold it, that you may learn what faith can do against the promptings of nature, the suggestions of suspicion, and the dictates of pride. I know what would be likely to be the uppermost feelings in that expiring man, who, amid all the insignia of authority and wealth, is bidding farewell to brethren and children. I know what he might be expected to do and to say. His wast- ed features might be lit up with a smile of exultation, as he surveyed the tokens of almost regal state; and ho might say to those around, " Behold the glory to which I have raised you, and which I bequeath to you and your posterity. It will be your own fault if this glory decay : the best of all Egypt is yours, if you do not, through indolence or love of change, suffer that it be wrested from your hold. I have made, I leave you great — great as chieftains in an adopted country, forsake not that country, and your greatness may be as permanent as it is dazzling." But nothing of this kind proceeds from the dying man's lips. He speaks only of the abandonment of all the glory and greatness ; of an aban- donment which might perhaps not be distant ; for he gives directions as to his burial in some unpossessed land. In- terpret or paraphrase his last words, and they are as though he had said, '-Child- ren and brethren, be not deceived by your present prosperity ; this is not your home; it is not here, notwithstanding the appearances, that God wills to sepa- rate and consecrate you to himself. Ve are the descendants of Abraham ; and Egypt, with its idols, is no resting-place fir such. Vrnmsi be ever on the alert, expecting the signal of departure from aland, whose treasures and glories are but likely to detain you from the high calling designed for you by God. Settle not then yourselves, but be ye always ingers ; strangers where you seem firmly established, and where, by a mar- vellous concurrence of events, you have risen to dominion." Such, we say, are virtually the utter- ances of the expiring patriarch. And when thou think that, by these utter- ances, he was taking the most effectual way of destroying the structure so sur- prisingly reared, and on which it were incredible that he did not himself gaze with amazement and delight; that he was detaching those whom he loved from all which, on human calculation, was most fitted to uphold them in glo- ry and power — oh, you may tell me of other demonstrations and workings of that principle, by which servants of the Lord have " subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained pro- mises, slopped the mouths of lions ;" but I can see that nothing short of this prin- ciple, ay, and of this principle in a very high degree, could have moved the dy- ing man to such words as he spoke ; and I assent, in all its breadth, to the statement of St. Paul, that it was " by faith " that " Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel." But we have not yet spoken of Jo- seph's giving " commandment concern- ing his bones ;" and this is far too me- morable a circumstance to be passed over without special comment. We must refer to the Book of Genesis, in order to see what the commandment was. There you read, " And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." The oath was remembered and kept; for it is expressly recorded, in the account Of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, " And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him." Neither were these bones neglected in the wilderness : they must have been religiously preserved during all the wanderings of the people; for you read in the Book of Joshua, " And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem." It appears from these historical no- tices, when joined with the reference made by St. Paul in our text, that great importance is attached by inspired wri- ters to the fact of Joseph's giving com- mandment concerning his bones. And the fact certainly deserves the being carefully pondered, though you may have THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON HIS DEATH-BED. 11 been used to pass it over with but little attention. It would seem that Joseph was never buried in Egypt; for, after mentioning the oath which he took of his brethren, the Book of Genesis con- cludes with saying, " So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old : and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." When you connect this statement with his dying injunction, and with the fact, that, though the Is- raelites were thurst out in haste from the land, they carried with them the re- mains of the patriarch, you can hardly doubt that the body of Joseph, when embalmed, was kept unburied amongst his people, and that its being so kept was included in his parting injunction. And this is the more remarkable, inas- much as no reason can be given why Joseph, had he wished it, might not at once have been buried in Canaan. When one reads of his giving " commandment concerning his bones," the obvious feel- ing is, that, with that desire which seems instinctive to man, the desire that our dust should mingle with that of those whom we have loved and lost, Joseph gave directions for his being laid in the same grave with his father and mother. But had this been all, why was not his bo- dy at once carried into Canaan ] When Jacob died, " all the servants of Phara- oh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house," went up, and inter- red him, according to his wish, " in the cave of the field of Machpelah." So vast was the funeral pomp, that, " when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaan- ites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians : wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan." Surely, if such were the interment of Jacob, that of Joseph would not have been less honored : had he commanded his bre- thren, as he had been commanded by his father, " In my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me," we may not doubt that the Egyptians would not on- ly have permitted the funeral, but have graced his obsequies with all that could give splendor to death. It follows, therefore, that it was not merely interment in Canaan which Jo- seph desired : it was expressly his wish, that the interment should be deferred until the children of Israel departed from Egpyt, and that then should his bones be carried up to the land which had been promised to Abraham. In short, the "commandment concerning his bones," which St. Paul adduces in proof of Joseph's faith, would seem to have been a commandment that his bones should lie unburied whilst the Israelites were in Egypt, and be buried when they took possession of Canaan. But what was there in this which specially proved faith 1 What evidence does the com- mandment which Joseph gave " concern- ing his bones," add to that furnished by the mention which he made "of the de- parting of the children of Israel ] " Here is a point worthy of all your attention, though there will be no great difficulty in finding a satisfactory answer. Why, think ye, did Joseph wish to lie unburied in the midst of his people, ex- cept that his bones might perpetually preach to them, that Egypt was not to be their home, but must be abandoned for Canaan ] The very lesson which, with his dying breath, he labored to enforce — the lesson, that they were to be expecting to depart from the coun- try which had received and sustained them, this lesson he longed to enforce after death, knowing, as he did, that his brethren and children would be likely to forget it. But how shall he accom- plish this ? What means are in his power of continuing to preach a great truth, when he shall have been actually withdrawn out of life ] Let his bones lie unburied, unburied because they wait the being carried up to Canaan, and will there not be an abiding memento to the Israelites, a standing remembrancer, that, sooner or later, the Lord will effect their removal, and transplant them to the land which He promised to their fathers 1 It is in this way that we inter- pret the commandment of Joseph. You have heard of the preaching of a spectre : the spirit that passed before the face of Eliphaz, and caused the hair of his flesh to stand up, came from the invisible world to give emphasis, as well as utter- ance, to the question, " Shall mortal man be more just than God ] shall a man be more just than his Maker ] " And here you have, not the preaching of a spectre, but the preaching of a skeleton : the la THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON niS DEATH-BED. bones of Joseph are converted into an orator, and make " mention of the de- parting of the children of Israel." The patriarch could no longer warn and command his brethren and descendants with the voice ofa living man: his tongue was mute in death : but there was elo- quence in liis sepulchred limbs. Where- fore had be not been gathered to his fathers I what meant this strange spectacle in the midst of a people, the spectacle nf a corpse to which a grave seemed denied, and which was kept as though by Borne wild mysterious spell, from going down with others to the chambers of death 1 It was a dead thing, which nevertheless appeared reluctant to die: it seemed to haunt the earth in its life- lessness, as though it had not finished the office for which it had been born, as though it had yet some awful duty to perform, ere it could be suffered to mingle quietly with the dust whence it sprung. And since it could not fail to be known for what purpose the body of one, so honored and revered, lay unburied year after year — even for that of being re- moved by the Israelites, when God should visit them, and transplant them from Egypt, — did not Joseph's bones perpetu- ally repeat his dying utterances 1 and coidd any thing better have been devised to keep up the remembrance of what his last words had taught, than this his sub- sistence as a skeleton, when he had long ceased to be numbered with the living '{ There can hardly then be two opinions, that the bones of Joseph, thus reserved for interment in Canaan, became virtu- ally a preacher to the people of the very truth which he had died in the effort to enforce. But what additional evidence of his faith was there in his giving " com- mandment concerning his bones ! " The very greatest. It is one thing to preach a doctrine during life : it is another to be eager to preach it after death. See ye not this 'I see ye not that the faith, which might be strong enough to urge to the advocacy of an opinion now, might not be strong enough to urge to the taking measures for its advocacy a hundred years hence 1 A man might have his misgivings : he might say to himself, " Perhaps, when I am dead, something will arise to prove me in the wrong ; why then should I strive to keep the opinion from being forgotten, when events will have transpired to show it erroneous 1 If the opinion be true, others will arise to maintain it ; if false, why should my belief in it be made, through mine own act, to survive its being exploded ] Better surely for me to teach what I think true whilst I live, but not to stake my credit, when dead, on propositions which time may dis- prove." We are thus persuaded, that, if you consider attentively, you cannot fail to allow it a strong additional evidence of a man's belief in a tenet, when, over and above proclaiming it whilst he lives, he labors to bring about that he may pro- claim it when dead. I would preach, if I might, after death. I would not be silent, if I knew how to speak, when the grave shall have received me, and an- other shall stand to minister in my place. I would still repeat the truths which I now strive habitually to press on men's attention. But why 1 Because I am confident of their being truths : because I have no misgivings ; because I have not even the shadow of a suspicion, that, happen what may, Christianity can be proved false, and the Bible a fiction. If I had, I should be proportionally reluc- tant to the preaching after death ; my anxiety to utter truth would make me shrink from the possibility of being found hereafter giving utterance to falsehood. And to show this more clearly by a particular instance, which shall be nearly parallel to that in our text. There are declarations in the Bible, that the Lord, whom the heavens have received, shall come forth personally,*in glory and great majesty, and revisit this earth to claim its dominion. There are also predictions as to the time of this splendid manifesta- tion, though not so explicit but that men may widely differ as to when it shall be. Suppose that by the study of unfulfilled prophecy, I satisfy myself as to the date of Christ's coming, fixing it to seventy, or eighty, or a hundred years hence. Suppose that, so long as I live, I keep asserting to you this date, you will con- clude that I believe it myself. Suppose that, when I come to die, I gather you around me, and solemnly declare that at the said time the Lord will reappear, you will be more than ever convinced of my belief: dying men have little interest in deceiving; and though you may not be not a jot the more persuaded, that THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON HIS DEATH-BED. 13 my opinion is true, there will be scarcely room for doubt as to my sincerity in holding it. But suppose something more : suppose that, as I die, I give di- rections for the erectiug of a monument, to be reared in the very scene of my labors, and inscribed with the very date on which I had so resolutely fixed. I should thus be taking all possible pains to keep my opinion before your eyes, and those of your children ; to keep it, when things might have occurred to prove it false, when it might be nothing but a register of my ignorance and mis- take : and would not this be the crown- ing, the unsurpassable evidence of the strength of my faith] If T had the slightest suspicion, or fear, that the event might prove me wrong, would I ever take measures for identifying my name with error and delusion ] And this just illustrates the case of Joseph's giving "commandment concern- ing his bones." There was no proof, in his giving this commandment, that the children of Israel would depart out of Egypt, even as there would be none in my directions for a monument, that the Redeemer would appear at the specified time. But there was a very strong proof, that Joseph believed that the Israelites would depart out of Egypt, just as there would be that I believed that Christ would come on the day which I had named. And it is simply in illustration of the power of Joseph's faith, that St. Paul quotes his giving " commandment concerning his bones." The illustration is therefore most appropriate. There were long years — as probably Joseph was aware — years of wo and oppression, to pass over Israel ere there would come that visitation of the Lord, which his dying words affirmed. And during this dreary period it would seem to the Israelites as though they were forgotten of their God, as though his promise had come utterly to an end, and they were doomed to re- main in the house of bondage for ever. What, then, more likely than that what- ever reminded them of the alleged pur- pose of God would be treated by them with loathing and scorn ; and that, wheth- er it were the dead or the living who pre- dicted their departure, the mention would excite only hatred and derision ] Yet Joseph was not to be moved by any of this likelihood. Why not] Because his faith was too strong : he was too confi- dent in God's word to allow of his taking into account the possibility of of its fail- ure. And therefore he did not hesitate to convert his bones into a perpetual preacher, or moument, of that word. " I shall not leave you," he seems to say to his weeping kinsmen. " I die ; but this worn body has a high duty to accomplish, ere it may enjoy the still slumber of the grave. I leave it to preach to you that God will yet bring you up from Egypt ' with a mighty hand, and a stretched out arm.' You, or your children, may be disposed to insult my remains, when op- pression shall grow, and deliverance be deferred. But I know how all this will terminate. Mine eye, over which the film of death is fast gathering, is on a mighty procession, the procession of thousands, and tens of thousands, marching to the inheritance which God promised unto Abraham ; and in the midst of this pro- cession shall these bones be triumphantly carried, their office done, to share with you the land of Canaan." Oh ! who can fail to see that Joseph thus furnished a far stronger proof of trust in God's word than is found in his mere assertion of what that word declared 1 Who can deny that St. Paul added vastly to the il- lustration of the power of faith, when, af- ter stating that "by faith" Joseph, when he died, " made mention of the departing of the children of Israel," he subjoined, "and gave commandment concerning his bones 1" But we ought not to fail to observe, before we quit the death-bed of Joseph, that, forasmuch as unquestionably the Spirit of God actuated the expiring pa- triarch, and perhaps dictated his words, the commandment as to his bones may have been designed to intimate, or illus- trate, the truth of a resurrection. If you suppose, as you reasonably may, that they who surrounded the dying man consider- ed his utterances as suggested by God, you will believe that they pondered them as fraught with information, conveying, probably, notices upon points which had been but dimly, if at all, revealed. We need hardly observe to you, that, so far as the evidence of faith is concerned, it would be most conspicuous and convinc- ing, on the supposition that Joseph had respect to the resurrection of his body. It may have been so. Why was he un- willing that his bones should rest in Egypt? Unwilling he evidently was; 14 THE FAITH OF JOSEPH ON HIS DEATH-BED. for, allowing liim to have desired their remaining unburied that they might re- mind the Esraelites of their predicted de- parture, this is no reason why he should also have given directions for their being carried into Canaan. By remaining un- buried he would have shown an anxiety to preach a great fact to Ins descendants ; but, by further desiring that, when this office "was done, he might be buried in the promised land, he evinced a care as to his place of sepulture, or showed that ii was not indifferent to him what became of his body. Wherefore, then, we again ask, was he unwilling to be buried in Egypt 1 What had he to do with choosing where his bones should be laid, and that, too, on a far distant day 1 I cannot but infer, from this anxiety of Joseph in regard to his grave, that he did not consider the body as a thing to be thrown aside so soon as the vital principle were extinct. He felt that Ins dead body might live to admon- ish his countrymen ; but he must also have felt that, even when that office were done, it was not to be treated as of no further worth. It matters not whether it arise from a kind of natural instiuct, or from the immediate suggestion of the Spirit of God — in all cases, care as to what becomes of the body, is evidence of a consciousness that the body is not finally to perish at death. He who shows anxiety as to the treatment of his remains shows something of a belief, whether he confess it or not, that these remains are reserved for other purposes and scenes. I can hardly think that Joseph believed that his body would never live again : he would scarcely have provided it a sepul- chre in Canaan, if persuaded that, in dy- ing, it would be finally destroyed. His bones might as well have rested in Egypt, amongst those of the idolater and strang- er, had they never been appointed, or had he not imagined them appointed, to the being brought up from the dust and again sinewed with life. But on the supposition of a belief, or even the faintest conjec- ture, of a resurrection, we seem to un- derstand why the dying patriarch longed to sleep in the promised land. " I will not leave," he seems to say, "this body to be disregarded, and trampled on, as though it were merely that of an animal whose existence wholly terminates at death. That which God takes care of, reserving it for another life, it becomes not man to despise, as though undeserv- ing a thought. And though the eye of the Almighty would be on my dust in Egpyt, as in Canaan, yet would I rather rest with the righteous than with the wicked in the grave, with my fathers and my kinsmen, than with the foreigner and the enemy. If I am to start from long and dark slumbers, let those who wake with me be those whom I have loved, and who are to share with me the un- known existence." Such, we say, is an interpretation which might fairly be put on Joseph's giving "commandment concerning his bones." There may have floated before him visions of the grave giving up its dead. The yearnings of his parting spirit after Canaan ; the longing for interment by the side of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; all may have risen from an indistinct thought that he was destined to live again ; all may mark that, though life and immortality were not then brought to light, dim and spectral images flitted to and fro, shadowy forms, as of the de- cayed and the dead, mysteriously recon- structed and reanimated. And if they who stood around Joseph recognized, as they must have done in the last words of Jacob, the dictates of the Almighty himself, then may we say that the "commandment concerning his bones" amounted to a Divine intimation of the truth of a resurrection. Whatever show- ed that God willed that the dead body should be cared for, that he would not have it thrown aside as utterly done with, went also to the showing that the body was still to be of use, and that, there- fore, its resurrection was designed. Hence, it may be that from the death- bed of Joseph sprang, in a measure, that persuasion of a resurrection, which gradually wrought itself into the creed of the children of Israel. His " com- mandment concerning his bones," kept so long in mind, and associated with a great crisis in the national history, may have produced attention, not only to the departure from Egypt, but to a far mightier departure — the departure of myriads from the sepulchres of the earth, after long enthralment under a sterner than Pharaoh. I feel as if it were to at- tach surprising interest to Joseph s last words, to suppose that they showed his own thought, and gave notice to others, of the resurrection of the body. This ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. 15 makes his death-bed that almost of a Christian. It is not a Christian thing, to die manifesting indifference as to what is done with the body. That body is re- deemed : not a particle of its dust but was bought with drops of Christ's pre- cious blood. That body is appointed to a glorious condition : not a particle of the corruptible but what shall put on incor- ruption ; of the mortal that shall not as- sume immortality. The Christian knows this : it is not the part of a Christian to seem unmindful of this. He may, there- fore, as he departs, speak of the place where he would wish to be laid. " Let me sleep," he may say, "with my father and my mother, with my wife and my children : lay me not here, in this distant land, where my dust cannot mingle with its kindred. I would be chimed to my grave by my own village bell, and have my requiem sung where I was baptized into Christ." Marvel ye at such last words l Wonder ye that one, whose spirit is just entering the separate state, should have this care for the body which he is about to leave to the worms 1 Nay, he is a believer in Jesus as " the Resur- rection and the Life : " this belief prompts his dying words ; and it shall have to be said of him, as of Joseph, that "by faith," yea, ' ,by faith," he "gave commandment concerning his bones." SERMON II ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you, when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words." — St. Luke, xxiv. 6, 7, 8. It was a saying of Luther, and one which is often quoted amongst our- selves, " that the doctrine of justification by faith is the doctrine of a standing or a falling church." The meaning of the saying is, that so vitally important, so essential to the very existence of a chris- tian community, is the doctrine of justi- fication by faith, that you may always judge whether a church is in a healthful or a declining condition, by the tenacity with which this doctrine is maintained, and the clearness with which it is ex- pounded. We have no wish to dispute the truth of the saying ; for beyond all question, there can be real Christianity only where there is a distinct recogni- tion of the fact, that " a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." But, nevertheless, if we were to fix on any one doctrine, as furnishing pre- eminently a test by which to try the condition of a church, we should be dis- posed to take that of spiritual influences, rather than that of justification by faith. We cannot but think that he who fails to recognize, in all its freeness, that we are "justified by faith," must first have failed to recognize, in all humility, that " we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing, as of ourselves." It would seem to follow, in natural con- sequence, from our fancying ourselves independent on supernatural teaching, that we should fancy ourselves capable, in a measure, of contributing to our justification ; so that, at all events, he who practically forgets that the Holy Spirit can alone guide into truth, is like- ly to be soon landed in error on the 16 ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. fundamental points of a sinner's accept- ance. And whether or not the doctrine of spiritual influences be the better test to apply, in attempting to determine the condition of a church, there can, at least, be no doubt that where piety is flourish- ing, this doctrine will be deeply cherish- ed ; where declining, comparatively neg- lected. The individual christian will u grow in grace," in proportion as he depends on the teaching of the Holy- Spirit, and habituates himself to the turn- ing to this divine a^ent for guidance, comfort, and instruction in righteousness. And any branch of the Catholic Church will, in like manner, be vigorous and fruitful, in proportion as it honors the third Person in the ever-hlessed Trinity, distinctly recognizing that his influences alone can make the work of the Second effectual to salvation. But when we speak of spiritual influ- ence, we are far from wishing to con- fine the expression to the influences of the Holy Ghost, as though no other spiritual agency were brought to bear upon man. We desire to extend it to created, though invisible, beings — to an- gels, whether evil or good — believing, on the authority of Scripture, that there are such beings, and that they continu- ally act on us by a secret, but most ef- ficient, power. And where there is a tolerahly distinct recognition of the per- son and office of the Holy Ghost, there may be a comparative forgetfulness, if not an actual denial, of angelic ministra- tions ; and our conviction is, that much of comfort in religion is lost, and much of coldness produced, through the little heed given to spiritual influences, thus more largely understood. It will hard- ly be denied that the mass of christians think little, if at all, of angels; that they regard them as beings so far removed from companionship with ourselves, that discourse on their nature and occupation must deserve the character of unprofit- able speculation. If, then, the preacher take as his theme the burning spirits which surround God's throne, he will probably be considered as adventuring upon mysteries too high for research, whilst there is abundance of more prac- tical topics on which he might enlarge. Vet it cannot have been intended that we should thus remain ignorant of an- gels : it cannot be true that there is no- thing to be ascertained in regard of these creatures, or nothing which it is for ouz instruction, or our comfort, to know. There is a petition in the Lord's Prayer which should teach us better than this — " Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." It must be specially by an- gels that God's will is done in heaven ; and if we are directed to take the man- ner, or degree, in which angels do God's will, as measuring that in which we should desire its being done by men, surely it can neither be beyond our pow- er to know any thing of angels, nor un- important that we study to be wise up to what is written regarding them in the Bible. And, indeed, so far is Scrip- ture from leaving angelic ministrations amongst obscure, or inscrutable, things, that it interweaves it with the most encouraging of its promises, and thus strives, as it were, to force it upon us as a practical and personal truth. Where is the christian that has not been gladden- ed by words such as these, " Because thou hast made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habita- tion, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling ] " But of those to whom these words speak cheeringly, how few, per- haps, give attention to the following verse, though evidently explanatory of the agency through which the promise shall be accomplished! "for he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." And it ought not to be overlooked, that, in proportion as we lose sight of the doctrine, that good angels are " ministering spirits," influencing us for righteousness, we are likely to forget the power of our great " adversary, the devil," who, with the hosts under his guidance, continually labors at effecting our destruction. It can hardly be that they, who are keenly alive to their ex- posure to the assults of malignant, but invisible, enemies, should be indifferent to the fact of their having on their side the armies of Heaven : good and evil spirits must be considered as antagonists in a struggle for ascendency over man ; and there is, therefore, more than a like- lihood, that they who think little of their friends in so high a contest, will depre- ciate their foes, and thus more than ever expose themselves to their power. We cannot, then, put from us the opin- ion that the doctrine of angelic ministra- ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. 17 tions hardly obtains its due share of attention, and that it ought to be pressed, with greater frequency and urgency, by the ministers of Christ, on those commit- ted to their care. There is, indeed, a risk, that he who sets himself to discourse on those orders of intelligent being which stretch upwards between God and man, may indulge in fanciful speculation, and forget, amid the brilliancies opened up to his imagination, that he is bound ex- clusively to seek the profit of his hear- ers. But there is little fear of his pass- ing the limits of what is sober and in- structive, so long as he confines himself to what is written in Scripture, and fixes on certain prominent facts which lie beyond dispute, because explicitly re- vealed. It is this which we purpose doing in our present discourse. We wish, indeed, to impress upon you that a spiritual agency is ever at work on your behalf, understanding by spiritual agency not merely that of the Holy Ghost, to which every other must be ne- cessarily subordinate, but that of those orders of being which are designated in Scripture by the general term " angels," and which kept their " first estate " when numbers of like nature with themselves were cast out from heaven as rebels against God. But, at the same time, we are very anxious to advance nothing which shall not have scriptural warrant for its truth, and which shall not, more- over, present something practical on which you may fasten. Let us see, then, whether the passage which we have taken as our text, will not enable us to illustrate, thus soberly and profit- ably, the truth, that angels are " minis- tering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." Now you will judge at once, from this introduction to our subject, that we do not purpose speaking on the fact of the resurrection of Christ, though this fact, as matter both of prophecy and history, seems exclusively treated of in the words of our text. What we want you to ob- serve is, that these words were spoken by two angels, who appeared to the women that were early at the sepulchre ; for though it is said in the chapter before us, "two men stood by them in shining garments," you readily find, from acorn parison of the Gospels, that the human form was here assumed by heavenly beings ; that they were spirits who, in Vol. II. the likeness of flesh, accosted the women as they sought in vain for the body of Christ. It is not here to be proved that there are such beings as angels; neither have we to show that they are endowed with great might ; for not only is St. Matthew's description of the apparition of the men, that "the angel of the Lord descended from heaven ;" but he adds, "that his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow : for fear of him the keepers did shake, and be- came as dead men." But assuming, as we safely may, the facts of the ministra- tion and power of angels, there is some- thing very remarkable in the circum- stance that the angels, in the case now before us, reminded the women of some- thing which had been said to them by Christ, and that, too, in a remote place, " whilst he was yet with them in Gali- lee." How came these angels to be so well acquainted with what had been said by Christ to the women 1 They speak of it with the greatest familiarity, as though they had themselves heard the prediction : they call it to the remem- brance of the women, just as one of you might remind his neighbor, or friend, of parts of a sermon at whose delivery both had been present. We do not, indeed, profess to say that the angels might not have been distinctly informed as to what Christ had uttered in Galilee; that they might not have been instructed, by im- mediate revelation, as to things which had passed when themselves were not present to see or to hear. But neither, on the other hand, can any one say that the angels did not gain their knowledge from having been actually amongst the audience of Christ ; whilst the supposi- tion of their having heard for themselves, agrees best with the tone of their address, and is certainly in keeping with other statements of Scripture. For if we gather, from the familiar manner in which the angels quote Christ's sayings to the women, that they, as well as the women, had been present when those sayings were uttered, we only infer — what may be proved the doctrine of the Bible — that angels are actually, though invisibly, in the midst of our worshipping assemblies, witnesses of our deportment, and hearers of that Gospel to which too often, we give so languid an attention. This would seem to be the doctrine of St. Paul, when ho 3 13 ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. speaks to the Ephesians of the preaching of the Gospel, as "to the intent that now, unto tin; principalities ami powers in heavenly places, might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." Here the Church, in and through her public ministrations, is represented as furnishing instruction to angelic orders of being, as those lofty creatures camedown to her solemn assemblies, not only as observers, but as seeking lessons for themselves in mysteries which, before- time, they had vainly striven to explore. And when the same Apostle exhorts the Corinthian women to have a modest veil, or covering, over their heads, in their religious meetings, he persuades them by this very consideration, that they ap- peared in the presence of the angels — "because of the angels," — and thus gives all the sanction of his authority to the opinion, that angels are amongst us when we gather together for public worship. This, then, is the first conclusion, a conclusion borne out by other statements of Scripture, which we derive from the familiar acquaintance which the angels manifest with what Christ had said to the women in Galilee'; namely, that angels are present when the Gospel is preached: angels had in all likelihood been present when the Redeemer an- nounced his death and resurrection ; and we may believe that, similarly, as the proclamation of redemption is now solemnly and statedly made, there are other auditors besides those whom our senses can discern ; that, like the pro- phet's servants, we need only the purging and strengthening of our vision, ami in addition to the breathing masses of our fellow-men, we shall presently ascertain the place of our assembling to be thronged with burning form-, those stately intelli- gences which are " the ministers of God," executing his will throughout his vast and replenished dominion. And we need hardly stay to point out to you what an additional solemnity this should cast over these our gatherings in the house of the Lord ; lor it must commend itself to you a!!, that the being actually under the observation of the heavenly hosts, the having in the midst of us, as inspectors of what passes, a multitude ui' glorious creatures, the cherubim and him that are permitted to enter the immediate presence of G »d himself, should greatly tend to the banishing from amongst us all that is cold and frivolous and listless, and to the keeping us in that attitude of reverent attention which should be always assumed, yet is often wanting, where men profess to seek an audience of their Maker. But we wish specially to impress upon you a purpose for which angels may be present at the preaching of the Gospel, and which may be taken as illustrating generally the nature of their ministra- tions on our behalf. We gather at once, from our Lord's parable of the sower, as expounded by Himself, that Satan busily endeavors to counteract the preaching of the Gospel; for it is said, in explanation of the seed sown by the way-side, " When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart." There is no interpretation to be put upon this, save that the devil is ever watching the effect wrought by the delivery of the word, and that, with an earnestness only equalled by his malice, he labors to thwart it whensoever it threatens to be injurious to his power. And if evil angels be thus piesent at the preaching of the Gospel, in the hope of making it ineffectual, why should we doubt that good angels are present, to strive to gain it place, and give it im- pressiveness ] Present, we have every assurance that they are ; and if we con- sider that, throughout Scripture, good and evil angels are represented as en- gaged in a struggle, a struggle for ascen- dency over man, we must believe that the efforts of the one are met by pre- cisely antagonist efforts on the part of the others, every mine having its counter- mine ; so that if they who are against us labor to catch away the word, they who are for us labor to imprint it, to procure for it a hold and grasp upon the hearers. And this gives something of a prac- tical and tangible character to that high contest which is going forwards be- tween " principalities and powers." We need not lose ourselves in endeavoring to image the shock of spritual intelli- gences, meeting on some field of far dis- tant space, with all the emblazonry of celestial pomp, and in all the terribleness of superhuman strength. It may be thus that poetry loves to dwell on the buttles of angels ; but theology has ra- ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. 10 ther to do away with this martial mag- nificence, to carry the war into the nar- row domain of a single human heart, and there to give it the character of a moral conflict, a struggle between principles, supported and pressed by the opposite parties which appear as combatants, and engage in Uie championship, wheth- er of falsehood or truth. The very place of our present assembling is a scene for the hostile meeting of evil angels and good ; and there is not one of you who does not himself furnish a field for that strife between invisible powers, which Scriptural imagery invests with the mysteriousness that belongs to the vast and inscrutable. As the preacher sets before you your sinfulness, and exhort- ing you to amendment, shows you the provision made by God for your pardon and acceptance, the words which he ut- ters are just as weapons, on which the combatants labor to seize ; the evil an- gels that they may blunt and throw them away, the good that they may thrust them into the understanding, and the conscience, and the heart. But then, let it never be overlooked that we are ourselves answerable for the issue of this struggle; that neither good an- gels, nor evil, can carry their end, ex- cept so far as they have us for auxilia- ries. It were of all things the easiest, to make the contest, of which we are the objects, an excuse for our remaining indifferent to the Gospel, pleading that it rested with those who professed to fight our cause, to gain for it admission into the recesses of the soul. But ex- actly as we are not to " grieve the Holy Spirit,'' and, in proportion as we grieve Him, must expect his influences to be less powerfully put forth on our behalf, so are we to take heed to second good angels, who can but be instruments which the Holy Spirit employs ; and to expect that the Gospel will lay hold on the heart, in proportion as we strive to clear away prejudice, and to receive it with docility and meekness. And if you want proof how much may be lost through deficiency in that heed- fulness which would aid good angels in their endeavors to give effect to the word, it is furnished by what we know of the women whom such angels address in the text. There could apparently have been nothing plainer than the preaching of our blessed Savior, in re- gard of his own death and resurrection. He announced, in simple, unequivocal terms, that he should be crucified by his enemies, but that on the third day he would rise from the dead ; and angels, as it now seems, were present to imprint his words on the minds of the hearers, to prevent their being carried away, as the seed is carried which falls by the way-side. But the followers of* the Redeemer had their minds preoccupied by prejudices; they were still looking for a temporal deliverer, and could not tolerate the mention of an ignominious death, for they associated with it the overthrow of long-cherished hopes. Hence, there was no seconding of good angels, but rather a distinct taking part with evil ; and consequently the words, which might have been remembered, and could not have been misunderstood, even by a child, appear to have been com- pletely obliterated, so that the hearers remained with as little expectation of what was coming on their Lord, as though he had never forewarned them, or forewarned them only in dubious and mystical terms. When, therefore, the time of trial came, it virtually found them wholly unprepared ; and the death of Jesus as actually demolished their hopes as if he had not told them that it should be rapidly followed by his resur- rection. The women, who, had they but remembered and believed, might have come to the sepulchre, rejoicing in the assurance that it could not long hold its prey, came weeping and disheartened, bringing with them spices to anoint the body which they supposed would remain an inmate of the grave. And it might well have made them shed tears over their own darkness and unbelief, even in the midst of their gladness at the triumph won over death, that the angels, in prov- ing to them the resurrection, had only to adduce words which should have prevented their seeking " the living among the dead ;" that they had simply to say to them, " Remember how he spake unto you, when he was yet with you in Galilee." But now it should be more carefully observed, that this reminding the wo- men of what had been said to them by- Christ, is probably but an example of what continually occurs in the minis- tration of angels. The great object of our discourse is to illustrate this minis ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. tration, to give it something of a tangi- ble character; and we gladly seize on the circumstance of the angels recalling to the minda of the women tilings which had been heard, because it seems to place under a practical point of view what is too generally considered mere useless speculation. And though we <]o not indeed look for any precise re- petition of the scene given in our text, for angels do not now take visible shapes in order to commune with men, we know not why we should not ascribe to an ministration facts accurately similar, if nol as palpable, proceeding from super- natural agency. We think that we shall be home out by the experience of every believer in Christ, when we affirm that texts of Scripture are often suddenly and mysteriously brought into the mind; texts which have not perhaps recently engaged our attention, but which are most nicely suited to our circumstances, or which furnish most precisely the material then needed by our wants. There will enter into the spirit of a christian, on whom has fallen some un- expected temptation, a passage of the Bible winch is just as a weapon where- with to foil his assailant; or if it be an unlooked-for difficulty into which he is plunged, the occurring verses will be those best adapted for counsel and guid- ance ; or if it be some fearful trouble with which he is visited, then will there pass through all the chambers of the soul gracious declarations which the inspired writers will seem to have uttered and registered on purpose for himself. And it may be that the christian will observe nothing peculiar in this : there may ap- pear to him nothing but an effort of memory, roused and acted on by the circumstances in which he is placed ; and he may consider it as natural, that suitable passages should throng into his mind, as that he should remember an event at the place where he knows it to have happened. But let him ask himself whether he is not, on the other hand, often conscious of the intrusion into his soul of what is base and defiling ? Whether, if he hap- pen to have heard the jeer and the blas- phemy, the parody on sacred things, or the insult upon moral, they will not be frequently recurring to his mind ? recur- ring too at moments when there is least to provoke them, and when it had been most his endeavor to gather round him an atmosphere of what is sacred and pure. And we never scruple to give it as matter of consolation to a christian, harassed by these vile invasions of his soul, that he may justly ascribe them to the agency of the devil: wicked angels inject into the mind the foul and pollut- ing ([notation : and there is not neces- sarily any sin in receiving it, though there must he if we give it entertain- ment, in place of casting it instantly out. But why should we he so ready to go for explanation to the power of memory, and the force of circumstances, when ap- posite texts occur to the mind, and then resolve into Satanic agency the profana- tion of the spirit with what is blasphe- mous and base ] It were far more con- sistent to admit a spiritual influence in the one case as well as in the other; to suppose, that, if evil angels syllable to the soul what may have been heard or read of revolting and impure, good an- gels breathe into its recesses the sacred words, not perhaps recently perused, but which apply most accurately to our existing condition. It is expressly said of the devil, that he is " the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience," as though he not merely had access to their minds, but took up his abode there, that he might carry on, as in a citadel, the war and the stratagem. And if evil angels have such power over the thoughts of men for evil, it seems unreasonable to question that good angels have as great influence over them for good; that they too work in the children of obedi- ence, and are mainly instrumental in call- ing up and marshalling those solemn processions of sacred remembrances which pass, with silent tread, through the chambers of the spirit, and leave on them the impress of their pureness and power. We do not wish to draw you away, in the least degree, from the truth, that "the eternal uncreated Spirit of God alone, the Holy Ghost, is the author of our santification, the infuser into us of the principle of divine life, and He only is able to overrule our wills, to penetrate the deepest secrets of our hearts, and to rectify our most inward faculties."* But surely it does not infringe the office of the Holy Ghost, to suppose, with Bishop * Bishop Bull. ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. 21 Bull, that " good angels may, and often do, as instruments of the Divine good- ness, powerfully operate upon our fancies and imaginations, and thereby prompt us to pious thoughts, affections, and actions." They were angels, as you will remember, which came and ministered to our Lord after He had been exposed in the wilderness to extraordinary assaults from the devil. He had the Spirit without measure; but, nevertheless, as though to mark to us the agency which this Spirit is often pleased to employ, it was in and through angels that consolation was im- parted ; even as, in the dread hour of his last conflict with the powers of dark- ness, " there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him." And with every admission of the abundant comfort contained in the truth, that a Divine person, even the Holy Ghost, is continually engaged with observing our course, and promoting our welfare, we cannot but feel that it makes this truth more tangible, or brings it more home to our perception, to suppose such beings as angels employed by the Holy Ghost to carry on his work. You know prac- tically what comfort there is in the thought of its being in human form that the Second Person of the Trinity dis- charges the office of Intercessor : we should be quite lost in approaching Him, were it merely as God that He ministers above ; but we are more at home, and we feel greatly assured, in having, so to speak, a created medium, through which to draw nigh. And what is thus true of the work of intercession, carried on by the Second Person, is true also, in its measure, of the work of sanctification, which apper- tains specially to the Third. We can better apprehend this work, when we associate with a created though subordi- nate agency ; and that, which might seem vague and indefinite, if referred wholly to one infinite and inapproachable Being, commends itself to us, both as actually going forward, and as beautifully fitted to our weakness and wants, when we know it effected through the instrumen- tality of creatures higher indeed and far more glorious than ourselves, but nevertheless creatures who have them- selves known what moral danger is, and who can therefore rejoice, with ineffable gladness, over one sinner who turns from the error of his ways. That I cannot see these angels busying themselves with the work of my sanctification, is no more an argument against there being comfort in the fact, than is my not seeing the glorified humanity of Christ, against the encouragement which it gives as to the work of intercession. In both cases I believe that there is a something created, and therefore a something not too far re- moved from myself, which is engaged in ministrations for my good ; and thus, in both cases, there has been a condescen- sion to the weakness of my nature, and God may be said to have come near to me without the blaze of his celestial effulgence, that his terror might not make me afraid. Job, xxxiii. 7. Not only therefore can I regard it as credible, that angels stir up our torpid memories, and bring truths to our recol- lection, as they did to the women at the sepulchre of Christ, — I can rejoice in it as fraught With consolation, because showing that a created instrumentality is used by the Holy Ghost in the renew- ing our nature. And surely it may well excite gladness, that there is around the christian the guardianship of heavenly hosts ; that, whilst his pathway is thronged by malignant spirits, whose only effort is to involve him in their everlasting shame, it is also thronged by ministers of grace, who long to have him as their companion in the presence of God ; for there is thus what we might almost dare to call a visible array of power on our side, and we may take all that confidence which should result from being actually permitted to look on the antagonists, and to see that there are more with us than there are against. We will not debate whether other and satisfactory solutions may be given of the fact which has furnished our illustra- tion of angelic ministration, but we doubt whether any can be more scriptu- ral : and whilst it agrees so well with their general office, and is so fitted to strengthen us in our pilgrimage, we shall venture to regard angels as God's remembrancers to man. And they may talk to me of the tenacity of memory, and the force of circumstances — the te- nacity of memory, which will often hardly serve us from day to day, but lets slip a hundred things which we longed to retain ! the force of circumstances, which, ordinarily, save where there 22 ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. exists great presence of mind, bewilder and perplex, rather than suggest the fit- ting and appropriate. 1 ! Yea, they may talk of the tenacity of memory, and the force of circumstances, and think to explain from such elements that recur- rence to the mind of suitable texts, that sudden resurrection of forgotten pas- sages of Scripture, at the very moment when they apply with greatest accuracy, whicb every christian is conscious of in himself, and which he will find exera- pliiied in the experience of others. We have a better way of accounting for the phenomenon; a better, inasmuch as (were there nothing else to be said) it leaves to the aged the consolation of knowing that memory may decay, and yet the Bible not depart from their minds. And who has not seen this ex- hibited in the aged ? The grey-headed christian, when he has almost forgotten even the faces of friends, will yet fami- liarly quote the sayings** of Scripture. We have then, we say, a better way of explaining the phenomenon. 'We as- cribe it to the suggestings of those *' ministering spirits," which wait on the " heirs of salvation," that texts and pas- sages of Holy Writ come so mysteriously, but appropriately, into the mind. Oh, it is not the burning and beautiful imagery of poetry alone, which would people the air, and make it melodious with the voices of invisible beings. After all, there is more of real poetry in the facts of theology, than in the finest excursions of the human imagination. I believe, I do not fancy, that there are silent whisperings to the soul from spiritual creatures; the texts which rise up so wonderfully in the hour whether of temptation or of sorrow, as though mad.' for the occasion, are actually the utterances of guardian beings; and if there were more of a demonstration to the senses, than when passages occur to ourselves, I know not why we should think there was a more literal suggestion of truth to the mind, in the scene pre- sented by our text, when angels appear- ing as men, said to the women that were early at the sepulchre, "Remember how he spake unto you, when he was yet with you in Galilee." But it is hardly possible to read these words of the angels, and not to feel how reproachfully they must have fallen on the ears of the women ! how they must have upbraided them with want of at- tention and of faith ! For had they but listened heedfully to what Christ had said, and had they but given due cre- dence to his words, they would have come in triumph to welcome the living, in place of mournfully with spices to embalm the dead. If it ministered to them gladness, to be told that the Lord had risen, it must have occasioned them sorrow, to be reminded that he himself had foretold his resurrection ; so that their presence at the tomb, bearing what they meant to evidence their love, spake of nothing more deeply than of the neglect with which they had treated his words. It was well for these women that they were thus taught their inattention and unbelief whilst it was not too late for repentance and confession. They might have been left to die in their forgetfulness ; for there is nothing in their history to show that the strength of memory and the force of circumstances would have brought Christ's words to their remembrance ; on the contrary, the empty sepulchre, which you would have thought most likely to recall the words, had nothing but a bewildering effect ; for you read, " they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, and they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus ; and it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments." The circumstances were precisely those which might have been expected to sug- gest the long-neglected saying, and thus cause the truth to flash upon the mind: yet you see, that had there not been the an- gelic interference, the women would have had no explanation to give of the disap- pearance of the body of their Lord. And they might have been left without this interference ; suffered to die with Christ's words as witnesses against them, wit- nesses which would have proved them inexcusable in not knowing that Messiah was to be crucified for sin, but not suffer- ed to see corruption in the graVe. But God dealt more graciously with these women than their inattention, or want of faith, had deserved; he caused the words to be brought to their remem- brance, whilst they might yet inspire con- fidence, though they could hardly fail al- so to excite bitter contrition. It is often thus with ourselves ; the appropriate ANGELS AS REMEMBRANCERS. 23 text is made to recur to the mind ; bat whilst we gather from it an abundance of comfort, we are forced to reproach ourselves for having been cast down, or terrified, when God had put such truths upon record as should have left no place for anxiety or doubt. If Christ be wa- kened from his sleep, through our terror at the storm, he may not only rebuke the winds and the waves, but chide us at the same time as men " of little faith." May it not, however, be, that, where there has been wilful inattention to the word, there vyill not always occur this an- gelic recalling of it to the mind 1 not, at least, whilst there is yet time for the lay- ing it to heart ? We dare not doubt this. And if the remembered words fall re- proachfully on the ear, when we may yet make use of them for good, what, alas ! shall it be if the words be then only re- called, when there shall no longer be "place for repentance]" Our blessed Saviour Himself, speaking of what shall be the process of judgment at the last dreadful day, makes his word the great accuser of all such as reject him. "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my ' words,' hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." And when with this you connect the part which an- gels are to take in the awful assize on the whole race of man ; for we read that "the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just : " that "the Son of Man shall send forth his an- gels, and they shall gather out of his king- dom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a fur- nace 06 fire ; " — O terrible thought, that the very beings who now watch over us as friends, good angels, not evil, shall bind up the offending, and cast them in- to hell ! — when, we say, you connect what Christ says of his word, with what He elsewhere says of angels; the word, the condemning thing at the judgment, the angels, the ministers of vengeance ; you can hardly question that the office, which celestial beings performed towards the women at the resurrection of Christ, is one which they will yet perform to- wards multitudes, when the earth and the sea shall have given up their dead. Is it the sensualist who is being carried away into outer darkness 1 and where- fore is he speechless 1 The attendant angel hath said, " Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet with you \ipon earth ; Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor drunkards, shall inherit the kingdom of God." It is the word which judges him, and it is the angel which binds him. Is it the covetous on whom has been passed a sentence against which he has nothing to urge 1 The angel hath said, " Remem- ber how he spake unto you, Covetous- ness, which is idolatry." Is it the proud ? " Remember how he spake unto you, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the lowly." Is it the careless and the indifferent ] " Remember how he spake unto you, What shall a man give in exchange for his soul 1 " Is it the procrastinator, who had deferred the sea- son of repentance 1 " Remember how he spake unto you, Behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salvation." In each and every case the Word may judge, and the angels may bind. O that this were well laid to heart by all in the present assembly! We venture to say that it happens to all of you to have pas- sages of Scripture powerfully brought home to the mind — you know not by what agency, and you cannot, perhaps, account for the sudden intrusion — but there they are ; passages which would dissuade you from some pursuit on which you are tempted to enter, or urge you to some duty which you are tempted to neglect. It is the voice of a guardian spirit, that spirit, perhaps, which, in holy baptism, was specially appointed to at- tend your course, which you should con- sider that you hear in these whispered passages. Hearken ye diligently to this silent voice. Ye resist the Holy Ghost when ye resist the angel that would thus, by adducing Scripture, rebuke you, as the women were rebuked, for seeking " the living amongst the dead," the food of the soul amid the objects of sense. If, when secretly reminded of the truth, ye will give heed, and act forthwith on the suggested lesson — whether it prompt to prayer or to resistance, or to self-denial, or to amendment — we can promise you such assistance from above as shall carry you on towards the kingdom of Heaven. But if ye refuse, and turn a deaf ear, alas ! alas ! the voice may never again be heard on this side the grave. Yet the words have not perished; the words cannot perish : again, again, shall they find a 24 THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. voice, but a voice which will be burdened with condemnation ; for thus shall it in- troduce at the judgment the long-neglect- ed sayings, " Remember how he spake unto you, whilst he was yet with you upon earth." SERMON III THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them b«fore all men : they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." — Acts xix. 19. This occurred at Ephesus, a celebrat- ed city of Asia Minor, which contained that magnificent temple of Diana, which was reckoned amongst the wonders of the world. The Ephesians, it appears, were greatly addicted to the study of curious arts, to magic, sorcery, and judicial as- trology, so that " Ephesian letters " be- came a proverbial expression for cabalis- tic, or magical, characters. The Gospel, as preached by St. Paul, made great way in Ephesus, and a very flourishing church rewarded his labors. The Ephesians, according to the common course of the Divine dealings, were attacked in the way which their habits and pursuits marked out as most promising-. In no place does there seem to have been so great a display of supernatural energy ; as though men, much addicted to witch- craft, to the attempting unlawful inter- course with potent but invisible beings, were likely to be most wrought upon by evidence of intimate connection with spiritual agents. You read that " God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs, or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." It must have been very striking to the Ephesian magicians, to find that St. Paul could thus apparently communicate a sort of magical virtue to articles of dress : they were perhaps more likely than men who had never meddled with occult arts, to feel the force of such an evidence of superhuman might. In short, the Ephesians, because accustom- ed to produce strange results by some species or another of witchcraft, would naturally ascribe miracles to a similar agency ; hence, the miracles, which were to serve as their credentials of Christianity, required to be more than commonly potent, such as were not in any degree imitable, whether through the dexterity of the juggler, or the in- | cantations of the sorcerer. And it seems ! to us one of those instances, not die less [ remarkable because easily overlooked, of the carefulness with which God adapts means to an end, that, in a city in which, of all others, false miracles were likely to abound, and improper arts made the mind familiar with strange phenomena, the powers granted to the preachers of Christianity were of extraordinary extent, sufficing to place an apostle at an im- measurable distance from the most con- summate magician. It is, moreover, evident that the hold gained on the Epesians was gained by and through the demonstration of the superiority of St. Paul's power to that possessed by any dealer in unlawful arts, In the verses which immediately precede our text, you have the account of a sin- THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. 25 gular occurrence, which appears to have had much to do with the obtaining for Christianity a firm footing in Ephesus. You read that certain Jews, who travel- led the country as exorcists, persons, that is, who professed to cast out the evil spirits which had then frequent posses- sion of men's bodies, took upon them to employ the name of the Lord Jesus in their endeavors to eject demons, having observed with what success it was used by St. Paul. Amongst others who made the wicked and insolent attempt, for such it surely was, to endeavor to weave a spell from a name which they openly blasphemed, were the " seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew." As though they thought that numbers would give force to the ad- juration, these seven appear to have gone together to a man demoniacally possessed, and to have addressed the foul spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. The spirit, however, answered, "Jesus I know, and Paul 1 know ; but who are ye 1 " Thus the demon professed himself ready to submit to Jesus, or Paul, his accredited messenger; but he knew of no right which these exorcists had to dispossess him by the name whose potency he ac- knowledged. He was not, however, content with thus refusing to be exor- cised : he took a signal revenge, causing the man, in whom he dwelt, to put forth supernatural strength, so that he leaped upon the seven men, and overcame them, and forced them to flee " out of the house naked and wounded." This was quickly noised abroad, and produced, we are told, great effects among both the. Jews and Greeks who were dwelling at Ephesus; "and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified." To men accustomed to make use of charms and incantations, the evidence thus given of the sacredness of Christ's name, and of the peril of employing it to any but those who believed in his mission, would naturally be very convincing : it was just the sort of evidence which their habits made them most capable of ap- preciating, and by which therefore they were most likely to be overcome. Ac- cordingly, it seems at once to have taught numbers the necessity of submitting to Christ, and renouncing those arts of magic and sorcery, through which they had perhaps endeavored to hold inter- course with spirits They acted with Vol. II. great promptness on the conviction : they laid open all the mysteries of their witchcraft, they " came, .and confessed, and showed their deeds ;" and then, fired with a holy indignation at the ne- farious practices in which they had long indulged, and abhorring the very books which contained the rules and secrets of their arts, they gathered together the curious and costly volumes, and publicly burned them ; thus evidencing their sincerity by no trifling sacrifice, for when they counted the price of these books, " they found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." Now there are certain points of view, under which if this conduct of the Ephesians be surveyed, it will appear singularly deserving of being both ad- mired and imitated. We believe of this incident of the burning of the magical books, as of the rest of scriptural history, that it has been " written for our admo- nition," and ought not to be passed over with a mere cursory notice/ We shall accordingly proceed to the endeavoring to extract from it such lessons as there shall seem ground for supposing it in- tended to furnish. It is unnecessary for us to inquire what those arts may have been, in which the Ephesians are said to have greatly ex- celled. There seems no reason for doubting, that, as we have stated already, they were of the nature of magic, sorcery, or witchcraft; though we cannot profess accurately to define what such terms might import. The Ephesians, as some in all ages have done, probably laid claim to intercourse with invisible beings, and professed to derive from that inter- course acquaintance with, and power ( iver, future events. And though the very name of witchcraft be now held in con- tempt, and the supposition of communion with evil spirits scouted as a fable of what are called the dark ages, we own that we have difficulty in believing, that all which has passed by the names of magic and sorcery may be resolved into sleight of hand, deception, and trick. The visible world and the invisible are in very close contact : there is indeed a veil on our eyes, preventing our gazing on spiritual beings and things ; but we doubt not that whatsoever passes upon earth is open to the view of higher and immaterial creatures. And as we are sure that a man of piety and prayer en- 4 20 THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. lists good angels on his side, and engages them to perform towards him the minis- trations of kindness, we know not why there cannot be such a thing as a man whose wickedness has caused his being abandoned by the Spirit of God, and who, in this his desertion, has thrown open to evil angels the chambers of his soul, and made himself so completely their instru- ment, that they may use him in the littering or working strange things, which shall have all the air of prophecy or miracle. But whatever your opinion be as to the precise nature of sorcery, and the degree to which it might be carried, we may be sure that the books, which the Ephesian converts so resolutely burnt, contained the mysteries of the art, the rules by whose study and appli- cation men were to acquire what, at least, might resemble superhuman power and skill. And what we have first to remark on the burning of these books, is that it manifested great detestation of their contents, though hitherto the Ephe- 6ians had specially delighted in reading and applying them. There could have been no stronger evidence of the reality of their conversion, than was given by their committing these volumes to the flames. They thus showed a thorough consciousness of the unlawfulness of the arts of which the books treated, and an abhorrence of the practices therein de- scribed. And it is always a great sign of the genuineness, the sincerity, of reli- gion, when a man proves that the things, in which he once took delight, are re- garded by him with hatred and aversion. It is given as the characteristic of vital Christianity, that he in whom it dwells, has become " a new creature." There is nothing which may take the place of this characteristic, or make up for its want. It matters not whether a man can de- scribe the process of his conversion, or fix its exact date : he may have been truly converted, and yet be ignorant how and when it was done. But it is quite indispensable that there should be evi- dences of moral renewal : light and darkness are not more opposed than the state of the converted and that of the unconverted ; and though I may not know the moment or the manner of my being translated from the one to the other, there is more than room for doubt- ing whether I can have been translated at all, if no change have perceptibly passed on my hopes, desires, and fears. Regen- erated in baptism, I may indeed have been " daily renewed," * and never, therefore, have needed conversion. But if 1 have ever lived a worldly life, and then heark- ened to the dictates of religion, the transi- tion may have been silently and imper- ceptibly effected, but must be demon- strable from strong contrasts between what I am and what I once was. We have always therefore to require of men, who, once worldly, now think themselves converted, that they rest con- tent with no evidence but that of a great moral change ; not satisfied, because there may have been something of ex- ternal reform, but searching for proof of such alteration in character, that they hate what they loved, and love what they hated. Such a proof the Ephesians gave, when they burnt their costly trea- tises on magic. They had been special- ly addicted to magic : by and through magic they had specially offended God, and periled their souls : so soon, there- fore, as Christianity had won its way to their hearts, it was against magic that they showed a holy indignation ; it was magic which they proved themselves resolved to abandon. The moral change was thus satisfactorily evidenced ; the thing which had been most delighted in was the thing most abhorred ; and no proof could be stronger, that the men were new creatures in Christ. We ask the like proof from those of you who suppose themselves " renewed in the spirit of their mind." Have you burnt your books on magic] We. do not accuse you of having, like the Ephe- sians, practised the arts of the sorcerer: ye have not woven spells, nor muttered incantations. Ye have had nothing to do with the mysteries of enchantment, or with the foul rites of necromancy, dazzling the living or disturbing the dead. But, nevertheless, ye have been in communion with " the god of this world," "the prince of the power of the air : " ye have submitted to his illusions, and surrendered yourselves to his service. If, in some peculiar sense, the sorcerer or the magician give himself up to the devil, and make himself his instrument, there is a broader sense in which every one of us by nature holds intercourse * Collect for Christmas-Day. THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. 27 with fallen angels, and learns from them how to put deceit on others and himself. Yea, and we have our books upon ma- gic. What are half the volumes with which the laud is deluged, but volumes which can teach nothing but how to serve the devil better ] How numerous the works of an infidel tendency ! How yet mure numerous those of an immoral ! What a shoal of poems and tales, which, though not justly falling under either of these descriptions, can but emasculate the mind of the reader, filling it with fancies and follies, and unfitting it for high thought and solemn investigation. What treatises on the acquisition of wealth, as though money were the one thing needful ; what histories of the am- bitious and daring, as though human honor deserved our chief aspirations ; what pictures of pleasure, as though earthly gratifications could satisfy our longings. And if we have our books upon ma- gic, have we not also the scenes and places where fallen spirits may be de- clared the presiding deities ] — the crowd- ed mart, where mammon is almost liter- ally worshipped ; the gorgeous theatre, where the very air is that of voluptuous- ness ; the more secret haunts of licen- tiousness ; the mirthful gatherings, where the great object is to forget God ; the philosophical, where the chief endeavor is to extol man. Indeed it must not be said that there is nothing of witchcraft going on around us. The question of the Apostle to the Galatians has lost none of its force : " Who hath bewitch- ed you, that ye should not obey the truth ] " Nay, not only may every un- converted man be declared, in some great sense, under the influence of sor- cery : he may be said to practise sorcery ; for he is instrumental, whether by his precept or his example, to the seducing others into sin, and confirming their at- tachment to the world. We may, then, almost literally bring him, if he think himself converted, to the test furnished by the conflagration of which we read in our text. We ask him whether he feels, and manifests a righteous indignation against those prac- tices and pursuits which at one time en- grossed his affections ] Whatever may have been his peculiar and besetting sin, is it that sin against which he specially guards 1 is it that sin which he visits with the most thorough hatred 1 It is comparatively nothing that he is vigilant and wrathful against other sins — is he vigilant and wrathful against the favor- ite sin ] The Ephesians directed their indignation against magic; and it was magic to which the Ephesians had been specially prone. Have we proceeded on the same principle] One man is specially acted on by the love of wealth : is it the love of wealth against which religion has made him specially earnest ] Another is more disposed to the pursuit of honor : is it ambition against which religion has most roused his zeal ] A third is most easily overcome by his bodily appetites : is it his grand effort, as instructed by Christianity, to crucify " the flesh, with the affections and lusts 1 " We can take no lesser proof of sinceri- ty : the fire must be made with the books of our own particular art, other- wise we may burn library upon library, and yet furnish no evidence of conver- sion. And in this respect, even had we no other to allege, the conduct of the Ephesians reads a great lesson to the men of every age. They publicly show- ed that they hated and abjured the sin which they were publicly known to have most loved and practised. It was the vehement protest of the covetous man against covetousness ; of the li- centious against licentiousness ; of the ambitious against ambition. It was not the protest of the covetous against licen- tiousness ; nor of the licentious against ambition. There is ordinarily little diffi- culty in gaining such a protest as that. But it was the protest of the awakened sinner against his own chosen form of sin ; and thousands are ready to protest against all but their own, to give up any other, on the single condition of keeping what they love best. Therefore, judge ye yourselves, we again say, by your likeness to the Ephesians. Ye have tampered, in one sense, like them, with sorcery. Ye have- gone down to the cave of the enchantress, and ye have drunk of that cup by which the tempter hopes to steal away men's faculties. Ye had your books in which ye have studied magic— whether the magic by which the metal and the jewel may be made to flow into your coffers ; or that by which ye may wreath the brow with laurel ; or that by which ye may fasci- 28 THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. nate the senses, and make life one round of luxurious enjoyment. But ye now think that religion lias hold upon you, and that ye are no longer what ye were. And heartily do we trust that you are right in your opinion, and that there is no self-deceit. .But this we must tell you — if ye be, indeed, converted, the evidence of the conversion will be in the manifested abhorrence, not only general- ly of sin, but especially of that sin in which you most indulged — oh, you will virtually do what was done by the Ephe- sians, who, because they had peculiarly provoked God by the practising curious arts, were no sooner led to a true belief in Christ, than they " brought their books together, and burned them before all men." It would, however, be inferring com- paratively very little from this action of the Ephesians, were we to regard it only- as expressing their detestation of their favorite sin. We may justly sup- pose that they had their safety in view, when throwing into the flames the- trea- tises on magic. They might have pub-, licly renounced the arts which they had been accustomed to practise, without burning the rare volumes which had initiated them into their mysteries. They might have shut up these volumes, re- taining them as mere literary curiosities, though resolving never again to refer to them for instruction in witchcraft. But there would have been a want of christian prudence in this ; this would have kept them continually exposed to temptation ; and it was in their not doing this, that we count them greatly worthy of being admired and imitated. It is very clear that, had they not destroyed their treatises on magic, there would al- ways have been a risk of their returning to their study : it was not unlikely that, so soon as the first heat of religion had passed, they would again have taken up the curious books, and read them for recreation, if not for instruction. We do not necessarily suppose that they would have turned to them with any design of resuming unlawful practices ; but they might have perused them as a singular species of literature, from which entertainment might be drawn, without any surrender of the persuasion that they taught only what was foul and un- hallowed. Yet any such intention of making any use whatever of the books, would have shown a sort of lurking affection for what they contained, and could not, at least, have been carried into effect without risk of the being seduced back into the prac- tice of sorcery. The Ephesians, there- fore, wisely determined to put themselves out of the way of temptation ; and this, you observe, they effectually did by burn- ing their books ; for, in all probability, those books were not to be replaced, even had they wished for them again ; there was then no printing-press, that mighty engine for multiplying evil as well as good. Thus they cut themselves off', in a very high degree, from the possibility of returning to their divinations and en- chantments : they showed a wholesome distrust of their own strength and resolu- tion, and proved that, with real christian prudence, they thought it better to shun than to brave moral peril. And herein did they become a great example to ourselves. We have to re- quire of those of you who have broken away from the enchantments and fasci- nations of the world, that they show a like zeal in avoiding the scenes and oc- casions of temptation. It is not christian courage, it is nothing better than pre- sumption, when a man unnecessarily ex- poses himself to spiritual danger, as though counting himself proof against as- sault, and not again to be entangled in things once abandoned. When we are brought into temptation, by walking the clear path of duty, we have the best rea- son to expect such assistance from above as shall enable us to hold fast our integ- rity. But if we be not in the clear path of duty when we meet the temptation; if it be through our own choice or hardi- hood that our constancy is endangered ; there is great pi-obability that God will suffer us to fall, if only to teach us our feebleness, and our need of stronger cau- tion for the future. God permitted not the fire to singe a hair of the heads of the three Jewish youths, who preferred the being cast into a furnace to the worship- ping an idol ; but had they presump- tuously thrown themselves into the flames, in place of having been enveloped in them for the maintenance of truth, do you think that the like miracle would have been wrought on their behalf] And similarly with the Ephesians, it might happen to them, that books on magic would fall in their way, and that they THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. 29 would be tempted to peruse their unhal- lowed pages. But they would have had nothing to do with the causing this temp- tation, and might, therefore, expect to be strengthened to withstand it. But if, on the other hand, they had kept themselves in the way of temptation by preserving the treatises, they would have had only themselves to blame, if, as in all likelihood it would have happened, they had been drawn back to the study, and perhaps even the practice, of unlawful arts. Here, therefore, we have again to ply the professing christians amongst you with the question, have ye burnt your books on magic'? Ye- will readily un- derstand the precise force of the question, as addressed to yourselves, and how it must be modified to meet a difference in circumstances. As we before said, ye have had nothing to do with the arts of the sorcerer, in the sense in which those arts were practised by the Ephesians. But nevertheless ye have lived in a very atmosphere of witchery; the spell has been woven over you and around you ; the goi-geous phantoms, the brilliant shadows, with which evil spirits people the world, " beguiling unstable souls," these once dazzled and allured you, though now the illusion is broken, and ye have resolved to walk henceforwards by the light of God's word. And what have ye done in regard of sources and occa- sions of temptation '? upon what princi- ple have you acted with respect to books, and scenes, and practices, which expe- rience has identified with the artifices of that great deceiver, who once had you altogether in his power ? It may be that one of you was half inclined to infi- delity : he read sceptical books, whose assertions he could not disprove, and whose sophistries he could not unravel — he was magician enough to conjure up doubts, but wanted the wand of truth wherewith to disperse them. Christian- ity, however, has been presented to him with that overcoming evidence which it wears, when preached with "demonstra- tion of the Spirit and of power; " and he has put away all unbelief, and cordially admitted the Gospel as a message from God. But what has he done with the magical books, with the treatises which entangled him in the maze of infidelity 1 There is such a thing as preserving, yea, as reading a book from a literary motive, when it is held in abhorrence on every other account. The book may be very rare, or very eloquent ; it may be valuable for its style, or for information which it contains, though unhappily fraught with Deistical principles. And the man, on whom the book once acted like an in- itiation into sorcery, forcing him into a region of wild cloud and shadow, will, perhaps, when he has shaken off scepti- cism, study the book afresh, because re lishing its beauty of diction, or wishing to show himself proof against its false- hoods. Ah ! he had better have imitated the Ephesians : he is fearfully and un- necessarily endangering his faith : he should rather have burnt the book on magic ; he should have done, we mean, his best to put, or to keep, the dangerous volume out of reach. It may be that another of you has lived much in vice, submitting himself to the tyranny of his passions, and walk- ing within the circles of what is falsely called pleasure. And in this his sensual career he has, perhaps, been often excited to fresh indulgence by the licentious writ- ings of poets, men who have prostituted all the graces of song to the service of impurity. It is one of the foulest and most melancholy of facts, that writers of extraordinary genius, not to be surpass- ed in the play of imagination and the power of language, have desecrated their talents to the adorning debauchery, to the throwing a grace and a beauty over the abominations of vice. And it must be a fatal and a standing reproach on our liter- ature, that it contains volumes which are almost unrivalled in the mere article of compostion, rich in the splendor of dic- tion, the brilliancy of metaphor, and the pathos of description, but which put all modesty to the blush, and but few frag- ments of which can we venture to place in the hands of our children. These de- serve to be called the treatises on magic, when it is the wand of pleasure which evil spirits wave. It is beyond calculation what an amount of viciousness is fostered in a land, through the circulation of loose, but beautiful, poetry. We speak not of publications which can be only sold in secret, and the venders of which have only to become known to be punished by law. We speak of those to which no such open stigma is attached, but which are, nevertheless, as instrumental to the fanning base passions, aud encouraging licentiousness, as the more indecent and 30 THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. scandalous, which draw upon themselves judicial condemnation. There is many a young person who would shrink from gross writings with a sort of instinctive abhorrence, but who is not proof against the seductions of voluptuous poetry, and to whom, therefore, the elegant author, who can clothe immorality in a fascinating dress, will serve as a sort of High Priest of vice, though he might have been dis- gusted by any of its less polished minis- ters. But our question now is, what does the sensualist do with the magical books, when convinced, by the urgency of Chris- tianity, of the duty of living "soberly, righteously, and godly in the world 1 ?" Is there not much, even amongst those who profess an utter abhorrence of licen- tiousness, of retaining, and reading, for the sake of their exquisite poetry, works confessedly immoral in their tendency ] Arc not the graces of composition accept- ed in apology for the deficiencies in prin- ciple ? Does not many a man tolerate, yea, even enjoy, books which, in a re- ligious point of view, he utterly' repu- diates, because they contain passages of unexampled sublimity, or flash through- out with the coruscations of genius 1 We have only to say upon this, that the Ephesians acted more nobly, and more wisely. The man, who has once been the slave of his passions, and who has found those passions excited by volup- tuous writings, ought never again to open the volumes, as though he might now gather the beauties of poesy without im- bibing the sentiments of impurity : the volumes ought to be to him, as if the only copies had been consumed in the flames — the Ephesians should be his pat- tern, who not merely abjured what they nad learnt to be wrong, but did their ut- most to keep themselves out of reach, for the future, of the temptations by which they had been overcome. Anil, without confining ourselves to the precise caso of books, what is your course generally in regard of occasions of sin, of places and occupations which you have found detrimental to religion 1 Do you make a point of shunning what you have discovered to be injurious'? or (1 i you venture on a repetition, in the confidence of being too strong to be again injured ! The associates who encour- aged you in sin, whilst careless of the soul — have you given them up, now that you are anxious for the soul 1 or do you act on the supposition, that there is no further fear of your being carried away by the force of companionship ] You found that worldly amusements — the theatre, with its licentious accompani- ments; the masquerade and the dance, with their frivolity at least, if not their sinfulness; the card-table,. with its trial of temper, even where it did not excite the spirit of gambling — you found that these warred against the soul, whilst you were yet unconverted ; but what have you done as a proof and result of con- version 1 Have you striven, to the best of your power, to place barriers between yourselves and these amusements'? or are you still partaking of them, only in less measure, and with a diminished affection 1 Or, once more, if it were for wealth that you had dealings with the sorceier, dedicating every moment and energy to the arts by which gold may be multi- plied, how have you acted since the grace of God, as you think, brought you to love and seek everlasting treasures % Have you put from you what was too engrossing in occupation ] or are you still engaged as ever in the witchcraft of money-making 1 You can hardly fail to understand the drift of these questions. The thing which we wish impressed upon you is, that, whatever may have been your do- minant passion before conversion, your great effort, in proof of conversion, should be the cutting yourselves off from tempta- tions to the gratifying that passion. We care not what enchantment you most practised ; or by what you were most beguiled : your endeavor should be, to keep yourselves as much as possible out of the sphere of that enchantment ; not exposing yourselves to its influence, as though its power were gone, but placing yourselves beyond its reach, as though your weakness remained. And if ever we see a man, who has been delivered from the meshes of infidelity, still fond of studying sceptical writings ;. or an- other, who has been won from licentious- ness, adventuring into the haunts of dis- sipation; or a third, whose idol was gold, taking no pains to withdraw from the atmosphere of covetousness ; or a fourth, whom evil companions had se- duced, braving the charm of old asso- ciation — oh, we cannot but greatly fear THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. 31 for such a man, that his contempt of danger will make him its victim; that, by not detaching himself at once from occasions and scenes of temptation, he has but insured relapses and backslid- ings ; we can but desire that he had taken the Ephesians as his model, who no sooner renounced magic, than, as though fearful of being again entangled in its study, and distrusting themselves while they had access to its rules, " brought their books together, and burned them before all men." But there is yet another point of view under which we may survey the conduct of the Ephesians, and find in it a test of the genuineness of conversion. We have spoken of the burning of the magical books as proving detestation of a favorite sin, and earnestness in avoiding the being again tempted to its commis- sion. But we may allow that other ways might have been found in which to express abhorrence of sorcery ; and that, perhaps, some of the Ephesians might have retained the books in their posses- sion, without much risk of resuming the unlawful studies. Yet if equal detesta- tion might have been otherwise shown, and if no personal risk whatsoever had been run, we should still have to applaud, and point out for imitation, that action of the Ephesians which stands recorded in our text. So long as the books were preserved, there was of course no secu- rity against their falling into the hands of unstable persons, who would be tempted by them to the engaging in the trade of the magician. But by actually destroying the books, the most effectual means were taken to prevent the spread of the study of sorcery ; for as we have already remarked, there was then no printing-press to multiply indefinitely the copies of a work. The books must have been manuscripts, produced with great care, and procured at large cost. In our own day, indeed, very little would in most cases be gained by the burning our copy of an improper book. We should not thereby necessarily do much, if any thing, towards preventing the work from finding its way into the possession of others. But it was very different, as you must all perceive, before the invention of printing ; and it is highly probable that the christian converts could have done nothing more instrumental to the suppression of magic in Ephesus, than the consigning to the flames the booka on curious arts which they respectively owned. It was going far towards de- stroying the grammars and dictionaries of the cabalistic language, and thus leaving those, who might wish to learn witchcraft, deprived of the common means of ascertaining its elements. And we suppose, accordingly, that the Ephe- sians were greatly actuated by this motive : it was not enough for them, either that they had themselves adjured magic, or were not themselves likely to be again injured by the books: they had respect to the welfare of others ; and feeling that this welfare might be endangered by the magical volumes, they threw without reserve those vol- umes into the flames, though their price, when counted, was found to be " fifty thousand pieces of silver." And here we have again to declare the Ephesians an example, and to ply you with the question, Have you, from the like motive, burnt your books on magic 1 ? There is no better test of the genuine- ness of conversion, than earnestness in seeking the conversion of others. It cannot be that a man has been brought to a sense of his sinfulness, of the dan- ger to which as a sinner he is exposed, and of the provision made by Christ for his deliverance, and yet is indifferent to the condition of those who live " without hope, and without God in the world." There is the widest possible separation between vital Christianity and whatso- ever has alliance with selfishness ; vital Christianity is a generous, expansive thing : the man of the world may be willing to keep earthly riches to himself; the man of God must be anxious to communicate heavenly to others. In spiritual things, anxiety does not termi- nate with the securing our own safety : it is rapidly transferred to others; and when humbly confident of being " begot- ten again to a lively hope," we shall be painfully solicitous to make those around us fellow-heirs of the promise. One of the strongest feelings in the converted man, is that the great things done for him by God bind him to attempt great things in return : as he looks upon those who still sit " in darkness and the shadow of death," the light with which he has been visited, will seem to him given on purpose to be diffused. The Ephesians, as we think, quite sat- 32 THE BURNING OF THE MAGICAL BOOKS. isfied this test of conversion when they burnt their magical books. It was the action by which, as we have shown you, more was clone than could perhaps have else been achieved, towards preventing others from engaging in practices which themselves had found most pernicious. So that the flames, in which they con- sumed their treatises on witchcraft, were the best tokens of the ardency of their love for the souls of their fellow-men. Have you given any thing of a like to- ken 1 Where are your books upon magic 1 What have you done towards keeping others from the sins to whose commission you were yourselves most addicted 1 For what has been most in- jurious to yourselves, you will naturally feel likely to be most injurious to others, and it will thei-efore be that against which you will most strive to put others on their guard. The man, once tinctured with infidelity, will be zealous in sup- pressing sceptical writings, and diffusing their refutation. The man who has lived in licentiousness, will be so earnest in nothing as in discountenancing vice and promoting morality. The man who was injured by bad company, will do all in his power to keep the unwary from evil associations. The man who has experienced the hurtfulness of public amusements, will be urgent against places and diversions which he found full of peril. The man who was likely to have been ruined through covetous- ness, will warn others, above all things, against the love of money. And in these or similar cases, the thing done is pre- cisely what was done by the Ephesians : the books on magic are burnt, with the distinct view of keeping others from practising magic : individuals do their best to put down or obstruct that par- ticular form of evil which proved most entangling and detrimental to them- selves. Let those of you who think them- selves converted, try by this test the genuineness of their conversion. Each must well know the sin to which he was most inclined, and by which his salva- tion was most endangered ; is he, then, all anxiety to keep others from that sin, aud to remove from them temptations to its commission] The converted man is not oidy desirous to prevent sin in gen- eral ; he is specially desirious to prevent that sin which was once his besetting sin ; to guard men against it and to cut off its occasions. This is what we call burn- ing the books on magic — the acting with the set design of withholding others from what has been peculiarly hurtful to ourselves. And if the man who was injured by sceptical writings manifest no special zeal against infidelity ; or if he, who was in bondage to the lusts of the flesh, be not foremost in opposing licentiousness ; or if another, who had almost shipwrecked himself for eternity in the theatre, or at the gaming-table, be not energetic in withdrawing others from haunts of dissipation ; or general- ly, if an individual, who was all but lost through living in a certain sin, take no earnest measures for preventing those around him from committing that sin ; oh, we are bound to fear for such a man, that he does but deceive himself, when thinking that he has undergone a great moral change,- and we must urge upon him the comparing himself with the Ephesians of old, who were no sooner brought to faith in the Savior, than, ani- mated with desire to suppress the arts which had endangered their souls, they collected their books, and threw them into the flames, though, when the price of them was counted, " they found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." Our concluding remarks on the burn- ing the treatises on sorcery, will be of a somewhat different texture from the foregoing. The epistle which St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians about four years after this event, is among the most beau- tiful and valuable portions of the New Testament.* It is not, as is the Epistle to the Romans, or that to the Hebrews, a great controversial treatise ; it is a let- ter to those who, having been well ini- tiated into Christianity, and grounded in its fundamental principles, might be conducted to its more secret depths, or admitted into acquaintance with its pro- founder mysteries. There is, perhaps, no part of the writings of St. Paul, in which the elements of christian truth are more assumed as placed beyond controversy, and in which, therefore, the Apostle seems to feel more at liberty to descant on sublime things, and unfold glorious wonders. If it be lawful, in speajting of Scripture, to draw such a distinction, we should say that the 'Knox's Correspondence. THE PARTING HYMN. 33 Epistle to the Ephesians is among the most spiritual of the inspired writings, throwing open, in an uncommon degree, the very recesses of the Gospel, and presenting such heights of christian doctrine as, after all our soarings, still lose themselves in the clouds. And it has been justly pointed out, as singularly worthy of observation, that it was to men who had burnt their books on curious arts that an epistle was indited, so replet* with what is most wonderful, most beautiful, most profound, in Christianity. If you will allow us the expression, it was like re- paying them in kind. The Ephesians had abandoned the mysteries of sorce- ry and astrology : at the bidding of the Apostle they had renounced unhallow- ed modes of prying into the secrets of the invisible world ; and they were re- compensed by being led to the inner- most shrines of truth, and permitted to behold glories which were veiled from common gaze. They gave up the astrology, which is busied with stars that shall be quenched, and lo, " the Sun of righteousness " rose on them with extraordinary effulgence ; they re- nounced the magic which would con- jure up strange forms, and a rod, liko that of Moses, was stretched forth, peo- pling the whole universe with images of splendor ; they abjured the necro- mancy, which sought to extort from the dead revelations of the future, and the very grave became luminous, and its ashes glowed for them with immor- tality. Learn ye from thi3, that ye cannot give up any thing for God, and be lo- sers by the surrender. The loss is al- ways far more than made up, and, per- haps, often by the communication of something which resembles, whilst it immeasurably excels, what you part with. Never stay, then, to compute the cost: the Ephesians do not seem to have computed it before they burnt their books, though they computed it after — and then, not in regret, but only to dis- play the triumph of the Gospel. Let the cost be " fifty thousand pieces of silver : " hesitate not to make the sacri- fice for God, and you shall find your- selves a hundred-fold recompensed : like the Ephesians, if you forsake magic, because God hath forbidden it, ye shall be initiated into mysteries which the Holy Spirit alone can reveal. SERMON IV. THE PARTING HYMN. And when they had sung an hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives." — Matthew xxvi. 30. These words refer, as you are proba- bly all aware, to the conclusion of our Lord's last supper with his disciples, when, having instituted a sacrament which was to take the place of the Pass- over, he went forth to meet the suffer- ings through which the world should be redeemed. The evangelist St. John Vol. II. does not give any account of the institu- tion of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, but he records sundry most im- portant discourses which Christ deliver- ed at this time to his afflicted disciples. It is prcbable that a portion of these discourses was uttered immediately after the institution of the Sacrament, and 5 31 THE PARTING HYMN. before our Lord quitted the chamber in •which he had supped with his followers. The remainder are generally thought to have been delivered on the Mount of Olives, to which Christ first went, as is stated in our text, and from which, as the night advanced, he retired with Peter, and James, and John, to Gethse- mane, that he might undergo mysterious acony, and meet in dread conflict the powers of darkness. But, to whatever times and places we may affix the seve- ral discourses preserved by St. John, there is every reason to think that our text relates the last thing which occur- red in the room where the supper had been eaten ; that, so soon as the hymn, or psalm, had been sung, our Lord left the room, that he might give himself to the enemies who thirsted for his blood. Opportunity may have been afterwards found of fortifying still further the minds of the disciples ; but we are to consider that the singing of the hymn was the last thing done at Christ's last supper, and that, this having been done, the blessed Redeemer, as one who knew that his hour was come, forthwith de- parted to suffer and to die. And what was the hymn, or psalm, chanted at so fearful and melancholy a moment'? There is no reason to think that our Lord swerved from the custom of the Jews ; he had commemorated the Passover as it was then wont to be com- memorated by his countrymen ; and we may justly, therefore, conclude that he Bung what they were used to sing in finishing the solemn celebration. When the Passover was instituted, on the event- ful night of the destruction of the first- born of the Egyptians, various forms and practices were enjoined, as you find re- lated in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Exodus. But in after-times, especial- ly in those of our Savior, when traditions had come to their height, numerous cir- cumstances were added to the celebra- tion, so that the original rites formed but a small part of what were practised by the Jews.* And learned men have well observed that the New Testament, in several places, refers to certain of these additional circumstances, leaving us to infer that Christ, commemorated the Pass- over as it was then ordinarily commem- orated, without rejecting such customs 'See LiiHitfootonthe celebration of the Passover. as could not distinctly plead the authority of the law. Thus, for example, at the first Passover in Egypt, the strict injunc- tion had been, that they should eat it " with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, their staves in their hands, and in haste." The posture enjoined and practised corresponded accurately with their condition, that of men about to be thrust forth from the country, and to enter on a toilsome and difficult march. But af- terwards the Jg3ws altered the posture, that it might answer better to their alter- ed circumstances. At their common meals the Jews either sat, as we do, with their bodies erect, or reclined on couches, with the left elbow on the table. But on the Passover night they considered themselves obliged to use the recumbent position, because it marked, as they thought, their freedom and composure. Now it is evident, that in this our Lord conformed to the custom of the Jews : the beloved disciple, John, leant on his bosom during the repast, from which we infer, at once, that Christ and bis Apos- tles reclined in the eating the Passover. To give another instance. The eating of unleavened bread at this time was en- joined by a special and express command, which you find in the Book of Exodus ; but nothing is there said as to the use of wine at the Passover. Subsequently, however, the drinking wine at the Pass- over came to be considered as indispen- sable as the eating the unleavened bread. We find it expressly stated by the Rab- binical writers, that "the poorest man in Israel was bound to drink off four cups of wine this night, yea, though he lived of the alms-basket." Now it is very clear that our Lord and his disciples made use of wine at the Passover : nay, Christ may be said to have given a direct sanction to what might have been re- garded as the innovation of tradition ; for he took the cup which men had introduc- ed into the paschal supper, and conse- crated it in perpetual memorial of his own precious blood. In like manner, with regard to the singing of a psalm or hymn — there is nothing said in the Book of Exodus as to the concluding the pas- chal supper with any such act, yet the custom was introduced in process of time, and the Jews made a point of singing the hundred and thirteenth and the five following Psalms, Psalms which are said to have been selected, not only because THE PARTING HYMN. 85 containing, in the general, high and emi- nent memorials of God's goodness and deliverance unto Israel, but because they record these five great things, " the com- ing out of Egypt, the dividing of the sea, the giving of the law, the resurrection of the dead, and the lot of Messias." These psalms were repeated, or chanted, on other occasions besides that of the Passover — as at the feast of Pentecost, and on the eight days of the feast of Ded- ication. But at no time was their use more strictly observed than on the night of the Passover, though they were not then all sung'at once, but rather dispers- ed over the service ; only so that, when the last cup of wine was filled, the con- cluding psalms were sung ; and thus the solemnities terminated with the chant, "Thou art my God, and I will praise thee ; thou art my God, I will exalt thee. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever." As we are expressly told that Christ con- cluded the Passover with a psalm or hymn, we cannot well doubt, that, having conformed in other respects to the exist- ing customs of the Jews, he conformed also in this ; and that, consequently, the words which he sung with his disciples were the words then ordinarily used in the solemn commemoration of the deliver- ance from Egypt. We shall assume this through the remainder of our discourse ; so that if, over and above the fact of a hymn having been sung, we have occa- sion to refer to the subject-matter of the hymn, we shall turn to the psalms which constituted what the Jews called the Hallel, from the repetition of the word "Hallelujah," and seek in them for the expressions which were woven into the anthem of our Lord and his Apostles. There are many truths which present themselves to the mind, when it duly ponders the simple statement of the text. Our foregoing remarks, bearing merely on the fact that Christ conformed to the innovations of the Jews, will only help us to the making one use, though an im- portant one, of the passage. We shall rind, however, as we proceed, that what we may have been used to pass by, as the bare announcement of a fact but little interesting to ourselves, is fraught with rich and varied instruction. Let us then employ ourselves without anticipating any further the lessons to be extracted, in considering: whether, as with all other Scripture, it were not for our admonition and instruction in righteousness, that the sacred historian, having given us the ac- count of the last supper, was directed to record of Christ and his Apostles, that " when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives." Now the first important truth on which we would speak, as enforced or illustrat- ed by the passage under review, is that to which our introductory remarks have all tended, that our blessed Lord, by con- forming to certain customs of the Jews in the eating of the Passover, gave his sanction to ceremonies which may not be able to plead a divine institution. We have shown you that it was not only in the singing of psalms, but in many other particulars, such as the recumbent pos- ture, and the drinking of wine, that the Jews had altered, or added to, the origi- nal practice, but that our Savior made no objection to the alteration or addition. He celebrated the Passover just as he found it then used to be celebrated, sub- mitting, so to speak, to tradition and cus- tom. And yet, had there been any thing of a captious spirit, there might perhaps have been matter for doubt or disputa- tion. It might have been urged, with some show of justice, that the innovations were not necessarily in keeping with the character of the ordinance ; that the re- cumbent posture, for example, and the drinking of wine, as betokening, or ac- cording with, security and gladness, scarcely suited the commemoration of events which had been marked by hurry, agitation, and alarm. And with regard even to the singing of psalms — if it had been admitted that the occasion was one which would well warrant the praising God with loud anthems, it might still have been asked, Why use these par- ticular psalms 1 Have we not the Song of Miriam, which, as composed immediate- ly after the deliverance from Egypt, would be far more appropriate 1 or have we not the song of Moses 1 and would not the song of the leader, through whom the Passover was instituted, and the emancipation achieved, remind us better of what we owe to God, than the words of one who lived long after the recorded events, when we were settled as a na- tion, and not wanderers in the desert 1 ? We think there would have been no difficulty in thus making out, so to speak, a sort of plausible case against the in- 36 THE PARTING HYMN*. novations of die Jews in the Passover service. Had our Lord been a leader, disposed to make ceremonies the occa- sion of schism, he might have armed him- ■. ith very specious objections, and have urged thai there were conscientious grounds for.separating from the commun- ion of the national church. But it is evi- dent that our blessed Savior ackuow- I a power in the church of decree- ing rites and ceremonies, and of cha those riles and ceremonies "according i r thirty-fourth Article expresses it) of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be or- dained against God's word." He did not require that every ceremony should le to plead a positive command in the Bible, nor that it should prove itself modelled after the original practice. Had he done this, it is manifest that he must have objected to the ceremonies in the celebration of the Passover; for they could nol plead a divine institution, were rather at variance than in ac- cordance with what had been at first appointed or observed. But we may justly conclude that our Lord proceed- ed on what (were it not for modern cavils) we might call a self-evident prin- ciple, that rites and ceremonies are not in themselves any part of the public worship of God; they are nothing but circumstances and customs to be observ- ed in the conducting that worship, and may therefore be enacted and altered as shall seem best to the church. Had the innovations of the Jews interfered, in any measure, with the character of the Passover as a religious ordinance, had they at all opposed its commemorative office, or militated against it as a sacri- fice and a sacrament, we cannot doubt that Christ would have entered his pro- test, that he would never have given the sanction of his example to what would have been a corruption of the worship of God. This, however, is more than can justly be affirmed of any mere rite or ceremony; for rites or ceremonies, so long as they are not against Scrip- ture, must be regarded as indifferent things, neither good in themselves nor bad; and if they are indifferent, they may be omitted, or introduced, or chang- ed, without at all affecting the act of divine worship, and merely in con- formity, according to diversity of cir- cumstances, with the rule of the Apostle, " Let all things be done decently and in order." Perhaps the Jews, in changing the posture in which the Passover was to be eaten, went as near to an interference with the ordinance itself as any mere rite or ceremony could go ; for it might have been urged that a different, if not an untrue, character was given to the ordinance, the aspect of composedness and rest having been made to take the , place of that of haste and agitation. But you are to remember that the circum- stances of the Israelites were really changed ; the Passover, as to be com- memorated in after times, found them in a very altered position from what they had occupied when the Passover was originally instituted ; and the new rites, which they introduced, did but corres- pond to this new position ; they inter- fered neither with the slaying nor with the eating of the lamb ; they were only so far different from the old as to indi- cate what was matter of fact in regard of the Jews, that, as their fathers eat the Passover in a night of disaster and death, themselves were allowed, through the mercy of God, to eat of it in security and gladness. And it can hardly fail to strike you, that, in such an alteration, when distinctly sanctioned by the prac- tice of our Lord, we have a precedent for changes which the church may have introduced into the ceremonials of reli- gion. Take, for example, a case which • bears close resemblance to that just con- : sidered. When the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was originally instituted, the Apostles sat or reclined in the re- ■ ceiving it ; whereas it is now the ap- pointment of the church that we should | kneel to receive it. There has been, \ that is, much of the same departure from the first practice as in the instance of the Passover. And if by the act of kneeling we offered any adoration to the bread and the wine, as though we supposed them substantially changed into Christ's body and blood, it is evident that the alteration J in the ceremony would be an infringe- I ment of the Sacrament itself, and that no church would have right to substitute the kneeling for the sitting. But the kneeling at the Communion, as we are expressly taught by the church, is meant only " for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all THE PARTING HYMN. r;7 worthy receivers;" and the alteration may therefore be said to be just such as was made by the Jews in respect of the Passover — an alteration corresponding to altered circumstances ; when the Lord's Supper was instituted, Christ had not died, and the benefits of his death, as conveyed through the Sacra- ment, were but partially, if at all, under- stood ; but now that Christ hath died, and the Spirit been given to explain and apply his finished work, we know that the Lord's Supper is the great instituted means for the communication to our souls of the results of his sacrifice; and surely, if a reclining posture became those who had yet to learn what the Sacrament would do for them, a kneeling may be more appropriate, when the office of that holy mystery has been more unfolded. But without insisting further on par- ticular instances, which would only un- duly detain us from other and more in- teresting truths, we venture to take our Lord's conduct, in regard of the ceremo- nies at the Passover, as establishing the authority of the church to ordain and alter ceremonies and rites, and as strongly condemning those who would make mere ceremonies and rites the excuses for disunion and schism. Our Lord con- formed to customs and alterations, for which it would have been impossible to produce divine warrant, and against which it would not have been difficult to advance some specious objections. And we argue, therefore, that the church is not obliged to find chapter and verse for every ceremony which she is pleased to enjoin, as though she had no power of settling points of discipline or order, ex- cept so far as she can justify the settle- ment by an appeal to inspired authority. We argue further, from the instance before us, that the church having ap- pointed what she judges most for the general good, individuals have no right to separate and oppose, because they do not find the appointment precisely con- genial with their feelings or circum- stances. Look at Christ and his Apos- tles — they were about to be parted : Christ was just entering upon scenes immeasurably more tremendous than had ever been passed through by any of our race ; the Apostles were full of ap- prehensions and grief, for their Lord had announced his departure, and the an- nouncement had distracted their minds. What an unseasonable moment for sing- ing joyous hymns ! How natural to have said, " This part of the appointed service is not suited to us now; and, forasmuch as it certainly is not of divine institution, we may surely dispense with it, when our hearts are so heavy and sad." But no ! it was the ordinance of the church : the church had full autho- rity to appoint such an ordinance ; and Christ and his Apostles would give their testimony to the duty of conformity to all lawful ordinances, whether in unison or not with individual feelings. And on this account, as we may venture to be- lieve — or, if not for this purpose, assur- edly with this result — though they were stricken in spirit, disquieted, yea, sorely distressed, they would not depart from the chamber till they had done all which was enjoined by the church, and thus shown that they acknowledged her au- thority : it was not until "they had sung an hymn," that " they went out into the Mount of Olives." But now let us take another view of this fact. We have just considered the singing of an hymn as inappropriate to the circumstances of Christ and his Apostles ; and no doubt there was an apparent unsuitableness which might have been pleaded by those who sought an excuse for disobedience to ecclesias- tical rule. Solomon has said, " As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart." And thus the wise man may be consid- ered as having delivered his testimony against the fitness of music and minstrel- sy, when there is a weight at the heart, and the spirits are oppressed. But " a greater than Solomon is here ;" and we may perhaps say that it was with the singing of an hymn that Christ prepared himself for his unknown agony. Setting aside all considerations drawn from the ordinances of the church, is it at all strange that our blessed Lord and his dis- ciples should have sung joyous hymns at a moment so full of darkness and dread 1 For joyous hymns they were in which they joined : music has its melancholy strains as well as its gladdening — the dirge for the funeral as well as the song for the marriage or the banquet : and Christ and his Apostles might have thrown the sadness of their spirits into 38 THE PAKTIXG HYMN. the slow, measured cadences of some solemn lament. But, as we have just said, they were joyous hymns in which they joined. Look ai the Jewish Halle], and von find il abounding in expres of confidence and praise: " The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righl is : the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. The righl hand of the Lord is exalted ; the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly. 1 shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." And was it, think you, a strange pre- paration fortlie Mountof Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane, thus to com- memorate the mercies, and chant the praises of the Most High God? Nay. it is recorded of Luther that, on receiving any discouraging news, he was wont to say, " Come, let us sing the forty-sixth Psalm,'' — that Psalm which commences with the words, " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble ; therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the moun- tains be carried into the midst of the sea." And it were well for us, my brethren, if in seasons of trouble we betook ourselves to praise, and not only to prayer. If we find ourselves in cir- cumstances of difficulty, if dangers sur- round us, and duties seem too great for our strength, we almost naturally cry unto God, and entreat of him assistance and guardianship. And indeed we do right: God has made our receiving conditional on our asking; and we can never be too diligent in supplicating at his bands the supply of our many neces- sities. But ought we to confine our- selves to prayer, as though praise were out of place when mercies are needed, and only became Us when they have just been received .' Not so; praise is the best auxiliary to prayer ; and he who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God, will he most emboldened to supplicate fresh gifts from above. We should recount God's mercies, we should call upon our souls, and all that is within us, to laud and magnify his name when summoned to face new triads, and encounter fresh dangers. Would it sound to you strange, if on approaching the chamber where, as you knew, the father of a family had just breathed his mi heard voices mingling, not in a melancholy chant, but rather in one of lofty commemoration, such as might be taken from the Jewish Hallel, "The Lord hath been mindful of us ; he will bless us ; he will bless the house of Is- rael, he will bless the house of Aaron 1 ? The Lord is on my side, I will not fear : what can man do unto me 1 " Would you lie disposed to say that the widow and the orphans, whose voices you re- c i mi zed in the thankful anthem, were strangely employed ? and that the utter- ances over the dead would have more fittingly been those of earnest petition unto (rod, of deep-drawn entreaty for the light of his countenance and the strength of his Spirit? Nay, the widow and her orphans, if not actually praying the most effectual of prayers, would be thereby most effectually preparing them- selves for praying unto God : if, now that their chief earthly stay is removed, they have to enter on a dark and dangerous path, they cannot do better than thus call to mind what the Almighty has proved himself to others and themselves ; the anthem is the best prelude to the supplication ; and their first step toward the Mount of Olives will be all the firmer, if, before they cry, " Hold thou up our go- ings in thy paths," they join in the song, "His merciful kindness is great towards us, and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever; praise«ye the Lord." We wish you to draw this lesson from the last action of Christ and his Apostles, before they went forth to extraordinary trial. We wish you to observe, and understand, that so far from being un- suited to circumstances of perplexity and danger, the song of praise should at least mingle with the cry of prayer, and that, if you would arm yourselves for trouble and for duty, you should recount the marvellous acts of the Lord, as well as supplicate the communications of his This is too much overlooked and neglected by christians. They are more familiar with the earnest petition than with the grateful anthem. Like the captives in Babylon, they hang their harps upon the willows, when they find themselves in a strange land ; whereas, if they would sing "one the songs of Zion," it would not only remind them of home, but encourage them to ask as- sistance and expect deliverance. Make trial of this method, ye who have a dark THE PARTING HYMN. 39 path before you, and avIio shrink from entering into the cloud. You have of- fered prayer — have you also offered praise? you have commended yourselves to God for the future — have you also commemorated his care of you through the past 1 Say not, " How can I sing the Lord's song in a strange land ! " With this burden upon me, and this prospect before me, it is too much to expect me to do more than pray : who ean sing songs with a heavy heart?" This is the very feeling against which we would warn you. There is no Christian with so great cause of sorrow, as to be without a greater of thankful- ness. And the chords of the soul will never give forth so fervent a prayer, as when the Christian has been endea- voring to string them to the chorus of praise. Look at Christ and his Apos- tles. You will not say that your cir- cumstances can be more distressing than theirs ; that there is more in the pecu- liarities of the trial, to excuse you from singing " the Lord's song." Yet before they departed — the Redeemer to his terrible agony, the disciples to the dreaded separation — the last thing which they did was to -join in the chanting of thankful psalms : it was not until " they had sung an hymn," but then it was, that " they went out into the Mount of Olives." But we have yet to observe, that so far as praise is a great auxiliary to prayer, and therefore well adapted to circum- stances of perplexity and danger, the repetition of thankful psalms might seem sufficient ; whereas, with Christ and his Apostles, there was the singing of such psalm3. We think that this fact ought not to be let pass without a more special comment. We are too apt to regard music as a human art, or invention, just because men make certain musical instruments, and compose certain musical pieces. And hence there are christians who would banish music from the public worship of God, as though unsuited to, or unworthy of, so high and illustrious an employment. But it is forgotten, as has been observed by a well-known writer,* that the principles of harmony are in the elements of nature, that, " the element of air was as certainly ordained *■ Jones, of Nay laud. to give us harmonious sounds in due measure, as to give respiration to the lungs." God has given us " music in the air, as he hath given us wine in the grape ;" leaving it to man to draw forth the rich melody, as well as to extract the inspiriting juice, but designing that both should be employed to his glory, and used in his service. Wine was emi- nently consecrated for religion, when chosen as the sacramental representation of the precious blood of the Redeemer; and a holy distinction ought never to be denied to music, whilst the Psalmist, speaking undoubtedly by the Spirit of God, exclaims, " Praise him with stringed instruments and organs; praise him upon loud cymbals ; praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals." It is not, however, instrumental music which is mentioned in the text. " They sang an hymn." There is another re- markable instance recorded in the New Testament of God's praises having been sung at a strange time, and in a strange place. Paul and Silas, thrust into the inner prison at Philippi and with their feet made fast in the stocks, had recourse to singing, as though their condition had been prosperous, and their spirits elated. " And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them." They were not content with reminding each the other of the goodness of God, with speaking of his greatness and loving-kindness : " they sang praises unto God ;" and that, too, with so loud a voice, that the other prisoners heard them, though confined in the remotest parts of the dungeon. In like manner, Christ and his Apostles " sang an hymn :" they were not satisfied with repeating an hymn ; and we may certainly gather from this, that God's praises ought to be sung rather than spoken, that singing is the more appro- priate vehicle, even when circumstances may be such as to make music seem almost out of place. It may, we think, fairly be said that the power of singing has not been suffi- ciently considered as one of the Creator's gifts to his creatures, and, therefore, in- tended to be used to his glory. We recognize this fact in regard of the power of speech : we acknowledge that God must have endowed man with the faculty of uttering articulate sounds, and have clothed his tongue with language; and 40 THE FARTIXG HYMX. we confess that this very fact renders us responsible, in a high sense, for our words, and destroys all surprise that words are to be made a criterion at the last. A coble gift is abused, whensoever an idle word is spoken : why then should we marvel at the assertion of oar Lord, "I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give ac- count thereof in the day of judgment I " "For by thy words thou shalt be justi- fied, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." But, to quote again from the writer already referred to,* "the faculty, by which the voice forms musical sounds, is as wonderful as the flexure of the organs pf speech in the articulation of wok!-." Considered as the result of cer- tain mechanical arrangements, singing is perhaps even more marvellous than speaking, or gives a stronger witness to the skill and the power of the Creator. This is not the place for bringing proof of such assertion ; but they who have considered the human throat as a musical instrument, and have examined, on this supposition, its structure and capacity, declare that it presents "such a refine- ment on mechanism as exceeds all description." And we are not to doubt that God gave this faculty to man, that he might employ it on his praises. The Psalmist having said, " Awake, psaltery and harp," exclaims, " I myself will awake early:" it did not content him, that instruments of music should start from their silence, and give forth the slumbering harmony ; he regarded him- self as an instrument more curious, and more costly, than any framed by a human artificer; and, therefore, would he too awake and swell with his voice the tide of melody. But singing, like music in general, has been too much given up by the church to the world ; it has not been sufficiently considered, and cultivated, as designed for religious ends, and helpful to religious feelings. And hence., for the most part, our psalmody is discreditable to our congregations ; it is either given over to a few hired singers, as though we were to praise God by deputy ; or is left with the children of the national schools, as though, in growing older, we had less cause for thankfulness. Let me say * Jones. that the efforts which are now being systematically made throughout the country to teach our population to sing, should be regarded with great interest and pleasure by the christian. Such efforts have a more immediate bearing than is, perhaps, commonly thought, on the national piety. I do not merely mean that there is a humanizing power in music, and that the poor, taught to sing, are likely to be less wild, and less prone to disorder, and therefore more accessible to the ministrations of religion. Not, indeed, that I would make no ac- count of this, for I thoroughly believe that, in improving the tastes of a people, you are doing much for their moral ad- vancement. I like to see our cottagers encouraged to train the rose and the honeysuckle round their doors, and our weavers, as is often the fact, dividing their attention between their looms and I their carnations ; for the man who can take care of a flower, and who is all alive to its beauty, is far less likely than J another, who has no delight in such i recreations, to give himself up to gross lusts and habits. But, independently on j this, if singing were generally taught, the psalmody in our churches could not fail to be generally improved. And I am quite sure that this could not take place without, by the blessing of God, a great spiritual benefit. When many voices join heartily in prayer, it is hardly possible to remain undevout ; when many voices join heartily in praise, it is hardly possible to remain indifferent. Every one feels this. In a congregation, where the responses are generally left to the clerk and the children, how diffi- cult is it to pray ! whereas, if the ma- jority join, one is drawn in almost un- consciously, and cannot keep back his cordial amen. Thus, also, in a congre- gation where few attempt to sing, how difficult it is to magnify the Lord ! but who can resist the rush of many voices i whose bosom does not swell, as old and young, rich and poor, mingle their notes of adoration and thankfulness] You may tell me that there is not necessarily any religion in all this emo- tion. I know that; and I would not have you mistake emotion for religion. But we are creatures so constituted as to be acted on through our senses and feelings ; and whilst emotion is not reli- gion, it will often be a great step towards CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 41 it. The man who has imbibed, so to speak, the spirit of prayer and of praise from the surrounding assembly, is far more likely to give an attentive ear to the preached word, and to receive from it a lasting impression, than another whose natural coldness has been in- creased by that of the mass in which he found himself placed. In teaching, therefore, a people to sing with the voice " the songs of Zion," we cannot but believe that, God helping, much is done towards teaching them to sing with the understanding and the heart. A faculty is developed, Which God designed for his glory, but which has, comparatively, been allowed to remain almost useless. Yes, a faculty which God designed for his glory ; and, if so designed, it cannot lie idle without injury, nor be rightly exer- cised without advantage. And I seem to learn, from our text, that it is not enough that we praise God with speeck. Christ and his Apostles " sang an hymn," ere " they went out into the Mount of Olives." What had music, cheerful and animated music, to do with so sad and solemn an occasion 1 Nay, there is music in heaven : they who stand on the " sea of glass mingled with fire," have " the harps of God " in their hands : " they sing the song of Moses, the ser- vant of God, and the song of the Lamb :" why then should music ever be out of place with those whose affections are above ? It would not be out of place in the chamber of the dying believer. He has just received, through the holy mystery of the eucharist, the body and the blood i of his blessed Redeemer. And now his own failing voice, and the voices of rela- tives and friends, join in chanting words which the church directs to be either said or sung, as the conclusion of the sacramental service : " Glory be to God on high, and in earth peace, good- will I towards men. We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God ! the Father Almighty." Wonder ye, that, when there was the option either j to say or to sing, they chose the singing , at such a moment 1 Nay, they all felt that they had a rough hill to climb; and they remembered, that, when Christ and his Apostles had finished their last supper, " they sang an hymn," and then j "went out into the Mount of Olives." SERMON V CAESAR'S HOUSEHOLD. " All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household."— Philippuns iv. 22. The earlier ages of the church seem to have been distinguished by a love which made all christians regard them- selves as members of one family. The saying of our Lord, " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another," appears to have been successfully taken as fur- VOL. II. nishing their rule of conduct ; for " See how these christians love one another," was the common remark of enemies and persecutors. And the observable thing is, that the love of which we speak was actually the love of christians as christians, irrespec- tive altogether of other claims upon af- 6 42 CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. fection. The moment a man embraced Christianity, he was regarded as a brother, and felt to be a brother, by the whole christian body : a thousand hearts at once beat kindly towards him ; and multi- tudes, who were never likely to see him in the Hesh, were instantly one with him in spirit. It may admit of great doubt whether there he much, in our own day, of that which thus distinguished the be- ginning of Christianity. The love of christians because they are christians, no regard being had to country or condition — is this still a strongly marked charac- teristic of those who profess themselves the disciples of the Redeemer 1 There was something very touching and beauti- ful in Christ's promise to such as should forsake all for his sake : " There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive a hundred-fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands." How was such a promise ful- filled, except that they, who had been cast out for their religion from their own families and possessions', found them- selves admitted at once into anew house- hold, and endowed with new property, even the household and the property of the whole christian community 1 For every natural relation whom they had lost, they obtained instantly a hundred spiritual; and the goods of which they had been spoiled, returned to them, a thousand-fold multiplied, in the posses- sions of those who received them as chil- dren and brethren. Thus was strikingly verified a description long before given of God by the Psalmist : " He setteth the solitary in families" — for they who were to all appearance abandoned, left orphaned and alone in the world, found themselves surrounded by kinsmen. But it is only, we fear, in a very limit- ed sense, that the like can be affirmed of the christians of our own day. Yet the criterion of genuine Christianity remains just what it was : " We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren : he that loveth not his brother abideth in death." In our own time the ends of the earth are being wondrously brought together : there is an ever-growing facility of communication between country and country ; and this must rapidly break down many barriers, and bring far-scattered tribes into familiar intercourse. In earlier times, nation was widely divided from nation : the inhabi- tants of different lands were necessarily almost strangers to each other; and you could not have expected an approxima- tion to universal brotherhood. But then it was, in the face of all obstacles to per- sonal communion, that the spirit of Chris- tianity showed its comprehensive and amalgamating energies : the name of Christ was as a spell to annihilate dis- tance ; to plant the cross in a land, sufficed to make that land one with districts re- moved from it by the diameter of the globe. Alas for the colder temper of modern times ! We have made paths across the waters, we have exalted the valleys, we have brought low the hills, so that we can visit every region, and scarce seem to leave our home ; but where is that glowing and ample charity, which would throb towards christians whom we have never seen, and make us feel that our own household includes the far off and the near, all who worship the same God, and trust in the same Media- tor] We have been led into these remarks, from observing, in the apostolical writ- ings, the affectionate greetings which the members of one church send to those of another. For the most part, these churches had no intercourse the one with the other; they were widely separated by situation ; and, had it not been for the bond of a common faith, their members would have been as much strangers as though they had belonged to different or- ders of being. And yet you would judge, from the warm remembrances, the kindly messages, which pass between them, that they were associated by most intimate relationship, that they were friends who had spent years together, or kinsmen who had been brought up beneath the same roof. # When St. Paul wrote thus to the Colossians, "For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh," you would have thought, from the ener- gy of his expressions, that it must have been for some dear and long-tried ac- quaintance that he was thus deeply in- terested, had he not immediately describ- ed the objects of his solicitude, as those who had not seen his face in the flesh. And, in like manner, when you read the CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 43 salutations sent by one church to another, the warm and cordial greetings, you would conclude that these churches had held familiar intercouse, that their mem- bers had conversed much together, and mingled in the intimacies of life, if you did not know, from other sources of in- formation, that they were strangers to each other, except as all belonging to Christ's mystical body. So strong a link of association was Christianity then felt to be ! Christians knew that there were christians in distant lands, whom they were never likely to visit, and who were never likely to visit them — but what mat- tered it, that they were not to see one another in the flesh ] They were grafted into the same vine, they were washed in the same blood, they were quickened by the same Spirit ; and feeling, there- fore, as though one mother had born them, and one home sheltered them, they poured forth hearty salutations, and mul- tiplied expressions of the very tenderest affection. It was thus with the Romans and the Philippians. They were widely removed the one from the other; and probably there had been little or no personal inter- course between the members of the churches. Yet you find, from our text, that the christians at Rome felt kind- ly towards the christians at Philippi, and charged St. Paul with their senti- ments of esteem and good-will. " All the saints salute you" — not, you observe, a few of the most distinguished, of those who had advanced farthest in the charity enjoined by the Gospel — but "all the saints salute you." O blessed estate of a Christian Church, when every member had a cordial greeting to send to persons whom he had never beheld, but whom he loved, as loving the Savior with himself. You will, however, naturally suppose that we selected our present text not so much as containing the general salutation of one church by another, as on account of its marking out certain individuals as specially earnest in their greetings. "All the saints salute you ; chiefly, they that are of Caesar's household." There was a friendly salutation from all the members of the Roman Church ; but the most friendly issued from those who ap- pertained to the household of Caesar. And we consider this as an intimation which ought not to be cursorily passed over. We think that truths and lessona of no common interest may be drawn from this brief reference to the christians who were to be found in the imperial circle. We design, therefore, to confine ourselves to the examining this reference, to the endeavoring to discover what it may imply, and what it may enjoin. We are aware, that, at first, it will probably appear to you a barren statement, the an- nouncement of a simple fact, on which no comment is needed, and from which little, if any, instruction can be drawn. But if you would read the Bible with this rule in mind, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," you would find that nothing is stated which could be omitted without loss ; and that often, where there is least to strike the super- ficial reader, there is most to repay the diligent student. Without then further preface, and without proposing any plan of discourse, which might perhaps only impede our inquiries, we ask your atten- tion, whilst endeavoring to show what truths and lessons are furnished by the information that there were saints in the household of Caesar, and that these were foremost in greeting the saints at Philippi. Now you are to observe that the throne of the Caesars was at this time occupied by Nero, a monster rather than a man, whose vices and cruelties will make his name infamous to the very end of the world. Certainly, if ever there was an atmosphere uncongenial to Christianity, it may be supposed to have been that of the court and palace of this bloody de- bauchee. It ordinarily happens that the character of the prince gives the tone to that of his courtiers and attendants ; and it would therefore be hardly imaginable that the household of a Nero was not com- posed in the main of the fierce and the dissolute. And it should further be ob- served, that there was a direct hostility to Christianity on the part of the emperor ; he became eventually a most bitter per- secutor of the christians, and St. Paul himself perished by his sword. Where, then, on all human calculation, was there Jess likelihood of the Gospel gaining footing than in the court and household of Nero 1 Yet so true was St. Paul's assertion, that the weapons of his warfare were "mighy through God to the casting down of strong-holds," that there were 44 C .ESAR S HOUSEHOLD. men of Caesar's household worthy the high title of saints ; men not secretly, but openly, christians; not ashamed of their professions, but willing to give it all pub- licity by sending greetings to christians in other cities of the earth. And our first inquiry will naturally be, as to the agency which brought, round so unlikely a result; how it came to pass, that an entrance was achieved, and a firm footing gained for Christianity, where there might have seemed amoral impossibility against its admission, or, at all events, its settle- ment ? Your minds will naturally turn, in answer to this inquiry, to the miracu- lous gifts with which St. Paul was endow- ed, to the credentials which he was ena- bled to furnish of the divine origin of Christianity, and to the power and persua- siveness with which he set forth its doc- trines. You will remember with what noble intrepidity he rose up before the sages of Greece, and won over even proud philosophy by his reasoning and eloquence ; and you will further call to mind, how, when he spake unflinchingly to Felix, the slave of base lusts, the haughty Roman trembled, as though the judgment had already been upon him with its terrors. And whilst there are these registered achievements of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, you think it quite intelligible that he should have made proselytes even from the household of Nero : you perhaps imagine him work- ing some great miracle, in order to com- pel the attention of the emperor and his court, and then preaching, with a more than human oratory, the Gospel of Christ, till slumbering consciences were startled, and bold vices abashed. Indeed you do right in thus ascribing extraordinary power to the miracles and sermons of St. Paul: we could have felt no surprise, supposing this Apostle to have had opportunities of audience, had even Nero trembled like Felix, and had converts been won from the courtiers of Rome, as well as from the philosophers of Athens. But, nevertheless, in this instance the explanation utterly fails : St. Paul was now a prisoner, kept in close confinement; and, though allowed to receive those who came unto him, was not at liberty, as at other times, to labor openly and vigorously at propa- gating the Gospel. He could not go, as you have supposed him, like Moses and Aaron, with the rod in his hand, and compel by his miracles the attention of a profligate king, and then deliver, in the name of the living God, the message of rebuke and the prophecy of ven- geance. And yet it was at this very time, when the chief instrument in the diffusion of Christianity seemed compara- tively disabled, that the great triumph was won, and the imperial household gave members to the church. Nay, and more than this, it appears to have been actually in consequence of his being a prisoner for the faith, rather than a preacher of the faith, that St. Paul was instrumental to the obtaining this victory. If you refer to the commencement of this Epistle to the Philippians, you will find the Apostle ascribing to his impri- sonment the very result of which we are now seeking the cause. He expresses himself fearful lest the Philippians should have thought that the afflictions with which he had been visited, had impeded the progress of the Gospel. He assures them that quite the contrary effect had been produced : " I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which have happened unto me, have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel ; so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places." Thus, you see, it was not by his sermons, it was literally by his bonds, that the attention of the court had been attracted to Christianity : it was as, a captive that he had mastered rulers, and with his chain that he had struck off their fetters. In the following verse he adds another statement as to the efficaciousness of his bonds : " And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear." Hence there were two ways, as it would appear, in which his bonds gave enlarge- ment to Christianity. The patience and meekness with which he submitted to long and unjust confinement, drew pub- lic attention, and compelled men to feel that, where there was such willingness to suffer, there must be the consciousness of advocating truth. And then the sup- ports and consolations which were minis- tered to him by God, taught other chris- tians that they could not be losers through intrepidity in preaching the Gospel, and therefore nerved them to greater energy in the work from which Paul himself was temporarily withdrawn. CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. •15 In these ways were the Apostle's bonds influential ; so that when, to all appear- ance, he was able to do least, when his power of usefulness seemed the most limited, then was it that he won admis- sion for Christianity into the circle from which you would have thought it most surely excluded. We cannot but think that a great lesson was thus given, as to God's power of overruling evil for good, of producing the most signal results when the em- ployed instrumentality appears the least adequate. How apt are we to imagine, when a man is overtaken by sickness, or withdrawn, through one cause or another, from more active duty, that his period of usefulness has closed ! How ready are we to lament over what we call a mysterious dispensation, as the Roman christians may have done over the im- prisonment of St. Paul ! But who shall say that it does not often come to pass, that the minister preaches far more effectually from his sick-bed, than ever he did from his pulpit 1 The report, which goes forth amongst his people, of the patience with which he bore pain, and the calmness with which he met death, will perhaps do more towards overcoming their resistance to the Gos- pel, than all his energy effected, whilst he gave himself night and day to the bringing them to repentance. Or again, was it whilst they were free to move through a land, and to wrestle boldly with prevailing errors and superstitions, that martyrs and confessors did most for the cause of God and of truth ] Was it not rather when they were actually in the clutches of the persecutor, pining in dungeons, or dragged to the scaffold ? The flame which consumed them, pre- vailed most to the scattering the spiritual darkness ; and their dust was as seed whence moral virtue sprang. Oh, let no one ever think, that, because unable to exert himself openly and actively, as he once did, for God, he has no duties to per- form, no services to render, no rewards to secure. A true christian is never, if we may use a common expression, laid by : God makes use of him in sickness and in health, in life and in death. And the influence which proceeds from him, when languishing on his couch, reduced to poverty, or overwhelmed with afflic- tion, is often incomparably greater than when, in the fulness of his strength, with every engine at his disposal, he moved amongst his fellow-men, and took the lead in each benevolent enterprise. It is on sick-beds that the sustaining power of Christianity is most displayed : it is amid multiplied troubles that its pro- fessed comforts are put to the proof: it is by dying men that its best promises are shown to have been indeed made by God. And even when the grave has closed upon a righteous man, is it not often true that " he, being dead, yet speaketh 1 " His memory admonishes and encourages, and that, too, more powerfully than. even his living example. Let no one, then, conclude himself disabled from doing God service, because he can no longer perform active duties, nor take visible part in advancing Christ's kingdom upon earth. Resignation has its victories as well as intrepidity : con- verts may be made through meekness in trial, as well as through boldness in en- terprise. And if we would reconcile ourselves to the apparent suspension of our usefulness ; if we would learn that God may be employing us most, when he seems to have most withdrawn us from employment ; let us ponder the fact brought before us by our text. I think upon Rome, the metropolis of the world, upon the haughty Caesars, giving laws to well nigh all the nations of the earth. O that Christianity might make way into the imperial halls ! I should feel as though it were about to triumph over heathenism, were it to penetrate the palace of Nero. And then I hear that St Paul is approaching towards Rome — St. Paul, who has carried the Gospel to the east and west, the north and south, and every where made false- hood quail before truth. My expecta- tions are raised. This great champion of Christianity may succeed where there is most to discourage, and gain over Nero's courtiers, if not Nero himself. But then I hear that St. Paul comes as a prisoner: I see him used as a criminal, and debarred from all opportunity of publishing the Gospel to the illustrious and powerful. My hopes are destroyed. The great Apostle seems to me com- pletely disarmed ; and the picture which I had fondly drawn of Christianity grow- ing dominant through God's blessing on his labors, disappears when I behold him detained in captivity. Alas for human short-sightedness and miscalculation ! 46 CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. Never again let me dare reckon God's servants least powerfully, when least visibly instrumental in promoting his cause. St. Paul is a prisoner ; St. Paul cannot go boldly to the court, and preach to the mighty; but, in less than two v- lib, lie is able to declare, " My bonds are manifest in all the palace," and to enumerate amongst the saints, who send greetings to the Philippians, "chiefly them that are of Caesar's household." We go on to observe to you — and the observation is of prime importance — that a man cannot be placed in cir- cumstances so disadvantageous to piety as to put it out of his power to give heed to the duties of religion. We have already spoken to you of the cba- racter of Nero, and of the profligacy which must have deformed his house- bold and court. We have admitted that, if ever there were an atmosphere un- congenial to Christianity, it must have be< ii thai of the Roman court, with such an emperor at its head. We could not have been surprised, had the religion of Jesus striven in vain for admission; and it was the little apparent likeli- hood of there being saints in the house- hold of Caesar, which suggested the {ongoing inquiry as to the instru- mentality through which the Gospel succeeded in making these converts. But, nevertheless, the converts were made, and that too, you are carefully to remember, not 'through any extraor- dinary agency, seeing that the employed preaching was not that of St. Paul, but oidy of subordinate ministers. Certainly such an instance as this should show the worth lessness of an excuse with which men would sometimes palliate their neg- lect of religion — that they are exposed to such temptations, surrounded by such hinderances, or liable to such opposition, that it is vain for them to attempt the greal duties of repentance and faith. We challenge any man to show that he i, in >re unfavorably circumstanced than lerobers of .Nero's household must, have been. We challenge him to show- any likelihood thai the profession of re- ligion would expose him to greater dan- . bring on him more obloquy, or i i e severer loss, than might have been e cpected to follow the i cell inge of heathenism for Christianity, by those who bore office in the Roman empe- ror's court. And whilst we have before us full evidence, that even the servants of Nero could overcome every disad- vantage, and " shine as lights" in the church of the Redeemer, we can never admit that the temporal circumstances of any man disqualify him for the being a true christian, or put such obstacles in his way as excuse his not advancing to eminence as a believer. We readily acknowledge that mone appears done for one man than for an- other ; that some circumstances may be said to conduce to the making men pi ous, whilst others increase the difficulty of separation from the world, and con secration to God. But we can be cer tain, from the known strength of divine grace, and its sufficiency to all the ends of the renewal and perfecting of our na- ture, that, under every possible disad- vantage, there may be a striving with evil, and a following after good, in obe- dience to the precepts, and in hope of the recompenses, of the Gospel. We will not, at present, discuss whether it be a man's duty, when he feels his cir- cumstances unfavorable to personal re ligion, to labor to escape from those cir cu instances ; whether the courtier should flee the court where there are incite- ments to evil, the merchant the traffic which burdens him with cares, or the servant the household where godliness is held in contempt. We may find op- portunity hereafter of treating this point; we now only say, that the case may often be one in which there is no escape from the circumstances which make piety dif- ficult, and in which the duty of remaining in the disadvantageous position may be as clear as that of struggling against its disadvantages. But we contend that, whensoever such is the case, it is no apol- ogy for an individual's continuing void of personal religion, that he would have greal difficulties to wrestle with in be- coming religious. The individual may fasten on these difficulties, and urge them in excuse, when conscience admonishes him as to the great duties of godliness. But the excuse will not bear investiga- tion; forasmuch as it assumes that God has put it out of the man's power to pro- vide for his soul's safety in eternity ; and to assume this is to contradict the Divine word, and throw scorn on the Divine attributes. We take, for example, the instance most naturally suggested by our text, CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 47 that of a servant in an irreligious family. We have great sympathy with persons so circumstanced : we count their situa- ' tion one of no common difficulty. Their superiors set them a bad example., an example of sabbath-breaking, of neglect of all religion, and. perhaps, even of undisguised vice. Few opportunities are afforded them of attending public worship ; and they have but little time for private devotion. If inclined to give heed to religion, they cannot but per- ceive that any indication of piety would perhaps lose them the favor of their master, and bring upon them the ridicule of their associates. We say again that we have great sympathy with an indivi- dual thus situated ; we feel that he has more than a common battle to fight, if he stand forth as a candidate for immor- tality. But there is nothing in his posi- tion to make it impracticable that he become truly religious, nor excusable that he defer the season of providing for the soul. Be his difficulties what they may, we can be confident that they would rapidly disappear before the earnest resolve of seeking " first the king- dom of God and his righteousness." He has but to begin, and presently would he find that obstacles, which appeared insurmountable, are gradually lowered, and that, if he have to encounter all which he dreaded, it is in a strength which grows with the exigence. What we fear for this man, when we know him plied with the remonstrances of conscience, it is not that, if he set himself fearlessly to regulate his conduct by the revealed will of God, he may find that he has not time enough for religion, or that the trials of his station are too great to be surmount- ed ; it is only that he may shield himself behind his confessed disadvantages, and hold himself blameless in not making an attempt, where the likelihood of success seems so slight. We would come down upon him, in his moment of indecision, when conscience is rebuking his neglect of the one thing needful, and when he strives to parry the rebuke, by asking how he can attend to religion whilst the very air which he breathes seems impregnated with wickedness 1 We will hear nothing of an impossibility. Time may be made, prayer may be offered, the Bible may be /ead, vice may be forsaken, contempt may be braved, and the Spirit of the liv- ing God fails no man who is not false to himself. And if he plead the ungodliness of the family in which he is placed, and maintain it not to be expected that righte- ousness should be acquired, where there is every thing to fasten down a man to evil, we require of him to go with us in thought to the household of Nero. We tell him of the depravity of that scourge and disgrace of human-kind, we describe to him the fierce profligacy which per- vaded his court : we show him how it was like rushing into the flames, then and there to embrace Christianity : and we leave him to think, if he dare, that any scene, or association, can excuse the neglect of religion, when St. Paul could single out, from the whole mass of Roman christians, "chiefly them that were of Caesar's household." We proceed to what we reckon the most important of the remarks which we have to offer on the passage which forms our subject of discourse. You will observe that the saints, of whom St. Paul speaks in the text, not only belonged to Caesar's household at the time of their conversion to Christianity, but remained in that household after their conversion. It is evident that they did not feel it their duty to abandon the stations in which Providence had placed them, and seek others apparently more favorable to the growth of religion. And we may con- clude that their decision was right, for, having direct intercourse with St. Paul, who could furnish them with rules of conduct derived immediately from God, we cannot doubt that they did what ought to have been done. So that it does not at all follow that a man is to withdraw himself from circumstances of danger and difficulty, and strive to place himself in a condition where there shall be less temptation or opposition. We cannot, indeed, think that a converted man would be justified in seeking employment where he knew that it would be specially diffi- cult to cultivate religion : but we can be- lieve that he might be justified in retain- ing his employment, supposing him thus placed at time of conversion. To desert his employment, because it made reli- gion difficult, would be to declare that the grace, which had converted him, in spite of disadvantages, would not suffice to the establishing and perfecting him ; and thus would his first step mark a distrust of God's Spirit, which would augur but ill for his after progress. If an employment 48 CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. were in itself sinful, if it actually could not be carried on without sin, there would be no room for debate ; it must be aban- doned at once, though utter destitution might seem the inevitable consequence. Bnt if the employment be only dangerous, if it only require a greater measure of circumspection, vigilance, and boldness, the foi-saking it may prftve timidity ra- ther than prudence ; a disposition to evade, rather than to conquer. We doubt, for example, whether a man, roused to the great work of the saving the soul, could lawfully seek to place himself in the midst of the temp- tations of a court, and surround himself with those hinderances to spiritual reli- gion which too often abound in the palaces of princes. But it would make all the difference if he were a courtier at the time of his being first made to feel that he had a soul ; a court is a lawful, though a dangerous, residence; and it may not only be allowable, it may even be required that he should continue where he is, and take advantage of his position to adorn and diffuse Christianity. It might not look like a saint to seek employment in the household of Caesar; but it may be the very part of a saint not to with- draw from the household, and descend into humble life. A religious servant might not be justified in wilfully entering an irreligious family, where he knew that piety would be discountenanced in every possible way; but if he have be- come religions whilst serving in the irre- ligious family, it may be lawful for him to remain, nay, it may be unlawful for him to leave : it is lawful for him to re- main, if he be not required to act against his conscience; it is unlawful for him to leave, if distinct opportunity be afforded him of doing honor to (rod, and pro- moting Christ's cause. And this latter supposition will probably hold good in the majority of cases. When one mem- ber of an irreligious household is con- verted, we regard him as the panicle of leaven,'. placed by God in the midst of an unsound mass ; and the circumstances must be very peculiar, which would seem to us to warrant the vvithdraw- ment of this particle, so that the mass should be again void of any righteous element. We have great pleasure in contem- plating the moral power with which God has invested the meanest of his people. It is too common to judge power by station, and to compute the influence which a man may exert over others, by the temporal advantages which fall to his lot. But there is a power in religion, irrespective altogether of worldly sta- tion : a power which may indeed be used more extensively, if its possessor have command of other forces besides, but which may work the very finest re- sults, supposing him to have nothing else to wield. We refer chiefly to the power of a consistent example ; and we should confidently say to the religious servant in the irreligious family, that it is hardly possible to overrate the service which he, or she, may render to the cause of Christianity. We are not sup- posing the servant to travel beyond the immediate duties of his station, for it is no recommendation of religion when persons put themselves forward, and assume offices to which they have never been called. We only suppose the ser- vant to carry his Christianity in all his occupations, and this will be sure to make him the most respectful, faithful, and diligent in the domestic establish- ment. He will be quickly distinguished from others by closer attention to his master's interests, by greater care of his master's property, by a stricter ad- herence to truth, and by a more obliging and submissive deportment. It is no- thing to tell us that, often, where there is a religious profession, there are few or none of these characteristics; this is only telling us that hypocrisy is confined to no class of life, but may flourish equally in the kitchen and parlor. Let there be real religion, and whatever a man's station, it will show itself in the performance of the duties of that station. The rule admits no exceptions, for reli- gion seats itself in the heart, and thence influences all the actions. Therefore, if there be one, in a mass of irreligious domestics, whom the Spirit of God has brought to repentance and faith, that one will rapidly distinguish himself from the rest by superior civility, diligence and honesty. And it is just because true religion will thus necessarily display itself in the practice, that we ascribe to it a power, in every rank of life, of acting silently upon others, and assimilating them to itself. Let the irreligious master perceive that there is no one in his household so trust- CESAR S HOUSEHOLD. 49 worthy as the professed disciple of Christ, no one on whose word he can place such dependence, no one who serves him with equal industry and alacrity ; and it can hardly fail hut that this master will gradually receive an impression favorable to religion, whatever may have been hitherto his opposition and pre- judice. There is something mightily ennobling in this; for the meanest in a household, whose days are consumed in the lowest drudgeries of life, is thus represented as invested with a high power of winning triumphs for Christi- anity, and turning many to righteous- ness. There may be families to which the preacher of the Gospel can gain no access; they will not come to listen to him on. the Sabbath, and would scowl on him es an intruder in the week. And what instrumentality is there, through which to act on sucli families, barred up, as they are, against both the public and the private ministrations of the word 1 Nothing would be so hopeful as the in- strumentality of pious domestics ; and, therefore, God forbid that such domestics should hastily withdraw themselves from the households. We look to the pious servant to do what the minister of the Gospel has no opportunities of doing, to publish and recommend the doctrine of Christ, not by officious interference, and unbecoming reproof, and unasked- for advice ; but by blamelessness of con- duct, by devotedness to duty, by fidelity, by humility, by obligingness. We send that servant as our missionary into the very midst of the inaccessible family ; not to deliver messages with his lip, but to deliver them through his life; and we can almost venture to predict, that if he do indeed, according to St. Paul's direc- tion to servants, "adorn the doctrine of God the Savior in all things," it will gradually come to pass that religion conciliates some measure of respect, that those above him, and around him, inquire into his motives, and perhaps even seek for themselves what works so beautifully in another. But if we may fairly contend that such an influence as this is wielded by a righteous domestic in an unrighteous family, we can feel no surprise, that, when God had won to himself servants from amongst the servants of Nero, he permitted, and perhaps even commanded, *Jieir remaining in the service of the pro- VOL. II. fligate emperor. Who knows whether there may not, at first, have been a solitary convert, one who held but a mean place in the imperial household, and who may have desired to escape at once from a scene where there seemed to be so many by whom he might be injured, so few to whom he could do good 1 But he may have been admon- ished to remain ; and by the mere force of a consistent deportment, he may have borne down much of the opposition to Christianity, till at last, though he pre- vailed not to the bringing over the bloody emperor himself, he was sur- rounded by a goodly company of be- lievers, and a church of the Redeemer rose in the very midst of the palace of the Caesars. And whether or not it were thus, through the influence of a solitary convert, that the religion of Jesus established itself in the most un- promising scene, the great truth remains beyond controversy, that a post is not to be forsaken because it cannot be occu- pied without peril to personal piety. Let, therefore, any amongst yourselves, who may be disposed to abandon the station in which God has placed them, because of its dangers and trials, consider whether they may not have been thus circumstanced for the very purpose of being useful to others ; and whether, then, it does not become them to persist in hope, rather than to desert it in fear. For very difficult would it be to show that any can have more cause to seek a change of service, than men converted from amongst the courtiers and domes- tics of Nero ; and, nevertheless, these christians, with an apostle for their im- mediate instructor, adhered steadfastly to the employments in which conversion had found them ; so that they were to be known by the striking description, " The saints that are of Caesar's house- hold." But we have not yet exhausted the in- structive truths which seem fairly deduci- ble from the simple statement of our text. We felt, as we insisted on the last lesson — the lesson as to the duty of remaining in a perilous position — that some might feel as though we required them to in- jure themselves for the benefit of others ; and when it is the soul which is at stake, there may be doubts whether a sacrifice such as this can be lawful. We main- tained it to be right that Caesar's house- 7 CESAR'S HOUSEHOLD. hold should not be deserted by the saints, because ihose Baints, by remaining there, miglit be instrumental to the conversion of others to Christianity. But, surely, it is a christian's first duly to give heed to his own growth in grace ; bow then can it be right that, with the vague hope of benefiting others, he should continue amongst hinderances to bis own spiritual advancement ? Brethren, of this we may be certain, that, wheresoever God makes it a man's duty, there will be make it his interest to remain. IF he employ one oFhis ser- vants in turning others from sin, he will cause the employment to conduce to that servant's holiness. Is there no indication of this in the words of our text I We lay the emphasis now upon "chiefly," "chiefly they that are of Caesar's house- hold." OF all the Roman christians, the foremost in that love, which is the prime fruit of the Spirit, were those who were found amongst the courtiers and atten- dants of Nero, and who probably remain- ed in bis service for the express purpose of endeavoring to promote the cause of the Gospel. Then it is very evident that these christians sustained no personal injury, but rather outstripped, in all which should characterize believers, others who might have seemed more advantageously placed. Neither do we feel any surprise at this : it is just the result for which we might have naturally looked. Is it the absence of temptation, is it the want of trial, which is most Favorable to the growth of vital Christianity ] is it, when there is least to harass a christian, to put him on his guard, or keep him on the alert, that he is most likely to become spiritually great ? IF so, then men were right in former times, who Fancied it most For the interest oF the soul that they should ab- solutely seclude themselves From the world, and, withdrawing to some lonely hermitage, hold communion with no be- ing but God. But this we believe to have been an error. The anchorite, who never mixed with his fellow-men, and who was never exposed to the temptations re- sulting From direct contact with the world, might easily persuade himself of his supe- rior sanctity, and as easily deceive him- self. He might suppose his evil passion subdued, his corrupt propensities eradi- cated, whereas, the real state of the case might be, that the evil passions were on- ly quiet because not solicited, and that the propensities were not urged because there was nothing to excite them. Had be been brought away from his hermit- age, and again exposed to temptation, it is far from improbable that he, who had won to himself a venerated name by his austerities, and who was presumed to have quite mastered the appetites and desires of an unruly nature, would have yielded to the solicitations with which he Found himself beset, and given melan- choly proof that the strength of his virtue lay in its not being tried. And, at all events, there is good ground for reckon- ing it an erroneous supposition, that piety must flourish best where least exposed to injury. The household of Ceesar may be a far better place for the growth of personal religion than the cell of a monk : in the one, the christian has bis graces put continually to the proof, and this tends both to the discovering and the strengthening them ; in the other, there is comparatively nothing to exercise vir- tue, and therefore may its very existence be only a delusion. Why then is the courtier to think, that, by making it his duty to remain in the dangerous atmosphere of a court, we re- quire him to sacrifice himself for the benefit of others 1 or the servant, that, by bidding him stay in the irreligious family, we doom him to the being hindered in the spiritual race] Far enough from this. Let the remaining be matter of conscience, and the advantageousness shall be matter of experience. "The God of all grace," who has promised that his people shall not be tempted above that they are able, will bestow assistance proportioned to the wants. The constant exposure to danger will induce constant watchfulness : multipled difficulties will teach the need of frequent prayer: the beheld wickedness of others will keep alive an earnest desire, that the earth may be " full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." And why, then, should not personal piety flourish ] why should it be stunted ? why, rather, should it not be more than commonly vigorous] Oh, let no man think that he cannot be expected to make great progress in religion, because he is obliged to be much in contact with wick- edness, because his calling in life is one of great moral danger, keeping him as- sociated with those who hate good, and THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 51 employed on what tends to increase vvoi idly-mindedness 1 It will probably be from situations such as tins, that God shall gather into the kingdom of heaven the most eminent of his servants. It may not be from cloistered solitudes, where piety had but. little to contend will), that the distinguished ones shall advance when Christ distributes the prizes of eternity — it may rather be from the court, where worldliness reign- ed ; from the exchange, where gold was the idol; and . from the family, where godliness was held in derision. Not that there may not be exalted piety where there has nut been extraordinary trial. But the extraordinory trial, met in God's strength, which is always sufficient, will be almost sure to issue in such prayer- fulness, such faith, such vigilance, such devotedness, as can hardly be looked for where there is but little to rouse, to alarm, and to harass. Therefore, let those be of good cheer, who, if pious at all, must be pious in spite of a thousand hinder- ances and' disadvantages. Let these hinderances and disadvantages only make them earnest in prayer and diligent in labor, and they will prove their best helps in working out salvation. Witness the |' chiefly " of our text. There were none in Rome, in whom the flame of christian love was so bright, as in those confined to the most polluted of ■atmospheres. God. appointed them their station : they submitted in obedience to his will : and the result was, that the lamp, which you would have thought must have gone out in so pestilential an air, burnt stronger and clearer than in any other scene. Look, then, upon your enemies as your auxiliaries, upon your dangers as your guardians, upon your difficulties as your helps. Christian men, and chris- tian women, ye of whom God asks most in asking you to be his servants, for you he reserves most, if, indeed, ye be " faith- ful unto death." The "chiefly" of the text may be again heard ; they who have been first in godliness shall be first in glory : and when Christ is saying, " Come, ye blessed of my Father," it may be with this addition, "chiefly they that were of Caesar's household." SERMON VI THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. " On that night could not the king sleep ; and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles , they were read before the king." — Esther vi. 1. It will be necessary for us to enter ^somewhat minutely into the circum- stances connected with what is here mentioned, that you may be prepared for the inferences which we design to draw from the passage. The Book of Esther is among the most interesting of the narratives contained in the Old Testament, furnishing proofs, as remark- able as numerous, of the ever-watchful Providence of God. The king of the vast Persian Empire, of which Judea was at this time- a province, had put from him his queen, in a moment of caprice and indignation, and advanced to her place a Jewess, named Esther, remarkable for her beauty, and as it afterwards appeared, for her piety and courage. This Esther, who had been left an orphan, had been brought up as 52 THE SLEEPLESS N1UIIT. his daughter by her cousin Mordecai, who, having been "carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity " under Nebuchadnezzar, had obtained some ap- pointment in the royal household at Shushan. The relationship, however, between the two was not generally known ; and Mordecai instructed Esther not to avow herself a Jewess, lest the circumstance might operate to her dis- advantage. This very concealment ap- peals io have been ordered of (rod, and had much to do with subsequent events. The king had a favorite, named Ha- man the Agagite, a man of boundless ambition and pride, who acquired com- plete ascendency over the monarch. Honors and riches were heaped on this minion ; it was even ordered, as it would seem, that he should receive the same reverential prostrations as were rendered to the king, and which appear to have gone beyond mere tokens of respect, and to have been actually of an idolatrous character. Mordecai, whose religion forbade his giving, in any measure, to man what appertained to God, refused to join the other servants' of the king in thus honoring Haman, and drew remark upon himself by remaining standing whilst they fell to the ground. Mordecai had been unjustly treated ; he had claim to some portion, at least, of the honors conferred upon Haman, though there is no reason to suppose that anger, or envy, had anything to do with his conduct to- wards the favorite. He had been un- justly treated — for he had discovered a conspiracy, on the part of two of the royal chamberlains to assassinate the king, and by apprising Esther of the bloody design, had prevented its execu- tion. For this eminent service, however, he obtained no reward ; his merit was overlooked, and he still sat in the gate of the king. But it sorely displeased Haman that Mordecai refused him the appointed tokens of reverence. It was nothing to this haughty man that he had reached the highest point to which a subject could aspire, so long as he had to encounter a Jew who would not fall prostrate before him. He must have his revenge — but it shall be a large revenge ; it were little to destroy Mordecai alone; the reasons which produced the refusal from the in- dividual might operate equally on the thousands of his countrymen; Mordecai then shall perish; but with him shall fall also the whole nation of the Jews. It was a bold, as well as a bloody scheme, such as could not have been thought of except under an eastern des- potism. Haman, however, knew that the lives ot subjects were at. the disposal of the king, so that if he could but possess himself of a royal edict against the Jews, he might compass his stern purpose, and exterminate the people. He sets, therefore, to work; but he will be religious in his wholesale massacre; he betakes himself to the casting of lots, that he may ascertain the day of the year most favorable to his project ; and the lots — for" the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord " — fixed him to a day eleven months distant, and by thus delaying his atrocious scheme, gave time for its de- feat. He had no difficulty in obtaining the iniquitous decree from the luxurious and indolent monarch : he simply told him that there was a strange people scattered about his empire, whom it would be well to destroy, and offered to pay a large sum into the royal treasury, to balance any loss which their destruction might occasion. The king, without making the least inquiry, gave Haman his ring, j which would authorize any measure which he might choose to adopt ; and Hainan immediately circulated the san- guinary edict, to the great horror of the Jews, and the consternation of the whole empire. On this, Mordecai took mea- sures for communicating with Esther, apprised her of the ruin which hung over her nation, and urged her to attempt intercession with the king. And whilst Esther was doing all in her power to arrange a favorable opportunity for pleading the cause of her people, there happened the singular circumstance re- corded in the text : his sleep went from the king ; and in place of sending for music, or other blandishments, to soothe him to repose, he desired to hear portions of the chronicles of the empire. Amongst other things, the account of the conspi- t , racy which Mordecai had discovered, was read to him ; this suggested inquiry as to whether Mordecai had been re- compensed; this again produced an order for his being instantly and signally honored — an order which, as instrusted to Haman, was but the too certain herald of that favorite's downfall. Things THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 53 now went on rapidly in favor of the Jews : the villany of Hainan was dis- closed to the king : immediate vengeance followed; and very shortly the people, who had stood within an ace of destruc- tion, had gladness and light in their dwellings, and were all the more pros- perous through the defeated plot of their enemies. Now who can fail to perceive, who can hesitate to confess, the providence of God in the occurrences thus hastily reviewed 1 From the first, from the advancement of Esther to the throne, a higher than human agency was mani- festly at work to counteract a scheme as distinctly foreknown as though God had appointed, in place of only permitting, the sin. The conspiracy of the two chamberlains ; the subsequent neglect of Mordecai ; the distant season deter- mined by the lot — these were all either ordered, or overruled, by God; and had a part, more or less direct, in frustrating a plot which aimed at nothing less than the extinction of the Jews. But perhaps the most memorable of the evidences of God's special providence is that narrated in the text. There is nothing, indeed, surprising in the mere circumstance that the king passed a sleepless night ; it may have arisen from many natural causes ; and we are not at all required to hold that there was anything miracu- lous, anything out of the ordinary course, in his finding himself unable to sleep. But if there were nothing expressly done to banish slumber from his eyes, we may safely say that advantage was taken of the sleeplessness of the king, and that it was suggested to him to do what he was little likely to have thought of. How improbable that, as he tossed from side to side, and could not find rest, he should have fancied the being read to out of the chronicles of the em- pire, a dry narrative it may be, of facts with which he was already well acquaint- ed, and which had little to interest a voluptuary like himself. When Darius had allowed Daniel to be cast into the lions' den, and was " sore displeased with himself" for what he had done, we read that " instruments of music were not brought before him :" as if, under ordinary circumstances, some such means as the cadences of melody would have been used to cheat him into slumber. But Ahasuerus, though the whole his- tory proves him to have been a thorough sensualist, sent not for music, but for the chronicles of the kingdom ; indeed, it was at the prompting of another spirit than his own, or, if it were but the whim of the moment, God made it instrumental to the most important of purposes. Then, when the chronicles were brought, it was not likely that the part relating to Mordecai would be read. It might have been expected that the reader would turn to portions of the records which were not so well known, as better fitted to divert and interest the king. Besides, it is evident enough that Mordecai was no favorite with the other royal servants ; they were disposed to pay court to Haman, and therefore to side with him in his quarrel with this refractory Jew. It was probable, then, that the reader would avoid the account of what Mordecai had done, not wishing that the king should be reminded of his signal, but unrequited, services. Yet, notwithstanding all the chances — to use common language — against the recital of Mordecai's deed, the narrative of this deed was brought before the king, and its effect was an inquiry as to the reward of the man who had been so eminently useful. And thus, by a succession of improbabilities, but not one of those im- probabilities so great as to seem to re- quire any supernatural interference, was a result brought round, or at least ad- vanced, which mightily concerned, not only the Jewish nation, but the whole human race; for had the plan of Haman succceeded, and that people been exter- minated whence Messiah was to spring, where would have been the promised redemption of this earth and its guilty inhabitants 1 It is hardly affirming too much, to affirm that on the sleepless night of the Persian king was made to depend our rescue from everlasting death ; at least, and undeniably, the restlessness of the king was one of those instruments through which God wrought in carrying on his purpose of redeeming our race through a descendant from David " ac- cording to the flesh." Wonderful, that so simple, so casual a circumstance should have had a direct bearing on the destinies of men from Adam to the very latest posterity ! wonderful, that the dis- turbed and broken rest of a single in- dividual should have aided the reconcil- 54 THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. iation of the whole world to God ! Let us contemplate the fact with yet closer attention. We wish to impress on you a strong sense of the ever-watchful pro- vidence of God, of his power in over- ruling all things, so that they subserve his fixed purposes, and of the facility wherewith he can produce amazing* re- sults, through simple instrumentality. Whither then shall we lead you 1 Not to any strange or startling scene, where there are clear tokens of Divine inter- ference and supremacy. Come with us merely to the couch of the Persian king, on that night when sleep went from his eyes ; and remembering that his sleep- lessness was directly instrumental to the defeating the foul plot of Haman, let us consider what facts are established by the exhibition, and what practical les- sons it furnishes to ourselves. My brethren, examine your notions of God, and tell me whether you are not apt to measure the Supreme Being by standards established between man and man. The Divine greatness is re- garded as that of some very eminent king : what would be inconsistent with the dignity of the potentate is regarded as inconsistent with the dignity of God ; and what seems to us to contribute to that dignity is carried up to the heaven- ly courts, or supposed to exist there in the highest perfection. We do not say that men are to be blamed for thus aid- ing their conceptions of Deity by the facts and figures of an earthly estate. Limited as our faculties are, and un- suited to comprehend what is spiritual — confined, moreover, as we are to a material world — it is, in a measure, un- avoidable that, we should picture God in human shape, or rather, that we should take the standards which subsist among ourselves, and use them in representing, or setting forth, our Maker. But we should often gain a grander and a juster idea of God, by considering in what he differs from men, than by ascribing to him, only in an infinite degree, what is found amongst ourselves. You may picture God as a potentate with bound- less resources at his disposal, possessed of universal dominion, and surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand ministering spirits, each waiting to do his pleasure, and each mighty as that angel of death which prostrated, in a single night, the vast hosts of the As- syrian. There is nothing wrong in this representation of Deity, except that il must come immeasurably short of the reality : it is correct as far as it goes ; but when we have heaped figure upon figure, attributing to God every con- ceivable instrument of power, we have, indeed, depicted him as mighty, in the sense in which an earthly monarch may be mighty; but, virtually, we can have made no approach towards the actual state of that omnipotent Being, who "sitteth on the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshop- pers." And, after all, it is not by putting unbounded resources at the disposal of God, and representing him as working through stupendous instrumentality, that we frame the highest notions of him as a sovereign or ruler. Keep out of sight the unbounded resources, the stupen- dous instrumentality; survey him as effecting what he wills through a mean and insignificant agency ; and you more separate between the Creator and the creature, and therefore go nearer, it may be, to the true idea of God. There is something sublimer and more over- whelming in those sayings of Scripture, " Out of the mouth of babes and suck- lings hast thou ordained strength ; " " God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty ;" than in the most magnificent and gorgeous de- scription of dominion and strength. This is just what the earthly potentate cannot do : he must have causes proportionate to effects, agencies commensurate with results ; and it were utterly vain for him to think of ordaining strength from babes and sucklings, of confounding wise things with foolish, or mighty with weak. This is the prerogative of Deity alone ; and because in this he is a'to- gether separated from his creatures, therefore is this more a sign or attribute of Deity, than any assemblage of forces which Scripture may mention, or any celestial army which imagination can array. Observe, then, how wonderful is God, in that he can accomplish great ends by insignificant means. Christianity, for example, diffused through the instru- mentality of twelve legions of angels, would have been immeasurably inferior, THG SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 55 as a trophy of Omnipotence, to Christi- anity diffused through the instrumental- ity of twelve fishermen. When I sur- vey the heavens, with their glorious troop of stars, and am told that the Al- mighty employs to his own majestic ends the glittering' hosts as they pursue their everlasting march, I experience no surprise: I seem to feel as though the spangled firmament were worthy of" be- ing employed by the Creator ; and I ex- pect a magnificent consummation from 60 magnificent an instrumentality. But show me a tiny insect, just floating in the breeze, and tell me, that, by and through that insect, will God carry for- ward the largest and most stupendous of his purposes, and I am indeed filled with amazement; I cannot sufficiently admire a Being, who, through that which I could crush with a breath, advances what I cannot measure with thought. And is there any thing strained or in- correct, in associating with an insect the redemption of the world? Nay, not so. In saving the race whence Messiah was to spring, God worked through the dis- turbed sleep of the Persian monarch, and the buzz of an inconsiderable insect might have sufficed to break that mon- arch's repose. You have another instance in Scrip- ture of an attempt to destroy the chosen seed, and thus to frustrate the promises in which the whole world had interest. It was made by Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who, not content with enslaving and op- pressing the' Israelites, sought to effect their extinction through destroying all their male children. And when God in- terfered on behalf of his people, it was with miracle and prodigy, with a mighty band and a stretched-out arm. Every one seems to feel that the agency was here adequate to the exigence : when the very scheme of redemption may be said to have been in jeopardy, no one is surprised, either that God came forth from his solitude clad in his might, or that, interposing in so awful a manner, he should have confounded and scatter- ed bis enemies. The interposition re- sembled what might have been looked for from an earthly king, who, finding his will obstructed in some province of his empire, should hasten thither with his armies, and subdue by superior might the rebels and antagonists. But when the peril was greater and more immediate, for certainly the project of Haman threatened worse than that of Pharaoh, there was no miracle — no prodigy : swarms of flies did not darken the land, though perhaps a single fly was made use of by God. Yet who does not perceive that herein was the wonderfulness of God more displayed, than in all the supernatural terrors which devastated Egypt? Let it be, that God caused Ahasuerus to be sleepless, or only knew that he would be; that he prompted him to send for the chronicles, or only knew that he would send ; that he secretly suggested to the reader what parts to take, or simply foresaw his se- lection — in either case what a tissue of insignificant causes is here ! but, at the same time, what a Being must that be, who could hang a world on such a web, any thread of which might have been broken by a thought, but not without deranging and dislocating the whole ! To have interfered with visible miracle, would have been nothing compared to the thus secretly and silently operating through natural and inconsiderable things. Indeed, it was a display of De- ity, when the oppressors of Israel quail- ed before a power which strewed the earth with ruin, and shrouded the hea- vens in darkness. But it accords with our notions of greatness, that mighty means should be employed to mighty ends : if God have at his disposal the thunder, the storm, and the pestilence, we marvel not, that, by employing such artillery, he should frustrate the plots of the enemies of his church. Can he dis- pense with this artillery 1 can he work without miracles, when some great crisis arrives, and the counsels of eternity seem on the eve of defeat ] Indeed he can. He is too great to find any instru- ment little. He Can work with the in- sect's wing just as well as with the arch- angel's. And, after adoring him, as he passes through Egypt in the chariot of his strength, working out the emancipation of his people by portents and plagues, I fall before him as yet more amazing in wisdom and power, when I find the bloody purpose of Haman defeated through such instrumentality as this ; " The king could not sleep, and he com- manded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king." Now we omitted a circumstance, in 56 THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. our hasty summary of the facts of the history, which ought to lie pointed out, that you may thoroughly perceive the workings of divine Providence. At tlie very moment that the king was listening to the chronicles of the empire, the wick- ed Hainan was standing in the court, waiting for an audience. He had risen early that he might prefer a request to the king, a request for the immedate ex- ecution of Mordecai. At the suggestion of his wife, he had caused a gallows to he erected, and now sought the royal permission for hanging the object of his inveterate hatred. Only remember with what facility the king had granted Ha- man's request, when it asked the destruc- tion of thousands, and you will hardly think it likely that he would have shown any hesitation in consenting to the death of a solitary individual, and that, too, an individual already doomed by the issued decree. And if Mordecai had fallen, it does not indeed necessarily follow that Esther would have faded in her' inter- cession with the king; but it is not too much to suppose that she would have been staggered and paralyzed through the loss of her kinsman and adviser, and perhaps have taken his death as an evi- dence of the uselessness of resisting the insolent Hainan. Mordecai was, hu- manly speaking, the great obstruction to the execution of Hainan's plot; and, this having been removed, unless some new counteracting engines bad been set at work by God, the whole nation of the Jews must have simultaneously per- ished. Thus it was, you perceive, pre- cisely at the critical moment that bis sleep went from the king; the sleepless night saved Mordecai, and Mordecai saved the nation. We have not, then, put the case too strongly, in representing the scheme of the redemption of the world as having depended on the rest- lessness of the monarch of Persia. We do not, of course, mean to say, that, had the king slept through the night, God would not. have employed some other instrumentality in furthering his purpose of mercy towards men. But we have only to do with instrumentality actually employed : and, indeed, it is unbecoming in us even to suppose the case that the king might have slept ; for this is to sup- pose that God's foreknowledge might have been at fault, a contingency having beeu reckoned upon which had never arisen. It was clearly, therefore, so ordered by Providence, that the deliver- ance of the Jews, and, with it, the re- demption of the world, should hinge on the fact of his sleep going on one par- ticular night from Ahasuerus, the mon- aicb of Persia. And having already called on you to admire the wonderfulness of God, in that he could operate to so mighty an end through so inconsiderable an agency, we would have you carefully observe how little there was which could be called supernatural interference; how simply, without any violence, the divine Provi- dence effected its purpose. Now that the whole is over, we can clearly trace the band of God : but, whilst the matter was in progress, we might have discerned nothing but ordinary and every-day events, such as afforded no sign of the interference of Deity. We have not taken on ourselves to decide whether God actually caused, or only foreknew, the king's sleepless night ; whether he turned the king's mind towards the chronicles of the empire, or merely foresaw its direction. But let it be supposed, as is sufficiently probable, that there was more than foreknowledge, that God banished sleep from the king's eyes, and directed his thoughts to the chronicles, how natural was the whole thing ! how little interference was there with the usual course of events ! No one could have suspected that a divine agency was at work : it was no ways singular that the king should be restless : no miracle was required to explain his choosing to hear the records of his em- pire : every thing was just what might have equally happened, bad matters been left to themselves, in place of having been disposed and directed by God. We wish you to observe this very carefully, because it goes to the setting under a right point of view the utility of prayer, which is often objected against as though it sought miracles, or expected God to interrupt, at our call, the estab- lished course and order of things. The Jews, at the bidding of Esther, had given themselves to fasting and prayer, sup- plicating of the Almighty that she might be favorably received of the king, and thus enabled to adopt measures for dis- comfiting Haman. And independently on this set supplication on behalf of the queen, we may be sure, that, no sooner THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 57 nad the edict gone forth which doomed them to death, than the Jews betook themselves to prayer to the God of their fathers, imploring of him that he would vanquish their foes, and not suffer the promises to fail, of which, for centuries, they had been the depository. And perhaps they looked for visible and miraculous interference in answer to their prayers : it had been God's course, in other emergencies, to make bare his arm in defence of his people : might he not now be expected to appear in his terrors, and scatter, by the brightness of his presence, whatsoever had leagued against his church and himself] But they looked in vain, if they looked for sen- sible evidence that God had not forgotten his covenant: there came no prodigy to sustain their sinking spirits : if Mordecai appeared raised up, as Moses had been, to counsel and lead them in their diffi- culties ; alas ! he had not the rod of the lawgiver to wave over the land, and make oppressors tremble. Was God, then, not hearkening to prayer] was he not intending, or pre- paring, to answer it ] Indeed, his ear was open to the cry of his people, and the event sufficiently showed that he had, all along, been working for their safety. But, as though to prove to us that, even in the worst extremity, he may interpose on our behalf, and nevertheless not de- range the common order of things : he frustrated the apparently secure plot of Hainan without the least approach to a miracle. And do you not perceive what encouragement this affords in the matter of prayer, and how it scatters the objec- tions which numbers would urge 1 The scorner would tell me of fixed and im- mutable laws, according to which things must proceed in regular succession and train : he would persuade me of the utter absurdity of addressing petitions to God, seeing that, if he answer them, it must be by interfering with what is settled and constant, by the working of miracles, which, from their very nature, he cannot often work. But it is a false statement. I do not look for miracle to be wrought in answer to prayer — though, all the while, I thoroughly believe that, were a case to arise in which nothing short of miracle would meet the cir- cumstances of a servant of God, the miracle would not be withheld: stars shall forsake their courses, the sun and Vol. II. the moon shall put on sackcloth, ere any thing shall fail which God has promised to the righteous, and which is needful to their steadfastness or progress. But it is not required that there should be miracle in order to our prayers being granted; neither does the granting them suppose that God ia variable, or changes in his purposes. There was no miracle in his causing Ahasuerus to pass asleep- less night : a little heat in the atmos- phere, or the buzzing of an insect, might have produced the result; and philo- sophy, with all its sagacity, could not have detected any interruption of the known laws of nature. Neither were God's purposes variable, though it may have actually depended on the importunity of prayer, whether or not the people should be delivered. God's appointment may have been, that he would break the king's sleep if prayer reached a certain intenseness ; that he would not break it if it came below that intenseness : and surely, this would accord equally with two propositions — the first, that the divine purposes are fixed and immutable ; the second, that notwithstanding this fixedness and immutability, they may be affected by human petitions, and there- fore leave room for importunate prayer. And thus I am mightily encouraged in all the business of prayer by the broken rest of the Persian king. Comparative- ly, I should not be encouraged, were I told that what disquieted the monarch had been the standing of a spectre by his bedside, an unearthly form, which, in unearthly accents, had upbraided him with leaving Mordecai unrequited. Here would have been miracle, a departure from ordinary laws ; and I know that such departure must be necessarily rare, and could hardly be looked for in any exi- gence of mine own. But when I observe that the king's rest was disturbed without any thing supernatural ; that all which God had to do in order to arrange a great deliverance for his people, was to cause a sleepless night, but so to cause it that no one could discern his interference; then, indeed, I learn that I may not be asking what the world counts miracle, though I ask what transcends all power but divine. It may be by natural proces- ses that God effects what might pass for supernatural results. Shall I not cry for deliverance from the dungeon into which a tyrant has cast me, or from the tempest 5S THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. which has overtaken me 1 Shall I be si- lent, because it were like asking for mir- acle, to ask that the prison doors might be loosened, or for interruption of the known laws of nature, to entreat that the agitated elements might be hushed? Nay, not so. God, who succored the Jews through giving one man a sleepless night, may, by the dropping of a pin, in- cline the "tyrant to release me, or, by a feather's weight in those laboratories which science never penetrated, repress the rushings of the storm. I am deliver- ed from the dungeon, I am saved from the tempest, without exciting the surprise of the world, because without any palpa- ble derangement of the common order of things; but nevertheless through an ex- press answer to prayer, or a direct inter- ference on the part of the Almighty. Oh, there is something in this which should be vvoudrously encouraging to all who feel their insignificance, and can scarce venture to think that the high and glorious God will exert his omnipotence on their behalf. If the registered de- liverances, vouchsafed to. the church, were all deliverances which had been ef- fected through miracles, we might ques- tion whether they afforded any precedent, on which creatures like ourselves could justly rest hope. We dare not think that for us, for our safety or advancement, armed squadrons will be seen on the heavens, or the earth be convulsed, or the waters turned into blood. But look from Israel delivered from Pharaoh to Israel delivered from Hainan, and we are encouraged to believe that God will not fail even us in our extremity, seeing that he could save the people through such a simple and unsuspected process as this : "On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of the records of the chronicles." But we would now lead you alono- a train of thought quite different from the preceding, but naturally flowing from the circumstances under review. We wish you again, and more distinctly, to observe, that, even on the supposition that God produced, and did not merely overrule what took place, there was nothing to excite a consciousness of Divine inter- ference : the whole process was so natur- al that its subject might never have sus- pected the special workings of God. It cannot for a moment be alleged, that any thing like compulsion was laid upon the kjng, that his free agency was destroyed, so that he was necessitated, against Im will, to adopt a particular course. It was not indeed optional with Ahasuerus whether or not he would be wakeful; neither was it at his own choice, whether or not the thought should cross his mind of sending for the chronicles of the empire ; but we may fairly suppose that he could have resisted this thought had he pleased. He might have said to himself, "These chronicles will never soothe me to sleep : I will try something better suited to my purpose " — and thus might he have with- stood the impulse, and lost the oppor- tunity of discovering and correcting his faults. We do not of course mean, as we have hinted before, that Hainan's plot would not have been defeated, had the king not done according to the sug- gestion of God. God designed that the plot should be defeated ; and he would, therefore, have been sure to bring to bear an adequate instrumentality. But the point under consideration is, that the agency employed on the king was so natural, so indistinguishable from the workings of his own mind, that he could never have suspected a Divine inter- ference, and must have been perfectly at liberty either to do, or not to do, as the secret impulse prescribed. And in this, my brethen, we have a striking illustration of God's ordinary course in his dealings with men — those dealings, we specially mean, through which he would effect their conversion or renewal. If you examine theoretical- ly into the consistence of human liberty with the operations of Divine grace — if, that is, you seek to show, with thorough precision, that the influences of God's Spirit on our minds in no degree inter- fere with free agency — it is possible that you will involve yourselves in a labyrinth, and seek vainly for the clue by which you might be extricated. But, practically, there is no difficulty whatsoever in the matter: we may fairly say, that, whilst suggestions are secretly generated, and impulses applied to our minds, we are thoroughly at liberty to act as we choose : it depends on ourselves, on the exercise of our own will, whether the suggestions be cherished or crushed, whether the im- pulses be withstood or obeyed. And we know nothing of which it is more impor- tant that men be aware, than of the natur- alness, so to speak, of the Spirit's opera- THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 59 lions ; for many are disposed to wait for what tliey count supernatural influence — influence which shall palpably not be of this earth, and which shall virtually leave them no freedom of choice. But without denying that cases sometimes occur, in which the operations of the Spirit thus force attention to their origin, it is unquestionable that his ordinary operations are just such as may pass for the workings of our own minds : there is nothing in them to tell us, that we are, at that moment, being subjected to the agency of Omnipotence ; nothing to ex- cite the startling conviction, that we are verily wrought upon by that renovating power, which is to mould out of fallen humanity a habitation for Deity himself. And because the operations of the Spirit are commonly not distinguishable from those of our own minds, the danger is very great of their being overlooked or despised; and the duty is, therefore, most pressing, of our being ever on the watch for his suggestions and impulses. The position of the unconverted man is often precisely that of the king Ahas- uerus. There is a restlessness, an un- easiness, for which he cannot give any definite reason; it has come upon him, he hardly knows whence ; and he turns from side to side, expecting to recover his moral indifference or composure. But still his sleep goes from him, and he bethinks him of measures for wooing it back. When he has been similarly situated before, he has perhaps had re- course to the fascinations of the world ; he has summoned pleasure with her lyre, and syren strains have soothed him into quiet. Shall he take the same course now'( It would be natural that he should; but he feels a sort of disposition to try another mode ; it is secretly suggested to him that the book of the record of the chronicles might give him some repose, that the Bible might hush his agitation, were it read to him by those whose office it is to press home its truths. And thus is he literally situated as was the Persian king on that eventful night, when the fate of the Jews, and of the world, seemed to hang upon a thread. He is acted on as was the king; and there is nothing to prevent his resisting as the king might have resisted. He may say to himself, " The Bible is a dull book, preachers are melancholy persons ; I will try some- thing more likely to dissipate my fears, . and restore my composure : give me the romance, or the comedy, rather than the book of the chronicles ; give me my jovial companions, rather than the ministers of religion." Ahasuerus might have done this, and thereby would he have resisted promptings which were not of his own mind, though they gave no note of supernatural origin, and have lost the opportunity of freeing his king- dom from a great impending calamity. And the sinner may do this : he may withstand a suggestion, which seems only to spring from a disturbed mind, though in truth to be traced to the Spirit of God; and thus may he throw away a golden opportunity of learning how to flee*from everlasting wrath. The special thing forced on the con- science of Ahasuerus through the book of the chronicles, was, that there was one who had done him great service in saving him from death, and whom he had hitherto requited with neglect. And it is the very same thing which might be forced on the conscience of the sinner through the reading or hearing of the Bible. There is one who has done for him what thought cannot measure, ran- soming him, by " the death of the cross," from everlasting pains ; but he has hith- erto refused to acknowledge this Savior, and has given him, in return, only hatred or contempt. So accurately is a case of most common occurrence, that of the unconverted man moved by God's Spirit to give heed to the Gospel of Christ, portrayed in that of the Persian king, prompted, in his restlessness, to hear the chronicles of the empire. And what we would again and again impress upon you is, that you are not to think of re- cognizing the operations of the Spirit of God by any supernatural tokens, as though, whensoever that agent is at work in your breasts, you must be aware of his presence, and able to distinguish his movements from those of the conscience and the will. The secret uneasiness, the. impulse to prayer, the sense of something wrong, the disposition to hear the word of God — these may not startle you by their strangeness ; these may seem to you quite natural, as na- turally produced as suggestions of an opposite character — but know ye of a truth, that these are what the Holy Ghost causes; that these may perhaps be all which the Holy Ghost will cause ; 60 THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. and. therefore, that if ye will not yield to these, and will not act on these, there is a fearful probability of your being forsaken of God, and left to your own devices. Wail not for miracles — God's ordinary workings are through very sim- ple means. We do not read of any thun- derclap which awakened Ahasuerus; he was restless, but perhaps could give no account of his restlessness. If he had been asked, lie would probably have men- tioned the heat of the weather, or over- excitement, or something of which he had eaten. But, all the while, God was in that sleeplessness, for which so many common causes might have been as- And there must be those of already know, or who will know, something of a moral uneasiness which might admit of various explana- tions. There has been no thunderclap 6igneci. you who — yet the man cannot sleep ; and he will perhaps account for it from some loss in his family, or some disappoint- ment in trade, or some deficiency in health. But God is in that uneasiness, that disquietude, which shows an inabil- ity to settle down in present things, and a secret craving for higher and better. Well then — whensoever such a season shall visit any amongst you, let them be specially heedful of what may be suggested to their minds ; they are not disturbed for nothing, but that they may be prompted and urged towards religion — no music, no revelry, no blandish- ments : let the records of the chronicles of the kingdom of heaven be searched, and they shall learn how the snare may be broken, and beautiful peace be per- manently secured. SERMON VII THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. « And David lonsred, and said, Oh. that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the (rate ! And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David : nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me. O Lord, that I should do this : is not this the blood of the men that weut m jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would uot drink of it."— 2 Sam. xxm. 15, 16, 17. We are not to regard the scriptural histories as mere registers of facts, such as are commonly the histories of eminent men : they are rather selections of facts, suitableness for purposes of instruction having regulated the choice. In human biography, you may say of much that is recorded, that it is inserted only because it happened, and because, therefore, its omission would have destroyed the in- tegrity of the narrative. But we do not suppose that the same may be said of scriptural biography ; a fact is not re- corded merely because it occurred, as j though the object were to give the ful- life of some distinguished individual; a fact is rather chosen for relation, out of : many which are omitted, because ex- hibiting some point, whether in human : conduct or the divine dealings, on which lit is important that attention be turned. Occasionally, indeed, and perhaps j more frequently than is commonly thought, it is because the fact has a ; typical character that it is selected for insertion : it prefigures, or symbolically j represents, something connected with the scheme of redemption, and on this THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. 61 account lias found place in the sacred volume. Neither is it unusual for the recorded fact to answer to both those descriptions; being instructive in itself, and serving also as an emblem of truths that were then taught only by shadows and iypes. And whether, in any given instance, it be that the thing narrated is instructive in itself, or significative of what God had yet but partially disclosed ; or whether it may lay claim to both characters ; we ought, at least, to be careful that we content not ourselves with apprehending the facts, but study diligently what lessons they may convey, and what types they may contain. We make these general remarks from a fear that, in regard especially of the Old Testament narratives, there is a habit with many christians of reading scriptural histories as registers of facts, rather than as collections of lessons. The interesting character of the narra- tives themselves is often likely to induce or strengthen this habit; the mind be- comes so engaged with the story, that the instruction is disregarded, or the figure overlooked. There are others besides children who can be pleased with the fable, and never think of the moral. And if we fail to search the scrip- tural narratives for lessons and types, it is evident that we shall practically take away from great part of the Bible its distinctive character as a record of spi- ritual truth ; whilst, on the other hand, by always looking for what always exists — material of instruction — we may give histories the nature of homilies, and find the events in an individual's life pro- phetic of things in which the whole world has interest. We hope to show you, as we proceed with our discourse, that the narrative which we have now selected from the Old Testament, forms no exception to the rule, but rather signally illustrates its truth. It is exactly one of those nar- ratives which are likely to be read and admired for the beauty of the facts, ra- ther than studied for the worth of the lessons. It lays immediate and strong hold on the imagination, having about it that air of chivalry, we might almost say romance, which ordinarily so captivates and dazzles the fancy. You can hardly read it and not have before you all the scenery of the tented field, with the mail- ed champions and the floating banners. The royal warrior, David, is exhausted with the fight; he has been in the thick of the struggle with the Philistines, and is now faint with thirst. In tins his weariness and languor, he is heard to breath a passionate wish for water from the well of Bethlehem, between which and himself lay the Philistines, so that the well could be reached only by breaking through their line. But amongst his fol- lowers were men as attached as intrepid; with hearts devoted to their chieftain, and hand prepared to attempt even im- possibilities at his bidding. Three of the most distinguished of these followers heard the wish which David expressed. There was no command given : but with them a wish had the force of a command ; and pausing not to count the peril, they rushed against the foe, resolved to carve themselves a passage. It was like rush- ing on destruction — what will their cour- age and strength avajl against a multi- tude ! they will be borne down in the unequal struggle ; and even if they reach the well their retreat will be cut off, and they must perish in the effort to return. And yet — so did the Almighty favor the bold enterprise — they succeeded in breaking through the host : you may trace their course by the stir, the tumult, and the crash ; the enemy falls in heaps before them ; now they are by the side of the cold flowing fountain ; they stay not to quench their own thirst : they dip, it may be a helmet in the waters, and hasten, with that warrior's cup to attempt a second time the passage. Perhaps the Philistines scarcely offer fresh resistance ; these three men may have seemed to them more than mortal ; they may have divided at their approach, and allowed them to return unopposed to the army of Israel. And David must have been aware of this desperate sally ; he must have known that the choicest of his warriors had thrown themselves, to all appearance, on certain death, in hopes of gratifying his wish ; and deep must have been his anx- ieties, and fervent his prayers, for those whom his inconsiderateness had placed in such peril. But the shout of his troops tells him that his brave captains are safe ; they approach, stained with the blood of the Philistines, and perhaps with their own : they bow before their king, pre- sent the sparkling draught, and ask no reward but the pleasure of seeing him refreshed. And David holds the helmet 62 THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. in his hands, bttt raises it not to his lips : tin- thirst consumes him, for it has been ,,! through the feverish dread bold men would perish ; but the water, frfcsh and pure though it was, to him like the blood ofthose who had jeopardied their lives ,• he felt com- punction at having rashly given utterance to b wish which bad produced so dating a deed ; and he will punish himself for the fault ; lie refuses t.. drink, and pours the water on the mound as a libation to the Lord. What a picture ! Every one is fami- liar with the story of our own warrior, who, mortally wounded, and parched with the death-thirst, received a cup of water, b irving, as he raised it to his lips, the eye of a dying soldier rest wistfully upon it, handed it. to him and bade him drink it. as needing it yet more than him- self But we know not whether the bis- ters Inline us do not present a still finer subject for the painter. It does not seem as though David had to choose between Quenching his own thirst and that of There may have been no gasp- ing warrior at his feet to move sympathy _ lassy eye and the clotted lip. It was simply at the suggestion of con- science that he put from him the longed- for draught ; and there was all the more ofgi eatness, because there was apparent- ly so little to prompl the self-denial. Bui we need not take pains to give in- terest and coloring to the narrative. The i we have hinted,, is all the other way — that you may be so attracted by the chivalrous circumstances, by the dis- played bravery and magnanimity, as to think nothing of homely and personal le--o:is with which the registered inci- dents are assuredly fraught. We have, the i efore, now to engage you exclusively \ 'in>. We wish you to ob- serve what there may have been to blame, and what to approve, in the conduct of David; and to note, with like attention, tie conduct of Ins servants. This suffi- defines what we have to attempt through the remainder of our discourse ; take, first, the conduct of the three warriors, and. secpndly, that of David, what, in each case, there mi', be whether to condemn or to copy. the three warriors must be sur- veyed as servants of David', men engaged to .. ley his command-;, and execute his will to the utmost of their power. And their conduct then appears very admira- ble, as far removed as can well be ima- gined from that calculating and niggard- ly obedience, which betrays a disposition to do the least possible, to render as lit- tle to a master as that master can be pre- vailed on to accept. We need not touch the question as to whether these warriors were justified in running such a risk, whether it were unlawful, or not, to make the attempt to which they were prompted by the expressed wish of David. It may have been unlawful ; there must have been a point at which obedience to God would have forbidden obedience to their king; but we have no means for accu- rately judging whether this point had been reached in the case now before us. We may, therefore, waive all reference to the right or the wrong, of the resolve to cut a path to the waters of Bethlehem ; we have simply to do with the power which a mere wish of David had over his ser- vants, for we may hence derive a lesson for. all servants, whether of God or of man. You are to observe that David issued no command. He might have summon- ed the bravest of his battalions, and bid- den them attempt the forcing a passage to the well ; but nothing of the kind was done : he simply uttered a wish, without, perhaps, thinking that he should be over- heard, and certainly without designing that it should be interpreted as a com- mand. But the wish was sufficient for hold and true-hearted men, and they in- stantly faced death to attempt its gratifi- cation. And we say of these servants, thus yielding as ready an obedience to an overheard wish as could have been rendered to the most positive order, that they rebuke many of ourselves, who, whether it be their Creator, or their fel- low-creatures, by whom they are employ- ed, seem only axious to reduce their ser- vice to the smallest possible amount. There is an example set by these war- riors to every man who is called on for obedience, which fits the history before us to be inscribed on our kitchens, our shops, and our churches. The example lies in their not having waited for a com- mand, but acted on a wish ; and there is no man to whom the term servant ap- plies — and it applies to every man, at least with reference to God — who would not do well to ponder the example, and consider whether he be not yet far below such a model. THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. 63 If you take the case of servants, as the term is commonly applied, is not their service, for the most part, a sort of labpr to do no more than they can help, an en- deavor to earn their wages with as little outlay of toil as their employers will con- sent to remunerate 1 Servants, even servants "professing godliness," seem to have practically but little remembrance of the precept of St. Paul, "not with eye-service as men-pleasers." It is al- most all "eye-service," and rla<>s in pro- portion as inspection is withdrawn. It is a rare thing to find a servant who will dil- igently obey your commands ; but where shall we look for one who will carefully consult your wishes'? And we do not know that a more annoying argument is to be found against the advantageousness of a diffused christian education, than is apparently furnished by a fact which it is not easy to gainsay, that, in place of an improved race of servants having re- sulted from an improved system of gen- eral instruction, we have less diligent, less obliging, and less trustworthy domes- tics. We are sure as to the unsoundness of the argument, because we are sure, on unassailable principles, that the know- ledge of God in Christ will make men, from the prince to the peasant, fitter for whatsoever duties appertain to their sta- tion. But, nevertheless, when the appeal is to results, to the testimony of experi- ence, not of theory, it does involve the advocate of national education in no or- dinary difficulty, that the opponent can enter our households and ask, with much semblance of truth, what, comparatively, has become of those attached, steadfast, and conscientious servants, who had no interest separate from their master's, and no wish but that of executing his 1 And servants who have enjoyed all the su- perior advantages of modern days, and yet are palpably inferior to the servants of former — restless, rude, dishonest — little know how much they may contri- bute towards such disgust amongst the rich at the instruction of the poor, as will prompt an endeavor to re-establish the ignorance which consisted with some- thing praiseworthy, as preferable to the knowledge which threatens to issue in confusion. Neither is it only to servants, in the common sense of the word that the ex- ample before us applies. The same holds good generally of the employed, whatever the nature of the employment. It ought to be the ruling principle with him who serves another in any capacity, to serve him upon principle, to identify himself with his employer, and to have the same eye to his interests as though they were his own. If a man buy my time, and I do not devote to him that time, there is jobbery as actual as though he had bought my merchandize and I then sold it to another. If he pay me for my labor, and I in any measure with- hold it, then, up to that measure, there is as palpable fraud as if he bargained for my goods and I used a false balance. The indolent clerk, the idle shopman, the careless agent — I see no moral differ- ence between these and the grossly dis- honest who tamper with the property of their employers. And if a general rule be required for the guidance of those who are in any kind of service, we fetch it from the example of David's three captains, with whom a wish had all the force of a command. It is not that this rule will furnish specific direction in each specific case ; but that he, who acts up to it, will be keeping in exercise the motives and dispositions which will en- sure the right course under all possible circumstances. He who consults wishes as wei'i as commands, or witli whom a known wish is as binding as an express command, will necessarily feel at all times under the eye of his employer; or rather, will know no difference when that eye is upon him and when turned away. His whole aim will be to act for the employer as the employer would act for himself; and it is evident that nothing can be added to such a description, if you wish to include singleness of pur- pose, sincerity, diligence, and faithful- ness. And you have only to contrast, in your own minds, the servant, who will do no- thing but what is positively, and, in so many words, commanded, and another wig) watches the very looks of his mas- ter, that he may read his wishes and take them for laws, to assure yourselves that the feature of good service which we derive from the conduct of the cap- tains of David rather gives the whole character than a solitary mark. Yea, consider men in general as the servants of God — of God who expressly says, " I will guide thee with mine eye," as though a look were to suffice : and this 64 THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. feature will distinguish the true and the earnest from the hypocritical and the lukewarm. Lei us ask ourselves wheth- er, unhappily, it l>e hot the too common disposition of those who make profession of* godliness, to pare down as much as possible tlir service required at their bands, to calculate how small a sacrifice, and how slight an endurance, will con- sist with their being reckoned amongst the members of Christ .' In place of a generous zeal to give up everything for God, and such a fear of offending him as would make them avoid what is in- different lest they indulge in what is wrong, men are apt to compute how far they may venture in compliance with the world, how near they may go to the forbidden thing, and yet not lose the distinctive character of the people of Christ. It should not content the chris- tian that such or such an indulgence is not prohibited by the letter of the law; he should search whether it be not pro- hibited by the spirit. In cases where there really may be a doubt as to the lawfulness, he should determine for the course which is the most likely to be right ; and, if the scales hang even, for that to which he has the less inclination. This would be true christian obedience, an obedience of which love is the law. God dealeth with us as with children rather than servants — not laying down an express precept for every possible case, but supposing in us a principle which will always lead to our consider- ing what will be pleasing to himself, and to our taking his pleasure as our rule. And just as the affectionate child will watch the countenance of the parent, obeying what he reads there as well as what he hears from the lip, so should . Mian search for the least indica- tion of I rod's u ill and give it all the force of a positive statute. 1 hit can we sav that we do this? Can we deny, that, for the most part, we rather compute how little Grod will ts*;e than how much we can give; what may be Withheld, than what surrendered [ That a thing is doubtfi 1, A>n^ not make us shun it as though it were wrong: we are more disposed, under the plea of its Msing dubious, to adopt it as right. It is not sufficient Torus, that Cod is likely to be better pleased if we abstain than if we indulge : we urge the want of ex- press command, and are secretly gratified that it does not exist. Alas, then, how are we reproved by the warriors of David I What christians should we be, if, with them, a wish were law enough to arm us against danger and death! Go in thought to the field of battle, where Israel is ranged against the Philistine, when you may feel inclined to evade a painful duty under the plea of its not being distinctly enjoined. When you would excuse yourselves from making a sacrifice, foregoing an indulgence, or attempting a difficulty, by urging, that though it might be acceptable to God, at least he has not made it indispensable, observe what the servants of an earthly kimj could do in the absence of command, and let the servants of a heavenly blush to do less. Who are these that rush upon the enemy, as though they knew nothing of danger and bore a charm against death 1 We see three warriors press along the plain ; their whole de- meanoris that of those charged with some fearful commission ; the fate of a kingdom has surely been given into their keeping ; they are urging forwards with the des- perateness of men bidden, on some au- thority which they dare not resist, to attempt an enterprise involving the safety of thousands. Not so: these warriors might have remained inactive and yet been guilty of no positive disobedience to their leader. They have received no directions obliging them to draw the sword and hew a passage. They were just in the position in which you your- selves often are, with no command from a master, but with some intimation of a wish. And they are but setting an ex- ample to the warriors of Christ — an ex- ample as to the taking every indication of the wish, as an expression of the will of our Lord, seeing that they are cutting ! their way through the hosts of the Phi- ! listine, not because they have heard David exclaim, " Unsheath the sword, and dare the foe;" but only because they have heard him say, "Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem." But let us now pass from the conduct of the servants to that of David, in which there is matter, as it would seem, for blame as well as praise. You may be sure, that, if we have spoken with some- thing like severity of servants, it has not been in forgetfulness of how much, after all, the goodness of the servant depends THE WELT, OF BETHLEHEM. 6fi upon the master. We never hear an instance of a domestic growing old in one family, without feeling that it tells well for both sides ; if a good master will not keep a bad servant long, neither will a bad master long keep a good. It must, in truth, be through a mutual sys- tem of forbearance and accommodation, that anything like harmony is maintained in the several relations of life: to ex- pect always to prescribe, and never to concede, shows an ignorance of human character and condition, which is sure to be visited with opposition and thwart- ing. They who look to be obeyed cheerfully, must take heed that they command judiciously; the greater the known readiness to comply with their wishes, the greater should be the caution that those wishes be always reasonable and just. And herein was David much in fault; for, knowing the devotedness of his fol- lowers, their attachment to his person, and their uncalculating bravery in his cause, he should have been all the more careful to give utterance to neither a command nor a wish which he had not well weighed, or with which he did not desire a literal compliance. It was not fitting in a man, who had learnt, by ex- perience, that the warm hearts about him would obey his very look, to express a rash longing — and such, at least, was that for water from Bethlehem. We have no reason to suppose that there was no water in the camp, or that none could have been procured from more accessible springs. Perhaps the well of Bethlehem was celebrated for its water; or perhaps David, as having been born and brought up in Bethlehem, had a special affec- tion for the fountain of which he had drunk in his youth. This longing for the well of Bethlehem in an hour of danger and strife, may have been one of those instances of the travelling back of the mind to the days and scenes of boyhood, which are so common and so touching amid the woes and struggles of more advanced life ; the fields where we once played seeming to mock us by their greenness, and the well-remembered waters and trees sparkling and waving before the eye, as though to reproach our having abandoned what was so peaceful and pure for the whirl and din of the world. It may have been thus with David: his circumstances were Vol. II. now harassing and perplexed, and, as he felt his difficulties and perils, the imagery of his youth may have come thronging before him — himself a shep- herd-boy, and his flock grazing on the bank of a quiet glassy stream ; and it may have been but an expression of something like regret that days were so changed, when he exclaimed, "Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate." But, whatever were the uppermost feeling in the mind of David, we may fall back upon our assertion, that, cir- cumstanced as he was, it ought not to have been expressed. Indeed, even had he not had such reason to know that those around him were on the watch for the intimation of his wishes, he would not have been warranted in giving words to a desire, that others would risk life just to gratify himself. There is all the difference between the feeling and the expressing a desire ; we are not neces- sarily answerable for the former — we must be for the latter : even as an evil thought may be darted iuto the mind, we cannot tell whence, and we be inno- cent notwithstanding; but the thought cannot be embodied in speech and we not be guilty. If David's wish were harmless, as breathed only to himself, it was not so as declared to his servants : he must have known its gratification im- possible, except at the risk of many lives. Not that we suppose that David entertained any thought of his wish being acted upon ; in all likelihood it never crossed his mind that the desperate sally would be made. But it is precisely in this that he was to blame; it ought to have crossed his mind : he would not issue a command which he did not mean to be obeyed; neither, circumstanced and surrounded as he was, should he have hinted a wish, if he did not design the gratification to be attempted. And it is here that we may obtain some general rules which all who have authority would do well to adopt. You see that, in proportion as you are faith- fully and affectionately served, you are bound to be careful how you issue a command or breathe a desire. Take it as the perfection of a servant, to be anxious only to know, that he may do, his master's will ; and it is the perfection of a master, to manifest no will but what 9 66 THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. nig servant may be able, and with good conscience, to perform. There cau be no tyranny greater, and none more un- generous, than that winch, taking advan- tage of the condition or attachment of a domestic, imposes duties which are too severe, of tasks which are unlawful. I in iv feel that a servant is either so de- pendent upon me, or so devoted to my wishes, that he will tell a lie at my bid- ding, and assure the visiter that I am from home when he knows me in the house. Bui what is to be said of my baseness, my cruelty, in prescribing to a fellow-creature over whom I have some kind of power, that lie should do what he cannoi do, and not offend the God of truth ! 1 may not actually mean him to tell a lie ; I may suppose that there is a sort of conventional understanding in society which causes a certain sense to be put on the phrase which I dictate : but it is too much to expect that the fine-drawn distinction should be per- ceived by the servant; his feeling must be that he has told a direct falsehood for my sake ; and it is hardly reasonable to require that he should' not, at other times, tell one for his own. And this is but a particular case, which may be taken to illustrate the general rule. The general rule is, that, in every command, in every wish, there be due consideration for the ability, the comfort, and the conscience of the do- mestic. No longing for the water of Bethlehem, if it cannot be had but by Strength unduly tasked, time so engross- ed tiiat none remains for prayer, or prin- ciple so disregarded that "man's law supersedes * rod's. Neither is this all which should be gathered or inferred from the circum- stances under review. 1'ou see how easily what was never meant as a com- mand may be received as such, where there is affectionate watchfulness amongst friends and attendants. Then what care Bhould there he, that nothing be said in joke winch may be taken in earnest, nothing even hinted at as our belief or which we would not have acted on by those who hear the words. Jt. is specially to children that this remark applies; for they may be supposed to have all that submissiv euess to authority, and that willingness to oblige, which distinguished David's warriors, as well as that inability of discriminating a cas- ual expression from an actual direction, which seems equally to have belonged to the men, who felt themselves bidden to attempt the passage to Bethlehem. The child, from his age, can know little of any figures of speech, and will com- monly adopt the literal interpretation ; thus, what was never meant to be seri- ously understood may exert all the force of precept or instruction. In this way may indiscreet conversation, to which they who carry it on attach no impor- tance, and which they never dream of any one's taking as expressing their actual thoughts and feelings, be received by young minds with all the reverence which they are taught to render unto truth. Disciplined to respect their superiors, and, therefore, to attach credit to their words — instructed to obey them implicitly, and, therefore, to consult their very wishes, it can hardly fail but that what is uttered in their presence will pass for true, and what is desired appear worth being sought. And pro- bably children often imbibe opinions, which form the foundation of character, from casual expressions dropped in their bearing, and which, had explanation been asked, they would have found to have been spoken without thought and almost without meaning. Who shall tell us the effect of a joke upon sacred things, the levity of which may have been pardoned by elder persons for the sake of the wit, but the irreverence of which may sink deep into younger, and work a half persuasion that the Bible, after all, is not that awful volume with which it were sacrilege to trifle 1 Who shall tell us what is done by discourse on the advantageousness of wealth, and by hasty wishes, perhaps thoughtlessly uttered, for larger measure of earthly possessions ] The seeds of covetous- ness may have been sown in the young hearer, when the speaker himself has been indifferent to money ; and the child of a parent who is actually content with a little, may grow up with a passion for j much, from having overheard the parent talk as though he desired a far ampler fortune. V ou may tell us that we assign causes disproportionate to effects : as well tell us that the oak cannot spring from the acorn. Life is made up of little things; and human character, traced to its be- ginning, will be found issuing from drops THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. 67 lather than from fountains. You ought, therefore, when speaking before those whom you instruct to respect and obey you, to speak on the supposition that all which you assert will be received as true, all for which you wish be accounted de- sirable. You must not think aloud, if you do not mean your thoughts to pass for verities or have the weight of com- mands. If such a rule be neglected, you must not be surprised if they who hear you enter upon the paths which you never meant them to tread, and after- wards plead your authority in excuse. There may again occur precisely what occurred with David and his servants. It is not that the monarch has command- ed his warriors to dare death, that they may fetch him water from a favorite spring. It is not that he has even wished ihem to undertake the rash and perilous enterprise. It is only that, without re- flection or thought, he gave utterance to something that was passing in his mind, and that those about him overheard the inconsiderate expression. And do you mark that young person, who is devoting himself with uncalculating eagerness to some worldly pursuit, as though he had been trained to nothing but the acquisition of honor or wealth ] Is it that the parent literally instructed him to rush through all danger that he might but grasp the coveted thing'? Is it that he was told, in so many words, to give en- ergy, and talent, and time, to the obtain- ing a perishable good, so that he can urge the precept of a father, whom he loved and revered, as justifying a career in which the object is worthless, if compar- ed with the risk and the toil 7 Probably not so. The parent never wished him thus to squander his powers ; the parent never thought that he would ; but that pareiffc, having gained his affections and secured his attention to his commands and his wishes, was little careful as to what lie let fall in his hearing; he was apt to say what he did not mean, to give words to feelings which he would never have breathed, had he remembered the possibility of their being received as gen- uine, or interpreted as laudable ; in short, like David, when nothing was further from his wish than that his wish should be acted on, he was used to utter excla- mations such as this, "O that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate." But this only sets before you what ap- pears blame-worthy in the conduct of David ; we have yet to consider what there may be to deserve praise or imita- tion. And this is to be sought in what he did when his followers returned, and placed before him the water for which he had inconsiderately longed. It would not have been strange, or unnatural, had he argued that, though he had done wrong in expressing the wish, it could not be unlawful to use the means of grat- ifying that wish so unexpectedly provid- ed. He might have said, I would not in- deed have exposed the lives of my brave soldiers, in order to obtain this refresh- ment ; but now that, unbidden, and from the warmth of their attachment, they have cut their way to the well, and brought me of its flowings, I may surely quench my thirst, and thus afford them the best reward for their zeal in my service. But David argued differently, in a manner that showed more of high prin- ciple, and strong fear of God. He felt that there was a contradiction, in owning an action wrong, and allowing himself to be advantaged by that action. The least which he could do, in proof of his con- sciousness of error, was to refuse to ap- propriate what that error had procured. He must punish himself, by an act of self-denial, for a want of self-command, and show that, if he had been betrayed into expressing a rash wish, he had at least discovered, and repented of, the rashness. And therefore he would not taste the coveted draught, but made it a kind of offering to the Lord, pouring it on the ground, in witness that he had sinned, and that, having sinned, he need- ed an expiatory ablution. It is not the heroism of David, in act- ing thus, which we propose for admira- tion and imitation, though it may be, as we stated in an earlier part of our dis- course, that the monarch, parched with thirst, and yet refusing to touch the wa- ter which sparkled so invitingly before him, would form as fine a picture as hu- man story can give of forbearance and greatness. But it is the genuineness of the repentance of David on which we would insist, the sincerity of his piety as proved by his refusal to derive benefit from his sin. We think that herein is he specially an example to ourselves, and that the cases are far from uncommon, in which there is such similarity of cir- 68 THK WELL OF BETHLEHEM. cumstance, as to render the example most direct ami appropriate. h is not for a moment to be question- ed thai a preaeut advantage is often ihe immediate result of what is wrong, so that, in one way or another, the sin produces what the sinner desires to ob- tain, [f ii were not bo, if the conse- quences of doing wrong were never, nay, if they were not Frequently, profitable to the individual who .iocs tin' wrong thing, we hardly know where, in most instances, temptation won Id ii- where would be the exercise of virtue. In general it is ■ between the present and the fu- ture which we are required to strike : the great task to which we are summoned, is die not allowing ourselves to be over- borne by immediate results, so as to keep more distant out of sight, but the calculating what will be for our profit on the whole, visible things and invisible be- ing alike brought into account. And, of course, whilst such is our condition, or such tiie system of probation beneath which we "live, a sort of temporary re- j ward must often be attainable by the sin- ner : there must be something of advan- tage to be procured through want of principle, and lost through rigid con- scientiousness. Such cases will often oc- cur in the stir and jostle of a mercantile community, where vast interests become so involved, and immense revenues so de- pend on the turn of a single speculation, that the least underhand dealing might at times fill a man's coffers, and almost a dishonest thought transform him from the poor to the wealthy. And we are now concerned with the question, as to what is binding on a man, if, with the advantages, procured by a fault, lying at his disposal, the water from the well of Bethlehem sparkling before him, he become convinced of his fault, aware that he has done wrong, or not acted with the honor and integrity which he was bound to have maintained. Is he to drink of the water, to enjoy the ad- vantages ] Ah, it may be often a hard question: but we do not see how there can be any true penitence, where what has been wrongfully obtained is kept and used, as though it had been the produce of equitable dealing. If a man have grown rich by dishonesty, he ought, we believe, to become poor through repen- tance. We cannot think it enough, if an individual, who has not made his money in the most clean-handed way, and who feels compunction in conse- quence, give large sums in charity, as an atonement, or reparation for his fault. [f he only give what he can conveniently spare, or even if his charities somewhat press on his resources, he certainly does nothing but what, on high christian prin- ciple, he would be bound equally to do, had his property accumulated in the most honorable modes. And it cannot be sufficient to make that use of money un- justly acquired, which a man of strong piety would make of the produce of in- tegrity and industry, and thus, over and above the concealment, of having been dishonest, to acquire the reputation of being benevolent. We should, therefore, be disposed to give the conduct of David as furnish- ing an example for those, who, conscious of a fault, are so situated as to be able to reap advantage from that fault. Let the case be that at which we have just hinted, as not unlikely to occur amid the complicated interests of a great mercantile community. Let us suppose an opportunity, presented to a trader, of making large profits, if he will but deviate, in some trifling particular, from what is strictly and undoubtedly upright. The fault to be committed may hardly be greater than that committed by David, who did nothing but thoughtlessly give utterance to a wish which ought not, to have been entertained, or at least not expressed. It may just depend on the keeping back of some piece of informa- tion which the trade is not compelled to divulge, and which others, if equally on the alert, and equally shrewd, might perhaps have equally obtained, whether a certain article shall fetch a certain price, or be suddenly and greatly de- preciated. The trader does nothing but hold his tongue, as David did nothing but give it too much license, and a large profit in consequence lies at his disposal. But now a feeling is wrought in the trader's mind, that it was not the act of a conscientious and high principled man, to take advantage of the ignorance of others, and thus entangle them in a bar- gain which they would not have made, with his reasons for expecting the sud- den fall iu the market. And as he de- bates what ought to be done with pro- perty so dubiously acquired, his first resolution will probably be to use it THE WELI, OF BETHLEHEM. 69 well and religiously : at least, he will say, it increases my power of benefiting others, and promoting religious objects ; and I may lawfully retain it, intending that it shall be thus employed. But this is, to the very letter, what David would have done, had he resolved to drink the water, arguing that it would refresh and invigorate him, and thus enable him to fight with greater strength the battle of the Lord. But God will have no of- fering on which there is a stain. Mo- ney, soiled by the mode of acquisition, is hardly to be sanctified by the mode of employment. When Zaccheus stood before Christ, and described what he did with his property, he spake of giving half his goods to the poor; but, mark, he did not reckon amongst those goods what he might have acquired through underhand dealing — such portion, if such there were, was not his to retain or distribute at pleasure : " If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusa- tion I restore him fourfold." There was an accurate distinction made by this publican, now that he had been brought to a correct state of mind, between resti- tution and almsgiving : he would give alms of that only which had been honor- ably obtained ; the rest he returned, with large interest, to those from whom it }iad been unfairly procured. And though it might be impossible for the trader, in the case just suppos- ed, to make restitution precisely to the parties who have been injured through his successful speculations, we do not see how, with his conscience accusing him of having done wrong, he can law- fully appropriate any share of the pro- fits, any more than David might have lawfully drunk of the water procured at his ill-advised wish. It may not be possible to make restitution : for so in- terwoven are various interests, and so 7iiany are the contrivances for shifting off losses from ourselves, and making them fall upon others, that it is often hard to say where the pressure really rests ; and it is among the most melan- choly of facts, that the rich speculator who seems only to sweep up the gains of men of large means like himself, would often be found, if you could trace the effects of his speculations through their multifold spreadings, to have com- passed unwittingly the ruin of a hundred petty dealers, and wrung away the scanty pittance of orphans and widows. But if there may not be restitution, because the exact objects injured are not to be ascertained, we do not, nevertheless, un- derstand why there should be appro- priation. The king of Israel held the helmet in his hands, and looked upon the water as it sparkled in that war-cup. Was he tempted by the freshness and clearness of the converted draught, now that he felt how wrong he had been in breathing the wish 1 Oh, no ! it looked to him like blood ; it came not from the well of Bethlehem, but from the veins of his soldiers : shall he drink, so to speak, of the very life of another 1 he shrinks from the thought and will do nothing with the water but pour it out to God. And the trader stands, with the pro- fits of his scarcely honorable speculation glittering before him. Shall he invest them for his own use 1 shall he take possession of them for himself and his family 1 Oh, they may have been coined out of the losses, the distresses, the suf- ferings of numerous households ; they may as well seem to him dimmed with tears, as the water seemed to David polluted with blood ; and we would have him, if his repentance be sincere, and he desire to prove that sincerity, imitate the monarch in refusing to appropriate the least portion, in pouring out the whole as an offering to the Lord; and in exclaiming, when tempted to profit by the sin for which he professes to be sorry, " Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this." Now we have thus endeavored to give a practical character to a narrative of scripture, which it is easy to read without supposing it to convey any per- sonal lessons. Probably some of you, on the announcement of our subject, ex- pected us to treat it as a typical history : for the mention of the well of Bethlehem, and the longing for its water, might im- mediately suggest that Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judah, and that he of- fers to each of us, what, in his own words, " shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." But it may be doubtful whether we have, in this instance, sufficient authority for re- garding the registered occurrences as symbolical ; at all events, we should ne- ver spiritualize any narrative of facts, till the facts have been carefully examined as facts, and the lessons extracted which 70 THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM. their record may have been designed to convey. But whilst we should hesitate to found any doctrinal statement on the narrative before us, considered as typi- cal, we know not why. having strictly confined ourselves to the plainest and most practical view of the passage, vve may not now, in conclusion, survey the occurrences with an eye that looks for Christ and the Gospel, in the persons and events of earlier dispensations. There may he truth in the supposition, which some have advanced, that David had only a spiritual meaning in the wish to which he gave utterance. It is possi- !,:,■: and, if so, the whole transaction may have had that significative character winch belongs to much of the history of early days, and which turned occur- ences into parables, through which God instructed his faithful servants. David, partially informed as to the scheme of redemption, and knowing that he him- self was, in many points, set to prefigure the Messiah, must often have longed for fuller disclosures, and striven to give shape and consistency to dim, mysteri- ous images, which passed to and fro in iiis visions as a prophet. He would as- sociate Bethlehem, his own birth-place, with the birth-place of the Deliverer of whom he was a type ; and look natural- ly oil the trees and waters of that village, as obtaining a holy, a symbolical char- acter from the illustrious Being who would arise there in "the fulness of time." It might then have been a wish for great- er knowledge of redemption, which was uppermost in the monarch's mind, when he longed for water from the well of Bethlehem. How natural, that, harass- ed as he was with temporal troubles, he should desire spiritual consolations, and that he should pray for the refreshments which were eventually to gush forth, as he well knew, from Bethlehem. And may then; not have been con- veyed to him, throng!] what then took place, intimations in regard of the de- liverance of tlu? world ! Certainly, it were not difficult to give a parabolic character to the occurrences, and to imagine them ordered with a view to David's instruction. If water is to be fetched from the well of Bethlehem, it must be with the discomfiture of a vast host of foes : three unite in the purpose, and overbear all opponents. And if " living water " is to be brought to those who lie parched on the moral desert of the earth, indeed it can only be with the defeat of mightier than the Philistines : principality and power withstand the endeavor : who shall prevail in so great an enterprise 1 ? Three must combine: it is not a work for any one person, even though divine ; but three shall unite, to strike down the adversaries, and bring the draught of life to the perishing: and if the cup come apparently in the hand of but one of the three, the other two shall have been equally instrumental in procuring the blessing. Thus far there is so much analogy as would seem to make it not impro- bable, that the transaction was design- ed to be significative or symbolical. But does the analogy end here ] We would not carry it too far ; and yet we can believe that a still deeper lesson was opened up to David. Did he long for water from the well of Bethlehem ] did he think that it was only water, something merely to refresh the parch- ed lip of the pilgrim, which was to flow from the Surety of a world that iniqui- ty had ruined 1 It may have been so : it may have been that he was yet but imperfectly taught in the mysterious truths of propitiation and redemption. What then 1 he receives what he had longed for, what had been drawn from the well of Bethlehem ; but it seems to him not water, it seems to him blood, the blood of one of those who had braved so much for his refreshment. May he not have learned something from this as to the nature of the interposition which the Redeemer would make 1 May he not have gathered that the fountain to be opened, for the cleansing and refresh- ing of the world, would be a fountain of blood 1 " My blood is drink indeed " — these words, uttered years after by f$e Re- deemer himself, may have been virtually syllabled to the Psalmist, through his being forced to regard as blood the water from the well of Bethlehem, that well to which he looked as typifying, in some way, the person or office of Christ. And then there is a high solemnity in his pnui - - ing out the water unto the Lord. It was the blood of the costliest sacrifice, and must all be presented as an expiatory offering. We know not whether David were thus THE THIRST OF CHRIST. 71 instructed or not ; whether the transac- tion were designed to be significative, nor whether, if it were, the symbols were explained. But certainly the occur- ; rences are such as might be woven into ] a kind of parable of redemption ; and it is always pleasing to find figures and shadows which correspond to Christian truths, even where we have no express warrant for asserting the resemblance. Blessed be God, we need not long in vain for water from the well of Bethle- hem. The host of the mighty have been broken through ; a stronger than the strong has unlocked for us the Sowings of the river of life : but oh, if we would take of the stream, and live for ever, we must acknowledge it as the blood of Him who went on our behalf against "principalities and powers," and who finding the springs of human happiness dried, filled them from his own veins, and they gushed with immortality. SERMON VIII THE THIRST OF CHRIST. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, flaith, I thirst." — John, xix. 28. If an impostor were to arise, desirous of passing himself off as some personage whom prophets had foretold, he would naturally take the recorded predictions, and endeavor to make the facts of his history agree with their announcements. It would evidently be useless for him to pretend to the being the predicted in- dividual, unless he could point out at least an apparent correspondence be- tween what he was, and what lie did, and the character and conduct which prophecy had delineated. There would, of course, be an immediate reference to the ancient writings, an immediate com- parison of their foretellings with what was now given as their accomplishment; and if the two did not agree, the pre- tender would be instantly scouted, and no one could for a moment be deceived by his pretensions. Hence the great endeavor of the sup- posed impostor would certainly be to extract from prophecy a full account of the actions and fortunes of the individual for whom he wished to be taken, and then, as nearly as possible, to make those actions and fortunes his own. Suppose, for example, that an impostor had desired to pass himself off as the Messiah, the deliverer and ruler, so long and anxiously expected by the Jews. He would ne- cessarily have been aware that the na- tional expectation rested on certain an- cient prophecies, and that all which could be known beforehand of the Christ was contained in certain books received as inspired. It is not, therefore, to be imagined that he would fail to be a stu- dent of prophecy, or to take its descrip- i tions as sketches in which he must ex- hibit delineations of himself. But, sup- posing him to have done this, could he have made much way in establishing a correspondence between himself and the subject of prophecy? It is easy, I undoubtedly, to find, or fancy predictions j of which a man might contrive an appa- j rent fulfilment in respect of himself. | They might be predictions of certain 72 THE THIRST OF CHRIST. things that should be done, and these, or very similar, the man might be able to perform. They rofghl be predictions of certain things that should be suffered ; and these, or very similar, the man might endure. But could the individual, whom we liave supposed setting up for the Messiah, have managed to effect a con- formity between his actions and suffer- ings', and those predicted of our Lord ' It is allowed on all bands, thai the his- tory of Christ, as related in the Gospels, corresponds, with great accuracy, to what prophets bad foretold of the Mes- siah. But is the correspondence such as an ingenious impostor, having the prophecies in his hands, and studying to produce their apparent accomplishment, could have possibly effected " This is a question well worth the being asked, though the answer is so easy that you may all give it for yourselves. There are a few respects in which an impostor might have contrived the ful- filment of prophecy. But most of the predictions referring to Christ are of things over which the individual could have no control : predictions, for exam- ple, as to the place and circumstances of his birth, as to the treatment which he Bhould meet with, and the death which he should die. They are predictions which were not to be fulfilled by the actions of the parly himself, but by the actions of others; and we need not say how little power the individual could have of making others so act as seemingly to accomplish prophecy, however bent be might be on the apparently fulfilling it himself. And it ought to be further observed, thai if an impostor had endea- vored, in the time of our Lord, to pass himself off* as the predicted [Messiah, and, accordingly, had attempted to effect a correspondence between his own his- tory and prophecy, he would never have made himself "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He would have taken the national expectation as the just interpretation of prophecy, and never have thought of making good his pretensions by affecting a resemblance between himself and delineations which those around him either denied or dis- liked. His pattern would unquestion- ably have been the Messiah, not as de- scribed by seers of old, but rather as described in the popular explanations of their visions : and we need not tell you that such a Messiah was not presented in the person of our Lord and Master Christ. Thus there is nothing easier than the showing that the correspondence which may be traced between Jesus of Naza- reth, and a mysterious personage of whom ancient prophecy makes frequent mention, is such as could not have been produced by any impostor, however art- ful or powerful. Even had prophecy been far clearer and more explicit than it was ; had it not required, in many particulars which now seem quite plain, the being accomplished in ordet to the being thoroughly understood ; we may fearlessly declare that no pretender, taking it as his guide, and laboring to make his life its illustration, could have succeeded in effecting, even in appear- ance, the thousandth part of those nu- merous, striking, and frequently minute fulfilments which are to be traced in the actions and endurances of Him whom we honor as the King of Israel, the Anointed of God. But why have we gone into these re- marks on a point which, perhaps, may never have occurred to any of our hear- ers 1 for, probably, none of you ever en- tertained a suspicion that Christ might have contrived those fulfilments of pro- phecy on which so much stress is laid. Our reason is easily given. We have in our text the record of a thing done by Christ, with the view, or for the purpose, of accomplishing an ancient prediction. The course pursued is precisely that which, according to our foregoing state- ments, an impostor might have been ex- pected to take. The party claiming to be the Messiah remembers a certain pro- phecy which has not yet been fulfilled, and forthwith sets himself to procure its fulfilment. It is, you see, expressly stated that Jesus said, " I thirst," in order that be might bring round the accomplish- ment of a passage of Scripture. And bad this been the solitary instance in which prophecy found itself fulfilled in the history of Jesus, or had other fulfil- ments been of the same kind, such, that is, as might possibly have been contrived or planned, we admit that the argument from prophecy would have been of little worth in establishing the Messiabsbip of our Lord. But we have already suffi- ciently shown you that no such explana- tion can be given of the correspondences THE THIRST OF CHRIST. 73 between history and prophecy in the case of the Redeemer ; forasmuch as many of them were such as it was not in the power of any pretender to have produced, and many more would have been avoided, rather than attempted, by the shrewdest deceiver. And this having been deter- mined, we may allow that Christ occa- sionally acted with the express design of fulfilling predictions which had reference to himself; that he shaped his conduct, and ordered his sayings, with a view to agreement with what prophets had fore- told. We may admit this, without any misgivings that we perhaps weaken the argument from prophecy, seeing that, whilst what we admit is of very rare oc- currence, it cannot bring suspicion upon evidence derived from the general char- acter of predictions, and their accomplish- ment. And it is worth your observing that, even in the case before us, though un- questionably Christ complained of thirst for the purpose of fulfiling a prophecy, it was not in man's power to insure the fulfilment. His mere complaining of the thirst accomplished no prediction. The prediction, as we shall presently see, re- quired that when the Messiah was thirsty there should be given him vinegar to drink. Had our Lord asked for vinegar, and had vinegar been brought him, there might have been some ground for saying that he actually made the accomplish- ment of a prophecy. But when he only complained of thirst, and when, in an- swer to his complaint, not merely was a sponge put to his mouth, but a sponge full of vinegar, you may see that there were circumstances, and contingencies, which could hardly have been provided for, except by divine foresight ; so that, although indeed Christ made his com- plaint, "that the Scripture might be ful- filled," there is little probability that the Scripture would have been fulfilled had he not been in truth the Son of the living God. You may say that Christ saw •'the vessel full of vinegar," and that he might fairly have calculated that a com- plaint of thirst would be met by the offer of vinegar. But, at least, he could not have arranged that the vinegar should be the nearest drink at hand, even if it were at hand ; for " one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vine- gar; " and thus, put the case how you will, the accomplishment of the prophe- Vol. II. cy hardly came within human contriv- ance. Or you may say, that, as vinegar was commonly used by the Roman sol- diers, the almost certainty was that vin- egar would be offered : but it appears that only one person was willing to at- tend to Christ's complaint, " the rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him." How far, then, was the accomplishment from having been necessarily in the power of a de- ceiver ! We may, however, consider that enough has now been said on an objec- tion which might be raised against a ful- filment of prophecy, because there was an evident acting with a view to that ful- filment. We would pass to more inter- esting statements, which maybe ground- ed on the very simple, but affecting inci- dent, which is recorded in our text. We hardly know whether, in the whole nar- rative of the Mediator's sufferings, there is averse so full of material for profitable meditation. We shall not attempt to parcel out this material under any set divisions, but rather leave ourselves free to follow such trains of thought as may successively present themselves. We shall only assign it, as the general ob- ject of the remainder of our discourse, to examine the truths and inferences de- rivable from the facts, that, just before he expired, Christ exclaimed, " I thirst," and that he uttered the exclamation in order "that the Scripture might be ful- filled." Now we think it well deserving your notice, that it should have been for the sake of accomplishing prophecy, and not that of assuaging his pains, that our Lord, in his last moments, complained of thirst. It seems implied in the concise statement of the Evangelist, that, had he not re- membered a prediction which was yet un- fulfilled, Christ would have been silent, though he might have used of himself the touching words of the Psalmist, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws." In- tolerable must have been his thirst as he hung between heaven and earth ; yet he would never, as it seems, have mentioned that thirst, nor asked a single drop of mois- ture, had he not thought it necessary to the complete proof of his mission. You know that this is the solitary exclamation which he uttered expressive of bodily suffering. He is not reported to have 10 74 THE THIRST OP CHRIST. said any thing when the crown of thorns . was fastened round his forehead. There is DO recorded cry, or groan, when the nails were driven into his hands and feet, or when the CTOSS was set upright, though the pain must have been acute, almost beyond thought He endured all this, not only without a murmur, but without even a manifestation, or indication, of his agony; so that never was there the matfyr who bore with greater fortitude the torments of a lingering and excruciat- ing death. Hia other sufferings, however, scarcely admitted of alleviation ; there was no- thing to be done but submit, and wait patiently for death. Though even in re- gard of these he seems to have declined the ordinary modes of mitigation, for he refused the " wine mingled with myrrh," which was tendered him just before his crucifixion, and which, by partially stu- pifying the victim, might have diminish- ed the torture. He had a great work to perform on the cross, and he would not deaden his faculties ere he ascended that terrible altar. But thirst might have'been relieved — —thirst, which must have been one of the most distressing consequences of crucifixion — and it would have been natural that he should have asked of the bystanders a few drops of water. And he did mention his thirst, but not for the sake of moistening the parched tongue and throat — only to afford occasion for another proof of his being the Messiah. It is as though he had no thought to give to his sufferings, but, even in the moment of terrible extremity, were in- tent upon nothing but the great work which he had undertaken for men. We may even venture to think that not only was it not for the sake of mitigating his sufferings that he complained of thirst ; but that it was an increase of those suf- ferings to have to make the complaint. The multitude, which stood round, were disposed to treat him with derision ; they were watching him, maliciously and scornfully, that they might triumph in his anguish. You may judge how eager they were to show contempt and hatred of the sufferer, from what we have already referred to, as having occurred on his utterance of the piteous cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou for- saken me ? " The insulting shout im- mediately arose, " This man calleth for Elias " — so ready were they to make him the subject of ridicule, and so on the watch for proof that they had suc- ceeded in driving the iron into his soul. But hitherto be had, as it were, al- most baffled and disappointed them : he had betrayed little or no emotion ; but, by his apparent superiority to bodily torture, had denied them all occasion fox- fierce exultation. And it quite consists with what we know of the innocent but sensitive sufferer, that we should suppose it a new trial to him to have to confess what be felt, and thus to expose himself to the revilings of his inveterate ene- mies. There had been hitherto such a majesty in his anguish, such an awful and dignified defiance of torture, as must almost have made the executioner crouch before the victim. And now must he, as it were, yield 1 Must he, by an ac- knowledgment of suffering, gratify a savage crowd, and pierce the few fond and faithful hearts which were to be found at the foot of the cross 1 His mother was within hearing ; at her side was the disciple whom he loved ; they were already wounded to the quick — shall he lacerate them yet more by speaking of his wretchedness ? But the Scripture must be fulfilled. There was yet a particular in which prophecy had to be accomplished ; and every other feeling gave way to that of the necessity of completing the proof of his being the Messiah. It was the last, and one of the most touching, of the evidences of his love. It was only his love for us which made him speak of his thirst. He would not leave the smallest room for doubt that he was in- deed the promised Redeemer : he loved us too well not to provide against every possible suspicion ; and therefore, though he would never have complained for the sake of obtaining any assuagement of the pain ; though he would have desired to avoid complaining, that he might not provoke fresh insult from the multitude ; though he would have kept silence, if only that he might not add to the grief of the few who tenderly loved him ; yet, rather than allow the least particle to be wanting in the evidence whereby we might know him as the Christ, he gave all but his last words to an expression of distress. Oh, we know of nothing which more shows the ardency of the Savior's love THE THIRST OP CHRIST. 75 for the church, than this confession of thirst just before he expired. We look on him with admiration, as he stands unmoved before Pilate, and returns no answer to the vehement accusations poured forth by his countrymen. " He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter ; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." We behold him scourged, and buffeted, and crowned with thorns, and nailed to the accursed tree — and we are amazed, yea, confounded, by his patience ; for not the least cry is wrung from him in his anguish. Is it that he does not feel acutely 1 Is it that his humanity is not &ensitive to pain ? Ah, not so. He is, all the while, tortured by an excrucia- ting thirst, which is at once the evidence and the accompaniment of racking pangs. But he has to set an example of endur- ance ; he is moreover occupied with thoughts and hopes of the world's deliv- erance ; and, therefore, by a mighty ef- fort, he keeps down the struggling sor- row, and restrains every token of agony. This, then, is in love to us ; his silence is in love to us. But it might have ac- corded best with the feelings of so lofty a Being, thus to baffle his adversaries, by refusing to let them see him writhe beneath their merciless inflictions — does he love us so well that he will even yield to those adversaries, and confess himself vanquished, if it might be for our good? Yea, even this he will do; for remembering, as he hangs upon the cross, a prediction which has yet to be fulfilled, he forgets all in his desire to provide for our conviction, and breaks into the cry, " I thirst," in order only that the Scripture might be accom- plished. But we have stated that the predic- tion, which our Lord had in mind, was not one of great prominence, not one perhaps whose fulfilment would appear to us of much moment. We may sup- pose it to have been to words in the sixty-ninth Psalm that Christ mentally referred : " They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." There is no other express prophecy whose accomplish- ment he can be thought to have con- templated; and we may venture to say, that, if this had not been literally ful- filled in respect of our Lord, we should hardly have urged it as an objection against his pretensions. Accustomed to regard the Psalms as spoken primarily in the person of David, we do not ex- pect, even when they are undoubtedly prophetic, to find every line verified in the history of that Messiah of whom David was the type. We experience no surprise, if, in a Psalm, the quota- tions from which in the New Testament prove that it speaks of the Christ, we meet with verses which we cannot dis- tinctly show to be applicable to our Lord. Suppose then that Christ had died without complaining of thirst, and without receiving the vinegar — we should perhaps scarcely have said that there was a prediction which had never been accomplished. We should either have supposed that the verse in question be- longed in some way to David, or we should have given it, as we easily might, a figurative sense, and then have sought its fulfilment in the indignities and cruel- ties of which Christ was the subject. And this shows you what a very mi- nute particular it was in the predictions of himself, which caused our Lord to break silence, and utter an expression of suffering. It was a particular which we should probably have overlooked or of which, at least, we should never have reckoned the literal accomplish- ment indispensable to the completeness of the prophetic evidence for Christ. Yet, so anxious, so determined was the Redeemer to leave us no possible ex- cuse for rejecting him as the anointed of God, that, not satisfied with having fulfilled all but this inconsiderable par- ticular, and though to fulfil it must cost him, as we have shown you, a very pain- ful effort, he would not breathe out his soul till he had tasted the vinegar. This was indeed a manifestation of his love : but there are other truths, besides that of the Savior's solicitude for our good, to be drawn from his determination tha«- the least prophecy should not go unac- complished. You will observe that it is affirmed in the text, that Jesus knew that all things were now accomplished ; and that, knowing this, he proceeded to speak of his thirst, with a view to the fulfilment of yet one more prediction. Of course there were many things which had not been accomplished, many whose accomplishment was still necessarily future, having respect to the burial, re- 76 THE THIRST OP CHRIST. surrection, ascension, and triumph of Christ. Bui Jesus knewthal every thing was accomplished, which had to be ac- complished before his actual death, ex- cept the receiving the vinegar. He knew thai there remained nothing but thai the words, "In my thirst they gave rue vinegar to drink," should be fulfilled in his person, and he mighl resign his bouI into the hands of the Father, con- vinced thai every prophecy which bore reference to the life or death of the Mes- siah, had received its completion, and would be a witness for him to all after ages. You must admil that the text re- presents .lesus ;is knowing that there was but on,- word of prophecy which had not yet been accomplished, and that, too, a prophecy of so inconsiderable ;i particu- lar, that we should scarcely have detected the want, had our Lord died without bringing it to pass. Thi> is ;i most surprising testimony to the completion of prophecy : it is a bold challenge to the infidel who would dispute the claims of Him who hung upon the cross. By taking an apparent- ly unimportant prediction, and dealing with it as the only prediction, whether in type or in word, which had not yet been fulfilled, Jesus may be said to have staked his Messiahship on every single prophecy — " Find one, a solitary one, which 1 have not accomplished, and I resign all pretension to the being God's Son." And when you come to think of the multitude of predictions which have respect to the life and death of the Mes- siah, and of the almost countless mysti- cal rites which, equally with the visions of seers, shadowed tin' " One Mediator between (rod and man," you can hardly fail to be amazed at the assertion, that Jesus knew that " all things were now accomplished." Yet, believing him to have beer, divine, we know him to have been omniscient; and, therefore, we are emboldened so to state the argument from prophecy, as to be ready to give up all, if you can find a single Haw. The writings of " holy men of old " teem with notices of that Being whom God had promised to send in " the ful- nesE of time." Some of these notices relate to important, others to apparently trivial particulars. The line of which lie was to spring, the power by which he should be conceived, the place in which he should be born, the dangers which should threaten his childhood, the miracles which he should work in his manhood, the treatment which he should receive, the malice of his enemies, the desertion of his friends, the price at which he should be sold, the dividing of his garments, the death which he should die — all these are stated with the preci- sion and minuteness of history; as though prophets had been biographers, and, not content with general outlines, had been instructed to furnish records of daily actions and occurrences. And over and above predictions so compre- hensive yet so abounding in detail, there are figurative rites which all had respect to the same illustrious person ; a thou- sand types foreshow his office, a thou- sand emblems represent his deeds and his sufferings. And we are not satisfied with saying, that, in every striking and prominent particular, a correspondence may be traced between the Christ whose his- tory we have in the Gospels, and the Christ whom we find in the strains of prophets, and the institutions of the law. We do not ask you to admit that it must have been of Jesus of Nazareth that the Old Testament spake, and that the temple services were full, because there are certain main features of that person in the description of inspired writers, and the shadows of ceremonial observ- ances. Our position is, that there is not a single line of prophecy, which can be shown to refer to the life and death of the Messiah, which was not accomplished in Jesus ; not a single type in the law to which he was not an antitype. You are at liberty to take any prediction, you are at liberty to lake any shadow ; and we are ready to rest the cause of Christi- anity on that prediction's having been fulfilled in Jesus, or on his having been the substance of that shadow. Neither is this the challenge of a rash and boast- ful theology. This is the criterion which the Founder of our religion himself may be said to have appointed, and that, too, at the very moment when he was finish- ing our redemption. And we know not how to convey to you our idea of the wonderfulness of the fact, that Christ could feel, after he had hung for hours upon the cross, that, if a few drops of vinegar were given him by a by-stander, every jot and tittle would be accom- plished of all that had been foretold of TITE THIRST OP CHRIST. 77 the Messiah, up to the time of his death, from the first prophecy to Adam to the iast words of Malachi. But it is unques- tionable, from our text, that such was his feeling ; upon this feeling we may safely ground the challenge: rather, we may consider it as the challenge of the Redeemer himself to the unbelieving of every generation. It seems to us as though the Savior, whilst suspended between earth and heaven, had summoned before him every prophet and seer whom God had raised up in successive ages of the world, and had required each, as he passed in review, to give in his claims on the pre- dicted Messiah. No marvel that he almost forgot his intense sufferings whilst engaged in so sublime and momentous an inquiry, whilst communing with patri- archs and priests, and the long train of heralds who had seen his day afar off, and kept expectation alive amongst men. And Abraham recounts to him all the particulars of the sacrifice of his son : Jacob reminds him of the departure of the sceptre from Judah : Moses speaks of the resemblance which must be borne to himself: Aaron, in his sacerdotal vestments, crowds the scene with mystic figures. Then arise the later prophets. They speak of his virgin mother ; of his divine parentage, and yet of his descent from David. Isaiah produces his numerous, and almost his- toric, delineations : Daniel reckons up his seventy weeks : Micah fixes the na- tivity to Bethlehem Ephratah : Zechariah weighs the thirty pieces of silver, and introduces her king to Jerusalem, "rid- ing upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass :" Malachi revives Elias, and sends him as a messenger to " prepare the way of the Lord." And David, as though his harp had been fresh strung, pours forth again his touching melodies, repeating the piteous complaints which, mingled at times with notes of triumph, he had been instructed to utter in his typical character. But one after another of these ancient worthies passes from before the Media- tor, leaving him assured that there is not the line in his prophetic scroll which has not been accomplished. And that Me- diator is just about to commend his soul into the hands of the Father, satisfied of there being no defect in the evidence from prophecy, when one saying of the royal Psalmist strikes him as not yet literally verified, and he defers death a moment longer, that this too, though seemingly of little moment, may hold good of himself. Yes, champions of infidelity, disprove it if you can, and if you cannot, explain, if you can, on your own principles, how the almost countless lines of prophecy came to meet in one person, and that one Jesus whom you refuse to adore. Yes, followers of the Savior, search deeply into the fact, and after searching, fail, if you can, to tri- umph in the having as your leader one who fulfilled to the letter, in the short space of a life, whatsoever voices and visions from on high had assigned, through many centuries, to the seed of the woman. True it is, gloriously, in- contestibly true, that Jesus had only, just before he died, to exclaim, "I thirst," and to receive, in answer to his com- plaint, a few drops of vinegar on a sponge, and he could then breathe out his spirit, amid the confessions of patri- archs, and prophets, and priests, and kings, each testifying, with a voice of wonder and of worship, that " all things," without a solitary exception, that " all things were now accomplished." But our text throws light on another doctrine, or fact which, if often presented to your attention, is of so great impor- tance as to deserve the being frequently stated. We are now about to refer to the power which Christ had over his life, a power which caused his death to differ altogether from that of an ordinary man. We wish you to observe the sur- prising composedness which is indicated by the words on which we now dis- course. They seem to represent Christ, according to our foreging statement, as actually examining all the records of prophecy, that he might determine whether there yet remained any thing to be done before the soul could be dis- missed from the body. They give us the idea of a being who, in full posses- sion of every faculty, is engaged in in- vestigating ancient documents, rather than of one who, exhausted by protracted sufferings, is on the point of dissolution. How wonderful that the recollection should be so clear ! that the almost ex- piring man should be able, amid the throes of death, to fix on a single, incon- siderable prediction, to decide that there was no other, out of an immense assem- 7S THE THIRST OF CHRIST. blage, which had yet to be accomplished, ami to take measures for its being ac- complished before he breathed his last! What collectedness, what superiority to Buffering, yea, what command over death ! For it is evident — and this is the most remarkable thing— that Jesus deter- mined that lie would live until the pre- diction were fulfilled, and that he would die so soon as it weri'. The Evangelist tells us. •• When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished ; ami he bowed his head and gave up the ghost." Tie waited till the vinegar hail been given him, till, that is, the only unaccomplished prophecy had been accomplished, and then imme- diately, as though it were quite optional with him at what moment he would die, '• nave up the "host." This is amazing; this is unlike death, though it was actually the separation of body and soul; for where is the necessity of nature? where the ebbing away of strength] where the gradual wearing out of the principle of life I Christ evidently died just when he chose to die, and only be- cause he chose to die : he had the spirit in his own keeping, and could retain or dismiss it as he pleased. You find that Pilate and others wondered at finding him so soon dead ; he died sooner than a crucified person could have been ex- pecled to die; and herein too he had reference to prophecy, for had he lin- gered the ordinary or natural period, his legs would have been broken, as were those of the malefactors executed witli him. whereas there was a typical prediction, in the paschal lamb, that not a bone of him should he broken. So that, with Christ, to die was strictly a voluntary act — " 1 lay down my life: no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" — it was an act of which he could fix the precise moment, which he could hasten or delay at. his own pl< asure, which no pain, no disease, no decay could effect, but which was wrought, altogether and at once, by his will. Death was not with him what it will be with one; of us. We -hall die through necessity, with no power over the soul, whether of retain- in:: or dismissing; exhausted by sick- ness, or broken up by accident, unable to make the pulse beat one more or one less than shall be ordained by a Being who is immeasurably beyond our control. But what resemblance is there between this and the death of Jesus Christ on the cross 1 Though dying what would be ordinarily a lingering death, — dying, to use a common expression, by inches, and therefore certain to be, at the least, exhausted and spent — we find him, in the few moments preceding dissolution, with every power in full play, the mind all in action for the accomplishing his mission, and keeping, as it were, the vital principle under its orders, ready to be suspended so soon as prophecies were fulfilled. Call ye this death ] Yes, men and brethren, this was really death : he who hung upon the cross died as actually as any one of us will die ; for death is the separation of the soul from the body ; and the soul of Christ went into the separate state, whilst his body was con- signed to the grave. But call ye this the death of a mere man 1 can ye ac- count for the peculiarities of Christ's death, except by supposing him the Lord of life and glory 'I Martyrs, ye died bravely, and beautifully ; but ye died not thus. Saints of God, ye went wondrously through the last struggle ; but ye went not thus. Oh, it is a noble thing, that we can go to the scene of cruci- fixion, and there, in spite of all the igno- miny and suffering, discover in the dying man the incarnate God. The Jew and the Greek may taunt us with the shame of the cross ; we glory irr that cross : at no moment of his course has the Deity shone more brightly through the human- ity of the Mediator : not when his voice was heard in the grave, and the buried returned to the living, did he more con- spicuously show divine power over death, than in the releasing, when he would, his own soul from the body. Come with us and gaze on this mysterious person dying, "the just for the unjust." Seems he to you to be dying as an or- dinary man 1 Can ye find no difference between him aud those crucified, the one on his right hand, and the other on his left 1 Nay, in them you have all the evidence that life is being drained out drop by drop, and that they are sinking beneath a process of painful exhaustion. But in him there are no tokens of the being overmastered, enfeebled, or worn down. In that mangled and bleeding THE THIRST OF CHRIST. 79 body, there seems, to all appearance, as much animation as though there had not been going on, for hours, an assault on the citadel of life. Let us watch his last moments, let us observe his last act. But those moments are over, whilst we thought them yet distant; he has sud- denly expired, though an instant ago there was no sign of death. How is this I how, but that he has indeed proved the truth of his assertion, " No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself! " an assertion which could be true of no one who had not an actual lordship over life, who was not in fact, his own source of life, who was not in fact the Author of life. He has retained his spirit whilst he chose; he has dis- missed that spirit when he would ; and thus, though in the form of a creature, he has exercised the prerogative of the Creator. The cross, then, with all its shame, the act of dissolution, with all its fearful- ness, bears as strong attestation to the essential Deity of Christ, as the most amazing miracle performed, or the fullest prophecy accomplished. And we bow before a Being, as more than human, as nothing less than divine, who died by his own act, though nailed to a cross ; by an effort of his own will, though beneath the hands of fierce executioners ; we hail him, even in the midst of igno- miny, as " the image of the invisible God," seeing that he could forbid the departure of the soul whilst there re- mained a prediction unfufilled, and com- mand it into paradise the moment that he saw that all things were accomplished. Now they have not, we think, been either uninterestingor unimportant truths which we have thus derived from tlu3 fact that Christ complained of thirst on the cross, on purpose "that the Scripture might be fulfilled." But we have yet to fix your thoughts more particularly on Christ as an example, exhorting you to observe how engrossed he was with the work of redemption, how intent up to the last moment of life, on performing the will of the Father who sent him. You must not think that, because Jesus had such power over his own life as we have just now described — a power which made him inaccessible to death, except so far as he chose to give death per- mission — he did not suffer acutely as he hung upon the cross. It is true that crucifixion never could have killed him, and that he did not die of the torture and exhaustion thereby produced ; but nevertheless it is, on this very account, true, that his sufferings must have vastly exceeded those of the malefactors cru- cified with him. So far as the natural effects of crucifixion were concerned, he was not necessarily nearer dying when he died than when first fastened to the tree. But what does this prove, except that, retaining from first to last all his sensibilities, he must, from first to last, have endured the same exquisite tor- ments 1 whereas, had he been dying, just as the thieves on either side of him were, he would gradually have become faint through loss of blood and excess of pain, and thus have been less and less sensitive to the pangs of dissolution. Thus, in keeping the vital principle in undiminished vigor up to the moment of the departure of the soul, Christ did I but keep undiminished the inconceivable anguish of being nailed to the cross ; crucifixion, as it were, was momentarily repeated, and the agony of each instant was the agony of the first. Yet even to this did the Mediator willingly submit : for had he allowed himself the relief of exhaustion, his faculties would have been numbed, and he had full need of these, that he might finish in death what he had been engaged on in life. What an example did he thus set us, that we decline every indulgence which might possibly incapacitate us for doing God's work and submit cheerfully to every in- convenience which may attend its per- formance ! Oh, never were the Re- deemer's love, and zeal, and patience so conspicuous as throughout those dark hours when he hung upon the tree. He might have died at once ; and we dare not say that even then our re- demption would not have been complete. There would have been equally the shedding of precious blood, and equally perhaps the expiatory offering, had he sent his soul into the separate state the instant that his body had been nailed to the cross. But he would tarry in tribu- lation, that he might survey his vast un- dertaking, gather up the fragments, an- ticipate every possible objection, and be- queath the material of conviction to all who were not obstinately bent on in- fidelity. What hearts must ours be, that we can so THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORD S PRAYER. look so coldly on the Bufferer — Buffering "for us men and for our salvation!'' His last thoughts, as his earliest had been, were on our deliverance, on our welfare Even the words which he uttered, "that the Scripture might be fulfilled," were as expressive of his mental as of his bodily feeling. Indeed be did thirst: "the zeal of thuie house hath consumed me:" lie was parched with longing tin - the glory of Hod and the safety of man. " 1 thirst :" I thirst to see of the travail of my soul : I thirst for the effects of my anguish, the dis- comfiture of Satan, the vindication of my Father, the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Shall our last end be, in any measure, like this ! Would that it might ! Would that, when we come to die, we may thirst with the thirst of the Redeemer's soul ! " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." " My soul thirsteth for thee," is an exclamation of the Psalmist, when declaring the ardency of his long- ings after God. And our Savior en- dured thirst, that our thirst might be quenched. His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth — " my heart," saith he, " in the midst of my body, is even like melting wax " — that we, inhabitants naturally of " a dry and barren land," might, have access to the river of life, which, clear as ci-ystal, pours itself through the paradise of God. Who does not thirst for these waters 1 Ah, brethren, there is nothing required but that every one of us should be able, with perfect truth, to declare, " I thirst," and the Scripture shall be fulfilled in that man's drawing water out of the wells of salvation. For the invitations of the Bible presuppose nothing but a sense of want, and a wish for relief. " Ho ! every one that thirsteth " — there is the summons, there the description. Oh, that we may now thirst with a thirst for pardon, a thirst for reconciliation, a thirst for holiness. Then, when we come to die, we shall thirst for the joys of immortality — for the pleasures which are at God's right hand : we shall thirst, even as Christ did, that the Scripture may be fulfilled : and the Scripture shall be fulfilled : for, bowing the head and giving up the ghost, we shall be in his presence with whom is "the fountain of life ;" and every promise that has cheered us here, shall be turned into performance to delight us for ever. SERMON IX THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORD'S PRAYER. And it came to pass, that, as he Lord, teacl a certain place, wlien he ceased, one of his disciple ; John also tuuirlit his disciples. — Luke XI. 1. There wore two occasions on which our blessed Savior delivered that form of prayer which is known by his name. The first was in the sermon on the mount, about the time of Pentecost ; the second was in answer to the request made him in the text, about the Feast of Tabernacles, many months afterwards. You are not to confound the two occa- sions, as though the Evangelists St. Matthew and St. Luke had but given different accounts of one and the same THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORDS PRAYER. 81 delivery. The occasions were wholly dissimilar, separated by a considerable interval of time : on the one, Christ gave the prayer of himself, with nothing to lead to it but his own wish to instruct; whereas, on the other, he was distinct- ly asked by one of his disciples, who probably did but speak in the name of the rest. We cannot suppose that these disci- ples had forgotten the Lord's Prayer. Whether or not all now present had been present, at the Sermon on the Mount, we may justly conclude that they were all well acquainted with the comprehensive form which Christ had delivered for the use of the church. Why, then, did they ask for another form of prayer 1 and what are we to learn from Christ's meeting the wish by simply repeating that before given 1 These are not mere curious questions ; you will presently see that they involve points of great interest and importance. Without advancing any conjectures, let us look at the Lord's Prayer as given in the Sermon on the Mount, and as here again given in answer to the re- quest of the disciples : the comparison may furnish some clue which will guide us in our search. Now we have spoken of the prayer delivered on the two occasions, as though it had been altogether the same : this however is not strictly the case ; there are certain variations in the versions which should not be overlooked. Some of these, indeed, are very slight, requir- ing only to be mentioned, not examined ; such as that, in the one, the word "debts" is used, in the other, "sins;" St. Luke says, " Give us day by day ;" St. Matthew, " Give us this day, our daily bread." Such differences are evi- dently but differences in the mode of expression. There is, however, one remarkable variation. On the second occasion of delivering his prayer, our Lord altoge- ther omitted the doxology with which he had concluded it on the first. He quite left out, that is, the words, " For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." Now there can be little doubt, that, in con- structing his form of prayer, Christ had respect to the religious usages of the Jews. It is said that a serious student of the Gospel, and one at the same time Vol. II. versed in Jewish antiquities, may trace, at every step, a designed conformity to the rules and practices of devotion which were at that time observed. Without attempting generally to prove this, it will be worth our while to consi- der what was the Jewish custom as to the conclusion of their prayers, whether public or private. We find,* that in the solemn services of the Temple, when the priest had con- cluded a prayer, the people were wont to make this response ; " Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever." Public prayer — pray- er, that is, in the Temple, finished with a doxology very similar to that which concludes the Lord's Prayer. But this doxology was never used in more pri- vate prayer, prayer in a synagogue, or in a house. Observe, then : our Lord gives his prayer on the first occasion with the doxology, on the second, with- out it: what may we infer from this] Surely, that he wished his disciples to understand that the prayer was designed both for public use and for private. In the Sermon on the Mount the prayer had concluded with the doxol- ogy ; and the disciples, we may believe, had thence gathered that the prayer was intended to be used in the Temple. But they still wanted a form for private devotion, and on this account preferred the request which is contained in our text. Our Lord answers the request by giving them the same form, but with the omission of the doxology ; thus teaching that his prayer was adapted to the closet as well as to the church. If regard be had to Jewish usages, no- thing can seem less objectionable than this explanation of the insertion of the doxology in one place and its omission in another. The prayer was delivered twice, to prove that it was to serve for public use and for private. Christ show- ed that it was to be a public prayer by giving it with a doxology ; a private, by giving it without ; for a doxology was that which was then used in the Temple, but not in a house. And this further explains why our Lord did not add " Amen," in conclu- ding his prayer on the second occasion. It was usual amongst the Jews not to * Lightfoot, Talniudical Exercitations upon S£. Matthew. 11 THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORD S PRAYER. add the Amen to prayera which were only petitionary, but to reserve it for expressions of thanksgiving and bene- diction : whereas, the doxology being omitted, the Lord's prayer, you observe, oecame purely petitionary. There is evidence of tin's in the Book of Psalms: . is full of prayers, but the pray- ers do not end with Amen. If the psalmisl use the Amen, it is after such an exclamation as this: "Blessed be the Lord for evermore." You may trace jusi the same custom in the writ- ings of the Apostles. Thus St. Paul asks the speaker with tongues, "How . thai occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen, at the giving of thanks !" and it. is generally after some ascription of praise, or expression of benediction, that he adds an Amen : '• The Creator, who is blessed for ever, Amen :" " Now the God of peace be with you all, Amen." Now it is a fact of very great inter- est, which thus appears fairly establish- ed — namely, that the second delivery of the Lord's prayer, as_ compared with the first, goes to the proving that the petitions in this prayer are equally adapt- ed to private and to public devotion; that we cannot find a more suitable or comprehensive form, whether for the gathering of "the great congregation," for domestic worship, or for the retire- ment of our closet. Our Lord did not indeed mean to tie us down to the use of this prayer, as though we were never to use any other, or never to expand in- to larger supplication. Put he may certainly he thought to have given this prayer as a perpetual, universal model; and to have asserted its containing an expression for every want and every de- sire which may lawfully be mule the Bubjed of petition unto God. There ought to be no debate as to the suitable- ness of this prayer for all places and seasons, a tier you have remarked the peculiarities of its double delivery. Do you doubt whether it be a form well adapted to the public assembly I then observe that its petitions woe first ut- tered by our Lord, with such a doxology appended as was never then used but at the solemn gatherings in the temple ofGod. When you have hereby con- vinced yourselves of its suitableness for public worship, will you hesitate as to its fitness for more private occasions I for the devotional meetings of the fami- ly, or for your own secret communion with God 1 Then you resemble the dis- ciples, who, having heard the Sermon on the Mount, yet imagined a need for a different form of prayer in their religious retirements. But surely it should teach you, that, at one time as well as at an- other, the Lord's prayer should find its way from the heart to the lip, to know that our blessed Savior — omitting only the doxology, and thus consecrating to the use of the closet what he had before consecrated to the use of the church — ■ gave precisely the same form, in answer to the request of these disciples, " Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." But hitherto we have made no way in commenting on the text, except that we may have explained the request of the disciples — a request which has, at first, a strange look, as though Christ had not already delivered a form of prayer, or as though what he had delivered were al- ready forgotten. We remove this strange look, by observing our Loi'd's answer, and inferring from it that what the disciples now solicited was a form of private pray- er : what they had previously received passed with them as designed for public occasions ; and the second delivery of the same form, but with certain alterations, both shows us the want of the disciples, and teaches us how such want might best be supplied. We will now, however, endeavor to bring before you certain other and very interesting truths, which are involved, more or less prominently, in the state- ments of the text. And, first, as to the employment of Christ when the disciples approach and prefertheirrequest. There is nothing to show distinctly whether our blessed Redeemer had been engaged in private prayer, or had been praying with his followers. But we learn, from many statements of the Evangelists, that he was in the habit of retiring for purposes of private devotion : " He withdrew into the wilderness and prayed;" he "went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer ; " he was " alone pray- ing." And perhaps it agrees best with the expressions in our text, that we should suppose our Lord to have been engaged in solitary prayer : "As he was praying in a certain place." The disciples had probably been absent from him, as when THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORD S PRAYER. they left him sitting on Jacob's well, whilst they went into the city to buy meat. On their return they behold him at prayer : they draw reverently back ; they would not intrude on him at so sa- cred a moment. But the thought occurs to them — "Oh, what a time for obtaining a new lesson in prayer ; let us seize on it — let us ask him to instruct us whilst, like Moses coming down from the mount, his face yet shines with celestial com- munings." They watch the opportunity — you see how it is stated : " When he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him." They appear to have stood at a distance, that they might not interrupt the solemn exercise ; but, so soon as they saw the exercise concluded, they pressed eagerly forward to share in its benefit. But whether or not this were then the relative position of Christ and his disci- ples — whether he was alone praying, or whether they were praying with him — we know, as we have already said, that our Lord was wont to engage in solitary prayer ; and there is no attitude, in which this Divine person is presented to us, wherein he is more wonderful, more de- serving to be considered with all that is deepest, and most reverent, in attention. You expect to find Christ working mir- acles — for you know him to be God in human form ; and you feel that he must give such credentials of his mission as shall suffice, if not to remove all unbelief, yet to leave it inexcusable. You even expect to find him enduring anguish — for you know him to have assumed hu- man nature, that he might be capable of suffering ; and you thoroughly assent to the fundamental truth, that "without shedding of blood is no remission." But you could hardly have expected to have found him spending whole nights in pray- er. What has that pure, that spotless Being, in whom "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," to do with im- portunate supplication, as though he were in danger of offending his heavenly Father, or had to wring from a reluctant hand supplies of that grace, of which himself is, after all, the everlasting foun- tain ? There is a mysteriousness about Christ praying, which should almost warn us back, as it seems to have warned the dis- ciples. For we are not to suppose that our Redeemer's prayers were all similar to that which is recorded in the seven- teenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and in which there is the calmness of an In- tercessor who knows that he shall pre- vail, or who feels that he but asks what himself has right to bestow. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of him in language which obliges us to re- gard him as having wrestled in prayer, wrestled even as one of us may wrestle, with much strain and anguish of mind. The Apostle there says of Christ : " Who, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared." There may be here a special reference to our Lord's agony in the garden, when, as you remember, he besought earnestly of the Father, that, if it were possible, the cup might pass from him. But we have no right to confine the Apostle's state- ment to this particular scene : we may rather conclude, that, when our blessed Savior spent whole nights in prayer, his supplications were mingled with tears, and that it was witli the deep emotions of one, who had blessings to procure through importunity, that he addressed himself to his Father in heaven. You may wonder at this — you may ask how this could be ; and we can only an- swer, that, though the Redeemer was both God and man — two natures having been indissolubly joined in his one Divine person — yet, as man, he seems to have had the same battles to fight, the same assistance to depend upon, as though he had not also been God, but, like one of ourselves, had had the devil for his enemy, and only the Holy Ghost for his comforter. There is frequently a mistake upon this, and one which prac- tically takes away from Christ's example all its power and persuasivenes. Why was Christ able to resist the devil 1 Why was Christ able to keep himself "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners ]" Because, many are ready to reply, he was God as well as man. But surely this must be an erroneous reply. It supposes that when he was exposed to temptation, the Divine nature in his person came to the assistance of the hu- man, upheld it, and made it triumphant. And how then could Christ be an exam- ple to us, who, being merely men, can not fly from one nature in ourselves to another, from the weaker to the stronger, 84 THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORD S PRAYER. when attacked by certain enemies, or exposed to certain dangers? The scriptural representation is just the opposite to this. It sets before us Christ as having been as truly a man, as truly left as a man to a man's duties, a man's trials, a man's helps, as though, at the same time, all the fulness of God- head had not dwelt in him bodily. It was not to the divine nature in his own person that he could have recourse when hard pressed by temptation : he had to lean, like one of ourselves, on the aids of the Holy Spirit, aids sought by prayer, and appropriated by faith. The divine nature in his person appears to have had nothing to do with holding up the human, but only with the conferring infinite worth on its sufferings and actions : it did not give the patience to endure, though it gave the preciousness to the endurance ; it did not give the strength to obey, but the untold merit to the obe- dience. And, upon this representation, we can somewhat enter, though still but remote- ly, into the prayers of .our blessed Re- deemer. He was a man, with a man's infirmities, though not with a man's sin- ful propensities ; living, as a man, the life of faith ; fighting, as a man, the bat- tle with principalities and powers ; and he had before him a task of immeasur- able intenseness, which he could not contemplate, as a man, without a sense of awfulness, we had almost said of dread. In this his state of fearful war- fare and tremendous undertaking, he had to have recourse to those assistances which are promised to ourselves, which we have to seek for by prayer, and which even he, notwithstanding his one- ness with the other persons in the Trin- ity, had to procure, to preserve, and to employ, through the same processes as the meanest of his disciples. Hence, it may be, his midnight watchings; hence his "strong crying and tears;" hence his prolonged and reiterated supplications. And however mysterious, or actually incomprehensible, it may be, that a Beintr, as truly God as he was man, should, as man, have been as much thrown on a man's resources as though he had not also been (bid, yet what a comf >rt is it that Christ, was thus identi- fied with ourselves, that he went through our trials, met our dangers, and experi- enced our difficulties ! We would have had but little confidence in committing our prayers to a high priest who had never had to pray himself. But oh, how it should encourage us to wrestle in prayer, to be fervent and importunate in prayer, that it is just what our blessed Lord did before us ; and that having, as our Mediator, known continually the agony of supplication, he must, as our Advocate, be all the more disposed, in the language of the Psalmist, to put our tears into his bottle, and to gain audience for our cries. It might strike me with greater amazement to see Christ raise the dead. It might fill me with deeper awe, to behold Christ upon the cross. But it ministers most to my comfort, to look at Christ upon his knees. Then I most know him as my brother in all but my sinfulness, myself in all but the cor- ruption which would have disabled him for being my deliverer. Oh, let it be with us as with the dis- ciples ; let us gaze on the Redeemer as he is " praying in a certain place ;" and we shall be more than ever encouraged to the asking from him whatsoever we can need. Then we have him in the attitude which should give confidence, let our want be what it may ; especially if it be a freer breathing of the soul — and this breathing is prayer — which we desire to obtain. Christ will sometimes seem so great, so far removed from our- selves, that the timid want courage to address him. Even suffering hardly appears to bring him down to our level ; if he weep, it is over our sins that his tears fall, and not over his own; if he is stricken, it is that by his stripes we may be healed ; if he die, it is that we may live. But when he prays, he prays for himself. Not but that he also prays for others, and even we, too, are required to do this. But he prays for himself, though he does not suffer for himself. He has wants of his own for which he asks a supply, dangers against which he seeks protection, difficulties in which he entreats guidance. Oh, who will now be afraid of going to him to be taught 1 Who will not feel, as he sees Jesus " praying in a certain place," that now is the precious moment for casting our- selves before him, and exclaiming with the disciples, " Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." Now it is a very important use which has thus been made of the text, in that THE SECOND DELIVERY OP THE LORDS PRAYER. the approach of the disciples to the Savior, at the moment of his rising from prayer, serves to admonish us as to Christ's power of sympathy, "in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted ;" and to encourage us to go to him in the full assurance of his being as well able to understand, as to satisfy, our wants. But there is still a very beautiful account to which to turn the fact, that it was immediately on his rising from his knees, that our Lord, delivered, for the second time, his form of prayer to his disciples. There was, as we have already hinted, an evident appropriateness in the request of the disciples, if you consider it rela- tively to the employment in which Christ had just been engaged. It was not a request to be taught how to preach — that might have been the more suitable had Christ just delivered his Sermon on the Mount. It was not a request to be enabled to work miracles — that might have more naturally followed, had Christ just been healing the sick or casting out devils. But it was a request for instruc- tion in prayer, coming immediately on Christ's having been praying, as though the disciples felt that he must then have known most of the difficulties of prayer, and also of its privileges ; and that, his soul having been engaged in high com- munion with God, his tongue might be expected to clothe itself with the richest expressions of desire and the most potent words of entreaty. And you will all feel how natural, or rather, how just, was this thought of the disciples, that the best moment for a lesson from Christ in prayer, was when Christ himself had just finished praying. It is precisely the thought which we ourselves should entertain, and on which we should be ready to act, in regard of any eminent saint from whom we might wish instruction and assistance. If, feeling my want of some other form of prayer than that which I possess, I de- termined to apply to a christian distin- guished by his piety, and to ask him to compose for me a form, at what moment, if I might choose, would I prefer my re- quest i At the moment of his rising from his knees. When, I should say to myself, is his mind so likely to be in a devotional attitude, when may I so justly expect the frame and the feeling adapted to the dictating pregnant and prevailing petitions, as when he is fresh from the footstool of God, and has not yet lost the unction which may be believed to have been on him, as he communed with Heaven 1 But were I to address myself to him at this moment with my request, and were he, in reply, simply, but solemnly, to repeat to me the Lord's Prayer, what should I conclude 1 Certainly that, in his judgment, and when moreover that judgment was best circumstanced for deciding, no prayer could be composed so admirably adapted to the expression of my wants as this ; and that, having this, I required no other. It is a sepa- rate question whether his decision would be right ; we now only urge, that in no conceiveable method, could he deliver a stronger testimony to the excellence of the Lord's Prayer. But this is exactly the kind of testi- mony which is furnished by the circum- stances related in our text. Christ, on rising from his knees, is asked by his disciples for a form of prayer adapted to seasons of private devotion. He does nothing but repeat the prayer which he had delivered in his Sermon on the Mount. What an evidence that no better could be furnished ! Fresh as he was from direct intercourse with his Father in heaven, the spirit warmed, if we may so speak, through devotional exercise, he could furnish no fuller, no more comprehensive expression of the wants and desires, which, as creatuies, we may spread before our Creator, than the few and brief petitions which he had combined on a previous occasion. There is nothing which gives me so exalted an idea of the worth and ex- cellence of the Lord's Prayer as this. In many ways, indeed, may this worth and excellence be demonstrated ; every new demonstration not only estab- lishing the points in debate, but sug- gesting material for additional proof. And we owe much to commentaries on the Lord's Prayer by learned and pious men, who, expanding its several peti- tions, have shown that there is nothing which we can lawfully desire, whether for this world or for the next, whether as inhabitants of earth or as candidates for heaven, which is not virtually con- tained in these few sentences. Other forms of prayer, so far as they are scriptural and sound, are but the Lord's Prayer, beaten out, its syllables 86 THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORD S PRAYER. spread, as they may be, into volumes. Indeed, there ia no slight analogy be- tween this prayer and the law. The law was given twice, even as this prayer was given twice. The law, meaning thereby the Ten Commandments, is a summary of all things to be done; and this prayer, of all things to be desired. The law divides itself into duties which have resped to < rod and duties which have respect to man ; and similarly, the prayer contains petitions for God's-honor, and' then petitions for others and our- selves. And as the few precepts of the moral law, when expounded by our blessed Redeemer, grew— like the few loaves which, beneath his creative touch, became the food of thousands — till there was a command for every action, yea, a rule for each word and each thought; so has the prayer only to be drawn out by a spiritual apprehension, and there is a breathing for every want, an expres- sion lor every desire, an ejaculation for every emergence. But whilst all this may be satisfactorily shown through lengthened and patient inquiry, and whilst we may hereby reach conviction of such a fulness and such a comprehensiveness in the Lord's prayer, that we ask every thing which we ought to ask in offering its petitions, the short, but equally sure, mode of establishing the fact, is to observe how this prayer was the second time delivered. I am never so impressed with the beauty, the depth, the largeness, yea, the inexhausti- bleness of this form, as when I hear it uttered by Christ, in reply to the request of his disciples. If I ever feel wearied by repetitions of this prayer, or tempted to think that some variation from it would he an improvement, I can look at the circumstances of its second delivery, and want no other commentary to con- vict me of error. It is not. the first de- livery which is so replete and reproach- ful in evidence. I receive indeed the prayer with all docility, and all rever- ence, as it falls from the Savior's lips in his Sermon on the Mount. But he then delivered it as a form for public prayer, suited to numbers who might not have made much progress in religion; had he been afterwards asked, he might have furnished a yet intenser and more; spirit- ual model, for such as were of higher growth in piety. Besides, our Lord was then preaching ; and the tempera- ment, if we may use the expression, of the preacher, is not likely to be that which is most adapted to prayer. With- out confounding the Redeemer with one of ourselves, we may, in a measure, justly reason from ourselves, when con- sidering what occupation is most conge- nial with devotional feeling. And, cer- tainly, the attitude of an instructor does not commend itself as best suited to the spirit of a suppliant. If I wanted tuition from a preacher in prayer, I should not wish it from him whilst he was preaching, not even though prayer might be the subject of his sermon. I would go to him in bis closet rather than in his pulpit; that in the more subdued tone of mind, in the calmer, the more chastened and abased sentiments which may be ex- pected in a man prostrate before God, as compared with the same man harangu- ing his fellow-men, I might have better ground of hope for those contrite ex- pressions, those burdened cadences, those glowing aspirations, which befit the supplications of one fallen but re- deemed. And it is in no sense deroga- tory to the blessed Redeemer, to say, that if I had only his sermon-delivery of his prayer, it would not, of itself, have convinced me that even he could not have given a more admirable form. I might have felt, and without violation to the awe and reverence due to such a being, that the moment when I should have best liked to hear him express himself in prayer, was not the moment of his upbraiding the hypocrites who stood " in the corners of the streets," or the heathen who were noted for their " vain repetitions." But the prayer is given a second time, after considerable interval, given that it may serve for private devotion ; given by Christ, not when addressing a multi- tude, but when just risen from his knees. Oh, I want nothing further to tell me, that the Lord's prayer is fuller than human need can exhaust, humbler than human wofahlessness can sink, higher than human piety can soar. I ask no learned commentary, no labored exposi- tion ; I have Christ's own testimony, given exactly when that testimony has the great- est possible power, that nothing can be added to the prayer, nothing excogitated of loftier, intenser, more disinterested, and yet more self-seeking supplication, when I find that it was when he had THE SECOND DELIVERY OF THE LORD S PRAYER. 37 been " praying in a certain place," and as " he ceased " from his* prayer, that he re-delivered the same form to his disciples, and in answer to their entreaty, ** Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." Now you will all feel for yourselves that the practical point involved in this express and striking testimony of Christ to the fulness of his prayer, and its ap- propriateness to all persons, places, and seasons, is, that there must be something wrong in the man who finds the Lord's prayer insufficient or unsuitable. We are far from meaning that no other form of prayer should be used : the mind will often wish, will often need, to dwell 011 some one particular desire ; and though, beyond question, that desire has expres- sion in the Lord's prayer, it is there so condensed that he who would be impor- tunate at the mercy-seat may be aided by a more expanded statement. But, at all events, enough has been adduced to prove that the Lord's prayer should enter largely both into public and private devotion, and that, though it ought not to supersede every other, yet ought no other to be a substitute for it. And if we had but a minute to spend in prayer, what but the Lord's prayer should occupy that minute 1 better that we gather into that minute ail that can be asked for time and for eternity, than that we give it to any less pregnant ex- pression of the wants and desires of a christian. But examine yourselves in this matter; compare your own sense of the sufficiency of the Lord's prayer with the remarkable attestation to that sufficiency which we have found given by our Savior himself: and if the prayer still seem to you inadequate ; if, in short, you feel as though you could not pray sufficiently, if, on any account, you were actually limited to the use of this prayer, then let the comparison set you on the searching deeply into the state of your hearts. For, surely, he has reason to fear that his desires should be checked rather than cherished, his wants denied rather than declared, who can find no expression for them in petitions which were not otdy dictated by Christ, but affirmed by him to comprehend whatso- ever we might ask. But, commending this to your serious meditation, we would, in conclusion, dwell for a moment on the reference made by the disciples to the instruction in prayer which had been furnished by the Btt]>tist. They ask, you observe, of Christ, that he would teach them to pray " as John also taught his disciples." We have no means of ascertaing what form of prayer had been given by the Baptist. But it should be observed that the Jews' daily and common prayers, their ordinary and occasional, consisted chiefly of benedictions and doxologies; they had, indeed, their petitionary or supplicatory prayers; but these were few in number, and less copious. Now it seems reasonable to suppose that the Baptist taught a form of prayer differing from what the Jewish forms were ; he had to inculcate other doctrines than those to which the people were used ; and it can hardly, therefore, be doubted that he instructed them to pray in a manner more accordant with the new dispensation which he was commissioned to announce as "at hand." If, standing as he did between the Law and the Gospel, John did not fully unfold the peculiar truths which Christ was after- wards to announce, he nevertheless spake of things, the attaining which supposed that petitions were presented unto Cod — how then can we question that he taught his followers to pray for these things 1 Hence, the probability, at least, is, that in opposition to the custom of the Jews, whose prayers were mostly be- nedictory, John gave his disciples pray- ers which were chiefly petitionary ; and that when our Lord was asked for in- struction in prayer, similar to what had been afforded by the Baptist, the thing sought was some form of supplication, strictly and properly so called. And this agrees excellently with the answer of our Lord ; for by omitting the dox- ology with which he had concluded his prayer on the first delivery, he gave a form of devotion which was purely petitionary. But the disciples of Christ may not have referred to the particular character of the form of prayer given by John, but only to the fact, that the Baptist had furnished his followers with some form or another. And then there is something very interesting in their request, as grounding itself on what had been done by a teacher of far less authority and wisdom than their own. It was as much 88 PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. ;is to say. even " the voice of one crying in the wilderness" gave lessons in prayer; and shall not the voice of Him of whom that stern voice was the har- binger, instrucl us how to approach the Lard of the whole earth I The disciples of the forerunner had the privilege of hearing from him what, petitions should be ofiered — shall not the disciples of the , enjoy a similar privilege, though greater in proportion as he is greater than bis messenger I There is then an argument, so to speak, from the instruction afforded by the in- ferior teacher, to that which may be ex- peeled, or hoped for, from the superior. And it is an argument of which we may legitimately make use, whether as pledg- ing God to give, or emboldening us to ask. We mayrightly reason that, if the disciples of the lower master have been favored with a lesson, the disciples of the higher will not be left uninstructed. We may rightly reason, yea, we may present ourselves before our Savior with the reasoning on our lips, that if, not only the disciples of the Baptist, but the disci- ples also of natural religion, have been taught to pray, the disciples of the Christ shall be yet more deeply and powerfully schooled. We have sat, as it were, at the feet of nature ; and in her every work and her every gesture, in her silences and in her utterances, she has bidden us wait upon God, and seek at his hands the supply of our wants. There is nothing on which creation is more eloquent, nothing more syllabled by the animate and the inani- mate, by the music of its mighty move- ments, the rush of its forces, the lowing of its herds, than that all things hang on i the universal Parent, and that his ear is open to the universal petition. And if even nature do thus instruct us to pray, | what may we not expect from the Lord our Redeemer ] We will approach him, encouraged by the tuition of a prophet, [ which is, at best, but his messenger or herald. We will say to hirr., Even the stars, the forests, and the mountains, the works of thine Almighty hands, bid us bow the knee, and supplicate the invisi- ble God. But we need a higher, a more spiritual, lesson. Lord, do Thou teach us to pray, seeing that even nature hatb taught her disciples. SERMON X PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. " And he took him aside from the multitude, and port his finjers into his cars, and he spit, and touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." — Mark vii. 33, 34. We do not bi hjct the succeeding verse I his speech; into our text. You know that the words ; Lord' which we have read to you relate to the Lord our Redeemer; and you need not be told, that, with him, to attempt was to accomplish a miracle. The subject of the present miracle was "one that was deaf and had an impediment in and mand. ' result of our iphatha," was, that " straightway his ears were opened, and the strings of his tongue loosed, and he spake plain." The miracles of our Lord were as diversified as are human wants and in- firmities : what sorrow was there for the PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. 80 eoothing of winch, what sickness for the healing of which, he did not employ his supernatural powers 1 But the miracles were diversified, not only as to the things done, but as to the manner also in which they were done : sometimes, indeed for the most part, our Lord only spake the word or laid his hand on the suffering ; at other times, virtue went out from him, when touched by the afflicted ; and in some few instances, amongst which is that recorded in the text, he employed outward signs., though not such as could have possessed any natural efficacy. We doubt not that many useful lessons might be drawn from the different modes wherein Christ thus displayed his mira- culous power. Considering miracles as parables, figurative exhibitions of the doctrines, as well as forcible evidences of the divine origin, of Christianity, we may believe that they are not void of in- struction in the minutest of their circum- stances, but furnish in every particular, something on which the christian may meditate with advantage. Neither is this true only when you assign a para- bolic character to the miracles of our Lord : setting aside the parabolic char- acter, and observing merely how differ- ence in mode was adapted to difference in circumstances, you will often find oc- casion to admire a display of wisdom and benevolence, to confess the narrative profitable, not only as adding another testimony to the divine power of Christ, but as showing how he sought to make that power subserve his great design of bringing sinners to faith in himself. We shall find this exemplified as we proceed with the examination of the nar- rative which we have taken as our sub- ject of discourse. Our foregoing obser- vations will have prepared you for our not insisting on the display of divine power, but engaging you with the pe- culiarities which attended the display — peculiarities from which we shall endea- vor to extract evidences of Christ's good- ness, and lessons for ourselves. With this purpose in view, let us go straight- way to the scene presented by the Evangelist: let us follow the Redeemer as he takes the deaf man aside from the multitude, and let us observe, with the attentiveness due to the actions of One who did "all things well," the course which he adopts in unstopping his ears and loosening his tongue. Vol. II. Now you must all he aware, that, in order to constitute a miracle, properly so called, there must be the absence of alt instrumentality which is naturally adapt- ed to produce the result. Sickness may be removed by the application of reme- dies ; but he who applies them is never regarded as working a miracle ; he may, indeed, excite surprise by using means which shall be rapidly effectual in a case which had been thought desperate, but, whatever the tribute paid to his science and skill, the whole virtue is assumed to lie in the remedies employed ; and no one imagines, when looking on the re- covered individual, that there has been any thing approaching to the exercise of supernatural power. But if the applied remedies were such as had evidently no tendency to the effecting a cure, you would begin to suspect something of miraculous agency ; and yet further, if no remedies whatsoever were used, if the sickness departed at the mere bidding of the physician, you would be almost sure that God had distinctly and un- usually interfered — interfered so as to suspend the known laws which ordinarily determine his workings. So long, per- haps, as any remedy appeared to be ap- plied, you would be scrupulous as to ad- mitting a miracle ; the remedy might, indeed, seem quite unsuited to the end for which it was employed, not possess- ing any known virtue for removing the disease ; but still it might possess pro- perties not before ascertained ; and it is easier, and perhaps juster, to conclude the sickness overcome through some un- suspected energy in the visible means, than through some invisible power alto- gether unconnected with those means. Hence it is a necessary criterion in the determining a miracle, that it be altoge- ther independent on second causes, and therefore be performed without any natural instrument. And this is a crite- rion to which the miracles of our Lord may safely be brought : it was only on one or two occasions that any thing ex- ternal was employed, and even on these it could not be suspected that means were applied in which any virtue dwelt. The most remarkable of such occasions was that of the healing of the man who had been born blind : our Lord " spat upon the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto 12 90 PECULIARITIES IX THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OP DECAPOLIS. him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." Here there was a great deal of prepara- tion : and had not the case been that of blindness from the birth, which was ac- aecounted incurable through any natural mean-, it might have been suspected that Christ had applied some powerful oint- ment, which, left for a time on the de- fective organ, and then washed off, would effect, as he had discovered, a radical cure. Even in this case, how- ever, it never seems to have occurred to the Jews, that the thing which had been wrought might not have been actually supernatural: the whole process was ac- curately reported to the Pharisees; but, though they were most eager to disprove or depreciate the cure, they never thought of ascribing any virtue to the clay ; it was manifestly so void of all natural efficacy for the restoration of sight, that they treated the cure as wrought by a word, without even the apparent enployment of any second cause. Nevertheless, we may safely admit, that, had our Lord always acted in this manner, had he never performed a mi- racle without using some outward in- strumentality, there might have been room for suspecting that a connection existed between the instrumentality and the result, and that, therefore, it was not necessarily beyond a doubt, that miracle had been actually wrought. There can, however, be no place for such a suspicion, inasmuch as the occasions were very rare on which our Lord did more than speak that wind which was always "with power." 13 ut we are bound to consider whether, in the few cases where external application was employed, there was not some reason for the seeming departure from a rule which may be said to have been prescribed by the very nature of miracle. If we find this reason m any one case, it may, probably, be extended to all; and we shall therefore confine ourselves to the instance pre- sented by our subject of discourse. Here, as in the case of the blind man, there was an external appliance, though not equally calculated to suggest doubt as to the actualness of the miracle. Our Lord put his fingers into the man's ears, and then spat and touched his tongue. It could hardly be imagined, by the most suspicious or incredulous of beings, that there was any natural connection be- tween what our Lord thus did, and the effect which was produced ; and that, consequently, Christ was nothing but & skilful physician, acquainted with reme- dies which had not yet been discovered by others of his race. If there were any virtue in the action used by Christ, it was manifestly a virtue derived alto- gether from his superhuman character: allowing that there was power in his touch, it could only have been from the same reason that there was power in his word : the finger was "the finger of God," even as the voice was that which had spoken all things into being. Yet it could not have been without any meaning, though it may have been without any efficaciousness to the healing of disease, that Christ employed these outward signs : some purpose must have been subserved, forasmuch as we may be sure that there was never any thing useless or superfluous in the actions of our Lord. And the reason why Christ thus touched the defective organs, before uttering the word which was to speak them into health, may be found, as is generally allowed, in the circumstances of the man on whom the miracle was about to be wrought. This man, you will observe, does not seem to have come to Christ of his own accord : it is ex- pressly stated, " And they bring unto him one that was deaf and had an im- pediment in his speech, and they beseech him to put his hand upon him." The whole was done by the relatives or friends of the afflicted individual : for any tiling that appears to the contrary, he himself may have had no knowledge of Jesus ; and, indeed, since his condition disquali- fied him for holding any conversation, it is likely that he was in a great degree ignorant of the Prophet that had arisen in the land. But this very fact rendered it impoi*- tant that means should be taken to ac- quaint him thoroughly with the persot, that effected his cure, not oidy in order to his own satisfaction, but to qualify him to bear witness in favor of Christ. And it is easily seen that what our Lord did was exactly adapted to such a pur- pose as this. He took him aside from the multitude, because his attention was likely to be distracted by the crowd, and Christ wished to fix it on himself as the author of his cure. Had he healed him immediately, and in the midst of the PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. 91 throng, the man might have had no dis- tinct impression as to who had been his benefactor. Therefore was he separated from the throng ; and therefore, yet further, when separated, was he ad- dressed by Christ through those senses which remained unimpaired : through sight and through touch. Christ could not speak to him, as was his ordinary wont, and demand from him a confession of faith in his power to heal : the man was deaf, so that no question could be put to him, and he had an impediment in his speech which would have prevented his replying. But he could see, and could feel what Christ did ; and there- fore our Lord supplied the place of speech, by touching the tongue and put- ting his fingers into the ears — for this was virtually saying that he was about to act on those organs — and, by looking up to heaven, for this was informing the deaf man that the healing power must come from above. The whole action would seem to have been symbolical, and accurately suited to the circumstances of the case. Trans- late the action into words, and what have we but such sayings as these ? " I have taken thee aside from the multitude, that thou mightest observe and remem- ber who it is to whom thou hast been brought. Thine organs are imperfect: here are members of thy body, which are useless to the ends for which they were given, and I am about to act on them with a power which shall supply all defects. Yet I would have thee know that this power is but a credential of my having come forth from God, and should produce in thee belief of my pro- phetical character. Behold, therefore: I lift my eyes unto heaven, whilst I utter the word which shall give thee hearing and speech." Such, we say, was virtually the address of our Lord to the man on whom he was about to operate with supernatural power; not an address in language, which was precluded by the peculiarities of the case, but in significative, symboli- cal action, which is often to the full as expressive as words. And, therefore, it was not without a great design and an important meaning that our Lord de- parted from his ordinary rule, and ran, as it might have seemed, the risk of bringing the miracle into question, by the privacy in which he wrought it and the external agency of which he made use. How easily might it have been said that he took the man aside from the multitude, because what he was about to do would not bear being inspected, but involved some deception which could succeed only in a corner. And if suspi- cion had been excited by his thus re- quiring a retired place for the perform- ance of the cure, how might that suspi cion have been confirmed, when the mai. came to tell in what way he had been healed ] ',' See," the people might have said, " there was no miracle at all ; he applied certain remedies, and he would not suffer us to be near, lest we should discover his secret." But Christ could venture to brave all this risk : his miraculous power was too well established to be treated as a trick. Some there were who blasphemously ascribed it to Satan ; but none, as it would seem, had the hardihood to deny its existence. Yet even the appearance of place for suspicion would not have been given, without sufficient cause, by one who was anxious to leave no possi- ble excuse for the doubting whether or not he were the promised Messiah. And the sufficient cause is found in the cir- cumstances of the case. It did not con- tent the Redeemer to heal bodily infir- mities ; he sought to reach the inward man through what he did for the out- ward. If he gave the power of hearing and of speaking, he longed that the un- stopped ear might hearken to the Gospel, and the loosened tongue be employed on the high praises of God. But, in order to such ends, it was indispensable that the man should know Jesus as his benefactor, and be persuaded that the power, exerted on his behalf, was wholly from above. But how shall he be in- structed in such particulars 1 He is shut up in that desolation and loneliness, which a closed ear and a fastened tongue necessarily produce, and is not accessible through the avenues by which informa- tion is commonly conveyed. I will speak to him, the Redeemer seems to say, through the senses which have been spared to him : sight and touch shall be instrumental to the carrying of truth into his yet darkened soul. O blessed Savior, how great was thy condescension, how unwearied thine endeavor to do good to sinners ! As when thou wouldest teach thy disciples humility, thou didst set a 93 PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OP DECAPOLIS. little child in the midst of them ; and when thou wouldesl warn them of the peril of unfruitful!) ess, thou didst cause the blighted fig-tree to .stand in their path — so now didst thou graciously in- struct by significative anion; and I .see nothing but the merciful, the compas- sionate, the patienl Redeemer, bent on doing good, on instructing and blessing the unworthiest, when 1 see our Lord taking the deaf man aside from the mul- titude, and putting Ins fingers into his ears, and touching his tongue, and look- ing up to heaven. But we have probably said enough in explanation of our Lord's having apparently made use of external instru- mentality in effecting the miracle which is under review. We now wish to lead you to a wholly different topic: we would have it observed whether the pos- session of miraculous power did not operate upon Christ in a manner unlike that in which it would, most probably, operate on ourselves. We will not ex- amine whether, if any one of us were gifted with the ability of doing marvel- lous things, he would not be likely to covet occasions of display, to delight in opportunities of manifesting the energy, when it would excite most amazement, and be hailed with the plaudits of a thousand spectators. Certainly, it were hardly to exaggerate that corruption which adheres to the best of the chil- dren of men, to say that the temptation would be found very strong of exerting miraculous power in an ostentatious mode, employing it to purposes which might astonish by their strangeness, and before multitudes whose applauses might be thereby secured. And, just as cer- tainly, their can be nothing further re- moved from ostentation, than our Lord's use of those wonder-working powers with which he was endowed. His mir- acles were always remarkable for simpli- city, for the absence of every appear- ance of pompous exhibition: he never wrought a marvel but when there was good to be done ; and, in his bands, su- perhuman might was manifestly conse- crated to the benefiting others, and not to the magnifying himself. But let us admit that miraculous pow- er might be possessed by one of our- selves, and that, along with it, there might be such measures of grace as would prevent any thing of pride or ostenta- tion in its use. We may still find some- thing to distinguish this man of super- human energy from the Lord Jesus Christ. In order to this, let us ask any one of you, whether the inability to re- lieve misery be not almost as distress- ing as that misery itself] If I found one of my fellow-creatures dying from want, what wretchedness should I en- dure if I were absolutely destitute of all power of procuring him food ! Where- as, on the other hand, with what un- mingled gladness should I hasten to his dwelling, if I carried with me the means of supplying his necessities, if I had on- ly to open the door, and plenty would flow into the dreary abode ! I do not think that I could be sad at such a mo- ment. My own cares might be many, my own grievances heavy j but that I could communicate happiness, would for the time make me happy ; and the eye would be bright, and the voice would be joyous, as I said to the sufferer " Be of good cheer." The like may especially be affirmed in regard of any case of sickness. How melancholy is it to stand over the bed of one writhing in pain, and to feel that the best which the best affection can do, is to weep and to pray ; so utterly be- yond all known remedies or assuage- ments is the malady whose victim is before us ! O for the power of working a miracle ! With what alacrity, what exultation, would any one of us com- mand the disease to depart, if there were such energy in his word that it could suspend nature's laws. I am sure that there is not one of you, who, if he possessed the power, and heard of a fel- low creature in terrible anguish, would not rush to the side of the sufferer, eager to employ the power on his own behalf, and enraptured with the thought of being able to relieve. Or, if the case were not one of acute pain, but only of defect in some bodily organ, with what pure, what unmixed satisfaction, should we exert ourselves on supplying what nature had denied. There is something wonderfully in- teresting, but, at the same time, distress- ing, in the visiting the asylums which have been reared for the reception of the blind or the dumb. It is marvel- lous to observe what mental and moral progress may be made in spite of the deficiency ; how the senses, which are PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. 93 possessed, may be available to the very offices of those which are wanting, so that the blind child shall read the Bible with its fingers, and the dumb communi- cate in writing all that passes in its spirit. We do not hesitate to call it the finest exercise of a power, which is only just short of supernatural, that, when the eye refuses to collect the rays from the material creation, the hand can be instructed to gather in all the beauty and magnificence of that spiritual land- scape which God hath developed in the pages of his word ; and that upon the soul, which seemed devoted to everlast- ing midnight, because not accessible through the medium of speech, there is poured, through the eye, all that mighty illumination which hath flashed, in these last days, from " the Father of lights." But, with every confession of the wonderfulness and beauty of the spec- tacle presented by an asylum whether for the blind or the dumb, it must be admitted that there is something dis- tressing in the sight of numbers who never looked on the glory of the hea- vens, or never drank in the melody of speech. Which of you, then, would not feel himself a happy man, if suddenly invested with the power of bidding the blind behold the human face, and the dumb hear and use the human voice ] We should all perhaps be ready to charge the possessor of such a power with something worse than stoicism, with a hardness of heart which made it strange that God should have endowed with so signal a gift, if he did not mani- fest the greatest alacrity in bestowing sight on the darkened eye-ball, and un- chaining the speechless tongue ; or if, when exercising his power, he did not show that to exercise it was a source of the intensest delight. And yet, my brethren, it does not appear — at least, not always— to have been with a feeling of pleasure that our blessed Lord re- lieved the woes to which flesh is heir. Oh, it is a strange contrast between the scene presented by our text and what probably would be the scene, if any amongst ourselves had the power of healing the deaf and the dumb. It shall be to one of you that this poor man is brought by anxious and supplicating friends. One of you shall be reputed able to unstop his ears and loosen his tongue ; and therefore shall they, who are eager for his cure, come to you im- plorinly. It is no false rumor ; you have the power ; you are ready to exercise it. I see you rejoice in the opportunity; you can hardly speak the healing word for gladness at being able to confer so great a boon. Yes ; this is natural, this would almost seem unavoidable ; and yet, oh wonderful, it was not thus that our Redeemer did good. He manifest- ed no feeling of pleasure. On the con- trary, you might have thought it a pain to him to relieve misery ; for the narra- tive tells us, that, at the instant of giving utterance to the omnipotent word, he showed signs as of a burdened and dis- quieted spirit : " He sighed " — not, he smiled; not, he rejoiced — but "He sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." Now we really do not know a more affecting testimony to the fact, that our Lord was " a man of sorrow, and ac- quainted with grief," than is thus fur- nished by his sighing at the moment of working a benevolent miracle. If ever he experienced gladness of spirit, you would think that it must have been when communicating happiness — yet even then " He sighed." He sighed in the act of blessing, as though the boon were wrung from him, and he would rather have denied it. Neither is this a solitary instance of Christ's manifestation of grief when engaged in giving pleasure. We have often had occasion to point out to you that the tears, which he wept at the grave of Lazarus, were not tears for the dead. There is no necessity, in or- der to the establishing the comforting truth of Christ's perfect humanity, and of his sympathy with our griefs, that we should suppose him weeping at the grave of his friend, as any one of us might weep over a kinsman or child. Indeed, there is no argument for Christ's fellow-feeling with the bereaved, in the tears of which the bereaved so often make mention ; for there is not one of us who could bewail the dead, if he were under the precise circumstances of Christ; and therefore the Mediator's tears can be no evidence of that which, blessed be his name, is incontestably established from other proofs, his tho- rough sympathy with the mourning. Send any one of you to the grave where a dear friend lies buried — send him with the power, and for the purpose, of re- 01 PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. animating that friend — and he could not weep as he went; at least, if he wept, they would be tears of joy which he shed; for pleasure, like pain, can force drops from eyes which have been dark- ened by Bin. But the tears of Christ were nol tears of joy; for we read not only thai he wept, but that "He groan- ed in the spirit, and was troubled;" and thai "again groaning in himself, he came to the grave." Hence there is no parrying the conclusion, that our bless- ed Savior was unhappy at the very mo- ment when you would most have ex- pected him to be happy, because on the point of making others happy; whilst all our foregoing statements, as to the pleasuve which would be felt by any one of ourselves in the exercises of supernatural power, are only the more forcible, if the occasion of that exercise might bear any resemblance to the rais- ing of Lazarus. It is, therefore, no undue inference from the circumstance of Christ's sighing at the instant of working the miracle be- fore us, when we take it in evidence of a depression of spirit which would not give way before even that most happy- making thing, the making others happy. And again must we state that of all the incidental proofs — proofs not the less conclusive because easily overlooked — of our Lord's having been " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," there is, perhaps, in me of a more touching or plaintive character than is thus furnished by our text. I Fndoubtedly we vastly un- derrate the sufferings of the Savior, when we confine them to scenes where perse- cution was open, and anguish apparent. Just because there is little said of what Jesus endured until we reach the dread things of G-ethsemane and Calvary, it were strange, it were sinful, to conclude that he was not. heavily oppressed through the whole of Ins life. When an apostle bids us "consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself" — thus making "the contradiction of sin- ners," which was not the thing of a mo- ment, but of his every day, from first to last, the description of his endurances — he may be said to assert that suffering w i ins unmingled portion, as though, with one of old, his own illustrious type, he might pathetically have said, "My tear have been my meat day and night." And we may not question that such was his portion. He was a sacrifice from the cradle to the grave ; every instant, be- cause an instant of humiliation and en- durance, added something to the mys- terious and mighty oblation. How could it have been otherwise ? for having come " unto his own," and being reject- by " his own," living in the midst of "a wicked and adulterous generation," which he vainly strove to save from de- struction, there must continually have been a pressure on his innocent spirit, a pressure all the more intense, because not betrayed by any outward sign. The expression "acquainted with grief" is wonderfully touching, and per- haps singularly accurate. Grief was, as it were, his bosom friend ; it had made way into his breast, and there set up its home. His was not an occasional meet- ing with grief; it was acquaintance, a deep, dark, bitter familiarity. Oh, when you call Christ's afflictions to mind, af- flictions endured "for us men and for our salvation," then think not only of the garden and the cross ; consider him as having been incessantly, as well as in- tensely, disquieted — momentarily on the cross, whence divine justice sought the penalties which ourselves had deserved. And if you want evidence of this con- tinuousness of sorrow, the inconsiderable incident — inconsiderable only in that you might read it a hundred times and hard- ly pause to observe it — the inconsider- able incident mentioned in our text might suffice as a proof. What so grat- ifying a thing as the being able to do good ] when can a good man feel so happy as in communicating happiness ? If Christ were not gladdened in making others glad, when could he have been joyful % And, nevertheless, he was not then gladdened; it was then that "he sighed." He had gone aside from the multitude, so that there was, perhaps, no one to observe him. His only com- panion was deaf, so that though he might have been seen to weep, he could not be heard to sigh. Therefore was the sigh quite, so to speak, between himself and his Father in heaven. It v/as as though he had taken advantage' of the being alone and unnoticed, to gain a moment's vent for that climbing sorrow which he was not willing to dis- play before disciples who loved him. And I seem to need nothing more to tell me how continually that heart was PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OP DECAPOLIS. 05 wrung, into which sin, which makes all our anguish, never had penetrated, than the simple recital that, before our bless- ed Savior uttered the word which was to unstop the ear and loosen the tongue, " he sighed ;" "looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." But vyherefbre did Christ sigh ] was it only in evidence of the general de- pression of a spirit, wearied and over- wrought by contact with wickedness? or came the sigh from a consciousness that the individual before him would be injured rather than benefited, by the miracle about to be wrought ] We can- not, of course, speak with any certainty in reply to these questions, forasmuch as the sacred historian gives no account of the feelings which then struggled in the mind our Lord. Yet there are sundry interpretations which we may put upon the sigh; and if we cannot determine the true, we may, perhaps, draw from each some material of in- struction. We may be sure, in the first place, as to what did not cause the sigh ; it argued no distrust of his heavenly Fa- ther, though it followed immediately on his looking up to his abode. The look- ing up to heaven was rather to direct the deaf man's attention to the source of healing power, than to obtain a supply of that power. There was the same lifting up of the eyes on the occasion of the raising of Lazarus ; and then Christ stated the reason of this public appeal to the Father. " And Jesus lifted up Lis eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always : but be- cause of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." He was always sure, you observe, of the ability to work a miracle ; but on certain occasions he saw fit to preface the working by an appeal to God, in order to impress on specta- tors that his power was from above, and not, as had been blasphemously said, from beneath. Hence, the sigh could have had no such connection with the looking up to heaven, as might argue mistrust of the Father whose will he had come down to accomplish. But, nevertheless, we may readily understand how, on the instant of working a miracle, a glance towards heaven might cause Christ to sigh. Wherefore had he descended from that bright abode if not to achieve its being opened to the lost race of man ? And wherefore did he work miracles, if not to fix attention on himself as the promised seed of the woman, who, through obedience and death, was to reinstate our lineage in the paradise from which they had been exiled for sin ] There was a sufficiency in the satisfaction which he was about make, to remove the curse from every human being, and to place all the children of Adam in a more glorious position than their common parent had forfeited. But he knew too well that, in regard of mul- titudes, his endurances would be fruit- less, at least, in the sense of obtaining their salvation, though they cannot be in that of vindicating the attributes of God, and leaving the impenitent self- condemned at the judgment. Therefore, it may be, did Christ sigh ; and that, too, immediately after looking up to heaven. I can read the sitrh ; it is full of most pathetic speech. " Yon- der," the Redeemer seems to say, " is the home of my Father, of the cheru- bim and the seraphim. I would fain conduct to that home the race which I have made one with Myself, by so as- suming their nature as to join it with the divine. I am about to work another miracle — to make, that is, another ef- fort to induce the rebellious to take Me as their leader to yon glorious domain. But it will be fruitless ; I foresee, but too certainly, that I shall still be " de- spised and rejected of men." Then who can wonder that a sigh was thus in- terposed between the looking up to hea- ven and the uttering the healing word ? The eye of the Redeemer saw further than our own. It pierced the vault which bounds our vision, and beheld the radiant thrones which his agony would purchase for the children of men. And that men — men whom he loved with a love of which that agony alone gives the measure — should refuse these thrones, and thereby not only put from them happiness, but incur wretchedness with- out limit or end — must not this have been always a crushing thing to the Savior % and more especially when, by glancing at the glories which might have been theirs, he had heightened his thought of their madness and misery 1 96 PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. I am sure that were we striving to pre- vail on some wretched being to enter an asylum where lie would not only be sheltered from imminent danger, but surrounded with all the material of hap- pinesB, a look at that asylum, with its securities and comforts, would cause us to feel sorer than ever at heart, as we turned to make one more endeavor, like- ly to be useless as every preceding, to overcome the obduracy which must end in destruction. Therefore ought we readily to understand why the Redeem- er, bent only on raising to glory a race, of which he foresaw that myriads would voluntarily sink down to tire and shame, gave token of a distressed and disquiet- ed spirit, between looking towards heaven and working a miracle — as though the look had almost made him reluctant for the work — "looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Epbphatha, that is, Be opened." But there may have been reasons, personal to the individual about to be healed, which caused Christ to preface the miracle with a sigh. We have spo- ken of the delight which it would yield to a benevolent man, if he could go into an asylum for the blind or the deaf, and communicate by a word the senses which were wanting in the objects around him. Bui did we not somewhat exag- gerate, when we supposed that the plea- sure would be quite unalloyed ? It could hardly fail but that a suspicion would cross the mind of the individual, who had the power of giving sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, that, but too probably, there was some one in the group to whom it would be no blessing to obtain the deficient sense; who. if made to see, would but enslave himself to "the lust, of the eye," or who, if enabled to hear and to speak, would but listen to evil, and employ his tongue in dishonoring his (rod. We know, too well, how largely does our every sense give inlet to temptation; so that, possi- bly, the want of one of these senses might often cause the soul to be assaulted with less vehemence from without. And it is easy to believe that a blind person, to whom sight were suddenly and miracu- lou-ly given, would find an inundation, as it were, of new and strange desires, rushing on him through those magic organs which, like Satan on the mountain, show us " all the kingdoms of the world and their glory;" and that a deaf per- son, who should obtain instantaneously the hearing ear, and the speaking tongue, would be so bewildered by the new pro- cess of receiving and communicating thought, and so enabled to sin in new ways, that, if there were question only of the advantageousness of his condition in regard of another world, he had better have been confined to the scanty intelli- gence which may be communicated in spite of defectiveness of organs, than have acquired abilities which may be so perilously abused. Hence, it might not be wholly without some sentiment of apprehension and'fear, that the benevolent man would pro- nounce the word which was to give sight to the blind, or speech to the dumb. It may be that, notwithstanding the flow of pleasurable feelings which would seem neccessarily to attend the putting forth a power communicative of such benefit and blessing, he would sigh with the Epbphatha on his lips, as the thought occurred, that the senses, which he was about to impart, might only prove ave- nues of evil, and be desecrated to the service of sin. But with Christ, who could read the human heart, and foresee the human life, there could not have been doubtfulness as to the moral issue of the miracle. He must have unerr- ingly known whether the individual be- fore him would be healed in soul as well as body : whether the wonder, of which he was the subject, would lead to faith in the prophet by whom it was wrought ; whether the organs which he was about to obtain, would be employed on the glorifying, or on the dishonoring, God. And perhaps he foreknew that the man, when healed, would be found amongst his persecutors, and oh, if so, how could he but sigh, sigh deeply and painfully, as he considered what sin had made the human heart, so hard that even miracles would not soften it, nor produce in it love towards a heavenly benefactor? Indeed, indeed, if there were such an exhibition of insensibility and ingratitude present to his mind, well might he sigh. Ah, men and brethren, if there can be sighs in heaven, he must still sigh as he " poureth his benefits " on every one amongst us, benefits which are too often received as mere things of course, bene- fits which, if not miraculous, are only not so because of their frequency, and which, PECULIARITIES IN THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. 07 alas, fail to bind us more devotedly to his service. Or, if the Redeemer did not know that the man whom he was about to heal, would join himself to his enemies; if, on the contrary, he knew that he would be of the few who acknowledged him as the Messiah ; still he was too well aware, we may believe, of the dan- gerousness of the faculties which his word would bestow, to bestow them without a sigh. It was language, of which the man was henceforward to be master, the power of speaking and of being spoken with. And Christ could not give this but with a sigh. He knew that the power of speaking was espe- cially the power of sinning : that no member was so difficult of control, and so liable to offend, as the tongue. There are many statements in the Bible, in regard to the importance of speech, the difficulty of regulating our words, and the danger of sinning with our lips. But I know of nothing more emphatic and expressive than this sigh of our Lord, when considered as indicating that what he bestowed, he bestowed with appre- hension. As with the tears which Christ wept over Jerusalem, there is more in this sigh than in lengthened and heart- touching speech. The tongue unloosed with a sigh, the sigh of him who had no sin to sigh for, is the most affecting of all testimonies that the tongue cannot be used without peril. It might do more than whole sermons on the guilt of idle words, to make us watchful in keeping "the door of our lips," were we only to bear in mind this sigh of the Redeemer. Oh, when tempted to the light jest, and, yet more, to the profane allusion — when inclined to employ on what is frivolous, or malicious, or impure, that high faculty which God bestowed that we might make creation vocal with his praise ; then, if you cannot recollect any elaborate ar- guments which establish the special sin- fulness of sins of the tongue, at least you might recall the simple narrative before us ; and it might tend to make and keep you fearful of misusing and desecrating the power of speech, to remember that your Savior could not impart this power, without betokening his consciousness how perilous it was : " He sighed," be- fore he could bring himself to say to the deaf and dumb man, " Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." 13 But we alluded, in an early part of our discourse, to the parabolic charactei which seems attached to the miracles of our Lord; and, inclining to the belief that there is no miracle recorded in the New Testament, which does not serve to illustrate certain truths in the christian dispensation, we are reluctant to leave the narrative before us without glancing at its typical instruction. And here we need hardly refer to the general fact, that the sicknesses of the soul are analogous to those of the body ; or that man, con- sidered as an immortal being, requires healing processes, similar to those re- quired by the lame, the deaf, and the blind. It can scarcely be called a figure of speech, when we describe the soul of a man, not yet renewed by the Spirit of God, as deficient in the powers of hear- ing, and seeing, and speaking. For the soul must be judged relatively to that higher world of which she was originally the citizen, and her possession of facul- ties must be determined by testing her ability for the employments and enjoy- ments of the scene for which she was designed. But who can disguise from himself, that, in spiritual things, he is by nature deficient in senses and organs, as he would be in earthly, if unable to see, to walk, to hear, to speak, to taste 1 The unrenewed soul has no eye for the glories of heaven, no feet for running the way of God's commandments, no ear for the sweet music of the Gospel, no voice for the praises of Christ, no relish for that bread which is " for the life of the world." And forasmuch as it is only through Christ in his office of Mediator, that those influences are communicated which repair the decayed, or impart the destroyed faculties, we may justly regard our blessed Savior, whilst working mira- cles on the body, as both teaching what was needful for the soul, and represent- ing himself as its appointed physician Hence, in Christ's unstopping the ears and loosening the tongue, of the man that was brought to him as he passed through Decapolis, every one may find the outlines of a symbolical lesson, as to the necessity for a divine operation on our spiritual organs, ere the tidings of redemption can penetrate the soul, and the utterances of thanksgiving be heard in return. But more may have been represented than this general fact. The man doea 96 PECULIARITIES OF THE MIRACLE IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS. not seem to have come of himself; and there is no evidence whatsoever that he had faith in Christ's power to heal. In- deed, us we have endeavored to Show you, Christ took pains to fix attention on himself as the worker of the miracle, as though to provide for faith following, if it did nol precede the cure. The friends or relatives of the deaf and dumb man had faith in our Lord; this faith moved them to solicit a miracle, and was recompensed by its being wrought. And there is great encouragement in every such record of blessings procured through the interces- sion of friends. When I read of parents or relations leading the dumb to Jesus, and soliciting; in his name, what he could not solicit for himself, I gain assurance that parents or relations may bring children to the regenerating waters of baptism, and entreat on their behalf those gifts of the Spirit, which they are yet too young to entreat for themselves. 1 thank God for the record of miracles, in whose subjects there was faith ; I thank him still more for the record, when the faith was not found in the party that was healed, but in the -party who con- ducted the diseased person to Christ. Oh, we may do much for those whom we love, whilst they are unable, or even whilst unwilling, to do any thing for themselves. We may bring them to Christ; we may entreat Christ to heal them ; and such narratives as that which has been under review, warrant the hope, yea. even the expectation, that, if we ask in faith, the Redeemer will put forth his miraculous power. But there is yet another significative fact which ought not to be overlooked. Our Lord led the alllicted man aside from the multitude : did he not thereby tell them, ulio may be visited with any desire for spiritual cure, that it is not in the throng and bustle of the world that they may expect the renewal of their senses and powers] that they should separate themselves from distracting associations, seeing that it is in privacy and retirement that he is ordinarily pleased to work a moral miracle, and reproduce in the soul the lost image of ; God ? He can heal you any where : he can unstop the ear and loosen the tongue whilst you are in the hurry of the crowd, or when you have sought the secrecy of the closet. But he loves the solitude : if you wish him to work a miracle, prove that you wish it by going aside from the multitude, detaching yourselves from a world that "lieth in wickedness," breaking away from the company of his enemies — and then may you hope that he will meet you, and say unto you, with as much of power as of gracious ness, "Ephphatha, that is, Be opened." Will he say it with a sigh ] Indeed, so great is the corruption of our nature, and so vast the disorganization around us, that the portion of a renewed man has often to be described in the words I of St. Paul : " Without were fightings, within were fears." To convert, is to consign to a hard conflict with the world, j the flesh, and the devil. And Christ might sigh in speaking the word which gives spiritual health, remembering that he quickens men to the painful and perilous task of crucifying themselves, of offering themselves " a living sacri- fice " unto God. But if "heaviness may endure for a night," "joy cometh in the morning." The victory is sure with Christ for a leader, though the contest be severe. And if it be with a sigh that he pro- nounces the Ephphatha now — with a sigh, because to be a believer is to be persecuted and afflicted, at war v/ith the world, at war with one's self — it shall be with a smile that he pronounces the Ephphatha hereafter, saying to the everlasting doors, " Be ye opened," that my people may enter my kingdom : " There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest." SERMON XI THE LATTER RAIN. 1 Ask ye of the Lord- rain in the time of the latter rain : of rain, to every one grass i I the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them shower* the field." — Zechariah x. 1. It is not necessary that we inquire whether as originally delivered, these words included spiritual blessings or were limited to temporal. The former are so frequently illustrated or shadowed out in Scripture by the latter, that we may safely treat the passage as a direc- tion and a promise which have to do generally with prayer, and particularly with prayer for the communication of divine grace. In order, however, to the right understanding of the words, you are to observe that there were two seasons of the year at which rain was peculiarly needed and looked for in Judea. The one was in autumn, at the seed-time ; the other was in the spring, when the corn had to be brought to an ear and filled. The rain which fell at the one, is spoken of in Scripture, as " the former rain ;" that at the other, as '• the latter;" and you find the two men- tioned together when God would cove- nant to do great things for his land. Thus, in the Book of Deuteronomy, "If ye shall hearken diligently unto my command meats, which I command you this iliy, I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the hitter rain." Thus again, in the prophecy of Jeremiah, " Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter in his season; he re.serveth unto us the appointed weeks of harvest." And once more, in Hosea, " Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord : his going forth is prepared as the morning ; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." But the " latter rain " is often mention- ed by itself, as though specially needed to the making available the labors of the husbandman. Thus you read in the Book of Job ; " They waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain." And Solo- mon says, in the Book of Proverbs, "In the light of the king's countenance is life; and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain." Jeremiah, also, when describing the utter desolation brought by sin upon the land, exclaims ; " Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain." The want of this latter rain would evidently be peculiarly distressing ; it might not do more towards causing famine than the want of the former ; but occurring at a time when the husbandman had fully done his part, and was expecting to reap the fruit of his labors, the horrors of dearth would be aggravated through the bitterness of disappointment; and there would, moreover, be less opportu- nity of providing sustenance from other quarters than if "the former" rain had failed, and thus long notice had been given of an insufficient harvest. We may find, as we proceed with our discourse, that in applying the text to spiritual things, great attention should he given to this mention of " the latter rain " rather than of " the former." At present it is sufficient to have pointed out to you the times at which rain ordi- narily fell in Judea ; you will hence be aware of the importance of the blessing for which the people are directed to ask. We will now, without further preface, enter on the consideration of several great truths which appear derivable from the passage; when taken, in its largest sense, 100 THE LATTER RAIN. as a direction to prayer. We will not at- tempt, beforehand, to specify these truths, but ratherleave them to open successively a^ we prosecute out examination. Let us only ask rain of the Lord, let us only en- treat the aids and teachings of his Spirit. without which we may not hope to enter thoroughly into the meaning of Scripture, and it may. indeed, be for our profit that. we study the direction, " Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain ;" and that we hearken to the promise, "The Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field." Now we shall begin with looking at tlu- direction as having to do literally with the rain, with those showers which descend in due season to water the earth, "that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater." Alas, how difficult is it to keep God in mind as the great First Cause, when there is a mechanism of second causes through which he is pleased to conduct his operations and communicate blessings ! If things ordinarily occur in a settled course, we speedily forget that this course is, after all, but the law which God is pleased to prescribe to himself, to be followed oidy while it shall seem good to his infinite wisdom, and swerved from whensoever he shall think fit. to suspend his own laws. If, for example, there be a time of the year at which rain is accustomed to fall, how readily do we expect rain at that time, just as though there were a certain set of causes, which, working always, and with unvarying regularity, would be sure, at corresponding seasons, to pro- duce corresponding results. Men seem practically to have but little remem- brance, that the mainspring of all the mechanism is in the hands of an invisible Creator; that it is not from what goes on in the hidden laboratories of what they call nature that season succeeds season, and shower and sunshine alter- nate with so much of beautiful and bene- ficent order, but that the whole arrange- ment is momentarily dependant on the will and energy of that supreme Being who "sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers." It is needful, we might almost say. that God should occasionally interrupt the ordinary course of things, that he should suspend the laws which I he has been pleased n» , u natural world, if only that he may ke ' himself from being forgotten, and com o impress on the eep mpel some recognition of his all-pervading influence from those who actually " live in him, and move, and have their being." But whilst there is this known prone- ness amongst us to the substituting se- cond causes for the first, whilst we are confessedly so ready to look to the laws and the mechanism of nature, to do for us what can be done only by the direct and immediate agency of God, how im- portant, how instructive, such an injunc- tion as this; "Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain !" You are to lay the emphasis on its being " the time of the latter rain," the season, that is, at which rain might be commonly expected ; at which year after year, it had been accustomed to fall, and at which, therefore, a boastful, or rather an infidel philosophy, might have argued that it would continue to fall, in obedi- ence to fixed and immutable laws. If, from some cause or another, there should be want of rain at seasons when it was not usually wanted, when it was not the time for either " the former rain " or "the latter," perhaps this boastful philo- sophy itself would allow that there was place or occasion for prayer. We do not, indeed, mean that the philosophy would necessarily assent to the possible usefulness of prayer in the supposed emergence : it is far more likely that it would entrench itself within its maxims as to the fixedness of nature's laws, and the consequent vanity of any expectation that these laws would be interfered with in order to the meeting our wishes or wants. But, at least, philosophy would here confess, that if the rain fell at all, it would fall not through the working of mere second causes ; and that, therefore, though prayer must be practically worthless, as pleading against a (irmly-settled ordinance, it was still so far in place as that only the Being, to whom it was addressed, had power to give rain at so unwonted a time. If, however, it be actually "the time of the latter rain," then will a prayer for rain appear to this philosophy utterly unrea- sonable or preposterous, as if we were not content to leave natural causes to work out their invariable effects; or as if we wanted to make a parade of tho power and efficacy of prayer, and there- THE LATTER RAIN. 101 fore directed it to a boon which we knew that we should receive, whether we asked it or not. But God, on the contrary, says: "Ask ye rain in the time of the latter rain." Oh, what a lesson to us that we reckon not, so to speak, on the seasons ; that we presume not to expect any good merely because the time is come round at which, in the ordinary course of his dealings, God has been used to bestow that good. A blessing may have been long and regularly communicated ; but we are not to count on the regularity of the communication, as though it proved some immutable law, which must con- tinue to work out the accustomed result : it may be " the time of the latter rain ;" the experience of a lengthened course of years may warrant the expectation of rain; and the clouds on the firmament may seem big with the usual supply — but God has yet to issue his com- mand ; God has yet to unseal the foun- tain ; and therefore there is still place for prayer, there is still need for prayer : it is "the time of the latter rain," but, on that very account, it is the time also for the asking of rain. To ask it at an- other time might be asking a miracle, a depaiture from God's ordinary course, and we cannot be said to have warrant for that. But to ask it at this time, is to ask what we know is according to God's will ; and " this," saith St. John, " is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us." Beware, then r of taking for granted that mercies will continue to descend in the order, and at the times, which may have long been observed : there is no such likely way of stopping the supply, as the failing to recognize that the foun- tain is with God. God describes him- self as "a jealous God;" and it must move him to jealousy, whensoever, in any degree, we substitute his instruments for himself, or look to the channel as if it were the spring. The long continu- ance of a mercy at a particular season may indeed be said to involve a kind of promise — for God has so constituted us that we naturally expect what we have often experienced ; and a divine promise is not only that which is registered in the divine word, but that also which is conveyed through the moral constitution received at God's hands. But let it be remembered that a divine promise, so far from proving it unnecessary that we ask, should itself be our great leason for asking. God's promises are the warrants for man's prayers. What God has promised, may be asked for in the perfect confidence " that it is according to his will :" and since the promises are conditional, their fulfillment being made dependent on our seeking, or inquiring for, the covenanted blessings, we may not only be encouraged in our prayers by God's promises, but ought in no de- gree to reckon on promises, except as we make them foundations for prayers. God may be said to have promised rain " in the time of the latter rain :" but just because it is a time at which rain has been promised, therefore it is a time at which prayer should be made. And so with every mercy. The re- currence of the time at which God has been used to bestow it, should not make you expect to receive it again without asking, but should make you ask in the full confidence of receiving. The sab- bath, for example, is a " time of the lat- ter rain :" rain is then used to fall — God's Spirit descends in gracious showers for the refreshment of the church. The time of the administation of christian ordinan- ces is a " time of the latter rain," God commonly using the preaching of his word and the dispensing of his sacra- ments, to the conveyance of grace to his waiting people. But because these are times " of the latter rain," shall they not also be times for the praying for rain 1 Oh, never ought your prayers to be so fervent or importunate. You are, as it were, on the top of Carmel ; you see the cloud rising out of the sea; but you must not take for granted that there will be "abundance of rain:" God may command the cloud back into the sea, yea, he may be expected to do this, if you do not wrestle with him in prayer. Therefore, on the Sabbath morn, because it is the Sabbath morn, the morning of grace, redouble your prayers for grace ; on sacramental opportunities, because they are God's chosen occasions of imparling his Spirit, cry more ear- nestly than ever for that Spirit. Think not that the favorableness of the season can make the necessity for prayer less, whereas it does but make the encour- agement to prayer greater. Substitute not the means of grace for grace, aa 102 THE LATTER RAIN. though, when the former were vouch- safed, the latter would be sure to follow ; ah, there may be the clouds and not the showers ; and, therefore, remember ye the precept of our text, and " ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain." Now we have thus endeavored to show you that the circumstance of its being " a time of rain " — whether the natural rain or the spiritual — so far from furnishing a reason why we should not ask Ibr rain, is itself the great argu-. ment for our asking; inasmuch as it proves that we have God's promise on our side, and the promise of God is al- ways the warrant, but never the substi- tute for the prayer of man. But all that bas preceded would have been equally appropriate, had "the former rain," not " the latter," been specified in the text : we have simply spoken of the time as being "a time of rain ;" a time at which ir is God's ordinary course to communi- cate a blessing ; and we have warned you against expecting that blessing, without asking for it ; we have endeavor- ed to prove to you, that your reason for expecting should be your reason also ibr asking. Let us not, however, pass without comment the mention of " the latter rain :" when the reference of the pro- phet is supposed to be to spiritual rain, there are special truths to be gathered from his speaking of " the latter rain " rather than of " the former." We have explained to you that. " the latter rain " was that which fell in the spring, and which was instrumental to the bringing the corn into the ear, and filling it; so that, if this rain failed, the husbandman would be disappointed of his harvest, notwithstanding all his previous indus- try, skill, and anxiety. He was indeed dependent also on "the former rain," that which fell at the seed-time ; for the grain would not germinate, and send up the tender shoot, unless the ground were watered by the fertilizing show- ers. But there would be a yet more bitter disappointment, for there would he the utter loss of much labor, the fruitless expenditure of much effort and hope, if " the latter rain" were with- held ; and consequently, there was even greater reason for his asking rain in " the time of the latter rain " than in that of " the former :" if " the former rain " were withheld, he might make some other use of his capital and en- terprise ; but if " the latter," his disas- ter scarce admitted of repair. Now without endeavoring to trace too narrowly the parallel to this in spiritual things, we may safely say that there is something very affecting and admonitory in the mention of " the lat- ter rain." It is the rain needed for fill- ing the ear, and fitting it for the sickle. Take it metaphorically, and it is the grace needed for ripening the believer, and fitting him for heaven. The former rain may be considered that which fell upon him at his baptism, or, perhaps more accurately, at his conversion, when he set himself, according to the direc- tions of the prophet, to " break up his fallow ground, and sow to himself in righteousness." And he has been en- abled, through the continued influences of the Spirit of God, to bring forth " first the blade, and then the ear," advancing in the christian life, and adorning the doctrine of the Savior, But oh, there is now a danger of his falling into se- curity, of his reckoning too confidently on the harvest, of his concluding that God will certainly complete a work so auspiciously begun, so happily carried on, and that he himself can have noth- ing to do but leave God to " perfect that which concerneth " him. True, in- deed, it is God alone who can complete what God alone commenced ; and true also it is, that God is not willing to leave his work unfinished. But he may with- hold "the latter rain," after having given " the former," if he see the hus- bandman presuming on a promise, in place of persevering in prayer. He does not leave the husbandman to ripen the corn, just as he did not require of him to make the seed shoot; for there is not a single stage in the great process of spiritual renewal, at which it is ought else but God's grace, which, acting on the heart, brings out features of the im- age which sin fearfully defaced. But whilst it is not with the husbandman, but with God, to ripen the corn, God may make his ripening it depend on the exercise of faith, and the importunity of prayer. He may give " the latter rain," if the husbandman, conscious of his de- pendence upon God for the harvest, continue meekly to supplicate the neces- sary showers : he may withhold that THE LATTER RAIN. 103 raitti, if the husbandman, calculating on the ordinary course of his dealings, grow remiss in petitioning, and give up his fields to the presumed certainties of the season. There is no point in the life of a christian, at which he can do without the supply of God's grace ; none at which he can expect the supply, if he be not cultivating the spirit and habit of prayer. It is not the mere circumstance of his having long followed the narrow path of life, which can be taken in proof that he will follow it to the end. If he have hitherto walked with God, it has been through his having sought and ob- tained such communications of the Di- vine Spirit, as have enabled him to main- tain his separation from a world lying in wickedness. And if he is to persevere in walking with God, it must be through perseverance in these acts of faith and of prayer : if he think himself sure to go on, because he supposes that he has ac- quired a certain velocity which will suffice, without further effort, to carry him to the end, alas, he shows only that, even in advancing, he has failed to ob- serve by what his progress was caused. That progress can never be such that he may dispense with the assistance, without which he could not have made a successful begining. There was "the former rain," else there could not have been even the green blade ; there must be also "the latter rain," else will he " bring no fruit to perfection." But it is the same thing, it is rain, which is needed at both times, or for both ends : there is no change in the instrumental- ity ; he could not have begun without Divine grace, and Divine grace alone can give completeness to the work. This is among the simplest, the most elementary of doctrines; and yet it is one of which the believer requires to be ofton and earnestly reminded. When a man begins in religion, his conviction of sin, and his sense of danger, conspire to the urging him to cry unto God for assistance and guidance. But when he has made some way, there is fear of his forgetting the agency to which alone he is indebted for progress. Or, if he do not forget the agency, he comes to ex- pect it as a matter of course — as the husbandman the rain at the accustomed seasons — and he grows more remiss in prayer for God's Spirit, even whilst re- lying on the aids of that Spirit. Be- ware of this, ye who are growing old in a christian profession. Ye are not se- cure of having more of God's Spirit, merely because ye have already had much. Ye must not slacken in prayei for that Spirit, because it is only " the latter rain" which is now needed, and you may think that God will be sure to ripen what he has so long been cultivat- ing. Rather think with yourselves, how grievous would it be that the harvest should be one of shame, when the seed- time has been one of promise ! How sad to miss " the latter rain," after hav- ing had "the former," and thus lose the labor of years, when on the point, it may be, of gathering in the sheaves ! Oh, pray the more earnestly, strive the more intensely, the nearer you stand to the termination of your course. I would say to the believer, even on his death- bed, a good hope, a scriptural hope, is that which expresses itself in cries for God's grace. Till you are with God in heaven, no language can be so appro- priate as that which entreats that God would be with you on earth. It is in- deed " the time of the latter rain ;" and those dense clouds, which are the her- aldry of dissolution, are commonly charged with showers of consolation ; for God may be expected to be doubly with his people, as they pass " through the valley of the shadow of death." But God will still be " inquired of" for what he stands ready to bestow ; and the best confidence for the dying, as the best for the living, is confidence in prayer as laying hold on a promise. Be it then " the time of the latter rain " — " the latter rain," because but few more showers can be needed ; " the time " of that rain, because, in his ordinary course, God is then wont to give largely of his grace — on neither account slacken in prayer ; rather, on both accounts, be fervent in prayer. There is the better reason for expecting an answer to prayer, but none for supposing that prayer is no longer needed : he alone can safely have done with offering prayer for grace, who has begun the anthem of praise in glory; and, therefore, " Be not weary in well- doing," but " ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain." But now let us consider whether "the time of the latter rain " may not be a season in the history of the church, and 104 THE LATTER RAIN". whether, when so understood, there is not a great and neglected duty enjoined by the text. It is certainly to be gathered from the tenor <>\' Scripture, that, as " the time of the end" approaches, that time 00 which prophecy has thrown its most emphatic descriptions, there will be a Bpecial outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Even the prediction of Joel, which St. Peter quotes as having had reference to the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pente- cost, would seem to be still waiting an ampler aceomphshmenl ; for the prophet associates the promised gift of the Spirit with the coming of "the great and ter- rible .lay of the Lord," and thus prepares us for not expecting that gift in all its l,,i- e ie >. until the time shall be at hand when Christ is to reappear, and set up visibly his throne on the wreck of all earthly dominion. But, at all events, there is no dispute that the prophecy refers generally to the christian dispen- sation, and that it assigns, as one of the privileges of that dispensation, a larger measure of spiritual influence. When St. Peter adduces the prediction as that which was to " come to pass in the last days," he undoubtedly applies it to the days in which we live, as well as to those in which he spake : these must be it •' the last days," whatever the view taken of the prophetic chronology; and therefore are they days to which the great promise belongs, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh." Hence the present time is "the time of the latter rain:" the time of "the former rain '* was that of earlier and preparatory dispensations, when the world was being made ready lor a fuller 'U ; but no,w that the Holy Ghost litis entered specially on the office of guide and instructor to the church, it is the time of "the latter rain." There is to he no higher evidence of the truth of Christianity, no opening of more, direct intercourse between earth and heaven : we are in tin: enjoyment of those final advantages for securing happiness be- yond the grave, which were longed for, but in vain, by them on whom only "the former rain" fell; many prophets and kings having desired to see the things which we see, and not having seen them, and to hear the things which we hear, and not having heard them. But though it is thus " the time of the latter rain," because, generally, that time must include the whole christian dispensation, and because perhaps, in a stricter sense, it must comprehend such clays as our own, which are not without signs of the second coming of Christ, yet it does not follow that " the latter rain " will fall ; as though the heavens must be opened merely because it is the season for the showers. Our blessed Savior, when de- livering counsels which were undoubt- edly to serve for the instruction of the church to " the time of the end," spake thus in regard of the Spirit: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." The dis- pensation which he was introducing, was to be emphatically the dispensation of the Spirit ; the dispensation throughout which the Spirit was to " abide " as " a Comforter" with the church; and yet, you see, the asking for that Spirit is still made the condition on which it should be given. It is the same as with prophecies of the restoration of Israel, and with pro- mises of gladness and peace to the long exiled people. Nowhere do you find these prophecies and promises more copiously uttered than in the thirty-sixth chapter of the book of Ezekiel — but then, observe how this chapter concludes, "Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." God had just declared that he would do this and that thing: he had made no conditions, but spoken as of a fixed, irreversible, purpose; and nevertheless, as if to re- mind us of a condition, which is always involved if not always expressed, where a divine promise is passed, he adds that he must yet be " inquired of by the house of Israel," in order to his accomplishing what he had announced. Thus also with regard to the progress of Messiah's kingdom, the march of Christianity towards universal dominion. God hath promised great things. He hath not intended that the vast blessings of redemption should, even in appear- ance, remain limited to certain sections of the family of man. Though, for wise ends, he hath permitted a long struggle I between darkness and light, he has de- creed the termination of that struggle, having given assurance of a time when all shall know him " from the least unto THE LATTER RAIN. 105 the greatest," when " the kingdoms of the world" shall become "the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ." But he will yet be "inquired of" for these things, to do them for us. He requires of us that we exert ourselves for the spread of Christianity ; and he requires that we entreat of him the accomplishment of his gracious declarations. Have we not failed in both particulars : and perhaps even more egregiously in the latter than in the former 1 Without pausing to ex- amine what proportion our efforts have borne to our means, whether we have, in any due measure, employed our re- sources on the arduous, but glorious, work of making Christ known to the heathen, let us inquire as to the frequency and intenseness of our prayers for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; and shall we not find but too much cause to confess that we have verily been remiss in a duty, which is second to none in urgency, and «to none in hopefulness "? The prosperity of the church at home, the progress of our holy religion abroad, these are not so much dependent on any external machinery, as on the quicken- ing, renewing, and strengthening influ- ences of the Holy Ghost. " Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." And these influences of the Holy Ghost are promised in answer to prayer. But do we often make them the subject of prayer Do we in our closets, do we in our families, cry much unto God that he would fulfil his promises in the bestowment of his Spirit 1 I do believe, without indulging in exaggerated speech, that we have in our possession the means of overthrowing the idolatries of the world, and ei-ectingthe Sanctuary of God on the wreck of the temples of heathen- ism. But T do not believe this, because of the magnificent, the unequalled, re- sources which God in his providence, has given into our keeping. I do not believe this, because it may almost be said of our colonies, that they are planted on every land, and of our fleets, that they cover every sea. Perish the boast- ful computations which, after drawing out our political and commercial ascend- ancy, would infer that we must be com- petent to the covering the earth with the knowledge of Christ. But I believe this, because I believe in the power of the Holy Ghost to renew the face of the Vol. II. world, and in the power of prayer to obtain the operations of that divine agent. I believe this, because I believe that there is a goodly company in our land who pray the prayer of faith, and who have, therefore, only to be diligent in asking " of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain," to insure the descent of showers which shall cause the waste places to rejoice, and " blossom as the rose." But if the faithful pray not for the rain, it will be nothing, as heretofore it has done little towards evangelizing the globe, that we have national re- sources for the propagation of truth, such as were never yet committed to any people under heaven. Some inconsid- erable province, some state undistin- guished in the scale of nations, unen- dowed, to all appearance, with means for high enterprise, may yet take the lead in the honored work of subduing the kingdoms to the Lord our Redeemer, because it will take the lead in the undoubted duty of beseeching of God to pour out his Spirit. Let us remember and be warned by this. Let each con- sider, and examine, whether he may not have verily been gulity herein, per- haps never praying, or praying but list- lessly and formally, for the promised descent of the Holy Ghost. Our lot is cast in the last days, in " the time of the latter rain." We are not without our signs, in the march of events, in the aspect of society, in the accomplishment of prophecy, that " the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." Now then is the time for earnest, united, importunate prayer for the Spirit of God. Wonders may be accomplished ; a nation may be " born in a day ;" " the ends of the earth may see the salvation of the Lord ;" O " ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest;" " ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain ; and the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give showers of rain, to every one grass in the field." There is something very beautiful in the terms of this promise; but we have time only for a hasty notice. The " bright clouds," or, as the marginal reading has it, "lightnings," are the harbingers, or forerunners of the rain ; and God, you see, declares that he will make these, before he sends the showers. Thus he exercises faith ; he does not immediately answer the prayer, but requires his 14 106 THE LOWLY ERRAND. people still to "wait" on him; he will " make bright clouds " for their en- couragement, but they must persevere in supplication if they would have showers for their refreshment. Ay, and to them that " wait upon the Lord," there may be clouds, but are they not " bright clouds V the stripes of light are painted on their darkness ; the murkiest cloud which can rise on the firmament of the believer has a gilded side : " the Sun of righteousness " shines on it ; and so truly is the time of tears the time also of " the latter rain," that, if these "bright clouds" betoken a sea- son of affliction, they are quickly followed by communications of grace. God may bring the cloud over his people, and as Elihu saith, " Men see not the bright light which is in the clouds ;" but if the world see it not, the believer may; and God brings the cloud, that its brightness being acknowledged, in and through the acknowledgement of his doing all things well, he may then send "a gracious rain on his inheritance, and refresh it when it is weary." And the showers which God sends are for the clothing with richer verdure his garden, which is the church. " To every one grass in the field." We may receive the Spirit ; but we do but grieve, we do but quench it, if its influence be not visible on our walk and conversation. If there be not more and brighter grass in the field, we deceive ourselves if we think that there can be more of saving grace in the heart. But how large is the promise — " To every one grass in the field." Here is evidence that " the time of the latter ! rain" is especially that "time of the end" when falsehood is at length to give way before truth, and the trials of Christianity are to issue in its triumph. " To every one grass in the field," — all shall know the Lord, all shall be righteous. Blessed and glorious prospect ! There may be reason for thinking that the regenerated earth shall be enamelled with the love- liness which sparkled in paradise, ere the dark blight of sin dimmed the lustre; but, at the least, here is a moral verdure of surpassing richness, and I ask not the visions of a material luxuriance, when we have thus the assurance of an uni- versal righteousness. O Spirit of the living God, the parched and stricken earth waits thy descent : come down, in answer to our prayers, that the val- leys and mountains may no longer lie waste. SERMON XII THE LOWLY ERRAND. And if any man say aught unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them, and straightway ho will *end them." — Matthew xxi. 3. You will all probably remember the portion of our Lord's history with which these words are connected. Christ was about to make his last entry into Jerusalem, where he was to seal his doctrine with his death, and offer him- self in sacrifice for the sins of the world. There was a prophecy which had dis- tinctly announced that the Messiah should enter the city " riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." That this prophecy might not be unfulfilled, THE LOWLY EltRAND. 107 our Lord determined to make his ap- proach to Jerusalem in the manner which Zechariah had indicated. In order to this, we read that when they " were come to Bethphage, unto the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me." The remainder of the direction is contained in our text. The thing enjoined on the disciples had all the ap- pearance of an act of robbery ; and it might well be expected that they would encounter opposition. But Christ pro- vided against this, telling them what an- swer to make if any one questioned their right to the ass and the colt, and assuring them that this answer would save them from molestation. And so it came to pass. The disciples went as they had been di- rected ; the ass and colt were found at the precise spot which had been de- scribed ; the owners interfered to preveut what seemed like the seizing of their property ; but the simple words with which Christ had furnished his mes- sengers removed all objections, and the ass and colt were allowed to depart. This is one of those occurrences to which we may easily fail to attach due importance, and which contain instruc- tion not to be detected by a cursory glance. The more prominent events in the history of Jesus, the great things which befell him, and the wonderful which he wrought, attract and fix atten- tion; and we perhaps labor to extract from them the lessons with which they are fraught. But minute things we may comparatively overlook, and so lose much which is calculated to strengthen faith or regulate practice. Possibly, there is often as much to admire and imitate, where there is little of show in the outward action and duty, as where the thing done overwhelms us by its magnificence, or that enjoined by its arduousness. Every one stands in amazement by the grave of Lazarus, and looks with awe on the Redeemer as, with a single word, he re- animates the dead. But few may pause to acknowledge equal tokens of super- human ability, as Christ sends Peter to find a piece of money in the mouth of a fish, or two of his disciples to bring an ass from the neighboring village. Every one admits the greatness of the obedi- ence when Levi abandons the receipt of custom, and the difficulty of the injunc- tion, when the young man is bidden to sell the whole of his possessions. But few, comparatively, may observe how christian obedience was taxed, when apostles were sent on such an errand as is now to be reviewed, or when the owners of the ass and the colt surren- dered them on being told that they were needed by Christ. Let us, then, devote a discourse to the considering an incident which is less likely than many to attract by its evident vvonderfulness ; but which may be found, on inquiry, to attest most decisively the mission of Christ, and to furnish lessons of the first moment to ourselves. Now the Evangelist, so soon as he has related how Jesus sent his disciples on the errand in question, remarks : "All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet," and then proceeds to quote the words of Zechariah. Here the representation undoubtedly is, that Jesus sent for the ass and the colt on purpose that he might accomplish an ancient prediction, which, by universal consent, had respect to the Messiah. An impostor would have done the same. Had a deceiver arisen, professing to be the Christ, he would of course have endeavored to es- tablish a correspondence between him- self and the deliverer whom seers had beheld in their visions.* Wheresoever the thing predicted were such that its seeming accomplishment might be con- trived, he would naturally have set him- self to the bringing round what should pass for fulfilment. And certainly the prophecy of Zechariah is one which a false Christ might have managed to ac- complish. There was nothing easier than to have arranged for entering Jeru- salem in the manner indicated by the prophet : any one who pretended to be the Christ, and who knew that the riding into the city on an ass was one appointed sign of the Christ, could have taken care that this sign at least should be his, what- ever the particulars in which he might fail to give proof. We do not, then, bring Christ's entering Jerusalem in the manner foretold by Zechariah, as any convincing evidence of the truth of his pretensions : there was, indeed, the ac- * See Sermon 8. 10S THE LOWLY ERRAND. complishment of a prophecy, but it was a prophecy of which on the showing of the Evangelist, Jesus himself arranged the accomplishment, and which an im- postor mighf, without difficulty, have equally fulfilled. It was necessary that the thing predicted should come to pass, otherwise, as you must all see, there would have been a flaw in the creden- tials of our Lord : for as the riding on the ass into Jerusalem had been distinctly foretold, he could not have been the Christ had he not thus entered the city. Hence the accomplishment of the pro- phecy in question prevented an objection rather than furnished a proof: it pre- vented an objection, because the not hav- ing ridden into Jerusalem might have been urged in evidence that Jesus could not be the Christ : but it furnished no proof, because a deceiver might have contrived to make his entry as the pro- phet had announced. But if we may not dwell on the inci- dent before us as proving Christ divine through the witness of fulfilled prophecy, let us consider whether there be not the witness of more than human prescience and power. And here, again, we must proceed with caution and limitation. For just as there may be contrivance to pro- duce the apparent accomplishment of prophecy, there may be to effect the ap- parent display of supernatural attributes. There was — at least there may have been, a display of superhuman know- ledge and power. Christ told his dis- ciples, with the greatest minuteness, where they should find the animals, and what words would induce the owners to allow their being taken. If you read the accounts in the several Evangelists, you will perceive that he went into the nicest particulars. There was to be an ass tied, and a colt with her. The colt was to be one on which never man had sat. The place was to be immediately on entering the village, and where two ways met. The owners were to make objection, but to withdraw that objection on being told, " The Lord hath need of them." Now, if this were not miracle, the owners having been supernaturally acted on, was it not prophecy '? Christ predicted certain occurrences, and when all came to pass as he had said, was there not proof of his being gifted with more than human foresight? Yes; if the whole were not contrived and pre-ar- 1 ranged. And it might have been. "What easier than for an impostor and his con- federates to have managed the whole affair ? The impostor might have agreed with his confederates, that they should be in waiting at a certain place with cer- tain animals, and that, on receiving a certain message, they should surrender those animals. And thus might he have acquired for himself the reputation of a prophet, though there would have been nothing in the whole transaction but trick and collusion. Let us consider, however, whether the supposition of trick and collusion can be, in any measure, sustained under the cir- cumstances of the case. Had the owners of the ass been confederate with Christ, they must have been of the number of his followers or adherents. But then they would, almost necessarily, have been known to the disciples whom Jesus sent, and thus the whole deception would have been instantly exposed. For you are to observe, that, if any were to be convinced or persuaded by the prescience displayed, it must have been the disci- ples ; no others, so far as we know, were acquainted with what we may call Christ's prediction. But no effect could have been wrought on the disciples, had not the owners of the ass been strangers to Jesus ; and, if strangers, they could not have been leagued with him to effect a deceit. Whilst, therefore, we readily allow that there was that in the things predicted and performed which might have given place for imposture, we contend that the circumstances exclude the supposition of imposture, and leave room for nothing but belief that Christ really prophesied, and that events proved his prophecy truth. And having satisfied ourselves that there could not have been deception or collusion, we may admire the pre- science and power displayed, and derive from them fresh witness to the dignity of our Lord. We have pointed out to you how the prophecy descended into the minutest particulars, and it is this ac- curacy of detail which makes prophecy wonderful. A great occurrence may often be conjectured through human sagacity ; a keen observer will mark the shadows thrown by coming events, and give notices of those events, which time shall accurately verify. But the difficulty is to go into trifles, to foreknow things THE LOWLY ERRAND. 109 trifling in themselves, or their trifling accidents and accompaniments. I am really more struck at the foreknowledge of Christ, when sending his disciples for the ass and the colt, than when announc- ing the desolations which should come upon Jerusalem. Circumstanced as the Jews were in regard of the Romans, subjected to their empire but galled by the yoke, a far-sighted politician might have conjectured the arrival of the time when rebellion would make the eagle swoop down to the slaughter. But that an ass and her foal should be found, at a certain moment, on a certain spot — that the owners would allow them to be taken away on the utterance of certain words, which even a thief might have used — indeed, there may not be as much majesty in such a prophecy, as when the theme is a conqueror's march or an empire's fall, but I know not whether there be not more marvel, if you judge by the room given for a shrewd guess or a sagacious surmise. There was miracle, moreover, as well as prophecy. I can count it nothing less than a miracle wrought upon mind, that men, in all probability poor men, were willing to give up their property at the bidding of strangers, and with no pledge for its return. You can hardly explain this but on the supposition of a superhuman influence ; so that Christ, who had before showed his power over matter at a distance, by healing the cen- turion's son without going to his house, now showed his power over mind at a distance, by constraining men to act without bringing them to hear. Hence, we can declare the incident before us a singular exhibition of the power of pro- phecy and the power of miracle ; an exhibition, moreover, as appropriate as it was striking. We can suppose that our Redeemer, knowing the bitter trials to which his disciples were about to be exposed, desired to give them some proof of his superhuman endowments, which might encourage them to rely on his protection when he should no longer be visibly amongst them. What shall be the proof? shall he control the tumult- uous elements ] shall he summon legions of angels ? shall he shake Jerusalem with the earthquake ! shall he divide the Jordan 1 Nay, it was not by any stu- pendous demonstration that the timid disciples were likely to be assured. They rather required to be taught that the knowledge and power of their Master extended to mean and inconsiderable things ; for hence they would learn, that though poor and despised, they should not be overlooked, but engage his pro- tection and care. They wanted evidence that his presence was not needful in order to his guardianship, but that he could act on their enemies as well when at a dis- tance as when near. And the more magnificent miracle might not have cer- tified them on the points on which they thus needed assurance. But this was done by an exhibition of prescience in regard to an animal and of power over its owner. He who could be taking cognizance of the place of an ass and her foal, would not fail to observe the position of the poor fishermen, his fol- lowers ; he who could influence those who saw him not to surrender their property, would put forth control over persecutors when he had returned to the heavens. And therefore do we call upon you to admire the transaction under review, not only because it displayed superhu- man knowledge and power, but display- ed them in the manner best adapted to the circumstances of those for whose benefit it took place. Our blessed Sa- vior repeated the kind of display, as though feeling its special suitableness to his disciples, when he indicated the place for eating the passover, by the meeting a man " bearing a pitcher of water." The ass and the colt might have been procured without all this la- bored and circuitous process. But Je- sus, contemplating the fulfilment of an ancient prediction, would have it fulfil- led through such means as should strengthen the faith of the dejected followers, who were soon to be separat- ed from him. He might in a moment, by an act of creative power, have pro- duced the creatures of which he stood in need. Or he might have summoned the chief priests and scribes, and con- strained them, however much against their will, to provide for his triumphant, yet humiliating, entry. And in such methods there might have been more that was calculated to dazzle and amaze. But if the despised were to be taught that meanness could not hide from his notice, and the deserted that distance could not withdraw from his protection, 110 THE LOWLY ERRAND then, indeed, nothing could have been more appropriate than the transaction before us. It might have been a loftier bidding, Go ye to the wilderness and command hither the untamed thing which " scbfneth the multitude of* the city, neither regurdeth he the crying of tin"- driver; " or, " Go ye to the Sanhe- drim, and demand of the haughty assem- bly that they furnish my humble equi- page, and so enahle me to fulfil prophe- cies which shall witness against them; " but there was immeasurably more of regard for the wants of his disciples, more of tender consideration, more of gracious forethought, in the directions before us, " Go ye into the village : ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and say, The Lord hath need of them." Now, up to this point we have exam- ined the transaction with reference to our Savior, considering only the pre- scieace and power displayed, together with the wisdom and goodness that may be traced in the mode of display. Let us now turn to the conduct of the disci- pit^, ami see whether there be not much to deserve our imitation. It does not appear that there was any hesitation as to the obeying a command which might naturally have been heard with some measure of repugnance. The disciples were to goon what might have passed for a wild errand. Was it likely that they should find the ass and the colt just where Christ said I If they did, how were they to obtain pos- ses-inn .' what was it but robbery to at- tempt to remove them without the knowledge of the owners 1 and if the owners should be standing by, what could Ik; expected from them but insult and violence' what probability was there that they would lit; influenced by .such words as Christ directed to be u^ed I It can hardly be questioned that most of us would have been ready with these doubts and objections. We invent rea- sons enough tor hesitating, or refusing to obey, when there is not half so much of plausible excuse for avoiding a pre- scribed path of duty. How difficult do we find it to take God at his word, to show our faith in a promise by fulfilling its condition ! We will not go to the place where the 6W0 ways meet, on the simple assurance that we shall there find what we seek ; we want some more sensible evidence as to the animals be- ing there, before we adventure on what may only disappoint. And if we are to be exposed to misconstruction or op- probrium, if the thing which we are call- ed upon to do be likely to bring re- proach, or give occasion for calumny, what a shrinking is there! what a re- luctance ! The positive command of Christ would hardly suffice, if it required what an ill-natured world might liken to robbery. Not that, in obeying the Divine law, we shall ever give just cause for opprobrious reflection : the command might be to take the ass and the foal, but God would provide that the taking them should not bring disgrace upon religion. But this it is for which we cannot trust him : we doubt whether there will be any such power in the words, " The Lord hath need of them," as will secure us from violence or malice 1 and therefore, we either decline the duty altogether, or enter on it with a hesita- tion, and want of faith, which may them- selves produce the results of which we are in dread. It was not thus with the first disci- ples ; and we should do well to en- deavor to imitate their obedience. It seems, with them, to have been enough that the duty was clear, as enjoined by a plain command of their Master ; and immediately they " conferred not with flesh and blood," hearkened not to car- nal suggestions, but acted as men who knew that compliance was their part, and the removal of difficulties God's. Thus should it be with us ; we should have but one object, that of satisfying ourselves, from the prayerful study of Scripture, whether this action be light or that action wrong; when the decision is reached, there should be no hesitation in regard either of consequences or means ; what God has made it incum- bent on us to do, he will enable us to perform : what he requires us to give up, he will not suffer us to want. If he send us to the place where the two ways meet, it shall be only our faithlessness which can prevent our there finding what we seek ; and if his bidding seem to expose us to the being called robbers, he will see his will so executed as to silence the adversary. And then it is well worthy of remark that it looked like an ignoble errand on which the disciples were dispatched. THE LOWLY ERRAND. Ill When sent to preach the Gospel in the cities of Juciea, there was something illustrious in the commission ; we can imagine them going forth, sustained in part by the lofty consciousness of being messengers from heaven, charged with tidings of unrivalled importance. But to be sent to a village in quest of an ass and her foal ; what an indignity, it might almost have been said, for men on whom had been bestowed supernatural powers, who had been intrusted, not only with the preaching of the Gospel, but with the ability to' work wonders in proof of its truth. Probably they were not aware of Christ's reasons for sending them on such an errand; it might have thrown a sort of splendor about the commission, had they known that an- cient prophecy was to be thereby ac- complished. But it was not until after his resurrection that Christ expounded unto his disciples "in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." It may, therefore, have been that they whom he despatched, had no idea whatsoever of being instrumental to fulfilling a famous prediction, but went about the business in ignorance of all that might have re- deemed it from apparent ignobleness. The opinion of many is, that the two disciples were Peter and John, men who had accompanied the Redeemer to Tabor, and witnessed the wondrous seene of his transfiguration. What a change was here ! to have been selected, at one time, to go to meet Moses and Elias, emerging in glory from the in- visible world ; and at another, to go in- to a village, and find an ass and her foal for their Master. But it was for their Master, and this sufficed. It mat- tered nothing to them on what they were employed, provided only it was Christ by whom they were employed. That, they felt, could not be degrading which he commanded ; nor that unim- portant by which he might be served. Oh for something of the like spirit amongst ourselves — a readiness to fill the lower offices as well as the chief, a disposition to count it honor enough to be useful to Christ, in whatever capaci- ty ! How many are there who can be active and earnest in what is great and imposing, and take the lead in enter- prises for the spread of the Gospel, who, nevertheless, have no taste for humbler duties, duties to be discharged in the hovel of poverty, and at the bedside of sickness ! This is willingness to be the disciple, whilst Judea has to be traver- sed, with all the insignia of an ambassa- dor from God, and unwillingness, when the ass and the colt are to be fetched from the village. How many can heark- en gladly to religion, whilst discourse turns only on lofty things, on commun- ings with Deity, on manifestations of heaven, who yet feel impatience, and even disgust, when there is mention of a cross to be borne, and reproach to be braved. And what is this but readiness to follow Christ to the mount, when he is about to assume glorious apparel, and shine forth in the majesty which is es- sentially his own, but refusal to act in his service when he requires the mean animal, which is likely to procure him the scorn of the proud 1 Indeed it is a prime truth, but one which we are all slow to learn, that there is no employment which is not en- nobled through being employment for Christ, and that it is not genuine Chris- tianity which selects what it likes, and leaves what it dislikes. If we have the love of Christ in our hearts, it will be our dominant desire to promote his cause and perform his will ; and though the dominance of this desire may not prevent our feeling that we should prefer one sphere of labor to another, or enter with greater alacrity on this course than on that, it will certainly produce readiness for every variety of duty, for fetching the colt on which Christ may ride, as well as for rearing the temple in which he may dwell. And we set before you the example of the Apostles in a particu- lar, in which, possibly, it is often over- looked. We show you how, without the least hesitation, these holy men set themselves to the obeying a command, against which they might have offered very plausible objections, objections drawn not only from the little likelihood of success, but from the almost certain exposure to reproach and disgrace. We show you also how it was required of them to come down, so to speak, from their loftier occupation, and perform what might be called a menial service; and with what alacrity they complied ; the very men to whom spirits were sub- ject, and who had been ordained to wage God's war with the powers of darkness, being directed, and being wil- 112 THE LOWLY ERRAND. ling, to go on an errand to which the meanest were equal. The disciples were never' worthier of imitation than in this. Think of them when a duty is proposed to you from which you recoil, because there seems but little to en- courage, and you must, moreover, he liable to opposition and calumny. Is it apparently a less hopeful thing which you have to take in hand, than the finding bo many contingencies satisfied as were to meet, if the two disciples succeeded] the animals of the right kind, standing at a certain place, and at a certain time, the owners consenting to their removal without receiving price or security. And can the doing what is bidden expose you to more of opposition and calumny than seemed to threaten the disciples, who were to take the property of others, and thus run the risk of being regarded and treated as robbers? Think, more- over, of these disciples when you either long for more honored employment than has been allotted you by God, or are tempted to decline any duty as beneath you, and fitted only for such as are in- ferior in office. They were probably, among the mightiest of Apostles who went into a village to loosen, and lead away an ass and her foal, at the bidding of Christ. Ah, it were easy to exhibit the disciples under a more imposing point of view, and you might feel it a stir- ring thing to be bidden to imitate these first preachers of Christianity, as they throw themselves into combat with the idolatries of the world. But the hard thing is to obey ( Ihristonthe simple warrant of his word, without objecting the difficul- ties or computing the consequences. The hard thing is, to be willing to be as no- thing, so long as you may be useful in the church; to be content with the lowest place in the household of the Lord, yea, to think it honor to be vile, if it be in- deed in Christ's cause. And wishing to urge you, by the example of Apostles, to what is hardest in duty, we do not array these men before you in their lofty enterprise of enlightening ignorance, and overthrowing superstition; we remind yon who they were, how commissioned, how endowed, and how exalted; and then we bid you ponder their instant obedience to the command, "Go into the village; straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them and bring them unto me." But if there were much worthy of being admired and imitated in the con- duct of the disciples, what are we to say to that of the owners of the ass and the colt 1 It were beside our purpose to in- quire into the circumstances or character of these men. Indeed we have no mate- rial for such an inquiry, as we are not told whether they had any knowledge of Christ, and can therefore but conjec- ture their treatment of his pretensions. Thus much, however, is certain — they opposed the removal of their property, but immediately withdrew their opposi- tion, on hearing the words, " The Lord hath need of them." It may be doubted whether they understood the disciples as referring to Christ under the name of "the Lord," or whether they applied the name to God; for the disciples were not instructed to say, "Our Lord hath need of them" — which would have fixed the message to Christ — but " The Lord," a form of expression which is used absolutely of Deity, as well as of the Mediator. It is not improbable, therefore, that the owners considered that their property was demanded from them in the name of the Almighty, and that, secretly influenced to regard the demand as having actually proceeded from God, they immediately and unhesi- tatingly complied. At all events, if it were to Christ that they made the sur- render, they made it to him under the title of "the Lord" — thus recognizing a right superior to their own, and con- fessing in him that authority which be- longs only to God. So that, in whatevei measure these men may have been ac- quainted with Christ, they clearly acted on the principle of their being stewards rather than proprietors, holding posses- sions at the will of the Almighty, and prepared to give them up so soon as ho should ask them. It was enough for them to receive an intimation that God had employment for that which he had deposited with them, and instantly they surrendered it, as though no longer their own. Were they not herein a great exam- ple to ourselves 1 Every one of us is ready to acknowledge in God the uni- versal proprietor, to confess, at least with the mouth, that every good, which is delivered into our keeping, " cometh down from the Father of lights." The infidelity on such points is almost exclu- THE LOWLY ERRAND. 113 sively a practical infidelity ; there may be some, but they are few, so blinded by sensuality, or besotted with pride, that they will boldly ascribe to their own skill what they acquire, and speak and think as though there were no ruler above who both has bestowed and may reclaim every tittle of their possessions. It is virtually little more than acknow- ledging the existence of God, to acknow- ledge that the universe, in its every de- partment, is subject to the control and disposal of its Maker; that he orders, with absolute authority, the portion of every creature, diminishing or augment- ing it, making it permanent or variable, at his own good pleasure. And if the acknowledgment were any thing more than in theory, it would follow that men, conscious of holding their property in trust, would strive to employ it in the service of the actual owner, and be ready to part with it, on his indicating the least wish for its removal. But here, alas, it is that the infidelity comes into action ; and men, who are most frank with the confession of not being their own, and of holding nothing which belongs not to another, will be as tenacious of posses- sions as though there were no superior title; as reluctant to give up any por- tion, even when God himself asks, as though stewardship implied no account- ableness. The owners of the ass and the colt proceeded on the right principle, and should therefore be taken as examples by ourselves. They used the animals for their own pleasure or profit, so long as they were not required by God, but surrendered them without a moment's hesitation, so soon as they heard " The Lord hath need of them." And this should be the case with every one on whom God has bestowed earthly wealth. There is nothing to forbid the temperate enjoyment of that wealth — but it is held only in trust; and a due portion should be cheerfully given up, whensoever there is a clear intimation of its being needed by the Lord. Ancient prophecy was to be accomplished. The Redeemer had to make his way into Jerusalem, as the King of Zion, "meek and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass." Here was the need : and he, whose are "the cattle on a thousand hills," and who could have commanded the attend- ance of swarming troops of the beasts of Vol. II. the field, chose to send to men who had but scanty possessions; and these men, admitting at once his rights, gladly sur- rendered what they owned at his bidding. Ancient prophecy has yet to be accom- plished : the Redeemer has to make his way into districts of the earth which have not bowed at his sceptre, into house- holds and hearts which have closed them- selves against him. And though he might command the legions of angels, and cause a miraculous proclamation of j his Gospel, it pleases him to work through human instrumentality — not in- deed that the instrumentality can be effectual, except through his blessing, but that it is not his course to produce results, save through the use of instituted means. Here then is the need ; and it may justly be said, that through every statement of spiritual destitution, every account how souls are perishing through " lack of knowledge," and how the king- dom of darkness is opposing itself to the kingdom of light, there comes a message to the owners of riches, " The Lord hath need of them." But who will say that the message ordinarily finds that ready compliance which followed it when delivered by the first disciples of Christ 1 Indeed, it will be the commencement of a new era in the church, when to show that "the Lord hath need " of this or that thing, shall suffice to procure its cheerful bestow- ment. Yet assuredly this is the just ground on which to rest every charitable appeal : let it be an appeal in the cause of God and of Christ, and it is not so much a request for liberality as a demand for justice. The Almighty does but ask his own: you may sin in withholding, but can claim no merit for surrendering. Neither is it exclusively as pointing out the tenure by which we hold our posses- sions, that there is a lesson in Christ's message to the owners of the ass and the colt. It is a message which should be heard through every afflictive dispen- sation ; for in one way or another, it may be said that the Lord has need of what- soever he withdraws from our keeping. j If he strip us of property, it may be that we had not made a right use of that property ; and having need of it, he has transferred it to another who will be more faithful in his stewai-dship. Or, if we be not chargeable with the abuse of our trust, we may be sure that God has 15 lit THE LOWLY ERRAND. takpn the earthly riches, in order to at- tach us more closely to heavenly; ami he may be said to have needed what he took, it" H' took it that lit- might carry on his great work of moral discipline. It is thus also with the removal of what we love and miss more than riches — kins- men, and children, and friends : " The Lord hath need of them." Perhaps they may have been fully prepared for the glories of heaven : there were places in the celestial temple which awaited them as occupants; and God, with reverence be it spoken, could no longer spare them from his presence. Oh, there is many a death-bed, over which angels might be thought to whisper the words now before lis : and if they who stand round the bed should be tempted to ask, " Why is one so excellent to be taken 1 why are we to be parted from so rare an example of all that is most precious and beautiful in religion?" the best answer might be, "The Lord hath need of him :" the light which has shone so bril- liantly below, is now wanted to add to the radiance above. And even if we may not venture on such a statement as this, we may still say that the dead are taken, that the living may be warned : God breaks our earthly ties, to lead us to the commencing or strengthening friendship with himself; and there can be nothing strained or exaggerated in the saying that "the Lord hath need " of that which he removes, that he may correct and benefit his creatures. In how many ways then, and through how many voices, is the message syl- labled, which Christ sent to them whose property he required. Hearken for it, and it will come to you through all the wants of your fellow-men, through the prevalence of ignorance, through the pressure of indigence, through the ac- cidents, .soi-rows, and bereavements of hl«'- In a thousand ways is God saying to us that he has need of our property, need of our talents, need of our time, need of those whom we love, and of that which we cherish. Shall we refuse him ? or, where we have no option, shall we yield up grudgingly, in place of cheerfully, what he requires % Nay, let us take pattern from men to whom pro- bably but little had been intrusted, but who readily gave up that little so soon as it was needed for the service of God. It may be, that we are often inclined to excuse ourselves from imitating scrip- tural examples, by pleading that the saints of old were of extraordinary cha- racter, and in extraordinary circum- stances, and cannot therefore with justice be set before us as models. If I hold up the patriarch Job to those on whom sorrow presses hard, and bid them ob- serve how, when children were dead, and possessions destroyed, this man of God meekly said, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away : blessed be the name of the Lord " — Yes, is the feeling, if not the answer ; but Job was no common man : his name has passed into a proverb : and it is not to be ex- pected that such as we should emulate his marvellous patience. If again, when I would urge men to sacrifices and en- durances in the cause of Christ and his Gospel, I dwell on the example of St. Paul, who counted " all things but loss," that he might know and serve the Re- deemer, " in journeyings often, in weari- ness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and naked- ness " — Yes, is the sentiment, if not the expression ; but St. Paul has never had his equal : the wonder of his own and every succeeding generation, we may not think to reach so lofty a standard. Thus there is a way of evading the force of scriptural examples : men ima- gine circumstances of distinction between themselves and eminent saints, and give those circumstances in apology for com- ing far behind them in piety. Let us then learn from the mean and unknown, of whom we may not plead that they were separated from us by any thing rare in endowment or position. Men who are reluctant to part with property, that it may be employed in the cause of God ; parents who would withhold their children from missionary work, or mur- mur at their being transplanted from earth to heaven ; sufferers, to whom is allotted one kind or another of afflictive dispen- sation, and who rebel under the chastise- ment, as though it were not for good — come ye all, and learn, if not from exalted persons such as Job and St. Paul, yet from the owners of the ass and the colt which Christ sent for, when designing his last entry to Jerusalem. There is virtually the same message to every one of you as was brought to these poor and unknown individuals. The motive to your surrendering what is asked, or THE LOWLY ERRAND. 115 tearing what is imposed, is precisely the same as was urged upon them. And they will rise up in the judgment and condemn yon, if with all your superior advantages — the advantages of Chris- tianity above Judaism, of an imperfect over an introductory dispensation — you show yourselves less compliant than they were with a summons from the universal Proprietor. Christ, who knoweth the heart, could reckon on readiness, so soon as the owners should be told of his re- quiring the ass and the colt. May he reckon on the same with us 1 Ah, let us, when we go hence, consider what we have which God may speedily require at our hands ; let us search, and see whether we are prepared to resign it, when asked for by God — be it wealth, or child, or honor, or friend — and let us observe how reluctance is rebuked now, and will be witnessed against hereafter, by the willingness of the owners of the ass and the colt, of whom Christ could affirm, " Say ye, the Lord hath need of them, and straightway they will send them." We have thus considered the incidents to which our text has respect with re- ference to Christ himself, to his disciples, and to the owners of the ass and the colt. We have endeavored to show you that our Lord added to the witness for his being the Messiah, by the prescience and power displayed ; and t-hat the man- ner of the display was admirably appro- priate to the wants and circumstances of his followers. We have set before you the disciples as worthy of your close imitation, in that they unhesitatingly obeyed where they might have plausibly objected, and were as ready for a menial service as for the most honored and illustrious. And then the owners have been considered, as exemplifying a great principle of which we are apt to lose sight — the principle, that, in the matter of our possessions, we are not proprietors, but stewards, and should therefore hold our- selves ready to part with what we have, so soon as we know that it is needed by the Lord. They are great lessons, and striking truths, which have thus been derived and illustrated from our text and the context. But, before we conclude, let us dwell for a moment on the vast honor given to humble individuals, in that they were allowed to contribute to the pro- gress of the Savior, when, accomplishing ancient prediction, he advanced towards the city where he was to sacrifice him- self. I think, that, if the men saw the triumphal procession, the multitude spreading their garments, strewing the way with branches, and burdening the air with hosannahs, they must have felt an elation of heart, that their beasts should have been chosen for a personage whom thousands thus combined to rev- erence and honor. The noblest and wealthiest might justly have exulted, had they been allowed to aid the glorious advance : but, as though to show how the mean may serve him, and how their service shall be owned, Christ openly used the property of the poor, on the single occasion when there was any thing like pomp in his earthly career. And why should we not gather from this, that, when he shall come in power and great majesty — not the lowly man, entering Jerusalem in a triumph which was itself almost humiliation, but the " King of kings, and Lord of lords " — he will acknowledge and exhibit the services rendered him by the poor and despised, as well as those wrought by the great ones of the earth 1 It ought to encourage them who have but little in their power, that it was " the foal of an ass" on which Christ rode, and that this foal, in all probability, belonged to the poor. We may all do something towards that sublime consummation for which the church watches and prays, when, not from a solitary city, and not from a single and inconsistent people, but from ten thousand times ten thou- sand voices, from every clime, and land, and tongue, shall be heard the shout, " Hosanna to the Son of David : blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ; hosannah in the highest." " The Lord hath need " of the strength of the mighty and of the feebleness of the weak; of the abundance of the rich and of the mites of the impoverished; and if we will go forth to his help, if each, ac- cording to his means and ability, will strive to accelerate the day when " all shall know the Lord, from the least to the greatest," we may be sure that our labor shall not be forgotten, when " the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him." Oh, if there be some of whom it shall then be told that they contributed the rich and the costly towards preparing the way 116 NEIIEMIAH BEFORE ARTAXERXES. for the advancing Redeemer, of others it may be said that they had not the rich and the costly to give, but that, with a willing heart, they offered their best, though thai besl was only the refuse and mean. And we do not merely say that the poorness of the gift shall not cause ii to be overlooked : the inconsiderable offering may be shown to have been as instrumental as the magnificent in fur- thering the progress of the Gospel : he who, when he would accomplish pro- phecy, entered Jerusalem, not in the rich man's chariot, but on the poor man's ass, may prove tha{ he went forwards to his kingdom, as much through what the feeble wrought in their weakness, as what the mighty effected in their strength. Let this encourage all, that they be not weary in well-doing. May all make a practical use of the great doctrine of Christ's second coming. Anticipate that coming : realize your own personal share in that coming. He will come " to take account of his servants " — are you ready with your account] have you improved your talents 1 have you acted up to your ability in furthering the great cause of truth upon earth ] Let none think himself either excused or injured by insignificance. There was, you re- member, a servant to whom but one talent had been given; and he was bound hand and foot and cast to "outer darkness," because that one had been hidden, when it might have been put " to the exchangers." There were men who perhaps owned little more than an ass and a colt, but they were ready to surrender what they had, when needed by Christ; and lo, they were honored to the effecting what prophecy had an- nounced in one of its loftiest strains, they were instrumental to the bringing and displaying her King to " the daugh- ter of Zion." SERMON XIII. NEHEMIAH BEFORE ARTAXERXES. " I said unto the kin?, Lot the kin? live for rver . why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the placa of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth watte, and the gates' thereof are consumed with fire? Then the kin? said unto me, For what dost thou make request ? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king-, If it please the kin?, and if thy servant have found favor in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it."— Nehemiah ii. 3, 4, 5. When the seventy years had expired, during which God, in just judgment for their many offences, had sentenced the Jews to captivity in Babylon, he graciously remembered his promise, and raised them up a deliverer in the person of Cyrus. In the first year of that mon- arch's reign, " that the word of the Lord, spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be accomplished," a royal edict was issued, which not only permitted the captives to return to their own land, but enjoined that every facility should be afforded to their march, and every assistance rendered them in the rebuild- ing their city and temple. It does not appear that immediate and general advantage was taken of this edict; the Jews did not raise as one man, under the influence of a desire to resettle themselves in Palestine. And this is little to be wondered at, if you re- NEHEMIAH BEFORE ARTAXERXES. 117 member the utter desolation in which Jerusalem and Judea then lay, the arduousness and perils of the journey, and the fact that the captivity had con- tinued so long that few, and those only men fast advancing in years, had ever Been the land of their fathers, or were bound to it by the ties of remembrance or acquaintance. No marvel if there was something of pause and hesitation, if piety and patriotism did not instantly nerve all the exiles to abandon the country which had almost become theirs by adoption, and to seek a home where, though they had once been possessors, they would only find themselves strang- ers. But God purposed the restora- tion of the people, and therefore, as we read, he raised the spirit of " the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, to go up to build the house of the Lord which is at Jerusalem." And soon, under the guidance of Zerubbabel, there went forth a mixed company of the old and the young, bearing with them not only their own riches, but " the vessels of the house of the Lord:" obstacles were sur- mounted, dangers escaped, through the assistance and protection of God ; and in due time the wanderers reached the spot, hallowed by so many magnificent recollections, and which was yet to be the scene of mightier things than past days had witnessed. But the difficulties, as you well re- member, of the Jews did not terminate with their arrival in Judea; their city and temple were to be rebuilded ; and in this great work, they found inveterate adversaries in the Samaritans, who had been settled in the land by Esarhaddon, and who, professing a mixed and spuri- ous religion, wished not the revival of the pure worship of Jehovah. The op- position of these adversaries was so far successful, that Cyrus, the patron of the Jews, being dead, " the work of the house of God" was made to cease " un- til the second year of the reign of Dai - ius." Then, however, it recommen- ced, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah 6tirred up the people, and God inclined the new monarch to re-enact the decree which had been issued by Cyrus. Un- der these altered circumstances, Jerusa- lem had soon again a temple, which, if inferior to that of Solomon in stateli- ness of structure, and richness of adorn- ment, was yet prophetically declared destined to far higher dignity, inasmuch as it should receive the promised Mes- siah : "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts ; and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts." But when the temple had thus risen, and the inspired men were dead whom God had raised up for the instruction and encouragement of the people, there appears to have been great unsettle- ment in both the civil and ecclesiastical policy of the Jews; as a nation, then- position was made precarious by sur- rounding enemies and internal confu- sion ; whilst, as the people of God, they had mingled themselves with the people of the lands, and thereby exposed them- selves to his wrath. In this crisis, Ezra was raised up, "A ready scribe in the law of Moses :" having obtained sanction and assistance from king Artaxerxes, he visited Jerusalem that he might " teach in Israel statutes and judgments." It would seem to have been almost ex- clusively to religious matters that Ez- ra directed his attention ; he accom- plished a great work in dissolving the unlawful connexions which the Jews had formed with the people of the land; but he did little or nothing towards re- instating his country in the position which it had once held amongst nations. Jerusalem appears to have remained Without defences, exposed to the assault of every enemy, and liable at any mo- ment — so ill was it provided with the munitions of war — to be reduced to the ruins from which it had so lately, and as yet so imperfectly, sprung. Here we come to the actions of an- other worthy, whose history furnishes the latest canonical records of the Jews till the days of our Lord. When about twelve years had elapsed from the events commemorated in the close of the book of Ezra, we find a Jew, named Nehe- miah, residing in Shushan, the capital of Persia, and filling the office of cup- bearer to Artaxerxes the king. His father, Hachaliah was probably one of them who had declined to take advant- age of the decree of Cyrus, preferring to remain where he had made himself a home, to returning to a country where he must feel himself an alien. The son, Nehemiah, occupying a post of great 115 NEHEMIAH BEFORE ARTAXERXES. honor in the Persian court, may never have had an opportunity of visiting Jerusalem, hut his heat yearned towards the land and city of his fathers ; with the spirit of a true patriot, he sought eager- ly for information as to the condition of his countrymen, and longed to be instru- mental in advancing their prosperity. The information came : Hauani, one of his brethren, and certain men of Judah, reached Shushan from Jerusalem, per- haps disheartened by the difficulties which they had experienced, and account- ing' it better to resettle in the land in which they had been captives. They gave Nehemiah a melancholy, though not, as it would seem, an exaggerated account. " The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach ; the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with Are." And now it was that the man of piety appeared in the man of patriotism ; and admirably does Nehemiah stand forth as an example to them who profess to have at heart their country's good, and to be stricken by its calamities. He did not immediately call a meeting of the Jews, to consult what might be done for their afflicted countrymen. He did not gather round him a knot of politi- cians, that plans might be discussed, and assistance levied. But, as one who knew in calamity the offspring of sin, and in the Almighty the single patron of the distressed, Nehemiah " sat down, and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven." But Nehemiah did not count his part done when he had thus, in all humility, confessed the sins of his nation, and en T treated the interference of God. He was not one of them who substitute prayer for endeavor, though he would not make an endeavor until he had prepared himself by prayer. Fortified through humiliation and supplication, he now sought to take advantage of his position with the king, and, true patriot as he was, to render that position useful to his countrymen. Nearly four months elapsed from his interview with Hanani, before an opportunity occurred for his addressing Artaxerxes. There was pro- bably a rotation in the office of cup- bearer, which obliged him to await his turn ; and it was at the hazard of life to any one to enter, unbidden, into the pre- sence of the Persian monarch. But in the month of Nisan he stood before Artaxerxes, and he " took up the wine, and gave it unto the king." He was now, however, heavy at heart, and the handing the sparkling draught to the monarch at his banquet, ill assorted with a mind distracted and sad. He had not the skill, indeed he could not have had the wish, to disguise his feel- ings, and affect a cheerfulness which he did not experience. It was his object to attract the attention of the king ; to do this he had only to allow his coun- tenance to betray what, perhaps, he could hardly have forced it to conceal — for we are expressly told that he had never " beforetime been sad in his pre- sence " — so that the altered demeanor was immediately observed, and its rea- son demanded with all the quickness of eastern suspicion. And here it is that we reach the very simple, but touching, narration of our text. Nehemiah was sore afraid, when Artaxerxes, struck with the sorrow de- picted on his features, imperiously asked the cause of the too evident grief. It was the moment for which he had wish- ed, yea, for which he had prayed, yet, now that it had come, he felt so deeply what consequences hung upon a word, that he was almost unmanned, and could scarce venture to unburden his heart. He spake, however, and first offering the customary wish on behalf of the king, asked how he could be other than sad, whilst the city, and the place of the sepulchres of his fathers, lay desolate and waste, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire ? Upon this, Artaxerxes demanded what request he had to make ; and Nehemiah, though his answer had of course to be imme- diately given, gave it not till he had strengthened himself by silent petition to one greater than the king; he "pray- ed to the God of heaven," and then en- treated permission to go unto Judah, and build up the city of the sepulchres of his fathers. The request was successful, though the passage, which we have selected as our subject of discourse, does not require us to refer to subsequent events in the history of Nehemiah. There i8 enojgh in this passage itself to require NEHEMIAH BEFORE ARTAXERXES. 119 and repay the most serious attention ; snd we have but engaged you with a somewhat lengthened review of forego- ing circumstances, that you might the better appreciate what is here recorded of the conduct of Nehemiah. The two prominent facts on which we wish to seize, do indeed widely differ the one from the other, so that, in making them the subject of a single discourse, we cannot hope to preserve that continuous- ness of thought which is generally to be desired in addresses from the pulpit. But forasmuch as the facts come to- gether in Scripture, it must be every way right that they be gathered, as we now propose, into one and the same sermon. The facts are these ; the first, that it was as the city of his fathers' sepulchres that Jerusalem excited the solicitude of Nehemiah ; the second, that Nehemiah found a moment before answering the king, to offer petition to the Almighty. Let us have your close at- tention to these very interesting, though unconnected topics ; our first topic is, the peculiar plea which Nehemiah urges with Artaxerxes ; our second, the ejac- ulatory prayer which went up from Nehemiah to God. Now Jerusalem had not yet received its most illustrious distinction, forasmuch as " the fulness of time " had not arrived, and, therefore, there had not yet been transacted within her circuits the won- drous scenes of the redemption of the world. She was reserved for more stu- pendous and startling things than past days had witnessed, fraught though her history had been with miracles and pro- digy: her streets were to be trodden by the incarnate God, and on the summit of Moriah was the promised seed of the woman, bruised himself in the heel, to accomplish the first prophecy, and bruise the serpent's head. Neverthe- less, to every man, especially to a de- vout Jew, there were already reasons in abundance why thought should turn to Jerusalem, and centre there as on a place of peculiar sanctity and interest. There, had a temple been reared, •" magnirical " beyond what earth be- foretime had seen, rich with the marble and the gold, but richer in the visible tokens of the presence of the universal Lord. There had sacrifices been con- tinually offered, whose efficacy was manifest even to them who discerned not their typical import, forasmuch as at times they prevailed to the arrest of temporal visitations, and pestilence was dispersed by the smoke of the oblation. There, had monarchs reigned of singular and wide-spread renown ; the fame of one, at least, had gone out to the ends of the earth, and nations had flocked to hear the wisdom which fell from his lips. There, had been enacted a long series of judgments and deliverances; the chastisements of heaven following so visibly upon wickedness, and its protec- tion mi repentance, that the most casual beholder might have certified himself that the Supreme Being held the reins of government, and was carrying out the laws of a rigid retribution. Hence, it might easily have been ac- counted for why Nehemiah should have looked with thrilling interest to Jerusa- lem, even if you had kept out of sight his close connexion with those who were striving to reinstate it in strength, and had not supposed any travelling on- wards of his mind to the wonders with which prophecy yet peopled its walls. But the observable thing is, that Nehe- miah fixes not on any of these obvious reasons, when he would explain, or ac- count for, his interest in Jerusalem. He describes the city ; but he describes it only as " the place of his fathers' sepul- chres :" and this he insists upon, as of itself sufficient to justify his urgency, pleading it alike when he would explain why his countenance was sad, and when he stated to the king the favor which he sought at his hands. Before he offered his silent prayer to God, and afterwards, when he might be supposed to have re- ceived fresh wisdom from above, he spake, you observe, of the city merely as of the place of the sepulchres of his fathers, as though no stronger reason could be given why he should wish to rebuild it; none, at least, whose force was more felt by himself, or more likely to be confessed by the king. The lan- guage of Nehemiah is too express and too personal, to allow of our supposing that he adopted it merely from thinking that it would prevail with Artaxerxes: if there were truthfulness in this worthy, it was the desecration of his fathers' sepulchres which chiefly disquieted him ; it was the wish of restoring these sepul- chres which mainly urged to his visiting Jerusalem. Ponder these facts for a few 320 NEUEJIIAH BEFOUL .UMAXERXES. moments ; they are full, we tliink, of beauty ami interest. If we may argue from the expressions of Nehemiah, then, it is a melancholy sight — that of a ruined town, a shattered navy, or a country laid waste by famine and war; but there is a more melancholy sight still, that of a churchyard, where Bleeps the dust of our kindred, desecrated and destroyed, whether by violence or neglect. 5Tou know, that if poetry or fiction would place its hero in a position to draw upon himself the pity and sym- pathy of the reader, there is nothing in which it more delights than in the bring- ing him, after long wanderings as an exile, to the scenes where his childhood was passed, and making him theie find the home of his ancestry deserted and ruined. And as the lonely man makes painfully his way through the scene of desolation, the wild winds syllabling, as it would seem, the names of other days, there is felt to be a depth and sacrednesa in his misfortunes, which must insure his being the object of a more than com- mon compassion. But, according to Nehemiah, there is another position which is yet more de- serving of sympathy. Let us suppose a man to have paid the last sad offices to parents whom he justly revered; he has laid them in a decent grave, and, with filial piety, erected a simple monu- ment over their remains. And then he has gone to distant lands, and worn away many years in separation from all kins- men, though not without frequent turn- ings of the heart to the home of young days. At length he revisits his native shore, and finds, as in such cases is com- monly found, that of the many friends whom he had left, scarcely one remains to welcome him back. Disappointed at not being known by the living, he seeks the companionship of the dead; he hast- ens to the village churchyard where his parents sleep; they will speak to him from the grave, and he shall no longer seem lonely. But he can hardly rind the grave ; the monuments are levelled ; with difficulty can he assure himself that the tombs themselves have not been profaned, and the bones of the dead sacrilegiously disturbed. Oh, will not this be the most heartbreaking thing of all '? There is something so ungener- ous in forgetfulness or contempt of the dead — they cannot speak for themselves; they so seem, in dying, to bequeath their dust to survivors, as though they would give affection something to cherish, and some kind office still to perform; that, from graves wantonly neglected or in- vaded, there might always appear to issue the pathetic complaint, " We have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against us." And we cannot but think that the feelings of the man whom we have thus carried, not to the ruined mansion, but to the ruined mausoleum of his ancestry, would be a full explanation why Nehe- miah laid such emphasis on the fact which he selected, when he sought to move Artaxerxes; why he omitted all reference to Jerusalem in its magnifi- cence, to the thrones of monarchs, the schools of prophets, the altars of sacri- fice; and simply said, " Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire 1 " We do not, however, suppose that the strong marks of respect for the dead, which occur so frequently in the Bible, are to be thoroughly accounted for by the workings of human feelings and affec- tions. We must have recourse to the great doctrine of the resurrection of the body, if we would fully understand why the dying Joseph " gave commandment concerning his bones," and Nehemiah offered no description of Jerusalem, but that it was the place of the sepulchres of his fathers. And there is no need here for entering into any inquiry as to the de- gree of acquaintance with the doctrine of the resurrection which was possessed under the old dispensation. If you find language used which cannot be ade- quately interpreted but by supposing a knowledge of the body's resurrection, it must rather Income us to infer that men were then informed of his truth, than to conclude, on any other grounds, that it was altogether hidden. But when you bring into the account the doctrine of the resurrection, it is no longer merely as a man of strong natural feelings, but as an ardent believer in the loftiest truths, that the supposed visiter to the desecrated churchyard might be confounded and overcome. The doctrine of the resurrection throws, as you must all admit, a sacredness round the re- mains of the dead, because it oroves, NEHEMIAH BEFORE ARTAXERXES. 121 that, though we have committed the body to the ground, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," that body is reserved for noble allotments, destined to reappear in a loftier scene, and discharge more glorious functions. It were a light spirit which should not be overawed amid the ruins of a temple, who should recognize nothing solemn in the mould- ering piles which it knew to have once canopied the more immediate presence of God; especially if it further knew, that, on some approoaching day, the ruins would be reinstated in symmetry and strength, forming again a structure whose walls should be instinct with Deity, and from whose recesses, as from awful shrines, should issue the voice of the Eternal. The dead body is that fallen temple : consecrated upon earth as the habitation of the Holy Ghost, it decays only that it may be more glori- ously rebuilt, and that God may dwell in it for ever above. Therefore is it no slight impiety to show contempt or neg- lect of the dead. It is contempt or neg- lect of a sanctuary ; and how can this be shown but with contempt or neglect of the Being to whom it is devoted '? And there is yet more to be said ; the doctrine of the resurrection is the crown- ing doctrine of revelation ; Christ was " raised again for our justification :" " if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised ; and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." He, therefore, who would forget, make light of, or deny the doctrine of the resurrection, sets himself against no solitary article of the faith ; it is Christianity in its integrity which is at stake ; it is all that is com- forting, all that is saving in its tenets, which is displaced or disputed. He, on the other hand, who is earnest in defence of the doctrine of the resurrection, and eager to show that he values it as well as believes, does not, therefore, confine himself to a single truth of our holy religion : the sufficiency of the atone- ment, the completeness of redemption, the pardon of every sin, the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all believers, these he sees written, as they nowhere else are, in that general emptying of the sepulchres which he is taught to antici- pate — these are preached to him most convincingly by the trumpet of the arch- VOL. II. angel, whose peal already falls on the watchful ear of faith. Then the well- kept churchyard, with its various monu- ments, each inscribed with lines not more laudatory of the past than hopeful of the future, what is it but the public testimony to all that is precious in Chris- tianity, forasmuch as it is the public tes- timony that the dead shall live again ] Whereas, if tablets be defaced, graves desecrated, and the solemn enclosure surrendered to insult and neglect, it is not merely that the dead are dishonored, and that violence is thus done to the best feelings of our nature ; it is that great slight is thrown on all which, as immortal beings, we are most bound to hold dear, a great acknowledgment ap- parently withdrawn of truths without which "we are of all men most misera- ble." It is easy and specious to enlarge on the folly of paying honor to the prey of the worm, conveying with so much parade to the grave that which is turning into a mass of corruption, and then, perhaps, erecting a stately cenotaph to perpetuate the name of a certain portion of dust. And satire may readily point bitter and caustic lines, as the corpse of the owner of princely estates is borne along to the ancient mausoleum, in all the gloomy magnificence which distinguishes the obsequies of the great ; and ask with a sort of cutting severity, whether it be not almost like upbraiding the dead, to pour this stern gorgeousness round the most humbling of earthly transactions i But we have no sympathy whatsoever with this common feeling, that there should be nothing of solemn pomp in consigning the human body to the grave. We might have, if we know nothing of a resurrection. But not whilst we be- lieve in the general Easter of this crea- tion. Not whilst we believe that the grave is but a temporary habitation, and that what is " sown a natural body " is to be " raised a spiritual." The funeral procession attests, and does homage to, the doctrine of the resurrection. It is not in honor of the body as mouldering into dust that we would have decent rites, or even, where consistent with rank, a sumptuous ceremonial attending its interment ; but in honor of the body as destined to come forth gloriously and indissolubly reconstructed. We have no affection for the proud monument, if it were only to mark where the foul 16 122 NEHEMIAH BEFORE ARTAXERXES. worm has banqueted ; but we look with pleasure on the towering marble, as in- dicating a spot where " the trump of God " shall cause a sudden and myste- rious stir, and Christ win a triumph as "the Resurrection and the life." Then suppose Nehemiah acquainted, as we are, with the doctrine of the resur- rection, and we do but find in the em- phasis laid upon the fact, that Jerusalem was the place of his fathers' sepulchres, the testimony of his belief in the truths of redemption, and of his desire to make and keep those truths known to the world. " I cannot bear," he seems to say, " that my fathers, who once wit- nessed from their graves to the most illustrious of facts, should be silent in the dust. I long to give again a thrilling voice to their remains; I would people their cemeteries with heralds of futurity. I may well be downcast when I think of their monuments as levelled with the earth; not because I ostentatiously desire that proud marbles may certify the great- ness of my parentage, but because I would fain that men should thence draw evidence of general judgment and eternal life. 1 mourn not so much that Jeru- salem has ceased to be a queen among cities ; T long not so much that she should rise from her ashes, to be again imperial in beauty : I mourn that her desecrated graves speak no longer of a resurrection : I long that, through respect for the dead, she may be again God's wit- ness of the coming immortality. Oh, why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepul- chres, lieth waste 1 If thy servant have found favor in thy sight, O king, send me unto the city of my fathers' sepul- chres, that I may build it." Now it is a wholly different, but not a less interesting subject, to which we have to give the remainder of our dis- course. We are now to detach our minds from Nehemiah pleading for his fathers' sepulchres, and fix them upon Nehemiah addressing himself to God in ejaculatory prayer. It is among the most remarkable statements of the Bible, " So I prayed to the God of heaven," coming, as it does, between the question of the king, " For what dost thou make request] " and the answer of Nehemiah, " That thou wouldest send me unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres." There is no interval of time : Nehemiah has had no opportunity of retiring, that he might present supplications to God. He has not knelt down — he has given no outward sign, unless perhaps a momen- tary uplifting of the eye, of holding communion with an invisible being; and nevertheless, there, in the midst of that thronged and brilliant court, and in the seconds that might elapse between a question and its answer, he has prayed unto God for direction and strength, and received, as we may believe, assist- ance from heaven. No one can well doubt what it was for which Nehemiah prayed : it may justly be supposed to have been, that God would aid him in preferring his request, and dispose Ar- taxerxes to grant it. And when you observe that the request appears to have been at once successful — for it pleased the king to send Nehemiah, and to grant him royal letters, which might facilitate the repairs of Jerusalem — you must al- low that prayer was not only offered, but answered, in the moment which seemed too brief for all but a thought. Under how practical and comforting a point of view does this place the truth of the omnipresence of God. It is a high mystery, one which quickly bewilders the understanding, and wea- ries even the imagination, that of God being every where present, incapable, from his nature, of leaving this place and passing to that, but always and equally occupying every spot in immen- sity, so as never to be nearer to us, and never further from us, continually at our side, and yet continually at the side of every other being in the measureless universe. Yet, with all its mysterious- ness, this is no merely sublime but bar- ren speculation, no subject to exercise the mind rather than benefit the heart. It should minister wondrously to our comfort, to know that, whether we can explain it or not, we are always, so to speak, in contact with God ; so that in the crowd and in the solitude, in the retirement of the closet, the bustle of business, and the privacies of home, by day and by night, he is alike close at hand, near enough for every whisper, and plenteous enough for every want. It is not so with a human patron or friend, who, whatever be his power, and his desire to use it on our behalf, can- not always be with us, to observe each necessity, and appoint each supply. NE'HEMIAH I5EFORE ARTAXERXES. 123 We have to seek out this friend or pa- tron, when we require his help : pro- bably he is distant from us when the most needed : and we have to send a message, which brings no reply till the season have passed when it might be of avail. How different with God ! in less time than I can count, the desire of my heart may be transmitted to this invisi- ble Guardian and Guide, find gracious audience, and bring down upon me the blessing which I need. If there be opportunity, then truly it may become me to seek audience with greater and more palpable solem- nity, prostrating myself reverently be- fore him, as the all-glorious King, and giving devout expression to my wishes and wants. But it is not indispensable to the audience, that there should be this outward prostration, and this set supplication. The heart has but to breathe its desire, and God is acquaint- ed with it so soon as formed, and may grant it, if he will, before the tongue could have given it utterance. O that there were in us more of that habit of prayer, which, as with Nehemiah, would not suffer us to make request to man, without first sending up a silent petition to God. When Scripture speaks of praying " without ceasing," and of " con- tinuing instant in prayer," it is general- ly thought to prescribe what cannot be actually done, at least not by them who are necessarily much occupied with temporal concerns. And if there were no prayer but those most solemn and stated acts, when, whether in private, or in the public assembly, we set ourselves specifically to the spreading our wants before our Father in heaven, these ex- pressions of Holy Writ would have to be interpreted with certain restrictions-, or would belong in their fulness to such only as might abstract themselves alto- gether from the world. But forasmuch as God is always so ready and able to hear that ejaculatory prayer, the sud- den utterance of the heart, when there is no place for the bending of the knee, and no time even for the motion of the lip, may obtain instant audience and answer, what is to prevent there being that devotional habit which shall fulfil the injunction of praying " without ceas- ing," even though, as with numbers of our race, there be but few moments in the day which, snatched from necessary toil, can be professedly consecrated to communion with heaven "? You have heard of, and are acquaint- ed with, public prayer, and private pray- er, and family prayer : but the prayer of which We now speak, ejaculatory prayer, differs from all these. As the name denotes, the heart should be as a bow, kept always strung, ready at any moment to launch prayer as an arrow ; a dart which, if small, may yet go faster and further than the weightier imple- ment of more labored attempt. The man of business, he need not enter on a single undertaking without prayer : the mariner, he need not unfurl a sail without prayer; the traveller, he need not face a danger without prayer; the statesmen, he need not engage in a de- bate without prayer; the invalid, he need not try a remedy without prayer ; the accused, he need not meet an ac- cuser without prayer. Is it that all and each of these must make a clear scene, ask time for retirement, and be left for a season alone with the Almighty ? That were impossible : as with Nehe- miah, what is to be done must be done on the moment, and in the presence of fellow-men. And it may be done. Blessed be God for this privilege of ejaculatory prayer, of silent, secret, in- stantaneous petition ! We may live at the foot of the mercy-seat, and yet be immersed in merchandise, engrossed with occupation, or pursued by a crowd. We may hallow and enlighten every thing by prayer, though we seem, and are, engaged from morning to night with secular business, and thronged by eager adherents. We cannot be in a difficulty for which we have not time to ask guidance, in a peril so sudden that we cannot find a guardian, in a spot so remote that we may not people it with supporters. Thought, whose rapid flight distances itself, moves but half as quick as prayer : earth to heaven, and heaven again to earth, the petition and the an- swer, both are finished in that indivisi- ble instant which suffices for the mind's passage through infinite space. O that you may not neglect the privilege, that you may cultivate the habit, of ejacula- tory prayer! and that you may medi- tate on the example of Nehemiah. If I would incite you to habits of private devotion, I might show you Daniel in his chamber, " kneeling upon his knees 124 three times a day." If I would com- mend to you the public gatherings of the church, I might remind you of what David has said, "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand." If I would inculcate the duty of family prayer, I might turn attention to Philemon, and " the church in his house." But, wish- ing to make you carry, as it were, the altar about with you — the fire ever burn- ing, the censer ever ready, — wishing that you may resolve nothing, attempt nothing, face nothing, without prayer to God for his ever-mighty grace, I give you for a pattern Nehemiah — who, ask- ed by Artaxerxes for what he made request, tells you, " So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said unto the king, Send me unto Judah, the city of the sepulchres of my fathers." There is nothing that we need add in the way of concluding exhortation. The latter part, at least, of our subject has been so eminently practical, that we should fear to weaken the impression by repetition. Only, if there be any thing sacred and touching in the sep- ulchres of our fathers; if the spot, where those dear to us sleep, seem haunted by their memory, so that it were like for- getting or insulting them to suffer it to be defiled, let us remember that the best monument we can rear to the righte- ous is our copy of their excellence — not the record of their virtues graven on the marble or on the brass, but their ex- ample repeated in our actions and habits. If with Nehemiah, we would show re- spect to the dead, with Nehemiah let us strive to be useful to the living. Then, when sepulchres shall crumble, not through human neglect, but because the Almighty bids them give back their prey, we may hope to meet our fathers in the triumph and the gloriousness of immortality. Our countenances shall not be sad, though " the place of their sepulchres lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire," even with the last tremendous conflagration ; we shall exult in knowing that they and we " have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." SERMON XIV JABEZ. ° And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying-, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh tliat thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand misrlit be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me ! And God granted him that which he requested."— I Chron. iv. 9, 10. If we had to fix on a portion of Scrip- ture which might be removed from our Bibles without being much missed, we should probably select the first nine chapters of this first Book of Chroni- *This Sermon was preached on New Year's day, and a collection was afterwards made in aid of a District Visiting Society. cles. A mere record of names, a cata- logue of genealogies ; the eye glances rapidly over them, and we are inclined to hasten on to parts which may pre- sent something more interesting and instructive. Yet what a startling, what an impressive thing, should be a record of names, a catalogue of genealogies ! the chapters deserve the closest atten- 125 don, even if you keep out of sight their bearing on the descent and parentage of the Christ. It is a New Year's day sermon, this long list of fathers and their children. What are all these names which fill page after page] The names of beings who were once as warm with life as ourselves ; who moved upon the earth as we move now ; who had their joys, their sorrows, their hopes, their fears, their projects ; who thought, perhaps, as little of death as many of us, but who were sooner or later cut down, even as all now present shall be. They are the names of those who once lived; nay, they are names of those who still live; and this is perhaps even the harder to realize of the two. The dead are not dead ; they have but changed their place of sojourn. The mighty cata- logue, which it wearies us to look at, is not a mere register of those who have been, of trees of the forest which, hav- ing flourished their appointed time, have withered or been cut down ; it is a register of existing, intelligent, sentient creatures ; not one who has been in- scribed on the scroll which, headed by Adam, looks like a leaf from the volume of eternity, has ever passed into nothing- ness : written amongst the living, he was written amongst the immortal ; earth might receive his dust, but his spirit, which is more nearly himself, has never known even a suspension of be- ing : thousands of years ago the man was ; at this moment the man is ; thou- sands of years to come the man shall be. We repeat it — there is something very hard to realize in this fact, that all who have ever lived are still alive.* We talk of an over-peopled country, even of an over-peopled globe — where and what, then, is the territory into which genera- tion after generation has been swept, the home of the untold myriads, the rich, the poor, the mighty, the mean, the old, the young, the righteous, the wicked, who, having once been reckoned amongst men, must everlastingly remain inscribed in the chronicles of the race ; inscribed in them, not as beings which have been, but as beings which are 1 We have all heard of the dissolute man, said to have been converted through hearing the fifth * This fact is excellently treated in a striking sermon by Mr. Newman, on the " Individuality of the Soul." chapter of the Book of Genesis, in which mention is made of the long lives of Adam, Seth, Enos, Methuselah, and others, and eacli notice is concluded with the words, " and he died." It came appallingly home to the dissolute man, that the most protracted life must end at last in death ; he could not get rid of the fact that life had to terminate, and he found no peace till he had pro- vided that it might terminate well. But suppose that each notice had been con- cluded, as it might have been, with the words, " and he lives," would there not have been as much, would there not have been more to startle and seize upon the dissolute man ] " He died," does not necessarily involve a state of retribu- tion ; " he lives," crowds the future with images of judgment and recompense. You hear men often say, in regard of something which has happened, some- thing which they have lost, something which they have done, or something which they have suffered, " Oh, it will be all the same a hundred years hence ! " All the same a hundred years hence ! far enough from that. They speak as if they should certainly be dead a hundred years hence, and as if, therefore, it would then necessarily have become unimportant what turn or course events may have taken. Whereas, they will be as truly alive a hundred years hence as they are now ; and it will not be the same a hun- dred years hence whether this thing hap- pened or that, this action were performed or that. For there is nothing so trivial but that it may affect man's future being : in the moral world, as in the physical, "no motion impressed by natural causes, or by human agency, is ever obliter- ated;"* of what, then, dare we affirm, * Babbage, the ninth Bridgewater Treatise. — " What a strange chaos is this wide atmosphere we breathe ! Every atom, impressed with good and with ill, retains at once the motions which philosophers and sages have imparted to it, mixed and combined in ten thousand ways with all that is worthless and base. The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said, or ever Whis- pered. There, in their mutable but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest as well as the latest sighs of mortality, stand for ever recorded, vows unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, perpet- uating, in the united movements of each particle, the testimony of man's changeful will. "If the Almighty stamped on the brow of the earliest murderer the indelible and visible mark of his guilt, he has also established laws by which 126 that, let it be as it may, it will be all the same a hundred, or a thousand, or a million years hence ] "We recur, then, to what gave rise to these remarks ; the long lists of names which occupy the first nine chapters of this First Book of Chronicles. We affirm of these lists, that without any comment, they furnish a most appropriate sermon for New Year's day. Names of the dead, and yet names of the living, how should their mere enumeration suggest the thought of our days upon earth being as a shadow, and yet of those days being days of probation for an everlasting exist- ence ! And what thought is so fitted to New Year's day, when, as we commence one of the great divisions of time, the very season might seem to speak of the rapid flight of life, and of the con- sequent duty of attempting forthwith preparation for the future ? To read these chapters of the Chronicles, is like entering avast cemetery where sleep the dead of many generations. But a ceme- tery is the place for a New Year's day meditation, seeing that we have just con- signed the old year to the grave, with its joys, its sorrows, its plans, its events, its mercies, its sins. And are they dead, the multitudes whose names are inscribed on the gloomy walls and crowded stones of the cemetery, Gomer, and Javan, and Tubal, and Nahor 1 Nay, not so: their dust indeed is beneath our feet, but even that dust shall live again ; and all the while their spirits, conscious still, sentient still, occupy some unknown region, miserable or happy beyond what they ever were upon earth, though reserved for yet more of wretchedness or gladness at an ap- proaching resurrection and general judg- ment. Neither is the past year dead : not a moment of it but lives and breathes, not one of its buried occurrences that has not a present existence, exercising some measure of influence over our actual condition, and reserved to exercise a yet stronger, when it shall come forth as a every suceeding criminal is not less irrevocably chained to the testimony of his crime; tor every atom of his mortal frame, through whatever changes its several particles may migrate, will stiil retain, adhering to it through every combina- tion, some movement derived from that very muscular effort by which the crime itself was perpetrated." — Chapter ix. " On the Permanent Impression of our Words and Actions on the Globe we inhabit." witness at the last dread assize, bearing testimony which must help to determine whether we are to be for ever with the Lord, or banished for ever from the light of his presence. Thus these regis- tered names might themselves serve as an appropriate sermon. God is witness that it is in perfect sincerity, and with every sentiment of christian affection, that, adopting the customary language, I wish you all a happy new year. But I must give a voice to the old year. It must speak to you from its sepulchre. No burying of the past as though it were never to revive. No reading of names in the Chronicles as though they were names of those who have altogether ceased to be. Oh, I wish you a happy new year; but happy it shall not, cannot be, in any such sense as befits beings of such origin, such capacity, such destiny as yourselves, unless you bear diligently in mind that you are mortal, yet cannot die; that things may be past, yet cannot perish ; that days may be forgotten, but never can forget. We should receive, however, a wrong impression in regard of these chapters of the First Book of Chronicles, were we to suppose them valuable only on such accounts as have already been in- dicated. They are not a mere record of names, though on a cursory glance, we might conclude that they contained nothing else, and that therefore, after one or two general reflections, we might safely proceed to more instructive por- tions of Scripture. Interspersed with the names, there occur, here and there, brief, but pregnant, notices of persons and things, as though inserted to reward the diligent student, who, in place of taking for granted that a catalogue of names could not be worth reading, should go through it with all care, fearing to miss some word of information or admo- nition. Our text is a remarkable case in point. Here is a chapter which seems made up of genealogies and names. Let me skip it, might be the feeling of the reader ; what good can I get from learning that " Penuel was the father of Gedor, and Ezer the father of Hu- shah V But if he were to skip it he would miss one of the most beautiful and interesting passages in the Bible, for such, we think to show you, is a just description of our text. We know 127 nothing whatsoever of the Jabez here commemorated beyond what we find in these two verses. But this is enough to mark him out as worthy, in no ordi- nary degree, of being admired and imi- tated. There is a depth, and a compre- hensiveness, in the registered prayer of this unknown individual — unknown ex- cept from that prayer — which should suffice to make him a teacher of the righteous in every generation. And if we wanted a prayer especially suited to New Year's day, where could we find more appropriate utterances] If we would begin, as we ought to begin, the year with petitions that such portion of it as God may appoint us to spend upon earth may be spent in greater spiritual enlargement, in deeper purity of heart end of life, and in more abundant ex- perience of the goodness of the Lord, 3han may have marked the past year, what more copious, more adequate, ex- pressions could any one of us use than these, " Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil that it may not grieve me ]" Happy, happy man, happy woman, happy child, who should pray this prayer in faith, and thus insure that it shall have to be said, as of Jabez, " And God granted him that which he requested." But this is anticipating our subject. Let us now take the several parts of the text in succession, commenting upon each, and searching out the lessons which may be useful to ourselves. The first verse contains a short account of Jabez; the second is occupied by his prayer. Come, and let us see whether there be not something to instruct us even in the brief narrative of his life, and whether, as "strangers and pilgrims upon earth," with a battle to fight, a race to run, an inheritance to possess, we can find more appropriate supplica- tions than those in which this Jabez called on the Lord God of Israel. Now there is no denying — for it is forced on us by every day's experience — that we are short-sighted beings, so little able to look into the future that we constantly miscalculate as to what would be for our good, anticipating evil from what is working for benefit, and reckoning upon benefit from that which may prove fraught with nothing but evil. How frequently does that which we have baptized with our tears make the countenance sunny with smiles ! how frequently, again, does that which we have welcomed with smiles wring from us tears ! That which has raised anxious thoughts proves often a rich source of joy ; and as often, that which hardly cost us a care, so bright was its promise, wounds to the quick, and bur- dens us with grief. We do not know the particular reasons which influenced the mother of Jabez to call him by that name, a name which means " Sorrow- ful." We are merely told, " His moth- er called his name Jabez, saying, be- cause I bare him with sorrow." Wheth- er it were that she brought forth this son with more than common anguish, or whether, as it may have been, the time of his birth were the time of her widowhood, so that the child came and found no father to welcome him — the mother evidently felt but little of a mother's joy, and looked on her infant with forebodings and fears. Perhaps it could hardly have been her own bodily suffering which made her fasten on the boy a dark and gloomy appellation, for, the danger past, she would rather have given a name commemorative of de- liverance, remembering " no more her anguish for joy that a man was born into the world." Indeed, when Rachel bare Benjamin, she called his name Benoni, that is, the son of my sorrow; but then it was " as her soul was in de- parting, for she died." And when there pressed upon a woman in her travail heavier things than her bodily pains — as with the wife of Phinehas, to whom were brought sad "tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father- in-law and her husband were dead " — the mind could fix on the more fatal facts, and perpetuate their remembrance through the name of the child; she call- ed — and it was with her last breath, for she too, like Rachel, died — she cal'ed the child Ichabod, " saying, The glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken." We may well, therefore, suppose that the mother of Jabez had deeper and more lasting sorrows to register in the name of her boy than those of the giving him birth. And whatsoever may have been the cause, whether do- mestic affliction or public calamity, we 128 may consider the woman as having bent in bitterness over her new-born chihl, having only tears to give him as his welcome to the world, and feeling it impossible to associate with him even a hope of happiness. She had probably looked with different sentiments on her other children. She had clasped them to her breast with all a mother's glad- ness, and gazed upon them in the fond anticipation of their proving the sup- ports and comforts of her own declining years. But with Jabez it was all gloom ; the mother felt as if she could never be happy again : this boy brought nothing but an accession of care, anxiety, and grief; and if she must give him a name, let it be one which may always remind himself and others of the dark heritage to which he had been born. And yet the history of the family is gathered in- to the brief sentence, " Jabez was more honorable than his brethren." The child of sorrow outstripped all the others in those things which are " acceptable to God, and approved of men." Nothing is told us of his brethren, except that they were less honorable than himself; they too may have been excellent, and perhaps as much is implied, but Jabez took the lead, and whether or not the youngest in years, surpassed every other in piety and renown. Oh, if the mother lived to see the manhood of her sons, how strangely must the name Jabez, a name probably given in a moment of despondency and faithlessness, have fall- en on her ear, as it was woven into message after message, each announcing that the child of sorrow was all that the most affectionate parent could wish, and more than the most aspiring could have hoped. She may then have regretted the gloomy and ominous name, feeling as though it reproached her for having yielded to her grief, and allowed her- self to give way to dreary forebodings. It may have seemed to her as a stand- ing memorial of her want of confidence in God, and of the falseness of human cal- culations ; and as she embraced Jabez, whose every action endeared, as it en- nobled him the more, she may have felt that the sorrow had to be transferred from the name to her own heart ; she herself had to grieve, but only that, through mistrust of the Lord, she had recorded her fear where she should have exhibited her faith. And is not this brief notice of the mother of Jabez full of warning and admonition to ourselves ? How ready are we to give the name Jabez to per- sons or things, which, could we but look into God's purpose, or repose on his promise, we might regard as designed to minister permanently to our security and happiness. " All the\se things," said the patriarch Jacob, " are against me," as one trial after another fell to his lot : if he had been asked to name each event, the loss of Joseph, the binding of Simeon, the sending away of Benjamin, he would have written Jabez upon each — so dark did it seem, to him so sure to work only wo. And yet, as you all know, it was by and through these gloomy deal- ings that a merciful God was providing for the sustenance of the patriarch and his household, for their support and ag- grandizement in a season of extraordi- nary pressure. As Joseph said to his brethren, " God did send me before you to preserve life" — what man would have named Jabez was God's minister for good. Thus it continually happens in regard of ourselves. We give the sorrowful title to that which is design- ed for the beneficent end. Judging only by present appearances, allowing our fears and feelings, rather than our faith, to take the estimate or fix the character of occurrences, we look with gloom on our friends, and with melan- choly on our sources of good. Sick- ness, we call it Jabez, though it may be sent to minister to our spiritual health ; poverty, we call it Jabez, though coming to help us to the possession of heavenly riches ; bereavement, we call it Jabez, though designed to graft us more closely into the household of God. O for a better judgment ! or rather, O for a simpler faith ! We cannot indeed see the end from the beginning, and therefore cannot be sure that what lises in cloud will set in vermilion and gold; but we need not take upon ourselves to give the dark name, as though we could not be deceived in regard of the nature. The mother of him who proved " more honorable than his brethren " may have been unable to prognosticate aught but sorrow for and from this child — so much of threatening aspect may have hung round his entrance upon life — but she should have called him by a name expressive of dependence on God, ra- 129 £her than of despondency and soreness of heart. Let us derive this lesson from the concise but striking narrative in the first verse of our text. Let us neither look confidently on what promises best, nor despairingly on what wears the most threatening appearance. God often wraps up the withered leaf of disappoint- ment in the bright purple bud, and as often unfolds the golden flower of enjoy- ment in the nipped and blighted shoot. Experience is full of evidence that there is no depending on appearances ; that things turn out widely different from what could have been anticipated ; the child of most promise perhaps living to pierce as with a sword, the child of least, to apply balsam to the wound ; events which have menaced ministering to happiness, and those which have come like enemies doing the office of friends. So that, if there be one duty more pressed upon us by what we might ob- serve than another, it is that of waiting meekly upon the Lord, never cherishing a wish that we might choose for our- selves, and never allowing a doubt that he orders all for our good. Oh, be careful that you pronounce not harshly of his dealings, that you provoke him not by speaking as though you could see through his purpose, and decide on its being one of unmixed calamity. If you are so ready with your gloomy names, he may suspend his gracious designs. If, in a spirit of repining or unbelief, you brand as Jabez what may be but a bless- ing in disguise, no marvel if sometimes, in just anger and judgment, he allow the title to prove correct, and suffer not this Jabez, this child born in sorrow, to be- come to you as otherwise it might, more honorable, more profitable, than any of its brethren. But let us now turn to the prayer of Jabez : there might be a sermon made on each petition ; but we must content ourselves with a brief comment on the successive requests. Yet we ought not to examine the prayer without pausing to observe to whom it is addressed. It is not stated that Jabez called on God, but on " the God of Israel :" and, unim- portant as this may seem on a cursory glance, it is a particular which, duly pon- dered, will be found full of beauty and interest. There are few things more significant Vol. II. than the difference in the manner in which God is addressed by saints undei the old and under the new dispensation. Patriarchs pray to God as the God of their fathers; Apostles pray to him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In both forms of address there is an in- timation of the same fact, that we need something to encourage us in approach- ing unto God ; that exposed as we are to his just wrath for our sins, we can have no confidence in speaking to him as to absolute Deity. There must be something to lean upon, some plea to urge, otherwise we can but shrink from the presence of One so awful in his gloriousness ; our lips must be sealed ; for what can it avail that corrupt crea- tures should ask mercies from a Being, all whose attributes pledge him to the pouring on them vengeance ] They may tell you that prayer is the voice of nature — but it is of nature in utter ignorance of itself and of God. The savage offers his petitions to the unknown spirit of the mountain or the flood ; yes — to the unknown spirit : let the savage be better informed as to what God is, let him be also taught as to what himself is, and he will be more disposed to the silence of despair than to the importunity of supplication. We must, then, have some title with which to address God — some title which, interfer- ing not with his majesty or his mysteri- ousness, may yet place him under a cha- racter which shall give hope to the sinful as they prostrate themselves before him. We need not say, that under the Gospel dispensation, this title should be that which is used by St. Paul, "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Having such a Mediator through whom to ap- proach, there is no poor supplicant who may not come with boldness to the mercy-seat. But under earlier dispen- sations, when the mediatorial office was but imperfectly made known, men had to seize on other pleas and encourage- ments ; and then it was a great thing, that they could address God as you con- tinually find him addressed, as the God of Israel, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. The title assured them that God was ready to hear prayer and to answer it. They went before God, thronged, as it were, with remembrances of mercies bestowed, deliverances vouchsafed, evils 17 130 averted : how could they fear that God was too great to be addressed, too occu- pied ti> reply, or too stern to show kind- ness, when they bore in mind how they hod shielded their parents, hearkened to their cry, and proved himself unto them " a very present help " in all time of trouble ? Ah, and though under the new dispen- sation, " the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" be the great character under which God should be addressed by us in prayer, there is no need for our altogether dropping the title, the God of our fathers. It might often do much to cheer a sor- rowful heart and to encourage a timid, to address God as the God of our fathers. The God in whom my parents' trusted, the God who heard my parents' cries, the God who supplied my parents' wants — oh, there is many a poor wanderer who would be more encouraged, and more admonished, through such a re- membrance of God as this, than through all the definitions of a rigid theology. There are some here — the mother did not, indeed, give them the name Jabez at their birth ; she looked on them hope- fully, with eyes brimful of gladness; but they have since sorely wrung the hearts of their parents- -disobedient, dissipated, thankless, that sharper thing, it is said, than the tooth of the serpent. There are some such here; some who helped to bring down a father's " grey hairs with sorrow to the grave :" others, whose parents still survive ; but if you could look in unexpectedly on those parents, you might often find them shedding scalding tears, shedding them on account of a child who is to them a Jabez, as causing only grief, whatever brighter name they gave him amid the hopes and promises of baptism. We speak to those of you whose consciences bear witness, that their parents would have predicted but truth had they named them Jabez, that is, sorrowful. We want to bring you to begin the new year with resolu- tions of amendment and vows of better things. But resolutions and vows are worth nothing, except as made in God's strength and dependence on his grace. And therefore must you pray to God : it were vain to hope any thing from you unless you will give yourselves to prayer. But how shall you address God, the God whom you have neglected, the God whom you have provoked, the God of whom you might justly fear, that he is too high, too holy, and too just, to receive petitions from such as ourselves 1 Oh, we might give you lofty titles, but they would only bewilder you ; we might define him by his magnificent attributes, but they would rather terrify than encourage you. But it may soften, aud at the same time strengthen you ; it may aid your contrition, wring from you tears, and yet fill you with hope, to go before God with all the imagery around you of the home of your childhood, the mind's eye arraying the reverend forms of those who gave you birth, as they kneel down in anguish, and cry unto the Lord — ay, cry on your behalf, and cry not in vain; for it may be in answer to their prayer, that you will now attempt to pray. Oh, we shall indeed hope for you, ye wan- derers, ye prodigals, if, when ye go hence, ye will seek the solitude of your chambers and fall upon your knees, and, allowing memory to do its office, how- ever painful and reproachful, address God, as Jabez addressed him, as the God of Israel, the God of your parents. And what did Jabez pray for? for great things — great, if you suppose him to have spoken only as an heir of the temporal Canaan, greater if you ascribe to him acquaintance with the mercies of redemption. "Oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed !" Lay the emphasis on that word " indeed." Many things pass for blessings which are not; to as many more we deny, though we ought to give the character. There is a bless- ing in appearance which is not also a blessing in reality ; and conversely, the reality may exist where the appearance is wanting. The man in prosperity ap- pears to have, the man in adversity to be without a blessing — yet how often does God bless by withholding and with- drawing! more frequently, it may be, than by giving and continuing. There- fore, " Oh, that thou wouldest bless me indeed." Let me not have what looks like blessing, and perhaps is not, but what is blessing, however unlike it may appear. Let it come under any form, disappointment, tribulation, persecution, only " bless me indeed ! " bless me, though it be with the rod. I will not prescribe the nature of the dealing; deal with me as Thou wilt, with the blow or with the balm, only " bless me indeed !" And Jabez goes on, " That thou 131 wouldest enlarge my coast." He pro- bably speaks as one who had to win from the enemy his portion of the pro- mised land. He knew that, as the Lord said to Joshua, " There remained yet very much land to be possessed:" it was not then necessarily as a man de- sirous of securing to himself a broader inheritance, it may have been as one who felt jealous that the idolater should still defile what God had Bet apart for his people, that he entreated the en- largement of his coast. And a christian may use the same prayer ; he, too, has to ask that his coast may be enlarged. Who amongst us has yet taken posses- sion of one half the territory assigned him by God ] Of course we are not speaking of the inheritance that is above, of share in the land whereof Canaan was the type, and which we cannot enter but by dying. But there is a present in- heritance, " a land flowing with milk and with honey," which is ours in virtue of adoption into the family of God, but much of which we allow to remain un- possessed, through deficiency in dili- gence or in faith. Our privileges as christians, as members of an apostolical church, as heirs of the kingdom of hea- ven, how are these practically under- valued, how little are they realized, how sluggishly appropriated ! We remain — alas, we are contented to remain — in suspense as to our spiritual condition, in the enjoyment of but a fraction of the ministrations appointed by the church, in low attainments, contracted views, and half performed duties. What dis- tricts of unpossessed territory are there in the Bible ! how much of that blessed book has been comparatively unexamin- ed by us ! We have our favorite parts, and give only an occasional and cursory notice to the rest. How little practical use do we make of God's promises ! how slow is our progress in that humble- ness of mind, that strength of faith, and that holiness of life, which are as much a present reward as an evidence of fit- ness for the society of heaven ! What need then for the prayer, "Oh that thou wouldest enlarge my coast ! " I would not be circumscribed in spiritual things. I would not live always within these narrow bounds. There are bright and glorious tracts beyond. I would know more of God, more of Christ, more of myself. I cannot be content to remain as I am, whilst there is so much to do, so much to learn, so much to enjoy. Oh for an enlargement of coast, that I may have a broader domain of christian privilege, more eminences from which to catch glimpses of the fair rich land hereafter to be reached, and wider sphere in which to glorify God by devoting myself to his service. It is a righteous covetousness, this for an enlargement of coast ; for he has done little, we might almost say nothing, in religion, who can be content with what he has done. It is a holy ambition, this which pants for an ampler territory. But are we only to pray"? are we not also to struggle, for the enlargement of our coasts 1 Indeed we are: observe how Jabez proceeds, "And that thine hand might be with me." He represents himself as arming for the en- largement of his coast, but as knowing all the while that " the battle is the Lord's." Be it thus with ourselves ; we will pray that, during the coming year, our coasts may be enlarged ; oh for more of those deep havens where the soul may anchor in still waters of com- fort ! oh for a longer stretch of those sunny shores whereon the tree of life grows, and where angel visitants seem often to alight ! But, in order to this enlargement, let us give ourselves to closer study of the word, to a more diligent use of the ordinances of the church, and to harder struggle with the flesh. Only let all be done with the practical consciousness that " except the Lord build the house, their labor is but lost that build it." This will be to arm ourselves, like Jabez, for the war, but, like Jabez, to expect success only so far as God's hand shall be with us. There is one more petition in the prayer of him who named with a dark and inauspicious name, yet grew to be " more honorable than his brethren." " That thou wouldest keep me from evil that it may not grieve me." It is not an entreaty for actual exemption from evil — it were no pious wish to have no evil whatsoever in our portion : " Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil 1 " Jabez prayed not for the being kept from evil, but kept from the being grieved by evil. And there is a vast difference between the being visited by evil, and grieved by evil. He is grieved by evil, who does not re- ceive it meekly and submissively, as the 132 chastisement of his heavenly Father. He is grieved by evil, whom evil injures, in place of benefits — which latter is always God's purpose in his permission or appointment. He is grieved by evil, whom it drives into sin, and to whom, therefore, it furnishes cause of bitter re- pentance. You see, then, that Jabez showed great spiritual discernment in casting his prayer into this particular form. We too should pray, not absolutely that God would keep us from evil, but that he would so keep it from us, or us from it, that it may not grieve us. The coming year can hardly fail to bring with it its portion of trouble. There are individuals here who will have much to endure, whether in person, or family, or sub- stance. It is scarcely assuming the place of the prophet, if I say that I see the funeral procession, moving from some of your doors, and sorrow, under one shape or another, breaking like an armed man into many of your households. But if it were too much to hope that evil may not come, it is not too much to pray that evil may not grieve. Ah, if we knew approaching events, we should, perhaps, be ready to give the name Jabez to the year which has this day been born. And yet may this Jabez be more honorable than his brethren, a year of enlargement of our coasts, of greater acquisition in spiritual things, of growth in grace, of closer conformity to the image of Christ. It is not the tribula- tion with which its days may be charged, which can prevent such result ; nay, rather, it may only advance it. And it shall be this, if we but strive to cultivate that submissiveness of spirit, that firm confidence in the wisdom and goodness of the Lord, that disposition to count nothing really injurious but what injures the soul, yea, every thing profitable from which the soul may gain good, which may all be distinctly traced in the simple, comprehensive petition, " Oh that tiiou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me." Now we have thus endeavored to in- terweave with our subject-matter of dis- course such reflections and observations as might be specially appropriate to a New Year's day. But there is one thing of which I had almost lost sight. I have to ask you for a New Year's day present, not indeed for myself, which I might hesitate to do, but for the poor, the sick, and the afflicted, in whose name I may beg, and have nothing to blush at, unless it were a refusal. Of all days in the year, this is peculiarly a day for "sending portions" to the dis- tressed, sending them as a thank-offering for the many mercies with which the past year has been marked. And our long-established and long-tried District Society for visiting and relieving the poor of the neighborhood, makes its annual appeal to you for the means of carrying on its benevolent work. It appeals to the regular congregation, as to those whose engine and instiument it especially is : it appeals also to strang- ers ; for they who come hither to join in our worship, may with all justice be asked to assist us in our charities. I need not dwell on the excellences of this society. I shall venture to say, that, through the kindness and zeal of our visiters, whom we can never suffi- ciently thank, but whom God will re- ward — for theirs is the fine christian benevolence, the benevolence which gives time, the benevolence which gives labor, the benevolence which seeks no showy stage, no public scene, but is content to ply, patient and unobserved, in the hovels of poverty and at the bed- side of sickness; I shall venture to say, that, through the kindness of these visit- ers, a vast deal is daily done towards alleviating sorrow, lightening distress, and bringing the pastor into contact with the sick and the erring of his flock. It were very easy to sketch many pic- tures which might incline you to be even more than commonly liberal in your New Year's day gift. But I shall attempt only one, and furnish nothing but the briefest outline even of that. There is a mother in yonder wretched and desolate room, who has but lately given birth to a boy ; and there is no father to welcome him, for, only a few weeks back, half broken-hearted, she laid her husband in the grave. What shall she call that boy, thus born to her in the midst of wretchedness and an- guish 1 Oh, by no cheerful name. She feels, as she bends over him, as if he were indeed the child of sorrow : so dreary is her state, so friendless, that, were it not for the strivings of that sweet and sacred thing, a mother's fond- ness for her babe, she could almost wish him with his father in the grave, that he might not have to share her utter desti- tution. Left to herself, she could but, like the Jewish mother, call his name Jabez, saying, " Because I bare him with sorrow." But she is not left to herself: a kind voice bids her be of good cheer ; a friendly hand brings her nour- ishment : she looks smilingly on her child, for she has been suddenly made to hear, and to taste of the loving-kind- ness of God, " the husband of the widow, and the father of the fatherless." Oh, what a change has passed over that lonely and wretched apartment; you will not ask through what instrumen- j EZ - 133 tality, but you will thank God that such an instrumentality is in active operation around you ; you will do your best to keep up its efficiency. And as that suffering woman no longer thinks of calling her child Jabez, that is, Sorrow- ful, but rather wishes some title expres- sive of thanksgiving and hopefulness ; you will so share her gladness as to feel how appropriately the organ's solemn swell now summons you to join in the doxology : " Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below ; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son. and Holy Ghost." SERMONS ON CERTAIN OF Till: LESS PROMINENT FACTS AND REFERENCES IN SACRED STORY. SECOND SERIES. SERMON I THE YOUNG MAN IN THE LINEN CLOTH. And there followed him a certain youn? man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; ami the yoms laid hold on hira : and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked." — St. JI.uik, jciv. 51, 52. St. Mark is the only Evangelist who mentions this occurrence : we cannot, therefore, as we often may, by a com- parison of accounts, obtain a fuller nar- rative of facts, and thereby settle with more precision what particular truths may have been illustrated or enforced. But if we have only this single account, it goes sufficiently into detail to afford much scope for thought and inquiry ; the facts would not have been related at all, and much less with such careful accuracy, had they not been facts which it was important for us to know; and they would have been related, we may venture to believe, more than once, had not their single statement sufficed for information and instruction. That it was a young man, though no clue is given to his name or condition ; that he followed Christ, when his pro- fessed disciples forsook him and iled ; that he was clad in a linen cloth; that his linen cloth was his only garment; that he was seized by the young men who were hurrying Jesus to the high priest; that, being thus seized, he strug- gled away, but lefi his garment behind — these facts are all given with evident carefulness of detail, the Evangelist ap- pearing anxious that we should not pasa over the occurrence as though it were unimportant, but should pause and con- sider why it was permitted to happen, or why, at least, it was directed to be recorded. Whatever is in any way connected with the apprehension, trial, and cruci- fixion of our blessed Redeemer, ought to possess for us a special interest ; an incident which we might have passed over as of no great importance, had it not been associated with such awful transactions, acquires solemnity, and de- mands attention, when found in thai se- ries of events^ of which it is haul to say whether it should mosl move our awe or our gratitude 1 . We cannot, therefore, content our- selves with a brief or cursory notice of the circumstances related in our text. We rather regard it as intended to be made the subject of patient and prayer- ful meditation, and as fraught with deep 136 THE YOCXG MAIV IS THE I.IXEX CLOTH. ami mystic ■M\c: unermce. Th though given, as we have seen, with considerable detail, are abruptly intro- duced, and as abruptly dismissed. The young man is brought suddenly on the scene: we arc not informed whether he was a disciple of Christ ; there is no mention of his motive in following Christ at such a moment and in such a dress; so soon as he has escaped from the crowd, not a word is added which might assist us in conjecturing why the Evan- gelist interrupted the course of bis nar- rative, to insert what seems to have so little to do with the tragic story of our Lord's closing scene. This very abruptness, this very mys- teriousness, should obtain for the facts our serious attention. We ought to be convinced that what is so strangely in- troduced was designed to arrest our thoughts, and to reward the study of which we might make it the subject. Let. lis then, without further preface, apply ourselves to the examination of the facts which St. Mark sets before us in the words of our text. As our blessed Redeemer is being hurried from Geth- semane to the palace of the high priest, let us join ourselves to the crowd, and endeavor to ascertain what there was to deserve the being specially noted by the sacred historian, in that Christ was fol- lowed by a young man, with a linen cloth cast about his naked body; that this young man was seized on by the rabble; and that "he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked." Now we will first glance at the more ordinary comment which is put on the facts, though with no puipose of recom- mending it as in any sense satisfactory, but rather that we may show it to be vague and inadequate. You are to ob- serve the point of time at which the facts now before us occurred. Our Lord bad just passed through his fearful agony in the garden, when his sweat had been, as it were, great drops of blood, and thrice had He entreated, that, if it were pos- sible, the cup might pass from Him. On his returning a third time to his disci- ples, who, notwithstanding the awful- ness of the hour, had been overcome with sleep, He was met by Judas, one of the twelve, who had come accompa- nied by a great multitude with swords and staves to seize Him, and carry Him before the high priest. Gethsemane was at the foot of the Mount of Olives ; when, therefore, Judas and his crew had seized upon Christ, they had to pass through the suburb's of the city, where any tu- mult in the dead of the night may have been most unusual, in order to reach the high priest's palace. And the common supposition is, that the young man, wa- kened by the strange disturbance in the street, had thrown a sheet round him, as the first thing which came to hand; that lie had then rushed down to inquire the cause of the uproar; and that, hear- ing of the apprehension of Jesus, whom he must have known by report, or to whom he may have been secretly at- tached, he determined to follow, whe- ther from curiosity or a better motive, that he might see how the matter would end. But if this were all, it would really be hard to say for what purpose, or with what view, the facts have been recorded, Admitting that all Scripture has been written for our learning, it might not be easy to understand what pai'tieular les- sons were conveyed through the men- tion of a young man who had been roused from his sleep by a noise in the street, who had not waited to dress him- self before hurrying to find out what occasioned the tumult, and who was handled somewhat roughly by the crowd with whom he had mixed in so strange an attire. To say nothing of the many improbabilities in the story as thus ex- plained, for surely it was in the highest degree improbable that any one would have descended into the street in the middle of the night, with nothing but a sheet thrown round him; or, at all events, that, if he had come to the door in this dress, he would have thought of following the crowd into the city with- out waiting to put on some garment ; — but passing by these improbabilities, and allowing that we have nothing but the account of a young man who did a strange and foolish thing, what are we the better for the narrative 1 What light does it throw on the concluding scenes of Christ's life I What informa- tion, or what instruction, does it furnish us in any way in keeping with the tre- mendous occurrences which the Evan- gelisl had taken in hand to narrate? The commentators, indeed, remark that the treatment which the young man received, shows that the whole transac- THE YOUNG MAN IN THE LINEN CLOTH. 137 tion was conducted with extreme vio- I lenee, and threfore serves to make it the mire memorable that the Apostles had all been suffered to escape, and the more evident that Christ had secretly and powerfully influenced the minds of the tierce rabble by whom He had been seized. But we do not see that it can fairly be said, on the explanation just given i)l' the occurrence in question, that the crowd treated the young man with any great violence : the best-humored mob might lay hold of a person who joined them in so strange an attire; and his own fear, rather than their fury, may have occasioned his fleeing away, and leaving his garment behind. Had they been set on doing him a mischief, they might easily have prevented his escape. Hence the common explanation of the incidents before us, resolving them into a mere working of curiosity on the part of the young man, and of ill-nature on that of the crowd, can hardly be pro- nounced other than utterly unsatisfac- tory. It leaves the facts themselves most improbable, and the reasons for their having been related quite insuffi- cient ; so that you must, we think, be ready to acknowledge that there is good ground for our searching for some deeper interpretation, for our concluding that the Evangelist designed to convey some more important intimations than have yet been derived, when he brought so strangely into his story this unknown young man, and as strangely dismissed him — as though a spectre had suddenly risen in the midst of the crowd, and then had as suddenly disappeared. But now let us examine more atten- tively what the dress was which this young man wore; we maybe thereby enabled to form a more correct opinion as to the occurrences under review. You often meet with the mention of linen in the New Testament; but you are not to think that, whenever the word occurs in English, the same word occurs in the Greek. For example, you read of the rich man in the parable, that he was "clothed in purple and fine linen." You read also, in the Book of Revela- tion, that it was granted unto the Lamb's wife, "that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." But the linen spoken of in these cases is defined in . the original by a totally different word from that used in our text. Indeed, the word used in our text occurs but seldom in the New Tes- tament, and, what is very remarkable, in every other place in which it occurs, it relates to the garment which it was then customary to wrap round the dead. "When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth;" — in a clean sindon, for that is the word, — or, as we should probably have said, in a clean shroud. Thus again, it is said by St. Mark, in regard of Joseph of Arimathea, and the body of our Lord. "he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen." Here the use of the words "fine linen" at one moment, and immediately after- wards of the single word "linen," might lead you to suppose a difference in the original expressions. But there is no difference. " He bought the sindon. and took him down, and wrapped him in the sindon." St. Luke has the same word in reference to the same circum- stance. " He took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone." But we believe there is no other place in which the word occurs in the Greek Testament ; so that, excepting the instance of our text, the Evangelists use the word to express only the particular garment in which it was then usual to enfold the bodies of the dead. Now we do not wish you to conclude from this, that the word was never em- ployed but of the raiment of the dead — for such was not the fact; but that it was employed to denote a particular kind of garment, and would not be used of any covering which a man might throw over him, just because the cover- ing happened to be of linen. If a man, starting from his sleep, had cast a sheet round him, he would not on that account have been said to have been clad in the sindon. In fact, the sindon — and it probably took its name from the city of Sidon, the Sidonians having invented the art of weaving this kind of clothing — was a cloak, made of linen, which was frequently worn in Jerusalem, and es- pecially in summer. But besides serving as a covering to the body, the sindon was turned to a religious account. It was to this cloak that the scrupulous observers of the law were accustomed to fasten those fringes of which you 138 THE YOUNG MAN IN THE LINEN CLOTH. read in the Book of Numbers. "Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the bor- ders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue." With this sindon also it was that the Jews commonly covered their heads when they prayed. Hence, whilst any one might wear the sindon, merely as an ordinary garment, others might wear it by way of religious distinction; that is, they might wear it in such a manner, or with such peculiarity, as to make it indicative of special strictness, of a rigid adherence to the law of God, or the tra- ditions of the elders. And this latter would appear to have been the case with the young man of whom we read in our text. It is ex- pressly noted by the Evangelist, that this young man had the sindon "cast about his naked body." He had noth- ing on except the sindon. And this was not usual. The sindon was com- monly used for an outer garment — it was worn, that is, over some other. But there were many amongst the Jews who affected great austerity, devotees who attracted attention by extreme self-de- nial in diet and dress. Josephus de- scribes himself as having spent much of his youth in the austerities enjoined by different sects, and mentions his living for three years in the wilderness with an enthusiast, who would wear no gar- ment but what was made of the leaves or bark of trees, and would eat no food but what grew of its own accord. What then seems more likely, if you throw together the several considerations thus advanced, than that the young man who followed Christ was a devotee, a person that assumed a peculiar sanct ty of de- portment, and who, therefore, wore only the sindon, whilst others used a double gaiment, that he might show greater contempt for the body, and more rigor- ous habits of self-mortification? There is no reason for supposing him to have been a disciple of Christ; in all probability he was not; but he was one of those Jews who practised great aus- terities, and whose dress was meant to indicate a claim or pretension to extra- ordinary holiness of life. Neither ip„it to be concluded that he had jtv-t been roused from his sleep, and had hurried down as one easrer to know the cause | of the tumult; it is as likely that he may have been with the crowd from the first; yea, he may have been as inveterate as any of the rest against Christ: for he may have been a hypocrite as well as a devotee; and the pretender to great holiness will be sure to hate the actual possessor. But, upon this supposition, what are we to say to the conduct of the multi- tude 1 why did the mob fall on the young man, and handle him so roughly? We gave, as a great reason for rejecting the ordinary explanation of the narrative, that it threw no light on the series of events which the Evangelist had taken in hand to relate, that it left us with no sufficient account why he interrupted the sad tale of the sufferings of Christ. But we may make a very different state- ment in regard to the present supposi- tion, which sets before us the young man as a religious devotee, and as known to be such by the garment which he wore. From the manner in which the multitude treated the assumption or ap- pearance of extraordinary holiness, we may learn something of the temper by which they were actuated, and thus be guided to right conclusions in regard to their hatred of Christ. It was, we believe, a religious hatred, a hatred, we mean, on religious grounds, or on account of religion, which moved the great body of the Jews against the blessed Redeemer. It is easy;o speak of the political feeling, of the disap- pointment experienced when Christ gave them no hope of setting up a tem- poral kingdom, and advancing them to sovereignty over their haughty oppres- sors. And no doubt this political feel- ing had its play ; in many there may have been a dogged res ilution, that they would rather have no Messiah than one not likely to fulfil their dream of na- tional supremacy. For it would seem, though it be an awful thing to say, that Christ was rejected by many, not in disbelief of his being the Messiah, but in spite of a thorough conviction that He was. The parable of the wicked husbandmen implies as much as this. " When the husbandman saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir : come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance." They dis- tinctly knew the son, you observe ; they do not act under any mistake, any false THE YOUNG MAX IN THE LINEN CLOTH. 139 impression, as to his person ; and they deliberately proceed to kill him, be- cause he is the son, because he is the heir, and, as such, in the way of their covetous or ambitious designs. But in regard of the great mass of the Jews, it is hardly to be thought that it was the feeling of political disappointment which made them so bitter and malignant against Christ. On mere political grounds our Lord, after all, was such a leader as might have well suited the people. He could heal all their dis- eases, He could sustain them in ■ the wilderness ; He had the mastery over evil spirits ; and their natural impulse must have been, not to reject a leader thus endowed, because He showed dis- inclination to assuming the deportment of a king, but rather to make Him a king in spite of Himself, and then see whether He would not wield his powers in advancing them to greatness. But the galling thing, the thing most keenly felt by all classes of the Jews, was the holiness of our Lord : He did not suit them as a leader, because He would make no truce with their evil passions, and allow no indulgence to their lusts. Had He made greater al- lowance for human frailty, had He not so expanded the morality of the law as to make it denounce the adultery of a look, aud the murder of a thought, many, both in earlier days and in later, would have given Him their adherence, and have become his disciples. The main cause of irritation and dislike has all along been the same; it is in active play now, and came into play so soon as it was seen that Christ displayed, and demanded, the strictest purity of action, and word, and thought ; if Christianity would but be a little more indulgent to men's vices, it would quickly carry their votes. But if it were a dislike of Christ, as an uncompromising teacher of holiness, which chiefly moved, or actuated the multitude, we may naturally look to find some exhibition of the fact in their con- duct ; not indeed, any open declaration — for the worst will hardly confess that it is goodness which they hate — but some ebullition of temper, which shall give the same witness, though not equally direct. And this we have in the narrative of our text. A young man is seen in the crowd, whose dress lays claim to spe- cial strictness and sanctity of life. Then forthwith breaks out the real feeling of the crowd. They seize the occasion of giving vent to that bitter animosity at holiness, which was really, if not con- fessedly, the producing cause of their persecution of Jesus. They jostle this young man ; they lay hold on him ; they strip him of the garment which passed as a sign of devoted ness to religion ; and thus they plainly showed by what spirit they were actuated, or put be- yond doubt the motives which chiefly urged them to their murderous design. Thirsting for Christ's blood, because He had reproved vice, and required righteousness, they could not tolerate amongst them even the appearance of superior holiness. The young man pre- sented that appearance, and therefore they turned upon him, as hounds upon their prey, and forced him to escape naked for his life. And we cannot forbear from pointing out to you how naturally, on this suppo- J sition, each part of St. Mark's narrative follows on the other. On being seized by the multitude, " Jesus answered and said unto them, Are ye come out as against a thief, with swords and staves, to take me 1 I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not ; but the Scripture must be fulfill- ed." What effect was this reference to his teaching likely to produce upon the multitude 1 That teaching had had for its main object the inculcation of right- eousness of life, the abandonment of every form and working of iniquity. And on this account, as we now sup- pose, the teaching had been distasteful, and had excited the animosity of the people. Hence an allusion to the teach- ing was likely to irritate the mob ; and we may believe them to have been all the more furious, when Christ had re- minded them of his discourses in the temple. Then follow the words, " And they all forsook him and fled." The disciples, seeing the irritated state of the rabble, were afraid to remain any longer near their master, and betook themselves to flight. Then immediate- ly comes the account in our text, and how naturally it comes, in what close keeping with what had preceded. The multitude, infuriated at being reminded of what Christ had taught them, would HO THE YOUNG MAN IN THE LINEN CLOTH. have fallen on the disciples ; but the disciples had escaped : on whom then .shall the mob wreak its malice and spite I The Evangelist proceeds to tell us — and nothing could more show the feeling, the temper of the crowd ; no- thing could more distinctly inform us of a fact, of which it is important that we he assured, that the main producing cause of the hatred shown to Christ was the holiness of his life, and the pu- rity id' his doctrine — the Evangelist pro- ceeds to tell us that there was a young man following Christ, whose dress in- dicated pretensions to extraordinary Banctity; and that the multitude seized on this young man, so that he was forced, by their violence, to leave the linen cloth with which he was clad, and to flee away from them naked. Now this is so far a sufficient expla- nation of the occurrence before us, that it makes the dress of the young man give a clue to his character, that it ac- counts lor the treatment which he re- ceived from the mob, and that it throws light on the reasons which moved the Jews to the rejection of Christ. But, nevertheless, we believe that a yet deep- er meaning attaches to the incidents in question ; that these incidents were symbolical or figurative : in other words, that they were designed to shadow forth the facts of our Redeemer's final tri- umph over death. Let us refer for a moment to the or- dinances which have respect to the great day of atonement, that day of especial solemnity under the legal dispensation, when expiation was made for the sins of the people. On that day the pre- scription of the law was, that the high priest should take two goats, and pre- sent them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. One of these goats he was to kill as a sin-offering, to bring its blood within the vail, and " sprinkle it upon the mercy- seat, and before the mercy-seat." Upon the head of the other he was to lay both his hands, confessing " over him all the iniquities of the children of Is- rael, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat ;" and the goat, thus burden- ed with the guiltiness of the congre- gation, was to be let go into the wilder- ness, into "a land. not inhabited." There is no debate that these goats, taken together, constituted a type of the Redeemer. So vast was his office, so wondrous his work, that figures had to be 'doubled, ere they could furnish any thing like a sufficient representa- tion. In the goat that was slain, we have the Redeemer presenting Himself as a sin offering unto Cod, shedding the precious blood which was to be carried within the vail, that intercession might be made, throughout all time, for the Church. In the goat that was sent alive into the wilderness, bearing away all the iniquities of the people, we have the Redeemer risen from the grave, and effecting the thorough justification of all who should believe on his name, their sins being so removed, or borne to an uninhabited land, that, though searched for, they may not be found. It is evi- dent that one goat would not have been an adequate type, seeing that the Mes- siah had to be represented, not only as " delivered for our offences," but as " raised again for our justification." But. the two goats furnished a sufficient and accurate figure ; the one having been significant of our Lord as offered on the cross, the other as returning from the grave : so that, together, they shad- owed out the sacrifice presented, the acceptance of the sacrifice, and its pre- valence as a propitiation for the sins of the world. But now was it not in a measure to be expected, that, when the time came which the great day of atonement had all along prefigured, there would be something to remind men of the double type 1 something, at least, to assure the devout Jew, who should look sorrow- ingly upon Christ led away as the goat to the slaughter, that he would yet be- hold in him the live goat, escaping to a far land, and bearing into forgetfulness the sins of the people 1 And with what precision was the double type embodi- ed, if you observe that the crowd, with Judas at their head, lay hold not only upon Jesus, but on the young man who followed him, clothed in the sindon, the linen garment that was usually wrapped round the dead ! We have shown you, that, except in describing the dress of this young man, the Evangelists no- where mention the sindon but where they have to speak of the raiment in which Christ was consigned to the grave. This is surely very remarkable : THE YOUNG MAN IN THE LINEN CLOTH. HI it is as though to force us to connect in some way the appearance, the mysteri- ous appearance, of the young man .so strangely attired, with the burial of Christ ; to compel us to assign it a pro- phetic or typical character, in place of passing it over as an incident from which little can be learned. As Christ is led to trial, and, therefore, virtually, to cru- cifixion, He is followed by a young man having nothing on his naked body but the vesture in which, after having been crucified, Christ would be laid by Joseph in the tomb. The same parties who have seized Christ, lay hold on this young man, and try to detain him. But though he is but one against a multitude, he escapes from their hands — he es- capes ; but he escapes naked, leaving the grave-clothes behind him. Is not this Christ, who, when He had put on the grave-clothes, was not to be kept in the grave by all the malice and power of His enemies ; but who sprang from the grasp of the tomb, leaving in it the raiment in which He had been bound up for burial ] So then, just as, on the great day of atonement, in looking at the two goats held by the high priest, you looked on an accurate exhibition of the two grand facts, that Christ died for our sins, and that he rose for our justification ; so, in now looking upon Jesus led to the slaughter, and at the same moment upon the young man fleeing away naked, you may be said to take in at one glance, the tragedy of the crucifixion, and the tri- umph of the resurrection. The young man is brought upon the scene clothed as an inhabitant of the grave, that there might be a filling up of the picture which would otherwise have presented nothing but the dark lines of death — a filling it up with the wondrous exhibi- tion of that very person, who was now being hurried to an ignominious end, breaking loose from the hold even of the sepulchre itself, leaving evidence behind, in "the linen clothes laid by themselves," of his having spoiled death of its sting, and the grave of its victory. I do not know how, to a mind fraught with the typical instruction of the great day of atonement, there could have been more beautiful or appropriate manifes- tations of the truth, that Christ would quickly rise, and, in rising, perfect the justification of his Church. I know not whether there were any who decipher- ed, and made use of the manifestation. But it is easy to imagine, and instruc- tive to suppose, that some studied the incidents, and drew from them the pur- posed intelligence. There may have been in the crowd a devout and aged Jew, like Simeon, who had long been diligent in the services of the Temple, searching in those services for notices of the scheme of redemption, for types or figures of the deliverance promised, from the earliest time, to the fallen race of men. And such a Jew would natu- rally have given his special study to the solemnities of the great day of atone- ment. These solemnities, more than any other, would have made pass before him, in fearful procession, the dark, yet glorious, things of the Messiah's endur- ances and achievements. And now he holds with himself an engrossing debate, as to whether The being, who had wrought so many wonders, but is now in the hands of bloodthirsty persecutors, can indeed be the Christ so long, and so ardently expected. There is nothing in his being led to the slaughter, to per- suade him that He cannot be the Christ : he remembers the slaying of the goat for a sin-offering, and feels that without shedding of blood can be no remission. But then he also remembers, that side by side with the goat for a sin-offering, used to stand a goat on which death might not pass — the typical exhibition thus cheering the worshipper with the certainty that the sin-offering would suf- fice, that the victim, substituted in his stead, would re-appear after death, and prevail, in the largest sense, to the re- moving all his guilt. O for something of the like double representation, if this indeed be the victim appointed of God for the redemption of the world ! O for something to correspond to the goat escaping as well as to the goat dying ! The wish is granted. Close by the Lord Jesus, clad in raiment which might seem to indicate an inhabitant of the grave, stands a young man, fixing atten- tion by the strangeness of his attire. As the devout Jew gazes on this figure, hardly knowing whether it belong to the living or the dead, he sees him seiz- ed by the very parties who are leading away Christ. Ah, the two goats are now in the hands of the sacrificers, but will neither escape 1 will the typical 2 142 THE YOUNG MAN IN THE LINEN CLOTH. representation not find itself verified 1 It is a moment of intense anxiety. But all doubt should disappear, there should be nothing but conviction that Jesus, though He must die, would rise from the dead, rise as a conqueror, rise as a justifier, when the seeming inhabitant of the tomb bursts from those that would detam him, leaves the linen cloth, and flees away naked. And thus the incident which has en- gaged our attention, is made to fill an important place as symbolical, or pro- phetic, of Christ's triumph over his en- emies. It comes in at the very moment when it must have been most needed, when faith was put to its sorest trial, the Redeemer appearing to have fallen filially into the hands of the powers of darkness. It was, as we have seen, most strikingly significative of Christ's return from the grave — significative, moreover, through an exactness of cor- respondence with the types of the law : so that it addressed itself especially to those, who, conversant with the figures of the Mosaic dispensation, justly looked to find answerable realities in the action's and endurances of the promised Messiah. I look on this spectre-like figure, this scarcely earthly form habited in grave- clothes, as I would upon a prophet, mys- teriously raised up to utter a prediction, at the moment when the prediction was most needed, and in the language which would be best understood by the hear- ers ; a prediction of the resurrection of Jesus ; a prediction, therefore, whose tenor was most nicely adapted to cheer his dispirited followers, and which, as being woven out of the symbols of the law, .could hardly fail to carry with it its interpretation to those whom it ad- dressed. And on this view of the occurrence', there is something, we think, very mem- orable, in the order already mentioned, in which the Evangelist has catalogued events. It is immediately after the statement, " and they all forsook him and fled," that St. Mark gives the ac- count of the young man's seizure and escape. Why had the disciples thus abandoned and fled from their Master, except that his apprehension by his en- emies, and the apparent certainty of his being put to death, seemed to them de- structive of all hope of his working out their deliverance, and proving Himself the Messiah that was to reign over Is- rael ] They took fright at the first out- break of violence, so soon as there was any symptom of Christ's yielding to the wicked : whereas if they would but manfully have stood their ground a little while, they might have been strengthen- ed by a revelation from above, and have learned to brave the ignominy of a mo- ment's defeat, in the certainty of an ever- lasting triumph. For no sooner had they yielded to unbelief and cowardice, and forsaken their Lord, than there hap- pened that significative occurrence on which we have been speaking, and which portrayed so powerfully, in fig- ures corresponding to those of the law, that He who died for their offences would rise for their justification. They just missed, you see, the delivery of a most expressive and intelligible prophecy, the effect of which could hardly fail to have been the reassuring of their minds, and the arming them with confidence and hope for that season of affliction through which they had to pass. Oh, how often with ourselves may there be something of the like missing, as by a moment or a hairbreadth, of a gracious communication which would scatter our doubts, disperse our fears, and fill us with joyful expectation. We are so im- patient, so little disposed to " wait upon the Lord," so ready to take to flight the instant an enemy comes in view, that often, very often it may be, we yield to despair, and give up all for lost, exactly when a little perseverance would have put us in possession of such manifesta- tions of God's purpose as could hardly have failed to nerve for conflict, or strengthen for endurance. We forsake Christ, because He is in the hands of his enemies ; when, if we would but hold by Him a while longer, God would show us Christ triumphing, leaving nothing but the linen-cloth in the grasp of his enemies, evidence of their utter defeat, and his glorious escape. Let us take this lesson from the sym- bolical occurrence which has been undei review — a lesson as to perseverance in duty, though in the face of dangers and difficulties. The supplies of God's grace are to be expected in the way of God's commands. The duty of the disciples was to have kept close to Christ : had they done this, God, as we now see, had prepared for them a typical revelation, THE FIKE ON THE SHORE. 143 most nicely adapted to their confirmation and comfort : whereas, by shrinking from Christ, they lost the disclosure, and were punished by being left in dark- ness and dismay. In religion, as in war, there is nothing gained by cowardice : he who turns his back upon the enemy, and flees from the field, may indeed seem to have his life as his reward ; but he might perhaps have had both his life and his honor had he stood to his colors ; and, unable ever after to lift up his head, lie had better have laid it at once amongst the heaps of the slain. And in religion, if not in war, there is certainty, that if we persevere, we shall meet succors ; if we retreat, retreat on worse dangers than we seek to avoid. Persevere then in every duty without regard to the discouragement : the next onward step may bring you into com- parative light ; the least backward is sure to land you in thicker darkness. Ah, learn from the disciples : hastily for- saking Christ, they tied to mourn over disappointed hopes, over a leader in whom they could no longer trust, be- cause He was Himself the prey of the wicked, " a very scorn and outcast : " but, had they kept firmly for a few mo- ments longer at his side, they might have been confident, even whilst He hung on the cross, assured of finding his grave deserted, but with the linen cloth in it to prove that He was risen. SERMON II THE FIRE ON THE SHORE. - As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon and bread, saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught." — St. John, xxi. 9, 10. These words form part of the account of what St. John speaks of as Christ's third manifestation of Himself " to his disciples after that he was risen from the dead." The most careless reader, perhaps, can hardly peruse the words, without feeling that there is something strange and mysterious in what they state. How came this fire of coals on this lonely shore 1 Who kindled it 1 Who laid out the provision, the fish, and the bread ] If, as we can scarcely doubt, there were something symbolical or sig- nificative, in what thus met the disciples' view so soon as they were come to land, what are the truths, what the lessons, that were figuratively conveyed 1 We have a great and difficult subject of discourse before us. We must pro- ceed with caution, we must proceed with prayer : the inspired historian adds no explanation ; he gives nothing but the facts ; but the facts would not have been written, except for our admonition and instruction : we are, therefore, to study them with all care, but at the same time, in simple dependence on the teach- ing of the Holy Spirit, through which alone can the dark things of Scripture be made clear, and the intricate plain. Let us begin with looking attentively at the foregoing parts of the narrative : these may greatly assist to a right un- derstanding of the facts upon which we are specially to comment. The chapter before us opens with the mention of the assembling of seven of our Lord's disciples on the coast of the Sea of Tiberias. The solemn interview which Christ had promised to grant to 144 THE FIRE ON THE SHORE. his followers on the mountain in Galilee appears not to have yet taken place ; we may suppose that the disciples were waiting for the commission which they were then to receive : in the mean time they were at liberty, and, perhaps, even necessitated by want, to pursue their original occupations. Under these cir- cumstances, St. Peter tells the other dis- ciples of his intention of going a-fishing. They agree to accompany him : the se- ven embark together, and spend the night in fruitless toil, for they caught nothing. But when the morning came, there stood on the shore, one, at least, whom the disciples did not recognize, though it was none other than the r-isen Christ Himself. The boat being at no great distance from the shore, Christ could speak to the disciples ; and He accordingly inquired of them whether they had any meat 1 On their answer- ing, No, He directed them to cast the net on the right side of the ship, and as- sured them they should find. Though the disciples did not recog- nize their Master, there must have been something in the air and appearance of the speaker, which commanded their at- tention, and, perhaps, caused them to suspect who it was ; otherwise they would hardly have been prompt to obey a command which, after toiling all night in vain, they might have been disposed to consider as uttered either in igno- rance or presumption. They however cast the net without hesitation, and im- mediately enclosed so great a multitude of fishes, that they were unable to draw it. This miracle — for they could scarce- ly fail at once to regard as miraculous, so sudden and large a draught of fishes, occurring at the moment when they were about to give up in despair — sug- gested that the stranger on the shore must be Jesus Himself; the miracle, in- dependently of its wonderfulness, was so similar in its nature and circumstan- ces to that which had preceded the calling of Peter, that the dullest must have eutertained a suspicion, if not a conviction, of the presence of the Sa- vior. But it was the disciple whom Jesus loved — for affection is quicksighted — who first satisfied himself as to its being the Lord ; and on his telling this to Pe- ter, that impetuous, but ardent disciple threw himself into the sea, that he might hasten to the Master whom he Had late ly so fiercely denied, but to whom he now longed to give proof of a devoted- ness increased by the remembrance of his fall, and the graciousness of his for- giveness. The other disciples, acting with less vehemence, but equally desir- ing to be with their Lord, proceeded to- wards the land in their sliip, dragging with them the net and its ponderou closure. And then it was, on their all reaching the shore — perhaps much at the same moment ; for Peter, in his im- petuousness, may not have outstripped his brethren who took a more ordinary way of approaching their Lord — then it was that they found what is described in the text, the fire of coals, and provi- sion for a repast. The fire could hardly have been kin- dled by themselves over-night ; they had been absent many hours, and what they had lighted would have been extinguish • ed. They appear, moreover, to have gone a-fishing from being in want of pro- vision ; at all events, they would hardly have left fish behind them on the shore ; or, if they had, the fish which now stood ready for their meal could not have been that which their own hands had placed on the coals : the supposition is prepos- terous, that they had lighted the fire be- fore embarking, and laid fish upon it to cook whilst they were absent on the sea. Besides, there is something peculiar in the way in which St. John mentions the fire and the provision. He is par- ticular in noting that it was " as soon as they were come to land " that the dis- ciples saw this fire of coals. It was the first object which met their eye on land- ing. There would have been nothing to mention, had this fire been only what they had themselves kindled over-night. And we may believe that the Evangelist is so careful in pointing out that the fire was seen at the instant of reaching the shore, on purpose to make us under- stand that the disciples did not light it after they landed, and that neither did they stir up the embers of the day before. You might have expected that the dis- ciples would have been so engrossed with looking at their risen Master as to have had no eye for any other abject. Neither would they have had, we may venture to believe, unless for something startling and mysterious. But that strange fire, kindled, as they may have THE FIRE ON THE SHORE. 145 felt, by invisible hands, seems to have drawn off their attention even from Christ : it fixed their gaze as they set foot upon the shore, and, perhaps, like the burning-bush with Moses, helped to persuade them of the actual presence of Divinity. And now you will observe, that, though there was all the material for a repast — angels, or the Redeemer Him- self, having in their absence made ready the fish and the bread — Christ does not forthwith invite them to dine, but first of all — this is a very significant circum- stance — directs them to bring of the fish which they had caught. Neither was this direction complied with in haste, a hand being thrust into the net, and some of the rich store transferred to the coals ; there appears, on the contrary, to have been great deliberation : the net was drawn to land ; the fish were counted, and found to be in number one hundred and fifty and three ; and it was not till this had been done, and then, as we may conjecture, some of the newly-caught fish had been dressed, in addition to those already prepared, that our Lord bade his disciples partake of the meal pi-ovided for them by his supernatural power. Such are the main circumstances of the narrative. You cannot fail to be impressed with the sense as of some- thing strange and unearthly. You feel that, like Moses in Horeb, you must put off the shoes from your feet, ere you pre- sume to approach the mysterious fire which seems to have been kindled in a moment ; for the disciples saw it not till they had set foot upon the shore, though you might have expected it to have been visible during the night ; come then, and let it be with all awe and humility, but nevertheless in the hope of instruction and comfort, that we gather with the disciples round this fire of coals, and en- deavor to decipher the symbolical les- sons which the whole transaction may have been designed to convey. Now there are one or two supposi- tions which will present themselves to a thoughtful mind, and which deserve a passing notice, though they may be evi- dently incommensurate with the facts oLthe case. It may readily occur to you as one explanation of the kindled fire, and prepared repast, that Christ had been thinking kindly of his wearied and 19 hungry disciples ; that, knowing how they had spent the night, and how much they would be in need of refreshment. He had graciously employed his powei in making ready a meal, where, had they been left to themselves, they would have been utterly destitute. We need not exclude this explanation. We may believe that it was part of the purpose of our gracious and compassionate Lord, to supply the bodily wants of his fol- lowers, to provide fire to warm them, and food to satisfy them. But there is too much reason for regarding the mi- raculous draught of fishes, like every other miracle, as designed to serve for a parable, to allow of our being content with an interpretation of the text which would strip it of all figure, and reduce it into a mere evidence of the tender consideration of Christ for his people. There is another explanation which may suggest itself, and which makes the whole transaction refer especially to St. Peter. It would certainly seem as if one great object of this manifestation of Christ, had been the publicly restoring to the Apostleship the disciple who had so shamefully denied Him, but whose repentance had been as bitter as his of- fence had been flagrant. You will re- member, that, so soon as the dinner was over, Christ addressed Peter with the question, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me, more than these ] " And when Peter had replied, " Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee," Christ said unto him, " Feed my lambs." This was, as it were, the reinvesting Peter with the pastoral office, of which he might justly be thought to have stripped himself, when he basely, and with an oath, declared that he belonged not to Christ. But Peter denied his Master thrice ; and thrice did Christ now pro- pose the same question ; and, receiving the same answer, thrice did He deliver the same charge of feeding the flock. An if Peter had thrice lost the Apostleship, by thrice denying Christ, Christ thrice restored to him the office, that he him- self, and the other Apostles, might have no doubt as to his having been forgiven, and, as it were, rcordaincd. And when our Lord had thus publicly reinvested Peter with the Apostleship, he pro- ceeded to prophesy " by what death he should glorify God ; " so that almost the whole of this interview, as far as it is 146 THE FIRE Q.\ THE SHORE. recorded by the Evangelist, was occu- pied with matters personal to St. Peter, as though it had been on his account, or for his sake, that Christ showed Him- self the third time to his disciples. But how does the mode, or character of the manifestation agree with the sup- position of its having been granted with an especial view to St. Peter, to his public reinvestment with the pastoral office! .Most accurately; for when Si- mon Peter was first called by Christ, called that is, — for there had been pre- vious intercourse, — to forsake his world- ly occupation, and devote himself to the preaching of the Gospel, Christ wrought, as you will reraeniber, a miracle precise- ly similar, in its nature and circumstan- ces, to that recorded in the narrative which we have under review. Simon Pr»ter, and his partners, were then in a ship on the sea of Gennesareth. They had then toiled all night, and taken no fish. At the bidding of Christ, the)' then also let down the net ; and the result then also was, that immediately "they en- closed a great multitude of fishes." And then it was that, Simon Peter being overcome by the miracle, Christ separa- ted him for the office, to which he af- terwards gave a more solemn appoint- ment, saying, " Fear not ; from hence- forth thou shalt catch men." So that there could not well be a more accurate correspondence than be- tween the mode in which Christ pre- pared for Peter's first ordination, and that in which he made way for the re- OEdaining him after his calamitous fall. It can hardly be imagined but that the similarity of the miracle must have painfully forced itself on the attention of St. Peter, bringing back to the mind of the penitent disciple the happy oc- casion on which he had forsaken allthat he might follow our Lord, and perhaps suggesting how deplorably he had since altered Ins position, through overween- ing confidence in his own stedfastness and courage. But whilst, there was thus what we might call a repetition of the whole matter of Peter's ordination, what had " the fire of coals " to do with the trans- action ? It is this of which we chiefly seek the purport or design ; and it. does not appear how it served, or contribu- ted, to the supposed object of this third manifestation of Christ. But we consider that Christ caused a miraculous draught of fishes, to remind Peter how He had called him original- ly, and to produce in him a sorrowing remembrance of his grievous apostasy. Christ will not solemnly reinvest Peter with the pastoral office, till He has made him again and deeply feel his heinous offence. And the miracle of the draught of fishes will have caused Peter much compunction and bitterness of soul — reminding him of what Christ had done for him, it must have remind- ed him also, and that too like the pierc- ings of a sword,' of his ingratitude and cowardice. But the sad facts of his denial of his Lord require to be yet more vividly brought back to his mind, that he may, through the painful recol- lections, be yet better fitted for rein- statement in his office. And might not " the fire of coals " help in a measure to recal the painful act of apostasy 1 Thus much is certain, that the expression, " a. fire of coals," occurs only in one other place in the New Testament, as though this were not the oi'dinary sort of fire, and the Evangelist wished especially to mark of what it was made. And it is the same Evangelist, St. John, who uses the word on the two occasions ; St. John, whose great object in writing his Gospel appears to have been to supply the omissions of the preceding histori- ans. But what is the other occasion on which St. John mentions " a fire of coals ? " It is when he is relating what took place in the palace of the high priest, after Jesus had been apprehend- ed, and brought before Caiaphas. " And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals (for it was cold); and they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself." It was, then, whilst he stood by this "fire of coals," that Peter denied his blessed Lord and Master. It was whilst he stood by this tire of coals that Christ threw on him that look which painting never caught, and which, fol- lowing on the crowing of the cock, caused him to go forth and weep bit- terly. Was not, then, " a fire of coals," found mysteriously kindled by unknown hands on the shores of the lake, likely to recall to Peter the circumstances of his apostasy 1 It were hard to believe, that, painfully affected as he must al- THE FIRE ON THE SHORE. 147 ready have been by the miracle of the fishes, he could have looked on that strange fire, produced to all appearance by another miracle of Christ, and not have had all the scene in the high priest's palace brought back upon him with a sort of crushing power. Again is he standing as he stood on that fatal night, and again he meets the look, which, more terrible in its meek re- proachfulness than the fiercest glance of indignation and vengeance, convicted him of apostasy, and convulsed him with remorse. So that the " lire of coals," so pointedly mentioned by the Evanglist, who alone of the sacred his- torians, had recorded of what the fire was made in the high priest's hall, helps to complete the series of symbolical facts, if you suppose the manifestation of Christ, on the occasion before us, to have been granted with a view specially to the reordination of St. Peter. On this sup- position, you are to consider that our blessed Redeemer, graciously design- ing, by a triple commission which should correspond to the triple denial, to re- store His disciple to the pastoral office, so arranged the circumstances of His manifestation of Himself as to fix Pe- ter's attention on the Apostleship with which he had been honored, and on the apostasy by which he had deserved to forfeit it altogether. Nothing could be better constructed to fix his attention on the apostleship than a miracle most ac- curately resembling that which had first moved him to forsake all and follow Christ ; and, accordingly, after another night of fruitless toil, the net is again ordered to be cast into the sea, and again incloses a huge multitude of fishes. But how, upon this wild sea-shore, is lie' to be forcibly reminded of his apos- tasy I What shall people that shore with recollections of the scene of dis- aster and shame ] Nay, if it was by " a fire of coals " that the recreant Apostle stood when he thrice denied his L:>rd, and if " a fire of coals " were among the last things to be look- ed for on the solitary coast, it might be hard to say what could have been better fitted than a " fire of coals " to fill Peter with a remembrance of his terrible fall. Oh it .must have been to him as though there thronged up from the past the taunting questions of the servants, and his own fierce execrations, and the shrill crowing of the cock, and the piercing subduing look of his Lord, when, so soon as he was come to land, he " saw a fire of coals there," lighted he knew not how, but for what he could not doubt. But whilst we think that such an ex- planation agrees admirably with many of the circumstances of the case, and is replete with interest and instruction, we cannot give it you as in every respect satisfactory. Indeed, it manifestly dues not meet the whole of the facts. It gives no account of the preparations which had been made for a repast, nor of the reckoning up the fish, nor of the directing that certain of the fish just caught should be dressed in addition to those already prepared — a significant circumstance beyond doubt ; for He who had miraculously provided a cer- tain quantity, and laid it on the coals, as if to await the landing of the disci- ples, might undoubtedly have caused that this certain quantity should be enough, and that there should be no need for waiting till a portion of the fresh draught were dressed. We have still, then, to seek an explanation which shall satisfy all parts of the narrative : and this, we think, is to be found in the progress of the Gospel, and the con- nection between the old and new dis- pensations. In one of our Lord's parables, the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a net, which, being cast into the sea, " gathered of every kind ; " so that we may be said to have Christ's own au- thority for considering that the miracu- lous draught of fishes represented the bringing of multitudes into the Church through the instrumentality of the preachers of the Gospel. It is observa- ble also that Simon Peter is said to have drawn the net to land : there may have been a reference here to the fact, that, in reward of his noble confession of Christ, Peter was entrusted with the opening the Church to the Gentiles : he it was, who, instructed by a vision from God, admitted by baptism Cornelius and his friends to the privileges of Christianity. For there can be no doubt, that in this second miraculous draught of fishes, there was a special reference to the combining of all na- tions in the visible Church. The num- ber of fishes is to be carefully noted ; 148 THE FIRE ON THE SHORE. an hundred and fifty and three ; and so also is the remark of the Evangelist, " And for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken." As to the number, it appears that one hundred and fifty and three was exactly the num- ber of kinds, or varieties of fish then known; so that we may most justly conclude that the number was an indi- cation that persons of all nations and conditions should enter into the Church. And then the remark as to the net not being broken, though it inclosed so many fish, must be considered as pro- phetic of the capacity of the Christian Church ; unlike the Jewish, which was not constructed for enlargement and ex- tension, the Christian Church might em- brace the ends of the earth, and not be overcharged, whatever the multitude and variety of converts. So far, there is little difficulty in assigning the para- bolic character of the narrative before us ; every one may readily follow the facts, and be aware of their typical im- port. But, now, we come again to the " fire of coals," and the prepared repast — what truths did these symbolically teach, when taken, as they must be, in imme- diate connection with the other figura- tive facts 1 My brethren, you are to observe and remember, that the Jewish and the Christian dispensations are not so truly distinct and detached economies, as component parts of one great plan and arrangement. There have never been two ways in which sinners might be saved : in the Old Testament, as in the New, " everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Me- diator between God and man, being both God and man." In the New Testament, indeed, we have the clearer exposition of the great scheme of mercy: God's wondrous purpose of saving the Church through the sacrifice of His only-begot- ten Son is there set forth with a fulness and precision, which it were vain to seek in the writings of the Old. Never- theless, there is no difference whatso- ever in the doctrine propounded, but only in the measure of its revelation ; and, however great the change which was made through the coming of Christ, when external distinctions were swept away, and life and immortality especial- ly brought to light, there still went on the original process for the deliverance of the fallen race of man. The process was but continued, though with less of vail and obscurity; and they who were the first inclosed within what might in strictness be styled the Gospel net, were caught — to keep up the metaphor — within the same meshes, and drawn to shore through the same instrumentality, as men of olden times, the righteous who obtained eternal life by the assist- ance of the patriarchal, or of the legal dispensation. But let us see whether this srreat truth may not have been figuratively taught by the facts of which we are en- deavoring to find an explanation. There was already a fire kindled, when the Apostles dragged to shore the net which specially represented the Christian Church, the Church, that is, as it was to subsist in its expanded form, subse- quently to the coming of Christ. And on the fire which was thus burning, there were fish already laid : yea, and the first direction to the Apostles was that they should bring of the fish which had just been caught, and add them t( those which were already on the coals Now, since by the fish of all kinds which the net inclosed, we are undnubt edly to understand the members of the Church, under the Gospel dispensation, ought we not to understand, by the fish already on the coals, the members of the Church under the Jewish dispensation ] This is nothing but preserving, or keep- ing up the metaphor. If the fish just caught represented the converts that would be made by the preaching of the Gospel, the fish which had been caught before, and not by those who now drew the net to land, may — we should rather say, must — represent those of whom the Church had been composed during the ministrations of the law. So that the visible Church before Christ was figured by the fish already on the coals, the visible Church after Christ by the fish just inclosed in the net; and when the newly-caught fish were placed on the same fire with those which had been previously secured, was it not shown that the visible Church, before and after the coming of Christ, was virtually but one and the same I that its members, at whatever time they lived, had to be brought to the same altar, and to be puri- fied by the same flame ? I know not why we should not think that that strange THE FIRE ON THE SHORE. 119 fire, mysteriously kindled on the lonely shore, was typical of the propitiatory work of the Redeemer, through whom alone the men of any age can he pre- sented as a sacrifice acceptable unto God. We have all to be laid upon an altar ; we have all, as it were, to be subjected to the action of fire : but there is no altar but the one Mediator, and no fire but that of his one great ob- lation, which will answer for those who seek to consecrate themselves, a whole burnt offering, to their Creator in hea- ven. And what could be a more lively parable of this fact, than that, just be- fore his departui'e from earth, when standing on the margin of the sea, the separating-line, so to speak, between time and eternity, Christ caused an altar to rise, mysterious as Himself — for no human hands reared it, — and crown- ed it with burning coals, which had not been kindled by any earthly name ; and then brought about that there should be placed on this sacred and significant fire representatives of the one visible Church, as it had subsisted before his incarnation, and as it was to subsist till He should come the second time to judgment l It seems to have been a lesson pecu- liarly needed by the Apostles, that they were but following up the labors of the men of earlier times ; that they were not to consider themselves as going forth on a new mission, of which no no- tices had been previously issued; but rather as charged with the fresh pro- clamation of truths which had been con- tinuously, though more obscurely, an- nounced. There was naturally great likelihood that the first preachers of Christianity, having to publish the won- drous and startling facts of Christ's birth, and death, and resurrection, would overlook the close connection between the old and the new dispensation. Ac- cordingly Christ had forcibly reminded them of it when He said, " Herein is that saying true, One soweth, and ano- ther reapeth. I sent you to reap that" whereon ye bestowed no labor; other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors." And now he repeats something of the same lesson, conveying it, not through words, but through expressive emblems or figures. He gives them a miraculous draught of fishes : and for- asmuch as He had before, in a parable, likened the kingdom of heaven to a net which gathered of all kinds, they would naturally consider these fishes as repre- senting the converts to the Christian re- ligion. But they were not to suppose that these converts formed a separate body, or were to be saved by different means, from the servants of God under earlier dispensations. The Church in all ages was one, and one also was the mode of deliverance. How shall this be shown, so as to keep up the lesson, or rather the emblem of the net and the draught '] Indeed, whether the Apos- tles understood it or not at the first, we may venture to say that the truths, that there had never been but one altar for the sinful, never but one cleansing, con- secrating flame, and that the righteous, however separated by time, and by ex- ternal ordinances and privileges, had communion and fellowship in one and the same mystic body, — that these truths could not have been more significantly exhibited to them, nor more consistently with the emblem of the miraculous draught, than when, "so soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon and bread," and received immediately this direction from Christ, " Bring of the fish which ye have now caught." Now it can hardly be said that there is any part of the remarkable trans- action before us which does not thus find a consistent interpretation. It is true, indeed, that we have made no observation on there having been bread as well as fish already provided ; where- as the Evangelist is careful in noting it, and in afterwards mentioning that our Lord took of both, of the bread and the fish, and gave to his disciples. But we may readily allow that different ends were subserved by the same series of facts : it is never inquired, in the in- terpretation of a parable, whether de- livered in word or by action, that every minute particular should be made to shadow forth a truth. When we inter- preted the facts with a special reference to the case of St. Peter, we had no use to make either of the fish, or of the bread : but we do not on that account conclude that the fire of coals might not have been instrumental, or might not have been designed as instrumental, to the recalling to the Apostle the cir- 150 THE FIRE ON THE SIIORI cumstances of his fearful apostasy. In like manner, if there be no special sig- nificance in the bread, when the narra- tive is applied to the shadowing out the progress of the Gospel, and the one- ness of the Church under various dis- pensations, we do not think this any objection to the fitness of the applica- tion : we suppose that the refreshment of the wearied disciples was one of the purposes for which the fire had been kindled, and the food prepared ; and there was use for the bread in regard of this purpose, if not of any other. Though it would not be hard to believe that the fish and the bread were com- bined with a higher intent. Christ, you will remember, had fed a great multi- tude with a few loaves and fishes, typi- fying how the truths and doctrines of his religion should suffice for the spirit ual sustenance of the world. The dis ciples would naturally be reminded of this miracle, when Jesus again took bread and fish, and distributed amongst them — reminded too (and what parting lesson could be mure important 1) that the food which Christ delivered to them as spiritual pastors, would be an abun- dant provision for the men of all ages and countries. But, now, considering that a sufficient and consistent interpretation has been assigned to the several parts of the nar- rative befoi'e us, we would show you, in conclusion, into how beautiful an al- legory some of the facts may be wrought, when a broader view is taken, one which shall more distinctly comprehend ourselves. We would not, indeed, claim, for what we have now to advance, the character of an explanation, or in- terpretation, of the significative circum- stances — it is at best but an accommo- dation of the parable : but when a por- tion of Scripture has been expounded, as if relating rather to others than to ourselves, it is both lawful and useful to search for some personal application, that we may feel our own interest, and find our own profit, in the passage re- viewed. It is a natural and appropriate simile which likens life to a voyage, a voyage which has variety of terminations — sometimes in calm, sometimes in storm; the vessel, in one case, casting anchor in placid waters, so that the spirit has but, if we may use the expression, to step gently ashore ; in another, suffer- ing shipwreck, so that there is fearful strife and peril in escaping from the waves. We shall all reach the shore ot another world : for though some may be said to be thrown violently on that shore, whilst others are landed on it, as though by the kind ministry of angels, none can perish as if existence might terminate at death ; of all it will have to be said, as of those with St. Paul in the ship, some by swimming, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, " it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land." And there is something of a delinea- tion of this variety of modes of death, in Peter's struggling through the water, whilst the other disciples approach the shore in their boat. Peter's is the vio- lent death, the death of the martyr ; but his companions find a gentler dismissal from the flesh ; theirs is the natural death, death with fewer of the accom- paniments which invest the last act with terror and awfulness. Yet, die when we will, and how we will, there is a mysteriousness about the moment of dissolution, which must cause it to be expected with some measure of fear and apprehension. The passing in that moment from time to eternity — the be- coming in that instant a disembodied spirit, a naked, unclothed soul, launched upon an unknown scene, with none of the instruments heretofore employed for the ingathering of knowledge, or the communication of thought — oh, who ever marked, so far as it can be mark- ed, the noiseless flitting away of man's immortal part, without experiencing a painful inquisitiveness as to what had become of that part, as to where it was, as to what it saw, as to what it heard 'I There may be a thorough assurance that the soul has gone to be with the Lord ; but whilst this de- stroys all anxiety on its account, it does not, cannot, repress the striving of the mind to follow it in its flight, the intense gaze at the folds of the vail which hangs between the present, world and the future, as if it must have been so far withdrawn for the admission of the spirit just freed from flesh, that some glimpse might be caught by the watch- ful of the unexplored region beyond. But in vain this striving of the mind, this intenseness of the gaze. Whilst THE FIRE ON THE SHORE. 151 we live, it is as ati infinite desert, which no thought can traverse, that separates the two worlds; though, when we come to die, it will be found but a line, like that which the last wave leaves on a sandy shore. Let it satisfy us, in the mean- while, that whatever the mode in which the soul of the righteous is dismissed — whether that mode be imaged in Peter's casting himself into the sea, and strug- gling to the land, or whether it be re- presented in the quieter approaehings of the boat with the other disciples — the soul will find preparation, as it were, for its reception : Christ stands upon the shore, expecting his faithful servants ; and of all of them it will have to be said, in the words of our text, " As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread." Oh, this may well shadow out, what we have abundant warrant for believing from more express statements of Scripture, that, to the faithful in Christ, the moment of being detached from the body is the moment of being admitted into happiness. " As soon as they were come to land " — no delay, no interval — all that was needed was found ready ; the fire kindled, and the banquet spread. Yet who doubts that the righteous will not only find the material of happi- ness prepared, but that they will carry with them, so to speak, additions to that material, and make heaven all the richer and the brighter by their arrival 1 It is " the communion of saints ; " and whilst each saint shall draw cause of rapture from those who have gone before, they also shall draw cause of rapture from him. Ah, then, how beautifully appo- site the direction, " Bring of the fish which ye have now caught." The ban- quet, the marriage-supper of the Lamb, shall be furnished from the contributions of every generation ; all that any man, in any age, has been enabled to accom- plish in works of righteousness and faith, every spiritual battle won, every convert made, shall be mingled in that vast stoi-e of happiness, of which the glo- rified Church shall everlastingly partake. " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors ; and their works do follow them." They " rest from their labors," in that, as soon as they come to land, they see a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread : " their works do follow them," in that they are thfcn bidden to bring of the fish which they have caught. Oh, that we may all so labor during life, that hereafter, when judged, as we must be, by our works, there may be found, not indeed — what can never be — a claim to the happiness of heaven, but an evi- dence of our having loved the Lord Je sus in sincerity and truth. 152 THE FINDING THE GUEST-CHAMBER. SERMON III THE FINDING THE GUEST-CHAMBER. And he seudeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a maa bearin? a pitcher of water : follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house. The Master sailh, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he will shew j ou a large upper room furnished and prepared : there make ready for us." — St. Mark, xiv. 13, 14, 15. The time was now at hand when our Lord was to complete, by the sacrifice of Himself, the great work for which He had taken upon Him our nature. He had wrought miracle upon miracle, in evidence of a divine commission ; and He had delivered discourse upon dis- course, in illustration of the dispensation which he had come to introduce. But without shedding of blood there could he no remission of sin ; and all his ac- tions, and sermons, had been but pre- paratory to a wondrous and fearful oc- currence, the surrender of Himself to the will of his enemies, to the death of a malefactor. The disciples should have been aware — for Christ gave them frequent warn- ing — that the time of separation from their Master was almost arrived, and that the separation would be effected in a manner most trying to their faith. Yet, they appear to have closed their eyes, in a great degree, to the coming events : after all which had been done to prepare them, they were taken by surprise, and seemed as bewildered and confounded by what befel Christ, as though He had not, in the most express terms, forewarned them of his crucifix- ion and burial. This arose from their unbelief and hardness of heart : they had not yet divested themselves of the thought and hope of a temporal king- dom ; and, whatever the process by which they contrived to explain away, or hide from themselves, the clear state- ments of our Lord, it is manifest that they had virtually no expectation that Christ would be nailed to the cross, and that his dying this shameful death passed with them as well-nigh a proof, that He could not be the deliverer pro- mised unto Israel. But it is beautiful to observe what pains, so to speak, were taken by the compassionate Savior to fortify the dis- ciples, to arm them for the approaching days of temptation and disaster. We have at other times shown you how this tender consideration for his followers may be traced in the arrangements which He made for his last entry into Jerusalem, in accomplishment of the prophecy of Zechariah, that her King should come to Zion, sitting upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. It was in a strange and circuitous way that Christ provided Himself with the animal on which He was to ride. He sent two of his disciples to a particular spot, informing them that they should there find an ass and a colt. He direct- ed them to take possession of these ani- mals, and lead them away, as though they had been their own. He furnished them with certain words, in reply to any remonstrance which the owners might make, and assured them that these words would induce the owners to part with their property. How sin- gular, how intricate a mode of obtaining, what probably would have been brought Him, had He merely mentioned his wish to any one in the multitude. But was there not good reason for his pre- ferring this circuitous method 1 We may be sure there was ; even as, when the tribute money had to be paid, 'there was good reason for his sending Peter THE FINDING THE GUEST-CHAMBER. 153 to the sea, and making him find the piece of money in the month of the fish which he first caught, in place of pro- ducing, as He might have done, the money at once, divesting the miracle of all intricate accompaniments. And there is no difficulty in assigning reasons for the method which our Lord took to procure the humble equipage of which He had need. The foreknowledge which He displayed as to mean and in- considerable things, such as the ass and her colt ; the influence which, though at a distance, He put forth upon the owners, inducing them to part with their property, — these surely were calculated to convince the disciples (and upon no point, at that moment, had they greater need of assurance) that Christ would have his eye upon them in their poverty and distress, and that his not being visi- bly present, would in no degree inter- fere with his power of subduing his ene- mies, and sustaining his friends. But our Lord was not content with having, in this signal instance, furnished his followers with such evidences of his prescience and power, as were most adapted to prepare them for the on- coming trial. In the course of a very few days, and when the time of his cru- cifixion was close at hand, He took a similar roundabout way of obtaining what He needed, with the intent, as we may believe, of again impressing on the disciples the truths which would best support them in their approaching tri- bulation. Our Lord was now in Betha- ny, in the confines of Jerusalem, await- ing the final act of rejection by the Jews. The first day of the feast of un- leavened bread having arrived, the dis- ciples came to Him, saying, " Where wilt thou that we go and prepare, that thou mayest eat the passover 1 " This was a very simple question, sup- posing, as was undoubtedly the case, that Christ had determined in what house he would partake of the last sup- per with his followers. And He might have delivered a very simple answer, indicating the street in the city, and the name of the householder. This is what would most naturally have been done under ordinary circumstances, but our Lord, as you will observe, took a wholly different course. In place of a simple answer, He gave the most complicated directions. He tells his disciples to go into the city, mentioning no particular quarter, but bidding them proceed till they should meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. They were to follow this man — not to speak to him, with the view of ascertaining whether he were the right person to follow — but to fol- low him, and to enter any house into which he might go. They were then to accost the master of this house — not, as it would appear, the same person as they had been following — but they were to accost him without ceremony, in an abrupt manner, as making a claim, ra- ther than as preferring a request. " The Master saith, Where is the guest-cham- ber, whei-e I shall eat the passover with my disciples ] " Christ assured his mes- sengers, that, upon this, a large upper room would be shown them, " furnished and prepared." Thus, accordingly, it came to pass. We read in the next verse, " His disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as He had said unto them." But you can hardly read of so intri- cate a way of doing a simple thing, and not ask — -as in regard of the mode of obtaining the ass and the colt — why did our Lord take so roundabout a method ] why did He not go more directly to his end ? We may be sure that there were good reasons : these reasons, we may believe, are still to be found in the cir- cumstances of the disciples, and in the desire of Christ to strengthen them for the trial which was now close at hand ; and we invite you to an attentive sur- vey of the several particulars specified in our text, that you may the better judge whether it was not with a wise and tender regard for those from whom He was so soon to be separated, that Jesus, in place of sending Peter and John direct to the house where He de- signed to eat the passover, bade them go into the city, and look out for, and follow, " a man bearing a pitcher of water." Now, let the preparation have been ever so labored and explicit, it cannot be denied that it was a great trial of faith which the disciples were about to undergo, in beholding their Master given up to the wiles of his enemies, and in being themselves exposed to fierce per- secution. Even had they thoroughly understood, and apprehended, the pre- dictions of Christ in regard of his own 154 THE FINDING THE GUEST-CHAMBER. betrayal and death, it could not have been other than a terrible shock, a shock calculated to overthrow all but the very firmest trust, when the powers of dark- ness seemed to triumph, and evil angels, and evil men, prevailed against right- eousness. It must then have been a great thing for the disciples, that faith should he kept in exercise up to the very time when so vast a demand was to be made upon its energies; for, assuredly, in proportion as faith was left inactive till summoned to face the shame of the cross, woud be the likelihood of its then giving way, as not having been practised in lesser encounters. Faith, like other powers, is strengthened through use; and every believer must feel, that if, after a long period of com- parative peace and security, he is sud- denly met by an extraordinary onset of trial, there is much greater risk of his being confounded and overborne, than if the extraordinary onset were to come after a lengthened series of less virulent assaults. The spiritual arm, as well as the bodily, becomes fitted for encounter with the giant, through frequent encoun- ters with formidable, but not as formid- able, adversaries; though either, if ex- posed, without this previous discipline, to a contest with Goliath of Gath, might prove wholly insufficient, and give way at once, having scarce attempted the battle. It was after having met the lion and the bear, that David went forth to meet the uncircumcised Philistine. And we might expect that Christ, knowing to how great effort the faith of his followers was about to be called, would, in his compassionate earnestness for their welfare, keep their faith in ex- ercise up to the moment of the dreaded separation. He would find, or make occa- sions for trying and testing the princi- ples which were soon to be brought to so stern a proof. Did He do this 1 and how did he do it 1 We regard the circumstances which are now under re- view, those connected with the finding the guest-chamber in which the last sup- per might be oaten, as an evidence and illustration of Christ's exercising the faith of his disciples. Was it not exercising the faith of Peter and John — for these, the more distinguished of the disciples, were em- ployed on the errand — to send them in- to the city with such strange and desul- tory directions 1 How natural for them to have said, why not tell us at once the house to which we are to go ] we shall perhaps meet a dozen men, each bear- ing ;i pitcher of water; we are as likely to follow the wrong as the right ; and as to entering a stranger's house, and abrubtly requiring him to show us the guest-chamber, how improbable is it that we shall meet with any thing but insult, insult which will really be de- served, considering that we shall have taken an inexcusable liberty. There were so many chances, if the word may be used, against the guest-chamber be- ing found through the circuitous method prescribed by our Lord, that we could not have wondered, had Peter and John shown reluctance to obey his command. And we do not doubt that what are called the chances, were purposely mul- tiplied by Christ, to make the finding the room seem more improbable, and therefore to give faith the greater exer- cise. It could be no unusual thing for a man to be carrying a pitcher of water — Christ might have given some more remarkable sign. But it was its not be- ing remarkable which made place for faith. Again, there would have been risk enough of mistake or repulse, in accosting the man with the pitcher : but this man was only to be followed; and he might stop at many houses be- fore he reached the right ; and the mas- ter of the house might be from home — how many contingencies might have been avoided, if Christ would but have •riven more explicit directions. But Christ would not be more explicit, be- cause, in proportion as He had been more explicit, there would have been less exercise for faith. And if you imagine that, after all, it was no great demand on the faith of Peter and John, that they should go on so vague an errand — for that much did not hinge on their finding the right place, and they had but to return, if any thing went wrong — we are altogeth- er at issue with you. I have no hesita- tion in maintaining, that any one of you would have been loath to go into Jeru- salem for such a purpose, and with such directions ; ay, more loath than to un- dertake some signal enterprise, manifest- ly requiring high courage and fortitude. There was something that looked de- grading and ignoble in the errand — THE FINDING THE GUEST-CHAMBER, 155 men who could work miracles, and who had been with Christ when transfigured, being sent to look about the streets for a man bearing a pitcher of water, and to enter a stranger's house where they were only likely to meet rudeness. And the apparent meanness of an em- ployment will often try faith more than its apparent difficulty ; the exposure to ridicule and contempt will require greater moral nerve than the exposure to danger and death. How should it be otherwise, when genuine humility is among the hardest things to acquire and maintain : and when, consequently, whatsoever goes directly to the morti- fying pride will more touch men to the quick, than any amount of effort, or of sacrifice, round which may be thrown something of a lofty or chivalrous as- pect 1 Oh, do not tell us of great faith as required only for the following Christ bearing his cross — there was great faith required also for the following the man bearing the pitcher. Tell us not of its being a hard task to go in unto Pharaoh, and to say, " Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go ; " it was a hard task also to go in unto the stranger, and say, " Thus saith the Master, Where is the guest-chamber 1 " We believe that it is very frequently ordered that faith should be disciplined and nurtured for its hardest endurances, and its highest achievements, through exposure to petty inconveniences, col- lisions with mere rudeness, the obloquy of the proud, the sneer of the super- cilious, and the incivility of the ignorant. Men have looked wonderingly, as some unflinching confessor, some candidate for the bloody crown of martyrdom, has stepped forth from ranks which had only simple duties to discharge, and common trials to face, and displayed a constancy, and a courage, surpassing those exhibited by Christians trained in higher schools of experience. But they have forgotten, or they have not known, that no where is faith so well disciplined as in humble occupations, that it grows great through little tasks, and may be more exercised by' being kept to the menial business of a servant, than by being summoned to the lofty standing of a leader. They have forgotten, or they have not known, that the uncour- teous repulses, the ungracious slights, the contemptuous insults, to which a Christian may be exposed in acting out his Christianity in every-day life, and amid the most common-place circum- stances, put his principles to severe proof, or keep them in full work ; and that the very fact of his having moved in so humble a sphere, and been plied with trials so unostentatious and petty, has had a direct tendency to the harden- ing him for conflict, ay, though it might be with "principalities and powers." And it seems to us that Christ was practically teaching, and illustrating all this, in the course which he took with his disciples, as the time of their great trial drew near. We may justly assume that He sought to prepare them for this trial, that it was his .object to keep their faith exercised, that the likelihood might be less of its giving way at the last. And his method of exercise was by employing them on errands which threat- ened to be fruitless, and seemed to be degrading. Five days before his cruci- fixion, He sends two disciples to look for an ass and a colt, where they were perhaps little likely to be found, and to remove them at the risk of being regard- ed as robbers, and therefore treated with insult or violence. And now two days before his crucifixion, He sends two disciples to find him a place where He may celebrate the passover; but He seems to take pains, not only to avoid the being simple in his directions, but to make those directions involve as many probabilities as possible of what would be irksome and unpleasant, as much exposure as possible to mistake, repulse, contempt — the very things from which men are most ready to shrink — for He bids his disciples walk the city till they meet a man bearing a pitcher of water, follow that man, enter any house into which he might go, and accost the master of the house with the unceremonious message, " The Master saith, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples 1 " We should, however, be taking only a contracted view of the circumstances before us, if we considered them merely with reference to an exercise of faith, as though Christ's only object had been the disciplining his disciples for the shame of the cross, by employing them on errands from which their pride would revolt. That this was one great object, 156 THE FINDING THE GUEST-CHAMBER. we think it lawful to infer, as well from the nature of the case, as from the re- semblance of the proceeding to that which had occurred but three days be- ftn-e, when the two disciples were dis- patched for the ass and the colt. You can hardly fail to admit, that the same principle must have been at work in the two cases — so similarly are the chances of mistake and repulse multiplied, and, with these, the chances of insult ; our Lord is evidently carrying on a system, a system, if we may use the expression, of humiliating errands, as though He would thereby prepare his followers to face persecution in its more awful forms. And we do earnestly desire of you to bear this in mind; for men, who are not appointed to great achievements and endurances, are very apt to feel as though there were not enough, in the trials and duties of a lowly station, for the nurture and exercise of high Christian graces. Whereas, if it were by merely follow- ing a man bearing a pitcher of water that Apostles were trained for the worst onsets of evil, there may be no such school for the producing strong faith as that in which the lessons are of the most every-day kind. It is a remarkable say- ing of our blessed Lord, " If any man will come after me, let him deny him- self, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." " Take up his cross daily " — then there is a cross to be borne every day : the cross is not to be carried only on great occasions; the cross is to be carried daily : a true Christian will find the cross, nay, cannot miss the cross, in the events, the duties, the trials, of every day — else how is he to " take up his cross daily ? " how to fol- low Christ daily 1 Ah, we are too apt to think that taking up the cross, and following Christ, are singular things, things for peculiar seasons and extraor- dinary circumstances. Let us learn, and let us remember, that, on the con- trary, they may, they must, be of every day occurrence ; and let it serve to ex- plain how they may be of daily occur- rence, that, when Christ would school his disciples to face the perils of fol- lowing Him as He ascended Mount Calvary, He set them to face the un- pleasantness of following a man bearing a pitcher of water. But there is more than this to be said in regad of the complicated way in which Christ directed his disciples to the guest-chamber where He had de- termined to eat the last supper. He was not only exercising the faith of the disciples, by sending them on an errand which seemed unnecessarily intricate, and to involve great exposure to insult and repulse — He was giving strong evi- dence of his thorough acquaintance with every thing that was to happen, and of his power over the minds whether of strangers or of friends. In proportion as there seemed a great many chances against the right room being found by the disciples, was the proof, as you must all admit, when the room was neverthe- less found, that the prescience, or fore- knowledge, of Christ extended to mi- nute or inconsiderable particulars. You must consider it as a prophecy, on the part of Christ, that the man would be met, bearing a pitcher of water; that, if followed, he would enter the light house ; that the master of this house, on being asked by the disciples, would show them " a large upper-room furnish- ed and prepared," where they might make ready for the eating the passover. But it was a prophecy of no ordinary kind. It was a prophecy which seemed to take delight in putting difficulties in the way of its own precise accomplish- ment. It would not have been accom- plished by the mere finding the house — it would have been defeated, had the house been found through any other means than the meeting the man, or had the man been discovered through any other sign than the pitcher of water : yea, and it would have been defeated, defeated in the details, which were given, as it might have seemed, with such unnecessary and perilous minute- ness, if the master of the house had made the least objection, or if it had not been an upper-room which he showed the disciples, or if that room had not been large, or if it had not been furnish- ed and prepared. If Christ had merely sent the disciples to a particular house, telling them that they would there find a guest-chamber, there might, or there might not have been prophecy ; the master of the house might have been one of Christ's adherents, and Christ might previously have held with Him some private communication, arranging for the celebration of the passover. But our Lord put it beyond controversy THE FINDIXG THE GUEST-CHAMBER. 1'j7 that there was no pre-arranged scheme, but that He was distinctly exercising his own prophetic power, by making the whole thing turn on the meeting a man with a pitcher of water. For though you may say that this might have been part of a plot or confederacy, our Lord having agreed with the house- holder that his servant should be stand- ing, with a particular burden, at a par- ticular place, and at a particular time, yet, surely, on the least reflection, you must allow that no sagacious person, who had thought it worth while to make a plot at all, would have made one so likely to be defeated — for what more likely than that, in the streets of a crowded city, several persons would be met, about the same time, with so com- mon a thing as a pitcher of water ] or than that the disciples, loitering a little on the road, or going a different way, would just miss the encounter on which the whole thing depended ? The supposition of any thing of plot, or confederacy, is excluded by the com- monness of the specified occurrences ; and then, on the other hand, this very commonness should serve to make what must have been prophecy all the more wonderful ; for to be able to foresee, with most perfect distinctness, that the man would be met, that the disciples would follow the right person, that they would be taken to the right house, that they would be shown the right room — nay, you may speak of the marvellous- ness of foreseeing an empire's rise, or an empire's fall ; but there might really be greater scope for the keen conjec- ture, or the sagacious guess, of a far- sighted man, in the probable revolutions of states, than in the pitcher of water, and the furnished guest-chamber. And whatever tended to prove to the disciples their Master's thorough ac- quaintance with every future contin- gency, ought to have tended to the pre- paring them for the approaching days of disaster and separation. For how could they think that any thing, which was about to happen to Christ, would happen by chance, without having been accurately foreknown by Him, and fore- ordained, when He showed that his pre- science extended to such inconsiderable particulars as were involved in the er- rand on which they had been sent? And what right had they to be stagger- ed by what befal Christ, if nothing be- fel Him which He had not expected, and for which He had not provided 1 If He foresaw the man with the pitcher, He must have foreseen Himself with the cross — and surely, if He thoroughly foreknew what was coming upon Him, this very circumstance should have suf- ficed to prove Him more than human ; and, if more than human, what was there to be staggered at in the shame of his cross ? Besides, it was beautifully adapted to the circumstances of the disciples, that Christ showed that his foreknowledge extended to trifles. These disciples were likely to imagine, that, being poor and mean persons, they should be over- looked by Christ, when separated from them, and, perhaps, exalted to glory. And the showing them that his eye was on the movements of the Roman gov- ernor, or on the secret gatherings of the Pharisees, would not have sufficed to prevent, or destroy, this imagination; for Pilate and the Pharisees occupied prominent places, and might be expected to fix Christ's attention. But that his eye was threading the crowded tho- roughfares of the city, that it was noting a servant with a pitcher of water, ob- serving accurately when this servant left his master's house, when he reached the well, and when he would be at a parti- cular spot on his way back — ah, this was not merely wonderful foreknowledge; this was foreknowledge applying itself to the insignificant and unknown : Peter and John might have obtained little com- fort from Christ's proving to them that He watched a Caesar on the throne; but it ought to have been surprisingly cheer- ing to them, his proving that He watch- ed a poor slave at the fountain. Then, again, observe that whatever power was here put forth by Christ, was put forth without his being in contact with the party on whom it was exerted. Had He gone Himself to the house- holder, and in person demanded the ac- commodation which He needed, the re- sult might have been ascribed to his presence ; there was no resisting, it might have been said, one whose word was always " with power." Whereas, the householder surrendered his pro- perty on the strength of the message, " The Master s'aith," as the owners had surrendered the ass and the colt, on be- 158 THE FINDING THE GUEST-CHAMBER. ing told, " The Lord hath need of them." Christ acted, that is, upon parties who were at a distance from Him, thus giv- ing incontrovertible proof, that his visi- ble presence was not necessary in order to the exercise of his power. What a comfort should this have been to the disciples, informing and assuring them that Christ's removal from them would in no degree interfere with his protec- tion and guardianship ; if from Bethany Christ could make the householder in Jeiusalem throw open his guest-cham- ber, Peter might have learnt that, from heaven, Christ could make the prison- doors fly open for his escape. Were not then all the details of the errand before us, even when you leave out the exercise of the faith of the dis- ciples, every way worthy of the wisdom and goodness of our Lord, expressive of his tender consideration for the cir- cumstances of his followers, and of his desire to afford them the instruction and encouragement which might best fit them for coming duties and trials 1 In- deed, it is easy to imagine how, when his death was near at hand, Christ might have wrought miracles, and uttered pro- phecies, more august in their character, and more adapted to the excitement of amazement and awe. He might have darkened the air with portents and pro- digies, and have brought up from the future magnificent processions of thrones and principalities. But there would not have been, in these gorgeous or appal- ling displays, the sort of evidence which was needed by disquieted and dispirited men, whose meanness suggested to them a likelihood of their being overlooked, and who, expecting to be separated from their Master, might fear that the sepa- ration would remove them from his care. And this evidence, the evidence that Jesus had his eye on those whom the world might neglect or despise, and that He did not require to be visibly present, whether to keep down an enemy or support a friend — ah, this was given, so that the disciples might have taken it. in all its preciousness, to themselves, when every thing came to pass which had been involved in or indicated by the directions, " Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house, The Mas- ter saith, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples ]" And should we be warranted in as- signing any thing of a more typical or symbolical meaning to the directions which were thus issued by our Lord I Indeed, in so doing, we should not be without the sanction of .eminent inter prefers, whilst the accuracy and beauty of the type must readily commend them- selves to every thoughtful mind. It was not for the mere purpose of celebrating the passover that our blessed Lord sought a guest-chamber where He might eat his last supper with his disciples. Then and there was He to institute that commemorative, that sacrificial rite, in and through which the Church, in all ages, was to feed on his body, and drink of his precious blood. The sup per was to be concluded by his taking bread, and blessing it into the sacra- mental representative of his flesh, wine into the sacramental representative of his blood; and by the issuing of a so- lemn injunction that the like should ever after be done in devout remembrance of Himself. Thus, in that guest-cham- ber, was the feast on the paschal lamb to be virtually abolished ; but only that there might be ordained in its stead a profounder and more pregnant mystery, the feast on the true Paschal Lamb, par- taking of which the faithful, to the end of time, might apprehend and appropri- ate the benefits of the all-sufficient sa- crifice for the sins of the world. But the sacrament of the body and blood of our blessed Redeemer is for those only who have been duly initiated by the sacrament of baptism into the visible Church. It is not the initiatory sacrament, not that through which we are first grafted into Christ, and made members of his mystical body ; but that through which, having by another ordi- nance been born again, and received into the family of God, we are kept in that holy fellowship, and nurtured up to everlasting life. Hence the one sacra- ment, whose outward sign is water, is pre- paratory to the other sacrament, whose outward part or sign is bread and wine; and it were, indeed, the most perilous invasion of the highest privilege of Christians, were any, who had not been washed in the laver of regeneration, to intrude themselves at that table where, THE FINDING THE GUKST-CIIAMUr.P. 1.1!) in awful remembrance, and effectual sig- nificance, there is distributed that flesh which is meat indeed, and that blood which is drink indeed. But was not all this, in a measure, shadowed out — or, if not intentionally shadowed out, may it not be lawfully traced — in Christ's directions to his dis- ciples on which we have discoursed I How were the disciples to find out the guest-chamber ? By following a man " bearing a pitcher of water." The water was, it as were, to lead them into the guest-chamber, the chamber where they were to find the body and blood of their Lord. You may pronounce this nothing but an accidental coincidence, if, indeed, you will presume to speak of any thing as accidental, undesigned, and insignificant, in the actions and ap- pointments of Christ. But we cannot help counting the coincidence too exact, and too definite, to have not been in- tended — at least, if we may not use it in confirmation, we may in illustration of a doctrine. The disciples, indeed, may have attached no symbolical meaning to the pitcher of water : they were in quest only of a room in which to eat the pass- over, and knew nothing of the solemn rite about to be instituted. Hence, to them there would be nothing in the pitcher of water, but a mark by which to know into what house to enter. But to ourselves, who are looking for the guest-chamber, not as the place where the paschal lamb may be eaten, but as that where Christ is to give of his own body and blood, the pitcher of water may well serve as a memento that it is baptism which admits us into Christian privileges, that they, who find a place at the supper of the Lord, must have met the man with the water, and have ] followed that man — must have been pre- sented to the minister of the Church, I and have received from him the ini- j tiatory sacrament ; and then have sub- mitted meekly to the guidance of the Church, till introduced to those deeper recesses of the sanctuary, where Christ spreads his rich banquet for such as call upon his name. Thus may there have been, in the di- rections for finding the guest-chamber, a standing intimation of the process through which should be sought an en- trance to that upper room, where Christ and his members shall finally sit down, that they may eat together at the mar- riage supper. For the communion of the body and blood of the Redeemer is itself to "show forth the Lord's death" only " till He come," and shall give place, as the passover gave place to it, to a richer banquet, in a yet higher apartment of the heavenly kingdom. That apartment, too, like the upper room in Jerusalem, is large, and fur- nished, and prepared — large enough to admit us all, furnished and prepared with whatsoever can minister to happiness. And having been admitted by baptism into the Church below, having sought continued supplies of grace in the upper room, at the altar where the Master is " evidently set forth, crucified among " us — ay, having thus, in the simplicity of faith and obedience, submitted ourselves to Christ's ordinances, because they are his ordinances, as did the disciples to his directions, because they were his direc- tions, we may humbly hope to pass here- after into that yet loftier abode — more truly " the large upper room " — where Christ shall everlastingly give his peo- ple of his fulness, and make them drink of his pleasures as out of a river. 169 THE SPECTRE'S SERMON A TRUISM. SERMON IV THE SPECTRE'S SERMON A TRUISM. 1 Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, hut I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be moro just than God ) shall a man be more pure than his Maker? " — Job iv 15, 16, 17. Every one must, of course, be aware that, whilst the Bible is throughout to be implicitly depended on, as neither recording historically anything but facts, nor delivering didactically anything but truths, it does not follow that every pas- sage may, in the strictest sense, be taken as the word of God. In the historical parts of Scripture, the sayings, as well as the actions of various persons are re- gistered ; and whilst in many instances the actions are such as God did not ap- prove, in others the sayings are such as He did not inspire. It does not then follow, that, because words are found in the Bihle, they may be taken as announcing some truth on which the preacher may safely proceed to discourse. They may be the words of a man in whom the Spirit of God did not dwell, of a heathen whose creed was falsehood, or of a blasphemer who de- spised all authority. In surh cases, what is termed the inspiration of Scripture warrants nothing but the fiithfulness of the record : we are sure that the sayings set down were actually uttered : the pen of the historian was guided by God's Spirit, but only in regard of the strict office of the historian, that of registering with accuracy certain occurrences. And, of course, if the inspiration extend only to the man who records, and not to him who utters a saying, the saying itself may not be necessarily truth, though the Bible itself undividedly is. In the ma- jority of instances, indeed, we doubt not that the two things concur — the speaker was directed what to say, as well as the historian what to record — or rather, by directing the historian to insert certain sayings in his book, the Spirit of God may be considered as having appropri- ated those sayings, and given them in a measure the stamp of his approval. We here speak especially of the say- ings of holy men of old. It would not, of course, be easy to show — nay, we do not suppose it to be true — that, in all which the saints, whether of the old or the new dispensation, are record- ed to have said, we may look for the ut- terances of men immediately and literally inspired. But, nevertheless, Ave think that, in preserving their sayings, and causing them to be transmitted to all fu- ture days, the Spirit of God has so far sanctioned them by his authority, that they should be received by us with much of that reverence which is due to express and explicit revelation. We make these general remarks, be- cause our text is the utterance of an in- dividual for whom we cannot perhaps claim, on indubitable testimony, that he spake by the Spirit of God. It is Eli- phaz the Temanite who speaks, one of those three friends of the afflicted Pa- triarch Job, who "had made an appoint- ment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him," but who vir- tually did little but upbraid the sufferer, aggravating his griefs by injurious sus- picions, and false accusations. We are naturally so disposed to feel angry with men who dealt, to all appearance, so harshly with one whose sorrow and pa- tience should have secured him the most tender sympathy, that it would not be difficult to persuade ourselves that their THE SPECTRE S SERMON A TRUISM. 161 discourses are not to be taken as part and parcel of the inspired Scripture. But we are able to show, by a simple yet incontestable proof, that, if the Spirit of God did not inspire these men, He has given to their sayings, by placing them within the inspired volume, much of tbe weight which his own dictation must always impart. There is probably but one distinct quotation in the New Testament from the Book of Job. St. James, indeed, refers generally to the history of Job, but he does not adduce any words from the narrative. St. Paul, however, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, has quoted from the Book, and that too, with the form, " it is written," which always serves, in the New Testament, to mark what is quoted as part of Holy Scripture, strictly so called. In order to prove his proposition, "For the wis- dom of this world is foolishness with God," St. Paul states, " For it is writ- ten, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness." Now it is in the Book of Job that these words are written; and the observable thing is, that they are not words uttered by Job himself, but by that very person, Eliphaz the Te- manite, who also delivers the words of our text. We have, therefore, what amounts to conclusive evidence, that, whatever at times the injustice and false reasoning of Eliphaz, the Spirit of God employed him, even as He afterwards did Balaam, in delivering truths for the instruction of the world. We have desired to make this clear to you, before entering expressly or. the examination of the text, because we wished to guard against any suspicion, that we might be laying too much stress on a passage for which we could not claim the full authority that belongs to what the Holy Ghost has indited. Though, indeed, if we could not thus vindicate, in general, the inspired cha- racter of the utterances of Eliphaz, there would be little room for doubting, that, in the particular instance which has to come under review, this Temanite spake by the direction of God. He recounts a vision ; he records words which were mysteriously brought to him amid the deep silence of the night; and if we could not carry further our confidence in what he said, we might, at least, be sure that what he affirmed had actually 21 taken place, and that words, which he quoted as delivered to him by an un- earthly voice, had indeed been breathed in so startling and impressive a manner. On every account, therefore, we r;r; plead for our text as having all that claim on your reverential attention which be- longs to inspiration in its highest degree. Come, then, with us ; and as Eliphaz records what he saw, and what he heard, attend as you would to the utterances of a messenger from the invisible world. We do not want to make the blood run cold, nor to thrill you with a strange and undefinable dread. But, neverthe- less, we would use the wild and awful circumstances of the vision to give so- lemnity to the truth which is brought to our notice ; for it may be that with you, as with Eliphaz, there will be a listen- ing with greater abstraction and intense- ness of feeling, if it be from a dim and flitting image, and after a deep porten- tous silence, that you hear the question -i asked, " Shall mortal man be more just than God 1 shall a man be more pure than his maker V Now there can be no dispute that we have, in the narrative of Eliphaz, the ac- count of an apparition : a purely spirit- ual being, such as an angel, assumed a visible though indescribable form, and stood before Eliphaz in the stillness of the night. It is generally regarded as proof of a weak and superstitious mind, to put faith in what are termed ghost stories, tales of apparitions, whether of the dead, or of unknown visitants from the spiritual world. But we do not see why so much of scepticism and ridicule should be afloat on the matter of alleged apparitions. We see nothing, whether in the statements of Scriptm-e, or the deductions of reason, from which to de- cide that there cannot be apparitions ; that the invisible state may never com- municate with the visible through the instrumentality of phantoms, strange and boding forms that are manifestly not of this earth. And if you cannot show, either from revelation, or from the na- ture of things, that apparitions are im- possible, of course the truth or falsehood of any alleged case is simply dependent on testimony — no amount of testimony could make me believe that a known impossibility had taken place; but any thing short of a known impossibility might be substantiated by evidence ; 1G2 THE SPECTKKS SERMON' A TRUISM. and certainly, therefore, an apparition may be substantiated, for no one will ever prove the actual impossibility. There may easily be a weak and fond credulity in regard of ghosts and appa- ritions ; but there may be also, we be- lieve, a cold and hard .scepticism : and knowing how thin is the vail which hangs between the visible and invisible worlds, and how transparent that vail is to spiritual beings, though impervious to mortal sight, it might be better for us to be classed with the credulous — if it be credulity to yield on sufficient testi- mony — than with those who are too en- lightened to be superstitious, if super- stition be the thinking that God, for wise purposes, may sometimes draw aside the vail, or make it transparent on this side as well as on the other. Neither should we wonder if much of that dogged resistance, which is op- posed to the best authenticated narra- tives of apparitions, may be traced to men's repugnance to the being brought into contact with the invisible world. They instinctively shrink from commu- nion with a state, which their irrepressi- ble fears people with dark and fitful imagery; and it is, therefore, with them a sort of self-defence, to take refuge in a thorough scorn of the possibility, that spirits, which are verily around them, might assume human shape, and become on a sudden visible and vocal. It is moreover worth observing, that the Bible, so far from discountenancing the notion of apparitions, may be said to give it the weight of its testimony, and that too in more than one instance. We have already remarked that no more thorough case of apparition can be even imagined, than is put upon record in the narrative of Eliphaz. You could not find, in the most marvellous of ghost stories, more of supernatural demonstra- tion, nor more of that paralyzing effect, which, ever since sin separated between man and God, appears produced, even on the best, by visitations from the spi- ritual world. The passing of the spirit before the face of Eliphaz ; the stand- ing up of the hair of his flesh ; the in- distinctness, yet truth of the image, so that no straining of the eye could make the form definite, nor any cause it to dis- perse ; and then, after a solemn pause, the deep oracular voice, burdened with weighty question — why, there is nothing in any book, whether of fiction or fact, which takes greater hold on the imagi- nation, or more exquisitely portrays what might be supposed a case of ap- parition. If every subsequent tale of supernatural appearance be invention or fable, at least the fable is modelled after a true story ; and we should have Scripture from which tQ prove that there might come an apparation, if we had no human record whatsoever that any had been seen. Besides — for it might with some justice be said that wdiat happened in early days, when revelation was scant, and God supplied the want by immedi ate intercourse, ought not to be taken in proof of what may happen in later — if you observe what is recorded of the apostles of Christ, you will find that the notion of apparitions was not only com- monly entertained, but that it passed unrebuked by our Savior Himself. When Christ approached his disciples, walking on the sea, we read, " They were troubled, saying, It is a spirit, and they cried out for fear." They evident- ly supposed that there might be an ap- parition, that a spirit might assume hu- man form ; and though you may say that this arose only from the ignorance and superstition of the disciples, it is, at least, observable that our Lord pro- ceeded immediately to quiet their ap- prehensions, but not to correct their mistake — " Be of good cheer ; it is I ; be not afraid." On the occasion, moreover, of his own Resurrection, he gave yet stronger countenance to the notion that spirits might appear. When he stood sudden- ly in the midst of the assembled disci- ples, havingentered the chambers though the doors were closed, " they were ter- rified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit." That Christ should have obtained admission, not- withstanding the barred entrance, was a similar phenomenon to his treading the waters as though they had been r>. solid pavement; and the disciples took refuge in the same supposition, that it was no human being, such as one of themselves, but a spectral thing, which could thus set at nought the laws to which matter is subject. And though it does not appear that, on this occasion, they expressed their apprehensions, Christ knew their thoughts, and at once THE SPECTRE S SERMON A TRUISM. 1G3 took pains to show them their error. But how 1 not by saying, there are no such things as apparitions, and you are weak, and ignorant, in imagining that spirits ever take form, and come amongst men — which is just what might have been expected from our Lord, the great teacher of the world, had there been an error to correct — but by showing that He Himself could not be a spirit, forasmuch as He had al 1 the attributes and acci- dents of a body. " Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." We can hardly think that our Lord would thus have given a criterion, as it were, for distinguishing a spirit or an appari- tion, were it indeed only the fable or fancy of the credulous, that the tenant- ry of the invisible world may occasion- ally be sent by God with messages to man, or that the grave may, to all ap- pearance, give back its inhabitants for the disclosure of foul deeds, or the warning of the living. Of this only may we be persuaded, that it would not be on any trivial or or- dinary occasion that God drew the vail, and commissioned spiritual beings to appear upon earth. In some great crisis, whether to nations or to individuals, He might see fit to convey intimations through the agency of a spectre, em- ploying supernatural machinery to give warning of a coming catastrophe, lo prepare a people for battle, or a sinner for dissolution. The rich man, whilst he tossed on the fires of hell, imagined that if the dead Lazarus were permitted to revisit the earth, and to appear amongst his brethren in the midst of their carelessness and revelry, the effect would be to stir them to repentance, and so prevent their joining him in his place of deep torment. And therefore did He passionately beseech that the apparition might be sent, and that the beggar might stand before his dissolute kinsmen in the startling form of one risen from the grave. The request was denied : but it was not denied on the principle that the case was not one for supernatural interference, but on the reason that they, who could resist the teaching of Moses and the prophets, would remain unpersuaded by the warn- ings of a spirit. It was the sort of case in which we might look for the apparition, so far as its importance was concerned. But it is not God's method, to employ extra- ordinary means, when ordinary ought to have sufficed; and. therefore, they who yield not to the ministrations of the Gospel, and are not warned by daily judgments and occurrences, must not think to have the silences of the mid- night broken by a mysterious voice, nor the solitude of the chamber invaded by a boding spectre, in order to their being compelled to give heed to religion. It is not that there might not be wrought, in many instances, a beneficial and per- manent effect on the careless and im- penitent, through the medium of an ap- parition. For though in the parable, to which we have referred, it is stated that they, who heard not Moses and the prophets, would not " be persuaded though one rose from the dead ; " this can only be understood of such as have listened to Moses and the prophets, and remained unconvinced : there is yet a vast number, even in a land flooded with the light of revelation, who can hardly be said to be cognizant of the Gospel ; and, very possibly, upon these the spec- tral messenger would produce great ef- fect; though, forasmuch as their igno- rance of the Gospel may be traced to their own negligence and wilfulness, it is not to be expected, that, on their be- half, shall graves be depopulated, and wild unearthly phantoms make the night terrible. Still the general proposition remains, that, if ever the vail which God hath hung between the visible and the invisi- ble world be 'withdrawn, so that, in shape and bearing discernible by man, a spirit cross the separating line, it must be on some great and mighty occasion, when an awful truth is to be delivered, or a dread event foretold. And if any thing can give solemnity to a message, any thing persuade us of its being the announcement of something deep and momentous, it must be its being breath- ed from spectral lips ; or that, in agree- ment with the thrilling words which the ghost of Samuel used to Saul in the cave of the enchantress, one of the dead hath been disquieted that he might bring the communication. Come then, we again say, it must be a vast and startling truth which we have to lay before you : it would not otherwise have been con- 164 THE SPECTRE'S SERMON A TRUISM. veyed through the ministry of a spectre : there would not otherwise have been need of an express revelation, and that, too, by the voice of a flitting figure, whose pale and shadowy form caused the hair of the spectator's flesh to stand up. If there be deep words in Scripture, or words to which we require extraordi- nary testimony, surely they must be those, which, in departure from all com- mon course, God sent a spirit to utter — and thus it was that these questions were breathed, " Shall mortal man be more just than God] shall a man be more pure than his Maker? " And here we bring you to the point which appears to us to require the being closely examined. It is very certain, that, on reading the account of the ap- parition which stood before Eliphaz — an apparition so mysteriously terrible, that he declares, in the verse preceding our text, "Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake " — we naturally prepare ourselves for some very momentous communica- tion, for a truth which lay beyond the reach of reason, or which was likely to have remained undiscovered, had not God thus strangely interposed, and con- veyed it through an extraordinary chan- nel. All that can be said as to the mode of revelation in early, or patriarchal, days, when visions were employed be- cause as yet the Divine purposes were not laid open to the world, only confirms the expectation that it would be some truth of overwhelming interest, scarce- ly to be detected by the researches of natural theology, with whose delivery a spirit came charged. But the question now is, whether such an expectation be, in any measure, answered ; whether, in other words, there be any thing of apparent keeping between the message itself, and the su- pernatural machinery employed to give it utterance. We do not think that, at first sight, there is. Surely, if there be an elementary truth, a truth, at least, which every one who believes in the ex- istence of a God may ascertain without revelation, and must admit without ques- tioning, it is, that man cannot be more just than God, nor more pure than his Maker. You might exclaim, We need no angel from heaven to teach us this : this follows immediately on the confes- sion of a God : in no age of the world can it have been necessary to teach those, who believed in a God, that God must be 1 setter and greater than them- selves ; theoretically, at least, they must always have held this proposition, and could not have required the being con- firmed in it through a supernatural visitation. And however scanty jmay have been the amount of express revelation in the days of the Patriarch Job, there is no debate that a pure theism was the creed of himself and his friends : that they must have been as well aware as our- selves, and as ready to acknowledge, that there existed a Being to whom every other was tributary and inferior, and whose perfections were further re- moved than is heaven from earth, from whatsoever may be likened to them in human characteristics. We cannot well doubt, that, had Eliphaz been asked, be- fore the mysterious visitant came upon him in the midnight, which he believed the more just, and which the more pure, man or his Maker, he would have an- swered without hesitation, that there could not. be comparison ; he would perhaps have expressed surprise, that any one could have supposed that the lofty Being who inhabiteth eternity, might be rivalled in any excellence by the creatures of a day. But what then are we to gather from the visit of the spectre] wherefore was there this departure from ordinary rules, this sending of a special messenger from the invisible world, if nothing were communicated that was not already well known, nothing but the most elementary truth, which, even in the greatest dearth of revelation, must have been accessi- ble to all who, possessing any mind, em- ployed it upon Deity '? We readily own that there is a great apparent discrep- ancy between the employed instru- mentality and the communicated mes- sage. We should have quite expected that the apparition would have an- nounced some abstruse, mysterious pro- position; that, as it was sent for the purpose of affording instruction, its ut- terances would not have been limited to an ascertained and incontestable fact. If there had been any thing that could strictly have been called a revelation ; if some property of Godhead had been made known, which was not discovera- ble by i-eason ; or if some intimation had THE SPECTRE S SERMON A TRUISM. 165 Keen granted of the wondrous scheme of rescue which in the fulness of time was to be acted out on the earth, there would seem to us a sufficient end for the ap- pearance of the spirit, or a keeping be- tween the purpose and the agency. But to send a spectre, to send it with every terrible accompaniment, so that it seems to have chilled the blood and pal- sie 1 the tongue of the spectator, and to give it nothing to say, but that God is j lister and purer than man — there does indeed appear here a kind of incongru- ity ; and we are bound to examine whether there be not some lesson con- veyed in the very circumstance of the employment of a vision, when, accord- ing to our apprehensions, there was no need of supernatural teaching. And forasmuch as we know assuredly that the means which God employs are al- ways the best, precisely adapted, and never disproportioned, to the end, it must rather become us to conclude that the truth, which the apparition delivered, is not so universally admitted as we sup- pose, than to wonder that what every one acknowledges should have received so marvellous an attestation. It is here that we come upon the chief mstructiveness of the passage. We wish you indeed to contrast the solem- nity and awfulness of the agency em- ployed with the simplicity and common- ness of the message delivered. But we do not mean you to infer that the agency was disproportioned to the message : we rather call upon you to examine whether, notwithstanding the ready con- fession, the message be not one in re- gard of which there is a secret infideli- y ; whether, in short, there be not often leeded some such instrumentality as .hat of the spectre, to persuade even ;mrselves that mortal man is neither move just, nor more pure than his Maker. We may suppose that Eliphaz ad- duced the vision as applicable to the circumstances of Job, who laboring under most weighty affliction, would be tempted to arraign the equity of the Divine dispensations. It would not have been surprising, in a measure it would seem to have been the case, had Job compared the righteousness of his life with the severity of his lot, and had he drawn from the comparison conclu- sions unfavorable to the moral govern- ment of God. Indeed, they who had known the purity of the patriarch, and then observed the fearful judgments by which he was overtaken, must have had need of strong faith to repress injurious suspicious, and to justify to themselves the ways of their Maker. Yea, so dif- ficult was it to do this, without falling into an opposite error, that the three friends of Job could only defend God by accusing the patriarch ; they vindi- cated the judgments which were visible, by supposing some wickedness which had not been detected. Accordingly, Eliphaz quoted what he had heaid from the apparition, as though to repress what was struggling in the breast of the sufferer, or to assure all, who might be staggered by his calamities, that God must be clear in the matter, whatever might be said as to man. It was as much as to say, appearances are per- plexing : judging from these alone, we might decide against the Divine equity, and suppose that even human beings would act with greater justice. But I can tell you of an express communica- tion from Heaven, intended to fortify against such injurious suspicions : there stood before me a messenger from the invisible world, and in accents which thrilled through the soul he denounced the imagining that, under any possi- ble circumstances, man can be juster and more pure than God. Thus the vision was probably grant- ed, and certainly used, to oppose an in- fidelity more or less secret — an infideli- ty which, fostered by the troubles and discrepancies of human estate, took the Divine attributes as its subject, and either limited or denied them altogeth- er. And what say you, men and breth- ren, as to there being no such infidelit.v amongst ourselves 1 We are persuaded, that, if you will search your own hearts, you will find that you often give it some measure of entertainment. We are per- suaded of this in regard both of God's general dealings, and of his individual or personal. And, first, of God's general dealings, of those of which the whole race, as a body, is the subject. In spite of all the demonstrations of theology — nay, in spite of all the acknowledgments and confessions of men, when pressed for an answer — there is harbored a suspicion, if not a persuasion, that God acted in a manner unworthy of his perfections, 166 THE SPECTRE S SERMON A TRUISM. when He suffered A flam to fall, and en- tailed a heritage of woe on myriads which had no share in his transgres- sion. There is so much of mystery round the permission of evil ; it is ap- parently so strange, that, for a single fault, calamity and death should have been made the portion of successive and mighty generations ; that, reason how we will, and prove what we will, num- bers secretly cherish the thought that there was injustice with God, or, if not injustice, a defective benevolence. We are not afraid of putting it to your own consciences to attest the truth of this. We are sure that many amongst you will secretly acknowledge, that, when they look on a world overrun with sorrow, and, yet more, when they think on the fire and the worm which must constitute the future portion of those who obey the evil passions roused in them through the apostasy of Adam, they feel' as though there were some- thing harsh and inexplicable in the dis- pensation, something not to have been expected from such a being as God, but more or less at variance with the pre- sumed attributes of his nature. And we are not now about to expose the tho- rough falseness of the opinion. We have often done this. We have often shown you, that, forasmuch as God had all 'along determined the redemption of nrin, it consisted as much with goodness as with justice that He permitted his fall — there having been provision, in the mediatorial arrangement, for the be- stowment of far greater happiness on the race than it lost through the origi- nal sin. But it is not oar present business to vindicate the equity of the dealings in question : we have simply to do with the suitableness of sending an appari- tion, when that equity might be the burden of the message which it bore. The point which lies for our inquiry, is merely, whether such a supernatural agency as was employed towards Eli- phaz be, or be not, disproportioned to the communication with which the spec- tre was charged. And our belief is, that there is no disproportion ; that, even now, with all the aids which reve- lation can supply, and with the glorious things of redemption thrown open to our view, there is frequently harbored a feeling that God's ways were not worthy of Himself, when He exposed our first parents to temptation, and, hav- ing suspended on a single act the inter- ests of countless myriads, interfered not to prevent the universal shipwreck. We care not whether the feeling be openly avouched, though that is far from rare — enough that it is secretly cherished ; and so long as any man, viewing the condition of the world, and tracing that condition to its cause, is disposed to ac- cuse God of a want, whether of equity or of benevolence, in regard of his first dealings with our race, so long may it be said that an apparition would be suitably employed, if employed to de- liver only such words as those which the affrighted Eliphaz heard. I know that you would expect, and very justly, that, if the silence of the midnight is to be broken by an unearthly voice, it must be for the announcement of some very great truth ; that, if you are to be startled by a boding form, gliding to the bedside, it must be on some extraordi- nary occasion, and for some momentous purpose. But we should find such an occasion, and such a purpose, whereso- ever there was a disposition to arraign God's dealings with mankind, to doubt, if not to deny, their thorough consistence with the alleged attributes of his na- ture. It is nothing to say that there is already sufficient information, if there be still a secret and lingering infidelity. The sufficiency of the information may be a reason against expecting a super- natural visit ; but the fact of the infideli- ty is proof of what would be the suit- ableness of the visit. And though I know of any one of you, that he has in his hands the Bible, that amazing re- gister of God's gracious purposes and arrangements on behalf of the fallen and lost, and that he attends the ministrations of the Gospel, through which is laid before him a scheme of restoration far more than commensurate with the ruin wrought by sin, yet I should not be surprised, I should not, that is, feel as though there were an agency disproportioned to the need, .were I to hear of this man, that he had been visited by such a form as that which stood before Eliphaz, and, never- theless, that this form had uttered only the questions which Eliphaz heard. I know too well how possible, how com- mon, it is for men to be staggered by THE SPECTRE S SF.K?,fON A TRUISM. 167 the permission of evil, not withstanding what is revealed to them as to the fiual prevalence of good. I know too well what secret misgivings there are, what questionings, what doublings, what sus- picious : and with what a distressed ami apprehensive look many survey the abounding? both of iniquity and of misery, as though they feared that on so troubled a sea there could not sit majesticalthe righteousness of the Lord. And could I then think that an appari- tion had been commissioned for a ne- cessarily insufficient end, if commission- ed only to declare the pre-eminent and immutable attributes of the Most High 'I Not so : the means would, in no sense, be disproportioned to the end, and the end would be in every sense worthy of the means. It might be that the cham- ber, which the spectre invaded, was that of one whose mind had long been ha- rassed by the common doubts, and who, despite the testimony of Scripture, was wont to argue upon human principles in respect of the fall, and to reach conclu- sions derogatory to the Divine perfec- tions. There are thousands such in every division of Christendom — I doubt not there are some, whether few or many, amongst yourselves. Single me out such an individual. I dare not pre- dict, that, at some coming midnight, the spectre will be at his side. I do not say that he has right to expect a supernatu- ral visit, when the ordinary means of in- struction are so ready to his hand, and so abundant in themselves. But this I say — that I should see nothing to won- der at, nothing to persuade me that God had used extraordinary agency where it was not required, if that individual came to me, and told me, with all the indica- tions of one who still quailed at the re- membrance, that, in some deep silence, and in some dark solitude, there had hovered before him an indistinct form, forcing itself to be felt as from the un- seen world, by the creeping of the flesh, and the standing of the hair; that there had come forth from it a voice, such as never issued from human thing ; and, nevertheless, that the only utterances thus syllabled in fearfulness and mysterv, were these simple questions, " Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Ma- ker?" My brethren, will you be disposed to say that we overstate facts, if we now luin from the general dealings of God to die individual, or personal, and con- tend that the main of our foregoing ar- gument is applicable without the change of a letter .' We have hitherto reason- ed on a disposition towards questioning the equity of those dealings of which our whole race is the subject, as sprung of a rebellious ancestry. We have con- tended that such a disposition is com- mon, notwithstanding the full testimo- nies of revelation, so that numbers cher- ish a secret infidelity, thinking man more just than God, inasmuch as man would not have permitted so ruinous a thing as our first parents' fall. And we have argued, that, so long as this secret infidelity exists, it would not be without sufficient cause that an apparition passed the boundary line between the visible and the invisible world, though it should have nothing to utter but elementary truth, like that heard by Eliphaz, truth quite discoverable by reason, though you keep out of sight the aids of revelation. But now let us ask you whether that very infidelity, which we have thus la- bored to expose, does not gain power over many, when individually subjected to trials and afflictions 1 Alas, how easy is it to confess that God doeth all things well, till his hand is on ourselves ; and how common, then, to feel as though his dealings were strange, and' hard to be justified. There is no more frequent expression than such as this, " What a mysterious Providence ! what a dark dispensation ! " You can scarcely speak to a Christian when in trouble, without hearing some such words. Whether it be the death of a child, or of a parent, the loss of property, or the frustration of some long-cherished plan, with which he has been visited, his tone is com- monly that of one to whom something has happened which could not have been looked for, and who cannot account for the permission of the evil. Now we do not mean to say that there are no such things as what are popular- ly termed mysterious providences ; but we are sure that the name is frequently given where there is no mystery at all. The end for which God appoints, or, rather, permits affliction, is to turn men to Himself, if they be yet the impeni- tent, and to wean them more from the world, if they be already converted. It 168 THE SPECTRE S SERMON A TRUISM. can, therefore, in no case be actually surprising that affliction should come, because even the most righteous are so far from perfect, that, to their dying day, they will need corrective discipline. Where then, in strict truth, is the mys- teriousness of a dispensation, if we can always see the designed advantageous- ness 1 There is something of contradic- tion here. The Christian tells me that the death of his child is a dark dealing — wherefore dark, if himself confesses that he is not yet refined, as he should be, from the dross of this earth, and, therefore, has further need of passing through the furnace l He may not be able to trace a connexion between the particular sorrow and some particular sin : he may not, that is, be able to as- sign any one special reason for any one special affliction — and so far there might be mystery, were it, indeed, his business to affix to every stripe an individual cause — but he can see clearly enough that he requires chastisement in the general ; and how then can it be mys- terious that chastisement should come ] And we cannot but feel, that, in a variety of instances, this speaking of the mysteriousness of a common dis- pensation, indicates a secret doubt as to the goodness or fitness of the dispensa- tion : men would not be so ready to call a thing inexplicable, if, all the while, they felt that it was wisely and benevo- lently ordered. We do not mean to say that a Christian may not, at one and the same time, regard a dealing as mys- terious, and feel it to be good : but where mysteriousness is ascribed to that for which there is evidently reason in abundance, we have ground to sus- pect that there is no real persuasion of there being such reason at all. And judge ye yourselves, ye to whom God has been pleased to allot much of sor- row, whether ye have not cherished a secret suspicion that ye were dealt with in a manner not to have been looked for from One who knew your frame, and remembered that ye were dust ; wheth- er ye have not used what ye have called the darkness of the dispensation, to cover a doubt, if not a denial, of its goodness 1 We would have you call to mind your misgivings, when some beloved object has lain dead in your houses, or your rebellious questionings when trouble of one kind or another has made way into your families ; and you will hardly, we think, be able to deny, that, in seasons of affliction, there is a tendency, in the face of all the testimony of Scripture and experience, towards disbelieving the fundamental attributes of God, or re- garding his dispensations as at variance with his perfections. Ah, if you want evidence that the apparition, in bringing the very simplest and most elementary of messages, brought what was worthy of a supernatural conveyance, you might often find that evidence in the chamber of some mourner who is weeping for the dead. It may be that yonder moth- er, as she looks on the rigid pale face of her child, imagines herself resigned, and professes her persuasion that God hath smitten her in love. But doubts are struggling in her mind; the afflic- tion seems to her inexplicable : she cannot understand why she should have been thus visited : the Bible, indeed, assures her of the compassion, the ten- derness, of the Almighty ; but she turns from comforting texts to the sad spec- tacle before her — so young, so beautiful, so gentle, would not a merciful being have spared awhile that sweet flower 1 — and then the tears, which the light of revelation had almost dried, break forth again, and, though taken for the gush- ings of nature, are i-ather the flowings of unbelief. Now is it not certain that this dis- tracted and sorrowing parent requires to have impressed upon her the most elementary of truths, that God cannot do wrong, that He cannot do other than the best i Whatever her theory, it is practically this truth of which she wants persuasion ; it is this truth in which she has no thorough belief. And if, then, it were to please God to vouch- safe her a supernatural communication, would it not be worthy of God, would not the supernatural machinery be fitly employed, if the message were nothing more than that sent to Eliphaz 1 She has the Bible: she has the revelation of the Gospel : but, notwithstanding these, she is secretly distrustful of God, and inclined to arraign the goodness of his dealings. Then I do not know, that, as she sits there, and wails over the dead, a shadowy thing will pass before her, and bring words from above. But this I know — that, if an apparition were to THE SPECTRF. S SEUMOX A TRUISM. 169 enter, and stand, in its unearthliness, at the side of the coffin where her child lies so still, the most appropriate mes- sage which the spectre could deliver, would be the simple one which was brought so thrillingly to Eliphaz. Ay, that mother might rush from her cham- ber with the scared and wan look of one who had gazed on the being of another sphere ; and she might relate to me, circumstantially and convincingly, how, in the darkened room, and amid that silence which is the more oppres- sive because it makes every sob so dis- tinct, she had been confronted by a form whose very mystery proved it an inhabi- tant of the invisible world. But when she had collected herself sufficiently to tell me what the spectre had said, I should expect to hear nothing of new revelation, nothing as to the state of the departed, nothing as to the happiness of heaven. I should expect, as most precisely what she needed, and there- fore as most likely to be thus strangely transmitted, that the apparition, which had made the hair of her flesh stand up, would have left these words printed on her mind, " Shall mortal man be more just than God ] shall a man be more pure than his Maker ] " And thus we may, perhaps, have done something towards removing the appear- ance of disproportion between the ve- hicle employed and the message con- veyed — the vehicle supernatural, the message the most simple, and apparent- ly not needing the being delivered at all. I do not know whether you may have been used to observe the dispro- portion ; but, certainly, to my own mind it is very striking. T almost trem- ble at the description which Eliphaz gives of the spirit. I feel sure that this dim and awful visitant must have come for a momentous and extraordinary pur- pose. I prepare myself, accordingly, to hear from his lips some deep, majestic, and perhaps inscrutable, truth — when, lo, there is nothing ut- tered but what every child knows, what every one believes, in believing a God. Our great object has been to show you, that, simple as the truth is, and unhesitatingly acknowledged, it is nevertheless one in regard of which there is a prevalent, though secret unbelief, so that an apparition would not be employed on what did not need the being supernaturally taught, if employed to enforce so elementary a proposition. And there is one general inference which we wish to draw from the appa- rent, though not actual disproportion. It is this — that truths, which we never think of disputing, may be those which practically we are most in the habit of forgetting. It is of well-known things that a spectre must speak to us, if it would speak of what it is important that we know. The apparition is not need- ed to impart new truth, but to impress old. O strange but actual condition of man — that, if a spirit were sent to him with a message for his good, it would be only of things with which he has long been familiar. The apparition enters the chamber of the man of pleasure — what says it to the terrified voluptuary ] "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. " Why, he knew this before ; he has heard it a thousand times — yes; but this is what he practically disbelieves : he lives as though he were not to die, and, there- fore, what he needs from the apparition is the being told his mortality. The gliding spectre goes stealthily to the side of a miser ; as the wealthy accumu- lator cowers and quails before the phan- tom, in what words is he addressed % " We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain that we can carry no- thing out ; " — why, this is no news : must the sheeted dead come back to tell a man this ] no news, indeed — yet this is what the covetous practically dis- believes ; he hoards as though his riches were to go with him into eternity ; and therefore would the apparition be em- ployed to the most necessary end, if employed to give impressiveness to the very tritest of truths. It is the same in every other instance. With every one of vis there is some sim- ple truth about which there is no dis- pute, but to which there is no power ; and if a spectre were sent with a mes- sage, it would be this truth which it would be most for our advantage that it should deliver ; the delivery being need- ed, not to increase our knowledge, but to make the knowledge influential. Alas ! alas ! is not this true in regard of all the uncontroverted in the present assembly 1 Spirits of the dead, appear amongst us. Rise as shadowy, vapory 170 VARIOUS OPINIONS. things, and preach, in the name of the living God, to the men and the women who yet care nothing for their souls. What will they say 1 " Except ye re- pent, ye shaft all likewise perish. " Why, I have preached this to you a hundred times : ye have heard it, till ye are wearied by the repetition. And yet, if we want spectres at all, we want them only to deliver this common-place truth : it might be effectual, as breathed by their wild strange voices, though of- ten uttered without avail by mine. So that, it is not to tell you what is new, but to make you feel what is old, that we would invoke the phantoms, and beseech them to arise. But they come not — why should they 1 ye must be self-condemned, if your remaining in danger of everlasting death be only through your not acting on your know- ledge. It is not a revelation which you need : and therefore must you not ex- pect that God will depart from ordinary rules, and send aerial beings to make revelation more impressive. The spirits will not appear now, to force you to accept what you make light of when offered through the ministrations of your fellow men. But the spirits shall appear hereafter. " Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands " shall be around the Judge. They shall attest the equity of the sentence which dooms to destruction those who have put from them pardon through Christ. I hear the words that were heard by Eliphaz — if, for a moment, those ap- pointed to the fire and the shame at- tempt to arraign the justice of their portion, a voice like the voice of many thunderings, or of mighty waters, bursts from the throng, the countless throng, of spirits, " Shall mortal man be morejust than God 1 shall man be more pure than his Maker 1 " SERMON V VARIOUS OPINIONS. Many of the people therefore, when they heard this savin?, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out oY Galilee ? Hath not the Scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, aud out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? " — St. John vii. 40, 41, 42. We often speak of the great changes and revolutions which have occurred in the world : history is considered as lit- tle else than the record of the rise and fall of communities, families, and indi- viduals. But, throughout the long se- ries of vicissitudes, there may be traced much of what is permanent and perpet- ual ; so that, probably, sameness or uni- formity is as truly the characteristic of human history as variety or diversity. It may, for example, be always ascertain- ed by a careful observer, that the same principles have pervaded God's moral government : amid all changes and chances, it can be seen that an overruling providence has been at work, guiding the complicated instrumentality, and di- recting it to the futherance of certain fixed purposes and ends. It may also be perceived that the elements of human character have throughout been the same : man has changed in his fortune and position, but not in himself: you find him in the most opposite conditions, according: as civilization is advanced or VARIOUS OPINIONS. 171 tlefective, according as power is be- stowed or withheld ; but you never find him other than a creature inclined to evil, and not liking to " retain God in his thoughts. " This sameness in human character might be traced in the minutest parti- culars. Not but what there are many and marked differences between the sa- vage, and the man of a polished age and community ; but they are not differences in the staple, so to speak, of the moral constitution; you might in any given case make the one out of the other, and still have the same enmity to God and to righteousness, because you would still have the same depraved heart. And forasmuch as the human heart, in its un- renewed state, has all along been the same, answering always to the scriptural description, "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," there can be no surprise that so great sameness may be traced in man himself, notwithstand- ing the perpetual shiftiugs of his con- dition : you can expect nothing but that, when viewed as the creature of God, he should exhibit the same prejudice, op- position, and dislike ; make similar ob- jections to the divine dealings, and jus- tify unbelief by similar fallacies. It were beside our purpose to go into evidence, on the present occasion, of the moral, or religious sameness, which may be traced, we affirm, throughout the his- tory of man. But our text, relating, as it does, opinions and debatings of the Jews with regard to our Lord, will give us great opportunities of observing this sameness in some particular cases. We shall probably find that the sort of rea- soning, by which the claims of Chris- tianity were parried at its first introduc- tion, is still practised amongst ourselves : we may be compelled to say that men are what they were more than eighteen hundred years back, on # discovering that the grounds of scepticism are but little shifted; that modern indifference, or unbelief, borrows from ancient its form and apology. Leaving this, however, to open upon us as we advance with our subject — or rather, preparing you by it to expect that we shall turn much of our discourse on resemblances between the Jews and ourselves — we will go straightway to the scene presented by the text : we will hearken to the various and conflicting sentiments which are being expressed in regard of our Redeemer; and we will see whether we may not find mat- ter of instruction and warning, as some call Him the Prophet, some the Christ whilst others are asking, whether il I < not indeed contrary to Scripture, tl,;i the Christ should come out of Galileo Now the first parties introduced inh our text, are those who were dispose* to recognize in our Lord a teacher sen from God: for though it is not quit* clear whom they intended by " the Pro phet " — whether Him of. whom Moset had spoken, "a Prophet shall the Ivor* your God raise up unto you of youi brethren, like unto me,." and who wat none other than Messiah Himself; 01 whether that Prophet who was gene rally expected as the forerunner of the Messiah — there can be no question that they meant some one with a commission from above, some instructor, authorised by God to deliver intimations of his pur pose and will. Probably, indeed, they who call our Lord "the Prophet," did not thereby mean the Christ ; for the Evangelist makes two classes, those who confessed "the Prophet" in out Savior, and those who confessed the Christ; and this he would hardly have done, had the same personage been in- tended, but under different names. If. either case, however, — and this is all with which we are at present concern ed — a teacher with divine authority was evidently recognized : something had been done, or said, by our Lord, which produced a conviction — though it may have been only transient, and without practical results — that He was no de- ceiver, no enthusiast ; but that He spake in God's name, and bore his commis- sion. And it will be very interesting to ob- serve what had been the immediate pro- ducing cause of this conviction ; for we so generally find our Lord treated with contempt and neglect, his miracles be- ing ascribed to Beelzebub, and his dis- courses listened to with apparent indif- ference, that we naturally look for some- thing very memorable in the doing or the saying, which could influence the multitude to regard with favor his claims. It was not, as you learn from the first verse of our text, any action of Christ which wrought this effect : He had not just then been working one of his more 172 VARIOUS OPINIONS. stupendous miracles ; though this, you may think, would most readily have ex- plained the sudden conviction of his be- ing Messiah. The effect is expressly attributed to a "saying" of our Lord. " Many of the people therefore, when they beard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet." And what was the wonder-working saying 1 Those of you who do not remember, will be apt to imagine that the saying must have been one of extraordinary power, some mighty assertion of divinity, or, perhaps, some verification in himself of ancient prophecy, too complete and striking to be resisted, even by Jewish unbelief. Certainly were it put to us to conjec- ture a saying by which Christ was likely to have overcome for a time the general infidelity, it would be natural for us to fix on some sublime and magnificent announcement, some application of Scripture, or some declaration of su- premacy, which carried with it startling evidence of unearthly authority. And we are far from wishing to imply that the actual saying of our Lord was not of the kind which would be thus readily supposed ; but at first sight, at least, it scarcely seems such as might have na- turally been expected. You find the saying in the thirty-seventh verse of the chapter. "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." This was the wonder-working saying. Our Lord in- deed proceeded, in the following verse, to bear out, as it were, the saying by a quotation from ancient Scripture, " He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." But it is evident enough that this is only given in illustration, or vindication of the saying; so that still the saying, on which many of the people yielded, was the simple invitation in the thirty-seventh verse. And it ought not to be overlooked, that, before the Evangelist describes the effect of the saying on the people, he in- troduces, in a parenthesis, a comment on the saying. It is very unusual with the sacred writers to affix any explana- tion of the meaning of our Lord ; but this is one of the rare cases in which a commentary is subjoined ; for St. John adds, " But this spake he of the Spirit which thev that believe on him should receive : for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not vet glorified." This is very observable, be- cause, by adding an explanation of the saying, the Evangelist would seem to imply that it was, in a measure, difficult or obscure : nevertheless, it wrought with surprising energy on a great mass of hearers : simple as it -seems to us, dark as, in some respects, it must have been counted by St. John, it succeeded at once, if not in permanently attaching numbers to Christ's side, yet in wring- ing from them a confession that He could be none other than a divinely sent teacher. Here, then, we have a point of very gi-eat interest to examine. Let us separate it from the remainder of the text, and set ourselves simply to con- sider what there was in the saying which our Lord had uttered, to induce many of the people to exclaim, " Of a truth this is the Prophet, and others, This is the Christ." Now you will observe at once, that the saying before us is one of those gra- cious invitations, into which may be said to be gathered the whole Gospel of Christ. It demands, indeed, a sense of want, the feeling of thirst: but if there be this, it proffers an abundant supply. " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." And by adding a refer- ence to Scriptures, which, though not then fully understood, could only be in- terpreted of some measure and kind of supernatural influence, our blessed Lord may be considered as intimating, that what He promised to the. thirsty was a spiritual gift, the satisfying of desires af- ter God and immortality. Whatever the degree in which the promise may have been understood, there can be no doubt that it was received as relating to com- munications of Divine grace, that it was thought, or felt, to convey assurance of instruction in the knowledge of God, and of assistance in the great business of saving the soul. Here is the moral thirst, to which every one must have been conscious that our Lord had respect, and which is not to be slaked at the springs of human science, or of natural theology. And if there were many, as there may have been, in the throng surrounding Christ, on the last and great day of the feast, who, dissatisfied with the traditions of the elders, felt the need of burlier teach- VARIOUS OPINIONS. 173 ing in order to acquaintance with hea- venly things, we may quite understand how the gracious promise of living wa- ters would come home to them, as meet- ing their wants ; and how the felt suita- bleness of the offer would pass with them as an argument for the Divine mis- sion of Him by whom it was made. There is no difference here, according to our introductory remarks, between past days and our own : we have but to transfer the scene to ourselves, and the like invitation may produce the like ef- fect. For the argument herein involved is, after all, but that on which we have often ti) touch, and which is based on what we call the self-evidencing power of the Bible, the power which there is in it, quite apart from outward creden- tials, of commending itself to the con- science as the word of the Almighty. You are all aware of the difference between the external and the internal evidence for the truth of Christianity. There is a vast mass of external evidence in miracles which have been wrought, and prophecies which have been accom- plished. But there is also a vast mass of internal evidence, in the suitableness of the revealed doctrines to man's ascer- tained wants, in the exactness with which the proposed remedy meets the known disease. One man may be con- vinced of the Divine mission of a teach- er, by seeing him work wonders which surpass human power ; another, by hear- ing him deliver truths which surpass human discovery. A religion may com- mend itself to me as having God for its author, either by prodigies wrought in its support, or by the nicety with which it fits in to the whole mental and moral constitution, to the complicated wants, and the restless cravings, of a soul which has sought in vain every where else for supply and direction. And this latter is the standing witness for the Bible. The sinner who is con- scious of exposure to the wrath of God, and of utter inability in himself to ward off destruction, will find in Christ so precisely the Savior whom he needs, and in the proffered aid of the Spirit so exactly the help adapted to his circum- stances, that there will seem to him no room for doubt as to the truth of the Gospel : like parts of one and the same curious and intricate machine, the Bible, and the human conscience and heart, so | fit in to each other, that there must have been the same Author to all : it is felt, even where there is no external demon- stration, that He who wrote the book, must have been He who made the man. We do not, of course, mean that this self-evidencing power of Scripture will commend itself to all with the same readiness, and urgency, as might a visi- ble miracle performed in its support. There is required a peculiar state of mind, in order to the appreciating the internal testimony : it springs mainly from the correspondence between the remedy and the disease, and cannot, therefore, be detected except where the disease has been felt. And you observe, accordingly, that the saying of our Lord, which is now under review, supposes a sense of deficiency, or a feeling of want : it invites only the thirsty : the thirsty alone will be inclined to hearken to it : but the thirsty will be attracted by its proferring exactly what they feel that they need. Thus with the everlasting Gospel. It proposes a Savior to lost sinners : they who feel themselves lost sinners will quickly discern in Christ such a Savior as they need : they who are altogether void of such a. feeling will find in Him " no form, nor comeliness ; " and if overcome by the external evi- dence for the truth of Christianity, will merely assent to it as to a barren specu- lation, a question of history, about which, even when professedly convinced, they remain practically indifferent. There is probably enough in these re- marks to explain why it should have been on the hearing a certain saying of our Lord, as is expressly noted by the Evangelist, that many of the people were disposed to own Him for the Christ. Do you wonder that such an effect should not rather have followed on the working of some miracle, than on the utterance of some saying ] Nay — you are to observe that there is a state of mind, a state aptly delineated by the imagery of thirst, which is more acces- sible to an appropriate doctrine than to any outward demonstration : the thirsty man feels the suitableness of a promise of water, and is at once disposed to close with the proffer, without waiting for signs that He who makes it has author- ity to deal with his case. But, admitting that a doctrine may prevail where even a miracle has no 174 VARIOUS OPINIONS. power, do you next wonder that the saying, which wrought with so great energy, should have been so simple and unpretending as it is ] Nay — we set against this opinion the whole of what has been advanced as to the self-evi- dencing power of the Bible. I have right to assume that there were many in the crowd who thirsted ; and Christ could not have spoken more immediately to the consciences and hearts of such as thirsted, than by inviting them to come to Him that they might drink. Who thirsts'? the man who, feeling himself a sinner, pants for the forgiveness of his sins. The man who, conscious of ina- bility, longs to be assisted in turning unto God. The man who, made aware of his immortality, craves endless hap- piness. The man who, taught that God is just, seeks eagerly to discover whe- ther He can be also the justifier of the fallen. What will these thirsty ones listen to most readily? in what words will they be most disposed to recognize the voice and the authority of truth 1 Certainly, as no message will so much meet their need, none will so much commend itself to them as proceeding from God who best knows their wants, as that which shows how thirst may be satisfied, how the longing for forgive- ness, for righteousness, for happiness, on the part of sinful creatures, may be appeased without violence, nay, rather, with honor, to Divine justice and purity. And though Christ did not go into all these particulars, there was that in his saying which addressed itself to every case of spiritual thirst ; which no thirsty man could fail to take to himself; so that you have only to suppose that many were thirsting in the crowd, and you suppose many to whom the invitation must have come home with the self- evidencing power which we claim for the Gospel. If there were not enough, in so brief and unexplained a saying, to prove that Christ came from God, there was enough to incline those, who were conscious of spiritual wants, to receive teaching from One who offer- ed the very thing of which they were in quest. If the simple invitation were not likely, of itself, to convince such as had not heard of Him before of his be- ing the Messiah, yet, when it came upon anxious and craving minds, which had already been moved by the fame of his miracles, it was adapted to scatter all doubts, and to turn into full persuasion the growing conjecture. Miracles, of themselves, cannot prove a Divine mis- sion : they must be wrought in defence of truth; otherwise we may not ascribe them to the finger of God. But He who, having worked miracles to fix at- tention on his doctrine, then proceeded to utter doctrine which was as water to the parched and wearied soul of man — oh, he indeed left no place for unbelief, save with those who were hewing out broken cisterns for themselves, or fan- cying that they could call up fountains of their own in the desert. And thus, if it could only have been in an imper- fect degree that the- self-evidencing power, which is* now so energetic; in Scripture, resided in the short saying to which these remarks have respect, you have only to bring into account the ac- tual state of the multitude, as not unac- quainted with the supernatural works performed by our Lord, and you have explanation enough why so great a dis- position to acknowledge Him was called forth by what He uttered on the last day of the feast, why many of the people, when they heard that saying, said, " Of a truth, this is the Prophet, or this is the Christ." But now let us mix again with the crowd, and hearken to some other of the opinions which a?e being passed to and fro in regard of our Savior. There is nothing like uniformity of sentiment : they who are inclined to conclude that He can be none other than the long- promised Christ, find themselves met with objections, objections which are all the more formidable, because professing to ground themselves on Scripture. " But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee 1 " There is no attempt at invalidating the miracles, or depreciating the doctrines of our Lord ; but lu^re was a fatal argument, as these men urged, against his being the Messiah, an ar- gument deduced from ancient prophecy, winch had expressly fixed the birthplace and lineage of Christ. "Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was 1 " No doubt, Scripture had said this; and it would have been an insuperable objection to the claims of any one, pro- fessing himself the Messiah, that he had VARIOUS OPINIONS. 175 not sprung of David's line, or not been born in Bethlehem. If our Lord had come out of Galilee, in the sense sap- posed by those who made the objection, it would be of no avail to multiply proofs of his having been the Christ : the evi- dence is against Him on one material point, and the defect is not to be coun- terbalanced by any amount of testimony on other particulars. But this is really among the most sur- prising instances on record, of ignorance or inattention, if we may not go further, and accuse men of wilfully and unblush- ingly upholding what they knew to be false. It is hardly possible to imagine a matter of fact that might have been more readily ascertained, than that our Lordhad been born at Bethlehem, and that his mother and reputed father were of the lineage of David. For the mas- sacre of the innocents, by the cruel or- det of the tyrannical Herod, had made his birth so conspicuous, that it almost passes charity, that any could have been ignorant that He had not sprung from Galilee. At all events, when his parent- age and birthplace were associated with so bloody a tragedy, a tragedy which could not yet have faded from the popu- lar mind, the very slightest inquiry would have sufficed to correct so gross a mis- apprehension. It has always seemed as if God, in his over-ruling Providence, made the fury of Herod subserve the cause of the Gospel ; for there was no one left but our Lord, who could prove Himself to have been born in Bethlehem on the expiration of Daniel's weeks of years : all others, born about that time, had perished by the sword; and, there- fore, either He were the Messiah, or prophecy had failed. So that — to say the very least — had men taken the smallest possible trouble, they might have known that our Lord was no Galilean in such sense as im- peached die fulfilment of prophecy; but that, on the contrary, He had all that evidence on his side which could be drawn from parentage and birthplace. They might have fixed on other predic- tions in regard of the Messiah, the ac- complishment of which in the person of our Lord was not of such clear and easy demonstration. But the predictions which had to do with his nativity, were just those on which we should have fastened, as intelligible to all in their j meaning, and accessible to all in their fulfilment. Yet so great was the popu- lar indifference, or so strong the popular prejudice, that a statement seems to have gone uncontradicted through the land, that the pretended Messiah was by birth a Galilean : He passed by the name of "Jesus of Nazareth;" and this went in proof that He was not born in Bethle- hem. Ay, and it may even be gathered from our text, that men were so glad of some specious excuse for rejecting our Lord, that, when his works, or his say- ings, had almost constrained their belief and adherence, they caught eagerly at the shallow falsehood, and made it, with- out farther evidence, a pretext for con- tinued opposition. It does not seem that when they who said, " This is the Pro- phet," or, " This is the Christ," found themselves met by the objection, " Shall Christ come out of Galilee," they had any reply to make : the impression from the narrative is — especially if you couple it with the known fact that very few of the people joined themselves to our Lord — that they considered the objec- tion decisive ; that they were ignorant of the facts of the case, and took no pains to inform themselves better. In- deed, we know not what fairer interpre- tation to put upon the circumstance, than that the eagerness to disprove the pretensions of Jesus made men seize, without examination, on any popular mistake which seemed to justify unbe- lief, and then avoid the finding out the mistake, because they could not spare so convenient an argument. However numbers, such as are described in the text, may have been at times half dis- posed to acknowledge the Christ, the secret wish of their hearts, as is clear from the result, must all along have been to the getting rid of so strict and uncom- promising a teacher ; and all they want- ed was something of a specious pretence which might reconcile 'to their con- science what their inclinations prescri- bed. And it would be quite a treasure to these waverers, to meet with what might pass for a scriptural objection ; it was like taking holy ground : it was making rejection a positive duty : it left them at liberty to admit the miracles, and admire the doctrines, but, alas ! this remarkable Personage did hot answer to certain tests laid down by the Pro- phets, and there was no alternative to 176 VARIOUS OPINIONS. the refusing to receive Him as the pro- mised Redeemer. And when they once had hold of the scriptural objection, they would be at no pains to examine it carefully : there would be danger in this ; and, busied as they were with a thousand other neces- sary things, they might well be permit- ted to take for granted what could hardly have been alleged, except it had been truth — Jesus universally passed for a Galilean, and mistake was insup- posable in regard of a fact so easily as- certained. O the deceitfulness of the heart ! what force it will find in an ar- gument which sides with its wishes, what fallacy in another which opposes them ! Think you that we exaggerate what was done by the Jews 1 Nay, we shall presently have to show you that they are not without their copyists even amongst ourselves. But, at present, put, if you can, any milder interpretation on the registered facts. God might be said to have inscribed the nativity of our Lord on the walls of Bethlehem, in the blood of its slaughtered infants. The nativity, which produced such a tragedy, could not have been difficult to ascertain, could have required no labored research into national archives, or family genealo- gies. Any man then, who knew that prophecy had fixed Bethlehem as the place of Messiah's birth, might equally have known, had he thought it worth while to inquire, that there had He been born who was called Jesus of Nazareth. But men had an interest in remaining deceived ; their wish was not that of as- certaining truth, but rather that of find- ing a specious apology for adhering to falsehood. There is such a thing as shrinking from inquiry, through a secret dread of finding oneself in the wrong. A man may abstain from asking a ques- tion, because self-conscious that the an- swer might oblige him to change an opinion which he would rather not give And this is what, from the evidence before us, we charge upon the Jews. Oh, it looked very fine to have Scripture on their side ; the devil had used the Bible in tempting our Lord, and they could now use it in justifying their un- belief. But " the sword of the Spirit, " like every other sword, may be used for suicide as well as for war. And if ever so used, it was in this instance. A fact had been predicted, and in characters of blood had history registered the pre- diction's fulfilment. Yet was the pre- diction, which, for the trouble of ask- ing, would have powerfully upheld our Lord's claims, turned, on the credit of an idle report, into a reason fin- their utter rejection. And men, who were just on the point of yielding to our Lord, ovex-come whether by the majesty of his miracles, or the sweetness of his dis- courses, turned away from Him, and sealed their own destiuction, because they had no answer at hand, or took foi granted that none could be given, to an objection which rested on a falsehood, and the falsehood one which a breath might have scattered, " Shall Christ come out of Galilee'? Hath not the Scripture saith that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was 1 " And now, to recur to our introductory remarks, which asserted a sameness in human depravity and conduct, think ye that the like to this is not of frequent occurrence amongst ourselves 1 that the Jews have no successors in that readi- ness to disbelieve, which will seize on any straw for an argument, and actually be at pains to keep out of the way of any opposite evide Nay, it is done every day ; we need not search far to be in possession of instances. What is that scepticism which is of- ten met with amongst the boastful and young, that sickly infidelity, which it were almost pity to attack with vehe- mence, so manifestly unprepared is it for vigorous defence 1 Is it the result of deep reading, or careful investiga- tion 1 nothing of the kind. The fashion- able young man, the student at a hos- pital, the orator at some juvenile literary club, gets hold of some objection against Christianity, which has a specious sound, and a formidable look — all the better, if it come out of the Bible itself, in the shape of an alleged contradiction, or an erroneous assertion ; and this is enough for him ; he has his " Shall Chrst come out of Galilee 'I " and with one so de- cisive an argument, why should he trouble himself to search for any more ! Oh, no — you are quite right ; one sound argument is as good as a host : I did not blame the Jews for determining that Jesus could not be the Christ, if He had come out of Galilee : no amount of VARIOUS OPINIONS. 177 evidence upon other points could have outweighed this simple testimony against Him. J ° But the aspiring sceptic will not be at the pains of inquiring into the strength of his objection. He will not refer to books, and, much less, to men better informed than himself, in order to know whether the objection have not been at least a hundred times refuted — and this is our quarrel with him. He wishes to continue deceived : it would be very dis- tasteful to him to find himself in the wrong, and, therefore, he would rather avoid than seek the means of instruction. We are bold to say of all the popular arguments against the Bible, especially of those drawn from the Bible itself, that they have been so often refuted, their weakness and worthlessness so often exposed, that only overbearing effron- tery, or unpardonable ignorance, will venture on repeating what is so worn out and stale. It were really, if I may use the expression, almost a refresh- ment, to meet with something a little new in sceptical objections. But it is the same thing again and again — " Shall Christ come out of Galilee 1 " and the sceptic, like the Jew, has really only to look round him, to ask a question, or consult a book, and he would find that Jesus did not come out of Galilee, but " out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was." God suffered infants to be slain, that the Jewish unbelief might be inexcusable ; and He has raised up giants in his Church, whose writings will ever be a rampart to the Bible, that modem unbelief might be alike inexcus- able. As easily may any one of you who has met with an objection to Christianity meet with its refutation, as might the Jews, hearing that Jesus was 1 of Nazareth, have learned that He was actually of Bethlehem. But, alas ! it is with the young and conceited, as it was with the Jews — there is a secret wish to be rid of Christianity ; and it is safer not to make too close inquiry, lest it should only do away with a conve- nient excuse. And we do not give this case of the youthful would-be sceptic, as the solita- ry exemplification of" Shall Christ come out of Galilee ? " How fond are men of getting hold of some one text of Scrip- ture, and shielding themselves under it from all the rest of the Bible ! Who 23 has not heard, " Be not righteous over- much, " quoted, as though it excused a man from endeavouring to be righteous at all 1 And " charity shall cover a mul titude of sins," is a most convenient pas sage : there is needed only a little mis. interpretation, and a careful overlooking of all other Scripture, and a man may satisfy himself, that, by a little liberality to the poor, he shall hide his misdoings, or obtain their forgiveness. Every such fastening on any single text, without taking pains to examine and considei whether there be not some great and fundamental mistake, is but the repeti- tion of what was done by the Jews ; the Bible has said that Christ must come out of Bethlehem ; and men are glad enough, without any inquiry, to reject a Gospel whose Author is reputed to have come out of Nazareth. Shall we give you other instances ? If a man wish to depreciate baptism, or the fitness that He who administers so holy an ordinance should have a com- mission from God, he has his text, his "Shall Christ come out of Galilee?" St. Paul said to the Corinthians "I thank God that I baptized none of you save Crispus and Gaius. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel." Then St. Paul made but little of baptism, and thought that the administering it fell beneath his high office ! Did he indeed ] why, this °is worse than the Jews ; they had to trav- el perhaps as far as to Bethlehem, to ascertain their mistake, but you need not go beyond the' next verse to that which you quote, " Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name. " Paul was thankful that he had baptized but few; for he judged, from the temper of the Corinthian Church, that, had he baptized many, it would only have en- couraged that party-spirit which was so utterly at variance with vital Christiani- ty. And this is making light of Bap- tism, or entitling any one to administer it ! Alas, it seems of very little worth that Jesus was actually born at Bethle- hem, since his ordinary name is " Jesus of Nazareth." To take but one instance more. What numbers declaim agamst an Established Church ! how persuaded are they that it is utterly unlawful for the civil power to meddle with religion, to take direct measures for the upholding Christianity, 173 VARIOUS oriNioxs. in place of leaving- it to that purest and most active instrumentality, " the volun- tary principle." You may be sure that these declaimers have their text : they have their question, "Shall Christ come out of Galilee," out of acts of parlia- ment, and compulsory payments ] Hath He not said, " My kingdom is not of this world 1 " O the triumphant tone with which these words are uttered, the complacency with which they are con- sidered as settling the controversy, and disgracing endowments ! But have the words any thing to do with the matter 1 in what sense did Christ mean that his kingdom was not of this world 1 Nay, Bethlehem is not farther, in this case, from Galilee, than in that last adduced. They are both in one verse. " My kingdom is not of this world ; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews." So then, the sense, as here defined, in which Christ's kingdom is not of this world, is simply that the sword is not to be used in its defence. " If my kingdom were of this world," my servants would fight like other soldiers ; but it forbids persecution and war ; so that it is " not of this world," in the sense of allowing, or de- pending on martial force or resistance. What has this to do with Church Es- tablishments 1 Alas ! this text, which is noised from one end of the land to the other, is, for all the world, the same in the hands of its perverters, as " Hath not the Scripture said that Christ cometh out of Bethlehem] " in the hands of the Jews. Because Christ was of Naza- reth, as having lived there much, He could not have been born in Bethlehem : because his kingdom is not of this world, as not permitting the slaughter of its enemies, it cannot lawfully be fostered by states which are its friends. But we have no further space for mul- tiplying instances. We have thrown out a subject for thought ; and if you wiD consider for yourselves, you will easily find additional illustrations. It is no un- common thing — this is our position — for men to seize on some one verse or de- claration of the Bible, and to make it their excuse for clinging to a false theo- ry, or neglecting a plain duty. Not that in any case the verse, justly interpreted and applied, will bear them out — no more than the prophecy as to Bethle- hem warranted the Jews in rejecting Jesus of Nazareth. But there may be an appearance of reason, something plausible and specious ; and error can never be more dangerous than when it seems to have Scripture on its side. The grand point then is, that you be on your guard against arguing from bits of the Bible, in place of studying the whole, and comparing its several parts. " No prophecy of the Scripture," and, in like manner, no portion of the Scripture, " is of any private interpretation." Settle the meaning fairly, by searching, with pray- er for God's Spirit, into the relation which each statement bears to others, and by examining the light which it de- rives from them. The meaning, thu? ascertained, shall never, no, never be contradicted by facts ; if it he clear from the Bible that the Christ must be bom in Bethlehem, it shall be always be found, on examining, that our Lord was not born in Nazareth. THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF EVE. 179 SERMON VI THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF EVE. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden : but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.' - — Genesis iii. 2, 3. Whatever may have been the change which passed over man in consequence of sin, we are not to doubt that we re- tain, in great measure, rhe same consti- tution, weakened indeed and deranged, but compounded of the same elements, and possessing similar powers and ten- dencies. There does not appear to have been any essential difference between the mode in which Satan tempted Eve, and that wherein he would assault any one of ourselves under similar circumstances. Neither, so far as Eve allowed the bodily senses to serve as instruments of temptation, have we reason to think that the trial at all differed from that to which the like inlets subject ourselves. The devil threw in a suspicion as to the goodness of God, suggesting that the restriction as to the not eating of a particular fruit was harsh and uncalled for, and insinuating, moreover, that the results of disobedience would be just the reverse of what had been threaten- ed. And, certainly, this is much the way in which Satan still proceeds : whatever the commandment, our obedi- ence to which is being put to the proof, he tries to make us feel that the com- mandment is unnecessarily severe, and that, in all probability, the infringing it will not be visited with such vengeance as has been denounced. Thus also with regard to the bodily senses. Eve was tempted through the eye, for she saw that the tree was plea- sant to the sight ; she was tempted also through the appetite, for she saw that the tree was good for food. And this was precisely as the senses are now instru- mental to the service of sin : no doubt now that our nature has become depra- ved, these senses are readier avenues than before for the entrance of sin into the heart : but, nevertheless, the eye and the taste, in the instance of Eve before she transgressed, acted a part of the very same kind as they peform now in cases of every day experience. Indeed it ought to be observed that, according to St. John, all the sin that tempts mankind may be comprised in these three terms, " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." To these three may evidently be reduced the temptation of our first parents : there was "the lust of the flesh," in that the fruit was desired as good for food ; " the lust of the eye," in that the fruit was pleasant to the sight ; and " the pride of life," in that it was " to be desired to make one wise." To the same three may as evidently be ^educed the tempta- tion of the second Adam, the Lord Je- sus Christ, who, on this very account, may be declared to have been " tempted in all points like as we are." Our blessed Savior was assailed through " the lust of the flesh," when tempted to satisfy his hunger by turning stones into bread. " The lust of the eye " was employed, when the devil would have had Him cast Himself from a pinnacle of the Temple, and thus obtain, by an useless and ostentatious miracle, the ap- plauses of the crowd assembled there for worship. And " the pride of life " was appealed to, when Satan proffered our Lord " all the kingdoms of the world and their glory." on condition of his falling down and worshipping him. These three departments are still ISO THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF EVE. those under which all sin may he i anged. If you take any particular temptation, you may always make it answer to one of the terms, " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." So that — to recur to our introductory remark — there passed no such change on human nature in consequence of| apostasy, as that the elements of our constitution became different from what they were. If our first parents, whilst yet unfallen, were assailed in the same way, and through the same channels, as ourselves on whom they fastened cor- ruption ; if our blessed Redeemer, who took our nature without taint of origi- nal sin, was tempted in the modes in which temptation still makes its ap- proaches ; we may most justly conclude that our constitution remains what it was, except, indeed, that our moral powers have been grievously weakened, and that a bias towards evil has been laid on our affections, which places us at a real disadvantage, whensoever as- sailed by the world, the flesh, or the devil. But when we have thus in a measure identified our constitution with that of our first parents before they transgress- ed, it is highly interesting and instruct- ive to study all the circumstances of the original temptation, and to see whether they may not still be often, and accu- rately paralleled. So long as we sepa- rate, or so distinguish, ourselves from our first parents in their unfallen state, as though there had been an actual dif- ference in nature, the account of the original transgression is little more to us than a curious record, from which we can hardly think to derive many person- al lessons. But when we have ascertain- ed that our first parents were ourselves, only with moral powers in unbroken vigor, and with senses not yet degraded to the service of evil, the history of their fall assumes all the interest which belongs to the narrative of events, which not merely involve us in their conse- quences, but the repetition of which is likely to occur, and should be earnestly guarded against. We wish, therefore, on the present occasion, to examine with all careful- ness the workings of Eve's mind at that critical moment when the devil, under the form of a serpent, sought to turn her away from her allegiance to God. This is no mere curious exami- nation, as it might indeed be, had Eve, before she yielded to temptation, been differently constituted from one of our- selves. But k has been the object of our foregoing remarks, to show you that there was not this difference in consti- tution : a piece of mechanism may have its springs disordered and its workings deranged ; but it is nor a different piece of mechanism from what it was when every part was in perfect operation ; and we may find, as we go on, that the workings of Eve's mind were wonder- fully similar to those of our own, so that we shall not only sustain all our forego- ing argument, but be able to present our common mother as a warning, and to derive from her fall instruction of the mi ist practical and personal kind. With- out then further preface — though you must bear in mind what we have ad- vanced, that you may not think to evade the application of the subject, by ima- gining differences between Eve and yourselves — let us go to the patient con- sideration of the several statements of our text; let us examine what may be gathered in regard of the exact state of Eve's mind, from her mode of putting, first, the permission of God, " We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the gai den," and secondly, his prohibition, " The fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." Now the point of time at which we have to take Eve is one at which she is evidently beginning to waver : she has allowed herself to be drawn into con- versation with the serpent, which it would have been wise in her, especially as her husband was not by, to have de- clined ; and there is a sort of unacknow- ledged restlessness, an uneasiness of feeling, as though God might not be that all-wise and all-gracious Being which she had hitherto supposed. She has not yet, indeed, proceeded to actual disobedience : but she is clearly giving some entertainment to doubts and sus- picions : she has not yet broken God's commandment ; but she is looking at it with a disposition to question its good- ness, and depreciate the risk of setting it at nought. There are certain preludes, or approaches, towards sin, which, even in ourselves, are scarcely to be designa- ted sin, and which must have been still farther removed from it in the unfallen THE SIISREPRESEXTATIONS OF EVE. 1S1 Eve. You remember how St. James speaks, "Every man is tempted, when he is- drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceiv- ed, it bringeth forth sin." The Apostle, you observe, does not give the name of sin to the first motions : if these motions were duly resisted, as they might be, the man would have been tempted, but not have actually sinned. And if so much may be allowed of ourselves, in whom inclinations and pro- pensities are corrupted and depraved through original sin, much more must it have been true of Eve, when, if tot- tering, she had not yet fallen from her first estate. She was then still innocent : but there were feelings at work which were fast bringing her to the edge of the precipice ; and it is on the indica- tion of these feelings that, for the sake of warning and example, we wish espe- cially to fix your attention. It was a large and liberal grant which God had made to man of the trees of the garden. " Of every tree of the gar- den thou mayest freely eat." It is true, indeed, there was one exception to this permission : man was not to eat of " the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; " but of every other tree he might not only eat, he was told to " eat freely," as though God would assure him of their being all unreservedly at his disposal. But now, observe, that, when Eve comes to recount this generous grant, she leaves out the word " freely," and thus may be said to depreciate its liberality. " We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden." This is but a cold ver- sion of the large-hearted words, " Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat." She is evidently more dis- posed to dwell on the solitary restriction than on the generous permission : she is thinking more of the hardship from the one than of the privilege from the other. It was a bad, a dangerous symp- tom, that Eve suffered herself to look slightingly on the rich mercies with which she was blessed, and that she could speak of those mercies, if not in a disparaging tone, at least without that grateful acknowledgement which their abundance demanded. It laid her pe- rilously open to the insinuations of Sa- tan, that she was contrasting what she had not, magnifying the latter, and de- preciating the former. But is not the symptom one which may be frequently found amongst our- selves i Indeed it is ; and we point it out in the instance of Eve, that each one of you may learn to watch it in himself. There is in all of us a disposition to think little of what God gives us to enjoy, and much of what He gives us to suffer. It may be but one tree which He with- holds, and there may be a hundred which He grants : but, alas ! the one, because withheld, will seem to multiply into the hundred, the hundred, because granted, to shrink into the one. If He take from us a single blessing, how much more ready are we to complain as though we had lost all, than to count up what remain, and give Him thanks for the multitude. He has but to forbid us a single gratification, and, presently, we speak as though He had dealt with us with a churlish and niggardly hand, though, were we to attempt to reckon the evidences of his loving-kindness, they are more in number than the hairs of our head. And when we suffer our- selves in any measure to speak, or think, disparagingly of the mercies of God, it is very evident that we are making way for, if not actually indulging, suspicions as to the goodness of God ; and it can- not be necessary to prove that he, who allows himself to doubt the Divine good- ness, is preparing himself for the breach of any and every commandment. Learn then to be very watchful over this moral symptom. Be very fearful of depreciating your mercies. It shew- ed an intenseness of danger in the in- stance of Eve, that, when God had given her permission to " eat freely," she could speak of herself as permitted only to " eat." There was no falsehood in her ac- count of the permission : she does not deny that she was allowed to eat of the trees of the garden ; but there was a dis- satisfied and querulous way of putting the permission, as though she avoided the word " freely," that she might not mag- nify the riches of the Divine liberality. And we warn you, by the fall of Eve, against the allowing yourselves to think slightingly of your mercies. It matters not what may be your trials, what your afflictions : — none of you can be so strip- ped but what, if he will think over the good which God has left in his posses- sion, he will find cause for acknowledg- ing in God a gracious and a generous 182 THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF EVE. benefactor. Hut if, because you are de- j barred from this or that enjoyment, or i because this or that blessing is placed j out of reach, you make little of, or com- paratively forget, the rich gifts of God; ah ! then indeed there is a fearful pro- bability of your being left to harden into the unthankful and unbelieving : with Eve, you may seem only to leave out the word " freely ; " but God, who is jealous as well as generous, may punish the omission by such withdrawment of his grace as shall be followed by open violation of his law. O for hearts to magnify the Lord's mercies, and count up his loving-kind- nesses ! It is " freely " that He has permitted us to eat of the trees of the garden. He has imposed no harsh re- strictions, none but what, shortsighted though we are, we may already perceive designed for our good. Placed as we are amid a throng of mercies, rich fruits already ripened for our use, and richer maturing as our portion for eternity, shall we speak of Him as though He had dealt out sparingly the elements of happiness] .Shall we — just because there is forbidden fruit, of which we are assured that to eat it is to die ; or with- ered fruit, of which we should believe that it would not have been blighted un- less to make us seek better — shall we deny the exuberant provision which God hath made for us as intelligent, account- able creatures 1 Shall we forget the abundance with which He has mantled the earth, the gorgeous clusters with which He has hung the firmament, the blessings of the present life, the promi- ses of a future, and the munificent grant with which He has installed us as Chris- tians into a soi-t of universal possession, "All things are yours; ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's ] " Nay, we again say, take ye good heed of misrepresenting God, of depreciating your mercies, of exaggerating your losses. There cannot be a worse sign, a sign of greater moral peril, than when a man repines at what is lost, as though there were not much more left, and dwells more on God as withholding cer- tain things, than as bestowing a thou- sand times as many. And that you may be aware of the dangerousness of the symptom, and thereby led to cultivate a thankful spirit, a spirit disposed to com- pare what God gives with what, He de- nies ; — a comparison which will always make the latter seem little, because im- measurably exceeded by the fornfler — study with all care the instance of Eve, and observe that her first indication of tottering towards her fatal apostasy lay in this, that, when God had issued the large and generous charter, " Of every tree of the garden thou may est freely eat," she could reduce it into the cold and measured allowance, " We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden." But we may go farther in tracing in Eve the workings of a dissatisfied mind, of a disposition to suspect God of harsh- ness, notwithstanding the multiplied evidences of his goodness. You are next to observe how she speaks of the prohibition in regard of " the tree of knowledge of good and evil." She left out a most important and significant word in stating God's permission as to the trees of the garden, and thus did much to divest that permission of its generous character. But she inserted words when she came to mention the prohibition, and by that means invested it with more of strictness and severity than God seems to have designed. The prohibition as it issued from God was, " Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it." But the prohibition as repeated by Eve was, "Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it." She affirmed, you observe, that God had forbidden the touching the fruit as well as the eating of it ; whereas it does not appear that God had said any- thing as to the touching. There might indeed have been prudence in not touch- ing what might not be eaten ; for he who allowed himself to handle would be very likely to allow himself to taste. Still, the touching the fruit was not. as far as we know, actually forbidden oy Gcd ; and we may therefore say of Eve, that she exaggerated the prohibition, even as she had before disparaged the permis- sion. And you will readily perceive that pi'ecisely the same temper or feeling was at work when Eve exaggerated the prohibition, and when she disparaged the permission. There was in both cases the same inclination to misrepresent God, as though He dealt harshly with his creatures : to leave out the word " free- THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF EVE. 183 ;v " was to make his grant look less liberal ; to put in the words, " neither shall ye touch it," was to make his law look more rigid ; and it was evidently tbe dictate of the same rising suspicion, •>r a part of the same tacit accusation, when God's gifts were depreciated, and when his restrictions were magnified. Alas for Eve, that she could thus as- cribe harshness to God, and speak as though He denied his creatures any ap- proach towards knowledge. She might \s well have said that God had forbid- den them to look upon the tree ; where- as it is clear that not only might they look at the fruit, but that the eye was able to detect certain properties of the fruit ; for you read that " the woman saw that the tree was good for food," the color probably informing her some- thing of its nature. And we cannot tell what additional information might have been obtained through touching the fruit. But if the eye could detect certain pro- perties, the touch, in all probability, de- tected more. Even in the darkness and feebleness into which we have fallen, each sense is instrumental to the ascer- taining the qualities of substances; and this power of the senses must have been vastly greater in our first parents ; Adam gave names to every living creature, the names undoubtedly being expressive of the natures, and thus showed that he co ; ild ascertain at once, without any in- formant but himself, their several cha- racteristics. We may, therefore, reasonably infer that, whilst eating of the tree of know- ledge was distinctly forbidden, and thus our first parents were debarred from such discoveries as the sense of taste might have imparted, they were able to determine a great deal in regard of the fruit, through their other senses, of which they were allowed the unrestrict- ed use. But Eve, you see, was disposed to make out that God had extended his prohibition to other senses besides that of taste, and thus had prevented them from making any advance towards the knowledge of good and of evil. You would have argued, from her version of the prohibition, that God had altogether enclosed, or shut up the tree, guarding it with the most extreme jealousy and .igor, so that there was no possibility of detecting any of its properties. Where- as the restriction was only on the ex- amining the fruit, in and through that sense which would make it bring death ; and there was the warrant of the Divine word, that to taste would be to die. All that could be learnt — and it was proba- bly very considerable — from sight, and touch, and scent, Adam and Eve were at liberty to learn ; whilst what the taste could have taught was distinctly reveal- ed ; and thus the single prohibition did not so much withhold them from the ac- quisition of knowledge, as from the ex- perience of disaster. But now, was Eve singular in the misrepresenting the prohibition of God ] was she not rather doing what has been done ever since, what is done everyday by those who would excuse themselves from the duties and obligations of reli- gion 1 To hear men of the world talk about religion, you might imagine that God's law forbade all enjoyment what- soever of the pleasures and satisfactions of life, that it prescribed nothing but gloom and austerity, and required from those who would save the soul, that they should forego every gratification which their nature solicits. They will talk to you of piety, as if it were necessarily of a most morose and melancholy tenor, as if it debarred men from all participation in visible good, requiring them to move amid what is bright, and beautiful, and attractive in creation, but only that they might mortify the propensities which find therein their counterpart objects. Because God has distinctly forbidden our finding our chief good in earthly things, because He has limited us to a moderate or tempei-ate use of these things, there- fore will men perversely misrepresent his enactments, and pretend that He would shut them up in the most dismal seclusion, as though He had given them appetites which were not to be gratified, desires which were only to be resisted, and yet, all the while, had surrounded them with what those appetites crave, and those desires solicit. Whereas, there is nothing prohibited by the Di- vine law but just that indulgence of our appetites and desires, which, because excessive and irregular, would, from our very constitution, be visited with pre- sent disappointment and remorse, and, from the necessary character of a retri- butive government, with future ven- geance and death. We suppose it capable of a most 1S4 THE MiSLiKl'KI'.SENTATIONS OF EVE. thorough demonstration, that the man >f religion, the man who allows himself in no indulgence which religion forbids, whose appetites are never his masters, but who is " temperate in all things," has more actual enjoyment, even of what earth can afford, than the reckless slave of sense, who, in the expressive lan- guage of Scripture, would " work all uncleanness with greediness. " And there never, we believe, was a falser charge than that which would fasten upon religion such a severe code of precepts, and such a stern series of sacrifices, as must make its disciples do perpetual violence to their feelings, and live within reach of pleasures in which they must deny themselves all share : whilst they who renounce religion are di- viding amongst themselves whatever good the present life can give. Religion forbids all that is irregular or excessive in the use of earthly things ; but it forbids nothing more ; and whilst we are con- stituted as we are, whilst there is no slavery so oppressive as the being slaves to our own lusts, whilst there are the ir- repressible workings within us of a great moral principle, causing uneasi- ness, and even anguish, to follow on criminal indulgence — nay, it is no boast of idle declamation, it is the statement of a simple and sober calculation, that the religious man, partaking only so far as religion permits, enjoys, in a much high- er degree than the thorough-paced world ling, the very objects for which that worldling throws away his soul. Thus God is just doing with us as He did with our first parents in regard of the tree of knowledge. He did not al- together debar them from that tree ; He only debarred them from eating of that tree ; knowing that they had but to eat of it, and they would find it to be death. And He does not debar us from the en- joyment of earthly things : He debars us only from that unbridled and unlaw- ful indulgence which tends directly to the destruction of both body and soul. But it is with us as it was with Eve. As a sort of excuse for breaking God's commandments, we represent those commandments as forbidding the touch- ing, when they forbid only the tasting. We try to make out religion as all gloom and austerity ; and ask, whether it be not something too much to expect, that, with such a nature as God has given us, I and placed in such a world as that as- signed for our dwelling, the nature soli- citing the very objects which are pre- sented by the world, we should hold ourselves altogether aloof from present gratifications, and live as though we had no senses, no appetites, no desires. Ah, my brethren, the younger more espe- cially, and such as are v yet looking up- on religion with distaste and dislike, be candid, and tell us whether it be not the apprehension of having to give up all that is pleasant and agreeable, and to settle into a life of moroseness and me- lancholy, which makes you turn with aversion from the proffers and promises of the Gospel ] But is it in pure ignorance that you thus misrepresent religion? is it through an actual misunderstanding as to what God permits, and what He prohibits 1 Nay, not exactly so ; we must probe you a little deeper. Ye are thoroughly aware, even though you may strive to hide the knowledge from yourselves as well as from others, that God hath said, " Of every tree of the garden ye may freely eat. " He hath not, ay, and ye know that He hath not, filled his crea- tion with attractions on purpose to keep his rational creatures at perpetual strife with themselves, merely to exercise them in self-denial, and give them occa- sion of doing violence to all the feelings of their nature. On the contrary, it is the decision of an Apostle, " Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanks- giving. " It is the abuse, not the use of the creature which God hath forbid- den. His prohibition commences only where indulgence virtually defeats its own end, the ministering to happiness : it allows all the participation which beings, conscious of immortality, can enjoy with- out a blush. And how, knowing this — for ye do know it ; ye know that religion is not meant to turn the earth into a desert; ye know that practically it does not turn the earth into a desert, for that religious persons may have their share in all that is really bright and sweet in life, yea, and relish it the more as the gift of a heavenly Father, and enjoy it the more because enjoying it temperate- ly and subordinately — how is it, that, knowing all this, ye contrive to justify yourselves in continued disregard of the demands and duties of religion % Ah THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OP EVE. 1SJ we will not pretend to follow you into every subterfuge, nor to dissect every falsehood. But we look at the cast; of our first mother : we see how, when she was inclining to disobedience, she wrought herself up into opposition to the commadnment by perversely magni- fying its strictness. And we can believe that you do much the same. You take pains to hide from yourselves the real facts of the case. You leave out a word, when you speak of God's permis- sions ; you put in words, when you speak of his prohibitions. When God hath said, "Ye shall not eat of it, " and ye are secretly persuaded that herein He hath only consulted for your good, ye repeat, as your version of the com- mandment, till perhaps you almost be- lieve it to be true, " Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it." But there was a yet worse symptom in Eve, one still more indicative of the fatal disease which was making way in- to her veins. It was bad enough, whe- ther to depreciate God's permission, or to exaggerate his prohibition ; but it was worse to soften away his threaten- ings. This showed the workings of un- belief; and there could, indeed, have been but a step between our common mother and ruin, when she had brought herself to look doubtingly on the word of the Lord. And this symptom is even more strongly marked than those which we have already examined. The de- claration of God had been, " Thou shall not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." But what is Eve's version of this strong and unqualified declaration ] " Ye shall not eat of it, lest ye die. " '• Lest ye die, " this is what she substitutes for " in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." " Lest ye die, " an expression which implies a sort of chance, a contingency, a bare possibility, what might happen, or might not hap- pen, what might happen soon, or might not happen for years — it is thus she puts a denunciation as express, as explicit, as language can furnish, " in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt sure- ly die. " Alas now for Eve! Harbor- ing a thought that God would not carry his threatenings into execution — and this she must have harbored, ere she could have softened these threatenings into " lest ye die " — no marvel if she gaye a ready ear to the lie of the serpent, " Yd shall not surely die. " She had whis- pered his lie to herself, before it was uttered by Satan : the devil could do little then, and he can do little now, ex cept as openings are made for him by those on whom he seeks to work. It was probably the incipient unbelief, manifested by the " lest ye die " of Eve, which suggested, as the best mode ot attack, the "ye shall not surely die " of Satan. The devil may well hope to be believed, so soon as he sees symptoms of God's being disbelieved. And if we could charge upon num- bers, in the present day, the imitating Eve in the disparaging God's permis- sions, and the exaggerating his prohibi- tions, can we have any difficulty in con- tinuing the parallel, now that the thing done is the making light of his threaten- ings Why, what fills hell like the se- cretly cherished thought, that perhaps, after all, there may be no hell to fill '? What is a readier, or more frequent, engine for the destruction of the soul, than a false idea of the compassion of God as sure to interfere, either to short- en the duration, or to mitigate the in- tenseness, of future punishment, if not altogether to prevent its infliction 1 God hath said, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die. " But when men come to give their version of so stern and em- phatic a declaration, they put it virtual- ly into some such shape as this, " The soul should not sin, lest it die. " Christ hath said, " He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned; " men, however, practically throw this sweep- ing and startling affirmation into a much smoother formula, " Believe upon Christ, lest ye die." " Lest ye die " — is this then all ] is there any doubt 1 is it a contingency 1 is it a may be 1 " Lest ye die," when God hath said, " Ye shall surely die. " " Lest ye die," when God hath said, " The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that for- get God." " Lest ye die," when God hath said, " Be not deceived : neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulter- ers, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inheri« the kingdom of God." Nay, ye may give the paragraph a smoother turn, out ye cannot give the punishment a 186 THE MISREPRESENTATIONS OF EVE. shorter term. Ye may soften away the expressions, ye can neither abbreviate nor mitigate the vengeance. " If we believe not," saith St. Paul, " yet He abideth faithful, He cannot deny Him- self." It may make punishment all the more tremendous, that there hath been the secret indulgence of a hope that God would never execute his threaten- ings to the letter ; but, assuredly, such a hope, as being itself but the offspring of unbelief, can never produce change, in the declared purpose of the moral Governor of the universe. And yet, such is the constancy in hu- man perverseness, the feeling which wrought in Eve, before she eat the fatal fruit, is just that which is most power- fully at work amongst her descendants. There is not perhaps one of you, who, if he be still living in unrepented sin, is not secretly disposed to the regarding God as loo gracious to visit iniquity with everlasting destruction, to the re- solving into the exaggerations of the priesthood, or, at all events, into denun- ciations whose ends will be answered by their delivery without their execu- tion, the tremendous announcements of a worm that dieth not, and of a fire that is not quenched. It is not, that, if ye were pushed into an argument, or urged to a confession, ye would, in so many words, assert an expectation of such a difference between punishment as threatened, and punish- ment as put in force, as might make it comparatively safe for you to set at nought God's law. We do not suppose that Eve would have done this : she Avould not, even to herself, have ac- knowledged so much as this. But it is, that ye have a smooth way of putting the threatenings of the law ; you per- haps think that there is a great deal of metaphor in the Bible, much which was never meant to be literally understood, much which was only for local or tem- porary application ; and so, at last, " lest ye die," an expression which just implies some measure of risk, comes to pass with you (so far as you think on such matters at all) as a .very fair expo- sition of " Ye shall surely die, " an ex- pression denoting the most absolute cer- tainty. But, now, be warned by the instance of Eve. She allowed herself to give a smooth turn to the threatening of God. She invented, and never was invention so pregnant with disaster to the world, the doubtful suggestion, " Lest ye die," as a substitute for the awful affirmation, " Ye shall surely die." But, acting on the supposition that " Lest ye die," might fairly pass as the meaning of •' Ye shall surely die," she " brought death into the world, and all our woe." In her case, indeed, tremendous though the consequences were, there was a remedy : our first parents fell, but were arrested by a Mediator in their fatal descent. But in your case — if the soul be staked on the chance, that God threatens more than He will execute, and if ye find, as find ye must, that " ye shall surely die " meant what it said — no exaggeration, no metaphor — alas ! there will then be no remedy for you : the hour will be passed, the day will be gone : though now a Mediator waits to make true to all penitents the bold false- hood of Satan, " Ye shall not surely die," there shall be no deliverance here- after for such as have been presumptu- ous enough to sin, in the hope, or with the thought, that God will not be stem enough to strike. SEEKING, AFTER FINDING. 137 SERMON VII •SEEKING AFTER FINDING. They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward." — Jeremiah 1. 5. The chapter from which these words are taken is filled with predictions of the overthrow of Babylon, and of the deliverance of the Jews from their haughty oppressors. There can be no doubt that these predictions had at least a primary reference to the demolition of the Chaldean Empire by Cyrus, and to the consequent emancipation of the cap- tive citizens of Jerusalem. But, as is generally if not always the case with prophecies of this class, there would ap- pear to be a secondary reference to the destruction of the mystic Babylon, close- ly associated as it will be with the re- storation of the scattered tribes of Israel, and with the triumphant estate of the Christian Church. It would seem that from the first the enemies of God and his people which one age has produced, have served as types of those who will arise in the lat- ter days of the world ; and that the judgments by which they have been overtaken, have been so constructed as to figure the final vengeance on Anti- christ and his followers. Hence it is that so many prophecies appear to re- quire as well as to admit a double ful- filment ; they could hardly delineate the type and not delineate also the antitype ; whilst we may believe that the Spirit, which moved the holy men of old, de- signed that what it inspired should serve for the instruction of remote ages as well as of near. That the predictions in the chapter before us referred to what is yet future, as well as to what has long ago passed, will appear from a careful attention to the terms in which they are couched. In the verse immediately preceding our text, you find this statement : " In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, go- ing and weeping : they shall go, and seek the Lord their God." These words describe a great national contri- tion. The scattered tribes have been brought to a deep sense of their rebel- lion against the God of their fathers, and are inclined accordingly to return to his service. But it would hardly appear that there was any such general repent- ance preparatory to the return of the Jews from Babylon, though we have decisive testimony, from various parts of Scripture, that there will be antecedent- ly to the final restoration of the Israel- ites to Canaan. And besides this, you will not fail to observe that the children of Israel are here combined with the children of Judah ; whereas only the lat- ter were captives in Babylon, and only the latter were emancipated by Cyrus. Whenever, as in tihs instance, prophecy speaks of any gathering together of the twelve tribes, of which the kingdom of Israel had ten, that of Judah only two, we seem obliged to understand it as re- lating to the future ; there having as yet been no event which can be regard- ed as the predicted restoiation of the ten tribes whom Shalmaneser removed. On this and other accounts which it is not important to specify, we conclude that in its secondary, if not in its prima- ry, application, our text is connected with that august event, the theme of so many prophecies, the centre of so many hopes, the reinstatement in Canaan of the chil- dren of Israel. And it may possibly indicate from what various and remote SEEKING, AFTER FINDING. districts of the earth shall the exiles be gathered, that there is to be that igno- rance of the road to Jerusalem which the words before us express. We know that the whole globe is strewed with the Jews, so that you can scarcely find the country where this people, though distinct from every other, has not made itself a home. But the dwelling-place of the ten tribes is still an unsolved problem : neither the navigator in his voyagings round the world, nor the tra- veller in his searchings over continents, has yet lighted on the mysterious seclu- sion where rest the descendants of those who, for their sins, were cast out from Samaria. It may well then be, that when, moved by one impulse from above, the thousands of the chosen seed, whether in the east, or west, or north, or south, shall resolve on seeking the land of their fathers, it will be almost like the quest of some unknown region, so indistinct will be the memory, and so darkened the tradition, of the long-lost inheritance. With numbers there may be nothing be- yond a vague knowledge of the direc- tion in which Palestine must lie, so that they will be able to turn their faces thitherward, but not to determine by what road to proceed. And this is pre- cisely what is represented in our text. The children of Israel and the children of Judah, dissolved in tears on account of their now felt ingratitude and wick- edness, have turned themselves towards Jerusalem, but are still forced to inquire the way. One seems to behold a band of the exiles weeping and nevertheless exulting, penetrated with sorrow for sins, and yet animated with the persua- sion that the Lord was about to make bare his arm and gather home his banish- ed ones. They press along the desert, they crowd to the shore ; and of every one whom they meet they demand, in a voice of eagerness and anxiety, Where, where is our home, the beautiful land which God gave to our fathers, Abra- ham, Isaac, and Jacob 1 But you will readily judge that it can- not be on this, the literal sense or ful- filment of the text, that we design to speak at any length. You are always prepared for our regarding the Jews as a typical people, and finding in the events of their history emblems of what occurs to the Christian Church. We shall therefore at once detach the text from its connexion with the Jews, whether in their past deliverance from Babylon, or their yet future restoration to Canaan, and consider it as descriptive of what may be found amongst Christians, who have to quit a moral bondage, and find their way to a spiritual Zion. The singularity of the passage, when thus interpreted or applied, lies in the face of the inquirer being towards Zi- on, whilst he is yet forced to ask what road he ought to take. " They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thither- ward." They are in the right road, or at least are advancing in the right direc- tion ; but, nevertheless, whether through ignorance, or through fear of even the possibility of mistake, they continually make inquiries as to the path to be fol- lowed. We think that this circum- stance, if considered as to be exempli- fied in our own spiritual history, will fur- nish abundant material for interesting and profitable discourse. It is a cir- cumstance which indicates such honesty of purpose in the inquirer, such vigi- lance, such circumspection, such anxiety to be right, and such dread of being wrong, as should distinguish every Christian, though too often we look for them in vain. And, at the same time, we evidently learn that persons are not always fair judges of their spiritual con- dition ; they may be asking the way like those who are in ignorance and darkness, and all the while their faces may be to- wards Zion. Let it be our endeavor to compass different classes within our pre- sent discourse ; considering in the first place, the case of those who, though going right, suppose themselves going wrong ; and, in the second place, that of those who believe themselves right, but yet desire further assurance ; for of both classes it may equally be said, " They ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward." Now it is the object of such parables as that of the tares -and the wheat, or that of the great net let down into the sea, and which gathered of all kinds, bad as well as good, to teach us that, there is to be a mixture in the visible Church, and that it is not men's busi- ness to attempt a separation. W"e are all too much disposed to exercise a spirit of judgment, to pronounce opin- ions on the condition of our fellow-men, whether the living or the dead, just as SEEKING, AFTER FINDING. ISO though we had access to God's book, and could infallibly read its registered decisions. But there is every thing in the Bible to warn us against this spirit of judgment, and to urge us, on the contrary, to a spirit of charity ; our ina- bility to read the heart, which is the pre- rogative of God alone, being given as a sufficient reason why we should refrain from passing verdicts ; and our duty as members of the same mystic body, be- ing set forth as that of hoping all things, hearing one another's burdens, rather than scrutinizing one another's faults. And a very comforting remembrance it is, that we are not to stand