m " — fnr > OF THE Theological Seminary, PRINCETON, N. J. Ca^e, ^CC^ ...Division SneuQilo^i Section../:.:^ „ , No, I Book, |l JU ^ SERMONS VARIOUS SUBJECTS, PREACHED IX DIFFERENT CONGREGATIONS OF THE CHURCH IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND. BY THE Rev. NICHOLAS *ARMSTRONG. LONDON: THOMAS BOSWORTIT, 215 REGENT STREET. 1854. LONDON : Printed by O. Bakclav, Gwtlc St. Ijciceater Sq. CONTENTS. SERlVrOT< 1. Renpfr unto C/F.sap., etc. II, Manifestation of Christ III. The CiiiiisTiAN Race IV. The Fullness of the Gospel V. Love ..... VI. Unity of the Church VII. Temptation of Christ VIII. The Syuopiienician Woman IX. The Mediator from God to Man X. The Two Apostasies XI. Truth misplaced XII. Good Friday . XIII. The Spirit of Babylon . XIV. Jesus in Galilee ^ XV. The Sufferings of St. Paul XVI. He.wenly Conversation XVII. On Symbolism XVIIT. On Symrolism XIX. On Symbolism page 1 13 21 33 49 00 85 104 123 129 149 168 181 193 204 217 232 244 258 IV CONTENTS. SF.UMON XX. Walking tn thk Si'Ipjt . XXL Thk Hor.v Eucharist XXII. Prayini; in the Holy Ghost . XXIII. Keeping in the Love of God v - — XXIV. The Presence of the Lord . XXV. The Marks of the Faithful XXVI. Mammon of Unrighteousness XXVII. Selfishness .... XXVIII. The Kingdom to come XXIX. The Armour of Light . XXX. The PiEsurrection XXXI. The Bride of the Lamb XXXII. The Resurrection of the Body XXXIII. Sunday after Ascension XXXIV. Sunday after Ascension XXXV. Overcoming the World XXXVI. St. Peter's Counsel to the Slaves XXXVII. Unity XXXVIII. Redeeming Time XXXIX. Walking circumspectly XL. Wheat and Tares . PAGE 2S7 300 312 322 336 346 370 395 407 420 437 453 458 463 475 489 502 518 524 529 ERRATA. Page 13, line 4, 2d paragrapli, for this, read His. — C5, — 0, /or just, rertrf first. — 73, — 9, for large H, read small L. — 136, — 18, for verse, read chapter. — 1G9, for heading " Sunday before Easter," read Good Friday. — 186, line 7, for father, read fathers. — 200, — C, a comma should be after " fountain." — 203, — 3, for \i8ited, read resisted. — 207, — 17, the full stop should be after "I will," not after "dispensations." — 207, — 24, a connna only after " atfection." — 211, — 23, there should be no semicolon after " made." — 213, — 20, for law, read love. — 214, — 11, insert " there are" before " other thoughts," &c. — 221, — 6, semicolon after "them," not " aim." — 234, — 12, for confusing, read confounding. — 275, — 20, no full stop after " all;" for lai-ge A. in " and,' read small a. — 301, — 2, for works, read words. — 307, — 24, for on it, read out it. — 324, — 1, /or charity, rearf chariots. — 335, — 9 and 10, the hyphen should be after "hatred," not after "form." — 355, — 4, ajler serve, read with. — 355, — 21, for compact, read hold of it. — 357, — 4 from the bottom, for points, read point. — 369, — 7, for part, read feast. — 379, line 8 from the bottom, for cession, read session. — 393, at the end of page, for when and then, read where and theiv. — 427, line 6 and 7, an hyphen after " entered," and comma after " creation." — 429, — 5, hyphen after " Eve." — 430, — 15, for many, read Mary. — 437, for heading " Bride," &c., read Resurrection of the ( "hurcli. — 443, line 7, full stop after "spiritual," no stop or comma after "Holy Ghost." — 446, — 10, for metaphysical, read mere spiritual. I p:rrata. Page 401, line 5 from the bottom, leave out " their," and /or rare, rt:ud fare. — 468 and 469, for cession, read session. — 476, line 17, for punish, read furnish. — 483, — 2, insert before " strong," " not," and before " now," " not." — 484, — 20, before "Almighty," insert "the worship of." — 487, — 19, full stop at " distinctly." — 492, — 6 from the bottom, " abuse of," instead of " abusing." — 495, — 13 from the bottom, parenthesis ends at " pass away." — 495, — 11 from the bottom, take away full stop and hyphen after " deathless." — 495, — 6 from the bottom, full stop after "world;" for before, read Before — 500, — 9 from the bottom, leave out " us." — 500 and 507, last line of former, first of latter, " As it was in the Head," should be in parenthesis. — 508, line 3, for for the, read being. — 511, — 8, full stop after " matter;" for We, read we. — 616, last line, for began, read begun. — 525, line 3, for as they, read after. — 535, — 7, after " true and," insert " faithfiil ;" "in the mystery" is in parenthesis. — 535, — 21 and 22, there is not a full stop after " farther;" but it should be after "gospel" in the next line : then, /or baptism, reae? Baptism, as beginning a sentence. — 536, — 6, /or are, rearf all ; and line 23, /or past, rearf post. — 540, — 6, after but, insert some are. — 544, — 11, /or become, rt'rtd burn. J » I * SERMON I. Mender unto Ccesar the things that are Ccesar^s, and to God the things that are God^s. Two parties were present when the question was pro- posed to Christ, which called forth this answer. First, the Pharisees, who proposed the question ; the ortho- dox religious party, who no doubt knew from the Scriptures that the government of Israel was a theo- cracy, and that therefore, abstractly, the Roman emperor had no right to exact tribute from them. They knew, therefore, that Messiah could not ac- knowledge Cgesar's right, except in a qualified sense, by which qualified acknowledgment they hoped to embroil Him with the Roman government. Second, the Herodians, assistmg rather than acting in the jDlot ; a political party, who under Herod sought, through subserviency to the Romans, to rule over the Jewish people. Whether they understood the abstract truth concerning the right mode of ruling the children of Israel or not, they knew, at least, that the Romans were rulers de facto, and, therefore, were ready to accuse the Lord of rebellion against the existing go- vernment, if He should at all question the right of the Roman emperor. B 2 RENDER UNTO CiESAR, ETC. The Pharisees then stood before Jesus as the apparent guardians of Scriptural truth, the Herodians as the maintainers of Csesar's right ; both parties lying in wait for His answer, as that by which He should surely commit Himself against God or Cassar. But the principal aim of the question was to make Him say something which should give the Romans a handle against Him. Therefore was such flattery used in introducing the question, — " We know that Thou teachest truth from God, with no mixture of human error m it. We know that Thou fearest no man, not even the highest upon earth, the emperor himself; Thou regardest no man's person. The truth which ive are afraid to utter before the Romans, Thou art not afraid to speak ; and to speak not pri- vately amongst Thy friends, and those who agree with it, but even before the most devoted subjects of the Romans in the midst of us. Therefore have we the Pharisees, Thy friends, who have the same abstract truth in us that Thou Thyself camest forth to declare, brought these Herodians with us that they may see, and their master Herod, too, and the Romans also, Herod's master and theirs, that there is at least one man in Israel who is not afraid to stand on God's side, who came from God and maintains God's cause, and will not be deterred, by all the legions of Rome and Rome's proud emperor, from speaking the truth which God would have spoken." The Pharisees, no doubt, calculated that the presence of the Herodians was most likely to influence Jesus to maintain the more strongly the right of God to be the alone ruler of Israel. They remembered, no doubt, how the Lord had called Herod " that fox," RENDER UNTO CJESAR, ETC. 3 and supposed that He would have a strong resent- ment agamst the princes who had successively slain the children of Bethlehem for Messiah's sake, and also John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and who were seeking to slay Clu'ist Himself. The Lord's answer stopped the mouths of both His enemies. The Pharisee was warned by it not to make the abstract truth of God an excuse for rebellmg agamst the Gentile oppressor, into whose hands he was given because of his sins, who was the ruler over him de facto ^ as the King of Babylon had been; and the Herodianwas reminded that God had rights over him as well as Caesar, and that he should not so submit to the Roman emperor as to forget who was the true King of Israel. The truth that was in both parties was recognised in the answer of Jesus, and the wicked leaven in both, by which that truth would be abused and destroyed, was at the same time condemned. The Lord's answer saved Him from their snare which they laid for Him, and would have saved them from the delusion of partial truth in wliich they were held, had they been able to hear and understand His words. For His answer was not merely one to confound malice, but also to enlighten ignorance, if there were a will in the ignorant to be enhghtened. To the Herodian He seemed to say, — You are mdeed right in submitting to C^sar ; for He who gave Israel of old into the hands of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, has also given to the Roman to tread down His own mheritance : pay tribute, there- fore, unto Csesar, but at the same time pay to God what is due to Him. And what is due to Him ? Tliat you may know this, search the Scriptures ; learu 4 RENDEE UNTO C^SAE, ETC. therein what is the relation of God to Israel, that He, and He alone, is Israel's king ; and whilst you pay your tribute to Csesar, mourn over the fact and con- fess your sins, which are the cause of that fact ; mourn that you are given into the hands of the stranger for your rebellion against Grod, and repent and turn to Him, if, peradventure, He may deliver you from the rod of the oppressor. Boast not, O Herodian ! in your subjection to Caisar, but be ashamed of it, for it is to your shame ; your sins have forged that chain. On the other hand, to the Pharisee the Lord's answer would express, — You are, indeed, right in main- taining that God alone is the King of Israel ; but see that you maintain God's right in a godly manner. He is your king, indeed, but you have refused to obey Him — you have not paid Him the ransom money for your souls — you have robbed Him of His tithes and offerings — you have despised His messengers — you have broken His laws; therefore has He given you up to a cruel lord. God rules you not by any of the house of David ; He has given the power over you to a Roman governor : accept your punishment, obey him whom God has set over you. You are in chains — your own wickedness has forged them; let not your own wickechiess attempt to break them: wait for God's deliverance, which He will vouchsafe in due time to the humble, and the contrite, and the poor in spirit ; rebel not against Rome, but repent before God. Israel must be delivered from his enemies by God's judgments, and not by his own strivings. " Israel has sold himself, but in the Lord alone is his help found." To both the Lord's answer said, — Be faithful to RENDER UNTO C^SAR, ETC. 5 the truth which you severally hold, but perfect the same by the opposite truths which you are severally neglecting. Let not your allegiance to God be made an excuse for rebellion against Caesar, nor your sub- jection to Caesar the occasion of your apostasy from God. The mere civil relation of Christians to the kings of the earth now is not the parallel to the condition of Israel subject to Caesar. Israel was not originally subject to Caesar, nor ever would have been, but for then' sms. But Christians, as men, were never taken from under the rule of the civil power by the ap- pointment of God. The Jews were in a wi'ong position — that is, in a position different from their original one, when they were under Caesar. The Christians are in their right position — in the position in which they were origmaUy found, and in which they were instructed to abide, when they are, as men, in subjection to the rulers of the earth. The Jews were, m a sense, not imder God when they were under Caesar : if they were aright under God, they would be holding to Him by one of David's line, and not by the Roman emperor. It was, abstractly, un- lawful for a Jew to be ruled by a stranger, by any but his brother. The Christians are under C^sar as an ordinance of God — a primary ordinance, as directly an ordinance to them in his place and order as any minister of the Church. The Roman emperor was not God's ordinance for ruling Israel, either ecclesi- astically or politically. He was the orduiance for rulmg politically the Christian Church. Therefore the Jewish people, in their wrong position under the Roman emperor, are not paralleled by the Clu'istiau t) EENDER UNTO C^SAR, ETC. Church in its true position under the kings of the earth. The true parallel to the Jewish nation, under the oppression of Caesar for its sins, is the Church of God ecclesiastically enslaved to the kings of the earth, because of its departure from the Lord's way of ruling it. Csesar was not the rightful ruler of the Jews, either as Jews or as men. He is the rightful ruler of Christians as men, hut not of Christians as Christians. Therefore it is the latter condition in which the civil ruler is, wherein God did not origi- nally set him, nor will him to be, that answers to the condition of tlie Jewish people when the Pharisees sent their Hers in wait against Jesus to embarrass Him with their subtle question. Those who look upon the relation of the Jews to Caesar as the exact illustration of the civil position of Christians rela- tively to the kings of the earth, do almost of neces- sity fall into the awful error in which most men are seen involved at present, namely, that there are two governments; one of the invisible, the abstract, the spiritual, as it is called (meaning very much by spiritual, unreal, visionary), which belongs to God; the otlier, of the visible and material, the political and actual, which belongs to the civil power. Ccesar cum Jove divisum imperium habet ; — Csesar with Jove maintains divided sway. In things connected with the world to come and the world of spirits, we are subject to God, they say; but in things coimected with this world we are under Caesar. God has nothing to do with this world; it belongs to Caesar. So, practically, responsibility to God for the rule of the earth is forgotten ; the ruler is not seen to be His vicegerent, but a power inde- RENDER UNTO CiESAR, ETC. 7 pendent of Hini ; lord of a wide domain, witliin wliicli God has no right to appear, vnth tlie management of which He has no right to interfere. Whereas, in truth, in the poKtical region, Ca3sar is not distinct from God, but is His lawful ordinance — His presence, so to speak ; He is where he ought to be, and where no other ought to appear : and God rules the earth now by Csesar, as the Lord Jesus Christ rules His Church now by those whom He appoints to bear His name and wield His authority in the several places to which God has assigned them. When the Lord said, " Render unto Caesar the things tliat are Cassar's, and to God the things that are God's," He spoke to a state of things when God and Caesar were not one, so to speak, but two par- ties, in positions primarily and abstractly not the right ones; where C^sar, though God's instrument indeed, was still out of his place, and standing in God's way, usurping by God's permission, but not occupying by God's appointment, a place and func- tions which God would have filled and performed by another. These words never could have applied to the Jews, had they remained obedient to God and subject to His ordinances; and before they can apply to the Christian Church, a corresponding de- parture from God's ways must take place. The Apostles did not say to the Clnistian Church, " Render unto Caesar the thmgs that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," but they said, Caesar is the minister of God, and, as God's minister, waiting on God's work, must receive your tribute and honour. " The powers that be are ordained of God," not merely permitted by Him; some better 8 RENDER UNTO C^SAR, ETC. ordinances being previously rejected, they are them- selves God's ordinance, " and whoso resisteth them re- sisteth the orcUnance of God, and shall receive to himself damnation from God." The Church needed to fall from the place in which the Apostles planted it before the language which the Lord applied unto Israel in bondage for its sins could apply. When the Christian Church should be found acknowledging in the civil power an authority not originally con- ferred upon it, enthroning the Roman emperor at the head of its bishops, giving him the presidency in its councils, accepting at his hands establishment upon the earth, and endowment with earthly power, and wealth, and honours, allowing to him the appomt- ment and sanctioning of the bishops, invoking his aid for the suppression of heretics and the chastisement of schismatics, guarding its doctrine and discipline by the power of his sword and the force of his laws, maintaining its ministry by the supplies of his treasury, living and moving by him upon all the earth, then should the same language be applicable to Christians which Jesus addressed to the Jews. You have taken the civil ruler from the place where God set him, and have lifted him to a higher seat. But having done so, render to him what is due to the place which he occupies : God permits him to occupy it ; He did not purpose it for him ; it is not of " His good, and acceptable, and perfect will," that he should be there, but yet it is of His will permis- sive. You would not prove God's good and acceptable and perfect will ; you would not be ruled by Him directly; you would lean upon flesh: therefore the strongest in the flesh has received the power over EENDER UNTO C^SAK, ETC. 9 you. You would have a place in tlie world ; there- fore the rulers of the world are set to rule you : all that is in the world, being of the world, must be ruled by them. Your polity was in heaven, but you soon grew weary of it ; and having fallen to the earth, you have become the lawful prey of the mightiest upon it. Render unto Caesar now the things that you have given to him, but remember that they are things which belong to God; they belong not of right to Csesar, yet they do l)elong to him, for your sins have given them to him. God's judgment has permitted them to him. Add not rebellion against Caesar to your original defection from God ; seek not by carnal violence, and worldly schemes, and devilish violation of all your vows, to reinstate yourself m your first position, which you have lost, but bear your chastisement, and wait upon God for de- liverance. Christians could not come to Jesus with the question, " Shall we pay tribute to the supreme power in the State ? " No one but the wildest Ana- baptist or Fifth IVIonarchy man ever entertained a doubt upon the subject. But they might come with this question, Shall we allow any headship over us in ecclesiastical affairs to the civil power; shall we submit to any interference on the part of the State in such matters ? In putting such a question, they would be in precisely a parallel condition to the Jews in the days of the Lord's sojourn upon the earth. And the answer to them would be. Render unto Caesar what you have undertaken to pay him. You have let him into the Church; you may hot turn him out. God has given you into his hands; 10 RENDER UNTO C^SAR, ETC. He alone can deliver you out of his hands. The Jews had but one way of deliverance from the power of Caesar ; namely, by repenting of their sins, and re- ceiving Him whom God sent unto them. This way of deliverance they did not take; but they strove in then' own might to obtain their liberty ; they strove by a series of the fiercest rebellions, but they strove in vain : the end of their strivings was the utter ruin of their city and polity, and their dispersion to the four corners of the earth. So the Christian Church has struggled to shake off the yoke of the civil power, which it did first brmg upon itself. History is full of the rebellions of the Western Church against the emperors of the Eastern empire, whose prerogative it had been, from Constantine's time, to sanction the election of the Bishop of Rome, as well as of all other bishops ; to summon councils, and preside in them, in person or by proxy ; to rule, in fact, the universal Church — establishmg and re- moving bishops, rebuking heretics, granting trials of all accused of error in doctrines or discipline, and confirming the decrees of synods or councils that might grow out of such trials. Against them, in the days of their weakness, the bishops of Rome strove with success, transferring to the kings of France and to the German emperors the allegiance that had been yielded to the Greek emperors, until they succeeded in beating down the new emperors of the West, as they had before those of the East. By these fierce and protracted struggles the peace of the whole earth was broken, and society rent in pieces ; and the issue of them, which brought victory to the Papal power, brought no deliverance to the Church of God, nor RENDEE UNTO C^SAR, ETC. 11 healing to the nations of the earth; but rather in- creased the oppression of the former and aggravated the evils of the latter, until half the Christian world, weary of the new tyranny, rose up in terrible indig- nation against it, laid it in ruins, and raised up in its stead the ancient power of the king from which it had wi^enched them. Those who, flying from the tyranny of the Papacy, did not return to subjection to the kings of the earth, but endeavoured to rule them- selves without either the ordinances of God or the authority of Caesar, have fared worse than any, and are at this day found most of all prepared for the lawlessness of the days of Antichrist, or least enabled to hinder the appearmg of those days. No: the Jews sold themselves to Csesar, but they could not deliver themselves out of his hand. So the Christian Church brought herself under bondage to the earthly power, and every effort to recover her liberty has only fastened a new and more gallmg fetter upon her. The Church sought to work out her deliver- ance from CsBsar in Papal times by the episcopacy assuming to itself too high a place, and heading up its usurpation in the Bishop of Rome. At the Re- formation the will of the Christian multitude A^as appealed to, and the lowest in the Church were called up to do the work which the highest had failed in ; and in the present day this delusion has attained its greatest height, and over the whole earth the people are boasting that deliverance is with them — that they will set free the Church from the slavery which kings began and popes consummated. There are Pharisees and Herodians now — those who would separate the Chuixli fi'om the rulers of 12 RENDER UNTO CJESAR, ETC. the earth, and yet not recover it to God, but remove it farther from Him than ever ; and those who would keep it under the power of the State, that they might hold it from the State for their own wealth and honour. He who would be the servant of Christ must sympathise with neither party; he must stand apart from the proud Pharisee and the cunning Herodian, the discontented Dissenter and the place-hunting Churchman; he must not help those who would change from bad to worse ; he must wait upon God for the deliverance of His people ; he must say to all, Obey those that are over you, although they be oppressors and strangers, until you make the change of masters from man to God — till you are restored by the mercy of God to that which you lost long ago ; namely, " the rejoicing in Christ Jesus, the worship- ping God in the spirit, and having no confidence in the flesh," which was the blessed result of His heavenly rule and spiritual ministry. SERMON II. MANIFESTATION OF CHEIST. THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY. The holy child Jesus was begotten of God, and born into the world, not of the will of man, but of God. In His preparation for His holy ministry He con- sulted not with flesh and blood when He tarried behind His mother and Joseph in Jerusalem, that He might wait upon His Father's business in the temple, in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. At His baptism He admitted not the excuse of Jolm the Baptist, who would have declined through excess of reverence the higher office of baptizing the Messiah. At the commencement of His ministry He stopped once for all, by a gentle but severe reproof, the in- terference of the will of His earthly parent with His performance of this work which God gave Him to do. He did the will of Him who sent Him, and who was ever with Him. The will of the man Christ Jesus waited upon the will of God, and ever moving har- moniously with it, found ever the power of the eternal Spirit waiting upon it and leading to a successful issue all its purposes. 14 MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. As Christ did tlie will of the Father, so is the Church to do the will of Christ. The calling of the Church is to do the will of God ; more correctly, the calling of the creature is to do the will of the Creator. To make this possible, the divine and human will were united in one Person, the man Christ Jesus, God over all, blessed for ever. In Him the will of God directly met the will of man, laid upon it imme- diately all its charges, and immediately received the full obedience. No ordinance intervened between God and Christ, for God and Christ were one. No other mind knowing the mind of God before His, and therefore instructing Him. No other will willing before His the will of God, and so leading Him into it. He knew of Himself, without being taught by man or angel, the will of God. He knew the time for doing the same. The will that ruled the universe absolutely, even the Divine will, was in Him ; and the will by which, secondarily and instrumentally, the universe should be ruled by God, even the human will, was in Him also ; and between these two no third party could intervene, else were that intervening thing nearer to God than the man Christ Jesus. By constraining the Precursor to baptize Him, by rebuking His apostles for counselling Him, by reproving the suggestions of His mother. He taught all flesh that no human beins: was so near to God as He was, that no human being could show Him His work or the time for doins: it. And as no man taught Him the will of God, so no angel mediated between Him and the Father, to show Him what to do and when to do it; that MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. 15 were to show the nature of angels more intimate with God, and higlier under God, than that of men, which is contrary to that which is written : " He took not upon Him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham." " What is man that Thou art mindful of him ? Thou hast set him over the works of Thine hands." The pride of Satan appeared in this, that he would be a Lucifer to the Son of God, affecting to show the man anomted with the Holy Ghost what he ought to do for the glory of God and for the winning of His kingdom, and for His refi'eshment in the wilderness till that kingdom should come. The obedient Son maintained the place assigned to Him, preserving to human nature its rank above all other creatures, as most closely conjoined with the Divine, and to His own person its pre-emmence above all other human things. Let us not be puffed up with unholy boasting because of the unspeakable honour put upon our nature, and so furnish to Satan some excuse for his envy at our exaltation, and offend the humility of the unfjillen angels, who murmured not when their own nature was passed by, and the nature of man, the youngest born of intelligent creatures, was assumed by the descending Godliead. They murmured not, but shouted together for joy; they rejoiced in our blessing and sang forth, " Glory to God in the highest ; on earth peace, good -will to men." And let us keep our place under our Lord as He did under God, that so the will of God may be done, and glory may redound to God for ever. The first man kept not his place : he learned from those who ought to have learned from him, and so lost all. 16 JIANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. Let the first man die in us, that we may not fail as he did ; let the new man, the Lord fi'om heaven, live in us, that we may prevail mth Him. The will of God is still to be done upon the earth — Jesus did it in His own person, in the days of His flesh ; He hath to do it now in His members, the many sons who are following Him unto glory. Human beings are to know and do the will of God, by commg to the one human will that has proved it and done it. They are to learn the mind of God by coming to the one human mmd that has learned it; by coming to the one man who served God per- fectly, they attain to the perfect service of God : one man came to God directly, all others come in- directly through Him. The head of Clmst was God, the head of every man is Christ. The man Christ Jesus, waiting upon God, was waited upon by the Holy Ghost ; the Church, agreemg with her Head, is holpen by the same almighty Spirit, for Him hath God given to those who obey His Son. The Holy Ghost mil ever wait upon the human will in har- mony with the divine. He must withstand or for- sake the human will which has begun to withstand or break away from the divine, with which it is to be yoked for ever. In the Church the Holy Ghost will stand by the will of Christ in whomsoever that will finds a place, through whomsoever it finds expression. The Holy Ghost is not necessarily with the ruler; the Spirit of the Lord departed fi"om Saul. He is not with the oppressed, unless they are suffering for righteousness' sake. Upon the minister of Christ the Holy Ghost dotli wait; in the flock of Clu'ist He is pleased to MA2?rFESTATI0N OF CHRIST. 17 dwell. But the rebellious against the Lord dwell in parched lands, whoever they be, whether they fight against Him in the highest or in the lowest place. Rulers working out their own will, not Christ's, are at best but Egyptian taskmasters, or as those who mocked the captives in Babylon by asking them to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. Unless rulers will allow the Lord to teach their hands to war and their fingers to fight, He will not subdue thek people under them. When rulers and people are united to fulfil a purpose of their own, they only build a Babel. Scattering and schism are God's judgment upon the builders of Babel. God will not allow unity in a lie 'till His time for judging the world shall have come. It is well for the ruler who is working out his own will, when the people are hindered from submitting to him ; it is a proof that God has not utterly given him up to his own devices, but has left him time to consider his ways, and given him room for repentance. The first name given by the Lord to the Holy Ghost, when He promised the Comforter to His disciples, was, the Spirit of truth. Truth alone will He stand to. The man whose words are thrown back upon him should not first condemn those by whom they are so thrown back, but should call in his statements and examine them carefully, and correct, if aught needs correct- ing ; for truth alone will prevail. Preach the Gospel, and teach the ordinances as I have delivered them unto you, and I am with you always. In this day, especially, rulers w^U be driven back with shame if they be partial in the doctrine of God. " There- fore have I made you contemptible and base be- 18 MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. fore all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law." — Mai. ii. 9. We see bishops retiring from the strife with tlie people, giving way before them, recalHng their words, and compromising their authority. What bishops are doing, all others shall be obliged to do who will go forth to the struggle, leaving any truth behind them, or carrying any lie, or exaggeration, or mis- representation of the truth before them. Those who will win the remnant from Babylon and the crown of martyrdom for their testimony against the beast, must have the form of godliness, and the power of it, too. The things which prevailed to overawe former generations will not subdue the present. Mediaeval superstition is no match for modern mfidelity. We must have a mightier instrumentality than the things which have been used and have failed, even in weaker times — things which have not profited those that were exercised therein. No sham, no make-believe, no fond tradition, will stop the mouths of gainsay ers ; no matter what learning, what genius, what show of piety, what array of rank, and wealth, and office, what multitude of partisans, be brought to recommend them. God has thrown open to men the storehouses of knowledge, He has put His Scriptures into every man's hands. Past ages have disclosed all their secrets. The science of con- tradiction is perfected, and every word shall be con- tradicted, and with success contradicted, and the speaker of it confounded, if it be not a pure word, as silver tried in a furnace of earth seven times re- fined. They overcame by the word of theii' testi- MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. 19 mony, being the word given to them to bear witness with : every other word will fail. The Gentiles shall be judged for blasphemy against the Holy Ghost ; therefore the Holy Ghost must come before them, in order to their incurring the guilt. God shall send them strong delusion to believe a lie, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness : truth and righteousness must be presented to them before they can reject them. Who hath resisted His will ? Another Pharaoh shall strive to do it. But His will must be conveyed to Pharaoh to bring forth his wicked- ness. Jannes and Jambres shall not withstand men's systems and traditions, but the truth — what God calls the truth ; therefore it must confi'ont them, that their folly may be made manifest. " Those wicked citizens, who would not that I should reign over them, bring them forth and slay them before me." His rule must have been presented to them. His gracious will, in deed and not in profession, must have been brought imto them to provoke this terri]3le judgment. " I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat, &c." The reality of oneness with Him must be re- vived, the reahty of membership must be shown to man again, that the righteous Judge may be able thus to speak. Antichrist shall deny Christ who came in flesh, who comes in flesh ; therefore the reality of that mystery must be seen in Christ's body in the times of Antichrist. Servants of Christ indeed. His witnesses, must those be whom the beast shall slay ; men filled with the life of God, as the olive-trees, shining with the truth of the Spirit of Christ as the candlesticks. The last persecution 20 MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST. will be for righteousness' sake. ^Vho shall be counted worthy to stand for the Lord in the days of gain- saymg and blasphemy ? Let them count the cost. He that beginneth to build, let him consider if he have materials to finish with ; he that goeth forth to the battle, let him consider if he have forces to go on with to a successful issue. Battlements that are not the Lord's must be taken down; armour not proof must not be trusted to. For the Lord and for His Christ will God stand up ; their cords, their bands, will He make strong. The cords of fleshly tyi'anny, the bands of earthly pohcy, God will not preserve, what name soever of sacredness men may have put upon them. How, then, shall God dwell upon the earth ? Who shall prepare Him a habi- tation ? Where shall He make known His will ? Whence shall He utter His voice ? As the Scriptures are true, in His Church, keeping His ordinances, containing His Spirit, abiding in Cluist. The an- swer is contained in the epistle of the day, — m the Church, receiving the grace obtained by Christ, be- stowed by the Father, conveyed by the Holy Ghost. This grace shall justify God, shall commend Chi'ist, shall be the manifestation of the Holy Ghost : with- out this there can be only man's will conflicting with man's will — men prevailing by the rum of their bre- thren— men failmg not as martyrs to the truth, but victims of their own obstinacy and pride. SERMON III. THE CHRISTIAN RACE. SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY. In the Epistle for this day we have a description of the Christian Eace, and of the Self-Denial necessary in order to win it. In the Gospel we have a warning against Selfish- ness and grudging God's goodness to others, illustrated by the parable of the Householder and Labourers. The Christian race is compared to the race in the Isthmian Games; The training for the contests in those games is taken to illustrate the self-denial of the Christian life ; And the pugilistic contest is taken to show forth the extent to which Christian self-denial must be carried. The contests in the games of Greece called into competition and exercise the minds and bodies of the mightiest men that the civilised world could then furnish. The Panhellenium assembled to celebrate them, and the surrounding nations also sent com- batants to engage in them. Opportunity the most public, solemn, and exciting, was given to all men to come together and show what was in them — to dis- 22 THE CHRISTIAN RACE. play how far the human powers could go, or at least how far they had then advanced in then" development. It was proclahned, as it were, by the voice of the herald : Let the strong stand up and put forth all the strength of their bodies ; let the swift exhibit all the speed that is in them; let the orator speak; let the poet sing ; let the historian recite his history ; let the philosopher show his knowledge, the lawgiver his wisdom. Admiring spectators are present and at- tentive auditors ; skill, and knowledge, and taste, and discrimination, surround the competitors, and justice impartial presides over all. Let all the gifts of nature and improvements of art be shown forth, and the prize shall be given to the wortliiest. The Christian exercises illustrated by these games are for the display of more than the powers of nature and triumphs of discipline ; they are not the trial of the strength, the speed, the skill, the art of man — not the fathoming of his wisdom, and knowledge, and learning — not the proving of the powers of his speech and thought — the display for his glory of the work he can finish or the race he can run. They are the manifestations of the power of the grace of God — they are the evidence of what God can do in those and l)y those who are the subjects of His mworking. Tlie Christian race is to show forth the swiftness to run in the way of God's commandments which He can give AVlio maketh His messengers spirits. His mini- sters a flame of fire. The Christian conflict is to prove the powers of Jesus Christ come in flesh — to show the exceeding gi'eatness of His power in them who believe, whom He enableth to wrestle, not only with flesh and blood, but with principalities, and powers, I THE CHRISTIAN RACE. 23 and spirits of wickedness in high places. The Grecian ^ stadium called forth the full force and glory of the natural creation. The Christian field displays the virtues of Christ — the powers of the Holy Ghost. Of all the competitors, " one in whom the force of nature could no farther go " received the prize. Of all the generations of Christians, that one shall most abundantly enter into the kingdom, and receive the highest prize, which shall have yielded most entirely to the grace of Christ, and given thereby the fullest proof of what He can do m sinful flesh — the antitype of Enoch — the remnant that shall be translated. But in every generation whosoever loved the coming and appearing of the Lord, and laboured for the salvation of the body, knowmg the hope of the Church and pressing into it, shall be in the first class of winners, though not found in the remnant actually translated ; for such persons had the hope which purified, and might have attained to the translation, if not hindered by the faint-heartedness, and carnality, and worldli- ness, of those by whom they were sun'ounded. The prize which Christians should run for, pre- eminently Christian ministers from the highest down- wards, but also all Christian men according to their measure, is the salvation of the body, that the election may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This was the prize intended by St. Paul, as we may learn from the context. (See v. 23.) " And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you " — with all, with the whole body. With you is not in the original, but the word GvyKoivuvog refers to all who are of the communion of saints. Thus for the innuediate context. The re- 24 THE CHRISTIAN RACE. moter context proves the same. From the beginning of the eighth cliapter the matter in hand is the selfish- ness which some evinced, who boasted in their know- ledge, who ate things offered in the idol temples, irre- spective of the effect which their so doing should have upon their fellow-Christians — men who shamed with their knowledo-e the weak brethren for whom Christ died — who caused their brethren to stumble; m a word, men who pleased themselves, who lived for themselves — schismatical, uncatholic men, puffed up because of their own gifts — destroyers of the Church of God. In contrast with their selfishness he sets forth the consideration for his brethren, becoming a true Christian man and worthy Christian minister, which he himself sought to be an example of, post- poning his own gratification, foregoing his own rights, yielding up his own revenues, for the sake of others — becoming all things to all men for the salvation of all — a Jew with the Jews, with the Gentiles a Gentile. Know ye not that we have a course to run? We are not shut up in ourselves, nor in a narrow party of our own selection. We have to run in a large field — far as the Catholic Church extends — over the ground occupied by the Gentile and by the Jew. We must save them all. We are shod with the pre- paration of the gospel of peace, that we may run the race of charity. This labouring to be all things to all men is aptly compared to a race, for it keeps one ever moving, and from distance to distance, towards a consummation, when the parties now separated shall be perfectly one. It allows not a man to rest in any prejudices — to belong to any party; he cannot THE CHKISTIAN RACE. 25 rest till the Lord come and the Church be taken up to meet Him. In the Grecian games, he who won made others , lose ; but in the Christian race, our winning involves ' not the losing but the winning of others. We win by making others win ; by saving the body we gain the prize. We do not win by outstiipping others and leaving them behind, but by waiting for them to bring them forwards. The prize to the member of the Church is the same which is the prize to the Head — the salvation of the body. A man's personal salvation abstractly is not the prize which he runs for; his race begins in the assurance to him that he is set free from guilt, and care, and personal fear, that he may labour for the deliverance of all the rest. The consummation which shall crown the hope of the universal Church is the goal to which every member of that Church presses forward, from the glorious Head, the Author and Finisher of faith, to the last, lowest member in whom that faith is finished. This is the Christian race, which is like the course of the sun, which shines upon and gladdens all parts of the earth between his rismg and his setting. This is the Christian race, to traverse the whole field of the world, in love, if not in act — to visit all parts of Immanuel's land — to rejoice all the inhabitants thereof with the gospel of peace — to make them forget their particular and private differences in their common character — to make them sit loose to their separate possessions in their earnest desire for their common hope. "aS'o run i that 7/e may obtain." Not one out of all is to obtain, but all together: have it in your hearts to run and I win together. This is the running for which the 26 THE CHRISTIAN RACE. Lord will supply vigour and speed. Tliis is the striving which He will bless with success. Some of those to whom this epistle was written thought themselves eminent runners. They seemed to he leaving all others behind them — to be rich, to be full, to be kings without their brethren. They who were puffed up with their knowledge — who were bold in the exercise of their liberty — who fancied themselves wise — who despised the weak, refusing to condescend to Jew or Gentile — disentangling themselves from all whose infirmities might retard their speed; — to those ^especially these words were addressed : You are run- / nmg, indeed, and very fast apparently ; but you are not running aright. You are running for yourselves and not for the body; you are running so fast that you run before the Lord. To disencumber your- selves for the race, you cast not off your own besettmg sin ; but you shake off the yoke of the Lord, and dis- engage yourselves fi*om the fellowship of His saints. Your running is not fair runnmg; you do not run over all the ground ; you are not running to the help of the Lord, but to His hindi-ance ; you are not run- nmg to the help of all the brethren, but are running away from all except the little company of your own partizans and flatterers. You do not fairly run over the ground, nor do you carry the weight which was laid upon you by the law of the race. To run law- fully, and to be crowned in the end, you must run in the yoke of the Lord, carrying the burden of all the brethren. Learn, in a word, the law of the course from the example of one who finished it with joy: " Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as THE CHRISTIAN EACE. 27 under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are mth- out law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." St. Paul intimated to those Corinthians who seemed so flir- nished for the course, and so forward in it, that there was a danger of their losing the race after all ; and in them the warning is given to the whole Church agamst the spirit of selfishness. In them it is said to all, the Christian race shall never be won till the spirit of the body is stronger in every member of it than the spirit of self-gratification — until there be furnished to Christ a body which, being compacted in Him and sul)ordmated to Him, can receive His grace and manifest His victory. Secondly, in order to this lawful and successful competition, remember that he who striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. The trainmg of him who striveth for mastery is, first, to obtain the mastery over himself. He is tem: perate in all things; he commands himself; he is continent. The powers which God gave him he knows, and learns how to use them. The man who . will go to the Isthmian games to win the prize of; strength, or speed, or skill, must take care of his body long before. He must not overtax it with labour, nor fatigue it too soon. He must not waste its vigour m vicious indulgence. He must not make it gross and heavy with too much pampering, nor impoverish and enfeeble it by lack of sustenance. 'H- 28 THE CHRISTIAN RACE. He must submit it to discipliue, and keep it in exer- cise. Above all, lie wlio would conquer must learn to keep in his powers till the very moment for letting them escape in action. He must not waste them before the time. So for success in the Christian con- tests self-mastery must be first obtained. The man must become master at home before he shall obtain any mastery abroad. Continent in his spirit, in his mind, and in his body, he must not be the slave of his will, nor of his reason, nor of his sense, but must rule them all. He is temperate in all things, as to all things he contains himself. The intemperate man throws himself upon everything alluring to his spirit, his mind, or his affections, as the hungry Israelites of Saul's army rushed upon the spoil and devoured it with the blood in it — as the over-eager followers of Gideon prostrated themselves before the water. The temperate man pours out the water as David did, refusing to drink for his refreshment what jeopardised the lives of others ; takes for his refreshment and not for his self-indulgence, as those accepted ones who sipped the water from the hollow of their hand, and stooped not on their bellies to drink it. Chiefly, they who would prevail must be able to wait the Lord's time, as well as be ready for it. They must be able to contain the Lord's treasure till the Lord take the vessel in His hand to pour out of the same. Woe to the vessel which falls from its place and loses its treasure! Woe to the vessel whose contents are poured out by any hand, or at any bidding, but of its Master ! Those who obtain not the mastery over them- selves will be sure to shock and scandalise others at THE CHRISTIAN RACE. 29 some time or another. Tliey cannot avoid giving offence, and woe be to those by whom oflfences come ! The man inured to self-indulgence will regard no interest, no feeling, no circumstances of his brother, in the day when he is roused to pursue his own profit or pleasure. No barrier can stop his lawless will. He must break bounds — he cannot contend lawfully — he cannot win. Who can tell the value of the previous training? For the games of Greece the youth were trained from earliest years. Parents looked forward to the theatre of honourable com- petition, where prizes should be distributed to the worthiest, and prepared their children for them. ^Vliy should not our children be prepared from their infancy for serving God and delivering His Church? Should we not impress it upon every one of them that, whatever else they shall have to do in life, this at least, and this chiefly, they must attend to, — the performance of their part in the deliverance of God's creation out of its bondage to con'uption in the per- fection of the Church for the kingdom of the Lord? And that they may be serviceable in such high inter- ests, how soon must they be submitted to the discipline of Christ ! how soon must they learn to rule themselves by the grace of God ! Generally speakmg, the indulged child makes the wilful man ; the wilful man becomes the heretical teacher, the schismatical leader, the op- pressive ruler, the disorderly member in the Church of Christ, the hinderer of the way of the Lord, the troubler of the body, the quencher of the Spii'it, the retarder of the kingdom. Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things — not in some things, but in all things. Some have the body 30 * THE CHRISTIAN RACE. emaciated, but the mind pampered ; some are enfeebled in body and miiid, with pride and stubbornness in their spirit; some tbink that the spirit can be humble and the mind vigorous, whilst the body is bloated with self-indulgence. Vain delusions all ! The holiest of all, and the holy place, and the outer court, are all the Lord's, and must all be yielded imto His service and kept for Him. 4 Therefore, in the third place, I wage war with myself, said the holy man, that I may save the body of Christ. I keep my own body under, that I may set the body of the Lord on high. I bring my own body into subjection, that I may set at liberty the body of Christ. This is the way to win the race — to contend for others, to contend with ourselves. So, said Paul, I run, not uncertainly ; but I know whither I go. So I beat not the air, wasting my strength in unavailing blows, but I strike with effect in striking myself. This is self-sacrifice — filling up what re- mains of the sufferings of Christ for the body's sake — walking in the footsteps of Jesus, who sought not His own things, who pleased not Himself, but laid down His life for the brethren. The body must be kept under and brought into subjection, or the race will be lost. The body says : I The earth is mine ; was I not made of its substance ? Am I not fed out of its bosom — my mother and my nurse? Shall not the child love its mother? True, but sin has brought in a cruel weaning. Because the body is the link of connexion between the soul of a man and the world which lieth in the wicked one, the wants of the body are supplied fi'om the outward creation; the appetites and desires of the body find THE CHRISTIAN RACE. 31 that wliereon to feed and grow in the creation around us. And this is natural, and founded in truth: for the world is ours. The earth hath God given to the children of men; but the time for en- joyment is not yet; the manner of the enjoyment is not yet understood. The meek shall inherit the earth. We shall reign upon the earth, say the saints in heaven. Our bodies must be reserved for that day. All things shall be fi'eely given to them wdien they shall be fitted to use all things, and all things shall be fitted to administer to their pure enjoyment. The heir and his inheritance must be kept asunder for a time, till they are both cleansed and made fit for each other. Flesh and the crea- tion are so united, that it required God in flesh to come between them, and keep them separate, till He should perfect the deliverance of both. Then will He brmg them together again. Meanwhile we must / deaden our affections to the world as it is ; they must not entwine around it — they must not lade themselves with thick clay : the eml^race will be fatal ; enchant- ment, stupefaction, oblivion of our inheritance, are in it. The man who delights in the honours, the wealth, the pleasures, the distinctions manifold of the present world, will not, cannot run the race with vigour for the next. How can he run for the earth as it is to be, who delights and glories in it as it now is? How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! The glorying in the good things now, is perfectly incompatible with the competition for the good things to come. Some think they can win both prizes — they are more knowing than Paul. He could not. 32 THE CHRISTIAN RACE. Two paradises no man may have. Choose it now, if you please, but renounce it there. I keep my body under, lest I be a castaway — lest at the end the judge should say to me : No prize for you — the prize to-day, which God and man rejoice in together, is the saved Church. You sacrificed not yourself to save it, but lived to please yourself. You used what was given to you, not as the Head of the Church dictated, but as your own will and taste in- clined. You pleased not His body to edification, but you pleased yourself to its destruction. This prize you did not run for, and therefore cannot receive. Again, the prize to-day is the redeemed creation — the glorified earth. This you longed not for. You loved to be called Rabbi, Kabbi, Lord, and King, in the old world. You could not contain yourself there. You rushed upon your inheritance before the time. You snatched from the hands of the devil what you should have waited to receive from the hands of God. You sold your hope — you received your price — your lot is your own choice, and it is fixed for ever. SERMON IV. THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY. And this I do for the GospeVs sake, that I might he partaker thereof with you. — 1 Cor. ix. 23. You is not in the original. The literal rendering is, That I may be a joint partaker with you, and with all who have a share in it — with Jewish and Gentile be- lievers. All this bending and accommodating of myself to others, which I have been speaking of as the rule of my life, is not for my own sake, that I may stand well with them, or gain certain ends of my own by them ; nor for theii' sakes, that they may be honoured, and petted, and made comfortable in their sins : but it is for the Gospel's sake, that it may get into men, and effectually work in them, and pour its treasures into the bosoms of all; that we may all share together its glories, sit down together at its common feast, enter together abundantly into the kingdom of God, whereof it testifies, whereunto it introduces : not worldly policy, nor fleshly gratifica- tion, but zeal for Christ, is the law of my conduct. The great end of all that the Apostles are doing «v 34 THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. now, is to get the Gospel into men's hearts, that the fruits of it may appear to the glory of God and of Christ Jesus our Lord. It is not in men's hearts: fragments of it are, parts of the whole, weak by themselves, as things without meaning and without force, not being supplemented by the correlative parts which would strengthen and perfect them ; the whole Gospel must be received, in order that men may re- ceive "the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." The whole Gospel can be educed from the wi'itten word of God, by the Holy Spirit working in and through the ministries of Christ; not otherwise. The whole Gospel can be illustrated and enforced by the symbolical things which have found an entrance, (whether according to God's perfect plan, or by His gracious permission), into the Christian Church. The Holy Scriptures are in the hands of some men, but they lack the interpretation of them ; and they have comments which darken the wliole volume of light, and do away altogether with some of its most im- portant contents: again the sense is made void by traditions of men. On the other hand, there are those who have a pictorial Bible, so to speak, though not the textual one; they have a congeries of sym- bolical things which they cannot set in order; they have also insignificant things mixed up with the signi- ficant, fond inventions with wise devices : the precious must be separated from the vile, and the true hiero- glyphics must be soberly and adequately interpreted. We study the Scriptures for the Gospel's sake, \ that we may, if possible, pour the whole of it into the minds of some ; we study the symboHsm for the THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. 35 Gospel's sake, if by any means we may cause its light to enter into the hearts of others. Men have a book put into their hands by God of which they do not know the meaning. Men have wrought with their own hands, directed by the Spirit of God, things of which they do not know the mean- ing. He who raised up interpreters of mystic things during the hiding in Egypt, and in the captivity in Babylon, raises up now deliverance for His people, through full and faithful exposition unto them of His purpose, sealed in the book and hidden in the symbols. We testify that the Gospel of Christ is the only source of all strengtli and blessing. Where that is not known, fully known, and entirely entered into, there God and man together must be defrauded. The Gospel for the day shows us this; even the parable of the field, and the seed tliat is sown in it. What is a field without the seed ? At best a beautiful desert. You may fence and weed, manure and dress, your chosen field; you may break it up with the plough, and smooth it down with the harrow; you may drain the soil, and ridge and furrow it ; it may drink in all the rain of heaven, and lie open to every sunbeam that invigo- rates, and every current of air that purifies and sweetens : yet, if no seed have been lodged in it, all the labour of preparation is for nothing: no crop will be reaped, no harvest will gladden the owner's heart, nor fill the reaper's hands. Everything that is done to the field by skill and labour is to prepare it for the seed; every blessing that comes down upon it from heaven by winter's frost, by showers of spring, by sultry summer, and ripening autumn, is for 36 THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. the sake of the seed, that it may burst in the earth, and grow forth from it, drawing up into itself all the sap and strength of the soil. Man labours and God blesses in vain where there is no seed to spring forth : the land may be good for something else, but for fruit-bearing it is nought ; beasts may run upon it, men may play or fight upon it, but nothing to feed the life of man and beast can be extracted from it : its treasure was not deposited in it, and no multiplied treasure is yielded by it ; it is cursed with barrenness ; it lies in death. Human society is the field; the seed is the word of God. Whatever else you may do for society, the harvest, which the maker and owner of it wants to reap from it, can never be produced, but by the word of God being hid in it and energising in it. The seed is the word, saith Christ, according to one evangelist — 'O cmi^m, tov Xoyov G'xzl^zr. the seed is the word of God, according to another — 'O aico^og, Iffrh 6 Xoyog rou Qiov : the seed is the word of the kingdom, according to the third — Tov "koyov rijc ^affiXuag. To prepare the Church for the full action of the word of God in it, is the end of what God is doing: and to recover the word, the whole word, and nothing but it, for the Church — to recover the word of God, His word freed from man's damaging additions and misinterpretations — His word. His letter and spirit — His form and the life thereof — what He said, and His meaning of what he said — what reveals Him, what manifests Him — that whereby He is fully known, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent— the word of God, the word which has come from Hiyn, which testifies of Him, in which He comes — the word of God which He will stand to, and seal, and THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. 37 bless — to recover the word of the kingdom^ the Gospel of the kingdom, the revelation of God concerning the kingdom, which He has purposed to bestow upon His Son, incarnate, crucified, and glorified ; and upon the Church the fullness of His Son, the mystical Eve of the second Adam — the word which treats of the kingdom — what, and where, and when, it is — who shall have it — how shall they be prepared for it — what earnest are they to enjoy of it before its full possession — what signs of it are they to show — what lieavenly manifestations, what earthly symbols, what organisation of the heirs of it now, what consti- tution of the Church it implies and inculcates. The Gospel of the kingdom is that which is needed for the perfect. " We speak wisdom," said Paul, " among them that are perfect " — " the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory." What is this wisdom of God — this wise plan of God — this end which His wisdom hath devised — this end which shall explain the meaning of His precedent acts and revelations — this consummation, which is, as it were, the master-key of His purpose in creation and in re- demption ? Hear himself give the answer : The wisdom of God for the perfect is, "the things which God has prepared for them that love Him " — " the things freely given unto us of God " — " to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ" — to be sharers with the true Melchizedek, the King and Priest who shall rule the world to come in righteousness, and offer the redeemed creation as an unbloody and reasonable sacrifice to God for ever. The Gospel, which reveals how individuals can have their sins 38 THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. remitted and their persons accepted by God, is good and needful to begin with, to lead and introduce men into Chi-istianity; but the doctrine of the Spirit is needed to make men perfect, as the Church, the body of Christ, and the hope of the kingdom, saves the perfect : it is the anchor of the vessel, sure and stead- fast. It is that which keeps us as Christ's house, " Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end; " it is the saving hope, never to be lost, according to that word, " Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering." That to which we are called will explain that for which we were made, and for what we were redeemed ; " Oh, that they would consider their latter end ! Oh, that they were wise, that they under- stood this ! " is the language of God to His people, urging them to reflect upon the far end of His dealings with them. The high place in which God has set the Church, and the glorious hope which He has set be- fore it, are the elements which compose what is called the " word of the kingdom," which the sower went forth to sow. God hid this Gospel in the typical things of His holy law — in the history of His servants, the patriarchs before the time of Moses — in the facts concerning Adam and Eve, in the creation of the world. When the fullness of time was come, and Christ died for our sins, and rose from the dead to the right hand of God, He sent down the Holy Spirit to reveal the hidden wisdom, to lift from all things the " face of the covering," and to show the glorious secret of God, which in all things He had de- posited ; then He enabled men to behold with open face. *' We," said Paul, " use great plainness of speech ; " THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. 89 we utter the purpose without reservation; our tongues are loosed to declare all that has been hidden ; we put no veil upon our face, as Moses did. But they were Apostles of Jesus, at God's right hand, who could speak thus : they were the spiritual ministers of Christ that used such plainness of speech. When Apostles were beaten back, and spiritual ministry was quenched, men could not plainly utter the hope ; they ceased to discourse of the Church as the body of Christ, the container of His fullness, and the doer of His mighty works ; the worthiest ministers in the Church became mere cleansers of the individual conscience, mere casuists for the guidance of individual conduct. But the Lord had promised to be with His Church for ever, and given assurance that His truth should not perish ; and what men's tongues failed to utter, even their hands were made to perpetuate: they were made to signify their calling and their hope when they could not speak it. Even by their sins were they made to show that the Church was called to a kingdom, and a kingdom upon earth ; the time of the kingdom was antedated, and the manner of it was misunderstood, but the fact itself was not lost. God made the wrath of man to praise Him; the means employed to destroy the spirit of Christianity were the very means whereby the form of all its truth was preserved. There are three ways of setting forth the fullness of the Gospel: 1st, by plain and accurate speech in the Holy Ghost ; 2d, by heavenly demonstra- tions, by manifestation of the power of God, by manifestation of the Spirit, by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the powers of the world to come; 3d, 40 THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. by sacramental rites, by symbolical representations, by material signs, by earthly emblems. Man, mys- terious man, half-heavenly and half-earthly, pro- nounces his creed with a human voice, which is not merely human, })ut with which is mingled the energy, and force, and fullness of the Spirit of God : and not only does he utter his creed with articulate speech, but he shows it with signs, derived from the two worlds which are combined in his being,— with heavenly manifestation and earthly symbolism : he says that he is called to the kingdom with Christ, and he shows it; he has the double earnest to show, the heavenly and the earthly. The kingdom of the saints shall be over the material as well as the immaterial creation ; by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and by their ritual observ- ances in the worship of God, they do show forth this. Again, I repeat, the principle of symbolical repre- sentation is a Christian principle; the Christian sacraments hallow that principle : whether men have gone farther than they ought to have gone in de- veloping that principle, is another question; but seeing that, in point of fact, they have acted out that principle, what they have done is not to be rashly and indiscriminately destroyed. It cannot be ignored ; it must be examined, and studied, and weighed; and all that illustrates the Christian doctrine must be kept, at least till that doctrine be fully recovered and fully vindicated : the parchments must not be burned till the sacred characters inscribed upon them be read and known. To take out of the mass of symbolical things the full amount of materials needed for the perfect testimony—to put them in order, that their THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. 41 testimony may be fully ascertained — this will be a work of apostolical wisdom. But the Sacraments of Christ are not mere pictures for the senses, mere study for the mind; nor are symbolical things in the Church a mere dumb show, or speaking by the fingers, so to speak, though they are that : but the sacraments of Christ show how the creation is bound up with the salvation of man. Christ gave His body to us by bread, because the creation is united to Him, and has become by its union with Him a new thing. The world is not now a mere creation of God ; it is also a thing redeemed by the Son of God, who took unto Himself a body made out of its dust ; it is related to its Maker more closely than by the mere bond of creator and crea- ture ; it is united with, yea, it is the parent of the matter out of which His creature form has been fashioned ; it is one with the glorified body of the Son of God ; it has undergone a change, a mighty change, though its substance lias not been lost ; and therein the term transubstantiation, as interpreted by those who use it, is an infelicitous term, destructive of the truth rather than confirmatory of it. The Church has endeavoured to preserve a testimony for that change in the language which is used respecting the Holy Sacrament, although it has led to the greatest errors. Still that language, however erroneous, has been an eflfort of man to set forth the wonderful effect upon the creation of God which its union with the Lord Jesus Christ has brought to pass. The crea- tion which we shall enjoy in the world to come shall be given to us by our Melchizedek as that which He made His body, in order that He might secure it unto 42- THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. US. The creation is a sharer witli us in tl:e salva- tion of Jesus Christ ; and the use of the creature things in the service of God testifies to this. Every- thing in creation is redeemed, and shall be repro- duced. We expect a new heaven and a new earth ; the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. The earth that now is shall not abide ; never- theless the things of the present earth are used in the service of God, for their mother's sake, which " shall not die but shall be changed : " they are perishable creatures, yet they represent the creature which shall be delivered from death and placed beyond the reach of perishing. Our present bodies are not the bodies which shall bear the glory of the heavenly king- dom— they shall not serve in the Melchizedek reign of Christ — they must be changed from the body of humiliation into the glorified body. Yet they are not excluded from the service of God — the soul indwelt by the Holy Ghost makes what use of them it can, and their present service is the assurance and earnest of their future glorious employment after the resurrection. Regeneration is now in our spirit, not yet in our bodies, not yet in the earth; but the re- generate part holds to it and makes use o/'the unre- newed, and keeps it serving in hope — Christ's pri- soner in hope — groaning and waiting for the day of its redemption. The perfect instrument for God will be the raised body, the glorified creature ; but He rejects not the service of that which is on its way towards its perfection. All things are redeemed by Christ, and all things shall serve Him, and the Church is set to witness for this. When the Church THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. 43 bears sweet incense before the Lord, she not only represents by the symbol the acceptableness unto God of His intercession, but she sets forth that all the sweetness which is in the creature shall be for ever poured out before Him, who hath redeemed it with His blood. When she burns lights before Him, she not only signifies what comes from Him, even the light of the world, but she sets forth that all the light and beauty which are in the works of God shall for ever shine forth at His bidding and to His honour. When the ministers of Christ are clothed in fine linen and in garments of bright colours, it is not that these things should be substituted for hea- venly endowment. Woe be to the Church when such a substitution takes place ! It is not that men may be made worthy to tread the courts of God's house, and to engage in His holy service by being arrayed in shining and costly apparel. There is no worthiness but by the blood of the Lamb ; there is no suffi- ciency but by the Spirit of Christ. It is not that men may have wherewith to glory in before their fellow-men. The Church clothes the ministers of her Lord with the best things which she can find in the creation, because she would thereby testify that all things are His, and that those who serve Him should be seen as the servants of Him to whom all things belong, by whom all things have been re- deemed. The Lord gives to His Church now the heavenly earnest of her glorious inheritance, which He hath obtained for her, and she lays at His feet every oflfering by which she can testify that He is King and Priest for ever. She brings the precious things of the earth into His service, because she be- 44 THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. lieves that the earth is His and the fullness thereof, and that He shall reign upon it. She heaps upon the cross the most costly things, and gathers around it the brightest, that she may thereby testify that all glory, heavenly and earthly, belongs for ever to Him who endured it. She presents to Him the best she can bring, because she enters into the ascription of praise to Him contained in the Scriptures of truth, where it is written : " And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders : and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands ; saying with a loud voice. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. And every creature which is in hea- ven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever." Men who believe not that the Lord has given anything to them, have no heart to offer anything unto Him. The thought of their heart is that the service of the Lord is con- temptible ; but they who have been forgiven much, love much, and grudge not to the Lord, and call not that waste which has been poured upon His head and emptied out upon His feet. If men deck out them- selves, and gratify a taste for foppery and bravery of apparel in the house of God, it is very evil, and sooner or later they must suffer for their pride ; but if they remove from themselves everything that is offensive when they appear before the Lord, if they suiTOund THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. 45 themselves in His presence witli everything that is pure and comely, and beautiful and glorious, for His honour whom they serve, shall He not regard their dutiful and loving intention, and accept graciously the best they can offer unto Him? No doubt the best thing of all is the humble spirit, in which He may dwell ; and the next best thing is the reason, which He can in- form with His truth and make the faithful muTor of His holy word : but the body also, with all its mem- bers, is an acceptable sacrifice, and the outward things by which the body is holpen and adorned in the per- formance of its service find a welcome entrance with it into the sanctuary of God, who rejoiceth over the works of His own hands. If men do not know the grace of God, and are as condemned criminals and slaves before Him, then any place where they can assemble to hear the pro- clamation of His mercy seems suitable enough: the more like a dungeon, a den, a condemned and forlorn place it be, the more in keeping is it with their con- dition; they want actually only standing-room for a herald of mercy, and room for themselves to be crowded around him — a barn or a market-house is as good as a temple. But if men are indeed what their baptism indicates, a people who have received remission of sins and are dwelling in the grace of God, then they want a place where they can present themselves before the Lord with oflferings in their hands, and perform before Him acts of worship. They come together not merely to hear of His mercy, but to praise Him for it ; not only to receive from Him, but to offer again unto Him of His own which they have received. They come together to 46 THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. worship the Lord, and they seek to show in every- way that it is the Lord they worship — the Lord of spirit^ oimind, and oi matter — the Lord of heaven and of earth. They bring before Him samples from His universal dominion, and rejoice to present them upon His altar and to cast them at His feet. By the fullness of worship, of which we speak, the Church does preach the Gospel of the kingdom. She says it, and she shows it. People who do not believe the Gospel of the kingdom cannot decipher the characters which contain it ; they cannot understand the rites which display it ; like the Moabites of old, who regarded the water which they looked upon as blood, because of the point of view from which they beheld it: (See 2 Kings, iii. 16, &c.) so men, un- believing themselves, see not life but death in things which to the spiritual are pregnant with instruction and refreshment. Babylon herself, who calleth her- self a queen, preaches more Gospel by the assump- tion of that title, than all the sects called Reformed, who pass by the high doctrines concerning the king- dom altogether, and occupy themselves for ever in the most elementary principles ; yea, who hardly ever make a beginning, who are ever digging for the foundation but never laying it, — ever crying out, there is no cure but the Gospel, yet refusing to use the cure. The many caricatures of Christian endow- ments suggest more truth than the blank which ignores them all. Babylon, which has retained the earthly signs of the kingly and priestly, yea and of the prophetic character of the Church, the body of Him who is the Prophet, Priest, and King anointed by God, has preserved thereby a testimony more full THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. 47 and accurate than can be gathered from all the pulpits where the Bible is held up, but not expounded. Her setting up of a kingdom upon the earth, is a testi- mony for the truth, that upon this earth Christ's king- dom shall be seen ; her accumulation of the things of the earth upon the altar of God, is a testimony that the earth and all the creatures of it are redeemed; her arrogating dominion over kings, and the right to dictate to rulers and nations, is a testimony for the truth that in the lis-ht of the New Jerusalem the nations o of the redeemed shall walk ; her offering of a material sacrifice continually, is a testimony that Christ suffered, not to destroy God's creation, and so rob Him of it, but to win it back to Him, and to present it ever as the unbloody offering upon His altar. Oh, that we might slay the lion like the judge of Israel, and eat the honey from the carcase, and go on our way interpreting the riddles that none else can understand ! Brethren, to conclude, if we be making a fair show in the flesh, having been taught better things, woe be unto us. If we are obtruding earthly offerings upon God, refusing to receive and render back to Him the heavenly glory, great shall be our fall. If we are adopting many observances in a spiteful spirit, that we may vex those who loathe such things, how shall we find mercy with Him who loves the bre- thren ? But if we are striving to compass the whole purpose of God, and to attain to the most perfect testi- mony for Him, verily He will bless us, and show us His salvation. If we are taking up stumbling-blocks from before the feet of His saints. He will give us the reward which awaits those who turn many to right- 48 THE FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. eousness. The faithful word of preaching shall satisfy the mind, the heavenly demonstration of the Spirit of Christ shall carry along with it the spirit of man, and the earthly symbols shall appeal for God to his very senses. Word, and spirit, and matter shall preach together the everlasting Gospel of our Lord and Saviour. Heaven and earth, and man the meeting- point of both, shall praise God for His goodness. Glory shall ascend to Him from all His works. Stand in all of you, and take your part in the service of our God. Lose not His Gospel which He has committed to you ; bear all the fruits of it, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred-fold. Great will be the struggle of the enemy to rob you of your part in it, but greater will be the power of the Lord to preserve you for your crown. See, in the Epistle of the day, what shakings He enabled a human vessel to endure, and the treasure could not be shaken out of it. He is for us as He was for him ; nigh unto us as He was unto him ; mighty in us as He was mighty in him. He has apprehended us to be His witnesses. Every testimony for Him which can be understood, He will draw forth from us and raise up by us, only let us cleave to Him and not distrust Him. Let us not be wise in our own conceits, but be fools that we may be made wise. Let us remember and hold fast, and hope to the end. Amen. SERMON V. LOVE. QULNQUAGESIMA. But the greatest of these is Charity. The Epistle treats of Love. First, it is compared to the highest things, and is preferred before them. The greatest gifts of the Holy Spirit are accounted inferior to love ; and secondly, it is set before faith and hope — it is far beyond the temporary things, and is the greatest of the abiding ones. Love is the greatest thing, but that which is greatest does not despise or disregard the things which are less. Love lives by faith and hope; that is, it exercises its life in acts of faith and hope. Love does not despise the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but seeks to have them, and to use them, for the glory of Jesus and for the edification of His Church. To be indifferent to the means whereby we may effectually serve Christ and help His Church, is not to love Christ and His Church, but quite the reverse. They who say they love Jesus, and yet do not seek to avail themselves of all the helps in their power to obtam for His service, deceive themselves. A man who says he loves his king, and who yet refuses to furnish himself with the means whereby he may E 50 LOVE. serve his king, is a loyal man in word only, but not in deed ; he who says he loves his family, and who refuses to strive for the means whereby he can befriend his family, his love is little worth. Love seeks earnestly to promote the interests and advance the cause of the party beloved, and searches high and low, late and early, for the means of doing so: if one way is better and surer than another, that way is adopted in preference to the other ; if the cause to be helped needs an eloquent tongue, love seeks to procure the service of the eloquent tongue; if the instrument needed is the powerful hand, that assist- ance is solicited and secured. What would be said of a lawyer, who said he was anxious for his client, and who on the day of trial failed to employ for his client the best advocacy to be had ? Wliat would be said of the soldier who should come into the battle for his king and country unarmed, when he might have been provided with proof armour and with every weapon destructive to the enemy ? St. Paul did not mean to turn men away from the consideration of the gifts of the Holy Ghost by what he says upon the subject of love, for that would be a s contradiction to what he had previously written, — " Now, concerning spiritual gifts, I would not have you ignorant :" if they were things of short duration and comparatively little use, it would be vain to bespeak attention to them so pressingly ; I would have you to know about them, — what they are, and what they are for. Again, if he meant what he said about love to draw away their attention fi^om the gifts, he would not have added immediately after his encomiums upon love, as a conclusion to the whole matter, "follow LOVE. 51 after charity, and desire spiritual gifts." He did not mean to say that tliere were two roads to Christian perfection, one of which was to supersede the other. Our EngHsh translation seems to favour such a sup- position ; but only seems, for a close consideration of even the translation teaches differently : but the original Greek altogether opposes such a supposition. The language in the last verse of the twelfth chaptei- means thus: I show you still more and more the way of the Lord. I have been enlarging through this chapter on the means given by God for the unity and perfection of His Church ; let me still point out to you the way more and more, by liyperl)ole — ex abundanti, so to speak. I am still, he says, showing you the way higher and higher. The end which God proposes concerning you is, that you should be one with Him and with each other ; and the means which He has set up to establish and perfect this unity are the mighty gifts of His Holy Spirit, and, mightier still. His own life of love in your breasts : by the former, He enables you to help one another and to stand together ; by the latter. He disposes you to help one another ; by both He perfects you, by the endowments of power and by the disposition of kind- ness : having the gifts of the Holy Ghost you have the powers for seiTice, and having the love of God in your hearts you have that principle which disposes you to use these powers for edification and not destruc- tion,— you are enabled to imitate God your Father, whose love guides and directs His power. St. Paul did not mean to say that the gifts of the Holy Ghost were to continue in the Church for a little .time, till the Gospel of God's love should be preached. 52 LOVE. and enforced, and believed, and men should in con- sequence learn to love Him, and one another for His sake. He did, indeed, say, that the duration of the gifts of the Holy Ghost was temporary; but what period does that temporary duration cover ? Hear himself : he says, — " Prophecies shall fail, tongues shall cease, knowledge shall vanish away." AVhen ? " AYhen that which is perfect is come." When shall that be ? What is the meaning of that which is perfect ? Does he mean when the canon of Scripture should be completed, when the truth of Christianity should be established ? " That which is perfect " is explained in the next verse. " Now we see through a glass darkly ; but then face to face : now I know in part ; but then shall I know even as I also am known." " That which is perfect " is seeing Jesus face to face, is knowing even as we are known. When shall that be? Then, opposite to now; in the next dispensa- tion, after the passing away of this. Gifts of the Holy Ghost shall necessarily cease, said St. Paul, when this dispensation ceases ; not sooner : the time of their presence with us, and use by us, is the whole period till that which is perfect is come, till we see our Lord again face to face, till we shall know Him as He knows us. St. Paul assigns no earlier period for the cessation of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and how dare we find an earlier period ? If he says they are meant to abide till that which is perfect be come, how dare we say it is no such thing, they were meant to abide for a much more limited period ? They are the earnest of the perfect thing, and until the perfect state should come the earnest of it was meant to abide ; by them Jesus shows Himself darkly as in a LOVE. 53 glass, till He shall show Himself face to face. We see Him not now, but we know that He is at the right hand of God by that which He sends down unto us from thence, that we may see and hear. We behold now, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord; we see what glory He has received as man, — God has highly exalted Him and a;iven Him a;lorv: and we know what His glory is by the gifts which He received for the rel)ellious. An imasre of Him who is Avise we have in the gift of wisdom, and so of all the rest : each gift is a reflexion of the glory of Jesus — each in its measure indicates who He is, and what He has attained to, and makes us Ions; for the meetino- with Him and the full fruition of Him. The gifts which Joseph bestowed upon his brethren mdicated the place he had arrived at, and the power he received, in the kingdom of Egypt. The gifts of Christ Jesus, the antitypical Joseph, evidence where He is and what He hath received. St. Paul enlarged upon the sul)ject of Love in TVTit- ing to tliese Corinthians, ])ecause he wanted to cut up by the roots evil tendencies, which had shown them- selves strongly in the midst of them. For instance, the spirit of selfishness was working powerfully amongst them, which led them to please themselves and seek their own private ends in everything ; and a factious, clannish spirit, Avhich led them away from the rulers, and teachers, and ministers given to them by God, and urged them to choose for themselves whom they would follow, and from whom they would learn. This spirit was perverting everything to an evil pur- pose ; it was twisting the very gifts of the Holy Ghost into the service of the individual, away from 54 LOVE. the service of the Lord. The life of the flesh was strong amongst these people, which is a hateful life — a life such as Cain's, who slew his brother and fled from the face of God. Against this wicked, self-seeking, self-pleasing hfe, he urged and pressed the divine life of love which Jesus introduced into our flesh : he dwelt upon all its marks, because each of these marks, as it was enumerated, was intended to strike upon their conscience, and to lead them to repentance on account of their evil ways. He does not mean to lead them away, in the thirteenth chapter, fi'om what he had been enforcing in the twelfth, but he labours to confirm more and more what he had there said, and to secure obedience to the instructions and counsels which he had there given. For example, the points he labours at in the twelfth chapter are, that all the gifts which were m the Church were from one Spirit, not several ; from one Lord, not several ; from one God, not several : however different they might be in their character and manner, they were all from the one source, streams from the one spring, and were intended to be one in their operation as they had been one in their origin, one in the Church, as well as one in God. " Now, there are diversities of gifts, but the saine Spirit;" diversities of ^a^/o-jooara, of graceful, ornamental endowments, adornings, bcauti- fyings, of God's elect, of Christ's bride, wrought by the Holy Ghost; "and there are differences of admi- nistrations, but the same Lord." Not only are they ornamental appendages — things fair to look at — but they are also useful things, powers for service, quali- fications for ministry, that the possessors of them may serve all the same Lord. " And there are diversities LOVE. 55 of operations, but it is the same God, which worketh all in all :" diversities of operations, of hspyri[jjuru, results brought about by divine operation and energy, monu- ments of God, evidences of His presence and power, standing memorials for Him, which men might look at and say. Behold, what hath God wrought ! These ornaments of the Holy Spirit, these instruments for the service of the Lord, these monuments of the power of God, have come down to you from the Spirit, from the Lord, from God, from the Triune God, from God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are diverse and yet one. As the source of them is diverse and yet one, so you amongst whom they operate, though diverse, are to be one : they are in harmonious co-operation in God, in the three Persons and one God ; so let them be in harmonious co-operation in you, the many members and yet one Church — in you, the body of Christ, the image of God, the one vessel of the Holy Ghost. His object in that twelfth chapter was not so much to enumerate the gifts and to treat categorically of their use (these things come in, indeed, yet incidentally), but to press upon the Church by many considerations that they were to be possessed and used in unity and mutual helpfulness ; therefore observe what he says next, in verse 7, — " But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." This trans- lation does not bring out clearly the strong meaning in the original: the words, "to profit withal," are T^og TO GV(L(pk^ov' that is, literally, for the contribution, or for the contributing, to make a common store, to promote and advance a common wealth, to help for- ward a common, a public interest. The " manifesta- 56 LOVE. tion of the Spmt," that is, all these gifts of which he had been speaking, which do manifest the Spmt of God as sunbeams manifest the glorious luminary which they come fi'om, or which are the manifestation of the Spirit, that is, the ways by which the Spii'it manifests God and the Lord Jesus Christ (whatever wav the word " manifestation " is understood, whether objectively or subjectively, whether as that by which the Spirit manifests Himself or manifests some other object), it is all for a common good ; no one receives for himself but for the whole community, of which he is an integral member ; no one receives for a party of his own friends and favourites, but for the large assembly of Christ's friends, for God's catholic Church. These gifts are one in then' soui'ce, even God; they are one in their object, even the common interest and good of all God's Church : their object is to secure to the Head of the Church His true place in the midst of the Church, and to secure to the members of the Church mutual help and coimnon perfection. " I give you to understand " (he says) " that no man, speakmg by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed ; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Speaking by the Holy Ghost, ministeiTJig in the Holy Ghost, are the means whereby Jesus is preserved from excom- munication ; and not only so, but is established in His rightful place of Lordship. (1 Cor. xii. 3.) I do not mean to say that the word of prophecy, or what is commonly called the voice of the Spirit, is the alone procurer of this honour to the Lord ; but I mean, that the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church, mani- festing Himself by all His gifts, is the divinely ap- LOVE. 57 pointed means of preserving the Church from aposta- tising from her Lord and Saviour. Where the Spirit is quenched, and the gifts of the Spirit are cast away, the result, sooner or later, is this, — that Jesus is made anathema, that is, excommunicate ; Jesus the righteous man is put down ; those who have in them the life of Jesus are treated as lepers, and driven out from the camp; the fleshly man obtains honour and favour, and the man in wliom the flesh is crucified by the power of Jesus is cast out as evil; and the lordship is taken away fi'om the Head of the Church and given to some one else. The presence of the Holy Ghost prevents this, — He withers the flesh. He casts it out; but He casts not him out who crucifies it: He honours Jesus — He calls Him, Lord ; He does not allow the kings of the earth to be put in His place ; He does not consent to a usurping Pope taking His place; He does not allow the majority of the Bishops or Presbyters to take His place ; He does not sanction the Church collectively taking the place of her Head, the wife intruding into her husband's seat; nor yet, lastly, does He allow anarchy, which opens the door to Antichrist himself: but He calls Jesus, Lord. He keeps Him at the head of the heavenly hierarchy of God's ministers, the heavenly community of God's Church, and sustains each mmister of His in the place which belongs to him under his Master, each member of His in the place which belongs to it under its Head. See how this truth, which we maintain, has been illustrated by the history of the visible Church. When the Spirit was quenched, when the manifold manifestation of the Spirit ceased because of the resistance to it which came into the Church, 58 LOVE. even in the days of the Lord's first apostles, one of whom said, the " mystery of lawlessness is working already," what soon happened ? The speedy re- turn of the glory, and pride, and strength of the flesh (both in its sanctimonious forms as well as its licentious habits), into the Church, and the speedy elevation over the Church of the worldly power. The worldly power of the Roman Emperor was soon followed by the Luciferian pride, the Satanic arro- gance of the Bishop of Rome, calling himself an Apostle — not called by God to be one ; intrudmg him- self into the seat of the Apostle of the Circumcision (who, after all, did not belong to him as a Gentile), against the warning of his own apostle, especially the Apostle of the Gentiles, who said to that very Church of Rome, and to every soul that was in it, — " Let no man think more highly of himself than he ought to think." The usurpation of the Pope has been followed by the disunion, and confusion, and anarchy of the Protestant Churches ; and, unless the ancient conservators of the order of the Church and of the honour of her Head do interpose, and be sub- mitted to, all must end in the reign of Antichrist, by whom every drop of the life of God shall be squeezed out from the visible Church, and every vestige of godly order shall be obliterated. In the present day, because of the aggressive movement of the Pope of Rome upon this realm of England, men are ranging themselves, some under the banner of Papal supre- macy, some under the banner of Regal supremacy — both banners inscribed with falsehood. The partisans of each have but a choice of evils ; which evil is the greater in magnitude it is hardly worth while to LOVE. 59 deliberate: how to escape fi-om both to the true supremacy of the Lord, is tlie only question worth a thought. Some are rejectmg Pope and King; but what are they preferring to both? either no rule at all — absolute, individual wilfuhiess ; or else the voice of the people, the control of those who ought them- selves to be ruled by those whom they rule. The Spmt of God has, indeed, begun to recover the supremacy for the rightful owner. He has begun to raise up again the foundations and ordinances, upon which the Church can be built and kept together as a House of God; but who will hearken unto Him? Alas ! He is still the Spiiit of truth, whom the world cannot receive. Well, to keep close to our argument. As these gifts of the Holy Ghost do conserve His place and dignity for the Head of the Church, so do they carry forward to perfection all His members. They are the means whereby some members in the Church are enabled to perform for the whole Church services similar to what in the natural body the eyes, and the ears, and the hands, and the feet, and all the active members which lay hold of the outer world, and appropriate it to the use of the body, perform for every man. Hear St. Paul : " The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom [the man who has that gift is enabled to contribute] ; to another, the word of knowledge [he who has that has something to supply for the common good] ; to another, faith [he who has this gift helps to keep the whole body steady in times of trial] ; to another, the gifts of heaUng [he also can help the 60 LOVE. l)ody] ; to another, the working of miracles [for the present help of all] ; to another, prophecy [to stir up all to the future glory] ; to another, discerning of spirits ; to another, kinds of tongues ; to another, in- terpretation of tongues. All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man seve- rally as He will." A¥liy ? Because, " as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the memlDcrs of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christy For the body is not one member, but many; therefore the forms of the Spirit's manifestation are not one, but many — to bring many into one. In the natural body the eye sees for the rest of the body, the tongue speaks for the whole body, the ears hearken for all the other members, the feet carry the whole body, the hands labour for food and dress the whole body : all these faculties are different, but one life is in them all; for one end the perfection of the whole. So it is in the Church, — you have received the Spirit from God that you may be all one Christ, one anointed, holy, glorious Church of God, blessing one another from Him, and helping one another to worship, and serve, and glorify Him. Thus, in the twelfth chapter, he lays down what in the thirteenth he confirms and secures ; namely, the unity, the co-operation, the common perfection of the Church. He says in effect, in the thirteenth chapter, in order that you may hold the powers of the Holy Ghost in unity, and use them in unity, it is needful that you love one another, and love God. Why are all powers in unity and harmony in the adorable Persons of the Godhead ? Because, as the Father loveth the Son, so the Son loveth the Father ; and the Holy Ghost, who LOVE. 61 proceedetli fi'om the Father and the Son, is one with both in divine love. It is said, " God is love ;" what- ever other attributes, infinite in number, inconceivable in gi'eatness, belong to Him, Love is the basis of all, and the employer of all. So must it be in God's Church : all gifts and powers are there, to al^ide and to operate, fulfilling the behests of Love, promoting the designs of Love, guided, exerted, sustained, by Love. Love, the centre from which they all radiate, to which they all revert — Love dispenses not with power, but directs it aright, and puts it forth with vigour. St. Paul in this epistle seems to be speaking to people who had lost theu' way, and to be recalling them to the original path from which they had strayed. Selfishness, sectarianism, party spmt, had come into the Church of God, against all that the apostle protested, declaring that the way of God to His Church was the way of imity and mutual help- fulness. I show you the way of unity, he said ; and as a proof that that is the way, I appeal to the gifts of the Holy Ghost which you have received, which are all from one source, and have one end, and one law of operation : these powers for unity indicate that the way of unity is the way in which God, who gave you these powers, purposed that you should walk. I appeal again, as to a surer indication of the way of unity being the way appointed for you, to the es- sential character of the divine life which you have received, — it is the life of love, and love unites, — love abhors isolation, love is miserable being alone: it attracts, it keeps, it hates casting away : separations, estrangements, divisions, are its tormentors. Thus, 62 LOVE. the powers which you have received from God, and the life which you have received from Him, both demonstrate that you were made to be many members and yet one body. Cease, therefore, from your divi- sions : they are unnatural ; they are contradictions to the powers bestowed upon you, which are all binding powers ; they are contradictions to the life which you have received from above, which is a bmding life, — a life that binds men to God and to one another, in the bonds of most holy love. The unity of the Christian Church was broken by the quenching of these gifts of the Holy Ghost, by the decaying of this life of love ; it will be recovered by the reappear- ing of these things — the servants of Christ the Lord recovering the endowments wherewith He qualifies His servants, and using them in love (loving not themselves and their own house, but loving the Lord and His Church), — the Church allowing again the free exercise in the midst of her of all the spiritual ministry which her Lord is pleased to bestow, and loving His servants for their works' sake. The long lost unity shall be found again. Unity never can be obtained but in God's way: in His way, however, it can be obtained, and He has disposed many in our day so to seek it, and they have been blessed from the time that they have been so employed ; in seeking good for the whole Church, they have found good for themselves : those, on the other hand, who, since the day that the Lord has begun to call them to understand His purpose, and to labour for the unity and perfection of His Church in His way, have refused to obey His call, and have been thinking only of their ,own individual growth in grace and attainment of LOVE. 63 salvation, — they have been withering in their own souls, and declining from the measure of personal religion which they experienced before: those who are occupied so much in their personal religion — in saving their own souls, as they call it — are vexed to find so much spoken and written everywhere upon the subject of the Church; they are stunned with the word, they are tormented by the repetition of it. But why is the word " Church " so much spoken ? Be- cause God has forced it upon the attention of men ; they must hear it in both ears, though it should drive them mad. A few years ago there was uni- versal silence upon the subject of the Church. The pulpits resounded with sermons for awakening sin- ners ; the press teemed with books and tracts on the evidences of personal, individual religion. Now the subject of the Church is forced into the pulpits, into the press, into the assemblies of the people, into the houses of parliament, into the judges' courts, and the royal palace, faen cannot escape from hearing about it : it follows them everywhere, it meets them every- where. God's hand is m the matter. Some years ago His Spirit broke silence amongst us upon the subject of His Church, calling for its revival, its reconstruction under apostles once more, with all the ministries and gifts of the Holy Ghost. His Spirit called upon the Church to come and put on her beautiful garments, and go forth to meet her Bridegroom, whose coming hasteth greatly. Well, since that day, men have been obliged to be occupied about the subject of the Church. In 1830 the voice of the Holy Ghost, speaking m tongues and prophesymg, was heard in the west 64 LOVE. of Scotland ; the wliole land was disturbed and agitated ])y it, as Herod and Jerusalem were trou- bled when they heard that Messiah was born. In 1831 the spiritual work extended to London, and spread itself through England. Men were called by the Holy Ghost to be apostles. In 1833 apostles' hands were stretched forth to ordain ministers, angels of churches, and all ministers under them : since that time the work of building has extended into many lands. The time when the Lord's work com- menced was remarkable ; it was soon after the pass- ing of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the Catholic Emancipation Bill, — these first great violations of the principle of an Established Church. Before those measures the testimony of these lands was for one Church. The Church established might be very un- like what the Church of Christ ought to be, still the principle was maintained that there could be but one Church in a land, and that all outside its pale were necessarily schismatics, and as schismatics bad men — men without the grace of God, or the full measure of it; and, therefore, men not to be trusted or ad- mitted into confidential places. Since these measures, the principle of schism has been justified by the nation which had condemned it; and plurality of churches, equality of all religions, which is an idea contradictory to the very nature of Christianity, has been allowed. The language of the Christian nation became, — There may be several Churches, all equally right, and equally wi'ong ; none in particular is wor- thy to be called more than another the cleanser and sanctifier of men. When this confusion arose, then God's work appeared to separate His Church from LOVE. 65 tlie mass of sects, and to show the difference between His real Church and everybody that should assume the title. Again, this work appeared at the very time when the cry, that all power is from the people, was loudest upon the earth ; in the very year — almost month — when the just King of France, according to that principle, was raised to the throne, when Louis Philippe, who reigned by the will of the people, succeeded the old race of French kings, whose title was to reign by the grace of God ; God's work appeared to save the Church, if she will be saved, from Babylon, and to stop the kings of the earth, if they can be stopped, from giving their power to the Beast and accepting their thrones from him. Brethren, since that time — since the voice of the Holy Ghost was first heard in our day — consider the history of Europe, everything since indicates that a crisis has been. Let not that crisis have been in vain for any one here to-night. I beseech you all to put away your unbelief, submit yourselves to God, and be filled with the joy of His service. Amen. SERMON VI. UNITY OF THE CHURCH. QUADRAGESIMA. Lent is the especial season in almost tlie whole vi- sible Church for repentance and humiliation. It is also the time when sermons especially controversial are preached ; every sect then strives, as it were, to wash its hands of false doctrine, and to fasten the blame of it on the right party, in order that the sin may be confessed and put away. Now, if there be any sin which can be especially attributed to the whole Church collectively, it ought to be stated at such a time as this, in order to direct the humiliation into a right channel, and to deliver men from the fruitless and wicked practice of accusing one another, into the godly and whole- some occupation of joining each other in common confession of common sin. Is there a sin which the Church collectively has committed, which only the Christian Church coidd have committed ? Can any one name that sin ? Let him do it in the spirit of love, and not of malice, and he will render the most valuable ser- vice to all his brethren. Let them hear it, not in UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 67 the spirit of pride and impenitence, but in liunii- lity and teachableness, and tliey may yet be recovered out of the desperate condition mto which they have been brought. If a man has gone wrong he must confess his error, and be willing to forsake it, be- fore the mercy and grace of God can come to him. The same law applies to the individual and to the body. Christendom must learn, must acknowledge, must forsake its sin, or its condition, ah'eady bad, will become worse and worse, till God's wrath to the uttermost burst upon it. Alas ! how many pulpits in this land, and in all lands, will resound for these few coming weeks with the accusations of Protestants against Papists, and Papists against Protestants; of one sect of Christians against another sect! Time will be wasted and talents abused in bitter accusa- tions and bitter recriminations of party against party; whilst few mil consider of themselves, or hearken to others, concerning a cause of complaint which God has against all parties, without exception — a cause of complaint so gi'ave and solemn, that all their mu- tual accusations of each other are as nothing com- pared with it. I beseech the indulgence and attention of my audience this night, while I endeavour plainly to bring before them this cause of controversy which God hath with us all. I beseech them to " hear my words, if peradventure they may understand my speech," upon this weighty matter. Never was there a darker or more perilous hour impending over men's heads than the present ; and there is but " one door of hope" to men ; namely, that they should know, accurately, plainly, fully know, the thing in which God is displeased with, and because of which He is 68 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. troubling tliem, and on account of which, if they repent not, He will speedily consume them utterly. My hearers are a])out to say, — Oh, the preacher is going to repeat to us the common truism on the tongues of all his profession, that we must confess our sins and forsake them, or God will punish us. Brethren, you are mistaken. I am not going to deal with your sins in general, but with one sm in par- ticular. I am going to dwell upon the sin which ought especially to be on every Christian's mind at the beginning of Lent, and which the portions of Holy Scripture appointed for the communion ser- vice, in all the Churches which have liturgies in a written form, do most particularly draw our attention to. Men may charge themselves with many sins against the law of nature, and agamst the revealed law of Grod. The Holy Ghost convinces men of one sin : " He shall convince the world of sin," said Christ, " because they believe not on me." This is the sin which I desire to fix your attention upon, that all may see to what extent even the best are guilty of it. Brethren, the Holy Ghost does not find fault with you because you are born in sin and conceived in iniquity. He tells you, indeed, plainly, that such is the fact ; l)ut he finds fault with you because you reject the remedy which God has provided for such a condition, or partially and inadequately apply that remedy ; He finds fault with you because you refuse to trust in Him whom God has given to you, that you might trust in Him ; because you refuse to study His names, and to learn what exactly they import, and to receive from Him the blessings which they severally stand for; He is vexed with you, with the UNITY OF THE CHURCH. G9 best of yovi, because you say so flippantly, and in so slovenly a manner, " I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," without striving to understand the full mean- ing of the words you utter: because you hold the truth in unrighteousness and in hypocrisy. You ac- cept the Gospel in terms, but you will not endure in detail the explanation of those terms ; you accept the letter, but the spirit and substance contained under it you treacherously evade: by your profession the Lord seems to have you, but in reality and practice you escape out of His hands, — as if a servant allowed a man to be called master over him, but whenever he presumed to act out that name he would reject him ; as if a woman allowed a man to be called hus- band unto her, but whenever he acted with the authority of a husband should utterly reject him. Every man says, " I believe in the Lord," and then goes his way, content to be without what the Saviour has to give to him, and to do for him, by that name, Lord ; he says, " I believe in Jesus," and he is content to have no idea, or a very inadecpiate one, of the words he speaks; he says, "I believe in Christ," and is satisfied to be empty of all the wonderful things which that name, Christ, doth stand for. Oh, bre- thren, to alloAV yourselves to be connected by name, by awful sacramental rites, with the Lord Jesus Christ, and to shrink from, to shii-k away from, to refuse, to reject, to do without — deliberately to do without — all the consequences of this connexion; this is the cause of complaint that God has against you; this is the playing fast- and -loose with God, against which He is indignant; this is the false- hcartcdness, the treachery, against which His jea- 70 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. lousy will burn as fire; this is the sin which fallen angels could not commit, which the Christian Church alone in the universe is capable of, and for which everlasting torments are specially prepared! What is the great, patent, plain proof of our common sin, which a man may read while he runs ? It is this, that we have broken the unity of Christ's Church, and separated ourselves mto many sects. In my sermon last Sunday evening I showed you how St. Paul pressed the subject of unity in the 12th and 13th chapters of 1 Corinthians. He showed them how God's provisions for them were in order to their unity — that all the gifts of the Holy Ghost which were amongst them had come down to them from one God, one Lord, one Spirit, and were given to them to make them one, — one as the members of the human body are one with each other. He showed them that the life of the second Adam, into whom the Church is baptized, the life of regeneration, is the life of love — of love which attracts, which unites, which bmds together, which never lets go, which abhors separation. The powers bestowed upon you, he said, are God's indication to you that you should be one body, and the means from God unto you to enable you to be such. The life of God introduced into your flesh by the Son of God, who came down from heaven in perfect love, from perfect love, is the proof to you that God calls you to unity with Him, and with one another in the power of love. The gifts of the Holy Ghost exercised in the Church in the love of Christ, would have preserved unity upon the eartli — unity visible for the world to look upon and to be con- vinced by ; unity invisible for the eye of God to be- UNITY OF TH^ CHURCH. 71 hold, and for our heavenly Father's heart to rejoice m. The unity of the Church has been lost, because the means for preserving it have been cast away — God's means, that would infallibly have succeeded if used in God's fear. After the loss of the true and effectual means for preserving the unity of the Church many make-shifts were adopted, and, of course, the evil only grew greater under their application. The power of the Roman Emperor was unable to preserve unity in the Church ; the power of the Roman Pope has not been able. Many Protestants have come into the wicked condition of justifying the want of it ; others, especially in this day, have endeavoured by evangelical alliances and religious societies in some measure to recover it : while the great mass of bap- tized men are settled down in awful security and self-satisfaction in their several sectarian positions, ignorant of God's purpose concerning His Church, and indifferent concerning the judgment whereby He hath begun, and will yet more terribly go on, to vin- dicate that purpose. The loss of the unity of the Chui'ch is the sin which all Christendom should be united in confessing ; from every cathech-al, from every meeting-house, from every conventicle, the con- fession of this sin shovild ascend into the ears of God — the one God, who is not the author of division, but of unity ; who said Himself, " How good and plea- sant a thing is it for brethren to dwell together in unity." The Greek Church, and the Latin Church, and the Protestant Episcopalian Churches, the Pres- byterian bodies, and all the denominations of Dis- senters, should be one here in confessing with sorrow and shame their want of unity. If they would unite 72 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. in confessing tliis sinful effect, they would be taught by God the sinful cause of it, and their humiliation would deepen as they proceeded ; they would confess also the sinful cause, and God would regard their true confession and return unto them again with blessing. The effect which proves our sin, and which is a dishonour to the Head of the Church, is our want of unity ; the cause of that effect is, that we have cast away the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the power and grace of our risen Head, which were given unto us to mamtain it. The Holy Scriptures connected with the Com- munion Service of this day do show how the gifts of the Holy Ghost were lost. In the Gospel, what is the subject? It is the narrative of our Lord's tempt- ation in the wilderness. What was He tempted unto? To use the power of God at the bidding of Satan — to get the promises of God fulfilled to Him by the instrumentality of Satan. Satan could not take from Him what God had given unto Him ; but he counsel- led Him how to use the heavenly gift. He tempted the Holy Son of God to use otherwise than at His Father's bidding what His heavenly Father [had given unto Him. Exercise this miraculous power that you have entrusted to you, as I bid you, said the wicked tempter, and so supply your present need in the wilderness. Put forth this power of fiiitli which is m you at my bidding. Cast yourself down as I suggest, and give the angels of God an opportunity for holding up your body, lest it fall. Do as I l)id you ; pay homage unto me, and receive at my hand the kingdom over all the earth which UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 73 has been promised unto you. Exercise your mira- culous power ; set in motion the hosts of ministering angels ; enter upon your kingdom at my bidding, and in the ways counselled by me. This was the wicked plot of the enemy : to make the Son of God use diabolically His divine powers, and obtain diaboli- cally His divinely - appointed kingdom ; to take the power of God out of the hands of God and to direct it Himself; to make the Son of God to be, not the faithful steward of God, the obedient servant of His heavenly Father, but the depositary of power for Satan's service, the agent and tool of the wicked fiend. That was the daring, presumptuous thought and act of the ambitious fallen angel, the king of pride. The second Man, the Lord from heaven, was tempted and sinned not. He glorified God by using for God, in God's time, and way, and holy fear, what God had committed unto Him. He held God's gifts under God, in subordination to the Giver, and to carry unto perfection His adorable will. Well, all things are written for our learning : the temptation of the Head of the Church was recorded for the Church, not only to comfort her heart by the assurance of His victory, but to lead her to follow His steps. Unto the Church on the day of Pentecost were given the powers of the Holy Ghost from her risen Head. He then baptized His body, as He promised, with the Holy Ghost and with power. The wicked one, who saw the endowment of the Head of the Church, saw also the endowment of the body with the same Spirit which had without measure been poured out upon the Head. He who tempted the Head tempted also the body. The second Adam failed not ; and because He 74 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. jDrevailed His Church shall be saved for His sake. The second Eve failed as the first did, because she did not liearken to her husband's voice and abide in her husband's presence. She was allowed to fall that she might glorify God for His mercy, and recover herself even after her fall by confessing her sin, and trusting in His grace, and learning wisdom by what she had suffered. The Epistle for the day shows us how the enemy prevailed against the Church. Paul said, "We then, as workers together with Him, be- seech you that you receive not the grace of God in vain." Do not let all that you have received go for nothing; let it not be wasted — given to you in vain — without accomplishing what it was sent for; without doing its proper work, effecting its proper result. I warn you, he said, that it may be so ; you may fail to do with what God has given you, what God intended that you should do with it. All His mighty gifts unto you may be in vain ; your gifts may be misdirected — ^may be perverted — may be turned into a curse — may come to nothing, and worse than nothing. Why did the holy Apostle use such language as this to the Church to which he was writing? That Church was filled with the gifts of the Holy Ghost. It came behind in no gift. The testimony of Christ (the anointed and anointing one) was sealed in it. Why had St. Paul any apprehen- sions for those who were so filled with the power and presence of God ? Because in the midst of all that spiritual glory they were beginning to turn away in their hearts from Paul himself Paul was set over them by the Lord, to watch over them ; to rule and UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 75 guide tlie Spirit in them ; to teach them how to use their spiritual gifts ; to keep them and their gifts in subjection and subordination to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now they were growing weary of Paul's superintendence; they did not want to be account- able to a man like one of themselves : authority over them galled them; they wanted to be free — to use as they pleased what they had received from the Lord. They wanted to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but they did not like to have apostles of Jesus Christ applying unto them, and preserving amongst them, the discipline of the Lord; they would not let men rule over them in the name of the Lord ; they would not let men teach them with authority; they would not recognise in men the authority of God; they practically separated the Christhood of Jesus from His Lordship : the men whom Jesus sent to them they were rejecting, and vainly thought, at the same time, that they could retain the Spirit which He gave unto them. In a word, the " mystery of lawlessness " had begun. The rule of the Lord was oppressive to the flesh, was painful to the worldly spirit, and it was resisted — it was resisted in the person of St. Paul ; his apostleship was called m question ; they said he was not one of the original twelve. Peter and James were quoted against him ; those who had seen the Lord in the days of His flesh, and companied with Him, were quoted against this man of Tarsus, who had perse- cuted the saints. Paul strove to hold the Church to himself, that he might fulfil his mmistry in it — that he might do in it what the Lord had given him to do : therefore he enlarged upon the marks of his apostle- ship ; he went into all details upon the subject most 76 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. painful to himself to dwell upon, and making him appear as a fool and a boastful man: he said, I am an apostle as much as Peter and James. Yea, when the lustre of their apostleship was dimmed before opposition in the Church, mine shone out the more brightly. I overcame the Judaising party before which they succumbed ; I rebuked Peter to his face ; I got the apostleship) to the Gentiles transferred, as it were, from the first apostles unto me. I am your apostle, ye Gentiles; the Lord has sent me unto you. But they would not have him in heart; they turned away from him; they began to be unequally yoked with unbelievers; they suffered fools gladly; they chose to themselves false apostles, and turned away from the Apostle of the Lord ; they heaped to themselves teachers, and would not be taught by the very man appointed of the Lord to teach them. It was in this way that the mighty grace poured out upon the early Church came to nothing. It was not used in obedience to Him who gave it. His apostles were not allowed to have control over it. It was used at the bidding of the tempter, and not under the rule of Jesus ; therefore it was withdrawn. God would not permit that the gifts of His Christ should be the appanage of Satan; the kingdom to come is not his, but the Lord's, therefore the earnest of that kingdom must be used for the glory of the Lord in obedience to the rule of the Lord, or not at all. To seduce the gifted Church from the hands of apostles, to take the bride out of the charge of those who had a commission from the Lord to betroth her unto her Husband, and to keep her for Him, and ultimately to present her unto Him ; this was the plot of him who UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 77 liatetli both the heavenly Bridegroom and His hea- veii-l)orn though earthly bride. This plot seemed to succeed; in the end it shall redound to the greater glory of God, and shall not hinder the salvation of His Church; but it hath given the semblance of a triumph unto the enemy, and hath brought out the great sin of those " who received the grace of God in vain." The Church would not be ruled by Apostles; the Church rejected the apostolical ministry in the person of Paul. Since that hour — that dark hour — the Church has known but days of adversity ; many tyrants have oppressed her, and in her bondage she hath almost utterly forgotten her high calling and her glorious hope. Except by Apostles restored to the Church, and by the gifts of the Holy Ghost again revived in the Church, there can be no recovery of unity, and no progress to perfection ; and no persons in the Church visible have courage to speak of such things as pos- sible, but those who believe that the Lord is causing tlie ministry of apostles to appear again in His Church, and the buddings of spiritual power to be seen. The people, builded together by apostles, and having in the midst of them the manifested presence of the Spirit of God, know that the unity, visible and invisible, of God's election is possible; they know that perfection is attainable; they know that the Church is called to be " without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ;" and that He who has called us to that, is in the midst of us to bring us to it. They know that the Lord can prepare a people for transla- tion to His glory at His appearing and kingdom, and therefore do they pray with hope unto Him to do it; 78 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. they have the witness in themselves that God has begun to revive His work in the midst of the days ; they are themselves the proof of it. Men will not discern the work of the Lord hut by becoming them- selves part and parcel of it. God is doing a work in our day which is discerned in the spirit and in the conscience ; He is not forcing conviction upon men by outward signs, He is giving them higher evi- dences than miracles and outward signs would be — the Spirit of Christianity is a higher thing than all the miracles which could be wrought to attest it. God is appealing to men now according to the place where He has set them, and the work which He has done for them. When He set up Christianity upon the earth, He had Jews to deal with and heathen, neither of whom were in the regenerate state; who were not baptized; upon whom the Spirit had not been poured, — they were in the natural condition ; therefore He appealed to them with signs which were addressed to the natural. He spoke to them in the language which they could understand — but in the end of the dispensation God has to deal with bap- tized men; with those to whom He has given His Spirit ; who ought to know and understand the way of the Spirit, when He speaks and acts in the midst of them. He manifests His Spirit in the midst of the Church in the way in which the spiritual alone can understand ; He finds out thereby those who are really spiritual in an age when all profess to be so. He discovers those who really have faith amongst a people who are all set up to have it. If any one amongst the people whom the Lord has gathered, and to whom is given to discern His work UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 79 in these days, were called upon to say, why do you believe in this work? he would say, in effect, what the disciples said to Christ : " Thou hast the words of eternal life." He said of His disciples, in prayer to God, " They have known surely that Thou hast sent me." How ? " The words that Thou gavest me I gave unto them." The work of the Lord is spiritual, to be discerned by the spiritual ; to be known by the doc- trine and testimony which characterise it, and by the whole spirit and tendency of it. Men who say they would believe if they saw outward proofs enough, would do well to consider the Epistle of this day; then they will see what proofs of apostleship were shown unto men ; and yet, after all, they shiimk away fi'om him in whom such proofs appeared, and pre- ferred impostors to him. They doubted whether Paul was really an apostle at all. And yet he could say of himself, " giving no offence in anything, that the ministry may not be blamed," " but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God:" he who gave no offence in anything, whose ministry could not be blamed, who approved himself m all things as a minister of God, he was questioned, was doubted, was set aside, was rejected for fools, for evil workers, for false apostles, for sons of Belial : and by whom ? by the Church which had seen his gifts, and tasted of them ; which had been built up by him ; their spiritual vision had become dim ; the love of the world and of sin blinded their eyes, and took judgment out of their heart ; they called evil good, and good evil. Claims were admitted which had no weight or force in them at all ; and claims weighty as Christ could make them, were utterly despised. 80 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. If Paul were alive now, and were ministeiing amongst the cliurclies, a few would recognise Lis doctrine to be true and lioly, and would discern the spirit that was in him to be from God ; but the bulk of the people in all the churches would prefer to him all the commonplace pulpit orators and sciolists in theology of the day, — yea, they would prefer to him the teachers of false doctrines, and the diluters and adulteraters of the true. Paul's standard of Chris- tianity would be too high for them : his claims on Christ's behalf would be too strong and pressing for them. Lukewarmness and half-heartedness in re- ligion please them best. Paul's burning zeal would be intolerable to such : he could give them no excuse for any sin; and, therefore, would be set aside for every one skilled in false casuistry, who could explain away the meaning of texts, and sing a lullal)y of false peace to evil consciences. The more godly a work is, the less likely is it to be relished by the ungodly. The men who rejected Paul — yea, who rejected Christ — thought they had good reasons for domg so. No doubt they accounted the followers of the Apostle and of the Lord Himself a party of poor fanatical creatures ; and congratulated themselves secretly, at least, on their good sense, and right feeling, and superior intelligence in all re- spects. But there are some good people who have great discernment of the work of the Lord, which He is working in their day and before their eyes, but still have difficulties which they cannot explain, just as the disciples who followed the Lord had difficulties which were never understood by them till long after UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 81 He was taken away from them ; and their joy and confidence in following Him were perpetually inter- fered with by these difficulties. Some of them He answered when they brought them up to Him ; some of them He left to them to struggle with till His full time for giving them deliverance. Well, one of the difficulties which these good peojjle have with the work of the Lord now is, that it does not correspond exactly, in all its out- ward features, with the work of God when He esta- blished Christianity in the beginning. Such persons I would ask, Did the work of John the Baptist, at the end of the Jewish dispensation, tally ex- actly with the work of Moses at the beginning of it, or even with the work of Elijah, who, according to Christ, was the very type and predecessor of the Baptist ? Did the Baptist do to the outward eye the very things that Elias did ? Nay : yet the Lord called him Elias. Again : did the deliverance out of Babylon, by Joshua and Zerubbabel, and the rest, tally exactly with the planting of the children of Israel in the land of Canaan in the beginning, or with the deliverance out of Eg^'pt ? Verily no : yet God was with John the Baptist, as truly as He had been with IMoses and Elias ; and He was in the deliverance out of Babylon, where no miracle was wrought, as much as he was in the rescue from Egypt and the in- troduction into Canaan, where a suite of the most stupendous miracles was performed. And why should not the outward phases of God's work in the beginning and in the end of the Christian dispensa- tion diffijr fi'om each other as the beginning and end differed in the Jewish? Did God ever copy exactly G 82 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. His former work ? Are not His ways infinite ? Were the outward circumstances of Isaac and Jacob exactly what Abraham's had been ? Did God do the exact thing with Moses which He had done with Joseph ? with one judge which He had done with another ? Was Solomon like unto David or Heze- kiah, Jehoshaphat or Josiali like unto either or to one another ? In one thing all the servants of God, in every age, have l)een like each other ; one thing they have had in common, — faith in God, discernment of God's matter in hand in their day ; in all other things they have been endlessly diversified. In Noah's day the matter in hand was to build an ark : in Abraham's time the work of God was for a man to set out on a long journey, he knew not whither, trusting in a voice which he heard that it was the voice of God : in Joseph's time God's servant had to sit at the right hand of a king, and rule his people for him, and to bring God's seed into the land of strangers : in Moses' time the work of God was to take the people of God back again out of that same land, and to plague the people of that land with divers plagues, and ulti- mately to drown them in the sea: in the days of Joshua the work of God was to make cities fall flat at the blowino; of rams' horns, and to make the children of Israel slay without mercy millions of men : in the time of Nehemiah the work of God was to build a wall which a fox could leap over, and to ex- pose His feelile servants to the scorn and mockery of all their enemies. In the beginning of Christianity the work of God was to bring men into the spu'itual condition; in the end of it, to recover men to it. The first apostles had to betroth a virgin unto Christ ; UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 83 the last apostles have to cleanse a harlot, and make her fit to be the wedded wife. One set sowed the Christian Church, the other will have to reap it. Sowmg and reaping are different in some respects, in one they are alike : they both belong to the seasons in which they appear; they are the seasonable, the proper works of their day. God will never allow men to know what He is going to do next by what He has done last ; but if they have entered into the spirit of what He has done last, they shall be pre- pared thereby to understand what He will do next. Why don't you receive me ? said Christ : because you don't believe Moses, because you did not hear John. If Protestants had been going forward since the Re- formation from the point where Martin Luther brought them to, they would not be taken aback by the EHas ministry of the last times. But men re- fusing to go forward are always taken by surprise when God works amongst them, because His work is ever progressive. He always is going forward ; and those who improve what He has given them are able to receive more as He goes forward to lead them into it. You who hardly endui'ed preachers of the rudi- ments of Christianity, how will you be able to bear apostles and the fourfold ministry teaching you the harder and higher lessons of it ? Kot having walked with the footmen, how will you run with the horse- men ? They who would not tolerate the letter of Scripture, the new form of sound doctrine, how will they endure the spirit of it, the terrible power and righteousness of it? Brethren, in this day God is making men to know the sin which the Christian Church has to 84 UNITY OF THE CHURCH. confess ; namely, that she has lost her unity because she cast away apostles and quenched the Spirit. Some have apprehended God's teaching, and have confessed the sin, and sought His mercy and de- liverance. He has heard their prayer ; He has begun to restore what He took not away. I beseech you, all who hear me, put away your pride and un- belief; fall in with God in His way of blessing to you ; be reconciled to Him, with whom your fathers quarrelled and you have kept it up ; learn meekness ; awake to righteousness; humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you in due time ; He will serve Himself of you, and will make you exceeding glad in His salvation. Amen. SERMON VII. TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT. The Epistle. — We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. — 2 Cor. vi. 1. The Gospel. — Then was Jesics led up of the Spirit into the wil- derness, to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. — Matt. iv. 1-3. The Collect m the "Book of Common Peater." — 0 Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights ; Give us grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteous- ness and true holiness, to thy honour and glory, S^c. The Gospel records tlie temptation of the Head of the Church, and His successful issue from it. The Epistle contains an admonition to the Church not to receive the grace of God in vain, setting forth the tnals through which the faithful might be called to pass, through which the true ministers of Christ were then actually passing. The Collect enjoins the duty of abstinence, as the means of subduing the flesh to 86 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. the motions of God's Spirit, and prays for grace to practise it. Then there are three things — the temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ ; the temptation of the Church ; and the means by which the Church should follow the Lord, obtaining the victory as He did. The season of Lent is regarded in the Church universal as emphatically the season of conflict. Lent was the time for confuting heresies, for accurately in- structing catechumens previous to the Easter Baptism, for exercising penitential discipline towards those who had sinned openly, and for subduing by fasting and acts of humiliation all the Church to the most perfect obedience of Christ. At the present day there are some remains of these exercises. The Church of England begins the Lent with the very solemn Commmation Service of Ash- Wednesday, an acknowledged substitute for the ancient penitential discipline, and closes it with the services of Passion Week, in which all the narrative of the last sufferings of the Lord from the New Testament, with appropriate portions of the Old Testament, is set before the minds of the worshippers ; and Good Friday is regarded by the Church of England as the great fast-day of the year — a day on which the people are called off from secular employ- ment to worship God, and hear sermons concerning the work of the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the other parts of the visible Church there is more or less of regard for this season as the time of humi- liation, and the practice which prevails everywhere of preaching courses of controversial sermons during the Lent is an indication that the Church regards TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 87 til is time as an especial one, for clearing tlie founda- tions of her faith and rescuing the truth of God from all perversions and adulterations attempted by the devil or man. In a Avord, the Baptismal engagement to contend with the flesh, the Avorld, and the devil, is especially at this time laid upon the mind of the Church universal. We shall, therefore, be engaged in a catholic work, and may hope for a catholic spirit, in labouring to ascertain the meaning and to apply the force of the lessons from Holy Scripture w^hicli the Church on this day puts into our hands : and let us ask the blessing of God upon ourselves and our employment, that we may see what He has revealed, and learn and do what He has commanded. The temptation of our blessed Lord took place after His baptism and before His ministry. It is re- lated by three of the evangelists, and some marks of difference appear in their respective narratives. St. Matthew says, that " He was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil," and leads us to suppose that the temptation unto which he* was led up took place at the end of the fast. St. Mark's account might be interpreted to show that the temptation lasted through the forty days; and St. Luke's account seems to admit of no other mean- ing. "Being forty days tempted of the devil." However that may Idc, God has sealed up the mys- terious history of the forty days' supernatural fast and conflict, perad venture, with the powers of darkness, and we cannot break the seal. What, perhaps, alone is intelligible by us as we are now ciixumstanced, or ever ahall be, certahily what is profitable for us, has 88 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. been revealed. TJiat let us approach mtliout curi- osity, but with a lioly thirst for the knowledge of the things which God would not have us to be ignorant of. We are not informed that the Evil One knew of the birth of the Messiah. Some of the early Christian fathers say that the miraculous conception and birth were hidden from him. Certainly we are not told m holy Scripture that he had heard the song of the angels, or seen the worship of the wise men, or wit- nessed the presentation when holy Simeon and Anna welcomed in the Spirit the Lord of the Temple — that he had troubled the childhood of Jesus, or seen Him sitting amongst the teachers of the law, astonishing them by His questions. When the Lord attained the age appointed in the law for the priests to begin their office, then he was baptized by John, and ac- knowledged by God the Father, and filled with the Holy Ghost, and immediately after He was led by the Spirit (as two of the sacred writers relate ; the Spirit driveth Him, according to St. Mark) into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. God's chosen one, who fulfilled all righteousness and was fully endowed with the glory belonging to the riglit- eous, being brought forth, the ancient despoiler of God's creatures is let loose upon Him ; rather, He the mighty one is driven by the Almighty Spirit upon the enemy, to find him in the wilderness, to provoke the conflict, and to gain the victory. Satan found his way into Paradise ; Jesus finds him out in the wilderness. The first man was surprised by his temptation, and overcome; the second man went to meet his temptation, and overcame. The scene of the temptation symbolised, so to speak, the creation TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 89 wliicli was to be delivered — lie who had desolated the earth was visited in the ^vilderiiess, as it were in the midst of the trophies of his victory, the monu- ments of his malice. Not in the crowded city, in the peaceful plain, in the happy harvest field, but in the howling wilderness, amongst the wild beasts, did the Prince of Peace go forth to contend with the de- stroyer. No man was present to witness the en- counter. His glory on Tabor, His agony in Getli- semane. His death upon the cross, were witnessed by men — at least their presence was allowed — but in His awful temptation He was alone. Before considering the temptation in detail, it may be observed m illustration of the whole subject of fasting, that it was the first result of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the man Christ Jesus. By the Holy Ghost men shall rule and enjoy all things, but first He sustains them in the deprivation of all things. Jesus did not use the Holy Spirit to enjoy the creation, but to abstain from it. And the Holy Spirit is given unto us, not that we may enjoy a feast, but that we may sustain a fast — a fast which is to continue till the marriage supper of the Lamb. He who was righteous, and then was anointed with the oil of gladness, and in the power of the same fore- went the enjoyment of all things, having the flesh dead, being filled with the Holy Ghost, and ab- staining from the world. He was fit to enter into the conflict with the prince and god of this world, the spirit that worketh in the disobedience of fallen flesh. The Church, partaking of His righteous- ness, having the flesh dead, not in a figure but really, by His divine life, and being endowed by the Holy Ghost, and ])eing delivered by the Spirit 90 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. which catcheth men up unto God from the world, that lieth iii the wicked one, is able to wrestle with the powers of darkness. The body of the Son of God, instinct with His life, anointed with His power, and abiding in His discipline, can withstand in the evil day, do all, and stand, and come oif more than conqueror, through Him that loved us. But without this preparation, who shall stir up the old Hon? who shall challenge leviathan? It is safer and wiser to quit the field — to make a truce in time — to fall back into the condition of mere improvement of the natural mail by philosophy and law. The Church being in the Spirit, fasting and praying — fasting from the fallen and polluted thing, and communing with God — perpe- tuates to Satan the terrors begun by the Lord. " This kind goeth not forth but by fasting and prayer." The temptation of the Lord in the sacred record is threefold : to impatience, to presu7nption^ to apo- stasy from God. The wicked one proposed to Him three things, which, rightly understood, His heart desired, namely: the turning of the stones of the wilderness into bread for the use of man; the em- ployment of ministering angels for the help of man ; and the possession of the kingdoms of this world by the Son of Man. The proud fiend aspired to guide the Holy One in the exercise of the power committed to Him by God the Father, and in the employment of the services of the heavenly hosts; and then presumed to demand homage of Him as the prince of the world — tempting Him to work at his bidding twice, and finally to worship him — to use his instrumentality for obtaining without sufiermg what God had promised as the reward of crucifixion and death. The enemy tempted the Lord, first, to a hasty TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 91 and selfish exercise of His heavenly power — to mur- mur for bread in His terrible hunger, and to work miracles to obtain it. Jesus remembered that Israel was fed with manna in the wilderness forty years. He referred to that fact in His answer to the tempter. Men led into a wilderness heretofore by the word of God were not there forsaken by Him ; and those who trust in His word shall never be forsaken by Him. " He that belie vetli shall not make haste." The first temptation was to distrust; the second is to over-trust — not to believe at all, or to believe amiss. The tempter, finding himself answered with "It is written," prefaces his next temptation with " It is wi'itten," and misquotes the holy Scripture — dealing deceitfully with the word of God — urging a promise of God, but suppressing the condition of its fulfilment. The answer of the Lord to this temptation was taken from a remarkable chapter (the 6th of Deuteronomy), in which is contained the charge, " These words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart." In that chapter it is a people filled with the promise of God which is warned against tempting Him. By the first temptation the deceiver would dissuade from faith; by the second he would push faith into fanaticism. ^ Unbelief, fanaticism, idolatry, make the triple cord by which he bindeth his victims. To believe God's promise, and to slight the condition annexed to that promise, is pure fanaticism. To hold God sacramentally, and let Him go absolutely, is pure fanaticism. To that the devil tempted the Son of God. Deliberately, advisedly, put yourself in a wrong position, and still trust God. Nay, that were not to trust, but to tempt Him. The third and most darmg 92 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. temptation was to idolatry — to apostasy from the worship of God to the worship of the devil, as the readiest, the easiest way to the kingdom — to disarm the strong man armed by concession, not to despoil him by force — to conciliate the devil and beguile him of his kingdom. To this temptation the Lord replied, not merely by excepting the devil from beings to be worshipped, but by claiming worship to God alone ; and, therefore, showing that the worshipping of any other than God alone, whatever specious form it might take, would be in reality doing that which the devil demanded of the Lord. Not to worship the Lord directly, and alone, while we worship, is to wor- ship the devil, and therefore the corrupters of Christ- ianity, who are plagued by the judgment of the sixth trumpet (see Rev. ix.), are thus described: — "And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk." The images might be made for the professed use of the worship of God — certainly not professedly for the service of the devil — yet through them the devil should obtain the worship, and God be defrauded of all. Thus was the holy Head of the Church of God tempted by the enemy of God and man to employ impatiently, and selfishly, the powers committed unto Him as a faithful steward — to be partial in the truth, and to tempt God by dividing His testimony — to trust in a mutilated revelation — and, lastly, to be indebted to the devil for the possession of His kingdom, and to obtain pos- session by an act of idolatry. These were not written TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 93 merely for historical accuracy, that we might know the exact points upon which our Lord was assailed, but also were they written for typical instruction to the Church : for He, the great fulfiller of types, was Himself a type unto His people who should come after Him. To distrust God, to trust in Him amiss, and to worship the ftilse gods, have been temptations plied against the body as well as against the Head. In the first temptation the wife was first deceived, and her husband followed her in the transgression, com- mitting the same act which she had done. In the second temptation the Husband was first in the trial and triumph, and left His Church to follow Him, to partake of His victory — by abiding in His grace to prevail — by departing from the same to suffer defeat. They who have abidden in His grace have ever prevailed. But have all so abidden? Has any portion of the visible Church so abidden? To accuse the brethren is not good ; but to deny the truth, and call bitter sweet, is far worse. The truth, even in accu- sation, may do good. From lies nothing can come but evil. The Church ought never to have been overcome. De jure^ she was ever infallible, and im- peccable too, being mamed to Him who is risen from the dead, who containeth bodily all the fullness of God — true, and holy, and mighty as God — being God over all, blessed for ever. But, de facto, the visible Church has been overcome, and in every way ; and if these things be not so, an extraordinary re- vival would indeed be an incredible event. Of what use to restore apostles to the Church which had done quite well and gone on right without them? To parade personages with pompous titles upon a 94 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. stage where they have no work to perform corre- spondent with their names, is an insult to the common understanding of man ; much more a blaspheming of the word of God. Did the visible Church go right up to a certain point in its history — say the sixteenth century — when successful rebellion broke out and schism was established? And have apostles and the fourfold ministry no higher mission than to beat down that rebellion^ and undo that schism, and re- cover to the forsaken centre the powers which had wildly and wickedly broken away from it ? And what is the centre ? Has there been, since the days of Diotrephes, a centre which God could honour as the well-head of real Catholic unity ? One is compelled with indignation to ask such questions. Every one ought to be ashamed that such questions are neces- sary. Surely the Lord is grieved vrith us all, or it would not be so. But in the Epistle for the week we are shown the probability of the visible Church failing after all God's favour unto it. The quarrel with God had begun, and Paul strove to heal it. " Be ye reconciled to God." Receive not His grace in vain. Blame not, to your own detriment and ruin, the ministry of His grace. Pick not quarrels with the means which He employs to bless and perfect you. This is the accepted time — the opportunity for speaking to God and getting answers from Him. This is the day of salvation, when He succours, when He runs to your help at the hearing of your cry of distress. This is your hour: do not misuse it, do not abuse it, do not neglect it. They were doing all these things; they took offence at the vessel, and would not receive the treasure. Men would not TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 95 submit to God's conditions : those who came to them with every authentication that God could give were rejected, and fools were followed. What the devil urged upon the Lord amounted to this, that He should receive suggestions from him, allow directions from him as to how His heavenly power should he put forth, and how His heavenly reward should be sought. So the first temptation employed against the Church was to turn her from those by whom the Lord would speak to her the bidding word, in order that, being turned from them, she might fall into the hands of those by whom Satan would speak the de- ceiving word, and put forth the misleading hand. Paul laboured to prevent that temptation from taking effect. What an infatuation, a bewitchment, was setting in upon men's minds, when such claims as he enumerated could be lightly regarded ! When men have begun to take a wrong direction, what can stop them ? No religious body that ever began to go wi'ong has gone right again. Individuals may be saved, a renniant may escape, but the body goes on from bad to worse. Paul had many claims on men's confidence ; but there was one defect in him that counterbalanced them all : he insisted upon holiness — real, absolute, entire. You are taking offence, he said:* let your consciences answer at what. Is it at our pa- tience and all the other marks recounted ? If, in the face of such evidences, the Church allowed itself to be seduced from the ministers of God, who shall hope to see the deliverance promised ? He who per- mitted the mightiest manifestations of His grace to be rejected, that the unbelief of man's heart might be 96 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. proved to the uttermost, may give the victory even to weakness, that His own purpose of election may stand, and that all creation may respond to His own word, "not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord." Yet let us hear what Paul saith of his pretensions : " We, then, as workers together with Him, beseech you," — those who seduce you are working of themselves or with Satan; we are working with Christ: " giving no offence in any- thing, that the ministry be not blamed," — if any one takes offence he does so without reason : "in all things approving ourselves the ministers, the deacons of God." You yourselves are judges that we came to you from God full-handed: we dispensed to you the gift of God, the grace of Christ, the Holy Ghost; "in much patience," waiting His time and your readiness ; " in afflictions," bruised by all who would destroy the treasure by breaking the vessel ; " in necessities," our supplies cut off by those who would starve out those whom they could not crush ; "in distresses," in perplexing positions, where way of escape on either side was cut off, and no resource left but retreat upon shame and contempt, advance upon stripes and imprisonments; "in stripes," as fugi- tive slaves ; " in imprisonments," as malefactors ; " in tumults," as victims of popular fury ; yet not de- terred by all these things ; but " in labours," as well- paid workmen; " in watchings," labour not followed by sleep, l^ut by waking, taking counsel in the night for renewed and more effectual labours ; "in fastings," strengthened for labour, not by bread, but by every word that cometh out of the mouth of God ; " by pureness," not following the ftist with a fit of self- TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 97 indulgence, not preceding it by a carnival, but out of fasting rising into purity, by purity strengthened for fasting; " by knowledge," tlu'ougli pureness attaining unto knowledge, the pure in heart seeing God, the clean windows admitting the full light of heaven; " by long suffering," not puffed up by knowledge, in- temperate, and intolerant, but bearing long with the weak and the wayward ; "by kindness," making our- selves useful with kindness to those who are compel- ling us to wait; " by the Holy Ghost," whose law is the law of kindness, w^ho helps those who are helping the feeble ones of the flock of Christ, who departs from the contemptuous, but abides with the con- descending; "by love unfeigned," enabled by the Holy Ghost to end with loving those whom we began to bear with ; " by the word of truth," which love alone can minister, the only instrument of aggression which love will use, which is given in largest measure to those who love most ; " by the power of God," which always follows the word of truth, which will follow no other harbinger; " by the armour of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left," weapons of righteousness, right-hand and left-hand weapons, aggressive and defensive, such w^eapons as the power of God supplies out of the armoury of heaven, none other; " by lionom- and dishonour," glory and dishonour, obtainmg in the use of our weapons glory from God, dishonour, depriva- tion of esteem and rank, from men ; " by evil report and good report," our names bye-words of reproach, as outcasts and degraded amongst men ; in good re- port with God, as those who turn many to righteous- ness ; "as deceivers, and yet true," appearing to H 98 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. disappoint our followers, and yet leading them into the pleasant land ; "as unknown, and yet well known," not numbered amongst the illustrious of the world, and yet working the work which all wonder at; " as dying, and behold we live," dying according to men in the flesh, living according to God in the Spu'it; " as chastened, and not killed," chastised as sons, but not judged with the world; " as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," grieving with the resisted, quenched Spirit of God, comforted with His abiding presence; " as poor, yet making many rich," having no inheritance yet, but pouring the treasures of the kingdom of heaven into the lap of the Church; " as having nothing, yet possessing all things," calling nothing our own, yet intrusted with all thmgs by our Lord, carrying down His grace in one hand to the earth, lifting up in the other His Church to heaven : " possessing all things," having under charge the grace of God, by which all things shall be won back to Him, and the Church of God, the Lamb's wife, who shall reign over all things with the Lord. Yet those thus commissioned, carrying with them these credentials, having their mouth opened and their heart enlarged towards the Church, were repelled by distrust, and worn out by disaffection ; those whom they would have filled were straitened in their bowels and narrowed in their hearts: they needed to cry unto them, — Children, give us the return of love, " be ye also enlarged." The children were bewitched ; they were yoking themselves un- equally with unbelievers ; they were bringing their righteousness into fi-iendly contact with unrighteous- ness, their light into alliance with darkness ; they TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 99 were striving to reconcile Christ with Belial, to make faith and infidelity share the laud together ; they were admitting idols into the temple of God ; they were following those from whom they should separate themselves by impassable boundaries ; they were touching the unclean thing, and coming into that condition that God could no more dwell in them, or walk in them, or make Himself known as their God and their Father. Thus was the grace of God frustrated. They had received the grace of. God, they were filled with the Spirit, they came behind in no gift ; yet were they tiu-ning away from God. They needed to be besought to be reconciled to Him. They lost confidence in those to whom the ministry of reconciliation had been committed. It seemed a bold thing to say to those Corinthians, so overflowing at this time with manifold gifts, It is possible that all this exuberance will end in nothing ; bright as your day is now, there is that in the midst of you which shall cover it with the blackness of darkness. Paul allowed the grace which they were conscious of pos- sessing, and in most abundant measure. I acknow- ledge (he said) you have it, but you may lose it all ; you are holding your treasures in independence and selfishness, you are using them irrespective of the guid- ance of the Lord, therefore will they take unto them- selves wings and flee away. This was the begiiming of Satan's trium})li in the Cliristian Church. This snare the wicked enemy laid for the Lord Himself even, to use His mighty grace before the Father's time and otherwise than by His direction. The Lamb of God heard always the voice of the Lord His Shepherd. He waited for His counsel. He worked according to 100 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. His will. This should have been also in the visible Church ; but men employed the grace given to them as they willed, not as the Lord willed — at Satan's time, not in God's time ; they separated the grace of God fi-om the will of God, therefore they were estranged from those who were commissioned to make known His will. To run before His Father, Satan tempted Jesus ; to run before the Lord, he tempted the Church. " There is nothing new under the sun." The same temptation is urged now, and if we fall under it, the deliverance of the Church is stayed for another season. Paul feared lest his running might be in vain ; there- fore he went up and communicated to his brethren the Gospel which he preached. Although he had received it by revelation, and preached it with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and it came by him to those to whom it came " not in word only but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assur- ance," all this did not convince him that he had not run in vain, until he communicated to his brethren what he had received and taught. When they re- joiced in what he wrought, when they approved of what he knew, their unity was the seal of all. Let us imitate his godly fear. The trinity of darkness which hindered the action of apostleship, and stopped the full operation of the fourfold ministry in the Spirit, will labour with all strength, 'yea, is lalDouring, to prevent the reappearing and free exercise of those heavenly powers again. The flesh knows that it can escape the death-wound, if the full instrumentality for slaying it and keeping it dead be taken out of the way. Maiis tyranny may kill it in one form, but it TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 101 will live in another. Christ only knows how to crucify it utterly. The rule of God by apostles ministered, the Spirit of the Lord alone through all holy ministries operating, can wither it ; therefore it will use every effort, and make every sacrifice, to keeji out of the Church the reality of an Apostleship of Christ. A Popedom, if you please, it will tolerate ; a Council of Bishops, if that likes you better ; Pres- byterianism. Independency, or any form at all, or no form, but not God's Constitution. The spirit of the world fights against the revival of Christ's ministries, and the manifestation of His Spirit, because these being absent, or being present in form and not in Hving activity, the Church must be conformed to this present world. The master-spirits in the natural world must give the tone, the direction of movement, and the law of being and of action, when the com- pleteness of Christ's ministry and the fullness of God's Spirit are not transforming the Church by the re- newing of the mind, and really raising man up to the ascertainment and realisation of the " good and ac- ceptable and perfect will of God." The devil must fight with all his subtlety and force against the only means for utterly expelling and for ever excluding him from the Church of God. The carrying to and fro, and the tossing about, by his spiritual blasts and his floods of false doctrine, which evil men, his liers in wait, bring in, and weak men, bereft of the defences on every side, let in, can only be prevented by the means which God has appointed for that end, and has declared in His written word to be sufficient there- unto. 102 TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. That we be not defrauded of the great blessings which the Lord has Ijegiin to introduce us into, we need to arise and awake on every side. One chief way of attaining to that whereunto we have been called, is no doubt suggested in the Collect which I have put at the beginning of this discourse. We must learn what abstinence really means. Our fiesh must be subdued to the motions of God's Spirit by mortifica- tion of the body ; our mind must be cfeansed from man's notions and traditions, fi'om our prejudices and prepossessions, and must be rightly informed out of the word of God. But no man can by himself and for himself use the Scriptures as Jesus did. To get at the meaning of that book — to have the mind in- structed up to what is wi'itten, Christ must teach us, and we must allow Him. We must permit to be kept open every window through which His Spirit may shine in, every pipe through which His grace may be poured ; all His ministries by which the many-sided truth can be done justice to, must be allowed ; the full sieve in which Catholic antiquity and Ecclesiastical history must be sifted (that the precious may be separated fi'om the vile) must not be done without : in short, the mind must abstain fi'om its self-indulgence as well as the flesh, and must be subject to God ; and our spirit — the proud, ambi- tious, covetous, self-adoring spirit — must be taught to fast from the things which puff it up and strengthen its wilfulness, its waywardness, its partial biases. If at this solemn time the Lord behold in us an earnestness in this matter — a resohdng indeed to learn His will, that it may be heartily and wholly TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 103 done — then He may arise for our deliverance, and give us to see the wise rule of Apostles, the activity of the fourfold Ministry, the progress of the Church, and the hastening of the Kingdom of the Lord. Amen. SERMON VIII. THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT. In the 15th of Matthew, whence the Gospel of the day is taken, we see remarkable contrasts. 1st. The Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem coming to Jesus to ask Him questions in a gainsaying spirit. 2d. The Syrophenician woman from the remotest outskirt of the land coming to Him, following after Him, crying for deliverance. Here is the first last, and the last first. Here are hypocrites pretending to have difficulties, and wanting to have them removed ; here is a woman who is no hypocrite, but who is in downright earnest, feeling a heavy burden, knowing that help is at hand, and struggling to obtain it. Those who came to Jesus in hypocrisy with their clever questions. He sent away under the burden of His heavy rebuke : her who came to seek mercy at His hand, He dismissed with a heart made light by His blessing. So will He ever deal with men. So this night He will regard and make a difference THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 105 between cavillers who are seeking excuses for for- saking Him if they had been in covenant with Him, for refusing to cleave unto Him if they have been yet uncalled, and those of a contrite, and humble, and teachable spirit, who are coming to Him for good things which they lack, and which from Him only they can receive. The Scribes and Pharisees wanted nothing from Him; they only wanted to fasten sin upon Him ; they were quite satisfied with themselves, and wished to show Him the good grounds which they had for being dissatisfied with Him. These deep expounders and righteous fulfil- lers of the law and of the prophets were not prepared for Christ when He stood before them; they could not discern in Him the Sent of God, filled with blessings for men; they could only see in Him an impostor, a ringleader of fanatics, whom they were to detect and expose. Not so the poor woman of the race of Ham, tlie accursed Canaanite, the most de- graded of the Gentile family. She knew that He was the Lord — that He was the Son of David — that He was to come, not only to help the children of Israel, but to help the Gentiles also — to help all that were oppressed of the devil. The first person whom the devil overcame was mother of both Jews and Gentiles ; the promise was spoken to her, that her seed should bruise the ser- pent's head: here is one of her descendants oppressed by the devil; here is the promised Seed who should overcome the devil. She will make suit to Him : she knows that God promised Him to Gentiles as well as to Jews. The Jews may be foremost on the list to be saved, but there is no Jew preferring a claim now. 106 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. His ear is disengaged; she will occupy it. Perhaps the Jews not being present seeking their blessings, is a reason why a poor Gentile who wants mercy sees her opportunity. The Jews seem to think but little of the treasure which is in the midst of them. No doubt she and all the simple people heard often of the mterviews between Him and the learned and religious among the Jews ; how they came to Him to find fault with Him, and to contradict Him, and to set Him at nought. Perhaps she would argue from that, — Well, the first people to whom He has a mis- sion are thinking lightly of Him : but He has a mission to others also : let some of them come in His way, not in pride to find fault, but in humility to pray: let them come in their misery, and implore His pity ; perhaps He may accept them. This woman was acceptable to Jesus, not merely because she was wretched and He was pitiful, but because she believed something that God had revealed concerning Him, and was acting upon that belief. No doubt she had heard the words, " in Him shall the Gentiles trust," and she was acting faith upon it. She was making bold to do something that God had given her a right to do. She was honouring God's word, she was doing what God's word bade her do, and, therefore, Jesus was pleased with her ; and after his grief with unbelieving and gainsaying Scribes and Pharisees, was refreshed by the faith of the Canaanitish mother of the devil-possessed child. The Lord did not answer her. Still she did not let His refusal to attend to her take the word of God out of her heart. She said, I am sure I may call upon Him, and I will cry unto Him. And when He said that His mission THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 107 tlicre was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, she continued to plead. She worshipped Him, and after her worship He called her a dog ; yet she pleaded and obtained the blessing. In calling her dog, He said in effect to her. What right have you to be in this land at all ? This gave her another opportunity to show her faith in the word of God. She knew that her fathers had been di'iven out of that land, and that Israel was planted in their stead. She acknowledged that they were the childi-en — that they were the masters — that any Canaanites who had remained in the land had remained on the base con- dition of being hewers of wood and drawers of water for Israel, menial slaves. She accepted her place; she acquiesced in God's purpose. What He did as towards Israel and as towards the nations of Canaan she allowed in her spirit, and murmured not against. No doubt, she said, I am in this land only by tolera- tion ; the Jews are here as those who have a divine right : still I am here by toleration — here as a slave, as a house-dog. I have not a right to be fed first ; far behind in order do I come : but I have a place — a slave's place, a dog's place ; and if the Jewish table is not holding all the bread which is heaped up upon it — if some of it falls down — yea, if some, through carelessness, be cast down, it is my portion. She allowed her place as a servant in Israel, but she pleaded a servant's right, though the lowest of servants ■ — not worthy to be called a servant — a mere dog. " Oh, woman ! great is thy faith," said Jesus. It was her faith He commended : it was not abjectness and self-loathing merely in her which He was pleased with — the Lord has no pleasure in those who think too meanly 108 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. of themselves — He was pleased with her because she knew she had a foundation in God's word, and because she had courage to stand upon that founda- tion, even agamst the seeming indifference and con- tempt towards her of God Himself. He who rebuked the Scribes for their answering again was pleased with this woman's answering again. He did not commend her for discernment of His true intention towards her, hidden behind this feigned indifference towards her and refusal of her prayer : He com- mended her for her faith in God's word and in Him, that He would stand to that word and find out some way of fulfilling it to her. She clung to promises of God, and she saw before her Him who came to take up God's promises one by one to fulfil them all, and she clung to Him. She endured His searching of her ; she gave up everything but that which He Himself had given her ; that she did not give up : she clung to Him as Jacob to the angel in the wrestling, though He took from her all her strength and glory, as He had done before from the patriarch. She did not let Him go till He blessed her. She carried away from Him the prize iDcfore those who were set first in order to receive it. This Gentile woman, who prevailed by her faith with the Lord, aptly represents the Church, which in the end of the dispensation cries to be avenged of her adversary, and by her importunate prayer also gains the desire of her heart. On last Sunday evening I showed how the Church had been despoiled of her spiritual trea- sures, and what had been the result of it. The enemy who sought to make the Lord use His liea- THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 109 vcnly powers insubordinately to His heavenly Fa- tlier, tempted the Church also to use her gifts iu- suljordinately to her Head. The Epistle to the Corinthians, fi'om which the text was taken, was written, amongst other objects, for this one in par- ticular,— to prevent the disorderly and disobedient exercise of spiritual gifts. The particular form which the disobedience took was, impatience of the autho- nty of St. Paul himself, intolerance of control and suj^eiintendance : men disliked the rule of God, be- cause it came to them ministered by men ; or rather, Grod's way of rule, as of teaching and of all spiritual blessings, is by men, seeing that His Son is a man, God incarnate, and in man's nature, as a man raised from the dead, is set above all creatures, the fountain of honour, authority, strength, wisdom, and know- ledge, and manifold blessing. Because He is man, the human nature is honoured for His sake ; He, the man, ministers by men. Therefore God's rule and discipline, which are m the hands of Jesus Christ, come to be exercised by men. His ministers. Now God's authority was painful to the people upon whom His gifts had been lavished, and they quar- relled with Him ; and because they could not strike at Him who was far away out of their sight, they struck at the human instrument whom He employed, as disobedient children dash down and break in pieces the vessel which contains in it the medicine which they need, but which they Avill not take. Therefore Paul said to the Corinthians, who were casting off his authority and rejecting his ministry. Brethren, you are not quaiTclling with me ; the con- test is not between you and me ; it is between you 110 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. and God : be ye reconciled to Him ; you have begun to find fault with His ways ; you have murmured against Him first, and now you contend with me who am His instrument. You are vexed with Him, as if He were disappointing you and treating you unfairly. He is grieved that you have taken offence. He beseeches you by me to be reconciled to Him, and not to go on with the terrible strife. Well, the Church was tempted, and the point of temptation was to refuse obedience to the man Christ Jesus in the exercise of her gifts ; and so they were taken away, and their loss was to the Church the begimimg of Egyptian bondage and Babylonian captivity: that bondage has made men cry out in the bitterness of their soul, like the children of Israel under the task- masters ; it has made them hang their harps upon the willows, and refuse to smg in a strange land the songs of Zion. The Church is this day, in conse- quence, like the widow who needed and who cried out to be avenged of her adversary. God is not insensible to the cry of His people in their distress. He heard the cry in Egypt and sent deliverance. He heard the prayer of the prisoners in Babylon. He will hear His own elect in the last days, crying day and night unto Him; — crying day and night for the kingdom of God to come, for the Lord to return and tread down Satan under His feet and make all His enemies His footstool, will be the mark of the elect in the last days. The Church shall feel her widow- hood, shall long to see her Husband, and to enter with Him into His kinc-dom. The desire of the kingdom shall become more and more faint in the rest of the Avorld, until universal security, such as THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. Ill existed before Noah's flood, before tlie destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, shaU take possession of men : but in the midst of that indifference the Lord will have disciples, who shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man. He will have a people feeling their bereavement, and praying unto Him day and night to come and fulfil what He hath promised. Let us look at the context, in the midst of which this parable of the importunate widow appears. The subject begins in the 17th chapter and 20th verse, with a question from the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God should come. He told them the kingdom of God would come unobserved by such persons as they were, yea, by the world at large ; it would be in the midst of them, like a thief in the night, before they would be aware of it. Men, self- satisfied men, men filled with the cares, and hunting after the gratifications of the present life, would be thinking of anything but it, an hour before its sudden irruption upon them. Having answered the curious idle question of the Pharisees upon a subject which gave them no heart concern. He then turned to His disciples, and told them how differently they should be affected in the matter ; how they should desire to see His day ; and having mentioned the difference in men's minds towards that coming kingdom. He goes on to speak of the difference which would be made by Him towards men at His coming — how one should be taken and another left ; and to stir up His hearers to be of those who should be taken, to be of those who, like the eagles, should be gathered to the body. He concludes with the parable of the widow, that He might urge them ahvays to pray and not to 112 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. give up, or cease, or be discouraged from it. Yea, to keep it up tliougli God should seem not to hear them ; though He should rel^uke them and put them back, as Christ did the Syrophenician woman ; though He should lay them bare, and show them filthi- nesses in themselves, of which they dreamed not the existence ; though He should seem not to care for His own glory nor their salvation ; though He should allow Himself to be looked upon as an unjust judge, selfish and cruel, — still to persevere, to set forth the sufferings and cry for the deliverance. Brethren, the sects which are flourishing in their own estimation cannot be this " bereaved widow" of the parable ; their language is. Never was the cause of religion so prosperous. They are not mourning the loss of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and of apostles and prophets, and all the ministries of Christ ; they say, These things were given in the in- tention of God to be taken away after a little time ; and we have done, and are doing, very well without them. They are not crying out for the kingdom of the Lord to come upon this earth ; they deny that there will be any kingdom upon the earth at all : their idea of the kingdom is a spread of religion, which should increase the number indefinitely of such professors as they are themselves — a spiritual reign, as they call it — a kingdom without a king — and with the best and truest of His subjects banished from it — a kingdom, while Jesus the King is in heaven, and while Peter and Paul, and all the apostles, and martyrs, and confessors, are in their gi'aves under the dominion of death. They do not pray for the resurrection, they have forgotten it ; THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 113 they see no importance, no necessity in it ; tlie powers connected with the resurrection of Christ having been lost, the evidence of His resurrection, the resurrection of His saints, is not looked forward to and longed for. Alas! they are not crying out for vengeance upon the adversary ; they are boasting as if they had gained a victory, made a glorious reformation, and were going on to evangelise and cliristianise the world. The parable of the bereaved widow does not describe them, either as to their con- sciousness, their hope, or their occupation. Well, she who sits a queen and says, " I shall see no sor- row"— who glories that she has never lost aught, but has gone on in glorious development as the ages, and generations, and centuries have rolled over her head — she who, according to her own estimate of herself expressed by her poet, " Without unspotted, innocent within, Doth fear no danger, for she knows no sin," — she cannot cry "to be avenged of her adversary;" her career has been one of glorious triumph over him : she cannot cry for the kingdom to come ; she believes it has come, and that she is queen in it ; a harlot queen, reigning in a world which crucified her Husband, and slew His faithful witnesses, and quenched His Spirit. The emblem of the widow is one which represents exactly what the Church has become by the malice of the adversary and by the unfaithfulness of men. A widow is one who had known a living husband, but who knows him no more ; he is dead ; she has no converse with him ; his voice is silent ; his hand is paralysed. The I 114 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. Church has been brought into the condition of knowing only a dead Christ. The text which St. Paul employed when he rebuked the Corinthians is quoted by modern preachers in a sense utterly subversive of Paul's meaning. He said to them, I limited myself to one doctrine among you, the most elemental doctrine, because I found you in an unfit condition to hear more. They allege that what he called the limitation of his teaching was the fullness of it, and so their scant Grospel they justify by quoting St. Paul against himself. Bear with me while I open the context. He had said to them, chap. i. verse 11, "It hath been declared unto me that there are contentions among you" — " every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos." He connected this with their self-conceit and fleshly wis- dom, and then goes on to say, in the first verse of the second chapter, " When I came to you, I came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, for I deter- mined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." " Howbeit, we speak wisdom among them that are perfect ; " we testify of the things prepared for those who love God ; to those who love Him and love one another: things which the spiritual can enter into : but " I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able : for ye are yet carnal." Here is all rebuke, and the portion, the limited portion of the Gospel, which he could speak to such, is set forth as the fuU Gospel for the per- fect ; and the consequence is, that, for want of THE SYROPHENICIAN WOaiAN. 115 strong meat, tlie strengtli of tlie Cliurcli lias dried out of her. Feeding on milk, the food of a babe, has impoverished and exhausted her ; she cannot do her proper works, or put forth her full strength. They who, in their self-complacency, flatter them- selves as if they followed St. Paul's example and preached his Gospel, will not " hear his words that they may understand his speech" — they will detach one text away from its context, and force a meaning out of it the very opposite of what was intended. But do not ye so who hear me this night ; you have no excuse for doing it ; deal fairly with the word of God, as you fear Him and care for your- selves. Beware how you continue feeding upon milk, when you have heard God's rebuke against those who do so ; hear that rebvike repeated more terribly in the Epistle to the Hebrews, — " When for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. Every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteous- ness : for he is a babe." Therefore go on unto perfec- tion, lest you be suffered to fall back unto perdition — lest you be treated as the accursed field which would not bear a crop for the owner of it. Men now are glorying in the condition rebuked by St. Paul in the case of the Corinthians and the Hebrews; the Jews and the Greeks, who in different ways were holding back from the full adoption of the Gospel and the full following of the Lord. Well, sc^me are trembling at God's word; the re- buke hath touched some hearts, and they are trying 116 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. to escape from the widow's desolateness, and to rise into the condition of her who is married to Him that is raised from the dead — to recover full communion with the Living Head of the Church, who is at God's right hand — to be filled with His Spirit, and to hope for His glorious appearing and kingdom. Always, when God is about to work a deliverance for men. He causes a feeling of the need of it to arise in the hearts of some. He gives them to understand and enter into some promises which He has made connected with the same, and He stirs up within them a spirit to plead those promises, and to plead with Him over them. In Ezek. xxxvi. 37, after having set forth the blessing which He would bestow upon His people in deliver- ing them from their captivity and planting them again in their own land, the Lord adds : " Thus saitli the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." They shall call upon My Name, and I will hear them ; they shall remember Me in far countries. In Jer. xxxi., " They shall come with weeping, and with suppli- cations will I lead them." Daniel was made to under- stand the meaning of the prophecies delivered by Jeremiah respecting the seventy years' captivity, when the Lord's time for causing that captivity to cease was at hand, and he prayed in consequence unto God, as is recorded at length in the ninth chapter ; and the Lord heard him, and answered him graciously. When the deliverance which had commenced was fla2;o;ina;, throu2;h weakness on the • part of the people and the resistance of their enemies, Nehemiah was stirred up to pray first, and afterwards THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 117 was sent fortli to complete the work whicli had been suspended. Prayer on the part of some enlightened and holy ones — some suffering and afflicted ones — preceded every deliverance. Much more the greatest deliverance of all, the recovery of the Church from her low estate, and her preparation to meet the Lord as the bride prepared for the bridegroom, is ushered in by the prayer of those who have learned the truth concerning the calling of the Christian Church, the fact of her having fallen from her spiritual standing, and the only hope of her recovery, by obtaining again from the Lord the Spirit which she had grieved and quenched. Since the beginning of this nineteenth century there has been much prayer in Britain and this land for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit ; the want was deeply felt — the promises of God were searched into — prayer-meetings were held in churches and in private houses — tracts upon the subject were dispersed in all directions — and great exertions were made to interest all serious people and engage them in it. The history of Christendom since the Reform- ation prepared men for it. In the sixteenth century the Reformation took place, — soon after its commence- ment religious wars broke out, and engrossed the whole Continent, more and less, through the whole period of it. In the seventeenth century the Great Rebellion in England — the fimaticism of the Puritans — the ungodliness and profligacy, generally, of the Church party — the wickedness brought back Avith Charles II., and the dcadness in religion brought in with William III., prepared the way for that uni- versal dearth of o;odliness which marked the ei2;hteenth century, and which was only interrupted in these 118 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. countries by the zeal (without knowledge often) of Whitfield and Wesley, and certain high Calvinist divines in En2;land and Scotland. In the end of the eighteenth century the Revolution in France broke out, and menaced all the world with a deluge of in- fidelity and crime. Then religious societies (the Bible, and others) arose to withstand the torrent, and men began to feel their need of the help of God. Soon the Societies were possessed of a spirit of boast- ing and ignorance — they promised to their supporters the speedy conversion of the whole earth ; but a cry for the outpouring of the Spirit had gone up to God, and the first proof of its answer was corrector notions upon tlie subj ect of prophecy becoming current. The true character of the dispensation under which we live was explained ; namely, that it is a dispensation for gathering an election out of the world, not of con- verting the whole world — that the election being gathered, this dispensation will end with judgments from God, as the preceding ones had done — that the time of the judgments was at hand — that the oppor- tunities of the Gentiles were nearly fulfilled — that the flood, of which Noah's was a type, was ready to burst forth upon the earth — and that the work now was to save a remnant out of the hypocritical and un- spiritual professing Church, by bringing them back to pure Christianity — that, in order to recover pure Christianity, the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the ministries of Christ, were needed once more^ — that apostles should be raised up, and prophets, whom Babylon would reject, but who should be God's in- struments for saving His Church out of confusion and spiritual death — that the restored ministries of THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 119 Christ would be that Elias testimony to His Gentile Church preceding its final judgment. I say the in- terpretation of the purpose of God concerning His Church, and the exposition of the character of the present dispensation, and of the works that should bring it to a close, were the first proof that the cry for the outpouring of His Spirit had entered into the ears of the Lord. Afterwards the supernatural manifestation of the Spirit of God appeared, first in the west of Scotland, amongst Presbyterians of blameless life, and sound understanding, and deep religious experience. This was in 1830: in the year following the same spiritual power brake forth in England, first amongst members of the Church of England, hearers of the celebrated Baptist Noel, who was not at all a man to lead his people to such things, or to understand or encourage them. Afterwards Dissenters, Baptists, Independ- ants, Quakers, and men of all denominations, came under the influence of the same Holy Spirit, speaking and prophesying by supernatural power, praying in the Holy Ghost, pouring out spmtual songs, inter- preting holy Scripture, and showmg forth the bud- ding of many spiritual gifts. This was a trying and searching time. Many ministers who had prepared the way for all this, when it appeared shrunk back in fear and doubt. As Zacharias, the priest of old, did not believe the angel when lie brought unto him the answer of his own prayer, long and earnestly pre- ferred, so several clergymen in our day, who had taught us that we were responsible for the gifts of the Holy Ghost as much as the first Christians, and urged us to pray for their restoration, when we did 120 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. SO, and the answer began to appear, they were the first to repudiate it — to flee from the face of the Lord whom they had invoked ; the warning of Christ to His disciples not to call the bread a stone, the fish a serpent, the egg a scorpion, when they should re- ceive the heavenly boon, was found to have great and practical significancy. Men who knew from the holy Scriptures that the Spirit of God should be manifested in the Church, and preached it, proved in themselves how far the spirit of discernment of God had departed from the whole Church, when they, the most forward and intelligent amongst the teachers, were so devoid of it. The people who had prayed to God for His Spirit could not receive His gift and give Him thanks for it when it appeared. But some did believe, and their hearts were filled with laughter and their tongue with singing: they saw the Lord turning again the captivity of Zion, and became as those that dream. What all men despised they found to be for rest and refreshmg, for illumination and building up in the ways of God. Men and brethren, why should it be counted strange that God should visit His people ? Was there not, is there not a need? Had not iniquity well-nigh come to the full ? The false philosophy of the eighteenth century brought in the French Revolution: the French Revolution flooded the nations with Atheism and Lawlessness. Socialism,Communism, mad schemes of revolution, based upon no solid principle, but coming up, as it were, out of a bottomless pit, are the developments more and more of that evil which then brake forth. Well, the licentious interpretation of holy Scripture in Protestant Europe, the Neology THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. 121 of Germany, the Sociniaiiism of the Calvmist Churclies of the Continent, the dissokition hegun in the Scotch and EngHsh Churches, the conscious deadness of all sects when they express themselves honestly, and off their guard, so to speak — all these things, and more things than we have time to sum up, do cumulatively show that a time was come for God to work. Men had made void His law ; the foundations were out of course ; " the earth was defiled under the inhabitants " thereof, because they had transgressed the laws, " changed the ordinances, and broken the everlasting " covenant." " Tlie enemy had come in like a flood, " and the Spirit of the Lord lifted up a standard " against him." When our hearts were stirred up to cry for the power of the risen Head of the Church to appear again in His body upon the earth, some who meditated much upon the subject said, " Surely we shall see more and more every day the necessity of what we are seeking for." And events ever since have abundantly verified such conjectures, for moral, intellectual, spiritual wickedness, have grown apace, and become huger and more daring every day ; and the facilities for acting out whatever purpose is in a man are wonderfully increased. The press, steam- power, electricity, are nudtiplying human power a thousand fold, and preparing the whole human family to act with combination as one man. The giants before the flood, who prepared the antedilu- vian world for judgment — the giants who occupied Canaan in the days of Joshua — were the types as well as the predecessors of the last genera- tion, which shall occupy the Christian earth before the flood of fire, before the coming of the true 122 THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN. Joshua with the true Israel — Christ and His risen saints, according to the vision of Rev. xix. — to cast out the accursed race from the earth, upon which the kingdom of God shall be established. Now is the time for the true Church to cry, like the Syrophe- nician woman, for the expulsion of Satan (who pre- pares to fill Babylon) from her children — to cry with a cry that shall be heard, though terrible things in righteousness happen to those who shall see the answer. Now is the time, when the transgressors are come to the full, and the power of the adversary is at its highest, for the elect to appear as the widow who prevailed by her importunity. Now, when faith is dying out from the mass of men, it is to be con- centrated in a few, and to be expressed in the fer- vent effectual prayer, which shall save the sick Church, and bring down the Lord to His body, and both into His kingdom. Amen. SERMON IX. THE MEDIATOR FROM GOD TO MAN. THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT. The Epistle. — Tell me, ye that desire to he under the law, do ye not hear the laio? — Gal. iv. 21. The Galatians sought to ajDply the Scriptures to themselves, and did not receive the meaning of them from Christ; they brought themselves into bondage thereby. The Jewish Church had to follow a letter ; the Christian was to walk in the Spirit. The Jewish Church was a servant, which had express instructions to keep strictly and literally ; the Christian Church is the full-grown son, knowing his father's will, and hav- ing a more liberal rule of conduct. They who try to turn the Bible into a directory, or a book of rubrics, out of which they shall get rules for themselves indi- vidually, socially, ecclesiastically, passing by the helps that Christ has appointed for them, are the modern Galatians. The Galatians were studying Scripture without the guidance of the Church. They were trying to make the Bi])le do by itself, without Paul's help, — to bring them to the true result which the Bible proposed for them. We do not want the Apostle, they said. Have we not the Bible ? 124 THE MEDIATOR FROM GOD TO MAN. The previous Sundays in Lent present in the Gospels the Lord Jesus as the deliverer of men from the tyranny of the devil ; in the Epistle for this day He is set forth as the deliverer of men from the oppressive yoke which they do make for themselves out of God's word, — from using the Scriptures as a system of checks, and restraints, and coercions, — from the bondage of Pharisaism. They are those who try to legislate for themselves out of Scripture, instead of allowing the Lord to legislate for them, and bring the Bible to bear upon them in God's way. Men want to bring the Bible to bear upon them- selves in their own way — to spare themselves. Christ is the Mediator between God and man. Men would willingly have Him as their Mediator with God, but they refuse Him as God's Mediator with them; they have no objection to His good offices on their behalf with God — that He should be an agent, so to speak, to manage their affairs for them, to get their sins remitted, their persons accepted, their merited doom commuted, for one of ftivour and happiness. All this is agreeable to man's selfishness and love of ease. But that Christ should transact with us for God, that He should carry out in us, and by us, in God's behalf what He has undertaken, this we resist: that He should do a work for us with God — very well ; but that He should do a work for God with us — by no means. We will let our wants go up to God through Christ, but we will not let God's commands come down to us through Christ. In short, the truth con- cerning the Mediator men treat as they do every other truth : they cut it in two, — take half and leave half. They take the half which seems to guarantee THE MEDIATOR FROM GOD TO MAN. 125 advantage to tliemsehes, they leave the half which would secure glory to God ; their interests being safe, His work may be neglected. Miserable self-decep- tion! insolent mockery! God will disappoint those who are partial in the truth. To the fro ward He will show Himself fro ward. Whatever God gives us, He gives us through Christ ; from Christ we are to learn the use and meaning of what we get from God; under Christ's oversight and rule we are to use what we have got ; w^e are accountable to Him ; He will be our judge; He is now our ruler, the steward over all the servants of God. God gives us the Scriptures by Christ ; we are to learn the meaning of them from Him. He gives us the Holy Spirit by Christ; we are to use and enjoy that great gift in obedience to Him by whom we get it. He gives us wealth, and place, and station for Christ's sake, and under Him ; and we are to learn from Christ how all these talents are to be employed. Everything that comes to us from God becomes a curse to us, unless it pass through Christ's hands in its way to us ; passing through His hands it becomes a blessing indeed. All medicine is poison, unless Christ compound it; all food has death in it, unless Christ prepare it for us ; all treasures of knowledge contained in God's revelation only fit us for the society of devils, unless that knowledge be dispensed to us in lessons from Christ. The greater, the higher the bounties and favours of God, the more dangerous, yea, ruinous, they are to us, if they are not given to us by the hands of His Son ; yea, of His Son, too, as a Man : for the text runs, — " There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." As Man, He carries up our case unto God; 126 THE MEDIATOR FROM GOD TO MAN. as Man, He transacts God's business with us. God's Scriptures are in the hand of a Man, and from that Man we must get them as we are fitted for them. God's Spirit is in the hands of a Man ; from that Man we must receive, and in the measure which pleases Him. That Man has many men under Him in His employment, and to receive them in their several places is to receive Him, and to reject them is to reject Him; to reject Him is to reject God: to reject the meanest of Christ's servants is so far to reject God, is to dispense with God's help, to do without God. God works by His Son whom He sent ; Jesus works by men whom He sends. To refuse whom Jesus sends is to refuse Him, to refuse God. This was the sin rebuked in those to whom St. Paul wrote the Epistle from which the portion for the Holy Communion of this day is taken, — "I marvel," he said, "that ye are so soon removed from him that called you by the grace of Christ unto another Gospel." You are removed from Him, that is, from a man, a person, sent to you from Christ, and with gifts in his hand from the Sender, and you are attached to an abstraction — to a thing which you call the Gospel — an opposition gospel. You have left a man, and you are adhering to a thing, to a system, to an idea, a letter. They were removed from Paul, and whither were they gone ? To the book of God — to the Scriptures of truth — to the law ; and the law means here more than Leviticus or Deuteronomy. Genesis is quoted as part of the law. Well, they went off to the law, to the Scriptures of God; but they went without Paul, — that is, they went Avithout Christ, — and so they went not to a volume of light. THE MEDIATOR FROM GOD TO MAN. 127 hut of darkness — to a bewildering, misleading book. They went to God's Scriptures without God, and found not God in them, but delusion and death. " In God will I praise His word, in the Lord will I praise His word." Out of God, separate from the Lord, those who meddle with God's word will not praise it, but will rue the day they read it ; they will yet curse it and themselves together. But these men went to the Bible without a man to go before them whom God appointed to lead them into its meaning; they despised his help ; they thought they had a key with- out him ; they quoted Peter, and James, and Apollos, as if they had received from them some guiding principle whereby they might arrive at the meaning of the book. We have inspired comment, said they, from those who were apostles of Christ and servants of God before him, of whose true mission we are sure; with their inspired comment we w^ill interpret the revelation, and be released from obligation and accountability to a man like one of ourselves. The Galatians now are they who undertake to interpret the Scriptures for themselves, without the helps that God would give them ; who say, The Bible, and the Bible only, is our religion; who say, We do not w^ant apostles to apply the Bible unto us ; we do not want the spirit of prophecy to interpret it : we can act it out w^ithout the rule and guidance of Jesus Christ ; we can understand it witliout the Holy Ghost. The interpretations of the Old Testament given by the New are accounted so sufficient that no work of further opening or interpreting remains for the Spirit of Christ. No apostles are needed any longer, the writings of the apostles that have been, are enough 128 THE MEDIATOR EKOM GOD TO MAN. for the necessities of the Church of God. With their writings in our hands, we can explain the whole Bible, and order ourselves aright before the Lord. The writings of Paul are quoted against the Aposto- lical Ministry now, as the dicta of Peter and James, and the other apostles, were quoted against Paul himself in his day. Men would have now the medi- ator, indeed, between man and God to be a man, the Man Christ Jesus; but they will have the mediator between God and man not to be a man, but a book. God, and a soul, and a book between them : these are the three parties employed in religion now. Christ is not now ministering as a man by men, but the Spirit of God and a book are eifecting everything ; the Spirit of God is not believed in as the endower of men to be ministers of Christ, as the giver of gifts to men according to His will for the service of God and for the edification of God's Church. He is regarded as the applier of a book, as the carrier home to the hearts of hearers and readers of a book the state- ments contained in it. Sanctifying every man by himself, by applying texts to him, by leading him to meditate upon words of holy vnrit, men exj^ect to find the Holy Spirit when they open the holy Scrip- ture, whether they open the holy Scri^^ture under the laws of God's Church or not; yea, the laws of His Church are not even thought of in the matter. SERMON X. THE TWO APOSTASIES. FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT, St. Paul, with the Greeks, contended agamst factious, and selfish, and disorderly use of Christ's gifts, warn- mg them that the end for which they were given' would thus be missed. With the Galatians he con- tends against a more fatal error still; namely, that of striving to do without Christ's gifts, and to attain to perfection by other means. This is the evil se- quence always — first, the good thing is abused, and then cast away : being abused, it fails of accomplishing its end ; not having accomplished its end, it is blamed : the disappointment is attributed to its weakness, and not to the wickedness and folly of those who refused it a fair trial. Men call it a sham, and transfer their confidence to something else. So men now are medi- tating an abandonment of Christianity, as if it had cheated them. Where are the hopes which it an- nounced? The nations which have had it amono; them for eighteen hundi'cd years, what a condition are they in? Even like the inhabitants of Canaan, ready to be spued out by the earth they burden, be- cause of then- wickedness. Christianity has not been E 130 THE TWO APOSTASIES. allowed fail* play amongst men, therefore the full blessing which it would have brought has not been realised; and men are rising up agamst it to cast it out, and supply its place with their own false wisdom. Great Christian principles were abused by Greeks and Latins, and are abandoned by Protestants. If the former caricatured Christianity, the latter are contradicting it : one sowed the field which Infidelity shall reap, the other is preparing the reapers. It is remarkable that it is in writing to these two Churches that St. Paul pronounces the anathema. To the Corinthians, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema ; " to the Galatians, " Though we or an angel fi'om heaven preach any other Gospel, let him be anathema." Anathema! what is that? It includes two things, — 1st, depriva- tion of the presence of the Holy Ghost; 2d, posses- sion by the devil. The Corinthian and Galatian forms of sin do both provoke it. The lawless Greek who wanted true love, and the legal Galatian who wanted true faith, are the repre- sentatives of classes who always resisted God, and who shall come out into strong manifestation in the time of the end. There are great movements this moment in the religious world, which illustrate one and the other of those who are striving to have spirit without rule and subordination, and of those who are striving to obtain the mastery over themselves by the discipline of ascetical philosophy instead of by the indwelling and energy of the Spirit of Christ. But between these two classes there is a third, which un- happily abounds, and which sometimes finds its way into the churches and within the sound of the THE TWO APOSTASIES. 131 preacher's voice. I mean those who are not seeking perfection at all in a right or a wTong way ; who are not misusing Christ's grace, but utterly refusing it. Men who, according to their cant (for they, too, have a cant), say. We make no profession of religion, and therefore are not bound to be religious. You do not make a profession of religion ! Have you the audacity to say this? Did you create your- self? Did the world you live in make itself? That God is, is a fact — you yourself are a proof that He is. In Him you live, and move, and have your being. The incarnation of God in the person of the eternal Son is a fact ; the death of the incarnate Son for the sins of the world — for your sins, you despiser! — is a fact ; the descent of the Holy Ghost to this earth fi'om the invisible Father and from the incarnate Son at the Father's right hand, from the throne of God and of the Lamb, is a fact ; the setting up of the Christian Church upon the earth is a fact ; the insti- tution of sacraments, the appointment of a Christian ministry, the bestowment of a revelation, these are facts. And, in the face of such facts, will you dare to say you will make no profession of religion ? Will you ignore these facts? or, allowing them, Avill you be indifferent to them? can you be indifferent to them ? But allow me to say, you do make a profes- sion of religion. Christ's mark is upon you, and you are sworn to serve Him. Your parents — your father who cared for you, your mother who loved you — did devote you unto God ; they brought you unto Christ's minister. Rightly they did it. It was their blessed privilege, it was their Ijounden duty. Christ's minister received you at their hands. Jesus, in His minister. 132 THE TWO APOSTASIES. embraced you in His arms of love. God's name was named upon you ; you were baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Grhost, and you are bound to be and to en- joy what holy baptism doth signify. God regards you as making a profession. Christ will judge you in the last day according to that profession. That profession being realised, will either raise you to the highest place amongst the most honoured creatures of God, or, being despised and renounced, shall sink you to a deeper abyss of guilt, and shame, and misery than the fallen angels themselves. Brethren, have done with your childish sophistry. Take up your obligations like men — like honest men ; receive from God thankfully what He has pledged to give you, and render unto Him the return of love. Be as the blessed field which has drunk in the rain which has been warmed by the sun, and which gives back the abundant harvest. But to return to the immediate matter in hand. The Epistle for the week shows us how soon and how deeply declension from the way of the Lord began in the Christian Church, and the Apostle intimated its extensive success when he said, " A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." The plague has begun, and if not stopped at once will spread till all be de- filed. The Church was beginning to place herself lower than God had placed her. This was always the way : the angels which left their first estate under an archangel, heading the revolt. Adam who forfeited Paradise, — the children of Israel who came out of Egypt, and perished in the wilderness before entering Canaan, — their children who possessed the THE TWO APOSTASIES. 133 land and held it for a little time, having provoked God to cast them out, — the cities of the plain, planted in fruitfulness, corrupting themselves in their abund- ance, and bringing down upon themselves fire of judgment from heaven, — are all set forth as types and warnings to the Christian Church. The language of Christ and His Apostles to the Church was, Take heed how you begin to sink, lest you sink the whole way predicted. Let not the salt lose its savour, was His solemn warning. Let the light shine, and let it be set in the right place, that it may shine effectvially. Let not the bushel of avarice or the bed of self-indulgence hide it from those whom it was meant to illumine, but let it be set in the candlestick. There is a place for holding it, fix it there, thence let it give light. Ye are the salt of the earth, and the light of the world : but salt may lose its savour, and then be good for nothing ; light may be quenched, and then night cometh when no man can work, but when wild beasts catch their prey. St. Paul said to the Eastern Church, " I would not have you ignorant, that our fathers were bap- tized and did eat the mystical food, and yet perished through unbelief." So it may be with you. " Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." To the Western Church he said, " Con- tinue in God's goodness, otherwise thou slialt be cut off;" because of unbelief others "were broken off:" " thou standest by faith, be not high-minded, but fear." Brethren, there is no greater delusion than that which turns God's promises unto the faithful into guarantees for the apostate. " The gates of Hades 134 THE TWO APOSTASIES. shall not prevail against my Church," said Christ. They did not prevail against Himself. They closed upon Him, but at the appointed time they were thrown open again, and He came forth from the prison of death a conqueror. So His mystical body, as well as His personal body, shall overcome death. Some shall rise from the dead, and some shall be changed; and the whole Christ, even the head and the body — the whole of God's election — His family of kings and priests, by whom He will rule and bless the universe — thev shall stand before God, and re- joice in His presence for ever. But who infers from that that the visible Church should be ever secured from error and sin, as if by an irresistible necessity or fate, does greatly err. The Church, cleaving to her Head, abiding in Him and letting His word abide in her — yielding to His Spirit — retaining by faith the heavenly gift — should ever judge, and speak, and act aright. But the same Church, forsaking her heavenly Husband, and committing fornication with the kings of the earth, — descending still lower from the kings of the earth to humour the multitude and prophesy to the beast — that Church, having disobe- dience for its progress, shall have possession by evil spirits for its awful end. The Jews, who wanted to have Israel's destiny without Israel's character, heard from John the Baptist the words of severe judgment, — " Think not to say unto yourselves, We have Abraham for our father." They heard from Jesus more terribly still : "Ye are not the children of Abraham ; ye are of your father the devil : if ye were Abraham's children, ye would have Abraham's faith. Abraham rejoiced to see at a distance my day ; you THE TWO APOSTASIES. 135 see it already come, and you ablior it. Abraham and you cannot take places together, for on the most important sul)ject you think and feel differently. Outwardly you succeed to Abraham, the friend of God; inwardly you are filled w^th diabolical hatred of God and His Christ. The lie is in you and not the truth, and your life is given to the lie. Satan's lie, not God's truth, is your life, as it were that which you rejoice in." Brethren, so will Christ plead with His visible Christian Church in the time of the end. This will be the work of the second Elias. This will be the last work of love of the Spirit of truth in order to produce true repentance, and make w^ay for a full absolution. The epistles of St. Paul to the Christian clergy, in the person of St. Timothy, do set forth a double corruption of Christianity : one the corruption of the latter times, the other the corruption of the last days. One has been : history has recorded it — no ingenuity of misrepresentation can evade it. The marks, " for- bidding to marry, commanding to abstain from meats," are indelibly engraven on the ancient churches. The other is begun, and is seen most prominently in what is called the Protestant world. One was the apostasy having its manifestation in the sense, the other has its leprosy in the head, its sin in the intellect. One l)rouglit the Church down into the flesh, the other will struggle to prevent its deliverance from it — as Jannes and Jambres struggled to harden Pharaoh's heart against God, and to prevent the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the hand of Moses. The second epistle to the first Christian Church to which an 136 THE TWO ArOSTASIES. apostolical letter was written, describes a course of wickedness which was not to he done in a corner, or by mean heretics ; but in the midst of the Church of God — against everything called God, or to be wor- shipped— which was not to be baffled and crushed in the bud, but which should work and prevail till the Man of Sin should be seated in the very throne of God, in His temple. That wickedness began in St. Paul's day. The history of the Church and the nations ever since marks its stages of progress ; and now, while we speak and hear, its acme is at hand. Holy Peter, in his second and last catholic epistle, in which the whole soul of the apostle is poured out over the Church, describes in the first chapter the Church as she ought to be — the holy bride of the Lamb, having an abundant entrance into His king- dom, and keeping the lamp of prophecy until His day should appear. The second verse sets forth the corruption in which the many should be involved, which should make the earth to be as it was before the flood of water, when a little remnant only es- caped. And the third presents the consummation of that wickedness in the pride of the scoffers, who should set themselves against the only remaining element of safety, namely, the hope of the speedy coming again of the Lord, saying : " Where is the pro- mise of His coming ?" The Bride, Babylon, and the BeriHf, might be set as headings to the three chapters which compose the epistle. St. Jude confirms what St. Peter wrote, adding some things — for instance, employing the type of God's professing Church which perished in the wilderness to give greater distinctness to the prophecy — that the subject of it might not be THE TWO APOSTASIES. 137 mistaken, and giving the prophecy of Enoch before tlie flood of water, as having its ultimate fulfilment in the flood of fire which should overtake the nations to whom the best gift of God was given, and who refused to rejoice in the blessing. St. John, the beloved disciple who leaned on the bosom of Jesus at the mystical supper, to whom it was given to find out the traitor, to whom the natural mother of the Lord, the blessed Virgin, was consigned as to a second son by her divine Son upon the cross — he has exposed the treason which should be perpetrated again against his Lord ; he has given to the mystical mother the saving prophecy concerning the true Church and its tribulations, the false Church and its progressive harlotries. All these words of God by His faithful ministers are not to be explained away. Those who have sinned are not to be encouraged to imitate the shame- less harlot who, after her adulterous kiss, doth ^dpe her lips and say, " I have done nothing." No doubt one turns with disgust fi'om the Latin and the Greek, who rail at the Protestant for his revolt, and who are not ashamed and broken for the sins on their own part which provoked it, and which compelled the God of love to sufl'er the visible unitv of His Church so to be broken. And one turns ^dth equal grief and indignation from the Protestant, who imitates the sin of Ham and laughs at the drunkenness of his father — who rails at evils which have been, without applying a remedy for them — yea, rather inaugu- rating and introducing himself more terrible wicked- ness. A physician who would cure a disease must learn the root of it, and then apply his medicines. The root 138 THE TWO APOSTASIES. of the disease in the visil)le Church, which has spread over it all, is to be found in the Epistle of the day. Men did not keep the place which God gave them. The position of tlie son was abandoned — the JDosi- tion of the servant was taken up. The place of the wife was exchanged for the place of the bondmaid — of the old wife for the young bondmaid. Sarah, who could not bring forth but by a miracle —;- super- naturally — was the type of the Christian Church. Hagar, who was young and strong in the flesh, and able to bring forth according to nature, was the type of the Church under the law, and of the Christian Church going back to the law. The Christian Church was planted in the Holy Ghost, to do all her works in the Spirit, by the power of her risen Head. She sank down ft'om that high place to receive the seed of the world into the flesh — to bring forth fleshly ser- vices— to ofler fleshly worship ; that is, to serve God, as the Jewish Church had done, in the letter again — according to the strength of nature — to come before God again with types, and symbols, and forms, and pictures of spiritual realities merely, instead of being before Him the great spiritual reality herself. The Gospel of this day, in context with the Epistle, illustrates the calling of the Christian Church, which is, not to obey a law merely, but to develope a life. Christ does not give us a law to copy and to keep by our flesh ; but He puts into us a life which is the living law — the very will of God — the spirit of life — the new law. Moses, when he ascended, i-e- ceived, on the mount of his glorious communion, a law wi'itten by the finger of God to bring back to Israel. Jesus, when He ascended to the glory which THE TWO APOSTASIES. 139 He had with God before the world was, sent do^vii, not a law written by the finger of God, but He sent down God Himself — God the Holy Ghost — the Spirit of the Father and of the Son — to dwell in the Church, tliat the Church might ever know the mind of Christ — might ever understand the will of God, and by the Spirit might fulfil what it knew and understood. The multitude which Jesus drew after Him into the wil- derness. He did not set a-working as servants, but He feasted them as sons. He arranged them in com- panies, and sent food unto them by those whom He chose. He received at the hands of His apostles what they had to give ; He restored the same t :^ them with His l)lessing upon it, and they filled the well- ordered multitude with the blessed food. That miracle illustrates Christ's way of dealing with His Church through her sojourn in the wilderness of this world. By His ministers whom He appoints He feeds the obedient people. He gives them the true bread — His own flesh ; the wine which strength- eneth man's heart — His own blood. And He gives them these blessings through the hands of men, their brethren, whom He is pleased to choose and employ for that end. On that day in the wilderness were seen the order, the rest, the abundance of the children — the joyful service of the heavenly mes- sengers going to and fi'o amongst the blessed com- panies— and the gracious ministry of the good Lord filled the hands of His apostles with good things, and the hearts of His people with joy and gladness. On that day Jesus showed how He would hold to Himself and feed for Himself, not only a multitude of the children of Israel, but the mightier multitude 140 THE TWO ArOSTASIES. that was to be gathered unto Him out of all nations, wliicli He, tlie Head at God's right hand, should feed every day with bread from heaven, through the minis- try of apostles and all other ministries in dutiful conjunction with them — the united, subordinated, be- lieving multitude, who should sit down at Jesus' bid- ding, in the quietness of faith, and wait with patience for His servants to bring them whatsoever He should send. How Jesus would deal with His obedient Church is set forth in the Gospel; how the Church should be tempted to obstruct His will and grieve His heart is set forth in the Epistle. In the Epistle you see the beginning of disorder, of lawlessness ; the Church was not sitting down patiently waiting for the blessing of Jesus, through the hands of Paul, but men were rising up against Paul, and trying to help themselves without him. They were becoming discontented with God's way of dealing with them; they took exceptions against Christ's chosen instrument ; they said, He is not as truly an apostle as Peter is, as James is ; he was not of the first twelve; he did not company with the Lord; he will not lead us aright. Certain have come from Jerusalem unto us, from whom we learn that he sets himself against what Peters allows. It is not safe to follow Paul ; we will cleave to the first apostles and their party in preference. Peter, and James, and John, are names of higher prestige than his; they certainly had their gospel from Christ; they heard His voice and knew His person, and dwelt for years in His holy society. We will follow them ; yea, we will follow the word of God. Have we not the Scriptures of the Old Testament? Can THE TWO APOSTASIES. 141 we not learn for ourselves out of the Bible the way to please God ? Is not the revelation plain ? What more do we want? He who runs may read. The Scriptures are more sure than Paul ; we can get at their meaning as well as he. They inculcate cir- cumcision; we will be circumcised. They give us rules for attaining to perfection; we will attain to perfection by this certain way. Thus, high names of precedent ministers were set off against the very ordinance by which Christ was dealing with them. The holy oracles of God were set off against God's servant. A war, like the fabled war of the giants, was begun : the mountains which God made were turned into a scaling-ladder, by which to assail His throne and destroy His authority. The very instru- ment by which God was blessing this people was undervalued, yea, set aside by them; and ways of their own mvention were taken l^y them in stead. The Church began to kick against apostolical rule : they kicked against it in the person of Paul. They suffered themselves to be transferred from him who called them in the grace of Christ, to others who had no grace of Christ, or mission from Christ at all. This was the first open breach in the visible Church. Until this be known and confessed, there is no hope of improvement : reformations which do not proceed upon this foundation are no reformations; they are but " sweepings and garnishings" of a house still left for the enemy to return to when his time of retiu'ning shall have come. There were many reformations in Israel, which still spared the sin of Jeroboam. There have been many reformations in the Christian Church, which have not ascended to the source of 142 THE TWO APOSTASIES. all declension and weakness; and, therefore, tliey have passed away " like the morning cloud," and the rain has not followed. Mission from the Lord was rejected in the person of Paul; endowment from Christ was despised in his person. Men, without mission and without endowment, were set up as leaders. These two things must be found in the Christian Church: viz. mission from the Lord, en- dowment from Christ ; one follows the other. Jesus said, " He who sent me is with me. What I do, not I do it, hut He that dwelleth in me." So He said to His apostles, " Lo I am with you ; those whom I send, with them I am, in them I will dwell, by them I will work." Well, when mission was set at nought, endowment was withdrawn ; when the name of Jesus, as Lord, was not honoured, the name of Jesus, as Christ, was not manifested. The gifts of the Holy Ghost could not continue m the Church where Christ's servants were not honoured. The Spirit of God did not come down to strengthen religious anarchy, but to sustain Christian obedience. He came down to help the Lord's servants — to work under their Master — to witness with them. Where they were not received there was no room for Him ; those whom He would endow were rejected — He would not endow those whom men set up in their place: therefore came in weakness, which increased from age to age until the present day, when the spirit of the world is come to almost its full manifestation of resistance to the ideas of mission direct from God, and consequent endo^vment. Wlien the master-spirits of the world are those who " defile the flesh — who annul headship — who blaspheme glories," that is THE TWO APOSTASIES. 143 the perfect spirit of Antichrist, which rejects Jesus, the purifier of flesh — rejects the Lord, the esta- blisher of headship — rejects Christ, the bestower of the Spirit of glory — of glories — of manifold gifts, each a proof of the glory which He has entered into, and a mean to prepare for the glory which He will bring with Him at His second appearing. Brethren, is it to be wondered at that unity has not been preserved in the visible Church, when God's chief means for preserving it were rejected? Is it strange that holiness should be dimmed, when the means for producing and perfecting it were set at nought? Men would not receive the grace of Christ through the apostles, and use the gifts of Christ under the rule and teaching of apostles: therefore they failed of the grace of Christ, and roots of bitterness sprang up, and many were defiled ; and men, like profane Esau, sold their birthright and lost their blessing. And the Church committed for- nication with the kings of the earth, and received establishment and endowment from them. Apostles were not suflfered to rule the Church, and bishops alone have not been able to do it. Patriarchs and their councils, kings and their armies, popes and emperors, have striven in vain to hold together what God would not hold together by their hands. His way of ruling, of teaching, of blessing, of perfecting His Church, was not submitted to, and He has allowed us to prove the bitterness of our own w^ays. The fountain of livmg waters was departed fi'om, and history is but a record of the failure of broken cisterns. Brethren, when God lays an anathema upon men. 144 THE TWO APOSTASIES. they cannot release themselves from it at their pleasure, they cannot be as though it were not. Now, He did by St. Paul lay an anathema upon the sins which came out into manifestation in the Corinthian and in the Galatian Churches. Until these sins are repented of and put away, that anathema cannot be taken off. The anathema in the Corinthian Church was, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ T Now, to love the Lord Jesus Christ does not merely mean to love one who suffered in our stead out of love to us ; we are to love Him who hath these three names, and who hath a work to work in us and by us corre- spondent with these three names. Each of these names is not synonymous with the others. The name Jesus covers one set of ideas, the name Lord another, the name Christ a third. His name Jesus is syno- nymous with Saviour ; His name Lord is synonymous with Ruler and Master; His name Christ is syno- nymous with Anointer, baptizer with the Holy Ghost. To love Him according to these three names, is to love to be cleansed from sin by Him, to be made a pure vessel by Him for the service of God ; to love to be endowed with the Spirit of power and glory by Him, to have the pure vessel filled with the wine of the kingdom by Him ; i. e. to have the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the mystic chrism, the mighty anointing, poured upon us by Him who first maketh us right- eous, and then anointeth us as righteous with the oil of glachiess ; to love to be ruled by Hun, to use our gifts which He hath given to us in subordination to Him, for the edification of His body and not for the gratification of ourselves, for His glory and not for our glory, under His authority according to the laws THE TWO APOSTASIES. . 145 of His house. Men may tliink that they love the Lord Jesus Christ because they are affected by the picture of His cracifixion, whether that picture be drawn by the finger of art or by the tongue of eloquence. They weep over the ill-treatment which He received, and the virtues which He manifested under the same, as men have wept over passages of history or tales of romance ; but, notwithstanding this tenderness, they love not that He should do with them what He came to do. To love the Lord Jesus Christ is not to love one part of His work and to dwell exclusively upon it, and to be impatient of hearing anything else ; to make one of His offices the absorbing theme, and to be content with no knowledge, or very inaccurate knowledge, concerning the rest. To weary Him with repetitions of His name, and yet to refuse to consider what His name implies, is not to love Him but to mock Him, Let us under- stand this matter. Men filled with the gifts of Christ, and using them in a disorderly way, were not loving the Head of the Church by His names Lord and Jesus, though they might be glorying in His name of Christ. Men attaining to dominion over their flesh, and to deliverance fi'om the love of the world by the power of Jesus applying His cross unto them, are not loving Him by His name Christ if they are shrinking fi'om the reproach of being filled with His Spirit, and of being accounted fools, and mad, and di'unk for His sake. Men standing for order and rule and the rights of office, maintaining the doctrine that every man in his place is a vicegerent of Christ — a representative of God, though they may thereby be holding forth the truth concerning the Lordship L 146 THE TWO APOSTASIES. of Jesus, tliey are not loving Him as Jesus if they are evading His purity ; they are not loving Him as Christ if they are unwilling to be endowed with His anointing. We are called as Christians to be, not merely good men, not merely able men, not merely orderly men, but to be good men, endowed with power from on high, and when endowed with power from on high to be obedient servants in the use of that power. The Church is not to be a quiet, amiable, inoffensive society merely, but the quiet resting-place of the Lord of all power and might ; the quiet and peaceful society endowed with wisdom, knowledge, utterance, power manifold, against all the enemies of God ; the society where carnal weapons are not used, and wiiere the intrigues of courts and cabals cannot enter, but where still the councils of the Lord of Hosts are held, and the arms of His terrible warfare against the powers of darkness are proved and used. The gentle dove, the undefiled one, is she also who " looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners." Brethren, times of ignorance God has winked at ; now He would have us to understand what we believe, and to manifest what we understand. And he who through false humility, or for any other reason, will not believe, \^all not understand, and will not show what God has given to him in Jesus Christ his Lord, upon him resteth this first anathema which the pen of the apostle wrote. But against the sin in the Galatian Chui'ch the terrible anathema was twice uttered, it being deeper and more fatal than the disorders in the Corinthian Church, which, though they dishonoured the Lord, THE TWO APOSTASIES. 147 did not destroy the foundation of His religion. The Corinthians abused His grace. The Galatians went about to substitute for it the asceticism of man's flesh. One squandered God's means for attaining to God's end ; the other sought to attain to an end not God's by means not of His appointment. The Corinthians preserved some testimony of Clirist, some proof that there was a real union between Him and the Church ; the Galatians were going to destroy all witness for Him, all evidence that He had anything to do with, or any power over, the Church which was called by His name. The effect of what they were doing was to show that the Church was a society of men par- tially following Moses, explaining for themselves and applying to themselves some things out of a book called, and justly called, the Scriptures of God. They were taking hints and making rules for them- selves out of it, but were not allowing God Himself to explain it to them and apply it unto them. They were a society of self- tormenting religious antiquarians poring over an old book, and not a Church holding fast to Him of whom the book testified, getting the meaning of the book from Him, and the fulfilment of all the promises contained m it from Him also. They were busying themselves about religion, but the man whom Christ sent to them to make them religious in His way, they would not have him — they turned away from liim. Alas, brethren, the Galatian sin is awfully deve- loped in those days. The Corinthian is not fully seen, because the blessed powers which the Corinth- ians abused have been long quenched ; and whenever faith, and love, and hope strove to rekindle them, the 148 THE TWO APOSTASIES. flesh, the world, and the devil rose up against the work, and now there is a struggle (which almost the whole world resists) to bring them back again into manifestation. But the Galatian wickedness abounds everywhere. The devil, as an angel of light, is now urging society upon false ways of perfection. To bring in a millennium which is not God's, by means which shall not glorify Christ, is the delusion of the hour. Oh, be ye delivered from it ; be shut up unto your Lord, that He may fill you with His blessing, and show through you His glory! Amen. SERMON XL TRUTH MISPLACED. PALM SUNDAY. Partial views of Scripture are fatal. The Jews re- jected Christ because their information was partial. Christians will not be prepared for His second coming for the same reason. The Jews had no idea of a Messiah, but of one who should reign upon the earth when He came to it. That idea was not false ; it was only partial. He shall reign upon the earth, indeed. The earth shall not be annihilated; it shall be changed; there shall be a new earth. Man's body is not annihilated by death; it is dis- solved, but its parts shall be reunited; it shall be raised from the dead; it shall be changed. The mother shall partake of the honour put upon her honoured child. The earth is om* mother, if God is our father. Our bodies were made of the dust of the earth. The earth of which our bodies were made shall partake of the honour put upon our bodies. The human body, the dust of the earth, has been honoured already; it has been raised to the right hand of God. In the place where the eternal Son had a right to sit, He hath seated His mother with 150 TRUTH MISPLACED. Him: the dust of the earth from which His body was made He hath Kfted to the bosom of God, into the midst of the glory which He had with God before the world was. The honour which has been put upon the human body and upon the material creation by the resurrec- tion and glorification of Christ is a beginning, not an ending. He hath ascended as a first-fruits : there is honour in store for that which hath been already honoured: what has been is an earnest and fore- showing of more which shall be. Let no man say it is impossible that this earth can witness such a scene as the return unto it and reign upon it of Christ and His saints. Is any hope too high for that which has been already so wondrously exalted? Cannot the earth itself take up the language of the saints, and say, When I have already received so much, is anything too great for my expectation? The highest honour has been conferred already. I have furnished a body to the Son of God : I have furnished bodies to His holy ones : is it strange that after that I should furnish a throne where those bodies should sit — a theatre where those bodies should act ? That which God delighteth to honour shall be honoured : therefore will I cry unto my mountains and hills to rejoice. I w^ill call unto the sea to roar, and the fullness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein : let all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, for He cometli to judge the eartli. The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord aU the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. The earth TRUTH MISPLACED. 151 has seen the humiliation of the Son of God, and shall also see His exaltation : it yielded Him a crown of thorns ; it shall be unto Him yet a crown of glory and diadem of beauty : it was rent asunder in His suffering; it shall be built up in His resurrection. All nature sympathised with Him in His death, for the body which hung upon the cross was not isolated ; it was kindred with nature — part and parcel of the creation ; all creation hung by it to God, and groaned in its groans. Since the resuiTCction of Christ, and His ascension to heaven, all nature is longing for His return; the whole creation groaneth and tra- vaileth, waiting for the day when the bodies of the saints shall be raised. Why ? Because all creation has an interest in the matter. Now it is suffering, being subject to bondage, being under a law of cor- ruption ; then it will be delivered from the bondage of corruption; it will be brouglit into the glorious liberty of the children of God. A glorious liberty awaits it in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. The sons of God will rule it for God ; they will offer it to God. Then, indeed, shall be the un- bloody sacrifice which the Holy Eucharist now begins and gives the earnest of. Creation shall par- take in the ultimate triumph of Him who united the creature unto God, who brought heaven and earth together, who made the horse and the rider one. Shall God rejoice in Christ's work, and shall not the creature which was united to God by Him rejoice also? There shall be glory to God in the highest; but shall there not also be peace upon the earth ? Alas ! when has the earth known peace ? Shall it never enjoy a rest ? It shall, when Babylon, the 152 TRUTH MISPLACED. city of confusion, shall have passed away — when the beast shall have been cast, with his false prophet, into the lake of fire — when Satan shall have been bound in the abyss ; and a deeper rest still, when Gog and Magog shall have been devoured by fire fi'om heaven, and Satan shall be cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet, and their followers, with the Devil and his angels, " are tor- mented for ever and ever, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever." It shall enjoy its rest when that word shall be fulfilled, " Behold, I make all things new." Brethren, there is hope for us and for our world in Jesus Christ; let us rejoice and be glad, and let us long for Him to come again, the faithful and true one, that He may fulfil what God hath promised, and awaken the whole creation to its work of thanks- giving. The ancient, I mean the Jewish Church, knew that Christ should reign upon the earth : they did not know what should happen to Christ and to the earth before that reign should take place : there- fore they had inadequate, most inadequate, ideas of the glory, and were utterly ignorant of the sufferings that should precede it. All stumbled — some to rise again, some to rise no more, before a suff'ering Messiah. His disciples themselves could not under- stand that He was first to die : the chief of them re- pelled the idea even from his Master's awful lips, and was rebuked for his unbelief as one deceived by Satan — as one partaking of the universal delusion which had come over the Jewish people. The suf- ferings of her Son were a sword to pierce the heart of the blessed mother herself, although she hid and TRUTH MISPLACED. 153 pondered in her heart the words of God. Until He was risen they could not believe that He was to die ; and after His resurrection even, they could not un- derstand the meaning of His death till He opened unto them the Scriptures, and showed them how Christ must suffer and rise again, and then enter into His glory. This inability of the Jews to receive as the true Messiah a man coming in humiliation and suffering, explains the pertinacity with which they said to Him, " Show us the sign from heaven." Many a sign did He show them. He healed the sick; He cast out devils; He raised the dead; He did wonders on the dry land, wonders on the sea; He taught with more wisdom than Solomon; He preached with more power than Jonah ; He showed them the Father; He was amongst them the very image of Grod in flesh; God's heart of love beat through Him; God's word of truth flowed from Him; God's eye of purity and tenderness glanced from His head; God's benevolence filled His hands always ; every mark of Messiah predicted, belonging to the time, was seen in Him : yet they knew him not; they said. Where is this sign from heaven? He groaned within Him, not l)ecause they sought a sign, but because they sought the wrong one. He would have them to seek signs — yea, He upbraided them because, though abounding in common sense as to signs in the natural workl, they had not discernment of the signs in the spiritual world, which God was making to pass before their eyes. But He groaned because they sought the wrong sign — because their eye was rivetted ui)on a truth, indeed, but a wi'ong truth, an unseasonable truth. You look for the sign 154 TRUTH MISPLACED. from heaven; that sign is not to be yet. Another sign must be first — the sign of the prophet Jonah. Messiah must be swallowed up of the monster of the deei3 first : those in the same ship with Him must cast Him out into the jaws of death, in order that the storm against them may be appeased. From that monster of the deep He must be delivered : death shall yield up its mighty prey. He shall rise ; and after His resurrection He shall preach repent- ance to Nineveh. All this must come to pass before you can see the sign from heaven foretold by the prophet Daniel; but that sign shall be seen. To the highest authority in the Jewish Church, Jesus, when conjured at his last trial by the High Priest, did confess that He was the Messiah, and that sign which they looked for should be seen in its time. When He made this confession the rage of the High Priest reached its fullest height ; and all the fury of the deluded nation was directed by him against the head of Jesus, who seemed to him a blasphemer, because he sought to combine such suffering and meanness as surrounded Him with such glory as was contained in the prophecy of Daniel. The evil and adulterous generation sought the wrong sign : they were evil and adulterous; and when the right sign had been given to them they knew it not. But how inconceivable does it seem that they knew it not ! In the first prophecy concerning Messiah, His sufferings formed as distinct a part as His triumph. " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, and He shall bruise his heel." In all the sub- sequent ones the two ideas were as clearly expressed. All the blood that flowed around, and all the victims TRUTH MISPLACED. 155 that smoked upon Jewish altars, testified continually that Messiah, the true sacrifice, should die. The patriarch's son was substituted by the ram caught in the thicket, till the worthier man prefigured by the patriarch's son, and typified by the ram, should come. God, who spared the patriarch's son, was not to spare His own ; for He said unto them by His prophets that the sword should awake against the man that was His fellow. Death and glory made up the whole of the Jewish ritual — all typified Messiah. Why, therefore, did they separate the death from the glory ? Why did they overreach the first to grasp at the second, and in overreaching miss both ? The answer is, the people became " evil and adulterous." Scarcely were they planted m their land till they began to defile it : they learned the ways of the heathen ; they married themselves to false gods ; they wandered from their true husband, who led them out of Egypt, and planted them in Canaan; they said to His prophets, " Prophesy not unto us, or if you will, prophesy smooth things — prophesy deceits — make the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us." They hated instruction, and cast His words behind them. Long did He bear with them through the times of the judges, in the days of the kings. When He began to judge, He smote some first that the rest might be warned. The cap- tivity of Assyria preceded the captivity of Babylon. A deliverance from Baljylon was vouchsafed. The remnant delivered sinned worse than their fathers; they would not learn from God; they would not obey Him. Therefore, at length He blinded their eyes that they should not see. He sealed up unto 156 TRUTH MISPLACED. them that word which they did not heed ; He hard- ened their hearts so, that when the prophet who preceded Messiah came unto them, they understood Him not; when the Son Himself spake unto them they knew Him not, they cast Him out of the in- heritance. The people provoked a judicial blindness, and a judicial blindness was inflicted: a veil was put upon their hearts, which remaineth stiU, making them a world's wonder. But there shall be a greater wonder than they : the wonder in the heavens shall be greater than the wonder upon the earth. Brethren, were the Jewish people punished for trifling with their opportunities, for abusing their blessings, for neglecting the means afforded to them of God for learning and doing His will ; and shall we escape if we do all these things ? Is God a respecter of persons ? will he punish one child who refused to learn his lesson, and spare another who has sinned in like manner? Yea, what do I say? Will He punish extremely the small oflfender and grant impunity to the greater? The Jew who sinned against types and shadows, and words of pro- phecy, who struck the flesh of the Son of God, not knowing that it was Messiah whom he wounded, — shall he be punished, and his punishment fill the world with astonishment; and shall the Christian escape who has sinned against the testimony, not of type and word, but of the Holy Ghost Himself, the substance of all these — who has refused to obey one whom he acknowledges to be Messiah, indeed, to have come and suffered the judgments written, and to be now exalted to the right hand of God ? They refused to hearken unto a man upon the earth whose TKUTH MISPLACED. 157 claim they did not allow ; we acknowledge that that man then upon the earth is now in the highest hea- vens ; we allow His claims, and yet we dare to dis- obey Him ! Shall this go unpunished ? Brethren, Christian disobedience is a more awful thing than Jewish disobedience, and shall be fol- lowed by a more awful punishment. The higher the elevation to which one has been raised, the greater the fall will be. A wife cast out from her hus- band's bosom sustains a greater reverse than a ser- vant driven fi-om a master's presence. A fall from heaven is more terrible than from the highest part of the earth. The Jewish Church sinned in the earthly things which prefigured the heavenly, and God could not endure it; the Christian Church has sinned in the heavenlies which were prefigured, and shall not God's wrath be kindled ? yea, our God is the con- suming fire. The Jewish apostasy burned, but the nation shall be restored; the Christian Church be- come apostate shall be utterly and eternally con- sumed. Oh, brethren, the things that have been shall be again, only under terrible aggravations. The last stage of the Jewish history typifies the last days of the Christian. The planting of the Jewish Church in miracles typifies the wondi'ous establish- ment of the Christian Church ; the early -begun and long -continued rebellion of the Jewish Church against God typifies analogous disobedience in the Christian Church ; the Assyrian and Babylonian cap- tivities of Israel typify dealings which God has taken with Eastern and Western Churches to bring them to repentance ; the perverseness of those called Pro- testant, affecting to be reformed — their shallowness, 158 TRUTH MISPLACED. their defects, their gainsaying spirit, are typified by those with whom Mahxchi pleaded, who despised the Baptist and contradicted the Lord. The close of the Jewish dispensation typifies the close of the Christian, as its commencement and its history. Was judicial blindness the last mark of the ancient Church ? it shall be the last mark of the Christian. The bewitchment began in the days of St. Paul. " Who hath bewitched you?" he said. He, the Apostle of the Gentiles, in his very first epistles to the Christian Church, pre- dicts what would be the end of that "mystery of lawlessness" which began in the bosom of the Church in his own day — "God shall send them a spirit of delusion to believe a lie." The long-continued sins of Jews provoked God to give them over to delusion, the long-continued sins of Christians shall bring upon them the spirit of delusion. Jews, under their blind- ness, could not know Christ ; Christians, under their blindness, shall not be able to detect Antichrist. God manifest in the flesh was rejected by Jews; the very incarnation of Satan shall be worshipped by Christians. These will be the two monuments of human madness. The ancient world, at its acme of civilisation, with the book of revelation in its hand, declared God incarnate to be Satan; the Christian world, at its ultimate point of boasted civilisation, with the book of revelation enlarged, and the Holy Ghost poured out, shall salute the devil as God. Brethren, is this my conceit, my extravagant assertion? if so, the tongue which utters it deserves to be plucked out. But it is not so ; it is sober reve- lation of Holy Writ, written for our learning, for our warning, that, being forewarned, we may escape — for TRUTH MISPLACED. 159 some shall escape this awful curse, but only some, only a remnant ; and they shall hardly be saved, and only be saved by the warning entering into their heart as the very sword of God, and giving them no rest till the merciful High Priest heals their wound. (See Heb. iv.) Is it true that the Jews, almost uni- versally, were blinded as to the very truth needed in their time ? Is it also true that the Christians, almost universally, will in the last time be blinded as to the very truth needed in their day ? Shall they also not know the very thing concerning Christ then needed to be known ? Shall they know many things about Him, and have His name upon every tongue, and yet not know the very thing concerning Him which He wants them to know and presses upon them with all earnestness? The Jews were dreaming about His kingdom, when the matter in hand with Him was to teach them about His cross. The Christians w^l be drivelling and doting about the cross, when the matter in hand with Him Avill be to lead them up into the possession of the spiritual endowment which that cross obtained for them — to lead them forward to that kingdom which on the cross was purchased. The Jews were occupied with the things of the second coming of Messiah, when they ought to be filled with the subject of His first coming; the Christians will be engrossed with the consideration of the first coming, when they ought to be filled with the subject of His second coming. The guides were blind, and the followers were blind, and they both fell into the ditch together; and the ditch they fell into was a delusion concerning Messiah — a partial, an unseasonable truth concerning Him. His king- 160 TRUTH MISPLACED. dom misplaced was the deep ditch dug for them. The guides and the followers will fall again, and their ditch of delusion shall be misplaced truth also. The Jews who strove to ignore all the truth con- cernino; the humiliation of Christ, were not more in the dark than the Christian missionaries to the Jews, who have endeavoured to apply all the prophecies of the Old Testament to the cross alone. The first coming took the Jews by surprise, for they were not looking for it aright ; the second coming will similarly take the Christians by surprise, because they are not looking aright for it, or looking for it at all, some- thing else filling their thoughts. Brethren, the Lord wrought a work at the eve of His first coming to pre- pare the Jews for His appearing, that He might not come unto them as a thief in the night; that work they despised. Before His second coming He works a work to prepare His Christian Church for His second appearing, that she may not be unready, but ready for His glorious advent ; that work the Christ- ians despise, through their shameful ignorance of the marks which ought to characterise it. Blinded men could not understand Jesus in the flesh ; blinded men shall not understand Jesus in the Spirit. Their living Head shall be speaking unto them through His members, through His ministers, and they will not understand His voice. He will be working amongst them, and they will not discern His hand. Their conscience, indeed, will give them some intimation, but they will stifle her voice, and with wise arguments explain away her counsel. They will feel some alarm, as the Pharisees of old did, in the presence of Christ — as Pharaoh himself in the TRUTH MISPLACED. 161 presence of Moses ; but they will soon contend against and recover from it, and become bolder and harder for havmg fought it down. But is it true that God will send a delusion upon the people called by His name ? Brethren, learn fi-om history, hearken to Scripture. The nations of old who did not like to retain God in their knowledge, He gave them up to a reprobate mind, (see Rom. i.) The children of Israel, who corrupted what was committed unto them, were given up to blindness, (see Rom. ii.) The Christians who shall neglect and refuse their great salvation, upon them shall be sent the spirit of delu- sion, (see 2 Thess. ii.) All these passages show that men cannot set at nought, or treat with contempt or even indifference, what God has done for them, with impunity. They who did not hearken to the apostle in the beginning, but who followed after chimerical forms of perfection (as they deemed it) by ways of their own choosing, interpreting the Bible for them- selves, or else follo^dng interpreters who were not sent to them by the Lord, and refusing to hear the interpreters appointed by Him, He suffered them to be " bewitched." They who followed " old wives' fables," which taught them that holiness consisted in abstaining from marriage and refusing to eat meats, God permitted to be deceived by evil spirits and to become seared in their consciences. The proud separatists of the last days, the selfish ones, they who are all for themselves in religion as weU as in every- thing else, He suffers them to become reprobate con- cerning the fjiith : and, finally, those who received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, who loved not the truth, but had pleasure in unright- M 162 TRUTH MISPLACED. eousness, He allows to be deceived by the man of sin, the son of perdition, the lawless one, — by him who comes " after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and all de- ceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." They who would not receive the truth are allowed to embrace the lie. The truth is presented first and they reject it, not for any lack of evidence — not for any weakness of their mental faculties, but because they are unrighteous and love to be so ; and unrighteousness is deceivable, easily de- ceived— the unrighteous heart does not need strong seduction, a word and a wink are enough for it. They received not the love of the truth, because they had pleasure in unrighteousness. Many excuses men have for not believing the truth, but there is only one reason — God has told it to us — they love unrighteousness . Brethren, before the revelation of Antichrist there is to be a republication of the truth, of the full truth of the Gospel, which shall embrace the past, i.e. the cross of Christ, which He endured for us when He came first ; the future, i. e. the kingdom which He shall receive and share with us when He comes again ; and the present, i. e. the interval between the day of Pentecost and tlie day of the second advent, the work of that interval which Christ worketh from the throne of the Father — the work of raising up His Church, bap- tizing it with the Holy Ghost, and preparing it for the kingdom — the Gospel, which contains in it the fullness of the new song of the redeemed which John in the Spirit heard them sing, namely, " Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood, thou hast made us kings TRUTH MISPLACED. 163 and priests, and we shall reign upon the earth." These are the three elements of Christ's good news to His Church, — redemption by blood ; anointing by the Holy Ghost to be kings and priests ; and posses- sion of the kingdom in due time upon the earth, wherein to exercise the kingly and priestly office. Before men shall be given over to the lie and the liar and murderer for ever, they will get another opportunity of hearing again an unmutilated Gospel. Not justification by faith shall be set before them merely, not all the truth contained in the earlier Churches of Rome and Greece shall be recalled to their minds, but what Paul calls his Gospel — a Gospel more full, more catholic than Protestants, Romans, Greeks, can furnish, shall be pressed upon men's acceptance — a Gospel which shall not be dif- ferent from the truth in the Christian Church, no new Gospel, but which sliall be larger than any contained in any division of it — a Gospel which shall gatlier up into it everything true in Protestantism, in the Latin Church, and in the Greek, without the corrupt mixture which is found in each of those divisions of the visible Church — a Gospel which shall indeed turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and of the children to the fathers, which shall bind the last age of the Christian Church to the first, and take in all the good that lies between. Before the revelation of Antichrist, Christ shows Himself again in the might of His spiritual working, and until men have deliberately rejected Him and His proffered help, they will not be given uj) to receive on their fore- head and their right hand the mark of the enemy of God. Hear how St. Paul speaks of the deliverance 164 PARTIAL VIEWS. of the remnant in this chapter, — " But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren be- loved of the Lord, because God hath from the begin- ning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto He called you by our Gospel to the obtainmg of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." Observe, they who shall escape the evil days are those who are called to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the call which St. Paul says is his Gospel, worthy of being uttered by one sent from Christ and endowed by Him. Paul's Gospel to you is not merely that Christ's righteous- ness is to be imputed to you, that you are to have a sense of pardon, that you are to have a happy death, and that your soul is to soar away from your body and enjoy seraphic endless bliss by itself. His Gos- pel is a call to you to receive the glory which Jesus Christ the Lord brought into human nature ; to receive the glory which appertains to the name Jesus; the glory of purity, of deliverance from sin; the glory which appertains to the name Christ, the glory of being endowed with the Spirit from on high, the glory which appertains to the name Lord; the glory of being set with Him at the head of the creatures of God, to judge angels, to rule the world to come, to be the heir of God. They that will escape the evils that are coming upon the earth must come up from their Protestant, their Popish, their Greek mutila- tions of Christ's Gospel — tney must unlearn their sectarian shibboleths — they must let into them what Paul would call Ids Gospel — they must be in earnest with the Lord, and give themselves wholly unto Him, PARTIAL VIEWS. 165 that He may give them what He has obtained for them, and all that He has obtained for them — they must be enlarged — they must not be straitened — they must open their mouths wide that God may fill them — they must become witnesses of Christ, wit- nesses to His resurrection, and to the glory which He received for men after His resurrection. Brethren, you all want a little religion, perhaps. The last and worst days will be days of religious profession. But if you will escape, indeed, the wrath to come, you must have no reserves with Christ, and set Him no limitations ; you must receive as much religion as He is willing and able to give you. Those who are satisfied with their condition — who think that they are all right — ready for the Lord's appear- ing whenever it may be — who think that they are exactly the sort of Christians that St. Paul, for in- stance, if he were to return to the earth, would re- cognise as being faithful representatives of the reli- gion described in his epistles, — of such I have little hope. All that, I say, must appear to them absurd and wild in the extreme. But there are some, yea many, whom God has made dissatisfied with their own attainments, and with the things which they find in the Christian Church around them. Such the enemy will tempt in every way to have recourse to wrong ways of easing the burden which is at their heart. Some are trying to get relief from the irreverence, the lawlessness, the disorder of Protestantism, in the dark places of superstition, in forms whence the Spirit has departed. Some are striving to escape from the bondage into which the ancient Churches have been brought, by casting off responsibility and embracing 166 PARTIAL VIEWS. what is called Protestant liberty. These classes, however deceived, are objects of greater interest than the lukewarm, who are settled upon their lees — who are content wtli rottenness — or who, through spiritual sluggishness, are insensible of it, though it be all around them. To those whose consciences are alive I would say, Do not let your wound be healed too slightly ; take heed how you suffer your- selves to be swamped in a morass on your way to the springs. One form of fleshly religion is no better than another. All the Churches have been found out. They are weighed in the balance and found wanting. The sin of the Roman Church was pro- claimed three hundred years ago. It has not been corrected since. The scum was not skimmed off and thrown away, but absorbed again into the liquor. The Eastern Church has made no progress for a thousand years. It is almost in the silence of death. Protestantism, which proclaimed the sins of the earlier Churches, is now itself laid bare. Its many sects have hit fatal blots in one another. None of them dare to say more of themselves than that they are human institutions, and all human institutions must be imperfect. From the best of the Protestant sects, some of the most earnest, most devout, and most learned of her sons, are fleeing, as from a house that can afford them no shelter against the coming storm. The Lord has arisen to shake terribly the earth. The time is come for Him to sit as the refiner, purifying the sons of Levi. He will have a people who shall be prepared for His coming and kingdom. To all who are looking with admiration, like His disciples of old, upon the beautiful stones PARTIAL VIEWS. 167 of the temple, His language is, All shall be thrown down. The time for the judgment of great Babylon is come. The Lord's voice is lifted up to deliver His remnant, who shall be purged from the sins and shall escape the strokes of the harlot city. His hand is stretched out to save — His heart is fixed upon reviving in His Church her ancient marks. The presence of the Comforter must be realised again; the hope of the kingdom must again fill the heirs of it; the voice of thanksgiving must again be heard around the Christian altars ; the daily sacrifice must be offered ; the Church must again be known as the place of holy worship ; the communion of saints must be recovered, and the unity of the body rejoiced in. All this is the Lord stu'ring us up unto : this is what Satan strives to defeat. Amen. SERMON XII. SUNDAY BEFOEE EASTER. There are two crucifixions of Christ spoken of in lioly Scripture; one of which was, according to God's most holy will, the result of " the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." It was God's work as well as man's ; for it is written, " Those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled." The spirit in which men put Christ to death was not pleasing to God. Their " hands were wicked" in the act; but the act itself, of ofi'ering Christ unto death, was unavoidable. The thing to be done was that sinners should bring unto God the only sacrifice available and effectual for the taking away of their sins, and that God should accept at their hands the blameless victim, which He Him- self had provided them with, and should cause to be executed upon Him the judgments wi'itten. Christ was in the world, to be brought unto death by the will of God. However death should find Him, whetlicr by the people who had been foreinstructed concerning Him in so many ways, by word, and SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. 169 material sign, and iignrative action, receiving the instructions given to tliem, and in tlie light of the same entering into God's mind, receiving Jesus as the righteous Messiah, presenting Him to God as the only righteous one in flesh, the Man approved and commended by God to them, allowed and justified by them, and given back by them to God as the only sinless one, who could atone for the sinful and mediate between them and the Holy God whom they had offended ; saying unto God in faith, what the high priest said unto men in carnal policy, " it is needful that one should die, and not the whole nation perish." Wiether the " royal and priestly nation" bringing unto God Him by whom the kingdom merited to be recovered, bringing the only offering worthy of priests to ofler, and of Him who had ordained priesthood to accept; and as the honoured portion of the human family, the chosen nation from amongst the nations, " the house of prayer for all people," faithfully discharging its trust received for all, and in the interest of all, bringing to God's altar the sacrifice which should take awav the curse from all, and open a way for the prayer of all to ascend into the ear of the Most High. Whether thus oflfering God's Son unto God, because they understood God's word and believed in Him, or slaying Him wickedly before God in their unbelief and blindness, in either case God has purposed that He shall die, and man must offer Him for the death. God has provided the sinless Lamb, and man must appear before God with His blood. The acknow- ledgment of His innocence must be made from in- genuous recognition or from defeated malice ; He 170 SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. must be consecrated to His sufferings by the word of the high priest, whether spoken in intelligence or ignorance ; He must come into the holy city before His death, hailed as King by the Jewish multitude; and His record as King must be made by the repre- sentative of him to whom the rule of the world was committed. It must be registered upon His cross in three languages: two, the tongues of revelation, which God Himself had consecrated to His especial use from the dialects of mankind; one, which tlie Church was mainly to employ as the guardian of all the mysteries given unto it to hold. The Jewi>sh people must salute Him as Messiah; the high priest must doom Him to death for all; and Caesar must proclaim, in the three chosen tongues, Messiah's title. Whatever motives influence men, God's sub- stantial will concerning His Son is brought to pass. And because it was His will, the executors of it, however wicked in their way of executing it, could find room for repentance, and be exhorted unto it in such words as these : " And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." And again : " God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." " Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remis- sion of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." The second crucifixion of Christ is hinted at else- where in the New Testament Scriptures, but is plainly SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. 171 set forth in tlie Epistle to the Hebrews, from wliich the Epistle for this day, when the death of Christ is commemorated by the Church, is selected. Of certain it is said in the sixth chapter, " they crucify to them- selves the Son of God afresh ;" and of them it is said, that because they do this " it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance." The repentance of those who crucified Christ of old was confidently urged by the first preaching of Christianity. The repentance of these is hopeless. The former did the work that God wanted to have done, however wickedly they did it — the work which forwarded the develop- ment of God's purpose ; the latter attempt what is no carrying out of God's will at all, but the introdu- cing into His work impious and unnatural confusion. It is not His will that the life of the Glorified One should be taken away. " Christ died once for our sins, but being raised from the dead dietli no more ; death hath no more dominion over Him." He liveth unto God, and for God, now. They who slew Him at first, found Him in an outlying, rebellious province of God's kingdom, where He was exposed that He might meet death. They who would slay Him now, must go to seek Him in the very presence-chamber of His hea- venly Father, in the Holy of Holies itself, in the pre- sence of God, yea, upon a throne where He sits in joint occupation with God Himself. One crucified Him upon the earth, where the cross was erected by the will of God ; the other would turn the throne of God into the place of torment, where God has seated Him at His own right hand till His enemies be made His footstool. AVhen He was slain by the Jews, the work was wicked but not unseasonable : it was the 172 SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. time when He stood before God and the creation as the bearer of the curse. To crucify Him afresh is not only most impious, but most unreasonable and preposterous, for now is the time when, having taken away the curse. He lives to dispense the blessing. Tlie crucifying of Christ afresh is expressly stated only in one passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; nowhere else in express terms. The act is attri- buted to no ordinary sinners ; they who would com- mit such an act now, must go to find Him where He is — they must have the power to go thither — they must be spiritual, therefore they are they " who were once enlightened, who tasted the hea- venly gift, who were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, who tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come." Such falling away, turning aside, refusing to go forward to the perfec- tion of which their gifts testified and were the earnest, are the perpetrators of this second crucifixion of the Son of God. Observe, it is a sin for the spiritual become apo- state to commit. They were warned against it who had the powers of the world to come, and yet would not learn the truth concerning Melchizedek — who would not hasten the kingdom of Christ — who gloried in what could be attained to before the resurrection — who were satisfied with a mingled portion, half of Christ, half of the present life — who would use the liberty and strength of God's Spirit to enable them to feast, and not to fast, in the present world. Christ's Spirit is given to us, not that we may enjoy the world, liut that we may renounce it. Brethren, the spiritual refusing to go forward to the kingdom SUNDAY BEFOEE EASTER. 173 crucified Christ afresh — the spiritual who had the earnest of the glory that was coming, turning away from that glory to some vision of the past, to find their satisfaction there. They who had the powers of the world to come, and woukl not use them to bring in that world, soon employed them to trans- pierce with sorrow and cover with shame the Lord Himself. Let us be warned. Whenever the power of the Spirit of Christ appears in His Church, the possibility of this sin appears with it. The Lord has been sinned against in every age ; but perhaps it was reserved for the first and the last age of the Church, when the spiritual character of the Church should be most signally displayed, to be marked emphatically by the impious exhibition which is called " the cruci- fying of the Son of God afresh, and putting Him to open shame." In the beginning the hand was lifted up to do the deed, but it was held back — the power was taken away ; in the end, the full perpetration will be allowed, when the time for the judgment of the " day of wrath " shall have fully come. It will be a fearful time when men, strong in the Spirit, shall use their strength, not to help, but to hinder Christ, to bind His hands and feet, and pierce His heart. The close of Christ's literal life was the period of His greatest suffering. Sinners contradicted Him aU through — they crucified Him in the end. We com- memorate now His last stage on His way of sorrow — Passion Week, as the Church has designated it. And perhaps we have entered upon the Passion Week of His life mystical. The sufferings which all His life natui'al in His own person He endured, in 174 SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. measure came to their awful fullness in the last days of it; the sufferings inflicted u^Don Him during His life by the Spirit in His body the Church, come to their greatest height and intensity at the time of the end. To a si^iritual mind His life personal would be the type of His life corporate. His first great trial came upon Him after His baptism with the Holy Ghost ; His last and severest, after His celebration of the Eucharist with His disciples. These may cor- respond with the first and last trials in His Church. The first joyous event in the Passion Week was the fact that ushered it in — His entry as a King and Conqueror into the Holy City, having His feet anointed with precious ointment the night before, in the house of friendship, by the hands of love ; the last event of joy and consolation was His holy supper with His disciples, which He celebrated the day after His head had been anointed with the costly spikenard in the house of Simon the leper. From woman's hands, both in the house of Lazarus where His feet, and in the house of Simon where His head, was anointed, the offering of love was presented, not only to show her who had been first in the transgression, first also in the joyful and grateful acceptance of the Deliverer, but also, peradventure, to prefigure the double service of love which the faithful Church, set forth by the woman, should perform towards the feet and head of the Lord before His final suffering in the spirit among the children of men. An Eucharist with His apostles alone was the last joyful event of His personal history ; an Eucharist with His Church the harvest of their sowing, a people who shall have SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. 175 recovered faith in their word and possession of their spii'it, shall he the last joyful event in His mystical history. After the supper, His sorrows came fast and heavy upon Him, beginning with the garden, where an angel strengthened Him, ending with the cross, where even His God forsook Him. During the night He is afflicted by the diabolical invasion of His liberty on the part of one apostle, and the carnal defence of it by another. From the garden He is brought to the hall of the high priest, where the night is worn out by the mockery and insolence of servants; and the dawning of day witnesses the council held, in which the high priest adjures Him to declare His Godhead, and denounces Him as a blasphemer for doing so. From the high priest's council of darkness He is dragged to the Roman governor's judgment-seat, for unjust condemnation fi'om the judge, and brutal outrage from the soldiers : between the beginning and end of His trial intervenes the contumely of Herod and the mockery of his mighty men: from the judgment-seat He is led to the cross to be crucified with malefactors, the derision of priests and people ; to hear, as the last words from His chosen Israel, denunciation of Himself as a false prophet; to receive, as their last ofFermg, gall and vinegar; to pass from their malice to that darker and more terrible suffering which was beneath the cloud that hid Him during the " power of darkness," a suflfering darker than the cloud that hid it from mortal eye ; and fi'om the terrible malice of all evil spirits to that which drew from His soul the last cry of agony, the bruising of the hand of Almighty God, when He saw in Him for a moment, not the 176 SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. Son of His love, but the accursed one, wlio was made sin for us — who redeemed us, being made a curse for us. So concluded the life, commenced in circum- stances of humiliation, and spent upon the earth in poverty and desolation. And the Church, following this Head, has an analogous experience to pass through. Sufferings of Christ remain for the body to fill up ; and eminently in the time of the end. He who was contradicted in every generation of His Church shall be crucified afresh — betrayed again by one disciple — denied by another — deserted by all — given up as a man for Barabbas — as a king for Caesar — unjustly condemned by every judge — mocked by every mighty man. Brethren, on this day, when we commemorate Christ's sufferings, let us look beyond the literal facts of the last twenty hours from the passion to the death of Christ. He has been suffering in spirit from the day of Pentecost. Until the last member of the Church is saved, the wounds of the Head are kept open. The sufferings of one who has a dead body chained to him may illustrate it. More aptly still the agony of a soul in a be- numbed body, from which life is slowly expelling death — the unbelieving, divided, unsanctified Church — the oppressed creation, cling to Him yet. In His own sufferings in the days of His flesh. He found comforts on the way by His communion with His Father — by going about doing good — by manifesting the life of God and the powers of the world to come — by the hope set before Him, which He ever held fast — by His continued victories over him who stood between Him and His kingdom. In the experience SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. 177 of His Church He is ftiintly gladdened by these things, because the faith of His people continually fails, and no generation enters into the joy of God as deeply it might, no generation lays hold of His power and manifests His kingdom as it ought — His meml)ers are not employed as they ought to be in conflict with His enemies, and in labours of love for His suffering creation ; but war against each other — work for the destruction of one another. These things make Messiah still to be the man of sorrows. How it grieves Him to hear false doc- trine— to see His members snared and taken by the tempter through their partial acquaintance with God's word — to see oppression by the strong, envy by the weak — unrighteous rule in one place, unjus- tifiable discontent in another — heresy, schism, disso- lution, pride, malice, uncleanness ! Paul spoke of his mourning in the midst of the Church, because of sins indulged or unrepented of. How infinite must be His sorrow, who is in the midst of His Church, with all the fullness of God for tlie help of all who will receive of the same, who continually crieth out, " Is there no balm in Gilead ? is there no physician there ? why, then, is not the hurt of my people healed ?" Christ sorrows because the Church is suffering things from which she ought to be en- joying exemption. She is suffering from wounds, for which He is the infiillible physician ; but she will not allow His remedies : she is weak throuo'h hunoer and thirst, when wine and milk, and kidneys of wheat, and fat things full of marrow, are spread on His table ; but the perverse ones will not draw nigh and partake of them. The bodies of the saints are suf- N 178 SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. fering what they might be enjoying relief from — their hearts are corroded with cares which should be dead, tossed with passions which should be still — their souls are not flourishing like a well-watered garden ; in a word, union with Him is not shown forth to the glory of God the Father — to the rest and joy of the Holy Ghost — to the comfort and edi- fication of the Church — to the light, and guidance, and blessedness of God's creatures. He sorrows because the Church does not suffer as the righteous should: refusing to be delivered from our own troubles, we are weighed down by them, and cannot suffer with Christ, for the dishonour done to God, for the misery of His creatures, for the triumph of wickedness in the world. He sorrows because the Church is not pressing into the kingdom ; but is so tolerant of the Devil and of Antichrist, of hypocrisy, and idolatry, and infidelity, of carnality, and of world- liness. The history of the Church has filled the Head with sorrow. Witness the rejection of His servants by the Jews — the persecution by the Roman power for three hundred years — the greater evil afterwards wrought in the days of worldly prosperity, when the Christian emperors were forced into the Head- ship of the Church, and His religion was compelled to reflect their mind and will rather than His own : when, after the invasion of the Roman empire by the Barbarians, ignorance, and superstition, and idolatry, rolled over the Church like mighty rivers. The abuses and excesses of the Papacy — the lawlessness of the Reformation — the schismatic, and independent, and infidel spirit of the time we live in — the resist- SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. 179 aiice to His efforts to recover His Cliurcli, by reviving in the midst of her the gifts of His Spirit and the ordinances of His kingdom — the stern resolve that there shall not be apostles nor the other ministries unless they can be had independent of the control of the Lord — the rallying under Antichrist — the wondering of the world after the beast — the turning of the visible Church into a hideous Babylon of for- nication and idolatry — a Sodom and Gomorrah of abominable wickedness. Brethren, an apostle of old led the march of Satan's army against the Son of God his Master. Men filled with the power of His resurrection sought to crucify Him afresh. A Church recovering the power of the Spirit, or apostates from it, must take the lead in the final act of dishonour and pain in- flicted upon Jesus Christ our Lord. How shall we escape the wickedness and judgment of those who crucify Him afresh ? Let us read aright the lessons written on the first cross, and we shall not erect the second. 1st. Let us read there God's love to us, that we may love Him. 2d. Let us behold tliere God's estimate of flesh ; even though personally innocent, as in His Holy Son, He could not endure it. Let us not pamper, and decorate, and glory in that which God accounted worthy of the cross, and the cross only. If innocent and clean humanity in Christ's person met with such treatment at the hands of God because of the original fall, what shall it suffer from Him if it come before Him unwashed, iincleansed, uncrucified, un- sanctified? " If these things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? " 180 SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER. 3d. Let us learn upon the cross what the world is morally worth. There is its achievement ; it saw God's image embodied in a man, and hanged it on a tree. Shall we count that worth our love which itself counted God worthy of the cross, of weakness, and shame, and torture ? 4th. Let us behold in the cross what an open door has been given to us into the full possession of all things. " He who gave His Son, will He not with Him freely give us all things ? " All things are the minor gift : the Maker of all things is the great, the unspeakable One: Him given first, all His works reasonably follow. No inheritance accruing can sur- mount the price paid. Let us not make the cross a liilit and common thing, by declining to appropriate all that it has brought to us ; the way to prize it is to reap the whole field which it has ripened for us. The cross is a way opened, not an end attained: they honour the way who confidently travel over it to the territory acquired. No part of Christ's work witnesses of itself, but has engraven upon it some- thing else, to which it leads, and for which it gives a title and qualification. On the cross was the heavy burden of the curse, the galling bondage of the law, taken away from us, that we might come under the easy yoke of Christ's Spirit, and be laden with the glorious burden of His kingdom. Woe be to us if we play with the cross and make an idol of it! Blessed are they who by it climb to the throne of the Lamb in heaven, that they may drink of the river of life, and lift up their head at His appearing and kingdom. Amen. SERMON XIII. THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. When the unclean spint is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeJcing rest, and jindeth none. Satan hath no rest till his ambition be satisfied ; his ambition is to reign in the Church of God. He sought to get possession of Jesus, but was repelled from that rock of God; he sought to possess the apostles of Christ, and one of them became his prey: but a " little flock " was guarded by the Shepherd of Israel, and the destroyer was not able to break through the fold. Driven from Jesus and His few followers, he strove next to become possessor of the Jewish Church. Every place in the universe was a dry place to him beyond the border of God's visible Church. The unfallen angels would not harbour him ; the fallen could not comfort him ; the heathen nations were become too ignorant and weak to help him : by God's people alone he hoped to be able to obstruct God. During the interval of that obstruction is the only hour of comparative rest which he shall ever enjoy: when that work is done, his time of 182 THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. extreme, unmitigated punishment, commences. The Devil and the fallen Church will be mutually tor- mentors of one another: they will be to him as a dungeon, and he to them as a fire shut up within them never to be quenched. While Jesus was cleansing and adorning a chosen remnant to be an habitation of God, the leaders of Israel who resisted Him were sweeping and garnish- ing the unbelieving residue of the people, that they might become the house of a ruling devil, with seven others more wicked than himself, for there are degrees of wickedness in the fallen spirits, St. Matthew has one word more than St. Luke in the description of the house : he says, " empty ^ swept, and garnished." The Jewish Church was God's house : the cloud of His awful presence was in the midst of the camp of Israel ; His glory filled their tabernacle, and subse- quently their temple: He dwelt in the midst of Israel: but at the time when Jesus spake the words which we are considering, God was well-nigh driven from His habitation. The house was be- coming empty : men were getting it into their own hands, that they might make it ready for the new occupant. Jewish society was becoming disengaged from God, in order to be wholly given up to His enemy. And they were sweeping and garnishing the house — sweeping it by the law, garnishing it by the prophets — partial sweeping (such sweeping as would suit the devil, not the cleansing which would satisfy God) by the law, partially inteq^reted and partially applied : uncomely garnishing wath perver- sions of prophecy, gratifying their vanity but not fulfilling the promise given to their hope. Jesus THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. 183 came to fulfil the law and the prophets — to cleanse human flesh, indeed, with the cleansing which the law demanded and shadowed forth, and to cover human flesh with all the glory set forth by the pro- phets, that God might dwell in the clean and glorified tabernacle. The Jewish teachers were zealous for the law, but not for the whole of it; they filled the people with the prophecies, but not with the whole of them : therefore, they made God's harbingers to be Satan's precursors. The word of God, as they handled it, drove God from His dwelling-place, and prepared the forsaken dwelling for the full occupation of evil spirits. What a sad conclusion to the history of the chosen race, who had been brought out of Egypt through the sea and the wilderness ; to whom God gave His law on the fiery mount ; whom He planted in the land of promise ; to whom He spake by angels and prophets ; for whom He destroyed nations and slew mighty kings; whom He made His nation of kings and priests, His house of prayer for all nations, the joy and praise of the whole earth! Fearfully did they prove God's breach of promise. From the day that the Lord Jesus poured out His Spirit upon His few disciples, chosen from amongst them, the prepa- ration of the rest to realise fully the awful picture in the Gospel did rapidly proceed. In less time than their fathers spent in wandering through the wilder- ness, after having seen and refused the promised land, did the unclean spirit, with the seven more wicked than himself, get possession of them, and fill them with madness, and drive them upon the en- gulfing and overwhelmmg armies of destroymg 184 THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. Rome ; as the swine, filled with the legion, Avere driven headlong into the sea, into the sea of the nations were the chosen race precipitated, devil-possessed; and Egypt hath gathered them, and Memphis hath buried them, ever since ; and they shall be trodden down of the Gentiles till the opportunities of the Gen- tiles be run out. The promised land was shown to them, when a chosen man from their number saw earth lifted up to heaven in the person of Jesus standing at the right hand of God ; and the grapes of Eshcol were presented to them when the apostles preached to them with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. They refused the land, and despised the rich fruits that grew in it; and ever since they have been feeding upon ashes : they have been Cain's antitype over the whole earth, flung back into a wilderness, to w^ander, not for forty short years, but for ages and generations, for hundreds and thousands of years. The end of the unbelieving Jewish Church was to become a house filled with unclean spirits: the end of the unfaithful Christian Church is the same. Babylon becomes in the end the habitation of devils, the prison of unclean spirits, the imprisoning cage of every unclean and hateful bird. The Jewish Church became the empty house first. Babylon is first for- saken by Christ and His true people : " Come out of her, my people; I have been driven out from her; follow ye me : come ye out also ; my apostles could not bring my order into her ; my prophets could not testify of my kingdom in her ; my saints cannot live in her; my peo})le must forsake her." When Babylon is forsaken by the Lord, whose healing she refuses ; THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. 185 by the saints, whose perfection she would hinder; then she becomes the possessed of Satan, is made to give her adhesion to Antichrist, just as the Jews cried out, " Caesar, not this man, is our king;" and afterwards to suffer abandonment, and spoliation, and torture, and burning, from him whom she preferred to her heavenly King. The Jewish Church was the swept and garnished house before the final reception of the unclean spirits into it. Babylon, though not healed, will be to the eye of man reformed and beautified before God's last judgment overtakes it: it will have a counterfeit most perfect of the righteousness which the word of God produces: it will have substitutes most bewitching for the glorious earnest of Christ's kingdom in an age of reform and education, of refinement and accomplishment, of natural perfection and discovery, and endowment with all Nature's powers, patent and hidden. At a time when Christendom shall pronounce itself per- fect in beauty, and prepared to sit as queen for ever, the Spirit of God will prove her work to be sin, because not the result of faith in Jesus Christ; and he who is the father of sin shall claim his own, and be allowed in his claim by God. The improvements wrought in every department of human life, in the last times of the world, will deceive every eye that is not anointed with the eye- salve of Christ. It will be utterly impossible to prove to men that they are the people pre-eminently upon whom the judgments of God may be expected to fall. The Jews were astonished at the accusations of John the Baptist and of the Lord Himself. They said of each, Thou hast a devil, and art mad ; thou 186 THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. art an accuser of the iDretliren, and a gloomy fanatic : we are not the people you report us to be; we are Abraham's children. If ever a generation descended fi*om the father of the faithful merited to be called by his name, as inheriting his faith and his zeal for God, we are that generation. Compare us with our father, do you see an idol in our temple? Have we not amongst us the well-instructed Scribes and the scrupulously-righteous Pharisees? Surely we are the rigliteous nation, who may fairly expect Messiah to come amongst us, and set up in the midst of His waiting and obedient people the kingdom promised to our fathers. What the Jews said, even when their destruction was coming upon them as the whirlwind, Christendom will say when the last sands of her hour of opportunity are running out. There are two main divisions of the visible Church : those who call themselves Reformed, and those who consider it impiety and blasphemy to speak of re- forming the holy, orthodox. Catholic Church, to which infallibility was given which can never fail. Both of these divisions must of necessity be un- prepared for the coming of the Lord ; according to their principles it cannot be otherwise. The one is locked in carnal security, the other in spiritual de- lusion : one has corrected all abuses, and is going on unto perfection, hoping for a speedy millennium ; the other had its millennium long ago, and is now at its close, expecting not her own judgment, but the de- struction of the heretics, and schismatics, and bands of the wicked, who have compassed the holy city and the camp of the saints : one is cleansed from de- filement, the other never contracted any. The sweep- THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. 187 iiig and garnisliing proceed with both. One party reforming more and more its reformation ; the other re-asserting more confidently than ever its chiiin to infaUibility and perfection, and putting on the fairest show possible to prove that the claim is well founded. Christ, the cleanser and adorner of the Church of God, could not be received by those who were taken up with their own sweeping and garnishing. How could they come down from their great work to listen to Him ? How could they endure His interruption of them ? So now, to testify unto the reformed of the need of apostles and prophets is to accuse them of having failed in what they attempted to do — it is to asperse and malign their glorious reformation; and to speak to those who have never gone astray of a mighty work which God is working for their reco- very, is, in their estimation, to charge God Himself with folly. You speak, say they, of apostles and prophets: we have them ourselves; we never were without them. You speak of Christ returning in power unto His Church : He never left His Church ; He has been always in full and unobstructed power in the midst of us ; He has said and done by us all that it pleased Him to say and do ; the marriage tie has never been unloosed; the Head of the Church has been faithful to His Church, and His Church has been faithful to Him ; and, notwithstanding the slanders and calumnies of Protestants and Infidels, our history has been a continual triumph; not a progress in apostasy from God, but a successive development of His truth and grace. Our path has been as the shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day. You speak of means of reco- 188 THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. very. Recovery implies previous fall ; but a fall has not taken place : therefore, the recovery is but a pre- tence and a delusion. Protestants, sweeping and garnishing more and more to accredit and commend their reformation, and Romanists performing the same operations in order to substantiate their claim to infallibility and perfection, will both become empty of Him to whom by right they belong, and will be ready for that possession which awaits Babylon when it shall have refused Christ's healing. Since the day that the voice of the Holy Ghost has been heard in our time, and the true cleanser and beautifier of God's house has begun His work, what an excitement has there been in all the sects ! each brightening its scutcheon, labouring to verify its pretensions ; each striving to prove that the help alleged to be sent to the whole Church in those days is not needed by them. Brethren, let not the spirit of Babylon be in us, urging us to make a fair show before men, while we are not availing ourselves practically and heartily of all the means brought to us by God for our per- fecting. Let us " make our calling and election sure." The Gospel of this day is a warning against relapses. Let us take it; we need it. We must press into the condition unto which we have been seiiled, the spiritual experience set forth in the epistle to the Philadelphian Church, or we shall sink into the state of the Laodiceans, with their orthodox theory and heart of lukewarmness. Let none of us substitute the sweeping and garnishing of j^ride for the cleansing of Christ, by the action upon us of the means which He has a-iven. There are two men described in the Gospel before THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. 189 US : first, lie who had been diimh and blind, but after Christ's miracle upon him did speak and see ; secondly, he from whom the evil spirit withdrew, and who, during the absence of the enemy, spent his time in preparation for his return and re-possession of him. Which of these men shall we imitate ? Has not the Lord in these days opened our mouths, and given sight to our eyes ? Let us use our liberty of speech in worshipping Him, and praying unto Him, and singing His praise, in testifying of His goodness and mercy and faithfulness unto our brethren, in exhort- ing those who believe to give themselves more and more to His holy service. If we so employ our tongues, w411 He not loose them more and more, and give us more of His truth to utter? Has not the Lord in our days given sight to the blind? Let us use our unsealed powers of vision in looking upon the things which He would have to absorb our atten- tion. Let us look upon the ruins of His Church, and upon the pattern which He has given to us, according to which it shall rise again from its ruins in the beauty of holiness. Let us fix our attention at the time upon the things to which at that time the Lord directs our attention. When He says. Look here ; let us not look away to something else, how- ever grand or beautiful. It may be He would fix our eye on some matter of comparative minuteness and apparent unimportance ; let us not be diverted from it to any other object behind or before us, how- ever glorious. The minutest typical performance which the children of Israel were engaged in was, in its place, as worthy of their attention as the sight of the opening of the Red Sea while they escaped from 190 THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. tlieir enemies, or tlie standing still of the sun in tlie heavens whilst they destroyed them. If we will fix our eyes upon the things which, for the time, the Lord counts worthy of our notice, He will anoint our vision more and more with His eyesalve, and our body shall be full of light. We shall see as he saw to whom the heavens were opened — before whom the apocalyptic visions passed. He will enable us to see what the need of His Church and the glory of God require ; and the more we see, the more shall we worship and adore the Lord our God. Let us not be as the man from whom the enemy went out meaning to return, knowing when to find him again whom he leaves for a little, knowing the ways of access to him, the habits which keep the door open for him. The things in us which Satan can claim as his own let us cast away from us, though they be as the right eye or the right hand. If the door by which he can come in and out be pride in our spirit, obstinacy in our will, let us seek unto Jesus, that He may subdue our spirit and bend our will. If the avenue to the devil lie through our mind with its reasonings and prejudices, let us seek in earnest to have our thoughts brought into captivity to Christ. If the lusts of the flesh and habits of bodily self- indulgence are our weak points, let us cry unto the Lord indeed to crucify our flesh with its affections and lusts. Satan has no power over that which the cross of Christ touches ; let us manfully and reso- lutely apply the cross to our whole being, from the forehead to the breast, from one shoulder to another, over the whole body, and all which mysteriously lodges and energises within it. THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. 191 Brethren, we are the people to wliom this clay St. raiil's words apply : " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." This language is not addressed to persons in nature's sleep of unconversion and unregenerateness. It is spoken over the Church seduced from holiness, re-immersed in indulgences of this life and of this world, from which, by Christ's death and resurrec- tion, it had been delivered ; drowned by such self- indulgence in forgetfulness of its proper work and vocation, of its present condition to be a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and its future one of being a partaker of His glory. To the Church, long bewitched with beauty — • which, though fallen, is still most seductive — and lullabied to sleep by false teaching, which misrepre- sents the Christian calling, the Spirit cries, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." We were as men asleep, and our speech was wild and incoherent as of those dreaming in their sleep. Our proper work we had forgotten, our proper tools for doing it we had mis- laid, and knew not the use of. We have been aw^ak- ened, but we must arise from the dead ; unless we spring up with alacrity after being awakened, we shall be drawn back again into our delicious and delirious sleep by the wicked, whose arms are about us, and their solicitations in our ears like the syren's song. " A little more slee]i, and a little more slumber," are sweet sounds to slothful men ; may our ears be stopped against them — may no suggestions of wicked- ness be able to commend them to us ! The Church awaking after her long sleep, and disengagmg herself 192 THE SPIRIT OF BABYLON. from the allurements and entanglements of wicked- ness, shall receive light from Christ. The first thing he wants who suddenly awakes is, that he may be furnished with light. To the Church awaking Christ is present, to give all the light which His name Christ implies ; light upon past history, upon present cir- cumstances, upon future events ; light in which the meanmg of all God's word and providence shall be- come manifest. " The light of the moon shall be as the hght of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." Amen. SERMON XIV. JESUS IN GALILEE. THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER, After His baptism, and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him, the Lord waited forty days before He entered on His ministry. After His resurrection, He abode on the earth forty days before His ascen- sion to the right hand of God. During the interval between His endowment for His ministry and His discharge of it, He spent His time in the wilderness of temptation, allowing the enemy of God and man to try all his strength against the vessel which was filled with glory for God and deliverance for His creatures. During the time l)etween His resurrec- tion and ascension He consorted with His disciples, blessing them, and speaking peace to them, and teaching them the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, opening their understanding to understand the Scriptures, showing them the things concernino- Him which needed to be fulfilled from Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms. Before entering upon His ministry He laid Himself open to all the assaults of the terrible enemy of the ministers of God, that He might prove Himself worthy to serve in God's o 194 JESUS IN GALILEE. name, and mighty to enable all others who should be called to holy ministry to overcome in like manner. Having faithfully discharged His ministry before He ascended to receive His reward in heaven, He tarried behind upon the earth, to labour with His last personal labours of love upon those who should follow Him, that they might be made perfect and en- tire, wanting nothing — that the whole framework of divine truth should be set up in their minds by Him, the incarnate Word interpreting unto them the written word; which framework the Holy Ghost should afterwards fill up with divine substance — that they, having learned all truth from His lips, when they should receive the Holy Ghost might know that He was indeed the Spirit of His mouth who breathed on them and taught them the word of God ; who gave unto them the words which were spirit and life, which the Father had given unto Him — that they might know from the truth which He gave them, and from the power of the truth, even the Holy Ghost, which they received from Him, that He had truly come out from God — that they might know the Holy Ghost, whom they should re- ceive, by proving that He was the Spirit of the trvith which they had already learned, and might be con- firmed in the truth which they had received, by finding that it was indeed the form and letter, whereof God Himself was the Spirit and power : and also that they might be prepared for, and able to reject him, who shall come gainsaying what was written, or per- verting it, and putting power into his own lies or man s inventions. JESUS IN GALILEE. 195 What a preparation for receiving the Holy Ghost had the infant Church in the persons of the apostles at the beginning — in the personal teaching of the Lord before His death and after His resurrection! what a learning of the things of God from the lips of Him who came out from God, who was God in their flesh ! Also, what an experience of themselves were they led through, that they might not trust in them- selves, but in the Lord Himself ! They were made to know how ignorant they were, like all others, of the nature and time of the kingdom of God; and after their most glorious testimony, were rebuked T\atli, " Get behind me, Satan!" The spirit of earthly ambition for heavenly dignities was permitted to ap- pear amongst them, which broke out on the last journey to Jerusalem, when, with the Lord's words concerning His passion and death which He was going to suffer, ringing in their ears, their minds were occupied with speculations about, and aspira- tions after, their personal distinctions in the king- dom of heaven. Not the infidelity of the Jewish nation, which was going to reject Messiah — not the wickedness of the flesh, which was going to stain its hands in the blood of the Son of God — not the suf- ferings of their Lord Himself, could find any place in the thoughts and feelings of men who were full of themselves, and defining and claiming for themselves high places and high lionours. Let me be at the right hand of the reigning Messiah, and let me be at His left ; let me have the guidance and command over all that proceeds from His right hand, in the way of origination for God and aggression upon Satan ; let me preside over all the defences of glory 196 JESUS IN GALILEE. which are on His left hand ; let me wield His sword ; let me be seen as the bearer of His shield; and, no matter about everything and everybody else in heaven and earth, only secure a high place- — the highest place — for me, and let all the rest get no place at all, or have a scramble for it. The spirit of betrayal was permitted to come forth from the very bosom of His disciples, as the darkest cloud some- times gathers upon and bursts from the brightest point in the heavens ; as the deadliest reptile creeps forth from the fairest flowers of the eastern garden — the spirit of betrayal, which alone excluded its victim from a share in the teaching of the Lord after His resurrection. Denial of their Master, also, and de- sertion of Him in the hour of His need, were the bitter lessons in which the apostles learned their own weakness and utter unworthiness of the honour put upon them. Nevertheless, they were glad when they saw the Lord again ; and for forty days they learned from Him the things concerning the kingdom of God, as Moses had learned for forty days upon the mount with God, the pattern of the tabernacle which he was about to build. In Galilee, where He had called them. He would have spent all the time with them. " The Son of man shall suffer and die, and rise again, and go before you into Galilee." To the women who were first at the tomb the angel said, " Tell His disciples that He goes before them into Galilee, and there shall they see Him." And Jesus met them as they were going away to His disciples with the angel's message, and confirmed the same with His OAvn lips : " Go tell my brethren that they go into Gahlee, and there shall they see me." And JESUS IN GALILEE. 197 the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. But the unbelief of the apostles, who would not believe the women, and of Thomas, who would not believe the testimony of his brethren, detained them for some time in Jerusalem. When the incredulity of Thomas was taken away, the eleven disciples went away mto Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. There, chiefly, were wrought amongst the disciples the many things which, if written every one, the world could not contain the things that should be written. The commencement and close of the Lord's con- verse with His disciples after His resurrection was at Jerusalem. The intermediate time was spent in Galilee. Had the disciples believed the Lord's words, they would have gone to Galilee immediately upon His death, as He promised to meet them there after His resurrection. And when the women reported to them the message of the angel, and the command of the Lord Himself, that they should go to Galilee, they ought to have remembered the word spoken to them by Jesus on their way to Jerusalem, before His passion, and forthwith obeyed it. But, in fact, they did not believe that He would rise from the dead on the third day ; and the fact of His resuiTCction they did not believe on the report of those who had wit- nessed it, and so were liindered from setting out for the place appointed unto them. And, strange to say, when they were all, except Thomas, convinced of the Lord's resurrection, they do not seem even then to have obeyed the word spoken to them about return- ing to Galilee, but to have remained another week in 198 JESUS IN GALILEE. Jerusalem ; probably because of Thomas's incredulity, who would not go with them into the mountains of Galilee to meet, after His resurrection, with one whom he did not believe to have risen at all. And they were unwilling to go without their brother, and waited, hoj^ing that the Lord would somehow con- vince him, as well as the rest, that they might repair together to their native place, where He had charged them to wait upon Him. Galilee, not Jerusalem, was the place where the friends of the Lord should be gathered to meet Him after His resurrection. Thereby the apostles might have learned that the time of Christ's manifestation to Israel and taking His kingdom was not come yet, seeing that Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, was passed by, and the obscurity and meanness of the solitudes of Galilee preferred unto it. He seemed to say : I wUl know you still as the poor men of Galilee. I shall be still the despised one, communing with the base things of the world, and the things that are not, by them to bring to nought the things that are. This inference, however, the apostles had not made ; for when they came afterwards to Jerusalem, at the feast of Pen- tecost, they were dreaming of the manifestation of Christ's kingly glory then, and theirs with Him. For they said : " Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom unto Israel ? Is the time of Thy hiding past? Are we trained now for our places and duties in Thy kingdom?" They had forgotten His promise to them of the Comforter. They understood not the mystery of their union with Him, and the necessity of their passing into the condition of the regeneration along with Him, in order to be able with Him to see JESUS IN GALILEE. 199 the kingdom of God and to enter into it. How tins enhances unto us the vaUie of the presence of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter ! Here were men who saw, and felt, and in sundry ways proved, the differ- ence between manhood in the flesh and manhood risen. They must have known hy their senses the utter incongruity, the immeasurable distance between themselves, who had not passed through death, and their risen Lord. Yet they supposed it possible for them to reign with Him as they were. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; they are foolishness unto him." He could not be converted from his ways, even though one were to rise from the dead and come imto him. The resurrection of Christ, and His living with them and teaching them, could not make them understand what was, as it were, brought down to their senses. When they w^ere filled with the Spirit of truth, they were led into all truth. The Head of the Church and the members thereof could not understand one another until the Holy Ghost was given. Those who have fancies about learning the nature of Christ's kingdom by converse with risen saints, would have their imaginations corrected if they reflected on the little way which the disciples of old made, although conversing for forty days with the King of Saints Himself. And how soon they knew all things when they were baptized with the Spu*it, which He poured out upon them from the right hand of God ! " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended unto my Father." You cannot touch me aright until I ascend and send down to you, from my Father and your Father, the Spirit, whereby you shall know me aright, and ap- 200 JESUS IN GALILEE. proacli me, and touch me, and commune with me aright. There can he no intercommunion between the risen Saviour and His Church in the flesh, hut by the intervention of the Holy Ghost — rather, by the indwelling in both of the one Spirit in Him, as the fountain in them, as the streams of life. To acknow- ledge Jesus as the risen Saviour — to lavish upon Him the truest affections of nature — to offer unto Him the most glorious presents from the natural creation, is not acceptable, if the Spirit which descends from Him be not received and yielded to ; " for they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Men have striven to place themselves stages back in the course of God's economy of His Church. Some have gone back all the way to Moses, some to Elias, some to John the Baptist, some to Jesus in the days of His flesh, some to the Risen One abiding on the earth with natural men. But our condition is far beyond all these. We are joined to the Lord, to be one Spirit with Him. We do not keep the holy seasons, into which the services of the Christian Church have divided the year, aright, by striving to force ourselves, by the dint of our imagination, into the circumstances which characterised those epochs which the seasons of the Church commemorate, and by striving to realise the feelings of those who were actors in the midst of these circumstances. That were, indeed, to convert Christianity into an unreal, artificial system, in which men should have no characters of their own to sus- tain, but should be ever, like actors on a stage, imi- tating the actions and playing the parts of others — masquerading for ever through a wearisome panto- JESUS IN GALILEE. 201 mime — not going forward to perfection, but going backward to stuntedness and imbecility. Besides, the thing is impossible. Men cannot return to the womb out of which they came. Youth cannot, though it would, return to infancy. The attempt, whenever made, is suicidal. Grey -bearded age can never again be beardless boyhood. The tree of this year must be shrivelled by death before it can return to the dimensions of the tree of last year. The river farther on towards the sea must have lost its tribu- tary waters, if it have become as shallow and as nar- row as it was higher up towards the source. We are not to strive to live out over again the life of John the Baptist, nor to imitate to the letter the actions and circumstances of Jesus and His apostles. We are not to reproduce a fac-simile of anything that has been to turn the stern works of other days, wrought by real men, into a drama acted out upon a stage. We meditate upon the seasons of the Christian year, in order to find out what God wrought in every age, — what fruit His tree bore in its season ; and w^hile we seek not to revive the letter of the times, we do strive to enter into the spirit which actuated those whose work for God we celebrate. During the interval from resurrection to ascen- sion, the Lord explained to His disciples all that had gone before up to the point whereunto they had aiTived, and prepared them for the next step which they were to take. He showed Himself alive to them. He wi'ought wonders before them. He opened to them the Scriptures. He told them to wait for the promise of the Father. Apostles now have not to learn merely that Jesus is risen, and to 202 JESUS IN GALILEE. learn from Him the things that shall prepare the way for the descent of the Holy Ghost ; but they have to know that nearly two thousand years have elapsed since His ascent to God and the descent of the Holy Ghost. They have to learn all that He has wrought during that time for the accomplishment of the pur- pose of God, to distinguish what He has said and done from the works and words of His enemies, to know what yet He has to do and say, and to be willing that the same should be said and done. AjDostles are not now to imitate the letter of what apostles at first have done, much less to copy with servility any other leaders of the Church of God. But they have to learn the true meaning of the communications made to the Church by the first apostles, and' to follow the course of that Spirit who first wrought by them through all the history of the Church ; to know what He has laboured for, and how He has been hindered, and how far He has prevailed; to learn from Him how to bring the Church now into the condition which it ought to be in. We are to know Jesus, not merely as Him who rose fi^om the dead, but as Him who ascended and sent down the Holy Ghost, and has watched for eighteen hundred years over the gift which He gave. We are to learn fi^om Him what He taught by Paul and Peter and the rest con- cerning the mystery of godliness and the mystery of iniquity ; what He wrought and contended for, some- times by rulers of the Church, sometimes in spite of them, — to follow the Lamb whithersoever He went; to acknowledge His footprints, now on the highway of the legitimate Ruler and Teacher of the Church, now in the bye-way of the fiiithful servant, suffermg JESUS IN GALILEE. 203 under the infamy of the name of Heretic, protesting ineffectually against spiritual wickedness too mighty to be visited. The work now, to enter into the longing of the Head of the Church for His people to be gatliered unto Him; to be filled with His Spirit, fitted for His kingdom ; to labour for the awakening of the living saints unto the full apprehension of their high calling in Jesus Christ; to long for the resurrection of the Just, that the kingdom of God may come. The Lord will come as He depai'ted. He de- parted blessing His apostles, after charging them to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Holy Ghost. He will come to those who have received that pro- mise, and are presenting the fruit of it unto God, even the Church perfected in the Spirit. Hope, not memory, is to save us ; longing for the coming of the Lord, and producing that longing in the Church, we shall be prepared for that coming. What the Church ought to be has never been seen yet; it is the hope of the coming of the Lord that shall make it what it ought to be. SERMON XV. THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. For this cause I how my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — Eph. iii. 14, &c. The tribulations of the apostle began in his impri- sonment, ended in his death. These tribulations brought faintness on the Church. The history of the visible Church is the narrative of that faintness. St. Paul felt, that what was happening to him would endanger the steadfastness of the Church. The loss of leaders involves the suffering, if not the discom- fiture, of the host. To faint, in this place, means to give up through loss of strength and courage, to become dispirited, to despond, and so to fall away fi'om God, to flee from the enemies, or yield to them, or make an unworthy truce with them — an inglorious peace; to lose the consciousness of power and the assurance of victory ; to sink under a sense of feebleness and anticipate failure, — the feeling, in a word, which would make a labourer cease from his labour through hopelessness, a mariner yield his vessel to the waves and winds without an effort to resist them, a soldier lose all heart for the battle and all hope of its reward. Paul THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. 205 feared that all this would happen to tht3 Church in consequence of the sufterings that he was entering upon. He had just been setting forth the high call- ing of the Christian Church, and he feared lest those to whom he announced it should fail to trust in God, and so fail of attaining to it; lest they should have hard thoughts of God, as if He began a work which He either would or could not finish ; lest they should say, " When God meant to deliver Israel from Egypt, He did not let Moses fall into the hands of his enemies till the deliverance was effected; when He raised up Joshua to go in before the people, he went in, took possession of the land, and was over- come by no enemy : but here the leading minister of the Church is allowed to be taken in the toils of his persecutors, — he who was not only the chief captain under the Lord of Hosts, but also the con- veyer to those who should contend under him of the grace which should supply strength and secure vic- tory;" lest they should say, — " The God of Israel is not our God ; He fulfilled what He promised : but He with whom we have to do appoints us to failure. He calls us to perfection, and behold He suffers to be removed from us the means by which that perfection is attainable." He feared lest the sin of the slothful servant in the parable should be committed by the Church, saying, — " He expects to reap from us, and yet tlie labourer who should rightly cultivate the field, and scatter the good seed, and watch for the harvest, and guard the crop, He removes fi'om the midst of us." He feared lest doubt of God's love or power should come upon them to paralyse them, to stop all exertion, and quench all hope. The Church 206 THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. would be tempted to say, — " He who should go before us to liberty is himself in a prison. He who should lead us into life is himself a dead man. Who shall guard the doctrine when Paul is taken away ? Who shall impart spiritual gifts when the pipe for their conveyance is broken?" Paul's apprehensions were not those of a timid, over-cautious man, fore- casting evil, but of a faithful shepherd filled with the spirit of wisdom and love, who knew that grievous wolves of persecution and insidious teachers of lies would assail tlie flock which he was appointed to guard and to bless; that Satan's two witnesses, the false tongue and the cruel hand, were ready for the smiting of the Church, and would smite most heavily when the defences of the Lord should be taken out of the way. But how was the fainting and falling away to be prevented? This prayer of the apostle gives the answer. The Church, pressing into all that is here set forth, shall escape; proving all that God can do in us, as members of Christ, shall preserve us from apostasy from God. " How shall we escape if we neglect the great salvation ! " We shall certainly es- cape if we will experience it. Paul feared, that when apostles should be taken out of the way the Church v.^ould contentedly, and as a matter of course, settle down into a lower form and style of Christianity, as if there were two kinds of religion — one at the com- mencement of the Christian dispensation, and another after ; therefore he labours in this prayer to set forth to the Church for ever what she should ever seek to attain to. No experience of Peter, or Paul, or John could soar higher than that which is here laid down THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. 207 as the object of aim to all Christians — for the epistle is addressed to all. All who would be preserved in fidelity to God, under the tribulations which He would permit the Church to be tried by, must be thus preserved. The apostle, before he was taken away from the Church, uttered a prayer in her be- half which should serve to the Church for ever as a standing definition of Christianity, a beacon on her voyage through the dark sea of Misinterpretation and Corruption. You who will escape will first need " to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." Might here means ability; as much as to say, you will need to be strengthened in the inner man, with a strengthening which shall make you able for whatever may happen; to have such a strength put into your will as to make it respond to every one of God's requirements and dispensations. / will — ability in the will, to yield to God and to ^^^thstand His enemies; ability in the mind, to decide for God and to reject what is false light or perverted teach- ing; ability in the heart, to love righteousness and hate sin; ability in the thoughts, to dAvell fixedly upon God and eschew wandering; in the whole inner man of volition, thought, and affection ; ability to abide in the right and for the truth always — strength- ened into the inner man, as it is more closely ren- dered— that is, having the Spirit of God poured into your heart, conveying with Him God's will, mind, and love, and working the same into you. This strengthening with might by the Spirit in the inner man is unto your becoming the house of Christ: He, the baptizer Avith the Spirit, the Lord over the Spirit, comes to d\vell where the Spirit has 208 THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. prepared Him a habitation. Not only are you to be spiritual, but to be so under Him who first was spiri- tual,—who is the Head over all the spiritual, — who is to rule them, guide them, save them, and reward them. To you who have received ability by the strengthening of God's Spirit in the inner man, Christ will commit Himself ; as a man securely comes into his own house to rest there, to be at home there — to make his plans there — to devise and prepare his work there — to meet his friends there — to dispense his favours there. Christ will dwell in you ; everything proper to His name Christ He will be able to bring into you; all the anoint- ing— that out of which virtues flow, out of which gifts and powers spring. He will be able to dwell in you by His name Christ, and to make use of you according to that name. The world having heard a report of Him, shall come to His house to find Him, and shall see, indeed, that He is in you of a truth. You must be enahled in the inner man to have faith for this — to have courage and confidence to yield yourselves for such an occupation. To those who saw His miracles merely, and who said, " We believe," He committed not Himself, for He knew what was in man and could not trust him : to those strengthened with might in the inner man He intrusts Himself, as to His sure and quiet habitation, because He trusts in God's work in them. That Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, by your confident surrender of yourselves to Him — that is, that He may have the undisputed mastery in you and over you, as a man is master, or should be, in his own house — there must be no chamber locked up from Him, no reserved THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. 209 drawing-room or closet which He may not enter ; He is not to be a lodger merely, nor a guest in a separate room or a show-room, but He must have the use, the free use, of the whole house : the upper room of the towering spirit — the middle story of the capacious mind — the basement chambers of the body. He must have a right to all — to fill your spirit with new wine, if He will, so as to make you seem drunken and a fool to the wise and sober of this world ; to use all your mental powers as windows which He may illuminate, however offensive His light shining through your reason may be in an unbelieving world ; to have your bodies to send, keep, and use where, when, and how He pleases. Dwelling in your hearts is not an ornamental metaphor merely ; it defines a reality of service, a true subjection to our Lord as Christ, an entire surrender of our whole being to the anointing of Him who, after His own anointing, was seen as sealed to God, shut up to God's service, wholly occupied, and in the whole of Him. The Church is, indeed, the Saviour's holy home. The Church which shall escape Antichrist, which shall not apostatise from God to follow the Man of Sin, the Beast out of the bottomless pit, must become so. The Church which, being called to this intelli- gently, definitively, peremptorily, plainly, shall refuse with courtesy or rudeness, in good or bad grace, but shall still refuse, must faint, must fall away, must become the prophet to the beast, the cage of unclean birds, the hiding-place of every loathsome and abomi- nable thing. Angels of judgment are on the wing — they have received their conmiission ; they shall look into every church, and sect, and conventicle, to see if 210 THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. Christ is there, as a man at home, a master in His own house. If He be not there, if the very law of tlie house exclude Him by His name Christ, or give Him but partial entertainment, or limited occupation and circumscribed control, that house must fall. Will the Roman Church be able to say, Christ is, indeed, at home with us — we are His house — He has His way with us — all His laws are respected — His word may run — His Spirit is free — whatever He would have thought, spoken, and done, may here be done, spoken, and thought — Christ rules in us and over us — His anointing is upon us — behold us, and see ; our past history, our present work, our anticipations and aspirations for the future, all avouch it? Shall the Anglican Church abide the trial ? Has Christ undivided rule in that house ? Is He at home there, or is He barely tolerated in diminished and eclipsed state in the inferior chambers of a house where another rules — counselling with bated breath, and teaching with qualified instruction the subjects of another king ? Is He as a master in His own house in the lands where just as much religion as a corrupt court chooses to allow a worldly Autocrat to sanction is the ultimatum of Christianity ? Is He master in the sects whose popular will carries every- thing before it, or where monied patronage possesses almost unlimited power ? In short, is He at home and master in any place where He cannot introduce what He pleases and stop what He pleases — where He is not waited upon and waited for — where every lawful means is not used to exclude from supremacy every will but His, to acknowledge for law no mind but His, and to give that will and that mind fuU and THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. 211 entire supremacy ? " Whose house ye are," said Paul in another place, if But if not ? If you become anybody else's house, no matter whose, though it were Paul or Peter's even, the house must be destroyed. Brethren, for this you need ability in your inner man, that you may be able to be Christ's house, and that you may be able to eject any and every usurper of His dwelling. Brethren, you are His house ! Not the place where you assemble to worship — not the instruments varied with which you perform that worship — not the service-books which contain your creeds, liturgies, prayers, and psalms — not the Scrip- tures of your faith, and all the doctrinal standards you build out of them, — all these separately and col- lectively are not Christ's home. The font of baptism, the holy bread and wine of consecration, are not His home. Your heart is His dwelling-place. You are to be preserved from faintness, from failure, from falling away, by His dwelling in yourselves. In nothing outside you, save in God Himself, does He dwell so intimately as He dwells in you, men and women, creatures of volition, of thought, of affection, curiously and wonderfully made ; for the mystery of the incarnation to be accomplished in your nature, for the incorporation into the Son of God, and the inha- bitation by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to be experienced in your persons. If you would know where I am, saitli Christ, " Where two or three are met in my name, there am I in the midst;" "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together;" " where the body is, there is the head found." But Christ dwells in the heait of the Church by faith, not as one wearied out by labour and now 212 THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. in a dead sleep — not as an embalmed corpse in a holy tomb — not as a dumb idol on a pedestal, but He dwells there in order to root and ground the Church in God's love, to ensure progress, and, through pro- gress, to deepen rest, that He may lead you into God's love, as the roots of a tree are made to strike into and spread through the deep rich soil ; that He may settle you upon that which He leads you into, as a building is securely fixed upon its solid founda- tion. There are two metaphors employed — one showing growth, and the other stabiHty. The pre- sence and operation of the Lord in the Church by His name Christ ensures both. The Baptizer with the Holy Ghost draws us into God, as the earth draws into it the roots of a living tree. He causes us to rest in God (not in notions about Him, but in Himself), as a house rests upon its rocky base. All the gifts of the Spirit, all the ministries of the Lord, through which that Spirit works, all the operations of God, the mighty effects produced by the Spirit of Christ, illustrations of that name, proofs of the power of the anointing, — all these have one mission, to make us know more fully and deeply the love of God. They are all the means by which the Spirit " taketh of the things of Christ and showeth them unto us," — by which He " searcheth the deep things of God and revealeth thetii to us," — by which He " sheddeth abroad in our hearts the love of God," — by which He " showeth unto us the things that are freely given to us of God." They are means whereby the Lord fulfils that word which He spake to His dis- ciples, " I have declared His name unto you, and will declare it." He dwells in our hearts, to make THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. 213 them happy. The home of a good, a great, a wise, and kind man, must needs be a happy home. Well is it for the family who dwell under his shadow ; but what must be the enjoyments in the house where Christ hath His dwelling ! There the love of God is revealed by Him who is Himself that love incarnate. He dwelleth in us, that we might, with all the Church, receive the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of that grace from God which we were made capable of receiving and containing — a measure which should sink to the bottom and surmount tlie top, which should penetrate and distend the whole vessel : that we might experience the breadth of that love, which is as broad as all our wants and capacities ; the length, which extends through the whole duration of our being, and which was in God for us before the creation of the world ; the depth, which shows God- head on a cross and in the tomb ; the height, which raises manhood to the throne of God and of the Lamb. This fourfold measure of the immeasurable law of God you will learn by having Christ dwelling in your hearts. You will know the love of God ; and having known all that you can know, shall know that it " surpasseth knowledge ;" that what you know is to what remains to be known as the low base of the mountain to its highest summit, as the drop of the ocean to its mass of waters ; in a word, you are to be taught by Christ so nuich concerning God, and to receive by Christ so much from God, as shall avail to make you God's fullness. His help. His complement. His instrument, and not instrument merely, but yoke- fellow. This is daring language for lowly and sinful men 214 THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. to utter and to hear, but it is God's own manner of speech. And when he who, inspired of God, made use of it, paused, and looked back upon what he had uttered, when he rested on the dizzy height to which that winged prayer had carried him, he did not un- say, or feel that he exaggerated, but he exclaimed : " Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, be glory in the Church throughout all ages." The expressions I have used are high, the thoughts which they were meant to ex- press are higher still, and other thoughts higher than these ; but God's performance will be higher than all, " exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think," as the performance of God in His own way is mightier than all promise of the same through man's speech conveyed, or idea of it by man's mind con- ceived. And all this will He do by the power that worketh in us, even by the Spirit which we have re- ceived— the Spirit which children can resist, which worms of the dust are permitted to grieve and to quench. You will be tempted to forsake God, said the Apostle of the Gentiles to the Gentile Church. Our tribulations for you shall bring that temptation nigh unto you. The loss of the ministries of Christ shall make that possible unto you, yea certain, if you will not read this prayer which I make for you, under- stand it, and say Amen to it. Adopt it for your own, with the blessings it refers to for yourselves, as I have willed them for you. Men seeking to learn Christianity in this language of St. Paul, shall attain to the will of God, and shall escape His judgments. Those who are learned and THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. 215 critical enough to explain away and emasculate the words of divine energy, who let slip what they have heard, and have filled their memory afterwards with the traditions of men, the glosses of rabbis and of lawyers, who have taken away the key of knowledge, shall surely faint and fiill away. And those who have been sealed by the hands of apostles at the close of the Christian dispensation would do well to re- member, that this warning concerning faintness was given to those who had been sealed by apostles' hands in the commencement — to men who believed, and who after they believed were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, the earnest of the inheritance, until its full redemption. It was to those who had been already sealed that it was said, " that ye may be strengthened in the inner man with ability from the Spirit of God ;" to them it was said, " that they must let Christ dwell in their hearts by faith;" to them it was said, " that not a goal was reached, but that a career was opened." What he said of himself, he said to them, — " Not that we have attained, or are already perfect." You are not marked off for the kingdom, and fixed in an unchangeable condition of fitness for it, by anything that has happened to you ; but you have been set in the way that you may go forward to the end, minding the same thing, following the same rule, remembering how you have received, holding fast, and going forward. Is, then, the sealing to none eflfect? it may be said. On the other hand, great is the blessing put upon those who have not seen and yet have believed. As the Lord most highly honoured Abraham, who saw no signs, and yet was strong m faith, giving glory to God ; so will 216 THE SUFFERINGS OF ST. PAUL. He reward the seed of Abraham in the last times, when faith is almost extinct upon the earth, who, though sensibly and consciously of little strength, do lay fast hold of His faithful word, and hope against hope to see His promised salvation. Amen. SERMON XVI. HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. Our conversation is in heaven ; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesv^ Chnst. — Phil. iii. 20, &c. In this context there are three things : 1st, The heavenly conversation ; 2d, The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, for which that heavenly conversation is the preparative step ; 3d, The change to be wrought at His coming upon the bodies of His saints. " Our conversation is in heaven." This hmguage has often been interpreted very vaguely, as if St. Paul meant to say merely that he himself and those who agreed with him, whom he advises the Philippians to imitate, were heavenly-minded men, livmg above the world, and enjoying high communion with the Lord. Others, attending more closely to the Kteral meaning of the Greek word translated here "conversation," have taken up the subject of heavenly citizenship, and indulged their imaginations to a bewildermg ex- tent upon the supposed immunities, duties, interests, prospects, &c., of the heavenly citizens, missing the precise point of the apostle's instruction. 218 HEAVENLY CONATERSATION. The literal meaning of a word, and the context in the midst of which it is placed, are the truest guides to its spiritual meaning. St. Paul is warning \the Philippians against those who were striving to persuade Christians to regulate themselves according to the system given to the Jews. The Jewish cir- cumcision and rites came from God, and were estab- lished upon the earth for all men to look at them; but you are not to imitate them, you are not to re- produce them amongst you. Your constitution, your political economy, your ecclesiastical system, that aggregate of rules according to which you are to be guided, the form which you are to take in the world, your organism, your development, are m the heavens. Our politeuyna, everything which is to give form and substance to us as a polity, as a corporate society, is m heaven — in the place that is not seen — in the place that is most high — " it comes down to us out of heaven from God." To make God's Church a monster, that the uni- verse might loathe it, that God might be ashamed to look upon it, was the first aim of the father of lies, through those perverse teachers who followed Paul from Palestine to Greece, and over the whole field of his labours, to wrest, if possible, the people of God L out of his hands, and to hinder them from being the image and embodiment of God's purpose. There were ingenious but wicked men going about amongst the churches in the days of St. Paul, pretending to show them the model according to which the Church ought to be built, pretending to /^ive rules to Christians, according to which they should be perfected ; they affected attachment to the HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. 219 holy Scriptures, and zeal for the la^y of God, which had been given through jMoses. Against them Paul . said, " Our conversation (or our constitution) is in heaven." No mortal eye can see it by looking back at what has been upon the earth in the time of our fathers, nor yet by looking at the letter of Scripture. Nothing that has been upon the earth, or that is upon the earth, can give you an idea of it. If you try to organise human society according to the model wliich Moses set up, or according to the letter of God's Scriptures given by Moses and the prophets, you will but make an image of jealousy which God will destroy. That men might make the visible Church on earth what it ought to be for God's service and for the help of His creatures, they looked upon the Jewish polity to see what they might adopt from it ; and subsequently they looked around upon the re- sults achieved by philosophy and traditional wisdom amongst the heathen, to gather what they could from these sources also for the perfection of the Church. Paul's doctrine opposed this. He said, the j pattern of God's Church is in heaven, — you must ascend thither for it, or not get it at all. The builder of God's Church is in heaven. He is the true Moses on the true mount. The typical Moses alone had the pattern of the typical dwelling-place of God, and what the priest and people builded before Moses came to them with the pattern, was destroyed. The true Moses hath the pattern of the true dwelling-place of ^ God, na^nely, the Church : from Him it must be re- ceived— whatever has not been received fi'om Him must perish. The Church was not to have the fool's eyes, wandering to the limits of space and time for 220 HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. types, and figures, and rules, according to which to order herself. Her simple duty was to look unto Him who had gone into heaven; to hold fast the Head ; to hear His voice expounding type, and figure, and shadow, and promise; to receive power from Him to do what was required by Him. He who went into heaven, called men to His feet whilst He was upon the earth, gave them commissions, and charges, and powers, that they might act in His name. After His ascension to heaven He did the same thing, showing that the change in His local position from earth to heaven made no change in His mode of transacting with men. After His ascen- sion He called men to Him, to serve Him as truly as He had done before. He said to one, " I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles ; " He said by the Holy Ghost, " Separate me such and such men, that they may serve me." He appointed such to gather God's election unto Him, to rule them under Him, to teach, guide, and bless them from Him, to convey fi'om Him unto them the Spirit of God, that they might know the will of God and do it. He set them before His people as shepherds before a flock, as leaders before an host. Therefore they had courage to say to men what Paul said to the Pliilij)pians, as in the Epistle for the day : " Be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample (or type). For our conversation is in heaven." Fashion not yourselves according to types and figures contained in the letter of holy Scriptures, but copy the type given to you from heaven, which type is a man ; bringing unto you from the man Christ Jesus, who is the builder of God's Church, the law of HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. 221 3''0iir progress, and the power for your perfection. I know Him who hath sent me ; I understand what He wants to have done in you and by you; there are some of the brethren, who understand me and are carrying out what I have received: follow them, mark them, take your aim ; by observing them, watching them, you will be kept within the course, you will run not in vain, you will contend lawfully and receive the crown. The apostle receiving from Christ, and the people receiving from Christ by him, the result will be that all will grow up together into the shape, form, and substance, into the organisation and force, the outward appearance, and the inward power and substance, which God has purposed for His Church to have. Paul did not mean to say to the people, I am a good and holy man, and there are others with me who are good and holy, and you will do well to follow us; but. We are parts of a heavenly polity, which comes down from a Head and Lord who is in heaven. We have our places fixed for us by Him ; and others are to range themselves with us, around us, and after us, according to a certain order pre- scribed by Him : which order is attained by receiving the Spirit of God from Him, by eating His flesh and drinking His blood, by growing into Him as members of His body. The oflficers of an army say not to the soldiers. Follow us, who are the bravest of all ; but. Follow us who by the laws of the service are set to lead you ; help us to keep the discipline of the host unbroken. So Paul said, We are an army, our chief Captain is in heaven, and from Him, through His subordinates. :r 222 HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. the law, and discipline, and guidance of the army proceed. Irregular, misdirected force, cannot pre- vail. The general's word of command is all impor- tant to the host which follows him. It is the word which saves, if he be skilful and they obedient. We are set, said Paul, to hear that word first, and to convey it to all: therefore hear us, that you may know it. Because our constitution is an heavenly one, coming down out of heaven from One who is there, you cannot learn it and understand it, and take your right place in it, by hearkening to any voice, even the wisest upon the earth, except it be a voice speaking from Him, commissioned by Him, raised by Him. The whole of this third chapter is one subject, detached from the rest of the epistle. It is a warning against those who were prating about righteousness, and yet were neglecting or despising the provisions which were in Christ for effecting it. " They are dogs," he said, " evil- workers ; the con- cisiony They practise circumcision in the flesh, but they attain not to the thing which circumcision meant. We, who serve God in the Spirit, not by copying the letter which He gave of old to our fathers, but by receiving the Holy Ghost from His Son, exalted in our flesh to His own throne in heaven — we, who exult in Christ Jesus — we, who have no confidence in what nature can do, squaring itself by a law — we are the circumcision. I have accounted all advantages for learning God's will and attaining to it, which as a Hebrew of the Hebrews I j^ossessed, as things of no value, as things fit only to be cast unto dogs, in comparison with the knowledge and power which I derive from Christ Jesus my Lord. By HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. 223 accepting Christ Jesus as my Lord, I learn the way of righteousness, and attain to it; the righteous- ness which is fi^om God, which God caused to be manifested in its perfectness first in His own Son, who perfectly trusted in Him who sent Him — which Jesus works according to their faith in those who submit to Him, who take Him for their Lord, who receive the power which He obtained for them by His resurrection, and understand thereby and share in His sufferings, and hope for His glory. Christ hath caught us, said Paul ; He hath laid hold of us, that He may pour into us what He hath received for us. I believe this, and therefore let go every- thing else that I may hold by Him. Do ye the same tlimg, imitate me in this matter. Paul did not mean to call men off from the Jewish law and ordi- nances of service, that they might contemplate J esus Christ and meditate upon Him, and think of what He had done and rest upon it ; but he shut them up unto Jesus, to receive from Him law and ordi- nances of service in lieu of those from which they were called away. Men under Christ were not to be without a polity, a system of law, discipline, and subordination, but were to receive all this in a heavenly manner. The Church is not without law ; to God, but under law to Christ. " Our conversation is in heaven, from whence we J look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." The conversation in heaven is tlie preparation for the coming of the Lord. " From whence" refers to con- versation, not to heaven. Being constituted in the Lord's way, and availing ourselves of the provisions of His constitution, we wait for His coming with 224 HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. confidence. Men, who are consciously hindering the Lord in His actings during the present dispen- sation, cannot really desire to see Him come to enter upon the work of another. The coming of the Lord is the hope of righteousness. The Church, in a wrong position, cannot cherish that hope. The Lord will come to crown those who shall be found in the condition which He accounts their righteous condition. Our righteous condition now is the con- dition in which the Lord planted us, and in which He commanded us to abide until He should come again unto us. That condition is set forth in the words, " our conversation is in heaven." Our political existence, our corporate establishment, !l stands in One who is in heaven, who communi- cates with us upon the earth through certain outward means ; failing which, the communica- tions are interrupted. In proportion as the con- stitution of God's Church has been departed from by men, the hope of the coming again of the Lord has perished from amongst them. The revival of the constitution will revive the hope. That system of church economy which gives liberty to the Holy Ghost, secures the presence in the Church of the hope of the kingdom. Whatsoever quenches the Spirit abolishes the hope. The constitution of the Church is valuable, because the Holy Ghost fills it, and works by it His full work. By it He shows what is coming. He gives an earnest of it. Take away that constitution from Him, and He is as a light without a candlestick; as a breath "\^athout pipes and organs, through which it may breathe ; as an energy without an organic body, which it may HEAVENLY CONVEESATION. 225 agitate, pervade, and act by. There is great signi- ficancy, therefore, in the language, " from whence," or from which state of a heavenly polity, " we expect the Saviour." This polity is the work of His Holy Spirit, beanng witness to Him as the Saviour by being the Lord Jesus Christ; and when the true witness has been born, what remains but for Him, to whom the witness referred, to come Himself, and prove its truth ? " from whence we expect the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." The spiritual shall be con- scious to a condition of thmgs in the world, from which no deliverance can be effected but by the personal appearing of the Lord Himself. They will long for Him, not as a king to come to a dominion cleared of His enemies, and ready for Him to rule over ; but as a man of war, to snatch His Church and His creation from the powers of darkness, to whom for a little season great power shall be given. The carnal will see no evil state of things requiring the personal interposition of the Son of God from heaven; they wiU regard the world as in a marvellously prosperous condition, and shall shout, a " present God," to him who shall reign with more pride than Herod, with more cruelty than Nero. The world will wonder after and worship the beast. The gi'eat paradise of fools is yet to be seen upon this earth, and Antichrist shall be enthroned in the midst of it. The spiritual shall know the evil days, and shall look for the Saviour, that they may be delivered out of them; and they shall be delivered. He in whom they trust will not disappoint their hope. What the Lord will do for His people at His com- ing again is next to be considered. " He shall change Q 226 HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body." Those from whose false teaching St. Paul was labouring to protect the Church, induced their disciples to make changes in their bodies, as if thereby to render them more suitable for God's ser- vice, and more pleasing in His sight. To rebuke them he calls the present body a vile body, the body which has been humbled, and which can never be delivered from its humiliation until it be taken down and built up anew. Nothing that can be taken from it, nothing that can be put upon it, shall ever deliver it from its vileness : humiliation is its lot, which it cannot escape. The present body is not fit to be looked upon by God; He hid His face even from His Son when He appeared in it. We clothe it from head to foot in His service, and with apparel which signifies that a change must pass upon it, and symbolises in some measure what that change shall be. Garments " of glory and beauty," worn by those who draw nigh to God, to serve Him in the name of Jesus Christ, and as the representatives of His Church, are witnesses of the change which awaits these bodies to make them fit for worshipping and serving God : they preach the Christian hope. If fine garments, cloth of gold, jewels, and precious stones, are used in the Chiu'ch merely to make the service respectable, and grand, and worthy of God, then are they most offensive to Him, and the use of them is only a modification of the error contended against by St. Paul — an attempt to make the natural condition agreeable to God by addition to it, as vain as the opposite effort to take away its reproach by cutting off" and curtailment. The incarnation of the Son of God did not bring the HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. 227 natural creation unto God as a thing in which He could have pleasure, and which He could suffer to abide ; the incarnation brought nature to the cross of shame and death. Incarnation was not a direct step to glory and the kingdom, it was the direct step to the wrath of God and punishment because of sin. The crucifixion of the Incarnate was the direct step to the abiding glory. We are united to Christ, not that we may bring the glory of the flesh and of the natural creation unto God, that He may rejoice over them as the work of His hands ; we are united to Christ for the crucifixion of the flesh, and that the world and all that is in it may be crucified unto us and w^e unto it. God can have no pleasm-e m our present bodies, and in the present creation, except so far as both do express before Him what He is bring- ing them to, and by what means He is doing so. There are but two things in this world which can give pleasure to God, — the sign of the cross, and the hope of the kingdom ; the Church crucified with Christ, and sustained in its crucifixion by the earnest of the king- dom which the cross has won ; all nature wearing the cross, and symbolising as far as possible the glory which shall follow it. The doctrine of the Incarnation may by itself be most mischievous, in feeding fleslily pride, opening the door to the unrestrained gratification of natural appetites and tastes, producing or nurturing the love of worldly glory and display ; m a word, crowning the accursed thing before the curse and its eflfects have been removed from it. Those false teachers who were stealing away the heart of the Church from St. Paul, had a mingled rehgion of restraint and self- 228 HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. indulgence : tliey circumcised the flesh indeed, but tliey deified tlie belly; they glorified in things they should have been ashamed of — they minded earthly things; their hearts lusted for distinction, honour, wealth, luxury upon the earth in its present condi- tion ; they were the enemies of the cross of Christ ; they were willing to have part of their flesh circum- cised, they would not have the whole of it crucified ; they put themselves to some little pain for God's sake, and repaid the scant self-denial by ample self- indul2;ence. Belimd the mask of zeal for the law of God, the eye of him whom Christ commissioned to try doctrines and search consciences saw fleshly lusts and worldly desires, hiding themselves for a little, but biding their time to sprmg forth to the spoil. His eye saw the whited sepulchre and the rottenness within it. Oh, how they prized circumcision, the ancient and sacred institution of God, the mark of Abraham the friend of God, and of his honoured seed ! How they pored over the law of God and its mystic ritual! How they venerated the traditions of their fathers, the chosen seed from the beginning of time! How much more secure a foundation to build upon were all those things than the mere ipse dixit of such an one as Paul, a new-born apostle, not even one of the original twelve ! Who was he, that he should take rank above the rites of the law, and the traditions of the fathers, and the Book of Reve- lation ? Alas ! behind these swelling words and grand pretexts there was nothing after all but hatred of the cross of Christ, obedience and homage, even di- vine, paid to the belly, and taste no higher than for the things of the earth : the former things were HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. 229 their excuses, but these latter things were their reasons for keeping the ordinances of Christ at a dis- tance from them ; they hoped for indulgence of all their own private tastes and inclinations by keeping their religion in their own hands, and so they affected a great regard for the polity which had been given of God in old times to suit His purpose then, but they shrunk from the polity communicated even then from heaven by Jesus Christ, who in the fiirtherance of His system, in the working out of His plan for the saving of men, had need of certain means of gaining access to them, amongst which means were num- bered apostles, and prophets, and all the other names of holy ministry given in the New Testament. They did not want to get into the kingdom of heaven through the instrumentality of men into whose hands the Lord, for reasons best known to God, put the keys of that kingdom. An administration of the Church from heaven, but by men, — this is the system which never yet has been allowed full exercise and fair play. In the person of the very man who \vrote the words, to the understanding of which we are this day endeavouring to attain, this system was checked by successful competition in the Church. In him mainly the direct government of His Church by the Head of it was withstood and repelled — the Church which would not be a heavenly polity became an earthly establishment, with heavenly names and titles. But the Lord did not forsake His Church though His fuU ministry of grace was obstructed in it. AVhat He could not bring forward to perfection by direct 230 HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. means, by indirect means He has preserved from destruction. The sins which Paul rebuked did not perish utterly under his rebuke ; they have lived and worked from his day until now in the visible Church, and their results are manifest everywhere. But the Spirit that was in Paul has not ceased utterly from the Church: He has laboured also ever since to stop the evil flowing in, to counteract and neutralise it even after it had entered. But the Lord is weary of overruling in His Church, where He ought to rule. He would have the "conversation in heaven" recovered, that His Church may be prepared for His I. return ; that His Church, filled with His Spirit, may sound forth unto the whole creation the good news of its coming Redeemer and King. At the close of the Jewish dispensation, the ordinary priests were not preparing the people for the advent of Messiah, soon to take place; they were themselves taken by surprise when He appeared amongst them ; therefore He prepared His way before Him extraordinarily: He sent His messenger before His face — a prophet amongst the people with whom "prophet" was the highest style of minister. Before the close of the Christian dispensation He prepares His way by re- viving the highest instrumentality proper to the Christian Church. Every year that has passed over our heads smce the voice of the Holy Ghost was heard in our days, has brought additional evidence to us that the times are extraordinary — the diffi- ^^ culties of rulers and teachers have multiplied, the necessities of God's Church have increased in number HEAVENLY CONVERSATION. 231 and magnitude. Wlietlier those called of God to stand up for Him in an evil day have obeyed His call or not — have understood their day of visitation, and endeavoured to fulfil their mission or not — He knows, and time w^ill soon tell. Surely the remnant of God's people over the whole earth will soon cry to God for His help, because the staff of their confi- dence is broken everywhere. God prepare us for what we see at hand ! Amen. SERMON XVII. ON SYMBOLISM. All Thy works shall praise Thee. I LATELY* pressed upon the Church to show love to God by worshipping Him ; that the spirit of those who had chief charge in the Lord's work was mainly pressed with this matter at present ; that it was dutiful and reasonable on the part of the Church to believe that that was God's present matter in hand, which His servants were most engaged with. To pursue this subject. If Love delight to worship, it will delight to do it in the fullest, and completest, and most graceful manner; it will omit no suitable mode of expressing what it desires by all means to express ; it will avail itself of all helps in order that the service may lack nothing. The Spirit of Christ, the true worshipper, is described in the Scriptures as calling upon all creatures to join and help Him and one another in praising God. See Psalm ciii. and closing psalms ; which compare with Rev. v. and the closing revelation. Man is to bless God since the incarnation, because of which he is united to Him who can enable him to do so. And all the works of God are to praise Him, for they are redeemed, and * See p. 49. ON SYMBOLISM. 233 put under His Christ, who obeyed Him, and shall lead all things into obedience; and they are put under the saints, who learn obedience from Christ, and teach it to the rest of God's works. But not only do the creatures of God serve Him by fulfilling the natural law given to them by Him, but, accordmg to His election and appointment, they serve Him also in a mystical way, by standing as signs, emblems, types, and symbols, of great facts which He has accomplished, is accomplishing, and will yet accompHsh. From the beginning of the world God set forth the things which were in His mind from eternity, and which, through the incarna- tion and work of His Son, and the power of His Spirit, He will bring into being and manifestation. I say. He set forth such things, not merely by word, but also by material signs. And when the Lord Jesus came into the world this method of God was not abolished. Though the multitude of types and ceremonial observances was diminished, yet He still retained and committed to His Church some material signs of spiritual realities — visible symbols of invisible things ; and they were not to be taken away after His resurrection from the dead, but to continue until He come again. We are taught in the last book of the Bible concernmg a state of things seemingly opposite to this, when, in the beatified state of the holy city, there shall be no material temple ; but the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb shall be the temple of it ; and when there shall be no material vehicles and transmitters of light, greater or lesser, neither sun nor moon, but when the glory of God shall be the light, and the Lamb Himself the lamp thereof. But that 234 ON SYMBOLISM. state lias not yet come, and may not be antedated. Those who strive to do without material help in the service and worship of God — who account material temples, and altars, and priests, and sacraments, and visible institutions, as matters of indifference — ^yea, as hindrances rather than helps to their contempla- tion of God, and communion with Him, and absorp- tion into Him ; they do forestall the future state as much as Babylon, who says that she " sits a queen :" indeed, they are part of Babylon themselves, in so far as they are taken in this snare, and are con- fusing the things which differ. The present dispensation is not the perfect one ; it stands between the perfect type and the perfect antitype, and is, in a certain sense, transitional, and has something in common with both the extremes which it unites ; it has laid hold of the perfect state in the Spirit, and has the hope of it for the body. The Jewish religion was a perfect type of the king- dom of God, and of the way by which it should be attained to: that is, it typified the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. The suf- ferings have come in the Head, and are proceeding in the body, which is filling up the measure of the suf- ferings of the Christ who was to be despised and rejected of men, both in "head and members." That part of the type is being exliausted ; but the glory typified has not yet been manifested. We have earnests of it — we have signs of it — which are needful to us all in their place till it appear, and till that which is perfect be come. The Lord used symbols, and employed symbolical action, in His institution of the Christian sacraments. ON SYMBOLISM. 235 He appointed the symbol of water in baptism, and a symbolical action with it, whether that action be the act of sprinkling, of immersing, or of pouring out — all and each setting forth the work of the Spirit of God in applying to men the salvation of Jesus Christ ; delivering them from an accusing conscience by the sprinkling of His blood; drowning in them the powers of the old and sinful life by union with Him, the eternal life incarnate ; and pouring out upon them, when made righteous in His blood, and sanctified by His life, the Spirit of endowment and glory — the Spirit of adoption — the earnest of their kingdom as the heirs of God, who were sprinkled with the blood of His Son for this end, and sanctified by His life for this end, that they might reign with Him for ever, and have the earnest of their inheritance richly to enjoy until the inheritance itself should appear. In the sacrament of the mystic supper. He insti- tuted a symbol of His body in the bread which He blessed, and set forth a symbolic action to represent His sufferings in breaking the bread after He had blessed it and blessed God over it; and in the wine, He appointed a symbol of His life, which flowed through and energised in that organic body; and in the pourmg out of the wine a symbolic action, setting forth the shedding of His blood for the remission of sins. He was pleased to give us a picture, so to speak, of His holy religion m those sacramental in- stitutions with symbolic things and symbolic action, whereby we should have Christ Jesus evidently cru- cified continually before us, and all the blessmgs we derive from Him summarily exliibited to us. Our Lord put a sanction and stamp, so to speak, on the 236 ON SYMBOLISM. principle of symbolism, when He gave us the two holy sacraments. He gave us more than mere word and indwelling Spirit. As He made us threefold, so He accommodated Himself graciously to our three- fold compositeness, and conveyed Himself unto us in our senses, our reason, and our inmost spirit. He hound us thus to Himself with the triple cord, not easily broken. He saves us from rationalism and pantheism by His Spirit and His sacraments — He saves us from superstition and formalism by His Spirit and His word — He saves us from mysticism and error inextricable by His word and His sacra- ments. By His Spirit, His word, and His visible institutions, He leads our whole being up to its des- tined perfection. We need a safety and perfecting, which were bound up with symbols ; and, therefore, we received them also at His hands, from whom came unto us the word and Spirit of God. Chris- tianity, therefore, does not exclude from itself the symbolical ; so far from it, it has made of it one of its great avenues to the being of man. But one may say. Symbolism should stop where the Lord's appointments in person stopped. Certainly, symbols appointed by Him should not be altered, nor symbolic action appointed by Him superseded, and others substituted in its stead. But the apostles in the beginning, and the Church ever since, have not regarded themselves as restricted to the bare letter of what the Lord did when He instituted the sacra- ments. They regarded themselves as those having reserved to them the power of regulating subsidiary action in connexion with the main and essential one, as not excluded from the employment of a minor ON SYMBOLISM. 237 symbolism to illustrate and adorn, and apply tlie essential one given by the Lord Himself. St. Paul, after laying down the essence of the Eucharistic sacrament to the Corinthian Church, adds immedi- ately, " The rest — all the other things — will I set in order when I come." One of the least pretending and most modest branches of the present Church of Christ maintains, in one of its articles, that " the Church has power to decree rites and ceremonies." The mind of the Church has evidently been, not that the Lord appointed certain symbols and symbolical actions which might be used, and none other, but rather that He sanctioned a principle which she might also act upon — that He did by the Spirit of God what she in the same Spirit would not only follow, but develope. I mean, that the mind of the Church has been, not merely that He performed one symbolic act to be repeated, but that He began a symbolic series — that He opened a symbolic door — that He ushered in a dispensation, one of the essential characteristics of which was, that it should be sym- bolic— spiritual, having the Holy Ghost; rational, having the word of God; symbolic, having sacra- ments and sacramental rites of mystic significancy. We find the symbolical everywhere, whether men now mean it or not. To begin even with those who deny the material substance and outward form of the sacraments, what efforts at the symbolical and significant have they not made ? Have they not clothed themselves in the world, if not in the Church, in the picturesqueness of symbolism ? Have they not striven to express by outward signs their sup- posed mward and spiritual characteristics ? " Drive 238 ON SYMBOLISM. out nature with a pitchfork, yet nature will come back," said the heathen sage. Resist and suppress as you will the law of the dispensation which you live under, yet, somehow or other, that law will assert its authority, and find its action. The Pres- byterians and Independents, and other sects who put black gowns upon their preachers, have done so, as marking, signifying, or symbolising the Christian ministry more suitably in such apparel than in that used by other bodies of Christians. The Episcopal Churches have gone further still in the way of em- ploying outward things to signify what is inward — they have clothed their ministers in white — they have appointed one dress for a bishop, and another for a priest : in many other ways have they admitted and acted upon the principle of symbolism. In fact, it is everywhere — in the shape of churches — in the interior arrangements of them — in the behaviour of worshippers within them — who sometimes are seen standing, sometimes kneeling, sometimes sitting. Men have a taste — a sense of propriety ; and their dress, gesture, deportment, and manifold outward action, are a continual effort to ex- press it. Why does almost the common sense of man prefer some shaped buildmgs to others for the service of God — some modes of apparel to others — some attitudes and postures to others ? Because the law of symbolism is in their being, which is ever striving to make the outward gracefully represent and express the inward. The payment of tithes is a species of symbolism; the special observance of the seventh portion of time ; with us, the making of the first and last hours of the day seasons of public ON SYMBOLISM. 239 prayer, are so. I mean to say, all these things are done, not merely because they are good in themselves, but because the very doing of them so, and at such times, does in itself convey deep meaning, and hold up, as it were, a pictorial Bible, to be seen and read by all men. Many years ago, the Spirit of God amongst us, when our minds were very little occupied (if at all) upon the subject of symbolism, enforced upon us the principle, in calling for the use of unleavened bread in the Lord's Supper. Unleavened bread was called for, not as being most probably that kind which the Lord used in His institution of the sacrament, but distinctly to mark the separation from all error in doctrine, and malice in spiiit, and uncleanness in life, which should distinguish those who were receiving again the ordinances and earnest of the kingdom of God. It will be the duty of apostles not to reject every symbol found in the Church which was not explicitly set there by the hand of the Lord Himself, or by those whom He first called to the apostolic office, but to distinguish between things done fondly and superstitiously in every age, and those done ac- cording to the promptings of the apostolical spirit, which was never wholly withdrawn from the Church. When the Lord came to the Jews, He did not abolish everything which could not plead an antiquity as high as the time of Moses. We know from the his- tory of the chosen people that there were institutions amongst them which had not so long a prescription to plead. To say nothing of other illustrations of this, which a careful perusal of the holy Scriptures may find, there were two remarkable additions made to the holy rites — one in the time of Esther and Mor- 240 ON SYMBOLISM. decai, when the feast of Purim was instituted ; and one even in the time of Judas Maccabseus, when the feast of Dedication was appointed, which the Lord Himself honoured with His observance, as appears from the Gospel according to St. John, x. 22, and following. The Spirit of God who was with Moses in fullest measure, was also with Mordecai and Mac- cabee ; and the Holy Ghost, who mightily wrought by Peter and Paul and their brethren in the begin- ning, has never utterly forsaken the Church, though greatly provoked to depart from us, but has in every age set up monuments of God's faithfulness and lifted up standards against God's enemies. He has not yet forsaken the earth, but has ever been with the people called by the name of Christ, doing in them and doing through them what was possible under existing cir- cumstances. He knows what He has wrought by the most perfect and by the most maimed instru- mentality, and He will not ignore or repudiate His own work; and the mark of ordinances most filled with His presence will be this, that they shall know how to appreciate everything that has come from Him, and that they will honour and esteem it highly, no matter where found or with what discreditable things connected. The Spirit of Christ would have led the Church in the beginning through the ministry of apostles, and their many helps in the sacred work, into " a service of God that could not be blamed." His striving was hindered, " the grace came in vain." Men resisted and frustrated, so to speak, the will of God. They were allowed to do it, for reasons that we shall yet know (if we know them not) and wonder at. In every age He has been securmg as ON SYMBOLISM. 241 many elements of that "blameless service" as He could; and in tlie end, before the coming again of the righteous Judge, He will gather them all up and arrange them all in their order, even by the same means whereby He sought to bring them in in their right order and to establish them in their due perfect- ness in the begimiing. The Spirit of God is now set upon raising up a people to serve God, to serve Him with a perfect service. He is prevailing to implant in the breasts of a people over the whole earth the feeling that such a service is possible. The union between Christ and His Church is known. Men are every- where looking out for the results of that union. They are expecting to see a service of God in the Church, and by the Church, worthy of Christ to effect. They are expectmg not to see men do their best, but Christ do His best through a people trusting in Him, obedient unto Him. " I can do all things," said Paul, " through Christ enabling me." The Church is begin- ning to answer that confidence of her apostle, and to hope also to be seen as his epistle, his workman- ship. Courage in her Lord and Head is stirring from its deepest depths the heart of God's Church. She is assummg the organisation whereby she can render out the most full and perfect service. She is receiving back from God the means and instruments whereby she can receive into her the fullest measures of His grace. The Lord is calhng by the mouths of men for perfect service, because He is sending by the hands of men powers adequate for what He asks. He is causing to be uttered the highest definitions of the Church ; He is causing to be exhibited the distinctest symbols of what her union with His Son is worth : be- ll 242 ON SyJMBOLISM. cause He lias lifted up His liaud to work a work which shall prove that those highest definitions are as true as they are high, and because His heart is set upon bringing out in real living manifestation what these symbols signify. He is telling to men who can hear, and shoT\ang to men who can see, what He is about to do for the glory of His name, for the setting forth of the power of His Christ, for the manifestation of what His Spirit can do in and by the children of men. His chosen dwelling-place. He is calling the attention of Protestants, who laud His Scriptures while they have rent His Church, to the description of the Church of God which their most valued por- tions of His faithful word contain. He is making a people who came out from the midst of them avouch the truth of that description, and wait patiently for that truth to be proved. He is giving a warning to the Roman Catholics, who have betrayed His cause to the Infidel, that He will take out of her hands if she repent not all the holy signs which she has ob- scured and perverted, and give them to those who shall add to the outward and visible signs the inward and spiritual action which they indicate. Let us have faith, brethren, and we shall see the triumjjh of Christ, — let us follow the example set before us in the Epistle of the day — see what He endured that God might be served, that a service might be done for God and rendered unto God, which should be commended unto every conscience of man, that no man, looking at it as a whole and in a fair spirit, should have a right to blame. What Christ Jesus elicited fi^om Paul, what He enabled Paul to under- go, is written for our learning and comfort, that we, ON SYMBOLISM. 243 too, who are in Him, as Paul was, may have hope — that we may be also witnesses of what His power can effect in those who abide in Him, and let His word abide in them — the work which holy Paul longed to see and saw not ; but in the vision of hope we shall see if we be faithful, and if we see it not, yet we shall pass the sacred hope to those who shall see it ; we shall have wrought for the end which we long to see, though we be found amongst those who shall not come to see it, and not amongst those whose earthly watch shall not have ceased till it appear. Let us labour with our fathers who have gone before for that service of God which cannot be blamed, which Wisdom's children will justify as they escape into the light from every quarter of the city of darkness. While we imitate the example of St. Paul, let us not be careful to create around ourselves an artificial set of circumstances corresponding to his real ones ; but let us obey Him whom he obeyed, and He will lead us into the circumstances answering to His pur- pose by us, and His object through us, and His work with us. We shall fill up the measure not given to Paid to experience, but reserved for us to pass through. Let no man make a cross for himself, but let him accept with thankfulness and bear with courage the cross which the Lord lays upon him ; let him not blame the hands by which Christ sends His cross unto him, but rather kiss the hands for the precious gift. By our unwillingness to be led let us not deter the Lord from leading us, but by our con- fidence, and docility, and hearty zeal, open His mouth and di'aw forth His hand unto us. Amen. SERMON XVIII. ON SYMBOLISM. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. — I Thess. v. 23. The law of symbolism is in the Christian Church. You meet it at the threshold, in the rite of initiation. The sacrament in which we are constituted Christians teaches us, by symbolical matter and by symbolical action, the nature of the religion into which we are then introduced, and what advantages we are to de- rive from it. A man who says, What have symbols to do with the dispensation of the Spnit ? must, to be consistent, abolish the sacrament of Baptism. As Christianity begins, so it proceeds. The rite which is the centre and substance of daily service in the Church is full of symbolical meaning. On the door of entrance you find symbols engraven ; when you have entered, you find them strewn along your way from the beginning to the end of the journey. But in the sacraments are found not symbols only, but also words of Divine institution, consecrating the material things, and explaining the use of them. The words which the Lord gave to us, and the things which He set up before us, constitute together the substance of the sacraments. Now, the Church has ON SYMBOLISM. 245 never considered itself so bound and limited by the words which the Lord used in the institution of the holy sacraments, as to regard the addition of other words incompatible with the due and reverent per- formance of the mysteries. On the other hand, she has added many words to those spoken by the Lord ; she has surrounded the words of institution with de- votional services of every kind. Many words are spoken in holy baptism in expounding, applying, and acting out the original words of institution, which constitute the centre, and substance, and essence, so to speak, of the form of the sacrament. So in the other sacrament many words are spoken by the lips of priests and people, and many are read out of holy Scripture, before the essential institutive words are uttered ; and many words of prayer and praise and thanksgiving follow their utterance before the service of mystic communion is concluded. The Lord gave a few deep, pregnant words : many are the reverential expressions with which the Church has accompanied them. She has not taken away her Lord's words, nor taken the meaning out of them, but has given to His words, in a holy, expressive service, their suitable place, their place of dignity, and has added many words of her own to make the meaning of His the more impressive, and to make the enunciation of His the more solemn. No man who is reasonable blames the Church for having done this. No man stands up and says. The words used by the Lord in the institution and for the performance of these sacraments were very few, why have you made them a multitude ? No reasonable man says, Why do you encumber the simplicity of the 246 ON SYMBOLISM. baptismal and eucliaristic rites with portions of Scrip- ture— with epistles, and gospels, and homilies — with psalms, and hymns, and songs of thanksgiving — with prayers and j^raises of every form and character ? Why, in short, add one word to Christ's words ? The man who would put such questions would be regarded, and justly, as an unspiritual legal person — as one bringing the Church into bondage, and defrauding God of His worship. Now, if the Church has such liberty in one essential part of the holy institution, why is her liberty to be entirely taken away in the other ? The sacrament consists of word and symbol. To the former much has been added in the way of exposition, enlargement, development, application, and confessedly unto edification ; why may not addition be made in the latter case also, under the same limitations and with hope of similar edification ? If the Church has dutifully followed her Lord's few and essential words, with many important, though not, for the absolute validity of the sacrament, essential ones, may she not also accompany His main and essential symbol with others of her own (provided for her hand, indeed, by God), ancillary to His, to make the meaning of His more abundantly clear to all, and the many results and issues bound up with His, more present to the thoughts, and memories, and hopes of all the worshippers ? No symbols which the Church can add, enter at all into the essence of the sacraments as those which the Lord has appointed ; as no words of hers, however holy, share with her Lord's in the privilege of being the essential form of the sacred mstitutions : but they may be useful, ON SYMBOLISM. 247 oruameiital, subsidiary accompaniments of His, as the words of the Church are gracefully attendant upon His words of power and dignity. To the main symbolical action which the Lord employed in the sacraments, why may not the Church add symbolical acts on her part, secondary to and illustrative of His? When the Anglican minister, after baptizing a child, impresses upon his forehead the sign of the cross, in token that he (the baptized) shall bear the cross after Christ, and glory in doing so, taking the sign of it upon his brow, the seat of dignity and in- telligence in man, who is offended ? who ought to be offended ? Who will say that that symbolical act of the priest is not subsidiary to the main, essential, symbolical action enjoined by the Lord Himself? Who will deny that it is an instructive and graceful conclusion to the whole expressive rite ? Yet it is not of the essence of the sacrament. AVho will find fault with the priests for setting the altar or holy table in one part of the church rather than in another : — for coming to it in vestments different from those which are used in preaching and in other services — for leaving the gifts in one place till consecration, and after consecration keeping them in another — for manifold performance, in short, from beginning to end of the service, full of mystic symbolic import ? Long ago, in the beginning of this work of God unto which we testify, were we shown in cUvers ways how symbolism is the way of the Spirit of Christ ; and I now cite one special instance, where the Pro- phet, in the Central Church in London, was moved by the Spirit to call for four loaves and seven cups, 248 ON SYMBOLISM. because of symbolic meaning in the numbers four and seven, — the fourfokl ministry of Christ given to the Church, the sevenfold unity of the Spirit wi'ought in the Church : pregnant mysteries, requiring many words to expound them, thus expressed by the Spirit of God, under this New Testament dispensation, in material signs by plates of bread and cups of wine. AVhen we place the baptismal font in one part of the church at its entrance, the pulpit in another part of the church between the font and the altar, and the altar in the extreme part of the church — in the part most remote from the entrance, as indicating that heavenly life is our introduction into God's Church, that that life is to be continually sustained and guided by the word of God, and that the highest function of that life now is communion with Christ Jesus in the feast of His body and blood, and worship of God worthily through means of that communion, who is not pleased, and instructed, and edified by the sym- bolical arrangement ? It is not merely taste that is shocked when the pulpit blocks up the way to the altar, instead of leaving it open. The Spirit within us is gi^ieved and hindered at arrangements which have in them no light, or, rather, which have in them the negation of liglit, though we often know not what the grief sprang from till the cause of it is removed. The Church symbolises, by the cross which she erects over the temples in which she worships God, how it is that she attains to spiritual and acceptable worship, even through the death of that which, being alive, makes worship of God impossible. By the cross adorned Avith rays of light and signs of glory, she symbolises the reward of Christ's sufferings to ON SYMBOLISM. 249 Himself, and to all His faithful followers who are crucified with Him, and shall reign together with Him in His kingdom. The things which the symbol of the cross rightly interpreted brings to our minds, are the same which the " bread broken and the wine poured out " in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper set before us. And the things which the adorning of the cross signifies, even the glorious effects to man and the whole creation of God, of the mediation of Christ, of His incarnation, and death, and passion, are represented by the lights which burn before the emblems of His body and blood, and around His altar, and by the incense which comes up before God with the prayers of all saints over the memorial of His most holy and perfect sacrifice. The Church places a cross with rays and adorn- ings upon the altar and its cloths, to tell out what she loves in every way to tell out — " the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which should follow :" by the holy eucharistic symbols, with the accompaniments of lights and incense, she gives full expression to the same. Not that the testimony concernmg the suffer- ings is all that is contained in the symbols of the Lord's institution, nor yet that the testimony con- cerning the glory is all that is meant to be conveyed by the lights which are kindled, and by the incense which is consumed. There is a symbolising of the blessed and glorious effects of the Lord's death and passion in the Lord's Supper, as well as of His death itself ; and so in the incense burned before the altar is there a sign of Christ's intercession coming up be- fore God, from hearts sorrowing with Him over the disobedience of His creatures, as well as rejoicing 250 ON SYMBOLISM. with Him in the hope and anticipation of the deliver- ance of all things, soon to be realised at the glorious appearing and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in the lights of the sanctuary, which are con- sumed as they shine, is a testimony concerning the weakness yet of those through whom the light of Christ shines in the world, whose light brings with it the denying of themselves, the decrease of themselves, the consumption of their life. But without entering into details too particular for the present pui'pose, this may be said hi general, that the use of lights and the burning of incense in the service of the Church, with symbolic import, is no more in principle than the signing of the cross in baptism, or the erection of a simple cross over the church, or the affixing of a decorated one to its altar or its holy furniture. It is an extension of the prin- ciple of symbolism somewhat farther, but not the in- troduction of a new or different principle. There is this difference, that in the use of the symbols of lights and incense, you employ symbols which are provided to your hand in holy Scripture, though it does not follow from that that you are to use them exactly as you find from holy Scripture they were used by the Church of old. Our Lord, to set forth His body and blood, used as symbols creatures which had been already in use in the Church of God with a typical import, more or less distinctly shadowing forth what He fully stamped upon them and put into them. The Church, in using lights and incense, uses S}Tiibols which were present in the sanctuary of old, where the bread, and the wine, and the water, and the oil, were present : these latter are used m the ON SYMBOLISM. 251 Christian's Church in a mystic way. They are present materially, as well as the spiritual force which they represent; and may not material light be present in the Church with a mystic meaning, while the true light of which it is the symbol and representative is present also ? And may not material incense be present also, the thing which it represents, even the intercession of Christ in head and members, being present as well ? especially when the last of the Jewish prophets predicted that incense should be offered in the Christian Church, who will say that he excluded absolutely literal incense ? And when the prophet who closes the canon of Scripture saw in vision, in the perfect exhibition of worship, the material incense, as well as the prayers of saints that it was added unto, and lights before the throne of God and of the Lamb, which were not absolutely the true light, but the symbolical representation of the Spirit of God who proceeds from the Father and the Son, I do not believe that we are to make the visions of the Apocaly]^)se an architectui'al plan, according to which we are to build our chui'ches ; but I do believe that that vision of heavenly worship given to us in the beginning of that book does convey to us the idea, and was meant to do so, that the burning of incense symbolically is not incom- patible with the actual prayers of saints; and that the lighting of lamps with symbolic import in Christ- ian worship is not incompatible with the presence of God, and the Lamb, and the Holy Ghost, and the cherubim, the fourfold ministry, and the crowned elders. Indeed, we know by experience that the Holy Spirit in the Church, and material signs and 252 ON SYMBOLISM. symbols, are not antagonistic to one another. The reverse is tlie fact. The Spirit of Life feeds upon words of truth, and upon outward signs expressive of truth. The Spirit of Christ is not oppressed by the ministers of God, but rejoices in them, as the light may be supposed to rejoice in the candlestick, or as the vine in the wall or trellice-work by which it is sustained, which lifts up its clusters to be ripened by the sun in the heavens. The Spirit of God rejoices in beholding the creatures of God con- secrated to the Lord by the hands of men, and used by men in the service of Christ ; He rejoices in everything which testifies of the incarnation of the Son of God, which l^espeaks the redemption of the creatures of God from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of serving Him ; He re- joices to hear men's tongues preaching Christ — to hear men's voices praising God ; He rejoices to be- hold man training the creatures under him to do as best they can what He delights in doing Himself The Holy Ghost hath no pleasure in men who worship themselves, or who worship the works of their own hands ; but He hath pleasure in men who worship God themselves, and who, by the labour of their hands, make the inferior creation also contribute to the adorning and completing of His glorious ser- vice. The true spirit does not feed upon itself; that is the mark of the spirit of pride. He who is a spirit merely, and not alHed with the material and \asible, hates men, rejects them as rulers, despises them as ministers, would destroy them as creatures ; he hath no pleasure in material instruments for God's service, until he have transformed them into objects of idola- ON SYMBOLISM. 253 try ; he has no ear for the voice of man, and for the voice of the creature awakened by man, praising God together : he is pleased to have it said that spirit is God, and that all but spirit is worthless and ac- cursed. But this is not the way of Him who is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the Spirit of God and of Jesus Christ, God manifest in flesh. He rejoicetli in the dwellers upon the earth, and in the earth for their sakes ; He rejoiceth in the low- liest voice of the lowliest creature upon the earth, setting forth m its way the mystery of Christ, as He rejoiceth in the voice of God Himself proclaiming to the universe, " Behold my beloved Son !" If there were any incompatibility between sym- bolic representations and the pure spirit of life and hberty. He who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost would not have set a symbolical service at the entrance of His church, and made another symbolical service the very centre of the abiduig worship of God, until the end of time. Spiritual people have not found the Spirit in them quenched by the multiplication of forms and symbolical representations in the Church. Prophe- symg and other streams of spiritual power have not been dried up by these things. On the other hand, prophets cried in the Spirit for the daily, continual, symbolical use, of the reserved holy elements of the Eucharist in the worship of the Church ; cries of the Spirit have been heard amid the assembled Churches for incense, as the symbol of the intercession which cannot be uttered; and for material lights around the altar of Him who is the hght of the world. The symbol does not dispii'it the spiritual man, no 254 ON SYIMBOLISM. more tlian in natural things does the banner, with its mottoes and its emblems, dispirit the soldier who marches under it. The spirit of faith rejoices in everything which tells out the things that faith is clinging to. The spirit of unbelief is tormented by everything which forces it into light, that it hates and shuns. God has tried the men of this age in many ways: His kingdom has been preached to them by the tongues of men, in speech which they used to applaud till the kingdom of God became the burden of it. That preaching has been loathed. The Gospel was uttered in their ears by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Have they taken pleasure in it ? The mysteries of God are set before their eyes in mystical signs and curious emblems : they cry out against this dealing also. Men love not the truth, whether it come to them clothed in all the forms of reason from the mind of a man, conveyed with simple grandeur in the words of holy Scripture, uttered with supernatural force by the Holy Ghost, or diffused around them in subdued light, like sun- beams through stained glass, by signs and symbols. In every case it is the one thing that is eschewed, whatever be its channel of communication. The potion is bitter, whatever cup it is contained in, whatever hand presents it. Men who would not run with footmen, how can they run with horsemen? If they would not receive the word of truth from a man's lips, the letter of truth from holy wint, how can they bear the Spirit of truth, how endure to look upon the symbols of it? Men who make high profession of godliness in our day have been tried, and found wanting. They neither love the ON SYMBOLISM. 255 cross of Christ, nor His kingdom, nor His Spirit, which comes between both, to apply the one and to give the earnest of the other. Men hate the sign of the cross, not merely because Papists have worship- ped it, but because it represents before their eyes a holiness in flesh which they refuse to enter into. They hate to see the priests and people bowing in the church before the altar of God, and before the visible signs of Christ's presence with His people ; not merely because others have given the honour due to God to His sacraments, but also because the spirit of worshipping God has ebbed from them, and its revival causes them pain — because they have lost faith in God's presence with men and things united unto Him in His Son ; and they are troubled when that presence is outwardly recognised. Men are still the children in the market-place, before whom Christ hath piped and they will not dance — unto whom He hath poured out His mourning, and they have not answered with lamentation. Men love not incense, the symbol of ineflable communion with God ; but did they not laugh to scorn, and make the song of the ch'unkard, that instrument by wliich God sought in those days to give His worshippers again the experience of that ineffiible communion? They who ridiculed their brethren when praising God in a way transcending their reason, will despise them while praismg Him in a way level to their senses. Men love not the two-fold light in the sanctuary, the sevenfold light in the chancel ; but did they love to hear that God had still for them in His Church the gifts of Urim and Thunnnim ? That Christ was still to His faithful people the Apostle and Pro- 256 ON SYMBOLISM. phet, and had begun to exercise again his func- tions of Apostle and Prophet through living men ? Did they rejoice in the opening of the candlestick, and the revival of the ministry of the Angel and the sevenfold Eldership ? Men give flattering titles to the Lord in this day ; but do they desire to let His light shine, to let His Spmt have liberty, and to let His worship and service of God be seen upon the earth ? The unworshipful spu'it was the last mark of the degenerate Jewish Church, as you may see every- where in Malachi, the last of the prophets ; the same mark characterises the last times of the Gentile apostasy. From the unholy and unworshipful spirit we must be delivered. No passage of Scripture will better describe what the Lord is minded to bring us to, than that in the beginning of the first Epistle to the Thessalonians (from the fourth of which the Epistle for this day is taken), wherein the effect pro- duced upon the Thessalonians by the ministry of Christ is expressed in these words, — " Ye turned from idols unto God, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, even Jesus, who delivered [who hath delivered, and is delivering] us from the wrath to come." We are to be turned to God, to serve Him; and while serving Him to be visited by His Son from heaven, to snatch us from the wrath of God which must overtake the hypo- critical Church, and ungodly world which refuses to serve and worship Him. The only condition of expectancy for the coming of the Lord J esus Christ is the condition of serving God. Servants of God are sealed in the last times. ON SYMBOLISM. 257 They who take up the doctrine of the second advent and refuse to serve God, will find that the coming of the Lord will be unto them, notwithstanding the clearness of their knowledge, a day of darkness, and not light — of terror, and not exultation. Jesus Christ sei^ved ; therefore. He reigns. They who serve shall reign with Him. They who refuse to serve shall plead in vain, in the day of judgment, the righteousness and blood of Jesus Christ. His blood was shed, not to obtain impunity for the unholy, but amongst other benefits to provide for those who had lost the will and the power to serve God, both the will and the power to do so, Jesus Christ expects of us to make this use of His blood — to enter by it into the presence of God for the Spirit which shall make us obedient, which shall teach us how to worship in the beauties of holiness. Let us awake to righteousness — let us be wise, and discern the mil of God — let us not be hearers of it only, but doers ; and in doing we shall be blessed. Amen. SERMON XIX. ON SYMBOLISM. St. Paul spoke of the effect of tlie action in the Church of the Holy Grhost, that men should thereby " know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge," and of his own commission — namely, that " he should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ." I quote these passages to show that, in this present dis- pensation, the highest point that can be attained unto is not, as it were, an ultimate one, but rather a posi- tion from which a view is obtained of a vast, unat- tainable ground, lying beyond the ground actually gained. When the riches of Christ are preached in the fullest way, after the preaching the testimony must be borne that they have not been yet fully preached — they have not been searched out, investi- gated, seen to the end. The treasures of the mine have been thrown open, but the extent of the trea- sures has not been explored. When the Spirit of God has made known the love of Christ in the fullest way to the Chm-ch, still it is added, this love is not known yet, " it passeth knowledge." Now this character of our dispensation shows ON SYMBOLISM. 259 tlie use and value of material signs and symbols in the Christian Church. They are there as signs of more than the tongue can speak — they are there to fill the imagination and thoughts when speech has been exhausted — they are there to set the mind at work again and again, after repeated exercises of its powers — and after all its efforts they remain, still testifying that the good things signified are more than one can " think or speak." So that, when the Church has said all she can say, she repeats, — I am not yet satisfied with my testimony, much is left un- said ; and she points to the symbol which helps her in her weakness. She says to men, After all you have heard fi-om me, look upon this sign, and perad- venture God will teach you more. He will suggest that to your meditation which my speech could not bring to your ear. I have said, but what remains unsaid is more than I have spoken; and in token thereof I set this sign before your eyes. When the Angels of the Churches on earth have poured forth their intercessions for the Church and for all men over the memorial of the sacrifice of Christ, set forth on the altar before their eyes, and during their intercession have burned sweet incense before the Lord, the effect of their act as to meaning is this — that their mtercession, however full and however acceptable to God, has not exhausted what was meant in the typical ritual by the burning of in- cense. The incense is a sign of what we have been doing, but it signifies more — (we do not take it out of the way till we have done all that it means) — it signifies more than we have done, or can yet do, per- haps can ever do — it signifies with our intercession 260 ON SYMBOLISM. the " intercession of the Spirit with groanings that cannot be uttered" — the intercession of Him who is within us, and who speaks by us, and yet whose groanings, whose longings, are unspoken, unexpressed. But not only does it signify the intercession of the Spirit in us, who knows the will of God, and prays according to it, but it signifies the intercession per- sonal of the High Priest within the true vail — the in- tercession of Him through whom alone the Spirit of God can find full, adequate, perfect expression. The incense in one place in the vision of heavenly wor- ship is called the prayers of saints — rather, the prayers are phials of incense ; in another place, the incense is added to the prayers of saints. Now, this explains what I have been endeavouring to show — namely, that the incense is a sign of the intercession in the Church on earth, and also of the higher intercession, the more perfect — yea, the absolutely perfect inter- cession of the Head of the Church in heaven. This the x\ngels of the Churches testify unto, when with their own intercession they retain also the sign of intercession which their service is part of the fulfil- ment of. The incense burning by their side, or be- fore their eyes, is at once a witness of their faith, and an expression of their humility : by it they call upon God, not merely to hear the part of the fulfil- ment of the type which comes up to Him by their iips, but also, and chiefly, the higher parts of the fulfilment which come up into His ears from the im- utterable groanings of His own Spirit, which are presented before His throne in the heavens by the accepted High Priest at His own right hand. The ■literal incense which the Angel burns does not add to, ON SYMBOLISM. 261 ov put value into, the prayers of the Church in the Holy Ghost, which he gathers up and utters before God as the head of the congregation. God forbid we should say or think so ; but that material incense is a sign that the Church's intercession is made worthy by the double intercession which sustains and commends it, — by the intercession of the Holy Ghost, by the intercession of the Son of God. The thing symbolised by the incense is not yet exhausted ; therefore, the symbol is not taken out of the way. The blood of lambs, and goats, and calves, is not offered in the Christian Church because the atonement which they typified has been perfectly made once for all, when the true Lamb died for the sins of the world ; but the symbol of incense sets forth, not a work done and finished long ago, but a work beo;un when the Christian Church was consti- tuted, and the Christian High Priest took possession of His true sanctuary, and still going on, and to con- tinue till the last service of the Church shall have been performed, and the High Priest shall have come forth a second time to bless all the congrega- tion of the righteous with the full blessing of God. It has been said, that the use of symbols in the worship of the Church is a means to preserve men from becoming worshippers of themselves — they are a standing rebuke to the spirit of self-satisfaction and exultation over our works done and our gifts exer- cised— they are sign to tlie priests, that after all they may have said and well said, after all they may have done and well done, more is yet to be said and done than they have attained to — to those who have ar- rived at the greatest speed in running the race they 262 ON SYMBOLISM. apply the spur for speed yet greater — to those who have cHmbed highest they say, Higher still, onward yet, till all the conceivable meaning to be elicited from us be fully expressed. When the Angels of the Churches, presiding over living congregations and sustained by spiritual ministers, have poured out the purest streams of heavenly worship before the altar of God, the incense burning before that altar checks the working within them of spiritual pride, and saves them from the snare of unduly exaggerating their own services. The presence of the symbol sends into every well-instructed heart the wholesome me- mento, " Not that I have already attained or am already perfect." The lights that burn in the sanctuary and round the altar are a continual testimony, that after apostles and prophets have conveyed all that they can contain or transmit, there is light still in reserve in Him who contains in Him bodily all the wisdom and knowledge of God ; who said to His Father, " I have declared thy Name, and will yet declare it ;" when the seven- fold light of the spiritual candlestick shall have shone with purest, clearest light, for the guidance of the priests and people of God, still there is more light to be shed upon the path of the Church, more abund- ance of guidance to be given to those "for whom light is sown," whose " path is the shining light, which shmeth more and more unto the perfect day." A symbol may be taken out of the way when its work is done, that is, when all it points to has become matter of experience and history ; but its presence is a sign that the time of perfection is not yet come — that progress is still the law under which we live — ON SYMBOLISM. 263 the spirit within us is the power of our progress, and the symbol before us indicates the end whereunto we are to strive continually until we fully attain to what God Himself shall call the consummation of it. The lights in the church do not so much point out what we are, as beckon us to what we shall be, " when the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," — when, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, shall be made manifest through the Church the manifold wisdom of God — when the na- tions of the redeemed shall walk in the light of the New Jerusalem — when angels, and principalities, and powers m the heavenly places shall see light in the light of the Church of God. The presence of the twofold light and of the sevenfold light is a call to the Church ever to have in her, in full operation, the ministry of Apostle and Prophet, of the Angel and the sevenfold Eldership; and after all to know that Christ is the light of the world, which these ministries and all other ministries are not able to exhaust. The presence of the symbols in the church is a standing rebuke against unfaithfulness when the spi- ritual exercises represented by the symbols are not performed, and a constant incitement to come up higher still to those who have made in spiritual worship the liighest attainments. The symbols ex- press in language which all can understand what ought to be in exercise in the Church of God. They are like the signs over the door of the house of mer- chandise, giving a faithful report of the wares which are to be expected and found therein. These two symbols, especially of the light and incense, do most 264 ON SYMBOLISM. clearly set forth what the Church was created for, — to offer unto God worship sweet as fragrant mcense; to present to Him all the affections of the human heart consumed by one fire of heavenly love, as the many precious ingredients of the one incense con- sumed with one fire by the hand of man before the Lord. The first use and work of the Church is to worship God — its second, to communicate God's light in many ways to the whole creation in heaven and earth. And when the memorial of Christ's death is offered, and when intercession over that represent- ative of the all-sufficient Sacrifice is made, then espe- cially is the time of burning incense, because the Church will show by every means her faith that that sacrifice which she memorialises is the offering unto God of sweet-smelling savour, which every other offering refers to either in prospect or retrospect; and that no prayers can go up to God as incense, but from those who are looking upon the Lamb that was slain, and who are presenting before God His atoning blood. And around the altar where Christ's death is represented the symbolic lights are caused to shine, that the Church, and the world through the Church, may never forget that the light of the uni- verse is Christ crucified — not merely Christ, but Christ slain, and raised from death and made Lord over all. Why the world was made and suffered to fall after its creation — why it was not destroyed im- mediately upon the act of disobedience — why God can be just while He justifies the ungodly — how the creature without God could not stand, though made perfect — how the creature after its fall could recover ON SYMBOLISM. 265 more than it originally lost by union with God — how out of death could come life — how, by the sufferings of His dear Son, God would reveal His own charac- ter, and make His eternal purpose to be understood, — all this is witnessed to by the symbol of the lights in connexion with the place where the symbol is seen. In the death of His Son, God's love shines forth to make the hearts of His redeemed beam with love to Him, to draw up from them all the worship unto Him which they are capable of expressing. In the death of His Son, God shows forth as by an in- extinguishable light what He is to His creatures and what they are to Him — how far He will stoop in their behalf, how highly He will exalt them. Men's tongues have failed to express to God the thanksgiving and the manifold worship which over the memorial of Christ's sacrifice they ought to have told out. The Church has failed to " sound forth and teach," in living, articulate speech, all the effects unto her, and unto all the creatures of God, of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. She has caused by unbelief the manifestation of that Spirit received from Him on the day of Pentecost to be sus- pended. She has hid under a bushel, or under a bed, the light which Christ obtained for her upon His cross, and bestowed upon her fi'om His Father's throne in the highest, when, having tasted death for every man. He was highly exalted. The seven spirits sent out into all the earth she quenched, or well-nigh quenched — all the light which the Holy Ghost could give from God and from the Lamb unto the Church, and through the Church to the world, was not suffered to shine forth. Men would not hold for Him and 266 ON SYMBOLISM. use His precious gifts, His wisdom, His knowledge, His prophecy. His detection of evil spirits. His worthy exaltation of the Name of God, in tongues of men and angels, He could not utter, through unbelieving, fear- ful, unwilling men. Alas ! the things that men say either to God ov for Him in the presence of the signs of His wondrous love are utterly unlike what they ought to be, raised upon such a foundation, motived by such a cause : they are not a witness before God of the legitimate effects of His love upon the heart and speech of man — they are not the spiritual light and incense — they have not been, they are not, the worship which the sight of the cross should inspire, and which the Holy Spirit obtained by that cross for the children of men could produce — they have not been, they are not, the luminous exposition of God's character, His purpose. His kingdom, which the death of Christ, and the Spirit of glory by that death accruing to us, should have drawn forth from us. Alas! we have surrounded the altar of God with demonstrations very different from those which are represented by the symbols of incense and of light. We have not told out to God, with thanks- givings in the Spirit, what His love hath done for us; we have not told out to men, "by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," " the unsearchable riches of Christ," "the love of God which passeth knowledge;" we have sent up no eucharist fi'om joyous hearts and spirits released from bondage, but rather murmuring and discontent, tears and blood, unto the throne of God and of the Lamb ; we have not cried unto men with the confidence and exulta- tion of fiiith, " God is the Lord who hath given us ON SYMBOLISM. 267 light," " Behold how He loved us ; " we have made men doubt the Gospel by our way of stating and com- mending it : if we have suffered it to shine at all, it was as the sun in an eclipse, " shorn of its beams ;" the highest parts of it were omitted in our enumera- tion; the parts which gave light and meaniftig to all the rest were not found in our exposition. Men un- willing to serve God have refused to record with their speech all His claims upon their service — men unwilling to render unto Jesus the return of love have feebly, coldly, defectively expressed His love to us, and the many and wondrous results of it. Really, but for sacramental and symbolic things and acts, in the silence or inadequate speech of men, witness would have failed in the visible Church for the love of God and the work of Jesus Christ our Lord. By the actual appointments of the Lord during His own personal sojourn upon the earth, and by the things which soon after His ascension He led His Church into, or permitted to be done in her. He stereotyped, so to speak, in a language that would never wear out or become obsolete, not only the history of His love to us, but the record of the glorious effects which from that love should flow in upon us, as streams from an exhaustless fountain. One witness was not silenced in the silence of the other; and when one became utterly abused He began to reawaken the sound of the other, and those amongst whom He prevailed to reawaken that sound He has most sig- nally honoured and blessed ; their lands have been watched over by Him, and guarded with especial care — others have been impoverished, they have been enriched. Amongst them He has begun to lead 268 ON SYMBOLISM. forward to perfection — amongst them He would perfect the witness of speech which they sought to recover, and would brmg back and set in order the witness of sign, against the abuse of which they had rightly protested. Those who honoured Him He is seeking to honour — but they are turning in His hand, they refuse to trust Him wholly — they will be partial in His law, they will not go forward to perfection. He must forsake them also, because they have become " wise in their own conceits," and in effect have said, " What can the Almighty do for us?" "we want not the knowledge of His ways." Brethren, as God manifestly blessed and prospered the Protestant nations which sought to hold up His word, and to find a room for His highest and clearest witness to speak, shall we not also say that He has preserved, as yet, from destruction, the older and much corrupted churches of Greece and Rome, because of testimony for Him yet borne by them ? It may be in mute signs, in dumb show, in things of sight and sense ; but, although in this, was still more full than any Protestant tongue can bring forth, or Protestant ear endure out of Holy Scripture. No doubt the Spirit of truth and holiness has been greatly grieved and shocked by the abuse of the creature and the debasement of man, by the pollu- tion of the worship of God through means of things which, rightly used, would have preserved it pure, — by the transfer of the honour due to God to the things which His hands had made. In one sense " incense was an abomination and offerings a weari- ness," where that which was highest in God's esteem, the intelligent love of His creature man, was not ON SYMBOLISM. 269 present, offering up all. But who shall say that there has not also been a refreshment to the Spirit of Christ in the silence, and forgetfulness, and unbelief of men, from the symbols of Christ, which might be seen where the voice of Christ could not be heard ? Wlien the Spirit of God turned away from what He heard men speak, to the symbols of what they ought to have spoken but spake not, He was more re- freshed by the truthful symbol than by man's de- fective speech. The daily, the continual presentation upon altars, yea, upon defiled altars, in temples filled, maybe, with the works of superstition, of the memorial of Christ's sacrifice, and the surrounding of that memorial with everything bright, and costly, and fragrant, as the true Lamb in heaven stands surrovmded with all the glory of God and His re- deemed creation — was a witness for Christ and His salvation, which kept the shield of God's protection over the lands where it was seen. If the Protestant was blessed for holding the Bible, which still he would but inadequately — yea, scantily — interpret, others were spared — yea, blessed — because of the " daily sacrifice," which Protestantism went near to abolish, and Antichrist wall abolish entirely, though they mingled with the holy service many abuses and perversions. A Protestant, half heathen, with the Bible in his hand, is still endured — yea, honoured — for the sake of what he holds, but does not use aright. A Papist, entangled in the net of supersti- tion and idolatry, with that before his eyes which would, if rightly considered, make him a true and spiritual worshipper of God, is borne with — yea, pre- 270 ON SYMBOLISM. served — for the sake of the good thing which he has, though he be spoiling and perverting it. If the Protestants have been blessed of God for even striving to keep oj)en the door through which the worshippers of God might enter into the inward power of religion — though beyond the door few of them, comparatively, would ever pass — and if Roman Catholics have found some favour with God for preserving outward forms and signs of holiness — although abusing them and polluting themselves in them — shall not His chiefest blessings and favours be the portion of those who strive to unite the inward force and the outward propriety of holy worship and service? Who " shall worship in spirit and truth" — that is, with all spiritual grace and with all true expression — in a manner which indicates the in- dwelling of Spirit, even of the Spirit of God, in man's spirit, and which sets forth truth, in forms, m action, full of meaning, instinct with truth, demonstrative of truth? Our worship is not only to manifest spirit, but also to demonstrate truth — to manifest spirit in divers ways, to set forth truth in divers ways ; the deeper the experience of spiritual energy, the more perfect the worship ; the more abundant and impressive the presentation of truth, the more perfect also. Surely God seeketh now such to worship Him as shall ap- proach Him with both. Therefore, in conclusion, let us neither join with those who would exaggerate the importance of ceremonial and ritual rehgion at the expense of what is moral and spiritual, nor yet with those who account the former a mere external ad- ON SYJEBOLISM. 271 dition to Christianity, rather encumbering and de- foiming it than bringing with it any help and beauty. As the body and soul of man are to live and flourish together and help one another ; as the invisible God and the visible creation are to be ever united and engaged in harmonising co-operation; so the in- ternal and the external in religion are to stand or fall together — they mutually act and react upon each other. The inward life finds enjoyment and health in outward exercise ; faith prompts works, and works strengthen faith. The spirit of reverence stirs up the bodily powers to worship ; the body, obeying the inward impulse by frequent acts of worship, contracts the habit of it ; and the habit of worship helps and strengthens the sj^irit of reverence. The more a man prays, the more he loves to pray ; the more he abstains, the more wearisome the service. Cease from using a limb, and you in the end lose the power of it. Keep a horse in the stable, he becomes lame. Food without exercise breeds humours. Work digests the food received and creates an appetite for more. Amen. SERMON XX. WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. Walk in the Spirit. — Gal. v. 16-25. To recover the Spirit of Christ, the Church must put away the sins which caused the loss of it. In jour- neying from one place to another, if the traveller have lost his way, in order to recover his true direc- tion he must retrace his steps to the point at which he began to diverge, and then enter again upon the right course. To persevere in the sin which first grieved and hindered the Spirit, is to perpetuate the loss of His comforts and to provoke His entire with- di'awment. Sin persisted in after detection accu- mulates guilt upon man, and towards Grod is the addition of insult and defiance to simple disobedience. When a remnant of Israel was about to be restored to their lost mheritance, certain of them, holy pro- phets, well -instructed scribes, godly riders, were disposed and enabled to confess the sins for which they had been driven out, and the people said Amen to the confession. When two parties once united have been separated, there can be no hope of recon- ciliation till he who was first and alone in the offence repent of and forsake his misconduct. The WALKING IN THE SPIEIT. 273 way of pride, wliicli justifies a false step instead of reuouueing it, is the way of ruin — hopeless ruin. Soon in her history the Church began to quaiTel with God. St. Paul said, in one of his first com- munications to the Church, " I beseech you, be ye reconciled to God : " as an ambassador of Christ, whom you know and acknowledge, and of whose anointing you are partakers, I beseech you return fi'om your offence which you have taken against God. Yea, God Himself beseeches you by us to reconsider this matter, and not to persist in the trial of strength against Him upon which you have en- tered. This language was addressed to the Church, not to unbaptized heathens. It dealt with sin in the Church and of the Church, not merely with sin in general, as belonging to the whole fallen race of mankind. In this language we do not find a mi- nister of Christ striving to make Christians of those who had not before believed in Christ, but striving to recover fi-om a progress of apostasy those who had begun to apostatise. St. Paul is not here la- bouring to draw men into the Church by gospel statements, but he is labouring to recover the Church itself fi'om a wrong course upon which it had entered. He is not here building the ship, but trying to purge the diy rot out of the timbers of a ship already built. What was this quaiTel with God fi'om which the apostle entreated the Church to withdraw ? It was this. He gave His Spirit unto the Christian Church under certain conditions. The Church was violatmg these conditions, and yet expecting to retain what was given under their limitation. The conditions were two: — 1st, that they to whom the Spirit should T 274 WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. be given should obey Jesus as their Lord ; 2d, that they who should receive the Spirit should use the gift for the common good of a certain community called the Church, the body of Christ. In relation to a head, and to a body, the gift should be enjoyed. The Lord was disobeyed by those who had received His gifts to such an extent, that He was obliged to say to them, Take heed, lest ye may be found to have received all those gifts to no purpose, in vain. They disobeyed the Lord because they refused to accept His officers ; they caballed against them ; they al- lowed themselves to become the tools of those who originated and conducted plots and intrigues against them. The Lord had set and established certain centres of influence and guidance in His Church ; the devil set up counter ones; and those of the enemy were heeded and followed, those of the Lord were despised and rejected. Those having endowments and gifts would not be accountable to the Lord for their exercise ; they would not allow His superin- tendence and oversight, brought to bear upon them through His ministers. They (the spiritual) would not allow the man to rule over them ; they would make a schism in the name of the Saviour; they would isolate His name Christ, and hold to it, vio- lating and trampling down the other two, or one of them at least — rthe name that implied rule and de- manded obedience : therefore the Spirit could not abide with them and operate in them. He cannot be subject but to Jesus ; no hands but the Lord's can direct His powers unto tlie attainment of God's glory and the happiness of God's creation. The Lord does not come down in His awful person to WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. 275 walk amongst His Churches, and to give charges to His servants. He does these things, as He does all His overt works for His Church now, by men whom He chooses. The sin of the Church was this : that she would not accept those whom her Head had chosen for her and sent unto her. She found fault with them, and refused their service. In the very first and most blessed days of the Church it is recorded, that the brethren " abode in the doctrine and communion of the apostles." Soon the attempt was made to get at doctrine irrespective of them, as in the case of the Galatians; to hold the Spirit, without communion with them, as in the case of the Cormthians. The first great manifested sin in the Church was a refusal to let the Lord rule in doctrine and in spirit; and the expression of that sin was a revolt from the authority of apostles, which revolt was first openly directed against St. Paul, and afterwards extended to all. And in the last of his communications to the Church complained of by the last of them, the be- loved disciple, to whom the Saviour dying consigned His natural parent; S}Tinbolising thereby, perhaps, how much the safe keeping also of the mystic woman, the mother of us all, should be effected through his instrumentality and service of love. The first sin which the Church committed will be the most difficult to renounce; and perhaps this explains why the Evangelists find it more difficult to persuade men of the revival of the apostolical ministry than of any other fact connected with the Lord's work, unwil- lingness to be under law to Christ being at the root of the difficulty. Yet the rule of the Lord is the 276 WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. only way to liberty : for it is not the repression of life, but the guidance of it ; the liberation of it from impediments ; the opening for it of courses without limit; securing for it freedom from confusion and collision. Men, left to themselves, soon run their heads against some wall of obstruction ; urged on by guidance which is not of the Lord, they are soon found confronting, counteracting, obstructing others, misdirected as themselves, in those paths which the Lord has not chosen for them. Activity of bodies is fatal to peace, where order is not directing activity. And the order which is not the Lord's must be, at some point or other, an order of obstruction and repulsion. The spirit not guided by Him soon reaches a point where it must stop, and cease to labour or hope for perfection. The spirit wants to do more than any ruler but the Lord can permit to be done. A timid and unskilful rider cannot allow the horse to put forth all his speed. We must bind the power which we cannot rule. If the Lord have a certain way of guiding spiritual power for the fulfilment of God's will, and the unbelief and disobedience of men debar Him from that way, then He must either let the power have liberty unto their destruction, or in mercy to them He must restrain it, till they return to their right mind, and submit their will unto Him. Long has the power of Christ been in abeyance, because the rule of the Lord has been refused ; but now the time is come for escaping anarchy first, and iron despotism afterwards, by accepting again the Lord as our King. The sin which caused to the Church the loss of the Spirit is nowhere, perhaps, in the New Testament, WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. 277 SO accurately traced out and fully detected as in tins epistle to tlie Galatians, fi'om which the Epistle for the week is taken. St. Paul told them, that what they were doing was tantamount to casting away the Spirit of God. What had they done? First, they separated themselves in heart from Paul himself; and then did many strange and absurd things. Paul, who had been a persecutor of the Church before he entered it, became a " stone of stumbling" in it after he was joined to it. Many took offence at him; the Jewish Christians first, and then, through their in- fluence. Gentile Churches also. Paul knew the mind of the Lord more clearly, perhaps, than any of the apostles, and followed it out more boldly; namely, that the Gospel should be preached to the Gentiles. The gospel of the uucircumcision was given to him. Hence the hatred against him, and the resistance to him. His work brought him into direct collision with the first believers in Christianity. They were Jews ; they wished to retain their Jewish distinctions ; to keep the Gentiles under them, at a distance from them. They would not let the Gospel come to the Gentiles without a Jewish mark upon it, a sign of Jewish pre-eminence and Gentile infe- riority. All men who are high look with grudging and envy upon those who are climbing up to their level. Whither so fast, ye upstarts? Down to the bottom again, ambitious scum! is the language of the proud man to his brother, whom God is by His providence or His grace raising up higher. No one would be a setting sun. AVho can bear to see the honours, once exclusively his own in distribution, shared by others as fully as by himself ? My prestige 278 WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. is gone, he cries ; my glory is departed ; what I had as my peculiar possession was sweet and pleasant, now it is peculiar no more ; others have seized upon it, it is become common. I loathe it ! Every child of Adam has this envious spirit in him; every son of this world so feels. And they were not delivered from the love of this world; and, therefore, Paul said to them, in the beginning of this epistle, " Christ came to deliver us from this present evil world, by the will of Grod;" and in the end of it, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ, whereby I am crucified unto the world, and the world unto me." The Jews, seeing the glory trans- ferred from them as Jews, to themselves, and all other men, as Christians, and seeing Paul as the chief instrument and most laborious workman in effecting that transfer, they hated him, and caballed against him, and tracked his steps all his life long ; and all but estranged from him by their intrigues the whole Church. Every nation of the earth, to whom Christianity has come, has endeavoured, and too successfully, to put its foot upon it, and leave its mark upon it, before it should be passed on to the next. The Jews strove to make the Jewish element in their Christianity stronger than the Christian one. The Greeks would not allow it to pass through their borders without paying homage to their philosophy, and receiving from their philosophy letters of recom- mendation. The Romans accept Clu'istianity on condition that it shall detain empire still in the Eternal City, and bring the glory, and wealth, and homasre of the world for ever into Rome. Let us of WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. 279 this land, amongst wliom God has begun to revive His Church, remember this, and not let the Christian be absorbed into the Eno;lishman. Let our marks be seen as little as possible in the blessings which we cause to circulate; yea, let their own proper marks alone be seen. Let us exact no toll for our- selves, while distributing the free gift of God. Paul was an apostle, and catholic; therefore he gave offence to the national and sectarian : he laboured to bring m the new world, where Christ shall reign ; therefore was he loathed by those who loved and clung to distmctions and honours in the world that now is. They forsook Jdm in heart, and then affected gi'eat respect for Peter and James, and the first apostles. They became diligent students of Scrip- ture, and ardent zealots for the law; they professed great indignation again sin and hatred of the flesh ; they seemed to be labouring for holiness, and sparing no suffenno; or sacrifice wherebv tliev mioht attain to it. They circumcised their flesh; they " observed days, and months, and years;" they bound upon themselves again the yoke of God's law ; they looked like men determined not to be idle ; their hands were filled with work ; they could not be upbraided with having a religion that cost them nothing; they " rose early and late, took rest, and ate the bread of care- fulness." They seemed as if they would prove to all men that it was zeal for God, and not love of the world, that made them break ofl'from Paul, and reject his services. The sin of the Galatians was not primarily that they circumcised themselves ; their primary sin was, that they took offence at Christ's minister ; they refused to thank God for a gift given to them, and 280 WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. to use the gift in a grateful spirit; tliey despised the gift ; they said, It is a stone — it is a serpent — it is a scorpion. They fled from it, and then went into many excesses and follies. They left undone, first, what they ought to do, and then did much which they ought not to do, which God required not at their hands. To save the Church, if possible, from the sin which men were bent upon committing — to raise in their estimation, if possible, the value of the blessing which they were about to forfeit, yea, had already forfeited, the " works of the flesh" are enumerated in the epistle, and the " fruit of the Spirit" is set forth. What your flesh has in it, is proved. Its works are manifest : the history of the world is full of them ; the record of time is polluted with them ; the length and breadth of space is burdened with them. Your flesh is the same that showed its cha- racter in antediluvian wickedness, in Sodom and Gomorrah, in Egypt and Canaan. In the Christian Church, without the Spirit of Christ, it will make manifest yet greater wickedness than ever it has yet perpetrated. To those who were circumcising the flesh he said this ; to those who were beginning the ascetical life, who were j)uttiug themselves under severe restraints, to those who were chaining the wild beast, he summed up all the excesses which it would commit when their feeble chain should be broken. All your pretence of angelical doctrine, all your zeal for the law, will end in this — in bringuig back the reign of terror, the unrestrained wickedness of wilful flesh. The waters of human life are hope- lessly bitter; the branch which would heal them "WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. 281 and make tliem sweet you are easting out from the midst of you. Jesus, the crucifier of flesh, the crucifier of the world, is represented in the midst of you by certain men bearing office under Him, He has sent a messenger to you; sent by his hands deliverance unto you. You have quarrelled with His messenger. It is a quarrel with his Master who sent him. The result is, the crucifixion of your flesh is stayed. You have begun to circumcise it, but Jesus has ceased to crucify it. The yawning gulf, which was closed on your behalf, has again been opened upon you. Your history henceforth will be the enumeration of the uncleannesses, the super- stitions, the cmelties, and excesses of fallen flesh. " If ye walk not in the Spirit, ye shall fulfil the lusts of the flesh." And ye cannot walk in the Spirit and despise the means by which the Spirit abides with you. Refuse the provisions for His sojourn with you, and you refuse Him. He must leave you ; and if He leave you, you must relapse, and into what? Into that flesh whose works are manifest — adultery, idolatry, heresy, murder, drunkenness, bestiality. How little did the Galatians know the amount of what they were doing when they were " departing fi'om liim that called them by the grace of Christ unto another Gospel." It seemed to them a little matter; it was a mere personal dislike; they were not renouncing God and Christ, they were only modifying a little the peculiar way of dealing with them which He had taken. They were merely choosing to have by other men's hands, rather than by the hands of one particular person whom He chose for them, certain spiritual blessings. What, 282 WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. after all, said they, is this man? He is nothing compared with Peter, and James, and John. What is he, compared to the whole Scriptures of God, to which we have access as much as he? Can we not search the Scriptures for ourselves without his help ? Can we not apply the law of holiness unto ourselves, without being under the compliment to him to do that for us? Paul was, indeed, nothing; but the work for God which he had to do was some- thing. What that work would be is defined by " the fruit of the Spirit." The same flesh which, left to itself, would bring forth the hideous crop of wicked- ness described a few verses before, under the culture of the Spirit of Christ would bear a rich fruit of manifold sweetness, a character made up of those nine fair qualities, " love, joy, peace, longsuiFering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."' This is the mark of His presence, which the Spirit would leave behind Him ; this would be the result of the operation of His gifts of what He would effect through means of men given unto Him by the Lord, through whom He might work in the garden of God. The Spirit being allowed free course in the Church, to plant it, to keep it, to teach, and to guide and rule it, this would be the result ; — human society would be looked at; and instead of " the works of the flesh," which before were " manifest,'^ would 1)6 found the lovely virtues here enumerated. The wild, sour tree of Nature, would be seen not bearing the poisonous fruit proper to it, but the very fruit of the tree of life — crucified flesh covered with glory. Not decorated crosses merely in the hands, WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. 283 on the bosoms, and over the heads of the uncrucified — not the cross, with flowers and glory merely, pamted or sculptured upon the altars where the uncrucified should mock God with the semblance of worship ; but crucified flesh itself, living the life of God — the life of glory and of beauty — the life, whose expression is the beauteous light, whose feel- ings are the sweet incense, whose temper, and move- ment, and order, are as the harmony of sweet music in the ear of God. Oh, when shall the Master of the Vineyard come into His garden to pluck this beautiful fruit ? When shall it be ripe? When shall He behold on this earth the proof of His Spirit having been in it ? For the production of the generous fruit is needed the well -fenced garden, the soil well cultivated, the vigorous plant, the fruitful graft, the filling moisture, the ripening sun, and the ever -watchful care and labour, which bi-ing the fruit to perfection. But when will men allow all this ? Not in the symbolical, but m the true garden of God. The Spirit of Christ would have vn^-ought all this long ago, but men would not consent to it. Now, after our long wandering in the wilderness. He has come to us again, to try and per- fect us for the kingdom of God — to make to appear in us the " fruit of the Spirit," which the Lord Him- self will descend from heaven to gather, that He may show it unto His heavenly Father, as that which He undertook to work in the children of men. Alas ! how hath He been hindered from the beginning. Those who prayed for the Spirit ran away from Him with terror when He appeared and spoke to them with the voice of love. Those who cried in the Holy 284 WALKING IN THE SPIKIT. Ghost for Apostles to be given to the Church, de- spised and rejected them when they were given. Indulgence of the flesh, concern for the present world, acceptance of sacraments and avoidance of what they convey with them, high j^rofession and cold formality, are beginning to attest amongst us the successful resistance to the Holy Spirit, who has condescended to return to us. Brethren, it is useful for us to look back upon the steps by which the Church retrograded fi'om strength to weakness, from full enjoyment of the presence of the Comforter, to orphanage and deso- lation. 1st. The present world came back upon the thoughts and hearts of men. 2nd. The ministers whose business it was to lead the Church into the world to come, those to whom the keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed, became distasteful to the worldly-minded. 3d. They who lost enjoyment in apostolical ministry invented for themselves reasons whereby they might justify their desertion of particular apo- stles, and set up for themselves other guides and ring- leaders in their place. 4th. Having forsaken the ministry of Christ, they took upon themselves the exposition and application of holy Scripture, aifecting great zeal for holiness and desires after perfection. 5tli. Having lost their way on the mountains of revelation, without the guides who should have safely conducted them, and having failed to make the flesh good by fleshly efforts upon it, they became reckless and wicked. WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. 285 Thus was tlie Spirit quenched of old; thus was the Church reduced to the condition that Paul said, — " I travail again in birth for you;" that is, every- thing must be done over again. A recovery must be effected — not by mending and then building up on the thing mended, but by breaking down utterly and building up anew from the very foundation. " I travail again for you," was the language of one who saw the thing which had been born utterly ruined, and who felt that nothing would suffice to repair the ruin but an entire reproduction, a new birth again fi'om the apostolic womb, from the womb of Christ, of that which had failed utterly. " I travail again in birth for you till Christ be formed in you," he said to baptized people, whose baptism had become a mockery, who were in the horrid confusion of being all right in the outward form of the mystery, and all wrong in the inward meaning of it. To the baptized he said. You have so entirely gone back from wliat you were constituted, that you must be born again — you must be re-constituted. It is a remarkable thing, that the preaching which has stirred the Christian Church most deeply since the sixteenth century, has been the preaching to the baptized of the need of regeneration. This seems preposterous ; but the fact is, it was only the echo of what Paul said to the Galatians, — " I travail in birth for you again;" and the cry was raised, per- adventure, to prepare men for the literal reality, which Paul stated to be the necessity for the Church after its ftiilure ; the return of it, as it were, in a cer- tain sense, into the womb from which it had sprung. 286 WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. that it might recover its original character which was defaced from it. We beheve that God has begun to fulfil this in our days, which Paul declared to be necessary, which he fell back upon as the only resource after all that had happened. The Lord has begun " to create all things new " in His Church. Shall He be hindered now by our going over again, step by step, the course of resistance which was wi'itten for our learn- ing and warning? Shall the worldly spirit diive out the Spirit which testifies of the world that is coming? Shall the ordinances of the Lord be again set at nought, beginning at the first and going down to the lowest ? or shall faith in God revive, and hope for His servants flourish, in our breasts? No doubt, in the beginning of the Christian history, when the Gentile converts thought of the enormous, monstrous wick- edness which prevailed amongst the nations, they feared that the Spirit of Christ could hardly over- come it, and they listened to those who spoke of the restraining power of the law of God given to Israel, of the virtue of circumcision, and all the ceremonial rites; so now, looking at the diflaculties to be over- come in all the world, we are tempted to despair of success from the mere action of the Holy Ghost through the revived means of action in the Church of God. We are afraid to trust all to the Spirit of Christ ; let us shake off this fear. God will show in the last times, indeed, what this Spirit can do even by us. Amen. SERMON XXI. THE HOLY EUCHARIST. This do in remembrance of me. — Luke, xxii. 19. The great central service of worship in tlie Christian Church is the service of the Eucharist. We who have been gathered from the Protestant Churches are slow to see this. But if it be so, we should seek to find out that it is so, and should do with alacrity what follows as our duty upon such a discovery. The consideration of what the Church does in the service of the Eucharist will make manifest what is here laid down concerning the importance of the act. In the service of the Eucharist the Church does what the Lord did before His passion. He represented before His disciples in the mystical supper. His death which He was going to accomplish, and the blessed effects of the same unto them, unto His whole Church. And He bade them to do as He did till His kingdom should come. The Lord in a mys- tery did then offer Himself to His Father, and give Himself unto His disciples. And the Church does the same ever since by His direction, even offer Him in a mystery unto God, and distribute amongst one another His flesh and blood. His last act amongst 288 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. His disciples was to be their chief act, and continuous till He should come again unto them, to dwell with them for ever. " The sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow," are the burden of pro- phecy, the subject of holy writ, the substance and the whole substance of the Gospel. The Divine method of rej)resenting and memo- rialising the sufferings, of symbolising and prefi- guring the glorious effects of them, was given to the Church by the Lord in that night when He instituted the holy sacrament, or mystery of His body and blood. The outward service which, according to divine appointment and after a divine pattern, sets forth the " sure mercies of God " in Jesus Christ, is confessedly the most important service in the Church ; in short, the service. But not only is it the most important service in the Church, as being the follow- ing up, and carrying out, of the last act of the Lord amongst His disciples before He was taken away from them unto death, the perpetuation of the holy rite by which He set forth His death before He died ; but its importance is, if possible, enhanced by this, that it is by the performance of this service that the Church is associated with the Lord in what He is now doing. She not only does by performing the holy Eucharist what He once did, but she does in a manner what He is now doing, — she takes part in the service of her High Priest. She presents to God, sacramentally, what the High Priest presents absolutely. She on earth holds up the Lamb that was slain in a mystery ; He in heaven, the very Lamb Himself, stands before God as the High Priest, presenting His own blood. Jesus Christ in heaven and the Chiu'ch on earth are THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 289 doing the same thing — even " showing forth the Lord's death till He come :" till the time of His inter- cession and God's long-suffering being ended, the day of " making His enemies His footstool" shall have fully come, Jesus is not showing forth His death in heaven by a sacrament, but absolutely. The Church is showing forth His death in a sacrament, indeed, but truly and really. God beholds in her offering not bread and wine, but the holy thing sig- nified by these, even the "body and blood of His Son." He sees in the oflering lifted up before Him in the Christian Church the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, as truly as in His blesseiv Son the true Lamb standing before Him. He sees tlie memorial of Him upon the earth, and Himself in the memorial. He sees Himself in heaven and the earthly memorial in Him. The offering in heaven and upon earth are bound up together. Christ is the offerer of both; of one in heaven in His own person, of the other on earth in His body, the Church, through His ministry by His Spirit. One offering variously set forth, one offerer diversely acting. Why is the altar, or holy table, as the Greeks call it, the holiest place in the building where the Church assembles? Speaking absolutely, one part of the temple is not more holy than another ; it is only relatively that it is so, according to what is done in one place or another. In the service of the altar w^e represent what our High Priest is doing in the holy of holies. The altar is representatively, so to speak, the holy of holies — the earthly holy of holies. There the work is done which corresponds to, which sets forth the work done by Him, who is in the holy of holies. u 290 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. There is no man in the holy of holies but one during the whole day of atonement. The High Priest is alone within the veil, and the people are praying without, waiting for Him. He is alone personally in the holiest place, — we are not personally entered yet, but we are in spirit there with Him; we are joined to the Lord, and are one spirit ; our words can enter thither where He is; our offerings can there be presented; we are in Him in heaven, as He is in us upon the earth : but He is not personally upon the earth, and we are not personally in heaven. The way into the holiest is made manifest ; we know Him who has gone that way, and we shall travel that way in due time in our persons, and now do travel it in spirit; and along it do send up with certainty our prayers, and praises, and spiritual sacrifices. Where God is manifestly present, there is the true holy of holies. He is manifestly present where Jesus is, for Jesus is the true Mercy -seat, and the true Ark containing within it the law of God — the Word made flesh, in- wardly righteous, confessing all truth. Where Jesus now is, is the holiest place. In the age to come the New Jerusalem shall be the holy of holies to the universe; the holiest place of the "greater and more perfect tabernacle," in which the true Melchizedek shall minister, the " high priest of the good things that are to come." We are not in the New Jeru- salem yet ; the resuiTCction is not past : we are not changed ; we wait for our perfection : but our Fore- runner is perfected, and is entered into the presence of God for us. There is a passage in the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews which seems to say that we I THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 291 can now literally enter into the holiest place of all ; namely, the nineteenth verse : — " Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say. His flesh ; and having an high priest over the house of God ; let us draw near." " Bold- ness to enter," is literally freedom of speech for the entrance of the holiest. We can send our speech into it with aU freedom ; in spirit we can ascend into it. The thing which hindered our thinking of where God is, or of looking to where God is, or of speaking towards where God is, without fear and teiTor, is taken out of the way. Flesh has suffered, because flesh trans- gressed; and the suffering being accepted, God shines out upon us, who are partakers of flesh and blood, and allows us to speak unto Him, to approach Him with our hearts and our spirit, and will soon receive us, even in our bodies, in our whole persons. One human body we see with Him, and all the rest that are joined to that shall follow in due time. We have as good a right to enter into the holiest now as ever we shall have, and all of us that is capable of entering doth now enter : but our flesh and blood cannot enter; they cannot see God and live. We enter into the holiest place now, in the Jullest sense in which we can, when we do represent in the service of the Eucharist, and enter into with our spirit, the offering and intercession which our High Priest is now making for us. We are, indeed, in the heavenly places with Jesus continually in the spirit, and the mercy-seat of God is never hidden from us : but we are especially with Him in the heavenlies, and before 292 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. the throne of God in spn-it with Him, when we are performing solemnly what He is performing ; when all His Church, gathered together in His name, is offering unto God, not only in word but in act, upon the earth, what He is offering in heaven. I have dwelt long upon this subject, that I might show the truth of what I commenced with ; namely, that the service of the Eucharist is the important service — the service of services, so to speak — in the . Christian Church. And the same reason which shows its importance shows how it ought to be daily, continual in the Church, for Christ's offering is con- tinually before God in heaven ; " He ever liveth to make intercession." It is His daily, His continual work, to put God in remembrance, so to speak, by showing His wounds and making His prayer. So it is our daily, our continual service, to put God in re- membrance by holding up before Him that which He Himself appointed for that end. The importance of what was done in the midst of us when the rite of reservation of the consecrated elements was set (not only that sacramental food might always be ready for the sick in the house of God, but that con- tinual emblems of Christ's sacrifice might ever be before God in His holy Church), will aj^pear more and more manifest daily to the obedient and thought- ful. Those who were afraid of that advance have learned since, and are learning, how much the Church has gained by it in fullness and strength of worship : and so will the other things which are commended to the Church bring their blessing and assurance with them. By the reservation of the Eucharist, and its continual presence upon the altar, THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 293 the Church has secured this, that God's eye shall ever have the sacramental body of His Son to behold in His Church upon the earth, as He ever hath the person of His Son at His right hand in the heavenly sanctuary ; that the earth shall never cease to have upon it the memorial of that sacrifice to which its preservation is owed. As upon the Jewish altar there was to be the daily, the continual foreshowing of Him who was to come and suffer, so in the Chris- tian Church there is to be the continual memorial that He has come and suffered; and that which memorialises His death also testifies that He is the bread of life, by which men are fed for the kingdom of God — that He was amongst us as one who died, but is now in the midst of us as one who lives. I say, brethren, it is of importance that God, who ever beholds in heaven His dear Son, whom He gave up to the death for us, the Lamb slain for our sins, should also ever behold on earth in the Church of God, in the place where His worsliippers assemble to serve Him, the sacramental memorial, the sacramental lamb, the body broken, and the blood poured out. His eye rests with complacency on both the living pro- totype in the heavens and the sacramental representa- tive of Him upon the earth. And as God the Father looks upon His Son in heaven, He hears from all the heavenly hosts the ascription of praise and glory to the Lamb that was slain. So He expects to hear from us on earth, surrounding His altar, and holding up before Him that which doth set forth the Lord's death till He come, the response, the echo, so to speak, of that heavenly thanksgiving. The Lamb in heaven is not disregarded; He is not left alone 294 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. and unnoticed ; all eyes are upon Him, the revealer of God, the creator and redeemer of God's works; every tongue sounds forth the praise of His name. So the Church on earth leaves not ever hidden and unnoticed the memorial of the Lamb given unto her by His own hands, when He said once for all, " This is my body," but brings it forth, and fixes, so to speak, the eye of God and man upon it, before she will draw nigh unto Him with her boldest prayers and highest thanksgivings. There have been, there are, awful abuses mixed up with this subject of the Christian sacrifice; but that is an additional reason why the Church should come up to the mark, and not fall short of it in the holy service, if it were only to leave abuses and ex- cesses without an apology. Meeting one extreme of sin by an opposite is no defence of righteousness; on the other hand, is the greatest hindrance to its establishment. Corruptions, abuses, superstitions, idolatries, committed in the daily services of the Churches, which date their constitution and practices higher than the sixteenth century, are not reproved and corrected by the absence of all daily worship — yea, almost of all worship at all, from the Churches called Reformed. The Protestant may powerfully, and often unanswerably, accuse the Roman Catholic Mass, but he does not vindicate against it the holy service given by the Lord to His Church. To re- move a nuisance, and leave a blank in its place, is the way of mere destruction: to redeem the good and holy thing which has been abused — to wash away from it, Tvdth water from the laver of God, the stains and defilements wliich it may have contracted in the THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 296 abuse — to restore it to its true place, and bring out of it its full and lawful use — that is God's recovery, the triumph of wise and holy love. Christ gave His Church a work to do ; that work has been spoiled in the doing : is that a reason for the doing to cease ? No, verily; it is a reason for putting away that which spoils and mars, and for doing the work as it ought to be done. It is of no avail to run from idolatry into sacrilege. We are to do with the things of God in this world what He hath done with us. When we were marred He did not destroy us utterly ; He did not unmake us merely ; but He took us in hand to mend us, to purge out of us that which spoiled us, but to preserve us entire — yea, to make more of us than we had been before the defiler pre- vailed against us. So we are not to sweep away godly institutions, which the enemy, through man's weakness and wickedness, hath polluted with abomi- nable mixtures. We are to sweep away the wicked additions, to fill up the chasm w^here breaches have been made, but not to uproot the godly foundation. We are not to be of the impious, who cry, " Eaze, raze it, to the foundations thereof." The practice of the daily mass in the Church of Rome, and of the reservation of the consecrated bread alone in the Papal Church, and of the conse- crated bread mixed with the wine in the Eastern or Greek Church, is a testimony from the universal Church, and from the remotest date, that one work especially belonged to God's Church on earth to do every day — that one service, at least, was to be con- tinual. Every day (in order that the Church may do everything else which she hath to do aright) she 296 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. does in her way upon earth what her Lord in His way does in heaven. The body first associates itself with the Head in the great act of worship to God common to both, and then goes forth, in the strength bestowed by God upon those who have rightly drawn nigh unto Him, to perform all duties to God and man. That the continual blessing of God may be upon His Church, His Church keeps continually before Him, where collectively we call upon His name, the me- morial of that work of His Son which makes His blessing of us possible. He is continually remmded of the " fountain opened," that the streams from that fountain may never be withheld. The Church has many works to do every day for the glory of God and for the good of His creatures, but one work is more important than all the rest — it is the source of strength for, and blessing upon, all the rest ; and that is the daily, the continual setting be- fore Him on earth, in His own appointed way, of that which is daily and continually set before Him in heaven by Jesus Christ our Lord, who, performing this first duty of showing Himself unto God as the Lamb that was slain, then proceedeth to fulfil every other — to deliver the inheritance of God out of the hands of those who oppress and pollute it — to save His Church, that we may inherit with Him. Acknow- ledged, first, as the Lamb that was slain. He pro- ceedeth to take the book out of the hands of Him that sitteth upon the throne — to break every seal, to cause every trumpet to be blown, every vial to be poured out, great Babylon to be judged, the Beast and false Prophet to be consumed. New Jerusalem to descend, and the tabernacle of God to be seen upon THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 297 the earth, and all God's works to rejoice together. So the Church, " renewing her covenant daily with God by sacrifice" — that is (for I would not be misunder- stood), reminding God daily of what Christ hath done and suffered for us, in the service which Christ gave us for that end, may after that go forth in the power of God to do all that is given unto her to do, in bringing in the kingdom of His Son, and in bring- ing all His members unto Him. The first, the chief work of the Church, is the daily worship of God. The body of Christ should be seen to be what Christ the Head is — a worshipper. Closet worship of individuals is not Church worship, though they be most faithful members of the Church, and their closet worship be to God most acceptable ; Family worship is not Church worship, though, when conducted aright, it is an image of it. Church wor- ship is the worship of those who are not bound to come together except as members of Christ — who are diverse from one another in the world, and who yet together form one body before the world, and who manifest to the world the truth of the body chiefly and mainly by worshipping together in the name of Christ, with His Spirit witliin them, and the memo- rial of His sacrifice before them. This daily wor- ship is not attempted in some parts of the Christian Church; in other parts it is unduly, inadequately, corruptly performed. God has revived His work in the midst of these days, to re-establish this daily service "in spirit and in truth," that His Church might be seen once more, not only " turned from idols," but " turned to Him," " to serve Him, the living and true God;" and in serving Him, "to wait 298 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. for His Son from heaven." God has set up this daily service of love in the midst of you ; see that ye enter into His mind, and be one with Him in what He doeth. Kememher, " They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength," is still true. The promise is yet unto you, " I will make them joyful in my house of prayer;" "There will I meet with you, to bless you." " To forsake the assembling," is to begin to flee from the face of God. God's hours of appointed meeting with His people are sacred hours, and to be held sacred. His time in the day is the time around which all the rest of the day should turn, as on its pivot. Believing, and dutiful, and worshipful men, will, as far as it is pos- sible, make their arrangements to suit Go^/'^ arrange- ments; they will fall in with His hours; they will sleep when He would have them to sleep, and be awake when He would have them so to be. They will not fill their visiting-book with engagements everywhere, and, amongst all, forgetful of the engage- ments already made with Him. They will not postpone God to everybody, and God's things to everything else; but they will subordinate every- thing to God, knowing that God's order is that which secures the performance of most business, the enjoy- ment of most rest, the promotion of most happiness. I say not these things to bring any into bondage, or to force any into literal observances that might, from their circumstances, be impossible: there are those bound and free in God's service. I speak to the spirit of all, and especially I speak to the free, to be thankful for their liberty, and to consecrate it unto God, who has given it to them. Alas ! what can the THE HOLY EUCHAKIST. 299 world give to compensate lost communion with God ? And in order that we may offer our daily sacrifices unto God with increasing joy in our holy work, let us follow all the light which He brings to us, for the most perfect performance of our service : let us despise no help, but thankfully avail ourselves of all that we can have. Whatever has been brought to us hitherto, since the beginning of God's working amongst us, has helped us ; what He is laying on the hearts of Christ's servants to do now will help us more and more. Some things have wrought in us confidence, others will beget reverence. We have been delivered from fear, we shall also be saved from familiarity ; we have been shown the height of our present position in the dispensation of the Spirit ; we must be preserved from the possibility of supposing that there is nothing higher, and that the resurrec- tion is passed. Amen. SERMON XXII. PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. Praying in the Holy Ghost. — Jude, 20. One is doing this perfectly — our High Priest in the heavens, who presents continually the acceptable sa- crifice, and makes upon it the prevailing intercession. We do on the earth continually with our earthly materials what He does in heaven with the heavenly. The Holy Ghost, speaking in the midst of us, has called for the presentation constantly before the Lord of the memorials of the sacrifice of Christ; and when these memorials are present upon the altar, and the Angel is interceding before it, then is there the most exact picture given to us on earth of the ministry of our Lord within the veil. The Holy Ghost then especially can make intercession for the Church with greatest force, when He has ready to His use the minister ordained for this service, and when He has with him not only the Church headed up by him, but the pledges of that Church's faith and the signs of God's love before His eyes. Men may say. Why have any symbolical repre- sentation at all of spiritual truth ? Is it not enough that the worshippers should have the truth itself in PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. 301 their hearts and upon their tongues ? No doubt we should have the truth in our hearts and in our works, and if we have not, symbolical exhibitions of it are very vain things, and no doubt to God, who would be loved supremely in the human heart and glorified mainly by the human tongue, most offensive. But it is not a question whether symbolical representations shall be substituted for heart service and true words, but whether, along with the latter, the Lord would not have to a certain extent the former also. If the service of God degenerate into dumb show, pageantry, and pantomime, it is very deplorable. But has the Lord excluded the eyes altogether from the region of His holy worship ? Is everything to be spoken and heard alone in the Christian Church, and is nothing to be exhibited and looked upon ? Certainly some symbolical things exist by the appointment of the Lord Christ. Water in the sacrament of initiation in the Christian Church, whatever other use it may have, has also a symbolical one — it is a sign of the life of God, of the word, of the Spirit of God, and of Christ : bread and wine are symbols in the sacrament of the mystical supper, whatever higher character may be predicated of them : oil, with which the sick are anointed, is symbolical as well as instrumental. There are symbolical institutions and appoint- ments in the Christian Church, — the keeping of a seventh portion of time, the payment to the Lord of a tenth portion of substance, are in themselves signi- ficant; they are things done before men's eyes, to teach them mysteries. There are ordained ways of showing what we believe as well as of saying it ; and there are heavenly and earthly ways of doing so. 302 PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. heavenly acts in the power of the Holy Ghost, and earthly emblems of a sacramental and mystic cha- racter. A man who dismisses the whole subject of sym- bolical representation in the Christian Church with the sweeping judgment that the former dispensation was one of shadows, the present is one of substance and reality, is forced by his principle to unmaterialise the sacraments, and abolish tithes and sabbaths; he cannot stop but in Quakerism, if even there — a mys- ticism more profound than even that of the Quakers must ultimately receive him. The Lord has unques- tionably set some symbolical things in His Church, and thereby has, to a certain extent, established the prin- ciple of symbolism. What are the checks and limit- ations in the exercise of that principle is a question of great importance. It will be the province of Wisdom, it will be the work of the Holy Ghost, to ascertain and apply them. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper contains in it symbolical things and symbolical action : the former, the bread and the cup ; the latter, the use of them as the Lord enjoined. The Church must retain the symbols which He appointed, and must in the essence and substance of the action do what He did; but in the manner of conducting that action through its essential and substantial parts there is room for the wisdom of the redeemed man to come in, and for the Holy Ghost to modify. The circumstances of the Head of the Church and of His Church were different, and in the celebration of the holy Eucharist that difference must produce a certain effect in the mode of performance. To imitate exactly what the Lord did, and to say PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. 303 no more than what He said upon occasion of the institution, might be in the Church not a proof of reverence for her Lord, but of the reverse. His own presence before God on the night of the first celebra- tion of the holy supper, the Lamb of God willingly devoting Himself, was a part of the wonderful ser- vice which we cannot literally repeat. We must have additional words and forms to set forth that which He set forth in Himself, which He was by His own personal presence, standing Ijcfore His heavenly Father, even before He uttered a word. If we merely said what He said and did what He did, without saying or doing anything which should make up for the difference between our position and His, we would present a defective service, and one upon which the sentence of pride and presumption might justly fall. Lideed no branch of the Church, that I am aware of, has a Communion Service in all its form and circumstances, exactly modelled upon what the Lord did and said on that night of the Pass- over in Jerusalem. And, indeed, who knows what the Lord said, and how much He said? The only expressions of information upon that subject are two words, translated, " He blessed," and " He gave thanks :" short words, but very pregnant. How much did that blessing contain? what ascriptions of glory to God were contained in it ? AVho knows ? And that thanks- giving or eucharist, was it one sentence or many? was it an outpouring of j^raise, with enumeration of many particulars, or was it not ? Who can tell ? How did the blessino; over the bread differ from the eucharist over the cup ? The blessing and the giving of thanks are expressed by cUffereut words, and they are men- 304 PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. tidied as made before the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the cup. But where are the exact words employed? Perhaps they are found in the liturgies which exist in the Christian Church — per- haj^s the apostles remembered them, and used them as far as they could lawfully use them (that is, as far as they were not proper to His own sacred person to use them, and to none other), in their own subsequent performances of the holy service, and so transmitted them to the churches which they builded. I do not say that it is so. I state a possibility or probability, not a fact. If one models the Communion Service severely according to what was done in the night of institution, there certainly seems no warrant for reservation for absent persons, or sick ones, or for subsequent use and exhibition in holy worship. The Lord was cru- cified the day after, and the disciples were scattered till He gathered them after His resurrection. But neither is there room for many things which all have felt themselves at liberty to introduce, some more, some less. A severe and literal following of Christ according to the narrative in the Gospels would make a great change in every Communion Service in every Christian Church. St. Paul pressed the substance and spiritual meaning of the holy Eucharist upon the Corinthians to correct abuses which they were guilty of, but he did not evidently intend that what he then wrote should serve as a canon and ritual for all the things relating to the holy Eucharist, for he adds, " And the rest will I set in order when I come." The remaining things — any things of a circumstantial nature, not here enumerated — things which do not PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. 306 touch the principle and essence of the sacrament, but which belong to its full and decent setting in order, to the arrangement of all particulars, in order to the most suitable and reverential performance. Peradventure the spirit of apostleship revived is taking up what Paul left unfinished, and which, in his absence from the Church, has not been done in all respects as it ought to have been done. Perhaps one of the signs of revived apostleship in the last times will be the setting in perfect order of all the circumstantials concerning the holy Eucharist, fur- nishing a suitable frame for the picture — a fit en- chasing for the jewel. Suspicion and wariness may suggest as possible that the apostles have been seduced by a spiritual sorceress, to tamper with and pollute the awful institution of the Lord. But may not hope and faith also prompt that it is as possible, if not more so, that they are yielding to that instinct which St. Paul was conscious of, when he said, " The rest will I set in order when I come?" Especially may not hope and faith come in with their cheering suggestions, when the Spirit of prophecy, speaking amongst us — the same Spirit which opened the mys- tery of the tabernacle, and of the candlestick, and of the sacrifices of the law, and the types of the king- dom— which announced to us the coming of the Lord, and enabled us to understand the reality of His body — the Spirit whose province it is to guide apostles into all truth — has called for the reservation of the eucharistic symbols, and their proposition continually in the Church before God and His worshippers? When He has declared that the loaves of proposition on the table of shew-bread in the holy place of the 306 PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. tabernacle of old, whatever else they do show forth, do also refer to the continual presence in the Church of the mysterious bread of the New Testament — that the laying up of a portion of the manna, whatever else it signifies, also refers to the reservation, for holy purposes, of part of the food from heaven which the childi'en have partaken of at the altar of God — that the consecrated emblems continually upon the altar are there, not only that they may be duly partaken of by the faithful, but that they may also represent that acceptable offering ever before God in heaven, the Lamb as it had been slain? And after weighing the possibility of apostles now being moved by the Holy Spirit to do what apostles at first were hindered from doing, and the fact of the words which have been spoken by the Holy Ghost through the pro- phets and apostles in the Spirit, there is another con- sideration which is not without weight, namely, that from a very early age in the Christian Church a practice of reservation of the holy Eucharist has prevailed (whatever corruptions and abuses men may have been guilty of in the matter), and is witnessed to both in the Greek and Latin Churches. The thing which is done amongst us differs, in- deed, most essentially fi:'om what at present prevails in both these Churches. Their practice in the matter of the reservation differs from each other ; and what is taught amongst us differs from both. No one can say there is an imitation exact ; there is a doing dif- ferently, perhaps more correctly — no doubt more correctly, if our premises be true — what they profess to do. Everything which the ancient Churches have amongst them that the Protestants have not sane- PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. 307 tionecl is not, therefore, necessarily wi'ong, unless it can be shown that the Protestants had a mission to separate the precious from the vile, and did faithfully execute their mission. Everything found in them not exactly accordant with the letter of the New Testament is not, therefore, to be condemned, unless it can be shown also to be contrary to the spirit of the Scripture, or can be proved to be plainly con- demned by its letter. To say that the letter of holy Scripture is not only the rule of faith as to the mys- teries of revelation, but also a full rubrical guide for the performance of all services flowing from these mysteries, is to say what the practice and experience of every sect contradict. And it is utterly opposed to their principles who believe that the Holy Ghost was given to open, and apply, and perfect, the letter of precedent revelations. If it be true, the narrowest separatist alone is right; and he scarcely. The Holy Spirit is in the Church of Christ, ever to teach the Church how to carry into effect the principles of truth contained in the holy Scriptures, to cause a living Church not to obey a letter, but to appropriate the truth, spirit, and substance contained in that letter, and to live and act on it all ; an out- line is set forth in the holy Scripture which the Church is not to copy, but to fill. The Church receives principles of conduct — she hears calls from God to do her duty — she arises and understands her principles of action — she sets hereelf to do her duty in the Spirit, as the living body of a living Head. Christ leads His Church, not only into the obedience of God, but into the right manner of obedience. He does not make His Church slavishly imitate even the 308 PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. letter of what He did in His own person, but He fills His Church with the same Spirit which was in Him- self, whereby she not only respects and fulfils the substance of what He did and taught, but also knows the difference of circumstances between her position and His, and does nothing " unseemly," but every- thing in keej)ing with the circumstances in which she is placed. The Lord bade His apostles baptize ; He trusted that they would surround that act of baptizing with a service suitable for such an act, and He gave them the Holy Ghost that they might do so ; He bade them celebrate the holy Eucharist, and He also left them to be led into the right way of following Him in the matter, not merely by remembering what He did before their eyes, but also by the Holy Ghost, who should show them wherein their difference from their Lord should occasion any difference in the circum- stantials of the sacrament — who should enable them to do, not exactly what Christ did and what was suited to His person to do, but what He would do if He were in their place and in precisely their circum- stances,— yea, what He doth as dwelling in them and living in them. If we read the narrative of the in- stitution of the holy sacrament contained in the Gospels we may say. All that is needful according to that narrative is that we should take bread, pro- nounce a blessing, break it and eat, and give to others to do likewise. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit in the Church leads us to much more than this, — even to make mention before God of the many adorable manifestations of His goodness and love, connected with the consideration of " the bread which PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. 309 we break " and " the cup of blessing which we bless " — to present before Him, before we partake of them ourselves, the holy bread and the cup of salvation which He gives to us — to repeat with words the mysteries of His love in Christ Jesus, of which they are the appointed symbols — to praise Him because of the same — to pray to Him for the sake of the same, to bless us, and all whom we make mention of before Him. Before we partake of the memorials of Christ's death and undying love, we make bold in the Spirit of adoption to lift them up before our God — to tell Him what they are — to draw nigh unto Him for His sake whom they represent unto Him — to seek at His hands all the good things which His precious blood- shedding hath obtained for us — to set forth how the whole Church and the whole creation of God are concerned in what we are permitted and enabled to do — and to beseech of Him that His whole Church and His whole creation may receive the full blessmg set forth therein. Before a man eats his ordinary food he is per- mitted— yea, it is his duty — to look upon the table which God's bounty has furnished for him, and, be- fore he partakes of it, to stir up his heart to praise God — to utter his prayer for himself, and his family, and guests — to present, in a word, with thankfulness to God, as His good and gracious gift, the food of his life, before he appropriate it to himself. So is it seemly with our heavenly food, when God has put it into our hands, to let it rest upon the altar, upon the table, where we have received it, till we have satis- fied the emotions of thankfulness, adoration, and love, which the sight of it awakens — till we have praised 310 PRAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. the Lord for His goodness, and sought His sealing blessing in the use of what He has given — till we have remembered before Him all who have a share in the holy Communion which we are then admitted to, and sought blessings upon them also suited to their place, work, temptations, and hopes. Not only are we to obey precepts and commands (written in holy Scripture) in the largeness and fullness of the Holy Ghost, and not in the scantiness and poverty of the letter of the words, but we have also a liberty as men, as reasonable beings, as re- deemed men, whose reason is enlightened, which we must not cast away or despise. " I speak as to wise men," said the Apostle; "judge ye what I say." He did not merely silence them with a text. " Doth not even Nature teach ?" he said on another occasion, appealing to a taste, a sense of right and wrong, of the graceful and unbecoming instinct in men. Again, " Let all things be done decently, and in order." The Lord leaves room for filling up with grace and ornament : He gives you the power of furnishing such accompaniments to your severe work of simple obedience, and He accepts them from you. In natural things we are not only to exist, but to be suitably clothed ; not only to eat and drink that we may live, but to do those things with many accom- paniments of grace and dignity. Essentials and acces- sories sustain and adorn each other, as the fruit and leaves upon the tree. How stiff and stupid human life would ])e, if merely the essential things necessary for its non-extinction were done, irrespective of the manner of doing them ! — yea, how unworthy of man's reason and dignity ] It is so in spiritual things, and PKAYING IN THE HOLY GHOST. 311 as spiritual life increases it will be felt more and more. We shall grow into the right, and graceful, and perfect mode of doing things, not so much by following a letter as by developing a life, by acting out the volitions of our living Head, who is a man as well as an high-priest and a king, and who enables us to perform our services as priests and kings, in the liberty, with the intelligence, and according to the many capabilities of redeemed men. Amen. SERMON XXIIL KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. Keep yourselves in the love of God. — Jude, 21. God loves the world as a merciful God. He loves His obedient Church as an approving Father. The latter love is meant here : — " He that hath my com- mandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me : and he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him." " If a man love me, he will keep my words : and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." " As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you : continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love ; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love." God loves and deli2;hts in those whom He beholds believing in His Son, coming to Him to learn from Him, joining Him in serving and worshipping God. God does not despise our services because of defects, and hate our persons because we fail: He accepts our services, approving of the good intentions; He loves our persons, accepted in Christ Jesus and obey- ing by Him. Good works are not meritorious before KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. 313 God, but they are well-pleasing unto Him. " The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in his way." " The Father Himself loveth you," said Christ, " because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." God not only took an interest in what Jesus did personally, rejoicing ineffably in His work, but He takes an interest in what we do, — He rejoices in us as the husbandry of His Son; He rejoices in those in whom Christ dwells, and by whom He works; in those amongst whom, and in whom, the Holy Ghost has liberty to testify of Jesus Christ the Lord, to open the purpose of God in Him, and to work for its accomplishment. God rejoices over all the works of His dear Son, not merely His work of making atonement upon the cross, but His work of writing the law in the hearts of men ; His work of sanctifying them wholly, body, soul, and spirit; and everything which is an evidence that that work in progress is a joy unto God. By believing in Jesus Christ we enter into God's love : He loves us for believing in Him whom He has sent ; by obeying Christ we retain God's love. He continues to love those who " follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." The doctrine of the fall of man is dreadfully abused by some ; and amongst the religious now there is no heart for religious services, mainly for this reason, that they think that God takes no plea- sure in them. As if He could endure nothing but confession of sin ! The reason why men serve God so little is because they think He cares little for their service. As if He wanted a certain debt to be paid on their behalf, which was duly paid by the sufferings 314 KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. of Christ ! And now He is satisfied, and does not want to be wearied with their weak and deficient perform- ances ! As if God were so satisfied with the personal obedience and sufferings of His dear Son as to be indifferent about the end for which the same were offered unto Him ! Many, who go far beyond this in knowledge, who understand the purpose of God, that He lias a work to do by His Church as well as by the Head of the Church — that men are needful to Him as instruments whereby He shall bring to pass His will — that the whole Church is a curious machine of many parts nicely adapted to each other, and alto- gether handy for the Mighty Workman who executes His plan by them, — still come very short of the command in the text : they present themselves before God as a matter of duty, knowing that they are parts of a system which His hand has to work : they do not think of the pleasure they give Him in their actual service, though they think of the glory which shall redound to Him when the work in which they are instruments shall be finished. Such persons think of God more as of one having a mind and purpose than as of one having a heart, one capable of loving. They give themselves to the duty, to the job, needful for the time ; and, therefore, if the duty can be per- formed without their personal attendance they have no object in giving that attendance, and easily and readily withhold it. We do not serve God merely to do our duty for Him, but we serve Him to con- tinue in His love ; to draw His love towards us, so to speak ; to catch His eye ; to detain upon us His coun- tenance of approval. A good child obeys, not merely because it is his duty, but because it pleases his father KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. 315 that lie should obey, and will bring fresh interchange of love between himself and his father into operation. A loyal subject, not merely out of a sense of duty obeys his king, but out of love to his king, and out of a desire to stand well with him and to grow in his favour. In a word, it is not said. Do your duty to God, but "Keep yourselves in the love of God." But it is not only true that we keep God's love abiding towards us by our obedience, but there are certain acts or ways of obedience in which we do more especially keep ourselves under the action of the love of God : we keep ourselves, so to speak, within the range of its operation — we cleave to it in the place where it pours itself out, where it dispenses its choicest favours — we keep ourselves, as it were in the sunshine, under the direct operation of the love of God. Where God is especially present, blessing as a God of love, there we are found, and are therefore filled with the blessing which is then bestowed. Some complain that they lose the sense of God's love. The reason is, they are absent at the seasons, and from the things, wherein and whereby the love of God be- comes sensible : they are like plants defrauded of the rain, because they were withdrawn from the shower — like ripening fruits robbed of the sun, by being hidden from its beams ; they are out of the way when prizes are distributed ; they are not at the table when a royal feast is dispensed, and the King's own presence gladdens the guests ; they lose golden opportunities, hours of visitation, seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Such do not keep themselves in the love of God. The love of God especially shines upon us when 316 KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. we are " building ourselves up in our most holy faitli," when we are " praying in the Holy Ghost;" that is, when we are learning from Christ what we ought to believe concerning God and His mysteries ; when we are worshipping God in the way proper to Christians to worship Him. Those who " keep themselves in the love of God " by learning from Him and by sustaining His worship, He will keep them as He kept Israel of old in the wilderness : while Israel held His law and conducted His worship, He was in the midst of the camp for a glory, and round about it for a defence. The holy land was secure while the appointed services of God were performed in the place where He set His name, and while the service of false gods was eschewed by all Israel, The men came up from the remotest borders to the holy city three times a-year, to keep the feasts of the Lord, and no enemy was permitted to take advantage of their absence to ravage the land. God preserved in se- curity at their work the people who were working for Him. When they ceased from the work which He assigned them, the weakest of their enemies was too strong for them. The Church of God, learning her creed, and making her Eucharist to the glory of God, is encouraged to trust in His protection, — He will preserve her till her work be done, till her wit- ness be borne. The Church ceasing to serve God as He would be served has need to strengthen herself with human alliances, to call upon the kings of the earth to protect her, and the people to supply her with bread. She compromises God for them, and therefore she has a claim upon their support. To please them she puts a veil upon her face, she hides' KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. 317 the glory of her calling, she keeps back the light which is terrible to the workers of iniquity, and they give her the harlot's hire for her unfaithfulness. To the true people God says, " Build yourselves up in your most holy faith,'' " Pray in the Holy Ghost," and then fear no more ; trust in God, prove His love, experience His faithfulness. Do not strike hands with His enemies ; " trust not in man, nor put confi- dence in princes ;" accept not establishment and en- dowment at their hands, they cannot afford you security. God can destroy them and you together, or by each other. Worship God, and then bear wit- ness how God supports, defends, preserves, His wor- shippers : not to do the work of the Church, and yet to expect its protection, is most unreasonable. Men cannot keep themselves " in the love of God " by reading about it, and thinking, and meditating upon it ; they may get the first knowledge of it in that way, but if they would go on to prove that God is love, how much He loves, and how He can make manifest His love, they must learn what He would have done, and give themselves to the doing of it. God cannot help us with His joy and strength whilst we are fighting against Him. He cannot keep the light of His countenance shining upon those who are hindering or refusing to help Him. He may not finally and eternally cast them off, but if He save them it can only be as through fire. He must chastise them, tliat they may learn in the more terrible and dark way the subjection to Him which they would have learned in an easy and joyous way, comparatively, had they taken His yoke willingly and submitted to His counsel. 318 KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. The order of this head of discourse is to be re- garded third in the series. To those whom He has prevailed first to make disciples, then worshippers, to them He is able to say, " Keep yourselves in the love of God." God loves the spirit of the learner ; He loves the spirit of the worshipper. Those in whom He finds this spirit He loves. He found this spirit in His well-beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased. The unteachable and the unworshipful, will be eminently the marks of the generation which God will hate; upon which His wrath to the uttenuost shall be poured. The Lord's sign of the worst times is, " Shall He find faith on the earth ?" The man of sin sets himself against all that is worshipped. The opposite dispositions to these God delights in. God delights in those who are striving to learn all the good that is in the world from Him, and to teach it to others, that all may glorify Him together. The truth is perishing from the earth ; He is pleased with those who are striving to detain it there, and to cause the spirit of it to be experienced. God's truth is expressed amongst men in divers ways. There are the sacred books, in which it is all expressly or implicitly contained. There is the sym- bolism in the Church universal, out of which the spiritual mind can educe it all. God is merciful : He condescends to the prejudices and weaknesses of men that He may save them. To those who have honoured His written word, whilst they have hardly honoured anything else proceeding from Him, He sends interpreters of the written word — He causes the Holy Spirit, who poured out all its treasures through men, whom in divers ways and at divers KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. 319 times He had inspired to lift up His own voice in the midst of them, to enforce and explain what He originally gave. Those who have been all but spoiled utterly of His holy Scriptures, but amongst whom symbolical and significant acts, and rites, and ceremonies, have grown up, filled with mystic mean- ing, those He takes in the things which they have, and would help through means of them : they may have lost the plainer and brighter lesson, but He can recover them by what they have, if they will endure that He should teach them. And by those whom He has chosen as His first-fruits, as His especial witnesses. He will convey His meaning to both. To the deaf He will make them signify, to the blind He will make them speak. The Protestant, who is all ears, shall have the faithful interpretation of the Scriptures which he respects spoken to him, if he will hear it ; the Romanist, who is all eyes, shall have the outward and visible signs of all inward and spiritual grace exhibited before him. If texts of Scripture can recall to men spiritual mysteries which they have forgotten and lost, they shall be quoted and urged. If men have material signs in their hands of those spii'itual mysteries, the signs shall be pressed into God's service; they shall not disappear till all the testimony that is in them shall be extracted from them and used for the deliverance of His people. Brethren, let us not limit God, let us not shut Him up to one way of working. Shall He not con- demn every wicked servant out of His own mouth ? By the book which they worship He will confound the hypocrisy and sacrilege of the Protestants ; by the symbolism which they retain He will rebuke the 320 KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. iinspiritual and idolatrous condition of the Romanists; by that which they still have He will save both, if they will be saved. If the apostles be led to teach men to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, do not say, hastily. They have gone into fleshly re- ligion, they have apostatised from the Spirit of Christianity — nay, they are doing that which, whether they know it and mean it or not, may be almost the only means whereby they shall convince many that they are indeed coming in the name of Christ, may be the only door through which they can get in to tell men the mystery of our crucifixion with Christ. So with respect to almost everything else which is done amongst our brethren, the Lord may lead us into it in a safe, and holy, and cleansing way, if only for their sakes. Let us not be too careful about ourselves : "he that will save his life shall lose it." Perhaps the Lord may draw the attention of Roman Catholics and Greeks yet to a people having holy water at the entrance of their churches, and sweet incense burning within them, and having also the purity by the cleansing of God's word which that water symbolises, and the heavenly communion and the Christian worship in its highest form of which that incense is a sign. He may attract them to lights, material shining upon an altar and all around it, and in the same place fill them with the true Light which is from heaven. I do not prophesy that this shall be exactly as I say, but I speak to my own spirit and to yours, that we may be ready for what- soever use God may be pleased to put us to. If He would send us to a Protestant with an open Bible, that we may be willing to go ; if He would send us to KEEPING IN THE LOVE OF GOD. 321 a Greek or a Latin with a cup and paten, with a sacrament and a symbol, that we may be also willing ; still being true to our Head who is in heaven, and seeking by every means to make men read His name, and consider w^liat He has received for them, how He would use them, and how He will bless and reward them. Blessed beyond measure shall they be who will understand God's mind for the time, and yield themselves to the matter which He hath in hand. Whom shall He teach ? Those Avho will bear to be weaned; and the strongest children are often those liardest to be weaned. Those who have delighted most in their mother's iDreast are hardest to be won to receive more substantial food from their Father's hand; but this comes of loving the food more than the Giver of it. What He has given is nothing com- pared to what He will yet give, and above all He can give remains Himself; and to obey Him is better for us than to enjoy selfishly the greatest blessings which He has bestowed. Keep yourselves in His love, rather than in any enjoyment to which His love has raised you : if you make an idol of that enjoy- ment you may forfeit His love, or, rather, you may compel Him to cover its brightness with a dark frown ; if you give yourself to do what remains to be done — what He wants to have done — His love will be manifested more and more, and His joy will be your strength. There is one thing which the Lord wants always to have done, which is, the standing, abiding work of His Church ; that is, the showing forth of the Lord's death till He come, the continual thanksgiving because of the death that has been, and the glory that is to follow. Amen. Y SERMON XXIV. THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. — Jude, 21. The present dispensation is not the final and consum- mative one. The presence of the Lord in His Church now in the Holy Ghost, is not to make us contented and satisfied without His personal presence amongst us, but to quicken our desires for it. And our hope of His second and glorious appearing will be increased by everything in the Church which brings His spiritual presence nigh unto us. His spiritual presence is brought nigh by the living Church — the body, each member of which has in it the life and spirit of the Head. Baptized people, upon whom hands have been laid that they might receive the anointing as well as the life of the Holy Spirit, cannot come together without bringing the presence of the Lord with them. The greater their numbers, the more sensible and mighty will be the presence. Again, His presence is brought nigh by the appearance and operation of His ministries ; the cherubim, between which is His throne ; the gifts which He obtained for men, in order that the THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 323 Lord God might dwell amongst tliem. By means of them, not only the life of Christ is brought into ac- tivity, but the Holy Ghost personally is enabled to act, to speak, to testify of Jesus. Also, the sacra- mental institutions appointed of God in the Church are means whereby His presence is brought nigh unto us. When we are baptizing in His name, He is present at the font of baptism. Where the rite of confirmation is administered in His name from faith to faith, He is present to seal according to the tenor of that ordinance. When men are showing forth His death till He come. He is in the midst of them, making Himself known to them in the breaking of bread. When the word of God is read, and inter- preted, and preached. He is present, making men's hearts to burn, and turning them from darkness to light. In many ways He approaches unto us; and by all His approaches He increases in us the longing for His last, and final, and never-to-be-interrupted visit. They who are witnessing for Jesus in every way whereby a witness for Him can be borne, with them His spiritual 2:)resence is most fully enjoyed, and His personal coming is most ardently longed . for. Two things He said to His Church : " Lo, I "^ am with you always ;" and, " Behold, I come quickly."/ When the first is most realised, then the last also \ is most entered into. " Lo, I am with you always," 1 said the Lord. He is not with us in person ; for His ' person is in heaven, waiting till His enemies be made His footstool. He is in person, even in heaven, 1 appearing for us as our High Priest. Yet He is ' with us always. And there are creature things which are, as it were, the arks of His presence — 324 , , THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. " chariiY paved with love" — by which He enters into " tlie hearts of His willing people." And He is with us, as these things are with us. Indeed, when the absence of these things is not our fault strictly, He can make His presence to be felt without them. He can come into His Church, where all the ways of His ordinary coming in were blocked up; and He does so come in; He hath in our day so come in. Nevertheless, w^hen He does come in, His first work with us is to make us to open the passages which were blocked up, that His intercourse with us may be seen to be the seal, and not the exception to and violation of, His appointments with us. He is with us ; but we may keep away from the things in which He hides Himself. We may be looking for Him where He never promised to meet us, and so His promise may seem to us to have been made in vain, and we be found mourning over an absent instead of communing with our present Lord. The things by which Christ draws nigh unto us we will use with hopefulness, we will approach with reverence, just in proportion as w^e have faith in His presence in them ; we will behave towards them with familiarity, irreverence, and contempt, as we lack faith in the presence of Him who fills them and uses them. Are we afraid of superstition? Shall we not also fear irreverence? Do men now preach from and read the holy Scriptures as those who had the awful sense upon them that it is God's word which they are treating about? Are the psalms and holy songs of the Bible chanted and sung with reve- rence, the best translation being used? Or are not famihar compositions of men substituted m their THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 325 place, and they themselves made familiar and almost profiine by the changes which they undergo to pre- pare tliem for the services of the churches? Has the tendency of what is called vital religion in the times since the Reformation been to surround the sacrament with too much sanctity and solemnity? Quite the reverse. Are the assembling-places of the worshippers too much honoured, and the things in them too much set by? All the contrary. By the Spirit we feel the presence of the Lord, and by the Spirit we are made to stand in awe before His pre- sence-chaml)ers. By the S})irit we see Him on His throne, and by the Spirit we worship at His foot- stool. The spirit of worship and reverence is the one needed for these days; and that, existing and energising in us, will lead to acts of reverence, and acts of reverence will feed and strengthen the spirit of it. As faith brings forth good works, and good works, springing from faith, strengthen faith, so acts of worship, which spring from the spirit of worship, do strengthen the Spirit from which they spring. Bodily powers are increased by exercise, die out almost when deprived of it. So with spiritual powers ; formality is a bad thing, but forms are the defence and ornament of life. INIodesty has been called the fence around virtue. What is modesty? It is the keeping of the flesh and of the spirit of a man under a law, within bounds and restraints, in the observ- ance of certain forms, which restrain powers in order to strengthen them. The spirit of reverence, without the liberty of the Gospel, leads men to superstition and legality. But the habits of reverence, super- 326 THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. induced upon the liberty of the Gospel, do hinder the latter from degenerating into familiarity and licen- tiousness. The Spirit of adoption, " whereby we cry Abba, Father," makes us also to say, " Our Father, which art in heaven.'" Liberty is first, then awe. " There is forgiveness with Him, that He may be feared." " 0 come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation," is said in a certain place ; and immediately, again, " O come, let us worship and bow clown ^ let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for He is our God." The spirit of worship leads to the bowing of the head, and that is followed and perfected by the bending of the knees. We come into the Church in the spirit of worship; that spirit finds vent and relief, not only in words of prayer and holy praise, but also in bowing and kneel- ing. We stand before the altar in the spirit of wor- ship; why not bow down there, as well as kneel down ? We bow down to God ; we kneel before Him. When we approach the mysterious emblems of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, surely we should be in the spirit of worshipping Him, and bowing before Him, who approaches unto us in them. When God is giving to us the greatest gift which we can receive of Him, the gift of His Son, in the mystery conveyed, shall we not worship Him in our spirit, bow down our head before Him, and bend our knees, that, kneeling, we may receive with due humility what He stoops to bestow? A man receives on his knees a favour fi'om an earthly sovereign, shall we be less humble before the God of heaven and earth, the Lord our King? If we look up to heaven in our prayers, because our God is there, and Jesus Christ THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 327 the Mediator between God and man is there, so do we turn our faces and bend our heads towards the earthly objects ordained by God Himself, in which He is spiritually present, in the use of which the Father and the Son hold communion with us, through means of which the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ is applied to us. AVe worship the Lord alone ; but the spirit of worship is excited, and the acts of w^orship are called forth, by means of and in presence of the things which remind us of Him, which convey Him to us. A man bows before the window where the king stands, before the throne on which he sits; but not to the window, nor the throne, but to him who standeth and sitteth. If faith realise the pre- sence of the Lord in His Church, in His sacraments, in the words which He speaks, in the acts which He performs, why shall it not worship Him whose pre- sence it has found? Shall a man perform with less fervour and attention his holy service, l)ecause he has bowed his head to God at the commencement of it? There is a danger of doing these bodily acts in a formal spirit; but there is also a danger of ab- staining from them, through want of a sufficiently reverential one. " Lo, I am with you always," " Behold, I come quickly," are the two assurances wdiich comprise all that the Church can enjoy or desire. Those who afford to the Lord the fullest means of verifvins; the first, shall be filled by Him with the most substantial anticipations of the second. Now, by no act which the Church performs, does she so much secure the comforting presence of her Lord with her, as by the continual memorial of His sacrifice for her, the con- 328 THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. tinned feeding upon that sacrifice with thanksgiving. The daily, the continual memorial of that sacrifice, is the thing in the Christian Church which answers to the daily, the continual prefiguration of it in the Jewish Church. It was not prefigured once a-year only, though once a-year with peculiar depth and solemnity; not upon special occasions only, although with additional circumstances of interest on sjDCcial occasions : but it was typified every day ; the blood of Messiah was seen, as it were, ever flowing, in the prefigurative sacrifices. Was the wonderful event that was to be, thus to be ushered in by precedent foreshadowings of hope ; and when it has been, is it not to be followed up by continual memorials of love? When the blessing was expected, was it to be shown forth to quicken the desire of obtaining it? When the blessing has been bestowed, is it to be for- gotten? Are the ordained means for causing it ever to be remembered, to be neglected, or rarely used? Is the earth ever to be without the witness for the sacrifice which has rescued it from merited destruc- tion, and built it anew in the blessing of God? It was not enough, in old times, to commit the hope of the sacrifice of Christ to written word to contain it, to the memory of believing men, to the heart of thankful men, to hold it and treasure it, and keep it from perishing. It was also acted, represented, exhibited continually before their eyes. The Lord did not leave it to men filled with the Holy Ghost- to the Church, His epistle wiitten with His own hand by the Spirit of God — to records made by men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and received by men disposed by the same Spirit to keep up, by word and THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 329 statement, the commemoration of His death till His second and glorious appearing; but He also fixed the memorial in a sacrament in earthly emblems, consecrated in His Church in the sight of God and men. His love was materially signified and foreshown before it was displayed in full action ; it is materially signified and memorialised after its manifestation. A bloody and terrible representation preceded, an unbloody and joyous memorial follows. Were they faithful and constant in the more painful and labo- rious service, and shall we not be so in the joyous and eucharistic one ? It may be that the divisions, and rendings, and heart-burnings, in the Protestant sects, are connected with their defects in this matter. In protesting against the great abuses of the Church of Rome in relation to the holy sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, they have gone into the opposite extreme of well-nigh, if not altogether, taking away the " daily sacrifice." There was a taking away of the daily sacrifice amongst the Jews by the enemy predicted in the book of Daniel, who brought his abomination into the holy place. That same deso- lator of the sanctuary, after he took away the daily typical sacrifice, did endeavour to destroy Him the antitype, and His Church His witness. For three hundred years his power was engaged in the despe- rate struggle to extirpate Christianity from the earth. There will be a taking away of the daily sacrifice in the Christian Church by him whom the enemy of the Jewish Church typified; and in a double way, also, as it is found in Babylon, and as it is found in the Church of the Witnesses. The Beast shall pre- 330 THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. vail against saints counterfeit and saints real, against Babylon, and against the witnesses. He will burn the harlot, and he will blaspheme the bride. " He will blaspheme the name of God, and his tabernacle, and those tliat dwell in heaven." The Reformation, while it brought forth a protest against Babylon, also plucked up staples which fastened down the lawless one; it helped forward spiritual licentious- ness, as well as spiritual liberty. It emancipated men from authority without grace, but it also robbed men of grace, by breaking down authority. It wit- nessed against transubstautiation and the sacrifice of the mass ; but it also well-nigh destroyed the faith in the real presence of the Lord in His sacrament, and abolished, we may say, the daily memorial of Christ's one sacrifice. Perhaps, for this reason per- secution was permitted to be successful against some of the Reformers. Those who blasphemed the sacra- ment, as the persecutors expressed it, were consumed with material fire; while the wickedness and un- christian, yea, antichristian cruelty of those who committed heir brethren to the flames, cannot be too severely blamed: yet, perhaps, the Lord meant a lesson to be conveyed to those who should be able to learn it, both by the death which the Reformers suffered, and the doctrine, for the vindication of which that mode of death was adopted. The Church burned her children with fire for denying her doctrine upon tlie subject of the sacrifice, and for destroying her practice in the same. The Lord will burn with fire, even before the time of Satan's own being cast into it, the Beast and the false Prophet, who shall take away the daily sacrifice in the Christian Church, THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 331 who shall liincler Babylon from offering it in her polluted way, and the Church, in the Spiiit, from offering it as a true memorial. Brethren, the standing reproach of the Protestant nations is the cessation amongst them of the daily worship. The daily worship, to be perfect, must be a true daily memorial of the sacrifice of Christ, a true daily representation of His high-priestly inter- cession. The Protestants have lost the daily wor- ship, perhaps, by having lost adequate conceptions and estimation of its basis and life, namely, the eucha- ristic memorial of the sacrifice of the Lord ; as well as by having failed to recover fully at the Reforma- tion the spiritual gifts and the heavenly hierarchy. God in His grace raising up a people to witness for the daily worship and daily sacrifice in the heart of the chief Protestant nation, where the highest spiri- tual good that Protestantism wrought is most fully attained to, and most freely exercised; and by His providence, if not His judgment, letting upon it another witness for the daily worship, whose witness, because of sin in it, He allowed to be put to shame and trampled under foot through the whole world, three hundred years ago ; does teach a lesson to Pro- testants, which woe be to them if they refuse to learn. If they do not learn it, they may be the first to merit a more terrible fire than that into which Papal fury cast their fathers, even the fire into which the Lamb Himself shall cast the Beast and the false Prophet at His second and glorious appearing. In doing the work which the Lord has appointed His Church to do, and with the means and instru- ments which He has appointed; in surrounding His 332 THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. altar, and in surrounding it with the ministries and orders of ministries wliich He has appointed for His service ; may we not hope that He will make us to know, indeed, the truth of that assurance, — " Lo, I am with you always ? " When the acceptable sacri- fice was offered the fire from heaven came down; shall not the true fire from heaven, the Holy Spirit of Christ, be with tliem and in them who present themselves a willing sacrifice, and present before themselves the memorial of that sacrifice which has rendered the oftering of themselves and their gifts possible and acceptable? Shall they not find the supper the Lord's Supper, not only because they feast upon what the Lord has given, but because the Lord Himself is mysteriously present as the gracious Giver ? They will say. Lie is faithful and true ; He has fulfilled His first assurance: let us steadfastly liope for the fulfilment of the second. One fulfilment is a mount of vision, from which the other which remains to be enjoyed is more fully seen, as Canaan from the mount of Pisgali. The second and glorious advent of the Lord is most certainly apprehended, and most entirely longed for, by those who have most fully laid hold of all the blessings which the first advent has brought to them. We keep ourselves in the love of God then, indeed, when we memorialise before Him the death of His Son, the great demon- stration of His love which hath been ; and from the first mercy as our centre, we look confidently for the next that is to be seen — the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. The first act of mercy He performed for us when He gave Himself to be bruised for us, at His coming in great humility. THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 333 His second great act of mercy He will perform for us when, at His second coming in glory, He shall bruise Satan under our feet. It is for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ we wait — His pity. After all, the Church is to be pitied. However high she may rise in the realisation of her calling — however truly she may be keeping her feasts — however full she may be of the presence of the Comforter, even when clothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet, and the crown of twelve stars around her head, and more glorious within than without by the Man-child witli which she is pregnant; still, before the coming of the Lord again — before the resurrection — before the transla- tion, she is an object of pity. She not only hopes for her Bridegroom, but she cries out for her Deli- verer. There will be no peace for her, no millen- nium, till His personal coming. His sacramental pre- sence. His ministerial fullness. His presence by the Comforter, constitute not her rest and her triumph : with all these, she still is in circumstances needing pity, in a condition to which mercy in her God and Saviour is the correspondent attribute. Mercy is the answerable thing to misery. Misery will be at its height upon this earth before the coming again of the Lord. Llis coming will be to put an end to misery : misery in the spirit, by His fsiithful Church, conscious to, and vexed by, all His spiritual enemies ; misery in the flesh, by the nations refusing to be healed by Him who delivered the flesh from its deadly wound ; misery of the world, continually dis- appointed, and yet continually deluded, with the hope of making itself happy without God ; misery of 334 THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. the whole creation, subject to bondage because of man's sin, and bleeding at every pore under his in- flictions, goaded on by the spirit of evil to whom he has yielded himself. A universal cry of distress will bring the Saviour to this earth once more. Alas for those who vainly hope that the world will grow better, society happier, and all men more at peace, for some indefinite period before the return of the Lord ! Every work that men shall do to take misery out of the world shall rivet it more closely to its vitals, until He come who shall raise the dead and change the living, and give them to behold one an- other and their Deliverer with joy unspeakable, — who shall rid the earth of the oppressor by binding Satan in the abyss — who shall cast the blasphemous Beast and the lying Prophet into the lake of fire, — who shall slay with the sword that goeth out of His mouth the ungodly kings and their ungodly armies, — who shall give the earth to the sons of righteous- ness and of peace, — who shall take away the curse, and cause the new heavens and the new earth to appear. Our highest point of attainment is looking for His mercy unto eternal life : the present life must have trouble and sorrow in it; to Jesus it had; to those most in His Spirit it must, much more to the wicked: but the eternal life, the state of existence which we shall enter upon at His ajjpearing and kingdom, shall have no misery in it. But the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ may be mentioned here rather than any other attribute, be- cause of what the context sets before us. The apo- stasy from Christianity, here at length described, shall bring the world into a pitiable condition, from THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD. 335 which nothing can save it but the coming of the Lord Himself. It is to be observed that His three names are enumerated, as if by each of them He were appealed to, to come and put an end to a state of things which is in direct and open hostility to each. Society has fallen into the hands of those who "defile the flesh, who despise lordship, and who blaspheme glories." That which had shown its Cain character, the self-rigliteous and persecuting form — the phase of envy and hatred which had followed the covetous practices of Balaam, the wicked prophet who sold himself and his gifts to the enemy of Israel, that he might corrupt and curse God's people, — has now attained to its height of insubordination and blas- phemy; it has grown into the gainsaying of Korali, the state of its development, wherein the Lord will endure it no longer. Thus He will come to destroy those who destroy the earth ; He will have pity upon all who suffer, because of evil which they cannot pre- vent, but against which they cry out, and because of which they sigh in secret. To those abiding in the love whereunto they have already been raised, He will come with love's last deliverance. Amen. SERMON XXV. THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. And of some have compassion, making a difference : and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire ; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. — Jude, 22, 23. Four marks of the faithful, in relation to God, have been dwelt upon. 1st. Their mark of faith, whereby they do receive what Grod has given. 2d. Their mark of worship, whereby they do continually give glory to God for all that He has given, and for all that He hath to give, and for all that He is, beyond what His revelation hath made plain to the mind of man. 3d. Their mark of obedience, whereby they do keep themselves under the continual action towards them of the love of God, who blesseth them more and more daily. 4th. Their mark of hope, whereby they do sus- tain themselves during the whole course of their obedience, and whereby they anticipate their final and entire deliverance from all the things which render their obedience difficult and defective, and THE MARl^ OF THE FAITHFUL. 337 which weaken and darken their sense of the love of God. After these four marks of the Hfe of Clirist in His Church, in its action upwards towards God, there comes the fifth, and final mark of that life, wherein its action downwards towards the dwellers upon earth is declared. " Of some have compassion; others, save with fear." Being perfected in the four first, you are fitted for the last. Having glorified God, you are qualified to save men. He can draw to you those whom He wants to save. They who shall be drawn to you shall learn nothing evil in the midst of you, but everything good. The things lacking elsewhere they will find abounding in you; for instance, the spirit of faith, of worship, of obedience, of holy hope. The pure evangelist zeal for drawing in will overflow in the Church, which is prepared for those who shall come in. The evangelist spirit will decay and die out of an unholy people. Such can only gather to themselves for their own base ends; they cannot gather to God for His glory. God will bless evan- gelist labours proceeding from a holy people. He will furnish to such a people the ministry by whom they can express to those without their holy love. God wants people to be drawn together, not that they may corrupt one another, that they may sup- port and flatter one another in sin, but that they may learn togetlier how to believe in Him, and how to grow in faith, — that they may learn together to wor- ship Him with their body, their mind, and their spirit, in inward power and with outward comeliness, — that they may help one another in all ways of obedience, and may rejoice together in one all-em- z 338 THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. bracing love and one glorious hope. Want of faith, want of worship, want of obedience, want of the Christian hope, are the marks of the falling away whereof this chapter treats. Instead oi faith in God and in His appointments, there is the gainsaying of Korah — the upsetting, upstriking, levelling spirit ; the anti-hierarchical, the anti-apostolical, the Saddu- cean spirit. The middle ages, the early ages, were times of faith, of credulity, of exaggerated respect for offices and orders in the Church and State; the last age is the antipodes of all this, — instead of worship, there is " defiling the flesh, despising dominion, speaking evil of dignities, murmuring, complaining, walking after their own lusts, with mouths speaking great swelling words;" instead of obedience from re- gard to God, and to keep His love, the mark of ungodliness is several times repeated ; instead of hope in the coming again of the Lord, is found the spirit of mocking. The opposite of this spirit must charac- terise the people whom the Lord will make the nucleus and centre of His operations on the earth for the deliverance of His suffering creatures. To such, being saved themselves. He will give the commission to save. Faith is dying out of the earth. I do not mean merely, faith in texts of Scripture, but faith in God as manifest in the flesh; faith in ordinances, institutions, appointments of Him ; faith in Him as represented in the state, in the family, in the Church ; faith that He has stood to His promises, that He is standing to them, that He will stand to them ; faith that He will accomplish what He has said ; faith in the presence of Christ with His Church; faith in the power of the Holy Ghost. Where such faith THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. 339 revives, thither will God gather those who are ordained for salvation. The spirit of worship is almost quenched : you go into churches and conventicles, and you find men reading prayers or saying prayers to one another, to be heard of men ; sometimes in a low and familiar voice, sometimes in a loud and declamatory one. Those who pray extemjjore, teach on their knees, speak at the people on their knees, say to the con- gregations with their eyes shut, and in the attitude of prayer, what they have not nerve or courage to say to the people, looking them at the same time in the face, and standing up before them. Those who read prayers read for effect, to impress men. In opposition to all this, the Lord wants a people who shall speak unto God, who shall read for His ear; who shall not be conscious to the presence of men, but shall be conscious to the presence of God. He wants priests who shall use their voices, not with reference merely to the human hearers and the taste of their ears, but with reference to the Divine Hearer, and in the tones most suited for His ear. He wants the revival of the worship of God. Obedience to God fails everywhere. Men seem to think that the effect of Christ's obedience is to exempt others from the necessity of obeying; they speak of obedience as impossible ; they have a practical notion of Christ as a destroyer of humanity, and not as a redeemer of it. Amongst Protestants especially, the two ex- tremes of man's being, his spirit and his body, are exempted from Christ's operation; the middle capa- city, the mind, being the only part given to Him. Spiritual worship and bodily service are almost en- 340 THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. tirely excluded from religion, and mental operations are the only things of any esteem. God seeks for a people in whom He can effect full obedience of soul, spirit, and body, — to them He will gather. The order in this passage of holy Scripture re- bukes those who busy themselves with the evil condition of others before they have corrected their own. Men of no religion, affecting to be zealous against false religion, cause disgust in all right- judging minds. Men now are more inclined to con- sider how much Christianity is misrepresented by other sects, than how inadequately it is represented by themselves. The pretensions of others are met by brutal repression, rather than by exhibition to their shame of the real thing which they have but the semblance of. The way to drive bad goods out of the market is to fill the market with good mer- chancUse. They who rail at Babylon should search themselves, lest they be found railing at Babylon in the spirit of the Beast, because even Babylon has too many restraints to impose upon them. They who rise up into the liberty whereby Christ makes His people free are qualified to rebuke Babylon, which fetters and obstructs that liberty. But there is a liberty which is worse than the captivity in Babylon — the liberty of Antichrist — for whose pur- poses the most base of the sects is still too strict. That spirit of false liberty is now abroad. Christ is fighting against it, and Babylon is struggling against it ; it Tvdll endure neither Christ nor Babylon ; it will make war upon both, as the Philistines who slew Saul made war against David also. The charge in the text is an injunction to be THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. 341 merciful first, and out of mercy to save. Do not be accusers of men, but pity them ; even those who are led ca}3tive by the enemy, do not lacerate them and drive them mad, but heal them : they are all wounded ; pour in oil and wine. " Of some have compassion." Consider their circumstances, tempta- tions, difficulties : if they are erratic,- they get good reason to wander, — their guides mislead them. The quality recommended to the perfect is mercy. But then there follows, " Save some with fear." To the merciful another word is added, — Be also bold. Some parties you can have no considerations of delicacy for, you must snatch them as brands from the burn- ing, hating and loathing their habits. The two classes to be saved, perhaps, correspond with the two conditions of apostasy from Christ interwoven in this chapter, and treated of at large in other parts of holy Scripture : for instance, the condition of those who are in true positions, but not filling them with the Spirit, and the condition of those who are in pos'tions essentially wi'ong ; those whose principles are right, though their practice be wrong, and those whose principles are themselves wi'ong — the con- dition of Babylon and of the Beast. The mark of past days has been, that men have held truth in un- righteousness ; the mark of the last times is, that men strive to effect righteousness without truth. The Lord would heal the former ; the latter He must at once and from the first denounce. He bears with Babylon for a long time, but the Beast He suffers to reign only one hour — he must go quick into perdition. Nothing is more striking in the 342 THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. speeches made now against the Papal aggression than the contempt which is expressed for what is called "Apostolical Succession." Now analyse these terms, Apostolical Succession; they mean this: — Apostles of old established and left behind them a certain status^ a certain constitution, a certain pro- visional government for the Church, till they should return unto it — till either they themselves in person should return, or till their ministry should be re- vived in the persons of others. Now those who plead for Apostolical Succession mean, generally, that they are respecting the status quo which the apostles left behind them, that they are following the prescript rule of the apostles, and are endea- vouring to hold the places in which apostles and their delegates did fix them ; those, on the other hand, who use the contemptuous expressions alluded to, signify thereby their disregard for what apostles settled, their indifference as to whether the govern- ment appomted by them in the Christian Church be preserved or not. They do not care about pre- scription ; they consider themselves competent to make a constitution for the Church of God ; they say to those set in the highest place what the sons of Korah said to Moses and Aaron, " Ye do take too much upon you, the whole company of Israel is holy as much as you." The true estimate is different from theirs. The Head of the Church does regard with tenderness, and long bears with, in their im- faithfulness, those who try to preserve even the form of what He gave. Those who despise that form and set it at nought for its unprofitableness, before they THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. 348 have got a better from Him, He is greatly displeased with, and His wrath is speedily kindled against them. We are to follow His example. There are some with whom we are to deal very tenderly, and others are to be treated more abruptly. Some are nearer the fire, so to speak, than others. The Beast and his Prophet will be cast into the lake of fire by the hand of the Lord. Babylon is burned by fire that men kindle ; but the Beast is burned at once with the fire which God Himself has kindled, the living fire that shall never be quenched. Those who are on the verge of that burning lake, by having given in their adhesion to the Beast and begun to labour for him, snatch them without delay or cere- mony from their terrible position, lest the anger of the Lord, which cometh swift and terrible as the whirlwind, find them there. " Hating the garment spotted by the flesh," loathe their polluted orders, their ministry and office, held from men, which man's flesh has meddled with, and modified. The spotted garment is the contrast to the white priestly gar- ments given by Christ : those are chiefly meant here who either assume to themselves sacred oflSces, or who, having been set in them, do prostitute them, and consent to hold tliem fi'om man, allowing his mark, not the Lord's, to be seen upon them. Per- haps the two classes here are the victimised and the victimising : the former to be dealt with considerately and affectionately; the others to be saved with in- dignation against and abhorrence of their evil ways — indignation especially against their desecration of their holy oflfices. The Church in the last times is not set up to 344 THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. deliver people from Popery merely, or to be a witness against Popery, but to deliver men from tlie evil condition that has followed upon Popery ; to witness against the constitution of hell, so to speak. First in the progress of history was seen the heavenly constitution, abused and corrupted. Next is seen an earthly, devilish one, substituted in its place. Against this latter, and because of the weakness of the former, God interposes. Against the enemy coming in like a flood, upon barriers too weak to withstand him, doth the Lord lift up His standard. Christian institutions were abused in the days of our fathers ; in our days they are ignored. Popery caricatured Christianity. The sin next in order is the attempted abolition of it. To prevent its extirpation the Lord brings into ope- ration the powers which at first established it. The salvation which the Church is charged in this place to administer is deliverance from the de- lusions of the day; from scepticism and the exag- geration of private judgment, by recovering to faith; from irreverence and profanity, by leading men again into the spirit of worship ; fi'om practical Antino- mianism and sentimental ways of knowing the love of God, into obedience and communion therein with God ; from dreams and fallacious expectations of a revolutionary nature to the true hope of the coming and kingdom of the Lord. The Church of Rome is trying to lay hold of the dispersed members of the visible Church, and to bind them into one. The Protestant sects have not in them any discipline or binding power : that Church which has a pretension to these things is taking the work in hand of re- storing unity, authority, order, in the multitude of THE MARKS OF THE FAITHFUL. *345 the baptized once more. But that Church cannot do it; her corruptions are Hke a millstone round her neck, like chains and fetters upon her hands and feet: the people will be goaded to madness by her effort, and, whatever temporary success she may have, will ultimately destroy her utterly, and flee from her into the hands of the infidel Antichrist. He is at hand to gather up the spoils, and rich spoils he will gather from the contentions of the Churches. It is to snatch a remnant from his hands that the Lord's work has been revived in our days. That work is not antagonistic to Popery, Church-of-Eng- landism, or any organisation of Christianity, however corrupt. It is helpful to all these, but it is antago- nistic to infidel revolution. It is set against the de- lusions of the last days that men can attain to per- sonal, social, political, yea, and in a sense, eccle- siastical improvement, without the grace of Christ and irrespective of His institutions. It is raised up to destroy Amalek, whose hand is upon the throne of God ; Amalek, whom Saul spared ; whom the true Samuel shall hew in pieces. We are not set to contend with our brethren and increase the strife of tongues, the logomachy which is bewildering and maddening men, but to help our brethren to under- stand their own words, to enter into the life and power of them, and by the Spirit proceeding from their mouth to confound the infidel. Moses slew the Egyptian, but would reconcile contending Israelites ; David helped all Israel, but ever hung like an angel of death upon the Philistines. Amen. SERMON XXVI. MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness ; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. — Luke, xvi. 9. Here is Christ's canon to His Chvirch respecting the management of temporal wealth. It is His practical application of the parable of the steward, whose stewardship was soon to end. He addressed that parable specially to His disciples. The fifteenth of Saint Luke contains His three parables spoken to Scribes and Pharisees, who murmured at his con- descension and kindness towards notorious sinners. He came to such, not to encourage them in their evil condition, but to deliver them out of it — to fill all heaven with joy — the angels around God's throne, and God Himself, by the recovery to God of those who would be unto Him as His beautiful flock. His rich treasure, His pleasant children: He came to such, to find amongst them a flock for God; for those reputed His flock — commended by men as His flock — had lost all the marks of His people — they ceased to be His treasure — they were become of no MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 347 value — they would not, as obedient children, give Him the return of love. Therefore, either God must have no people in Israel, or the Sent of God must go to find them amongst the outcasts of so- ciety. The joy of heaven waited for its expression till the publicans and sinners should be brought to repentance. The angels waited for them as the heirs of salvation, to whom they should come forth to minister. God Himself, until their return, was, as it were, a bereaved Father. Those who seemed to be His children He would have no communion with ; they were neither working His righteousness, nor mourning over their own unrighteousness. Three things Christ said to the Pharisees by His parables. 1st. That He could not find God's flock, treasure, and household, amongst them; therefore. He must repair to the miserable and self-condemned to find them. 2d. That He did not resort to the company of such, because of any pleasure which He could find in their loose and wicked courses, but that He might deliver them out of them all. 3d. That He might manifest the mercy of God, who comes not to men because they are righteous, and merit His regard, but because they are sinful and miserable, and His heart is set upon taking away at once their sin and their misery. In the three parables of ths fifteenth of Luke one may see the work of the Holy Trinity illustrated, — in the bringing home of the lost sheep by the Good Shepherd; in the searching of the whole earth for the lost treasure by the Spirit of light, and truth, 348 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. and power; in the welcome given by the Father of Mercies to those whom His Spirit searches out and His Son brings back unto Him. To proud law- keepers (fancied law-keepers), hoping for the reward of their obedience, Christ preached God who justifies the ungodly, who forgives sinners first, and then makes saints of them ; and when He has made them holy, highly endows them; and having endowed them, gives them their mission ; and after the fulfil- ment of their mission, receives them to His own deep eternal joy. But to those believing the Gospel, and consti- tuted into God's Church, is addressed the parable which inmiediately follows the three which enlarge upon God's mercy. In this parable is urged the devotedness to God's service which becometh God's holy ones, and the way in which, mainly, that de- votedness should be exercised. The steward, who knew that his time of steward- ship was nearl}^ run out, and formed connexions that would be helpful to him after its expiration, was praised for his wisdom by his master. So the dis- ciples of Christ, who acknowledge themselves to be stewards of God, and expend what they are entrusted with in attaching to themselves those whom they shall meet and be welcomed by in the kingdom of heaven, shall hear from the Hps of Christ, " Well done, good and faithful servants; enter into the joy of your Lord." The sixteenth chapter begins with " But." As much as to say, you have heard me on the subject of Divine mercy ; hear me still ; hear me while I say unto you " Make to yourselves friends of the mam- MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 349 mon of uiivigliteoiisness; that, wlieu ye fail, tliey may receive vou into everlasting" habitations." Brethren, lest there should be one person present ignorant of the meaning of the text, let me say, for his sake, that " Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrigliteousness" dees not mean. Be at friendship with the mammon of unrighteousness, strike an alliance with it, conciliate its regards, pay court to it, get it to be on your side, to be your friend. It does not mean this; but it means. With the " mammon of unrighteousness" which you possess gain friends. So employ it, that the result to you may be a winning of friends ; of friends whose friend- ship shall survive the world, who shall dwell with you in the " everlasting habitations," to be no incon- siderable part of your eternal joy and reward. What is mammon, and why is it called unright- eous ? Mammon is wealth of this world ; and it is unrighteous, because, generally speaking, unright- eously acquired and unrighteously retained, and more unrighteously dissipated. The love of it is a root from which everything unrighteous and evil grows. But it is unrighteous, mainly, because it chiefly stands in the way of man's getting into his right condition, which is, dependence upon God. He who hath gold to trust in, and fine gold wherein to place confidence, seems to have resources independent of God, and generally dispenses with Him, verifying what the Lord said, " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" The rich can afford to consult many physicians to heal them of their hearts' sickness; they can go to and fro to everything and place that diverts and amuses. 350 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. A poor man is sooner brought to the end of his resources. Empirics follow the rich, and fasten upon them, despising those who have no gifts to bestow. But He who said, " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" saith also, " By your mammon of unrighteousness make friends, whom you will meet in the everlasting habitations." A rich man is in danger, because of his riches, of suffering exclusion from the kingdom of God. A rich man, entering into the kingdom of God himself, is enabled by his riches to facilitate the entrance into the kingdom of God to many more who shall go before, and accompany, and follow him thither. God's ways are equal. If He gives us that wherewith danger is bound up. He tells us that glory is bound up with it too. He tells us that it is unrighteous ; but He also says that that which is most unrighteous, wisely applied, shall effect results most righteous and blessed. Generally speaking it will, unhappily, be found, that those who have most in this world will have least in the world to come. How terrible was the contrast with Dives, between yesterday's feast and to-day's fruitless cry for even one drop of water to cool his tongue in his torment ! But this need not be so. The more men have in this world, the more they may have in the world to come. God would have men to be always making progress, from good to better, from better to infinitely better still. Even unrighteous mammon is a seed from which the harvest of true riches can be reaped. In one way of considering the matter, if you must, you may say, " Woe be to the rich !" In another, and as true a sense, it may be said, " Happy are they !" Their MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 351 fall will be terrible ; it will involve the fall of many : but their rise will be glorious ; many shall rise with them. The rich must always have a retinue, following them upon earth, descending with them in hell, or ascend- ing with them into the kingdom of God. Christ's word to the rich is, — So spend your money, that you shall hear in heaven how you spent it, and from the lips of those whom your mode of spending it was instru- mental in bringing thither, where their heartfelt, joyous salutations, are poured out upon you. Many will hear amongst the damned how their worldly wealth was dissipated; and from the damned, too, whose ruin was mainly achieved by that dissipation. Riches take wings and flee away. You cannot hinder their flight, but you can direct it. Send them before you as winged liarbingers to heaven; not as mes- sengers preceding you to the lake of fire. Dives dreaded the coming of his brethren to hell, to make the place of torment more tormenting still by their terrible reproaches. He knew how much his hypo- crisy had to do with ripening them for the judgment of the reprobate, and he feared to hear it from tlieir own tongues, in words more burning than the flames which consumed him. Christ's word to all His disciples, rich and poor (the twelve fishermen to whom He spake these words first were not rich), is this: When the mammon of unrighteousness comes into your hands, let the union be dissolved between mammon and unrighteousness. In your hands let the creature find a crucible, which shall separate the dross from the gold. Give to the V^creation an earnest of its hope. You have received a rich earnest of your own hope from Him who is 352 MAMMON or UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. over you; give, also, to that wliicli is under you an earnest of its hope. The whole creation longs for the manifestation of the sons of God. You who are even now sons of God, having an earnest of your manifestation, quicken the longing of the creation, by giving it oiow a foretaste of the glorious liberty which then it shall fully enjoy. The whole creation is suffering because of its bondage to that which is corruption. If it could speak, how eloquently would it tell us so. Oh ! if the flowers, and fruits, and plants, and trees of the forest, could speak out against the wickedness which they witness, and help for- ward ! Could the harvest and vintage of the earth, the cattle upon a thousand hills, the winged creation above the earth, the creeping things upon it, the manifold life which is found in the rivers that flow through it, and the seas that surround it, the trea- sures hid in the deepest mines and recesses of crea- tion, give utterance to all the wrongs which they endure from man, the rebel who has sold himself and his world into the hands of Satan, the fiend who warreth against God and His works, how indignant would their cry be against all the abuses through which they are dragged, in their miserable, reluctant adhesion to the worst cause, in their unnatural resistance to the holiest and best ! Their griefs have found an utterance; God's Spirit hath expressed it for them; they groan and travail, waiting for the righteous King, who shall set them all at Hberty to serve the Lord their God. Brethren, the earth which the righteous inhabit should enjoy, like themselves, an earnest of its mil- lennium. Do I say, should ? Eather, I should say, it MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 353 does. " Cursed is the land for your sakes," He said to the original offenders. " Cursed be the land for your sake," He said to the first apostate, who slew his brother. " Your land shall be crowned with fruit- fulness or smitten with barrenness," He said to the children of Israel, " according to your obedience or wickethiess." And doth He not expect Christian men, who have seen almost the entire redemption, to libe- rate all that they possess for the service of God, and to bring down upon it all the fullness of His blessing ? Open the map of the world ; look upon the nations where Christ's blessings have been re- jected, or least appreciated and appropriated. Does not Nature lavish in vain its choicest favours on such lands ? Their sun is strong, their dew heavy ; their rivers are deep, their plams are wide ; they have the mountain and vale, and many -harboured sea-board: but God's fear is departed, His holy joy is despised ; the tithes are not laid at the feet of His Son ; the offerings and first-fruits are not heaped upon His altar ; therefore a blight is upon all things ; the earth is desolate, and man is famine-stricken. But where some little honour has been done to the Lord — where His claims have been a little allowed — where pretenders to His prerogatives have been, however feebly, rebuked, and His kingdom, however faintly, manifested — there God's blessing has pre- vailed against nature's baiTenness, the imgenial climate has ripened richest fruits, and the rugged earth has smiled like a garden of delights. Men attribute these results to good government, and ci- vilisation, and wise, social, and political economy. Well, but whence have these things sprung ? Are AA 354 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. they not the results of His working, whose hea- venly religion is compared to a tree, the very leaves of which do heal the nations, while the fruit is the joy of God Himself, and the feast of His people for ever? But they who attribute the difference in na- tions to such things as government and civilisation will be taught a terrible lesson, when these things shall remain, and yet the earth shall be cursed, be- cause the service of God shall have departed, and the consecration of the wealth of the land to the accomplishment of God's purposes shall have ceased. Then it will be found that the fruitfulness and beauty of the earth were more bound up with the payment of tithes than with the most skilful cultivation ; with the blessing of God upon those that worshipped Him, more than with the unremitting fatigue of legislators and the sleepless diligence of rulers. To employ our substance in the service of God is, indeed, to give it an earnest of its liberty, and to win for it that favour from God which shall make it, even now, the type of its own future blessedness. But however that may be — here, again, I quote to you Christ's canon concerning the administration of the worldly wealth of His people — be it scant or abounding, " Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Upon your faithful doing of this, see how much depends. " He that is faithful in that which is little, is faithful also in much." All that you have now, whatever be your wealth, is little, very little^ most little (as the original hath it) ; what awaits you in the future state is much. How much ? "All things are yours, for you are Christ's, and Christ is God's:" heir of God, joint- MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 355 heir with Christ, you shall inherit all things. A¥ell, if you will administer as God's steward, in Christ's interests, the very little that you now have, you will have much, even a universe, to serve hy and hye; otherwise not : for hear Him still : " If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?" Our heavenly Father trams us for the expenditure of our own riches, properly so called, by first employing us wisely to administer what is lent to us for a season. All that we possess now is called another man's. We must recede from the possession sooner or later : our present bodies must be changed; our present earth must be dissolved, to make way for another. But that which awaits us is our own ; we shall never lose it; we will not be allowed to forfeit it, or sell it out of our hands ; it shall never wear out, grow old, or decay ; it shall never be put out of our hands for repair ; the compact and enjoyment shall be for eternity ; and during that eternity shall be un- broken and uninterrupted. Brethren, our fathers were right when they spoke of this life as a period of probation : I will not say they were always so, when they treated of that wherein the probation consisted. We are not put back into a state of in- nocence, and tried over again, as Adam was; but we, our sins forgiven and our persons accepted, are put into the hands of Christ, that He may train us now for the administration hereafter of the kingdom of God. This is our probation, whether we will allow Him to direct us in the employment of what is 356 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. lent to us now, tliat He may administer with us what shall be given to us in the day of His kingdom. What we have now is called by the three names, the little, the unrighteous^ the borrowed ; what we shall have is called the great, the true, that which is our own. The condition of our reigning with Christ over the latter is our being now ruled by Him in the ma- nagement of the former. And observe how He seals and concludes the whole matter, — " No servant can serve two masters ; ye cannot serve God and mammon : " that is, unless you will administer your wealth as Christ's servant, as God's trustee, you must become its slave. The varieties of slavery are many ; the chams may be of divers materials, but the slavery is one. You must be masters of your affairs, and Christ must be master of you and them, or your affairs will master you; and the world mastering you now, you shall not rule it in the age to come. The wicked speech of the Socialists, that " Property is theft," expresses not abstract truth, but tells the truth concerning the holders of property generally in Christian lands — they are robbers of God and man. Brethren, this is Christ's rule of devotedness to His service left to His Church. Is it too severe? It comes from Him who gave Himself, not by halves, unto us ; from Him in whose love there were no reserves. Is it unreasonable ? No, for education, training, qualification, ever precede employment ; and the higher and more difficult the employment, the more careful and severe must be the training. This parable, and this application of it, were ad- di'essed to the disciples, and no exception was taken MAMilON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 357 by them to their Master's words; but there were other listeners who did except. " The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things ; and they derided Him:" (the original word expresses an action significant of the utmost contempt.) The sacred text tells us why they derided Him, " because they were covetous." The Lord adds three other ele- ments. 1st, their religion went no farther than pre- serving good appearances before men ; 2d, they were not pressing into the kingdom, therefore had their hearts elsewhere; 3d, they were self-indulgent and licentious, as well as covetous ; they despised all God's mercies towards them. Even the law and the prophets, testifying of Messiah, and John laying his hands on Him, and showing Him unto Israel, went for nothing with them whose law of life was to get by " extortion," and waste in " excess," the things of the present world. To deliver them, if possible, from their impious mockery — to send teiTor into their consciences and to solemnise their thoughts — the Lord delivered to the Pharisees another jiarable, which constitutes the Gospel for this day. He showed to them the future condition of one who did not, in the present life, " make to himself friends of the mammon of um'ighteousness." This parable of the rich man and Lazarus does not refer to the avowed man of the world, who openly sets at nought aU the claims of religion, and scorns to make a profession of god- liness. Far from it; there were no points in the parable, no appropriateness in it, for the parties to whom it was addressed, if that were so. It was ad- dressed to those who were pre-eminently, in the 358 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. judgment of their fellow -men, the religious cha- racters of the day ; the men " who were not as others were," in manifest sin, who " fasted twice a-week and gave tithes of all that they possessed," who were zealous for the law, and despised the people as " accursed," because they knew it not. For such the jDicture of the rich man in torment was drawn ; for those who would say, even in hell, " Father Abraham," who boasted on the earth that they were indeed Abraham's seed, the genuine descendants of the " friend of God," the very reproducers of His uncalculating faith and unfaltering obedience. There is no doubt that the "rich man" was accounted reli- gious. Lazarus was probably at his gate for alms habitually and ostentatiously doled out. The dogs of the great house, or of the district, seemed to know the poor man ; they came not to worry, but to soothe him. The payer of tithes was a giver of alms as well ; and he acknowledged the Bible as his rule of faith ; he allowed the authority of Moses and the Prophets : but he did not know the meaning of them; he had not learned from them the truth concerning Messiah ; he did not know God's matter in hand for the day when he lived, and throw himself into it heart and soul; he did not know that the time of his stewardship as an observer of the law was come to its close, and the time of his stewardship as a servant of Christ was beginning ; that the temporary habitation of Canaan was going to be superseded by the short " stranger and pilgrim state," and after that the " everlasting habitation." God's purpose in Christ he knew not; and the entire consecration of himself and his substance to God, involved in that MAMMON OF UNKIGHTEOUSNESS. 359 knowledge, he did not make. Now, by this parable Christ speaks for ever to all who make a high reli- gious profession, but do not allow, or, if they formally allow, do virtually and substantially evade, the canon of Christian devotedness which He laid down for His disciples, — " Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." This parable is so given to complement the precedmg one, that a desire to illustrate it clearly forces one back into the chapter, even to the text which I have chosen for our present consideration. In the last days of the Christian dispensation, to the religious of the perilous times this parable of the rich self-indulgent professor will specially apply ; for the end of the Jewish dispensation in many ways typifies the end of the Christian, and shall in this particular also. Let not the mark of self-indulgence be found in us, whilst the necessities of God's Church demand all the help which He has put it into our power to render. May it not be said of any of us, " Your own house is cared for, God's house is neglected." There is a danger, for the atmosphere of the world in our day is poisoned by selfishness. Now are all planning to be rich, and seeming to be richer than they are. Yet every man is poor; few have anything to give, for all are outrunning their means. Every one seeks a greater house than he needs ; he furnishes it in a more costly manner than is necessary ; he keeps it more luxuriously than his circumstances warrant. Men decorate and pamper themselves and their families; they run a race of 3 GO MAMMON OF UNKIGHTEOUSNESS. rivaliy in ostentatious expenditure. The aristocracy vie with royalty; the middle classes affect to be aristocrats; servants emulate the style of their em- l^loyers. All, straining beyond their powers, are exhausted. No one has a reserve from which to make offerings to God, and give help to man. Never was so much wealth in the world, yet every nation in the world is in debt ; every company, every man, with few exceptions, owe more than they can pay. Much is sowed, little is reaped ; a bag with holes receives the gold. Alas ! the only field which would yield a hundredfold return is thinly and grudgingly sowed : the accursed, barren land, from which corruption only is reaped, receives all the seed, or the best of it. Men do not sow to the Spirit; they sow to the flesh, and do this most excessively when the knell of all flesh hath been rung, and the universe is, as it were, summoned to witness this world's funeral. The Epistle for this week calls the Church to the love of the brethren ; the Gospel shows the need of the call. In the last days of the Jewish histojy the chosen people were divided into factions, who tore one another pitilessly within the walls of the doomed city, while the Roman power fi'om without advanced to the destruction of them all. The intestine, inter- necine war, was more horrid than the invasion of the stranger. So shall it be in the end of the Christian history. The Christian sects, " biting and devom'ing one another, shall be consumed one of another," and shall all together become an easy prey to Antichrist — the antitype of the Roman — the bringer of the real "abomination that niaketh desolate" hito the holy place. Protestants, in their hatred of Papists, MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 361 will open the gates of God's Cliiu'cli to the Infidel : Papists will make common cause with Infidels, if by the monstrous league they can effect the extirpa- tion of Protestants : Churchmen and Dissenters, high and low Church, broad and narrow, will recoil from no means, however unhallowed, of mutual destruc- tion. " Iniquity shall abound, love shall wax cold;" on a cold world the deluge of fire shall come to warm men whom the love of Christ could not warm. The unloving, unforgiving spirit of Christians towards each other, shall provoke God " to lead them into the temptation, and deliver them to the evil one." If we will escape the enemy as the tempter first, the per- petrator of evil after, let us be instructed by the Epistle of the day: let us love the brethren, the Church of God, the body of Christ. The love which shall perfect the body of Christ is the love that God demands; of unsanctified benevolence towards Christians, Jews, Turks, and Heathens, there will be enough; party- spirit and factious heat, and many forms of spurious love, will abound : but God looks for the love which enabled one of old, in the truth of his heart's consciousness, to cry out, " I suffer the loss of all things for the elects' sake, that they may obtain the salvation which is m Christ Jesus with eternal glory." Brethren, this love shall re-appear. There were some found to honour the Head of the Church with special, singular honour, before His final rejection by His covenant people ; there shall be an election out of a world of haters or lukewarm ones, who shall honour the body of Christ before it be finally cast out from this world, which first casts out God and r 362 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. then His image. The night before Jesus entered as a king into the city which within the week was to witness His crucifixion, His feet were anointed " with ointment of spikenard, very costly, and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." And the night before the Passover, before He gave the me- morial of His priestly work and the earnest of His kingly feast, in the house of Simon the leper, came unto Him a woman, having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on His head. His feet before His triumphant entry, His head before His holy Eucharist, were covered with the costly offerings of priceless love. So shall exertions be made to procure the anointing (more precious than the spikenard — the anointing which human hands cannot compound, nor earth yield the materials which compose it,) for His body; for the feet, which shall bear it abroad to witness for His kingdom ; for the head, which shall safely guide it to its highest and most awful exercise, communion in Christ with the living God. Such love shall re-appear — yea, it has appeared again : let the sacred fire be fanned within you, that it may be more evident stiU that it has appeared, and begun to recover again God's blessing for His Church, the anointing of His Spirit, the blessing which Christ won for us on the cross, and bestows vipon us from the throne of God. Our love to men should be the reflex of God's love. Herein did God manifest His love, even in giving His Son, that we might live through Him. With His Son He freely gives us all things. Our love to our brethren must follow this order : first, as far as in us lies, we must labour that they may gain MAJIMON OF UNKIGHTEOUSNESS. 6b 6 Chiist ; secondly, that they may attain to the king- dom, and, until they attain to it, have in this world then- daily bread. To love the brethren, is to labour that they all may attain, and speedily, " to the everlasting habita- tions." No sacrifice is too great, no offering is too costly, to effect such an object as this. Who will not, with all his heart, strive to remove out of the way all the difficulties which hinder the escape from captivity of all the children of God ? The last form of brotherly love ^^11 be the Elias form. It ^dll break down sectarian distinctions, and build a catholic altar of twelve stones for the whole spiritual seed ; it will reconcile those long separated ; it will turn the hearts of fathers to childi*en, re-establishing the order of nature, of reason, of God; it will rebuke luke- warmness in all, and make all one in the hearty service and worship of God ; it will take stumbling- blocks out of the way of all, commending God's ways to every conscience of man; it will heal Babylon, if she can be healed; it will leave every man who refuseth to embrace the fullness of Christ's gospel, without excuse. When God works, indeed, to prepare His Church for the second appearing of her Lord, He will cause to appear in the Church where He works every good thing which every division of the separated, broken, baptized com- munity professes to be standing for, to be living or dying for; and in that way will give an " open door" to every honest man in every sect under heaven. The recovery and combination of every truth in dis- persion, and the adding thereto of what remains, shall be the very resetting of Christ's jewels, the 364 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. repairing of His picture, the perfecting of His testi- mony, for the glory of God and the Hght of the world. AVliy do we believe it is the Spirit of truth who is amongst us — the Holy Ghost, and not a deceiver ? Because He maketh us care for the glory of the Head of the Church and for the salvation of His body. Because he led us first unto the Head of the Church in heaven, for " the things that are above, where He sitteth on the right hand of God;" and afterwards unto the earthly habitation of the Son of God, where He hath been in spirit from the begin- nmg. His body the Church, unto which He said, "Lo, I am with you always, unto the end of the world;" to find in His earthly dwelling-place the marks of His presence, His holy foot-prints. Wher- ever He has been, wherever He is, wherever He will be, that Spirit indicateth, and leadeth men unto. He speaketh what He hath heard. He foUoweth the Lamb whithersoever He goeth; and those in whom He dwells He leadeth to do likewise. y Brethren, this house which you have builded for the worship of God, and for the ministry of God's lively word and holy sacraments unto His children, is an oflTermg of love to the universal Church of God. You have not sought to express by it the shibboleth of any sect : you have laboured not to outrage, or oflend, or leave unsatisfied, any taste, or feeling, or instinct, in Christian worshippers of God : you have endeavoured to respect and appropriate, in outward form, whatso- ever the almost common consent of mankind, in these later ages of the world, has regarded as most ac- cordant with the propriety, and dignity, and beauty MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 365 of God's service. If it be God's will, may you com- plete what you have begun; and in giving to this city an ornament to itself, give infinitely more, an ex- ample of holy, hearty zeal for God — an evidence be- fore its inhabitants of what even a few people, mostly in worldly circumstances comparatively moderate, can accomjDlish, " where there is first a willing mind " — a suggestion to them of what monuments for the glory of God, what works for the blessing of men, the inhabitants of such a city as this could raise up and accomplish, if every man honestly paid to God his tithes, and liberally made offerings, according to God's blessing, upon his labours and his substance. A stimulus unto them, to make haste every one to recover the first love, and do the first works of the Christian Church. This is a time when the utilita- rian spirit grudges expenditure, except for purely selfish and narrow objects. There is a worse spirit abroad than even that — the spirit that will " untie the winds, and bid them fight against the Churches" — the spirit of all tlie disciples who murmured at the waste — the spirit of the traitor who coveted for him- self. You have rebuked both the utilitarian, who would build a house for man, without first building a temple for God; and the traitor, who would rob God to hoard up for liimself, or riot in his sacri- legious spoil. You have not offered to God what cost you nothing. May He accept and bless the offering of your zeal, forgiving whatever in any way, in motive, design, or execution, His eye may see to be lacking of that which the wise in Christ should attain unto ; for we are members of Him who is per- fect, and who woidd in His Church make all perfec- 366 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. tion to appear, if we knew liow perfectly to trust in Him. One sign of hope, encouraging you to expect God's blessing upon your laboiu', is, that it has already excited the attention of many, whom the word of preaching could not easily have reached, and hsLS Jbf'ced, as it were, upon their consideration, im- portant truths, which the Church has been always too willing to forget. Many has it di'awn to mtness the worship of God, unto the refreshing of their spirit and the edification of their mind. Many, through means of it, have been brought together, to hear the voice of the evangelist and the teacher; and, whether they have heard unto gainsaying or unto believing, God has been glorified by His Gospel being sounded in their ears : for the ministry of the truth, in the spirit of it, is unto God a sweet savour of Christ, " in them that are saved and in them that perish." Many who, years ago, in this land, were awakened to think of the calling of the Christian Church, and its manifold endowments of holiness and power, but afterwards allowed themselves to be persuaded that the testimony, and the people who have it, had passed away, or were dying out from the world, have learned through your work that acti- vity, and energy, and growth, were livmg and vigo- rous, where they supposed silence and death to be reigning. To all this city a witness has been borne. Where the promise of holy Scripture has been read for a witness, and the tongue of the preacher hath spoken, and the voice of the Holy Ghost Himself hath sounded forth, there the very stones and wood have been made to preach God's truth. To remind MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 367 men of tlieir calling, and to summon the Church to her work, a building has arisen, which proclaims to all that the work of the Church is to worship God, and to worship Him, not only with the highest powers which He Himself sends down from heaven, but with the comeliest and costliest materials of this world which the worshippers can obtain, that earth should combine with heaven in honouring and prais- ing the Lord of both, the uniter of the visible and invisible, the infinite God and the finite creature. To those who love the brethren a double bless- ing is announced in the Epistle for the day : first, " If we love one another, God dwelleth in us." The mighty intellect of man hath ever striven to see God, to pierce through His works, and find Him within them or behind them. It has striven, by the tele- scope and microscope, and every instrument that enlarged, and strengthened, and steadied its vision, to reach with its ken the dwelling-place of God. It has ransacked creation for the seat of life, for the centre of activity and power, and for Him who is enthroned upon that seat and hidden within that centre. It has torn open holy Scripture, to see God in His revelation; it has excavated His wondrous sacraments, to discover Him at His work and learn the whole secret of His operations. But it has always failed. " No man hath seen God at any time." Those who love the brethren build Him a house, and in the house which they build He dwells. He does not give us to see Him at a distance with our far-travelling sight, but He comes nearer to us than sight could bring Him : He dwells within us ; He shows Himself to our heart, not to our eye ; He 368 MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. stands not witliout, for our eyes to gaze upon Him, but He makes our innermost soul His presence- cliamber. To know God, to see God, to have com- munion with Him, as a house with its occupant, the unsolved problem of philosophy, is the privilege and consciousness of those who love the brethren. For love builds up, and God fills what is builded. The second blessing awarded to the love of the brethren is this, that it alone shall give " boldness in the day of judgment." In the day of the deliver- ance of the righteous, who shall be bold but those who have longed for their deliverance, who have laboured for it, who have joyfully made all sacrifices to bring it to pass ? The persecutor of the saints shall not be bold in that day, when their justifier and avenger shows Himself m the power and glory of God. The false brethren, the lukewarm, shall not have boldness then. " Fearfulness shall then seize all hypocrites." They of whom it is true, " as He is, so are we in this world,'' they shall long for His appearing, and be without fear before Him. If we doubt His love or lack love to Him, and to those for whose sakes He cometh, " bearing salva- tion," we cannot help fearing. However true our theory, our heart must misgive. Perfect Love is coming, and perfected love must go forth to meet Him. " Those who are as He is now in the world," iden- tified with Him, no more prosperous nor less so than He, having their springs where He hath His, in His Father above, and in His Church, which His Father hath given Him fi'om and upon the earth He shall identify Himself with them m the day of His appearing; and the more they are entirely on MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 369 His side now, the more shall the earnest of what He Tvill be unto them then fill their hearts, even now. ^ They whom the greetins; of the saved ones awaits " in the everlasting habitations," shall have accorded to their spirit many foretastes of that greeting. They who have gathered many of the guests for the end- less part of holy joy, shall be made to long for the meeting with the Giver of the feast, and His blessed company, who shall sit down with Him. They shall have the assurance that treasures are laid up for them. What they lent to the Lord will then be repaid. The bread cast upon the waters shall then be found. The sowing in the morning, and the hand not withheld in the evening, shall on that day be the glorious harvest. The money put out to usury shall then be received with increase. The " mammon of un- righteousness" expended in behalf of God's Church shall on that day, when the wealth, and the glory, and greatness of this world, shall suddenly and for ever be overtaken by the long-threatened, and at last irremediable ruin, be proved to be the only wise outlay, the only safe investment. Amen. ^ B B SERMON XXVII. SELFISHNESS. Give, and it shall he given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom : for with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall he measured to you again. — -"Luke, vi. 38. To hoard for self-glorification, or to squander in self- indulgence, has been the character of man since the day that the parents of the human race first set the example of both sins at once, by grasping at all for themselves, and losing all in one moment of self- gratification. Selfishness is the leading mark of the last and worst days in the history of the Christian Church. The selfishness of the last days will be connected with high profession of religion. In the enumeration of the prominent evil features of those days by St. Paul, in the second Epistle to Timothy, and third chapter, the first mentioned is, " Men shall be lovers of their own selves;" the last, " having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" So in this particular, as in many others, the last stage in the Christian dispensation shall be parallel with the last condition of the Jewish Church at the Lord's SELFISHNESS. 371 first advent, wherein tlie religious leaders were the covetous and self-indulgent Pharisees, who derided Christ upon the earth for His teaching concerning devotedness to God's service, and whose condition after death was set forth by Him in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. This bad mark will have been wrought into men by abuses in the visible Church, which shall have taken out of their hearts confidence in the ordinances for teaching and guidance, and have thrown every man back upon his own resources, to care for his own interests, which the authorities in the Church had neglected. St. Paul connects the evil marks recorded in the third chapter with curious, heretical, controversial teaching, described in the immediate context. Divine institutions, not filled with Divine grace, and administered in the fear of the Lord, pre- pare the way for the heretical teachers, who gather to themselves ; and the result of their labours amongst men is disunion, disintegration, individual isolation, and self-assertion. Society, deceived, disappointed, betrayed (first, by God's appointed means, which have " turned in His hands as the deceitful bow," and refused to bless in His name; secondly, by devices of their own, which men resorted to on the failure of the provisions in God's Church), resolves itself into its first elements, and becomes no longer a corporation preserved by mutual confidence and reciprocal helpfulness, but an aggregate of units, where each individual stands alone in a multitude, and does the best he can for himself, his own centre, his own end, his own guardian and guide. Such an epoch of revulsion was the sixteenth cen- 372 SELFISHNESS. tury, when after the revival of learning, by the dis- persion through AVestern Christendom of Greek literature, on the fall of Constantinople before the Moslem power, the knowledge of holy Scripture and of the monuments of ancient learning, heathen and Christian, was increased ; and by the art of print- ing, not long before discovered, facilities were infi- nitely afforded for the propagation of knowledge. The great betrayal of the interests of the human race, the deep departure from the pure religion of Christ, wherewith popes, and bishops, and priests, and all religious orders, were generally chargeable, shone with midday clearness upon the minds of those who then read the holy Scriptures, and compared with the record the state of thmgs which existed around them; and comparisons, injurious to Christianity itself, were made by those who looked at the existing religion of their day side by side with the wisdom and moral greatness that survived in the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers. Confidence in sacraments and hierarchies was greatly under- mined at the period of the Reformation, because of the abuses and sins bound up with them, and the right of private judgment was established almost upon the ruin of ecclesiastical authority. Instead of old abuses, which crushed the individual into nothing- ness, came in a new system, which enthroned him in the highest place. Before he waited, and often waited in vain, for the interpretation of God's mind, from those who were appointed of God to bring it unto him ; now he began to seek the meaning of the oracles for himself by })rivate interpretation, with a Bible in his hands and an honest intention (of which SELFISHNESS. 378 he judged himself) in his heart, and a hope of God's blessing on his work (which blessing was not withheld from those who strove truly to do the best they could), he considered himself perfect as to the means of his salvation, and little regarded the sanction or anathema of priests and bishops, popes and councils. Self-concentration gradually wrought hard-hearted- ness towards others. Men love and esteem the quarter whence help comes to them ; they kiss the hand which befriends them; and being long accus- tomed to look to themselves as the source (under God) from which their help should come, they began to thank themselves, to do homage to themselves, to pay tithes and offerings (in the Spirit) to them- selves, and ultimately, it will be seen, to icorship themselves : for this will be the last abomination seen upon the earth, Self- worship, the worship of the Beast, — a worse thing, and more hateful to God, than angel- worship, saint-worship, or relic-worship, being a worship which shall have carried men farthest from God, and brought them into the very high place of pride which the serpent's lying promise presented unto the parents of the race, " Ye shall be as gods." Men love their beneflictors ; and every man, led by wrong principles to regard himself as his chief benefactor, chiefly loves himself; and so the first bad mark of the last days becomes finally stamped upon human society. If a man can apply God's salvation to himself, by his own thoughts upon God's holy word, he is of all living men his own benefactor. If he be indebted to no priest under Christ for abso- lution— to no human hands under Christ for the gift of the Holy Ghost — to no inspired teacher in the 374 SELFISHNESS. Chiircli for the form of sound words — to no guard- ianship through ordained men from evil spirits — to no human instrumentality for the receiving of the new birth, and communion upon the flesh and blood of Christ, — if the substance of all these things he can procure for himself by faithful study of holy Scripture, and closet prayer over its sacred text, then he is, indeed, to himself apostle, prophet, evan- gelist, pastor and teacher, bishop, priest, and deacon ; and the homage and love due to all men standing before others in these several relations he can justly withdraw fi'om them, and fix upon himself: he can love not many with distributed, but himself with concentrated, all-absorbing love. In another way the selfish and grudging spirit of the last days may be accounted for. In consequence of resistance to God's ways, early begun, even in the days of those who were first commissioned to set them up and make them known in the world — through unwillingness to hold God's gifts, under God's control, for His holy purposes — men ceased to know God as a Giver, and, not knowing God as a Giver, found no heart, in themselves to give. When the Church knew God as a Giver, her own enlarge- ment for giving was iinbounded. Look at the record in the book of the Acts : men filled with the Holy Ghost counted not the things which they possessed their own. Their consciousness of God's blessing with which they were filled, and their sense of His overwhelming claims upon them, existed together, and went hand in hand. The experience of His gift excited to imitation of His munificence. We instinc- tively imitate the power that rules us. The king's SELFISHNESS. 375 court sets a fashion for his kingdom : we become like the god whom we worship. If we follow a false god, we contract the character which fancy has ascribed to him. If we truly worship the true God as He is revealed, approaching Him, indeed, in the way and by the helps which He has appointed, we do approxi- mate to His character, we become His image. If the God of revelation is misrepresented before us, our moral character suffers proportionately with the mis- representation. If we are beholding in the glass, which the Lord Himself holds up to us, the " glory of the Lord, then are we changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord." By the glory that comes from the Lord we are made like Him. There are many forms of the manifestation of the glory, each transforming us into the image of the Lord. Hold amongst you the glory — lose it not. They who know God only as an exactor, a judge, a cruel task -master, will be themselves austere, and cruel, and unforgiving. They who attribute to Him mercy alone, and rob Him of justice and holiness, Avill become themselves unholy and unjust, breakers down of the distinctions between right and wi'ong, pardoners of sin unconfessed, and bestowers of hap- piness upon reprobate men and impenitent fallen angels. According to our experience of God will be our imitation of Him. When we shall know Him again in His best gifts, we shall be known by all His creatures as givers ourselves. When the earth has received from the heavens which are over it, forthwith it begins to give. No sunbeam visits it in vain with its brightness and warmth; no shower in vain softens its clods, and 376 SELFISHNESS. soaks the seeds and roots beneath them; no genial breeze blows over it without bringing a blessing on its wing: the result is soon seen in verdure, and bloom, and teeming abundance; and earth, caressed and refreshed by heaven, becomes a table spread, a banquet furnished for the use of man, and all the creatures whom God has put under him. Yes, the way to recover a liberality and bountifulness which eartli's lavish, productive fertility, under the action of the sun, and rain, and wind of heaven illustrates, is to return from our cold and frozen condition of unbelief, from our discontent with God and His ways, to faith in Him, and cordial reception of all His exceeding great and precious promises, left unto us, which " in Christ Jesus are Yea and Amen," and which await their fulfilment only until a people be found who will take them up, and plead their fulfil- ment with God, who is faithful, and keepeth cove- nant for ever, " with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Men ceasing to know God as a Giver, have ceased to know each other as the channels and conveyancers of His gifts. God has given all things unto Christ. Christ dispenses the full blessing of God to us through one another. The Church is His body, and every member of the Church is a joint and hand, by which Christ ministereth a supply to the whole body, and maketh the whole to increase with the increase of God. The use of the body of Christ is to aftbrd circulation and room for activity to the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God being rejected, the use of the body of Christ ceaseth, the idea of it departs from men's minds, and the spirit of the body is extin- SELFISHNESS. 377 guislied within every breast. No man devotes him- self for that which has become a shadow, a tradition, a practical nullity. He does not intelligently and heartily give to the body, because he has no consci- ousness of having received from it. That which makes itself felt by us in its action upon us, attracts and constrains our action towards it. Having re- ceived from it the best things, and in amplest abun- dance, we give in return the best we have, with all our might and with all our heart. Christ said, that in His Church, being as He would have it, those who should forsake all to become members of it should find father and mother, sister and brother, wife and house, everything by which their feeling of lonesomeness might be charmed out of them, and all the capacities of social enjoyment satisfied. The Church abiding in Him, and having His word abid- ing in her, would cause that these words of Christ should be experienced as true by all entering into her holy communion ; and those so entering, finding in the Church all those realities indicated by such names as have been enumerated, — names which stand for relations dove-tailed with all our stronoest instincts, most pressing wants, and purest desires, intertwined and interlaced with all the finest fibres of our being, would be correspondently aflPected, and would expend themselves joyfully in acts of devoted- ness, illustrated by the lilierality of a parent to his cliild, the labour of a son for his father, the friend- ship of a brother for his sister, the self-sacrifice of a man for his wife and fiimily. None but the base and sordid give grudgingly to fiither and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child : if all such 378 SELFISHNESS. relations are gushing fountains of enjoyment, which God's goodness has opened for us, they are also out- lets and issues hy which the love that delights in giving, which He has shut up within us, finds its vent and gratification. No man sets narrow limits to him- self in giving, when the ohj ects to receive are father, mother, sister, wife, and child; and finding in the Church that which meets his spirit, in real ways of enjoyment, illustrated hy all these names, he sets no narrow hounds to his liberality in behalf of that wherein he finds opened to him so many springs of happiness. Alas! the Church, through lack of the Spirit with which she was originally endowed, but which one generation after another hath striven to expel from the earth, has not met her members in characters correspondent with these many names of endearment, but has taught deeper lessons of selfishness and worldliness to them, and gathered from them fruits of lukewarmness and illiberality. The Church be- coming a worldly corporation, absorbing into itself the wealth of all who came under its influence, " a den of thieves," where ill-gotten plunder was accu- mulated by insatiable rapacity, or wasted with scan- dalous dissoluteness, those gathered to her commu- nion and penetrated with her Spirit would, as a matter of course, become the most eminent examples of self-seeking and self-indulgence. But the Church should be a giver, for she has something to give, being the body of Him who givetli all things to those who receive Him. It was said of old, " the Lord added daily to the Church such as should be saved." Those whom God would save He SELFISHNESS. 379 attracted to the Church, that the " body " might lead them to the " Head." Their first contact with the Church should be unto them as the " touching of the hem of His garment," whereby " virtue from Him" might come into them. There the blood of Christ should be applied to them, for the cleansing of their conscience from guilt and fear; there the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus should be administered unto them, to make them free from the law of sin and death; there the continual teaching of truth should deliver them from all error, and warn them against all sin ; there they should be baptized unto regene- ration, and sealed by the laying on of Christ's hands unto the earnest of the kingdom, which the regene- rate shall inherit ; there the ministrations of the Lord should be exercised in their behalf, the gifts of the Spirit should become their portion, they themselves should be the subjects of the operations of God; there, finding themselves blessed, they would learn to bless ; finding their hands filled, they would open them wide for the filling of others; finding them- selves in the heavenly places with Christ, ascended with Him in Spirit to the highest heavens, seated with Him at God's right hand, they would imitate the action which He proceeded with after His ascen- sion and cession at the right hand of the Divine Majesty, — " they would give gifts unto men." The Church, recovering the Spirit of Him who giveth heaven and earth, God and the universe, unto His followers, shall abound in acts of munificence and love, shall dispense with joy the heavenly and earthly treasures, shall be not only " a house of prayer for all nations," but a house of feasting, 380 SELFISHNESS. wliitlier they may come to feed at the table furnished by the l)ouiity of the Lord. Brethren, God has heard your prayer, He has given to you again the joy of His Spirit and the ordinances of His kingdom. Let the fi'uit of His gifts be seen in you, that many may give Him glory. Let the inhabitants of this city see in you a people daily worshipping God; and when they come into the midst of you, let them see that it is God indeed whom you worship. Give them that gift better than rubies, the sight of spiritual worship again revived in His Church, again pre- sented every day. Let them see the daily sacrifice restored without the superstitions which tarnished its glory ; let them come amongst you and hear from you no stinted Gospel, but the full report of all the love of Christ, of what He has done /or us, when He reconciled us at His first coming unto God by His death — what He doeth in us now, in this dispensation of the Spirit, when He maketh us kings and priests unto God, working in us righteousness, and anointing us with the oil of gladness — what He will do with us in the age to come, when we shall reign upon the earth, when we shall possess all things, being heirs of God Himself. Give them that priceless gift of the unmutilated Gospel of Jesus Christ the Lord, which shall em])race the past, the present, and the future ; which shall interpret His three names, and proclaim all that we gain possession of through l)aptism into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Give them to see brethren dwelling together in unity. Show them the government of God, rule and liberty combined, faithful service and SELFISHNESS. 381 perfect freedom. Let tliem behold in exercise tlie love of the brethren ; a love for the departed brethren, which prays continually that they may speedily re- ceive their glorified bodies; love for those on the earth, stirring you up to cry that they may be pre- pared for translation unto the Lord at His appearing ; love which is not " in word and in tongue" (in theory and in profession), "but in deed and in truth;" love which shall give us " confidence with God:" for He allows those who love their brethren indeed to be very bold with Him — He gives such the assurance that He will answer their prayers, for it is good for the body that they should receive ; and the two con- ditions which God has annexed to the bestowment of His Holy Spirit are, obedience to His Son, and love to His brethren. In this day of unbelief let men find here faith in operation. When men all around are filled with fear and trouble, because of evils coming upon all the earth, let them find here the flourishing of that hope which lifteth up the head ; let their souls be re- freshed by witnessing a charity which giveth the " breast and the shoulder" to God's ministers, and y hath bowels of compassion for all His aflilicted. ^ ones. Brethren, you have striven to pay your debt to this great city and this mighty kingdom : strive on still, and be not weary ; only magnify the Lord before your brethren, and exalt not yourselves ; let them see that even the house of God itself hath no glory in comparison of the glory of Him who dwelleth in it. Let not the Church admire her own beauty, even the beauty which the Lord Himself 382 SELFISHNESS. putteth upon her ; but let her sanctify in her heart the Lord God Himself, and claim for Him the wor- ship and homage of all. But see how the Lord would have men to give " good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over." He pours the " good measure" into His Church by the hands of His Apostles : He causes it to penetrate them fully, and to overflow from them, through the action upon them of all His ministries. He gives *' His good gift," and makes it " a perfect giving ;" and all His dealings with His people are for this end, — to make them entirely yield to, and be fully possessed by, His precious gift. Hath He laid His hand upon you in " pressing and in shaking," it is that He may empty you more and more, and make room for every chamber of your being to be filled with His blessing, — that every part of the vessel may be filled, and that, according to His promise, "rivers of living water" may flow forth from you. So is the Church to give, taking care and pains that all that she has been entrusted with may be given the full good measure, and that those for whom she has received it may be made capable of containing as much as possible ; that they may not taste, but drink deep ; that they may not have within them some good, which great occasions and strong ex- citement may call forth, like water pumped up with difficulty from a half-exhausted well, but may have their hearts bubbling up with the good matter, and their tongues as the pen of the ready writer ; that they may be unable to restrain themselves from good works, as the l^rimming vessel cannot hinder its con- tents from streaming over. Paul expressed it, " al- SELFISHNESS. 383 ways abounding in the work of the Lord." Knowing the work which He hath in hand in your day, the work which the Lord is engaged in Himself, and in which He woukl have you as a fellow-worker, be filled for that — overflow for that — and your labour shall not be in vain ; every other toil is " vexation," and its harvest, " vanity." " Your labour shall not be in vain :" for He said, " Give, and it shall be given unto you." Those who give shall receive, and receive with increase ; this is God's order. He Himself expects to receive His own with usury. He sowed His pentecostal gifts in His Church, He expects a return answerable to the sowing. The difference between giving and receiving is the difference between seed-time and harvest. A little is sowed, much is gathered ; you give handsful of seed, you reap fields of increase. There is no proportion between what is lost in the giving, and what is won back in the return. You see this everywhere. Lito the field which God has blessed the agriculturist casts a little grain, which is by and bye restored to him a hundred-fold. A man gives a few years to learn his trade, to gain his pro- fession, to perform his studies, to qualify himself for public service. The few years' toil of the youth, with God's blessing upon him, are followed by the successful enterprises and ample gains of manhood — the competence, and security, and honour of a long- spent life. A little labour wisely bestowed first, then follow the great, and abiding, and satisfying results. But if this be true in the things of the present life, hoAV much more is it true in the things of the life to come ! He who spake the words, 384 SELFISHNESS. " Give, and it shall be given to you," hath in the highest sense proved, and shall prove, the truth of His own words. He gave a few years to humili- ation, shame, and sorrow; He shall receive through eternity glory from God, and praise from the uni- verse. " He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." Every one who hath " sown with Him in tears" for a little while, shall "reap with Him in joy" for ever and ever. Even in this world, until the time of her martyrdom and removal from it come, the Church which " gives freely what she has freely received," which gives what it is proper for the Church of Christ to impart, finds the truth of this word, — " Give, and it shall be given unto you." Men are now taking away their wealth from the national churches. Before the time of the end Babylon will be spoiled of all her treasures ; the Church become carnal, and a city of confusion, can- not give to mankind what they have a right to ex- pect at her hands, and, not giving, cannot receive. Not having given the spiritual things, she does not receive the carnal things. Not having come to the world with Melchizedek's blessings, she receives not the tithes which would have been laid at Melchi- zedek's feet. In the days when the Church retained, in large measure, the Spirit of God, and the love and power of Christ, see how men and kingdoms heaped their offerings upon her. Men were stiiTed by her power, and by the grace that proceeded from her, before their innate selfishness was relaxed, and their liberality was so greatly exercised. They were constrained to bring the earth as an offering to those SELFISHNESS. 385 who had brought down heaven unto them. Had the Church preserved her fidelity to Christ, not only would she have dispensed from God the gifts of His grace, but she would have been the controller of the world's wealth. As God's steward and man's trustee, her hands would have been filled with means for building churches for God's service, for maintain- ing priests to minister in them, for supporting widows and orphans, and all childi-en of affliction who should seek to them for succour. The promise made to every individual wovild be found verified in the ex- perience of the Church collective, — " Seek the king- dom of God and His righteousness, and all things needful shall be added unto you." And so, in measure, has it been. The sins and scandals which have defiled the Church have been recorded in the page of history ; the good deeds have been hidden, for the most part. But monuments remain in every land, whose testimony is too loud to be silenced, of the mighty grace which issued from the Church of God, notwithstanding all its failures, and the mighty enlargement and liberality amongst men which it produced. Oh that the Church would now give what it is proper for her, as the body of Christ, to give ! Then would men give unto the Church what it belongs to them to supply. The chief steward of God becoming faithfid, the inferior ones would follow the example of the highest. If the Church have the heart to give, she shall receive from God and man the means whereby to gratify her heart's desire. When the spirit of hoarding or of wasting gets possession of the Church, then, by the will of God, the giving is c c 386 SELFISHNESS. restrained from above and from below. Upper and lower springs are dried up. In the end of the dis- pensation, the corrupt Church — Babylon the great, the harlot that sitteth upon many waters — shall re- ceive from men according as she hath given: they shall hate her, for she did not teach them to love; she did not faithfully represent to them the God of love, and fill their hearts with the good news con- cerning His love, which He charged her to dehver : they shall hate her who loved cursing, who poisoned all the springs of life — domestic, social, and political. The hater of mankind shall be hated. They shall make her desolate, — she made men desolate : she robbed them of God, whose indwelling alone re- moves from the human breast the sense of loneli- ness and bereavement. Men are as homeless, house- less orphans, however rich their portion in this life may be, until Christ's promise be fulfilled unto them, which He addressed unto such a condition, — " I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you." Baby- lon shall have prepared men for the lie of Antichrist, who will deny that Christ has come unto us — that He dwelt m our flesh, and will dwell in it for ever. She maketli men desolate, keeping them back from the love of the Father, from the grace of the Son, from the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. She sepa- rateth men from one another, having first separated them from God. She shall be made desolate — the desolator who robbed man of the high and soul- filling society into which the Lord had raised him. She shall be left alone, as the stranded ship from which the waters have receded — as the forsaken one, in whom none have confidence, with whom none will SELFISHNESS. 387 commune — the cast-ofF, abandoned harlot, all whose attractions and witcheries are remembered no more. Her attire and ornaments shall be taken away : they will make her naked, she who stripped men of their garments of glory and of beauty, who stole from them the covering of God's Spirit, who hated apostles and stoned prophets, — apostles who had to invest men with the rank and power of kings and priests unto God ; prophets who had to call them to their dignity, and testify unto them of the surpassing glory, of which their present investiture was l)ut an earnest. She who made men naked to their shame in the midst of their enemies — who prepared them to be seen by the true Moses on His return from the mount, where He hath been communing with God ; not re- joicing as conquerors, nor sorrowing with godly sorrow because of defeat, but as drunken revellers around their golden calf, dancing before the image of Jealousy with fanatical exultation. She stripped men of the beautiful garments which Christ bestowed upon them, therefore shall she be stripped. They shall make her desolate and naked; they shall eat her flesh ; they shall meet her, not as men, but as beasts. She who made all flesh her prey, shall be preyed upon — her substance shall be torn from her: the devourer of flesh shall have her flesh devoured — her flesh shall be torn from her, and what remains shall be burned w^ith fire. She burned men with fire ; she invented monstrous figments ; and those who hearkened to the reason and senses of the creature, and to the revelation and spirit of the Creator pro- testing against them, she burned with fire. She let in a worse fire than that in which martyrs were con- 388 SELFISHNESS. Slimed upon the nations of the baptized — stolen fire, derived from him, the first infidel, who destroyed faith in God, in the first visible Eden and in the last. She who cast the bodies of the righteous into mate- rial flames, and let in the fire of infidelity on those whom her idolatries had prepared for it, as dried herbs for the oven, — she who dealt with fire, shall suffer from fire. Brethren, all this shall men do for the Church which hath balked them and bereaved them, which hath misrepresented God before them, which hath stood between them and Christ; not as a window through which they might see Him, as a pipe through which they might receive Him, but as a dead wall obstructing their sight of Him, their access to Him, as a barrier too high for them to overleap, too strong to break through. Thus shall they fill the cup double to her who presented unto them the Saviour's "golden cup," not filled with His salvation and the earnest of His kingdom, but with her own " abomi- nations and the filthiness of her fornication." The priest's daughter who hath become a harlot shall be burned with fire ; the mother and the daughter, whom one man hath incestuously polluted, shall be given to- the flames ; and he shall not escape any more than they, for God's law must be fulfilled in every jot and tittle thereof. For a short time, until the day come when the " beast out of the bottomless pit " shall be permitted to slay the witnesses, the Church, recoveiing the grace of Christ and fi^eely dispensing it, shall find favour with God and man. The Church, dispensing the Spirit, shall be bold to preach the doctrine of SELFISHNESS. 389 tithes, for tithes belong to Melchizedek, the High Priest who gives the blessing ; and the blesshig which He gives is the Holy Ghost. The Church losing the faith that she imparts, the Holy Spirit, will let the name of tithes depart from her lij^s — will allow of any commutation that may secure to her a morsel of bread — wll become a mere human establishment, and will accept hire from men. And as the fashion of the world has been always to defraud the hirelings, so shall her hire be withheld, — first chvirlishly given, then grudged against, and taken away. Brethren, I believe the Lord has chosen you, not for your own merits, but of His grace and wisdom, that He may prove m your case, and by youi' ex- perience, how true the words are which have been pressed upon your consideration this day. He would give by you, — yea, He hath given by you, and seeketh to give more and more. You heard His voice in those days of extremest peril to His Church, when, if ever, the scattered flock needed to hear it. You had your hands full, some of you, — your hands very full, with the things which this world accounts the best. Trusting in the love of Him who called you, you were willing to be disengaged from the things which filled you, and to lift up emptied hands to be replenished with higher gifts. You were made willing to be called off from your farms, and your oxen, and your family hopes and enjoyments, to witness a work of deliverance which your Lord w^as taking in hand for His people, to partake of the feast proper to Him to give, which He was minded that His Church should again, after long privation and fiimine, be satisfied withal. You were called to know the earnest of 390 SELFISHNESS. God's kingdom, tlie foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb, and to be witnesses unto others of the same, and means in the Lord's hand whereby others might with you be joint-partakers. God needed to begin somewhere in recovering His Church unto truth, and righteousness, and hope of His kingdom. It pleased Him to begin with you. Well, you have seen the outgoings of His grace, and I appeal to your experience, have you not wonderfully seen the re- turnings and inflowings of the love and thankfulness of men ? You have seen tithes and offerings joy- fully laid at the feet of the Lord ; you have seen contributions liberally supplied to build houses for His worship and to furnish holy vessels for His altars ; you have seen how the truth of God can expand and enlarge the soul of man, how the Spirit of Christ can open all the heart-springs and unlock all its treasures. If you be faithful you shaU see greater things than you have witnessed. " Give " yet, and " it shall be given unto you." Let the Lord use you to bless men — you shall see how men can thank God. Let the feast be spread, — many will despise, but not aU : some will glorify God for His goodness and for His wondrous works to the children of men. If you will bring down from Christ's hands God's blessings upon men, they will cast, in your sight, their treasures at Christ's feet. God knows those who have believed His promises, and He will cause men to know them too. " Good measure shall they give into your bosoms." From your bosoms went forth good prayers for them when they knew it not. You waited on God, day by day, for His blessing upon His people, and He will cause His people to SELFISHNESS. 391 acknowledge those at whose instance and entreaty He blessed them. Happy are the people who live in a land where they can give of the best things and for the best objects. There are places where men are not allowed themselves to receive the best that God can give, nor to impart to others the gifts most worthy of being bestowed. The Lord has begun to work in this land, be- cause, happily for us, the circumstances of our country were most favourable for His workmg. No man in this land is hindered from receiving all that God can give : he can read and meditate every promise which God has left on record for him, and can openly wait upon God for its fulfilment. He can yield him- self to God for any service in which He may be pleased to employ him, without obstruction. He can be a channel for God, through which all truth and grace may be communicated to others. Because He could give here, and because men here are at liberty to be givers (givers of themselves as vessels to God to be filled, givers of themselves to men that they may be replenished out of their fullness), there- fore has He been able to work in the midst of us. Apostles can give the Spirit of Christ in this land, and receive back the full and perfected worship of the Church, to present it as a thank-offering unto God. Prophets can give, if it be revealed to them, the interpretation of all scripture, and see the word growing daily in undisturbed and peaceful congrega- tions of the faithful. Evangelists can lift up their voices as trumpets, even in the streets of our cities, and in the villages and fields of our country, sound- ing forth all the Gospel of the kmgdom of God. 392 SELFISHNESS. Pastors and Teachers can lead the people into all details of truth and righteousness; and Priests and Angels can engage them in spiritual worship every day, and every hour of the day. Earthly treasures can he freely devoted by every one who possesses them, to every object which God and man approves of, without oppressive surveillance or neutralising interference on the part of any power, public or private. Men are as free as the air of heaven for every work which in the light of heaven is worthy to be done. All that Christ bestows from the throne of God, all that His willing people can reap from the teeming earth, may be freely and wholly employed for God. Happy are the people who are in such a case ! How high are their privileges, how great their responsibilities, how many and onerous their duties ! May the people of this land not refuse their honour, nor neglect their mission! May all the nations of the earth, looking unto the favoured land, be constrained to say. It is well for us all that the chief blessing has found such a resting-place; the seed was sown in the most fruitful field, whence God who sowed it, and man for whom it was sowed, could most easily get access to the reaping, and most abundantly gather in the harvest. We have all reason to rejoice, because the land to which God has given most has received also from God the largest heart to give. Oh that the spirit of Nabal the churl be not found in our country, but the royal heart of King David, " who prepared with all his might for the house of his God," and called upon all others to fill their hands for the service of the Lord ! Peradveutui'c God has begun to give in this land, SELFISHNESS. 393 because He saw the spirit of the giver in some measui'e amongst this people. Certainly here has been zeal, whether perfectly according to knowledge or not. When, in the latter end of the eighteenth century, infidelity threatened a universal deluge of the nations, here in this land was originated the design, upon which thousands and millions have been expended, of filling all human society with the Scriptures of truth, that assailed revelation might speak for itself, and blasphemy against the foundations of the Christian religion be left without excuse. The spirit which has striven to diffuse the holy Scriptures has also raised up in our day ten thousand benevolent instrumentalities (whether wisely and rightly ordered is another question), supported at vast expense, fur- nished by free-will offerings. This land has en- deavoured to break the fetters of the slave, and has made great sacrifices to do so. It has shared its high advantages with the other nations of the earth, to an extent more liberal than wise in the judgment of many who think deeply, and are competent to give opinions on such subjects. Is it fanatical to say that God has begun to give in our days, not only in the land where precedent prayer for His gifts had been offered, but also that He might reward those in whom He found the liberal heart, that He might empower them to give more than ever they had thought of, and exercise their liberality in a higher sphere, and in a manner more accordant with His perfect way than they had known before ? When He had afforded especial facilities for giving and receiving, when He had given the heart of the giver and the full hand wherewith to give, then He chose His centre of 394 SELFISHNESS. operation ; and within that centre, as a centre to it, He has vouchsafed to set those who first heard His voice and hailed His advent. May they rejoice with trembling, because of the honour put upon them; work while it is day, before the night cometh; and receive into their bosom, from God and man, rewards of labour a hundred-fold. Amen. SERMON XXVIII. THE KINGDOM TO COME. FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT. The season of Advent calls upon the Church to medi- tate upon the coming of the Lord, and to consider whether she be prepared for His coming. Who shall be prepared for His coming? who shall abide that awful day ? Those who have received His ministers, who have allowed them to do for them what Christ commissioned them to do — who have received from Apostles what apostles had to give — who have heard from Prophets all that prophets had to say — who have rejoiced m the fullest Gospel that Evangelists could proclaim — who have accepted all the com- fort and allowed all the instructions that Pastors and Teachers were enabled to bring, — those who were willing to prove what Christ could do in them by Apostles, and Prophets, and Evangelists, and Pastors, and Teachers, to receive all the grace sig- nified and conveyed by the sacraments of the Church, and to use the same in all the lawful ways pre- scribed by the word of God. Who shall be ready for the Lord when He comes? Those who have allowed Him to do with them all that He had 396 THE KINGDOM TO COME. to do before His coming. Christ did not finish all He had to do for His Church when He died upon the cross. He rose from the dead to continue His work in our behalf. He ascended to the right hand of God that He might labour for us still. From the right hand of God He sent down the Holy Ghost, the almighty power of God, to work on the earth for our salvation, to perfect us for the kingdom of heaven. And those shall be ready for Christ the King who shall have submitted to Christ as the preparer for the kingdom ; those who know Him in what He is doing before the manifestation of the kingdom, shall be with Him when the kingdom is manifested. Those whom He now teaches He shall then employ. Those whom He now qualifies He shall then use. Those whom He now disciplines in the ways of rule and obedience He will then set to rule and to obey — to rule over all under God, to lead up all in obedience unto God. Those who are not taught how to rule now will not be able to rule then ; those who are not taught to obey now will not be able to set the pattern of obedience then to the whole creation of God. Christ's work upon the cross was a preparation for His work at the right hand of God. His work at and from the right hand of God is the preparation for His work in the kino-dom to come. None can get at His work from the right hand of God but through the knowledge of His work upon the cross ; none can attain to the beholding and re- joicing in His work in the kingdom but through experiencing His work fi-om the right hand of God. His first lesson He teaches at the cross, and if you THE KINGDOM TO COME. 397 will not learn that you cannot go on to the second, which He teaches from His Father's throne ; and this second lesson prepares for the third, which He will give in the kingdom of glory : in a word, the Church learns His name, first as the Lamb that was slain ; secondly, as the Baptizer with the Holy Ghost ; thirdly, as the King of saints, the King of kings, in the kingdom of God. No one of these names can be passed by to get at another, no one of them is alone to be tarried in. The three must 1)e received, each in their order. You must receive cleanness and confi- dence at the cross, that you may look up to heaven without fear, and see there with the first martyr Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and be by Him endowed with poAver fi-om on high. You must be endowed with power from on high, that an abundant entrance into the kingdom may be ministered unto you, that you may show forth the earnest of it first, and afterwards enjoy the fullness of it for evermore. I warn you, brethren, that if you turn a deaf ear to these things, the coming of the Lord will take you by surprise. His second coming will take the Christian Church by surprise — she will not be ready to go on with Him in the step He will there have to take, not having gone on with Him in the previous steps. Christ's acts are not isolated acts, they are all integral parts of a mighty whole. His way is made up of many stages, one leading to another, and all to the end ; the first and last cannot be travelled over, all the intermediate ones being omitted. In Christ's school, as in every other, yesterday's lesson prepares for to-day's ; to-day's 398 THE KINGDOM TO COME. for the lesson of to-morrow. He never will be a perfect scholar who passes by the rudiments, or who tarries in them ; the untaught boy grows up into the ignorant youth, and the ignorant youth settles down into the helpless man. Those who will reap must first sow — those who will be kings must be first taught kingcraft — those who will be priests must be first taught how to worship. The first coming of the Lord took the Church of that day by surprise ; they were not prepared to receive Him, because what He gave them to pre- pare them for His coming they neglected to make use of, or used it improperly : they were not ready when He came, because the couriers sent before Him were not attended to. If a king proclaim by sound of trumpet that he is coming to such a town of his dominions, and all the inhabitants of that town have stopped their ears or have stupified themselves by an opiate, they cannot be ready for the king when he comes. The Lord sent the law before Him, and the prophets ; the Jews understood neither, therefore were not ready for Himself. They thought they were keeping the moral law, though they did not know the meaning of it or the extent to which it went. They did not understand the ceremonial law, for all its sacrifices typified Messiah's death ; and they were shocked at the idea of Messiah dying at all. Had they been striving to keep the moral law, they should have been lonoins; for Him to come who alone was to fulfil it in mortal flesh, and who was to enable others to follow His example ; they would have been mourning l)eeause of their violations of God's holy law, and waiting anxiously to see that Sacrifice whose THE KINGDOM TO COME. 399 blood should atone for tkem all. 'What Paul said of himself, whilst according to the straitest sect of his religion he lived a Pharisee, was true of them all, — they were without the law even when they had the law. God gave it to them, as it were, in vain. The twofold witness concerning Christ that was in it, as the doer of the will of God — who should magnify the law and make it honourable by obedience, and as the sufferer of the wi*ath of God — who should redeem men from the curse of the law, being made a curse for them, was borne to them in vain. They were par- tial in the law ; they explained it away ; they diluted its strength ; they blunted its edge ; they took away its meaning, its sting, and its power; they made it a rule which flesh could keep, instead of feeling it to be a law which God in flesh alone could fulfil ; they thought they were law-keepers when they were law- breakers; they never dreamed of the difficulty of the work they had to do ; they forgot where they were set ; and when John the Baptist came into the midst of them, and called them back to the religion of their fathers, to do works worthy of Jews to do, and to repent of their hypocrisy, they could not understand him : they said he had a devil, an accusing, fault-finding spirit, in him — that he was a harsh, censorious, misan- thropical character, a gloomy ascetic, a mere madman. And when Christ Himself appeared, fulfilling the righteousness of the law before their eyes, they could not justify Him, but rather said, " We know that He is a sinner." Yet God had taken all pains that they should make no mistake about the meaning of His holy law ; it was in its own terms plain enough : Thou shalt not do evil acts, neither slialt thou covet 400 THE KINGDOM TO COME. with thine heart the things which shall stir thee up to do them. Here was enough, without going further, to save any man from being a Pharisee : but that which was plain in itself was made plainer still by the interpretations continually given to them, direct from God. In all the Psalms and the writin2:s of the Prophets, the holy, the internal character, the spi- ritual meaning, and extent, and force of the law, are abundantly set forth. God laboured to make plain to them the law He gave them, that they might know what service was required of them, and might feel their inability to render it, and might cry out day and night for Him who should deliver them from the body of this death — that they might cry out for Mes- siah to come and save them. But, alas ! they were not crying day and night for Him to come, and when He came they knew Him not. They accounted Him a strange person, living in an unaccountable manner, affecting the society of those who were living in sin rather than those who were keeping the law. If He were indeed the Christ, why not live like the right- eous men amongst the Jews ? why not be a Pharisee ? And when He spoke of the need for Him to die, the best men amongst the Jews were utterly scandalised, and the leader of His apostles himself rebuked Him for uttering such an idea. They did not know the end of the law ; and when the law led them unto the termination of its career, to the object which it was commissioned to lead them unto, they started back as balked and disappointed men. They said, Is this what God promised us impossil)le ? This man must be a deceiver : we will have nothing to do with Him. THE KINGDOM TO COJME. 401 And as tliey did not learn the lesson which the Law was set to teach them, so they did not give heed to the prophets either : the burden of prophecy was " the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which should follow;" half of that burden they rejected altogether, and the other half they misinterpreted to their ruin. They looked for the glory of Messiah, not as a glory that should follow sufferings, but as a glory without suffering at all, except to the temporal enc mies of the Jewish nation. " He that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly. He that hath not, fi'om him shall be taken that which he seemeth to have." They did not hold and use what they had got, and therefore, when the time arrived for theii' getting more, they were not ready : they were not clean and empty vessels waiting to be filled. Now these things happened for our learning, that we, being warned of their fall, might not fall also. Have we done with our blessings what they did with theirs ? He gave not to us the law and prophecies wiitten in stone, contained in letter; but He gave unto us Christ Jesus, the embodiment of the law, the substance of the prophecies, — law fulfilled in our flesh, prophecy accomplished in our flesh; law and pro- phecy still, but law and prophecy incarnate dwelling with us. He made us one with Him, that law and prophecy might be fulfilled and accomplished in us : He gave unto us the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, that the righteousness of God might be wrought in us, and that the earnest of the kingdom laid up for the righteous might be en- joyed by us : He appointed apostles to convey to us D D 402 THE KINGDOM TO COME. the law of Christ, and prophets to declare in the Spii'it the glory which obedience to that law would lead us : He married us unto Him that is raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God : He did not limit our obedience by a written law which we should copy, but He joined us to Christ, that we might live by Him as He lived by God — that we might be for the proof of what He could do in sinful flesh — that God might show in us the exceeding greatness of His power to save — that He is mightier to draw us upward than the power of all the fallen creation to drag us downward. We were made the body of Christ, and enabled and ob- ligated to show forth to God's praise what service that body could render, what heavenly honours that body should receive. A man is bound to live the life which is proper to the blood that is in him ; a tree is bound to bear fruit correspondent with the nature of its juice: every tree bears its own fruit; every animal lives out its own life. The Church is bound to live out the life that is in Christ: if the worshipful spirit be in Christ, the Church is bound to be worshipful : if righteousness, and holiness, and power, are the characters of the life of Christ, then are they the characters by which the Church is to be known — ^the glory covered with the sackcloth cover- ing of her fallen flesh, but not destroyed by that covering. If Christ loves God, the Church is bound to love Him ; if Christ loves the brethren, the breth- ren are bound to love one another, not merely by imitating Him, but by living out His life : in a word, the Church was made partaker of the life and the anointing of Christ, that Christ's righteousness might THE KINGDOM TO COME. 403 be perpetuated in her, and that the glory belonging to Christ and to all who partake of Him might be shown forth by her. Oneness with Christ is the normal condition of the Church during the present dispensation : the result of that oneness is the parti- cipation of His Spirit, the Spmt of life, the Spu'it of glory, the Spirit who proveth His presence and operation by the righteousness and holiness of those in whom He dwelleth — who manifesteth His presence by the gifts which He bestoweth accordmg to His will, the powers of the world to come bestowed upon those who are the heirs of that world, endowing even now the heirs of the kingdom with the earnest of that kingdom for which they wait. This twofold work of the Spirit of Christ corre- sponds with the double witness for Him given to the Jewish Church — the law answering to the righteous- ness of Christ in His members, the prophecies to the kingdom already entered into in a mystery by the Church. As the Jewish Church was unfaithful in the letter and type, so have we been in the spirit and substance. We have not allowed the Spirit of Christ to work His whole work, as the Jew would not let the law teach its whole lesson; we would not allow the earnest of the kingdom to be manifested, as the Jew would not allow the prophe- cies of that kingdom to be rightly intei'preted. They were partial in the Law, we have been partial in the Gospel ; they held not fast what was given to them, we have let go what was given to us ; they were not prepared for the first coming of the Lord, except a 404 THE KINGDOM TO COME. little remnant whom God snatched from the judg- ment; we shall not be prepared for His second coming except we repent and return to our calling, which we have forsaken. As the knowledge of the law and the prophecies would have made the Jewish Church cry out for her Messiah, and would have enabled her to understand and appreciate Him when He came, so the experience of the work of the Spirit of Christ in His fullness (and nothing else) will make the Christian Church long for, and cry out for, the second coming of her Lord. It is impossible for us to long for His coming if we are not being made righteous by Him. How shall we desire that He should come unless we agree with Him, and are of one mind and heart with Him ? What shall quicken our hope of the kingdom but the sight of its earnest before our eyes ? Again : the possession of the Spirit of Christ makes us long for the coming of the Lord, because His coming will be the binding of Satan in the abyss. The Church in a carnal state has a theory about the devil, but has no consciousness of his existence ; therefore no loathing of his presence, no longing for his expulsion from the earth. The Jews of old did not pray for Messiah to come as God promised Him, because they did not want Him to come — they did not know what there was for Him to do. So now the Church does not cry out for the Lord to come, because she does not want Him — she can do better withou.t Him — she does not know exactly what He has to do here, and His coming would only interrupt her own pro- ceedings. THE KINGDOM TO COME. 405 Brethren, let us not sleep as do others: let us awake to righteousness. God has arisen to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers. As He warned, by the voice of the Baptist, the Church of old, con- cerning her true calling, and position, and hope, so hath He warned us in these last days. He has taught us by line upon line, and precept upon pre- cept, of the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has said to us, "Remember how thou hast re- ceived, and hold fast and repent." He has called us to continue in that which we received from the be- ginning, that we might abide in the Father and in the Son, and might overcome the wicked one, and might be delivered from that deceivableness of un- righteousness which shall deceive all that dwell upon the earth — who dwell upon the earth, and will dwell upon the earth, and will not remember tliat they were seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that their conversation might be in heaven, and that out of that heavenly conversation or constitution they might look forth for the Lord to come and change them into His own image, " according to His mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself." In this holy season of Advent I say to all, Watch ; hold fast ; look not back. He in whom you have believed is not Yea and Nay ; but all the promises of God are in Him Yea and Amen. He is able to keep you, and to make you more than conquerors : let Him show His mighty power in you ; let Him say of you, " These are they who have abidden with me in all my temptations : " let Him have the rule over you and liberty in you, and you shall find that " He is able to present you fault- 406 THE KINGDOM TO COME. less before tlie presence of His glory with exceed- ing joy." And now to Him, the only Saviour, with the Father and with the Holy Ghost, be all glory and honour for ever and ever. Amen. SERMON XXIX. THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. In the Epistle for the Fh^st Sunday in Advent the Church is urged " to put on the armour of light." Be- fore the second coming of the Lord we will especially need to be armed against delusions of the devil : the very elect will be all but deceived. Generally speaking, good men are led astray through deficiency of light, through want of information, or misinforma- tion, fi'om ignorance or partial knowledge. Men stumble in the dark; therefore it is said, "Put on the armour of light" — defend yourselves by light. Let not the deceiver come upon you unprepared; let him not find you ignorant when you ought to be knowing. He will come as an angel of light — false light — and you cannot escape him but by bemg armed with the true light, with the light which Christ givetli. The Church which escapes from the devil is set forth as a woman clothed with the sun, crowned with stars, and having the moon for her footstool — armed with light fi'om head to foot. Jesus was armed with light when He was tempted in the wilderness ; and no plausible, subtle lie of the enemy, 408 THE AEMOUR OF LIGHT. could mislead Him. An hour of temptation awaits the Church ; perhaps we are in it, when all the light which we are made capable of receiving from God will be needed by us. How shall we obtain this light? Whom will God honour by putting upon them this armour? Light comes to the pure in heart, to the single-eyed, unto those who put away the works of darkness. " Let us cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light." Those who will not do the works which require darkness for the doing of them shall have light. If we have works of darkness in hand we cannot sincerely pray for light : we do not want it, and cannot get it. God gives us according to the desires of our hearts. Let us cast off the works of darkness ; not only the works which are done in the darkness, but which are themselves dark- ness— works which are not illustrative of our being, our end, our place amongst God's creatures. Works of darkness are those works which do not by them- selves, without a word spoken, show forth the truth concerning us — that we are men, redeemed men, men made one with God manifested in our flesh, made children of God, to show forth His likeness : works of darkness are those from which you cannot prove that the doers of them were members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, but which would rather lead you to infer that the doers of them were beasts or devils, or men in their natui'al or apostate condition. Let us cast off these works of darkness, and do the works which belong to us as Christians, which the Spirit of God prompts to, and we shall be clothed with the armour of light. THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. 409 and God will preserve us from the hour of tempta- tion that Cometh upon all the world. The first Epistle in Advent, then, calls for the "armour of light;" the second begins to show us where we are to find it. The Epistle for the Second Sunday in Advent bespeaks the attention of the Church to Holy Scripture : " Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scrip- tures, might have hope." The defensive armour of the Church is found there: it is never to be for- gotten that, when Jesus was assailed by the tempter, He repelled every assault by the wi'itten word of God: He did not drive away Satan by repeating words of Scripture, but He defended Himself by the words of Scripture; He justified Himself in rejecting Satan's counsel by words of Scripture : He did not refuse what Satan offered Him merely because He had no will for it, but also because He could show that He had Scripture against it. The living, per- sonal Word, who was God, condescended to make holy Scripture his bulwark, behind which, and which alone. He was content to abide and to be secure. The Almighty Shepherd hid Himself where the feeblest lamb of His flock might find shelter from the blasts of the enemy. Christ's defensive armour was the Scripture of truth : having repelled every assault by it, then, with the word of authority proceeding fi'om the mouth of the man who first defended Him- self in the word of God, He drove the devil from Him. " He was tempted in all points like as we are," and we are to be armed against temptation as He was. Surely it is the consciousness of this that has drawn 410 THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. forth from the heart of the Church the prayer which constitutes the Collect for the Second Sunday in Ad- vent: " Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, by patience and comfort of Thy holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which Thou hast given us in our Saviour, Jesus Christ." Jesus defended Himself by Scripture against the father of lies, and against all his children who crossed His path during His sojourn upon earth. Scribes and Pharisees, and wicked priests — all the master-spirits of delusion in that day — He answered, and confuted, and confounded, out of holy Scrip- ture. We are to follow His example. And see what His providence hath done for us in these last times, before the final trial of Satan's power to de- ceive. He has multiplied infinitely the copies of holy Scripture; He has brought them into every house, and put them into every man's hand. He would have every one arrayed in the armour of light. And fast upon the universal diffusion of holy Scrip- ture comes forth from Him the true interpreter of them, the Spirit by whom they were given. What is the great evidence to us that the Spirit which we have received in these last days is no other than the Spirit of God? It is this: He came to us as an in- terpreter of holy Scripture : He began to open the book. Perhaps we have stopped Him in His course ; many deeds of darkness amongst us may have pro- voked Him to leave us. Let us repent, and do our first works, that He may not leave us in darkness ; THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. 411 for if He leave us, the Scriptures will become a sealed book, and no one will be able to draw from them the right answers for the enemy in the day of the Church's temptation. But that we may attain to the right knowledge of what is contained in holy Scripture, the Epistle for this day leads us on to another lesson concerning " the ministers of Christ," " the stewards of the mys- teries of God," the armour of light, the Scriptures of truth, the ministers of Christ. These are the subjects of apostolic teaching in the three fii'st Sundays of the season of Advent. We must have the first, or be lost ; we must find it m the second, or nowhere ; we shall find it there through the help of the third, or not at all. "Let a man so account of us as of ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." The Epistle for this week shows the value of Christ's ministers, as that of last Lord's-day the value of God's word. If we would escape the evils that are coming upon the earth, and would stand before the Son of Man, we must allow the clergy to be Christ's. If they are not Christ's in effect as well as in name, they can never become in effect stewards in our behalf of the mysteiies of God : we shall never know what God .has hidden — we shall never enjoy what He has purposed and prefigured. Soon did the Church lose her armour of light — soon did the Scriptures become sealed — because apostles, first, were not tolerated as ministers of Christ; and subse- quently, none others. The Church wanted Paul to set up for himself — to trade upon his own stock — to be the master of the house, and not a steward in it : 412 THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. tliey would have allowed liim as a master — tliey could not endure him as his Master's servant. The flesh can approve of a pope, but cannot endure an apostle. "Was Paul crucified for you?" he said. " Were ye baptized in the name of Paul ? I thank God, ye were not baptized even by his hands, lest you should suppose that he baptized you into himself." What meaning would be in these questions if he was not speaking to a spirit in the Church which would have crowned him as a pope while rejecting him as an apostle? Ye glory in men — ye want to go no farther than men ; but if you will come to me, you must go farther. You shall not tarry with me, you shall not cling to me — you must pass through me to Christ — ^you must learn by me, and experience through me, " that all things are yours," that " ye are Christ's," and that " Christ is God's." We are " ministers of Christ" — we are rowers in the ship of which He is master and pilot — we work under Him. Our only use is, that He may get done through us what He wants to have done — that Pie may have spoken by means of us what He wants to have spoken. Our ministry is necessary to Him : He has uses to turn it to, according to God's purpose, for your good. We are servants of Christ — we have not set up to reform the world as oracles of wisdom, and as model men — we are not profound philosophers, instituting schools and forming sects — we are things of naught, by whom the Almighty One condescends to work, and to bring to pass what is worthy of Plini to accomplish. Why will men allow a man to rule them in his own name, while they reject him if he comes in the name of God ? For this reason, at THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. 413 least, if there be none other, — that men know that, if a man rules over them in his own name, however strong he may be, the rule must ultimately revert to them- selves, for many are stronger than one. They hope, sooner or later, to get the mastery over him who is a mere man like themselves. But God is strono;er than all men ; we aU know that by instinct, if not by revelation. And the man who is God's servant, and is faithful to Him, is in his place as strong as God. Therefore, men are unwilling to recognise any per- sons as servants of Christ. The people would have accepted the apostle as a cul de sac, leading nowhere ; they utterly refused him as an open door unto Christ. There is peculiar emphasis in the name Minister of Christ — a mean, that is, whereby He makes Him- self known and felt by His name Christ — by His name Baptizer with the Holy Ghost — Anointer of kings and priests for the service of God — to rule for God, and to worship Him. The people were getting out of the way of saying Christ's Apostle, and were getting into the way of saying our Apostle. We are not romng under you, said Paul, but under Christ. His is the unsleeping eye that watches the city, not yours. He has called us, you have not chosen us: He has endowed us: you did not receive gifts for men; He did: He will judge us, not you; we are accountable to our judge. The Church began to praise apostles. Paul would not accept their praise ; indeed they did not sincerely praise him, but they praised others invidiously at his expense. They were crowning their favourites before the race was run. They said, Such an one is faithful. You do 414 THE ARMOUE OF LIGHT. not know, lie said, who is faithful. He who knows men's motives and secret springs of action, knows that. Your day is not bright enough to throw light upon the subject; in His day secret things will be brought to light, and every one who deserves it will be praised justly. We are Christ's servants, he said ; you want to make us something else. God permitted the thing to be done which was in men's hearts. His ministers became despots in their own name ; they became courtiers in the palaces of kings, parasites at the feasts of the wealthy and the noble ; they became tools of earthly tyrants, executors of the will of man ; they end by serving as the prophet to the Beast who is covered with names of blas- phemy. For a long time Christ has not been master in His own house ; He has been overruling, but He has not been ruling. Because we are come to a crisis in the history of the world when it is time for Him to work, therefore He has undertaken the direct mastery in His Church once more. That He may be master, He has called into existence and activity again the ancient offices of God's Church. He has shown us the constitution which makes His mastery direct over men, and amongst men, a possibility. We are now on our trial whether we will tolerate ministers of Christ. The world in our day will not, and unless we be delivered from the spirit of the world and the love of it we shall not either. We may endure for a time certain men called Apostles, because they have other relations to us, and claims upon us, distinct fi'om those proper to their office as the servants of Christ ; but real apostles and real prophets will be as THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. 415 odious now as ever tliey were. If any men are allowed to be servants of Christ, they shall be found also to be stewards of the mysteries of God. The liidden things of God shall be upon their tongues to utter, and in their hands to dispense, because Christ is the revealer of God and the bestower unto us of the blessings which are in God. A king's servants have things to say and do correspondent with the style and dignity of the king whose servants they are : Christ's servants are intrusted with the treasures of God ; His plans and purposes, and ways of accom- plishing the same, are confided to them. " I give unto you the keys of the Idngdom of heaven," said Christ to His servants. The things which belong to that kingdom you shall know, and shall report, and shall lead men into — you shall open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. In proportion as Apostles are servants of Christ, in that proportion, and no further, are they stewards of the mysteries of God : if they refuse to work under Christ, if they strive to make Christ work under them, then God withholds His mysteries from them; the things liidden in the Scriptures of truth are not revealed to them, and the substance and spirit of them are not distributed by them : but being in spirit as well as name servants of Christ, and the Church accepting them as such, no- thing is hidden from them; they are the well-in- structed scribes, bringing forth from the treasury things new and old ; they are indeed set over the household, to give to all the servants their portion of meat in due season. The Collect connected with the Epistle and Gospel of this week, though very full of truth, is yet an 416 THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. illustration of the great inaccuracy of tliought wliich has come into the best part of the visible Church. " Grant," it says, " that the ministers and stewards of Thy mysteries may make ready Thy way." Here are two inaccuracies: first, the ^''ministers of mys- teries,^^ wliich is perhaps altogether unmeaning, cer- tainly unmeaning in the sense of the word "ministers," in the text. Apostles are not servants and subordi- nates of mysteries which are abstractions, but of Christ, the man who is God, who uses them in the things proper to His name as Christ. And the Collect being a prayer addressed to the Lord Jesus Christ, the term " Thy mysteries " is not scripturally correct ; the language of holy Scripture being, " ser- vants of Christ, stewards of the mysteries of God." We are called now to worship in spirit and in truth, and as the former is revived the latter will be re- covered also. " I will pray with the Spirit, I will pray with the understanding also." Men will probably say, Now that " stewards of God's mysteries " have been set up in the Church again, surely we shall learn everything speedily, — the Apocalypse will be interpreted, the dark parts of the Old Testament will be made plain, all contro- versies in the Church wiU be decided, all doubtful disputations resolved. And they will judge as un- faithful stewards the Apostles by whom their curiosity is not continually gratified, and their love of excite- ment fed. Paul was accounted an unfaithful steward amongst the Corinthians, when he was allowed to be a steward at all, because he told them so little, and did so little among them : when he stood amongst them they said, "his speech is contemptible;" and he ac- THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. 417 knowledged that so it was, but he told them the reason with all faithfulness: You could not receive what I was commissioned to give, and therefore I was not allowed to show it. There was to be no parade of food which there was not a present appetite to consume. The words which proceed out of our mouths are not mere matter of entertainment, or even instruction, they are food : " milk " unto babes, " strong meat " to those that are full grown and able to digest. No doubt Paul was regarded by the Corinthians, or a strong party amongst them, as an unfaithful steward, who was not bringing to them as much as they had a right to expect from an apostle. The Greeks sought after wisdom ; he could not bring to them discourses upon high and advanced things, he was obliged to dwell upon elementary subjects. They had not learned the doctrine of the Cross, and to go on with them till they had would be, in his estimation, mere trifling. They wanted to know him as a steward of the mysteries of God, without knowing him as a minister of Christ. That was impossible. God will not allow apostles, unless He be leading them into temptation, to run faster than His people are able to follow. No doubt there are now, as there were then when this epistle was written, many who despise the present Apostles as much as the Corinthians despised Paul ; who are saying in their hearts, and sometimes with their tongues too. How feeble are those men! how ignorant ! how unable to lead us forward ! Yea, we are waiting for them. How long will they cause us to wait ? We are quite ready for all forms and ordinances of perfection, but they are not skilful to prepare such things for us, or able to lead us into E E 418 THE AKMOUR OF LIGHT. them. We are abounding in "faith, and hope, and love," overflowing with the Spirit, able to fill every form with substance, but we are kept back by un- faithful men, who have disappointed the Lord and are balking us. His faithful followers. The Church has been making progress. The Apostles have been re- trograding, or at best standing still, while we have been advancing. Shall we not do without them ? Of what use is their assaying of truth ? of what avail their judgment upon it ? Every man and woman who can read books and examine plates, who can con over old liturgies and devour modern tracts and religious novels, is as competent to stamp doctrine and give it currency as stand - still and unfaithful Apostles. Brethren, I believe such things were spoken of old against him who indited the epistle which this day we are engaged upon, — by parties who were lusting for mysteries and shrinking from right- eousness, who were impatient of delay and hasting to make progress in some things, while refusing to make progress in other and more vital matters. There is nothing new under the sun; what has been, is, and ever will be. Those people who re- proached Paul for weakness were themselves the cause of his weakness : they were envious and factious, they were abusing their Christian liberty, they were feeding themselves without fear on things oifered in sacrifice to idols, and yet clamoring against the apostle because he would not teach them the deep things of spiritual wisdom, and lead them forward to perfection. But are there not also those who are settled upon their lees ? who say. Let us alone, we have gone far enough; we do not desire any more THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT. 419 spiritual endowment upon tlie ministry and the Church; we do not want to be troubled with any- more ritualistic changes ; our outward worship is as perfect as it need to be, and we are contented with the amount of spiritual presence manifested in the Church already? Brethren, be none of you such — God hateth such : they are those whom He will spue out of His mouth for their lukewarmness, arising out of self-sufficiency and indifference to the great things which Christ has to give. Let none say, We have attained. Alas! do we believe that God has given Apostles ? Did He not promise to add unto them Prophets, and the other ministers ? Are we as filled with the Spirit of Christ as we ought to l)e ? Are we ordered in all things as we ought to be ? We are not yet able, as a people, to commend ourselves unto every conscience of man as we ought to do. Some of our brethren coming into the midst of us might take exception against outward defects ; some might complain justly of feebleness in the things of the interior life. Let us be zealous to remove every stumbling-block — to hold the Protestant while we attract the Catholic — to be clothed with light, in which all parties shall see light — to be faithful exhi- bitors of scriptural religion in its totality — to be indeed an epistle whom all men may see and read, — an epistle wi'itten by Christ through the instrument- ality of His servants, whom He enables through us to show forth in living manifestation the mysteries of God, Let every one judge himself, and count him- self, and not another, the obstructor and the burthen, and then He that exalteth the humble will lift us all up together. Amen. SERMON XXX. THE RESURRECTION. BASTER DAT, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was His true divine birth, as man, into the condition in which God had determined that man should be. Manhood, after God's own heart, according to the model of the same in the Divine mind, was not the unfallen, unproved natural man in Paradise, the last and noblest of the creatures of God, much less any of his descendants, born in his image after he had made the great advance in his destiny implied in the attainment of the knowledge of good and evil, who prevailed not to choose the good and reject the evil with which they had become acquainted. Nor yet human nature, as taken by the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin, and carried by Him through life and death, victorious over sin and Satan, obedient in all things unto God. Although Jesus, in His humiliation, was the be- loved Son of God, in whom He was well pleased, and His obedience then was the most acceptable offering that could be presented unto God ; yet, whilst work- ing out that obedience, He was kept far away from His Father's right hand. He saw not, save in hope, THE RESURRECTION. 421 the true place prepared for man in the councils of eternity. During that period of His humiliation He ever called Himself the Son of man ; as much as to say, The Son of God you have not seen yet, — that is, you have not yet seen the man as He shall be when declared to be the Son of God. Jesus Christ was " declared to be the Son of God, with power ; accord- ing to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. i. 4). Again, " Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee" (Acts, xiii. 33). " The first-born from the dead," " The first-begotten from the dead." The true man is not the natural, but the spiritual — " it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." By the resurrection Jesus attained to the dignity of the quickening Spirit — the last Adam — the Lord from heaven. By His life in the natural, where Satan had triumphed, and His successful con- flict with all the evils therein found; and by His death, whereby He expiated the sin of the natural, and wiped away every affront which the rebellion of the natural had put upon the holy and terrible law of God, and made it possible for God to be just whilst He justified the natural. He merited the re- ward of the resurrection. He merited to raise that nature which He rendered obedient to God through the death of the law of its being, which had become enmity against God, into the condition wherein the law of its being should be delight in the will of its Creator and heavenly Father. His birth of the Vir- gin was not His entrance into the spiritual, but into that state of being where He could merit by obedi- ence and sufifermg His attainment to the spiri- 422 THE EESURRECTION. tual; through the gate of the Virgm's womb He entered into the possession of flesh in the natural estate, which, without sin, He apprehended, and in which He fulfilled all righteousness ; through the gate of His baptism He raised the natural into the possession of the power of the Holy Ghost, for the conflict with and overthrow of evil spirits, enabhng that very nature over which they triumphed, and in that stage of its existence during which they tri- umphed, to triumph in its turn over them, to wield against them the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, to smite them with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God ; and then, having made the natural to do what the law could not effect, namely, to obey God, and after obeying God, loving His righteous- ness and hating iniquity, to fight against and over- come the devil ; the captive to prevail against the captor; the slave to turn against and beat down the enslaver ; the beaten, oppressed, enchained, ruined victim, to rise against, and overthrow, and spoil, and set at nought, its cruel enemy, who had gotten the victory, and long enjoyed it, and gloried in it; — then, I say, after this double work of bringing the natural into righteousness and victory, after dying for the expiation of all the offence which in the natural had been' committed. He passed through the gate of the resurrection into the highest place, into the holy of holies, into the spiritual, the heavenly; wherein He made the Son of man to be, indeed, the manifest Son of God. His birth of the Virgin, whereby He laid hold of the natural, was the first link in the glorious chain, the first step in the wonderful progress; but His resuiTection from the dead was His ultimate and THE RESUERECTION. 423 consummating birth, whereby He became the Son of the right hand of God, fitted to ascend to the throne of the Most High. By His resurrection He was perfected, — fitted, as man, to take the kingdom ; therefore after His resur- rection He gives their commission to His apostles, breathes on tliem, opens their understanding to understand the Scriptures, expounds to them the things concerning the kingdom of God; having by His resurrection proved Himself the foundation- stone of the new building — the first man clothed with the body raised in incorruption, and power, and spiritual — He began to be the builder. He could then raise His ministers into the mount, to behold the pattern according to which to build. They saw the semblance of it on Mount Tailor ; they saw the reality when they ate and drank with Him after the resurrection ; they saw man's vocation, not in books and pictures, represented to the mind and imagina- tion, but with their eyes they saw, with their ears they heard, and their hands handled, the Word made flesh, not only before His crucifixion, but after His resurrection. After seeing the pattern, Moses was fitted to build. When they saw Jesus after His resurrection, they saw what man was to be brought to, and were prepared to receive and use aright whatsoever God might be pleased to give unto them for the accomplishment of that end. The first Man being set in His place, all men are now to be sum- moned to take their places under Him, to range themselves under the Head, around the centre ; and the summoners and organisers of the inmiense as- sembly are first made to see Him, unto whom they 424 THE EESURRECTION. are to summon, in whom they are to organise. He was not in His place before, but in our place ; the place which our sin had grooved for Him — the only place which a daughter of Eve could introduce Him to — the place of trial and suffering : of trial, whether He could obey in the circumstances where all others failed of suffering the consequences of the delin- quencies of all others. Having stood the trial and exhausted the suffering He got into His place, through the travail pains of death being loosed; His true place, not that which His mother could introduce Him to, but wherein His Father had set Him, and declared Him to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness. The first stone of the New Jerusalem, the city that cometh down from heaven, being set in its foundation-place at the right hand of God, the building grace of God forthwith descends from it into the workmen and their work upon the earth. To man, when first made, it was said, "Increase and multiply;" when the new Man is raised to His place, the new -creation Head, " Increase and multiply" is said to Him; and the Holy Ghost descends to raise up His image over all the earth. The charge brought against the first preachers of Christianity was, that " they turned the world upside down." Whatever malice was behind the accusation, there was truth in it — they were witnesses to a great revolution. They could say, Creation has gone through a crisis ; we have seen that which has brought the crisis to a head, and has worked through it. You all saw a man die, and all creation dying with Him. The sun, the light of the old creation, grew THE RESURRECTION. 425 dim as death closed upon Him ; the earth quaked to its centre as His strength failed; the rocks rent as His forces were torn asunder; creation died as that man, who was the Creator, hung in death upon the cross ; the old creation is no more, old things are passed away. But we have seen all things become new, for we have seen the creation which passed away reappear : but how changed ! We testify unto you that a new universe has come into being, the old renewed. We saw the Creator of the old clothed with zV, we saw it dying in His hands ; but death did not undo His grasp of it. We saw it with Him raised from the dead ; we saw Him ascend, the Re- deemer, the new Creator, to present in heaven before God the first-fruits and specimen of creation in its new and glorious condition. We testify unto you that all your senses deceive you : the world you see, and hear, and feel, and smell, and delight in, is no more ; the axe has been laid to the root of the tree, it has been cut down; whatever show of branches it may make for a season, its life is gone, its substance has been taken out of it, and subhmated into the first principle, the nucleus of a new world : the creation you see shall soon pass away, but we have seen the creation that shall abide, upon which Amen is written ; the same creation, indeed, that you see, but not in the same condition, but passed through the crucible of God and purified up to the measure which per- fectly reflects Him. By the crucifixion of Christ old thmgs passed away, by the resurrection of Christ all things have become new ; the old world has died in giving birth to her Son, the Benjamin of God. But the Son in whose bu-tli the mother died shall 426 THE RESURKECTION. abundantly reward His mother for lier travail, in raising all things with Himself into the condition where death and its causes can never come. Then will the heavens rejoice and the earth he glad; then will the sea roar, and the fidlness thereof; then shall the creation, which once grew for Him hut a crown of thorns, yield Him such honour that it shall he said to all the intelligent beings around the throne of God, to excite their wonder, " Come, behold King Solomon, with the crown wherewith His mother hath crowned Him in the day of His espousals, in the day of the rejoicing of His heart." Those who saw the Lord after His resurrection saw the true Adam, and the pledge of the true para- dise; and so were they prej^ared to go forth and labour for the production of the true Eve, whose preparation alone delayed the manifestation of all that was gained. Their work was to announce an everlasting age, which had begun to be, of life, of sinlessness, of blessedness, an inheritance gamed in- corruptible, undefiled, unfading, and to call all men into the light of that glorious dispensation, to install them m and fit them for that glorious inheritance. They had to tell that the Lord, who made all things at first, did become a curse for all things when they had failed in God's hand ; did wash away their sins with His own blood, and rise from death the Re- deemer of the world and Father of the age to come. All who believed their testimony they did unite, themselves and theirs, to the Risen One, that they might live by Him ; that in God they might live, and move, and have their being, after a new and higher way than they liad experience of before — by that hfe which is THE RESURRECTION. 427 hid with Christ in God ; by drinking of that river which floweth from beneath the throne of God and of the Lamb. They had to bind the vessel of nature to the anchor which had entered in within the vail, whither the Forerunner entered to bind the Church to Him, and with the Church the whole creation ; which was made subject to vanity, not willingly, and which shall be delivered fi'om the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. They were the discoverers of the new world, into which the old was being absorbed, and they were to labour for the transition. They said to all men. Look here! the world, of which we are part and parcel, is not worth having as it now is, glorious though it be as the creation of God. Behold it as Christ hath made it — wait for its enjoyment, till you receive it from His hands. The resurrection was the point to w^hich the spirit of the Lord strained when He said, " I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished ! " Unto the resurrection He urged the spirit of the Church, when He said, " The kingdom of God sufFereth violence, and the violent take it by force." For the resuiTCction is the entrance into the kingdom. That which perfected the Head shall perfect the members. Therefore, one of the most eminent amongst them, — a chosen vessel for bringing nations as an offering unto God — said, " I count not that I have attained ; but this one thmg I mind, forgetting the things behind, and pressing- forwards unto the things before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in 428 THE RESURRECTION. Christ Jesus." Which is explained just before by the language, — " If by any means I might attain unto the resuri'ection from the dead." Before the resur- rection he counted all attainments as things not to be thought much of, but to be left behind and forgotten as soon as arrived at, — as palm branches of the year preceding to be turned into ashes for the year fol- lowing. " In this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven." The Church pressing unto the resurrection evinces that she is the bride of the Lamb, instructed aright concerning her husband. He is risen, and she must be risen before she can enjoy full communion with Him. It is then she is presented unto Him as the chaste virgin prepared for Him. Now she is be- trothed unto Him, and after betrothal prepared for Him, but presented in the day of her resurrection. The Church which longeth not for presentation to her Lord hath the harlot's heart, and it availeth little where that harlot heart is rioting, whether in the palace of the king or in the assembly of the people. No matter w^liat the name. Catholic, Schis- matic, Protestant, Dissenting — whether the paramour be one or many, be an Egyptian or an Assyrian, an Ammonite, an Edomite, or a Moabite, a son of her ow^n invading his Father's bed, or a son of the stranger; the false Church is enamoured of the natural under some form or another : the true longs for the resur- rection, as the preparation for her Lord. Jesus Christ would wear no crown before the resurrection; He would not have it seen upon His human head until His human nature was made what He undertook to make it. Nor has He taken it yet, though prepared THE RESURRECTION. 429 for it nearly two thousand years, because He will not be crowned without His Cluirch. He will not allow it to be said of Him, — Now you are rich, now you are full, you have reigned without us. He waiteth for His body, — His fullness, — His mystical Eve, for the resuiTCction of the just. The Church which wears a crown before the resurrection, and sits as a queen, is a double traitress to her Head, and to the members already gathered or to be gathered unto Him. She sits on the throne of temporal dominion on the earth, where her Lord was crucified and her brethren martyred. She rules the earth before her time for ruling it, without those who should be associated with her in the dominion, — she enjoys it before the time for enjoyment, and without those for whom the feast has been prepared. The Head of the Church, who merited the rule and enjoyment of all things by His righteousness, when He received the Spirit of power, the earnest of His kingdom, the reward of His righteousness, did abstain from touching the creation for forty days. He kept not His hand from one tree, but from all the fi'uit of the garden ; showing to His Church that the divine life derived to them from Him, and the baptism of the Holy Ghost endowing that life, are not to enable them to enjoy the world as it is, but to abstain from enjoying it, to watch, and fast, and pray, until the kingdom come. The Church which thus followeth her Lord is the woman of the Revelation clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and the crown of the twelve stars around her head. She who is not thus conformed to Him, but exulteth in the world as it now is, is the other woman of the Apocalypse clothed 430 THE RESURKECTION. in purjile, and scarlet, and fine linen, having her hand filled with the cup of fornication, wherewith she doth intoxicate and madden the kings and peoples of the earth. Daily bread is our portion till the kingdom come : food and raiment, with or without a certain dwelling- place, are all that pilgrims and strangers should ex- pect ; if they have more, it is that they may minister therewith to the Lord and to His body, and to the blessing of His creatures. The higher the proof which the Church affords, now that she is united to the Risen One, the more acceptable is she to God. To strive to know Christ after the flesh is not pleasing to God. He did not allow many to touch Him, or, as it might be rendered, fasten upon Him, cling to Him, because He had not ascended ; that is, until the Holy Spirit should come down upon her and enable her to hold the Head in the Spirit. Striving to get at Christ through the things naturally allied to Him, as through acquaintance with the place of His suffer- ing. His holy sepulchre, the wood of His cross, His natural mother, and such means, is delusive. After His resurrection He was sent to the children of men, as it is written : " Unto you first, God having raised up His Son, sent Him to turn you from your iniquities." He sent Him, by sending His Spirit from the Father and from the Son; He sent the Spirit, by sending apostles, and prophets, and all ministries — by accom- panying His sacraments with His divine power, by causing His word to flow as rivers of living water. The things related to Christ after the resurrection are the joints and bands by which He holds His THE RESURRECTION. 431 body, and pours into it the grace and power of God by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead can descend upon the Church only from Him, and from Him by the appointed means of convey- ance ; to turn aside from these means is to miss the blessing, is to be deceived by Satan. " Who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament," saith St. Paul, " not of the letter, but of the Spirit. Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us." To prove the resurrection of Christ is the great work which the Church has to do, and she furnishes that proof by exhibiting in her life what the power is which the risen Saviour hath ; what is the purity, power, dignity, of that hidden life which circulates in the body of Christ — from Godhead proceeding to work God's image where it operates, and to endow with all power to appear for God, and act for God, those in whom God's image is wi'ought. The Church is set to " show forth the ex- ceeding greatness of the power of God in those who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand;" to show forth the virtues of God ; to cause to be seen by principalities and powers in heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God. Body of the Risen One ! looking upon tlie natural with His eye, passing through it with His feeling, using it with His liberty ; Body of the Bisen One ! seek the things which are above; and that you may seek them, mind them, meditate upon them, fix the thought and contempla- 432 THE RESURRECTION. tion of the soul upon them — the sight of them will fill you with longing for them. As the Church is to manifest the resurrection, so is she to testify of the kingdom for which the resur- rection prepares her. Though the Lord would not be crowned, yet He owned Himself a king : that good confession He bore before the Roman governor, the representative of the then ruling majesty of the world. " Thou hast said it" — thou hast named my title. " But my kingdom is not of this world," said He to Pilate. Though the Church may not sit a queen, yet she must declare herself a queen, waiting for her kingdom. Indeed the Church cannot help it ; the instinct of rule is in her : she was made to com- mand, and she cannot help showing it; and if she show it not in the spiritual form, it appears in the carnal. "We cannot allow Popery," men say : " wher- ever the Church of Rome gets a footing, she strug- gles for domination, and must have all things under her feet." The Church must manifest her kingdom, as the Head of the Church did. He cleared His earth first, that He might plant His throne upon it after. He contended against every form of evil which oppressed it; so proving His right to it and His love for it. He would not wear a crown upon it until Satan, the usurper, the pretender, was driven from it and chained in the abyss. The King lays down His diadem and dons His helmet when the invader of His rights is defiling the soil of His terri- tory, and He will not wear His crown until the pride of him who disputes His right to it is brought low. So with the Church : she must heal the earth first, THE KESURRECTION. 433 and rule it after; give Satan no rest upon it; dissi- pate from it the darkness of falsehood and wicked- ness ; assuage its sorrows ; mitigate its ills ; — she must reclaim it for God, and make it feel that she has God's commission and power to bless it : so proving her title, she shall receive it in due time. The Church is not to despise and forsake the earth as it now is, through ill-regulated ambition of its future glory, but must take it into her hands and do the best that is possible for it — make it tlie earnest of what it shall be. But in doing this there is great peril; if the Church be not living ui the contemplation and ex- perience of the risen glory that excelleth, the natural glory will dazzle and bewitch her ; for there is great beauty in the natural : it is a mighty ruin, and when improved to its highest capability it needs all the power of the present Saviour in a man to preserve him from falling down and worshipping it. But the Church must be above it. Now is the dispensation when the things that should be under have gotten the mastery — those w^ho will be exceptions to the rule of the corrupted creation shall receive the king- dom. A man was reported of to his king once in these terms : — " Sire, the whole land cannot rule that man." " Then that man shall iiile the whole land." Those whom all things cannot rule now, shall rule all things in the world to come. A kingdom before the resurrection was the delu- sion of the Jew, the Papist, and the Evangelical ; it was an error which the disciples of Christ did not unlearn, even when they saw Him risen, until they received the Holy Ghost. As the Church endea- voured to have the kmgdom before the resurrection, F F 434 THE KESURRECTION. SO she has endeavoured to keep herself without the power of the resurrection, and therefore has become a sport to all her enemies. Nothing that is seen can maintain her. A life that is hid with Christ in God, which flows into her by means of God's own institu- tion, is her sufficiency, the glory in the midst of her, and the defence round about her. The matters to which I have endeavoured to draw the attention of my brethren at this time are, the resuiTection and the glory beyond it ; the two things contained in the Epistle for Easter-day — our true being, and that being's end and aim. We are no better than our fathers ; if they rested in any con- dition which they could arrive at without passing through the door of the resurrection, so may we. The enemy who stole from them the word of God will seek to steal it ft'om us ; the world which cheated them will strive to cheat us. Foolish men thought they got their rest, and that the Millennium was begun, when the Roman Emperor turned Christian and Patron of Christ's Church. When that delusion was dispelled, and the tyranny of the civil ruler made its galling yoke to be felt, the Bishop who broke the yoke and emancipated the Church from the rule of the Emperor, and planted it over his head, was hailed as the true Joshua ; but that experiment failed also, and made way for what men call the glorious Reform- ation. That bubble also is about to burst, and every promise which presents to the Church her triumph before her resurrection will deceive as those have deceived. Our hope is the kingdom, our prepara- tion for it is the resurrection. Let us not surfeit ourselves with enjoyments which are no enjoyments. THE RESURRECTION. 435 Let us not make much of ourselves and of one another, and of the earth we walk on yet, but let us prepare oui'selves and one another, and all things around us, for the glorious change which awaits us all. Houses and lands, titles and honours, rank and caste, wealth and dignity, wives and children, friends and companions, are perishing things : let us not dote like madmen on the relations that are escaping from us — let us strive that we may have them com- muted into those that sliall survive the destruction of all things — that shall receive us into everlasting habitations. Brethren, we are entering into the kingdom; let everything about us preach our hope. The words in our worship are idle words if they express it not ; the rites and ceremonies of the Church which signify it not are burdensome and deadening ; our vestments, our church furniture, the materials of every kind, in the midst of which and under which we move, are miserable masquerade and mere scenic decoration without a meaning, if they illustrate not our calling and our hope. All that we say and do should show forth that we are children of the resuiTection, heirs of the kingdom — that all things are ours; not in boast- fulness for our high place, but in gratitude and worship unto God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Clu-ist, who hath set us in it : let us seek to express, by all the powers of heaven and means of earth entrusted to us, the praises of our Lord, and the works which He has done, and the glory which shall follow them. The glory is now to be seen on crucified flesh. The cross is to be laid upon everything. The wear- ing of rich apparel over sackcloth, the hair shirt on 436 THE EESUREECTION. tlie lacerated flesli, signified the truth. The ascetics who fled from the use of the creature were deceived, but the truth they exaggerated or misapprehended is necessary for these times ; viz. that the creature can- not be freely and fully enjoyed till men are made able to enjoy it without sin. The Son of God holds the giant flesh detached fi'om its parent earth, that He may slay it in mid air. Resurrection is not annihilation, but change — the creature is not transubstantiated mto God, anni- hilated, or deified. Amen. SERMON XXXI. THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. EASTER DAT. On tliis day we commemorate the birth of the second Adam. Jesus Christ became the second Adam by resurrection from the dead. " He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." Of His resurrection God spake in this wise : " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee." When the first Adam was created by the hand of God, what was God's next work? — The creation of Eve out of Adam, to be an help unto Adam. And now that the second Adam has been born, what is the next great event to be looked for? — The birth of the second Eve, who is the help unto the second Adam. The second Eve made out of the second Adam, as the first Eve was made out of the first Adam. God made Adam, and He also made Eve from his side, and brought her to him. God raised up Jesus, the second Adam, and out of His side, out of His flesh and blood, God is making the mystical Eve; and when she is made, God will jiresent her to His Son to be His bride. God cast Adam into a deep sleep ; and while he slept God took from him of his sub- 438 THE BRIDE OE THE LAMB. stance, and made it into woman. God has raised the second Adam to His own right hand in the heavens, and given Him rest ; and while He resteth, God draweth unto Him the children of men, that they may be created anew out of Him; that they become of His flesh and of His bones; that they, bemg made of one spirit with Him, and when per- fectly formed out of Him, may be brought altogether imto Him to be His fullness. His complement. His help. It was not good for Adam till Eve was brought unto him; it is not good for the second Adam till He also see His Eve. He waiteth for her. He longeth to behold her. God has brought forth the man, the universe is waiting for the woman. The first great act of God in bringing all things to their rightful and final condition has been done ; the second will follow, and is the object of hope to all creation. The resurrection of Christ has been ; the resurrection of His Church is the next great step in God's procedure. The Head has risen, the body has to rise. The Christ is but half-constituted ; until the completion of it, God is without His chosen instrument. His perfect instrument, by which He will bring all His enemies into subjection unto Him, and recover His dominion over all the works of His hands. The work of Christ is not done yet. Jesus has redeemed the creation, that He may have a right to rule over it. He has sanctified His Church by His one ofi'ering of Himself once for all. He has obtained for us, and poured out upon us, the gift of the Holy Ghost, that we may be perfected. But we are not perfected yet. He is; but until we be perfected as THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. 439 He is, He is not the Clirist complete, and cannot enter vipon the performance of the works which belong to the Christ complete to do. The Head of the Church has risen. At His second appearing His body shall rise; and then shall He, with His Church, begin to do, and prevail to finish, what is wi'itten in 1 Cor. xv. 25, — " For He must reign till He hath put all things under His feet." There are three stages, in a wondrous progress, mentioned by St. Paul in this chapter. 1st. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. 2d. The resurrection of His Chiu'ch at His coming. 3d. The end. Between the resur- rection of Jesus and His Church there has been an interval, a long interval; between the resurrection of the Church and the end there will be also a long interval : during the interval between the resurrection of Jesus and that of His Church, His help has been prepared for Him ; during the interval between the resurrection of the Church and the end, that work will be done for which His help was needed. He with His Church will do what is meant by those words, " When He shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power," " When He shaU have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father." Between the resurrection of His Church and the end, comes in the reign of Christ with His saints ; during which reign He will liave brought to an end, to the purposed end, the work which He has undertaken to do for God the Father. The work of that reign will have for its result this consummation, " the delivermg up of the kingdom unto the Father," " the subjecting of all things unto God." When this shall have been done, " then will the Son 440 THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. Himself also be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God. may be all in all." Who shall attempt to explain what this means? What- ever our thoughts may be, we will not now try to set them in order and express them. The point of importance is that there is a work to be done for God by Christ Jesus, when He shall have received His Church ; and until He receive His Church that work stands over, remains to be wrought. We have a distant view of what Christ will have to accomplish with His risen Church — as the time draws nigh the prospect will open. And when He comes again, the work to be done will be plain to Him and to His body, who are to do it together. The matter now is, that the Church should attain to the resurrection ; that the body should follow the Head, should attain to the condition unto which the Head has attained. Jesus said, " I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! " He had to die and rise. He hasted unto His resurrec- tion. " Behold (he said), I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." Now is the time for the Church to agonise for her perfection, as He did for His. Let her cast out devils and work cures on the way through this miserable world, as He did; but let the perfecting be in her heart, as it was in His. Her works before that perfecting are not her works pro- per ; when that perfecting shall have come, her work proper begins. Could we look into the invisible world with anointed eyes we would see, that the object of interest to all who are in the mind of God — the THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. 441 object looked for intensely, thought about con- tmually, prayed for with groanings not to be uttered, is the resurrection of the Church of God. The angels of heaven, who have seen the second Adam, are longing to behold the Eve whom God is taking out of His side. They are longing to see the mys- tery of God completed. How earnestly they minister unto those who shall be partakers of this honour ! How they rejoice over every sinner that repenteth, and is added to the number of those who shall fill up the measure of the Christ of God ! To testify of the resurrection of Jesus was the work of Apostles at the beginning of the Christian dispensation ; to preach the resurrection of the Church, and to press the Church unto it, will be the work and mark of Apostles in the time of the end: one ministry of God laid the foundation, an- other ministry raised up by Him brings in the con- summation. The two great works of the Spirit of God are, the raising of Christ Jesus from the dead, and the raising of His body, the Church, from the dead. As it is written in Rom. viii. — " If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you. He that raised up Christ fi-om the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies" (or, more literally, make alive your dead bodies) "by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." The spiritual ministry insists upon the two works of the Spirit. Those sent from God testify of that wliich God is supereminently concerned about ; the chief evidence of their mis- sion from Him is, their knowledge of that which constitutes His matter in hand. The chief evidence of Apostles in the beginning was, that they testified 442 THE BKIDE OF THE LAMB. of the resurrection of Jesus. The chief evidence of Apostles now is, not to witness that Jesus is risen (which witness has been borne already), but, from that point established, to go forward unto the esta- blishment of all that depends upon it ; to witness, indeed, again, in the midst of the Church that has practically forgotten the importance of the fact, of the resurrection of Jesus, but mainly to press the consequences of it, — to bring in its ultimate result, even the resurrection of His body. The fruit of the labours of Apostles and all ministries of God in the beginning was this, — that men were led to believe in the fact of the resurrection of Jesus, and to receive the Holy Ghost, which after His resurrection He bestowed. The fruit of Apostles and the spiritual ministry in the end will be, to bring the Church into intense desire and longing for her own resurrection. The Church in the flesh can see no importance in the doctrine of the resurrection — cannot desire and long for the resurrection. In point of fact, we see this. Men have forgotten Christ's resurrection as an important event, having great issues and conse- quences bound up with it ; they do not anticipate and press forward unto their own resurrection. Other hopes may animate them, but this hope is languid, if not utterly dead within them. The use of a revived Apostleship will be to bring back the Church — that is, the believing remnant in it — into the full possession of the Holy Ghost. And the mark of the Church filled with the Holy Ghost will be the earnest desire for the resurrection ; yea, the travailing for it, as a woman with child travails for the birth of that which is shut up in her womb. THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. 443 We may have a theory about the resurrection ; yea, we may have the "form of sound words" upon the matter. We may know that it is our hope, and that we ought to entertain it. But actually to entertain it, and to live upon it, is a diiFerent thing ; that we experience just in proportion as we are spiritual, and when we are filled with the Holy Ghost. Then, also, are we most strongly energised by the hope of the resiuTCction. And the reason of this is, because there is a sequence in God's acts. His acts are a connected series, every one of them being a hnk m a chain, uniting something past to something yet to be, and we cannot skip the links. Until we have learned the first lesson which God has set us. He will not teach us another. Until we have eaten and digested the first food which He has given us. He will give us no more. Until we thank Him for what He has done, and enter into what He is doing, we cannot possibly be ready for what He will do next. When He does it, it will take us by surprise. There is a beginning, and a middle, and an end in the way of God ; and these things must be taken in their order. You know the beginning — the cross of Christ ; you know the middle — the baptism of the Holy Ghost ; you know the end — the resun'ection unto the kingdom. They who will not read God's love upon the cross, and give Him thanks and praise for it, will not have courage to receive from Him the Holy Ghost. They cannot receive the gift, unless to their destruction : and they who will not be filled with the Spirit, which is the fruit unto them of Christ's resurrection, and the earnest of their own, they cannot possibly hope for the coming of the Lord, 444 THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. and their gathering unto Him. When God can say unto us, — " Well, you have received, and are using and are estimating aright what I have given you up to this point; then will He be able to say, — "Now come up higher. I will show you the things that are to come. You have not trampled under foot the gifts which I have bestowed, but have stretched out willing hands for them, have opened your hearts unto them, have esteemed them more than your necessary food. Now, then, prepare for more. Have more abundantly." We cannot work ourselves up arti- ficially into the hope of what Grod proposes to do next; we arrive at it as a natural feeling; we grow into it as a matter of course. A child cannot work himself into the feelings of a man — he must become a man ; and then he will have, without an effort, — yea, in spite of himself, so to speak, — he will have a man's thoughts and cares, and hopes and fears. We cannot realise by an effort of our imagination what it is to have peace through the cross of Christ ; we must have it to know it ; and when we really have it, and have love to Him, we will, as a matter of course, long to be filled with the Holy Ghost, in order to serve Him as He ought to be served. And when we are filled with the Holy Ghost, and are serving God up to the capabilities of our present mode of existence, then does He show unto us the higher condition unto which He is leading us, and make us to press unto it, as travellers folloAving a guide press from one stage in their journey to the next. The great proof now over the whole earth that the Church is not spiritual, lies in this, — not that gifts of the Spirit are not seen in exercise. THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. 445 though that is a proof, but that hardly one man is to ])e found consciously pressing forward unto the resurrection. In the beginning the Church was admonished to hold the hope — the confession of the hope — without wavering. This admonition has not been regarded, the hope has been changed. The practical hope with pious individuals is their indi- vidual happy death, not the resurrection from the dead of the whole body, themselves included. The delusive hope with the religious world is a uni- versal triumph of the Christian religion, a spread of the Gospel, or a spuitual reign of some Christians before the resurrection of the rest, or the change of themselves, or the return unto them of their Lord. The Roman Catholics hold that some saints are reigning now, and therefore may be prayed unto, while the rest are in tribulation upon the earth, or imprisoned beneath it. The modern Missionary So- cieties and their supporters dream that one genera- tion, or a few successive generations, will enjoy a millennium of religious prosperity over the graves of their forefathers, on the earth where their Lord and His apostles were rejected and crucified, and stoned and slain, — in a world where Christ said His faithful followers should suffer tribulation till His return unto them. Very soon men suffered themselves to be cheated out of the hope of their resurrection. Some said it was only a bold figure, descriptive of the regeneration of the soul, which belongs to the present life ; that they who have attained to that have got the resuiTCCtion already — that the resurrec- tion is akeady past. Paul complained of men who 446 THE BRIDE OF THE LAIVIB. taught that, and recorded his own judgment of them, — " I have given certain of them into the hands of Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." How many would he have to rebuke now, who have followed the false doctrine, if he were present amongst us ? Some have suffered the doctrine of the resur- rection to be eclipsed and absorbed by the doctrine concerning the happiness of the disembodied spirit. Resurrection, which is the theme of revelation, has been forgotten ; and the state of separate spirits, concerning which little or nothing is revealed, has been preached, and sung, and enlarged upon in every way. How soon did all this begin ? In the very beginning. Let us look at the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, — "How say some among you," said Paul, " that there is no resurrec- tion of the dead ?" They said, either absolutely, that there was no resurrection at all, or they allowed a resurrection in a metaphysical sense, — in a sense Hmited to the spirit or soul of man, but having no reference to his body. Against both forms of the lie St. Paul alleged a fact, — that Christ had risen. Because He rose we shall arise, and as He rose so shall we. His body rose, not His soul merely ; our bodies shall rise. And see how boldly he speaks : he seems to undervalue everything else that we have by Christ, in comparison of what we shall have by the resurrection; — "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." " If, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not ?" Everything else which he has received in tliis life, or in the world of spirits, goes for nothing THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. 447 if tliere be no resiiiTection. Again, he says, — What is the use of baptism ? If there be no resurrection, what are we baptized for? As dead creatures we present ourselves before the font of baptism. For what purpose ? In order that that which the water of baptism touches may be delivered from death — may arise from the state of death. But what does the water of baptism touch ? Does it not touch our bodies? Its influence passes beyond, indeed, our bodies, but it does not pass them by. The man is baptized, and the body is part of the man. Our bap- tism jDresujDposes that we are dead creatures. It is in behalf of dead creatui^es that baptism is adminis- tered. But if half the creation which has been bap- tized is to get no good from the baptism, wherefore are we baptized at all ? If our dead bodies are not to arise, why, in behalf of our dead bodies, do we submit to be baptized ? Observe the three arguments by which he esta- blishes tlie hope of our resurrection : — 1st. Christ rose, and then our flesh did rise in Him. 2d. Unless we rise as He did we shall be of all creatures the most wi'etched. 3d. Holy Baptism is the sacrament of our resur- rection ; whatever else it contain within it, it mainly contains this, — the hope for our bodies that they shall arise from the dead. Surely, if men would carefully weigh this reason- ing of St. Paul they would cease from making attain- ments in spii'ituality during the present life, expe- rience of joy and rapture in leaving it, or blessed enjoyments in the disembodied state, the objects for 448 THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. their hope to be feeding on ; and the hope of their resurrection would recover its ascendancy over them, and work again its glorious effects in the Church of God. The apostle unto whom the uncircumcision was committed, as in all things, so eminently in this, goes before the people unto whom he was sent and shows the way. See how he longed for the resur- rection of the body (Rom. viii. 23) : "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-ft'uits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within our- selves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." All the creation with which our bodies are kindred, out of which they were originally made, longs for the time of the resurrection, and our bodies hope for the same. Mother and child look forward together to the same event. Creation longs for the manifestation of the sons of God, and the sons of God long for their manifestation, when they shall have dominion over the works of their heavenly Father. The kingdom longs to see its kings, and the heirs long to see their kingdom. Hear him again, in his Epistle to the Corinthians: — "We be- lieve," he says, " and therefore speak, knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven." The earthly tabernacle is the body, which men upon the earth cany about with them ; the heavenly house is the body, which Jesus hath at God's right hand. THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. 449 He did not long for the naked state of the soul be- tween its occupation of the two garments, iDut he longed for the clothing — for the condition of the soul in which it should be surrounded with the covering of the glorified body. Hear him again, in the Epistle to the Philippians (third chapter) ; he is running a race, and the goal is the resurrection fi-om the dead : the prize of the high callmg was then to be received. He calls upon all the perfect to run this race after him, and he cheers them all by announcing that "the Lord Jesus Christ will change then' vile body and make it like His own glorious body." This is the prize which He will bestow upon those who give Him their bodies now, that He may use them : He will give them in that day bodies able to do what the present body strives for and is unequal to. " Comfort one an- other," he said to the Thessalonians, when death was striking down certain amongst them, " comfort one another with the hope of the resurrection." " Re- member," he said to Timothy, " that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead ; there- fore I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory :" that they may be saved out of death, as He was : that as He was raised from the dead unto eternal glory, so may they be raised from the dead to share with Him eternal glory ; therefore he adds, " It is a faithful saying, for if we be dead with Him we shall also live with Him ; if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him." The only object of hope which St. Paul in all his wiitings sets before the Church, besides the hope of the resurrection, is G G 450 THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. tliat wliicli, iu effect, is the same as it ; namely, the glorious change without seeing death, which he an- nounces in these terms at the close of the long chapter on the subject of the resurrection: — "Behold, I show you a mystery : we shall not all sleep, l)ut we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." In that case alone there is no resurrection from the dead; the changed alone after this fashion shall be able to say, without going down into death, " the resurrection is already past." Brethren, you have within you now the power which shall effect all this for you, when that trumpet shall be blown, when the voice of the Son of God shall be heard calling the elect unto Him. Ye are sealed with the seal of God, that ye may be filled with the Spirit which shall raise your bodies fi'om the dead, or change them for rapture unto Christ in the midst of the living. Let that Holy Spirit have His way in you, and He will lead you into the highest possible earnest of the resurrection condition ; He hath come down unto you from Jesus, the risen one, and He will not rest till you also be raised and be made perfectly like Him. But if we hope to be like unto Jesus m glorified bodies, we must learn to do with the body of humiliation what He did with it. His body was an instrument of righteousness unto holmess, so are ours bound to be. He has left us an example that we should walk in His steps. If we give Him our bodies now, He wiU acknowledge them then ; if we refuse them to Him noAv, He will not take them from us then. Oh, that He may not say THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. 451 to any of us in that day, Your body did not bear the cross, therefore it cannot receive the crown ! Bretlu'en, it is a crown of righteousness which He hath to give in that day ; not a crown of mercy simply, and of grace, but a crown of righteousness, — a crown given in righteousness to those prepared for it. Let us now learn righteousness in every way ; let words teach it to us ; let symbols show it unto us, and the Spirit will work it in us as we hear the word and regard the sign. Let us despise no means of delivering us which our Lord accounts important. Let Him apply the cross unto us by little things as well as by great. In conclusion, let us beware of selfishness, even in seeking the highest spiritual blessings. We may not lust for states and conditions of existence for their own'^sakes, or for an enjoyment merely. The resuiTCction and kingdom will come unto us while we are trying to establish all our relations with Him that is risen, and striving through His power to do the will of God. " Be ye steadfast, unmov- able, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord." Thus St. Paul applies the whole subject of the resuiTcction in that chapter where he treats so largely upon it. Your hope is not to make you unsteady and fidgetty, to heat your imagination and excite your flesh. It is to give you steadfastness in the midst of a world where all things are shaking and shifting; it is to make you immovable in the midst of change and inconstancy ; it is to make you cleave to Him who has first made the hope a reality. Do what He gives you to do — wait upon Him for 452 THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB. orders. Know Him as Lord, — as Lord He is guiding and ruling all things, in order that He may, in the fullness of time, bring in what He is hoping for on behalf of His Church — what His Church is hoping for, in order to be thereby made like Him. He has a work to do. He is doing a work. Learn it in your day, and be a workman in it. Know what the Lord's work is, and abound in it — throw yourself heartily into it. He knows when it will be finished, — your working in it, not speculating about it, will hasten its finish. Amen. SERMON XXXII. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. EASTER DAY. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body was the last to be believed, and the first to be lost after having been believed. The heathen who had some light concerning the immortality of the soul, had none concerning the resuiTcction of the body. Some of the Jews dis- believed it, and the rest who believed seemed to see no meaning in it ; they expected the kingdom of God without it. The Church, filled with the Holy Ghost by virtue of Christ's resurrection, soon began to re- gard the resun-ection itself as a mere figure of speech. The apostles could not believe Jesus when He told them that after His death He should rise again. He appointed a place of meeting, where they should see Him after His resuiTcction. They did not go there as He bade them ; they lingered about the place of His suffering. When they were told of His resun'ection, they did not even then repair to the appointed meeting-place, but waited for a demon- stration of the fact to their senses before they would 454 THE KESURRECTION OF THE BODY. make any movement in obedience to the word of their Lord. They made their pilgrimage of grief, and sorrow, and unbelief to His sepulchre, where they would stir up their grief over the dead, and did not fly upon the wings of hope to the place where He first found them, and called them to His service, that they might exult in and commune with Him alone again. An angel's voice had to warn them away from the sepulchre, and to repeat to them the promise which their Lord had before given to them. The tendency of mankind is to imitate the vices and weaknesses of the great, and not the qualities to which they owe their greatness. The Roman satirist said: " We have many who imitate the savageness of Cato, but few who will reproduce his virtue." The unbelief of the apostles creeping to their Master's sepulchre was exhibited for centuries in the Church as the great proof of devotion to the Lord. A pil- grimage to the Holy Sepulchre was the triumph of faith and crown of sanctity. The angel's admonition to the woman, " He is not here, He is risen," had been forgotten ; and where He lay in His humiliation, not where He rested in His power and glory, was resorted to as the place wherein to find the " wells of salvation." The last of the apostles recorded his vision " of the river of life flowing forth from the heavenly throne of the Lamb ;" misguided love went to seek it, gushing out from His tomb upon the earth. The angel's voice had bidden the disciples away from the Saviour's grave to the living risen Saviour Himself. Many wise teachers had vainly striven to check the fanatical pilgrimages to the THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 455 Holy Sepulchre. God's judgment at last effected wliat the word of enlightened teaching was unequal to. He gave the Holy Sepulchre into the hands of the false prophet; His followers rudely drove away the Christian pilgrims from their beloved haunt. All Christendom strove ineffectually for two hundred years to regain its idol. " The world's debate," as the historian calls it, lasted fi'om the close of the eleventh to the close of the thirteenth century, and the matter of the debate remained in the possession of the infidel. When Christians were permitted to return fi-eely again to the Holy Sepulchre, they had become a divided host ; and the same infidel power which had chased them fi'om their Saviour's tomb was now employed to hinder their mutual massacre around it. The power of the infidel has departed — he can beat off Christians fi*om the Holy Sepulchre no longer ; and now the lust to possess it exclusively has seized upon the two chief empires of Christen- dom, and threatens again the peace of the world. Virtue, while alive, is hated; when dead, is wor- shipped. The Epistle for this day calls in the wan- dering spirit of the Church from wearisome pursuit of life and perfection where they never can be found, to fix it upon the only springhead of both. You cannot find life, said Paul, except where it is hid. You have been looking for it in vain. Men who have misled you have sent you to Jesus for righte- ousness, to heathen philosophers for wisdom, to angels for modes of worship and forms of holiness. You are losing your way in strange and distant re- gions. All that you profess to seek and desire is at your door — very nigh unto you. Men went round 45 G THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. the. world to learii liow to please God — they adopted the ways of barbarians ; they turned themselves into savages; they became Jews and Greeks, bond and free; they put on every form that was picturesque, grotesque, fantastic, far-fetched, hoping to catch His eye and please His taste with variable ways, — as jaded appetites of men and palled tastes are excited by affectation, artifice, and extravagance. Let us be as angels, that we may please God; let us perform before Him many strange ceremonies, full of mystic meaning, that we may bear witness before Him; let us show to Him the powers of our minds and the conclusions of our wisdom, that He may be glorified in His mighty works. Alas! all these things are Cain's offering, the glory of the natural creation, the achievements of that which is not crucified with Christ. All such service is a weariness unto God: He seeketh at our hands another offering. God wants not now to be served by good, and amiable, and wise, and angelical men ; He wants to see the " body of Christ," " the many members and yet one body." He wants to see a people doing with fallen flesh what Christ can enable them to do with it, be- having towards the present world in the spirit of Christ, serving God and loving one another without hypocrisy. We are sacramentally perfect before God. He wants us to be absolutely what we are sacramentally. In the baptized the flesh is sacra- mentally dead ; the " world is crucified to us, and we unto the world:" but if this be not really so, how vain is it to boast in our baptism, and in our sup- posed orthodoxy in the doctrine ! We are sacrament- ally enjoying with Christ the creation which is made THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 457 one with Him, and which, as one with Him, and partaker of His salvation, " is incorruptible, unde- filed, and unfading." Oh, are we really longing for that blessed new creation? O God, the flesh cannot please Thee! Are we contented with that which in all its forms Thou art weary of? O Lord, Thou art pleased with the work of Thy Son; with what He wi'ought in His own person upon this earth ; with what He worketh in His body since His ascension to Thy right hand; and above all, with that which He will yet do when He shall present Thy creation before Thee in the glory to which it hath attained by union with Him. Enable us to bring Thee now that work of Thy Son which now Thou seekest at our hands, and to hope for the day when in our garments of glory and beauty we shall worship Thee, indeed, as the tnie Israel of God. Amen. SERMON XXXIII. SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. " The end of all things is at hand" (-/iyyizz) ; has drawn nigh ; it has approached us — we have seen it : we have seen the beginning of the end, and we know that the rest will follow in due time. When Paul said, " Old things are passed away, all things are become new," he spoke not figuratively, but according to fact and historic truth. " Old things passed away" when Christ died ; the first creation disappeared then ; the end of all things began on that day. The Son of God united the fallen creation unto Himself first, and then God executed upon it the sentence written. He slew it : it came to its destined end — to penal death, but not to annihilation ; its first form — the natural, because fallen — was consumed by the judg- ment of God ; its first condition of existence was sus- pended by another. The creation of God came to an end, as Peter saitli ; the old things passed away, according to St. Paul. Jesus in His death changed the nature of the universe : all things went up to the cross with Him, and were held up between earth and heaven to l)e smitten with the curse of God : all SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. 459 things went dowii with Him into the grave, to 1)6 transmuted there, to be ended there, as they had been, to come forth thence in a state and condition which should never know an end or suffer a change. " All things are become new." This was fulfilled incipiently when Jesus rose fi'om the dead ; then appeared the new creation, which God raised up to Himself m the highest heavens, which was seen of all His holy angels, who sang at its birth, mourned over its fall, and wondered at its recovery. Those who had seen the old world die out and the new taking its place, as a matter of course lost their in- terest in the one and became absorbed with the other. They turned away from the heavens when the sun had gone down, and fixed their eye and thoughts upon the rising glory. If we know that our present flesh has been made an end of, and that the present world upon which it feeds and lives has also seen the beginning of its extinction upon the cross of Christ, then we shall understand and fall in with what the Epistle of the day expresses — " Be ye sober, and watch unto prayer." Be sober; let not your mind be excited about that' which, after all, is not a reality; and watch : be temperate in the enjoyment of that which is soon to vanish away. But your sobriety and temperance are not to be the marks of one sunk in apathy, but of one filled with hope, who longs for and prays for that wliicli is the olyject of his hope. We turn to the east and pray : we profess that the sun which already shines is not the sun which shall abide ; we saw its light go out like a quenched lamp at the cross of Christ: we profess that the whole world which the present sun shines upon shall pass 460 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. away with the Hght that gladdens it ; we look for a new sun to arise, for a new world to appear ; we turn ourselves in hope towards the glorious realities, and we pray earnestly that we may soon behold them. Be sober, and watch that ye may pray. Have a sound mind towards, and a moderate care for, " the all things" which have begun to end, that you may not be hindered by them from turning your face wholly and opening your heart fully to the "all things become new," which you cannot love too extra- vagantly nor enjoy too deeply. One who is gazing unto giddiness at the present glory, and snatching rapturously the present enjoyment which is according to nature, cannot possibly pray for the kingdom of Christ to appear. Such cannot watch unto prayers, as the text truly hath it — to prayers of all kinds and at all times, in the closet, in the family, in the church ; to prayers expressed and unexpressed for the one object of supreme and intense desire. Brethren, let us hold loose the world which was crucified with Christ, that we may hold of that new one which is represented in Him before God, yea, which with Him is placed at God's right hand. Let us do what we signify in the two chief sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. In Baptism we give up all things for Christ, in the Lord's Supper we re- ceive all things back again with Him. In Baptism we meet God as water that drowns and as fire that consumes all that is visible ; in the holy Eucharist we see again the " corn and wine," we see the crea- tion again (represented by the glory of its harvest and the juice of its richest fruit) coming back with us, after the deluge of wrath, with Christ the Deliverer, SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. 461 made one with Him, turned into His body and blood, given unto us with Him as part of our portion, to be enjoyed with Him for ever and ever. For this blessed world, represented in the Eucharist, made one with the Lord Himself, we earnestly pray towards it — we turn our longing eyes and worship God who hath given unto us, as it were, in the holy Sacrament, the sign of Christ's dying love and the earnest of the inherit- ance which His death obtained for us. But if we are to pray indeed for the kingdom of Christ, we must give good heed to what follows, — " Above all things, have fervent charity among yourselves." Love those with whom you are to possess and enjoy that king- dom; whose prayers imited with yours shall bring it in. " The godliness which is not followed by bro- therly kindness and charity" is spurious godliness; it is fanaticism, which God hates. And if you love the brethren you will help them forward as much as you can, without grudging; without complauiing that your substance should be wasted upon them. But why say, your substance ? it is not yoiu's ; it belongs to God, and you are His stewards, holding His treasures as trustees for His creatures. " Out of love show hospitality " (that does not mean, pamper the flesh of your brethren and so debauch their spmt with frequent, and expensive, and osten- tatious entertainments, much less with frivolity and dissipation) — help forward the pilgrims through the desert, give them their frugal and hearty care and Avords of cheer, and a safe and holy resting-place, while they abide with you. But if out of love you are to smooth their way through the wilderness which lies between their calling of God and the 462 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. ldn<^dom to which they have been called, much more should you bring unto them the supplies which shall prepare them for that kingdom, and give them an earnest of it before they see it. Minister to their hio-hest wants as well as to the lower. Minister that which you can only get from God — that for which no one can be praised but Jesus Christ — that over which no one hath the power, of which no one holds the keys but the Lord Himself — the manifold grace of God, which by His death He purchased for us, and when He ascended He poured down upon us. Amen. SERMON XXXIV. SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. Sit Thou at my right hand. — Psalm ex. 1. Ten days elapsed from the ascension of the Lord into heaven unto the giving of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. Durmg that time the Lord made His triumphant entry into the presence of His Father, and was seen by all the angels of God, leading home to the heavens, from which, for more than thirty years. He had been absent, the spoil which He had won upon the earth from the power of the devil. The fruit of His victory He bore upon His own per- son, even redeemed and glorified manhood ; for which He had left His Father's throne, and descended to the earth ; unto which He stooped in its fallen estate, appropriating to Himself its sin and curse; with which lie passed through death and the grave unto His glorious resurrection ; in which, in its raised con- dition. He abode upon the earth for forty days, showing Himself to His disciples, teaching them the things concerning the kingdom of God, opening theii' understandings to understand the Scriptures, 464 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. taking away all tlieir doulDts and assuring their hearts, sealing to them the promise of the Holy Ghost by breathing upon them, blessing them, and, in the act of blessing, departing from them, ascending into the heavenly glory before their eyes with that body which they had known so long, which they had seen in humiliation, in agony, and death, and identified in resurrection glory and beauty. When the Lord ascended from this earth in the sight of His disciples, two things took place with re- spect to Him before the Holy Ghost descended from Him into His Church, which He left behind Him. First, there was His trumphant entry into the presence of God. " He passed through the heavens," as it is said. All the heavenly powers gazed upon Him as He passed through their several hosts. They opened their ranks, that the Lord of Hosts might go through them and beyond them, far above all, into the very presence of His Father, to the holiest place of all. The angels who sang over His birth in the plains of Bethlehem saluted, with more glorious hymns of praise. His ascension into heaven — His second and more glorious. His consummative birth, the highest acknowledgment of Him, as the Son of God incar- nate, hitherto granted. The armies of heaven sang as the babe was born who should wage war with all the powers of darkness, and overcome them in their own seat and centre of strength, by suffering the punishment which their wickedness had made neces- sary. Now they salute Him returning victorious from the terrible conflict, having perfectly achieved all that He had undertaken to do. A new thing was seen in heaven that day— the Son of God re- SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. 465 turning to His Father, not as He departed fi'om His presence, the unembodied Word, but as the Word made flesh. " The Lord is a man of war, the Lord of Hosts is His name." He returned to God as a man who had been wounded in His hands, and feet, and heart, but whose wounds were healed, and become the phices marked with special indescribable glory. The triumphant passage of Jesus our Lord through the hosts of heaven into the presence of God at that time of His ascension was prefigured and typified by every patriarch, judge, and king who wrought deliverance for Israel, and returned to his own place from the slaughter of his enemies, and is itself the earnest of the wonderful procession of victors which the Head of the Church will yet to the heavenly multitudes show, when He shall lead up to His Father the many sons whom He is bringing to glory, whom He will present unto Him, to be ac- knowledged by His Father and their Father before they come forthwith from the opened heavens unto the destruction of the Beast and the false Prophet in the battle of the great day of the Lord God Almighty. The entry of the Lord as conqueror into the highest heavens is the first event, filling the time be- tween the ascension and the giving of the Holy Ghost. The next great fact, which we may, perhaps, consider to be the especial object of commemora- tion on this Lord's-day — the only day of rest inter- vening between the Ascension day and the day of Pentecost, was His cession at the right hand of God — His consecration, so to speak, to the higli- H II 466 SUNDAY AFTEK ASCENSION. priestliood after the order of Melcliizedek — His most glorious and solemn recognition as the Son, and heir of all things. Upon this occasion God the Father spake the words, " Sit Thou at my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool:" "Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melcliizedek." This was the order of God. On this day our thoughts are especially directed to the last fact in the series — the crowning fact — the highest degree of the elevation of Christ — all which was needful to be done before He could send down the Holy Spirit to His Church. God did not solemnly inaugurate Him into His high- priestly office until He came before Him clothed in His priestly garments of glory and beauty. The garments of the Jewish priests were made of earthly materials; they typified the earthly clothing of the Son of God : His humanity, first, made righteous, as the clean white linen ; then, by resurrection glorified, made like the garments of glory and beauty. When He appeared before God, presenting unto Him the result of His Spirit's operation, then was He autho- rised of God to begin to baptize with the Holy Ghost. When Jesus showed in His own sacred body what the Spirit of God could work, then was the sanction given for that Holy Spirit to go forth and finish His work, and do in the body what He wrought in the Head, who by the eternal Spirit presented Himself unto God. Then the Lord began with authority to fulfil the promise which He made to His disciples, *' / will pray the Father, and He shall send you another Comforter, the Holy Ghost, who will abide with you for ever." Then the sacred ointment began to flow down from the head of the High Priest to the SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. 467 skirts of His garments. He did not begin to bless till He was constituted and consecrated to give the blessino;. He was not constituted and set to bless till He was perfected. His perfection was proclaimed by the heavenly hosts when He entered into the heavens from the destruction of His enemies. His perfection was declared by God when He was seated at His right hand, and made Lord and Christ. " Christ glorified not Himself, to be made an high priest ; but He that said unto Him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee ; Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek ; 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 ; though He were a Son, yet learned He ol)edience by the things which He suffered ; and being made 'perfect^ He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him." By such steps did He mount up unto the high place at God's right hand, where, as at this time, perhaps as on this day, He was con- secrated High Priest for evermore. After His con- secration He received gifts for men ; then He began to feed them with His own flesh and blood. Since the time which we this day commemorate He has been bodily present at the right hand of God, and shall there abide till His enemies be made His foot- stool— till the time shall come for Him " to tread them in His anger, and trample them in His fury." He is bodily present in the highest heavens ; but by His Spirit He is with us on the earth, in the eartlily institutions which He hath given to us. His bodily 468 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. presence with us is our hope, not our possession. According to the word unto those who gazed after the cloud in which He ascended to heaven, " This same Jesus, whom ye have seen ascending into heaven, shall come again in like manner as ye have seen Him ascend." The word to us now is, " Seek ye the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of Grod." When ye have sought them, and obtained them, and used them, then Christ, who is your life, will come unto you Himself, and ye shall appear with Him in glory. By what He hath done and suffered upon the earth, He has taken away the curse from us. Since His consecration to be High Priest, He has been sending down to us the blessing from heaven. Soon He will come to dwell with the blessed, and to reign with them over all things. The cession of Christ at God's right hand first implies His perfect rest. His work is done, and hath been accepted. Now He rejoiceth over it, and waiteth for its manifestation. His rest cannot be disturbed. He is as the anchor sure and steadfast, that cannot be moved. An a2:itated Church is united to Him ; a body, unstable as the waves of the sea, exposed to and tossed by the storms of temptation, is joined unto Him: but its agitation and tossings cannot move Him from His steadfastness; rather, His rest and stal)ility shall enter, yea, do enter, into all His members. Being lifted up from the earth, He draweth all unto Him. He establisheth us in God. He rooteth and groundeth us in the Divine love. Though seated at God's right hand. He still dwelleth in His whole Church, and in every member SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. 469 thereof, making us to sit with Him in the heavenly places; and even now, in our spirit, to partake of that rest which remaineth to the people of God. His cession at God's right hand expresseth His vic- tory and His security. His enemies cannot touch Him. The providence of God hath made of each succeeding army of His enemies a stepping-stone unto Him for further triumph. The Jewish enemies were His footstool, as He stretched forth His hand of help to the Gentiles. The Roman empire, which tried its strength vainly against Him, was brought down in its pride, and by its fall opened the door for the nations of barbarism to come into the house of God. The nation and kingdom which would not serve Him has perished, and doth and will perish, and through their judgment salvation ariseth for others. His throne is in the heavens, His footstool is the neck of His enemies : the greatest enemy is yet to be seen; perhaps he is already in the field, and his trumpet call is heard, and his hosts are mus- tering fast ; he also shall perish, and his destruction shall be the occasion and the means of the recovery to the Lord of the long-lost tribes of Israel, and of the conversion unto Him of all the nations of the earth. His cession at God's right hand secureth to His Church all the power of that right hand to help her in the day of troul)le, all the munificence of that riglit hand to em-icli her with gifts worthy of God to bestow. All beneath that right hand, and within its grasp, move obedient to His intercession ; and all the angels of heaven are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto the heirs of that salvation which He dispenseth. He sitteth at God's right hand, our 470 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. Representative, our Forerunner, our Head and Saviour. Let us not look upon humanity as we liave it upon the earth, sinful, diseased, dying, vexed and tortured by evil spirits, in a world which lieth in the wicked one; but let us behold our flesh not resting in hope, but in possession, at the right hand of God. He who hath it there made it what it is, by that very power which He giveth unto us. The Spirit of God found for Him that body in the sub- stance of a woman, a fallen daughter of fallen Eve. By that Spirit He presented it without spot unto God; by that Spirit He raised it from the dead, changing it into a glorious body. Unto that glorious body we are joined. We gave it unto Him in its estate of humiliation. He giveth it back to us in its condition of glory. The same Spirit by which it became what it is, is in us from Him who hath fixed the human nature in heaven, and made to partake of the divine nature those who are dwelling upon the earth. The power that is in Him shall draw us up to Him, and then shall draw Him down unto us. When we shall have received what He obtained for us, then will He come Himself unto us to finish wliat remaineth to be done, for His glory and our perfect blessedness in Him. The Lord ascended up on high, that He might receive His consecration to the High- priesthood ; that He might fulfil all tilings ; that He might receive gifts for men ; that He might feed us from the throne of God with His own flesh and blood ; that to us, and to all men who had slain Him, and with wicked hands cast Him into the pit of the grave. He might be the antitype of Joseph, who in the land of dearth and to the famine-stricken ones SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. 471 ministered of liis treasured abundance, even to liis brethren who sold him to the Midianities, who car- ried him into Egypt, and to all the Egyptians. The man Christ Jesus was seated at the right hand of God, " to do good unto all men, especially unto them that believe." But during those ten days of bereave- ment, while the Lord was receiving His triumphant recognition and welcome from all the heavenly hosts, and His solemn and glorious investiture in honour and majesty. His wondrous consecration unto His kingly and priestly office from the Almighty God His heavenly Father, how fared it with the few poor people whom He left behind Him upon the earth ? He did not forget them in the midst of the heavenly glory. Although the Spirit was not yet given to them, yet their hearts were encouraged. " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, who trusteth in Thee." They whose hearts were troubled when He spake to them of His approaching passion and death, saw Him after His resurrection, and were glad when they saw the Lord. On the day of His resurrection He pronounced upon them His blessing of peace; He showed them His hands and His feet, and again pronounced the blessing upon them. He breathed on them ; and the breath of the risen Saviour was to them the security for and earnest of the Holy Ghost, which the ascended and glorified Saviour should pour down. On the next Lord's-day after His resurrection He removed the doubt of one apostle, and confirmed the hearts of all, by giving unto the weak in fixith even to handle His wounded hands, and feet, and side. This He did for them in 472 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. Judea, and iu the faithless city. Again, the third time, He showed Himself to them at the sea of Tiberias, giving unto Peter and six with him the miraculous draught of fishes ; when He searched and proved the shepherd's heart of the chief of His apostles, and said of the beloved disciple, " If I will that he tarry until I come, what is that to thee ? " Again, He appeared to all His disciples, and to five hundred brethren at once. Also to James and the rest. Peter and James are mentioned by St. Paul as specially honoured by a vision of the risen Lord ; but with all He conversed and communed, " showing Himself alive to them after His passion, by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." He opened their understandings to understand the Scriptures. He expounded to them the law, the psalms, and the prophets. He defined for them the true canon of Scripture. He fixed it thereby for His Church, and secured it against subsequent adulteration. He interpreted what He defined, and poured into their minds all the testimony of the triple revelation concerning " the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." " He ate and drank with them after His resurrection." " He was known of them in the breaking of bread." " He gave commandments through the Holy Ghost to the apostles, whom He had chosen." Who can tell how much of light, of blessing, and of establishing. He communicated to His faithful ones during those forty days — during those five successive sabbaths — at that final meeting before His ascension, when He called iu their wandering thoughts and inquisitive minds SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. 473 from cui'ious speculations about tlie kingdom, and fixed them upon the " promise of the Father" — " the baptism mth the Holy Ghost," by which they were to be empowered to witness for Him in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (or to the limits of the Holy Land, as they, doubtless, under- stood him)? In the act of His ascension He blessed them; and the fruit of His blessing, and of all His converse with them between His resurrection and ascension, we see in the short but pregnant narrative of their occupation during the ten days after His departure, " till the day of Pentecost was fully come." " He led them out as far as to Bethany : and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them. He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they wor- shipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God." If the disciples were filled with joy during that interval between the ascension of the Lord and the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, when the first Paraclete had gone from them and the second was not yet come, when the earth was with- out the personal presence of God for a little season, what shall be the joy of the Christian Church be- tween tlie day of Pentecost and the appearing of Christ's glorious kingdom ! The end of the work done on that wonderful day was, that the Lord God might dwell amongst us. " I will come unto you," said Jesus, " and my Father will come unto you, and we will make our abode with you. You shall know that I am in the Father, and that you are in 474 SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION. me." Such was to be the mighty effect of the pre- sence of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, causing the presence of the Father and of the Son to be known, and the intimate union of the Church with the Father and with the Son to be reaKsed. The disciples, before the day of Pente- cost, had not such assurance that the " promise of the Father" would be fulfilled unto them, as we have that the promise of the Lord's return will be fulfilled unto us. But they rejoiced in the hope of what was coming, because they had received all that was pre- paratory to it. Had they been indifferent to the fact of His resurrection — had they refused to avail them- selves of His ministrations during the forty days — had they not witnessed His ascension, and heard His final charge, and received His final blessing, the promise of the giving of the Holy Ghost would have fallen without power upon their ears. They would not have returned to Jerusalem with joy, and been continually in the temple, blessing and praising God. Alas ! the glorious hope of the coming again of Jesus fails to stir the heart of the Church, because we are not all rejoicing in enjoying and manifesting to God's glory what we have already received. The disciples at first wanted to overleap the work of the Holy Ghost, and to come at the kingdom without that intervening preparation. " Wilt Thou, Lord, now restore the kingdom?" Ask Me, no such question, said the Lord; the matter in hand now is a different thing : you must be filled with the Holy Ghost, then you will understand aright concerning the kingdom, and desire it with the earnestness which is due to such a hope. Amen. SERMON XXXV. OVERCOMING THE WORLD. '* For whatsoever is horn of God, overcometh the world : and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faiths — 1 John, V. 4. The Cliiirch having commemorated the resurrection of her Head, is immediately after called upon to conquer the world. Christ and His saints shall rule the world in righteousness. But the seat of their kingdom is now the place of unrighteousness. The territory has been taken possession of by the wicked, and the wicked hold possession. The land must be cleared, the wicked shall be ejected; and then the right dominion shall be established. The saints are to conquer in a double way : first, in the way defensive; second, in the way aggressive. The way defensive continues till the resurrection of the just, the way aggressive begins after and upon that event. Then the full Christ, the risen Head and His risen body — one Christ — shall, as "the stone cut out from the mountain without hands, smite the great image" seen in his dream by the king of Baby- lon, and shall itself " become a great mountain, and fill the whole earth." " The meek shall inherit the 476 OVERCOMING THE WORLD. earth." That promise is not yet fulfilled, but it shall be. The saints in heaven are represented in the apocalyptic vision as saying, — " We have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, we have been made kings and priests by the Holy Ghost :" "we shall reign upon the earth." That hope is not yet, but soon shall be, realised. The kingdom shall be upon earth, but it shall be the kingdom of heaven. The city that rules it — the New Jerusalem — comes down out of heaven from God. The Man who shall rule is now in heaven, and will come forth from heaven to take His kingdom ) and on His way He will gather unto Him all the heavenly-minded, all that have been born from above, and that are per- fected according to the image of the Lord from heaven. The heavens shall rule, the earth shall be ruled. Yea, heaven and earth combine to punish the kings ; they have their bodies from the earth, and their spirits from heaven. Those who object to the honour which awaiteth the earth, have forgotten that, of all parts of the universe of God, we know of none so honoured as the earth hath been already: its dust, indeed, is sacred ; it is seated on the right hand of God, in the highest heavens. The kingdom of the saints is not come yet, but the hope of it is in the bosom of the Church ; and a picture of it, as far as it is possible, is presented in the Church. The King is not visible yet, but He is present in Spirit with His Church upon the earth, m every age, ruling, and guiding, and teaching, as far as the faith of His people will let Him. He shows Himself not in person, but He appoints men to represent Him in a variety of ways, and He helps His representatives OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 477 to do what He requires of tliem. He shows not His person yet, but He shows the Spirit which is in Him in many ways, — by many powers of the world to come. He has not claimed this earth yet for His followers, but He gives a place in His Church to many earthly elements mingled with heavenly, that His kingdom may be seen to include the earth, to include the material as well as the purely spiritual. Though the kingdom is not yet come, the Church is the kingdom in the mystery ; the model of the kingdom, the place of the kingdom, the elements of the kingdom are there. As truly as the Jewish Church was a type of that which was coming after it, so surely the Christian Church is the living image of that which it prepares for and ushers in. The Jewish Church was not merely for the purpose of gi\4ng ceremonial cleanness to men, it had another object as well, — it was to be a "great exhibition," so to speak, for God : it had a work to do for God, as well as for man : it was to stand as a monument for Him, to show forth beforehand what He was bring- ing to pass. The Christian Church is not merely an institution for giving moral cleanness to men, it is also a witness for God; it has to show to the uni- verse what God will do next, not merely by saying it, but by being itself an image of it. The word Church is derived from the Greek word Yi^v^iuKog, of, or belonging to, the Lord, It is that body in which the lordship of Jesus is acknowledged and exhi- bited, in which is seen how far His lordship extends. The day on which the Church assembles in most solemn worship is not merely called the " Sabbath," or day of rest for the creation of God, — signifying 478 OVERCOMING THE WORLD. that wlien tlie whole Church shall have found its place and work, and shall be engaged m worship, then the whole creation shall be at rest, — but it is called " the Lord's-day ;" that is, the portion of time in which the Lord's-day is anticipated, in which men come together to say and show that Jesus is Lord, and to present a picture and enjoy an earnest of what shall be when that day shall have fully come. In the journey between Egypt and Canaan through the wilderness, the children of Israel had the ordi- nances amongst them, according to which they should rule the inheritance, and they marched under a four- fold banner to possess it. The Church, the spiritual Israel, between baptism into Clmst and full pos- session of all that that ba23tism signifies, marches through the wilderness of this world with the ordi- nances of the kingdom in the midst of the camp. Until the perfect state come a figure of it is to be seen, more full and true the nearer it is to realisa- tion. " The coming event casts its shadow before." In the Church now we testify that God's kingdom has, in a sense, come, and we show the persons and things which God rules and the way He rules them. This incipient prefigurative kingdom quickens our hope of the perfect and real one. But they who shall rule the world must conquer it first. David fought for his kingdom first, and then enjoyed it. The Church is " militant " first, then " triumphant." Wliat is the meaning of this ? The world is filled with things which are not suljject to God. We must drive those things out of the world ; we must sweep them from the face of the world as far as in us lies. OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 479 Wild beasts occupy the land — we must slay and drive out the wild l^easts, and then possess the land in peace. The world belongs to God; yet God's throne is cast down in the world : we must not rest till it he set up again. If a vile usurper occupied the territories of an earthly sovereign, every loyal breast would be filled with indignation, and all true- hearted men would labour to cast out the usurper and restore the lawful authority of the sovereign. We are to conquer the world by conquering the enemies of God that have got possession of it. God knows those who are trying to recover for Him the rule of the earth. He knows those who are conscious of the existence of Satan and his e\41 angels, and are strivino; to drive them out fi'om the world into which the sin of the first man admitted them. God knows those who are clearing the ground, and He also sees those who have doifed their armour, or never put it on, and are allowing the enemy to hold quiet posses- sion. Israel had to fight for its land first, and then to delight themselves in it. We must fight ; but we war not against flesh and blood. They slew men ; we are to slay no men — ^at least, not yet. Vials of wi'ath shall be poured out hereafter by the holy, upon those who shall have refused God's Spuit, and have become hopelessly and irremediably possessed by the devil, having despised all the means of salva- tion which God sent unto them in their day. The " horse and the rider " shall then suffer together ; but now we war not with men — we war with devils — we seek to cast them out of men, beginning with ourselves. We strive to give them no rest — to give them no place where they can hide then* head — to 480 OVERCOMING THE WORLD. rob tliem of every human habitation. The Son of God overcame them in His day — He chased them over the length and breadth of Immanuel's land — He came and tormented them even before the time — He disturbed their possession of God's earth and began the work of their expulsion. We can conquer these enemies in the name of Jesus. " Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" As His members we have power to tread down all the power of the enemy, and woe be unto us if we use it not ! Blessed are they whom the Lord, when He comes again, shall find labouring in His strength to expel the devil from the redeemed creation of God ! This enemy is cast out of human society, just in proportion as it is brought into subordination to the Lord Jesus Christ. The devil works in the children of disobedience — in the lawless — in those who will not be under law to Christ. By the ordinances of Christ, the devil and his hosts of unclean spirits are fenced off from men. Babylon, that will not submit to these, shall become the habitation of devils. In the word of prophecy amongst us long ago, the Angels of the Churches, abiding in fidelity to the Lord, were said to be the chain by which Jesus would bind Satan in the pit. Brethren, are you, one and all, conquering this enemy, and driving him, according to your power, from the world that God made and Christ redeemed ? Then you shall rule the world in due time. Jesus will acknowledge you as one who in your day could not tolerate His enemy. But there are other enemies of God m the world, which He who is conquering the world is casting out of it. Are we " discounte- OVEKCOMING THE WORLD. 481 nancing vice" — putting down sin — abstaining from sin ourselves, — leading others, inducing others, to ab- stain from it? Doing our duty, and di^awing — by pre- cept and example — all around us, as far as we can, to do their duty ? Ah ! God knows those who are living to please themselves; who do not say, What is our duty, that we may do it? but. What is our pleasure, that we may snatch it? And He knows those who are denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living righteously, soberly, and godly in this present world ; and such He makes to hope for the glorious appear- ing of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Sin is the chief work of the devil, and Jesus came to de- stroy the works of the devil. Is He destroying sin in us ? Is He destroying sin by us ? Satan boasts that he has put man into the condition wherein he can- not but sin. Jesus came to make us cease from sin. Are we verifying Satan's boast, or evidencing the work and triumph of Christ? God shaU get no ser- vice out of man, is the language of the fiend. Man may, if he will, serve God with all his inward and outward powers, is the language of Him who, as man, did so in our flesh, and who gives strength to us to follow in His steps. Are we diminishing the amount of sin in the world by serving God faith- fully? serving Him with our body and spirit, which are His ? *• There is another enemy of God which we are to fight against, and to drive out of His creation. As we destroy sin, we destroy death, which is the wages of sin ; the Church Avhich wiU allow Christ to deliver it from sin, that Church shall be translated without seeing death. Before the deluge of water burst upou II 482 OVERCOMING THE WORLD. tlie earth, Enocli walked with God, and was trans- lated, that he should not see death. Enoch is not the type of a man, but of a body which before the deluge of fire shall walk with God, as Jesus is able to make men walk with God; and they shall be trans- lated without seeing death. They who shall gain the completest victory over sin shall conquer death, not by being raised out of it, but by being saved from coming under it. The prayer of the saints shall bring in the kingdom of Christ, where death shall be abolished; the prayer of faith now in the Church, and the anointing with oil, beat back the minister of death. God set the healing of the sick amongst the holy as a sign that unto them death shall be abolished. And in proportion as sickness is driven out by the faith of the Church, and the victory over death is hastened by our holy prayers, in that proportion do we conquer the world, or win it out of the hands of those who rule and oppress it. This is the use we are to make of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even to draw down from Him the power whereby to disturb, and torment, and cast out from God's world, the enemies of God. But we con- quer the world now, not merely by clearing out of it the powers of evil, but by building on the ground that we clear altars unto God, and rendering unto Him the service that He requires, however opposed to the tastes and fashions of the day we live in that service may be — not to be hindered by the present course of the world from doing that which especially necdeth now to be done, that in which the world now is mainly defective; that is, to conquer the world. They are not conquering the world who are OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 483 contending, and successfully it may be, against tlie evil things that now are strong; yea, now in the acme of their vigour. The things which hindered God and helped the devil three hundred years ago, are not in the same category now. There were races of giants slain by Edomites, and Ammonites, and Moabites, but Israel had to overcome more terrible enemies than these. The Church in the Holy Ghost, with apostles, and prophets, and all spiritual minis- tries restored, has a more difficult warfare to wage than reformers and preachers of portions of the Gospel absolutely needed to save life itself from extinction. In the days of our fathers the "right divine" was acknowledged, but abused; in ovir days it is derided and denied, and " the j^eople, the source of all power," is proclaimed against it. In our fathers' days the prerogative of authority was excessive, and men groaned under the oppression of it. Now popular liberty has grown into lawlessness. In former days superstition was rampant, now ungodli- ness, evidenced by the lack of worship amongst those who are most enlightened and instructed. The things the world will set itself against now is the recovery of the doctrine of the " divine right," that is, in scriptural language, the doctrine that God was manifested in flesh, and that Christ still comes in flesh, that He is the Head of every man, and is represented by every man who is baptized in His Name ; by one in one way, by one in another. Tliat God should assign men places, and call them to fill them by the Holy Ghost, and set them in them by men having authority from the Lord, sent by Him, — 484 OVERCOMING THE WORLD. that men should give the Holy Ghost by the impo- sition of their hands — this the world now fights against, and to conquer the world is to stand by this truth, and give it free course as far as in you lies. The world now will resist the acknowledgment of Christ's lordship ; the men of this age have abolished tithes — they will not pay tithes to Melchizedek, they will not be under law to Him. You conquer the world by bringing in now upon the lawlessness of modern society the practical acknowledgment of Christ's authority for holy discipline in His Church, and the assertion of the bounden duty of every man to give him the tenth of his spoil. Society now is not worshipful — its title is "Beast" in the book of Christian symbolism : the Beast knows how to enjoy the earth, but he does not know how to worship God who made it. Against that spirit of ungodliness and irreverence we are to conquer the world, by reviving the spirit, and habits, and practice of Al- mighty God, and relative reverence and respect for one another, and for all the children of men. The wicked shall not understand, but the wise shall un- derstand. If you will put away your sins, God will enable you to know what are His matters in hand, and He will give you a part to enact for the bringing of them to pass. Lose not your crown for a moment- ary gratification to your fallen instincts. Sin blinds the eye of the soul — the smallest earthly object be- fore, and too near the pupil, prevents your seeing the heavenly body of greatest brightness and magnitude. A diseased stomach impairs the natural sight — a false heart destroys spiritual vision — a weak mind may be strengthened by a plain argument, but what OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 485 evidence shall avail with a false heart ? As clay, it hardens most in the clearest light and strongest heat. The true Church shall rule the world hereafter, having conquered it now ; the false Church seeks to rule it now, not by conquering it in God's way and by Christ's strength, but by striking hands with its oppressors, and doing homage to them for its pos- session. The devil offered the kingdoms of the world to Jesus if He would bow down to him. Jesus, in His temptations, was a type to His Church. She, also, has had the offer of the bribe, and has consented to accept the world before her Lord would give it to her. She has intrigued, for worldly influence, in the courts of ungodly kings. She has struggled for political power through parliamentary majorities and popular agitation. She has done homage to the spirit of ambition, and pride, and lust of wealth, and power, and pleasure, and by that spirit has climbed to the highest place. A reign upon the earth before the resurrection has always deceived (and ever will) the Church which has not the Spirit of Christ. Even before the resurrection, the Church, being faithfid to the Lord, would be as Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon; and sometimes it has been so. Holy Churchmen have been the wisest councillors of kings, and best rulers of the people. And who can say but that all the good civil government that remains upon the earth in Christian nations, is the fruit of wisdom tauo:ht in tlie Church of God? The o;ood bishop, with his holy council of presbyters and deacons, would give a model of constitutional go- vernment to nations, in the imitation of which the 486 OVERCOMING THE WORLD. greatest amount of happiness would be secured to the childi'en of men in political life. To a great extent, even before the kingdom, the " leaves of the tree of life" have healed the nations of the earth. But the world has not been given to the Church yet. The true Church cannot receive it till the return of the Lord; the false Church will have it for one hour with the Beast. Satan will seem to be a keeper of promises; he gives his power to the Beast, and the false Prophet rules the Beast by humouring him. The world becomes the prey of the wicked triad. In the greatness of their delusion the human race salutes Antichrist as the incarnation of goodness, and truth, and honour. The race which crucified Christ enthrones the antitypical Barabbas. The whole world wonders after the Beast, worships the Beast, shouts, " Who is able to make war with the Beast ? " The spiritual Goliath strides over the earth ; there is no champion to contend with him for the glory of God. Then " the Stone cut out without hands" shall smite the image — the stone, not slung from David's sling, but by the hand of David's Lord Himself; yea. Himself and His risen Church — the stone cast by the power of the Almighty against the huge blasphemy which covers the earth. When wickedness has come to the full, the true Joshua, and all Israel with him, shall appear for the deliverance of God's creation. He who made the earth and re- deemed it, and took His body from its dust, shall descend from the bosom of His heavenly Father to the help and salvation of His earthly mother. He will roll away from her breast the heavy burden, and bring the rest, and liberty, and blessedness pro- OVERCOMING THE WORLD. 487 mised from the beginning. They who believed in His name, and hoped for His salvation, shall see His work, and partake of His glory. Then, indeed, shall begin the aggressive war against the enemies of God. Hitherto the saints have been but as a gar- rison on the defensive. Then the Lord shall go forth as a man of war. The vision of the 19th of Revelation shall be fulfilled. The first act of judg- ment will be the casting of the Beast and false Pro- phet into the lake of fire. They who promised the world a millennium of rest without God, shall have no rest day or night for ever in the lake of fire. The next act of judgment will be the chaining of Satan in the abyss of darkness. His mightiest work is first cast into the lake of fire before his eyes, and then the workman is bound himself in the bottomless pit. Then shall proceed the mighty works of Christ and His saints, dimly shadowed forth now, soon to be uncovered and" seen distinctly at the close of His kingdom. Satan shall be loosed from his prison to make a final efifort against the second paradise, as he wrought against the first. He will be permitted to try his strength against the second Adam and Eve together, as he strove against the first. Fire out of heaven shall come down ujDon his impious hosts, and he himself, after his fruitless assault, shall be cast by the hand of the Lord into the lake of fire, where a thousand years before the Beast and false Prophet were imprisoned. Then shall the pro- miscuous dead be raised, and Death itself, the last enemy, destroyed; Death and Hell being cast with Satan into the lake of fire; that is, those whom Death held as to their bodies, and whom Hades held as to 488 OVERCOMING THE WORLD. tlieir spirits, who had never known the Lord of life or cared to know Him, who despised and rejected, and to the end refused Him, shall follow their de- ceiver and destroyer, to dwell with him for ever in the everlasting burnings, with the worm undying and the fire unquenchable. Then shall the kingdom of God be finally cleared, the things that ofiFended being cast out ; and God shall be all in all; the mystery of Godliness shall be finished, and the mys- tery of Lawlessness as well. Lawlessness shall be unrestrained within the limits of its prison-house ; and Godliness unhindered, unresisted, shall glorify God and the Lamb throughout the universe. Brethren, these are not " fables." God is true, and He has revealed to us all these things. Let our zeal be quickened in His service. Let us be swift to hear, and take heed lest we let slip what He vouchsafes to bring to us. Let us be diligent in perfecting His testimony. Let us avail ourselves, thankfully, of all help that He gives us ; receiving from those who are set above us ; giving to those who are set under us ; helping, by all means, the free circulation of the life of giving — giving Christ liberty and opportunity to work by all His channels of operation. Amen. SERMON XXXVI. ST. PETER'S COUNSEL TO THE SLAVES. The calling of the slave was to be obedient; and after his obedience, to be ill treated ; and under his ill treatment, to be patient. " Hereunto were ye called." This is the general rule respecting what are called the working classes. Benevolent men, and persons coveting popular favour, are aiming to annul this appointment, and to put the poor man out of the condition here set forth ; but in vain. The Lord does not promise the poor man an exemption from this condition. On the contrary. He says, " Hereunto ivere ye called^ Until the curse be taken from the earth, kings must expect to wear crowns of thorns, and servants to toil without ade- quate reward, that master and servants may together be disciplined by trials peculiar to their several posi- tions, and that both may long together for the king- dom of God, in which alone the faithful shall be fully rewarded. The present time is marked by nothing more strongly than apparent zeal for the cause of the poor. The emancipation of the slave has been granted by this country, and large sums of the public money have been voted away to compen- 490 ST. Peter's counsel to the slaves. sate those whose interests were injured by that act of emancipation. Other nations are following the ex- ample set to them, and a loud cry for the abolition of slavery fills the whole earth. The poor man's rights are demanded for him ; political power is be- stowed upon him; deliverance from the yoke that galls him is promised with confidence; his wants shall be supplied by easy labour, and his feelings shall not be wounded by overbearing masters. Difierent from all these promises was the language of St. Peter. He said. You are afflicted ; you have griefs to endure, incidental to your place; do not expect it to be otherwise: " Hereunto you were called." I promise you no relief from these things; they are deceivers who do : but I congratulate you under them, that you are turned to Christ as the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls, whose comforts will compensate you for them all. You cannot helj) being torn by thorns and briers, but you are turned to Him who can heal your wounds. God gives grace to the afflicted who bear their afflictions without murmuring : the obedient servant, " who does well and suffers for it," " if he bear it patiently," God makes it up to him ; his patient suffering becomes a conductor of the comforts of the Spirit of God unto his soul. " The poor have the Gospel preached to them," said Christ. He did not say their poverty was to be taken away, and all the ills connected with it ; but that the consolation of God was administered to them under it. The Church of Christ is the house of refreshment for the poor man, where strong drink is to be given to him that is ready to perish, that he may forget his misery, as waters that pass away. ST. Peter's counsel to the slaves. 491 In this advice to the ill-treated servants, how unlike is Peter to the man who drew the sword in the gar- den of Gethsemane, that he might repel outrage by force ! How different his conduct from that of those who call themselves his successors, who hurled the masses against the inilers, and even now are working fiercely in every land as the fomentors of discontent and stimulators of rebellion ! How different from the spirit of the religious in this day, who are agitating for the civil and political rights of man, and ignoring their spiritual privileges and con- sequent duties ! The language of Peter to Christian servants directs one's mind to the remarkable pas- sage in Paul's Epistle to Timothy, where he gives him a charge concernmg slaves, in which there is almost a cUrect prediction of our modern Anti-slavery Societies and Socialist doctrines. After handling the subject connected with ministers of every grade in Christ's Church, he passes from the consideration of God's servants to treat of the duties, and dangers, and temptations, of the servants of men. In the sixth chapter of the first Epistle to Timothy the charge is contained, — " Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed." This is his first word. Let Christian slaves reverence their masters, for their lawlessness causes especial dishonour to the name of God and to the doctrines of God. Let not God be slandered as the author of revolution; let not His name as Father, and our name as brethren, be abused to the subversion of the order existing in society; let not familiarity put out fear from the 492 ST. PETER'S COUNSEL TO THE SLAVES. breasts of the brethren who are under the yoke. Observant travellers in countries where slavery exists tell us, that the unbalanced and inordinate teaching of the truth of the common equality of all men before God in sin and in redemption has had a most disturbing influence upon the spirits of the slaves, exciting them to discontent and revolt. There- fore, see how Paul reiterates : " And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren, but rather do them service [be slaves to them especially], because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." Observe, the introduction of Christianity does not alter the rela- tion between master and slave; it does not neces- sarily dissolve the tie; it sanctifies the relation; it brings grace to sanction and sustain it. " These things teach and exhort," he says: keep mind and heart both right upon this subject. " If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doating about ques- tions, and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, sup- posing that gain is godliness." Here is his warning against opposite teaching on this subject of, slavery; against Anti-slavery abusing Christianity as if it (that is, Christianity) were merely the art of making men rise in the present world, grow rich, re- spectable, and influential in the present world. Such, he says, wholly mistake the nature of Christianity. They are proud^ they are ignorant, they are morbid ; ST. PETER'S COUNSEL TO THE SLAVES. 493 and their disease shows itself in questions and words of strife (battles about words) — in dissertations, which provoke envy^ strife, calumnies, evil suspicions^ irrelevant diatribes (perverse applications of what is true in spiritual relations to the natural relations subsisting amongst men) ; of men whose judgment is coiTupted, who have been bereaved of the truth, who account getting on in this world to be religion. "From such withdraw thyself;" stand apart from them; do not enter into their secret, nor associate yourself with them in their work. " But godliness with contentment is great gain" (is a great revenue). " For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." Time godliness is content with food and raiment; but the godliness of those persons who make slaves discon- tented with their condition is worldliness, is covet- ousness. To such persons he goes on to give teiTible warning. " But they that will be rich [they who are planning to be rich literally] fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hui'tful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." This stirring up of slaves to break loose from their masters, and become rich and respectable, as they say, in this world, is, in reality, the involving of them in temptation, and a snare in foolish and hurtful lusts, which plunge them in the gulf of destruction and perdition, never to rise. The philan- thropic efforts to raise the condition of the working classes in these times, irrespective of their turning to the Sheplierd and Bishop of their souls, will have the issue set forth in these awful words : the tempta- 494 ST. petek's counsel to the slaves. tion, the snare, the gulf of perdition, are at the end of the road ; the temptation to accept Antichrist — the snare of embracing a false paradise — a mock millen- nium— the gulf of disappointment, from which they shall never ascend to have a share with the holy in the kingdom of Christ- " For the love of money is the root of all evil ; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." It does not mean, that the loving money formally was the original and fontal sin of the human race — the root of all evil ; but love of money is a root of all evils — it is a root from which all evils grow. Men pining after it, desiring it with a lover'' s longing, have erred ft-om the faith — have been seduced from, made to wander away from, to abandon, faith in Christ and in God, and have pierced themselves through with many sor- rows— have transfixed themselves all round with many travail pangs : they have been pierced on every side with darts, that have gone through and through them ; they have been filled with cares, every one of them agonising as the throes of a woman in labour ; they are with child; they bring forth wind. "But thou, 0 man of God, flee these things ; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meek- ness." 0 man of God — not man of the people, not false philanthropist — flee these things ; these opinions and courses are the advanced guard of Antichrist — they are deadly enemies of the Christian faith and life. Instead of them, pursue righteousness, godli- ness, faith, love, patience, meekness. " Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, wliere- imto thou art also called, and hast professed a good ST. Peter's counsel to the slaves. 495 profession before many witnesses." Contend — strug- gle in the honourable contest offaitli, to obtain for yourself and for others the rights and privileges which, through faith in Christ, do accrue unto men ; do not be bereaved of them by any enemies : fight for tlie things of faith; be not an agitator for the good things of sense : lay hold of eternal life, not doing battle for the present one: cling to that to which you have been called, wliich you have con- fessed the worth of in the presence of many. Many have seen you make your noble choice ; let no one see you renounce it. "I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and in the sight of Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession." I charge thee before God, who quickeneth all things («. e. the present life is but death — the present world is the dead things — it shall come to nought: the true life is being brought out, to be developed in the world to come — the true, living, and abiding world, which is incorruptible and undefiled, and shall not pass away before God, who is now giving by Christ the life that is sinless, and who bringeth in with Christ the creation which is deathless,) — I give thee this charge, and in the presence of Jesus Christ, who witnessed before Pilate the good confession — that is, the avowal that He was King indeed, but that His king- dom was not of this world, — before Pilate, the Roman governor, the representative of Caesar, the head of the last gi-eat empire of the world, the Righteous One stood and declared the truth, but guarded it against abuse, asserted His right, but waited for its manifestation. As from God, who 496 ST. Peter's counsel to the slaves. claims not the ]3resent things that are seen for His work, in comparison with those things which He will soon give us to behold ; as from Christ, who reserveth Himself to rule over the works of God's hands truly and rightly understood ; I bring this charge, this injunction, unto you, that you may encourage those who are free of the heavenly city to be willing for all that to be even slaves in the present time — the poor men, who are heirs of the kingdom, to be not discon- tented even with their poverty while they wait for their kingdom, as the poor man who stood before Pilate, who, " because of the hope that was set before Him, did endure the cross." " I charge thee," he said, "that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ." Let nothing be blotted out of this charge — let it remain in undamaged force till the appearing of the Lord ; let contentment with their condition be the general rule of the children of God till the coming again of their ^Lord, when, and not before, they are to be satisfied and to be put in possession of all these rights, — " at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; who only hath immortaUty, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen nor can see : to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen." God the Ruler, the King, the Lord, will reward in due time those who were content to serve first and to wait for their kingdom till His time. He will stamp immortality upon the rewards of His servants ; He will show the wisdom of all His appointments, that He dwelt iu ST. Peter's counsel to the slaves. 497 light which man could never approach : to Him be- long honour and power, and from Him the same are to be deiived for ever. Let every soul say Amen to this, and rest in God, and wait for the kingdom of heaven, for the kingdom of His Son. Thus did St. Peter and St. Paul speak to the working and suffering part of human society. Would that their voice might now be heard by the same class, in the midst of the din and confusion of this revolutionary age ! But how can that be ? In the lands of Christendom where folds remain, how can the words of these faithful shepherds enter? In other lands there are no folds at all; the "sheep are going astray," and in their estimation " shepherd" and " wolf" mean the same thing. Israel of old, after its return even from Babylonish captivity, shouted " Wolf, wolf," against their true Shepherd when He came among them, and by the voice of their high priests did acknowledge the Roman persecutor — the true wolf — to be their only shepherd, their rightful king. Those who have escaped from cruel rulers, and long pleased themselves with liberty and inde- pendence, can hardly be persuaded ever to put their necks again under the yoke of even legitimate autho- rity, and are in danger of being first to deny the Lord that bought them when He comes in earnest to insist upon His claims as Lord. To this charge of St. Paul on the subject of the conduct of the working or serving classes he adds another to the rich, which is not to be passed over, especially as the Gospel of this day seems to speak to the rich and leading members of human society as much as the Epistle does to the lower ranks. " Charge K K 498 ST. Peter's counsel to the slaves. tliem that are ricli in this world, that they l)e not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they he rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life." Let not the rich abuse all that has been said to allay the spirit of discontent, and greed, and worldly ambition in the slaves, but be liberal, commu- nicative, counting their treasure to be in heaven ; let them use their riches so as to deepen their hold and tighten their grasp of eternal life — so as to give them- selves a firmer footing as they stand up to look for the kingdom of the Lord, and as they run forward to meet it and have an abundant entrance into it. Bre- thren, if these words which I have pressed upon you could take eifect and bring forth fruit amongst us, God and man would commend us. God would take delight in our worship. He would enable us to per- form it aright. He would give us to understand and to find our satisfaction m the ways of His house; He would meet us there, and make us joyful in His house of prayer — our prayers would prevail with Him, our praises would be as sweet music in His ear. He would give us deep meditation of His word and works, and deep adoration of Himself. He would be known of us in the breaking of bread. He w^ould make our hearts burn within us as His Scriptures were read. He would enlarge amongst us the minis- tries of Christ; the mouths of Apostles would be opened to speak as they ought to speak — their Iiands would be stretched out to work the works of God. ST. petek's counsel to the slaves. 499 Prophets would be made to minister unto us edifica- tion, exhortation, and comfort ; the priests would be filled with the spirit of worship; Evangelists and Elders would speak to the people in the Holy Ghost. The Chui'ch would indeed become the place of com- muning with God, where He should speak to them as a man, and they should speak to Him in the Spirit of His Son. Men would come amongst us and say: This is, indeed, the house of God and the gate of heaven ! The poor would flock to the church as doves to the windows. All who are hungering and thirst- ing for righteousness would be mstinctively drawn unto those who were turned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls — who were feeding indeed at the hands of the Shepherd of Israel, and walkmg under His supervision and guidance : the reprobate would gnash their teeth, but God's election would flock to the standard lifted up ; they would say to us, Whither you go, we will follow ; where you abide, there shall we dwell also, and your God shall be our God ; for ye serve God indeed : you are turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. We will serve and wait together with you. Let us be assured of it; "where the car- case is, there will the eagles be gathered together." Of old God " added to the Church daily such as should be saved" — the Church was able to save because the Spirit of the Head filled the body, and the Saviour was present in all the channels of salvation. It was safe for men to join the Church — it was good for them ; therefore God impelled them to do so. If we be righteous, and holy, and worshipful, then, whom God loves, those will He draw unto us ; if we refuse 500 ST. Peter's counsel to the slaves. to be so, then, whom the Lord hath a mind to de- stroy He will bring to us, that they may be ripened for destruction; that we may teach them profane familiarity with holy things, and show them how to hold in unrighteousness the highest and most awful truth which the Holy Ghost can utter. Brethren, try to be catholic in the right sense of the word ; that is, to be the opposite of that which is partial and one-sided. The mere formalist, with his orthodox doctrine and his outward proprieties, is an offence unto God; the mere ritualist, with his cere- monies, and fetes, and holiday services, bears no tes- timony for the living God ; the moralist, who makes the whole essence of religion to consist in making men righteous, merely defrauds God and gives Him no glory before all His creatures ; the spiritual mystic hinders as far as he can the manifestation of the incar- nation and of the redemption : the testimony which is in fragments through the visible Church must be united, and those in whom it shall be united, to them belongs truly the honour of the name Catholic. There are some of us, perhaps, disposed to cry out "Popery" against those who seek to perfect the outward services of the Church ; but others are ready to brand us as mere Evangelicals and Puritans, those who insist upon the morality of Christ appearing in His members. All men easily fall into the habit of compounding with Him to whom they owe all things, by paying a part of what He requires, and that, the part which they can give with least trouble to them- selves. Some will abound in ceremonial observances, and indemnify themselves by laxity of moral conduct and conformity to the vanities of the world — give ST. PETERS COUNSEL TO THE SLAVES. 501 God so many masses, and to themselves, in lieu thereof, a proportionate number of sinful indulgences. Some hold themselves released from worshipping God in all the beauties of holiness, because they are trying to keep with strictness the ordinances of do- mestic and social life. It were a long task to search out and enumerate all the ways of self-delusion by whicli we rob ourselves of blessing and obstruct the Church in her progress to perfection ; but we know, if we like, how to get at the root of it all, and to get it all cut up by the roots as well. God will reward our diligence in this good work by making us to have fellowship with Christ in His name of Corner- stone, who maketh both one, who uniteth extremes and reconcileth opposites. He will give us the honourable office of being healers of the breach, of being peace-makers in His Church, of sharing in His work, who said, " I have other sheep who are not of this fold ; them also I must bring, and they that hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shep- herd." Amen. SERMON XXXVII. UNITY. WHITSUNDAY. Tliere is one body, and one Spiiit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. — Eph. iv. 4, 5, 6. The Holy Gliost, the bond or chain of the Holy Trinity, according to the language of the ancient Church, came down on this day to establish upon earth the unity which from eternity had subsisted in the Godhead, of which He Himself, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, was the expression and the medium. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were eternally one, and yet distinct : three Persons, and one God. Before the descent of the Holy Ghost to abide upon earth another unity had been established in heaven ; the ruling nature of the earth was raised to the throne of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, was manifested to all the heavenly hosts as indissolubly united to God for ever, and because of that union was crowned by Him with glory and honour. Manhood and Godhead were united in heaven, never to be separated ; and UNITY. 503 that fact being accomplished, the Holy Spirit, who from eternity had been the bond of unity, so to speak, between God and the Word that was with God and was God, now came down from God the Father, and fi'om God mcarnate in the person of the Son, to carry out upon earth what was already consummated in heaven. The union between God and man, which was consummated in heaven, had been begun upon the earth. God came down in His inconceivable condescension and love to the ruined home of His rebellious creature, and found him there, and there did knit him unto Himself from the substance of the woman, who was first in the transgression ; that humanity, then assumed, was never torn from the grasp of God. He held it in temptation, and suffer- ing, and death ; descended with it to the lowest depths, and raised it by His mighty power to the participation of His own glory in the highest heavens. Manhood being admitted into the communion of Deity, the Spu'it of intercommunion between the persons in the Godhead could come forth now and find His dwellino; in those whose nature was already dwelling in God, and God in it. Jesus Christ is the Uniter. He united Godhead and Manhood in His own person. He brought into harmony with one another all the parts of man's being. He reconciled men to one another, binding Jew and Gentile, Greek and Bar- barian, into one Church. When His work shall be finished a result will be seen, which the music in God's worship, when rightly performed, symbolises and prefigures, — a mighty whole, a universe in perfect harmony, each part of it, according to its capacity and power, sending forth notes of sweetest 504 UNITY. melody. Unity is composed out of distinctnesses and differences in combination and harmony. The highest unity is of a plurahty of persons in one God. The unity in God is the model and type of all lower unities. In Jesus Christ the unity consists of two natures forming one person — two wills, distinct from one another, perfectly in harmony. In the mystical body of Christ, the Church, the unity required is of many persons into one body — of many nations into one holy nation — of many families into one family — of many ranks, conditions, and ages, of both sexes, of all generations, uito one fraternity — many grains kneaded into one loaf, many drops filling one cup. Unity was first shown forth in God, — one and yet three. Then in Jesus Christ, in whom the unity of the Godhead was imparted to the creation. Thirdly, it shall be seen in the Church, His body. After that in the whole world, and all the visible creation stand- ing under Jesus and His Church. The blessing descends from God to man, from the Man in heaven to all His brethren ; rather, from the Man in heaven, the second Adam, to the mystical Eve, His holy Church; from the Church, God's election, to the nations of the redeemed, and to the whole creation of God. The visible centre of all unity is Jesus Christ, in whom are represented the Creator and the creatures ; , from whom, upwards, we have communion with the invisible Father ; from whom, downwards, we behold and enjoy a universe of peace and love. Jesus is the centre in which unity is seen- — the power by which it is effected is the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost made for the Son of God His natural body UNITY. 505 from the woman's substance — by the Holy Ghost the man Christ Jesus was perfected — by the Holy Ghost He wrought all His mighty works — by the Holy Ghost He gave His charges to His Apostles whom He had chosen — by the Holy Ghost He offered Himself without spot unto God — by the operation of the Holy Ghost manhood, united with the Word of God, did ascend from the womb of the Virgin to the bosom of God the Father ; from the grave, death's prison-house, to the throne of the Almighty. When God saw the beginning of the work of His Holy Spirit in the perfected man, in Jesus glorified after His sufferings, He accepted the work, He crowned Him with glory and honour. He consecrated Him High Priest for evermore, and from Him sent back into the world the Spirit of power and love to finish His work, — to find for Him, unto whom He had brought His natural, personal body, His mystical body also, to perfect it also, and bring it home unto God for His service and glory for ever. On this day we commemorate the descent of the Holy Ghost to accomplish this mighty work ; there- fore, on this day are we specially bound to consider and examine into that which God has in hand to do, and the means which He has appointed for the doing of it. To bring all things into unity with Himself, and perfect obedience to His will, is God's matter in hand, is Christ's work, which He hath undertaken to do: for the accomplishment of this the Father and the Son sent forth tlie Holy Ghost. At present our thoughts must not be spread over the whole of the subject, but be limited to that part of it which belongs to the period of history, begiiming with the 506 UNITY, day of Pentecost, and ending with the second advent of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. God's matter in hand now is the gathering of His election out of all nations, guiding that election as one body through the wilderness of this world unto the kingdom of Christ. The work of the Holy Ghost now is, to raise up over the whole earth a society of foUen men, living at peace with God and with one another, understanding together God's will, assenting to it and doing it, having intercourse unbroken with one an- other, intelligently and heartily co-operating with one another, having one end acknowledged by all, and striving for that end by means and according to laws approved of by all, employed and submitted to by all. Some, who allow that such a society as this is the witness for Christ, and the result which God requires, yet postpone the appearance of such a society until the first resurrection condition. But the unity of Jesus with God the Father was as truly realised by Him and manifested when He dwelt upon this earth at His first coming, submitting to all temptations, and serving God perfectly in our fallen and humiliated condition, as it shall be in His kingdom and most glorified estate. They who saw Him then, saw the Father; they who see Him now, or shall see Him hereafter in His kingdom, however the circumstances may be wondrously and gloriously diversified, shall see no more. The unity of the Church with God was seen in the Head of the Church in His time of humility, as truly as it shall be seen in His eternity of glory ; so the unity of the Church with Jesus Christ and with God the Father, should be realised and shown forth now in the body, as it UNITY. 507 was in the Head during the time of our tem^Dtation, and suffering, and humiliation. When Jesus Hved upon this earth one man was seen living God's life in man's fallen flesh, speaking God's words, serving God in the power of the Holy Ghost, who came to Him at His baptism ; after His departure unto God many men were to be seen doing the same, by vntue of their union with Him, — many men made one body in Him, followmg the example which He left, in the same power by which He set it. No doubt the unity of Christ's Church in its flillest sense has never yet been seen, because that Church itself has not yet fully come into existence. But the one body which shall be seen is in course of being gathered, and as that work of gathering proceeds, every part which is gathered should in itself be a witness that it is one body which is gathered ; the essential character of the whole should be seen to be the indubitable mark of each of the parts, out of which combined the whole is constituted. That portion of the Church which is visible at any point of time should be a witness for, and an evidence of, that which shall supremely distinguish the whole when its time of perfect manifestation shall have come. Jesus is one with the portion of His Church which has come into being, and with every part of it which has been successively developed; and those with whom He is one should manifest the fruits of that oneness. The fruits of oneness with Jesus Christ, which in every age should appear, are summarily set forth in the Epistle of this day under seven heads, being called " the Unity of the Spirit :" the unity which He has engaged for; for which, as it were, 508 UNITY. He holds Himself responsible ; which, if He be allowed to work, He will surely bring to pass in those upon whom He operates ; — the unity which, for the present, satisfies God and Christ; which, if absent from the Church, Christ is misrepresented and God is dis- obeyed. " There is one body :" there is the outward visible object for the whole world to take notice of, to be touched by, to receive influences from — a body, and one body, not many. "There is one Spirit:" there is the inward power to inform and work that outward machinery — the treasure contained in the earthen vessel. One Spirit, variously manifested through the many members of one body, urging one body forward to a common consummation, " even as ye are called in one hope of your calling ; " the whole of the one body having one hope ; the whole power of the one Spirit labouring for the accomplish- ment of one hope. " There is one hope,'' the hope which God sets before every man when He calls him by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, — a hope which it needs a body to entertain, which an isolated man cannot realise, — a hope which, when a man lays hold of it, he becomes of necessity one of a body, and must find out that body, and be filled with the Spirit which is in it, which it derives from the Head that is over it. One hope, which belongs to all, and which must be realised by all altogether, of which the Head and all the members shall together enter upon the possession and enjoyment. The one hope comes third in the series of the enumeration in the order of the words, but it is first in the order of the Spirit and of truth. First, we are called. Called to what ?— To receive a kingdom from God with His Son, whom He hath UNITY. 509 made heir of all things. All who are called form the body which shall inherit ; that body which shall inherit is first under the guidance of that Spirit by whom they are to be prepared for their inheritance, and by whom manifold earnests of the nature of that inheritance are given unto them on their way to- wards it. After the enumeration of the " one body, and one Spirit, and one hope," mention is made of the " one Lord," who first embraced that hope, and for it set before Him endured the cross, and despised all shame — who lived first as the first member of the body which He was to be the Head of for ever — who first was justified by the Spirit — who, being perfected, was constituted Lord — who is acknow- ledged and obeyed as Lord by the body and by the Spirit — by every one who holds the hope — by every one who hath any earnest of it. There is one Lord — one only, who hath a right to set in order the Church of God — one only, who knows what the Church is coming to, who hath come to that Him- self in the common nature of all, and who hath undertaken to bring to the same end all who trust in Him. And there is but one way of trusting: " there is one faith," common to the Head and to the body, to the Forerunnner, and to all who run after Him in the race which God hath set. Jesus by faith prevailed, by faith He attained to the dignity of Lord. He believed in God — the Hving God. He trusted in God. He knew what God gave Him to do. He trusted in Him to give Him strength to do it. Tliat faith in God every member of the Church must have, as well as the Head. The only difference 510 UNITY. is in tins, that Jesus trusted in the unseen Father without a guide, whose steps He might follow, with- out another in a creature form going before Him, whom He might mark and follow. We by Him do trust in God. Through Him we have access to God. We hold by Him, as He held by the Father. We receive from our heavenly Father through Him ; He received through none. " There is one faith " for the whole body, and in every age. There is not fiiitli in the living God to be possessed in one age, and faith in statements, and doctrines, and dead tra- ditions, to be held in another ; but faith in God, which bnngs us to Him in whom we have faith, and re- ceives for us out of Him the things which it is proper for Him to give, as our God and Father in Jesus Christ. One faith, by which the subject of it lets go everything that he sees, to lay hold of something else that he sees not. One faith, which plunges into that which is meant by baptism; which says to the water. Come and drown the flesh and the world, for they have sinned against God once, and can never do otherwise. One faith, which is crowned by baptism which God accepts, and unto which, trusting in Him, He entrusts all things, and specially entrusts His Holy Spirit, the true river in which the faithful are baptized. Jesus believed and came to be baptized, and behold, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Ghost descended upon Him. The Church beHeveth in God through Him, and is baptized with the same baptism. There is but " one baptism ;" one for the Head, and one for the members avIio live in Him ; one for the Church in every age ; one baptism, which the precursor de- UNITY. 511 fined as " the baptism with the Holy Ghost :" which definition Jesus accepted, and held forth to the hope of His disciples ; which He promised to administer to them; which He did administer to them, on the day of Pentecost. And whosoever wants to know what Christ's baptism is must look to what was done on the day of Pentecost, that he may clearly understand the matter unto this " one baptism." We and our childi-en, upon whom the sacramental, mystic water, hath been poured or sprinkled in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, are shut up. We have not a right to call ourselves the baptized with Christ's baptism if we are not par- takers of this — if we are refusers of this — if we say this was for others, not for us. Christ's baptism really used, not by legal fiction, gives God the mastery over us, and fills us with the consciousness of His love as our Father ; therefore the mention of it is followed by the last term in the series. "There is one God and Father of all, who is above all., and through all, and in you all;'' ruling all by His double right of God who made us, and Father who regene- rated us, serving Himself of all as His special in- struments nearer to Him than other creatures, those upon whom His action is most direct and immediate ; and in us all, as in His chosen habitation — His second house, so to speak — for He who dwelleth in heaven, who inhabiteth eternity, hath His home also on earth, and amongst the finite in the Church of Christ. This is the unity which the Spirit of God came down, as on this day, to work amongst us, to make of us one visible body, instinct with one divine life, anticipating, pressing forward to one glorious hope, 512 UNITY. standing under and following after one Lord, cleaving to God with the faith of which the Lord Himself was the first example in His own person, and the author and finisher of in others. A faith sealed, indeed, by a baptism, which shuts us up in God Himself, and gives Him the entire use of us. Surely it is no false accusation to say, that such a unity as this is not seen in the visible Church. Yet, such as this God desires to see, and none other. Unless such an one as this be desired and sought after, according to the way which He has appointed for attaining to it, He will allow no other to exist till the time be come for allowing that unity of Antichrist, which shall be consumed as soon as realised. In God's Church the speech of men has been confounded almost from the beginning, and the brethren have not been able to understand one another. God will not allow His Church, continuing His, to be bound together but in this way. He gave His Spirit for this end in the beginning. But He was the Spirit of truth, whom the world could not receive. It would not look at Him and know Him, that it might receive Him. As the children of Israel fell a lusting after Egypt subsequent to their deliverance from it, so the second Israel lusted after the second Egypt, the natural world, and then ceased to take pleasure in the Spirit of God; yea, loathed Him, as a cruel intruder upon their happi- ness. Apostles, by whom the Spirit was distributed through the Churches, soon became intolerably offen- sive to the worldly-minded and carnal. Prophets were endured a little longer, and then snuffed out. Evan- gelists were reduced to a limited Gospel. A full Gospel implies the presence in the Church of Apo- UNITY. 513 sties and Prophets. Pastors having no Gospel, or a curtailed one, to break down to their flocks, became expounders and administrators of a new and terrible law. Yet, for all that, the unity of the Church was a fixed idea, and every means but the right one was taken to preserve it. It was lost, however, and a new language concerning it came into fashion amongst men; namely, that visible unity during the present dispensation is not a purpose of God at all. God has arisen, in our day, against this dissolving de structive principle. He has drawn attention once more to His means for effecting what He has pro- posed to be done. The doctiine of unity is strength- ened in those who always held it; has recovered its place amongst those who had lost it. But men are not tired of trying their own strength yet. They say. We do not want Apostles, and the fourfold Mmistry, and the Holy Ghost, as Paul defines Him. Rome can do for us what is required; or, as others say, an Evan- gelical AUiance can effect it. Some are going about to make a union of Christians, which shall put Greeks and Latins into good humour with one another, and shall leave no room for Protestants to disturb them. Others would make a Catholic Church out of mere Protestants. The Governments of the world are tempted to try the schoolmaster at the work which the priest and the preacher have failed in. God will vindicate His own way. The Church, which would not bend to His Spint at the first, became a Babylon. The Church, which will not be changed from the condition of Babylon to the condition of the Holy Bride of the Lamb, by yielding to the second attempt of the Spirit of God to save her, shall become the L L 514 UNITY. prophet of tlie Beast, the hiimourer and slave of Antichrist. God has begun to work. Men do not believe it, but by their deeds they prove it. The efforts making after unity are a proof that the time is come for producing it, and that God has begun to move towards its accomplishment. The appear- ance of Sociahsm is an evidence that God has again begun to manifest that Spirit, whose action in the beginnmg delivered men's hearts from selfishness. The working of Mesmerism and diablery manifold have taken hold of society, because God began to revive supernatural manifestations in the present day. God has begun to work; and since the voice of His Spirit has been heard, has not every year, politically, socially, ecclesiastically, been an annus mirahilis f After a shower of rain, weeds grow rank as well as plants grow strong. When God moves, although few believe and rejoice in His movement, yet all are compelled to follow it. Every living body becomes engaged in his way with some coun- terfeit of what the Lord is doing. When God begins to build anew, everything old begins to break up, whether to furnish materials for His builders or for their rivals and hinderers. The Church, from the midst of which the cry of the Holy Ghost was first heard in this generation, the Scotch Church, was the first rent asunder after that voice had issued from her. The English Church, which first witnessed Apostolical action, and mainly furnished instruments for that ministry, heard immediately after a voice from her seats of learning, and from the most devout and eloquent of her clergy, that she was a miserable pretender, and had nought to do but return and hide UNITY. 515 her shame in the cloisters of her mother, from whose sins she had thought herself delivered. This cry the Bishop of Rome answered by reconstituting Eng- land again ecclesiastically. The Irish Church saw ten of her bishoprics extinguished by one Act of Parliament, and ruin menacing her whole establish- ment. The people of that land, become temperate in a day by fanatical faith in the Apostle of Temper- ance, filled with hope and boasting the great Organiser of Rebellion under the semblance of law. They said, We are ready to destroy everything that has ruled us, and to establish a millennium in its place. Behold, a famine sviddenly struck them down, not by thou- sands, but by millions ; and the survivors from death are fleeing, as before an angel of God, from their country and their homes. Smce the revival which we witness has com- menced, that spiritual delusion has prevailed in America which is hurrying by thousands, from Europe and all parts of the earth, the fanatical multitude to an earthly paradise on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. On the Continent of Europe, the beginning of the time which we speak of was marked by appeals to the Pope of Rome, from master-spirits within his jurisdiction, who announced to him that a new era was ushered in, that the time was come for him, the man of the people, to put himself at the head of the nations, and crush all despotisms. The Pope who heard the appeal exorcised the spiiit which raised the cry ; but his next successor set himself to obey it, although he drew back from what he begun, and has since l)een the aversion and curse of the people whom he balked. The whole Gospel 516 UNITY. of Anticlirist has been preached in our day tlirough Germany, France, and Italy. The people had drunk it in, and begun, to the terror of the world, to show its fruits, when God, in mercy, strengthened despotism for a little longer, to give men time to reflect upon what they had seen, and to repent of their wickedness. Surely the history of the world, since the year 1830, is full of signs and wonders, bright and dark. One is reminded of the language in which Joel announced the work of the Holy Ghost, which Peter took up and interpreted: — " It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit iipon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shaU dream dreams .... And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in, the earth beneath ; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke. The sun shall be turned into dark- ness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come." Behold the sequence : first, the manifestation of God's grace to some, then His judgments following upon those who would not let His grace take effect upon them. This sequence was seen in the Jewish history, from the day of Pen- tecost to the day of the destruction of the city of Jerusalem by the Koman armies. Also in the history of the fall of the Roman empire, which the apostles first traversed, and then God's besom of destruction swept it. The revival of His work of building His Church will draw a like train after it now. The sealing of God's tribes has begun. " The blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke,'' have in a measure began too. And all men have a fear, which they UNITY. 517 cannot master, tliat these calamities are at the door : hence the reluctance to begin hostilities, though war be in the heart; the dread of touching springs, because of the doors which they may open, and the powers of destruction and misery to which they shall give liberty of action. Before the thunder-cloud burst, blessed are they that flee to the only Hiding- place, who cover themselves with the covermg of God's Spirit, and wait the future and its awful issues with the confidence which He alone can give. Amen. SERMON XXXVIII. REDEEMING TIME. TWENTT-FmST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. The Epistle calls upon us to walk circumspectly, or accurately, making no false step — no step in vain. It is as much as to say, Walk about with your eyes open, losing nothing that is brought in your way ; be ready to seize every occasion that offers for serving God. In evil days those occasions may not frequently occur; therefore, when they do, make the most of them. " Redeem the time, for the days are evil." A purchaser walking through the market and finding it abounding in merchandise of little worth, will eagerly buy up any thing good that he can meet with — the scarcity of the good article enhances its value, and increases his desire to obtain it. So we are to do with time ; good days are few and far be- tween— none of them may be lost. The day of visit- ation to the Jews of old was three years and a half; that was their day of twelve hours, during which they could work. After that short day of visitation came long centuries of dispersion. After that short working day, a long night of darkness, during which no man could work. Paul saw that evil days were REDEEMING TIME. 519 setting in upon the Christian Church — in fact, they had begun : his own imprisonment was the proof that the first of them had ah'eady come ; he was conscious of the resistance to the Holy Ghost which had begun in the Church, and he had a true foreboding of what it would come to. Therefore, he said, prize your opportunity while you have it; value and use your hour of sunshine ; know the day of your mercy ; let it not have shone upon you in vain; buy it up as a good bargain, which the wise merchant will not aUow to escape from him. Be not of those who over the wreck of their lost opportunities shall yet pour out the lamentation, " The harvest is past, the sum- mer is ended, and we are not saved." When Paul wrote there was still a bright season to the Church of God; there were apostles in the midst of her, filled with the mind and spirit of Christ ; there were prophets and all other ministers, testifying of Christ and of the glories of His kingdom ; there were all the gifts of the Holy Ghost in exercise, and the unity of the saints was not yet broken : it was an opportunity to be prized, and the duration of it was short, — no moment of it was to be lost. He seemed to say. You will soon be bereaved ; while your Com- forter is with you enjoy His company; make much of His instruction and blessing while they remain with you. He may soon be without channels through whom to pour His grace into your souls. He may be driven back into the fountain from which He has flown forth by the pride and unbelief of those upon whom He was poured ; and then your days will be days of gloom, and weakness, and sorrow. Now the sun shines, rejoice in the light, give glory to God 520 REDEEMING TIME. because of it, and work while it is day. But that you may know your opportunity, you must know the will of the Lord. A man who does not know what to do, days shine for him in vain. And to no purpose will opportunities for work, and facilities for work, be thrown in your way if you do not know what work to be about. You will not redeem time if you do not know how to employ it. A man does not care to buy what he does not know what to do with ; it may be a bargain, but not to him. Time is wearisome to him who has nothing to do, — to him who has a work in hand every moment is precious. Knowing what the Lord at present wills to be done, we know the value of time, for we know how use- fully to fill up every instant of it. If you have a work to do, you will be watching for your oppor- tunity; if you have been watching for it, you will gladly seize it when it offers. That you may have a work to do — a work worth doing — a work, the effects of which will abide, know what the will of the Lord is; do not senselessly drive at some work of your own, but wisely work the work of God. Knowing the will of the Lord, and doing His work, you will not need wine to gladden your heart; you shall be filled with the Spirit, and His presence with you will be manifested by your joyful speech to one another. Sometimes workmen beguile their hard toil by sing- ing over their work and speaking cheerily to one another. You shall speak to one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs ; singing and making melody in your hearts unto the Lord, cheering your brethren with the voice of your tongue, delighting the ear of the Lord with the music of your hearty REDEEMING TIME. 521 the song of your heart is to Him as the fuUness of vocal and instrumental music (the S,a^a and the Thus engaged, you shall indeed be offering an eucharist to God and your Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that your songs of thanks- giving, and your eucharistic services, and your many works at favourable occasions, may be an harmonious whole without disorder, free from confusion, " be subject to one another in the fear of God." This is the Christianity to which we are called, — this is called, in the Gospel of the day, the feast of God; the feast which He makes in honour of the marriage of His Son — His union with the creation which He made. This is the earnest of the feast which shall be given in His glorious kingdom. Of this blessed feast we have a foreshadowing and a foretasting in the holy communion which this day we celebrate. The chief, indeed almost the only, use of time to us, is, that we may prepare ourselves and others for that to which we have been all invited. We are to be delivered from the indifference of those who in their hearts pre- ferred theu^ lands, oxen, and houses to the king- dom of God ; much more from the brutality of those who repulsed with persecution the heralds of the good tidings; and lastly, from the lawlessness of him who presumed to come to the Lord's feast other- wise than as the Lord of the feast had appointed. There were three degrees of wickedness — of those who would not hear at all, but stoned the messengers ; of those who had heard, who had received the invita- tion, but when the time came for enjoying it turned 522 REDEEMING TIME. off to something else; of those who rush into the kingdom, hut refuse preparation for it. With the last case, perhaps, we are most concerned. Those invited to the royal banquet have their court dress made before they go to the feast. The business of time between the invitation and the assembling of the invited is the preparation of the dresses to be worn. The "wedding garment" we have sacramentally and in a mystery received already in our baptism; but actually and absolutely we are receiving it every day, or every day refusing it, as a dress that does not become us and sit easy upon us. The habit to be worn at the marriage supper of the Lamb is of manifold stitchery — it is called " the righteousnesses of the saints ;" many forms of righteousness united to make one beautiful whole ; all duties woven together in their just proportions. All the instruction that can be given and received, all the grace that comes by every means of grace, the full presence and opera- tion of the anointing of Christ in the midst of His Church, are needed to make this " covering of the Spirit," and to clothe us with it ; this " raiment of needle-work," arrayed in which the king's daughter shall be all glorious in her inner chamber, waiting for the coming of the king. Discipline excludes now fi'om the table of the Lord those who are not coming to it in the Spirit of Christ, lest any should be for ever shut out from the antitypical table for the want of it. Friend, companion, rather (sVa/fg), How earnest tliou in hither in thine own dress, and not in the "covering of my Spirit?" The sacrament of rege- neration hath passed upon thee, why art thou not regenerated in the image of thy God ? The form of REDEEMING TIME. 523 sound doctrine hath been given to thee, why hast thou not been moulded in it ? Thou hast gone in and out with us, why hast thou refused what others received ? Thou hast no place here. The harmony of this concert must be perfect, one jarring note would spoil it. Brethren, let us come as those upon whom the eye of the Lord is fixed, in His mercy and gi^ace, giving Him glory, &c. Amen. SERMON XXXIX. WALKING CIRCUMSPECTLY. TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. The Epistle. — See then that ye loalk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. — Ephes. v. 15. The Gospel. — And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables. — Matt. xxii. 1. "See that ye walk circumspectly" {i.e. accurately, exactly). The word then shows that this precept is the practical conclusion of an argument which he had just used. The subject begins at the first verse of the chapter, "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children ; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints." Walk in love, in Christ's love, the particular mark of which was that it made Him sacrifice Himself for others; this was the mark of His love which pecu- liarly pleased God, and was unto Him as a fragrant ofiering. Walk in this love, but beware of all coun- terfeits of it. Men will strive " to deceive you with WALKING CIRCUMSPECTLY. 525 vain words" upon this matter — to make you accept some mockery of the real thing for the thing itself. Awake out of sleep with them, and as they sleep arise and come out from those dead ones, and Christ will give you light. He alone can give you light, and as you have Him to enlighten you, " see that ye walk circumspectly," making no mistake, having what God enjoins, and having the heavenly reality and no earthly imitation of it. The circutnspect walk here, then, does not mean, wary, self-advancing, self-pre- serving courses, but the walk of real self-devotion and self-sacrifice after the example of Christ. " Re- deeming the time." Love watches for its opportu- nity— seizes the favourable occasions as they arise, especially when " days are evil," when an opportu- nity lost may never return again ; in dark days, every hour and moment of sunshine are too valuable to be wasted. When enemies are abroad over the whole field of labour, and disturbance and hindrance may be every moment apprehended, every interval of security is to be highly prized and promptly taken advantage of. The days were evil when Paul wrote. " The mystery of iniquity had begun to work." The seduction of the Church from Christ's ministers to other leaders was rapidly proceeding, the quenching of the Spirit and the loss of the ministries were at hand; therefore, said he. Make use of your time; before you lose the means of grace, perhaps for ever, draw near and receive what they liave to give unto you : before the fountain is sealed, come and supply yourselves with water. While He who sells is in the way, come and buy the oil. " Yea, come ; buy wine and milk;" the full-freighted vessel is in your 526 WALKING CIRCUMSPECTLY. port to-day, to-morrow it may be gone for ever. If when Paul wrote, how much more now are the days evil — now in the nineteenth century, in the time of the end, when iniquity hath well-nigh culminated! Surely the days are evil ; in almost all the world the children of men are making laws to unfetter Satan and to hamper Christ ; liberty for evil is almost en- tire, liberty for good is becoming extinct : therefore, in whatever place there is a field of labour open, enter upon it. Wherever there is freedom to serve God and to help His creatures, use it. Soon there will be no field of labour nor freedom to work. But when the time is redeemed, when the favour- able occasion has been seen and seized, it is needful that it should be employed aright. Love alone may be senseless (^d(p^uv) and waste its golden hour in fruitless toil. All labour and activity are not good. Doing mischief is worse than doing nothing. The devil is a doer. When men are up and awake, and desiring to be employed, their employment should be wisely directed, or their vigilance and readiness and zeal will be worse than useless; therefore he adds to the admonition, " Redeem the time^'' the no less important caution, " knowing what the will of the Lord is." Be sure you know what the will of the Lord is urging — not what His abstract purpose is merely, but what He is now willing — what He wants to have done now — His present matter in hand. He is not sitting on His throne in Epicurean indifference, looking from afar upon the nations and taking no interest in them and their concerns. He has a will — a present, living will, in the matter. In this day of activity, every one wants to have somethuig done. WALKING CIRCUMSrECTLY. 527 He, too, wants to have something done. Do you know what that something is ? Who knows it? Let him tell it with plainness, in charity, and promptly, that the time he not lost in foolish work, in fi'uitless lahour ; hetter even sleep than that. And when we know what the will of the Lord is, let us not keep holiday and make ourselves merry in a carnal way, to bring us back into our former weak- ness and dissoluteness ; but let us be filled with the Spirit of God, that we may speak together, in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, that which has already been sung in the heart unto the Lord — in outward and inward psalmody — outward and inward music — as those who know £he will of the Lord — singing over their work like joyous workmen — speak- ing to one another as loving and cheerful fellow- labourers — "Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" — making — offering — our Eucharist (ivxoc§t^ovvTsg). Alas! it is in vain we offer the mate- rial emblems of the acceptable sacrifice, the material euchaf'ist, in the consecrated bread and wine, unless with this accompaniment: both together are indeed the perfect witness for Christ, with which God is well pleased. To ofier thanks to God for the name of Jesus Christ the Lord, and to set before Him the sacramental signs of that name and of the work which, to illustrate that name. He hath done, is yet doing, and will hereafter do, without showing the fruits of that name in the offerers themselves, is not pleasmg unto God, but an insult unto Him. And the fruits of that name nuist be offered in due measure and proportion, " submittuig yourselves 528 WALKING CIRCUMSPECTLY. to one anotlier in the fear of God." The very heathen appeared before their gods in decent order, when each had his place in the solemn procession ; the Christ- ians, filled with the Spirit and pouring out of the same in thanksgiving to God, must respect one an- otlier in the Lord — rank must not he broken, nor harmony disturbed. How immeasurably below this standard of perfec- tion are we all found ! Let the consciousness of it quicken our desires for His mind and spirit, whose flesh and blood we are this day in the mystery offer- ing unto God, and receiving back from Him. Let us beware how we be bodily present at the marriage feast, whilst our thoughts and desires are far away with other things. The Lord knows those who have really accepted His invitation and are present because He is here. May your hearts be abundantly satisfied, and the reality of your attainment be blessed to the drawing of many unto Him who is faithful, and to whom as the Faithful One you and they together shall ascribe for ever glory, &c. &c. Amen. SERMON XL. WHEAT AND TARES. The parable of the tares and tlie wlieat is one of the two which the Lord explained to His disciples, and on that account merits special attention. In the first place it is to be observed, that " good seed" and " tares" do not mean abstract things — good and bad principles merely — but human beings, embodying, no doubt, and developing such principles. The term "seed" is applied in another parable to an ab- stract idea; and in several passages of the New Testament is used to express a living principle intro- duced into men, and distinct from them. For in- stance, in the parable of the sower, the gospel preached by Chiist and His ministers is called seed. *' The sower soweth the word ;" the " seed is the word of God," " the word of the kingdom." Again : St. Peter, in his first Epistle, calls the gospel which he preached the " incorruptible seed," by which men were born again. And St. John speaks of those born of God, who had in them the seed of God, who could not sin, the seed of God remaining in tliem. In the parable of the tares, however, the term seed is applied to men — to those having in them the M M 530 WHEAT AND TAKES. Gospel of Christ, the word of the kingdom, the seed of God. The term " tare " is loosely, or rather wrongfully, applied by loose interpreters to abstract opinions; like as a passage in the Epistle to the Corinthians, where " wood, hay, and stubble," are spoken of, is very often erroneously explained, as if the " wood, hay, and stubble," meant wrong opinions, human traditions, superstitious practices, corrupt or insignificant ritual observances, engrafted upon a system of Christian doctrine, true in the main — en- cumbrances, oppressing the life of religion, but not destroying its essence. It is not necessary to labour to show that in that passage " wood, hay, and stubble,'' mean individuals — persons gathered into the Church, but not being true members of the Head of the Church at all. That passage in St. Paul's Epistle is analogous to this parable of the Lord, where a contrast is drawn between those whom God draws into His Church and gives to His Son to be perfected by Him, and those whom Satan draws into it, or whom men, for various reasons, induce to join themselves to it. All who are brought into the visible Church are not brought into it by God; all who are in the visible Church are not necessarily the children of God — nay, never were. Tares never were wheat, and never will be. Wheat do not be- come tares. Whatever grace of God in common all do possess who come into sacramental relation unto Him, and into visible acknowledgment of and pro- fession of Christianity, there is still something more of the essence of religion, which makes a distinction, according to which men are classed and ranged, either under the category of tares or of wheat. The tares WHEAT AND TARES. 531 are in tlie field as well as the wheat; they are reo'arded as of the visible Church as much as the o wheat; they are considered as those upon whom the rulers in the Church have a right to exercise what they regard as needful discipline. What makes the difference between wheat and tares ? Of course that which they have in common does not make the difference. Simon Magus and the rest, who heard Philip and were baptized, had something in common ; yet they were wide asunder as heaven and earth. They, after their baptism, received the Holy Ghost ; he the awful rebuke, which told him that he had no part in the blessing. Bre- thren, it is a fatal error to regard all baptized men as alike the children of God, irrespective of the prin- ciples which they hold. The man who has in his heart the Gospel of Christ is essentially different from the man who has not, although externally, as to stand- ing in the Church, there is no difference. A baptized believer and a baptized infidel are wide as the poles asunder — yea, far apart as heaven and hell. It is the consciousness of this fact which has been at the bottom of all the zealous contention for true doctrine which has prevailed in the Church from the begin- ning. The struggle about doctrine has been always felt to be a life-and-death struggle ; because, whether men could define it or not, they have had it in them as a sort of spiritual instinct, that spiritual life is bound up with doctrinal truth, as in nature the life of a plant is shut up in its seed; and that, if you destroy truth, you can have no life, no more than you can have a crop of corn from the best-tilled and most favourably circumstanced field, if no seed 532 WHEAT AND TARES. proper for the propagation of that com has been de- posited in the earth. Therefore, in the Church, heresy has been always regarded as more terrible than all moral delinquency — worse than even schism : common sin and schism defiling, wounding, weak- ening the life of God in His Church ; but heresy taking away the means of its propagation. The others oppressed the plant — it rotted the seed; the others defiled the streams as they flowed — it dried up the springs. However the theologicum odium, the controversial bitterness, have been censured, and justly so, yet living men could never avoid the struggle for true principles if they would save their life. A man involuntarily defends his heart and head; he cannot help fighting for his life. The Church, when she burned heretics, and cut down their supporters by the sword, and rooted out their habitations from the earth — although in the burning she greatly sinned, to say no more, even against the admonition contained in this parable — and in those whom she burned often sinning, too, the holders of the truth being the consumed, and the corrupters of it the consumers — yet, by the fires of punishment she testified her deep-seated conviction that the most important thing in the world was doctrinal truth, to be defended, if need be, by the most terrible j^enal- ties. The Lord made faith in true doctrine con- cerning Himself the qualification for baptism in His first disciples, and no doubt the complement of bap- tism in their children. And ever since His day the Church demands a confession of the truth before she will administer the baptism. The Creed must be aflfirmed by the adult catechumen with his own lips, WHEAT AND TARES. 533 by the infant recipient of the sacrament through his sponsor. The infant does not merely bring to the font a negative quaUfication — a medium of non-resist- ance, as they say — he brings a positive quaUfication ; for Christ pLanted before His sacraments positive, and not merely negative qualifications. The mere absence of active resistance is not the qualification in the infant child for baptism, Christ demands more : the Church interprets Him as demanding more : the presence of the positively yielding element is sup- posed, and not merely the absence of the resisting one. The presence of faith is demanded, not the mere absence of unbelief. " Whoso believeth and is bap- tized," said the Lord, " shall be saved." The same rule applies to all and each. It is not said to those who did not resist Him, " He gave power to become the sons of God;" but, " to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God." " Here is water," said one, " why may I not be bap- tized?" " If thou believest, thou mayest," said one of the first preachers of the Gospel unto him. And, like that evangelist, the Church ever since has stood between the water and the claimant of baptism, whether adult or infant, with the Creed in her hand, saying, " If thou believest, thou mayest." That which is within a man, therefore, that which God's eye alone sees in its beginning, but which man discerns and knows by its fruits, is that which dis- tinguishes mainly, and to begin with, the wheat from the tare. When the blade sprang up, and the fruit was born, the nature of the plants was patent to all. What is that which the good seed have in them 534 WHEAT AND TARES. which the tares have not? Here is the place and time of scrutiny. The answer is contained in the name which the Lord gives to the wheat in his interpretation of the parable. " The good seed are the children [the sofis'\ of the kingdom." They are those who have admitted into them the word of the kingdom, i. e. the Gospel of Christ, in whatever fullness it has been brought to them. The Grospel of the kingdom means what St. Paul calls " the whole counsel of God." Because the kingdom is the crown- ing, consummating blessing, which includes every- thing going before it, and preparing the way for it. The receiving of the Gospel of Christ, according to the measure of its development in their day, is the essential difference of the children of the kingdom. Abraham received it in one stage of its progress; David in another; Paul in a third. They all " had in their heart" the word which came from God in their day, and did what, for the time being, that word required. The children of the kingdom are those who are pursuing the end which God has set before them, whatever stage of the way leading to that end they may be at present labouring through. The good seed in the concrete are those who have in them that which is the good seed in the abstract, and who allow it full liberty in them : for, alas ! many receive into them in a sort of way the good seed of God's word, and yet never attain to His kingdom ; which we learn from the parable of the sower, where the Lord teaches us that in three kinds of soil the seed brings forth no crop, and in the fourth only is fruitful for the sower thereof. Those who have the truth in them, and who come to the WHEAT AND TAKES. 535 font of baptism, and obtain from Grod what baptism conveys, they are the children of the kingdom ; and, ex abundanti, they believing the truth, being baptized and receiving the laymg on of hands in Christ's Church, are the sons of the kingdom. Why say I this? Because baptism sets forth to all, and to the true and recipient in the mystery, conveys the new birth or regeneration — the estate of the new creature. It conveys as much as a sacrament can convey to its recipients, the qualification for ruling in God's kingdom, which the man Christ Jesus has attained unto. Baptism saves; it crucifies, raises, and glori- fies. Glorification is the last stage in the work of salvation. By baptism we are made the children of the kingdom ; in this sense, that we are carried through the new birth, the new-creating process by which we are made fit for the possession and enjoyment of the kingdom. But the laymg on of hands, coming on after baptism, does not merely go over the ground again, which baptism went over — it proceeds a step fiirther. As baptism itself is a step in advance upon the belief of the Gospel, baptism prepares men for the kingdom ; the laying on of apostles' hands gives to them the earnest of the kingdom, for which they have been prepared. They who say that the laying on of hands in the Church is mere surplusage, that baptism has done already all that the laying of hands can be available for, do greatly err. Baptism and chrism, or confirmation, or sealing, differ from one another as much as preparation for the inherit- ance differs from the possession of the inheritance. They who are sealed with the Spirit of promise possess uow truly, though in earnest only, what in 536 WHEAT AND TARES. fullness tbey shall enjoy at the coming again of the Lord. To be born again for the kingdom, and to possess in earnest that kingdom for which we are born, that is, indeed, to be children of the kingdom. In making us those children of the kingdom, Christ's tongue begins and His hand finishes, and are the way the creation is called in to co-operate. God and the universe are made to unite and to feel, so to speak, a joint interest in the new creation and everlasting blessedness of man, God's child, creation's heir. Here let me say a word about the difference between baptism and circumcision. Baptism, fully understood, expresses, not so much what we attain to in this dispensation as our hope in the dispen- sation to come. It does, indeed, express all that we attain to now ; but it goes beyond our present attainment and experience unto what Christ has arrived at, whither we hope to come. Baptism means the putting away of all that we have now, and the resuming of it under a new condition and law of being. This, of course, waits for the resur- rection. Baptism sets forth to faith our past resur- rection state; but circumcision does not symbolise the destruction of the whole man, and the repro- duction of him in a new condition, but the cutting off of part, the restraining of the old creation as long as it exists, the holding it and curbing it within the restraints of God's law. Baptism gathers up into it circumcision (which was given to the Jew, and set forth what Christ showed to the Jew at His first appearing, when He came to be baptized as the fuMler of aU righteousness), but goes beyond cir- WHEAT AND TARES. 537 ciimcision, even to that whicli Christ will show to the universe at His second appearing, and will then lead into all who are longing for His appearing. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. Bretlu'en, the belief of our oneness with Christ, which brought to Him our sins to condemn in flesh, our curse to bear upon the cross, our debt fully to discharge in the grave, and to us a share in his resurrection and in His kingdom, the possession of His Spirit as the worker of all that baptism means, that laying on of hands signifies, that in the holy Eucharist is transacted, has been to us the open door to all the blessedness whicli we have expe- rienced in these last days. We prospered from the day that we waited upon God in earnest to acknow- ledge, with thankfulness, the blessed fact, and to plead with earnestness for its effects. In proportion as we have done this we have prospered; as we have failed in it our souls have languished, and our joy in God and zeal for His service have become weak and cold. We prayed to God to glorify His risen Christ in His members upon the earth. We did not get at all times what we defined, or what we expected, according to what God had defined as we read His definition, but we got enough to prove unto us that God was with us, and that He was the author of the hopes that cheered us. In looking to where the Head of the Church had gone, and in expecting from Him things proper to receive fi-om such an one, and from such a place, light came to our eyes and joy to our hearts; our tongues were loosed, and our words had force and meaning: in proportion as we have accepted man's definitions 538 WHEAT AND TARES. or acquiesced in liis misrepresentations of Christ's Church, we have become weaker and poorer than all others. " Let that remain in us which we heard from the beginning," and we shall yet overcome. For Christ said, " if ye abide in me, and my word abide in you," you shall be fruitful. " You shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." The good seed are the children of the kingdom ; those who have got into their hearts the hope of the kingdom and the love of the King, who died for His subjects first, and afterwards fed them with His own flesh and blood (the true model of a king, sacrificing himself for his subjects and giving himself to them), who shall ultimately set them with Him- self to rule all things. This knowledge of the king- dom, this hope of it, and this love of the King, are introduced into the heart by the preaching of the Gospel. Those who have got the hope of the king- dom into their hearts are baptized into Christ, that they may be prepared for it ; into Him whom they love and can trust they are baptized, that they may be made like Him; and they are sealed with His hand, that they may be partakers of the glory which belongs to the saved, that they may receive the kingdom which is prepared for the righteous. They come up new creatures from the baptismal font. And He who has made them new, forthwith gives them new wine to drink and new powers to exercise. He shows them by baptism what must be done unto them before they can be fit for His service. He shows them by the Eucharist, and by the laying on of hands, what He baptizes them for, why they are made new creatures; namely, that they may com- WHEAT AND TARES. 539 mune with Him for ever, and with Him rule over all the works of God's hands. God accounts good seed those in whom these marks are found. Through them He reaps a harvest of praise, of worship, of love, of manifold service ; through them the angels before His throne learn His manifold wisdom, behold and trace out His unsearchable riches ; through them the world where they live receives alleviation of its present sorrow, and hope of its future liberty and peace. Blessed is the nation where the good seed is allowed to grow ; happy are the kings of the earth under whose sceptre they are tolerated and shielded ; blessed are the people amongst whom they dwell. They receive fi'om their Lord the earnest of their kingdom, and the whole creation receives from them a foretaste of the happiness which to all creation shall accrue fi-om their establishment in their in- heritance. Jesus, the lover of God and of His works, planted such upon the earth, to follow on the service of love unto God and His creatures which He began. The Son of man, who is the Word made flesh — the Word made flesh, anointed with the Holy Ghost — sowed such men upon the earth ; men having the word of God in them, derived from Him, Word of God, flesh of man, one for ever; and not only having in them the word from the Word made flesh, but the Spirit with which He was anointed anointing tliem. The Son of man, in whom heaven and earth were one, sowed such men, combining in tliem heaven and earth. But all in the visible Church are not such. While men slept, the enemy sowed tares among the wheat. 640 WHEAT AND TARES. Brethren, it is an awful thought. Some, yea, many who are in the Church, are not there as drawn by the Father, as cleaving to the Son, as drinking into the Spirit : they are brought into the Church by the enemy of God and man. All in the visible Church are not children of God, but children of the wicked one. Christ said, in the days of His so- journ upon the earth, to certain who had Abraham's circumcision, that they were not, for all that, Abra- ham's children, but of their father the devil. So in this parable He teaches it would be with the bap- tized as well. And the last of His apostles — whose words are, perhaps, the most dividing in the sacred canon — speaks of the two classes in the Church of God, the children of God and the children of the devil ; and gives the distinguishing marks of both, which are no sacramental signs of distinction, no outward distinctions that man's hands could have any part in making or in applying; " he that doeth righteousness is of God," and, " he that loveth his brother:" the children of the devil are they who commit sin, and who hate their brethren, as Cain hated Abel. The tares are sown by the enemy of the owner of the field, by him who would hinder the field from being fruitful ; they are sown in the field, that they may entangle themselves with the good seed, and hinder their growth and ripening. The tares have not in them the word of the kingdom, nor the Gospel concerning the love of the King ; neither do they care to understand the meaning of baptism, and strive to attain to what baptism in the mystery conveys : tliey scofi' at the hope of the glory, and despise the earnest of it : they are pushed into the WHEAT AND TARES. 541 Church by the devil, to labour for him there — to hinder in all ways the will of Him who sowed the field — to take the field from His good seed — to get the mastery in the Church — to control its word — to stop the preaching of it, or to change the terms of it — to turn it from a gospel of comforting to a no- gospel of troubling — to quench the Spirit in the Church — to hinder the righteousness which prepares for the kingdom, and the glorious endowments and heavenly hierarchical order which are the earnest of it, from being manifested to the glory of God. The tares are sown by the devil — by him who seeks grounds and occasions for accusing and im- peaching, who is the liar and murderer, who loves the evil speech and the cruel deed. In order that he may accuse God and blaspheme Christ as a liar, he brings into the Church those who will hinder, if possible, from coming into the Church, and being exercised and enjoyed in it, what God promised to give to His people, and did bestow upon them. His hinderers, his obstructers, his perverters, will pre- vent God's blessing from coming in and abiding; and then he accuses God as a breaker of promises for withholding His blessing ! In order that he may accuse the saints before God, he hinders the mani- festation of the holiness and glory of Christ throuo-h them by means of his instruments in the Church, and then accuses the saints for their barrenness and unprofitableness ! In order that the world may hate God's Church, he sends into the Church those through whom it shall be travestied, misrepresented, caricatured — those wlio shall hinder the liglit of heaven from shining through it to cheer, to illumine, 542 WHEAT AND TARES. to gladden the children of men, but shall cause the counsels of hell to be taken there, and the darkness and wickedness of hell to issue thence — to make the Church, not a door opened in heaven, but a key to the bottomless pit — to caiise that the Church shall not rejoice as a chaste virgin in the hope of her espousals with the Son of God, but consent to be the drunken harlot, first of the kings of the earth, and lastly of the infidel Beast himself. Brethren, there are two parties in the visible Church — one having a mission fi'om the Son of God, the other from the devil ; and the knowledge of this is needful, that the childi'en of God may not for ever suppress what they have to say, or neutralise it by damaging modifica- tions, in order to win those who are never to be won ; that they may not restrain the Spirit of Christ to conciliate those who shall never l)e conciliated; but that they may declare all the truth, and be edified by all the grace which belongs to their dis- pensation. Alas ! how have the saints in every age been be- fooled out of their principles and their purity by ac- commodations to the wicked m the vain hope of con- verting them? How have good beginnings for the revival of God's Church been fi-ustrated by the en- tangling of the tares with the wheat ! Whenever the Son of Man has sown good seed, the enemy has straightway followed, bringing in his hinderers, his mingled people, lusting after the land from which they had been delivered, and going back to it in their hearts continually. There are four marks of the tares : first, they are sown by the devil, by him who wants to misrepre- WHEAT AND TARES. 543 sent and denaturalise Christianity, in order that, with a show of reason, he may accuse it; secondly, they are the chilcken of the wicked one — that is, they love to do wickedness. What is wickedness? It is to oppose the will of God, and to beat down those who stand for it ; as Cain refused to serve God in the way appointed, and slew his brother for doing so. What is wickedness? It is to do as Eve did, to snatch the fi'uit of paradise without God's permission — to enjoy God's gifts and creatures ^vithout Himself. What is wickechiess? It is to hope to be as gods while dis- obeying God's command, yea, through disobedience to it. Thirdly, they are called by Christ, in His interpretation of the parable, things that offend, stumbling-blocks lying in His way to hinder Him from getting freely at men — lying in men's way to hinder them from getting at Christ — making it diffi- cult for God to approach men, furnishing them with good excuses for their unbelief. Lastly, they are called those who work iniquity — h.vo[Mocv — lawless- ness, who begin by scandalising the Christian pro- fession and end by renouncing it. Perhaps the two- fold character which the apostasy from Christ in the visible Church should take is set forth under these two descriptions : — Babylon first, the woman who is a disgi'ace to her husband, and gives the world an ex- cuse for despising and hating Him ; secondly, the Beast and his Prophet, who rule not the world in His name, but take it altogether out of His hands. Two things are condemned in this parable : first, spurious charity, which will not see, or if, seeing, speak the difl^'erence between children of tlie kingdom and children of the wicked one ; secondly, 544 WHEAT AND TARES. the carnal severity, wliicli would attempt the ex- tu^pation of the wicked before God's time. Again, an argument against attempting the purification of the Church is deduced from an interpretation of the parable, which is contrary to other declara- tions of Scripture. For instance : because the right- eous may not destroy the disobedient, therefore is it concluded that they must not come out from them and be separate; because the people of God may not destroy Babylon, but must leave that work to the Beast, who shall become the harlot, therefore they are not to come out from her, as they are ex- pressly commanded to do, fleeing from her sins and escaping her judgments. Finally, at the end of the dispensation we must expect to see works analogous to the binding of the tares in bundles for the fire, and the ripening and gathering of the good seed into unity and perfect- ness, — facilities for combination will be afforded to men, and a Divine impulse will be upon them, com- pelling them to declare themselves and to choose their parties, — wickedness must become more declared, and piety more decided, — knowledge will be greatly increased ; good and bad, no doubt, in equal propor- tions— their fitness and ripeness for their several places of destination will become more and more manifest in the children of the kingdom and in the childi-en of the wicked one, — the generation which shall at last see hell finally opened shall be the most fully prepared for that place of torment of all the gene- rations that ever descended into it or were separated for it ; and those to whom the New Jerusalem shall come down from heaven shall be found the portion WHEAT AND TARES. 545 of all God's elect amongst wliom Christ's Spirit found most liberty to prepare them for entrance into the lioly city; and the nearer the righteous are to the kingdom of their Lord, the deeper and stronger will be their earnest of it. The time before the advent will be the time of the lifting up of the head through the abounding of hope ; and the nearer the wicked are to their irrevocable doom, the more terrible will be their presentiment of the day of wrath. The light of the heavenly city, and its songs of joy, will open upon the sight and strike upon the ears of those journeying towards it; and the smoke and groans of Tophet shall darken and stun the souls of those who are plunging into it, and who shall perhaps consider even the opened gulf an escape from the face of the Lamb, from whom they call upon the rocks and the mountains to hide them. Brethren, if these things be so, " what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" How zealous to be cleansed from every- thmg in us that sympathises and takes part with any of those four marks by which the children of the wicked one are distinguished, — that we should abhor every misrepresentation of our holy religion, not only that which others are guilty of, but more especially that which is nearest to us, which can be imputed to ourselves or to our friends — that we should flee from wickedness, not only in its gi'osser but in its more refined and hidden forms — that we should cast stum- bling-blocks before none of our brethren or fellow- men, but rather cast up a highway over which aU might return to the Lord our God — that we should have no sympathy with those who cast away the N N 546 WHEAT AND TARES. holy things because they have been abused, but rather imitate Him who found God's creatures ruined, and did not forthwitli renounce and destroy them, but made Himself one with them and thereby re- deemed them to God's service. Now let us labour that we may be approved as the children of the king- dom, rejoicing in the hope and submitting to the dis- cipline ; and as all good seed must die to propagate its kind, being willing to die for our brethren, learn- ing of Him who died for all how we can lay down our lives for others — how we can cease from self- seeking, and self-pleasing, and self-glorification — and suffer, if God will, the loss of all things for the elect's sake, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Amen. Loudun :— I'l-iuted by G. Bakclav, Castle St. Leicester S'l- RECENTLY PUBLISHED. " The Corinthian and Galatian Sins against the Spirit of Christ ;" aud " A Review of the Epistle to the Hebrews." Two Senuons, preached in the CathoUc Apostolic Church in Gordon Square. By the Rev. Nicholas Abmstrong. 8vo. Price Is. The Call of St. Paul to the Apostle- ship. Notes of a Ministry in the Catholic Apostolic Church. Gordon Square. 8vo. dd. III. 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