PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.








SCIENCE IN THEOLOGY.
SERMONS
PREACHED IN ST. MARY'S, OXFORD,
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY.
BY
ADAM  S-' FARRAR, M.A., F.G.S., F.R.A.S.,
MICHEL FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD; LATE ONE OF THE SELECT
PREACHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY; AND PREACHER AT THE
CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL.
PH ILADELPHIA:
SMITH, EIN GLIS H  &  CO.,
No. 23 NORTHI SIXTII STREET.
NEW  YORK: SHELDON  & CO.
BOSTON: GOULD & LINCOLN.
1860.




C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS,
Corner Seventh and Cherry Streets, Philadelphia.




PRtEFACE.
THE title, 6" Science in Theology," is intended to
express the writer's purpose in the composition of
the following Sermons, viz., to bring some of the
discoveries and methods of the Physical and -Moral
Sciences to bear upon theoretic questions of
Theology.
The history of the growth of systematic theology
on the one hand, and of religious scepticism on the
other, exhibits marked traces of the constant presence of an element which may be called Science in
Theology. From the time that Theology first arose
out of Religion, the speculative theory out of the
practical art, it has never failed to receive a tinge
From the condition of general knowledge existing,
mnd the methods for the investigation of truth pre-,ralent, in each particular age. Itself a kind of
1*




vi                 PREFACE.
science, —so far as systematic arrangement of principles can constitute science, —it has shared the fate
of the other sciences; it has been compelled to take
its place among them, and has met with opposition,
or has received illustration from them. Its history
is marked by epochs of criticism or of scepticism, in
which it has had to submit to the investigations of
co-ordinate bodies of Physical or Mental Philosophy,
sometimes refuting them, sometimes borrowing from
them, at other times surrendering to them. In
each of these epochs the difficulties presented have
been grounded in some form of Science or Philosophy which has been brought to bear upon Christian Theology; in each of them the restoration or
the perpetuation of Christian belief has depended
upon the readjustment of the new form of thought
with the claims of pre-existent religious dogmas.
The battle has been metaphysical or scientific, not
strictly theological. It has been fought in reference
to the premises from which the sceptics or critics
have started, not to the conclusions at which they
have arrived.
In the early centuries, for example, Theology
received a tinge from contact with the allegorizing
philosophy of Alexandria, which expressed itself in
the writings of Origen. That learned man could




PREFACE.                    Vii
not lay aside his favorite habits of thought, but
strove to adjust Christian speculations to them.
During the two centuries which followed his time,
Theology came into conflict with the Neo-Platonic
philosophy,* and in the conflict came forth victorious
from the first great historical epoch of scepticism.
In the middle ages it encountered a new danger, a
second crisis, from the criticism of Nominalists like
Abelard, in the University of Paris;t and it received a new adjustment with the existing state of
thought through means of the logical arrangements
of the Schoolmen, such as Anselm and Aquinas.+
At the era of the Renaissance it encountered new
difficulties in being brought into contact with the
wider knowledge which Providence, from time to
time, disclosed to mankind-difficulties which have
not, like the more ancient ones previously noticed,
quickly expired, but have left their effects to the
present day. The sacred books were then, for the
first time, exposed to the criticism of great scholars
and editors, and alarm was excited by the discovery
of variety of readings in the text. Received dog-'* See Sermon V (pp. 142-146) of this volume.
t See Sir J. Stephen's " Lectures on the History of France" (vol. ii,
first Lecture on the Power of the Pen).
T See Sermon VI, pp. 171, 172.




Viii                       PREFACE.
mas also were submitted  to  the acute controversies
generated by the Reformation, and while undergoing revision from  that movement the terminology
in which  they were expressed  became  stereotyped
in the mode that might be expected from  an era of
religious struggle.* In the early part of the seventeenth century the discoveries in Physical Science also began to unveil new truths to the minds
of the  orthodox.   Metaphysical Science  likewise,
X It was an age when theologians had not time for careful thought,
even if the state of scholarship had been sufficiently advanced to supply them with the materials for it. This, however, was not the case.
In the world of scholars there were indeed giants in those days-Erasmus, Bud-Lus, the Stephenses, the Scaligers, &c.,-but their attention
was devoted mainly to words. The scholars of the seventeenth century applied themselves rather to things.  On the foundation thus prepared, the German scholars of the last and present century have been
able to found accurate sciences of language and of criticism. While,
therefore, we justly render all honor to the noble efforts of the theologians of the era of the Reformation, we ought not to suppose that they,
with their imperfect attainments, were infallible interpreters of the
sacred Scriptures, nor to allow their views to be an impediment to the
theological progress which Providence is forcing on the world by the
advance in knowledge, to a portion of which allusion has been made.
The stand-point of the sixteenth century had its value; it was a noble
protest against medi-eval Christianity, an epoch in spiritual emancipation; but it was not the same as the stand-point of the first century,
and for this reason, as well as for the others just named, it is not sufficiently broad and simple and learned to be the stand-point of the nineteenth.




PREFACE.                    ix
in opening up investigations into  the origin of
knowledge, led through the spread of Sensationalism to a new, the third, epoch of religious scepticism, which is generally identified with the name
of Voltaire and the contemporary philosophers of
France. It is unnecessary to point out the intellectual and moral means by which Theological Science outlived this new crisis. The battle was again
fought on Scientific ground, not on Theological.
Lastly, the convergence of different lines of thought
in the present day; of the Intellectualism  of Germany* and the Positivism of France; of religious
dogmatism and scientific scepticism; and the existence of apparent discrepancies between Theology
and the Sciences, are producing a fresh era of criticism, a fresh crisis of doubt. Theology must again
listen to secular discoveries, must refute them or
readjust its doctrines and its methods to them; and
the humblest attempts, made without sophistry, in
an honest and loving temper, to aid in such a desirable result, must surely be useful.
The history thus given of Science in Theology,
i.e. of the relation which Science, Physical and
X This terll is intended to include the Spiritualist tendencies of the
followers of Schelling, as well as the Rationalist followers of Kant and
Hegel.




X                       PREFACE.
Mental, has held to Theology, will explain clearly
the meaning of the writer of these pages. The
following sermons can only be regarded as detached
contributions, aiming to show the mode in which
the Theology of the present day may incorporate
the irrefragable discoveries of modern science into
its own system. They will have performed their
office if (with the assistance of the hints offered in
the foot-notes) they are the means, by God's blessing,
of suggesting materials for reflection to thoughtful
and religious minds. They are published in deference to the wishes of very many persons, who made
the request at the times when they were respectively preached.*
The topic thus indicated offers abundant field for
investigation to those theological students who desire to aid in removing the difficulties which many
educated men in the present day feel in reference
to our holy religion. It may possibly assist their
studies to specify the six following branches of in* They are arranged according to the internal conhection of subject
rather than the chronological order of delivery. In order to complete
the series, one sermon has been added which was preached at Whitehall, but some parts of it were contained in a Sermon (not published)
preached before the University.




PREFACE.                          xi
quiry which still, perhaps, require farther treatment:#First: The relations of metaphysical science to
religion demand an investigation of the limits which
the structure of the human mind imposes in reference to theological speculation.
Secondly: A comparison is needed between the
statements of the sacred inspired books of the Jews
and the modern discoveries of comparative Philology and  Mythology, and of historic data derivable
from  recently excavated inscriptions.
Thirdly:  A  discussion  of the relations  of  the
Physical Sciences to the evidences of Natural Religion  and  to  the doctrines and  inspiration  of Revealed.
Fourthly: An examination of the various books
of the Holy Scriptures as works of literature of the
ages in which the authors of them lived.-l
* The above remarks, with some of those which immediately follow,
express the substance of an unpublished Sermon, on " The Epochs of
Religious Scepticism," preached by the Author before the University,
on St. Thomas's Day, 1855. It is for the use of those who requested
the publication of it that they have been introduced in this preface.
t In a manner, for example, analogous to C. O. MUller's "' History of
the early Literature of Greece."  The literature of the Jews, their
early poetry, and eloquence, and chronicles, and proverbs, possesses,
like that of Greece, the value of being an original and (so to say) in



Xii                         PREFACE.
Fifthly: A history of the Science of Theology
and of the growth of Theological opinions.
Sixthly: A candid, reverent, and loving examination of the light which these various branches of
inquiry throw on the proof, nature, and limits of
Inspiration.
It is gratifying to think that many works of great
importance have recently appeared in reference to
most of these lines of inquiry.* The writer may
digenous literature. It has, therefore, the special claims for psychological study which only belong to those literatures which we have reason
to regard as original utterances of the human intelligence, and expressions of national life and modes of thought.  Such an investigation is
a necessary preliminary to a right comprehension of the distinctive,
inspired, and supernatural element which enters into the Jewish literature.
* The first of these subjects, for example, has been recently treated
by Mr. Mansel in his Bampton Lectures, and by Mr. Maurice in his
reply, "What is Revelation?" the second by Mr. Rawlinson, in the
Bampton Lectures for 1859; the third by Prof. Baden Powell; the
fourth by Ewald; the fifth partially by Baur and Bishop Hampden;
(also the instructive writings of Professors Stanley and Jowett, and the
matchless sermons of the lamented F. WV. Robertson supply many very
valuable hints in reference both to this topic and to the one last mentioned); the sixth by Dr. Lee, by Mr. Morell in his "Philosophy of
Religion," and by Dean Harvey Goodwin in two of his Hulsean Lectures. The above works are only a few of those which have appeared.
A rich mine, almost unworked, of novel and most suggestive thought
exists in the modern theological literature of Germany for any one who
can separate the pure metal from the dross. In naming these works




PREFACE.                            xiii
perhaps be permitted  to  state that he  hopes hereafter to discuss the third and sixth of them, towards
which his studies, conducted in the retirement of
an Oxford cloister, have through several years been
made to converge.
the writer does not by any means intend indiscriminate praise or acquiescence. He bestows his praises as a student, not as a theologian;
the difference being that a student usually praises a work if he finds it
suggestive of thought and instruction; while a theologian too often
withholds his commendations if he finds the sentiments disagree with
his preconceived opinions, i. e. (to use Lord Bacon's caustic expression)
with the idols of his own den.
2








TABLE OF CONTENTS.
SERMON I.
THE GRADUAL DISCOVERY OF THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES
THROUGH SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE.
ISAIAH 57: 15.
PA GE
The historic method of studying the development of theological
opinions applied to trace the knowledge of the Divine attributes
derivable through-I. Reason, II. Revelatidn, III. Science.-I.
Distinction between the origin of the idea of God and the origin of the idea of His attributes. —The three theories on the
former; the successive efforts of the Greek philosophers (ThaIles,
Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle) in reference to the latter.-II.
Views of God's attributes gradually unfolded in the successive
stages of Revelation, as shown in the thoughts of Moses, David,
Isaiah, and in Christianity. —III. Science regarded as a new
and additional revelation, given without miracle, through uninspired genius.-Knowledge of the Divine attributes unfolded by
means of it, e. g. through Astronomy, through the telescope and
microscope, through Geology, Mathematics, Moral Science.Inferences,....... 25
NOTE, On the Theological Ideas of some early Greek Philosophers, 51




Xvi                 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
SERMON II.
DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN GENERAL LAWS.
ACTS 17: 28.
PAGE
Description of Athens in the time of St. Paul, and of the Epicurean and Stoic theories of Providence.-Statement of causes
which have produced sceptical theories on Providence in succeeding ages, viz.: the speculations of Metaphysicians and the
real discoveries of general laws through Natural Science and
through Statistics.-The object of the Sermon stated to be (I)
the discussion of the scientific discoveries in reference to the
invariability of Nature's laws, and (II) the reconciliation of
such a view of Providence with the idea of benevolence in God.
— I. Illustrations of the fixity of Nature's laws in the example
of, (g) earthquakes (e. g. that of Lisbon) and, (R) in colliery
explosions.-Proof that such catastrophes are not explicable as
judgments for sin, both from our Lord's teaching and from the
Geological discovery of the existence of pain and death antecedent to human history.-Further exemplification of the invaria.
bility of Nature's laws in (v) the permission of historical and
political catastrophes like the Indian rebellion of 1857.-Theory
of such events.-II. Reconciliation of the Divine government by
general laws, which has thus been proved, with the idea of benevolence in God's character.-The "greatest happiness" principle applied to this subject.-Illustration from Lagrange's discoveries in Mathematical Astronomy.-Remarks on the appa-  -
rently contradictory doctrine of Special Providence taught in
Scripture as equally real with the Providence taught in science, 54
NOTE, On Special Providence,.. 80




TABLE OF CONTENTS.                     XVIi
SERMON III.
DIVINE BENEVOLENCE IN THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.
GENESIS 47: 8, 9.
PAGE
Description of the Egypt of the age of Jacob, and of Jacob's melancholy view of human life.-Subject of the Sermon stated to
be the Theory of Pain, i. e. the reconciliation of the existence of
pain with the attribute of benevolence in the Creator (I) in the
purpose of its administration, and (II) in the remedies provided
for its diminution. —I. Discussion of; (x) the pain which can be
clearly shown to be corrective, not retributive; with illustrations on this subject from the Geological discovery that pain
existed antecedently to human history, and therefore antecedently to human sin. (Examination, in'a foot-note, of the
alleged discrepancy between this discovery and the teaching of
Holy Scripture.) (R) The pain which arises from accidents and
from the operation of general laws, which is equally proved in
the large scale to be compatible with the Divine benevolence.II. Further proofs of God's kindness shown in the remedies
provided by Providence, (1) in the growth of medical science,
(2) in the growth of public opinion and sympathy, (3) in the
philanthropy awakened by civilization and Christianity.-Lessons recently taught on the importance of attention to the secular aspect of religion,...... 82
NOTE, On the Evidence of Geology, designed to refilte some objections taken against the science,..... 103
2*




Xviii                TABLE OF CONTENTS.
SERMON IV.
JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF PROPHECY.
ISAIAH 6: 9.
PAGE
The pertinacity of the Jewish national character shown to be a
cause which has impeded attempts made for their civilization or
conversion.-Object of the Sermon explained to be, (I) a sketch
of the history of Jewish uninspired theological literature, and
(II) the statement of the principal lines of argument used in
the discussion between Jews and Christians.-I. Their theological literature studied in three epochs: —. From their captivity
to the Christian era.-Effects of the captivity on the Jewish
national character and position, with the causes which created
that branch of literature called the Targums; 2. From the third
to the eighth century, A. D.-Sketch of the two centres of Jewish life in Galilee and Mesopotamia.-The school of Biblical
criticism creates the Masora, and that of Biblical interpretation
produces the two parts of the Talmud, the Mishna and the
Gemara; 3. From the tenth to the fifteenth century in Spain.The literary condition of the Jews in Spain. Schools of theological interpretation, e.g. Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and of
philosophical theology, e. g. Maimonides.-Subsequent writers,
Abarbanel and Rabbin Isaac.-II. The controversy between
Jew and Christian shown to depend upon interpretation of prophecies. —The tests of true interpretation resolve themselves
into a question of circumstantial evidence. —Three lines of objection urged by the Jews against Christianity considered and
refuted: —1. The historical and popular one, that Christianity
was rejected by contemporary investigators; 2. The philosophical




TABLE OF CONTENTS.                        XiX
PAGE
one of Maimonides, that an incarnation of God is impossible,
and contrary to the analogy of the old Hebrew religion; 3. The
critical one, of the Spanish school of Jewish interpreters, that
the Messianic prophecies are misinterpreted by Christians. —
Remarks on the need of a more correct system in prophetic
interpretation.-Concluding inferences,... 106
SERMON V.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY.
EPHESIANS 2: 18.
Peculiarity of the doctrine, among all others in Christianity, in
depending for its proof entirely on revelation. —The practical
statements of Scripture in relation to it contrasted with the
theoretic terms of Creeds. —I. History of controversy in reference to the doctrine: —1. In the Greek university of Alexandria.
— Sketch of the Neo-Platonic philosophy, first as a metaphysical, secondly a political, thirdly a logical movement; and its relation to the doctrine of the Trinity; 2. In the rise of Socinianism in the sixteenth century; 3. In the philosophical systems
of modern Germany and of Coleridge.-II. The doctrine which
is really to be believed as the residuum after the theories which
have incrusted the inspired teaching are removed.-The idea of
personality shown to be derived from human analogy, but to
convey a true fact.-The influence of science shown in-creating
a moral disposition to believe mystery if it rest on evidence.Practical inferences,...... 138




XX                   TABLE OF CONTENTS.
SE R MO N VI.
THE ATONEMENT.
MARK 9' 2.
PAGE
The Transfiguration studied: —1. In its geographical scene; 2. In
its moral meaning.-The fact that our Saviour's teaching entirely changed from this event (for previously to it he had not
proclaimed the fact that he was to saqffer) used as a proof that
the Transfiguration had a real meaning in reference to our Lord,
and was not merely a parable acted to instruct the disciples.(Illustrations of similar mystery beyond their moral meaning to
us in our Lord's Temptation and Agony.)-Statement of the
modern theories on the purpose of our Lord's suffering, and also
of the Apostolic teaching in reference to it. —The subject of the
Atonement the chief purpose of this Sermon.-I. An historic
sketch of the successive theories on the Atonement from the
Apostolic times: —(M) the Patristic to A.D. 1000, which taught
that it was to ransom  man from  the Devil (the view, e.g. of:,regory the Great); (8) the Scholastic (A.D. 1000-1500), that
it was a satisfaction rendered to a broken law, either by the life
of Christ (Anselm's view) or the death of Christ (Aquinas's);
(?) the Protestant view (of the Reformers and Grotius, A.D. 1500
-1700), that it was a satisfaction for sin viewed under the corrective, as distinct from the retributive, theory of punishment;
(J) the view of modern German philosophers, that it was only
to reconcile man to God, not God to man.-II. Refutation of
the first three views, as going beyond inspired teaching, and
constructed in forgetfulness of the proofs which Physical Science
gives, of the poverty of human intelligence, and Mental science




TABLE OF CONTENTS.                       Xxi
PAGE
of the extent to which analogy is the medium of revealed truth.
-III. Hints for the refutation of the fourth view, as falling
short of the truth.-Criticism on other modes adopted for refuting this fourth view, such as the ordinary one and Mr. Mansel's.-Another suggested, resting on the idea of guilt and the
fact of sacrifice.-Conclusion as to the reality of Christ's death
being a true but undiscoverable means of reconciling (so to say)
God to man, as well as man to God,..        157
SERMON VII.
LAWS IN THE LIFE SPIRITUAL.
2 TIMOTHY 4: 7.
Statement of the three forms of human life, the practical, the intellectual, and the spiritual. —St. Paul's character studied as an
harmonious embodiment of them all; and his influence estimated at different periods of church history in awakening theological speculation and stimulating religious effort. —The religious life studied as follows:-I. Is it subject to fixed laws?
Three opinions stated; (a) that which resolves it into ordinary
processes of moral psychology (Butler's view); (A) that which
makes it dependent on Divine election (Calvin's); (?) that
which makes it exist in a faculty transcending consciousness
(Schleiermacher's). —II. Are its laws discoverable?-III. By
what means?  By-induction from inspired and uninspired religious biography.-Enumeration of tests applicable to insure
correctness in such discovery.-IV. Laws of religious life derivable from St. Paul's life, in reference to conversion, assurance,
salvation in death,. 184




XXii                 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
SERMON VIII.
THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST.
JOiN 14: 16.
PAGE
The miracle of the descent of the Spirit compared with the miracles of Creation and of Redemption. —Four great gifts of the
Spirit to be studied:-I. Miracle. —The comparison of Christianity with Boodhism and Mahometanism an evidence of theo
reality of ancient Christian miracles. —Reason of their disappearance.-Il. Inspiration. —How far it was, like Miracle, a
temporary gift. —III. Holiness-studied in apostolic Christians
and in the history of the religious consciousness-shown to be a
gift for all time.-IV. Supernatural religious usefulness.-In
what sense perpetual.-Illustrations from  history of religious
reawakenings in later times, e. g. the ministry of Francis of
Assisi, Methodism, the Rev. C. Simeon, &c.,... 208
SERMON IX.
PROVIDENCE IN POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS.
PROVERBS 16: 4.
Discussion of the Oriental (apparently fatalistic) modes of expression in Scripture.-Instances of good brought by Providence
out of evil, (a) in Jewish, (2) in general, history. —Application
of this principle to the English Revolution in the reign of Charles
I, in the form of a proof that Providence overrules national convulsions to ultimate good by a law which is impressed on society.




TABLE OF CONTENTS.                      xxiii
PAGE
— The relation of this argument shown to the evidence of beneficence in the Divine character. —1. Political convulsions over-ruled for good in producing the material welfare of man, the
advancement of liberty. —The causes of revolution explained,
and their application to the example of the English Revolution
by detailed reference to the history. —2. Their influence on the
moral discipline and instruction of nations. —Concluding inferences,.......228
NOTE, On the Scene of the Execution of Charles 1,.        249








SERMON S.
SERMON I.
THE GRADUAL DISCOVERY OF THIE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES
THROUGH SCRIPTURE AND SCIENCE.
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, MIARCH 4, 1855.)
ISAIAH  57:15.
"Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also
that is of a contrite -and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the
humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
IN these words the prophet combines the majesty of God
with His mercy, the magnificence of His infinite power
with the tenderness of His unbounded condescension.  It
is this combination of attributes which men are apt to
regard as almost incredible,-that He who inhabiteth eternity can yet dwell with a being so inconsiderable as man.
If you tell them  of the greatness of God's nature, they
think it impossible that He can concern Himself with
reviving the spirit of the humble; or inform them that He
stoops to dwell in the heart of the contrite, they can hardly
imagine that Ie is the high and lofty One who inhabiteth
3




26                       SERMON I.
eternity. If the Deity be exhibited as busied with what
they deem insignificant, their inference is that He cannot
be attentive to what is vast; or if He be represented as
occupied with what is great, there is an immediate apprehension that the minute must escape His observation.
Nor is this disposition to separate the properties which
the prophet combines more observable than the variation
which it has undergone in different ages and under different
circumstances.  The progress, or alteration, which takes
place in human opinions and belief is, though less observed, as real as that which occurs in the world of events.
A rise and fall of empires is as truly going forward in the
intellectual as in the historical world.  Nor can there be a
more instructive mode of viewing a truth than by showing
the fluctuation of human thought in relation to it.*  Thus,
in reference to the present doctrine, there have been ages
of the world when those who held fast their faith (imperfect though it was) in Providence, have failed to ascend to
the idea of a Being of infinite greatness; while those, on
the other hand, on whose minds speculation had forced the
conviction of man's unmeasured inferiority, have doubted
that an unwearied Providence could be engaged on his
behalf.t  And, in the present age, it is often found that
those who believe in a special Providence on the authority
* It is probable that the sole permanent contribution to knowledge
which the philosophy of Hegel will be found to have made, will be in
its creation of the 7historic method of studying opinions, —a method
which was in his system a necessity arising from his point of view, but
which is worthy of imitation by those who differ from his motives and
principles.
t These doubts marked the philosophy of the early part of the last
century which followed on the great discoveries which Newton had
made in the preceding age. Pope's " Essay on Man" gives expression
to such doubts, borrowed probably from Bolinglbroke.




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.               27
of Scripture, do not understand that general Providence
which is established by the evidence of science; or, that
conversely insisting upon the administration of the universe
by a system of general laws, they fail to reconcile it with
the revealed account of God's interposition by miracles and
special Providence.
It will not, therefore, I should hope, be an unprofitable
employment if we trace by what means and with what
degree of increasing evidence the two doctrines of the
greatness of the Divine attributes and His condescending
mercy have been made known to man; and, afterwards,
attempt briefly to deduce from the subject lessons for our
religious improvement.
There are three means by which men have been made
the recipients of ideas concerning the Divine  Being, and
the relations which He sustains towards us, viz.: REASON,
REVELATION, and SCIENCE.*  Let us try to discover what
assistance these respective sources have contributed towards the comprehension of the two doctrines which we
are studying.
1. When we point to Reason as one source from which
man has learned the greatness or the condescension of God,
we do not intend to express any opinion on the question
whether the first idea of a Divine Being was extracted by
the mere light of natural reason, or was a direct gift of
revelation. The question which concerns us is not as to
the means by which men first came to learn the idea of
God, but rather the process through which, when that idea
was already present, they first attained to a conception of
His infinity. The inquiry into the origin of the idea will
* By the term "Reason," is here meant metaphysical speculation;
and by "' Scieice," modern inductive discoveries.




28                      SERMON I.
always be a matter of uncertainty, inasmuch as it belongs
to that class of questions which concern the first origin of
things, such, for example, as those which treat of the origin
of matter, or life, or language, or society,-questions which
not only relate to facts anterior to the dawn of history, but
for the explanation of which mall hardly possesses the
faculties.*   hence there will doubtless always be distinct
opinions on the inquiry.  Some,t who conceive that man
is at his birth intellectually a blank, will suppose that he
learns the idea gradually by experience and observation;
others,. supposing themselves unable by such a process to
explain how the world became furnished, at the very earliest
and most rudimentary periods of its history, with an idea
which would appear rather to be the discovery (if discovery
at all) of cultivated powers, have thought that the human
mind is not ushered into the world a blank, but is furnished
with a small stock, as it were, of rational principles, from
which germinates the variety of knowledge which forms the
mental inheritance of man. Others,~ again, on the ground
both of philosophy and of Scripture, decline to resign their
belief that the ideas of God and of duty were originally
imparted by direct revelation from heaven; conceiving
that as a savage race, when sunk below a certain stage of
barbarism, can never rescue itself from its degradation
without being raised out of it by means of external agency,
* The distinction here designed is neatly expressed by Chalmers
(Introduction to his "Bridgewater Treatise") as that which exists
between the "' collocations of matter' and the "laws of nature." Modern
science is content to restrict itself to the latter of these two branches of
inquiry, and to leave the former to metaphysicians.
t The sensational school of philosophers.
T The idealist school.
Q Locke may be perhaps taken as a type of this view ("Essay on
Human Understanding,' b. iv).




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.               29
so the race of man could never have taken the first step in
religious knowledge if Providence had not communicated
to it the rudiments.
But whichever of these views you may adopt as to the
origin of the idea of God, it must ever be an important
inquiry to discover how much mankind can learn or have
learned of God, and of the relation which He bears to us,
without the aid of further revelation than the primitive one
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The
study of natural religion (as such inquiry is called) not
only thus affords a valuable and independent support to
the truths which revelation asserts, but also enables us to
see what were the limits within which that which may be
known of God had been manifested to men, which an
Apostle* thought left them without excuse. Above all, the
contrast of that darkness amid which they attempted to
grope their way to truth, will prepare us for seeing the
noonday brightness which has been thrown over these doctrines in the later ages of the world.
It fortunately happens that we need not enter into any
speculations on this question, for history supplies an instance of a nation where a natural religion was actually
created by the light of reason; or where, possibly, to speak
more truly, the fragment of truth, which formed the last
relic of an earlier faith, was matured and developed into
greater purity. The philosophers of Greece worked out a
natural theology.
It was hardly, indeed, to be expected that such a subject would be overlooked by that people, which stands conspicuous above all others of ancient or modern time for the
natural gift of commanding intellectual faculties, and the
* Rom. 1:20.
3*




30                     SERMON I.
power to appreciate the true and the beautiful; whose
influence, unlike that of other nations, has been greater
since its decline than when flourishing in greatness, and
whose writers, as long as mankind can appreciate through
the medium of an unrivalled language, the brilliancy of
unrivalled thoughts, will continue to hold (as they have
ever held) the same position in relation to civilization which
the Jewish nation has sustained in relation to the growth
of religion. Yet the very process by which the writers of
that acute people discovered their natural theology, no less
than the results at which they arrived by it, afford the best
evidence both of the difficulty of the inquiry and the value
of a Divine revelation. By successive steps, and after long
intervals of time, one and another notion was added to
develop into a clear conception their idea of the Divine
Being.  We cannot, perhaps, find a more comprehensive
view of the opinions at which they had arrived in the maturity of thought, than that which is contained in a brief
passage of one of their most brilliant writers, who, in the
fourth century before Christ, unfolded his own view of the
Divine Being, and borrowed from  his predecessors those
elements which they had respectively supplied.  "The
great first cause," Plato teaches, "is endowed with life,
with intelligence, with goodness."*   Of the properties
which are stated in this noble conception of the Divine
Being, the last alone is his own discovery.,When he thus
wrote two centuries had elapsed from the time when the
question had been first proposed, and it will be instructive
to remark the mode in which the inquiry had been from
*;,.4,co;,'vvoi,, dyaO6;. (Plato, Phileb. p. 30.) To tlis enumeration
ought to be added the attributes given in Plato's "Republic" (b. ii),
viz., "the cause of goodness," " unchanged" by external agencies,
"' unchanging" fr'om internal.




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.                      31
time to time suspended, and the periods at which the
elements in the answer of it were respectively furnished.*
It was towards the end of the seventh century, before
the Christian era, at a time when continental Greece had
not emerged from her early barbarism, that the Greek
colonies which fringed the shores of Asia Minor and of
Southern Italy attained that state of material civilization
in which superior minds are able to devote their leisure to
speculation.t  It was then that the series of inquiries cominenced, often dlaring, more often ineffectual, into the causes
of the physical and moral world which has formed the
noblest occupation of the mind from that time to the present.  We are apt, as we look back upon that period, to
undervalue the step which society then  took.  The discoveries, as they were called, which were then made, seem
to us so rudimentary or so unreal, that we are in danger
of misunderstanding the reach of thought which was necessary to attain  even to them..  It was then that society
was passing through one of those changes which mark the
intellectual growth of every nation. It was awakening
* The writer of this Sermon wishes to state, that more careful study
of Greek philosophy, during the four years since the Sermon was
preached, has convinced him  that he has here over-estimated the
amount of theological speculation which existed among the early Greek
thinkers. He accordingly now adds a note at the end of the Sermon,
to correct some points stated in the text.
t For the study of this flourishing period in the Greek colonies, see
Grote's' History of Greece," iii, ch. 22; and Thirlwall, ii, ch. 12.. The advance of thouglht which Thales shows beyond his predecessors may be illustrated by the transition which Comte points out from
the theological to the metaphysical, of the three stages through which
he supposed that knowledge passed. Thales attained the idea of cautse
and of utiity of cause. Measured by the fetish-like conception of power
which existed antecedently, some progress may be seen even in these
crude notions.




32                       SERMON I.
from a state of blind superstition to one of reflection.  We
may understand it by comparing it with the resurrection
of the mind of Europe in the eleventh century of the Christian era, from the intellectual death which had passed alike
over civilization and religion after the fall of the Roman
Empire. The contrast is not more marked between the
state of Europe in those ages, when infiantile superstitions,
such as the legends of the saints, were at once the object
of popular faith and the medium of religious education, and
that manly state of sentiment which was aroused in Europe
by the growth of the scholastic philosophy,* than between
the condition of Greek life which preceded and which followed the speculations, crude though they were, of the
early thinkers of Ionia.  For those men threw aside the
polytheism of their early education, and learned to regard
the cause of all things as one; and, in doing so, they took
a step as it were to a conception of the greatness of the
Divine Being.  Yet the difficulties which beset their way
will be seen from  the fact that the leader of that band,
Thales, in spite of possessing on the one hand the ideas of
God as a first great cause, and also the idea of the unity
of this cause, was unable to combine the two so as to infer
the Divine Personality.  Strange indeed, yet so it was,
that men could un(lerstand the unity-nay, the infinityof the first cause before they were able to discover that
those attributes imply the existence of a personal mind.
* The beneficial influence here attributed to scholasticism is only in
its value as a discipline. It taught little real truth; but it exercised
the faculties. Its character has been well described as being "the
noblest philosophy ever ruined for want of matter, as the cotemporary
Troubadour poetry was the noblest poetry ever ruined for want of
form."  The date of the eleventh century above given is only intended
to indicate the dawn of intellectual reillnmlination. The influence of
scholasticism was in the twelfth and two following centuries.




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.                   33
The'inquiry, as if in marvellous confirmation of the
difficulty with which the reason ascends to a true idea of
God, was not resumed for nearly two centuries, notwithstanding the ceaseless speculations by which that period
was characterized.  The  names of those early thinkers
deserve perhaps to be recorded, for even when the light of
their teaching reaches us through the distance of twentythree centuries, they shine like luminaries of the first magnitude. It was Anaxagoras who had the honor of reviving
the inquiry, and who was the first to arrive by the examination of nature at the idea of an infinite personal intelligence as its Creator and Governor. The inquiry did not,
however, end with him. Suspended during the half century
of intellectual scepticism and of political commotion which
followed him, it was resumed by Plato, who superadded (as
we before stated) to the ideas of life and personality in
God the idea of moral attributes and a moral providence.
These three ideas, the discovery of the three individuals
whose names have been mentioned, form the collective conception which the period of the most acute speculation
could attain in reference to the Divine Being;* and the
subject affords us matter for serious thought;-for you will
notice that, while by dint of successive efforts they obtained
an indistinct glimpse of God's attributes, they were hardly
* It may be thought that some notice ought to have been taken of
the theology of Aristotle. The omission was made when the Sermon
was written, because Aristotle's pantheism seemed a step backwards
from Plato's monotheism, rather than an advance. The writer would
at the present time justify the omission, because, under the view which
he now takes of Plato's theology, he would consider Aristotle's view a
mere variation in statement, no in the point of view; the Divinity of
Plato being the bighest format cause, that of Aristotle the highest
final cause. In neither view is Deity a person; in both an abstraction.




34                    SERMON I.
able to make any discovery of the relations which He sustains toward man. Compare with their views the language
of Isaiah in our text, and you will find his views as much
superior to theirs in conception as they are loftier in expression. "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and
holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble
spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the
heart of the contrite ones." The Greeks could discover in
an humble degree the One that inhabiteth eternity; in some
sense they could even perceive His moral attributes and
see that his name is Holy; but they could know nothing
of his dwelling with the contrite. Nay, that which is more
striking is the fact that, in proportion as they attained to
the one idea, they lost the other. Under the vulgar polytheism they had been wont to regard the gods as conversant
with the affairs of men, as rewarders of good and avengers
of evil; but when they rose to the idea of God as a cause,
as infinite, as intelligent, they conceived Him as reposing
in the perfection of HIis own blessedness, and as regardless
of the insignificant affairs of mortals.  It was revelation
alone which combined the two ideas. The very combination
is one of those thoughts of God, which are not man's
thoughts, to which man could not by mere reason penetrate.
2. We proceed accordingly to notice the discoveries on
this subject gradually unfolded by Divine Revelation,-the
successive steps of advancing knowledge through which
Providence has brought mankind.
We need not pause to examine what was the information
which the Hebrew patriarchs were permitted to enjoy concerning the greatness and condescension of God, because
there is one remarkable epoch pointed out in the Scrip



ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES,               35
tures at which human knowledge on these subjects was
suddenly increased.
4 An exiled shepherd was the subject of the revelation.*
A vision was presented of a burning bush, and to the mind
of the praying shepherd, and through him to his nation
and the world, was vouchsafed the knowledge of that aweinspiring and mysterious attribute of Deity, "I am that I
am."  We cannot measure the amount of religious knowledge which Moses previously possessed. Undoubtedly he
had some conception of the spirituality and unity of God
and of the responsibility of man, and it is hardly to be
supposed that his experience had not sometimes brought
home to him the consciousness of the ancient patriarch,
" Truly God was here, and I knew it not."  But it was
then for the first time that he was taught to realize distinctly that the God of Abraham was infinite and omnipresent, and that these attributes were the pledge that He
would fulfil His promises to the Jewish people. The very
scene of the vision was suited to its subject.  It lay among
the solitudes of Horeb. Moses was alone, surrounded only
by those grand types of unchanging nature, "the everlasting hills."  And he was made to feel that, even there,
God was with him; that there was no such thing as solitude, that every spot through the expanse of space was inhabited by the Almighty; that at any moment the heavens
might reveal to him His presence; that though fancying
himself in loneliness, he was in contact with his Maker.
And if any one would wish to remark the effect which
that revelation of the infinity of God had on the mind of
Moses, let him turn to the record of the Creation which he
has prefixed to his writings,-a record which contains con* Exodus 3: 2-9.




36                      SERMON r.
ceptions so sublime that they have even been quoted with
admiration by the heathen critic;* and which, whatever
may be the interpretation which science shall ultimately
put upon them, must remain the most elevated conception
of Creation ever presented; for there are many noble
thoughts of God in the Scriptures, and many which must
excite marvel, but there is not one more noble than Moses's
narrative of the dawn of Creation.t  That conception is
grand which the Bible affords us when it presents the
thought of the Divine Being as the sustainer of the whole
universe, animate and inanimate, that in Him we live, and
move, and have our being; so that, whether we look out
upon the stars as they march in their brightness, or hear
the winds as they sweep by in their rushings, or watch the
waters as they flow in their tides, all, all are sustained by
His hand and regulated by His will; so that there moves
not a being even on the outskirts of Creation that does not
draw animation from  His fulness, for He filleth all in all.
That is, if possible, a still more, sublime conception —the
vision which the Bible shows us in the distant future of the
spreading of a great white throne: upon it sits the Ancient
of Days; sea and land yield up, in the twinkling of an
eye, the myriads which are held in the sepulchre; all are
marshalled there-the kings and great ones renowned in
* Longinus on the Sublime, ch. 9.
t The thought, and in some cases the language, of the next page is
borrowed from one or two sermons of the Rev. H. Melvill. I wish to
take this opportunity of saying that, shortly before writing the present
Sermon, I had read several sermons by this eloquent preacher; and I
believe that, in composing the second head of this Sermon, I borrowed
a few scattered expressions from him consciously, and probably some
unconsciously. I wish to make this general acknowledgment, not being
able to remember the exact references. to his works.




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.                37
history, the noble and the mean, the learned and the ignorant.  The remotest corners of the earth, the most distant
ages of time, contribute their spirits to the tremendous
gathering of those who are to receive their everlasting
doom. Inanimate nature seems (as it were) to sympathize
with the solemn scene; for the earth and the heavens flee
away, and there is found no place for them.
But, grand as are these conceptions, that seems still
grander where Moses makes us spectators of the birth of
created nature. He calls up to our imagination a season
in the distant depths of a past eternity, when the assemblage of stars and of systems which strew the fields of
space did not exist; when no glorious or undying spirits,
angelic or human, lived to comprehend the God that had
given them  being. Nothing ever broke that wondrous
silence save the voice of the Eternal One, who existed from
the unfathomable depths of eternity. God was there then,
as now, in three Persons, the ever-blessed Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost. But the universe held only God, and in that
Divine Being was the attribute of benevolence, infinite then
as now; and that benevolence craved the being girt round
by dependent creatures. It seemed not good to God to
continue alone; the sublime loneliness was infringed; the
word was spoken, and the depths of space became strewed
with worlds; and immortal spirits, sparklings of His infinity, thronged His presence.*  "The morning stars sang
together, and all the sons of God shouted for-joy." Such
is the conception of the Divine Being which Moses has
presented to us, and from it we may understand, better
* The idea in this passage was suggested by some remarks in Dr.
Harris's " Preadamite Earth."
4




38                    SERMON I.
than from words, what was the revelation of the Infinite
vouchsafed to him at Horeb.
We may also be sure that we shall not err if we regard
Moses's state of religious knowledge as the highest limit to
which mankind attained under the Law. In tracing the
growth of ideas on this subject in later dispensations, we
should not forget that the progress of man's religious knowledge has been marked by epochs rather than by continuous
advancement.  Some new revelation has given a sudden
expansion to it, and it has then remained stationary for a
period. Thus it should be remembered that the Law is
separated from the age of the Prophets, which commenced
with Samuel, by a chasm of nearly four hundred years,
— a period almost as long as that which intervened
between the voice of the last prophet, Malachi, and
the coming of St. John the Baptist,-an interval during
which revelation was wholly silent, in which, in the striking
language of Scripture, " there was no open vision."  Accordingly, When the voice of inspiration again is heard, the
ideas which it utters are really, on some subjects, so much
in advance of those which were presented by the Law, that
there is correctness in the ancient view which regarded the
Law and the Prophets as two distinct revelations. Though
this improvement in religious knowledge is especially evident in the light which the Psalms and Prophecies cast on
the meaning of sacrifice and on the coming of the Messiah,
yet some degree of advance may also be traced in those
doctrines which form the present subject of consideration.
For no one can read the Psalms without feeling that
their writers, and especially David, had more elevated
views, both of the greatness of God and His condescending
love, than were furnished to pious minds under the Law.
What frequent intimations, for example, are to be found




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.              39
that the contemplation of the visible creation ought to have
an efficacy in inspiring belief in God, and adoration and
love of His perfedt attributes; yet how equally marked is
David's unwavering faith in the presence of God with the
heart of the praying worshipper! Iis own early life had
probably prepared his mind for inspirations of this character.  We can easily imagine  that when wandering
together with a band of attendants amid the rugged highlands that mark the physical features of Southern Palestine, hunted down by the malice of an implacable foe, he
would be compelled to pass many days and nights with no
other employment than the communings with nature, and
with the God of nature through his works, which would
arise in his poetic and pious mind.  It was in deserts,
indeed, similar to those in which he was an exile, that the
ancestors of his nation had wandered for a generation; yet
they had recorded no conceptions such as his.  Their faith
in God's protection may have been as real as his, but it
cannot have been as elevated; for they believed in a God
whose visible manifestation, as a cloud by day and a meteor
by night, was the proof of his presence; but David, without
such miraculous evidence, was able to rise, by meditation on
His works, to the conviction of the immeasurable greatness
of that Being, of whose support he felt nevertheless sure,
and whose presence, in some real but humble sense, he
found within his own heart.
What can exceed, for example, his conception of God
expressed in the words, " The heavens declare the glory of
God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork.  Day
unto day uttereth speeth, and night unto night showeth
knowledge.  Their line is gone out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world."*  And, passing
* Psalm 19: 1-4.




40                    SERMON I.
by means of analogy from these physical to the moral laws
of God's judgments, he adds, "More to be desired are they
than gold, yea, than much fine gold; ty them is thy servant taught, and in keeping of them there is great reward."
Again: "When I consider the heavens, the works of Thy
hands, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained,
what is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of
man, that Thou so regardest him? Thou hast made him
a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with
glory and honor."*  Again: "W Tho is so great a God as
our God, that hath His dwelling so high, and yet humbleth
Himself to behold the things there are in heaven and on
earth?"t  How noble are these thoughts concerning God's
greatness!  Similarly concerning His eternity, in the passages: "From  everlasting to everlasting Thou art God."
" Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion
endureth throughout all generations. The Lord upholdeth
all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down."t
And (to allude only to one more instance) what words could
more nobly express the overwhelming contemplation of
God's omnipresence, or more separate the infinite Being
from the finite, than the passage, " Whither shall I go from
Thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I
ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in
hell, behold Thou art there. If I take the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even
there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold
me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even
the night shall be light about me; yea, the darkness hideth
X Psalm 8: 3-5.
t Ps. 113: 5 6 (Prayer-book, i. e. Miles Coverdale's Version).
1 Psalm 90: 2; 145: 14.




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.                41
not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day; the
darkness and light are both alike to Thee."*
This is the utterance surely of one who felt to the fullest
that if he were endowed with unlimited powers of motion,
he could never for a lonely' instant escape from God; that
God would remain at the spot which he had left, and be
found at the place which he had reached, that the darkness
of the midnight shrouded not from Him, that the depths
of the heart lay open to His inspection; that no act could
escape his observation, no wickedness be so stealthy as to
go undetected by Him.
If we pass from the Psalms to the Prophets, from David
to Isaiah, though we do not find much advance in the conception of the greatness of God, yet there is a growing
clearness in the ideas concerning God's holiness and His
condescension in dwelling with the sinful.  " The Holy One
of Israel" is (if the expression may be allowed) Isaiah's
favorite mode of speaking of the Almighty.  We may perhaps trace the cause of this peculiar mode of thought (as
we did previously in the case of Moses) to the vision which
was given to him at his call to the prophetic office.t  The
Lord appeared to him on His throne; and seraphim stood
around crying, " Holy, Holy, I-oly."  We cannot wonder
that the prophet stood confounded, and said, "Woe is me,
for I am a man of unclean lips."  It was the manifestation
of the holiness of God which convinced Isaniah of his own
imperfection. And the seraph took a live coal, and touched
the lips whose uncleanness he had bewailed, and pronounced that his sin was purged.  Can we wonder that
* Psalm 139:8-12. David's view of nature must be regarded
as an artistic or emotional, rather than as a scientific one.
t Isaiah 6.
4*




42                    SERMON I.
such a sight as this, —the radiant form of the Lord, throned
in fire and cloud, with angels chanting their song of
triumph,-should leave a lasting impression on the prophet,
alike of God's holiness and of human sinfulness; of God's
majesty and condescension? or need we seek for any other
epoch than this, when the revelation was made to him,
which he has expressed in our text, that "the high and
holy One who inhabiteth eternity, dwells with the humble,
and revives the spirit of the contrite?"
If we leave the early dispensations, and pass on to the
Christian, we shall find that the thoughts of men are again
widened.  Christianity indeed adds little to our idea of the
infinity of God; but it adds much to the idea of His mercy
and condescension.  What a palpable proof, for example,
of God's love is seen in the fact of the appointment of a
human mediator! If Christ had been merely Divine, if He
were unallied with ourselves, if He had never taken our
nature nor experienced our trials, could we have confidence
in committing ourselves to Him?  If you would encourage
me to carry my sorrows to such a mediator, you could only
point to His infinite greatness and amazing power; but this
would merely increase my misgiving whether He would condescend to notice such an unworthy being as myself; for
in proportion as you raise my conception of Him, you remove Him  from all companionship with the sinful.  But
when I see the Word made flesh, it is a pledge that whatever is human must come within the sphere of His mercy.
Watch those thirty-three years of His earthly life; see Him
tasting deep of every sorrow; sustaining every human relation; bearing others' sufferings, and carrying their trials,
never refusing mercy to the vilest, healing the most impure; and remember that the same being, though gone on
high, is Jesus still; so that now, within the very shrine of




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.               43
the eternal glory, there dwells one in human form, with all
the strength of human sympathies, and the remembrance
of human trials, interceding for us; infinite in power, because God, unceasing in sympathy, because man: and tell
me if you do not feel confidence to approach the mercyseat, and cast your load of sin before Him; tell me if you
do not now understand, with a fulness which even Moses
and David and Isaiah could never realize, that He who inhabiteth eternity indeed dwells with the humble, and is
willing to revive the heart of the contrite.
IHow marvellously also are we made to feel the condescension of God, by the doctrine that Christ has given another
Comforter to dwell in the human heart! For though His
miraculous gifts are no longer the sensible proof of the
Spirit's presence, yet his moral influences are as real now
as ever. We are not awed by unearthly spectacles, nor
convinced by supernatural evidence; but wherever there
is a heart touched with a sense of its own sinfulness, or
longing with anxious earnestness to be delivered from the
slavery of sin, or conscious that it has, indeed, been turned
fiom the love of sin to the love of God, there the Spirit's
operation is manifested; there His influences are found,
even now. Ask any one who is the blessed recipient of
those deep searchings of hearts, and he will respond in the
words of the Prophet: " Truly, the high and lofty One
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy, dwelleth with
him that is of a humble and contrite spirit."
3. We have now completed our survey of the information
which is supplied to us in reference to the Divine greatness
and condescension by Reason and Revelation.  There remains, however, another medium of communication. Startling as it may seem, we can show that the discoveries of
modern Science have opened views of the Divine-greatness




44                    SERMON I.
which even add something to that which Divine revelation
itself supplies. In some respects, indeed, the discoveries of
science fall immeasurably below those of revelation, but in
other subjects not so. And it is a new, and I hope to make
it appear an instructive, view of science, to regard it as
a revelation, differing only from  the Divine one in being
communicated without supernatural inspiration, through
the agency of human genius. In truth, the discoveries
which the human mind makes cannot be regarded as an
accident.  Though they are not direct gifts from  the
Almighty, yet a believer in a moral governor must admit
them to be part of the scheme of Providence. If discoveries merely related to the material welfare of man, we
could conceive it barely possible that they arose by accident; but when we see that they bear directly on human
civilization, and on the advancement of that which is eternal
in man, and seem marvellously adapted to promote such
advancement, we might establish an argument from final
causes in favor of their occurrence by design.  Thus, for
example, when we look back on an event like the Protestant
Reformation, we cannot think that the Almighty was indifferent to an act or series of acts which must- ever stand out
as the most glorious of all revolutions, the charter of the
intellectual, social, and religious freedom of entire nations;
and when we see how pre-eminently the single invention of
the art of printing has contributed to diffuse that freedom,
and to establish it as the invaluable inheritance of man, can
the mind that believes in a God of Providence doubt that such
coincidences are in the hands of Him in whomn we live, and
mrove, and have our being?  Nor will such an individual
read a Divine purpose in those discoveries only which contribute to utility; he will perceive it in those also which
have no other use than merely to enlarge the range of




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.              45
human thought. Accordingly, in this view, Science becomes a kind of revelation from  God, given by natural
means, yet ordered of Providence.
Thus, for example,* what an advance has been made
beyond even the knowledge which the Scripture writers
possessed, in our conception of the infinite greatness of
God, by the discoveries of modern astronomy! If one of
the ancient prophets, who conceived this world to be the
principal body in the universe, and who had no satisfactory
view either of the sky or the bodies which moved in it,
could have been taught those truths which observations by
the telescope and the calculations of modern analysis have
been instrumental in establishing, how immeasurably would
his conceptions of the Divine Being have been enlarged,
and his reverence for His greatness have been enhanced!
Give him to understand that the earth is but an inferior
member in a small system of stars; unfold to him the plan
of that system. of which, viewing it from the earth, he only
sees the section; then show him  that'larger system in
which our whole solar system forms a mere speck; carry
on his thoughts still farther to systems situated at such a
distance that the glittering millions of the bodies which
compose them are undistinguishable except as a spot of
nebulous light; place before him the extraordinary fact
that the ray of light, travelling at a velocity which baffles
the powers of imagination, though not of calculation, probably must have left those bodies even thousands of years
ago; convince him further that the chief part of thesestatements are not theory, but really matters of measurement, depending originally upon facts the most obvious,
and computations the most simple, and would not he be
* Compare Hitchcock's Geology and Religion (Lect. 13).




46                    SERMON I.
prepared to admit that God has, indeed, unfolded to these
later ages of the world conceptions of I-is own infinity and
majesty, which prophets of old waited for and sought, but
never found?
Nor is it only by means of the infinite in greatness, but
also by the infinite in smallness, that we learn the nature
of God; for as the telescope has revealed to us the one, so
the microscope has laid bare the other. Each has enlarged
human power so as to confer on it (we might almost say) a
new sense. When we find a world of minute life discovered
to us, unperceived by our unassisted senses, —nay, when
we find that with every successive increase in the power of
the instrument, a world of still more and more minute life
is laid bare, so as to seem to have no limit to its immeasurable minuteness, just as in the other direction the series
of worlds seems to reach to infinity in their immeasurable
remoteness; when we find these minute beings wondrous
in structure, and surrounded abundantly by all that is
adapted to their wants, we see that the vastness of God's
care reaches to the fleeting and insignificant unit of an
insignificant race; the very atom is not overlooked; and
we begin to understand in a deeper sense what is meant by
the declaration that God is'" the high and lofty One, that
inhabiteth eternity."
If we pass from these sciences, others meet us which
teach the same doctrine. For as Astronomy has stretched
our conceptions to apprehend the extent of the physical
universe in space, so does Geology expand them in relation
to our ideas of time.  It used to be considered that, about
six thousand years ago, the earth and the whole material
universe were spoken into existence in a moment of time.
We now understand that the Scripture account, which was
supposed to imply this, can only relate to the preparation




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.               47
of this earth for the habitation of man, not to its original
creation. For science has proved, by irrefragable evidence,* that the first act of creation must be referred to a
period indefinitely but immensely remote; and that successive ages have passed over this globe, during which it has
been the seat of numerous systems of organic life, differing
from one another, yet all linked into a great system by a
most perfect unity.  The revolution of thought, which reduced the world to its true position in the universe of space,
did not more immeasurably enlarge our ideas of the Divine
Being than this has, which has redluced the era of human
history to its true position in the immensity of.time.
And as Astronomy has revealed to us the infinity of the
present creation, and Geology the vastness of the past, so
has the science of Mathematics laid open to our view the
infinite wisdom which has provided for the future. If any
branch of knowledge appeared eminently unlikely to unfold
to us any information about God, you would think it would
be that system of symbolic formulae and.abstract notions,
which seems to stand in utter isolation alike from nature
and from man.  And yet when we apply it to predict the
attractions of the heavenly bodies in periods yet to come,
it unfolds to us some results of extraordinary grandeur.
When we trace the effects of the mutual disturbances of the 
planets, we seem to approach a mighty catastrophe, which
their mutual action will at some time bring about; yet as
we pursue our calculations we arrive at a few unassuming
formula, which, interpreted by reason, reveal to us the
infinite wisdom of God; for we find that not only vast
cycles of time are established in which these disturbances,
when verging on the catastrophe which we dread, shall
* See a note appended to Sermon III of this volume.




48                      SERMON T.
begin to be reversed in their effect, and thus restore the
whole solar system to the position which it originally occupied; but also that, by an exquisitely-contrived plan of
compensation, the stability of all those elements which are
essential to the safety of the system is permanently guaranteed.* Who can contemplate these amazing results, which
manifest the infinite contrivance of the AlmightyArchitect,
without a feeling of devout thankfulness that we have been
permitted thus to discover traces of the high and lofty One
who inhabiteth eternity! 
The illustrations which have hitherto been given show
how Physical Science has revealed the infinity of God; we
might add, also, that Mental Science has equally revealed
His attribute of holiness.  For as we study the microcosm,
man, we remark the existence of a faculty there, acting as
God's vicegerent, imperatively forbidding sin; and as we
study man in the larger relations of society, we observe
that a system of pleasure and pains has been annexed to
virtue and vice, of such a character that virtue is made its
own reward, and vice its own punishment.t So that if we
before learned to understand that God was high and lofty,
and that He inhabiteth eternity, we now are taught that
" His name is holy."
These remarks must suffice in proof of the assertion that
Science has opened to us some views of the Divine Being
* The allusion is to Lagrange's theorems on the stability of the
inclinations of the planetary orbits, the conservation of the mean distances and periods, and the stability of the eccentricities. They are
stated in most works on the planetary theory; e. g. in Airy's Mathematical Tracts, or Pratt's Mechanical Philosophy. Sir J. Herschel has
attempted to give a popular explanation of them in his work on Astronomy (part ii. ch. 12, 13).
t Compare Chalmers's Bridgewater Treatise (ch. 1-3).




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.              49
which even surpass those which are furnished by Scripture
itself. It will, however, moderate the pride with which we
might be in danger of regarding Science, if we remark the
deficiencies of it as a revelation in certain other respects.
It reveals to us Him who inhabiteth eternity, but it tells us
nothing of His willingness to dwell with the humble; it
reveals to us general laws, it cannot teach a special Providence; it may show us man's misery and his need of penitence, but it is the Bible alone which can tell us that the
Infinite is approachable by prayer, and willing to revive
the heart of the contrite.
We have now traced through the world's history the successive discoveries which Reason, Revelation, and Science
have made concerning the greatness and condescension of
God. It only remains, in conclusion, to draw from  the
subject very briefly some practical instruction on the
motives and means of religious living, which may tend to
advance us a step in the path toward that world where the
infinite God shall no longer be comprehended imperfectly
by laborious processes of inference, but in the simple power
of an undimmed intuition shall be known face to face, and
be seen as He is.
If it be indeed a fact that the high and lofty One that
inhabiteth eternity is willing to dwell with man, what
appeals it ought to make both to our fears and our hopes!
The thought ought to warn us that nothing can escape -Iis
observation, that all our sins lie open to His searching gaze,
and are registered in the book of His undying memory;
and if He be represented to us as caring so much for man
that He has set His heart upon him, what can we expect if
we slight the salvation which He proffers us but the vengeance of His overwhelming greatness?
On the other hand, what a blessed hope it furnishes to
5




50                    SERMON I.
each one of us! The infinite God is willing to become our
friend, and to make our hearts His dwelling-place. What
privilege can be so exalted as this? We see some men
moved by an honorable ambition covet the prize of worldly
praise, or the friendship of the great of the earth; and
others withdraw themselves from the hurry of society to
commune with the minds of former generations, as they
meditate on the works which hand down to us their thoughts.
But how immeasurably nobler is the privilege of entering
into communion with Him that inhabiteth eternity! how
much more exalted an employment to retire to seek of Him
to send his Spirit to dwell within our hearts!
The method whereby this privilege is open to us is plain.
He dwelleth with him that is of a contrite and humble
spirit. The one requisite for its attainment is that we
really feel our own sinfulness, and ask for His presence.
Therefore, if there be one of us more conscious than his
fellows of his own exceeding great needs, and well-nigh
desponding that so high a privilege can be for him, he may
take comfort that the Almighty does not seek for worthiness in us,-He only asks for willingness; that He will be
found of all who approach Him in earnest penitent prayer,
for He will revive the spirit of the humble, and the heart
of the contrite ones.  How great a means also of realizing
His nearness should we find it, if we were to bear before
us the thought of His greatness and omnipresence! What
a reality would it throw into our prayers, either in public
worship or in private, if we forced upon ourselves, as we
bow the knee in supplication, the thought of Him whose
presence we are invoking! How would it hallow our lives
if we possessed within us, amid the pressure of business or
the whirl of fashion, the vision of the infinite God; if we
remembered that no fretting cares, no innocent excitement,




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.                 51
need shut us out from His presence; nay, that from amid
the hurry of the multitude and the tumults of life there is
a hearing for every humble heart in the heavenly temple;
that the unuttered breathings of the most secret wants of
every contrite spirit are seen, and known, and heard, and
answered afar off, in that place where the Babel tumult of
earth is hushed, and the stillness of the sacred presence is
unbroken save by the seraph chant of "Holy, Holy,
Holy," or by the chorus of reverent praises, which rises
from the ten thousand times ten thousand of the redeemed
spirits of the just made perfect 
It is indeed a joyful thought that God so inhabiteth
eternity, that travel where I may in unlimited space, I can
never reach the lonely spot where He is not present as my
guardian, never find the solitary scene where He is not as
watchful over me as if the universe were a void, and myself
its sole inhabitant; and, therefore, I know that though I
may live among the humblest, I am as much observed of
Him  as a monarch on his throne; that when I go to my
daily toil, or say my daily prayer, when I lie down or rise
up, I am cared for of Him; so that I cannot weep the tear
which He sees not, nor feel the pang which he notes not,
nor breath the prayer which He hears not.
NOTE,
On the Theological Ideas of some early Creek Philosophers.
IT has been stated in a note to the preceding Sermon, that the writer
of it has been subsequently led to alter his views in reference to the
tenets which some of the old Greek philosophers, named in it, entertained on the subject of Deity. He thinks that he had attributed to




52                        SERMON I.
them more than they consciously knew. He had made them think on
theological subjects in too modern a spirit. It is important to remember that the study of those early thinkers is like the study of a fossil
world. The same words which we now use were used by them, but
with wholly different meanings. The difficulty is really not to find
dissimilarities between them and ourselves, but rather to find points of
agreement.
The points, accordingly, in which the preceding Sermon appears to
exceed the limits of fact are: —
1st. In attributing to Thales, on the strength of Plato's remark in
the " Philebus," conscious attempts to speculate on theology; whereas
his speculations partook rather merely of the character of ontology or
cosmogony, and can only be regarded at relating to theology in the
single point where he touched on the idea of power or efficient cause,
and identified it with the material cause, making both reside in Water,
thus attributing a kind of soul to Nature.
2d. In making the Nouc of A naxagoras's system to be a personal intelligence, whereas it was probably hardly more than the idea of order or
law, presiding over nature, in contradistinction to Heracleitus's view of
constant flux in phenomena.
3d. In making Plato to have regarded Deity as a person, and interpreting the term ditto in his description to refer to moral qualities.
His God was rather the mere principle of Divinity, and the goodness
of his Deity was only order or harmony.  The supreme JiL`c seems to
have been at once the supreme type of goodness and the supreme
formal cause, GOD. So that the'IUie arising first in Plato's mind as
a mode of accounting for reminiscence (as in the " Meno"); then becoming a mode in controversy for refuting scepticism (as in the Thewetetus); next, regarded as having a real existence in nature and in
knowledge (as in the " Republic"), analogous to our "law of nature" or
our "hypothesis;" lastly (in the " Philebus"), came to be regarded as
the supreme cause, the most abstract harmony, the GOD. The whole
account of the Deity in the "Republic" (b. ii) is explicable on this
hypothesis.
Thus all philosophical theology in Greece was Pantheistic, i. e. if
Pantheism be made to mean any theory which admits an impersonal
first cause, and to include, (1st.) The theory which teaches an anima
mundi; (2d.) That which regards God as the sum total of all that exists (Pantheism proper); and (3d.) That which regards Deity as an




ON DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.                      53
abstraction, synonymous with the idea of perfection. Thales might
possibly represent the first of these views; the Eleatics the second;
Anaxagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, the third.
(pp. 34-42.)  It will be observed that no reference is made in this
Sermon to the modern German discussion concerning the authorship,
integrity, and date of the books of the Hebrew Canon here quoted.
Such criticisms were partly unknown to the writer at the time when the
Sermon was composed (1855); but they do not so much affect the
question here discussed concerning the conceptions to which the Jews
attained about God as the respective dates at which those conceptions
became known. The view taken in the Sermon, being the one prevalent in England, supposes the general integrity of the Masoretic Canon,
and assumes also that the different conceptions of Deity, commonly
called the Elohistic and Jehovistic, related more to difference of thought
than of time, not being so much restricted to particular epochs of Jewish literature, but rather marking respectively different aspects of belief, the priestly and the prophetic, the ethnic and the revealed. (The
reference, however, in p. 41, of the authorship of the 139th Psalm to
David on the strength of its title is most probably erroneous, on account
of the Aramaisms which it contains.) This interesting subject of the
Jewish names for Deity may be studied in Hengstenberg's "Authentie
des Pentateuches" (vol. i); De Wette's "Introduction to the Old
Testament" (Eng. Trans., Part III, B. 1, ch. i); Keil's " Lehrbuch"
(p. 82); and Donaldson's " Christian Orthodoxy" (Appendix III).




SERMON IIT.
DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN  GENERAL LAWS.
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, DECEMBER 13, 1857.)
ACTS 17:28.
"In Him we live, and move, and have our being."
ST. PAUL'S visit to Athens, on which occasion the speech
was uttered of which these words form a part, is one of the
most interesting passages of apostolic adventure which
Scripture history has preserved to us.  If St. Luke had
merely informed us that the Apostle, in the course of his
missionary travels, visited the two great centres of ancient
power and civilization, Athens and Rome, but had omitted
to record his acts and speeches under those circumstances,
we should have been probably more disappointed by the
omission of such a narrative than by that of any other
portion of his eventful life.  We should have wished to
know how St. Paul felt on those occasions as a man, and
how he acted as an Apostle. We could even be content
to have lost the narrative of his visit to Rome, rather than
that of his speech at Athens; for when we had heard that
Rome was visited by him when a prisoner, we might be
certain that this circumstance would interfere with his free



ON GENERAL LAWS.                  55
dom of action, and with the expression of his missionary
sympathy. But we should have earnestly coveted to know
what the Apostle did and said in bringing Christianity for
the first time into contact with the religion and philosophy
of Greece.  And, therefore, we must set a special value
upon the precise narrative which St. Luke has left us,
which, in thrilling interest, equals all that we could have
anticipated.
The Apostle visited Athens in circumstances which (as
we have already hinted) were wholly unlike those which
characterized his visit to Rome.  He entered Athens as a
freeman, happy in the joyful recollection of escape from
recent perils in Northern Greece.  He was unattended by
companions. He wandered alone through the city, undisturbed in his examination of it. And then, after his day's
wanderings, he is described as betaking himself to the
Agora, and breaking out into a public address to the
gathered crowd.  It is Paul the traveller no longer; it is
Paul the Apostle. The thoughts, struggling like a pent-up
fire, now express themselves in words.  It is Paul trying
to do his Lord's work in the centre of the world's civilization. It is a Christian Apostle, and that Apostle Paul,
bringing Christianity into contact with Greek religion and
Greek philosophy, in a city hallowed by historical associations, a sanctuary of art, a centre, even in its fall, of intellectual glory.
No scene can be more interesting.  Yet we are apt to
allow our recollections of an earlier age of Athenian history to interfere with a vivid realization of the scene and
the audience which presented themselves to St. Paul. We
are accustomed to think of Athens only as she was in the
zenith of her power; when, flushed with the victory of
freedom, and guided by the consummate ability of her




56-                     SERMON II.
statesmen, she raised herself to the head of a vast colonial
empire; when her foreign power was but the parallel to
that more enduring intellectual empire which existed at
home; —the empire of art, of thought, of liberty.  But
when St. Paul visited Athens, nearly five hundred years
had passed since the noonday of Athenian glory. Hier
empire had been destroyed; her commerce had disappeared; her harbors were already beginning to be choked
with sand; and her territory had been absorbed in that of
the power which had converted the Mediterranean into a
Roman lake, from which, as from a centre, succeeding
waves of conquest were overflowing the earth. The rays
of intellectual glory still, however, lingered round the
setting splendor of Athens; and the young nobility of
Rome came to reside there as in a sort of University.  It
was with some of these persons, men of speculative habits
of thought, that St. Paul was now brought into contact.
His audience consisted not only of the persons who in the
evening might be reposing under the plane-trees of the
Agora, but embraced also certain students of the Stoic and
Epicurean creeds.  St. Paul knew  this, and we may observe a wonderful adaptation to the tastes or the errors of
each sect in the discourse of which his historian has presented the substance.*   The Apostle was taken up to
Mars' Hill; and, standing on those rock-hewn steps which
* Some critics have supposed that St. Luke has here put into St.
Paul's mouth a speech such as he was likely to have delivered, according to the dramatic method so common in the historians of that time.
The supposition has arisen from the improbability that the logical mind
of the Apostle Paul would be susceptible to the influences of poetry,
and scenery, and other circumstances, of which the speech exhibits
traces. There seems, however, equal internal probability against such
a supposition.




ON GENERAL LAWS.                     57
formed then, as now, the only approach to the hill, he
spoke with somewhat perhaps of the air of dignity which
the great master has expressed in his cartoon.*   The
scene was one of the most striking, the most poetical in
history. His very opening words seemed to convey the
impression which the sight of the city had made upon his
mind, and with consummate tact he seized on a familiar
illustration.  " Men of Athens," he said,   all things which
I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion.t For
as I was passing through your city, and beholding the
objects of your worship, I found amongst them an altar to
the unknown God.  This is the God whom I declare unto
you.             idle fancy to suppose that the words which
It is surely no idle fancy to suppose that the words which
follow may suggest to us the belief that the eye of the
Apostle at that moment glanced from the eminence on
which he stood to the citadel which rose in queen-like
stateliness before him, covered with those many temples
sparkling at that time in crystalline whiteness, the remains
of which still attract the traveller to gaze on their majestic
outlines, beautiful even in their ruins; and from that exhibition of industry and wealth, devoted to the service of the
Greek religion, the Apostle's eye may have glanced away
* It is not implied by these words that the Apostle's figure, marred
by his "thorn in the flesh,"' can have been so noble as the ideal which
Raffaelle (copying Masaccio) has presented; but it may be reasonably
presumed that his mnoral dignity and bearing have not been inaptly
depicted in that master's cartoon.
t It is generally known that the words used by St. Paul (og JsElral,povnerrpovs) were intended as a compliment, and not as a reproach, as
the English translators have made them mean, in mistranslating them
by the words " too superstitious." The paraphrase of St. Paul's speech
here given is borrowed from the work on St. Paul's life and epistles by
Conybeare and Howson (i, 401).




58                   SERMON II.
again, as if by contrast, to the works of Nature; to the
beautiful plain, bounded by its marble mountains on the
one side, and to the sea and distant coast, which formed
the girdle of the horizon, on the other. And it may have
been under the impression of these feelings that the Apostle
continued: " God, who made the world, and all things in
it, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth
not in temples made with hands" (such as then were rising
in majesty before him); "neither is He served by the
hands of men, as though he needed anything, for it is He
that giveth unto all life and breath, and all things.  And
He made of one blood all the nations of mankind to dwell
upon the face of the whole earth, and ordained to each the
appointed seasons of their existence, and the bounds of
their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they
might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far
from every one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and
have our being; as certain of your own poets have said,'For we are also His offspring.'. If, then, we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is
like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by the art and
device of man." And then the Apostle proceeded to preach
to that frivolous crowd, with intensest earnestness, a judgment to come, and the future life.
We need pursue the subject no further. The narrative
must have an enduring interest, not only as one of the few
discourses in which an Apostle has shown a susceptibility
to the influences of scenery, but still more as a specimen
of the mode in which Christianity was presented for reception to a heathen, an educated, a philosophical audience.
Those two schools of Stoics and Epicureans, before whom
St. Paul spoke, divided at that period the sympathies and
the belief of thinking men.  Speculation into the deeper




ON GENERAL LAWS.                       59
mysteries of existence and the problem of the universe had
long since disappearecl.* Experience had convinced mankind of the futility of those attempts which speculative
philosophy had made to solve such problems; and the attempt had been laid aside, to be again and again resumed
in after ages, with the same ill success. Men had accordingly begun to feel that the business of man was not to
speculate, but to act: and so they were divided into two
classes; the one of whicht comprised those who bore lightly
the sight of woe, and passed life in an elegant selfishness;
the other,$ those who, with haughty self-respect, yet in the
main with a serious view of life, acted upon convictions of
duty, of the origin and of the future reward of which they
were ignorant. Yet whatever may have been the excellence of either system, both alike were godless; both were
* The Epicurean and Stoic philosophies included indeed speculations into Physics, as well as Logic and Ethics; but the inquiries were
not only subordinate, but were conducted without the ontological speculations which had belonged to the philosophies of the Eleatics, of Plato,
and of Aristotle. It is to the Stoics that we mainly owe the psycholo.
gical character which has always since marked ethical investigations.
The Stoic ethics are in tone modern; all previous philosophies are like
the fossil remains of an extinct creation. The best account of the
Stoic school is to be found in an essay by Sir Alexander Grant, in the
Oxford Essays for 1858. It is probably to the influence of the Stoic
philosophy, impressed on Greek thought and on the Greek language,
which St. Paul consciously or unconsciously received in his youth at
the schools of Tarsus, that we must attribute the internal, the psychological aspect of sin, which that Apostle presents in the 7th of Romans
and elsewhere. Sin is not, in his view, merely transgression against
Heaven; it is internal, moral disorganization. Such a view does not
lower the Apostle's inspiration. The anointing Spirit did not obliterate
peculiarities of knowledge or of mind in the individuals whom He
inspired, but condescended to consecrate their various gifts.
j- The Epicureans.                    T. The Stoics.




60                    SERMON IT.
schemes of life which shut out the world invisible, and
were constructed in disbelief of a personal Providence. To
each of these classes St. Paul addressed his discourse. In
the lofty and serene Deity, who disdained to dwell in the
earthly temple, the Epicurean would find echoed his own
belief; and in the idea of an orderly system, the Stoic
would recognize his own hypothesis of Fate. But St. Paul
led them beyond these notions.  He at once demolished
the Atomic theory of the one, by teaching that God was
the sustaining power in nature; and the Pantheistic fatalism of the other, by the idea of the providence of a personal God. He taught to both that God was very nigh,
that He was observant of every man, and would exact a
personal account; that it was their privilege to feel after
and find Him; that their dark and troubled spirits might
break into the light of His reconciled countenance.
It is to the theory of Providence that I wish now to
direct your attention. The disbelief in a persbnal Providence of those two old Greek schools is not peculiar to
their time. The atheism of the Epicurean, the fatalism of
the Stoic, have often been reproduced in the history of
thought in succeeding ages of the world. Each period has
its own discoveries; each great thinker strikes out his own
line of investigation. And new discoveries or new lines of
thought have to be adjusted with existing belief, or existing
belief surrendered to them.  Hence it is that, in several
ages of Christian history, the progress of investigation has
tinged men's views on Providence. Occasionally it has
been some metaphysician, who, gazing into the mysteries
of existence, and striving with his limited faculties to transcend the heights and depths of the infinite Mind, has
figured to himself the universe as one magnificent whole of
causes and effects, moving on from everlasting to everlast



ON GENERAL LAWS.                       61
ing by laws once impressed upon it, with a God perhaps to
create, but no God to superintend.* Or else it has been
one who has imagined to himself the universe as one infinite
substance, ever in a state of evolution and development; an
ocean on whose bosom phenomena arise, like so many bubbles which appear but for a moment; a volcano ejecting
its contents into the air, only to receive them back again
into the unknown depths of its own capacious crater.
Nor is it merely from speculations into Mental phenomena that an unchristian view of Providence has sometimes
been developed; but the same thing has resulted from
those real discoveries which have been made by the sciences
which investigate Matter and Nature.t  Such a view is far
more difficult of refutation, and is more captivating than
that to which allusion has just been made, in proportion as
it is founded on truths which Ohre indisputable, because
admitting of verification.  For among the great and marvellous discoveries which  Science has made is the fact,
that each region of phenomena seems to be directed by an
* The preceding sentence would describe the Deistical view of the
last century in England and France. That which immediately follows
alludes to Spinoza, and also in part to the modern schools of Schelling
and Hegel. Spinoza reached Pantheism from the investigation of the
infinite in space, while Schelling and Hegel rather arrived at from the
infinite in time. His God was in a sabbath of perpetual rest; theirs in
progress and development.  Accordingly, the words " infinite substance" in the text, together with the two illustrations of "the ocean"
and "the volcano," describe Spinoza's view; the words "evolution and
development" apply rather to that of the two philosophers who have
just been compared with him.
t The reference here intended is partly to Comnte and the Positivists,
and partly to the Deistical thinkers of the last century, so far as their
views originated in physical science, as distinguishable from the metaph1ysical source of them to which allusion has already been made.
6




62                    SERMON II.
invariable law of antecedent and consequent,-cause and
effect.  The astronomer is able to show that one law of the
most simple character governs every movement of the
planetary bodies.  The most subtle disturbances, as well
as the most gigantic movements, are alike explicable by it.
The power to unravel the history of the past, the ability
to predict the future, are proofs that the magnificent system of universal law moves on from age to age unaltered.
The student who directs his attention to the past history of
the world, and who employs a curious and minute examination of the rocks of the globe, to read therein the history
of those orders of existence which, during cycles of time
of incalculable amount, have successively occupied this
planet, finds that in the distant depths of its primeval history the same laws were in operation as now; matter crystallized in the same forms, heat and cold obeyed the same
conditions as at present; vegetable and animal life conformed to the same structure.  The mother fern then, as
now, sheltered the infant leaflet,. wrapped up within the
coils of its own form. The animal races were created, lived,
and passed away just as now. And if we pass from these
studies of other planets, and of the ancient history of our
own earth, to that small portion of its existence over which
human history extends, the man of science here again
thinks that he can exhibit laws in operation even over man.
The same laws govern human society, and move in popular
commotions, and find play in human motives now whtich
acted of old. History can offer her generalizations. Man,
like matter, comes under the domain of law.
Can we wonder, then, that from the earliest discovery,
and with each succeeding confirmation of the perm'anence
of Nature's laws, there has grown up a difficulty in believing
that system of special Providence which the Bible unfolds?




ON GENERAL LAWS.                    63
The contrast is felt, that Science teaches general laws, the
Bible, special adaptations.  Science shows the undeviating
character of Nature's methods: the Bible, their constant
alteration in obedience to human prayers. Science is sceptical of a providential interference on the part of the Divine
Being: the Bible teaches that I-e is not far from any one
of us.  "For in Him  we live, and move, and have our
being."
We believe that there is truth in both of these views.
There is a scientific side of the theory of Providence, and
a biblical view of it. The one teaches it to us as known to
the natural senses; the other penetrates the darkness which
hides the spiritual and the invisible;-the one tells us of
God's works and government; the other, of His will and
purposes.  We shall be compelled to restrict our attention
in the present discourse to the former, omitting the consideration of the Scripture view of Providence and its harmony with the scientific.*
I have already, in introducing the subject, sketched some
proofs which science has to offer, to show that the system
of nature is administered on a general plan.  But the
great evidence of that generality which I wish now to
bring before you, arises from the circumstance that it
seems plain not only that the Divine Being governs the
world by general laws, but that when the violation or clashing of these general laws bears hard on individuals, He
mysteriously on some occasions allows them to take their
course in spite of the partial suffering which they produce.
Such an illustration, while it furnishes proof of our princi* This Sermon was to have been followed by one on Special Providence, which the writer had not the opportunity of preaching. The line
of inquiry which he intended to adopt is indicated in a note at the conclusion of the present Sermon.




64                      SERMON II.
ple, will offer also an opportunity for showing the wisdom
and benevolence of such an arrangement; and thus of
harmonizing the ideas of God's love and wisdom with that
of His power.
We may draw some instances of the mysterious fact
which we assert, from  common events of Nature, such as
accidents, pestilence, and the like.  It will be desirable to
picture to ourselves one of such scenes, in order to realize
vividly the idea which we are striving - to grasp. It shall
be selected from one of those natural evils which fall upon
man without his own fault and which he is powerless to
resist.  There is one of this kind recorded in history, which
will always have a prominent interest, as having first
awakened the religious speculations of the philosopher
Goethe,* and aroused a controversy on Providence between
those tvo gifted men whose cenotaphs lie beneath the noble
dome which grateful France erected to the great of her
sons.t  It is that great calamity which about a century
ago overwhelmed the capital of Portugal.$
A fine autumn morning shone on the devoted city, and
showed the groves and buildings, spreading up the heights,
sparkling in beauty. The multitudes of its population had
assembled in the churches to hear the morning mass, when
suddenly an unaccustomed sound was heard, a long mysterious rumble, which grew louder as it approached; and
when it seemed at hand, the whole city rocked like a ship
heaving in a storm; the houses crumbled into heaps; the
* Lewes' "Life of Goethe," i, 31.
t "Aux grands hommes la Patrie reconnaissante," was the inscription on the frieze of the Pantheon.
T The earthquake occurred on All Saints' Day, 1755. The authority
for the following account is Davy's " Letters on Literature."  I have
searched in vain in the Portuguese literature for the official statistics.




ON GENERAL LAWS.                  65
churches fell, and interred in their ruins the assembled
congregations. A few escaped into the streets; but another
shock speedily followed and destroyed many of them under
the falling ruins. A large number fled to the edge of the
sea, and took refuge on the pier; but lo! to their horror,
the great earthquake wave,* travelling according to well
understood principles at a slower rate than the undulation
in the solid ground, rolled into the shore, —one huge wave
of water many fathoms in depth. In one instant a mass
of several thousand human beings was swept from that pier
into the sea; and when the survivors, after the event,
looked round on the scene of the catastrophe, they beheld
the glorious city which but a few moments previously had
been bright with beauty and life, a mass of ruins, with
more than sixty thousand of its population buried in its fall.
" Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty;
iwho shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name?"
Who is there that does not ponder on the mystery of
that horror?  Who does not marvel why the woe fell on
that city?  If you had asked mankind of old the explanation of that catastrophe, they would have asserted that it
was an immediate judgment from heaven sent to overtake
the guilty city, just as the barbarians of MIelita judged,
when, seeing the viper fasten on St. Paul's hand, they
looked upon it as the messenger of heaven sent to slay the
murderer who had, indeed, escaped the shipwreck, but
iWhom vengeance suffered not to live.  But our blessed
Lord, once and for ever, forbade such cruel surmises concerning others, when, in alluding to a recent accident of
* See Daubeny's " Volcanos," part 2, ch. 32, 33; Mallet on the Dynamics of Earthquakes, in " Trans. Roy. Irish Acad. 1845."
6*




66                    SERMON II.
his own time in Jerusalem, He said,* 6' Those eighteen on
whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew them, think ye
they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
I tell you nay."  The lesson was not for them  to judge
others, but to take warning to be ready themselves.
We may well believe, indeed, that our adorable Saviour
enunciated in this passage, and in another similar one,
which relates to the man who was born blind,t a great and
mysterious truth, which, like so many other great truths of
the Bible, has been marvellously corroborated by the discoveries of modern science.  That truth is, that not all suffering is the result of immediate sin. We have reason,
indeed, for believing that there is in the case of man some
real and mysterious connection between sin and sorrow;
though our Lord here plainly implies that special suffering
may be the effect of general sin instead of special.T
But if we pass from man to the animal kingdom, we find
clear proof of the existence of suffering and death in periods of the earth's history antecedent to the creation of
man, antecedent, that is, to the existence of human sin.~
And though we are not absolutely warranted in extending
to man the separation between sin; and sorrow which we
thus see existing in the case of animals, yet we should
naturally infer from such fact an antecedent probability
that human history would offer some examples where
human suffering was not the effect of sin, but merely a
continuation of that larger system of the permission of
pain by Providence, of the operation of which, antecedently to human creation, we find positive proof. May
* Luke 13: 4.                     t John 9: 3.:: Compare Bishop Warburton's Sermon on the Lisbon Catastrophe
(Works, v, pp. 286-298).
I See the next Sermon, and the note at p. 89.




ON GENERAL LAWS.                     67
we not take the probable existence of such instances as
an unexpected means of explanation and corroboration of
our Lord's words?  May we not adduce them, as in some
humble degree explanatory also of the permission of woe
in cases where we have no reason to infer the existence of
a judgment for sin?  Though we must speak with hesitation, and cannot hope to penetrate far into the purposes
and plans of the inscrutable God, yet we may humbly and
reverently venture to hope that we may gain by contemplating the Divine doings some trace of the possible cause
of such permitted woes.  Accordingly, in speculating upon
great calamities like the Lisbon earthquake, we are compelled with reverence to answer, that the event was, to
speak after the manner of men, an accident; that certain
causes producing earthquakes are at work in the interior
of our planet, and that'those causes acted at that moment
and in that particular spot.* More we cannot say. We
cannot tell why some counter force was not benevolently
operating to prevent it.  We take it as a proof that the
operation of general causes is not suspended by the Almighty, and occasionally not even checked by counter
causes, but is still allowed to go forward, even when the
continued effect of their action is the means of destroying
sixty thousand persons who were not instrumental to produce the mischief, and who were powerless to avert it.
* If further proof of this position were needed, it might be found in
the fact that where earthquakes have occurred in districts which are
various in their geological character, the destructive effects of the
earthquake have depended on the peculiarity of the strata on which the
different towns lay. The places, e. g., situated on crystalline limestone
have been almost unhurt; those, on the contrary, which lay on clay or
lava, have been been rocked into ruins. See Scacchi's account, " Del
Monte Vulture e del Tremuoto ivi avvenuto nel anno 1851;" and
Lyell's " Principles of Geology," ch. 28.




G68                   SERMON It.
We might pass to other proofs that God mysteriously
permits general laws to operate without interfering to
check the misery which they inflict, drawn from accidents
which are the effect of man's own imprudence and want of
foresight, but which involve in their consequences those
who are innocent of participation in the neglect which is
their cause.  Consider, for example, the terrific explosions which not unfrequently occur in collieries.  Picture
to yourselves one of those scenes. At the depth of hundreds of feet below the surface of the ground there exists
a subterranean city, in which the coal rock is quarried by
men living in a close temperature, supplied artificially with
air and light, in presence of the constant development of a
noxious and inflammable gas. Long galleries, diverging
like the streets of a city, separate the miners by miles of
tunnelled passages from  the only outlet which exists in
case of danger.  In spite of all precautions on the part of
the proprietors, some sudden act of imprudence occurs on
the part of some miner.  The gas. ignites, overpowers the
force of the artificial current of air, and sweeps, with devouring rush, through the close galleries of the mine.
Many are instantly hurried into eternity; or, cut off in
remote parts of the mine and unable to communicate with
the surface, they die cruelly of starvation or are burnt by
the fire, which, igniting the solid coal rock, turns those
caves into a vast subterranean furnace.*
Is there no kind Being to aid those innocent men who
die by accident or the imprudence of a fellow-workman?
Is there no God of mercy to notice their unprepared souls
about to be called to His judgment-seat,-none to see the
* This, it will be remembered, is a literal description of the accident
at a colliery at Lund Hill, near Barnsley, in January, 1857.




ON GENERAL LAWS.                  69
life-long sorrows of children cast upon this wicked world
fatherless; and of wives cast upon this cruel world widows?
Yes! there is a Divine Being; but He is pleased to govern
by general laws.  And the general law that gas shall,
under certain circumstances, ignite, is in His mysterious
Providence allowed to have its course. The circumstance
comes, the law holds on its course, and the catastrophe is
its consequence; and the mode (as I shall presently show
you) by which we reconcile such occurrences with the
Divine benevolence is by supposing that the suspension
of the general law would be a greater evil than that which
ensues by its being allowed to have its course.
We might multiply illustrations, but it is only necessary
to refer further to one event of deep sadness which will
suggest itself to every mind.  We may learn in the miseries that have befallen our eastern empire how true it is
that the Divine Being in some respects leaves nations, as
well as mere brute unconscious matter, to the operation of
general laws. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not mean
that the Indian revolt is purposeless on the part of Providence; but I wish you to separate between the moral
lesson which men may derive from a calamity, and the
final cause or purpose why the Divine Being has sent it.
When the explosion has happened in the mine, we naturally gather a lesson of precaution against the recurrence
of the accident, but we should not suppose that the Almighty had sent the explosion specially to lead us to
improve the lamp and to rebuild the air-courses of our
mine.  Rather we should attribute the accident to a
general law, and without pretending to fathom  the motives or purposes of the Almighty, we should derive a
valuable lesson from  the occurrence.  Similarly also in
the existence of a panic in commerce. We ought to gather




70                   SERMON II.
a lesson as to our own deportment in guarding against its
recurrence, without supposing that Providence had sent us
the woe simply to teach us this lesson.
The case is similar with respect to the miseries in India.
It has been commonly asserted by irreflective minds that
those woes have been sent as a direct visitation for the
simple purpose of arousing slumbering England to evangelize Hindostan. This is right and logical if they mean that
such may lawfully be our lesson from them in order to prevent their recurrence, just as the explosion of the coal-mine
warns us to take measures against its repetition, or as the
outbreak of a fever stimulates us to use sanitary measures.
I should be sorry if I were thought by my remarks to
undervalue that blessed, that godlike work of missionary
labor in which so many saints have won for themselves
immortal honor. The names of Xavier and Schwartz, and
Heber and Martyn, inscribed in the roll of the Christian
heroes,-men of whom the world was not worthy,-who
have perished in striving to evangelize Ilindostan, would
testify against him who should be impious enough to undervalue the work which they loved to the death. "I saw
under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the
word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And
white robes were given unto every one of them. Therefore
are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and
night in his temple."*
Yet though I would not undervalue the moral lesson of
increased missionary activity which is taught us by the Indian miseries, let us be careful not to confound this with
the notion that no other object entered into the Almighty's
purposes than the effecting this moral result, just as we
* Rev. 6:8-I1; 7:15.




ON GEfNERtAL LAWS.               71
should avoid the confusion of supposing that His sole object
in sending a fever is to lead men to attend to sanitary considerations.  In each such case of an earthquake, or a
fever, or a rebellion, we ought to distinguish the three
following things one fiom  another:-ist, the antecedent
causes which have brought about the event; 2d, the moral
purpose which the Deity may have had in sending or permitting it; and 3d, the moral lesson which man may
rationally gather from it for his own conduct. Accordingly, when we pass from the moral lesson in each case
which we may properly collect, and from speculating about
the purposes of the Divine Being, concerning which we
really know nothing, except when they are revealed to us
by an inspired prophet, to examine into the causes, i. e. the
antecedent circumstances from which each of such phenomena has arisen, we shall find them to be brought about
by the uniform operation of fixed causes. The atrocities of
the Hindoo rebellion are unfortunately no isolated phenomenon, but almost find their parallel in severity, if not
in concentration (we regret to have to say it), in other centuries of the world's history. The mutiny of a pampered
army under the combined influence of religious panic and
frantic patriotism, at the suggestion of designing persons,
is no isolated phenomenon; both alike have arisen heretofore from the play of human passion and human appetition,
and will continue to arise unto the end of time; and mysterious as is the slaughter of hundreds of our innocent
countrymen, we take that mystery to be but another proof
of the wondrous administration of the Almighty by general
laws. As an instance of an indiscriminate slaughter of
guilty and guiltless, we place it parallel in the page of history with the devastation of the Palatinate in the 17th
century; or with the massacre of the French which dis



72                    SERMON II.
graced Sicily in the 13th; or that still more fearful atrocity, which stands out from among the many bloody deeds
of the 16th as a monument of crime, the massacre of the
Huguenots on the Feast of St. Bartholomew.
All, especially the last, are instances of a, mighty slaughter permitted by a Providence which interfered not to stop
those general laws which regulate human passion, nor to
intercept those effects which the ingenuity of human sin
produces.  All alike are but the repetition, in political
accidents, of the earthquake, or the explosion, or the pestilence in the physical. You may gather what lessons you
please as to your future behavior in order to prevent their
recurrence. But if you look to the cause of what is past,
you find its explanation in that mighty wonder which we
are wishing to impress upon you,-that causes which involve suffering are allowed by Providence to have their
play, even though they involve the innocent in the sweep
of their operation; that it seems true that in some regions
of nature (if we may use the illustration without irreverence) Providence allows the world to move on, like some
great machine,* which its author has set in motion as it
were (to speak after the manner of men), but with some of
whose wheels and movements he is not pleased afterwards
to interfere.  " Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"
I have now offered a few illustrations of the absolute invariability of some portion of the Divine administration by
law, even when such invariability is fraught with suffering
to individuals.  But I should be very sorry if I were to
leave on your minds the impression that there is any degree
of injustice, or any absence of benevolence in the permission, Compare Babbage's ~ Bridgewater Treatise," ch. 8.




ON GENERAL LAWS.                    73
of these miseries, or that there is no real Providence in
them.  We are obliged to conceive of such events under
the medium of human language and the illustrations drawn
from human experience; and so I spoke just now of the
world as one great " machine" which, as it were, acted by
delegated power without the immediate operation of God.
I meant not this to be understood literally, but only by
way of explanation.  When we speak of such uniform
operations of general laws, we intend not to exclude the
idea of God as working and omnipresent; we only express
the uniformity of the system  according to which Ile is
pleased to work.  Our finite minds cannot comprehend
the operations of a Being whose government sustains the
universe, any more than we can comprehend the attributes
of His infinite mind. So, without doubt, if we could comprehend that infinite system, we should see that the catastrophe is not unnoticed by God, the material law not disconnected with the moral, natural accident and moral government not without their links of union.
And as I wish you not to carry away the notion that
there is no Providence in catastrophes, so also you should
not think of them as marked by injustice.  In questions of
this kind it is enough for us to rest in the fact that other
and more comprehensive instances of Divine benevolence
exist, which show that the general purpose of the scheme
of nature is a benevolent one.*  Our inability to compre* This principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number"
has, it is well known, been adopted as the ground of morals in Bentham's philosophy. Pope, at an earlier period, not only applied it as
the rule of human conduct, but as the measure of the Almighty's purposes, e. g.:"The universal Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws,
~7




74                     GSERM ON II.
bend that scheme as a whole may well make us sure that
if we could so understand it, we should see that these apparent exceptions are not such in reality.  Just as if we
stood looking on an ingenious machine, the general effect
of'which evinced consummate wisdom in its maker, we
should at once think that any portion of it which seemed
useless or injurious would have its use, if the inventor of it
were to explain to us the plan of the instrument; so when
we look on the great machine of the world or the universe,
we may be sure that the apparent exceptions to a benevolent object in its construction would be seen to be reducible
to agreement with the Divine mercy, if we could comprehend its scheme and its harmonies. Nay, the very idea of
these apparent severities which I have attempted to convey
to you, has been intended to remove any misgiving which
might be felt in reference to them. For though we cannot
hope to explain them fully, yet we have ventured to suggest
a partial explanation, viz., that such apparent severities
arise from the fact that the Almighty allows general laws
to operate, and the very idea of a general law possibly excludes (as Bishop Butler observes) the idea of meeting all
possible contingencies,*  and implies that it must bear
heavily in some special instances.  We do not assert that
And makes what happiness we justly call,
Subsist not in the good of one but all." (Ep. 4: 35.)
The writer of these Sermons does not wholly accede to either of these
applications of it; but merely suggests that, in the absence of any better explanation of the mystery, we may lawfully adopt the principle in
the kind of manner developed in the text, as a probable means of reconciling God's permission of suffering with the idea of benevolence in
His character.
* Butler's "Analogy," part i, ch. 8, p. 132. See Brown's "Philosophical Workls," vol. ivr Lect. 93, 94.




ON GENERAL LAWS.                   75
this is the case, but we put the supposition that, even if it
be so, there is benevolence seen on the large scale even here;
for the government by general laws is itself an act of benevolence.
We need only reflect for an instant on the amazing wisdom shown in some of these general laws and adaptations,
in order to feel convinced that the wisdom is itself benevolence. A familiar illustration will explain my meaning,
the use of which may be permitted, though I have made
use of the same thought in this place before.*  Go forth
any fine evening and cast your eyes upwards to the stars
scattered in glittering millions on the dark vault of the
heavens. Though numerous as the sands upon the seashore, yet the movement of each star and each system is
regulated'by the most complete harmony. We know little
of the vast number of those heavenly bodies; but of a few
which lie nearer to our earth we know enough to be able to
understand their movements and to predict their positions.
And when by the engine of a refined calculation we compute their relations in distant time to come, we are allowed
to understand the amazing wisdom with which the Divine
Creator has guided their movements. For in estimating
the mutual disturbances of the elements of their orbits, we
are brought to conceive of a time in the distant future,
when it seems that their perturbations shall exceed the conditions of stability, and cause an immense catastrophe.
And is there really to be this catastrophe? No! at the
very moment when we seem on its verge, we find that a
series of compensations will commence, which will precisely
* The allusion here is again (as at p. 48) to Lagrange's problems.
The mathematician will remark that rigorous precision of description
is intentionally sacrificed for the purpose of clearness of illustration.




76                   SERMON II.
bring back the system to that state in which it existed
before.  The system has oscillated like a pendulum to that
point, and then begins its backward circuit. The cycle of
time required for that reversal of the oscillation (if we may
so describe it) must be in some cases millions of years.  So
that we arrive at this stupendous result, that the Divine
Being has impressed a simple law upon these heavenly
bodies according to which they move; and yet this law is
so exquisitely perfect, that He has by it anticipated the
contingencies which will occur in the inconceivably distant
depths of future time.  " Lo, these are but a part of His
ways.  Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?
It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than
hell, what canst thou know?" As you meditate on that
consummate wisdom and prescience, is it not a proof that
the government, by general laws, is itself an act of benevolence? The wisdom is the benevolence.
And as we see this truth in the physical, so also it holds
good in the moral world. If I could not know the mind
of God with regard to me, if He governed me by caprice,
His conduct differing towards me to-day from what it was
yesterday, I should not know how to deport myself before
Him; but as He governs by general laws, His character
never varying, from everlasting to everlasting unchanging,
I accept that government itself as the best proof of His
benevolence, because I see that it gives me a fixed principle
by which to guide my conduct. If I sin, I know that there
is no escape from the law which unalterably annexes punishment to the offence; if I obey God's laws, I know that their
stability is the guarantee of my security.  So that we can
now not only say, "Great and marvellous are thy works,
O Lord God Almighty;" but also, "Just are thy ways,




ON GENERAL LAWS.                  77
thou King of saints; who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and
glorify thy name?"
Here we must pause, omitting the consideration of the
consoling doctrine of a Special Providence which is revealed
in Holy Scripture. The necessity for this omission is to
be regretted, because there is always harm in the exclusive
attention to one side of a solemn question like this, and
more especially when we are groping for truth without the
guidance which the blessed Spirit of God offers us in His
inspired word. I have wished to speak of this subject in a
reverent manner, and though presenting strongly the
secular view of Providence, yet I have endeavored to harmonize the proofs of God's power in universal law with His
wisdom and benevolence. It is nevertheless possible that
on such a subject our speculations may be wholly wrong;
the views which I have given may involve some huge mistake. If such be the case, may God forgive them, and
overrule the errors for tHis honor! We search for truth;
but when we attempt to lift the veil of the spiritual without
the aid of the voice from the unseen, we grope well-nigh in
vain:As infants crying in the night,
As infants crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.""
Yet I hope that we have arrived at a nobler and more
cheerful view of Providence than those Stoics and Epicureans held, to whom St. Paul proclaimed that God is not
far from every one of us. For we have wished to think of
Nature's laws only as God's mode of working, and their
invariability as the unchangeableness of His all-perfect
* Tennyson's "In Memoriam," p. 77.
7*




78                     SERMON II.
government.* And I have failed to convey to you the
meaning which I desired, if I do not send you home with
the conviction that even the darkest dispensations of Providence are an equal proof of God's love with the brightest;
that the sufferer in his deepest moment of gloom is as much
the object of his Maker's care as when abounding in joy.
The Divine Being sees that mourner, for IIe is not far from
any of us; and if He sees wise in his Providence not to
suspend the law which brings the suffering, that absence
(to speak after the manner of men) of interference is not
neglect.  He is really bestowing his care.  The sufferer is
under the Providence of a personal God. Oh, it is a joyous
thought that yon Englishwomen who were lately martyred
for their country's honor in the far East were as much the
objects of God's care, though He wrought no miracle to
protect them from the fierceness of human passion, as their
sisters who land on our shores daily with their tale of woe
and their grateful hymn of deliverance.  Yon soldiers,
whose memory is so dear to us, who, in the assault of our
enemy's stronghold,t paid with their lives for the noble
prize of victory which their country has won, were as much
the object of their Maker's care, though His hand warded
not from them the stroke of death, as their comrades, whom
we shall welcome back to our land, waving in triumph the
colors which they proudly followed to victory. It is a
joyous lesson to learn from this contemplation of God's
general laws, that, suffer what we may, and die where we
may, the suffering is not directed by chance. It is not
inflicted on us capriciously; its infliction is a proof of love;
for it is part of a great system which is guided by a Being
*: See " Dialogues on Providence, by a Fellow of a College," a little
work, very original and suggestive.
t Delhi, recently taken when this Sermon was preached.




ON GENERAL LAWS.                  79
all-powerful and all-loving.  It comes from  His hand.
Though myriads of links in the chain of causation may
separate us from Him, yet it is His act, His personal act,
the expression of His all-perfect will, " for in Him we live,
and move, and have our being."
Surely, brethren, under this light the consideration of
general Providence has led us to the same result of a resigned spirit which the Scripture inculcates, and the same
confidence which it inspires.
Nor is it necessary to add one word more, save to remind you that besides this general Providence of which we
have spoken, there is another system taught us in the Bible
(if indeed it be not rather in some incomprehensible manner a portion of the same),-a system perhaps in itself as
general, yet suited to every need, directed by one who
knows human wants; for it is administered by the Godman Jesus. IHere we can take our refuge.  When I think
of those laws of absolute generality which Nature shows me,
I tremble sometimes lest I may be overlooked; but when
I remember that in Jesus there is a human nature mingled
with the Divine, I feel sure that He is a being who knows
what special wants mean, who can be touched with human
sensibility, and can remember the woes and temptations of
human infirmity.
What a blessed and amazing thought! Yonder on the
throne there sits this God-man.  Within the very shrine
of the eternal glory, Ile has mounted up to plead for sinful men. Yonder, by the side of the Infinite One, who
holds in the compass of I-is laws of ihfinite generality the
infinity of the visible and invisible creation, is one conscious
of our needs and touched with our infirmities.
Yes! we know that we are as much the object of that
Saviour's mercy as though this universe were empty of all




80                        SERMON  It.
inhabitants but ourselves.  He knows what we need.  He
cannot be perplexed by multiplicity, nor confounded by
minuteness. Therefore we may leave all confidently in His
hands, committing ourselves to Him in prayer; and though
we may have to wait for the dawn of the eternal morning to
illumine some of the dark passages of His Providence, yet
we may rest confident of His power, His wisdom, and IIis
goodness. Ile is omnipotent to save us, because He is God.
He is willing to help us, inasmuch as lie is man.' I cannot always trace the way
Wherein the Almighty One dothl move;
But I can always, always say,
That God is love."
NOTE
O0t Special Providence.
The following is a brief outline of the Sermon on this subject, which
was designed to follow the preceding one:First, an investigation, conducted historically, into the teaching of
Scripture on the subject, would have been given.
Then, a sketch of the schools of thought, in which the doctrine Qf
Special Providence has been denied, with illustrations of their influence
on literature, as, e.g. in the poetry of Pope.
Next, an investigation of theories, which have been supposed to sug.
gest a reconciliation of the doctrine with the existence of general laws,
such as (M) the Monadic theory of Leibnitz; with illustrations, showing
how modern physical investigations, by resolving various supposed
forms of matter into power, seem to lend support to something like his
theory; and (/) the mzachine theory of Babbage's " Bridgewater Treatise."
After criticism on these attempts at explanation, it was proposed to




ON GENERAL LAWS.                         81
examine whether the Scripture teaching must be surrendered, as merely
a human or Jewish point of view; and to show that such is not the
case, by offering tests to distinguish the human fiorn the Divine element
in the inspired teaching of Scripture.
Thus, assuming that we must believe with equal confidence in general
laws on the evidence of Science, and Special Providence on the evidence
of the teaching of Holy Scripture, it was proposed to examine this
apparent paradox, investigating the ideas of Mr. Mansel (at that time
only inferred from his metaphysical works, and from his tract on "Eternity," but now so ably exhibited in his " Bampton Lectures") —ideas
which are in part an application of Kant's philosophy,-which would
make such a paradox to arise from the incapacity of the human mind
to comprehend such an object, not from real contradiction in the object
known.
After this investigation, it was intended to suggest the possibility of
a system of moral providence revealed in Scripture, as actual part of
the system of physical providence, developed in Science, harmonious
with it, and not contradictory to it.
Lastly, some notice would have been taken of the fallacy by which
persons conceive of a general law, as if it had an existence apart from
the individual instances which make it up. This fallacy, an offshoot
of the ancient Realism, besets the human mind alike in its conception
of general laws in natures and of God's government in the Christian
Church. The body of the Church has no more existence apart from
its members than a general law has apart from the instances which
exemplify it.  Part of the confusion in regarding laws of Nature as
being distinct from God's working in Nature, seems attributable to this
fault of giving real existence to human generalizations.
The Sermon was not preached, partly because of the long interval of
many months which intervened before the opportunity occurred for it;
and partly because, in the meantime, Mr. Mansel, in the 6th of his
"Bampton Lectures," had sufficiently investigated the subject and
preoccupied the ground.




SERMON III.
DIVINE BENEVOLENCE IN THE ECONOMY'OF PAIN.
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, FEBRUARY 13, 1859.)
GENESIS 47: 8, 9.'And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou   A tnd Jacob said unto
Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hunldred and thirlty
years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have
not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days
of their pilgrinage.'"
THESE words record a scene which thought might well
love to dwell upon, and art to depict, even if the lesson to
be learned from  the view of life contained in them  were
less valuable than it is.
The scene is a striking one, —the interview of a Hebrew
shepherd, chieftain of the desert, with the haughty Pharaoh,
monarch of the first empire of his time.  It carries us back
to an age of the world which it is hard to realize in thought,
which has almost left no traces of its power in the remains
of its public works, and seems well-nigh to live alone in the
interesting narrative of the Book of Genesis. We are accustomed to reproduce to ourselves the image of the greatness of Egypt by reconstructing in our minds, and re



ON TIIE ECONOMY OF PAIN.                 83
peopling with their ancient proprietors, those temple
palaces whose gigantic porches, or curious columns, or
beauteously-graven obelisks still adorn the banks of the
Egyptian stream. Yet all these, old though they be, are
subsequent to the age of Jacob.  In order to conceive of
the Egypt which Jacob visited, and of the Pharaoh to whom
Jacob was introduced, we must go back in thought to a
time still older, a period when the art of carving obelisks
and of erecting porticos was yet unknown,* and when the
people passed their lives in houses of wood, and entombed
their ancestors in massive pyramids, which outlive the
changes of nearly forty centuries. Those pyramids, which
now  look  down in gloomy magnificence  on the desert
scorched  into barrenness  around  them, around  whose
massive bases hardly a sound of animate life is now heard
to break the everlasting silence of the desert waste, stood
(it is now understood from their inscriptions, in spite of the
opinion of the Greek historiant) in the days of Jacob as
they stand now; and if we measure their magnificence, and
then strew the desert plain with the traces of active industry
and the bustle of a thriving population, we may be able to
form to ourselves some notion of the scene which must have
presented itself to that patriarch when he came into the
country over which his son Joseph was minister; we can
*The obelisks and porticos chiefly belong to the great age of
Egyptian art of the 18th and 19th dynasties. See Fergusson's "Handbook of Architecture," vol. i, b. v, ch. 1, 2.
t Herodotus (ii, 125) attributes the erection of the Pyramids to a
period hardly earlier than B.C. 1000. The monumental evidence shows
that they were the work of the 4th dynasty, which, according to the
most moderate computation, must be some centuries before the time
of Abraham.  See Rawlinson's I"Herodotus," vol. ii, ch. 8, p. 344,
&c.




84                   SERMON ITT.
reconstruct from these fragments some idea of the Egypt
of Jacob's day.
As the relics of Egyptian architecture enable us to picture to ourselves the Pharaoh who was one of the characters of the interview narrated in our text, so the unchanging
characteristics of the shepherd life of the Arabian and
Mesopotamian deserts reproduce to us the external features
of life and manners of the Hebrew patriarch who was
ushered into the Pharaoh's presence. We can imagine to
ourselves the bearing of the shepherd chieftain, accustomed
firom childhood to the wandering pastoral life; his head
hoary with age; his countenance bronzed with exposure to
weather, and furrowed in deep lines, which told with unmistakable clearness their tale of hardship and trial; his
manner dignified by the conscious self-respect which belonged to one who had long been the chieftain of a potent
tribe, carrying the modest but manly consciousness of the
liberty of a child of the desert, even in the servile court of
the Egyptian autocrat.
Such is the scene.  The city, perhaps, of Memphis; the
court of a Pharaoh, surrounded by his attendants on the
one hand, and the venerable shepherd patriarch on the
other.  A son of that old shepherd, now prime minister
of the Egyptian kingdom, himself long ago transformed, to
all appearance, into an Egyptian, in every respect, save in
the filial affection for his ancestry which still throbbed
within him, disdains not to introduce that old man into the
sovereign's presence.  Let us listen to the interview:
"And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him
before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou?  And Jacob said
unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are
an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of




ON TIIE ECONOMY OF PAIN.             85
the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the
days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of
their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went
out from before Pharaoh."
There is something very natural, very fresh, in the words
which Jacob used, " The days of the years of my pilgrimage." They were precisely the idea of life which would
present itself to one accustomed to no regular home, but
wont to move his encampment from spot to spot to find
pasturage for his flocks and herds. Life would seem to
him eminently " a pilgrimage," a sojourn. Also, the complaint,'" Few and evil have the days of the years of my life
been," is just the kind of plaintive, melancholy utterance
of an aged man, with life behind him, a scene of sorrow,
and nothing but death and gloom before him. They quite
express the kind of regret which an old man would feel, the
retrospect which in all ages a thoughtful mind would take
of its past life; but which would come forth especially from
a man like Jacob, whose life had been unusually chequered
with evil,-evil which he had done, evil which he had witnessed, evil which he had suffered.  And we can well
imagine that in those long years of solitary sorrow, in
which he had mourned the entombment of his earthly happiness, when he had buried his loved Rachel beneath the
pillar in Ramah, and the sad end, as he supposed, of his
son Joseph, one of the two children which we learn from
the narrative seemed to him the relics bequeathed to him
from their lamented mother,* he had employed the leisure
of a shepherd's life and the inactivity of age in the sad but
serious view of life which found its instinctive utterance in
Pharaoh's presence; when, in answer to the monarch's
Gen. 35: 18; 42: 36; 43: 14.
8




86                   SERMON III.
question, "How old art thou?" he was unable to reply
without leaving on record, in words whose plaintiveness
touches us even at this distance of time, his sad experience
of human life, " Few and evil have the days of the years
of my life been."
We have now dwelt, I should hope, long enough in
thought on that ancient interview to realize it vividly to
ourselves, and to enter into the feeling expressed in the
utterance of the aged patriarch. But what religious and
moral lesson may we learn from it? The one which I wish
to draw is this, to fix the mind on that idea of life which
Jacob here expressed.  In his retrospect of it, evil and
sorrow seemed to outweigh joy and pleasure; the balance
was in favor of gloom.
How completely is the experience of life which the
patriarch draws from his own personal history confirmed
to us, by the testimony which the subsequent history of the
earth has unfolded to us; the varied events of woe that
have arisen in the development. of the world's mighty
drama since that early time! What is the voice of history
but a roll written within and without, with mourning,
lamentation, and woe?  What is it but an illustration of
the great fact, that Providence allows human life to be
marked by agonizing sorrow?  How  many evils exist,
brought about by men,-wars, revolutions, cruelty?  Iow
many permitted by Heaven,-poverty, fatnine, disease,
bodily infirmities, the catastrophes of accidents, sudden
deaths? What can more truly describe the feeling of the
mind, which looks upon the world's history from this point
of view, than to exclaim of it as Jacob did of his own life,
"Evil have the days of the years of its life been?"
Now, what is the cause of this permitted pain? and how
can the existence of such manifold misery be reconciled




ON THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.                  87
with the idea of a benevolent character in the Divine
Creator?  It is a very small portion of this great subject
which can come under our notice on the present occasion;
yet I hope that a few considerations on the use of Pain
will at once excite in us a reverent feeling towards the
Divine Being, whose government we shall perceive to be
guided by mercy, even in its forms of terror, and will stir
us up to a true perception of our own duty alike to our
neighbors and to Him.
The ideas which I wish to bring before you are these,that though we cannot entirely fathom the mystery which
is involved in God's permission of pain or suffering, yet we
can discover in it proofs of His mercy, not merely in the
very purpose* of its administration, but in the twofold
remedy which He has provided for its diminution, in the
progress of civilization and in the mission of philanthropy
and of Christianity.
It will probably occur to many of you, that pain is the
effect solely of sin, and therefore that whatever woes mankind may suffer under the economy of it, are brought on
by their own fault. It is indeed true that much of pain is
the effect of sin, and would never have existed if sin had
been absent from the earth; but this does not solve the
whole mystery; for there is much pain, it is now clear,
which is not the effect of sin. The economy of suffering is
a far grander thing, is part of a far grander scheme of
God's administration, than we are at first led to suppose.
Providence has shown us, by the discoveries of Science in
* Similar proofs of benevolent arrangements can be shown in the
very nature of its distribution. But the inquiry was too physiological
to be introduced into the Sermon. Mr. G. A. Rowell, of Oxford, has
treated this particular aspect of the subject in an interesting essay on
" The Beneficent Distribution of the Sense of Pain."




88                     SERMON III.
the present century, the mysterious fact, which we should
not otherwise have suspected or guessed at, that pain and
death existed before the creation of man, —before the existence of human sin.*
It used to be conceived that, about six thousand years
ago, the Almighty's creative fiat first broke in upon the
stillness which existed in universal nature, and evoked from
nothingness this globe, and strewed the sky with the orbs
which are scattered in glittering millions, and decked this
earth with plants, and peopled it with animals for the use
of man. It is now known that this opinion is not correct,
and that the narrative which was supposed to tell us so,
can at most refer only to the preparation of the earth for
the use of man, and not to its original construction.  The
first origin of creation must be placed back at a period
indefinitely remote.  Through a succession of ages and
cycles, the profusion of God's creative hand gave life to
myriads of species of animals and plants before His boundless love suggested the thought, "' Let us make man after
our image." The science which has explored the rocks of
the world has deciphered in them the written history of
God's government of this planet in ages upon ages anterior
to human history. The whole earth is one huge sepulchre
of the remains of former worlds. The marvellous fact upon
which I am wishing now to dwell is this, that in those ages
when man was not, and when the fish of the sea, or huge
reptiles of the marshes, or the gigantic mammoths of the
* It will be observed that the truth of the teaching of geological
theory, in reference to the occurrence of death antecedently to the
creation of man, is here assumed. Indeed it can now not be doubted
by any educated person. A note is, however, appended to the present
Sermon, to dissipate some objections which are still taken against geological science.




ON THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.                      89
forest, were the sole lords of the planet which now forms
maln's habitation; when accordingly there was no sin, because the irrational animals were incapable of sinning, yet
pain existed there and death likewise,* and those great
physical catastrophes, such  as earthquake  and  volcanic
eruptions, which destroy animal life, were also abundant.t
* Though we may rest unhesitatingly in this truth, proved by irrefragable evidence, and may feel sure that the method of reconciling it
with previously known truths will hereafter suggest itself, yet, as many
conscientious men feel a difficulty in accepting it in consequence of its
contradiction both to St. Paul's statement (in Rom. 5: 12), "By one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned;" and to the statement in the
Book of Genesis (3: 17), " Cursed is the ground for thy sake," it seems
fair to them to enumerate some of the modes which have been suggested for the reconciliation of the discrepancy.  These modes are by
supposing: (lst), that though death belonged to the animal kingdom
before the existence of sin, yet its extension to mankind was a judgment
for human sin; (2d), that the pre-existence of death and deterioration
was arranged by Providence, with a view to the'future existence of
human sin, foreseen by the Divine prescience; so that the world, according to this view, was really prearranged for the residence offallen,
not of pure beings,-an idea to which St. Paul's hint, that "' the Lamb
was slain before the foundation of the world," might be supposed to
lend countenance; (3d), that as St. Paul is employing a process of
argumentation in the passage cited, the same weight of inspiration
need not reasonably be assigned to his arguments as to his positive
authoritative statements; inspiration, according to this view, residing
in the elevation of the intuitional, not of the logical faculty; (4th), that
St. Paul may be regarded as merely repeating and reasoning on the
Jewish view, according to the best information possessed at that time,
before God had taught to man, through the revelation of uninspired
science, a grander truth on this subject than He had vouchsafed to
communicate to the Jews through the revelation of inspired messengers. This latter view would not deny the authority of Scripture, but
only imply degrees of inspiration in its teaching.
t The destruction of animal life by earthquakes, such as those which




90                       SERMON III.
To adduce only one instance as proof. In many spots of
the earth slabs of rock are dug up which contain the remains of delicate fishes which existed long antecedently to
human history; their beautiful little forms being stamped
upon them, still contorted in the agonies in which they
expired.*
What do these facts teach us?  They reveal to us this
amazing truth, that the economy of pain, which we had
thought to appertain to man, and to be the effect of sin, is
part of a much larger scheme of Divine Providence, extending backwards to times of which we had no conception,
and designed for purposes larger than we had imagined.
Science has in fact, in this case, become a revelation.t It
has advanced our knowledge, not only of Nature, but of
the system and purposes of God in ruling Nature; and I
have ventured thus to allude to it, because it is most desirable that the minds of our students should be freshened by
acquaintance with the discoveries of Science, and that they
raised mountains, or produced the dislocations usually called "faults,"
is an inference; but that which was produced by volcanic eruptions is
a fact proved by the existence of molluscous remains in the tufa of volcanoes of the tertiary age, both in central Italy and in Auvergne. The
existence also of such catastrophes as sudden outbursts of poisonous
vapor in the ancient seas, is the most probable supposition for explaining the aggregation of fossil remains of the same family, as e. g. of
Belemnites, in some parts of the Lias; as if a shoal of fish had been
destroyed by some sudden cause in the ocean, and entombed in its
depths.
* Fossil fishes are frequently found; but it is in the remains of those
discovered at Solenhofen, in Bavaria. that the contortions are most
distinctly marked. They are found there in a schistose limestone,
probably cotemporary with the upper oolites of our own country. See
Lyell's " Manual of Geology," ch. 20.
t Compare the remarks on this subject in Sermon I of this volume
(pp. 43-48).




ON THIE ECONOMY OF PAIN.               91
should not go forth into life to propagate errors which are
exploded among the educated, nor should receive the first
information of their mistake from the harsh satire of some
stubborn critic.  Let us rather hail Science as a handmaid
to religion.  The inspired Bible is the revelation of God's
scheme of mercy in Christ; uninspired Science is a revelation of God's majesty in Nature, surpassing in this respect
the former, in unfolding the mightiness of His ways, and
in enlarging our conceptions of the infinity of His purposes.
And, therefore, we may take the facts to which I have
alluded, as a proof that though some pain is doubtless the
effect of man's sin, yet the government of God by pain is
part of a wider scheme, of which, perhaps, we can hardly
suspect the purpose.
So far as we are able to guess at its object, we may
assert that the economy of pain is an economy of discipline.
It appertains to a being that is in a state of progress; and
so, instead of seemiing to be cruelty, it is really mercy,
because it is a lesson inculcating prudence and inducing
improvement.  Two instances will illustrate this.*  If the
little shell-fish which enjoys its life in the warm waters of
a tropical clime possessed no sense of biting pain at the
presence of cold, what should hinder it from allowing itself
to be drifted by the ocean's currents to those colder waters
for which its organism  is unsuited?  If the wild beast of
the forest felt no sense of pain as its hairy skin is lacerated
by the sharp branches of trees among which it rushes, what
should prevent it from  consummating the destruction of
the very covering which was intended to protect it against
alternations of climate? The endowment of pain is a real
* These two instances are borrowed from Mr. Theodore Parker's
Sermons on the " Economy of Pain." (Sermons IX and X.)




92                   SERMON III.
kindness; it is the sentinel to warn against danger. If it
be a punishment, it is only intended as a lesson against
future imprudence, against the recurrence of the conduct
which produces the pain. We claim it, therefore, as a
proof of God's mercy that he has thus imparted to sentient
beings a beacon to warn them against peril; and we cannot but suppose that it must have been some purpose of
this kind, which was intended by the distribution of pain
in those early ages of creation to which allusion has been
made.
We might extend to the case of man the illustrations
drawn from the lower orders of the animal kingdom.
WYhen, however, we thus pass from the merely sentient
animals to the consideration of beings possessed of a higher
nervous organization, and endowed with the attributes of
reason, conscience, and responsibility, we naturally, as we
should expect, find the capacity of feeling pain to be vastly
enhanced, but designed with the same purpose of mercy.
For the pain is commensurate with the discipline; it is a
signal warning against harm or wrong; and as the discipline of man is more extended, his powers greater, his'
means of wrongly acting enlarged, so his capacity of feeling pain is also extended.  He not only feels it in body,
but experiences the pangs of mental misery, the lashings of
remorse, the tortures of conscience.  Yet these are mercy.
They are all designed to deter from the repetition of the
imprudence or the sin; they are intended as a warning to
others who see the effects, that they may learn a lesson by
example, without having to buy instruction through their
own experience.
When the imprudence of a mariner dashes the vessel on
the rocks, or when, through the neglect of common precautions as to health, a pestilence fastens on the plague



ON THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.              93
spot of a city, or the explosion of some dangerous factory
maims or massacres scores of unoffending bystanders, there
seems at first no mercy in these judgments of pain inflicted
on the innocent; but when we consider what lessons they
are intended to teach, they too are in their tendencies
really mercy. It is only severe lessons like these which
arouse men from a motive of personal safety to remedy the
evils which imprudence or neglect has created. Thus, even
in chastisement there is mercy; even in the dark and
mysterious economy of pain there is proof that a God of
love is ruling.
Yet the remarks which have been made apply only to
that pain and suffering which is remedial; what shall be
said of the amount of suffering permitted in God's providence, which comes upon man by no fault of his own, and
which he is powerless to avert? A city lies sparkling in
beauty: suddenly a low rumble is heard; it grows louder
as it approaches; and when it is at hand, the city rocks
like a ship laboring in a storm; the buildings crumble into
heaps; and the glorious city, which a few minutes before
was busy and bright with life, is a mass of ruins, with
thousands of its population buried in its fall. The patient
mariners, after braving many a danger, are in sight of the
haven where they would be; but a storm of the ocean overtakes them; the vessel founders; and their last breath of
agony is heard gurgling on the surface of the deep as they
sink into its abyss. The toiling collier shall be digging in
his subterranean city: some accident ignites the inflammable gas which issues forth from the coal-rock; the flame
sweeps with devouring rush through the close galleries of
the mine, and strews those dark caves with the corpses of
innocent sufferers. The Divine Being- is pleased not to
suspend His general laws; and the general law that, under




94                   SERMON III.
certain circumstances, the earthquake, or the shipwreck,
or the explosion shall occur, is mysteriously allowed to have
its course.  The contingency comes, the law holds on its
course, and the catastrophe is the consequence.* What
shall we say of these permitted horrors? Can we reconcile
them with the idea of the government of a God of love?
We can in some sense do so,-at least so far as we finite
beings can hope to comprehend the thoughts of the Infinite
Mind.  We assert that benevolence is seen on the large
scale even here; we claim that the government by a uniform system of general laws is itself an act of benevolence.
It is not necessary to enlarge on this subject, because,
on a former occasion, I endeavored to harmonize the apparent severity of such a plan of government with the idea
of benevolence; and, with the view of showing that the
amazing wisdom exhibited in its construction is itself kindness, I drew an illustration from some of the discoveries of
mathematical astronomy.t  I attempted to make it plain,
that through calculations conducted by the instrument of a
refined analysis we arrive at this marvellous result, that the
Divine Being has impressed a simple law of such exquisite
perfection upon the heavenly bodies, that He has by means
of it anticipated the contingencies which will occur in their
disturbances in the inconceivably distant depths of future
time. Are not such consummate wisdom and prescience a
manifest proof that the government by general laws is an
act of benevolence?  The amazing wisdom is itself the
benevolence.  Thus, though we cannot understand the
whole mystery of these catastrophes which arise in the operation of such a plan of administration, we may be sure
* The ideas of the last few lines are repeated from Sermon II.
t See Sermon II, p. 75.




ON THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.                  95
that general happiness is produced by the arrangement, in
spite of occasional pain. The earthquake, or the shipwreck, or the explosion, produces misery, but the general
system of wind and weather, and gas and air, diffuses
general enjoyment; and therefore, even apart from their
moral value as lessons, even on the physical ground merely,
we can show that undeserved pain is compatible with the
administration of a God of love.  The means are severe,
but the end is beneficent. "Therefore, hearken unto me,
ye men of understanding; far be it from God that he should
do wickedness; and from the Almighty that he should
commit iniquity.  Yea, surely God will not do wickedly,
neither will the Almighty pervert judgment."
We have thus learned in the survey alike of the pain
which is a warning to deter from harm, and of that which
is permitted to occur in the ordinary operations of Nature's
laws, that even the dark dispensations are an equal proof
of God's love with the brightest, that even the mysterious
economy of pain is an evidence of God's b6nevolence.*
But we have not yet exhausted the proof of God's mercy
in this dispensation of severity. We have, indeed, seen its
benevolent purpose and tendency; but we should also take
into account that God has been pleased to institute two
agencies which especially tend to diminish pain, and make
it effect the moral purpose designed in it.  One of these
agencies is the benevolence which is called forth by civiliza* Pain seems to be various in origin. (1), It arises from the operation of general laws; (2), it is corrective; (3), it is designed to test
character, as in the case of Jobi (4), it is perhaps occasionally retributive. The two former branches only have been discussed above. Some
hints for the discussion of the third may be found in an able article on
the Book of Job in the Westminster Review for October, 1853.




96                   SERMON III.
tion; the other, the philanthropy which takes its rise in
Christianity.
It may create a momentary surprise to hear of the relief
of pain being the effect of civilization; for experience so
often compels us rather to associate the idea of selfishness
with that acquisition of wealth which marks a growing
civilization, and heartsickening despotism with political
centralization. Yet we shall perceive that it is so, if we
look at two features which appertain to civilization, viz.,
the development of medical science, and the growth of
public opinion. It would be so easy to prove from history
that the increase of civilization has favored, nay, necessitated the growth of medical science, that we may assume
the fact; for my object now is rather to regard the art of
healing as an instrument in the hands of Providence for
the alleviation of pain.  We are accustomed frequently to
take only a utilitarian view of it; when, however, we regard it from our present point of view, we must look upon
the humblest practitioner, in his humblest employment, as
an unconscious instrument in erecting one stone in the
great temple, which God is building, of human happiness
and human improvement. And we must also look upon
the remedies which have been of such inestimable blessings
to mankind, such as the febrifuge power of Peruvian bark,
the practice of vaccination, the use of anesthetics, though
in themselves, as it were, accidental discoveries, yet in a
higher sense as gifts of God, as merciful arrangements of
His Providence for the mitigation of suffering.  Though
they be fortuitous discoveries, yet if it be the special prerogative of human civilization to acquire such knowledge,
and if it be the inseparable quality which God has given to
man to attain to civilization, we are not wrong in claiming
them as evidences of the government of a God of love.




ON TIE ECONOMY OF PAIN.                 97
We may see a similar proof also, if we look at the trait
of a mature civilization which is seen in the growth of public
opinion, and its necessary concomitant, a free press. If
we turn our thoughts to the state of our own country at
this moment we perceive that there is not a wrong, nor a
supposed wrong of the most insignificant kind, which fails
to excite through the free press of England, public attention and sympathy.  The event may be in itself slight,
yet it is felt not to be a trifle, because it involves a principle. It may be some bodily hurt of a poor person, or it
may be some insidious attempt to obstruct public progress,
or to sap the foundation of our liberty and our national
independence; in either case Englishmen take it up, because they feel that the trouble is theirs.  If the one member suffer, they know that all the members suffer.  The
hurt at one extreme limb of the body politic is telegraphed
throughout the whole of its mysterious organism, and each
sinew and ea' nlerve beats responsive to the pain impressed
on the uistant member.  The very exaggeration, the occasional abuse of this public sympathy, proves its power
and its value.  If here, again, we see that public sympathy
is the effect of freedom, and freedom the effect of civilization, and civilization the gift of God's general providence,
let us not omit to recognize in every act of sympathy which
responds to the complaints of suffering, the pulsations of
the personal will, the expression of the mind of love, which
directs the first links of that chain, some of whose windings,
as we see them in the tangled mass of human society, we
have been attempting to trace.
Yet it is not merely in the benevolence of a growing
civilization that we notice the merciful arrangements of
Heaven for the mitigation of pain; we trace it much more
in the mission of Christianity.  Our holy religion is the
(3




98                   SERMON III.
reflection of the mission of its Divine author; tIe has left
us an example that we should follow in His steps: and His
mission was one of universal mercy, not to soul only but
to body. In His journeyings over Judea, wherever He saw
misery, physical as well as moral, Ie scattered it by the
breath of His miraculous power.  He bore our sickness,
and carried our sorrows. And as He acted so did also
His Apostles.  From  the very moment when their souls
were baptized with the Pentecostal gifts, so that they understood what Christ's atoning death had wrought for them,
and felt the holy love of God and of man stirred up within
them by His Holy Spirit, they hastened to go forth on
their mission of love. And not Apostles only, but humble
members of the Christian Church counted it their highest
privilege to minister to their fellows.  So also, as the circles
of Christian influence widened, institutions unthought of by
heathens, were established for the relief of sorrow and the
mitigation of suffering. The statesmen and monarchs of
the ancient world constructed many works of public utility,
but none directly adapted to the cure of disease.  The
ruins of their aqueducts still span wide valleys with their
gigantic arches; their baths for the poor,* now crumbling
in ruined majesty, form somle of the most coilcssal and
beautiful remains of the Eternal City; but no philosopher
was ever led by his science, no statesman by hlis generosity,
to construct hospitals, or a system of relief for the diseased.
It was when He who had suffered as a man sent His Spirit
down to melt the hard hearts of men into overflowing love,
that the thoughts of visiting and assisting the sickg first
entered into the hearts of men to conceive.
And in various ages the most conspicuous examples of
* E. g. those of Caracalla and Diocletian.




ON THIE ECONOMY OF PAIN.              99
heroic and enduring self-sacrifice have appeared in the
muster-roll of those who have endeavored to carry out the
secular mission of Christianity-its relief of pain.  We
need not go back to past times, and recall the memory of
a Borromeo ministering to the population of Milan when
smitten by pestilence, nor a Vincent de Paul sending forth
the missionary sisters into ravaged Lorraine, nor a Howard,
in his circumnavigation of charity, collating the distresses
of all men.  Our own age, our own memory, will supply to
us conspicuous instances where practical Christianity has
fulfilled its mission of plunging into the infection of hospitals, and diving into the abodes of sorrow. There is one
recent scene in our national history which finds its place
in the annals of the Christian mission of mercy; there is
one spot on earth whither the philanthropist may take a
pilgrimage to kindle his own energies. And as he gazes
on the hillocks which mark the last resting-place of English
heroes, and drops his tear of sympathy to the memory of
those who bought with their lives the noble prize of victory
for the country which they loved so well, his sympathy
must kindle into intense energy as he turns to gaze on that
huge square edifice that overlooks the silent cemetery,
which has been consecrated by the presence of those Christian heroines who bent over the pillow and soothed the
last moments of their countrymen who expired in the
plague-struck hospital of Scutari.
HIere we may see how truly Christianity still carries out
its mission of healing; and in the spirit of this example we
may fitly conclude our subject: for we have traced in the
economy of pain the proof of God's benevolence, not only
in the suffering which is the punishment of imprudence,
and in that which comes upon us without our own fault,
but also in the perpetual system which He has provided for




100                   SERMTION III.
the mitigation of sorrow in the benevolence of civilization
and the philanthropic mission of Christianity.
Nor can this view have failed to exhibit to us our own
duty alike to our neighbors and to ourselves.  We nmust
have felt that in mitigating the slightest pain in the most
insignificant creature of God's sentient creation, we are coworkers with God, we are doing our part in the system in
which He has placed us; in diminishing human suffering in
the least degree, or adding to the stock of human happiness, we are following the footsteps of Him who Himself
was the great example of the dignity of condescension, of
the majesty of sympathy, of the divinity of pity.
It is a very cheering circumstance that the Christianity
of our age is becoming awake to this its secular mission,its mission to the bodies of men as well as to their souls, its
mission of civilization as well as its errand of religion.  It
was the lesson of this kind which all felt that they had to
learn, which not long since bespoke the sympathies of
admiring England for the labors- of the missionary explorer,* who, after receiving friom his grateful countrymen
his well-merited honors, has gone back with the unaffected
simplicity which was the sweetest trait in his noble character, to bestow his labor of love in carrying up the
streams of the African continent the seeds of incipient
civilization, as the pioneer of industry, the harbinger of the
bright day of improvement which shall in distant time
spread its refreshment over the arid plains of the African
continent. When that first laborer shall have passed to
his reward (distant, God grant, may be the day), his name
shall be blessed; though he may rest from his labors, his
works shall follow him.
*'The Rev. D. Livin-stone.




ON TIE ECONOMY OF PAIN.                 101
But his example ought to animate us at home.  For if
we would find barbarians outside of the pale of civilization,
and beings degraded below the level of humanity, we have
no need to go to search for them  among the roving Bosjemen of the Calahari desert,* we may find them  nearer
home, in the crowded English cities, amid the lazzaroni of
our metropolis, amid the hopeless, homeless outcasts of yon
great London.  And if we would reach these with mercy,
we must first feed them; if we would Christianize them, we
must first unbrutalize them; if awe would reach their souls,
we must begin with their bodies; if we would hope to teach
them religion, we must accompany it or precede it by attention to public health and comfort. Tracts, and Bibles, and
clergy will do little, unless we afford also fresh air, and
clean water, and wholesome food, and warm  fuel, and
healthful recreation, and the commonest rudiments of God's
blessed gift of civilization.  We must sacrifice for once
those political practices (true though they are in the main)
which the teaching of Malthus caused to be embodied in
public law; we must come forward as a nation to help those
who cannot and will not help themselves.  We must purify
the public drainage, and erect public lavatories, and build
decent cottages wherein the sanctities of domestic life may
find a shrine, without the herding together of persons, like
brute beasts, without respect of age, or person, or sex, if
we would wish to use God's method of elevating men, or
would desire our religious efforts for their good to be anything but a mighty, heart-sickening mockery.t
* Livingstone's "Travels," ch. 5.
-'-It is undoubtedly true that under ordinary circumstances Christianity precedes rather than succeeds civilization. Religion begins
from within and works outwards, first making the heart right, and then
afterwards the life. Missions civilize by the very act of Christianizing.
9*




102                    SERBION III.
Yet while we are learning this lesson of duty to our
neighbor, let us not omit to learn also one in reference to
ourselves.  While we are laboring in our sphere to diminish
human sorrow as well as human sin, let us not fail to realize
the deep lesson which the sight of that sorrow  ought to
teach us, of unworldliness and of preparation for the future
world.  Let us not fail to feel that this life is verily a pilgrimage, a sojourn; that we are placed here to seize the
few moments to prepare ourselves for another world, and
that the evil of this life may be our very best preparation
for the future, if only we are victorious through the help
of Him who has loved us. We must learn to feel that here
all is fleeting, there all eternal; here the shadow, there the
substance; here the dream, there the awaking; here all
marred and imperfect, and unable to satisfy the deep
cravings of our immortal souls, there all blessed perfection,
and God and goodness as the everlasting fountain and satisfaction of our intensest appetitions.  Then we shall use the
world without abusing it, and live'here as heirs of immortality.  And the strength of that conviction will make us
tremble, lest, when we have entered on that other state of
being, when return to this life is impossible, when our souls
are stamped with an everlasting destiny, when he that is
unholy must be unholy still, we should find that we have
made an everlasting mistake, that we have allowed ourselves to be cheated by the dream of life, hurried away by
its gaieties, bound down by its business, and have neglected
to use its opportunities to secure a fitness for a home above.
Let us learn this lesson, and carry it out in our lives.
While we consecrate our efforts to bless our fellows, let us
But in extreme cases of degradation, such as abound in our larger
towns, religious influences are rendered abortive unless assisted by
civilizatioln.




ON THE ECONOMY OF PAIN.                   103
gather ourselves in the secrecy of earnest prayer to our
common Father, and seek that HIe would keep before our
souls the vision of the eteinal world, and make our lives the
means of preparing us for it. Let us ask the mercy which
is free as the air we breathe to all who ask it in the merits
of Christ, let us crave His help against sin, and His favor,
which no one ever yet asked in vain.  Then, if we do so,
we may well hope that, as the evening of life closes around
us, and we are ready to lament with the ancient patriarch,
"' Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life,"
we shall, in the recollection of a life well spent, catch a
prospect in the future, a bright home beyond the dark
valley of the shadow of death; and that with consolation
cheering us such as fell upon him in his last moments, our
souls may pass away from earth with the joyous thought,
"I have waited for thy salvation, 0 Lord."
"Life, I repeat, is energy of love,
Divine or human; exercised in pain,
In strife, or tribulation i; and ordained,
If so approved and sanctified, to pass
Through shades, and silent rest, to endless joy.'L
NOTE
O  thze Evidence of GeoZlogy.
IT is hardly necessary, considering' the manner in which a knowledge
of Geolocrical discovery now enters into the education of all cultivated
persons, to add remarks on the irrefiagable character of the evidence
of those discoveries; yet some objections to them deserve notice, which
* Wordsworth's "Excursion," b. v, end.




101                       SERMON  IIr.
exist in the minds of those whose reverence for old truths inclines them
to adopt any excuse for declining to accept new ones. -
These objections are (lst), that the phenomena of fossil remains can
be entirely explained by a general deluge, without assuming the existence of death antecedently to the creation of man; and (2d), that
Geology is so young a science, and has so often changed its theories,
that hesitation in accepting its present teaching is excusable.
The former position cannot be held any longer by any one who will
put himself to the trouble of examining conscientiously the steps of
Geological proof; indeed, the persons who in future assert it must
abdicate their claim both to impartiality and intelligence.
The latter position, though more plausible, is equally fallacious. The
cause why Geology has changed its theories is, that the discoverers of
the science were so conscientious, so afraid to draw inferences hastily
which would clash with received beliefs, so unwilling to admit the new
truths which God was teaching them through the revelation of Science,
that they adopted premature attempts to adjust old beliefs to new discoveries. Accordingly, from time to time they were compelled to throw
away some element in their conclusions, which fresh investigations
showed to be no longer tenable.  The changes in the theories of Geologists have not been those of men who were guessing at random   they
have been the uniform  progress of minds who had humility enough to
lay aside their preconceived hypotheses before the newly-opening visions
of truth.
In reference to the allegation that Geology is a young sciencen it
should be remembered that since the establishment of ascertained
methods of investigation and of proof, a science constructed upon such
methods possesses immediately the certainty of older sciences, the larger
portion of the history of which has only been the random attempts at
discovery, which were made antecedently to the establishment of correct
methods.*  Bacon said that the method of science wqold grow together
with the sciences,t —a remark which experience has confirmed.  Men
have, as it were, stumbled upon discoveries, and having done so, they
have turned back and read in those discoveries the theory of the method
by which they attained them.  They have read in science the logical
X This is exhibited clearly in Dr. Whewell's " Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences,'" in the chapters where he traces the gradual evolution of scientific
ideas; and in Professor Baden Powell's "IIHistory of Natural Philosophy,"
Nov. Org. 13. I., inz i/z.




ON TIIE ECONO3MY  OF PAIN.                   105
method of scientific discovery, and hence the modern inductive logic of
scientific method, as shown in the great modern writers on the subject,*
is itself a strictly inductive science, a rigorous statement of the methods
which have led to the verified discoveries in the sciences.
Hence the allegation that Geology is an uncertain science, because a
new one, disappears, inasmuch as it is a science founded on ascertained
methods; indeed, such a charge is as absurd as if a person were to
object against some modern astronomical calculation that it has been
executed too quickly, because the astronomers who lived before the
perfection of analytical methods of investigation would have taken
much longer time in the discovery of it.
Sir J. HIerschel's " Introd. to Nat. Phil.," Part II; Dr. Whewell's " Philos.
of Induction;" Ampere's "'Essai sur la Philosophic des Sciences;" Comte's
"Positive Philosophy; " IMr. J. S. Mill's "' System of Logic."'




S ERMON IV.
JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF PROPHECY.
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, FEBRUARY 24, 1856.*)
ISAIAH 6:9.
" And, he said, Go, anld tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but un.der'stand
not; and see ye inzdeed, but perceive not."
THESE words were spoken in the marvellous vision whichl
was vouchsafed to Isaiah at an early stage of his prophetic
ministry.  In the year that King Uzziah died, he saw "the
Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his
train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim; each
one had six wings  with twain he covered his face, and with
twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.  And
one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.  And
the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried,
and the house was filled with smoke."  We cannot wonder
that the prophet, confounded with that unearthly manifestation, was overwhelmed with dread, and exclaimed,
* On occasion of the annual Sermon designed to refute the mediaeval
Jewish schools of prophetic interpretation.




ON J5EWISH LITERATURE.            107
"Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips."   But as he uttered his confession, one of the
seraphims flew unto him, having a live coal in his hand,
taken from the altar, and laid it upon his mouth, and said,
"Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquity is taken
away and thy sin purged." And then he was warned to
go and tell his nation, "' Hear ye indeed, but understand
not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.  Make the heart
of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut
their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with
their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert,
and be healed."
There can be no doubt that it was a vision sent at once
to cheer the prophet in his work, and to prepare him for it.
He was to go to teach his countrymen; but Providence
foresaw that they, with the inflexible tenacity of character
which has ever been their marked national peculiarity,
would refuse to listen to his message; and, therefore, he
was given to feel that his ministrations, though they were
not heeded on earth, were not unnoticed in heaven; that
unclean as he was, and ministering to a people unclean,
there was a seraph to fly to him with the assurance of
mercy; and that though he might be led to think that the
course of this world's history was for evil, yet the seraphim
standing before the throne, and surveying things by the
light of eternity, were chanting their song of triumph to
the Holy, Holy, Holy, because they were permitted to
witness that not the heavens only, but the earth also, was
full of God's glory.
The history of Isaiah's ministrations to the Jewish people, has been repeated in every succeeding attempt made
to bring them to a sense of their true condition. One




108                   SERIMON IV.
messenger after another has been sent, and at last the
Divine Son of God came forth.  He came to HIis own, but
His own received Him not.  And the result has been that
vengeance appears to have overtaken them; their vineyard
has been taken away and given unto others.
If there were no other interest belonging to the Jewish
nation than that which arises from the operation of merely
ordinary laws in their history, they would yet be singled
out as one of the most remarkable of peoples. The interest
which belongs to them would indeed be unlike that which
appertains to other nations.  No mystery envelopes their
origin, such as excites our curiosity with regard to many
ancient races, which have left in their cities and their
cemeteries, the traces of a civilization which must ever
remain an enigma.  No widely spread influences can be
traced to them, such as those effects which Athenian cultivation has stamped indelibly on the world. No political
example is offered in their history, of a people working out
its liberties, and then imprinting, its laws on a conquered
world, such as gives to Roman history its enduring. interest.
Yet, in spite of the absence of these features, the peculiarity
of their pertinacity of character, of their persecutions, and
their continuance as a separate nation; scattered through
every district of the civilized earth, yet not confounded
with the masses of its population; strangers where they
have long had a home; foreigners where they have long
been naturalized; separated by an ineffaceable barrier from
societies with which they hold the closest companionship;these circumstances alone, if there were none of different and
higher interest, would claim for their history and condition
the attention of all who desire to understand the philosophy
of man.
When, however, le superadd to this merely secular view




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.               109
of their history the Divine aspect which revelation presents
us of it, we feel that it stands out singly in the progress of
the race.  Other histories embody ideas; it is theirs alone
which embodies -Divine ideas.  They stand out as the instruments of a special administration, and the possessors
of a special religion.  They appear as the rejectors of the
Messiah whom they had long anticipated, and their dispersion is regarded as a Providential punishment for that
act of ingratitude.
It is to the great fact of the rejection by the Jews of
that Being whom  we believe to have been the Messiah,
that our attention is to be directed in the present discourse.
It is not surprising that a philanthropic individual who felt
a deep sympathy with those attempts which have been
made to convert the Hebrew nation to Christianity, and a
sincere interest in their welfare, should have desired that
the subject should be brought before this University, and
should accordingly have presented a gift to it a few years
ago* for an annual Sermon, as he himself expressed it,
" on the application of the prophecies in the Holy Scriptures respecting the Messiah, to our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, with an especial view  to the confutting the
arguments of Jewish commentators, and thze promoting the
conversion to Christianity of the ancient people of God."
The subject of the present discourse is, therefore, defined by the wishes of that benefactor. I should have been
glad if we could have investigated the various causes which
have operated most forcibly in preventing the Jews from
accepting the Christian faith.  The brief space of our
present service will, however, only permit of the review of
a single one of them, the consideration of which will, I
* In 1848.
10




110                     SERMON IV.
hope, nevertheless answer, in some humble manner, the
noble purpose which our benefactor had at heart.
The cause to which I allude, is the fact that the Jews
possess a literature directed against Christianity, which is
not only taught to the mass of their nation, but is of sufficient subtilty and importance to command the respect, and
in some sense satisfy the judgment, of their intellectual
men. We are too apt to regard them as rejecting Christianity, simply because their fathers did so, and because
they have never had the candor to reconsider the question.
This, however, is not wholly the case.  They possessed,
especially in the middle ages, distinguished writers, who
established a regular school of prophetical interpretation
in answer to the Christian theory of the fulfilment of those
prophecies which relate to the Messiah.  And as the wish
of the founder of this Sermon contemplated a reply to
those writers, which are referred to in argument with the
modern Jews, I think that it will not be a misemployment of your time if I first give such a brief sketch of
Jewish theological literature as will enable you to understand the nature of their opposition to Christianity, more
especially as I am not aware that any of those who have
preached in past years on this subject have done so.*
* Two of the Sermons which had been preached in preceding years
have been published:; one by Dr. Marsh, in 1849, entitled, " Predicted
HIistory of the Messiah fulfilled in Jesus," and the other (in 1850) by
Rev. C. Girdleston, on " Messiah Pierced," both of which Sermons investigate a single passage of prophecy without presenting an introduction to the literature of the subject. The sources from which the facts
for the present Sermon have been drawn are mostly enumerated in the
notes. A useful work on the history of Jewish literature has been recently published by the Syriac scholar, Dr. Etheridge, entitled, " Jerusalem and Tiberias; Sora and Cordova; a Survey of the Religious and
Scholastic Learning of the Jews."




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.                  111
Jewish literature has especially flourished at three different periods, and in three different lands; —in Judea in
the period which intervened between the return from  captivity and the commencement of the Christian era; in
Galilee and Mesopotamia from  the 3d to the 8th century
A.D.; and in Spain from the 10th to the 15th.
1. Few public events ever worked so mighty an effect on
a nation in so short a period, as the captivity at Babylon
wrought on the Jews.*  It affected their social and intellectual life in modes which exist to the present day.  It
imparted to them a new language and a new written character;t it forever banished from them the practice of polygamy; it excited in them a lasting hatred of idolatry; it
enlightened them on the doctrines of a future life and of
moral duty, and by binding them  in a common suffering
and a common sorrow, extinguished for a time those unhappy feuds which had so often proved their ruin. But it
was the effect which related to their literature with which
we are now concerned.  Their social state was so altered
by their captivity that they were compelled to form an
uninspired theological literature. For they returned home,
as we have already hinted, with a new language. They
had not only laid aside the old Hebrew alphabetical charac- See Milman's " Hist. of the Jews," b. ix.
t The view here intended is, that the Jews exchanged the old Hebrew
or Samaritan character for the square Chaldee, which is now called
Hebrew; the old character reappearing only in coins of the house of
the Maccabees. The Hebrew language was also exchanged for Chaldee, or Eastern Aramaic; and in Galilee and the northern parts of
Palestine, the pronunciation in later times probably approximated
more to the Western Aramaic or Syriac. The original sources for
forming a judgment on this question are given in Horne's "Introduction," vol. ii, ch. 1. See also Stuart's "Hebrew Grammar" (Introduction), and Marsh's "' Lectures," part ii, pp. 136, et seq.




112                   SERMON IV.
ter, but had adopted the fornms of speech of the Eastern
Aramaic, or, as it is commonly called, the Chaldee tongue.
Hence their own law became unintelligible to them,* and
the necessity for understanding it called forth a new order
of interpreters, and a new literature of translations or
paraphrases into the newly acquired tongue. These interpreters are known by the name of the Rabbins, and the
translations by the name of Targums.
There were circumstances, too, in their social condition
at that time, which gave increased importance to these
writings and their authors. After the captivity, the Levites
ceased to be the great instruments for teaching the people,
and a new order of teachers arose in those separate little
centres of worship, which grew up under the name of
synagogues.t It is not difficult to see how such an order
would gradually gain power. Parallels are offered to us
in other countries, as, for example, in the epoch when the
Latin language ceased to be spoken, and was changed into
the various tongues of modern Europe; or in India, in the
age when the Sanscrit ceased to be the vernacular tongue,
and yet continued to be the depository of the religious
creed. In both epochs alike there continued to be a
learned language in the hands of an educated order; and
this order naturally acquired intellectual and afterwards
spiritual influence; in the one case there arose the Roman
Catholic priesthood, and in the other the Brainhinical; in
both they first became the translators, and afterwards the
interpreters of the ancient religious books.
It was this department of interpretation which gave to
the Rabbins the opportunity of insinuating into the Jewish
* Compare Neh. 8: 8.
i See Milmalns " Hist. of the Jews," iii, book 18.




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.               113
mind the body of traditional doctrine distinct from the
written word of God, which formed the strength of Pharisaism, against which our Lord so often levelled His addresses.* It does not, however, appear that this new
system of doctrine was at that early period committed to
writing, or that the paraphrastic translations or Targums
of the ancient Scriptures, of which we possess the copies,
were composed till near the end of the first of those periods
into which we divided Jewish theological literature.t Nor
would the notice of them have fallen properly within our
province, if it were not on account of the importance which
they assume in controversy, as recording the interpretations
assigned at that time to certain passages in the Old Testament.
Independently, however, of this consideration, the time
will not be lost that has been spent in thus viewing the
morning of Jewish uninspired literature.  The productions
of that age may be few, but in noticing the causes which
thus created a literature, we have ascendod to the fountain
head of the waters which ultimately expand themselves into
broad streams.  And as the student who wishes to understand the history of Art busies himself with the study of
the age when it was struggling to emancipate itself from
the crudeness which cramped its early efforts towards a
free development, so, if we would view the full daylight of
a nation's literature, we must watch its sun rising amid
twilight, and battling with the mists which obscured its
early brightness.
2. An interval of two centuries separates the second age
of the national literature from the first, —an interval during
* E. g. in Mark 7.
t See Bartolocci, "Bibliothec. Maon. Rabbin,' vol. iii.
10-'




114                   SERMON IV.
which the nation, after struggling for its independence, and
after manifesting a heroic patriotism, even in the hour of
its deepest gloom, had been finally removed from that city
which, for more than twelve hundred years, had been the
metropolis of the religion and the race. Yet in spite of
their exile, the Jews were able to maintain their nationality,
and to form centres of Jewish life in different spots in
heathen lands. Two places were selected by them as their
especial homes.  The one was Galilee, which was under the
Byzantine power; the other was Mesopotamia, under the
Sassanian dynasty of Persia. In each a centre of government existed for the dispersed Jewish people, whence they
received their creed, and to which they yielded spiritual
obedience.  In each resided a Patriarch who regulated
their whole system of education, and directed, by means of
legates, the affairs of his nation in other lands, exercising a
power which offers no unapt analogy in miniature to the
combined spiritual and temporal powers afterwards exercised by the Popes of Rome, or by.the Mahometan Caliphs.
While these Patriarchs flourished, their abodes-the one
at Tiberias, the other in Babylonia-were the places around
which were gathered schools of the most learned Jews, and
to which the youth of their people, scattered in other lands,
betook themselves to receive their education.  The literature taught was entirely theological; but a regular and
well-ordered school of it existed, which has produced works
which form the standard national literature, even at this
day. The theological studies embraced the two subjects
which we are accustomed te call Biblical Criticism  and
Biblical Interpretation. The books on the former subject
related to the determination of the genuine text of the
ancient Scriptures, and are called the Masora; the latter
related to the meaning of the text, and are called the




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.                 115
Talmud.  It is to the school of Tiberias that we owe the
system of Biblical criticism.  It was the teachers gathered
there about the year A.D. 400, who collated manuscripts,
and determined and arranged the text, performing much
the same kind of office which the Christian critic Origen
had so honorably executed at Alexandria two centuries
earlier; and it was probably at that time that they attempted to fix the ancient pronunciation of the Hebrew by
the invention of the vowel points,* with which that language is now usually written.
While the school of criticism was restricted to Tiberias,
that of interpretation was even more cultivated by the Jews
of Babylonia.  A systematic digest was there made of the
traditional interpretations which had grown up through
centuries.  It was named the Talmud, and contained two
parts, the Mishna, or text of the traditions, and the Gemara, or commentary on them.  The difference will be
understood by those who are familiar with the legislation
of Justinian.t  The Mishna was like his -Code, embodying
the national laws; the Gemara, like his Pandects, embodying the mass of precedents.  This system of interpretation
is received by most Jews with the same reverence which
they attach to the Scriptures.  It embodies, according
to their belief, an oral tradition originally revealed from
heaven, and handed down co-ordinately with the sacred
volume. Nor ought it to escape our notice how closely
herein their feeling resembles that with which the Roman
* The date of the introduction of the vowel points was a subject
much debated among the great Hebrew scholars of the 17th century.
The references for investigating it are to be found in Horne's "Introduction,' vol. ii, ch. 1, sect. I; and Marsh's "Lect.," part ii. The
opinion of Cappel here adopted is now generally received.
t Gibbon's " Decline and Fall," ch. 44.




116                   SERMON IV.
Catholic regards the teaching of the tradition which rests
on the authority of the Church;-a circumstance attributable in its origin, as we have already stated, to the
fact of the religious teaching resting with a learned order
at a time when the majority of the people were unable to
investigate for themselves; and a clear example how remarkably the various events of the middle ages, in which
there seems at first sight no regularity, are really reducible
to the same causes, and capable of being generalized into
the same laws; being but manifestations of the similar state
of society which existed in different countries which were at
the same stage of political growth.
It is this reverent regard which the Jew bears to the
Talmud that renders it of importance in controversy.  It
stands to him as the Bible does to the Protestant; or as the
Vedas to the Brahmin; or as the decrees of the Church to
the Roman Catholic.  But there is also another value in
it, viz., that in spite of the mass of allegorical and fanciful
interpretation which it contains, it conveys the first example
of the unreal, and, as we believe, forced interpretations
which the Jews began to find it necessary to impose on the
old prophecies, in order to wrest them from the use to which
the Christian writers applied them.
3. We shall now proceed to sketch the third period, or,
as it may be truly called, the golden age of Jewish literature, which existed in Spain from  the 10th to the 15th
century.
The state of the Hebrew nation in this period forms
nearly the only bright spot in the sad picture of their history.
It cannot be a subject for surprise, that when the Mahometan conquerors, at the beginning of the Sth century,
crossed the straits which separate Africa from  Europe to




ON JEWISHI LITERATURE.            117
conquer the Spanish peninsula, they were hailed by the
Jews-who had been bowed down under the oppression of the
Visigoths-as friends and deliverers. Under the generous
protection of this race of conquerors, the Jews lived in
happinessand increased in material prosperity, maintaining a commerce between the eastern and western parts of
that sea, which, on three of its shores, was inclosed by the
vast Mahometan empire; and it ought to be an instructive
lesson to consider that it was under the shelter of the followerg of the false Prophet that they found the protection
which they sought in vain from the followers of Him, whose
very last prayer had been for their race: "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do."
It was the safety and wealth that the nation possessed,
which enabled its superior spirits to devote themselves to
intellectual pursuits.  That may truly be said to have been
the noonday of Jewish literature.  Not only in theology,
but in the art of poetry, and in science, there arose distinguished writers. At a time when the' rest of Europe
was enshrouded in darkness, broken only by the little lamp
of knowledge which had been borrowed from the Moors,
science and learning were beginning to shed their rays
over the Mahometan kingdom of the peninsula. Algebra
and the abstract sciences were eagerly pursued by them,
and Jewish astronomers were employed in constructing the
Alphonsine tables, the interest of which is well known.*
Discoveries were made in anatomical science by Jews, and
the chief physicians in Europe were taken from that nation; whilst others of them, through their knowledge of
banking and finance, rose to high ministerial functions and
offices in the courts of the caliphs.  Possessed of equal
rights with their Mahometan fellow-subjects, it seemed as
* The tables of Alphonso X, in 1252. (De Castro's Hist., p. 62.)




118                   SERMON IV.
if they forgot that they were in a strange land; their harp
no longer hung silent upon the willows; the spirit of their
ancient psalmody revived; and many of their lyrics remain, cramped indeed by the unnatural adoption of the
Arabian metre, and by the use of rhyme, yet breathing in
their matter and meaning that spirit of poetic inspiration
which always commands the sympathies and awakens the
response of the general heart.*
It was in the department of theology, however, that
their literature was most distinguished. It was an accident,
which about the middle of the 8th century brought a distinguished Jewish theologian from  the East into Spain.t
Welcomed by his countrymen, he immediately opened a
school of Jewish literature in the then rising University of
Cordova. The higher Jews, nevertheless, still continued
to send their children to the schools of Egypt or Babylon
to receive their education, until the schism in the caliphate
and the persecutions commenced in the 11th century by
the Egyptian (Fatimite) dynasty drove the Jewish professors to seek refuge under the enlightened sway of the
Spanish caliphs. The effect of this immigration on the
revival of Jewish learning was almost as marked as that
which was seen in the analogous case of the revival of
Greek literature in the 15th century, when the Greek
population of Constantinople retreated into Western Europe on the taking of their city by the Mahometans.
Schools of Jewish theology not only sprung up immediately in Cordova and the other great cities, such as
Seville and Granada, which formed the glory of the south
of Spain, but their influence extended across the chain of
* The Mediseval Jewish Poetry will be found translated into German,
in " Die Synogale Poesie des Mittelalters, von Dr. Zunz; Beriin, 1855.
See also his work, " Zur Geschichte und Literatur; Berlin, 1845."
t Named Moses. See Milman's "If-ist. of Jews," iii, 285.




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.                  119
mountains which hems in the province of Andalusia, and
made itself felt in the Universities of Toledo and Valencia,
and even as far north as Barcelona.  The great subjects
of study in these schools were the principles of Biblical,
and  especially  of prophetical interpretation.   Though
much tied down by the authority of the  Talmud, the
teachers still felt that its system  of interpretation was
often fanciful, its great fault being that it partook of the
common property of Oriental thought, of assigning an allegorical meaning to that which is literal and fact.* Rejecting, therefore, an allegorical interpretation, they adopted
a literal and grammatical one, and accordingly laid a basis
for it in the careful study of the structure and genius of
their own tongue.
Thus far their principles may have been sincere, and
suggested by an honest perception of the improprieties of
the ordinary system of interpretation; yet it must be added
that the chief motive, which is at once apparent in many of
their interpretations of particular passages; is the design of
giving such a meaning to them  as to destroy the force of
the Christian interpretation of them.
It may be well, for the sake of giving individuality to
these writers, to name the principal of them.t  The early
part of the 12th century produced three, viz., Jarchi, surnamed Rashi, Aben Ezra, and David Kimchi; and the
* This allegorical mode of interpretation became common about the
time of Philo (a.D. 40). See Essay on Philo, in Prof. Jowett's work on
St. Paul's Epistles.
t For information on these and other subjects, see J. B. De Rossi's
"Dizionario Storico degli Autori Ebrei e dello loro opere;" also, "Hist.
of Jews of Spain and Portugal, by E. H. Lindo, 1848;" also, "Hist.
of the Jews in Spain, by Don Adolfo de Castro, 1851;" also the works
of Calmet, Basnage, Gaffarelli, Delitzsch, Julius Friist, and Jo. Chr.
Wol f.




120                  SERMON IV.
latter part of it produced one, viz., Maimonides.  The
first of these, Jarchi, was not, strictly speaking, a Spanish
Jew. He lived in the northeast of France, and was the
cotemporary and disciple of Abelard, and of other distinguished men, who in that age adorned the University of
Paris. IHis mind was cultivated by extensive travel, and
his commentaries are creditable to the judgment of their
writer. The second of them, Aben Ezra, taught a few
years later at Cordova. Eminent in his own day for his
general cultivation, and for his acquaintance with foreign
tongues, he is now known only as the author of a subtle
commentary, which will bear comparison with those of a
better age.  The third, Kinmchi, taught also in Spain, and
is allowed by both Jews and Christians alike, to be a commentator remarkable for power of language, profoundness
of knowledge, and clearness of method.  The other name
which we enumerated, is more generally known, viz., Maimonides. Educated at Cordova by Averroes, the celebrated
commentator on Aristotle, he was thoroughly acquainted
with Greek philosophy, as well as with Jewish theology.
Accordingly he rose above the level of a mere commentator.  Under the garb of a theologian he was really a
philosopher.  His purpose formed no unworthy parallel to
that of the Christian Aquinas, who lived in Italy about
half a century later.  Just as that great thinker aimed at
giving a universal philosophy, which, grasping in one magnificent generalization the worlds of matter and of mind,
might assign to the Christian and ecclesiastical doctrine its
true position in such a scheme; so Maimonides, endeavored to evolve a universal philosophy, from which the
Rabinical conceptions of the Talmud might be natural
corollaries. Both were trammelled by a body of doctrine
which they neither desired nor were able to reject. But




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.              121
Maimonides, less fortunate than Aquinas, was deemed to
have trespassed on the received creed; and not only were
his opinions the means of producing theological feuds, but
their author was compelled to quit Spain, and die an exile
in a foreign land.
After Maimonides the glory of the Jewish people began
to decline.  Their literature became, indeed, known in
foreign lands, and the system of Pantheistic philosophy
called the Cabbala, was even reproduced with approval in
Florence, in the brightest period of Italian literature.* But
in Spain, the events which followed tended to extinguish
their literature.  The tide of Christian conquest, which had
steadily set in from the North, overflowed, about the year
A.D. 1240, the valley of the Guadalquiver, and Cordova
and Seville were retaken by the Christian kings of Spain.
And though the conqueror transferred the Jewish teachers
to Toledo, and offered them his protection, succeeding sorereigns persecuted them, and one only name stands out in
their theological literature as a writer against Christianity,
viz., Abarbanel, whose name is well known in connection
with the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the circumstances of the expulsion of the Jews from  Spain.  It is
necessary, however, to add to this list one more name, that
of an individual who flourished in Lithuania about the close
of the 16th century.  It is the Rabbin Isaac, the author of
the most complete defence of the Jewish creed, and the
most subtle and controversial attack on our religion which
has ever been written, and which, along with those previously noticed, is the standard authority with the modern
Jews.
The history which we have now completed will, I trust,
not have proved uninteresting, as it assuredly is not irreleBy Pico di Mirandola. See Hallam's "Hist. of Lit.,' i, 3, 202.




122                    SERMON IV.
vant to the subject of our present sermon, which is the
establishment of the Christian interpretation of prophecies
relating to the Messiah, against the views of the Jewish
commentators.
We shall proceed accordingly to notice the proof of the
Messiahship of our Lord Jesus Christ, drawn from  the
prophecies of the Old Testament, with a special reference
to the refutation of the Spanish school of Jewish interpretation.
The controversy between the Jew and the Christian consists in this. Both admit the existence of a body of ancient
prophecy predicting a Messiah, but they differ in their
interpretation of it.  The one asserts that the Messiah has
not yet come, the other claims for Jesus of Nazareth the
fulfilment of those anticipations.  How shall this controversy be decided?*
One of the most simple methods would be this:  Let us
imagine ourselves to have been living at the period of the
utterance of these prophecies, and endeavoring to collect
from them the conceptions of this future personage which
they would have been likely to supply. What idea should
we have formed to ourselves of him?  We should have
fixed the date of his appearing before the power of the
Jewish race should depart; for the sceptre was not to
depart till Shiloh came.t  We should have placed it more
exactly, as Daniel tells us, within seventy weeks, i. e., four
hundred and ninety years, from the edict of Artaxerxes for
the rebuilding of Jerusalem..t We should lhave expected
l The following arguments are partly condensed from one of Dr.
McCaul's " Warburton Lectures on the Prophecies" (1846), and partly
suggested by a periodical formerly published by him, entitled, "The
Old Paths, ori a Comparison of the Principles and Doctrines of Modern
Judaism with the Religion of Moses and the Prophets," 8vo. 1837.
t Gen. 49: 10.:tDan. 9: 25.




ON JSEWISH LITERATURE.              123
the continuance of the second temple until the appearance
of the Messiah, for Haggai declared that the desired of all
nations should come in it.*  We should have anticipated
some predecessor to come in the spirit of Elias to prognosticate his approach. t  The prophecy of Micah would not
have left us ignorant as to the place where we might expect
his appearance, for it was to be in the despised Bethlehem
Ephratah.1  Extraordinary combinations of qualities were
to be expected in him. A virgin of the lineage of David
was to conceive and bear him;~ and yet he was to be in
some mysterious manner the Son of God, whose goings
forth have been from of old, firom everlasting.ll He was to
exercise the office of a, prophet, and to imitate the ancient
Moses;T his prophetic mission was to commence in Galilee,
for it was said that there the people should see a great
light.** The wonders of the old prophets were to be reproduced in him; the eyes of the blind to be opened, and
the ears of the deaf to be unstopped.tt  He was to be a
priest too of a new kind.1   The government also should
be upon his shoulder, and his name should be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace.~.~ Kings should fall down before him.l[l1
Of the increase of his government there was to be no end.T[ 
Yet along with this greatness how should we have reconciled the other qualities of which we read? He was to be
despised and rejected of men, a man of deep sorrow, despised by his own friends, acquainted with griefs;*** how
Hagg. 2: 7.               t Mal. 3: 1; 4: 5.:I Micah 5: 2.             ]Isa. 7: 14.
I[ Micah 5: 2.             ~ Dent. 18: 15.'~:'Isa. 9: 1.'' Isa. 35: 5.
t Ps. 110: 4.              ~ Isa. 9: 6.
JI1I Ps. 72: 11.           IT, Isa. 9: 7.
Isa. 53: 3.




124                   SERMON IV.
should we have harmonized his universal reign with the
lowly riding on an ass,* and with his being weighed against
thirty pieces of silver?t Lastly, he was to be cut off, but
not for himself.  Cruelly mocked, he was to die with the
wicked,-t his garments were to be parted,~ and yet he was
to escape the fate of ordinary malefactors; his bones were
not to be broken, though his side was to be pierced, and he
was to make his grave with the rich.l But his soul was
not to be left in the grave;~[ and he was to receive gifts for
men, and lead captivity captive,** and pour out his Spirit,
and sons and daughters were to prophesy. tt
Such is the conception that might have been formed of
the future Messiah, when the roll of the Old Testament
prophecy was closed, and the voice of Providence sealed
up the words of the prophecy of that book. And can a
candid mind doubt whether the being has yet appeared
who answers to this anticipation? Who is it that is yonder
in the town of Bethlehem,-the young infant on the knee
of his virgin mother?  Who is it that is near the Jordan,
saluted as the lamb of God by the hermit prophet, at whose
wondrous teaching the Jews have repented as of old at that
of Elias on Mount Carmel?  Who is it that toils day by
day among the highlands of Galilee, never rejecting the
prayer of the needy, dispensing his mercy?  Who is it that
kneels yonder, lonely in the garden, bathed with the dews
of night, bleeding with the agony of a soul exceeding sorrowful, muttering, as if in the consciousness that he was
not cut off for his own sin, " Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass fiom  me?"  What has caused Nature to
Zech. 9: 9.                  Zecl. 11: 12, 13.
Isa. 53: 9.                Ps. 22:18.
Isa. 53: 9.              fT Ps. 16: 18.'"" Ps. 68: 18.           j"1 Joel 2: 28.




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.              125
respond by a miraculous darkness as one of yon malefactors has exclaimed,   It is finished," and has given up the
ghost?  Or, where can his buried body be gone? "for
some one has taken him away," exclaims his weeping follower, Magdalen,  "and we know not where they have laid'him." Tell me, I ask you, if it is not the individual, God
and man, Saviour and sufferer, Prophet and sacrifice, of
whom the prophets wrote and spoke?  Tell me which is
history and which prophecy, the statements made hundreds
of years before his appearance, or the simple unadorned
narrative of HIis loving disciples?
So close a coincidence betwixt prophecy and history
carries a moral force which is well-nigh irresistible. Whatever difficulties may attend the interpretation of prophecy,
whatever discredit the rash haste of undisciplined minds
may in this day have cast upon it, whatever suspicion the
modern investigations on the nature of evidence may have
thrown upon analogical reasoning,' such an accumulative
proof as this, is powerful enough to outweigh them.  If the
number of the coincidences were small, or their application
merely general, we might doubt whether the interpretation
of the prophecies was not fanciful; but their multitude,
their minuteness, and their variety, forbid the possibility.
The value of collective analogies like those with which we
deal in assigning the meaning of prophecies, depends upon
the principle which is commonly called "circumstantial
evidence."  As they increase in number, in intricacy, in
variety, the improbability of a chance coincidence becomes
immensely heightened. The hemp threads which compose
a coil of rope are separately weak, yet when united and
intertwined, they form  the tenacious cable which has
~ See Mill's " Logic," vol. ii, ch. 20.
1 1*




126                       SERMON Iv.
strength enough to resist the force of pressure, or to allow
the ships to ride at their anchorage in safety as they rise
and fall before the heavy swell of the rolling tide.*
But it will naturally occur to any of us to whom the
proof of the Messiahship of Jesus appears so clear, to demand the grounds on which the Jewish writers reject it.
Their reasons are principally three, which we now proceed
to consider,-  viz.
(1.) The historical one, that the Sanhedrim and Jewish
authorities, in our Lord's lifetime, who had every means of
examining the claims of Jesus, and who were actually predisposed to accept a Messiah about that time, rejected His
claims.
(2.) The philosophical one, that an incarnation  of a
Divine Being is an impossibility in the nature of things, as
well as contrary to the analogy of the Mosaic dispensation.
(3.) The critical one, that the prophecies which relate to
the Messiah are in great part either mistranslated or misinterpreted.  The first of these is the popular objection;
the second, that of Maimonides; the third, that of the
other members of the school of Spanish commentators.
* Circumstantial evidence is logically invalid, in consequence of the
technical fault of the middle term being undistributed in each of the
syllogisms which compose it. Each syllogism is the dvdvup"ov' 2Sov   of
Aristotle's " Rhet." (i, ch. 2), and falls into the second figure. But
though each argument is separately weak, the convergence of a large
number, in proof of the same conclusion, possesses by the doctrine of
chances a high logical probability, and in its moral effect is irresistible.
It is this which constitutes much of the strength of Butler's " Analog)y."
The single analogies are weakl but the number and convergence of
them towards the same point have the force of strong circumstantial
evidence.
t These three reasons are well discussed in MecCaul's "'Warburton
Lectures," to which reference has already been made.




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.              127
1. In reply to the first of these arguments, it is sufficient to urge that we are not in doubt as to the character of
the Sanhedrim in the time of our Saviour.  Josephus remains as an unprejudiced witness of the profligacy, the
corruption, the worldly and sceptical spirit of that body.
It is natural that the Sadducean or sceptical party in that
assembly should have rejected our Lord's pretensions;
while, with regard to the Pharisaic section, any one who
will refer to the Talmud, which embodies the traditional
theology of Pharisaism, will feel convinced that those whose
minds were enslaved by such puerilities, and whose faith in
a Messiah, firm though it may have been, was in the appearance of an earthly sovereign, were not capable of being
correct judges of the claims of One who preached a doctrine
which was opposed to theirs, and whose life ran counter to
their preconceptions.  This reply, it will be observed, is
founded on Jewish authorities; but if the Christian evangelists be further appealed to as cotemporary, though (let
us for the moment admit) one-sided, witnesses, a confirmation of this view is attained; for from them we learn that
no proper or candid investigations of our Lord's claims
were ever made.
2. In passing to the second objection, which is urged on
the part of the Jews, we no longer encounter one that is
merely superficial, but one which comes with higher pretensions, and is supported by a great name.  It is MIaimonides who urges the impossibility of the incarnation of
deity and the. contrariety of such an idea to the Mosaic
economy.
We have before shown that the philosophy of Maimonides was partly founded on that of Aristotle; but to this
ingredient was also added a considerable admixture of the
Oriental philosophy of Zoroaster.  It was this system




128                   SERMON IV.
which, learned by the Jews during the captivity, and
wrought into a system called the Cabbala, and embodied in
a work of the early ages, called the Zohar, infected more
or less their men of superior minds to the latest period of
the middle ages.  Without inquiring what it was in itself,
it would have amounted, as realized by Maimonides, to a
system of pantheism, if it had not been modified by his
Jewish education. If you can combine the Jewish idea of
one personal God with the pantheistic notion of the impossibility of his attributes being separated from the universe,
you will understand Maimonides's idea of the Divine Being.
It will not be hard for those who comprehend the subject
to perceive how such a person would feel an aversion to the
idea of the incarnation and suffering of divinity. And we
may be excused from pausing to refute a view which receives its answer by the refutation of the theory from which
it is a corollary.
The other part of his objection-viz., that the idea of an
incarnate Messiah was contrary to God's revelation to the
Jews-was founded on his view of the purpose of the law
of Moses.  He has left us a work on this subject,* wherein
he endeavors to show that the central thought of the ancient
dispensation was to lead the Jews to the knowledge of God
and the abandonment of idolatry. Hence he plausibly
considers that the idea of Jesus being the Messiah would
be a glaring instance of the very infiringement of the command which forbade the makling any similitude of the Almighty, for the violation of which the Jews had so often
suffered, and the obedience to which it had been the great
purpose of the Jewish economy to establish.
* "The Reasons of the Laws of Moses, from the Mforte Neteoch7imn'
translated by Dr. Towaley.




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.              129
The answer to this objection is to be found, first, in the
historical statements of the repeated appearances of the
Divine Being under human form in both the Patriarchal
and Jewish times; and, secondly, in denying that the worship of God and man in one Christ is obnoxious to the
charge of producing that moral evil on the mind which the
old forbidden idolatry confessedly effected.
3. Leaving these objections urged by the Jews against
Christianity, we pass to the third,-the assertion that the
prophecies supposed to apply to the Messiah are either mistranslated or misinterpreted.  With regard to the former
charge, it is not necessary to make any observations, because the defence of it is now given up by their own writers,
and because the ancient versions of which we spoke, called
the Targums, frequently support the Christian translation
of the disputed texts. Nor shall I say anything in reference to the subject of types, though it truly belongs to this
point; for type is but a prediction by action, as prophecy
is by words; and the Jews are unable to.find any solution
so plausible to account for the sacrifices of their own law as
that which is offered by the writer of the Epistle to the
HIebrews.  If Jewish sacrifice was (as they believe) from
heaven, it is an enigma insoluble except by Christianity.
We restrict ourselves accordingly to the charge urged by
the Jews of misinterpretation of prophecy.
The prophetic texts which are made the grounds of dispute are treated by the Hebrew school of commentators in
two different modes. The one class of passages is explained
by giving them a local and literal sense, as, for example,
applying the passage of Isaiah, " Unto us a child is born,
and he shall be called wonderful,"* to Hezekiah; the other
* Isa. 9: 6.




130                    SERMON IV.
class is where apparently contradictory attributes are applied to the Messiah, as when he is described as "sitting
on the throne of David to order it and to establish it forever;"* and in another place as "wounded for sin and
bruised for transgression, and making his grave with the
wicked."t This class is explained by supposing that there
were to be two Messiahs,-one to suffer, the son of Joseph;
the other to reign, the son of David.
The majority of the passages in dispute are contained,
as would be supposed, in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and in
Zechariah; these being, for this reason, called emphatically
the three evangelical books of the Old Testament.
We may adduce as an example of the passages which are
explained to refer to some other person than the Messiah,
the magnificent text where Zechariah breaks out into the
strain,t "Awake, O  sword, against my shepherd, and
against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts:
smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and
I will turn mine hand upon the little ones." The commentator, Kimchi,~ and others to whom we have alluded, assign
this text to various heathen kings, and understand them to
be described in it ironically as Jehovah's fellows. What is
the line which might be adopted in reply to this view? It
is, first, that the Targunms and the Talmud both apply it to
the Messiah, thereby proving that such was the view of its
meaning adopted by the ancient Jewish Church; and,
secondly, that the new interpretation, if even it will fit the
Isa. 9: 7.         f Isa. 53: 5-9.: Zech. 13: 7., The Commentary of Kimchi on Zechariah has, been translated,
with a useful Commentary, by Dr. McCaul; to which, with the other
works on the Jews by the same writer, such as the intellectual state of
Rabbinical Jews, in ch. 1 of " Slketches of Judaism and the Jews'," the
author of this Sermon is under large obligations.




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.                131
passage under consideration, would not suit the context,
because the same person who is here called "Jehovah's
fellow" and " the shepherd of the people" is predicted to
be sold for thirty pieces of silver, to be abhorred by the
rich, to be loved by the poor, and to be cut off before the
scattering of the Jews.  Here are several circumstances
which must be combined in any theory of the meaning of
this passage.  For the laws of critical interpretation must
be amenable to the tests which regulate hypotheses in the
sciences; and if wve are accustomed to hold it to be the
highest confirmation of a scientific theory that it is adequate to explain the various phenomena to which it is
applied,* is it too much to require that such a test shall be
regarded as equally decisive in the science of Scripture
hermeneutics?
The other class of texts to which we alluded as describing
at once the glory and the humiliation of the Messiah is too
well known and too numerous to require quotation. The
pathetic descriptiont of the person " smitten and stricken,"
whose "1 soul was made an offering for sin," "upon whom
was our peace, and upon whom God laid the iniquity of us
all," is a sufficient example, especially as the whole body
of Jewish mediTeval commentators admit (as their fathers
did) that it applies to the Messiah. But they explain it to
apply to a different Messiah from those texts which describe a Messiah who is to reign.  In reply to this view,
it is sufficient to state that we can prove historically that it
)was unknown until it was invented, in the process of con* The two tests of scientific hypothesis usually given are, that the
supposed cause be vera, and that it be adcequlata. See the interpretation offered of them in Mill's " Logic, vol. ii, b. iii, ch. 14.
t Isaiah 53.




132                   SERMON IV.
troversy, for the purpose of refuting Christianity; and that
not only is there no example of a promise of two Messiahs,
but such a view is contrary to passages in the prophets,
where the same person is spoken of in the same verse
under the two capacities of monarch and sufferer, triumphant and abased.
We have now sketched the Jewish objections and the
mode of their refutation; and we might, if time would
allow, accumulate direct arguments in favor of the Christian view of the advent of the Messiah in the person of
Christ.  But it may be permitted us to remark that, in
any attempt to draw inferences from the prophecies of the
Bible, we encounter a difficulty, arising from  the want of
any fixed principles of interpretation.  In the explanation
of the other mystical parts of the Bibie, such as the type,
the allegory, or the parable, theological science has to a
great extent ascertained fixed methods of interpretation;
but in the explanation of the prophecies there is no such
rule.  We have hinted already what must be the plan for
discovering such rules. It must be by a careful study (1) of
the nature and value of analogical evidence; (2) of the
nature and meaning of Hebrew symbolical language; and
(3) by the analysis of some few instances in which prophecies have been undoubtedly fulfilled, in order that rules
derived from the two former methods may be tested and
verified by the latter.  Such a system  of prophetical interpretation is yet to be created.  Yet it will not, I hope,
be improper in this place if I adduce the name of one
individual-an ornament of our University and Church,
who, had he lived longer, might perhaps have given such
a system, and who has left a work, cautious, logical, original, and philosophical, which is earnestly to be recommended to every theological student.  I allude to Mr.




ON JEWISH LITERATURE.              133
Davison's "Lectures on the Structure, Use, and Interpretation of Prophecy." It is one of those few works which
can be pointed to as assisting in raising theology to the
dignity of a fixed science.
In conclusion, I wish to draw two brief inferences; the
first of which concerns our duty to the Jews, the second
our duty to ourselves.
1. We have sketched only one great feature of modern
Jewish life, but it is one which will commend itself above
all others to the sympathies of this present congregation.
We have, nevertheless, seen enough to serve as an argument to our consciences in claiming for the Jewish nation
our interest and our respect.  Whatever may be the other
hindrances to such a conversion of them as shall admit
them to share the blessings of Christianity, the obstacle, at
least, which arises from intellectual prejudice may be, we
may hope, subdued by argument, or dissipated by kindness.  It was with a purpose of this kind that a few years
ago a Bishopric was founded at Jerusalem, and that missionary efforts have been carried on among the Jews
abroad, and a missionary colony of converted Jews established at home.  Yet it is not in great efforts like these,
but in smaller acts of kindliness, whensoever they come in
contact with our civilization, that we may attempt to prove
our religion by our acts. In England, at least, we have
done a great deal in this direction by admitting them to
social and municipal rights.  For, verily, we are great
debtors to them for the shameful persecutions which
Christians have exercised towards them  in the middle
ages. History records no massacre more ruthless than
that slaughter of the Jews which was committed on the
Rhine by the hordes of savages who went forth under the
banner of the Cross to fight in the first crusade; and there
12




134                   SERMON IV.
is no one here who has not read the sad story of the expulsion of the Hebrew people from the Spanish peninsula.*
That is a thrilling narrative in history, the scene of which
is laid on the banks of the Loire, which presents to our
imagination the picture of a whole people, with their wives
and little ones, crossing the broad stream to escape the
tyranny which they dreaded;t but there is something still
more sad, and that touches the human sympathies with a
keener sense of shame, in the sight of yon people landed
on the seashore of Morocco, homeless, tentless, starving,
driven forth from the towns which had been their homes,
to wander over the earth, until death should release them
from their woe.  There is something in the emigration of
the heroic people of La Vendee which we can look upon
with admiration, for they are themselves the authors of the
stern resolve to forsake forever the fastnesses where they
can be no longer free; and they march, cheered with the
hope of obtaining the protection of that flag, which, float
where it may, marks out the home of the free and the
refuge for the oppressed.  But, oh! there is not one ray
of light or of hope to illuminate the dark scene of the expulsion of the Jews from  the garden-like valleys of the
Peninsula, which had been associated with the golden age
of their modern history, when they were driven forth
against their will, with their honest industry snatched from
them, expelled for no offence, the victims of priestly bigotry, wanderers without a friend or a shelter. Think you
not that, as the thousands of them yielded up their lives
in that sad emigration, under the force of hunger, of heat,'* The narratives may be found in Milman's " Hist. of Jews."
] The migration of the people of La Vend6e. See Alison's " Europe" (first series), ch. 12.




ON JEWISII LITERATURE.             135
or of toil, there ascended with their parting breath into
the ear of a God of mercy, a cry of vengeance against the
land and the people that had sent them forth?  Think you
not that every effort of those who profess the faith of those
persecutors to wipe out and atone by kindness for the
cruelty of those who called themselves by the name of
Christ, must be well-pleasing to that Being, who spent His
life in sympathy, whose last prayer was foir His enemies,
and who, though enthroned within the Shechinah of eternal glory, is still, in all the strength of human sympathies,
touched with the feeling of human infirmity?
We cannot penetrate the darkness which overhangs the
coming history of God's ancient people; we cannot venture
to predict that our efforts to impart to them our civilization
and our religion shall be successful; we can, however, rest
certain that it is our duty to endeavor to make them participate in these blessings. Yet the eye of hope, if it reads
truly the unfulfilled prophecies which affect their race,
cannot but think that the Jews are still reserved for a
glorious destiny.  It would seem  that by some mighty
impulse, and at some mysterious signal, their scattered
tribes shall arise from  the mountains, and valleys, and
islands of the earth, and hasten to recognize the longexpected Christ.  Yes! their Messiah shall one day come
to them, but not in the clouds of heaven.  With the still
small voice of conscience and of his spirit, He shall manifest himself to their souls. Each of them  shall see, as it
were, the vision which Isaiah saw, "the Lord high and
lifted up," the radiant form of Jesus throned in the fire
and cloud, attended by the song of the seraphim, revealed
to the eye of the soul; and, looking by faith on him whom
they have pierced, they shall recognize in him  their longexpected Christ. And as their hearts sink within them at




136                  SERMON IV.
the thought, and as each exclaims, "Woe is me, for I am
undone; for I am a man of unclean lips," the seraph shall
be sent forth with a live coal to declare that their iniquity
is pardoned, and that their sin is covered.
2. Finally, our subject is not without a lesson to ourselves. For though our earthly mission may not be towards
the Jews, each of us has a duty to perform in the world,
and the vision of Isaiah opens up to us the spirit in which
alone we can seek to perform it rightly.
There is no spot on earth where a larger number of men
of noble hopes or of high principle are gathered than in
this University. And they who make it their business to
gain the confidence of those whom they are privileged to
instruct, well know that in the hearts of many students
there dwells a deep and earnest wish to make their life here
the means of preparation for a life of usefulness hereafter.
Before many years are past, each one of us must go forth
into the world to influence it or to be influenced by it.  It
will then lie in the power of each one to do something,
however little, for God and for goodness.  Amid the
squalid thousands of our crowded towns, or in the retirement of the rural chapelry; amid the infection of hospitals,
or bending over the bed of poverty; amid the scenes of
ordinary life, and in acts of common philanthropy, we may
seek to work the work of Christ. But if we would be the
means of doing so, we must not take our religious tone
from the world, but must introduce into society some ingredient of goodness which it does not possess. That
ingredient comes down from heaven. It is the power of
God's Spirit which alone can give it us. It is He alone
who can kindle in our souls the flame of love which shall
burn with inextinguishable glory for His honor and man's
welfare. And the way to obtain that Divine help is the




ON JEWVSH LITERATURE.                 137
same as in the case of Isaiah of old.  We must contrast
our unworthiness with the Divine purity, and learn to drop
the tear of penitence, and pour out day by day, from our
inmost hearts, the cry: "Woe is me, for I am undone; for
I am a mian of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a
people of unclean lips." And as soon as we shall have
done this, the seraphim will be commissioned to take the
live coal from the altar of incense, and to touch our lips.
It is from the altar'that the seraph brings the coal.  It is
not for our sake merely that God is merciful, but because
there is an altar of incense in His presence; and our
prayers, mixed with that incense of our Saviour's intercession, rise up as a memorial before God.  Unless we catch
Isaiah's spirit we cannot be prepared for the prophetic
work. It is only when the seraph has touched our lips,
and our sins are cleansed, that we can hope to receive the
preparation which shall fit us for our ministrations of love.
And in our life of labor let us ever keep before us the sense
of our unworthiness and of God's mercy to us; and then,
when life draws to a close, if we stand trembling at the
thought of labors apparently useless, and lament in the
words, "Woe is me, for I am an unclean man," the angel
shall be again commissioned with the symbol of mercy to
cleanse our sins; and our purified souls shall be admitted
to see the Lord high and lifted up, eye to eye, spirit to
spirit, and to join in the seraph song of "Holy, Holy,
Holy!"
NOTE.
Pp. 124 et seq. The integrity of the writings of Isaiah, Zechariah,
and the other prophets is here assumed without discussion, as it is not
one of the questions in dispute with the Jewish interpreters. The
Christology of the Old Testament, to which allusion is made in this
Sermon, may be studied in Hengstenberg's work on the subject.
12*




SERMON V.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY.
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, JUNE 20, 1858.)
EPHESIANS 2:18.
"F'or through H1im we both have access by one S pirit unto the Father."
THE doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which the Apostle
implies in these words, is the centre of a group of Christian
doctrines which may fairly be said not to have been explicitly known antecedently to the teachings of our Saviour
and his Apostles. More than even other doctrines, this
had hardly been guessed at by heathen speculation, hardly
understood by Jewish inspiration.  It stands in majestic
isolation from other truths, a vision of God incomprehensible, the mystery of mysteries. We can find analogies
and explanations of other doctrines in the world of nature,
physical or moral, but of this we can discover none.* The
existence of sin, the need of superhuman aid, the salvation
-* It is needless perhaps to remark that attempts have been made to
discover trinal analogies in nature, such as the threefold dimension of
geometric figure, &c.  Such attempts were made in the Neo-Platonic
School of Alexandria, and in England in the last century. Most persons very properly reject them as mystical and unreal.




ON THE TRINITY.                  139
by mediation, the dignity of sacrifice-all these truths,
though heightened and explained by revelation, yet are
written in the scheme of nature, and intertwined with the
tissue of the visible creation.  But when we transcend
these, and pass from  the work to the agent, from  the
government of God to the mysterious nature of God Himself, we are lost in mystery; speculation is well-nigh
hushed before the overpowering glory of the Eternal.
We pass from the earth to the heaven, we enter the shrine
of the Divine,presence.  We contemplate in spirit the
mystery hidden of old, the mystery of the trinal existence
of Him who is the source of all power, the first cause of
all creation; Him who, in the depths of a past eternity,
existed in the mysterious solitude of his Divine essence,
when there was still universal silence of created life
around His throne, and who will exist ever in the -future
of eternity, from everlasting to everlasting, God.
Speculation is, on such a subject, vain; yet a reverent
attention to that which has been made known to us is our
fitting duty. And nothing will more completely prepare
us for considering the subject in a proper temper than the
reflection that this great doctrine is not revealed to us in
the Scripture to gratify our curiosity, but as a practical
truth deeply and nearly related to our eternal interests,
not in its speculative but in its practical aspects.  For
you should carefully note that the doctrine admits of these
two distinct points of view.  It may be looked at speculatively, as unfolding the nature of God; and then it
becomes the battle-ground of weary controversy, and men
doubt it, or misunderstand it, or add to it in the hard
logical formulas which are necessary to give precision to
human ideas; or it may be looked at practically, as showing
us three distinct relations which God is pleased to sustain




110                   SERMON V.
towards man, and three corresponding classes of duties
which man is under obligation to perform  towards God.
This latter, or the practical aspect, is the view under which
the subject is presented to us in the New Testament; the
former, or the theoretical aspect, is that under which it
has generally been regarded in the history of the Church.
The Bible contains the practical doctrine, the Athanasian
Creed the speculative.  It is easy to perceive that the
practical view is immensely the more useful; and happy
should we be if we could lay aside controversy, and simply
believe. tBut we can never hope to do so; and, therefore,
it becomes important to forni to ourselves definite views on
the speculative controversy, for we cannot, in this age,
receive the kingdom of God literally as little children.
We cannot, if we would, ignore the controversies which
have gathered round Christian doctrines in the course of
eighteen centuries; we cannot think of those doctrines
apart from the ideas which have crystallized together with
them.  We cannot think on all subjects of life and science
with the healthy, critical, inductive spirit of the nineteenth century, for six days of the week, and lay aside our
habits of thought in the church on Sundays, to receive
truths with the simplicity of Jewish believers, or the reverence of medieval mystics.  We gaze on the rays of truth
which come forth from  the eternal source of glory in
Christ and from the Pentecostal fire; but those rays come
to us piercing through the distance of eighteen centuries,
tinged in their passage through the mists of human thought;
and we cannot hope to view them in their purity, without
using rational means to deprive them  of their tinge of
color, and to destroy the width of their refractions.
And, therefore, I should hope that we shall not misemploy our time on the present occasion, if we restrict our




ON THE TRINITY.                    141
attention to the speculative side of this great doctrine.  It
is possible to make it clear, perhaps also to make it interesting. And we shall be likely to secure both results if we
sketch briefly the progress of thought in reference to this
doctrine through the Christian history, noting one or two
great epochs, when Christendom has been agitated by the
controversies respecting it; controversies which have left
their impress on succeeding ages, and live still in the hearts,
if not in the creeds, of men and churches.
We must assume (for in the few minutes of the present
discourse we cannot pause to prove it) that our Blessed
Lord taught, and that the Apostles intended to convey the
doctrine, that the Divine nature consists of three distinct
classes of attributes, or (to use our human expression) three
personalities;* and that each of these three distinct Persons contributes separate offices in the work of human salvation; God the Father pardoning; God the Son redeeming; God the Holy Ghost hallowing and purifying sinful
men.
This doctrine can, I believe, be proved distinctly from
the New  Testament; and history can  be added as an
attestation to show that it was the primitive teaching of the
* Personality, as is well known, is the translation of the term
rvooraoaz.  It is hardly necessary to remark that the writer of this
Sermon does not intend —by the use of cautious modes of statement,
such as the one which is here given in the text, and similar ones which
occur afterwards —to favor the Sabellian theory of the Trinity, which
made the distinction of the three persons to be subjective instead of
objective; distinctions in the mode of God's revealing himself to man,
instead of real distinctions in the Divine nature. Such a theory is
precisely an instance of those very attempts to venture beyond the
teaching of Scripture, against which this Sermon is designed as a
protest.




142                    SERMON V.
Church.*  Nor does it seem that for two centuries and a
half any doubts were felt on the question.  Christian doctrines were, indeed, during those two centuries, brought
into contact with heathenism, and many of them underwent
free criticism; but controversy did not invade the doctrine
of the mysterious existence of the Holy Trinity. It was in
Egypt that the controversy awoke, in the city of Alexandria,-that city, planted by the Greeks, which was at
once- a mart of commerce and a seat of learning; the
meeting-point of East and West, alike in manners, in
religion, in philosophy. It may seem unfit to bring before
you historical allusions which might be judged ill-suited to
the pulpit, but the truth is that no one can, without knowledge on this subject, understand the Athanasian Creed,
which we occasionally repeat, and which, when we do understand it, you will perhaps agree with me, there is no
cause to wish to have removed from our service books; and
also there is another reason which it were affectation to
ignore, which may justify me in touching on this subject.
Any one who knows our popular literature will be aware
that within recent years the thoughts of those old Alexandrian thinkers, who fought against our holy religion, and
who forced upon Athanasius and the noble band of Christian defenders the very weapon of logical terms by which
they sought to overthrow it, have been made familiar in
some of the most talented works of fiction which our age
has known. One of the most brilliant minds which England's church can boast at this momentt has consecrated
* Perhaps the most complete statement of the evidence in favor of
the doctrine of a Trinity is to be found in Vogan's " Bampton Lectures."
t Rev. C. Kingsley, Jr. See especially his " Hypatia i" and also his
" Lectures on the Philosophers of Alexandria."




ON THE TRINITY.                     143
his great powers of imagination to portray the character
and reproduce the thoughts of that martyred woman, in
whose death the heathen system of philosophy in Egypt
was extinguished; and, therefore, in alluding to such subjects I may fairly presume that you are not strangers to
them; in fact, I am only carrying out a practice to which
our sermons ought really to conform, of conveying religious
information addressed to the thoughts of common life, just
as lessons on religious duties ought to be adapted to the
difficulties of ordinary employments.
It was from about the 3d to the 6th century of the
Christian era, in a time when the storm  of war or civil
commotion had almost destroyed the other great seats of
education, that the Greek University at Alexandria offered
a retirement for the thoughtful and the speculative.  It
was then that there arose a school of philosophers (vulgarly called Neo-Platonists) who combined Eastern and
Western modes of thought.  Inheriting from  the Greek
thinker, Plato, that power to mount into the world of
abstractions, that poWer of transcendent genius which led
him to outstrip his age, and almost to think, as it were, in
modern ideas;* they also inherited the Pantheistic spirit,
*:- This modern aspect of Plato is usually thought to exist, not merely
in the political problems which occur in his treatises of the "Republic"
and "Laws,' but mainly in his contrast between the fixity of the V~vo'svoV
or i'ea, known by the reason, and the fleeting character of the atL6psvEvov,
known by the senses; which, translated into the language of modern
philosophy, is the contrast between the immutability of Nature's laws
and the mutability of Nature's phenomena. This modern aspect is,
however, more apparent than real. In truth, all Greek philosophy,
anterior to the Stoics, is ancient; and the forms under which it was
presented by its authors are more or less obsolete. It was in them that
the modern element was first developed. It is gratifying to be able to
refer to one work in which the historic development of philosophical




144                      SERMON V.
which had outlived the decay of the old Hieratic system of
Egypt, and the mystic, allegorizing tendency, which,
springing up in the East, and raised into a system by
Philo,* was the means of distorting plain truths of fact or
of doctrine into mystical meanings which their authors
intended not. This school of thinkers denied the pretensions of Christianity to be a Divine revelation, and attempted
to establish philosophy as a rival to its claims. They were
not the first enemies that Christianity had encountered, but
they were the first educated men who had carefully examined and rejected its claims.  Their historyt may be told
in a few words, though it embraces about three centuries,
commencing approximately from  the year A.D. 200.  It
divides itself into three epochs.  In the first, the movement was a metaphysical speculation; in the second, a
political organization; in  the  third, a logical system.t
During about a century and a half, the ideas were gradually evolved from  those miscellaneous sources which I
have just now indicated. Plotinus is the great writer of
thought is seally kept in view, —viz., Sir Alexander Grant's edition of
Aristotle's "Ethics" (especially vol. i); and his "Essay on the Stoics,"
in the "Oxford Essays for 1858."
* Probably, however, Philo did not stand alone, but was merely one
of a school, of which the other writers are now lost. See the essay on
the Philosophy of Philo, in vol. i of Professor Jowett's work on " St.
Paul's Epistles."
t The materials for their history, besides the study of their writings,
and of Creuzer's Proleg. to Plotinus's Ennead., are to be found in
Gibbon (" Decline and Fall," ch. 23); in the two works by Kingsley,
to which reference has been already made; in Lewes's "Biographical
Hist. of Philosophy;" in Maurice's "Hist. of Philosophy;" and in
Donaldson's " Hist. of Gr. Lit." (ch. 53, 57.):The first movement is from  about A.D. 200-360; the second,
360-363; the third, 363-550.




ON THII  TRINITY.              145
this first phase of the intellectual movement; and the wide
effects of it may be seen even within the precincts of the
Christian church in the system of Gnosticism. The second,
or the political movement, is contracted to the narrow space
of the reign of the Emperor Julian. It was the attempt
to carry out the views of these unbelievers by political
measures which must ever give an historic interest to the
brief, the brilliant reign of that emperor. Educated in the
opinions of these philosophers, and fortified with an intense
dislike to Christianity, Julian felt that it was not enough
to persecute our holy religion, but that an attempt must be
made to disprove it, as well as political inducement held
out for uprooting it. The sudden death of Julian in the
Parthian wars put an end to this system; and it was not
merely in vexation, but in the despairing conviction that
his death would cut short the great object of his life, and
that Christianity would henceforth triumph unimpeded,
that, when wounded in the battle-field, he died, exclaiming,
" Thou hast conquered, 0 Galilean!" Such was the fate
of the political movement.  The third phase of existence
of the school to which I have alluded is found when, in the
century after the death of Julian, Proclus attempted to
recommend his ideas to the convictions of men by investing
them with the rigor of a logical system.
It will be sufficient to have indicated thus much of their
history.
Now among the many doctrines which this school of
philosophers assailed, one of the principal was the doctrine
of the Holy Trinity.  They did not attempt to deny it;
but they tried to show that it was only an imperfect attempt
to express that which their science could detect by unassisted reason, viz., that Deity must exist in three states,
-as simple existence,-as intelligent existence,-and as
13




146                    SERMON V.
active creative existence.*  The first was the Father; the
second, the Word; the third, the Spirit.  Thus, to them
the Christian doctrine was no new truth; it was rather a
formula of which they professed to be able to suggest a
better interpretation.
How then did the Church of that age meet this view?
It met it by reasserting the doctrine as it conceived the
Apostles to have communicated it.  It professed that instead of attempting to penetrate the depths of the Infinite
Mind, it was content to rest in what was revealed; that
instead of trying to know God that it might love Him, the
Church sought to love God that it might know Him. Yet
obliged to meet this scepticism with a definite statement,
it was compelled to array the truths of revelation in the
precise dogmas of technical philosophy; and so it gave
expression to its thoughts in the Athanasian Creed. It is
almost certain indeed that that formula was not the composition of the heroic Christian apologist whose name it
bears.  It probably originated in Southern France in the
fifth century, but it entirely gave expression to the thoughts
of orthodox Christendom.t  And it is in reference to its
age that its value must be tested.  I may be permitted to
say, that I can have no sympathy with those who would
tear it from our Prayer-book, because they test it by our
modern ideas, and examine it apart from its historical
position. The man would be despised who, looking on one
of the crude works which marked the first revival of Art,
should persist in criticising those attempts by perfect
modern styles, and who could not appreciate the efforts
observable to throw off the stiffness which cramped the
* These are explained in a creditable manner in Lewes's " Biographical History of Philosophy."
t See Wat4erland's " Critical History of the Athanasian Creed."




ON THE TRINITY.                    147
early movement, and to gain a knowledge of correct form,
of delicate modelling, of true shading, of natural coloring,
because they do not accord with the modern standard of
attainment.  We should claim  that those works must be
estimated by the light of the age in which they were produced. Similarly, surely, the Athanasian Creed ought to
be estimated in reference to the circumstances which created
it.  It was the Church compelled to arm  itself in the
weapons of logic used by its assailants.  It is not the form
in which the Church would have preferred to record its
faith;* and when we still use it, we read it as an historic
memorial, a protest against heresies once prevalent and
analogically applicable to ourselves; the vigorous expression of belief of men who lived and strove for the faith
which they loved unto the death.
With these remarks we may leave the consideration of
those early controversies of the Trinity,-controversies
which however I shall show  in  the sequel have been
recently revived, and pass on to the -consideration of
another, which still numbers many adherents,-the rise of
Socinianism at the time of the Reformation.
A thousand years separate these two great crises of intellectual speculation.  When the latter of the two arose,
Europe was no longer the same.  The old centres of civil* This may be inferred from the fact that the creeds became more
complex as the interval which separated them from the Apostles' time
increased. The earliest creed, perhaps, is in St. Paul's first Epistle to
Corinth (15: 3-8). The next is the creed which was proposed and
rejected in the Council of Nicaea; the next is the creed actually adopted;
the next is the one adopted bythe Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381),
which is the one which now passes under the name of the " Nicene
Creed;" the next is the Athanasian. The authority for some of these
latter statements is the historian Socrates.




148                    SERMON V.
ization had shifted, the old forms of government had vanished; the nations had changed, the very languages had
disappeared. One power alone had survived the deluge
which had changed the face of Europe, viz., Christianity.
It had been the ark of refuge through that deluge.  It was
now to have its claims tested by the busy speculation of the
new world. Nor is it to be wondered at, that, in the general dissolution of the intellectual and religious system of
the middle ages which we call the Reformation, spirits
should arise to explore the very foundations of our faith.
It was at this time accordingly that Sozini* started the
theory of modern Unitarianism, by attempting to show
that the Apostles had not really taught the doctrine of the
Holy Trinity, but that, on the contrary, the doctrine had
arisen in the early centuries, in the course of controversy
with the Alexandrian philosophers. I shall dwell for a
few moments on these views, because they still linger in
society, and still receive acceptance from  many.  The
arguments which are adduced in denial of the doctrine
which we believe that the Apostles taught, consist partly
in a critical examination of Scripture passages; but still
more in an unconquerable objection to the doctrine on account of its involving a mystery.  "How," urge they,
"' can the Divine Being exist in three persons and in one?"
On the examination of Scripture texts, it is unnecessary
now to say anything; but I wish to add a few words in
reference to the objection that the doctrine is mysterious,
because it may have frequently suggested itself to many
of you.
The fact that this doctrine involves a mystery, is so far
* For Socinus, and the Racovian School which arose from him, see
Hallam's " Hist. of Lit.," i, 532; iij j335.




ON TIIE TRINITY.                149
from constituting a fair ground for its rejection, that it
agrees in this respect with many of the most allowed truths
of human science.  For the distinction is now well understood between a truth being apprehended and its being
comprehended.  We apprehend or recognize a fact when
we know it to be established by evidence, but cannot
explain it by referring it to its cause; we comprehend or
understand it when we can view it in relation to its cause.
A thing which is not apprehended cannot be believed, but
the analogy of our knowledge shows that we believe many
things which we cannot explain or resolve into a law. We
know the law of attraction which regulates the motions of
the visible universe; but no one can yet explain the nature
of the attractive power which acts according to this law;
or, to add an example from the world of organized nature,
we may see the same truth in the animal or vegetable kingdoms.  We know not in what consist the common phenomena of sleep or of life; and we are equally ignorant of
the final causes which have led the Creator to lavish his
gifts in creating thousands of species of the lower orders of
animals with few properties of enjoyment or of use; or to
scatter in the unseen parts of the petals of flowers the profusion of beautiful colors.  In truth, the peculiarity of
modern inductive science is that it professes to explain
nothing. It rests content with generalizing phenomena
into their most comprehensive statement, and there it
pauses; it in no case connects them with an ultimate cause.
And if truths are thus received undoubtingly in science
when yet they cannot be explained, why must an antecedent determination to disbelieve mystery in religion be
allowed to outweigh any amount of positive evidence which
can be adduced to substantiate those mysteries.*
* It is fair to state that the antecedent objections which are urged
1 3*




150                       SERMON V.
We have now noticed the two great attacks on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity which have been marked in history; the first, that which accepted the Trinity, but explained it away; the other, that which denied the doctrine
on the ground of its mystery.   Yet the subject would
hardly be complete if I were not to notice with a brief
allusion the fact that an attempt has arisen in Christian
writers during the present century, alike in Germany and
in England, to revive speculations, similar to those of the
old philosophers of Alexandria, in defence of this great
doctrine. One honored layman, whose influence was great
equally in letters and theology during the first thirty years
of this century, poet, critic, philosopher, theologian alike,*
has been the parent mind of a school of earnest and deep
thinkers, of whom some are gathered to their home above,
some still live to serve the Church on earth. It ill becomes
against the doctrine are of two distinct kinds: (lst), arising from the
unwillingness to believe a thing incomprehensible, which is the one
refuted in the text; (2d), arising from the impossibility of accepting a
truth contradictory to reason, in believing three persons to be one, and
one to be three, at one and the same time. This latter objection is of
course reasonable in itself, but incorrect in its application; inasmuch
as this is not the Scripture account of the doctrine of the Trinity, but
the clumsy and self-contradictory statement of unintelligent advocates
of it.
* S. T. Coleridge. A little book exists on the effects of Coleridge on
theology, entitled " Modern Anglican Theology, by the Rev. J. H. Rigg."
The friends of the writers whom he has criticised will naturally consider
the book very unfair. They look at the works through the writers of
them, Mr. Rigg looks at the writers through their works; hence he has
certainly, in most cases, especially in that of Mr. Jowett, presented a
caricature of those whose works he discusses; and has not unfrequently
imputed to them as positive teachings ideas which are only to be found
in their writings as incipient tendencies; but in spite of these and other
defects the book is instructive.




6N TIIE TRINITY.               151
so young a student as myself to criticise those views; it
must suffice to have named them.  I may venture, however, with all humility, to remark that they do not appear
to me to convey any help towards elucidating this great
doctrine; nevertheless, if others find that they afford them
support, I would be the last to tear from them the reed on
which they support themselves, frail though I fear it to be.
Having now completed the brief history of this great
doctrine, having seen what we are not to believe, let us
turn in conclusion to see what we ought to believe of the
nature of God, and what the lessons are which we should
carry away from the consideration of it.
We have asserted that we are to believe that the Divine
nature exists under three entirely distinct classes of relations, which through poverty of language we call existence in three Persons. We must be careful, however,
when we assert this, not to reduce the Divine nature to
similarity with the human, not to commit, in fact, almost
the very error into which men of old fell in supposing that
the God whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain is like
to birds and beasts and creeping things.  The Divine
Being is three Persons; but by this we only mean that the
personal element in man is the analogy under which God
has been pleased to convey to us ideas of His own nature
and of the relations which He sustains to us. Revelation,
when teaching truths of the world unseen, must of necessity
be compelled to present them by comparison with things
that are known. It must, therefore, select its illustrations
either from the world of matter which is known to us
through the senses, or the world of mind and feeling known
to us through consciousness.  And thus to a sensuous
people like the ancient Jews, God was represented as
having arms and hands, or as being swayed by human




152                     SERMON V.
passion, by anger, hate, repentance; and to Christians,
God is described, in that religion which was to commend
itself to the more civilized nations of Europe, as having the
higher qualities of mind, and as invested with the ineradicable and mysterious attribute of personality.*
Yet, though the conception is far nobler than the old
Jewish view, we must not allow ourselves to suppose that
it is more literally true. Just as we do not attribute to
God a body of human passions, but merely mean that He
acts to us as though He possessed them; so when we attribute to Him thought or personality, we must not narrow
down the idea of his omniscient intuition by supposing it
contracted within the limits of inference which govern
man's finite intelligence, or gifted with that limited independence which appertains to human personality. The
discoveries of science ought to teach us that we really can
scarcely form any positive idea of God's nature.t If we
track the infinity of creation, we see that each increased
power of our instruments reveals to us illimitable profusion
in creation; the telescope revealing the troop of worlds
stretching to an infinity of greatness, and the microscope
a world of more and more minute life, stretching to an infinity of minuteness; or when we turn from the infinite in
space to the infinite in time, if we look backward we see
written in the rocks of the world the signs of creative life
* The view here advocated is an extension to the doctrine of the
Divine nature, of the interpretation of the subject of analogy, which
was applied by Archbishop King to the subject of predestination. See
Whately's edition of King's Sermon; Copleston's "Discourses on Predestination."
f The impossibility that a mind, constituted as the human mind is,
should employ itself successfully in speculations on the subject of infinity, has been developed from another (the psychological) point of
view in Mr. Mansel's " Bampton Lectures."




ON TIIE TRINITY.                153
stretching through ages anterior to human history; or if
we look, forward, we can detect by delicate mathematical
calculation an amazing scheme of Providence providing for
the conservation of harmony in the attractions of the
heavenly bodies in cycles of incalculable time in the distant
future. And when, having pondered all these things, we
think of the Being that has arranged them by His providence and conserves them by His power, what notion can
we really form of His nature?  What notion of the wonderful originality evinced in the conception of creation,
what of the profusion shown in the execution of it, what of
the power in its conservation? His nature is not merely
infinite, it is unlike anything human, and we must turn
away with the feeling that when we compare that infinite
Being with man, and confine our ideas of His illimitable
vastness and His inscrutable existence by the notion of the
narrow personality which is delegated to us finite creatures
who live but for a day on this small spot of earth, lost
amid the millions of worlds which glitter in creation, we
may be sure that the Divine nature as really transcends
the earthly description of it, as the universe exceeds this
world; and though we may thankfully accept the description of God as having three personalities as the noblest to
which we can attain as men, and as enough for our present
wants in this world, yet let us never doubt that really the
Divine nature is vastly nobler; and let us bow with adoring
thankfulness in meditating on the idea which we are pernitted to attain, imperfect though it be, of that mysterious
essence.
Yet though the idea of God in three persons may be
held to be thus speculatively imperfect, let us never forget
that it is practically all-sufficient for us. For it teaches us
the great truth that He acts to us as though He did liter



154                   SERMON V.
ally sustain the characters of three wholly distinct persons,
and that He demands fromn us the duties which would belong to us if He were so.
If we are thus to believe of God, what is the lesson which
this great doctrine that God exists and acts to us as Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, ought to convey to us? It is mainly
the wondrous thought that this glorious Being is willing to
stoop to be our friend, that He whose happiness is -complete in its own infinity, is moved by His own pure eternal
love to win us to Himself.  Restless (to speak after the
manner of men) to secure our happiness, all these blessed
persons of the glorious Godhead are engaged to secure it.
It is God the Father whom we have grieved by our sins;
and yet he loves us as a father still; and to rescue us from
our misery, He has designed the great scheme of salvation,
and sent God the Son to dwell on this earth as a man, as
a man of sorrows and of poverty, to remove by His atoning
death the impediments which, secret perhaps to us, stand
in the way of our salvation, and to exhibit the pattern of a
faultless human being, that we may follow his steps; and
lastly, after God the Son had withdrawn from  the earth,
God the Spirit, the ever blessed Comforter, has descended
to dwell constantly in the hearts of all men that invite His
presence, cheering their guilty spirits, stirring them up to
the love of holiness, hallowing them for a meetness for the
inheritance of heaven.  Behold what manner of love God
has shown to us! Behold the Triune God engaged in the
salvation of each one of ourselves!
And can you delay to yield to Him your hearts, your
wills, your affections? If you have sinned, or are tempted
to sin, either in deed, or word, or thought, remember that
it is not merely sin against a law, but that you are verily
grieving a loving father, even the Father, God; if you are




ON THE TRINITY.                  155
living a careless, half-religious life, remember that you are
perpetrating the ingratitude of making the sufferings of
the Eternal Son void as regards your souls; if you are
neglecting prayer, neglecting earnest supplications to
heaven for holiness, you are declining to avail yourself of
that unspeakable gift of the Spirit's help which is for all
that ask.
Forget, if you like, all those hard historical and logical
discussions with which I have perhaps misemployed your
precious time in this sermon; forget, if you please, the
nobler views of God's personality to which I have striven
to raise you.  Think of Him, if you choose, only as three
persons. But forget not that His eye is now upon each
one of you, that he seeks to have each one's heart. And
if, in the portion of leisure which is now afforded us,* any
of us are about to go forth in quest of health or instruction
to foreign lands, let us never forget that when we have
passed the Straits which insulate our native land, and are
emancipated from the restraints of English society and the
sanctity of English sabbaths, yet God's eye is over us and
His presence nigh to us.  Let us never forget that in whatever scene we may find ourselves, whether lost amid the
thousands of a crowded city, or halting beneath the humble roof of the mountain peasant, still none of our ways
are unobserved on high; and be it our perpetual consolation that there is instant access for us to God's throne by
prayer; nay, that if there be in us any good desire, IHe
sees it ere we shape it into words, and from  His invisible
throne, swifter than the speed of thought, there descends
the answer of love.  Let each of us strive to use the leisure
* This Sermon was preached immediately before the commencement
of the Long Vacation.




156                  SERMON V.
time on which we are now entering not only as a means of
securing a higher mental cultivation, but also for gaining
a deeper communion with the God of glory.  For God the
Father loves us, God the Son has redeemed us, and the
Holy Spirit will, if we will ask Him, turn us from sin, and
doubt, and half-heartedness, to the love of Himself, and
will fit us for that heaven where, no longer trammelled by
sin and darkened by ignorance, we shall enjoy the beatific
vision, and find our everlasting happiness in communing
with the Divine Being face to face.




SERMON VI.
THE ATONEMENT.
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, MAY 15, 1859.)
MARK  9:2.
"And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, anid
leadeth them zip into anz high mountain apart by themselves: and he was
transfigured before them."
THE pilgrim  traveller who wanders through the land
once hallowed by the bodily presence of our blessed Saviour,
never fails to have his attention attracted by the sight of
one hill which stands conspicuous alike by the beauty of
natural features and the interest of traditional associations.
The hill is Mount Tabor.* From whatever position the
traveller may approach it, as he reaches the escarpment
which overlooks from all sides the wide plain of the river
Kishon, in which it stands, the mountain comes into view
rising in queenlike majesty fromn the surrounding plain.
Standing alone like an island in a sea, with its ragged
slopes rounded into a conical outline, it presents the appea,rance of cheerful fertility; aged olives, with their trunks
* Stanley's "Palestine," pp. 343-392.
14




158                   SERMON VI.
gnarled by time, besides other trees, are dotted over its
surface, while the outline of rude fortification, almost coeval with our Saviour's life, is discernible, forming the
coronet of its summit.  We cannot wonder that ancient
tradition should have selected this spot as eminently " the
mountain apart," to which some of the Evangelists allude
in their narrative of the scene of the Transfiguration; we
cannot wonder that those whom the superstition of a pilgrimage, or the excitement of a liberal curiosity, has at
various times attracted to the spot, have looked with uncommon emotion on a mountain which to its natural beauty
added the interest of supposed connection with one of the
most marvellous, the most poetical passages of our Saviour's
earthly career.
It is cruel to dash away such a belief; yet the rigor of
geographical criticism compels us to doubt whether that
spot can be the real scene of this event. For the comparison of the narrative of St. Mark with that of the other
Evangelists shows clearly that the words, " He leadeth
them into a high mountain apart,"* do not refer to the
mountain, as if the mountain were described as standing
" apart," but merely meant, "He leadeth them apart into
a mountain," i. e., "apart" from the hurry of men, " apart"
from the other disciples to whom it was not vouchsafed to
gaze on the mystic vision. Accordingly, if we look with
care into the history, we find that our Lord was, at the
time of the event of the Transfiguration, far removed from
Mount Tabor, in the hilly district either of Ituraea, or of
the northeast of Galilee.
Mount Tabor will still continue to be a spot of interest
alike to the man of taste and to the student of history;
* Mark 9: 2.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                   159
and the traveller will still turn aside to climb to its summit, and gaze upon the panorama outspread to his view;
but as he looks around him  he must content himself with
the remembrance of the stirring events of which that scene
has been the undoubted witness, without associating the
wild beauty of the mountain summit with the sacred history
of our Blessed Lord. That hill, if it had voice, could
testify to many an exciting scene which has taken place in
the plain at its base.  It heard the shout of victory which
Deborah raised over the discomfited host of Sisera.  Not
far from it occurred the midnight panic which the hero
Gideon struck into the camp of the Midianitish hordes.
Hard by stood the hills where Saul fell by the hand of his
armor-bearer; and from age to age, down to the memory
of living men, it has witnessed the surging waves of successive invasions roll around its base; but the marvel of the
Transfiguration it cannot have witnessed.  The scene of
that event must be sought elsewhere, far off in the solitudes
to the northeast of Galilee.   There, in  some unknown
spot, amid the spurs of the snowy range, from whose roots
bubble forth the sources of the river Jordan, was enacted
that marvellous event, when Jesus was transfigured before
His startled disciples.  We may regret the impossibility of
knowing the exact spot; we may be sorry to be obliged to
think of the event without connecting it with the place;
but we really lose nothing by the circumstance; for the
lessons taught us by the Bible are spiritual, not temporal;
moral, not geographical;* the conditions of place or of
* Solle observations will be found in Mr. Jowett's work on " St. Paul,"
(vol. i, pp. 29-31, 1st ed.), on the comparative unimportance of geographical and historical knowledge as means of gaining a knowledge
of the minds of the Scripture writers. It aids us in reproducing the
external scene, but does not penetrate into the internal spirit.




160                    SERMON VI.
date matter little; the truth taught is eternal; and we, who
in the peaceful quiet of this church are now turning our
thoughts to that striking event, may realize its eternal
truth, and gather its eternal lessons more really than if we
could determine the site of its occurrence, or kindle our
sympathies by a pilgrimage to the spot.
Yet if it were our object to find interest in the mere
narrative, and poetry in the mere scene, the real site,
amidst some craggy fastness of northern Palestine, would
supply it hardly less vividly than the beauteous form  and
picturesque situation of the solitary Tabor. For we should
realize to ourselves the fact that our Blessed Saviour, after
having exercised His ministry of mercy for more than two
years,* was now a fugitive, wandering near the frontiers of
the land of Tyre and Si(don, in order to escape the observation of the spies sent down by the authorities of Jerusalem
to track hIis footsteps; and that, when thus circumstanced,
Ile one day withdrew into a mountain, accompanied by his
three favorite disciples, Peter, James, and John, to pray.
There, while the disciples were left sleeping, while lIe himself was drawing nigh in prayer to His Heavenly Father,
and This Heavenly Father drawing nigh to Him, the powers
of the eternal world, over which IHe had reigned ere Ile
came to this earth, broke in upon Him; the glory which He
had with the Father before the world was, overshadowed
Him; His face shone as the sun; and His raiment became
white as the light. The veil which hides the unseen was
lifted, and strange visitants from that world stood beside
Him.  The radiance of that glory broke in upon the still
* The best harmony of the Gospels which the writer of this Sermon
has ever met with is that by the traveller, Dr. Robinson. It is published in an English form very cheaply by the Religious Tract Society,
and is accompanied with very judicious notes.




ON TIHE ATONEMENT.                161
slumbers of the beloved disciples, and as they woke, a
bright cloud was overshadowing them, and they feared as
they entered into the cloud.  And a mysterious voice was
heard, which said, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased. And when they had looked round about,
they saw no man any more save Jesus only with themselves."*
Such was the scene. We need not surely pause to prove
that it was not a mere dream of the three Apostles.  This
idea is forbidden by the fact that, in imparting the narrative of the transaction to those evangelists who have handed
clown the history of it to us, they have exactly marked the
line which separates that part of the vision which was taking
place, when in the half-unconsciousness of persons awnaking
from  sleep, they hardly knew what they said, from  that
portion which occurred after they had become cognizant of
events around them.-it Above all, such an idea is forbidden
by the fact, which will be more fully explained presently,
that from that moment our Saviour's teaching completely
changed; He began henceforth to divulge the fact of His
own sufferings.1  An event must have been real to Him
which forms an epoch in His teaching and IHis life. Resting accordingly with confidence on its reality, believing
that it was not a mere sleeping dream of the Apostles, but
a great though mysterious fact, that at that moment heaven
and earth were brought nigh, and Jesus transfigured in
celestial brightness, and visited by spirits fromn the world
unseen, and that the Apostles were permitted to catch a
glimpse of the last rays of that departing glory, let us ask
* Matt. 17: 1-13; Mark 9: 2-10; Luke 9: 28-36.
t Mark 9: 6; Luke 9: 32.
Matt. 17: 22, 23; 20: 17; Mark 9: 12, 13; Luke 9: 44.
14*




162                  SERMON VI.
ourselves what was the purpose and intention of that wondrous revelation of things from within the veil?  What
was its meaning? what relation had it to the Apostles?
what relation had it (we ask it without irreverence) to the
Saviour?
It has been common to suppose that it had no meaning
to the Saviour himself, but that its sole object and purpose
was to instruct the disciples; accordingly it has been
thought to be a parable, as it were, acted, in order to
figure, by the meeting of Moses and Elias with Christ, the
union of the old dispensations of the Law and the Prophets,
of which they were distinguished representatives, with the
new, which Christ came to proclaim. A moment's consideration, however, will at once lead us to perceive that
such an interpretation is paltry, and utterly unworthy of
the magnificence of the scene.  God does not thus act
either in nature or in religion; he does not inaugurate
mighty agencies to usher in insignificant results.  A deeper
meaning must therefore be sought; and it may easily be
found if we look a little more closely into the evangelists'
narrative.
St. Matthew and St. Mark alike inform us* that, when
the vision had ceased, our Lord charged His disciples that
they should tell it to no man till the Son of Man should
be risen from the dead; and that it gave rise to a declaration by our Lord of the sufferings which He should shortly
undergo.  And St. Luke adds a fact which explains why
the conversation had turned to this subject, when he says
that Moses and Elias, as they appeared in glory, spake of
Jesus' decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.t
So it was, it appears, the subject of our Blessed Saviour's
* Matt. 17: 9; Mark 9: 9.     t Luke 9:31.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                 163
coming sufferings which was occupying the thoughts of
those visitants from  the other world; it was this which
brought them back to the earth which they had so long
left; and it was some of the last of those notes of sadness
which the disciples heard as they awoke from their sleep,
which led them to enter into discourse with ouy Saviour on
the subject of His sufferings, and which caused Him to
charge them, as though they had been permitted to learn
a secret of the coming time which was not to be divulged
to the uninitiated, to tell no man until the Son of Man
should be risen from the dead.
If we would fully understand the bearing of this conversation about our Lord's sufferings, we must also take into
account that strange fact to which allusion has been
previously made, that from the time of the event of the
Transfiguration, our Lord's teaching underwent a change,
in that henceforth He announced that He was to suffer and
to die. Heretofore He had not announced this.  He had
taught that He was the Messiah; henceforth He taught
that I-eI was the Messiah who was to suffer.  theretofore
Hle had taught that He had come to fulfil the predictions
of the ancient Hebrew prophets, to found that kingdom of
power on which the hopes of generation after generation of
the Jewish people had been set, and after the glory of
which their longing eyes were straining, as they went to
the grave unblessed by the expected day of liberty which
was to free them from the nations which oppressed them.
Henceforth He taught them  that He was to set up that
kingdom  by means of Himself suffering, that He was to
fulfil in Himself the affecting descriptions of the prophets:
"I-e was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people He was stricken.";
* Isai. 53: 8.




164                   SERMON VI.
The reason why our Lord had hitherto kept back this
doctrine is not hard of discovery.  It was not as one of
the rationalistic critics of Germany* has suggested, that
He found the Jewish people so brutal, so unapproachable
by moral teaching, that He began to adopt the plan of
trying to reach them by an appeal to sorrow, and to court
death Himself to attest the honesty of His own teaching.
The real cause was this: that our Lord first taught morality
before IHe taught faith.  He first taught His hearers to
listen to Moses before tie expected that they would listen
to Him; He first taught them to arouse themselves from
sin by repentance, before He communicated the intelligence
of His own sufferings, which were to be the means of redeeming them  from the misery of sin.  Therefore, after
He had condescended to devote more than two years of
His ministry to proclaim Himself the Messiah, the Messia the Messiah
who wished to gather round him reformed men and honest
hearts, He devoted the remaining portion of hardly a year
to proclaim  Himself the Messiah.who was to suffer, —the
Messiah who, by His death, was to make an end of sin, and
to bring in an everlasting righteousness.
From this point of view we can in some humble measure
see what was the purpose and meaning of the mysterious
event of the Transfiguration.  It was not merely, we
venture to think, meant as a lesson to the disciples, a
lesson to teach them the importance of Christ's sufferings,
to inform them that those sufferings occupied the attention
of departed prophets and of inhabitants of the world unseen, nor to convince them of the glory of His character;
but it had a real use and meaning also in reference to our
Blessed Lord.  It taught the three disciples these truths
* De Wette, "De Mort. Chr. Exp." ii, sect. 23.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                165
indeed, and doubtless the lesson was never forgotten. In
reference to St. James, we know it not; but in the case of
St. Peter, we have his own attestation, shortly before he
was about to put off this tabernacle, that he had been an
eye-witness of Christ's majesty, when he had seen His
glory on the holy mount.* And in the case of St. John
we may well conjecture, that when, a generation later, he
wrote his Gospel in extreme old age, and declared-" The
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,"t
-the thoughts of the Apostle were travelling back, across
the memories of sixty years, to the scene which he had
once witnessed amid the bleak cliffs of the Syrian mountains,
when the face of Jesus had shone like the sun, and His
raiment glistened as the light.
While, however, the event thus instructed the disciples,
we cannot doubt, from what has been before said, that it
had a real use and meaning also to our blessed Lord.  We
are wrong in levelling the mystery of thos'e few events in
our Lord's life, when He was overshadowed by the powers
of the world unseen, to the standard of our pigmy explanations.  In that outburst of temptation, for example,
which Ile endured in the wilderness at the commencement
of His ministry, there was doubtless, beside and above all
that is common to man and an example to man, a real
vicarious and mysterious endurance of temptation by our
Lord as part of the system of mediation which He had
undertaken.  And in that mysterious agony of dread and
terror which befell the Saviour in the olive garden of
Gethsemane, it was not under the pressure of ordinary
mortal horror that I-e was bowed down; we may well' 2 Pet. 1: 14-18.          t John 1: 14.




166                   SERMON VI.
believe that there was then going forward between the
soul of our Divine Redeemer and His Heavenly Father
some secret transaction connected with human redemption,
that He was verily drinking our cup of sorrow, and sweating drops of blood in the vicarious endurance of our load
of sin, that it was the weight of the sins of the world under
which He was staggering which made Him breathe out, in
the exhaustion of His agony, "'If it be possible, let this
cup pass from me."*
In like manner with these two events of the Temptation
and the Agony in Gethsemane, we may well believe that
the similarly mysterious event of the Transfiguration had
a meaning to Christ over and above that which it had for
the Apostles. We may not hope to understand that meaning; yet, if we may conjecture, we can conceive that that
moment was the baptism into His life of suffering. We
can imagine that the spirits were sent forth as heralds to
tell Him of the interest with which his work of atonement
was regarded in the world invisible.  We can conjecture
that the reason why angels were not chosen to convey that
message to Him, but rather the spirits of departed men,
such as Moses and Elias, was, because they were spirits
who had tasted of human sin, and whose welfare depended,
together with that of the universe of created men, upon the
work of suffering which Jesus was to commence. We can
imagine that the vision of Divine glory which was vouchsafed to Him, the momentary taste of the heavenly state,
was to strengthen Him for that work, and to cheer Him
* This view of the meaning of our Lord's Temptation and Agony is
worked out with equal talent and pathos in the two last Sermons of a
scholarlike and suggestive volume by the present Dean (G. H. S. Johnson) of Wells. Compare also Newman's " Sermons to Mixed Congregations" (Sermon on the Agony).




ON THE ATONEMENT.                    167
with the prospect of the glory which he had left, and to
which He was to return. And we may possibly conjecture, finally, that the voice from the excellent glory,
"This is my beloved Son in whom  I am  well pleased,"
was again uttered in order to anoint Him for His mission
of suffering, as once before it had been uttered at the
baptism in the Jordan to anoint Him for His mission of
teaching.
More than this we must not conjecture; yet thus far, I
trust, the narrative of the evangelists, as we have presented
it, warrants us in venturing. More than this we need not
know; for the subject has taught us a lesson large enough
already, if it has fixed our thoughts on the sufferings of
Christ, and made us realize the fact, that it is not the life
but rather the death of Christ which is important as the
means of our salvation; not His life as an example, but
lIis death as an atoning sacrifice.
It is so much the more important that we should feel
this, because in recent years the belief has been fast spreading in our church that the death of our blessed Lord was
not for the purpose of reconciling God to man by removing
the obstacles, known or unknown, which stood in the way
of human salvation, but only for the purpose of reconciling
man to God, by proclaiming to mankind God's love, and
by exemplifying the majesty of suffering and the dignity of
self-sacrifice.*   The assertion  of this view  has been a
* The view that the Atonement only reconciled man to God appears
to be that of Mr. Jowett (" Essay on Atonement," in his work on St.
Paul, vol. ii, 1st edit.); that it was a great example of self-sacrifice is
the view of Mr. Maurice ("Essay on Atonement"), and of the late lamented Mr. Robertson (i, 9; iiil 7). Abelard's view was also similar.
The encomium bestowed a few lines lower is meant to include the
whole body of educated theologians in the present century who have,




168                   SERMON VI.
natural reaction against the rash statements in reference
to this great doctrine which have not unfrequently been
put forth: statements which venture beyond the cautious
teaching of the inspired Apostles on the subject, and are
constructed in ignorance of the development which the
doctrine has received in the progress of the history of the
Church.  Such statements, in which men dare to measure
God's infinite nature, and assert that the reasons can be
fully understood why God was unable to forgive man without an atonement, frequently run counter to those ineradicable instincts of justice and truth which the God of nature
has planted in the moral sense of man, as the unassailable
foundation of moral truth against which shallow, humanlyinvented systems of theology dash themselves in vain.
Accordingly it has been from the high and noble motive
of opposing these rash theories, that the view to which I
allude has been advocated. It has met with the approval,
since the commencement of the present century, as will be
known to many of you, of men who have been, or who are,
the honor of our church, the ornaments of our universities,
the glory of our literature,A-men whose high moral and
intellectual worth is beyond praise, and from whom I could
not have felt it right to dissent without this tribute of
respect in honor of them.  If, however, we have reason to
believe that an alarm at the rash speculations of. men has
led them  into an abandonment of the hallowed doctrine
which was inculcated by our blessed Lord and his Apostles,
which has formed the piety of ancient saints, and cheered
the hearts of guilt-stricken men, we may venture, without
any charge of arrogance, to dissent from their criticisms,
more or less, formed their views by the study of Coleridge or of the
modern literature of Germany.




ON THIE ATONEMENT.                169
and to cling tenaciously to the faith once delivered to the
saints.
It is impossible, in the few remaining remarks of this
sermon, to discuss this subject fully, yet I wish to point
out the successive notions which have been held in different
periods on the subject of our Lord's sufferings and atonement, in order that you may exactly understand  the
position which the view that I am opposing holds in the
history of the doctrine, and may be better able to perceive
the point where human speculation has failed, at which
reason must expire in faith, and theory in adoration.
To the minds of the Apostles the subject was beset with
no difficulties.  Trained in the idea that God was in some
inexplicable way approachable by sacrifice, they beheld in
the death of our blessed Lord the realization of their religious aspirations, the fulfilment of the Jewish sacrificial
types, the true offering for human guilt.*  They believed,
they theorized not; but they prayed, they put their trust
in Christ's merits, and in the depth of their own religious
consciousness they realized the joyful experience that their
characters were changed through the power of that death;
and in the gladness of pardoned hearts, and the energy of
renewed wills, they went forth to proclaim to others the
blessedness of which they themselves had been made partakers.
But time passed on. The Apostles one by one were
gathered to their reward, and the voice of inspiration was
finally hushed in the tomb of the last Apostle. There was
no longer any open vision, and, in the centuries of thought
and of criticism which succeeded, men began to question
the cause of the atoning death of Christ. They rested no
* See especially the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch, 5-10).'_




170                    SERMON VI.
longer in the mysterious fact, the reality of which was reechoed in their heart of hearts, but they sought a reason
why an atonement had been necessary.
And in those many centuries which intervened from
the third to the eleventh age, no better answer could be
found than that it was for the purpose of effecting the
ransom of mankind from the Evil One that Christ had
yielded up His life.* The darkness of the human intellect
in those ages had clouded even Christian truth, and the
very patriarch whose religious zeal led him to send his missionary to Christianize our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and
whose piety is attested by the solemn Litany which we still
repeat in our services, which was first chanted by him amid
the depth of the Roman pestilence, could find no nobler
solution of the reason of our Blessed Lord's mysterious
death than the degrading idea that it was a price paid to
the Devil for the redemption of man; that as men had become the subjects of the Evil Spirit in conquest, Christ's
death was necessary to purchase, as by a ransom, the emancipation of the human family, and their restoration to their
lawful king.t
The darkness of that night of thought passed, and the
glad twilight of the morning of mental illumination began
to lighten up the scene. One there was whose name is
* This strange fact has been brought to light by Dr. Thomson, in his
able "Bampton Lectures" (for 1853) on the Atonement. See Lect.
vi, p. 155, and the notes.
-t Gregory, in Evang. ii, Horn. 25 (quoted by Dr. Thomson). This
idea of "' ransom " was hardly, indeed, more opposed to the moral sense
than are many more recent theories; yet it was a degrading notion to
assign to the Evil Spirit a duality of power with the Divine Being,-an
idea borrowed through Manicheism from the duality of Eastern religions.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                 171
usually identified with political events in the history of one
of our own Norman kings, but who is honored by the student for the nobler labor of having consecrated his gifted
intellect to the explanation of the doctrine of the atonement.  "I do not seek," —these were his words,- "I do
not seek, O Lord, to penetrate Thy depths; I by no means
think my intellect equal to them; but I long to understand
in some degree Thy truth, which my heart believes and
loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe,
but I believe that I may understand."* England has the
honor of possessing his remains, and amid the long series
of monuments which mark the last resting-place of many
illustrious men in the metropolitan cathedral of Canterbury,
there exists none dedicated to a nobler memory than the
stones which indicate the spot where formerly stood the
shrine of Archbishop Anselm.
Anselm swept away the idea that the atonement was a
ransom paid to Satan, and substituted the idea that it was
a debt required by the broken law of God. The doctrine was
thus no longer illustrated by an analogy borrowed from conquest, but by one borrowed from the forms of justice. Yet
even Anselm laid more stress upon the holiness of Christ's
life as the fulfilment of the requirements of a broken law,
than upon the atoning character of HIis death as the very
essence of that mighty mystery. It was a thinker in Central Italy, in the early part of the 13th century, —a mind
which was one of Nature's prodigies, which still shines
across the distance of so many centuries like a star of the
first magnitude, —that threw this additional beam of light
on the doctrine. I allude to Thomas Aquinas.t' Nor has
* Anselm, "Proslog.," i, p. 43. His work is injured by mystical ideas
of numbers, &c.
t " Aquinas Summa," P. iii, quest. 48.




172                      SERMO(N VI.
any further conception been  subsequently added to the
doctrine in the progress of time, save that, as the opinions
of men on the theory of human punishment have improved,
growing gradually to perfection through the successive
stages of retaliation, compensation, retribution, correction,
till the corrective idea of it has been finally substituted in
place of the vindictive, the doctrine of the atonement has
been conceived less under the idea of a vengeance which
righteous justice demanded, and more under that of a
punishment administered for some undiscoverable reason as
a mighty spectacle of correction for sin, alike before angels
and before men.*
Thus the doctrine has been traced down the path of
history. We have seen that the fact only was presented
by the Apostles, and that successive theories have been
* Compare Erskine's "Internal Evidences," and Deasn Conybeare's'L Theol. Lectures " (Lect. iii, p. 358, &c.)  See the notes to the seventh
lecture of Dr. Thomson's work, before quoted, from which several references have been taken.
The various views on the Atonement since the inspired teaching of
the Apostles may be classed as follows: (lst). The allegorizing doctrine of the Alexandrian Fathers, reproduced by John Scotus Erigena,
in the 9th century; (2d), the Patristic view of ransom from the time of
Irenaeus to Anselm; (3d), that of the Schoolmen, Anselm and Aquinas;
(4th), the Protestant theory of Calvin and Grotius; (5th), the Socinian;
(6th), those held by the modern Germans since the revival of specu.
lative philosophy. Materials for this history are partially supplied in
Baur's work, "Lehre von der Verstihnung," above-named. He considers the tendency of theory on the Atonement to have been toward
speculations into its objective nature until the Reformation; into its
personal or subjective relation to the human soul from the Reformation
to Kant's time; subsequently to whose teaching, he regards the doctrine as again travelling in an objective direction. A brilliant sketch
of this history is given by Mr. Jowett in the second edition of his work
on St. Paul (ii, 568-585).




ON THE ATONEMENT.                173
attempts to explain it by reason, or to draw out the meaning of Scriptural statements. Yet, though we thankfully
accept all the help which the ideas of sacrifice, or exchange,
or ransom, or debt afford us, which of us is there that does
not feel that there is some still deeper mystery unexplained,
and that those theories are but feeble attempts to grasp
that which transcends the powers of human cognition,feeble attempts to present under the miniature of human
analogies the magnificence of infinite mysteries?
We need only look for a moment at those astonishing
contributions to the evidences of the greatness and goodness
of God which knowledge is daily collecting from the works
of Nature; we need only read that sketch of the "  Cosmos"
of the physical creation, which is the last legacy bequeathed
to the world by the ripe and honored age of the patriarch
of science whose remains have this week been attended to
their grave by the regrets of educated Europe, to be convinced that God's thoughts are not like man's thoughts,
that "'the measure thereof is longer than the earth and
broader than the sea."  When, for example, science traces
the infinity of vastness in the worlds and systems of worlds
which roll around God's throne in twinkling myriads, each
knowing its appointed course; or descends into the proofs
of His power in the infinity of minuteness revealed. in the
world of microscopic life; or stretches back into the unknown depths of the past, and deciphers the mighty movements and incomprehensible purposes of the God of creation from the memorials of fossil life inscribed on the rocks
of the globe; or unfolds the magnificence of His power
and the vastness of His resources in the ever restless flow
of causation which marks the present; which of us can fail
to meditate on those mysteries with reverence? which of
us can fail to feel that the unfathomable depths of that in15*




174                    SERMON Vf.
finite mind are not to be comprehended by the finite powers
of this being who lives for a day on one insignificant planet,
an atom amid the mightier worlds that rule in creation; a
being whose knowledge, where it is not simply subjective,
is at least wholly relative, whether it be gathered from the
range of earthly experience or from a divine revelation,
which, in order to be understood, is necessarily cramped
by terms and thoughts borrowed from earthly analogies?*
"Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find
out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven;
what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou
know?"
Which of us can fail to feel that such unworthy notions
as barter and purchase, and substitution and insolvency,
borrowed from the small range of mundane occupations,
however useful they may be as aids for illustration, are
not to be regarded as the full measure and entire explanation of that magnificent system  of atonement which is revealed in the death of Christ; the meaning of which analogy
would lead us to believe as much to exceed all our human
conceptions of it as the universe exceeds this little globe?t
I am far, indeed, from wishing to tear from  any mind
the illustrations which it may find useful in explaining to
itself the mystery of the atonement. As we are unable to
form a notion to ourselves of a Divine Being, save by conceiving Him to have a body, or passions, or thoughts like
- Knowledge is dependent either on innate forms of thought, or on
matter suggested through experience. In the former case, it is subjective in its character. A revelation must be accommodated to the
powers of the being that is to apprehend it; else it would be unintelligible.
t See this line of thought pursued in SermoL V, p. 164.




ON TIE ATONEMENT.                 175
those which belong to man;* so perhaps we may be unable
to imagine to ourselves atonement without the aid of earthly
illustrations; yet we ought to remember that they are, at
most, probably only types, miniatures, distant analogies
of a reality which passes man's comprehension.  We may
rest in these now; hereafter, perhaps, in the heavenly
world, the mystery of wondrous love shall be unfolded to
us, not in blind glimpses and indistinct types, but eye to
eye, by the light of an undimmed intuition, when we shall
know as we are known.
Must we, however, in the consciousness of the comparative imperfection of all our explanations of this great
atonement, throw away totally the mystery of it, and regard it, as we have said that many now consider it, to be
only a great example, preaching the evil of sin and the
dignity of sorrow?  Are we to think that it only reconciled
man to God, and not also God to man?  Are we to suppose that its sole object was in reference to man, and that
it contained no deeper mystery unrevealed to us, in reference to God and to the world invisible?  Are we to believe
that no obstacles stood in the way of our salvation except
those understood by us?  By no means. On the contrary;
though I have endeavored to put you on your guard
against supposing that the trifling explanations which are
often given of this mighty mystery really explain it; though
I have hinted that any theory of the atonement is perhaps
impossible, any explanation of that majestic mystery almost
irreverent; though I have preferred to advise you to rely
on Christ's death as a real but incomprehensible mode of
* A growth might be shown in the conception under which the idea
of God is presented. In the Law, God is regarded as having the body
of man; in the Prophets, his passions; in the Gospels, his 1ilnd.




176                     SERMON VI.
removing the obstacles, which, known or unknown to us,*
stood in the way of our salvation; yet I wish to caution
you very solemnly against accepting any suggestions for
explaining away that atonement by making it merely the
means of reconciling man to God, and not also God to man.
The reasons why we cannot admit such suggestions shall
be stated soon. Previously, however, it is necessary to
allude more distinctly, even at the risk of repetition, to
this modern form of the controversy.
It is the opinion of many conscientious men that God
was never angry with man, but that man had, in consequence of human sin, begun to doubt of God's love; that
Christ, therefore, came forth as a messenger, not to reconcile God to man, but man to God, by embodying a visible
proof of God's love to us; and if the contrary view seem
to be implied in the Holy Scripture, they explain it away,
either by supposing that Providence has permitted phenomena to be therein described from the popular point of
view, just as the alteration in the. position of the earth is,
in popular modes of speaking, attributed to a movement
in the solar orb; or else that the scripture writers were
presenting the idea under the Jewish conceptions of sacrifice
which had trammelled their early education.t
What is the answer to such a view?  It is evident that
* The reasons for assuming that obstacles " unknown" to us may
have impeded human salvation are: (1st) because the finite mind of
man is not a perfect gauge of the infinite God; (2d) we have seen
that no hypothesis, in reference to these mysterious obstacles, offers a
perfectly satisfactory explanation of them: and (3d) the idea of gtilt
appears to point to an impediment in Deity external to man, and not
merely to the subjective or internal obstacle of man's distrust of God's
mercy.
t The latter of these two statements was thought to be Mr. Jowett's
view until his explanation in the new edition of his work.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                    177
appeal to the Bible for its refutation is to beg at once the
question which is in dispute, unless reasons can be supplied
for believing that the doctrine of the atonement in the
apostolical teaching is not one which can have received a
tinge from the medium of the human minds through which
the knowledge of it is transmitted.*  If criticism be fairly
allowed to subtract from that teaching whatever was local,
or Jewish, or temporary, what tests can be suggested for
showing that this hallowed mystery must not be thus surrendered?  Such tests must be found in the circumstance
that the atonement is not a mere belief of the Apostles'
minds, but a fact of their consciousness; not the product
of their logical understanding, but the reality presented to
their intuitional perception.t
As this position will, however, appear to different minds
to possess different degrees of strength, it is better, perhaps, to answer the suggested difficulty by some other
means than the direct appeal to Scripture. The refutation
must accordingly be sought in philosophy, not in theology.
Restricting it to this point of view, the question will stand
thus:  The class of writers who suggest the argument,
admit that the Scriptures convey the idea of atonement,
but level against the doctrine the antecedent improbability
arising from its injustice as contradictory to the moral
sense. Where is the reply to be found? Is it by showing
that the moral sense is simply a guide for our own conduct,
* Were not some of the Sermons, contained in the published course
on the atonement, preached before the University of Oxford, in 1856,
liable to this very charge ofpetitio prilcipii?
t This distinction will be well understood by those who are acquainted with Reid's " Theory of Perception," or Sir W. Hamilton's
remarks on it. Oni the application of this test to religion and inspiration, see Morrell's "' Philosophy of Religion" (clh. 2, 5, 6).




178                     SERMON VI.
not a measure of God's actions, merely regulative, not
speculative?*  I would yield all honor to the students who
furnish such answers, and I feel a delicacy in criticising
their teaching on the present occasion.  Yet may it not
be said, without impropriety, that those answers would not
satisfy painful doubts such as those to which allusion has
been made? Like all arguments which have the air of
demonstration, they seem  too rigorous and exact to be
persuasive. They recommend themselves to the believing
bystander, but not to the suffering sceptic; they constrain
silence, but do not carry conviction: ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacera  appellant.  A less cogent, but perhaps more
persuasive, answer is to be found, in establishing such an
antecedent probability in favor of the idea of atonement
* This is the line which Mr. Mansel adopts in the seventh of his
c;Bampton Lectures," thus extending the principle of the subjective
character of the faculties which he adopts from Kant to the practical
as well as the speculative reason, which that philosopher declined to
do. Such a view is, if true, a complete answer to the difficulties on the
atonement; but would it not destroy our capacity to judge of the evi.
dence of a revelation equally with its material.?  However, even if
true, it is evident that it would be an answer to the opponents on new
ground; the one here attempted is on their own ground.
The remarks which follow in the text are not meant to be disrespectful to Mr. Mansel, a writer who, previous to the publication of his
" Bampton Lectures," had already placed himself in the highest rank
of British psychologists, and who has in that work brought his knowledge of metaphysical speculation to bear on the subject of religion.
Those who adopt his views, that the proper function of the moral sense
is primarily directed to human duty, and, therefore, that its assertions
are only presumptively true when its sphere is transferred to judge of
the Divine attributes and government, will regard the line of argument
adopted in this Sermon to be nothing more than a presumption drawn
from the moral sense in favor of Atonement, designed to balance
the counter presumption derivable from the same source against the
doctrine, and will not allow to either presumption a speculative value.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                      179
as shall cancel the antecedent improbability which exists
against it.
Whence is such antecedent probability to  be drawn?
From consciousness and from  history; from the consciousness of guilt and from the history of sacrifice. If the idea
of guilt is universal, if it contains the ineradicable conception of ill-desert, if it oppresses with incredible bitterness even those whose lives have been comparatively faultless; if also history shows the prevalence of sacrifice (no
matter whether its origin be divine or human),* as instinctively suggested by the universal human consciousness as
the means for the removal of guilt, and thus witnesses with
inextinguishable clearness to the necessity of mediation;t
then I claim that we discover here, deeply and ineffaceably
* See Davison on " Sacrifice;" Magee and Dr. Pye Smith on " The
Atonement;" and Thomson's " Bampton Lectures," Lect. ii. The evidence in favor of the Divine origin of sacrifice is collected in Mr. Rigg's
little work, before named, on "Modern Anglican Theology."  The
human origin of them is stated in Professor Jowett's "Essay on the
Atonement" (ii, 479, 1st ed.).
t Thomson's " Bampton Lectures," Lect. ii. A remarkable passage
on the consciousness of guilt existed in the first edition of Adam
Smith's " Moral Sentiments," p. 204. It is quoted by Magee, " Atonement," vol. i, p. 205. The value of the argument from  the idea of
guilt in favor of vicarious atonement is a question of ontology, i. e. of
that branch of metaphysical science which inquires into objective existence as distinct from subjective consciousness. Of course such a science
cannot discover being as distinct from our knowledge of being; it can
only seek to detect traces in the data of consciousness which seem to
point to corresponding external realities. Assuming from psychology
the existence of the idea of guilt, and the peculiarities which mark
it, how far may this idea be regarded as simply indicating our own distrust of God, or how far may it be viewed as indicating a cause in Him
which excites our distrust? This is the ontological problem. The
boundaries of the science are stated in Mr. Mansel's article on Metaphysics, in the," Encyclopoedia Britannica," eighth edition.




180                   SERvIMON VI.
written in the recesses of the human heart, the conceptions
which may form an antecedent probability in favor of the
reality of the Scripture view, arid which may cancel the
antecedent objections on the other side.  If so, we may
thankfully acquiesce in the ordinary view of the Divine
atonement, and while declining to accept unhesitatingly
the trifling explanations which are usually offered for simplifying that marvel, we may cling to the mystery itself as
a great reality.  We pretend not to explain it, but appealing to the strength of instinctive conviction, and relying on
apostolical teaching and on universal Christian consciousness as the perpetual and unanswerable proofs of its truth,
we can hold fast the blessed doctrine that our Saviour's
death was more important than His life, and believe that
the sufferings of Jesus Christ have not merely reconciled
man to God by testifying God's love, but have verily reconciled God to man by removing, in some undiscoverable
manner, the obstacles, known or unknown, Which prevented
God from showing mercy to man. And in the light of this
idea we can understand the interest which is taken in the
subject in the world invisible; we can comprehend why the
spirits of departed men, when they visited our Lord in that
mysterious vision on the mountains of Hermon, spoke to
Him of the sufferings which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
In conclusion, let us endeavor to enforce on our consciences some lessons to be carried to our homes, and to
embody in our lives.
If the sufferings of Christ be as important as we have
represented them  to be, we should ask ourselves whether
we realize their importance in idea, and whether we attempt
to live upon them in act.  Each one's own conscience will
tell him frankly the real state of his heart in this matter.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                 181
During the past week how often, or how seldom, have you
turned in thought to the Redeemer's sufferings?   The
angels desire to look into these things;* departed spirits
can travel back to earth and speak of them; and when, in
mystic vision,t the veil which shuts out the invisible was
lifted to the loved disciple, an exiled confessor, in the lonely
rock of Patmos, and a glimpse, as it were, was afforded him
of the heavenly world, he saw Jesus standing before the
throne " as a lamb newly slain," while the choir of angelic
spirits was shouting the praises, "Worthy the Lamb that
was slain," and the voices of ten thousand times ten thousand of the spirits of redeemed men were uttering, louder
than the sound of mighty waters, in adoring gratitude,
" Thou -art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue,
and people, and nation." Does this subject interest heaven,
and yet engages not our affections? Do we, in the hurry
of our daily life, fretted with its anxieties, heated with its
amusements, whirled away in its vanities, neglect to meditate on the sufferings of Christ? When we bow in prayer
at morning or at evening, or kneel to receive the blessed
Sacrament, do we fail to feel the value of those atoning
sufferings as our only plea, and to cast ourselves on their
merit for pardon, and holiness, and preparation for Heaven?
Let us cling now in our daily life to that atonement, in the
agony of earnest prayer, if we would wish to cling to it in
the hour of death, when no other support is nigh.
And let us never forget that the souls of each one of us
are dear to the Saviour.  He has tasted death for every
man. Though absent, He sees us and hears our prayers.
Nay, in that absence He is mingling our prayers with the
I Pet. 1: 12.                t Rev. 5.
16




182                   SERMON VI.
incense of His intercession, and carrying on the work of
our salvation.  You might have thought when He was
absent from the disciples on the lonely mountain top He
was not concerning Himself with their needs; yet in that
very transaction he was engaged in a mysterious work connected with their salvation. This idea seems to have struck
to such a degree the mind of that great artist whose grand
picture of the Transfiguration, the noblest work in a noble
gallery, formed the closing monument of his wondrous, but,
alas! too short career, that he has actually violated the
laws of perspective in depicting the scene.  In the foreground of his picture he represents the agonized relatives
of an afflicted youth imploring in vain the aid of the disciples, one of whom points to Christ as the only source of
true aid.  In the higher part of the picture is seen the
mount of the transfiguration, and Jesus glorified before his
disciples. And instead of representing the figure of our
Saviour foreshortened, as it ought to have been when seen
froml below, he has depicted it in its full length, as if seen
from the same level and close at hand.*  Why was this?
Was it not, think you, that the imagination of the artist,
filled with that poetry, with that truthfulness, which appertain to real genius, wished to imply that the Saviour, far
off on yon mountain top, to whom, as the only source of
aid, the disciple was pointing, was indeed not really distant, but in truth very nigh? If he meant this, he conceived the truth. For in very deed Jesus, though far off,
is very nigh to all that seek Him. Though gone on high,
He is interesting himself in human salvation.  He now sees
each one of us, and is nigh to us. He loves each one of us' Kugler's " Handbook of Italian Painting, by Eastlake," b. v, ch.
iv, p. 384.




ON THE ATONEMENT.                183
as He loved His disciples of old; He as much pities each
one of us as He pitied the tortured beings whom He healed
on earth; He as much hears and answers the secret longing,
the unuttered breathing of our inmost souls, as He heard
and answered the suppliants who used to petition Him face
to face.
Ought we not then to flee our sins, to lay aside our halfheartedness, to yield to Him the hallowed service of a persistent will, to grieve that any portion of our hearts and
our affections should be unconsecrated to Him?  In the
habitual practice of private prayer, in drawing nigh to His
mystic sacraments, let us realize our interest in His sufferings; let us implore of Him pardon, holiness, heaven, and
He will throw His everlasting arms around us while living,
and put His hand under our pillow while suffering, and
receive our souls into- His bosom while dying.  " By thine
agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, good
Lord deliver us."




SERMON VII.
LAWS IN THE LIFE SPIRITUAL.
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, ON ST. PAUL'S DAY, JAN. 25, 1858.)
II TIMOTHY 4:7.
" I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith."
THERE are three aspects of human life: the life practical, the life intellectual, and the life mystical. The life
practical is the lowest form of life which is strictly human,
the lowest, that is, which is raised above the mere susceptibilities of sense. It may coexist with the higher lives, or
it may be in great degree isolated from them. The life
intellectual is a further advance.  It no longer illustrates
what a man does, but what he is. Its seat is in the thinking mind, as the seat of the practical life is in the active
powers and conscience. There is yet a still higher life in
man: the life mystical or religious; those susceptibilities,
emotional and intellectual, which men experience towards
the infinite, towards the unseen source of power and goodness. This form of life may perhaps be located in the




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.                 185
exercise of a special religious feeling and in the intuition.*
These three forms of life, inasmuch as they exist as a
general phenomenon, may be noticed in characters of
every age and of every religion.  They are facts of human
nature, irrespective of the objects towards which they may
be directed, and the principles under which they may be
conducted.   Accordingly their existence may be traced
also in those persons who have embraced the Christian
religion, and regulated their lives by its ideas and motives;
indeed, it is in them that their highest and purest form
may be studied. Though the life of every Christian must
to some extent show the combination of all three lives, yet
it is quite possible to select instances which shall form
marked examples, more especially of some one of the
three.  Thus most persons who look at the characters of
the Apostles of our Lord, as exhibited alike in history and
in their written remains, would select St. James as the
example of the Apostle who, in his exposition of Christianity, laid most emphasis on the life practical; St. Paul,
on the life intellectual, and St. John, on the life mystical.t
* Compare Morell's " Philosophy of Religion," ch. 2. The following
Sermon, in some degree, assumes that the religious life is not merely
moral life elevated in its motives, and transferred to new objects, but
that it depends upon a special form of emotion, which co-operates with
a special form of intuition. The difference between this view and that
of Schleiermacher would be mainly that he would regard the discovery
of the laws of this life to be impossible. While it must be conceded
that the discovery of laws in these faculties is really impossible if sought
by the method of psychological analysis, a new mode for their discovery
is suggested in this Sermon in the application of induction to the experiences of religious men.
t Compare this view given with proper limitations in the Rev. A. P.
Stanley's very instructive "Sermons on the Apostolic Age."
16*




186                  SERMON VII.
And in a first view, and as a hasty generalization, there is
much truth in such a statement.  Broad views of this kind
have their value in suggesting or directing investigation.
Yet if we look more narrowly into details, we shall find
that no one of these three Apostles presented these three
lives in isolation. It is impossible, on the present occasion,
to digress to prove this assertion of St. James and St.
John; but it will be very apparent in the case of St. Paul,
if we turn our thoughts in the most cursory manner to his
writings. If he presents to us in the Galatians and the
Romans more approach to a dogmatic view of theology
than is to be found in any other inspired work; yet in the
Epistles of his imprisonment, those written to Ephesus,
and Philippi, and Colosse, we have the secret, inexplicable
working of the spiritual mystical life alluded to, so far as
language can express them.  " He hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ."  "Ye
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."  "Your
life is hid with Christ in God."' That He would grant
you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man, that
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being
rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth and length, and depth
and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of
God."* It is unnecessary to multiply passages, but we
may ask, could any language, even of St. John, exceed
such words as these, in expressing the depth of that spiritual inner religious life which St. Paul possessed, and of
which he longed that others should partake? Nor is it
* Eph. 2:6; Eph. 1:13; Col. 3:3; Eph. 3:16-19.




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.            187
necessary to detain you to prove, as might easily be done,
that not only may the life mystical be found in the writings
of this great Apostle as clearly as in those of St. John, but
that also he strives to impress on his hearers the life of
Christian action as flowing from  Christian principle, with
an earnestness not inferior even to the stern vigor of the
Apostle James. The chapter on charity, in his first Epistle
to Corinth, utters, as it were, the language of St. James
with perhaps more than James's acuteness; and the language of St. John with more than John's pathos.
Indeed St. Paul may be adduced as an instance of an
individual in whose life and teaching these three lives were
very harmoniously balanced.  Looking at his character as
a whole, in no other Apostle can we find a model in which
we can so suitably study the three in their combination in
a Christian character.  And perhaps it is this very circumstance which in part has largely contributed to make his
influence so much more lasting and potent than that of his
brother Apostles, and so operative religiously on other ages
than his own. For it is observable that, be the cause what
it may, the fact is real that the Apostle Paul may be measured against the first characters in history as regards the
width and the permanence of his influence. It might seem
a startling assertion, and yet it would bear investigation, if
we were to assert to you that the single individual in all
time whom we must select as having exercised the greatest
influence on the world, and left the impression of his character on succeeding ages, is the Apostle Paul. If you
should be at first inclined to award that proud position to
some mighty conqueror, you' must check yourself by the
thought that the conquest has swept past like the whirlwind, and seldom  left in the foundations of an improved
civilization the permanent happiness which is the only com



188                  SERMON VII.
pensation for the infliction of temporary misery; or if you
should incline to crown with that highest honor some philosopher who has opened up new worlds of thought, and
enlarged immeasurably the. methods of knowledge, you
must modify your decision by the reflection that such a
labor, noble and enduring though it be, yields to the
Apostle's work in importance, as the concerns of time
yield to those of eternity.  It was the Apostle who was the
first to evangelize Europe.  It was he who saved the
Christian faith from corruption when even St. Peter himself was giving way to the pertinacity of the Jews.  It was
he who expounded the Christian doctrines in those Epistles
which must remain the most valuable monuments of Christian literature to the end of time.  And when we estimate
his intellectual influence, not to take account of the many
to whom he was personally known, we shall yet find that
the noblest thinkers in Christendom have owed to the study
of his writings those discoveries which have endeared their
names. Those* who from time to time rescued from oblivion neglected truths, trained themselves by devout prayer
in the study of the Apostle's writings; and if in the dark
night, which in the middle ages spread its veil over the
ancient civilization, there were stars showing to the pilgrim  steadier and clearer light than the other luminaries
of the heavens, the cause was that they reflected some rays
of the Divine glory which had been concentrated in the
sunlike brightness of the Apostle's inspiration. And at a
later period, when the darkness of that night was disappearing before the cheering rays of the day of modern
illumination, it wvas the study of St. Paul's writings which
gave the best of the reformers those views and that courage
* Chrysostomn Augustin, Anselm, Aquinas.




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.            189
which enabled them  to break up the intellectual and religious servitude of the middle ages, and to tear away the
additions which had been made to Christianity in the progress of sixteen centuries.
Further, St. Paul's example has stimulated effort as his
writings have excited thought. For the Apostle stands at
an illimitable distance above the most marked instances of
pertinaciousness and heroic self-sacrifice.  His whole heart
was set, his whole life was given, to alleviate human misery,
to carry the balm of sorrow to that creation which was
groaning for it. Year after year he pursued his purpose,
meeting no reward but the perpetual reward of conscious
duty, and finding at length nothing but solitude, imprisonment, and martyrdom.  Accordingly, his missionary spirit
has formed the example, and has stirred the emulation, of
Christendom  in all moments when men have awoke to the
necessity of missionary effort.  How great then has been
the influence of St. Paul! It was he that moulded Christianity, it was he that dispersed it over Europe, it was his
thoughts that have aroused speculation and reawakened
missionary effort. Judge, then, whether we are altogether
wrong in claiming for him one of the most influential
positions in history.
It is, not, however, to St. Paul's life of labor, nor to his
mental character and dogmatic views,-not to his life practical or intellectual,-that I desire, on the present occasion, to direct your further attention. Rather I wish us
to study his life as an embodiment of the life spiritual or
mystical.  Can we so read his life as to comprehend the
growth of personal holiness in his character? Can we
disentangle that which is common to all Christians from
that which is peculiar to him in his capacity of an Apostle?
Does he in his writings offer such explanation and interpre



190                  SERMON VII.
tation of the feelings and facts of religious living as to give
us the means of constructing an account of the growth of
the life spiritual? To put the subject still more generally,
I wish to consider the theory of the religious life, whether
it is subject to laws; if so, whether we can discover them;
and in that case, what the method is of such inquiry, and
what the chief results to which it conducts us.
I. When we ask whether the religious life is subject to
laws, the answer is so natural that the analogy of the whole
of God's government, both moral and material, would suggest the presumption that the spiritual also must be directed
according to a system of laws, either discoverable or inscrutable, that it might excite surprise why we should think
it necessary to ask the question. Yet in reality, when we
look to the history of theological opinion, we find two such
very different answers given to this inquiry, that it becomes
important to bestow a moment's thought upon it.  There
have been Christian thinkers who have said that the whole
of the life spiritual is subject-to merely moral laws, and
have resolved the Christian life into the ordinary processes
unfolded by moral psychology. This view is not common
in the present age; the whole tone of thought, philosophical
as well as religious, has become averse to it; but in the last
century it was quite a prevalent one. Not merely critical
historians, like Gibbon, who, writing from an external point
of view, would naturally resolve Christian goodness into
ordinary principles of moral causation, but even defenders
of the faith, like Bishop Butler (we may perhaps venture
to suggest), very nearly adopt the same view. What is
morality, according to that eminent writer, but the restoration of a disturbed psychological constitution? and what
does Christianity give us but new motives and new means
towards effecting such a restoration?  There is no distinct




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.                191
recognition of a life deeper, more hidden, kindled by the
direct operation of God's Spirit in.man's heart; a life consisting not merely in the restoration of a disarranged constitution, but in an actual union of the human spirit with
the Divine.* It is possible that such an omission may have
arisen from the controversial character of the Bishop's
writings.  He wished to show  the reasonableness of religion, and therefore was compelled to show its naturalness.
Yet the very fact that he adopted such a merely negative
view in order to recommend his position may be adduced as
a proof of the prevalence in his day of such a mode of viewing the question.  And if it be not true of a majestic mind
like that of the Bishop, it is at least true of many of the
inferior Christian writers of that age, that they evince no
perception of the distinctness between merely moral life,
heightened and purified in its aims, and the deeper secret
mystical life which Christians may possess. Among writers
of this class religious changes are regarded as explicable
entirely by natural laws.  Circumstances or impressions
acting upon us affect the feelings; the feelings form the
resolutions; the resolutions produce the acts; and a course
of action, connected and reinforced from time to time by
the revival of the original impression through means of the
law of mental association, produces at length habits, an
< Bishop Butler's views on this subject are to be collected from his
2d and 3d Sermon; also from the 13th and 14th, on the Love of God;
and from part ii, ch. 1 of the "Analogy." In the first of these references, he shows that morality is the restoration of a disturbed equilibrium; in the second, that the love of God is the tendency, or final
cause of the various emotions, if transferred to their highest object; in
the third, he represents Revealed Religion as a republication of Natural
Religion, together with new information, in reference to certain facts;
which, however, are specially influential on men, through furnishing
new motives and new means for religious improvement.




192                   SERMON VII.
habitual course of religious goodness. Such is one answer
to the question whether the religious life obeys laws. It
obeys them simply because it does not transcend ordinary
moral life in itself, only in its motives and tendencies.
There is another view, however, in its character the very
opposite, yet which is almost equally erroneous. It is,
that the religious life is a thing so mysterious, so regulated
by processes incomprehensible to us, that it exists without
our being conscious of it; that it is a thing which we cannot express in words, cannot think of in thoughts; that it
is known to God, unknown to man; not detectable in ourselves or in others. This view has been held, in whole or
in part, by many persons of different schools.  It is one of
the greatest of the many defects in the theology created
by the Genevese reformer, Calvin.  His teaching has led
his followers to insist that the divine life is something depending on God's election, and not on man's freedom; that
its implantation in man is a mystery; that it still exists
within a man, not only when he is not conscious of it, but
even,-(extravagant and inferior minds have implied this)
-when he falls into actual sin. Nor is it merely among
the Calvinistic Protestants that this doctrine appears.  It
arises also from the sacramental theory of the Church of
Rome. Wherever a writer is found representing that a
seed of grace has been implanted, opere operato, in the
sacrament of baptism, which continues to exist in a man,
unextinguished through years of actual sin, we have here
under anofher form the same idea-viz., that the life spiritual is something disconnected from fact, disconnected from
consciousness, disobedient to the law that religion must
exclude sin; we meet here again, under another form, the
notion which we have just been combating in the theology
of Calvin. Yet again the same idea is found not only in




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUALT.            193
Calvinism and in the Catholic theology, but also in those
Mystics who from time to time assert the existence in man
(as they are pleased to term them) of faculties transcending
consciousness. In our own age, through reaction against
the cold, critical materialism of the last century, such a
view has begun to gain ground largely. The name of
Schleiermacher* will occur as the most notorious recent
instance of the application of such views to orthodox theology. According to this theory there is a certain faculty
in men, an intuition, which rises above all sensible objects,
and penetrates into their very essence.  It sees the Infinite,
the Absolute, not under the ordinary limitations which
sense and thought put upon the idea; but, transcending all
such bounds, it scans the universe of being, it mounts to
the throne of the Eternal, and sees by a supernatural intuition absolute truth, absolute goodness, absolute beauty.
The life spiritual is connected with such a power. In one
sense this identification may be regarded as making it
amenable to laws; but in another the idea of law is thrown
aside in the contemplation of it. For law is a term applicable to subordinate forms of existence and of knowledge; but inapplicable to a form of existence and of
cognition which transcends the bounds of ordinary conscious criticism.
We have thus presented in opposition the two views of
the life spiritual; one which would make it simply natural,
the other simply supernatural. And may we not say that
there is a grain of truth in both views? Spiritual knowledge is verily an apperception of truth which is not cognizable by ordinary faculties; and spiritual life is a form
* On Schleiermacher's Mysticism, see Vaughan's "Hours with the
Mystics," book xiii.
17




19 t                  SERMON VII.
of existence transcending even the highest moral life.  Not
all truth is to be reduced to that which is amenable to
critical investigation.  There is a world of life and of
thought of which we detect the traces but cannot understand the nature. And thus far accordingly the spiritual
life, be it regarded as intellectual or emotional, is supernatural; but we must be careful, on the other hand, not to
disconnect the spiritual life from the human mind, nor to
isolate it entirely from the ordinary facts of mental and
emotional science. And it is in this respect that Bishop
Butler's sermons will always have such immense value.
There may possibly be in them that slight defect of an
absence of any direct recognition of the life spiritual, to
which I before alluded; but with this exception, we cannot
study too closely the method in which he shows that even
the deepest feelings, such as the love of God, are compatible with human nature.* It was the dispute which had
been opened up in France, shortly before his own time, by
the mysticism called Quietism,t which led him to see that
such a reconciliation of the supernatural and natural was
possible; and who among us does not feel what a reality it
would give to many a discourse on spiritual subjects in the
present day if the minds of preachers were imbued with
the common sense, with the  science, of the Bishop's
writings?
II. In answering the first question, whether the spiritual
life is subject to laws, we have almost anticipated the
answer to the second, whether its laws are discoverable by
man. The answer which we wish to give is, that the mode
* See Butler's "Sermons," xiii and xiv.
t On the history of "Quietism," see Vaughan's'I-Hours with the
Mystics," book x.




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.             195
of its operation may be understood, though its nature cannot.  Supernatural in itself, it is natural in the method of
its manifestation; mysterious in its origin, it is yet linked
with fact and joined with psychological processes and mental laws. Under this aspect its nature will be similar to
other forms of life known to us. In all such forms, whether
the life organic or the life rational, there is a power and
principle hidden, to which we never penetrate, but there
are effects under which this mysterious principle manifests
itself, of which we can write the natural history.  We
cannot go back to the first dawn of physical life; but
beginning with its earliest manifestation in the germ cell,
we can trace its manifestations onward through the various
stages of embryonic and adult life to its dissolution. We
can mark its features, see the action and reaction of the
outer world upon it, collect its phenomena, evolve its laws,
and occasionally generalize them into their causes.  Similarly with the life intellectual, whether studied in the individual mind or in the history of the growth of civilization,
we can mark its power, and write its history. Yet there
is a residuum  of mystery to Which we cannot penetrate.
And thus with the life spiritual; we can watch its growth,
see what circumstances promote its vigor, what influences
tend to blight it.  We cannot know its essence; but Eve
can write a practical history of its manifestations, and
form an approximately accurate theory of its laws of operation.
If this be the case, what is the method for the discovery
of those special laws?-for we have already seen that they
are different from even the laws of the highest form of life,
which is possible in the mere feelings when actuated by
ordinary moral motives.
III. The method to be adopted for their discovery must




196                    SERMON VIL
be to collect them inductively from the experience of religious men.  There are two sources wherein we may see
such experience registered: one is in the lives and thoughts
of saints in the Bible; the other is in religious memoirs,in other words, in inspired and uninspired religious biography. Facts such as those which relate to the spiritual
life must be learned by consciousness alone. When we are
prosecuting our researches into physical subjects, we can
adopt the methods of observation and experiment as means
of analyzing the facts from which we are striving to gather
the inferences. But when we pass to mental phenomena
these methods diminish in value; we can no longer appeal
to the senses, and we are compelled accordingly to resort
to the method of observation of internal phenomena which
is offered through consciousness.* And you should notice
that we not only trust the assertions of such consciousness
when it is capable of being verified in our own experience,
but we trust it also when it rests on the statements
of other persons,-when it attests the mental and emotional phenomena of which other persons are conscious
even when unfelt by ourselves, provided only we use proper tests to check its inaccuracy.   It is by a method
exactly similar to this, and by evidence similar to this,
that we learn the facts which relate to the life spiritual.
We must trust, even where we have not ourselves verified: The methods of analyzing facts are usually stated to be three, viz.,
observation, experiment, and comparison; the last of which is meant
to express the extended study of analogies or affinities, which is possible in botanical and zoological science. On the two former methods,
see Mill's "Logic," vol. i, b. iii, ch. 7. To these methods must be
added a fourth, viz., the examination of psychological phenomena
through the internal observation called consciousness. This is the one
to which allusion is made in the text.




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.               197
them by personal experience of the like feelings, the assertions of other religious persons, on the facts of their
own religious consciousness. Thus, for example, the question has often been raised, whether spiritual conversions
are sudden or gradual.  You must settle a question like
this simply by consulting biography.  There you find
instances of both,-many instances like that noted one in
the last century, of Col. Gardiner,* of most sudden and
unexpected religious conviction; —many, again, where a
good man knows not the day nor the hour of his religious
change, but is only able to express his experience, when
looking back to his former life of irreligion, in the words,
"I know that whereas I was blind, now I see."
If we thus build our history of the laws which regulate
and of the facts which accompany religious living on the
consciousness of good men, what tests can we use to prevent the imposture of enthusiasm, the weakness of selfdeception, the cant of fanaticism? I answer, tests similar
to those which we should use in subtle. facts of mental
science.   Thus the degree of evidence in favor of a
spiritual fact would be heightened, (1) if the supposed
spiritual fact be attested by the consciousness of many,
and not merely of one; or (2) if it be remembered by them
at a later period of life in a cooler moment, and be viewed
by them exactly in the same way as when at first narrated
by them; or (3) if bystanders can testify that when the
fact was first asserted to exist, the persons who were conscious of it were at that time in a cool rational state of
mind; or (4) if, again, the fact of internal consciousness
connects itself with other facts patent to all men.t  Try,
C See Doddridge's " Life of the Hon. Col. J. Gardiner," ch. 2.
t Some of these tests are borrowed from a.note in Professor Jowett's
work on m" St. Paul," vol. i, p. 23,2 (first edition).
17*




198                      SERMON VIT.
for example, the conversion of St. Paul by these tests.  It
is very evident that a miraculous conversion like St. Paul's
could not admit of the first test, viz., that of comparison
with the consciousness of other persons; but it admits of
the rest. For it was always remembered by him, and in
the main facts narrated always in the same manner (I
speak, of course, here not mainly of the outward circumstances of the heavenly vision, in the narrative of which
there are unimportant discrepancies, but of the internal
conviction wrought in him of the truth of Christianity and
of his own duty to Christ). Again, to apply the third test:
he was in the situation least likely to have been affected by
such a change, unless it were real; and, lastly, this internal belief of his own, that he was then touched by the
Divine Spirit, connects itself with fact; for from that
moment he began to preach, at great risks, the faith which
he had previously persecuted.
There is yet one other test applicable to religious uninspired consciousness, viz., that of comparison with the facts
of spiritual experience stated in the writings of the New
Testament, and to some extent also in the older Scriptures,
as in the Psalms and Prophets.*
* It will be observed that the view here taken of the Epistles is that
they were not intended to communicate summaries of Christian doctrines,
nor to be the sole standard of theological appeal; for they were written
to persons already acquainted with Christianity, and instructed in the
religious life by their ordinary pastors, and possessing in their own
religious ideas the education necessary to explain the meaning of the
Epistles. Hence the Apostle's writings were chiefly on special points,
or special faults, or particular duties, and omit that kind of esoteric or
detailed instruction which would be supplied to the churches by their
ordinary ministers. It follows that, though all teaching which is contrary to that of the Apostles is necessarily false, yet that some truths
may be held which they have omitted to name in their letters. They




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.              199
If these remarks are correct, as showing the manner in
which we can give the certainty of science to facts of religious experience, then we may draw from them an obvious inference, viz., that such facts may be used as a branch
of the Christian Evidences. We are accustomed to regard
this branch of the internal evidences derivable from personal consciousness to be a valid reason of belief in Christianity to the man who has them, but not a valid reason to
be rendered to other persons. who have them not. But if
such phenomena can with probability be shown to be facts,
then in proportion as they cannot be explained by natural
agency, they may be used as a direct proof of the interference of Heaven. Thus, for example, a religious conversion, if traces can be shown in it, after all allowance has
been made for natural influences, of what appears to be
Divine help, becomes immediately a moral miracle; and it
might become a question whether the existence of such
moral miracles, perpetuated in the Church in all ages,
might not be made of similar value as an argument in favor
of the supernatural truth of our religion, as the phlysical
miracles which existed in the early Church.
IV. Having now seen what is the method by which we
may collect the facts and learn the laws of the life spiritual,
we have finally to ask whether the life of the Apostle Paul,
as recorded in St. Luke's history, or as it peeps forth in
his own letters, can be regarded as an instance in which
we may see an embodiment of those facts and laws. It is
so very obvious that it admits of being thus regarded, and
most profitably also, that it is only necessary briefly to inmust be truths, however, which still receive their attestation from the
internal consciousness of Christian men, and not dogmas, which merely
rest on tradition or on history.




200                   SERMON VII.
dicate some very few of the points which might be gathered
from it.
1. First, what facts of religious experience for all time
may be learned from the Apostle's conversion?  In order
to answer this we must disentangle in that event the element
which is peculiar to the Apostle from that which may be
experienced by all Christians. His conversion appears to
contain in itself three distinct circumstances: first, the
miraculous manifestation; secondly, the sudden transition
from Judaism to Christianity; and thirdly, the religious
change from lower and mistaken views of duty to a clear
perception and possession of that higher life of duty and
enjoyment, the way towards the attainment of which Christ
had opened up through his death. Of these three circumstances the last only is applicable as a fact of general
religious history; the second was necessarily restricted to
the early Christians. There was a time when, to use St.
Paul's expression, they "first believed;" when they first,
that is, abandoned heathenism or Judaism and accepted
Christianity.  Such a transition accordingly is of course
impossible in countries where persons are educated as
Christians.  The first of the three circumstances, the
miraculous manifestation, was  peculiar to the Apostle.  It
seemed as if, among the disciples of our Lord, there was
not one to do the work for which Saul of Tarsus was fitted.
It seemed that Christianity could not go on without Saul,
and therefore in that one case, and in that one only, the
Saviour condescended to look down from His throne, and
order a miracle, to summon an enemy to be His Apostle.
"He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before
the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."* Yet
* Acts 9: 15.




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.            201
when we have disentangled from St. Paul's conversion the
miraculous ingredient, unique in his case, and the features
which it shared with those of the early Christians, there
still remains in it a lesson for all time, in that change which.
passed over him and transformed him (we cannot indeed
-say from sin to holiness, for he was acting on views of duty
even previously, but) from the lower religious consciousness
wherein he was acting wrongly, though doing it ignorantly
in unbelief, to that higher religious consciousness wherein
he served God as a son and Christ as a disciple. Now a
change like this is, as we find from fact, one which must
pass over all men, over baptized as well as unbaptized
persons. Whatever may have been the benefits given under
the merciful covenant of Infant Baptism  (and God forbid
that I should depreciate them), yet a time must come in
human life when a man wakens up to a sense of his deep
guilt, if he have been guilty of wilful sin, and his deep sinfulness and imperfection if even he have lived correctly.
He feels that some change must pass over him before his
conscience is at peace, some forgiveness be vouchsafed to
him before he dare meet his God in judgment, some holiness be imparted to him before he dare hope for heaven.
Such feelings and such a state of mind which, when transient, we call "contrition," or "C religious impressions," and,
when leading to permanent amendment, " religious conversion," may be, nay, must be, considered to have been contained, besides and in addition to all miraculous circumstances, in the conversion of St. Paul.  We have indeed in
his own Epistle to the Romans a clear description of this
state of mind.  The seventh chapter, where he describes a
man wishing what is right but not having power to perform
it, and crying out, "0  wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death!" alludes to the




202                  SERMON VII,
state of a mind wakening to this struggle,-an incipient
Christian. The eighth chapter, where he describes the
joy and privileges of a pardoned soul, alludes to that which
ought to be the ordinary state of Christian men.
2. This brings into view a second fact or law of the life
spiritual, which may be gathered from St. Paul's statements about himself in his own writings.  We not only
find that he was changed by God's Spirit into a higher
consciousness of duty, but it must also not escape notice
that he always speaks of his own religious state, and implies it in relation to other Christians, with an ecstatic
joy, with a confidence and a happiness, which are not
possessed by many Christians now.  "W We joy in God," he
says, " through our Lord Jesus Christ."  "Being justified
by faith, we have peace with God."  "The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of
God."* Here St. Paul speaks not merely of himself but
of Christian privileges generally, and here accordingly is
one of the cases wherein we may most fairly call in as
evidence that appeal which I before explained, to the consciousness of Christian men.  And if you consult the
biographies of holy men you find that a time of their lives
came when they were no longer left to infer from simple
reasoning the pardon which they had received, but felt
sure of it by an inexplicable peace of mind, by a direct
intuition, by a consciousness of access to God in their
prayers, to which they were before strangers, by an
earnestness and warmth of the religious affections toward
God and toward man, previously unknown to them. This is
as plain a fact as any can be which is attested by the consciousness of religious men, as expressed in their memoirs
* Rom.5:11; Rom. 5:1; 8:16.




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.            203
and private writings.  Along with this fact is the further
one, that such a state of joy, and of love, and of holiness, was
not given to them by God's election, or by some unknown
mysterious process, but was simply asked and simply obtained by that one method of earnest prayer which is as
sure and direct a means of obtaining spiritual blessings as
any cause in nature is of producing its appropriate effects.
Facts like these of religious consciousness explain the
statements of the Apostle about his own joy, and peace,
and love.  And what may we infer from  them?  Not
perhaps that we must disquiet the minds of those who do
not possess such feelings, for their simple business is to be
earnest in their religious duties, such as prayer and the
holy communion, and to leave with God the result; but
that we should represent such a state as attainable, that
we should strive after it ourselves in prayer and in the
blessed sacrament, and should proclaim  it to others, for
oh! let not our minds be haunted with that most fatal
notion that God's spiritual gifts are capricious and various.
The variation between one man and another depends mostly
upon ourselves, not upon God.  God has placed, if we
may so say, His Divine Spirit within human power by
making the gift of it conditional on, and proportionate to,
man's prayers.
3. These illustrations might be immeasurably extended
of the kind of use which we might make of the religious
consciousness' of St. Paul in discovering the facts of
spiritual experience, the laws of the life mystical. But
it is time to close, and we may fitly accordingly turn our
thoughts to that last fact of spiritual history taught us in
his life, viz., that a life of Christian duty, of Christian
piety and privilege, conducts to a death of calm and




204                  SERMON VII.
triumphant hope. If men will take care of their lives,
God will not be unmindful of them in their deaths.
There is something singularly affecting in the thought
of the Apostle in the solitude of his last days.  At the
moment when one would have thought that the Christians
of Rome would have counted it their greatest privilege to
be admitted to familiar intercourse with him, when converse
with his mind so rich in knowledge, so mighty in experience, must have been like intercourse with an ambassador
from within the veil,-he was abandoned by them all.
Paul the aged-worn out with his missionary labors-deserted in his hour of trouble-abandoned in his captivity,
with no one to minister to him-left without a friend as
the day of his martyrdom approached-is a scene which
needs neither artist to depict nor poet to describe.  Yet
man is never truly alone!  Amid the vastness of this
world's waste, or in the gloomy solitude of the prisoner's
cell, God is there.  The old Hebrew prophet thought himself alone when, after having traversed the sands of the
desert,hbe hid himself in a cave among the rocks of Horeb.
There, amid the mountain solitudes, Elijah was alone,
surrounded only by the still scenes of unchanging nature.
And yet lie was made to feel that even there God was with
him, that there was no such thing as solitude, that every
spot through the expanse of space was present to the Almighty; that though fancying himself alone he was in
contact with his Maker.
So we might be sure; indeed, we know from his last
Epistle that the aged Apostle, forsaken by man, was not
forgotten on high; and his dungeon-(it may possibly have
been that dark, underground prison which is still shown to
the traveller, which was certainly used for such purposes in




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.              205
the Apostle's time,* or it may more probably have been
some other spot)-was tenanted by a heart filled with the
peace which nothing earthly gives or can destroy, and the
gloom of his prison was illumined by the presence of the
God which filleth eternity, and who was as much watching
over his faithful servant, and as much listening to his muttered prayers, as if this universe had been a void and Paul
its sole inhabitant.
Methinks I can see the Apostle in the consciousness of
this feeling kindling with rapture, as he concluded his letter
to Timothy, at the thought of the mansion of his Father's
house which was prepared for him; the home to him weary
with the long journey of life, the haven for his spirit, long
tempest-tossed in persecutions.  I admire thee, Paul, in
many acts of thy life!  I admire thy invincible courage
when proclaiming unwelcome truth before the scoffing crowd
at Athens, and uttering threats of a judgment to come when
standing at the tribunal of Felix,-a freeman, though in
chains!  But most of all do I admire thee when, the
tyrant's sword being already half unsheathed, I see thee in
the Roman dungeon, from which there was no prospect of
emerging except to the Roman scaffold, solitary and forsaken of friends, yet looking up with confidence to that
Saviour who never forsakes, and breaking forth in the
exclamation, " I know whom I have believed, and am  persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed
to Him against that day."
We have not full particulars of the Apostle's death. I-e
was doubtless beheaded; and the traveller may still visit
* It seems at least that it was used for political prisoners. There
can hardly be a doubt that the lower of the two dungeons in the Mamertine prison was the scene of the execution of Jug-urtha and Lentulus,
aind probably of the Samlnite general C. Pontius.
15




206                   SERMON VII.
the reputed scene of his martyrdom.  About three miles
to the south of Rome, on the heights which swell gradually
from the eastern bank of the river Tiber, there is a solitary
glen among green hills. There is the spot which is said to
have been the scene of the Apostle's suffering; there was
formerly, according to tradition, the Apostle's grave. "' The
beautiful seclusion of the region, surrounded in every quarter
by the bare hilly downs of the Campagna, which are excavated in many spots into dens and caves of the earth,
similar to those in which the early Christians so often tool
refuge, inspires a feeling suitable to the event."*
Though we know not the particulars of the Apostle's
death, we may well picture to ourselves in imagination the
calm and heroic fortitude which he would manifest as he
was led out from  Rome to that scene of execution.  11He
had a conscience void of offence both toward God and toward man.  If he looked backward, he had the remembrance of a life well spent; if he looked forward, he had
the prospect of speedy admission into the presence of the
Saviour whom through thirty years of missionary labor he
had striven to love.  Yet he would move forward with a
deep sense of the solemnity of the moment.  IIe is about
to exchange time for eternity. In a few moments probation will have ceased with him.  Ile will be lost or saved
forever. He will be Paul the Apostle no longer; he will be
simply Paul the sinner, giving account at the bar of God.
Dare he trust God now,-now in this the tremendous moment of his life, now in this the crisis of his greatest need?
-yes! he dare, for God is his friend.  God had pity on
* The spot is at the Abbadia alle tre Fontane, about three miles
beyond the Basilica of St. Paolo. Spalding's Italy, ii, 33. Bunsen's
" Beschreibung," iii, part i, p. 460.




ON LAWS IN LIFE SPIRITUAL.           207
him when he was yet a sinner; surely, therefore, He will
have pity on him now that he has been His servant.  As
these thoughts pass through his mind, the sadness passes
from his face, a look of seraphic joy spreads oveir his countenance and illumines every feature; and as he yields up
his neck to the sword of the executioner, he exclaims in
triumphant exultation, "' I am now ready to be offered, and
the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at
that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that
love his appearing."




SERMON V I I.
THE GIFTS OF THE HIOLY GHOST.
(PREACHED AT THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL, ON WHIT-SUNDAY, 1858.)
JOHN  14:16.
"And I will oplay the Father, and he shall give you another Comjfobrler,
that he may abide with youe forever."
IT was a sad and anxious moment to the Apostles when
they stood on the top of the Mount of Olives and saw Jesus
parted from them and a cloud receive Him out of their
sight.  We may reasonably imagine that they stood gazing
into heaven, doubting whether Jesus had ascended from
them forever, or whether His departure was only one of
those many mysterious disappearances which they had
witnessed in the forty days which had succeeded to His
resurrection, when the heavens had suddenly yielded up to
them His presence, and Jesus had stood in the midst, and
had as suddenly vanished out of their sight.  They might
well think that he had only gone away for a season; but
these hopes were dissipated by the appearance of the two
heavenly messengers, who assured them that Jesus had
taken a final farewell, and had departed till the last great




ON TIIE HOLY GHOST.                 209
day: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into
heaven?  This same Jesus which is taken up from  you
into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen
Him go into heaven."  It was then that the Apostles first
felt their loss. It was then that they knew their loneliness.  A band of men-most of them rude fishermen from
a northern province-had left their occupation to follow a
wonderful teacher, as his associates in subduing the world;
and now he had vanished and abandoned them  to subdue
that world, as it seemed, unaided.*
It was at a moment when such thoughts as these filledthe Apostles' minds, that they would begin to turn their
hopes to that mysterious promise which their Master had
not long before given them of a Comforter who should be
with them  in his absence.  " And I will pray the Father,
and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may
abide with you forever: even the Spirit of truth. I will
not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a
little while and the world seeth me no more; but ye see
me; because I live ye shall live also." Nor did they
wait long in doubt, for after about ten days the surprising
miracle happened, that there came from heaven a sound as
of a mighty rushing wind, and they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the
Spirit gave them utterance.  Of all miracles ever wrought,
the gift of the Spirit was the most astounding.
That marvel is a surprising one which the Scripture
* Their feelings of solitude at that moment have been beautifully
depicted by a Spanish lyric poet, Luis de Leon, in his hymn, " En la
Ascension," beginning " Y dexas, Pastor Santo," &c., a translation of
which, hardly inferior to the original, will be found in Ticknor's "l Hist.
of Spanish Literature," vol. ii, ch. 9: " And cost thou, holy Shepherd,
leave," &c.
18*




210                 SERMON VIIL.
opens up to us in the miracle of creation, when it places
us at the dawn of created nature; when it transports us
backward to the depths of a past eternity when God was
alone.  Then as now God was; but besides Him there was
nothing.  The Supreme Being existed with universal silence round Him.  Suddenly his fiat went forth, and the
universe was peopled with motion and life. Orbs began to
roll in periodic circle round his eternal throne, and intelligences, sparklings of the Infinite, sprung into existence at
His bidding. " The morning stars sung together, and all
the sons of God shouted for joy." That,, again, was a
stupendous miracle worthy of a God, the loftiest expression of the tenderness of the Almighty, when his own Son
was born in the village of Bethlehem; stooping to join
mankind in their sufferings, that he might elevate human
nature along with Him' to the throne which he had left.
Well might the choir of the Heavenly hosts break in upon
the stillness of the midnight with their chant of triumph!
Well might inanimate nature respond to the event by
launching forth a meteor to attract the Eastern sages!
But majestic as was the miraculous sight of the freshness
of the morning of created nature, stupendous as was the
condescension in God becoming man, the miracle was, if
possible, still more marvellous when God the Spirit condescended to come down to take His residence in the hearts
of men. It was an infinite condescension for God to live
among men, it was a greater one for Him to make Htis
dwelling-place within men's hearts.  It was a wondrous
comfort for His disciples to be able to go to a God present
on this earth and ask Htis aid; but it was a mightier privilege to know that, without undertaking a long pilgrimage
to seek the presence of a local Saviour, there was help to
be found from an omnipresent Comforter; that for men of




ON TIlE HOLY GHOST.                211
every race and rank, without respect of age or sex or condition, for the captive and for the free, for the sick and for
the strong, there was close at hand a Spirit to be given in
answer to their prayers; that wheresoever under the broad
heaven, on earth, or on sea, in the crowded city or in the
solitude of the desert, one prayer is breathed up to God for
His Spirit, then from the Invisible that Spirit breaks forth;
and though not with rushing wind or tongues of fire, yet
within the soul, heart to heart, spirit to spirit, He witnesses
by the gift of conscious comfort and purifying holiness that
He is present, the Comforter, in Christ's absence, who
shall abide with men forever.
We cannot wonder that at the first manifestation of such
descent His presence was marked by evidences such as the
world had never before seen.  It is not surprising that the
overpowering joy of the Spirit's presence in the hearts of
that band of waiting worshippers caused it to be supposed
that they were drunk with wine.  We cannot wonder that
the greatest of events should be marked' with the greatest
of effects, that ignorant men should suddenly be strengthenedl to speak in other tongues; that the stammering disciple should be suddenly turned into the eloquent preacher,
and the fierce and prejudiced Jew into the loving, subdued,
hallowed Apostle.
What, then, was the special nature of that outpouring of
the Spirit? what the special gifts which His presence communicated?  This is the practical and important question
for us, if we would ascertain how far we have become, or
may become, partakers of them. They were especially
four: miracle, inspiration, holiness, and religious usefulness.  We assert, first, that the gift of the Spirit conferred
the power to suspend Nature's laws by the action of what
is usually called miracle; secondly, that it strengthened




212                    SERMON VIIf.
the human intelligence to penetrate the world of spirit, and
gaze face to face on undiscovered truth and reveal it to
mankind; thirdly, that it was the means of changing unholy men into holy ones; fourthly, that it was manifested'in a mode which, for want of a better term, may be called
religious usefulness,* by which we mean that it accompanied the ministry of those who possessed it in such a manner
that their words produced, in a supernatural degree, a moral
effect on those that heard them.  But while we assert that
these four gifts were conferred on the Apostles by the
miracle of Pentecost, we do not claim them all as the privilege of ordinary Christians, nor as the permanent gifts
which the Divine presence was to confer.  If we briefly
survey each class, we shall be able to understand how many
of these gifts were temporary and how many perpetual;
which of them were special and which general.
1. The first form  in which the gift of the Holy Spirit
manifested itself was in conferring the power of working
miracles to aid in the propagation of Christianity.
There is scarcely a fact in the history of the world better
attested than the Christian miracles.  The whole evidence
of history must be belied if their existence is denied.  The
proof by which the reality of the great characters of history,
and of their deeds, is established, is hardly more certain than
the evidence from contemporary testimony of the existence
of the Apostles, and the actual reality of their miracles.-t
And it is a proof of the cogent evidence which has been
* The meaning of this phrase will be made clear hereafter. It is
intended to be comprehended (as well as prediction of the future) in
the apostolic word "prophecy," in 1 Cor. 12: 10.
t The clever work of Archbishop Whately, "Historic Doubts on
Napoleon Bonaparte," has for its object the establishment of this
point.




ON THEE HOLY GaOST.                  213
brought to bear upon this subject, that sceptics have latterly
ceased to attack it.*  There maybe difficulties in religion,
and there may be weak points in the evidence of it, but
this weakness is not in the department of miracles.  If
indeed we had no contemporary proof, we might almost
argue that some kind of supernatural support was vouchsafed to the early Christian missionaries, if we only measure
their success against the means employed.t   A few illiterate peasants from  the shores of the lakes of Galilee set
forth to convert the world. As they spoke, men were
pricked to the heart, and joined themselves to them.  By
the testimony of the heathen philosopher Pliny,$ the converts became changed men, and the progress of the religion
was so great, that whole provinces in a short time bowed
before the new faith.  Was this a common religion like the
many systems which this world has seen?  It bore this
difference: it was a system  narrow, exclusive, unadapted
to the tastes of men, though marvellously adapted to their
moral wants. It was favored by no earthly power, it
offered no earthly reward, it pandered to no prejudice,
stooped to no passion, admitted no collusion. What quality
then did it contain which proved so attractive? Search
among the religions of the world, and you will perceive the
contrast which it bore to them.  Try to penetrate through
the mists of twenty-four centuries of lHindoo history to the
origin of Boodhism, and you will find that it was not a new
* The allusion here is to the fact that modern critics (e. g. Strauss,
"Leben Jesu") have found it necessary to explain away the Evangelists' narratives by reducing them to myths instead of denouncing the
miracles as simple fables, as writers of the last century were accustomed to regard them.
t See Milman's " Bampton Lectures," Lect. vi, p. 269.: Pliny's "Letter to Trajan,'" Ep. x, 97.




214                    SERMON VIII.
creed, but the vigorous expression of a moral reformer who
awoke the religious instincts of his countrymen.*   Trace
the rise and progress of Mahometanism, and you will discover that it owed its progress to the sword, or to the lust
of war, or that it was at best but the reflection of Arabian
thought, the embodiment of the primeval patriarchal unitarianismn, which had always swayed the thoughts of those
sons of the desert. Christianity, on the other hand, aimed
a blow at every prejudice, and was founded on a revulsion
of previously-known principles.  I-low can you account for
the mightiness of that result from the smallest of causes?
Why did the heathen world bow before the messengers who
came forth from a retired district of an insignificant Roman
province? Suppose a person meditating upon this circumstance without being acquainted with the facts of the history, would he not be compelled to admit some potency of
earthly evidence, or some proof of supernatural power?t
And that presumption is true. Christianity made all its
advances by argument and proof.. Its missionaries healed
the  sick  and  raised  the dead, and  miraculously spoke
X The view of Boodhism here adopted is that which would make it
part of a movement in the East to which Confucius's revolution in China
is analogous, probably about 600 B.c. But see the account of the
Journeys of the Boodhist Pilgrim, Hhouenthsang, recently translated
from the Chinese.
t Most readers would admit that Gibbon's enumeration of the supposed causes which may have led to the spread of Christianity is utterly
inadequate to the explanation of the phenomenon. It is true that the
five causes which he suggests really were not without their influence,
for Christianity was so all-embracing in its operation that it included
those among others; but they were conditions, not ccases, of its spread.
Gibbon's chapters on Christianity are rather a subject of regret than of
alarm or bitterness. It is pitiable to see a mind such as his, unapproachable in its greatness,-the Michael Angelo of history —demnean
itself by such sophistry.




ON THE ITOLY GHOST.               215
tongues which they had never learned; and men saw these
things and marvelled, and perceived that God had spoken,
and they gave ear and accepted the doctrine which those
mighty wonders attested.  We pause not to inquire into
the possibility of miracles; we cannot even spare a moment,
on the present occasion, to reconcile their existence with
the great government of the Almighty by general laws;
but we accept the fact, and we refer to the mighty outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost as the cause; and we
recognize in the potency of these evidences the first of
those great acts of help to the weakness of the early missionaries, which led Christ so emphatically to describe His
offices, when he predicted his coming, as being those of the
Comforter.
Was then this gift of miracles temporary or perpetual,
special or universal? The answer to this question must be
found in the fact.  Miracles have ceased, and hence we
argue the temporary character of it. Antecedently we
should have expected its perpetuity; but we accept the
experience of history as proof of the error of our anticipations.  It is unnecessary to pause to ascertain whether
miracles have been occasionally repeated at long intervals
by the pious faith and prayers of saintly men.*  We rather
would ask what was the reason why the gift, once so
abundant, was so soon withdrawn.  The reason would appear to be this.  The office of miracles was merely to
awaken human curiosity to the heaven-sent message; when
men once turned their ear to listen, the doctrine was allowed
to speak for itself. The perpetual evidence of Christianity,
unassailable by the advance of science or the acuteness of
criticism, is that it links itself to every human want and
X Compare Dr. Arnold's "Leet. on Mod. Hist." p. 105.




216                      SERMON VII.
responds to every human susceptibility; and thus when the
missionaries had once established by miracles their claim
to be considered Divine messengers, the mighty proof was
withdrawn, and Christianity was left to work its way by
moral evidence.   The external demonstrative proof was
only for the purpose of arousing attention;* the internal
appeal to human candor was to effect the rest.  The Almighty was not in the earthquake nor in the storm, but in
the still small voice of persuasion and of conscience; and
so we think we can discern it to be a beautiful example of
Almighty wisdom that miracles were withdrawn when they
were no longer needed, that the Spirit ceased thus to comfort when the Church was no longer mourning for this aid.
2. We asserted, secondly, that the influence of the Holy
Spirit strengthened the minds of the Apostles to discover
truth and elevated them  to  reveal it with  an  inspired
authority.  This was a blessing which Christ had distinctly
promised to His disciples when HIe said, " I have yet many
things to say unto you, but ye. cannot bear them now.
Itowbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will
guide you into all truth, and Hie will show you things to
* The comparative logical weight of the internal and external evidences of Christianity is a subject which still demands treatment. The
view here intended is that the external evidences, such as miracle,
prophecy, martyrdom, &c., were mainly designed to arrest attention, in
order that the internal appeal to the moral consciences of men might
have a fair field for producing its appropriate effect. It is observable,
in confirmation of this view, that on the only occasion on which we find
St. Paul to have met with an intellectual audience, able to appreciate
evidence, and willing to listen to it, viz., at Athens, he wrought no
miracle; but appealed wholly to argument. If this view be correct,
political power, 41n obtaining a hearing for Christianity in heathen lands,
performs at this present time the analogous function to that which the
external evidences fulfilled in the early ages of the Church.




ON TIIE IIOLY GHOST.                     217
come."   Our Lord had taught a germ  of truth while on
earth,* but He here promised to send to the Apostles a
Divine Spirit which should illuminate them  to discover a
deep and mystical meaning where they had not before seen
it, and to penetrate into the world of unseen realities, and
* The view here intended is that the teaching of the Apostles, after
the Pentecostal gifts, was in advance of that which our blessed Lord
communicated while on earth. This can not only be shown by fact,
but is implied by the Evangelist when he said that " the Spirit was not
then given, for Jesus was not yet glorified."  (John 7: 39.) The work
of our Lord on earth as a teacher was the reformation of doctrine and
practice; that of the Apostles was reconstruction. Our Lord taught the
spiritual meaning of the Jewish law, and showed that Judaism was
f:tllfilled; the Apostles taught that Christianity was not merely Judaism
filfilled, but Judaism abolished. Antecedently to the Transfigurationl,
our Lord taught only that he was the Messiah; subsequently to that
event, that he was the Messiah to suffler; but it was the Apostles, and
specially the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, who were the first to
explain the doctrine of the Atonement, the interpretation of the Jewish
law, and the internal spiritual life of Christians. According to the
view here advocated, the stages of Divine revelation would be as follows, each in advance of the other: (1) the Patriarchal; (2) the Mosaic; (3) the Prophetic; (4) the teaching of St. John the Baptist and
of our Blessed Lord until the Transfiguration; (5) the teaching of our
Lord after that event; (6) the teaching of the Apostles. The difference
between the Mosaic and Prophetic dispensations is made clear by
Davison in his " Lectures on Prophecy."'  The growth in the teaching
of the Apostles is made clear in Neander's " History of the Planting of
the Early Church." Evidences of smaller differences and of less plainly
marked advances might be found under most of these periods. Thus,'for example, in the last of those mentioned, the Apostolic teaching, we
might perhaps enumerate as subordinate distinctions: (a) the Jewish
school of teaching of St. James and St. Peter; (.) the Gentile school
of St. Paul; (?,) the Alexandrian school of the writer of the Hebrews;
and (6) the intuitional school of St. John. "But all these worketh
that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He
will."




218                   SERMON VIII.
evoke from its depths discoveries new in chalracter and invaluable in import.  It must indeed be frankly admitted
that a human element, as well as a divine, is traceable in
the writings of the Apostles.  Those favored men did not
lose their personality beneath the overpowering majesty of
the mysterious inspiration.  They were not mere automatons, mechanically uttering words which they understood
not.  Yet, while they were left to express the divine truth
according to their different habits of mental thought and
different modes of human expression, there was in the
truth which they conveyed a great reality which they had
not discovered by unassisted reason,-a reality into which
the Spirit of truth himself had deigned to guide them.
The treasure was in earthen vessels; but in itself it was
divine.
The question will suggest itself whether this great gift
of the Comforter remains, or whether it, like the gift of
miracles, has departed.  The answer must be given that
in great part it has disappeared, and for a similar reason.
As the gift of miracles was continued only so long as was
necessary for gaining a hearing for Christianity among the
heathen, so the gift of inspiration was continued only so
long as was necessary for evolving the body of Christian
doctrine.  Yet there is a sense, though a far humbler one,
in which the Spirit does still illuminate religious men.
Such is the play of human emotion with human thought,
and especially when the mind attempts to judge on religious questions, that it is impossible for a man (be his
clearness of mind as great as it may) to apprehend religious truths unless his heart be touched to feel the value
of that truth, and his prejudices lulled to allow him to give
it a hearing.  It is this great gift which the all-sanctifying
Spirit confers now as of old.  We do not claim that TIe




ON THE IHOLY GHIOST.                219
interferes with the mental laws which govern thought, but
we claim it as a fact alike of human experience and of
psychological science, that some  means of controlling
human prejudice, in order to secure an honest judgment
on such questions, is necessary; and experience seems to
prove that the Spirit of God vouchsafes such help even
now to all that seek it, and will, we may infer, continue to
do so as long as that help shall be needed, i. e., until time
shall be no longer.
3. The consideration of the last-named gift of the Spirit
leads, by a natural transition, to that which was noted as
the third of H-is blessed offices, viz., the changing unholy men into holy ones.  The manifestation of this great
fact is seen in the history of the Pentecostal miracle. The
intellectual growth of the Apostles' minds by that visitation is not more marked than the moral change which
passed over their characters. It is not more extraordinary
to find the blind prejudices disappear from the Apostles'
minds, and the ambition for an earthly monarchy fade
before the clearly seen vision of the spiritual kingdom,
than to see the weak made strong, the timid bold, the
fierce hallowed into nieekness.*  The selfsame Peter who
had quailed before the suspicion of the servant-maid and
had denied with oaths his knowledge of Jesus, now stood
up before assembled crowds to proclaim the crucified, with
a courage which Christ had foreseen when he had declared
that he was the rock on which He  would  build  His
church.t  The same John who had wished to call down
fire on the Samaritans for their incivility now became a
* See Neander's "History of the Planting of the Early Church,"
vol. i, ch. 1.
1- For the explanation of this promise and its fulfilmnent, see Rev.
A. P. Stanley's " Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age."




220                  SERMON VIII.
pattern of gentleness; the Son of Thunder was subdued
into the Apostle of Love. Stephen proved himself to be
so influenced by this mighty change that in a few days he
yielded up his spirit with heroic fortitude in triumph, muttering with his dying breath forgiveness towards his murderers. And not in the pillars of the Church only, but in
the humble members of it, there is evidence of the same
absence of selfishness, the same devotion to God, and the
same love of man.
Let us pause a moment here to contemplate this wondrous work; for we are not here dealing with a gift which,
like that of miracles or inspiration, has passed away.
This is the everlasting gift which the Holy Spirit confers
as really, as fully, in the present time as formerly.  Now
as then, He changes unholy men into holy ones.  Now as
then, He works in the hearts of men that mighty change
which is the indispensable preparation for admission into
the presence of the God who cannot bear sinfulness.
We possess a nature prone to evil, and the whole system  of our moral affections is, in a considerable degree,
disarranged and disorganized.  We love sin, we do not
love God; we are fettered by the bond of selfishness; our
generous instincts are repressed; though endowed with
capacities which no finite object can satiate, and made to
strive after the infinite, we abdicate these lofty aspirings,
and allow ourselves to be absorbed by the present, and our
eyes grow dim to the eternal and the future. It is the office
of the Spirit of Christ as the Comforter to remove this
evil. Acting on a man through the instrumentality of
conscience, the Spirit rouses him from the lethargy of his
nature, and excites in him apprehensions of God's hatred
of sin and of a judgment to come; sometimes drawing by
motives of fear, sometimes by motives of love.  And when




ON THE IIOLY (GIOST.               221
the individual is convinced of sin and is sensible of his
miserable condition, the Spirit suffers him not to be overwhelmed by the sight of his own worthlessness, but encourages him to seek for mercy from him who is mighty to
save. Those influences smite only to heal, they awaken
the sense of dependence on God's mercy in Christ, they
incline the man who is the subject of them to prayer, they
stir up within him inexpressible longings after holiness and
goodness. Thus by a gradual or sometimes a rapid progress, of which we are not permitted to trace every stage,
the heart of stone is removed, and the heart-of flesh is substituted.  The soul which once loved sin begins to love
God,'the selfishness which once ruled dies away, and the
generous instincts of love struggle, as with the force of a
pent-up fire, to express themselves in acts of mercy.  We
cannot now pause to trace the continued progress of goodness in that soul; the help which is vouchsafed to it in its
sorrows, the support in its temptations, the grace communicated to it in the sacraments; yet as we mark that
mighty change, and think of the Spirit dwelling in that
heart, and remember that this gift is for us and for our
children's children as much as for the churchmen of old,
can we fail to understand how truly our Lord called the
Holy Ghost a Comforter, when I-e promised, " I will pray
the Father and He shall give you another Comforter that
Ie may abide with you forever?"
4. But the catalogue of blessings imparted by the Comforter, and implied in the promise of His gift, is not yet
complete.  We asserted that, besides the gifts of miracle,
and inspiration, and holiness, there was a fourth conferred
in Apostolic times, the gift of religious usefulness, by which
was meant that the Spirit of God miraculously and mysteriously accomnanied the wiords of the Apostles to the
19



222                  SERMON VIII.
hearts of men.  It is this gift which is called in St. Paul's
Epistles, in his catalogue of the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
the gift of "prophesying;" which did not (as it would
seem) imply solely the power to predict events, but was
a special power, analogous to the gift of natural eloquence,
of expounding religious truth with probably a preternatural
power of operating by means of it on the hearers.  Here
again we encounter a gift which mainly was confined to
the Apostolic age; yet, surely, not wholly so.  For it is
not, surely, wrong to anticipate Christ's presence to accompany His word and His sacraments to the end of time;
nor is it mere hypothesis to suppose that, whenever in the
history of the Church there has been a great religious
awakening, there has been a manifestation of the operation
of the Spirit of God on men's hearts; that wherever an
apostolic man has arisen, burning with apostolic love, and
moved with apostolic zeal, and praying with apostolic
piety, and exercising a ministry marked by apostolic success, the Church has seen repeated in such earnestness the
Holy Spirit's gift of prophesying, the evidence of the continued operation of the Comforter. Proofs of this assertion
cannot be offered in the limits of this discourse, yet an
allusion may be made to one or two examples of the great
outpourings of religious influences which history has presented, as evidences that the moral power of Christ's Spirit
was not confined to the Apostolic age; and the examples
shall not be selected from the catalogue of those movements to which the world is accustomed to appeal as the
visible evidence of the operation of God's Spirit in dissipating error and improving civilization; but shall be drawn
from  among the mystics of the earth, from  men whose
primary object was not the advance of civilization, and in
some of whom  the heavenly truth may not have been un



ON THE HOLY GHOST.                  223
mixed with human error; for in them the effects of goodness which are traceable, will for that very reason be more
naturally ascribed to superhuman energy.
The first instance shall be purposely selected from one
of the apparently fanatical movements of the middle ages,
and from  the history of a Church from  which the established Church of England has justly separated itself, and
against the doctrines of which it specially protests; a
Church in which, nevertheless, God in His mercy has been
pleased to stir up souls for Himself in spite of the manifold
errors which have impeded their holy work, and dimmed
their perfect brightness.  For it is one of the special
glories of this hallowed festival,* that in commemorating
the gifts of the universal Spirit, we can outstep the narrow
limits of creed or party, and thankfully trace the Spirit's
work in all who, in every place or in every creed, have
feared God and wrought righteousness.
About the year A.D. 1200,t in a retired town of Central
Italy, called Assisi, there lived a gay young man who was
brought to the gates of the grave by illness. I-Ie felt death
at hand, and was unprepared for it.  The Spirit of God
touched his heart; he began to prepare himself for it; and
when health unexpectedly returned to him, he threw aside
his gaiety, and retired to the mountains to lead the life of
a hermit. There in the solitudes of the grand chain of
mountains which stretches through Central Italy he communed with God, as the prophets of old; and returning in
the strength of his pious convictions, he spent his life in
* Whit-Sunday.
t The writer, since preaching the above Sermon, has had some
doubts whether the religious influence of Francis of Assisi has not been
exaggerated. The best estimate of his character is to be found in one
of Sir J. Stephen's Essays on " Religious Biography."




224                   SERMION VIII.
arousing men to a religious life.  The plain which surrounded his humble dwelling was frequently occupied by
thousands of weeping penitents.   His followers formed
themselves into one of the monastic orders, which has
always made itself remarkable above its rivals for its devotion to the wants of the sick and the poor; and after leading a saintly life, the founder died, and has been ever
since held in reverence throughout Christendom under the
name of St. Francis of Assisi.  I will yield to no one in
undying attachment to the Protestant faith, yet I envy not
the heart of that traveller who can visit the sanctuary
which covers the saint's grave without acknowledging the
work of God's Spirit in his life of piety. That sanctuary
is a temple of art.* Its walls are adorned by frescos, from
the hand of the great masters who revived Italian painting.
Yet far more glorious than the physical glories of that
wondrous landscape of the southern clime which surrounds
that temple, more glorious than the works of human genius
traced on its walls, is the remarkable work of the righteous
man whose body lies there enshrined; and I should think
badly of the piety of the pilgrim who could bend over the
saint's grave without a tear, and who could turn away without a prayer that God would be pleased to grant him, free
from error, a small measure of that heavenly love which burnt
so brightly in the spirit, and marked the life of Francis of
Assisi.
We may cite another instance of the merciful influence
of the Spirit of God in religious revivals which were almost
similarly erratic, though not corrupted with a like admixture of superstition, in times nearer to our own, and in our
An account of these frescos may be seen in Sir C. Eastlake's editionl of Kutler's " IIand-book of Painting," vol. i, b. iii, ch. 1.




ON TIE IIOLY GHOST.                    225
own land. The religious state of England was never, since
the Reformation, brought to so low an ebb as at the commencement of the last century.  The civil wars of the preceding age, and the licentious infiuence of the court and of
the literature of the time of Charles II,* had led to the
deterioration of the national character and the almost total
extinction of religious life.  What were the means and who
were the instruments through which the flame of earnestness was rekindled? We should belie the facts of history
if we were to deny their due meed of praise in this revival
to those individuals who founded, in the last century, the
irregular religious systems then common under different
names.t  A  few clergymen of the University of Oxford,t
assisted by many laymen, went about our land preaching
with the earnestness of the friars of the middle ages, exciting attention by the very eccentricity of their movements,
and arousing the religious feeling of masses of the population; and though most will regret that the earnestness
was lost to our Church, yet all must acknowledge its beneficial influence in removing the cold lethargic state of feel* The allusion here is specially to the dramatic literature of that age,
an estimate of which is given in Hallam's " Hist. of Lit.," iii, ch. 6,
and in Macaulay's essay on " The Dramatists of the Restoration." The
drama may be regarded as both a cause in the formation of a nation's
character, and the index of its moral tastes.
t The name of Methodism is the best known of these systems; but
there were several other (though less important) centres of religious
influence at the same period. Several such appear in the "Memoirs
of Selina, Countess of Huntingdcon," and in " The Life of the Rev. G.
Whitfield."
I The Wesleys and their early friends. See Southey's or Watson's
"Life of Wesley;" or "Rev. J. Wesley's Journals," vol. i; or a work on
the history of MIethodism, entitled " The Centenary."




226                  SERMON VIII.
ing which previously existed, and in carrying the light of
truth into many a benighted region of our land, neglected
in real heathenism.
There were agencies too within the Church itself, which
Providence set in operation, for stirring up the hearts of
men. One individual pre-eminently, in the University of
Cambridge,* through many years used his position to instil
into the minds of the students the necessity of an earnest
practical personal piety.  You may not accept theology
exactly as it was there presented.  You may think that
system to have been a very narrow one, and very unscientific.  You may lay more stress upon the Sacraments,
and less upon election; more stress upon prayer and
less upon faith; yet venture not to deny the vitalizing
influence of the Spirit of God through that teaching, in
awakening the Church to the present energy which stirs
the hearts of men of all parties.  We may vary in opinion
from those individuals that we have named, yet I cannot
but express my belief that if, in.centuries to come, some
future INeandert should attempt to gather up the memorials of piety and of earnest efforts which marked the
eighteenth century, as that distinguished historian, who
lately was removed to the Church triumphant, collected
those which existed in the earlier ages of the Church, he
will find many of his brightest examples, many of his enduring confessors, in those who have received the faith and
admired the labors of Wesley, of Whitfield, and of Simeon.
We have sketched the four principal blessings which the
great gift of the Holy Spirit conferred on Christ's Church,
— miracle, inspiration, holiness, and usefulness,-and have
* Rev. C. Simeon.
- Neander, as is well known, devoted great attention in his history of'
the Church to the study of the internal spiritual life of Christendom.




ON TIIE IIOLY GIIOST.              227
noticed which were temporary and which are perpetual.
The great gift of holiness is for us and for our children forever, and to as many as the Lord our God shall call.  I
wish, in conclusion, to impress upon you the necessity of
examining yourselves to ascertain whether you have the
Spirit's gift of holiness; and if not, to urge upon you the
necessity of seeking it. If you have no consciousness of
your own sinfulness, of your exceeding great needs; if you
never know what it is to drop the tear of penitence, you
have yet to take the very first steps in conscious religious
living. And to those of you who have in some measure
set out in a real effort towards a religious life, let this subject be a warning to see how far, how very far, you fall
behind that standard of holiness, and happiness, and usefulness to which you might attain. It rests with yourselves
to attain that bliss.  The Apostles were ordered to continue in prayer to obtain the Comforter; and the law is now
as then.  They that ask receive.  In religion, as in common life (we say it without irreverence), God helps them
that help themselves.  Make your earnest and constant
supplications to God for the blessings of pardon, of holiness, of consolation, and they will be given. The Comforter has been imparted, and God has been pleased to
place 1is influences within human reach by making them
to be obtainable by prayer.




SERMON IX.
PROVIDENCE IN POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS.?
(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, JANUARY 30, 1855 )
PROVERBS 16:4.
" The Lord hath mnade all things for himself; yea, even the twicked for the
day of evil."
THE Hebrew monarch here expresses his conviction that
the whole course of nature and of history is superintended
by the providence of God, so that even the plans of wicked
men are made mysteriously to co-operate in carrying out
the divine purposes.  The thought is indeed expressed in
the form common to many passages of Scripture in which
God's providence is so spoken of, as to seem to exclude
human freedom.  Thus the Lord is said to have " hardened
Pharaoh's heart," to have " put a lying spirit in the mouth
of Ahab's prophets;" wicked men are stated to be " foreordained to condemnation," and the righteous to be "pre* The abolition of Kingl Charles's day, and of the other political
services, seems to render an apology necessary for the publication of a
Sermon on a subject now so obsolete. As the publication of it was,




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.            229
destinated to eternal life;"*  all which texts must be
understood only to refer to that general scheme of divine
government which sees the end from the beginning, and in
no sense to exclude the idea of man's free agency and
responsibility.
The reason of such a mode of speaking may perhaps be
found in the tendency which history shows to have always
pervaded the Oriental mind, of looking at the acts of men
from  the divine side to the exclusion of the human,- a
tendency which, in its ultimate development, has degenerated into the fatalism  of Eastern creeds; and herein we
may observe one of those instances where God, in His
great gift of a revelation, has made use of the peculiarities
of human thought as the medium of its transmission.  The
treasure is divine, but it is communicated in earthen vessels.
The theology of the [Bible is inspired; the ideas which it
offers of God's government and of man's character are
realities; but the form under which those ideas have been
conveyed has partaken of the peculiarities of personal or
of national thought which belonged to those who uttered
them, and indeed has been accommodated with a marvellous
wisdom to the circumstances and wants of the ages and
peoples to whom they have been addressed; and it is for
this reason that, in passages such as our text, in which the
wicked are Said to be "made for the day of evil," we
understand the inspired thought (when translated into the
modes of thinking of European nations) merely to be that
the universe of events is so arranged and overlooked by the
Father mind that even the day of evil, which wicked men,
however, earnestly requested at the time when it was preached, and as
the subject is treated in such a manner as to elicit political and historical principles which can never become extinct, the writer ventures to
allow the Sermon to appear in print.
- Exod. 14: 4-8; 2 Chron. IS: 21; Jude 1: 4; Rom 8:29, 30.
0




230                  SERMON IX.
acting in the strength of human liberty, bring about, is
made to adjust itself harmoniously-a wheel, as it were,
within a wheel-into the vast scheme of nature; and so,
ultimately, while the wicked bear the burden of their own
personal responsibility, to work out the great purposes
which an all-good God may design in the government of
His works.
If the thought of Solomon be taken in this sense, it will
be easily seen how many circumstances had occurred, both
in the history of his family and his nation, to bring home
to him the conviction of this truth.  A mind like his must,
doubtless, have often marvelled as it meditated on the
remarkable deliverance of his nation from  the land of
Egypt; for the light of prophecy had shown that this
whole passage was no accident in the national history, but
that the evil had contributed to bring out the result equally
with the good; or if he thought of that period of four
hundred years, which intervened between Moses and the
Prophets, during which there was no open vision, and in
which the Almighty might almost seem  to have left the
nation to the superintendence of merely ordinary laws (as
occurred afterwards in the corresponding period between
the Prophets and the Gospel), he may perhaps have marvelled how wondrously, in spite of deep internal disorganization and occasional anarchy, the successive schemes of the
border nations to annihilate the chosen people had not only
been defeated but made to minister to its good; and if he
passed on in thought to the circumstances which had attended alike the early and tihe later life of his father
David, how many a day of evil, both of public and family
history, would seem to his pious mind to have been ordered
of God! how frequently would events be seen to have
tended to the very opposite effects to that for which their




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.           231
wicked authors had designed them, just as the waters of a
river steadily press onward to the ocean, even when, by the
windings of the course, they appear to be flowing directly
away from  it! how often in such meditations as these,
might the heart of Solomon, overflowing with gratitude for
the past and exulting with confidence for the future, express
its experience in the words, "The Lord hath made all
things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of
evil."
But if the experience which Solomon had of the world's
history, restricted as it was to that of a single nation and
of a short period of time, yet brought home forcibly the
conviction of this law of Providence, how much greater
opportunity has been afforded to us of noticing the evidence
of its truth. In his day the drama of the world's history
had hardly begun to be acted; it was not merely, as it
were, in its first act but in its first scene, and it would
have defied the skill of the acutest to have anticipated its
development; and though the catastrophe is not yet come,
yet we are able to study the plan of Providence in several
distinct epochs and in many distinctly marked manifestations under each.  We can pass in thought beyond the
Jewish nation, and view the successive centres of power
and of civilization which sprung up in the ancient world.
XWe can study the display of human passion in its fiercer
and darker forms, in that period of general convulsion, of
the universal extinction, as it at the time appeared, of all
order, and maturity, and goodness, which marked the
overthrow of the great empire which had absorbed the
other powers.  We can see how the darkness of that night
of barbarism  passed away before the voice of Him who
commanded, Let there be light; and how the brightness
of law, and learning, and liberty dawned again upon the




232                  SERMON IX.
earth.  And still further, in each of those empires which
have arisen in the modern world, many instances, alike in
their external and internal history, afford proofs of the
Almighty power, of the Providence, of Him  who sitteth
abovie the waterfloods and calms the storm of human passion.
And as the pious mind watches in all these successive
periods the agency and operations of evil, and the marvellous manner in which, on the whole, the good has
resulted, he must feel that the text is brought home to him
with a fulness of proof which Solomon could not possess.
The voice of history is seen to declare, " The Lord hath
made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the
day of evil."
The service of this day naturally directs our thoughts to
one of those periods in the history of our own nation; and
as we look back upon it, one of the first thoughts which
must suggest itself to a believer in Providence is admiration at the wonderful manner in which that fierce contest,
which brought into view and enlisted all the best and all
the worst feelings of men, finally operated so mysteriously
for good, in spite of the misery of so many years of internal convulsion.  The effect of the evil was temporary; the
good was permanent.
It is fortunate for us that we are able to view that event
across the chasm of two centuries.  The interval has made
so marked an alteration in our social state, that most of
the questions which relate to it may be studied without
the party feelings which they once called forth.
We are now able to look at that period as a whole, in its
conisequents as well as its antecedents, and so to apprehend
its real nature.  For, as in estimating the effect of a work
of human architecture, we are compelled to retire to some
distance from it, if we wish to understand the unity of the




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.           233
artist's conception; so, if we would view rightly the great
deeds of God's natural providence, we must first reduce
them to their true historical perspective; and hence it is
that when we observe the religious service of this day we
do so with a different feeling from that which marked its
early institution.  For its founders viewed the scene as
actors or spectators; we know the events of it only by
narration.  Their execration was directed against the persons who were distinguished in that revolution, ours against
their crimes.  Their minds could see nothing in the whole
period but the death of the martyr king; we, while we can
lament that cruel act as much as they did, can view it as
one event in a whole period; they could only see that it
was wrong to put to death one of royal blood; we, it is to
be hoped, have learned the broader lesson, that it is wrong
to employ capital punishment for any merely political
offence whatever.  They instituted the service to deprecate
a trespass on the divine right of monarchical institutions;
we retain it to assert our conviction of. the divine right of
human government.
We shall, accordingly, employ our time more profitably
on the present occasion if we rise from the consideration
of this single event to the contemplation of a general fact
of God's providential government; for thus, instead of reviving wornout controversies or exciting party-spirit, we
shall bear away that deep and reverential feeling which
arises whenever we are made to perceive, by the study of
God's general laws, something of the majesty, and wisdom,
and goodness of Him, who filleth all in all.
The great fact to which attention is now asked is this,that God has been pleased so to order the structure and
arrangements of society, that even the suffering of periods
of internal national convulsion is compensated by conse20-*




234                   SERMON IX.
lquent good, and that the selfishness of parties of which
those revolutions are the effect and manifestation, is overruled for the advancement and general happiness of society.
A law like this is no defence for revolution, —it is no
apology for insurrection.  It is merely an argument from
Final Causes in behalf of the moral attributes of the Almighty.  It is one example of the truth which the piety
of Solomon expressed in the words, 1" The Lord hath made
all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of
evil."
It is necessary, however, before we develop the proof
of the assertion, to point out briefly its bearing upon the
general argument.
No fact has been lmade more clear, from the discoveries
of science, than the abundance of beneficent arrangements
wlhich exist in nature.  Each science contributes examples
to the collective argument.  Yet, wonderful as are the
proofs of Divine goodness drawn from obvious instances of
beneficence, they are not so striking as those which arise
from  observing the system  of compensations ordained in
nature for -the misery and evil which exist.
It gives me a noble ideas of the Divine Being when, as I
watch the stars which move in the evening sky, I conceive
of them as sustained in their orderly course according to a
few simple intelligible laws; but how vastly is my idea
deepened, both concerning the majesty and beneficence of
the Almighty, when, in reflecting on the disturbances
which they are generating in one another's movements,
and trembling to think of the universal catastrophe which
in the depths of future times those disturbances may bring
about, I see that the subtle results of calculation demonstrate that a system of cormpensations of amazing grandeur
is at work, and that the laws whllichi the Divine Being has




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.            2$35
impressed upon matter guarantee the stability of the systems which He has created!*  Or when I restrict my view
to phenomena of this earth, ylwhich seem not to speak of a
God of love, what an idea do I obtain of the Divine goodness, when it is made apparent that even the volcano's
fire, which seems only fraught with desolation, is made the
instrument of replenishing the whole vegetable kingdom,
and thus, indirectly, the family of man, with a supply of
those material principles which are necessary for its continued support!t   The great fact of the permission of
physical evil is brought before the mind in a. new aspect.
That single apparent exception to the Divine goodness is
seen to be marked by evidences of it; and the surprise
which the discovery excites, renders the argument irresistible.
And though analogy would hardly warrant an expectation that the intractable phenomena of moral and social
evil would yield to explanation as readily as those already
cited of physical mischief, yet here also experience brings
to light the existence of a system of laws which are as comprehensible and unchangeable as those which regulate the
universe of brute matter.  Now, of social phenomena there
are two classes, which at first view seem fraught with woes
without commensurate blessings, and which a sceptic miglht
regard as an objection to the idea of the government of a
merciful Creator,-viz., external war and internal convtlsion.  The argument might be applied to the former of
these topics; and war could be shown, however immense an
evil in itself, to have contributed to the progress of civiliza* Lagrange's "Problems," referred to before in the first three Ser11-) 0 11S.
t See the concluding chapter on " The Final Causes of Volcanoes,"
in Dr. Daubeny's work on that subject.




236                    SERMON IX.
tion, and the final result of most of the conquests which the
world has witnessed, be proved to have been beneficial;
but it is not so obvious that the same remark applies to the
latter subject.  It is, accordingly, my object to extend the
argument on the Divine benevolence to embrace this class
of phenomena.  It is intended to assert that, irrespective
of the particular deeds of the parties whose interests may
operate in public disorders, the general effect of such convulsions in the order of Providence is not the misery which
would be antecedently expected from them.
There are two principal respects in which Divine Providence overrules the misery of revolution, viz., in making it
contribute to the material and the moral welfare of man;
-the material, in the advancement of liberty and happiness; the mzoral, in the formation of national character and
opinion.
The few moments of our present service will not admit of
that induction of particular instances of revolutions, which
would be the natural mode of establishing this assertion.
It must suffice to indicate the mode in which these advantages are brought about, and to advert to some features in
the history of the revolution to which our thoughts are this
day turned, which will afford illustration and verification of
them.
I. History seems to show two facts in relation to society
as fundamental circumstances of its existence; first, that
society is in a state of progress; and secondly, that it is a
progress towards a condition of equality.*
Power and government are given to be used for the good
This subject may be studied in Aristotle's "Politics," b. v; in
Vico's "Scienza Nuova;" in Dr. Arnold's " Thucydides," vol. i, appendix 1; in Thirlwall's " Greece," vol. i, ch. 7; in Lucas's "' English Prize
Essay, at Oxford, 1845."




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.            237
of others, and not for the benefit of the possessor; they are
a trust, and not a right.  If this thought could be felt and
acted upon, revolution would be unknown; when it is forgotten and violated, a convulsion is the terrible means of
reasserting it.  Wherever we possess the history of a revolution we shall find that it has always arisen from an opposition to the unalterable fact, that society is in a state of
growth to maturity, and that, accordingly, institutions
which are a blessing to one age may, after a lapse of time,
cease to work for good; that power which is wisely withheld from men unfit to use it, becomes the right of people
who are, by education or circumstances, fitted for its possession.  Nor is it an objection to this doctrine that the
point at which power ought to be conceded cannot be precisely laid down; for this is only stating a difficulty which
is common to all sciences, which, like that of government,
consider only probable evidence, and which, after exhibiting a principle, commit the execution of its details to the
agent as part of his moral trial.
If, then, there be a truth in this principle, it is clear that
revolution is made in the hands of Providence a good, if it
is the means of developing that progressive growth in society which is its ineffaceable property. The assertion does
not involve the propriety of revolution. The end may be
good, the means which men employ for its attainment may
be indefensible; it only postulates that through the means,
whether right or wrong, the great end of public liberty and
consequent happiness is brought about, and the beneficence
of the Almighty thus shown in constructing society in such
a manner that even the severity of revolution ministers to
the permanent good of man; that the Lord hath made all
things for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil.




238                    SERMON IX.
If we apply this principle to the case of our own revolution we shall remark an illustration of its truth.
In order that we may see how this particular case is an
instance of the law of progress just stated, we should
notice that it assumed the form not so much of a contest
for new rights, as of a protest against the infringement of
those which already existed.  This is a feature common to
all the struggles of that age in European states, and forms
a sufficiently marked contrast with those which we see
exemplified in the ancient world.  The cause is that, when
about the beginning of the sixteenth century the several
European nations, for the first time, began to act in their
international relations as united kingdoms, each of them
separately possessed in itself the reality of present and the
prospect of future liberty.  It was the heritage handed
down from the past, the mixed result of the free institutions
which were introduced by the barbarians who overran the
Roman empire, and the municipal and social institutions
which Rome had communicated.to the world, and which
survived the nation which had established them.* But at
the time of which we speak, this liberty was to be put to a
severer trial than it had ever known.  It had outlived the
incursions of barbarism; it was now to suffer danger from
the very advance of civilization.  For the circumstance
which then enabled the different nations of Europe to take
their position in the European system was, that they had
each lately, for the first time, become consolidated into
united kingdoms. The fragments of civilization had existed
in the middle ages; but the attempts of great minds, such
as Charlemagne and HIildebrand, to reunite those frag* See Guizot's "Hist. of Civilizations" vol. i, ch. 6, 10; and Sir J.
Stephet's'"Lect. on Hist. of France," vol. i, ch. 3, 4.




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.            239
ments, had been baffled.*  Nature, however, in due time
brought about that which they were unable to effect, first
by joining the scattered elements of each state into one
nation, and then by cementing the various nations of
Europe into one confederation by the common principles
of a states-system and law of nations.
It was in this centralization of power that the peril to
public liberty in that age arose.  The legislative and
judicial functions were so arranged as to be a sufficient
guarantee of liberty; but they were now, for the first time,
in danger of succumbing to the executive.  Hence the
form which the struggles for public liberty took was that
of the defence of the ancient constitutions.  That this
danger extended to England also at that period none will
be prepared to deny. There may be differences of opinion
as to the amount of opposition which the measures of the
administration justly provoked. Some, for example,t may
think that liberty was sufficiently secured by the first session of the Long Parliament in the spring of 1641, without
the institution of ain ex post-facto law to punish the supposed public offenders; othersl may judge that further
guarantees were required in dealing with a government
which had flagrantly violated its own promises given to the
Petition of Right twelve years previously; but whichever
view be taken, there is not an Englishman living who will
deny the peril in which public liberty was placed in the
early part of the reign of Charles I by the plans of his
counsellors. If proof were asked, it may be found in the
* Guizot's " Hist. of Civilization," vol. i, ch. 3, 6, 10.
t As Hallam, in his "Constitutional History.": As Macaulay, in his review of Hallam's " Constit. Hist.," Essays,
vol. i.




240                   SERMON IX.
private letters of that acute statesman* who directed for
many years the king's counsels.  We there find that, enamoured with the beauty of the principle of centralization
as carried out in the preceding century in Spain, and in his
own clay by the cardinal statesman who directed the counsels of France, he had planned schemes for increasing the
power of the executive until the government of England
should be assimilated to those of absolute kingdoms.
Whether the success of such a scheme would have been for
the good of this country will be seen if you further take
into account the probability which existed at that time (a
probability which subsequent events have made a fact) that
England would rise in the scale of European kingdoms,
and would consequently be compelled to establish a standing army.t  For this circumstance was now about to give,
for the first time, a power to the Prince to carry out his
will in spite of the will of the nation.  And the history of
France may show us what would have been the effect in
this country, if the providence of God had not by the great
revolution prevented it.  In that kingdom the ablest, not
merely of her many able kings, but one of the most talented
princes who ever adorned a throne, succeeded in crushing
the liberties of his country, not from the low and selfish
motive of his own gratification, but under the guidance
of the enlightened Colbert,jt from a mistaken view of providing for the general happiness of his people; and the
consequence was seen soon after his death.  I-Ie had caused
all power to depend upon the character of the king.  His
* The references to "Wentworth's Correspondence" are given in
Macaulay's "Hist. of England,"' vol. i, ch. 12.
t See Macaulay's " Hist. of England," vol. i, ch. 1.
$ For Colbert's administration, see Sir J. Stephen's " Lect. on Hist.
of France," vol. ii, ch. 22.




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.           241
successor, a weak and effeminate prince, was unable to
carry out his great ideas. The unreality of the system
was at once revealed to view, and the dreadful acts of the
first French revolution were the protest of the people
against the abuses of that system of government.  If we
could guarantee the perpetuation of a race of kings possessed of perfect intellectual and moral qualities, we could
intrust to them absolute power: but such a property is
confined to God's government; it exists not in man's. And,
therefore, as we cannot insure the perfect wisdom, or the
entire goodness of a race of governors, we establish public
liberty on the basis of a Constitution, i. e., we surround all.hAose who are invested with power with such artificial regulations and conditions as may allow them full scope for
acting for the good of the nation, but may bring them to a
stand at once if either their judgment or their heart betray
them.
We believe then that at the beginning of the reign of
Charles I, England was in the great peril of passing from
a constitutional to an absolute form of government, and
we assert that the effect of the revolution which followed,
was to guarantee and to assure the continuance of the
Constitutional power.  We are fully alive to the faults
and sins of those who conducted the revolution; we do not
even attempt to defend that revolution itself; it is unnecessary to the present argument to do so. We speak
not of man but of God; not of human acts but of the
Divine general plan; and we assert with confidence that
any one who looks with pride on the British Constitution,
and believes that as a whole it contains a surer guarantee
for public liberty than any form of government which the
world has ever known, must feel that whatever may have
been the temporary evil of the revolution, the establish21




24:                   SERMON IS.
ment of that Constitution on a sure basis was a permanent unspeakable good; we affirm that the providence of
God, in permitting great periods of public misery, is seen
nevertheless to compensate for them by lasting good. The
evil falls on a single generation; the blessings become the
everlasting inheritance of posterity.  We assert that we
havejustified the utterance of Solomon, " The Lord hath
made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the
day of evil."
Yet it may be thought that our attention is called to-day,
not so much to the revolution as to its crimes, and more
especially to that act of malice, the spiteful vengeance
taken on a helpless prince by men too mean to be generous, too selfish' to be just.  This aspect of the revolution
contributes a most important point in the argument to the
Divine beneficence. For any one who studies the history
of that time must marvel how it was, that the country ever
could free itself firom the men into whose hands the government had fallen.  And the same remark is true of all such
periods in other nations, as well as in that of our own country. Suppose an individual in the ancient time attempting
in the midst of some period of anarchy, such as the civil
wars of the Roman Triumvirate, to forecast the future of
Roman history; or during the great French revolution,
wondering, as the faubourgs of the capital poured out
band after band of revolutionists, each more fierce than its
predecessors, how society was ever to deliver itself from
the tyrants which itself had raised, and you will realize the
beneficence of that law of Providence which enables society
to rectify itself.  At such times, the first leaders of the
revolution, men of patriotic temper and high principle,
succumb to impostors who come with unreal schemes of
political change, and with dark and selfish plans for their




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.          243
own aggrandizement.  Society is redissolved into its primitive elements.  Law and moral power give place to
physical. And yet the day of deliverance comes. If it
were not so, a convulsion would be an unmixed woe, a vial
of wrath to the age which suffers it, and a curse to posterity.  But there is in man a tendency to preserve as well
as to destroy, an instinct against anarchy as well as against
tyranny. And by this principle, a beneficent Providence
enables society to free itself from its own excesses, and to
secure the real blessings which it originally coveted, without permanent submission to the evils which attended their
attainment.
The civil war in our own history supplies abundant evidence of the truth of these remarks.  Omitting the many
wild schemes of political change which were then fermenting in society, we may allude to the danger which menaced
the established Church of this country.  The Constitution
of England did not undergo a greater peril fromn the absolutism of Wentworth, than the faith, and art, and institutions
of its Church underwent from the fanaticism of the Puritans.
While we must always admire the learning and personal
excellence of many of the Puritan clergy, and their steady
and praiseworthy (though often excessive) attachment to
the Protestant faith, yet we cannot but feel that the success of their principles would have involved the destruction
of some articles of faith, and some Apostolical institutions
which our Church holds most dear; and would especially,
by the addition of harsh tests and dogmatic creeds, have
extinguished that breadth and comprehensiveness of character which has always formed the glory of the English
Church, and would have suppressed the freedom of thought
which must ever be the only permanent safeguard of theological truth.  And so the character of Charles I must




214                   SERMON IX.
always carry an interest to the hearts of churchmen, for
one of the chief features of his mind was his marked attachment to the English Church. There is even something
chivalrous in the manner in which he and the royal party
defended the Church, as dearly as the throne.  Those
heroic men died, and their last moments were saddened by
the thought that their cause was lost; but they died not in
vain. They fell defending the breach through which the
enemy was entering the fortress; but men, as they saw
them fall, themselves regained their courage, and rallied
round the standard which they had died defending.. And
so the cause of order again revived, and the moral again
triumphed over the physical.  Or if you prefer to explain
in some other manner the play of human passion through
which society was enabled to reap the solid benefits of the
revolution without becoming the permanent victim of its
excesses, you must at least confess that it is the beneficence
of the Almighty which has given society the power to preserve itself.  Human forces seem to hush the chaos of
anarchy, but it is the Lord who says, Peace; be still. The
storm passes away, the calm again returns. It is the Lord
who "hath made all things for himself; yea, even the
wicked for the day of evil."
II. We stated that it was not merely in the material,
but in the moral benefit of national convulsions that the
beneficence of Providence can be shown.
The moral benefits are to be found either in the discipline which is administered by them, or in the lessons
taught. As we distinguish between the training and the
instruction of an individual mind, so also the same difference
exists between the gradual and almost unobserved formation of national habits, and the opinions which constitute
the popular and conscious states of belief.




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.            245
The discipline resulting from times of convulsion is
necessarily that of suffering.  The tendency of suffering to
produce good, as applied either to an individual or a nation,
is an allowed fact. Yet it may occur to the mind that
the suffering of revolution, being connected with party
strife, cannot administer the same blessings as in instances
where it arises from external sources. It is obvious how
an event, such as a public war, may unite a people in a
common purpose and a common sorrow, and tie them by a
principle of patriotism in the bond of one brotherhood.
But it is not so clear how good results can follow when the
suffering arises from strife and division. There is indeed
truth in this remark.  Yet it is the marvellous property of
pain that it possesses so comprehensive a power, and so
appeals to every deep susceptibility of our nature, that it
lays bare some feelings which operate for moral discipline,
even in a case like this, which at first sight is so unpromising.  For suffering brings home to man a deep practical
sense of his own insufficiency, and his dependence on a
superior power.  There are two principal feelings in the
mind, the consciousness of dependence and the consciousness of power; the latter prompts to action, the former. to
piety.  Suffering acts upon the latter; it awakens in us
the consciousness of needing help which we cannot supply.
Like Manasseh in his dungeon, we are then ready to call
on the Lord God of our Fathers. And suffering also draws
out some special virtues.  Though in mean characters it
increases only selfishness and cruelty, yet in others it calls
out courage and generous devotion. It singularly happens,
too, that a selfish principle is added in cases of revolution
to assist it; for the spirit of party excites a feeling of
sympathy with those who are ranged on the same side.
21*




246                  SERMON IX.
And, in fact, history might be brought in to confirm the
benefits which theory establishes.
But suffering serves not only to discipline, but to instruct; for linked as it is with the notion of sin as its cause,
it excites a deep practical hatred of the crimes which have
produced the suffering. And, connected with this, it has
a tendency to awaken attention and induce inquiry concerning both the cause and cure of national convulsions.
How many lessons might thus be gathered from our own
revolution; how many precious maxims of political wisdom
or moral guidance might be its warning to posterity! Nay,
even if it should be found that men through carelessness
have neglected to gather those lessons, yet if it be shown
that instruction is the natural though not the necessary
result of suffering, our argument equally proves that even
in the pain attending on public convulsions, the beneficence
of the Almighty is manifested.
We have now completed our notice of some points in relation to public convulsions, in which the goodness of God
is seen in bringing permanent good out of temporary evil.
And you must be again reminded that the argument is
irrespective of the question of the propriety of any particular revolution, or even of revolution in the abstract.
We assert that the Almighty has been pleased so to govern
society that he rescues it from the effect (it may be) of its
own follies; that he evolves good where we have only a
right to expect evil; that " He hath made all things for
himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil."
In conclusion, we may bear away two valuable lessons:
1. The consideration of the benevolence of the Almighty
ought to give us confidence in the contemplation of the
future prospects of the nation or the world.
At all times, earnest men feel so bitterly the disappoint



ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.            247
ment of their hopes that they are ready to despair of the
prospects of mankind.  Their experience teaches them that
the strongholds of evil bid defiance to their attacks,-that
their efforts for social or political amelioration meet only
with defeat.*
And if we look at the material and moral aspect of the
world, there are many circumstances to suggest thoughts
of deep sadness.  Eighteen hundred years have passed
since the glad tidings were proclaimed that a Saviour had
come; and still three-fourths of the population of the
world have never yet heard of His name.  Or if we restrict
our view to our own land, which seems in a special manner
to be the home of civilization and piety, what a terrible
state of society is revealed to us by that single statistic,t
that one-half of our people never enter a place of worship!
What prospect is there of reclaiming, even for civilization
itself, the masses crowded by thousands in the hearts of
our large towns, who have thrown away virtue, humanity,
and religion? It is not surprising that earnest men should
look with gloom on the future.
But the subject which we have been considering may
afford some ground of consolation. Though the prospect
be really dark,-though the shadows of night seem closing
in upon us, yet at evening time it shall be light.  There is
One above, whose eye is not unmindful of this world's
history, whose blessed Son "tasted death for every man,"
-who "willeth that all men should be saved."  And Ile
so manages this world's course that IHe will evolve, by His
general laws, good out of evil. Hie rules not in the world
I A paragraph of the original Sermon is here omitted which referred
to circumstances of war and recent disease, now happily past.
]t A fact of the census of 1851.




248                   SERMON IX.
merely of blind unconscious matter, but in the actions of
thinking responsible man. The past of the world declares
that'"He hath made all things for Himself; yea, even the
wicked for the day of evil." And if we could take our
stand on some eminence, and trace forward,,in the depths
of the future, the issue of this world's stream of time, we
should see it swallowed up in the ocean of the Divine attributes. We should take up the song of Seraphim, and
proclaim, that not the heaven merely, but the earth also,
is full of God's glory.
2. There is a second lesson, which is a very practical
one, taught us by this subject, viz., to ask ourselves whether
we are severally, by our conduct, co-operating in carrying
out the plan of Providence, or helping to thwart it. The
end of the Divine government is goodness. If we are aiming at the same result, we are filling our proper sphere in
the world; if our hearts are full of selfishness toward man
and disobedience toward God, we are doing our part to
thwart the great end of the Divine administration. How
blessed a privilege it is to think that we have the opportunity, each one of us, of doing our share-aye, though it
be the very smallest-to co-operate with God! How much
might we do for the world by our efforts if we were to use
our opportunities of battling with evil!  Let us understand that the way to regenerate others is first to renovate
ourselves.  If we would be the means of doing something
for God and for goodness, we must fix well in our minds
that we are not to reflect the religious tone of the world,
but to introduce into the world the elements of goodness
which it does not possess. It is God the Holy Ghost who
alone can give them to us. It is He alone who can impart
to us that religious earnestness which shall mnake us active
for his honor and for man's welfare.  The chief mode of




ON PROVIDENCE IN REVOLUTIONS.              249
obtaining this Divine help is by cultivating a habit of communion with God by private prayer. This is the secret of
any good man's life, whether it be one of action or of suffering. It was so with the royal prisoner. As his troubles
thickened round him, and he could find no help from
friends and no mercy from  foes, he was wont to betake
himself to God for consolation; and hence arose that
placid, confessor-like spirit with which he bore the sorrows
of his closing days, and that calm and heroic fortitude with
which he met the terrors of the hour of death. And we
may be certain that, whatever be our earthly lot, however
humble or however great, whether spent in happiness or
marked with sorrow, if we would secure our own usefulness
in life, and our own safety in death and judgment, we must
follow such an example of piety, and learn to find a friend
in God. For then we shall be as polished shafts in the
Almighty's quiver in the great battle of good against evil;
we shall indeed find that evil will give way before us; and,
in the blessed consciousness of a life not spent altogether
in vain, we shall realize in their fulness the words of Solomon, "The Lord hath made all things for Himself; yea,
even the wicked for the day of evil."
NOTE,
On the Scene of the Execution of Charles I.
THis seems not to be an unfit place to notice some facts in reference
to the scene of the king's execution, which have been drawn from old
engravings and maps, still preserved in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall.
The king was executed in firont of the middle xWindow of the present
Chapel Royal, on the side facing the present street, and not, as is often




250                      SERMON IX.
supposed, on the other side. At that time, instead of the streets and
gardens which now lie around, an old brick palace existed, not unlike
parts of the present one of St. James's. Its outlying quadrangles and
buildings stretched as far north as the present Scotland Yard, while
one large quadrangle, containing the royal garden, lay immediately to
the back of the Chapel Royal; on the side of which quadrangle, next
the river, stood the royal apartments. The street which now runs in
front of the chapel was about half its present width; a guard-house
stood in front of the present Horse Guards, while immediately in front
of the chapel was a tilting-ground; and a few yards to the south of it,
i. e., in the direction of Westminster Abbey, a brick archway spanned
the street, similar to that which now forms the principal entrance to
the Palace of St. James. The banqueting-hall which forms the present
Chapel Royal is the only portion ever completed of a grand design of
James I for rebuilding the palace. The older portion of the palace
was destroyed by fire in the time of William III, and the banquetinghall was converted into a chapel by George I. On the day of the execution, Charles I was brought (about ten o'clock in the morning) from
the Palace of St. James across St. James's Park, and was conducted
over the archway, which has been above described. He then spent
nearly three hours in worship, probably in a small chapel which then
lay adjacent to the archway to the southeast of the present Chapel
Royal; and, after his devotions, was conducted through the interior of
the present chapel to the scaffold. It is doubtful whether he passed
through one of its windows on to the scaffold, or was led completely
through it to a portion (now destroyed) of the palace which then stood
a little to the north of the present chapel, and thence led to the scaffold;
but that the position of the scaffold was in front of the present building
there can be no doubt.