THE DIVINE MYSTERIES:
THE DIVINE TREA TMENT OF SIN,
THE DIVINE MYSTERY OF PEACE.
BV
J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A.
AUTHOR OF THE ~ DIVINE LIFE IN MAN," ETC.
NEWM YORK:
CARLTON & LANAHAN.
MDCCCLXIX.








PREFACE.
A   NEW  Edition having been called for of two
works which I published some time ago,.
entitled, "' The Divine Treatment of Sin," and "The
Divine Mystery of Peace," it has struck me that
they might be combined in one volume. The subjects are closely related, the key-thought of both
is the same, and the Sermons on Peace seem
to form a fitting sequel to those in which I have
endeavoured to unfold, as far as I understand it,
the Divine method in dealing with the sin of mankind. My readers will see that I treat the earlier
chapters in the Book of Genesis as historical.  I
have not qualified in the present Edition what I
wrote on the subject some years ago. At the same
time much light is being thrown year by year on
the true value and bearing of these ancient records.




iv                   PREFACE.
I thankfully accept such light whencesoever it may
come; being sure that it is ultimately from  the
Supreme fountain, and that it will guide in the
direction which we are all bound to pursue. But
I have not entered on the discussion of these points,
because my argument does not stand on the literal
historical truth of the account which the Bible gives
us of the origines of the human race.  Whatever
may be proved to be the fact as to the outer history,
the inner history I hold to be true to the heart's
core, and part of the revelation of God.  Nothing
which I have heard or read has changed my views
of the essential truth of this record, as the history
of man's spiritual development. Thus sin is born
and grows. A Paradise, a Fall, a discovery of the
hard conditions of life to the sinner, lit by a promise,
a hope, that God would share them, and make them
ministers of Redemption, must lie, it seems to me,
at the foundations of human history.
It has been remarked by not unkindly critics, that
I have magnified unduly the burden of life, and
have set forth too strongly its hard conditions, that
I might present against this dark background the
brightness of the Redeemer's work. I cannot hold




PREFACE.                    V
the criticism to be a just one. It would be hard,
I think, to state too strongly the pressure of the
burden, as we gather it from the history and the
literature of all peoples, in all stages of culture, and
all ages of the world. I have thought over the subject carefully in the light of the able criticism to
which I have referred, and I find myself unable to
modify my views. In the present Edition nothing
has been changed but the mode of expression; I
have condensed somewhat, but that is all.  In all
essential points the discourses are the same as in
the first Edition, and they are sent forth as before
in the hope that they may afford even a little light
to some who are striving to penetrate the mystery
of the way of God in the Redemption of the human
soul.
THE CRESCENT, CLAPHAM,
7une ist, I869.








THE
DIVINE TREATMENT OF SIN.








Cbe Iall ConsiDereD as a iDetelopment.
" And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one
of us, to know good and evil."-GENESIS III. 22.
THE Scripture touches but lightly man's life in
Eden; for, the text tells us, it was only through
the Fall, and the experience which has sprung from
it, that man has grown to the full form of man.
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness." " So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God created He him; male and female
created He them." The image was there, perfect in
Eden. But it needed yet some touch of the living
fire. Man, by one dread act, brought himself into a
new and awful relation with the devil on the one




2           THE FALL CONSIDERED
hand; on the other, with God. Till then, Eden had
filled his calm horizon. By that act of freedom he
widened its circuit; Heaven and hell then passed
within his sphere.  "God made man in His own
image." But the deepest power, the free power, was
yet latent. By a dark act of rebellion he developed
it; and the Lord God testifies that he had thereby
become something which the words "as one of us"
alone describe. And yet that act was deadly. Man,
aiming at the height of God, fell perilously on the
very edge of the abyss.  No more awful condition of
life, in point of grandeur and power, can be conceived,
than the words "become as one of us" set forth;
and yet the penalty of aiming at it was death.  It
was a step out, a step on for man in the unfolding
of the latent powers and possibilities of his being as
an embodied spirit; but it brought him within peril
and under the hand of woes and evils, which have
made his history one long wail, and his life one long
night. There had been no pause in that wail, no
break in that night, but that God met the first transgression with a sentence the heart of which was a
promise. Its growing fulfilmemt has been the thread
of light twined in the woof of earth's sad history.




AS A DEVELOPMENT.              3
God fixed that beam of heavenly light among the
threads, when the loom was first set moving by that
dread act wherein man asserted a power of will independent of God. That Divine promise, and not the
self-directed exercise of freedom, has made man's life,
with all its sins and sorrows, the royal fabric of the
King of kings.
Adam, the child of Eden, made in God's image,
could find the completeness of his life in Eden. The
mould of his being was perfect, as an image; the
compass of his powers presented him as the likeness
of God in this material world. Adam, the child of
the wilderness, having become by the act of freedom
that which our text describes-having by the actual
experiment of what power might be in him, by the
actual unfolding of a life, whose character and ends
were expressly self-determined, grown into something
which, if grander on the one hand than the estate
in which he was created in the garden, was most
terrible and sorrowful on the other-could find the
completeness of his life alone in Christ and Heaven.
The sinless child could pass his peaceful life in the
safe nest and quiet range of an earthly Paradise.
To hear the voice of the Lord God among the trees
B2




4            THE FALL CONSIDERED
of the garden, and to see His smile playing like the
sunlight over his gentle toils, was his supreme satisfaction. For Adam, the exile of Eden, the man who
had ventured into the untried world of rebellion
against the benign law of the Heavenly King, and
had begun to taste the fruits of that rebellion in the
bitterness of his soul, a higher destiny was open
through grace. Cut off from God, there was but one
possible end to his rebellion. He must lie crushed
at last under the weight of the system whose order
lie had violated, the Hand whose power he had
defied. But if God should pitifully look upon His
prodigal, and follow him into the wilderness with
forgiving thoughts and the touch of a restoring hand,
Adam had become that which was capable, not of
presenting the Divine image only, but of partaking
the Divine nature, and of entering, as the first Adam
never could have entered, into all the high employments and holiest fellowships of Heaven.
I must beg you very earnestly to bear in mind that
the sentence of our text, pronounced after the transgression, explicitly declares that man had become
something different in relation to God, something
higher in development if more alien in spirit, than




AS A DEVELOPMENT.               5
was expressed in the original constitution of the head
of our race.
"God made man in His own image," is the original
description of the constitution of man. Then follows
the dread history which the third chapter of the
book of Genesis records; and then it is stated,
"Man is as one of us, knowing good and evil."  The
words imply, though they do not express, a growth.
Our translators have rightly given the English equivalent to the Hebrew idiom in the word " become."
And the words " as one of us," unquestionably imply
a higher condition in point of development, than is
expressed in the simple image-bearing which the
first chapter of Genesis unfolds. I am well aware
that some among the ablest commentators hold that
there is keen irony here, the irony of God! Calvin
developes the idea with his usual clearness and
force. To me, it seems blankly incredible. Herder,
too, looking at these solemn old records with the
aesthetic eye, has some fine remarks on the irony of
some of the most venerable passages of our primeval
history. But one can hardly help feeling, in reading
his exquisite and finished criticism on the early
Hebrew poetry, that another eye, an eye having




6            THE FALL CONSIDERED
discernment of deeper things than poetic beauty, is
needed here. If this be irony, then we can believe
that all life is irony, that all its sorrowful aspirations,
hopes, and struggles, are the irony of heaven; and
it is but a step further to the conclusion of a powerful and ancient school of Hindu philosophy, that
creation-all that seems-is but the sick dream of
the Supreme.  No! These old words, whatever
they may be, are honest; God does not begin in
irony that progress which is to lead through Gethsemane and Calvary to Heaven.
Man, then, is said to have grown to something
which is in one sense nearer to God, nearer to the
Divine level-and the last clauses of the verse seem
to imply that he was within reach of that which
would bring him still nearer to the level;-but, on
the other hand, there was a new spot of weakness,
where he had become vulnerable to foes, whom, in his
innocence, he might safely have despised; there was
a new element of disorder, which would bring discord and dire confusion into the harmonious sphere
of his powers; there was a new taint of decay and
death, which, grand as he might seem to have
grown by his experiment of freedom, would eat like




AS A DEVELOPMENT.                7
a canker into his godlike constitution, and unless
some renewing, restoring influence should descend
from Him who made him at the first, must lay its
proud structure in ruins in the dust.
It is from the first the history of the Prodigal.
The youngest born, the darling of the father's heart,
the joy of his home, choosing to seek the ends of his
being away from that home, and in defiance of the
father's will; wandering forth into the wilderness,
falling inevitably into poverty and straits, level with
the beasts, and in peril of a shameful and miserable
death.  But he is acquiring there, brooding over
his experiment of free will, and tracing out the paths
of freedom to their issues, a breadth of knowledge,
insight, and conviction, which, should the father in
pity receive him to the home again, will make their
fellowship richer in interest, joy, and hope than had
been possible under other conditions, and will fill
the home with songs more joyous, more triumphant
than had ever been heard in Eden.  "It is meet that
we should make merry and be glad; for this thy son
was dead, but he is alive again; he was lost, but he is
found."
" Ye shall be as gods," was the devil's promise,




8            THE FALL CONSIDERED
" knowing good and evil." The text affirms that there
was a truth in it. "Behold, the man is become as one
of us." And yet it was a lie to the heart's core.
None but God could stand on that Divine level.
Man should stand there one day, partaker of the
Divine nature. But for the man who in native,
naked, human strength should stand there, there
could be no issue but death. The devil was right as
to the development. Man brought himself into the
sphere of higher and more Divine experiences than
his life in Paradise could have afforded to him. But
the devil said nothing about the death.  "In the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return
unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: dust thou
art, and unto dust shalt thou return," was the disenchantment, which, when Eve clung to the cold lips
of Abel, and madly strove to rekindle there the glow
of life, became complete.  " Ye shall be as gods!"
That rotting corpse of the beautiful shepherd, the
darling of the first human home, wras the comment
on the devil's promise. And yet Abel has known
something now, of which there was not even a dream
in Paradise; and Adam, even through his bitter
anguish, rose to a godlike experience; he was able




AS A DEVELOPMENT.                 9
then to comprehend the sorrow with which the heart
of the great Father had been filled by His child.
The devil said to the prodigal, "Wander freely,
spend, enjoy; that is life." The prodigal found it,
as every sinner finds it, to be death. What life has
come out of it has been born, not of it, but of the
strength, the tenderness, the quickening power of the
Father's redeeming love.
The life in Eden, as I have said, is touched lightly
in the Scripture:- " And the Lord God took the man,
and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to
keep it.  And the Lord  God commanded the man,
saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said,
It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make
him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the
Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl
of the air; and brought them unto A dam to see what
he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam
gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to
every beast of the field: but for A dam there was not found




IO            THE FALL CONSIDERED
an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one
of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and
the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made
he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam
said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of
Man.  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be
one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his
wife, and were not ashamed."  Milton paints out the
picture. His conception of the Paradise life is the
expansion of the suggestion that man was placed in
the garden to dress it and to keep it. The hues
with which he paints this beautiful and happy life
in Eden have tinged all our notions. It is Milton,
who has made the Paradise of our modern English
world:"So pray'd they innocent, and to their thoughts
Firm peace recover'd soon, and wonted calm.
On to their morning's rural work they haste,
Among sweet dew and flowers: where any row
Of fruit-trees over-woody reach'd too far
Their pamper'd boughs, and needed hands to check
Fruitless embraces: or they led the vine




AS A DEVELOPMENT.                   II
To wed her elm; she, spoused, about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves."-Paradise Lost, Book V.
"Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
Our pleasant task enjoined; but till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day,
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild. Thou therefore now advise,
Or hear what to my mind first thoughts present:
Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to -wind
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
In yonder spring of roses intermix'd
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon;
For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near,
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new,
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
Our day's work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned? "-Book IX.
Looking the subject calmly in the face do you feel
satisfied that this was the life which was meant for
man? Exquisitely beautiful, lovely as a dream, as
our memory of childhood's gladdest, sunniest hours,
is this vision of Paradise. But still the question




12          THE FALL CONSIDERED
presses sternly, as mannood presses on childhood,
was it for this that man was made on such a scale of
godlike proportion, and endowed with the most awful
gift with which God even can endow a son?  To
wander pleasantly along the soft glades of a luxuriant
garden, to bask on the grassy slopes in the noontide
glow, lulled by the hum of joyous life that floats on
the summer air, plucking at will the fruits that hang
ripe in downy clusters within easy reach of his hand,
and exercised by such gentle toils as might prune and
chasten the too luxuriant beauty of his bower; lit by
the rosy flush of dawn to his daily enjoyments, and
by the moon's white cresset to his nightly repose;
king in a world in which there could be no collision;
inanimate nature soft and submissive as a bride
adorned for her husband, animate nature an obedient
subject at his feet. It is a fair vision; but it is a
vision of childhood-man's childhood, and the world's.
Thus it was with them, the Scripture says, in their
infant days. But man was made for a strain such as
no life in a Paradise could put on him. There are
in him powers of endurance, of courage, of hope, and
of faith, such as no dressing and keeping an Eden
could bring into play. Man seems to be so organized




AS A DEVELOPMENT.             13
inwardly that his purest joys spring out of his sorrows, his riches grow by his losses, his fullest development is the fruit of his hardest toils, his noblest
becomings of.his most utter sacrifices-while God
completes the cycle, and ordains that his immortal
life shall spring out of his death. Thus man is
organized. The question then arises, is this condition of things the accident of sin? Is this the full
account of it —that man being in a sinful state, God
has thus adapted his mental and moral organization,
as the best expedient which the case allows, with a
view to his restoration? Or was this contemplated in
his first constitution and endowment?  Was man
made, were all his powers ordained, with a view to
this life of toil, struggle, suffering, sacrifice, and Divine
experience? Was man made for it? Was the world
made for it? Was Heaven made for it? Is this the one
way through which we are bound to believe that the
highest end of God in the constitution of man and of
all things is to be gained? And the answer must be,
Yes. Man was made for it. Had he remained in
Eden, the highest interest of heaven in man's career
would have been lost; and more would have been
lost, the highest, fullest, most absolute manifestation




14          THE FALL CONSIDERED
of God. Him, redemption along could fully declare.
If man comes forth into full manhood through that
perverse exercise of his freedom, which leaves human
nature suppliant for redemption under peril of imminent death, God, in redeeming man from the
penalties and fruits of that perverseness, reveals
Himself most fully as God.
The whole system of things around us seems to
me to be constituted with a view to redemption
-which comprehends the discipline and education
of souls. The wilderness was there waiting, and
all the physical order of the world. That was before
man, and was made for man. And it is all set to
the same key-note of struggle, toil, and suffering.
There is not a bit of rock or a blade of grass, there
has not been from the creation, which is not a mute
memorial of struggle, wounds, and death. All things
travail, not simply because man has sinned, but
because the redemption of the sinner is the work for
which "the all" has been prepared by the Lord.
When the Lord looked on from the height of His
eternal throne, " to the habitable parts of the earth,
and His delights were with the sons of men," was it
Eden which He looked on to with solemn joy, or




AS A DEVELOPMENT.             15
Calvary? Was it glad intercourse which He foresaw with the loyal and loving children of Paradise,
or sad, costly, but fruitful communion with the
struggling, suffering children of the wilderness?
Was it Eden, or Ararat, Canaan, Egypt, Sinai,
Jerusalem, Calvary, and Christendom, that His
glance comprehended? Was it the fruit of Eden,
or the fruit which His tears and blood would win
from these, that He then set them before His sight?
Man and all things were made in concert, to form
part of the same great system, of which man was
to be the head. And the whole system, the whole
structure of man and of the world, is moulded to be
the theatre of the redemption of the sinner. Not in
Eden, but there on Calvary, and in Heaven, which
is the child of Calvary, we see realized the whole
idea of God.
Was man, then, made to sin, or so made that sin
is guiltless?  This is the great question which
inevitably arises out of any honest treatment of the
text.
Yes! is the answer of a great school of thinkers,
who, in every age, have acted powerfully on the
beliefs of mankind-the school which has sought




I6           THE FALL CONSIDERED
"by searching" to find out God and the mystery of
His ways. For those who have not seen, or who
refuse to see, the light which God sheds on the
problem, the help to reason which springs from faith,
it is hard to understand how any other answer is
possible. Take purely intellectual definitions of God
and of His relation to the universe, and there seems
to be no room for freedom, and no reality in sin.'If
man sins, according to this school, it is because he
must sin. It is the inevitable action of the mechanism of his nature, or as the budding when the
sap stirs in the ducts of flowers. Evil and good,
fair actions and base, are but the various tones of the
many-voiced organ of his being, but one hand in the
universe touches them, one breath flows through
them all, the hand and breath of Him who worketh
all and in all. We are told that we take too narrow
ground in our judgments; that sins, even the actions
which we most despise and loathe, will prove, if we
give them time enough, like Jacob's tricks, but
virtues in the bud. All things, it is said, have somewhat of a bitter tincture in their young bloom or
blood, and so, too, hath man. Follies, sins, and
crimes, give them but time enough for the noontide




AS A DEVELOPMENT.             17
of experience to purge and ripen them, will fruit in
virtues; while each man's contribution, whatever it
may be, is essential to the general life, movement,
and progress of the world.
This is the argument which this philosophy urges;
these are the conclusions to which it tends, and in
which it endeavours to find rest. You may call it
Pantheistic, or what you will, but you do not thereby
get rid of it. There it is still, a powerful form of
human belief in all ages, and working its poison,
more or less triumphantly, through all the leading
philosophies of the world.
It is still the dim belief, in this nineteenth century
of Christendom, of the vast majority of the human
race. And it is not a thing to be puffed down. It
is wonderful how many roads of thought, that look
specious enough, lead on to it in the end. Nor can
it be met by the popular theological notion, that
man and the universe having been created on one
scheme and with one object, which the accident of
man's transgression completely frustrated, all things
had to be adapted to a new condition, and to aim at
a new and previously unanticipated result.
Redemption is no accident. The need of being a
C




I8          THE FALL CONSIDERED
Redeemer lies deep in the nature of God; and not
only was man's sin foreseen, but all things were
ordered with a view to the great drama of Redemption, from before the foundation of the world.
But was sin pre-ordained? The sun was ordained
to shine, the moon to embosom and radiate his
tempered beams.  The flowers were ordained to
bloom, the rain to fertilize, the lightning to scathe,
the whirlwind to uproot and to destroy. Is it part
of the Divine plan of creation, that as the sun
shines and the rain descends, some men should
blaspheme, and some rob, hate, and murder? Are
these dark shadows of life but the inevitable attendance of its virtues, brought out into sharper outline
where the light is clearest-and their necessary foil;
or else the stages through which God leads the
development of nascent virtues, purifying them in
the crucible of each as they pass through? To this
question the answer of the Bible and of the Church
is " No! a thousand times No!"  God has set His
witness against this in the picture of Eden and the
history of the Fall, and to this witness the history
of sin adds an emphatic Amen. Man has never
been able, in the long run, to shake off the horror




AS A DEVELOPMENT.             19
which sin inspires, as his own hateful and accursed
work. Responsibility, in the fullest sense which
that word will bear, is the broadest, strongest, most
insoluble fact in the spiritual history of our race.
"God made man upright, but he has sought out
many inventions;" and nothing can deliver man from
the consciousness that the "I" which has sought
them out represents something which, whatever it
may be, distinctly is not God.
Behind all the solutions which Paganism offers of
the mystery of life, there is the haunting consciousness that man's sinful personality is a selfdetermining power which, whatever it may be,
whencesoever it may come, is not God, and is not
necessarily the manifestation of God. I shall have
more to say upon the point when I come to speak
of the penitent's creed,-" I have sinned; I have
perverted that which is right, and it profited me not,"
-for the present I simply say, that I believe the
universal human experience upholds this creed as
the absolute truth. Of course it is easy to make
broad and bold assertions about universals. A man
is prone to find in universal history the theory which
he brings to it; but nothing seems to me more
c 2




20           THE FALL CONSIDERED
broadly marked on the Theism, and even on
the Pantheism of Paganism, than the conviction,
whether it be in full health or half-strangled, that
by sin, man discovered in himself a self-determining
power-a power capable of originating acts and
states, in itself not Divine, which is able to set up in
this universe something which is not of God, which
is not according to the mind of God, and which, if He
is to hold the rule, He must transmute or destroy.
It is the deepest witness of consciousness, this " I"
which is not God. It is in sin that this individuality,
this lonely and responsible "I" starts forth with
such dread distinctness. Man knows what the " I"
means, and then only fully, when he sees that he has
become the parent of that which is hateful to God,
the genius of which he cannot charge on God, which
exposes him righteously to the judgment of God, and
which God lives to trouble and destroy.
This is the consciousness of sin in the human
spirit; and this agonizing consciousness neither,
intellectual subtleties nor devilish falsehoods can
charm out of the conscience of mankind. A man, a
class, a race, may shake itself free from it for a time,
but man never. " Father, I have sinned," is the only




AS A DEVELOPMENT.             2I
confession which reaches the depths of the human
consciousness; and the Gospel which demands the
confession, and begins its ministry by deepening the
conviction of sin, alone seems to be able to undertake the cure. As matter of history it is palpably
true, that the convincing of sin, the inspiring a
horror of sin-a horror which took many grotesque
and ghastly forms in the early Christian centurieswas the first work of that Gospel which was God's
message to all mankind.
The history of conscience, then, I hold to be conclusive. There is a profound, universal, unalterable
conviction of the moral consciousness in man, that
his sin springs out of an "I" which is not God;
that his sin is his own, his creature, for which he is
as responsible as God is for the order of the world.
"Conscience," I think I hear some Rationalist
sneering, "Conscience, yes! its fright has been real
enough, and sad enough, in all ages; but what is
conscience but a puppet whose wires are pulled by
the priest. If the priest would be quiet, conscience
would soon be at rest." But the priest is the
creature of the conscience, not the conscience of the
priest. It is the dread reality behind, which endows




22           THE FALL CONSIDERED
the priest with all his power; his yoke had been cast
off and ground to fragments long ago, for none has
pressed so heavily, but for the great mystery of sin,
with which he has the art to play. It is the awful
sense of the burden which the sinner takes on
himself by sin, of the taint which has infected the
self with a poison which no force that he is master
of will expel, which lends to the men who proffer
their aid in man's dire extremity such tremendous
influence, and lays the pagan world prostrate at their
feet. No! the priest shall himself be summoned as
witness, and his lips shall utter the chief testimony
to the reality of the guilt of sin.
Sin then is, and is not God's creature. The being
capable of sinning is God's creature. For making
him capable of sinning God is responsible, and there
His responsibility, as concerns man's transgression,
ends. For making me as I am, capable of sin, for
bringing me into a sinful world in a body of sinful
flesh, God is responsible; not for my sin, that grows
up of myself in me. But for sending forth into such
a world as this generation after generation of living
beings born to sin and to suffer, God is responsible.
It is idle to say, by way of solving the difficulty on




AS A DEVELOPMENT.             23
easy terms, that this is the work of Adam, not of
God; that from him all our sin and suffering flow.
From Adam indisputably. "By one man's disobedience sin entered into the world, and death by sin." But
who makes the law of the inheritance? The fatal
relation with Adam is established by the hand and
sustained by the will of God. It is within the power
of His hand to make men in their birth pure and
upright as He made Adam in Eden; but He has
chosen that we shall be born the children of the
sinful Adam, and shall taste the fruit of his disobedience from the first. He takes the responsibility
-and we must look that fact fairly in the faceof sending us into a world in which, as our nature
developes, and His law is revealed, the cry, " I am
carnal, sold under sin," will inevitably fall from our
lips. We are bound to believe that Adam in Eden,
dressing and keeping the garden, would not have
afforded room, in his nature, for the unfolding of the
whole idea of God. The true Man is the second
Man, the Lord from Heaven, and the Manhood
which is transformed into His likeness; and that
Divine figure of a man, the man of God's eternal
kingdom, abides not in Eden, but beyond the wil



24          THE FALL CONSIDERED
derness life of transgression, and beyond the river
of death. I say, that we are bound to believe this,
for God could, at His will, have abolished the fallen
Adam and his race, and produced new unfallen
children in each successive age of the world. But
He has chosen to prolong the race of sinners,
because from the first the one great aim of His
heart was redemption. To reign as King in a
redeemed creation has been from the first His vision
of Heaven.
And here, too, the vision of Redemption opens
in its profound relation to the whole system of the
universe, and the whole plan of God, in the creation,
constitution, and government of the world. It is
the godlike act of God. God without a race to
redeem by sacrifice, and to rule redeemed, must
have kept the glory of His Godhead veiled. Emmanuel, God with us, declares for the first time
the glory of the Father; the express image of His
substance was then, and then only, unveiled. God
made man free, knowing that the unfolding of his
freedom in such a body, in such a world, would lead
him into dread experience of transgression; would
lead him down to death, unless He interposed to




AS A DEVELOPMENT.             25
save. Accepting the responsibility of the existence
of a world of sinners (and the Deluge could as easily
have finished its work), He accepted at once the
responsibilities of Redemption. At once He stooped
to lift the burden which else had crushed His helpless
child. At once He set to light the pathways of the
wilderness, on the brow of the first sentence, a
bright gem of hope. At once He placed the Manger,
the Garden, the Cross, the Grave, fully before His
sight. That was the share which He took at once
of the great burden, the great sorrow, the great
shame, with which sin had oppressed the world.
That Divine share in the shame and sorrow makes
man's history the supreme history of the universe.
This is the thread which, entwined with the dark
woof of the history of man's freedom, makes the
fabric more costly, more precious, than any which
is woven "in the roaring loom of time," more
noble, more fruitful, more Divine.
The sinless Adam could rest in Paradise till the
serpent stung him into transgression. For the sinful
Adam, through God's abounding love and the riches
of His grace, there is rest in Heaven, and in Heaven
alone. No restoration of Eden could satisfy the con



26 THE FALL CONSIDERED AS A DEVELOPMENT.
dition of the grand problem which the Fall has
stated. There are but two solutions possible. Either
man must lie where his sin has sunk him, or he must
rise through Redemption to a higher, Diviner manhood, and eating of the tree of life in Christ, live
before the face of God for ever. The first Adam is
by grace abolished; the elder glory is done away by
reason of the glory that excelleth.  "The first man
Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made
a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is
spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that
which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy;
the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the
earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the
heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as
we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear
the image of the heavenly."  Not from Eden, but from
the pathways of the weary wilderness, all sinful and
stained with tears, the Bride, the Lamb's wife, is
taken to be arrayed in the pure white splendour of
His righteousness; and blessed, blessed beyond
Adam in Eden, blessed beyond angels in Heaven, are
they who are called to the marriage supper of the
Lamb.




II.
Cbe 23ureen of Cristenmc.
" And unto Adams He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto
the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I
commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is
the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy lzfe; thorns also and thistles shall it bring
forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of thefield; in the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto
the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou
art, andunto dust shalt thou return." —GENESIS III. I7-I9.
THE main object of the first discourse was to
develop the thought expressed in the words,
"Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
and evil." We may not shut our eyes to the fact
that the fall is spoken of as a step in man's development, though, if it rests there, a fatal one. A step
out into freedom, but a freedom which, unless some




28        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
higher power interfere, is simply a freedom to die.
There is no escape from death for the freeman who
has sought to realize his freedom in separating his
mind and will from God. The complete freeman is
the child of two-of free humanity and the Divine
Spirit. If God fails him, freedom is death. In fact,
it is but an illusory freedom that he wins.  It is the
passage into a fatal bondage. The freedom is but
exercised in choosing his captivity. The desires of
the flesh and of the mind become thenceforth his
lords. From that moment, corrupting and destroying
forces are at work upon the structure of his nature;
it is a spurious freedom which he has grasped at; God
only can make it real. " Carnal, sold under sin,"
must thenceforth be written of him, and unless some
new order of things arise out of the will of a Superior
Being who has power to make that will effective,
his act of freedom is the beginning of death.
This must be clearly borne in mind; the sentence,
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die," is absolutely and inevitably true. The devil
uttered a half truth. Is it not characteristic of all
his suggestions? He saw the development, but he
did not see the death. But the development must




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.           29
be as clearly borne in mind.  Man, by that act,
widened quite infinitely the range of his experience,
he expanded the orbit of his being, Heaven and hell
came equally within its sphere. A knowledge of the
things of God, such as no being inexperienced in the
mystery of freedom could attain to, was within his
range of power on the one hand; an experience of
evil, of woe and wretchedness, the mere dream of
which could never have entered his quiet Paradise,
was too dreadly within his reach on the other. God
recognizes the development: and God records the
judgment-death.
So far, man by the Fall has taken a step out into
a wider world, but the step is a deadly one. He has
changed the quiet limits of his Eden for the free
broad wilderness, but his one mission there is to find
himself a grave. "And the Lord God said unto the
serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed
above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon
thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the
days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.  Unto
the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow




30         THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee. And unto A dam He said, Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast
eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying,
thou shalt not eat eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy
sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;
and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the
ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art,
and unto dust shalt thou return."
Is this to be the end of the experiment: the
act of freedom, judgment, death?   It were a dark
mystery were it left here. The creation of man, had
this been the swift end of it, would have remained a
stain on the wisdom and goodness of Him who is
responsible for all that may come of creation, and at
the door of whose government this abortion of freedom must have lain as a reproach for ever. We
must look wider afield.
Man is manifestly made on a scale which no Paradise life can explain.  Similarly, creation, through
all its orders, is made on a scale which can only be




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.         3I
explained by man. In every order of the creation
there is a propulsive movement to the next higher
order, and rudiments of organization exist in each,
to which higher organisms are the key. The key to
the whole, as well -as of the whole, is man. And
man in Eden was on a scale which his history in the
wilderness alone explains and justifies. There are
in him godlike powers of endurance, sacrifice, and
ministry —wherein man shows likest God-which a
life of sorrow and struggle in the midst of a world
which is struggling and sorrowing, alone could
unfold. We are, in truth, justified in saying that
Adam, in Eden, was spiritually but an embryo, arid
these sorrows and struggles are the paine of his
travail, through which, by grace, he is born into his
full manhood in Heaven. By grace, I say, but this
is anticipating.
Looking at man then as he is, we may say that
such a life as Paul lived was a higher, nobler, Diviner
life than any which was within the sinless Adam's
reach. Looking at the world, too, we see everywhere
traces that it was made to be the theatre of such
a sorrowful and struggling life as man's. It was
made before man, and for man; and, whether Mr.




32         THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
Darwin be right or wrong as to higher matters,
" struggle for life" is its broad, grand characteristic.
It sounds simple and calm enough in the sacred
record.  "In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And
God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And
God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided
the light from  the darkness.  And God called the light
Day, and the darkness He called Night.  And the
evening and the morning were the first day. And God
said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters from the waters.  And God
made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above
the firmament: and it was so.  And God called the
firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning
were the second day. And God said, Let the waters
under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and
let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called
the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the
waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb




THE BURDEN OF, EXISTENCE.           33
yielding seed, and the fruit yielding fruit after his kind,
whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed
after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was
in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the third day."
But lift the veil. Everywhere beneath is life unfolding, through struggle, suffering, and death.
Every blade of grass, every lump of stone, has been
fed by death, and feeds life, to die. This was all
ordered before man, and for man, and was set from
the first to the key-note of his life.  And it all says
plainly that the Fall was no accident which has
deranged the orderly plan of creation, calling for
some new device to repair the fracture and restore
the waste; but rather a step, the whole character
and issues of which were contemplated from the
beginning of creation, and which becomes the condition of the full unfolding of the nature of man and
the glory of God.
Did God, then, make man to sin? Is it all His
work, the.sin and the salvation?  No, we again
repeat, a thousand times, no! A sin that God made
would be no sin.  Connect it with God, and the
D




34        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
word is meaningless. A sin is the birth into the
universe of something which is not after the will of
God. Sin in man is the rising up within him of that
which, be it what it may or whence it may, he knows
is not God; for which he cannot make God responsible, and the burden of which-and here is the
anguish and horror of it-he cannot shift off from
himself. This horror and anguish are man's witnesses in all ages that sin is a stern reality which
no philosophy can explain away. The priest does
not make the burden, it is the burden which, among
the ignorant and wretched, makes the priest. Sin is,
and " by one man sin entered into the world:" it is not
God's work. "And sin reigneth unto death."  Death
is its inevitable consummation and doom.
Here, then, we have a being who has stepped out
into a development which was forecast before his
creation, who was made upon a scale which that
development, with all its bitter fruits, alone explains,
and who was placed in a world manifestly fitted to be
the theatre of that development, and yet the liberty
which he has won is simply the liberty to die. He
has risen to a lofty height qf capacity and experience;
he has sunk to a fearful depth in actual condition




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.           35
and possible destiny.  What shall we say, then?
Is it that God made a being whose first step-which,
though God did not tell him to take it, nay, warned
him against taking it, God knew that he would take
-was his ruin; a race, a world, broken from their
very birth? Or is it that the Fall, if viewed by
itself, and apart from Redemption, would be an unmeaning, and incomprehensible abortion of a Divine
idea; and that the God who made man, in the very
act of making him, took upon Himself the burden
and responsibility of a Redeemer-and thus made
him, not that he might sin, but that sinning he
might be saved.
Here the vision of Redemption opens. The first
judgment on man was the first lifting of the curtain
on the drama:-" And I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it
shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
Read at once, it was all contained in those primeval
words, the Messianic chapter in Isaiah:-" He is
despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces
from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:
D2




36         THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
yet we did esteem Him  stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of
our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are
healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath
laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed,
and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth.
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who
shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of
the land of the living: for the transgression of my people
was He stricken." —(Isa. liii. 3-8.) These words were
written in the Divine counsel before Adam was
fashioned; and when the Lord made such a race
and such a world, and foresaw sin and all its fruits,
this was the burden which He took upon His own
heart.
For sin, then, the act of transgression, God is not
to any extent, in any way responsible, save for the
creation of a being who was capable of it. But
when we pass on to consider the history of the race,
a new and more difficult problem affronts us; we




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.         37
find the Creator assuming a new responsibility with
regard to sin, the nature of which we must now
explore.
Is each new birth of a living child into our world
a new and independent experiment of freedom,
under the same conditions as that of Adam, and
happening invariably to issue in the same results?
This Pelagian view is very widely entertained, especially by those who bear the reputation of advanced
thinkers; but I confess that it appears to me to
account very feebly for the moral phenomena of the
world. The child of a vicious sire does not come
into the world as Adam came forth from the hand of
God. And the child of a long line of vicious sires?
Is there a moral crippling, which has its visible
analogue in the shaky scrofulous limbs which such
an ancestry hands down? It is a deep, dark subject,
but it is one which cannot always be put aside among
the closeted skeletons of the Church. The infant
of a thief's, drunkard's, or gambler's home finds
anything but an Eden around him in his undeveloped days. Adam's sin has changed the con,
ditions under which his children are born and grow.
Human nature, whereof we all are partakers, has a




38        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
distinct unity of its own. When we speak of humanity, we do not describe simply an aggregation of
isolated, independent individuals, who happen to
repeat, each for himself, the same experiment, and
to arrive at the same result. There is a certain
tincture which runs through the whole of it,.and
Adam made that tincture what it is. " By one man
sin entered into the world," and " by that one man's
disobedience many were made sinners."  God has so
related us to Adam that our nature, wherein we were
born, is what his sin has made it; and out of that
nature, with the first dawnings of consciousness,
transgressions come.  This condition of human
nature, out of which, as consciousness developes,
transgressions grow, and which we owe to the sin of
our head, theologians may call original sin. It is,
in many respects, an unfortunate term; but we need
some term to express the truth, that each man is not
an independent and isolated Adam, but a child of the
fallen Adam, inheriting something from Adam the
sinner, which Adam in Paradise had never transmitted to his sons. But when theologians pass on
to treat the term  "original sin" as equivalent to
"original guilt," as though with the nature guilt




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.         39
had descended; when they maintain, as is maintained substantially in all confessions which follow
the Augustinian view, that "therefore, in every
person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath
and damnation," they announce a dogma which in
its naked simplicity is simply horrible; they confound
all intelligent notions of what sin and guilt must
mean in any but theological language; and they
attribute to God, whose will it is that under this law
of inheritance children should be born into this
world, a malignant delight in punishment, which
would, were it widely current, make belief impossible to all whose special theological culture had not
specially qualified them to believe a lie.
And it is mere idleness, as we have seen, to
attempt to evade the difficulty on the ground that
the sin is Adam's work, and that God simply
recognizes and deals with it as a fact, of which He
is not the author, but of which He is bound to
take account. The sin is Adam's work, but who
established that headship, in virtue of which Adam's
nature and the fruit of his transgression descends to
his sons? The law of inheritance is God's work,
not Adam's. A man is responsible for his own




40        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
transgressions, but what he shall transmit is beyond
the sphere of his own volition. That goes acccording
to laws in the establishment and maintenance of
which he is utterly powerless, which have been
enacted and are swayed by God. If each child born
into our world brings into that world a nature which
has become what it is by the sin of Adam, it is
because God wills that under these conditions each
human child shall be born and grow. Man is powerless here; God is all-powerful to do according to His
own will. The power which made Adam could make
ten thousand Adams, and renew in each generation
the first, the typical experiment of free-will. But
God, the infinite in wisdom and in goodness, has
chosen otherwise; and He makes Himself responsible for the perpetuation of a sinful race in a suffering world. Paul's argument, in Romans v. I2-I4,
is decisive as to the relation existing by nature between
the human members and Adam, the head. Death
reigns over all; the infant, the veteran, the Jew, the
Christian, the Pagan, are alike and equally the subjects of his sway, for they alike partake of the nature
which Adam corrupted by his transgression, and
they partake of the fruit of the transgression, which




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.           4I
then attached itself to the race. But guilt is another
matter; that can attach to the individual alone, in the
deliberate exercise of his developed will; through a
wilful choosing of the evil, when the good was
plainly within his sight and choice. For what man
is, as he comes into the world and grows to the full
possession and exercise of his freedom, the Father of
Spirits makes Himself responsible. It is not that
God made a sinful nature, and ordained that man
should inherit it; but man having made a nature
sinful, God ordains that it shall perpetuate itself
after its likeness in each generation, and takes upon
Himself the burden of this natural corruption and
misery of the world.
And the burden must needs be a very awful
burden; a burden which must press heavily on the
heart of God; a burden which nothing but a great
love and a great hope could bear. There was a
moment when the pressure of the burden was
overwhelming; when what God saw on the earth was
too terrible for Him  to suffer it to endure:-" And
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually. And it repented the




42         THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it
grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the
earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing,
and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I
have made them..... The earth also was corrupt before
God, and the earth was filled with violence. And
God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt;
for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come
before me; for the earth is filled with violence through
them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth....
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second
month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day
were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,
and the windows of heaven were opened. And the
rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.....
And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of
fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all
that was in the dry land, died. And every living
substance was destroyed which was upon the face of
the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping




THE BtJRDEN OF EXISTENCE.         43
things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were
destroyed from  the earth: and Noah only remained
alive, and they that were with him  in  the ark."
-(Gen. vi. vii.)
This is a very terrible record; most terrible, if we
try to imagine the cost of this patience, which at
length was wearied, to the Being who had made
Himself responsible for the possible existence of all
this; not for its creation, but for its continued
existence, with all the reproach which it seemed to
cast on Heaven, and all the agony with which it
tormented the world. The earth was corrupt and
full of violence. The time had been when He had
looked on all that He had made, and "behold it
was very good;" and now it repented Him that
He had made it. The agony of life had become too
intolerable for Heaven to look upon, the desolation
of earth too drear.  This leads me to the main
subject of this discourse-the burden of existence,
under the conditions which, created by the sin of
Adam, have been perpetuated by the will of God.
It was a simple matter, the creation of an Eden;
a peaceful, joyous life smiled childlike in the face of
Heaven, which dropped responsive benedictions.




44        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
Full of deep and solemn gladness, we can well
believe, were those immortal spirits who watched
the pathways of the young world, and wondered and
gladdened at the beauty of the infant creation, with
its JlvPpOtuov yeiXao-Lua, and the glorious godlike form
whose hand grasped its sceptre, and ruled all its
myriad dependent orders as king. When this earth
emerged, rosy as a bride, and all begemmed with
splendours, out of the dark womb of chaos, well
might the morning stars sing together, and all the
sons of God shout aloud for joy.
Alas, that so fair and bright a promise should be
blighted so soon! We read on but a few pages in
the only record that remains to us of that primeval
time, and the earth is " full of deceit and violence,"
of woe and wailing, of bitter misery and shameful
wrong, and God repented Him of His work.
Already it had cost too dear-the cost that Heaven
chiefly recks of, the tears, and groans, and moans of
men. It is a dread world for a loving and righteous
God to create and sustain. We catch but a few faint
notes of the great monotone of pain and despair,
which goes up ever into the ear of Heaven from a
world which God made to be so blest. Do you ever




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.          45
set yourself fairly to realize what lies bare to the
eye of Heaven in the daily life and travail of the
world? We talk of houses with their fronts off,
and what they would reveal to us. Think of the
world with its veil off, and the burning eye upon
it; all, of which you catch faint and passing
glimpses and shudder, bare in its naked horror
before the eye of God. Things noble, beautiful,
and glorious, blessed be God, mingle with them,
and catch and flash back like gems through the
darkness the light which streams over it all from
on high. But there was a time when the earth was
full of deceit and violence, and when one man only
found favour with the Lord.  Picture it, when this
was the testimony of the loving and hoping Being
who made it all, and who made it to be blest.
Picture it now: take a day's walk with a city
missionary in any poor district of London, and
survey, if you can without shuddering, the filth, the
squalor, the famine, the nakedness, the sickness, the
cursing, the blasphemy, the brutality, that abound.
There are little helpless infants by myriads, shrieking
in their bitter agony of pain or hunger, to be
silenced by curses and blows awhile, till the screams




46        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
break out afresh. The tender mother's heart, on
which the great Father cast the young nurslingsmost helpless of all the infants of creation —as hard
and cold as the bare stones on which they lie,
moaning and sobbing into life. There are myriads
of poor women, sick, weary, so full of pain and heartache, that a plunge into the midnight river would be a
balmy rest, but for the little ones for whom the mother
drags herself, with stern courage, which is always on
the edge of breaking strain, through the daily sixteen
hours of monotonous toil, for a wage which just
keeps them in bread, but will not drive the wolfish
look of famine out of their gaunt faces. It is a
sight of agony to a mother's heart, the mute cry of
famine in childish eyes; and what is it to the great
Father who sent them hither, and keeps them here,
and on whom the responsibility of suffering the
existence of such misery wholly rests! I need not
multiply specimens of the life of great cities in their
Rookeries and Rag-fairs. Set before your mind's
eye all that you have seen of sin, sickness, and
misery; and multiply it by myriads, by millions.
See every great city of the world full of this, or
worse. For this is Christian England; God only




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.            47
knows-men tremble to say what they have seen of
the horrors of the life of the poor in the great cities
of the East. Picture, too, the brutal degradation,
the sullen misery of the great masses of the tillers
of the ground through the whole empire of Paganism;
the tortures, physical and moral, of the millions of
embruted slaves, who through the world are held to
toil by the whips of their hardly less brutal lords.
The myriads of living men-each of them bound as
tenderly as you are to a circle which holds them
dear, and which will be filled with anguish by their
loss-whom emperors, kings, and presidents can, by
touching a bell or signing a name, hurl against
each other in furious shock; leaving them inevitably
dashed to fragments, strewn, like the dead leaves of
autumn, on the bloody ground, while wide neighbourhoods of men wail, as once Rachel wailed
for her children, and refuse to be comforted because
they are not. Measure it all, as far as your little
line will reach-the sins of power, the woes of its
victims,
"The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes"



48        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
and remember that all which you can imagine of
human misery and wrong, is but as a pool on the
sea-shore to the great ocean; that that great ocean
is bare to the eye of God, and that ever the question is before Him-Shall I bear it yet, or destroy?
Measure this, and you will understand something of
the burden of existence, as it is felt by Him who
knows all that flows out of existence, who sees all
the raging madness, and hears all the moaning
misery of the world. And He endures it; He endures it even with the memory of Eden, for the sake
of the great hope which He cherishes of the glory
which grace may bring out of it in His eternal Heaven.
He spake not of things which He but looked down
upon from the supreme height of His serene blessedness when He said, " Behold, we count them happy
which endure." Measuring the burden of existence
under the conditions which sin has developed, we
see that the supreme endurance in the universe is
the endurance of God!
A very terrible endowment, too, is life for man.
To those who are content to dart about in the
shallows, gay in the sunlight, and catch the flies
which the stream bears down, life may be merry




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.         49
enough; and they will turn a very impatient ear to
those who speak of it as an awful endowment, and
who realize that the pressure of its burden may be
greater than a man can bear; but the gay theory
finds but little support from Scripture, and as little
from the history of mankind. The first human home
may perhaps be taken as striking the key-note of
history.  And what is the picture which it presents to us? Beauty, innocence, gentleness, faith,
dead on the cold ground, blood-flecked and ghastly;
while power, manly vigour, imperious will, stagger
forth from the childless home in a horror of remorse
and misery, moaning already in the ear of outraged
Heaven, "My punishment is greater than I can
bear." To men who live, who are not content
simply to play at living, there are moments when
life appears not only a wonderful, but a terrible thing,
a gift too awful to be forced on any man without
the consent of his free will. But He who gives it
asks no consent of us, and leaves no choice. He
calls us forth into life under conditions which sin
and death have made for us, and which He elects to
perpetuate, and He compels us to live on and to
bear the burden, till death, through death, and to
E




50        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
eternity. The burden, be it light or heavy; and
how much of the weight depends on temperament
and early nurture, with which our will has absolutely
nothing to do! There is a child of sickly or vicious
parents, born with a rotten constitution, which will
make life one long, weary strain, and nursed to a
temper which will break out through life in a ceaseless battle against society. Perhaps trained to be a
thief, taught to hate, as a child, the laws and the
order which are the securities of freedom to the
virtuous and genial, but which become iron prisonbars to the young outlaw, which will eventually cage
him, nay, crush him at last! And that man must
bear his burden as surely as the most light-hearted
of us; he may have God's help to bear it, but he
shall not lay it down. Misery drives myriads of the
weary and heavy-laden to take arms against this sea
of troubles, and, by one daring effort break from
them into the quiet sleep of death, in its quiet home
— the grave! Yes"But in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil!"
The vision of the betrayed and murdered Saviour
so haunted the brain of the betrayer, that it drove




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.           5I
him to madness. " udas went and hanged himself."
The victim of the cross was the last image which
faded from before his starting eyeball, as it glared in
its last agony here. " The Lamb as it had been
slain," was the first form that affronted him, as his
eye opened there on the visions of eternity.  "It
had been better for that man that he had never been
born."
But it is not from the world's chief criminals or
traitors that we draw our illustrations of the burden
of existence. There are true and faithful men and
women by myriads, who have felt the heart ache so
keenly, as those dearer than their own being have
passed through the veil and vanished from their
touch and sight, that every dear bond has become a
pain because of its inevitable rupture; they have to
school themselves to accept thankfully the dearest
gifts of Heaven, because of the sorrow which they
will bring with the joy to overstrained and lacerated
hearts. And, sounding the deeper mysteries of existence, he was one of the world's best and greatest,
who once cried in intolerable anguish, " 0 miserable
man than I am, who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?"  There was once, too, a grand old
E -2




52         THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
Eastern patriarch and father of his tribe, who could
paint this picture of his life:-" When the ear heard
me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it
gave witness to me: because I delivered the poor that
cried, and the fatherless, and him  that had none to help
him.  The blessing of him that was ready to perish came
uzpon me: and I caused the widow's heart to sing for
joy.  I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my
judgment was as a robe and a diadem.  I was eyes to
the blind, and feet was I to the lame.  I was a father
to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched
out." (Job xxix. II-i6.) That man, by no sin of
his own, came to utter the most awful anathema on
his own existence, which survives in any literature.
" And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein
I was born, and the night in which it was said, There
is a man child conceived. Let that day be darkness;
let not God regard it from above, neither let the light
shine upon it.  Let darkness and the shadow  of death
stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of
the day terrify it.  As for that night, let darkness seize
upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year,
let it not come into the number of the months.  Lo, let
that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.            53
Why died I not from the womb?  Why did I not give
give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?  Why
did the knees prevent me, or why the breasts that I
should suck'?  For now should I have lain still and
been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest."
(Job iii. 2-7; II-I3.) The noblest men, aiming at
their noblest, are perhaps most conscious of the
pressure. The confessions of David, of St. Augustine, of Alfred the Great, are full of a cry which not
seldom deepened into a moan, "The burden is
greater than I can bear." These are the men who
mourn most bitterly over the sin which taints the
holiest purpose, the infirmity which cripples the
manliest effort, the weariness which palsies the combatant even when battling for the noblest prize.
They see the shadow of self haunting even the
most sublime self-sacrifice; doubts of the reality of
things unseen sickly o'er the most heroic faith.
Passion, self-will, ambition, worldliness, and lust,
are still insurgent, and against them they have to
stand ever full armed on guard.  Life is to the
noblest a ceaseless, weary war against self, a self
from which they never can, in their own strength,
get free. The noblest, too, are the loneliest here.




54          THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
The world ill fits them, and they ill fit the world.
Life becomes a great longing; and if the future but
prolongs the present, if they can but see before them
an eternity under the same conditions, the burden
does become greater than they can bear. Paganism
adds its witness. Not its worst children, but its best
and wisest, are pressed most hardly by the burden of
life.  I quote two passages which appear to me to
utter with singular simplicity and intensity the cry
of the Pagan heart under the pressure. The one is
from the hot East, the other from the cold, hardy
North. The atmosphere of homely but bleak Northumbria breathes in the one, the glow of tropical
India in the other.
" Led by illusion on a difficult road, the caravan of souls
wanders in the forest of existence, thirsting for happiness, but
unable to find it. Five brigands (the senses) pillage it. Assailed
in a forest, entangled with bind-weed, grass. and bushes, the
traveller flies, carried on by his desires; tormented by the cries
of innumerable crickets, which torture his ears, and the voice of
the screech-owl that agitates his heart, he stops exhausted by
hunger near poisonous trees, or rushes toward water which
proves a mirage. Now wishing to ascend a mountain, he slips
through thorns and stones, and stops at last worn out. Here he
is seized by reptiles. Now seeking honey, is stung by bees that
produce it. Disputing with his companions, losing the goods
they take from him, he falls down on the road overwhelmed
with grief. Leaving behind those who fall, the caravan marches




THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.                55
on, dragging in its course all those who are born. Not one
ever goes back on his steps. Now the traveller clings to the
branches of the bind-weed, attracted by the songs of the birds
hidden within. He carries his chain without hope of breaking
it.  No one knows the term  of his voyage." —Bhagavata
Purana, translated by Bournouf, quoted by E. de Pressense.
Another of the king's (Edwin of Northumbria, A.D. 627) chief
men, approving of the words and exhortation of Paulinus (the
Christian missionary), said,-" The present life of man, O king,
seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to
us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper, in winter, with your commanders and
ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of hail
and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one
door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is
safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair
weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight into the
dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of
man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what
is to follow, we are utterly ignorant.  If therefore, this new
doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to
deserve to be followed."-Bede, Hist. Eccl., b. ii., c. I3.
They were wise, brave, and good men, according
to the measure of Pagan goodness, who wrote these
words. But they felt a horror of great darkness upon
them when they looked into this mystery of existence;
they saw no light; death were welcome as a bride,
if death could end it all. Annihilation is the prayer
of the Hindu heart.  It is not the brutality and
violence, but the intellect and spirit of the world,




56        THE BURDEN OF EXISTENCE.
which have fainted under the burden. The end of
all man's speculations about the nature of existence
and the mystery of its burden, has been reached in
the cry which was wrung from one of the great ones
of old, a model of uprighteousness, perfectness, and
endurance, "The burden is too heavy: loose me,
and let me go into the world where consciousness is
lost for ever, where the wicked cease from troubling
and the weary are at rest."




III.
tte  Jpre sure of tbe   3urben on  Oa
"Surely HAe hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows."
ISAIAH LIII. 4.
"GOD"  according to definitions, and "God"
according to revelation, present some startling contrasts. The God of science and the God of
faith manifest aspects which it is difficult to arrange
in harmony. It is, in a measure, inevitable that it
should be so, at least until the finite mind can comprehend the mystery of God. The Bible speaks to
us of a God who lives, loves, hopes, grieves, sympathises, angers, and repents. The Book of Nature,
read out by science, presents to us a great First
Cause, whose one calm self-manifestation is the order
of the world. The study of the law, and through




58           THE PRESSURE OF THE
the law the mind of Him who ordained it, tends ever
to enlarge and lift up our thoughts of the Being
whom, meeting Him in revelation, we are tempted
too readily to conceive of as after our own likeness.
Is it too much for the devotees of science to believe,
that the knowledge of the living Being whom revelation declares to us, is of infinite worth to them,
enabling them to struggle successfully against a
natural tendency to lose the Life in Law, the Being
in the Sum of all the manifestations of force whose
complete harmony is the universe; the order of
which universe, the revelation of the living God in
His man-ward relations, as unveiled in the Scripture,
seems to the scientific eye, at first sight, to disturb,
if not to destroy.
It is the very heart of those man-ward relations
to which I call your earnest attention now.
My positions are these:I. The Lord — electing to perpetuate the sinful
race, to endure all the sorrow which Heaven would
look upon, and the question which would fall upon
His government through the existence of a world
so full of wrong and wretchedness, in a universe
whose order was His charge —stooped at once, in




BURDEN ON GOD.              59
infinite, tender pity, to lift the burden, and to become
a fellow-wayfarer in the sorrowful pilgrimage to
which man had doomed himself by his sin.
This may seem strong language; but if redemption means anything, it means this-God sharing
from the first the burden of humanity, and taking on
Himself the full pressure of the load which He still
left to press upon the world. Remember that one
word had ended the whole experiment.  God had
created man upright, free as an angel to serve Him.
He had created him for Himself, to rule as His
regent in this inferior world. And man elected not
to be His regent. He elected to rule himself, and
to defy God. He elected a life of discord with God
and the creation; he elected to be an instrument of
confusion where God made him to be a key-stone
of order, and most righteously the blow might have
fallen, and the wrecks of the abortive experiment
might have been crushed out into the everlasting
night. None could have questioned the righteousness of the doom. The history would, in that case,
simply have been that of an abortion, buried quickly
out of sight, vanished from before the eye of the
universe for ever.




60o         THE PRESSURE OF THE
But this was not the election of Heaven. God
drove Adam forth into the wilderness, and ordained
that he should beget sons in his own image, to be
the heirs of his sinful nature, and to press on to its
final issues of misery the experiment of freedom
which he had begun. The sin being there, God
elected not to destroy the sinner, but to spare him
to be the parent of children who should work out
the problem to the fatal issue, and drink the cup of
bitterness which Adam's transgression had mingled
for man, to the very dregs.  That was God's decree.
And now imagine that the decree had ended therethat no thought of redemption had entered into the
mind of God. How if His decree had been that men
were to be born, generation after generation, to sin
and to suffer in an ever-widening circle of corruption
and misery; the race rotting morally while multiplying physically, born, nursed, and buried, in an
atmosphere of foul and fetid decay. Born, too, to
sin and suffer thus by no election of their own, dependent on another's will for their very existence,
an existence which must inevitably become a curse
to them, a curse which they would never be able to
shake off, which would blacken and deepen through




BURDEN ON GOD.              6I
eternity.  Picture this, it is a vision of horror.
Terrible as the actual life of the world has been and
is, even with the promise to light the present and
irradiate the future, the vision of a world like this,
doomed to live on without one gleam of hope, to rot
without one pulse of regenerating life, would be
purely horrible. This earth would then become the
horror of horrors of the universe, and the God who
could perpetuate a race to suffer these miseries
would be a demon rather than a God. And to man
ignorant of redemption, the author of this terrible
world-system seems to be a demon. Devil-worship
is the most powerful of the Pagan worships of the
world.
Quite other and higher, and more godlike than
man's highest idea of God, are His thoughts to
us-ward. Dooming man to the sorrowful life of the
wilderness, sparing him to sin and to suffer, and to
be the parent of others who should sin and suffer,
He stooped at once and lifted the burden which else
had been crushing; and He made man understand,
as He drove him forth from Eden, that He would
meet him in the wilderness, would share its burdens,
cares, and sorrows, and become his fellow in all but




6~2           THE PRESSURE OF THE
the sin of the life to which he had been driven forth
by his Lord.  "And unto Adam  He said, Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast
eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying,
Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy
sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;
and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the
ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art,
and unto dust shalt thou return."  (Gen. iii. I7-I9.)
I am persuaded that we make too little of the
measure in which God entered into the life of man
from the very hour of the transgression, as expressed
in the text which I have just quoted. It seems a
simple matter, " The seed of the woman shall bruise
the serpent's head, but the serpent shall bruise his
heel; " but it carries in its womb the whole history
of redemption. Not a tear, not a groan, not a weary
hour, not a toilsome journey, not a thankless gift
of the Son of Man was forgotten when that promise
was made to the race. The mother bending over
the babe in the manger of the inn at Bethlehem,
and meeting already in those young eyes a glance of




BURDEN ON GOD.              63
prophetic sorrow, which- as a sword pierced her heart;
the tear-stained, footsteps of the Man of Sorrows
along the world's sad pathways; the swimming
agony of the moment when the overstrung cords
had reached their breaking strain, and the touch of
an angel's hand enabled them to endure; the trembling, tottering steps which could hardly bear the selfdevoted victim to the scene of His last agony; the
horror of great darkness which fell on His soul,
when God incarnate fainted, died, under the weight
of the burden which He had lifted from the world;
all these were before the eye of Him who, when He
ordained that the sinful race should multiply sin
and suffering if they would, until the world was filled
with it, announced Himself as its Redeemer, and
took the crushing burden on His own heart.  In
that hour, when man was bending in shame and
anguish before Him, and tasting the bitter cup of
which the coming generations should drink the
dregs, He lifted it to His own lips. In that hour
the Redeemer of man took it from the Father's hand:
Bethlehem, Gethsemane, and Calvary, were already
there in Eden to the Saviour's heart. Then said He,
" Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of




64           THE PRESSURE OF THE
me, I delight to do thy will, 0 my God; yea, thy law
is within my heart."  Then the word was spoken,
" The cup which my Father giveth me to drink, shall I
not drink of it:" and then the strength was won
which expressed itself in the prayer, " Now is my soul
troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from
this hour. Nay, but for this cause came I unto this hour.
Father, glorify thy name."  Whatever that hour of
transgression had cost to Adam, it had cost more to
the Lord.  However heavily that life of sin and
suffering pressed on Adam, there was One on whom
it pressed more heavily, and who needed all His
Divine strength to endure. When murder broke up
the first human home, and Eve and Adam hung in
speechless sorrow over the first revelation of what
was meant by death, there was one who watched
it from on high; whose home, too, had been rifled,
whose earth already was red with the guilty bloodstains which would one day incarnadine its fairest
plains. At once, as the responsible Lord and Keeper
of men, He came forth to judge the murderer, and
to take at once a sorrowful part in pressing forward
the development of the human race. The day came
when He could endure the spectacle no longer. I




BURDEN ON GOD.                65
have already spoken to you of the Deluge, and prayed
you to imagine what burden that Fatherly heart had
borne before the day of long-suffering patience was
exhausted, and even He saw no remedy but the
stroke of doom. The record is calm, collected, and
stem as the word of a judge pronouncing sentence
of death. But we too little think of the sorrow, the
anguish, through which this stern necessity revealed
itself. "It is a ruler judging his rebels," we say;
" a swift, sharp stroke, and it is over, and his kingdom is the better and quieter for their death." Yes!
this is a part of the truth. But that Ruler was One
who, even then, had already offered that sacrifice in
His heart, which, when it was revealed at length,
appeared the very fervour of tenderness, the very prodigality of love. "God commendeth His love toward
us, in that while we were yet rebels Christ died for us."
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He
loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins."  " Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He
laid down His life for us."  The love was there in
that Ruler's heart already. Consider how fully He
shared with Noah the burden, nay, bore it as Noah
could never bear it, as He watched daily the godless
F




66            THE PRESSURE OF THE
conversation of the wicked, and saw the hour approaching when even His love could find no longer
a reason to spare.
And this, brethren, is the key to history. God was
grieved with Egypt, He was grieved with Canaan,
above all He was grieved with Israel; but it was
the old grief with which Adam had filled His heart.
Take this touching picture as the key to God's
dealings:-" I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the
Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that
the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness
toward the house of Israel, which He hath bestowed on
them  according to His mercies, and according to. the
multitude of His lovingkindnesses.  For He said, Surely
they are my people, children that will not lie: so He
was their Saviour.   In all their affliction He was
afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them: in
His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He
bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But
they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit: therefore He
was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against
them.  Then He remembered the days of old, Moses, and
his people, saying, Where is He that brought them up out
of the Sea with the shepherd of His flock? where is He




BURDEN ON GOD.                 67
that put His Holy Spirit within Him?  That led them
by the right hand of Moses with His glorious arm,
dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name?  That led them through the deep, as an
horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?
As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the
Lord caused him to rest: so didst thou lead thy people,
to make thyself a glorious name."  (Isaiah lxiii. 7 —I4.)
Even then, closer than a mother's relation to a
nursling, was God's relation to mankind. Nothing
of all the sin, the wrong, the wretchedness, which
filled earth with wailing, failed to reach and grieve
His heart.  For His love is so true and tender,
though He be the High and Lofty One inhabiting
eternity, that the tiniest human nursling is dear to
Him  as no star is dear.  "He feeds His flock like a
shepherd; He gathers the lambs with His arm, and folds
them in His bosom, and gently leads those that are with
young."  Realize what to Him has been through the
ages the burden of all this wrong and anguish with
which Adam's transgression has filled His world.
I again say that the laws by which man exists are
His work. Every human infant born into the world
comes into it ultimately from  His hand.  Each
F2




68          THE PRESSURE OF THE
moment renews the first election, to let man live on,
and see for himself that sin is deadly; to let him try
the path which he had chosen, and press it to the
bitter end. And the election is a burden, not to man
only, but also to Heaven and to God.
Suffering sin to live on and reproduce itself, with
all its bitter fruits, in the universe which He made
to be so blest, He needs must become its sacrifice;
making the atonement for the sin which He did
not on the moment crush, and bearing the burden
of the sorrow which He did not at once destroy.
And this is Divine love. It must share the sorrow
which it allows to live on, though the fountain of
the sorrow be a sin which it hates; it must lift and
bear the burden which most righteous necessities
lay heavily upon erring souls. We none of us
know, even dimly, what is meant by " Emmanuel,"
"God with us." God always with us, incarnate
from the hour when He announced Himself as the
woman's seed, and the destroyer of her foe. God
with us, our fellow in all the dread experience into
which onr sharing in the sin of Adam has driven
us; knowing Himself the full pressure of its burdens
and infinitely more nearly touched than we are by




BURDEN ON GOD.               69
everything that concerns the dark, sad history of
mankind.
II. The fellowship of God with the race in the
very hour of the transgression, infused at once a
tincture of hope into the experience of the sinner,
and made it, from the first, a dicipline unto life
instead of a judgment unto death.
We talk often rashly enough of the first curse.
The curse is on the serpent, on the ground-everywhere but on man. There is no curse to the man
who suffers in hope. The aim of God, in the hour
of the first misery of the parents of our race, was
to embreathe a hope into their wounded and stricken
hearts. The forbidden fruit, like a serpent's bite,
had struck its poison into the springs of their blood.
Their eyes were opened, a new world was unveiled,
but all was strange, and chill, and drear. They
had won a new kingdom, but they were stricken
with a death-like languor through all their blood.
It was as though they had touched its sceptre but
to die. They cowered in the coverts of the garden
wounded, smitten; they shrank from God, from
light, from all that had made the brightness of their
home. Death had already set his cold seal upon




70          THE PRESSURE OF THE
their brow; they knew good and evil, but they
knew, in the same instant, as the poison stole
through their veins, that they were beginning to
die. A great horror of dismay and anguish would
seize them as they looked forth on this new and
unknown world of which they had forced the entrance-the untrodden wilderness of freedom, on the
edge of which, by one daring act, they had set their
steps. We can understand how the darkness settled
on the soul of Adam, when he realized at length
that he had become his own master in his own
world; a world whose moral features, within limits,
he might mould and finish according to his own
will. " Ye shall be as gods." They felt, as they
gazed forth from the gate of their happy Eden, over
the wide, wild, unhomelike world, which was all
their own, how awful was the height which they
had scaled, how terrible was the endowment they
had won. As the night fell shuddering over their
first wilderness shelter, these "would-be gods"
would moan like lost children in the darkness,
and pray to be taken home again into their peaceful Paradise, and rest once more under the shield
of the visible hosts of the Lord.  But the night




BURDEN ON GOD.               7I
brought back no responses. The morning showed
them no backward path. Eden was lost to them,
and lost to them for ever.  They were out there
alone, alone, with the death-shiver already in their
blood, and around them a wilderness. And then
the promise rose like a moon on their darkness; a
soft light of Heavenly pity and love shone down on
their night of sorrow. It prophesied a dawn when
the great Sun, the Sun of their Eden, should again
rise and shine upon their world.
The promise changed at once and absolutely the
character of their wilderness discipline. Man has
been the child of hope, of a Divine hope, from the
very hour of his transgression.  The first word
which the Lord utterred to the sinner announced
the commencement of a moral struggle and effort,
the burden of which would rest on God. It would
end in the destruction of that death which had
already stricken man as its victim; and in the
opening of a new home beyond the wide, drear
wilderness, in which Eden itself would be forgotten,
its quiet happiness eclipsed for ever by the transporting joys of Heaven. As Adam took that hope
into his heart, and measured the meaning of the




72          THE PRESSURE OF THE
Divine promise, he realized that God had literally
cast in His lot with man, and was with him in the
wilderness-not watching but tending his development, not pitying but sharing his sorrow, not surveying but fighting his battles, making man's enemy
His enemy, man's hope His hope, man's deliverance,
salvation, and glory His end. Then a light holier
than the sunlight of Eden would steal over the
waste; and, ere the last gleam of the glory which
had gilded the bowers of Eden had faded, the far
distance would begin to glow with an intenser lustre,
and reveal, as Canaan was revealed from Pisgah's
crest, the broad sunlit world which was to be the
home of souls made perfect by suffering-the rest
which remaineth when all the struggle and anguish
which God had stooped to share should be ended,
and the fruits of the Divine discipline should be
for ever won.
And this hope, which rises not out of the promise
only, but out of the oldest fact in man's history, the
Incarnation, is, as I have said, the thread of light
entwined with the woof of man's experience-the
royal thread of the fabric of God. This hope, born
of God, and kept alive by Him in the darkness of




BURDEN ON GOD.              73
the world's night, is the one thing on earth and in
man which has made his life and his history something else than a long death-agony, tended by the
devil with the gospel of despair. It had been that,
but that God has planted and kept alive in the great
heart of humanity a hope which the devil has never
been able to kill, whose root is Emmanuel, God
with us. The measure in which any age or any
soul has got its eye on the light which then was
kindled, the hope which then was set before man,
is the measure in which it has been able to hold
out against the devil, and in the strength of God'
to spoil him of his prey. What this measure may
have been in the dark night of ante-Christian or
Pagan ages, is a deep mystery. We know not. It
is a dreary and, to the eye of sense, a sad historythe development of man, even under the inspiration of this fellowship of God. But the Apostle's
language in the third chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans, as well as the whole scope of Scripture,
justifies us in believing that the Redemption which
is by Christ Jesus, covers the whole dealings of God
with man, from the first hour of his history to the
last consummation. And God sees the hope, the




74          THE PRESSURE OF THE
turning to the light though feebly and from afar,
when it escapes our sight.'Elijah thought that
there was but one faithful one left in his day; God
had seven thousand who had never bowed the knee
to Baal, even in the darkest hour of Israel's history:
and He has His eye on these prisoners of hope
where we never dream of searching for them, in
every country and in every age of the world.
III. This first promise to man, this fellowship
of God with the sinning, suffering race, whose existence He perpetuated, pledged Him to the sacrifice
of Calvary, the baptism of Pentecost, and the abiding
of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, with the world.
"Emmanuel " meant -God on Calvary. There
alone could the whole hope of man be realized, the
whole promise of God be fulfilled. The God who
stooped to share the burden, must at length bear it
wholly and bear it away. Having endured sin in
the world, and before His face, having taken charge
of the future of a sinful race, He must make the full
atonement for them. He must become their sacrifice; and the sentence of death which eternal
necessities imposed, He must, if He would spare
them, execute on Himself. Sin being made exceed



BURDEN ON GOD.              75,
ing sinful by His revelation of the law, He must
endure the sentence of that law, that its sinfulness
in His sight might appear to all, and be stamped
into the history of the universe for ever. The race
which He had taken into the fellowship of His
compasionate love, being dead in sins, He must,
not teach, not guide, not help only, but quicken, if
He would save; unless He could give a new mind,
a new heart, a new life to the world, He had lifted
the burden of its sin and misery in vain. The
whole economy of grace, as we call it, the atoning
sacrifice, the quickening Spirit, the reigning Mediator on the throne, comes forth in virtue of that one
promise which changed the misery of man the sinner
into a discipline instead of a doom. From that gate
of Eden whence Adam gazed shuddering over the
wilderness, Calvary was already in sight; yea, and
beyond Calvary, on the dim outer edge of the wilderness which bore the cross on its rude breast, a
golden radiance might be seen. It was the dawning of that eternal day of Restitution, when Adam,
lost in Eden, restored in Christ, shall lead the line
of his ransomed sons, clothed in triumphal robes,
and crowned, to present them before Him of whom




76          THE PRESSURE OF THE
he was the figure, and in whom the likeness which
he lost is restored, transfigured, and glorified, the
supreme celestial form through eternity. And, methinks, even in that hour of transgression, the fallen
man might have caught the prelude of that exulting
strain, which shall break like a flood of glorious harmony, as the voice of waters, and the voice of
thunders, around the throne of the second Adam,
the Lord from Heaven, when the triumph of Calvary
is complete, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain;
blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto
Him  that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb
for ever and ever."
And then shall the Divine image be revealed in
man. In the denizen of Eden it was but in embryo.
In the pilgrim of the wilderness it was dark with
shame and foul with sin. In the Man of Sorrows,
the glory of manhood was unveiled, but the stain
of tears was upon it, and the shadow of a great
agony; in the Son of Man enthroned at God's right
hand it shall at length be manifest, in the day of
manifestation of the Son, and the sons; and then,
and never till then, shall the prophecy of the
form which was God's likeness in Eden be fulfilled,




BURDEN ON GOD.                7,7
and the universe comprehend what God meant
by Man.
And now, what is the deadly, damning sin of
man? What is it which God's mercy cannot compassionate, and God's redemption cannot save?
Not the nature which we bring into the world,
not the infirmities and sins which grow out of it.
The Lord bears witness against these in tones
which, though full of tender compassion, are full of
an awful warning, for the end of these things is
death. But these are but the fringes, as it were, of
the essentially deadly sin, the sin which man makes
for himself within the laboratory of his own life. It
grows not out of infirmities of nature, but out of
that malignant perverseness of heart into which
the indulgence of the desires of the flesh and of the
mind inevitably hardens at length.  Everywhere,
everywhen, from the first hour of man's transgression, to the last hour of the existence of the world,
"Herein is the condemnation, that light is come into
the world, but men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil."  God made man to be
redeemed; and'.'God is in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself."  The resisting that purpose,




78            THE PRESSURE OF THE
the refusing that reconciliation, the loving sin more
than the merciful Saviour, the hell of self-will rather
than the blessed and glorious Heaven which is opened
through the Gospel-this is the crowning, the damning sin, the sin from which there can be no release.
"The deaf may hear the Saviour's voice,
The fettered tongue in silence break,
But the deaf heart, the dumb by choice,
The laggard soul that will not wake,
The guilt that scorns to be forgiven,
These baffle even the spells of Heaven."
The sin of humanity is the rejection of its Saviour.
This is the sin which man knows to be his own,
the fruit of his free-will, the full, deliberate election
of his spirit, the burden of which he must bear
eternally.
The turning away from any light of God which
is shining in him, the resisting of the Holy Spirit
who is striving even in the children of disobedience,
the closing of the door of the heart against the
Light of the World, the Man of Sorrows, who is
standing there amid all its tangled weeds and
briars, and pleading for an entrance-these make
the true and final damnation. The eye which can
bear that glance without melting into tenderness,




BURDEN ON GOD.             79
the heart that remains bare and dry under the
blessed dew of that love, the form that can stand
before the Cross and make light of those dying
agonies, and can trample under foot as an unholy
thing, that most precious blood-these make the
second and utter death.








IV.
abounDing %in: ftOerabounting Orace.
" Moreover the law entered, that the offence mizght abound.
But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
that as sin  hath reigned nnto death, even so might
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal lzfe by
7esus Christ our Lord."-ROMANS V. 21, 21.
THESE words of St. Paul unfold to us some
daring as well as profound thoughts. "The
law entered that the offence might abound."  And God
sent it; God would have the offence abundant. The
sin was already there. Deep in the constitution of
humanity the poison was already working, and God
would have it developed, in broad, full, strong manifestation. The driving of evil out to the surface,
where all can see it in the broad daylight, is, as in
some deadly forms of fever, the first step towards
G




82              ABOUNDING SIN:
the cure. But there is the revelation of a daring
as well as a powerful intellect in the broad simplicity of the statement. "The law entered that the
offence might abound."  Paul had not ventured to
entertain the thought unless he had known, as no
other man has ever known, the superabounding,
the overmastering power of grace.
The infinite tenderness of God to sinners is the
broad and blessed fact of the Gospel.  To the
uttermost, to the lowest depth of wickedness and
misery, to the crumbling edge of the pit of perdition,
to the last step, the last cry, the last gasp, He is
able, willing, waiting, with intense desire to save.
God's utter hatred of sin, and His fixed determination to uproot sin, lie, if I may so speak,
underneath the everlasting Gospel. By righteousness alone, God's righteousness, can a soul be saved.
But if sin be there in the heart let it work itself out,
let the poison spread through the whole system, let
the corruption taint the whole world, then grace
shall reach it, grace shall rule it, grace shall cure
and save its victims; and so, " where sin abounded
unto death, grace shall reign, through righteousness,
unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.           83
I suppose that the problem of problems, the difficulty of difficulties, the question over which souls
have agonized through the long night, is, how can
a righteous and loving God endure and even perpetuate the existence of a world like this? God
has not made it as it is. God made man upright,
and the world an Eden. But God upholds it as
it is; a touch, a breath, would abolish its sin and
misery for ever. But it lives on; and, generation
after generation, "the cry of the human," the cry
of souls lost in darkness and writhing in pain, the
shouts of the combatants, the moans of the wounded,
the plaint of the wronged, the curses of the desperate,
are rising up into the ear of God. Glorious and
beautiful things God also looks upon; brave words,
noble deeds, angelic ministries; but at what cost?
God knoweth at what cost great deeds are done, and
great ministries are accomplished in a world like
this-and God alone! Life-the life of a human
spirit-is, as we have said above, an awful endowment. By no act of ours it comes to us. It is
forced upon us by a superior will, and struggle
as we may, madden as we may, we can never
lay it down. We must have it and hold it, and. 2




84              ABOUNDING SIN:
all the issues that spring out of it, through
eternity.
And the influences which mould it are but partially under the control of our hand. There is a
man who was educated to be a jail-bird from his
infancy.  He never had his young eye upon the
form of a nobler life. You cannot say that there
are no seeds of great thoughts and great virtues in
him. He would be torn limb from limb before he
would betray his comrade in crime. But his chance
in life has been a poor one compared with yours.
His whole life is a battle with society; he has a dim
notion that that is his vocation; and society masters
him, chains him, and will infallibly crush him at
last. Released for a moment from its iron grasp, in
a week another daring crime has brought him again
within its toils. His life is but a long misery, with
no hope. And yet that man must live, must drag on
his burden; and passionately as he may long to die,
body and soul, and have done with thought and feeling for ever-and who hears the cries that go up
from dens of vice and prison-cells?-it is God's will
that, for good or for ill, he shall bear the burden of
that life through eternity. He may mend his life;




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            85
God's mercy puts that within his reach; but one
thing God has settled for him absolutely. that if he
will not mend it, he shall bear it, bear it for ever and
for ever.
How many myriads, how many millions of men
are there, in any given generation, who, were the
choice offered to them to live on as they are living,
or to die at once, body, soul, and spirit, would
answer, " Let me die and have done with it for ever."
Annihilation has been the supreme hope of many a
creed which has had wide influence with men. And
why?  Because "Sin reigneth unto death" everywhere. Life is good: the world is fair. The storms,
deserts, and earthquakes, would have no terror for
man if there were not wilder storms and barer
deserts within. Life were blessed in such a goodly
world, if a man could but be freed from the terror of
himself. But self haunts him as a spectre. "The
things that I would, those I do not; the things that I
would not, those do I;" and the doing these things
is death. Every day, every hour, man has forced
on him the fact that, in some way, the responsibility
of which he cannot shift off on God, he is out of
harmony with his world, and in deadly discord with




86              ABOUNDING SIN:
himself. And the sin reigns. Everywhere out of
the sphere of grace, the revelation of the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, the cry is
heard, " 0 miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me
from the body of this death?"  Here, then, are men
by millions, living by no will of their own, bound to
live whether they will or no, fighting a losing battle
through life; or refusing to fight it, and giving it up
in despair, grovelling with the beasts, cursing with
the fiends, filling the world with woe and wailing,
and fattening its fairest plains with the blood of
mangled and slaughtered men. Doubtless, there are
a thousand lights as well as shadows in the picture.
Here and there, even in Pagandom, there is a gleam
of light so bright as to seem to have strayed down
from the inner glory. But looking at the broad
world, the shadow masters the sunlight. Life is
tragic. The daily lives of millions of our brother
men is such that we should shudder at the prospect
of living it. Take one day's honest service with a
city missionary even in Christian England, and judge
for yourselves. Nay, look behind the robes of the
noblest peers and mightiest princes, and see with
what heart-weariness they drag themselves through




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            87
the round of their accustomed toils.  "Sin reigns
unto death." There is the " struggle for life" everywhere; but Death, if want, disease, and misery, are
his lictors, everywhere wins the mastery, and parades
the symbols of his reign.
Death is the broad term which covers the whole
work of sin. Death is but the culmination of a
process; all that leads to it is a part of the dying.
The sickness, the weakness, the faintness of the
powers, physical or spiritual; the dulling of the
sensations, the collapse of the faculties, the satisfaction with lower and yet lower objects and pleasures,
each of them exhausted in turn, as body and soul
drop down to a still lower grade; the gradual extinction of all the energies and affections; the eclipse
of everything which makes life worth the living,
worth the having-this is death, and death is the
hall-mark of sin, and you may trace it broad and
deep over the whole human world. A world dead in
sin, yet doomed never to die-for existence under
such conditions is the most awful of all dooms.
And there is no refuge, save for a moment, in the
thought that God is merciful, and will not by too
heavy a hand of punishment make existence an




88             ABOUNDING SIN:
eternal curse to the souls who but dimly knew the
will they defied. But what is the punishment of a
spirit? What matters a lighter or heavier burden
to a man, whose chief torment is himself —the sin
which is in him, and which reigns in him unto
death. All the tortures whose forms Dante ever
chiselled in word, or Orcagna ever preached in
colour, would be gladly welcomed by the poor lost
spirit, if they could but heal the welling wound, or
soothe the gnawing misery within. The sinner
carries his torment with him-a life poisoned at the
springs, a life which God will not suffer him to lay
down; though he pray with an agony of prayer to be
rid of it, it is his, and he must bear it eternally.
Hence the raging passion, the bitter strife, the burning hate, the weary misery, that wastes the world.
It is all the hell-born reign of Death.
And Paul has the daring sentence, " The law, sent
of God, entered that the offence might abound."
Many, startled, try to soften the words. " God hath
sent the law to correct, but its result was the
increase of sin," is the sense to which they would
modify it. But the words will not bear it, and the
argument refuses to adopt it. God sent the law




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            89
that the offence might abound, knowing that it
would abound, and intending that it should abound.
Not sin-that is, the sinful thought and purposebut the offence, the act and manifestation of sin.
God intended it to abound. The poison there, it
should not lurk there; it should be pressed into full
development; it should break out in the plague-sores
of vice and misery which overspread the world;
while within, deep in the fountains of the life, He
would be embreathing by grace that quickening
power which would drive it forth, not to the surface,
but through the surface, and cast it out for ever.
This is the apostle's thought; and its affirmation is
conspicuously sustained by history.
"The law entered." "The Mosaic law," say
cautious commentators, "with all its minute regulations, difficult and impossible to fulfil, which made
men despair of legal obedience, and prepared them
to receive the righteousness which is by faith." I
think the larger view the true one. All law, all
manifestation of God's commandment, in any form,
in a sin-loving, God-hating world, has for its first
fruit the insurrection of human passion and self-will.
Every declaration of the character and the will of




90              ABOUNDING SIN:
God to sinners seems at first but to madden the
spirit and blacken the tone of their transgression.
"Sin by the commandment becomes exceeding
sinful." It is true of all dispensations of law, and
all revelations of God, even the highest. When
men saw the Father in the Son they hated Him; and
the hatred of the generation to which the revelation
was made, broke out in the most deadly, damning
crime in the history of the universe. "Ye men of
Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and
signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye
yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken,
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."  The
revelation reproved, and by reproving maddened the
sinner. Only when the grace, the love, with which
the revelation was charged, penetrated, as light, and
air, and heat, and dew, can penetrate, the hard crust
of their natures-a grace and love made conspicuous
by the abounding offence, by the master-crime, in
which the transgression culminated-only then could
men begin to understand the counsel developed in the
text. "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.              9I
abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so
might grace reign through righteousness unto life eternal
by Jesus Christ our Lord."  Every manifestation of
light at first seems but to reveal darkness. Every
manifestation of God at first seems but to deepen
and darken sin. The great revelation developed the
great transgression, and through that, "grace has
reigned, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by
Jesus Christ our Lord."  It is the way of God;
like all His ways, wonderful and past finding out.
Transgression driven to act itself out, and brought
thereby more fully within reach of healing influences.
The great transgression being the great crisis, the
grand turning-point in the moral history of the
world.  It was over the prodigal-was it not?-the
poor, barefoot, reckless prodigal come home, and not
over the correct and calculating elder, that they
sang, "It is meet that we should make merry and be
glad:for this thy son was dead, but he is alive again; he
was lost, but he is found."
Let us consider as follows:I. Grace.
II. The relation between grace and sin.




92              ABOUNDING SIN:
III. The relation between grace and righteousness.
IV. The complete and final end of God.
I. Grace.
Here are the two antagonists-grace and sin.
Both would be kings; one only has the power to
reign. Grace is not just synonymous with love,
though love is at the heart of it. It is love in a
certain relation-the love of a Redeemer working
to its ends. It represents the whole sum of the
forces and influences by which the love that would
redeem aims.at the accomplishment of its hope.
Its incarnation is Christ. The Lord Christ is the
gift of grace; the glory of Christ is the glory of
grace; at His coronation-day grace will be crowned.
" Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how,
though He was rich, for your sakes He became poor,
that ye through His poverty might be made rich."
Grace is the manifestation and action of that
fatherly love-yea, to the prodigal and rebellious
also-which could not rest in its native glory and
blessedness, while one prodigal was wandering,
hungry and footsore, in the wilderness; while one
tear was wept, one groan was uttered in the universe,
which its suffering and sacrifice might spare. It is




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            93
the love with which a father pities, and bears with,
and seeks to bring home a truant; with which a
gracious king would kill treason at the heart. A
pleading, patient, yearning love; whose only measures are the weary journeys of the Man of Sorrows
about the earth's sad pathways, and the tear-drops,
the blood-drops, that bestain His steps; the agony
of effort to endure a pressure which was beyond
all mortal bearing; the horror of darkness which
gathered round His spirit as the burden of the Cross
fell on Him; the anguish that rent, that literally
burst His heart, as the prayer for His murderers
broke from His lips, "Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do."  Ye know the grace of the
Lord Jesus, but the measure of it One only knows.
That grace is the conqueror of sin. That triumphs
where law fails. That is the force, the overmastering
force, which the Lord has WON-I use the word with
reverence, has won by sacrifice and suffering;
whereby and wherefore He bears, or seems to bear,
with such strange patience, all the wrong and the
woe of the world. He bore it, He bears it, because
He foresaw that where sin multiplied (the term
abounding is kept for grace), grace would (not




94              ABOUNDING SIN:
"much more," the term  is superlative, not comparative) very mightily, most mightily abound; so
"that as sin hath reigned unto death, grace shall reign
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord."
II. The relation between grace and sin.
I. Sin is the condition of its manifestation. No
sin, no grace, and none of that special glory which
grace alone can win-the glory of the Redemption
of the world. We are on difficult ground here; but
Paul treads with bold as well as careful steps. It is
sin that calls grace to action. Through a lost world
Christ is to win His most glorious crown. The
thought may again rise here in some minds, "Then
it is all God's work, both the sin and the salvation.
He made the sin, that He might make the salvation.
The two are His complete thought, the one essential
to the other, as two hemispheres complete a world."
There is confusion of thought here; God cannot
make sin, for it would cease to be sin if He made it.
He cannot make man to sin.  Again, it would cease
to be sin if it was the inevitable result of any act or
thought of God. He made man upright and free;
He saw the choice of freedom, He foresaw sin reign



OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            95
ing unto death. He perpetuates man, and upholds
the world in which sin riots, that grace may have
time and room. Sin being born by man's will into
the world, a higher order of things, a higher life for
man, a richer glory for God, becomes possible,
through the abounding wealth and power of that
grace which, but for transgression, had ever remained
pent up, without vent or flow in His heart. Grace
and sin are the twin antagonists; opposed as heat
and cold, light and darkness, cosmos and chaos. If
one reigns, the other is destroyed; and God suffers
sin to be born because He knows that grace can
conquer it, strip its spoils, and reign in triumph over
worlds which His victory has glorified eternally.
2. There is a glory which no fiat of Omnipotence
even can create, which grace, by the conquest of
sin, can win and wear through eternity.
No sin, no grace, and, in the highest sense, no
glory. The joy of the prodigal come home, the joy
of the father in his return; these are the glorious
joys of earth, of Heaven. Some of you have prodigals wandering far; your love clings to them still,
and draws them with a magnetism which, like all
mightiest things, is invisible, to your side.  The




96               ABOUNDING SIN:
moment when you clasp them once more and seat
them by your hearth-fire, will be the culminating
joy of your pilgrimage here. It is the earthly share
of -the great joy and glory of Heaven. God Himself
pictures it. The father had two sons.  His relation
to the one is peaceful, happy, contented:-" And he
answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I
serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment." Rights and claims are recognized on
both sides, and duties are fulfilled.  But there is no
glow about it; the light is that of a cold wintry day;
all is right, just, and sound, but there is no enthusiasm, no passionate exuberant joy filling the house
with songs. We must turn to the other picture for
that:-" And he arose, and came to his father. But
when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and
had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed
him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned
against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy
to be called thy son. But the Father said to his servants,
Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a
ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: A nd bring
hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be
merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again;




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            97
he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."
There is a child who has learnt what a father's love
is wotth by the loss of it; the value of daily bread,
by pining hunger; of the holy order of a home, by
squalor, filth, and rags. He has learnt more. He
knows now how long the fatherly heart can cling
to the wanderer; how deeply the child's image is
stamped into the father's love; how quickly the aged
eye lights up when the dear form, though in dust
and rags, appears in the distance; how, even a great
way off, the father's tenderness clasps him, and
brings him home; how the house has a new joy, the
home a new glory, when he enters it; how it rings
out a welcome, and pours its treasures at his feet;
and how the father and child restored in that solemn
and holy union, of which the bands are a father's
grace and a son's passionate tenderness and devotion, find that in each other of which the son, at any
rate, had not dared even to dream.
The one picture is Adam in Eden, the other is
Adam in Heaven.
III. The relation between grace and righteousness.  Grace must reign through righteousness, if
it reign at all.  Imputed righteousness, some cry;
H




98              ABOUNDING SIN:
inherent righteousness, others. Neither the one nor
the other, I venture to think. The Apostle has a
broader meaning, which  covers both.  Inherent
righteousness is a vain show, if it be not rooted in
a higher righteousness, in the perfect righteousness;
while imputed righteousness is a mere fiction, if no
image of itself be generated in the soul. Righteousness! Sin is the condition of grace on the one hand,
righteousness on the other. Without sin it has no
object, without righteousness it has no way to its
end. The broad principle here, and I can only deal
with the broad principle, may be thus expressed:I. None but a righteous soul can be a blessed
soul.
2. The righteousness of grace has a glory and a
blessedness all its own.
I. The righteous soul alone is blessed.
To some, grace may suggest another idea. Mercy,
compassion, gentleness, to the sinner; a kindly
passing over his transgression, and a remission of
the penalty which it had incurred. I say again, that
were feasible enough if a man's worst torment and
curse were not himself. Pardon is a slight thing to
a man who cannot pardon himself. " Go in peace,




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            99
be happy," were but an idle word to the man who
bears about the elements of a deadly discord, a crushing misery within. The man wants to be at one with
himself, by finding all his powers and passions at one
with God.  " Unite my heart to fear thy name," is his
persistent cry. " Unloose my bands and let me be
free; expel the poison and let me live." The problem to be solved is within; there the fountain of
bitter waters has to be healed. There a law of God
is inscribed on fleshly tablets, and it is exigent of its
honour; a law which tells him, with a tone which
all the voices of the universe hushing him to peace
could not master, that till he can love and begin to
live it, sin is reigning in him, and must reign unto
death.  And it is there that grace reigns through
righteousness. An inward harmony, an inward healing, an inward quickening is its promise; it presents
to him a righteousness which is as a man's righteousness, and yet is God's; a righteousness which he
can believe in and love; a righteousness not awfully,
hopelessly above him; a righteousness at hand, and
not afar off; a righteousness which, while his sad
worn heart drinks in, as deserts drink in the dew,
the love which streams from the dying sacrifice on
H2




I00              ABOUNDING SIN:
Calvary, enters with love's " joyous entry," and
enshrines itself in his heart.
2. The righteousness which is by grace has a
glory and blessedness which is all its own. Grace
reigns through righteousness; it is a joyous, glorious
reign. The work of grace is to shrine righteousness
in man's heart of hearts; to teach him not to obey
it only, not to honour it only, but to love it; to love
it with a passion that would die for it, as He
loved it whose coronation anthem thus was sung:" Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of
righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.  Thou hast
loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God,
even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness
above thy fellows."  It is not the shadow of His own
perfect righteousness, which is unto all and upon all
them that believe, which God seeks to behold everywhere. Not the shadow, but as it were the branches,
spreading everywhere with a heart of life in them,
and filling with living greenness the world. The
righteousness came and was incarnate, that men
might love it, yea, with a lover's passion. Loving
Christ, clasping Christ, it is God's own righteousness which man loves and holds.  Through love, he




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.           IOI
has a joy in all righteous thoughts and righteous
deeds, which is part of his joy in Christ his Saviour.
It is the Lord's life, into the fellowship of which he
is entering; it is the Lord's great end which he is
learning to pursue; it is the Lord's glory, the glory
of the Redeemer, whose love has won a world to
righteousness, whose lustre he is making more intense and resplendent; it is the Lord's joy, the joy
of Christ in His righteous redeemed ones, of which
He is filling the high measure through eternity.
Grace can only bless through righteousness.  The
righteousness of grace has a glory and a blessedness
all its own.
IV. The complete and final end of God. "Unto
eternal life."
Death is simply isolation. The cutting the body
off from free communion with its world. The eye
can no more drink in the sunlight, the lungs the
vital air, the stomach the vital food. They are there
all around it, but it is dead to them, cut off from all
communion and ministry. Thrown on its own internal resources it preys on itself, wastes itself until
there is no more to waste, and then drops down into
the rottenness and nothingness of the grave.




I02             ABOUNDING SIN:
And what is life? The opposite of isolation. It
is the faculty of communion with all things-receiving their tributes, and repaying them with fruits.
The intensity of this power of communion-of the
eye to commune with the light, of the ear to commune with the music of the world, of the lungs to
draw down into the deep recesses of the frame the
universal air-is the measure of the life of the body.
Nor is it otherwise with the life within. The soul's
death is the paralysis of its faculty to all that a soul
was made to commune with, till it becomes without
truth, righteousness, and holiness, without God and
without hope, because without life.  The soul's
quickening is the rekindling of the energy of its
powers, the re-occupation of the glorious range of its
faculty to commune with, to possess, and to enjoy
all that God has made a soul to live for, all whereby
a soul may live eternally.
The work of grace is as the baptism of a new life
for man. The eye kindles again when it feels the
inspiration, the blood glows, the limbs and organs
of the spirit brace themselves to new vigour and
swiftness, while a solemn joy fills the heart, which
is unspeakable and full of glory. Alive to God! alive




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.            IO3
to all this goodly universe! alive to all the splendour
and bliss of the new creation, which God will bring
forth from the womb of the death to which all things
haste that they may rise transfigured; above all,
alive to Him! This is the vision which He sets
before Himself, beyond all the woe and the wrong
of Time. The innumerable company of the living,
living as He lives, and able to live like Him, who
shall come forth from the great tribulation of earth,
to fill His New Jerusalem with songs, to crowd His
new creation with sons; prodigals come home, who
shall love Him with a passionate devotion, and
serve Him with a joyous energy, whose springs
shall renew themselves at the fountain of His love
eternally:-" And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on
the mount Sion, and with Him  an hundred forty and
four thousand, having His Father's name written in their
foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the
voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder:
and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:
and they sung as it were a new song before the throne,
and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man
could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four
thousand, which were redeemed from the earth."  One




104             ABOUNDING SIN:
hundred and forty and four thousand; a square number, symmetrical with the Divine idea.  How far
that idea stretches who shall dare to guess? There
is the vision.  " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain;"
there is the song. This is what the Saviour sees
and hears beyond the wastes of time. And then,
then, when the whole company is gathered home,
and the Father's house is ringing with the songs of
the return, then will all which has filled the earth
with wailing be forgotten; then will He who bore
the shame and agony of Calvary see of the travail
of His soul and be satisfied; then will the memory of
the joy and beauty of Eden be eclipsed for ever in
the excelling splendour and bliss of Heaven.
"Lord, are there few that be saved?"  The Lord
gives no answer but the text. This we know, that
the end which God foresees shall repair all the
waste, and repay all the sorrow with which sin has
filled the world. How wide, how vast, how glorious
this work of overabounding grace, which of us may
dare to guess?  " But strive thou to enter in at the
strait gate." The end for which the Redeemer is
waiting, the issue for which Heaven is hoping, depend in their measure upon you. You can frustrate,




OVERABOUNDING GRACE.           I05
you can forward the great consummation.  You can
cross, or you can carry into more glorious completeness, the eternal counsel of the Father, that " where
sin abounded grace should much more abound; that
as sin had reigned unto death, even so should grace
reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus
Christ our Lord."
Have you learnt the notes of that new song which
none but the redeemed can know? Is Christ the
joy and hope of your being? Is freedom from sin,
a larger, freer, purer, more Christlike life, the one
pining desire of your heart? Be patient, then, and
still brace yourself to hope and to endure. Fight
the good fight of faith; endure the hardness of the
present discipline; lift the cross and bear it bravely
to the end; for God's eye foresees the day which
from yours is veiled, the day of universal deliverance,
the day of restitution of all things, the day of the
unveiling of the new creation, where grace, having
cast out sin, shall have enthroned righteousness for
ever-the day of the manifestation of the sons of
God.








V.
CCbe Penitent's Creen.
" He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, I have
perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He
will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life
shall see the lzght."-JOB XXXIII. 27, 28.
I NEVER open the Book of Job without fresh
wonder at the wealth of Christian thought and
feeling which it contains. There is a deep sense
in which Christianity is older than the Incarnation.
The Word was from the beginning, not in solitary
majesty and splendour, but "rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with
the sons of men." The day is older than the dawn,
because the sun is older than both of them. The
grand thoughts about God and man, about the soul,
truth, righteousness, and holiness, which Colenso




I08         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
and other searchers may find embedded in the mud
of Pagan literature, mark the early dawning of that
light of the sun of truth, the living Word, whose
beams were in the fulness of time to shine with
meridian splendour on the world. But man was
made to live, not in the dawn, but in the daylight.
The fact that there were foreshinings of the Advent,
heralds of the expected One in all nations, but made
it the more certain that the Desire of all Nations
must at the appointed time appear.  But there is
one fountain both of the dawn and of the daylight;
and what gleams of truth were shooting athwart
the darkness of the Pagan sky, were the rays of
that advancing sun.
Among the books of the Old Testament, in which
the light was openly enshrined, none seems to me
to shine with a fuller, steadier lustre than this Book
of Job. It seems to lift itself high above the level
of the surrounding darkness, and to catch, while
night is on all the desert, the full glow of that
dayspring which was rising to irradiate the world.
The thoughts of it, the very idea of it, are Christian to the core. The Word, who was with God,
but who was in the world from the beginning, was




THE PENITENT'S CREED.           IO9
with the man who wrote this book. It is Divine
truth which it utters, it is Divine wisdom which it
unfolds, it is Divine love which it reveals, as behind
all the struggle and the suffering which God sends
for the discipline of mankind. Nowhere is there a
grander, clearer cry for a Mediator than in the sublime passage, " For He is not a man, as I am, that I
should answer Him, and we should come together in
judgment.  Neither is there any daysman betwixt us,
that might lay his hand upon us both. Let Him take
His rod away from me, and let not His fear terrify me:
then would I speak, and not fear Him; but it is not so
with me."  And nowhere is there a more comprehensive description of his qualifications and office
than in the very chapter from which I have taken
my text.  "Behold, I am according to thy wish in
God's stead: I also am formed out of the clay. Behold,
my terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall nmy
hand be heavy upon thee."  There are those who believe that Elihu is the Mediator. That the Angel
who dwelt in the bush, who was with the Church
in the wilderness, with Joshua before Jericho, with
Gideon by the threshing-floor, was, in the person
of Elihu, with the patriarch-the daysman, the




IIO           THE PENITENTTS CREED.
man who could lay his hand upon both, the Emmanuel of Job. I cannot accept that view. Elihu
is humanly partial and imperfect like the rest.*
He has the freshness, the fire, the frank honesty of
youth; while genius gives him an easy superiority
over the dry moralities and antiquated formularies
of the friends.  But he falls short of the highest
wisdom, though he is inspired to utter some of the
deepest, truest, most blessed thoughts which are to
be found in the whole word of God. There is the
whole philosophy of mediation in the passage which
I have just quoted. There is the whole philosophy
of penitence in the text. The essential principles are
all here. I know not anywhere a fuller exposition
of the act of the soul in repenting than these words
set forth.  "He looketh upon men, and if any say, I
have sinned, I have perverted that which was right,
and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from
going into the pit, and his life shall see the light."  I
shall ask you to consider with me,
* There is a disposition now among critics, to regard Elihu as
an interpolation. The reasons urged on critical grounds seem
insufficient, while the book would lose a very important part
of the argument if he were withdrawn.




THE PENITENT'S CREED.          III
I. The creed of penitence.
II. The confession of penitence.
III. The fruit of penitence through the redeeming mercy and grace of God.
I. The creed of penitence.
I. An absolute good and evil, right and wrong.
There are those in whose sight the burden of a
guilty conscience is but a bad form of hypochondria.
The agony of a soul under a sense of its sin, of
the tyranny which it exercises, and the misery
which it works, is for such but a morbid condition
of the system; as Mr. Emerson somewhere says,
" The mumps and measles of the soul," needing a
wise physician, rather than the blood of atonement;
time and a good constitution, rather than a Divine
cure. There are many able men in our country at
this day, " who profess and call themselves Christians," and who take a busy part in all the higher
activities and movements of our times, who simply
smile at the experience of a guilt-burdened sinner;
who, if you speak to them  of the witness of the
human conscience to God's righteousness and holiness as demanding an atonement-of the impossibility of peace, except on the conditions which God




II2           THE PENITENT'S CREED.
has laid down in His word-of the unrest and misery
of a spirit which, conscious not of transgression only,
but of a fatal proneness to transgress, not of sins
only but of sin, has never been brought by faith
into the peace of God-will tell you that it is a
mere delusion, a morbid moral state, to be treated
seriously and even reverently as a solemn reality to
the sufferer, but having no other reality, no ground
in the mind of God toward the sinner, and the way
of God in the forgiveness of souls. They tell us
that if a man can but feel that all this care and pain
is foolish and useless, throw himself on the simple
goodness of God to forget the past, and strive to do
better for the future, that is all that God requiresthen all is well, all is peace.
It is not the creed of the penitent; and while
the world lasts, the penitent's creed will express
the conviction and feeling of mankind.  "For all
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
"There is no man that doeth good, and sinneth not."
"Enter not into judgment with thy servants, 0 Lord
God, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified."
"Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before
thee, and I am no more'worthy to be called thy son."




THE PENITENT'S CREED.           I13
At the root of this creed lies the conviction which
I am considering in this head of my discourse.
Right and wrong, good and evil, are fixed and absolute opposites. Opinions of men may vary, the
good of one country may be the evil of another,
the right of one age may be the wrong of the next,
but the things themselves do not vary; they abide
immutable, because there is One who knows them
and before whom they are real, who abides immutable; and they, receiving not sanctions or
judgments from men, are the judges of men, and
settle it absolutely for men whether it shall be well
with them or no. A Malay may believe that it
is good to be a thief, so that the thieving be done
cleverly. An Englishman may believe that it is
good to be honest. It is not a matter of indifference
to the inner as well as to the outer life of the
one and of the other whether they change convictions or no, -so that they adopt them thoroughly.
The one stands so far square with the law which
rules the great universe, in tune with all things
around him, and in the way of their blessings;
while the other is in contempt of that law, in collision with all realities around him, seen and unseen,
I




II4         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
and in the way of their curse. The devil may try
to persuade us it is all one.  It is two, and two
for ever. There is a right which is God's rule in
the soul, and in the universe; there is a wrong
which is the devil's counterfeit of God's rule. All
the force of Heaven, were it put forth, could not
make the wrong beautiful and blessed; all the force
of Hell could not make the right foul and accursed.
The one remains the principle of order and the
fountain of blessing to all intelligent creatures, the
other the source of sorrow and the principle of discord. For them to change their essential natures
is as impossible as for God to change. Equally
impossible is it for man to escape their judgments.
He that doeth righteously shall be blessed, he that
doeth unrighteously shall be cursed, in any age, in
any country, in any world. The idea that it does
not matter much what a man believes so that he
believes it heartily, justified as it seems to be by
the number of good men of all creeds that you meet
with, cannot stand. In the first place, it is impossible in a large sense of the term, in the only
true sense of the term, to get at the whole creed of
a man. Just as there are unwritten laws which




THE PENITENT'S CREED.          II5
have their sphere of power, so there are unspoken,
unspeakable beliefs haunting the inner chambers of
every man's nature, which make his uttered creed
a very partial representation of that belief which
moulds his life. Then practically, and very much
in virtue of these unspoken beliefs, a man's formal
creed, that by which you label him in your catalogue, may bear a very imperfect relation indeed
to his moral and spiritual state before God as a
lover of truth and righteousness. He may be better
or worse than his creed would justify you in supposing, and in spite of it. Again, there are limits
of divergence of opinion and judgment on moral
and spiritual questions, within which their effect on
the character, though real, is as difficult to trace
as a law of storms in the variable belt of the world's
atmosphere; while beyond those limits you may
trace the reflex action of belief very readily indeed.
You may say in the same way of a healthy man,
that it does not much matter what he eats. There
are limits within which it is true; but if he take
to straying beyond those limits and eat arsenic
or nightshade, it matters everything; it becomes,
even to the healthiest, matter of life or of death.
I 2




ii6         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
and thus it is with the right, the good, and the
true. They are absolute and unchangeable in their
essence. Man does not make them. The solemn
expression of the opinion of a world cannot unmake
them. All the forces of the universe would be too
weak to bar an obedient soul, nation, or world, from
their blessing, or to shield the disobedient from
their curse. To believe this is the first step to a
true penitence. Until a man sees this in all its
grand and awful reality, his penitence is but the
fright of his ignorance at the shadow of itself.
2. I have perverted that which is right.
This is the second article of the penitent's confession of faith, and full of dark meaning, as those
who have passed through the agony know full well.
" I have perverted." The anguish of that "I" on a
penitent's lip! No man knows what "I" means,
but the man who has felt himself isolated from God
by transgression, alone responsible for it, alone
bound to bear it, a solitary soul in a universe of
solitude; for of all the thronging myriads of beings
who fill it, there is not one who can lift, or even
share, the burden of his sin. It is the transgressor
who knows what the burden of existence is, laden




THE PENITENT'S CREED.          117
with a weight which he must bear though it crush
him, the burden of which he cannot cast on God.
We cannot wonder that in all ages the intellect of
man has made even desperate attempts to escape
from this dread solution, and to connect with God in
some way the burden of his sin. "I have perverted
the right." What means this "I?" Did not God
make it, and is not God responsible for it? If the
right is of God's making, who in the universe can
mar? Philosophy has pressed these questions in
more or less subtle forms on the intellect of each
generation, but ultimately it is all summed up in the
question in which St. Paul concentrates it, " Who
hath resisted His will?"  "I am what God has made
me. I can but do what God has made me to do.
There is, there can be, no such thing as freedom.
God is absolute and omnipotent in the universe;
there is, there can be, but one will in the universe,
or God ceases to be God." This is the barest form
of the Pantheistic argument against moral responsibility, and consequent excuse for sin. According
to this philosophy, there is, strictly speaking, no
such thing as sin. Man sins like a sullen dog, or a
vicious horse. It is a fact about him, a very note



II8         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
worthy and unpleasant fact to others it may be, but
that is all. He is a creature of infinitely higher
endowment than dog or horse, and touched to
infinitely finer issues, but still he is no more than
the finest stop in that great organ, the creation,
which gives forth its music under the breath and
the hand of God. The penitent sweeps all this to
the winds. It may be very difficult to square the
conception of moral freedom with any definitions of
God in the abstract which satisfy the intellect, but
the penitent is not stopped by the difficulty. Arguments as to what God can do or cannot do, as to
whether freedom is a possible or an impossible
conception in any intelligent scheme of the universe,
are to him but as filmy gossamer before a strong
man's tread. When the soul first sees the Divine
lawgiver, and asks itself the momentous questions
on which hang its eternity, the "I" is the dread
reality. One thing is clear to him as the sun at
noon, that there is that within him which, whatever
it may be, distinctly is not God. This "I" is the
reality which millions of hopeless Buddhists at this
moment supremely dread. "O God! could I but
get away from myself; might I but lose it, lay it




THE PENITENT'S CREED.          II9
down, let it be absorbed in thee!"  But God is not
the sinner, and the sinner knows it. Sin isolates
him, sets him apart; and God teaches him, through
sin, what is meant by " himself." He finds that he
is a being having within himself the springs of his
eternal woe or weal, bound to live on while God
lives, with a burden which he must bear, though it
crushes, torments, and curses him; to get rid of
which he will fling himself under the bloody wheels
of Juggernaut, or into the sacred stream, but which
he finds again, in the first moment of consciousness
beyond the river, heavier, more, crushing than ever,
and which he must lift and bear eternally.
Do you know what it is to hate yourself, and yet
to feel that you can never get rid of yourself? You
might tear yourself bit by bit till every fibre and
thread of your wondrous texture is unravelled; not
a particle as big as a grain of dust may survive of
what seemed to be you; and yet you, the " I" in you,
survives it, and smiles scornfully on the wreck. The
penitent, at any rate, knows that there is something
within him which is not God, which is capable of
resisting God, of perverting that which is right in
the sight of God, of becoming an object of repulsion




I20         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
to God, the word of whose nature as well as of
whose lips is, inevitably, "Depart from me, ye that
work iniquity."  That power is in me, and I have
used it. I have perverted that which was right. I
have seen the right, and chosen the wrong, and I
knew that I, and not God, was making the choice,
and that I was choosing in spite of God. In the
clear daylight of truth I have followed vanity and
lies, and they have led me down into darkness and
the valley of the shadow of death. I have corrupted
the spring of my spirit's innocence and purity; I
have established a propensity which drags me down
ever lower and lower towards the pit. The light is
there, but behind me. I am leaving it; daily it
grows dimmer, and the darkness is gathering round
me. God! "thou art justified when thou speakest,
and clearwhen thoujudgest."  Thou hast witnessed,
thou hast striven. I have resisted; I have perverted
that which was right, is right, and will be right for
ever. My blood is on my own head. My sin lieth
at my door. I must answer it before the Judge.
3. And it profited me not.
It is the third and final article of a penitent's
creed about sin. " What profit have ye had in those




THE PENITENT'S CREED.            I2I
things whereof ye are now ashamed, for the end of those
things is death?  "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH."
Many a reckless sinner goes on madly in his career
of transgression till ruin stares him in the face, till a
sight of the deadly dart, wielded by a ghastly hand,
brings him to a pause. Perhaps he feels its cold
point grazing against the shuddering flesh, and
shrinks back appalled. " IT PROFITED ME NOT." If
any other confession than this were possible for a
sinner in the long run, and after full experience of an
evil way, it would simply mean that the righteous
God had ceased to be the ruler of the world. Can
sin stand the test of possession? Is it proof against
satiety? Given its end, can it rest in it and be
blessed? If it can, then the Atheist is right: there
is no God. For this test of profit is the ultimate
test to which everything will be practically brought.
If a man can solemnly feel that he is more blessed
in serving the devil than in obeying God; that every
power of his being finds its freest and most joyous
development, and every latent faculty its truest
education, in that work: that every pulse of pleasure
is exhilarated, and every throb of pain soothed and
stilled thereby; that his peace is perfect and his




I22         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
Heaven serene; that he glories in the service, and
asks no better than to live by it, and to die by it-I
say, if this could be the solemn testimony of a
man's spirit in a life of sin, it would be hard, by
any abstract demonstrations about righteousness to
get him to change it for what you might think a
higher and a nobler way. He:-saith, "The old is
better." It fills him with blessedness; it inspires
him with hope; why should he change? But while
God lives, this blessedness is absolutely impossible
to sin. God witnesses by word against the essential
nature of evil; His law denounces it as hateful in
His sight.  And He witnesses against it by its
fruits. These, at any rate, shall bear testimony for
the Ruler; these, at any rate, shall obey His will.
Here we touch the limit of the free-will of man. In
self-determination he is omnipotent; he is powerless
as to results. What a man wills, too, he may do.
God places no obstacle to his doing anything which
he may please, which is within the wondrous compass
of his powers. There is nothing whatever to hinder
his resolving to strike a knife into the heart of the
next man that he may meet; and but little to hinder
his doing it.  But there his power ends-God's




THE PENITENT' S CREED.        I23
power begins. Laws are at work, in whose grasp
he is powerless, which drag him to prison, and hang
him at length as a dog for his crime. There is
nothing to hinder your resolving to go out and spend
the night in a foul debauch, and but little to hinder
your doing it. The means, alas! are at hand all
round you-you can go. But, then, nothing can
help your going forth on the morrow with a pallid
face, a sodden eye, a shaking hand; sick and heartsick; unstrung, unmanned; feeling and looking
like a beast. You can go this moment if you will;
that is your power. You must suffer shame and
wretchedness for it; that is God's. You can, if
you like, be a bear in your home. You can make
your wife tremble at the sight of you, and your
children cower or shrink into dark corners from
the kick or the curse, which is the only greeting
that they know. But no power of yours can help
your home being a bear-garden; your wife sullen,
dirty, reckless; your children deceitful, vicious,
indolent; and your soul a very hot-bed for forcing
into early fruitage vice, misery, and despair. You
can do the one, God does the other; and He asks
you to balance the account. Settle it fairly you




124         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
shall. You do your will as to actions, He will
have His will done as to results. And He asks
you to look at the balance. Does it tempt you to
go on? I know that it is dead against you. You
are bankrupt already. It must be so inevitably,
unless your arm be stronger than God's. Here is
the hold which God keeps on men. They may
sear out the lines which He inscribes on the fleshy
tablet of every heart as witnesses to Him and to
His truth; they may harden their hearts and
deafen their ears to every direct appeal from Heaven.
He may thunder His commandments in vain. But
so long as men can suffer He can reach them;
so long as they can feel the thorns and the goads,
He can make them  understand the deadliness of
sin. So long as there lurks one faintest desire for
the happiness which man was made to seek and
enjoy, there is something which God can lay hold
upon; there is a hook in the nostril of the foulest
passions, the fiercest lusts, by which there is a
hope that He may tame them and make them submissive to His will.
Such is the theory. And now let us apply the
practical test of it. What fruit have you had off




THE PENITENT'S CREED.             I25
this tree of sin? You have known something of
the great realities of life; some of you have travelled
far on the pilgrimage; you have plucked fruit enough
off this tree to know well what it is worth.  I see
grey hairs here, and furrowed brows. Experience,
life's cares and sorrows, have chased those lines.
Your witness would be worth something. Is it for
God or for the devil? Lift up your hand now and
tell us, Is sin the loved and honoured mistress of
your lives? Is the remembrance of all that sin and
self-will have done for you so sweet that you ask no
better than to love their ways, and to follow them
for ever? Do you glory in your service, and in its
fruits? Do you set yourself forth as a witness of
how blessed a thing it is to grasp, and hoard, and
drink, and game, and hate, and lust. One testified
of old thus, concerning the ways of God: "Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the
seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of
the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and
night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers
of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his
leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth




I26         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
shall prosper."  " The righteous shall flourish like the
palm  tree: he shall grow  like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall
flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring
forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;
to show that the Lord is upright: He is my rock, and
there is no unrighteousness in Him."  Are you ready to
set yourself forth in opposition, as a witness of the
goodness of the ways of sin? Look round you.
Search the neighbourhood of your own home. Is it
the drunkard, the roysterer, the lazy, idle, tattling,
guzzling workman, whose home seems to you most
cheerful, bright, and happy? Don't you think that
you could go through any neighbourhood, and put a
mark on the doors of the sober, steady, industrious,
God-fearing men and women? Would you not
know them in a moment by the peace, the order, the
cleanness, the comfort that reign within? Why,
homes are just like faces.  Some have a cheery
smile, some have a sullen frown. Some look just
like a drunkard. He is there staggering home,
with hot, flushed face, truculent eye, and lowering
brow. You see that he is going home to kick and
to curse, and to do worse things, of which drink is




THE PENITENT'S CREED.          127
at the root. The man's home is like his face; God
makes the devil set his mark upon it, and the mark
says to all men, " Beware." And there is the neat,
tidy, comely, happy-looking housewife, who has just
swept the hearth, given the children the last touch,
and set the table for her hard-working husband's tea.
Her house smiles and shines as well as her countenance. God sets His own mark there, and every
one who looks upon it feels that there is something
there which inspires confidence and hope. Can you
deny that in the long run the devil's service sets its
mark on men, a mark which all men instinctively
shrink from? The miser, the wanton, the drunkard,
the idler, get a look which even the least observant
note, and beware. I suppose, too, that even the
most ardent votaries of pleasure will confess that its
pursuit is its chief charm. The world's good cannot
stand the test of possession. There is a burning
thirst, an insatiate longing, with which it fills the
soul; it cries ever, " Give, give, give." Nothing can
stay the cry, nothing can stifle it, and least of all
success. One world conquered, it moans restlessly
for another. The larger the conquest, the larger
the pain. No man can rest in acquisitions. To




I28         THE PENITENT'S CREED.
acquire is his instinct, and, as he heaps to himself
worldly treasures and pleasures, and is insatiate
still-still longing, still pining-the thought will
steal on him, "I have made a grand mistake, the
grand mistake. I have all I aimed at; I have spent
my life in the acquisition, and it profiteth me
nothing-a great heartache is all that I have
gained. I have aroused a thirst which a universe
of possession cannot satisfy. My doom is the doom
of Tantalus. The waters are round me, but when
I stoop to drink, they vanish; the dry, hot sand
occupies their room. The boughs loaded with rich
fruit are above me; but when I lift my hand in the
agony of my hunger, they sweep up beyond my
reach.  Is there any good?  Is there anything
which profiteth anywhere? Is there anything in
the wide universe which a man can possess and
be at rest?" The answer to the question is —the
Gospel. Man has an infinite in him, something
which he caught from the inspiring breath of God.
Nothing with limits can satisfy him finally; in God
only can he find his end and be at rest. " Ho, every
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that
hath no monzey; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy




THE PENITENT'S CREED.             I29
wine and  milk without money  and  without price.
Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not
bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?
Hearken diligently unto me, and eatye that which is good,
and let your soul delight itself in fatness."   "Then
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from  heaven; but
my Father giveth you the true bread from  heaven.
For the bread of God is He which cometh down from
heaven, and giveth life unto the world.  Then said they
junto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And
Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that
cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth
on me shall never thirst."
I have sketched the creed of the penitent. The
confession of the penitent, and the answer of God,
which is the penitent's Gospel, I shall handle in the
next discourse.
" If any say, I have sinned, I have perverted that
which was right, and it profited me not; He will
deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life
shall see the light."








VI.
Cbe tPenitent's  ropei.
"' He looketh iuton men, and if any say, I have sinned, I have
5erverted that which was right, and it jrofited me not;
He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his
lzfe shall see the light."-JOB XXXIII. 27, 28.
THE first verse contains the penitent's creed;
the second, the substance of the Gospel. "I
have sinned, I have perverted that which was right,
and it profited me not."  It is the whole confession
of human sin, its reality, its essence, its fruits. This
book touches the depths-the depth of man, the
depth of God. Its writer had the longest plummetline which the men of old time were able to drop
into the abyss of the Divine counsels. He gauged
the mystery, though he could not solve it: the key
K2




I32         THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
was not with him, though he could instruct us
where to look for it-in the daysman who should
explain and justify, as the God-Man alone could
explain and justify, the dark and far-reaching
methods of the Fatherly discipline of God.  I regard the cry for a mediator, with which the Book
of Job seems to me to be charged, as one of the
chief of those " spiritual things " in the Old Testament Scripture, which, be the difficulties of these
records what they may, make the Old Testament
one book with the New. We do not find it simply
in an isolated passage in this ancient drama of
sorrow; it runs through the whole of it, and is in
some sort its key. Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar-the
sages charged with the hoary wisdom of- the pastthe young and brilliant Elihu, full even to distention
with the new wine of genius, and freighted with
the eloquent wisdom of the present, offer themselves
successively as God's expositors. But the sufferer
will not hear them. His cry is "for God, for the
living God," and this is the real essence of the book.
On this, as the spinal column, the whole form depends; for books may be vertebrate as well as men.
The cry grows more earnest as the pitiless mongers




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.          I33
of orthodox platitudes are successively silenced, and
it is answered at length by the appearing of the
Lord himself. He came with lightning and tempest, and out of the whirlwind the awful challenge
broke. But still He came. The cry was heard, the
daysman appeared; the passionate appeal of this
agonized spirit was not stifled, but answered; and
a prophecy of the Incarnation was given to the
world.
Sin, confession, and forgiveness or rather restoration, are the themes of these verses; and they are
treated with a brevity and simplicity, but at the
same time with a profound truth and completeness, which is characteristic of all the spiritual
utterance of the book. "If any say, I have sinned."
That implies fundamentally that evil is not of God.
The penitent has broken through all the webs of
sophistry which the cunning intellect spins to hide
from the fallen spirit the reality of its guilt and its
doom. The dreary philosophy which includes sin
as a part of God's arrangement of the universe,
merely the necessary relief and foil of goodness,
the night as the back-ground of the day-destroying man's responsibility, and making God unright



I34         THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
eous who taketh vengeance-to him is a mere
wilderness of words. He knows that there is a right
and a wrong, wide as the poles asunder. "There
was no confusion," he says, "in my mind about
them, there was that within me which testified
what was of God and what was of the devil; I
saw the right, I knew that it was right; a spirit
within me said,'Choose the right and it shall be
well with thee,' and I chose the wrong. Again,
again, again, in spite of the light of God, in spite
of the spirit of God, in spite of my own convictions, and in the face of my knowledge of the end,
I have said to evil,'be thou my God,' to sin,'be thou my delight,' to the world,'be thou my
bride.' I have perverted that which was right. I, in
the full exercise of the freedom of my manhood;
have done it, and I must bear the burden and meet
the doom. I dare not say that God tempted me
to evil, I dare not say that the devil forced me.
I have done it. I have made evil a part of my
being, I have taken its virus into the springs of my
action, I have brought its taint into the currents
of my blood, and I have to bear it, if there be no
deliverance, while my being endures. Schoolmen,




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.            135
cease your wearisome chatter about freedom and
necessity, about the sense of sin being the mere
hypochondria of the soul; I have it here within
me, and I know too well its realness. Every statement which God makes finds emphatic echo within
my being. I have a serpent within me, I have a
weight upon me, which I-for of all beings in God's
universe, my sin belongs to me alone-must bear
for ever, unless there be some power which can renew my life in its innermost springs."
"And this my sin has profited me not." It is
inevitable that it should be so.  Sin is a battle
against the living Maker and Lord of the Universe; what profit can that struggle bring? "He
is wise in heart, and mighty in strength; who hath
hardened himself against Him, and hath prospered?
Which removeth the inountains and they know not:
which overturneth them in His anger.  Which shaketh
the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.
Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and
sealeth up the stars.  Which alone spreadeth out the
heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea.  Which
maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers
of the south.  Which doeth great things past finding




I36         THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
out; yea, and'wonders without number. Lo, He goeth
by me, and I see Him  not: He passeth on also, but I
perceive Him  not. Behold He taketh away, who can
hinder Him? who will say unto Him, What doest thou?"
If sin in the long run can profit a soul-if it can fill
it with peace and joy, and inspire it with courage
and hope-if it can make the soul honour its service
and covet its wage-then the righteous Lord hath
ceased to rule the universe, the dark power has
conquered, the reign of night and chaos is restored.
"But I cannot," cries the penitent, "make this
confession. I know not the sinner who can make
it. My confession is, that'it profited me not.' I look
back upon the past with shame and horror, and
I am drinking the dregs of the cup of its pleasure in bitterness of soul.  It is all unmingled
shame and misery; I have learnt now, what God
told me at the first,' The wages of sin is death.''In  the day thou eatest thereof thou  shalt surely
die.' And I am dead, if there be no quickening of
spirits; I am lost, if there be no redemption of
the slave.'Is there no balm  in Gilead? is there
no physician there?''Can the leopard change his
spots, and the Ethiopian his skin?  Is the disease




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.             I37
remediless, is the captivity hopeless, is the death
eternal?"
" Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white
as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be
as wool."  "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no
pleasure in  the death of the wicked;  but that the
wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye
from your evil ways; for why will ye die, 0 house of
Israel?"  "He looketh upon men, and if any say, I
have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and
it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going
into the pit, and his life shall see the light.  Lo, all
these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring
back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the
light of the living."
Having set forth the penitent's creed, I now come
to speak of
II. The penitent's confession.
" If any man say, I have sinned." This implies,
at any rate, that if any man should think it and
not say it, he must miss the promised fruit.
Let us look a little more closely at the subject
of confession-the saying to God, "I have sinned."




I38         THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
The Bible represents this as essential to complete
forgiveness; on what ground of reason does this
necessity rest? If a man is convinced, is not that
sufficient? If he knows in his own soul that he
has been a fool or a beast, and says it to himself,
with that emphasis with which a man can talk to
himself of himself on fit occasions, is not that
enough? No! it is not enough; for reasons some
of which at any rate I will try to set forth. I am
the more anxious to do this because I think that
the duty of confession is often grounded on a very
false or very insufficient basis. And first, as to the
need of confession generally. Something like this
is often urged in depreciation of it. "The mere
act of confession cannot be material; if the reality
is in the heart, God sees it, and reality is all He
cares for; He wants to see sorrow and shame for
sin, and if that be there, what to Him are words?"
Precisely what they are to your fatherly heart,
when you are seeking to soften and reclaim a wayward, sinful child.  Search into the reason why
you demand confession, before you condemn the
demand of God. You may feel perfectly well assured that a child has found out the misery of sin,




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.          I39
that in his own heart he condemns the transgression, and would give anything to recall it-that
he is quite despondent and wretched through the
discord which his sin has generated between himself
and those whom he loves, but until he has said it,
you feel that peace can only be half restored; you
may be very deeply thankful to see the traces of
penitence in his spirit, to be sure that he has condemned the sin in his heart; and yet, if he still
refuses to confess it, to say, "Father, I have sinned,"
you feel that the penitence is essentially imperfect,
that there is still a cloud between your spirit and
his spirit, and the breach in the home is still unhealed. What is the ground of this? The right
answer may help us to understand why confession
is exacted by God. Is the ground of your demand
the fact that your honour has been insulted, and
needs to be vindicated by a formal reparation; that
your dignity has been lowered, and needs, like a
national flag, to be publicly saluted before it consents to be appeased? I venture to hope that there
would be something greater in your heart than the
sentiment of honour, which is honourable only when
it is the outwork of deeper things; and that the




I40         THE PENITENT' S GOSPEL.
breach in such a case would not seem to you one
which brought up the question of formal apologies
and reparations. Does not the father's demand for
confession spring rather out of the conviction that
the penitence is imperfect which does not feel itself
moved to confession spontaneously? If a child is
miserable because of some transgression against
the parent, and yet hides that misery from the
parent's eye, and holds back that confession which
would be a balm to the parent's heart, it means
distinctly that there is still an alienation, that the
child's heart is not perfect towards the parent,
and that there is a selfish isolation of himself from
the heart of the parent and the communion of the
home, which in itself is a sin against the father's
love. The child in that case does not yet see the
true sin, the failure of filial duty; he has not yet
sorrowed over the deepest cause of sorrow, the
wounding a parent's heart. It is a sign that he
does not yet long, or will not let the longing have
way, for the true reconciliation, the true peacethe laying his aching head and burying his tearstained cheek on the parent's bosom, and drinking
in at every pore the assurance of restored confidence




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.            I4I
and love. I venture to think that this, and not the
mere sentiment of dignity and honour, is the reason
why a parent waits for confession, and must hear
the " Father, I have sinned," and clasp the penitent
child to his heart, before he can feel that peace
has been perfectly restored.
Let your own hearts interpret for you the ways
of God.
He demands confession:-" The word is nigh thee,
even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word
of faith, which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Why? Some answer, that sin is a dishonour,
a public dishonour to His government; confession is
the only public reparation which can be offered for
the fault; that He is a Ruler having public interests
in charge, and, for the sake of those public interests,
is bound to demand that the sinner shall make
public confession, and thus do formal homage to the
government whose laws he has formally spurned.
If God is to be conceived of, in His relation to




I42         THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
men, fundamentally as a Ruler, if that is the truest
account which is to be given of the matter, there is
no objection to be made to the statement.  The
Ruler, for the sake of the whole realm, righteously
compels the rebellious subject to recant and swear
allegiance, before he can be forgiven. But I do not
read in the records of the life of Christ, especially
in that Gospel which gives the fullest record of His
interior life, and His own sense of His mission, that
He came to reveal the Ruler. I read in almost
every page that He came to reveal the Father unto
men. It is said by some who have criticised my
statements on this point, that it is quite true that
God is the Father, and there has, perhaps, been an
undue suppression of the Fatherly element in His
nature and relations in our accepted theology; but
then He is also a Ruler, and sustains relations which
attach purely to the Ruler, to man, and to mankind.
I confess that I cannot understand this variety in
God. God is one. If He is a Father and also a
Ruler, one must be the root of the other, He cannot
be in part both. His rule must run through His
fatherhood, and His fatherhood through His rule;
and which is the root element of the twain no intelli



THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.          I43
gent student of the Gospels can be left to doubt.
A Ruler He is, unquestionably, with all a ruler's
rights and claims.  What father is he who does not
rule in his home? But He is a Fatherly Ruler,
because essentially a Father; all whose acts have
their full explanation only in the relation between a
father's spirit and a child.  A father's rule can miss
none of the ends which pure rule can righteously
contemplate, but it wins them in winning what is yet
more precious, the ends which a father may seek in
the education of a child.
It appears to me that God's reason for demanding
confession may be stated on this two-fold ground:I. Confession alone makes the penitence complete.
2. Confession alone re-establishes that filial relation, without which the penitence can have no
lasting fruits.
I. Confession completes the penitence.  It is in
truth the first instinct of a truly filial heart. No
sense of shame has reached its utmost depth, until
wronging a father, wounding his heart, grieving his
love, is felt to be the blackest feature of it. Laws
are but abstractions until we realise that they are
uttered by a lawgiver; and until we feel that




I44          THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
we have sinned against a Being, we talk about
violated laws in vain.   A  true penitence for sin
against a Being, inevitably leads us to that Being;
His forgiveness, the restoration of His confidence
and love, are the essential conditions of our peace.
The real root-sin of our nature is the loss of the filial
love and trust in God. While the soul stands far
off from Him, bitterly conscious of sin, but resolved,
" I will repent, but I will not confess," the very core
of the sin is there. All that is repented of fails to
touch the real root of the transgression. The poison
is in the wound still, and will frustrate all the cure.
The rancour of the soul, which is the real venom of
the wound, God seeks to expurge; and that never
passes out until the penitent, hungry, footsore, tearstained, travel-worn, falls blessedly on his Father's
bosom, and cries, "Father, I have sinned against
heaven, and in thy sight, and I am no more worthy to be
called thy son;" and then, and then only, can the
joyous cry be heard, " Bring forth the best robe, and
put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on
his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it;
and let us eat, and be merry; For this my son was dead,
and is alive again; he was lost and is found."




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.          I45
2. Confession re-establishes the filial relation,
which alone can give to penitence its perfect fruit.
The father not only wishes to know that his child
has come to his right mind, and that he sees both
the commandment and his own transgression in the
clear daylight of truth, but he wishes to have him
home again, near his side, under his eye and hand,
that he may watch and tend him, train and teach
him, uphold him against the temptations which once
mastered him, and make his repentance a repentance
unto life. A sense of right in common is not a
sufficient bond of communion between two beings
who are brought into relations, unless it be cemented
by warm  and living bands of love. Spirits do not
need only to see eye to eye, they need to beat heart
to heart; till that is possible, their concord is not
perfect, they may talk of peace, but there is nothing
of that peace which is known as the peace of God.
That is essentially personal. It is not the setting
a soul square with righteousness; this it includes,
but it is essentially the setting a heart right with
God. Hence confession, which is the restoration of
a personal union, is essential to it.  Let that be
withheld, the father's heart is unsatisfied, the child's
L




I46          THE PENITENT S GOSPEL.
heart is unsoothed, the home is closed, the songs are
still.  Th restoration of the child to the father's
heart is the only complete restoration; this alone is
the guarantee of future peace. Let the barrier which
the sullen heart persists in holding against the Lord
once be broken, let the inward shame and sorrow
burst forth in the confession-" Have mercy upon me,
O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto
the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.  Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and
cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee,
thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight:
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be
clear when thou judgest,"-and the peace becomes perfect and blessed. Thus the demand for confession,
like all Divine commands, has its root in the deep
love of the Father of Spirits for even His prodigal
children, and His resolve that their restoration shall
be a complete restoration to peace and to Himself.
This leads me to speak, in the third place, of
III. The fruits of confession through the abounding mercy and love of God.
" He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.           I47
his life shall see the light."  " God will deliver;" and
the way of deliverance is here not dimly set forth.
(Read Job xxxiii. I4-26.) I am not about to discuss
the intricate questions which concern the doctrinal
bearings of particular passages of the Book of Job.
To my mind, not in one passage only, but in many
of the most profound passages of the book, the great
idea of mediation is very plainly unfolded; and, as I
have before said, the conditions of effectual mediation
are very explicitly set forth. But, in truth, every
promise of God in the Old Testament is built on the
facts which are developed in the New. From first
to last it is God in Christ, " reconciling the world
unto Himself, having made Him to be sin for us
who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him." It is God in Christ
who treats with man every when and everywhere.
It is on the basis of the atonement which was completed on Calvary, that God meets with man and
pleads with him in the promise:-" Come now, and
let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."  The atonement is the reason, the promise is its fruit. Strike
L 2




148          THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
out that history —the history of the passion of the
Incarnate Word-and there is no meeting-point of
man and God. There is then no reason in forgiveness, no right. God could not pronounce it; man
could not believe in it; Heaven could not rejoice
over it:- " But now the righteousness of God without
the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the
prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith
of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe:
for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come
short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the
remission of sins that are past, through Yhe forbearance
of God; to declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him
which believeth in Jesus."   There is the one absolute
basis on which justification rests. But in this passage, and throughout the Old Testament generally,
there is less effort to explain the grounds of the
Divine action, than to declare the end, as concerns
man-forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.
The fruits here set forth are two-fold.  He will




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.         I49
deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life
shall see the light.
I. The pit. It is a word at which some laugh,
but at which others, who know what sin means,
shudder.  Some treat it as a mere bugbear, with
which theologians frighten the foolish; to others, it
is the horror of horrors, the grave of a living soul.
The pit!  Have you ever looked boldly into your
own soul when the devil has been holding high festival there; after a mad revel, a foul wrong, a dark
crime, or those more subtle and deadly sins of the
spirit-a frenzy of hate, envy, or revenge? Is there
anything blacker in the universe than that looks?
There is a pit there deep enough, dark enough, to
bury a soul's volition, a soul's love, a soul's joy, a
soul's hope, for ever from the light of day. Have
you ever shuddered at the thought of sinking into
the pit of your own sin, the slime of your own impurity; and stifling there for ever? Has the vision
of remaining as you are at your worst, ever appalled
you; your worst passions, your worst vices, rampant,
raging, with no hope of taming them, no hope of
even a gleam of a brighter world, a better life, for
ever and ever? If that vision has ever crossed you,




I50        THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
I need not talk to you about the horrors of the pit.
Some of you may never have known it. But have
you never looked into a face which but masked a
pit of foulness and wretchedness; the presentment of
a spirit whose every diviner power and passion had
been wrested to the uses, prostituted to the pleasures
of sin; a soul whose love was all dead, whose light
was all dark, whose joy was all quenched in the
languor of satiety, whose hope was all buried in the
murky midnight of despair; a man who has lived
his life of crime or pleasure at a desperate pace, and
who has come quickly to the goal of mental, moral,
and spiritual death; in the early morning of an
eternal existence, a bankrupt; stripped, beggared,
blase; whining for death, for there is nothing to live
for; whining at death, for there is nothing to die for.
Horror of horrors! What is that awful shuddering
gloom into which the soul is plunged when the
thread of a wasted life is severed, and it drops out
of the homes of the living into-the pit?
I have seen such faces, and need none to explain
to me these words. Picture Judas in the moment
when the agony of life had become intolerable.
Picture to yourselves his face as he stands there,




THE' PENITENT'S GOSPEL.          I5I
the cord tightening about his neck, quivering on the
edge of eternity, dropping down into his own place
-the pit. " Hear, ye despisers, and tremble," "lest
ye also come into that place of torment." But God
can deliver:- " He looketh upon men, and if any say,
I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and
it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going
into the pit, and his life shall see the light."  The confession of penitence in the uttermost extremity of
guilt and sorrow, if any of you have reached it, shows
that the pulses of the child's heart are not yet dead
within. The Father, taking His penitent to His
bosom, even in that extremity, can quicken, renew,
and save. A new heart He can give, a new life-the
soul made anew after the image of the Saviour, to be
born at length, through all the anguish and travail
of the present discipline into the sunlight of the
eternal world. For2. "His life shall see the light."   The light in
which it was born to live, the light of the face of
God. Light-the light of God-is to life what sunwarmth is to flowers. It draws forth their beauty
and fragrance; it clothes them with their dress of
glory. No fairer image is there of the estate of a




I52         THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.
soul new born with a life which is one with Christ's;
one with all that is living, beautiful, blessed, victorious, radiant, in the universe; conscious now that
it has in itself, through Christ, not a pit of horrible
darkness, but a fountain of living, exhaustless forcea power to be, a power to be good, a power to be
blessed, for ever and ever. From the very verge of
the pit of darkness, where itself and all its hope were
wellnigh buried, it springs as to Heaven's gate, and
sings paeans with the angels, " Blessing, and honour,
and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the
throne, and unto the Lamb for ever."  It is the everlasting song. The soul caught the first note when
the word, " Father, I have sinned," was faltering on
its stammering tongue.  Its life is thenceforth a
battle-march; a hymn of victory, whose theme is
the redeeming love and power of the Lamb. The
world of light is its home, of which nor death, nor
hell, can rob it; and there-and'tis but a filmy veil
between-" they need no candle, neither light of the sun,
for the Lord God giveth them light, and the days of
their mourning are ended."
Who, then, will cast aside his rags, fling down
his husks, and cry, "Father I have sinned against




THE PENITENT'S GOSPEL.            I53
Heaven and in thy sight, and I am no more worthy to
be called thy son?"  Who will burst now from  the
bondage of death and escape into the realm of
the light for ever?  Ho! ye that have lien among
the pots, who have wallowed in the dust and filth
of the sty of sin, come forth! come forth! into the
sunlight of the love of God. Touched, kindled, by
that golden glory, your life shall soar and shine, as
a " dove whose wings are of silver and her feathers
of yellow gold." Your life shall see the light. A
glory shall gild its path, even through this weary
wilderness of discipline. The light shall shine with
more radiant splendour, as your pathway nears the
bourne of immortality. With the step and the shout
of the victor you shall pass the portal, and all the
glory of the heavenly day shall burst upon your
sight.
"The world recedes: it disappears:
Heaven opens on my eyes, my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings; I mount, I fly;
O grave, where is thy victory?
0 death, where is thy sting?"








VII.
b~e IoUen mucb: +be baD much forgiien.
"' And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when
she knew that y7esus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house,
brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at His
feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash Hisfeet with
tears, -and did wipe them with the hairs of her head,
and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment.... Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which
are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.....     And
He said unto the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee;
go injbeace." —LUKE VII. 37, 38, 47, 50.
THIS banquet of the Pharisee occupied, probably, a later portion of the day on which
our Lord had delivered one of His most remarkable
discourses. His theme had been John the Baptista prophet.hate.d of the Pharisees, but dear to the
people. John had been emphatically, like all his




I56            SHE LOVED MUCH:
predecessors, the prophet of the people. The poor
hear ever gladly such truth as rolled in thunder
from his lips. They were worn down by legal exactions, and sick of Pharisaic cant and lies. They
thronged to the ministry of a man who dealt a
common judgment and a common measure of truth
to all. The intense and fearless energy of this
preacher of righteousness stirred their deeper passions; while his fierce denunciation of their taskmasters and tyrants kindled a hope of relief from
their burdens. It made life more tolerable. Some
ray of joy shone in their sad hearts at the thought
that the kingdom of God was so near.
John came as a Reformer. All great Reformers
are greeted at first with the popular sympathy and
support.  Doctrines of righteousness cannot but
strike powerfully on the side of the oppressed and
down-trodden classes, who feel themselves depressed
below their natural level by the unrighteousness of
their lords. There is always too much that palpably
needs reform in this sad world, for reform to be
other than a popular cry with those whose lot exposes them, unarmed, to the assault of " outrageous
fortune." Any man who will stand up and preach




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.          I57
righteousness in God's name, and with Divine boldness, shall have throngs of the poor of this world
round him, applauding to the echo, until they find
that the reformation which he preaches must have
its beginning in their own hearts. Then the love
of many waxes cold. But John bore the convictions
and the sympathies of the multitude with him
through his brief but impetuous career. The hate
and antagonism of the Pharisees, whom they hated,
his ascetic life, his intense zeal, his fearless utterance, his early doom, kindled their imaginations,
and touched their hearts.  So jealously did the
people cherish his memory, that the rulers might
more safely have wrought any moral abomination
in Jerusalem than have whispered a doubt of his
prophetic ministry. "The rulers feared the people,
because that all men held John to be a prophet."
The Lord had spoken of this great forerunner,
his vigorous independence, his prophetic grandeur,
before which even the ministry of Elijah paled; and
then He enlarged His discourse, He spake of that
kingdom of Heaven of which John had been the
herald, its winning aspect, its inclusive spirit, its
genial breadth of sympathy and love, the daring




I58            SHE LOVED MUCH:
eagerness with which all men pressed into it, and
the contrast which at every point it presented to
the rigid and strait-laced exclusions of the law. And
as He spake " all the people that heard Him, and the
publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism
of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the
counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of
him." Supplying from Matthew xi. Luke's omissions,
we find that this sketch of the essential character of
the kingdom of Heaven, led on to some awful
denunciations of those by whom its benign ministry was scorned. (Matt. xi. 21-23.) Lifting His
thoughts from thence, He uttered some calm deep
words about the Father-whom then, for the first
time in His public ministry, He thus addressedthe mystery of His nature, unfathomable by human
wisdom, the inscrutable secrets of His government,
the dread abyss of God, which He, the only begotten
Son, alone fathomed and filled. He reminded them
of the tremendous sanctions with which His words
were attended, how even the lightest had on it the
absolute emphasis of God. Then, lest words so
awful, thoughts so profound, should chill and oppress their spirits, His heart poured forth, from a




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.            I59
depth of tenderness unfathomed still, that most
tender, pathetic, and soul-piercing appeal of the
Man of Sorrows to the children of sorrows, which
perhaps is without peer even among " the words of
the Lord Jesus:"-" Come unto me, all ye that
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am
meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto
your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light." I have directed your thoughts to this discourse in its wholeness, because these last words
seem to furnish the key to the most touching and
pregnant narrative which succeeds:- "And behold,
a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she
knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house,
brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at His
feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash Hisfeet
with tears, and did wipe them  with the hairs of her
head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the
ointment.  Now when the Pharisee which had bidden
Him  saw  it, he spake within  himself, saying, This
man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and
what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for
she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him,




I60             SHE LOVED MUCH:
Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee.  And he
saith, Master, say on.  There was a certain creditor
which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence,
and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay,
he frankly forgave them both.  Tell me therefore, which
of them will love him most? Simon answered and said,
I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And He
said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And He
turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou
this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest
me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet
with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time
I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head
with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath
anointed my feet with ointment.  Wherefore I say unto
thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she
loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same
loveth little. And He said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.  And they that sat at meat with Him  began to
say within themselves,  Who is  this  that forgiveth
sins also?   And He said to the woman, Thy faith
hath saved thee; go in peace."   I beg my readers
to study this carefully.  It is evident that our




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.         I6I
Lord's discourse had been listened to by multitudes. Among them, a woman that was a sinner
had heard His words about the Father and the
kingdom of Heaven; she was apparently heartsick of her vocation, perhaps, heart-sick of her
very life. Righteousness was a thing she dared
not think of. Had she been bred in a righteous
home? Did wandering memories throng thickly
when these things of man's higher life rose up before her sight? Perhaps the denunciation of God's
vengeance on the despisers of the Saviour had
shaken her soul from its guilty slumbers. The
prayer of Jesus to the Father, this communion of
a brother man with the Lord of all, had opened
the vision of Heaven above her. Ah! might she
but look up and see a Father smiling, where she
dreaded to find only a flaming sword. Then the
tender pathetic appeal, into which the Saviour's
communion with the Father glided, completed the
conquest of her nature.. Hope flashed its light into
her spirit. Life had now some worth to her. It
was worth while even to battle with this tyrannous
evil, for there was born within her a hope that it
might be forgiven and conquered. When the crowd
M




I62           SHE LOVED MUCH:
broke up, she marked that Simon had bidden the
Saviour to the banquet. These ostentatious entertainments admitted the poor to behold their splendour, and to gather the crumbs from the loaded
board. After a while, clasping something hidden in
her bosom, she glided in among the guests; kneeling in the shadow of His couch, and grasping the
precious casket, on which, perhaps, she had spent
all her living, and which, with love's sure instinct,
she had provided against this need, she looked
eagerly on the scene. We can imagine how she
would drink in the music of the voice of the Saviour,
and feel that the breath of His presence stirred
the torpid faculties of her spirit, and quickened the
numbed affections of her heart. Silently she watched
what men would do to this matchless teacher, how
they would distinguish with their honours Him
whose tones had poured new life into the poor
sinner's bruised and bleeding heart.  Scorn and
indignation struggled in a bosom already bursting
with emotion, when she saw that they wilfully
dishonoured Him. Rising at length with the dignity
of reverence and the beauty of love, her pent-up
passion burst forth in a flood of uncontrollable




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.          i63
weeping. Then she broke the box which she had
borne in her bosom, and shed on Him its odour like
incense.  Bathing His feet with her tears, and
wiping them with her silken hair, she shewed, to
the confusion of the mocking guests, and the
eternal shame of their host, how the outcasts of
earth can greet the Lord, who left His throne and
the bliss of the Father's bosom to save them, to
wipe the tears of broken-hearted mourners, lighten
the darkness of hope-abandoned prodigals, and break
the yoke, though He himself should die in the effort,
by which Satan's captives were being led down into
the deepest depths of hell.
In treating this subject more fully I shall try to
analyse
I. The secret springs of the poor sinner's conduct.
II. The nature of the action, which was viewed
so diversely by the Pharisees and the Lord.
I. The springs of the woman's conduct.
The woman was "a sinner." Into the precise
form or extent of her transgression there is no need
to pry. The word was very significant; a "lost
woman " would be its equivalent now. The sin was
M 2




I64            SHE LOVED MUCH:
one which filled her whole consciousness.  There
was no chance of her forgetting it, poor outcast!
known, shunned, hated, by man, and as the priests
and doctors of her day told her, by the angels, and
by God.
The springs of her action, perhaps, lie here.
I. In her desperate self-abandonment the Lord
had lit one ray of hope within her spirit.  "Come
unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest."  What sin-crushed spirit
would not leap to hear such words from such Divine
lips? Despair is the devil's own instrument. The
first step in the reformation of the most abandoned
profligates is to get them to care for themselvesto think themselves worth the care.  How  many
men are there who, heart-sick of sin, loathing it in
their better moments with an intensity which no
Pharisee can measure, yet practice it recklessly day
by day. Why? Because they see nothing beyond;
and find nothing in themselves worth saving for a
higher destiny.  Black clouds close their future;
or if they lift they grow lurid. "What, then, is
the use of struggling?" they cry; " Fate is against
us, to sin is our destiny, and the punishment of sin




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.           I65
is our doom. If we break the chain-what then?
What is there for us to do, to be, or to become,
beyond?" And so the habit, though hated, tyrannizes. There is no strength in the springs of action,
because no hope. They feel themselves contemptible
and loathly; and they make up their minds, seeing
no better within their reach, to drag about with
them the dead carcase of their sin-many with a
half-conscious notion that what they suffer may help
to atone. He speaks the word of life to them who
first makes them feel that they have a future, that
there is a soul within them still which God cares
for, searches after, and at any cost of suffering would
save. And when this thought first flashes its ray
of hope into the spirit, the loathings and the longings which the poor sinner had long been crushing,
start up with a new and terrible vitality. "Men,
you have wronged me, poor outcast that I am,
trampling me on your dunghills among your rubbish
and offal, as a thing too far gone, too tainted to
the core, to live again a human life. I know now
that I am a spirit still. God tells me that there is
that within me which is worth redemption. I arise
at His call and go forth, though a baptism of




I66            SHE LOVED MUCH:
tears and blood be before me, to meet a spirit's
destiny."
Doubtless, this poor sinner had long loathed her
vocation. Doubtless, the burning blush of shame
had often stained her cheek, and tears, tears that
had a tinge of blood in them, had often dimmed her
eye, when she remembered that she had lost her
womanhood, lost her soul, lost her life, for ever.
Surely, too, the thought of reformation had often
visited her. But the "Where shall I go, what
shall I do," as often checked her. "Who in this
universe cares for a woman that is a sinner? Shall
I ask the Pharisee to help me? He will but gather
his garments closer lest I should touch him. My
parents? They have shut the door of their homes
and their hearts in my face. The God of my people
is a God whose holiness burns like fire, and I belong to the darkness and the night. The darkness
is my home, and misery is my portion. Everlasting
contempt is the harvest of my future!" Oh! what
a heaven-born ray of hope was lit within the darkness of her spirit; what a gleam flashed forth from
that jewel, which, though dimmed and flawed, was
within her still, when the Man who was fresh from




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.           I67
the shrine of immaculate purity, and was bathed in
its holy lustre, bent on that woman who was a
sinner a glance of ineffable tenderness, and said,
"Come unto me, thou weary and heavy laden one,
and I will give thee rest."  "Woman, thy faith hath
saved thee; go in peace."
2. The Lord hath quickened within her numbed
and withered heart the pulses of a blessed and
purifying love.
Love is the strong redeemer of pollution. How
hard and how long will even a human love struggle
against the pollution of a sensual life. Even from
the depths of shame, love can lift the soul to the
light again, and almost to Heaven. The devil has
not fairly secured his victim, until the very embers
of love are extinguished in the hearth-fire of the
heart. In the lowest and basest class of society,
that which preys on every other class, the foulest
vices and the darkest crimes have just one feature
which redeems them from being hellish, and that
is the unselfish love, which sometimes burns with
a strange purity, on the altar of the corruptest
heart.
This woman was a sinner. Love was dead




I68           SHE LOVED MUCH:
within her. Frowned on by all, she had learnt
only to hate.  The blessedness of loving was a
memory of the past. She had known it once, but
a great gulf had opened between her and that happy
time. She could recall it only as Eve remembered
Eden: dimly, as through tears, and from afar. It
was long since the pulses of pleasure had been
quickened by anything more holy than the sullen
heat of passion, or the dull fury of revenge. Jesus
made her a woman again. The tendrils of love,
torn from their pristine hold, all tangled and rotting
on the damp earth whereon she grovelled, began to
tingle and thrill again. As a mother joys to hear
the first faint cry of her little one, she joyed to feel
the first faint throbbing of the pulses of a pure and
heavenly love. "Come unto nme," said a Being full
of life and of wisdom, a Being of celestial goodness,
holiness, and truth. She felt, lost as she was, that
she could love that Man of Sorrows; she felt that
the cords of love and the bands of a man, were drawing the poor outcast of earth to his heart. Heaven
seemed to open above her and beam its benediction. Earth smiled around her, all things dressed
themselves in new beauty, the very air was glad,




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.          I69
when the first glow of love breathed through her
spirit. Her sin was still there. She needed none
to remind her of it. Never had she felt so intensely
as at that moment the blackness of her transgression. Never-else what mean those blinding tears?
-had the anguish of contrition so preyed upon her
heart. But love was there, celestial spirit, and some
sure instinct told her that the celestial spirit must
conquer in every strife. The Lord had brought her
out of the depths, and set her upon a rock. A few
brief words, and the vision of a human countenance,
had made a complete revolution in her life; out of
hell itself it had brought her up, and set her before
the gate of Heaven. There, with all the white-robed
throng, she is singing, " Unto Him who hath loved
me, and washed me from my sins in His own blood,
and hath made me a king and priest unto God and
His Father, unto Him be glory and dominion for
ever and ever. Amen."
II. And now let us turn our thoughts to the
nature of the action, and analyse the opposing
judgments which were passed on it by the disciples
and the Lord. Worldly wisdom would probably find
a double objection to this transaction.




I70            SHE LOVED MUCH:
I. It was shameful that a woman, who was a
sinner, should approach a prophet;,and
2. The gift was lavish and wasteful, and might
have been put to a better use.
It is impossible not to compare with this another
but a very kindred transaction, which is recorded
by Saint John. (Read John xii. I-8.) From these
two passages we may fairly gather what may be
urged by worldly wisdom  against such a ministry
of love. Instead of answering these objections in
detail, it appears to me more helpful to set forth
some of the principles which seem  to be involved
in the answers of the Lord.  And Jesus seems to
me to say by His answers,
I. That love-such love-must be left to its
native affinities. Its elections are absolute, its decisions are supreme.
No doubt the woman who was a sinner and the
rich Pharisee's house were in strange association.
Sympathy between them there could be none. But
if a sinner should be drawn by the spells of a
heavenly love even to a rich Pharisee's- presence,
the Lord says that that presence would be less
contaminated by the sinner, than it would be blessed




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.             171
and honoured by the love. That a sinner should
venture within the sphere of a prophet's sanctity
was still more strange to Simon. All unknown to
him the doctrine unfolded in these pregnant words.
(Read Luke xv. I —Io.) Unknown to him that
his guest had stooped from a glorious heavenly
throne, and put off its crown, that sinners who had
known Him only as the God of righteousness, and
had trembled, might rejoice in Him as the God of
mercy, and repay the sacrifice by love.  Simon
knew not that heavenly love, though born in that
corrupted bosom, was a spirit more strong and
celestial than the spirit of a Pharisee's righteousness. He knew as little that for love, yea, the love
of the prodigal children, the Saviour's spirit had
yearned even on His throne of glory. The love of
a Father for prodigal children is a hard thought
to a Pharisee's understanding, and a strange sensation to a Pharisee's heart.  But the Lord knew
that His sacrifice and suffering had not been
fruitless, when love's strong instincts had guided a
woman who was a sinner to weep out the stains of
her pollution at His footstool, and draw new life by
that potent talisman out of His sympathetic heart.




I72            SHE LOVED MUCH:
Simon saw there but the abandoned woman, with all
the stains of her guilt upon her, whose very love
would contaminate the purity of his home, and the
reputation of his grace; the Lord Jesus saw the
saint, whom His grace had bound with surer than
adamantine bands to His heart for ever-saved by
His word from eternal perdition, to shine as a star
in the kingdom of His Father, and shed, not tears,
but beams of love on His radiant home, radiant with
joy like hers, through eternity.
2. The Lord said that there are gifts which a
love like hers alone can justify.
" She loved much," He pleaded, in answer to the
glances which condemned the occasion as a scandal,
and the gift as a waste. There are gifts which we
measure, and are bound to measure, by the need of
the recipient.  Then let the strictest prudence
gauge and limit, lest a puny nature become surfeited with a bounty which in such case may be
wanton, and even a sin.
There are gifts which are simply the utterance of
the heart of the giver, outlets of surcharged feeling,
expressions of thoughts too deep for words, for
tears. Let the cold and cautious stand aside while




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.         I73
such are passing, nor stay the flight of these angels on the wing. The heart's first duty is to find
itself expression. She loved much; she spent her
living in telling how much she loved. Simon! there
is a malignant devil in that cautious calculation.
That spirit would weigh the sunlight, and moan
that so much should be lost on the waste places of
the world. Nay, it would shut up, lest it should
become bankrupt, the treasury of the love of God.
She loved much, and she gave her all to show it.
Perhaps it reminded the Saviour of another sacrifice,
more lavish, more uncalculating still. A sacrifice
wherein God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that the world through Him
might not perish, but have everlasting life. Wherein,
too, the Son gave all that enriched His being, and
made His bliss, for the love of unworthy, unthankful
man. Simon! measure the love of Christ by the
same dull measures; it will stand forth as the very
type of prodigality and wanton waste.
Moreover, love like hers is not so uncalculating,
though it disdains Pharisaic measures. The woman
gave her living, but she won her soul. The ointment
was lost, and the money which bought it, but her




I74            SHE LOVED MUCH:
soul was for ever rid of its burden, and was braced
for conflict and heavenly work. Love, though profuse in gifts, clears the intellect, kindles the spirit,
stirs the courage, and nerves the hands. Paul, when
he had counted all things but loss for Christ, began
in earnest his higher ministry to mankind. That
woman, having wept out her contrition, and shed
forth her love, stood prompt for duty-ready for
nobler ministry to souls and bodies, than Simon
with all his gold. She loved much. She showed
it lavishly. Let it pass, Simon! Her gift cannot
reach the measure of her Saviour's. The world, no
doubt, has lost the ointment, but God and Heaven
have gained a soul.
3. The Saviour says that love like hers may well
seek strange and profuse expressions, for it is the
parent of a glory and blessedness, which transcend
all utterance and thought.
Love is life. The woman who was a sinner,
loving much, grew more swiftly and strongly to
saintly perfectness, than Simon the just Pharisee
measuring and obeying.  Love, like electric fire,
leaps swiftly to its object. Justness, the quiet sense
of duty, the careful measuring of obligations, travels




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.           I75
slowly, though wisely and surely, along the road.
(Read Luke vii. 47-50.)  Perhaps a cautious
prudence, a hesitation to commit himself by too
pointed courtesies to the Saviour, is the worst that
we can lay to the Pharisee's charge. But that sinner's
passionate love had already outstripped him far.
He was grovelling among his cautious calculations,
she was already soaring upwards to Heaven and to
God. That glow of love in her heart was a nascent
glory. That pulse of life which it had quickened
within her could never be lost or killed. She went
forth from the Saviour's presence already a saint in
spirit; she is standing now before her Saviour's
throne, a saint in glory and in bliss. It was of the
kindred deed of a kindred spirit that the Saviour
declared, " Wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached
in the whole world: there shall also this that this woman
hath done be told for a memorial of her."  Art has
selected this act as the very type of tenderness and
devotion, and the angels cherish its memory, and
celebrate it in their songs in Heaven.
And now, " How  MUCH OWEST THOU UNTO MY
LORD?"  "She loved much: for she had much forgiven."  Man! woman! how  much lovest thou?




I76             SHE LOVED MUCH:
How  much owest thou?  Life, intellect, friends,
love, the broad creation, the splendour of the universe,
all are there, freely poured forth by His bounty at
thy feet. And shall I not say unto thee how thou
owest unto Him thine own soul also? Canst thou
sum  in full that debt?  A  burden of guilt lifted
which else had crushed thee; a prison-house of
Satan shattered which else had held thee a captive
in eternal pain; a grisly terror conquered, destroyed,
which else had made thy life a spectre-haunted
night! And how much hast thou paid?  Hast thou
paid even a word? Hast thou even confessed His
name?   Has He ever heard a word  of public
homage and honour from  thy lips?   Is not the
time come to have done with this trembling, calculating neutrality, and to fling yourself, like this
poor sinner, with a flood of passionate tears at His
feet.
"Now I am thine, for ever thine,
Nor shall my purpose move;
Thy hand hath loosed my bonds of pain,
And bound me with thy love.
Here in thy courts I leave my vow,
And thy rich grace record;
Witness, ye saints, who hear me now,
If I forsake the Lord."




SHE HAD MUCH FORGIVEN.              I77
And then go on to fathom the deeper meanings
of this woman's sacrifice.   Understand  what he
meant, who said, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; and the life that I live in the flesh, I live
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave
Himself for me."  Her tears meant all that-her life
we may  be sure expressed it.  "Thy faith  hath
saved thee; go in peace," dismissed her to a life
which was no feeble or partial sacrifice. The words
would have been no mockery on her lips,
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small,
Love so amazing, so Divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."
N








VIII.'oZbe tin that batm neuer corgit enr.
" Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escapie the
damnation of hel z?"-MATT. XXIII. 33.
I THINK that the most awful word which has
ever been written by a human pen is " the wrath
of the Lamb." The prelude to its out-pouring is
here. Once only was that tender and merciful spirit
stirred to vehement and scathing denunciation; and
then it uttered the most terrible anathema which is
on record in the Book of God. Of all wrath, the
wrath of the Lamb must be the most awful, because
the most hopeless. When He who would give the
best blood of His heart to save, rises up to judgment,
Divine patience and hope are fruitless; the glow
N 2




I80          THE SIN THAT HATH
which would have quickened, had a pulse been left to
quicken, then burns but to destroy. The wrath of
the Lamb! Fear it not, trembler, fear it not; it
burns not for thee. For any who have the heart to
tremble at it, it is not. The unpardonable sin!
Have no dread, you who shudder at the thought of
it. It is not for any who can feel distress at sin.
All sin hath forgiveness that knows itself to be sin,
and trembles. No humbled fearful transgressor can
ever wither under the wrath of Christ. It sounds
like a paradox, but none who have the grace to fear
need ever be fearful. Never until you begin to thank
God that you are not as other men are, and to recite
your catalogue of virtues as a pleasant lecture in the
ear of Heaven, need you begin to question about " the
sin that never hath forgiveness, neither in this world, nor
in the world which is to come."
There is something which always seems to me
very terrible when I open this chapter. These words
are doubly awful on the lips of the patient and
forgiving Christ. He had lived among the throngs
of sinners, the crippled, maimed, stained, and outcast, and He had nothing but words of gracious
compassion and tenderness to speak to them. " Come




NEVER FORGIVENESS.           I8I
unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I
will give you rest," had been His cry. It had drawn
the sinners of the world around Him, as though His
pity had been magnetic, and many a poor prodigal
and profligate had wept out their guilt and misery at
His feet.  But here were sinners-sinners of the
Church-on whom He flashed the lightning of His
indignation; whose portrait He draws with pitiless
severity; whose sin He withers with a blighting
anathema, the more startling because the publicans
and harlots had been wondering throughout His
ministry at the gracious words which ever fell from
His lips. Like the tears of a strong proud man, like
the calm of a high-spirited and passionate woman,
like the complaint of a gentle and long-suffering
heart, like the daring energy of meekness when dear
ones are threatened, this outburst of the Saviour's
righteous indignation is the more tremendous for its
long and hard restraint; it rolls like a flood around
the fortress of Pharisaic pride and insolence, whence
the lords of God's heritage were wont to look down
and to rain their scorn upon His poor; and it was
not long before that flood had loosened its foundations, and tossing them on its angry surge, had




I82         THE SIN THAT HATH
swept them and their tyrannies on a full tide of
vengeance to the pit.
Nor was the Lord the only witness for God's
righteousness in that age who had thundered out
his anathema against the elders of the Jewish
Church, and the masters of the Jewish state. John
the Baptist had blazed into kindred indignation
when he saw them mingling with the throng of the
poor, the weary, the wretched, who came to hear
God's message from his lips. God's righteousness
the publicans and sinners could bear to hear of; it
had even a gracious and compassionate tone on
the lips of its preacher; it was like the touch of a
cool soft hand on the fever of their aching hearts.
But the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees
they hated with intense vehemence; it tormented
and maddened them. And their indignation found
utterance from the lips of their great popular
preacher. It was the wrong and misery of the poor,
of souls bound in the prison, lost in the night, under
the rule of these arrogant and insolent doctors of
the kingdom, which lent such piercing point to the
Baptist's denunciation, " Ye generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? "




NEVER FORGIVENESS.             I83
It is not to be wondered at that men in every
age have pored over these vehement anathemas,
and agonized over the questions of personal responsibility which they force on the attention of mankind.
"The sin which never hath forgiveness; neither in this
world, nor in the world which is to come."  The words
lend a fearful reality to transgression. They forbid
us finally to dally with the Pantheist's dream of
transgression as a devious path to a blessed end, the
first stumbling step of an unending progress, the
rude and tentative beginning of the fulfilment of the
counsel of God about our lives. There is a sin
which remains unconquerable, even by the love
and pity of the Incarnate Word; which remains
insoluble, even in the menstruum of the grace of
Christ; and which defies every effort of the Redeemer
to transfigure its hideous form, and make it, transformed, the attendant and minister of the eternal
triumph of His cross. There is a sin which can
draw down on a man, even from Divine lips,, the
sentence, "It had been better for that man if he had
never been born."
If anything can establish the reality, and reveal
in all its naked deformity the sinfulness of sin, it is




I84           THE SIN THAT HATH
such a sentence as this. Responsibility is no dream
of delirious souls; it is no bugbear of priests. It is
the man's endowment; and Divine lips declare that
he may so handle it as to cut himself off from the
sphere of life, and bury himself in the pit of darkness, anguish, and despair, through eternity.  It
needed but this to reveal the essential horror of evil
in the sight of the great Father, whose home it desolates, whose children it torments and destroys. And
there were men then in Jerusalem, there was a great
school of priests and doctors in Jerusalem, who provoked the Saviour's righteous indignation and wrath
to utter it; and to brand them with the only
unmeasured anathema which ever fell from His
patient and forgiving lips.  It is most important
that we should study the physiognomy and physiology
of this deadliest of all transgressions, that we may
see where and why the Divine treatment of sin stays
its merciful and redeeming hand, withdraws its healing, purifying waters, and leaves the rock hard, bare,
and defiant, to be beaten by the storms, and blasted
by the ice-cold breath of the outer darkness for ever
and ever.
I. We will endeavour to identify the spiritual con



NEVER FORGIVENESS.            I85
dition on which this hateful epithet is branded by
John the Baptist and by the Lord.
The term which the Lord here applies to the men
whose vices and crimes He lashes with such unsparing sternness, is remarkable; the more so as it
is used but thrice in the Gospels-once by John the
Baptist, and twice by the Lord. In each case it is
aimed expressly, by name, at the same class, and
presents a vivid image of the same sin. This is
surely a very important indication to guide us in
determining what this unpardonable sin may be. It
is the sin of these vipers, be they who they may.
It is the subtle, malignant, numbing poison, distilled
from fangs full of the fiend's own bitterness and hate,
which is deadly to all hope, joy, and love, if by
chance one gleam of them have lit the darkness, or
thrilled the deadness of poor sinners' hearts. It is
the spirit which searches for love that it may wound
it, for grace that it may poison it, for life that it may
kill it, lest the world should live anew by grace, be
comforted and cherished by love, and link itself on
by hope to the bliss and the glory of Heaven. It is
the spirit which, seeing this Love incarnate on its
Divine errand, seeing the world's death-pallor tinged




I86          THE SIN THAT HATH
with the rosy glow, and *the rigid limbs stirring
under the currents of a new-born life, said straightway, "This is of the devil;" and stung the Divine
One-though it could not touch the fountain of His
power, the love which drew him from Heaven to
Calvary —even unto death. Thrice by inspired lips
the spirit which was incarnate in the Pharisaic school
was branded as viperous. Read the passages, you will
easily gather from them what it means. (Matt. iii. 7;
Matt. xii. IO-I4, 22 —34; Matt. xxiii. 25-33.) The
passage in Matt. iii. does not explain itself, but it is
valuable as affixing to the class which our Lord so
vehemently denounces the same terrible name. The
Baptist saw there the same essential character, and
branded it with the same epithet. What is it then?
What is that viperous spirit in a human breast which
God hates with utter hatred, which the merciful
Saviour brands with damning anathemas, and which
God, angels, and men, will cast out with horror and
loathing from the holy homes which the Lord is preparing for those who were once the bondsmen of Satan
and the prey of death-the homes of the new Heaven
and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness
for evermore?




NEVER FORGIVENESS.            I87
It is the spirit which hates, maligns, and seeks to
paralyse, the ministry of God's love to men.  Be
sure it was no infirmity of flesh or spirit; no evil
springing rankly out of man's heritage of a passionate, lustful, and erring nature, which drew such
withering words from those merciful lips. It was
the spirit which was hating, wronging, and tormenting the great mass of suffering sinners, the sick
and dying ones all round, whom He came to heal
and save. Only in the name of man-man wronged,
outraged, stung to death, by these asps of malignant
pride-could the Son of man bring His lips to utter
these tremendous words of doom. The men who
were poisoning the very well-springs of mercy with
their devilish suggestions, who were crippling the
healing hand of love with their tricks and subtleties
of law, who were shutting the kingdom of Heaven on
the wretched who were thronging its portals, who
were making it impossible, as far as their malignant
will had sway, that God's poor dying world should
be redeemed, heard surging around them, and sweeping them to perdition, this resistless flood of Divine
indignation and scorn, " Ye serpents, ye generation of
vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell?"




I88          THE SIN THAT HATH
This surely was one of the most startling and
wonderful discourses ever delivered in this world.
There were the elders of the Jewish Church, the
acknowledged representatives and successors of the
greatest name in history. They held unquestioned
the supreme seats in the synagogues, they were the
recognised interpreters and expositors of the Divine
law and counsel to men.  But there was a deep
undercurrent of hatred towards them in the popular
mind; the burdens which these men imposed in the
Divine name were intolerable; life was weary, unutterably weary, under the conditions which they
laid down. Still the people heard that they were
God's expositors. "If life be so very intolerable,"
they might say to themselves, "why, it must be
borne; God, it seems, will have it so; perhaps
human misery is not so dreadful to God: at any rate
there is no help." And now imagine the thrill of
amazement and half-conscious, half-repressed delight
which would stir their dull hearts, when One who
spake as never man spake, and whom they ever
heard gladly because of the gracious words which
fell from His lips, tore off the veil of this Pharisaic
sanctity, and laid bare the foulness and rottenness




NEVER FORGIVENESS.           I89
which were behind-declared that these were not
God's ministers, but the devil's, that these burdens
were the devil's burdens, this yoke the devil's yoke,
and these legal subtleties the devil's traps and snares
for souls.  It was the great revelation. The yoke
was broken from that hour. Men were there, a poor
tattered company of followers of this poor man's
friend, who were training themselves to stand up
before every court and tribunal of these tyrants of
souls, and say, "Whether it be right in the sight of
God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge
ye; but we cannot but speak the things which we
have seen and heard."  From that time God's good
words have had a myriad independent organs of
utterance in the world, and poor sinners have never
been without friends. But a great battle had to be
fought, a great agony had to be borne, before that
day of deliverance should fully dawn for man. The
Pharisees were arming for the conflict after their
fashion, as well as the Lord.  They had settled
firmly that this merciful voice should be silenced,
that this healing hand should be crippled, that this
loving heart should be pierced, and that the world
should remain a prison-house, full to bursting of the




I90            THE SIN THAT HATH
sin and misery of the poor; and already they were
beginning their hellish work: "Then the Pharisees
went out, and held a council against Him, how they
might destroy Him." (Matt. xii. I4.) Mark the occasion. A man made whole on the Sabbath day-a
great healing accomplished, a great burden lifted, a
great joy poured into a sad, weary heart, a great
ray of the love of God sent streaming into the darkness of the world. But a Pharisaic regulation had
been broken. Perish the healing, perish the Healer,
but let the rule of the Pharisees live!  And so
deadly was their determination that the Healer and
the healing should perish, rather than that one jot or
tittle of the Pharisaic law should fail, that from that
hour they set themselves steadfastly to destroy Him.
Do you wonder at the sequel?  "Wherefore I say
unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever
speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be
forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy
Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world,
neither in the world to come."  (Matt. xii. 3I, 32.)
"Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape




NEVER FORGIVENESS.             I9I
the damnation of hell?"  In this chapter it is precisely the same. It is the wrongs and miseries
of others, of hearts bruised under the heel of the
Pharisees' insolence, and bleeding from the strokes
of their rods, which sitrs the Saviour's indignation.
"'Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye shut up the kingdom  of Heaven against men;
for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them
that are entering to go in."  There is the whole
gist of it.  Robbers and murderers of souls, infesting the broad highway of the kingdom of
Heaven with viperous malignity and craft, and
frightening poor, trembling, crippled sinners from
the gate; forbidding men to enter, when God's
love had flung wide the entrance, and sent forth
the summons, " Come, for all things are now ready:
and yet there is room;" infecting the bread of life
with their poison, and fouling all its springs,
choking with scowls the songs of its children, and
changing their prattling praises into sobs and wailing.
I say again, wonder you at the sequel? Wonder
you that these bitter wrongs and miseries of men
stirred even the Son of man to a Divine fury of
indignation, which could only vent itself in the




I92            THE SIN THAT HATH
words, " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can
ye escape the damnation of hell? "
II. What lies at the root of this state of mind and
spirit-whence does it spring?
Not from the perversities, infirmities, lusts, and
vices which belong to the prodigal's character, and
are unveiled in  the prodigal's life.  These have
their own perils, chastisements, and miseries-filth,
squalor, rags, pining hunger, bitter regrets. But not
thus does the Saviour denounce them. The prodigal
may wander too far, he may linger in the wilderness
till his day is ended, but the Father follows him with
His pity, and to the last yearns over him to recover
him to Himself. We must turn to another, the
Saviour's dear disciple and friend, to unravel the
mystery of these terrible words.  " This then is the
message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto
you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk
in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we
walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we




NEVER FORGIVENESS.              I93
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we
say that we have not sinned, we make Him  a liar, and
His word is not in us."  (I John i. 5-IO.)  John
speaks here very absolutely, like the Master; and
his words present a somewhat startling collocation
of thought. Our first notion would perhaps be, that
to walk in darkness and to be conscious of sin, must
be about the same thing. Sin is darkness. To be
conscious of sin is to be conscious of darkness. He
who can say, " I have no sin," must surely be living
in the light.  Such would be our first thoughts.
John says precisely the reverse.  He tells us that to
become conscious of sin is to get out into the light,
that to remain unconscious of sin is to abide in the
darkness, and that if we say that we have fellowship
with Him while we are unconscious of sin, "we lie,
and do not the truth."
And this is precisely what the Pharisees were
saying.  "' Two men went up into the temple to pray;
the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.  The
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: God, I
thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. Ifast twice
0




I94           THE SIN THAT HATH
in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.  And the
publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as
his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying,
God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man
went down to his house justified rather than the other:
for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and
he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."  (Luke xviii.
IO-I4.) They had settled in their own minds that
they had fellowship with God. They had settled,
equally clearly, that they were the holy ones of the
world. They looked with a lofty contempt on the
great mass of their fellow-men who did not know
much about their Divine relations, but who at any
rate were sure that they were sinners. The Pharisees,
quite sure that they had fellowship with God, and
feeling bound to maintain the appearance of that
fellowship, had to invent a god who could be pleased
with such service. Thus they were groping in the
densest moral darkness, their world was a world of
mists and shadows, from which every reality which
might give them a rude shock, and bring them to
themselves, was jealously excluded. And this world
of darkness, drear and ghastly, full of bloodless
shadows of their own vanity and pride, they held




NEVER FORGIVENESS.            I95
forth as God's living world, His heavenly kingdom,
to their perishing fellow-men. The people with the
wholesome instinct of a real need, felt that this Pharisaic world was full of dreary mockeries and falsehood.
But yet these men were in Moses' seat! Ah, if this
horrible Hades of theirs be the real kingdom of heaven!
That man is in darkness who never brings himself
forth into the living presence of the Most High, who
never brings his thoughts, his aims, his principles,
his works, to the test of some higher and unfailing
standard, even the standard of the Divine righteousness and truth. He knows no higher than himself,
and a world like himself. He may be a pompous
and even a famous professor, but he is dark, dark,
dark; he is his own god, and his only prayer is
"with himself."  But if a man will come to the
light, will come with simple and earnest heart to
God, to be judged, the first thing which he discovers
is his sin. It is light which reveals darkness. It is
when a man comes into the sphere of the Life and
the Light, that he feels the deadness and darkness
of his own poor heart. " Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, 0 Lord," is the first cry of a soul coming
forth into the daylight; which melts into the prayer
2 2




i96           THE SIN THAT HATH
"God be merciful to me a sinner."  Then a blessed
sense of communion with brother-men around him
springs up within his heart. He has found what is
common to man; common sin, common need of
salvation from sin.  " We cannot scorn each other,
brother; we cannot spurn each other; we will not
torment each other; there is one enemy who is tormenting both of us. We can weep together, brother;
we can pray together, we shall be saved together,
and we shall live together, saved in Heaven." Then
the true fellowship begins, when souls are out of
the darkness, in the light of God's grace and love.
Then, "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of
Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin."
The darkness isolates. The Pharisee is alone.
He has never found the common term, " Father, I
have sinned," wherein the human brotherhood subsists. " God, I thank thee that I am not as these
men," is the only recognition of them which he
vouchsafes. The habit of saying, " I am holier than
thou," the habit of comparing ourselves with those
whom we may choose to brand as sinners, instead
of with God, before whom we should find ourselves




NEVER FORGIVENESS.           197
wholesomely on their level, easily hardens into a
conviction of this kind, "I am of superior order, I
am what these men never can be, my class is the
elect band of the great human company, the rest are
the dross to my gold, the chaff to my corn; the great
assay of life but assures my privilege, and sweeps
the mass with undistinguishing carelessness away."
This is the Brahmun, the twice-born man of India;
this is the Pharisee, the instructed man, the man
separate by his knowledge of God and of the law,
among the Jews. I will not follow him to England.
Search and look, brethren; he is among us, as arrogant, lofty, and exclusive as ever; as despiteful to
the morally sickly, maimed, and poor. The next
step is an easy one. Men feeling that they are a
class, a caste, of higher privilege than their fellowmen, and of loftier destiny-the legitimate heirs of
the kingdom, while the mass are but hewers of wood
and drawers of water at the best-soon come to
regard their pretensions and expectations as property,
as precious possession, which any man who speaks
to the poor in the common human tones, about the
matters which are their peculiar charge, threatens
to destroy. In fact, it is an infringement of their




I98          THE SIN THAT HATH
monopoly, to bring down the Divine fire through any
other channels, or conduct it to any meaner souls. And
the penalty of the infringement is inevitable death.
The man who recognises a common human nature,
a common human need, and a common God and
Father to supply it, is the only devil they know or
believe in, and on him they concentrate all their
malignant fury, to cast him out of their synagogues
and to hunt him  to death.  "Away with such a
doctrine from the earth," they cry; "'Have any of
the rulers and the Pharisees believed in it?'  If the
man will not be silenced, strangle him, stone him,
crucify him; away with him, away with him; he
hath a devil, send him to his own place."  The
intense, the frightful selfishness which grows up in
the heart of the man who, walking in darkness and
saying, " I have no sin," gives thanks to God that
he is not as other men are, is, when we see it on the
scale of a sect or school, one of the darkest things
in the dark chamber of history.
The fury which seizes on an elect class, proud of
their spiritual pre-eminence and power, when one
outside the pale stands up and proclaims a common
truth, a common need, a common Father's love, a




NEVER FORGIVENESS.             I99
light which lighteth every man, a home which is
open to every returning step, has no parallel in the
history of worldly frenzies and hates.  "And the
next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to
hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the
multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against
those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting
and blaspheming."-(Acts xiii. 44, 45.) This is a
clear exhibition of the spirit which I describe.  The
passage in Acts xxii. I9-22 shows as clearly how
deadly is its hate. And the poor, who know only
that they are sinners, and who watch wearily for any
crumbs of Divine comfort or gleam of Divine hope
which their saintly tyrants may condescend to cast
to them, repay it at last with as intense a hate. I
suppose that the Italians hate, or did hate, a priest
much as the poor hated a Pharisee in Jerusalem.
For these men dangle the key of the gate of the
kingdom within the clutch of the despairing wretches,
and dash them back when they touch it, into the
lairs of misery and despair. And this, brethren, is
the spirit which hath no forgiveness. The sin which
saith, "I have no sin," remaineth; even against
God's love it is hard as adamant, and cold as death.




200          THE SIN THAT HATH
The Pharisee's spirit, which would dash fiercely the
cup of life from the lips of a dying world, lest its
own privilege should perish; which would brand the
spirit of the Divine Healer, Teacher, and Saviour
of the world as devilish, and hunt it from the earth,
stung to death with its viperous fang; which holds
every wide Gospel proclamation an intolerable insult,
and every healing touch of Divine love a bitter pain;
it is this, brethren, and nothing which a poor lost
soul can brood over in its anguish, which is the
unpardonable sin. This was the Python on which
the sun-bright Saviour rained the arrows of His
indignation and hate. " Ye serpents, ye generation of
vipers, how shall ye escape the damnation of hell? "
The man whose lusts and passions are degrading
him to the brute, Heaven has hope of to the uttermost; but even the merciful Saviour abandoned as
hopeless the man who was hardening himself into
the fiend.
I will not attempt to apply the subject to men,
parties, and organs in our own day.  Perhaps, if
sermons do not apply themselves, the preacher may
spare his pains. But there may be those here whom
this unpardonable sin haunts as a spectre; indeed, it




NEVER FORGIVENESS.             20I
is the worst nightmare of souls.  But if the cry,
" Father, I have sinned," be the true cry of your
spirit; if the soul within you goes forth in the
common confession, "We have erred and strayed
from thy ways like lost sheep;" if you would rather
stand there with the publican, beating upon your
breast and saying, " God be merciful to me a sinner,"
than go down to your house self-justified like the
complacent Pharisee, you may get cast off the burden
from your heart, the unpardonable sin is far enough
from your sphere. But if the thought is rising in
your wicked heart, " God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are," if you are beginning to catalogue
your virtues and to realise a property in your principles, if you are tempted to claim for yourself or
your class even a partial monopoly of God's Spirit,
if a free Gospel irritates your jealousy, if you see the
throngs around the gate of the kingdom with a secret
anger or scorn; if the breadth of God's Word is
becoming contracted and its range of claim and invitation limited in your narrow and selfish thoughts,
if a soothing feeling has stolen into your heart that
you are the qualified critics of the truth, the licensed
dispensers of the grace, the lawful organs of God's




202  THE SIN THAT HATH NEVER FORGIVENESS.
light and love;-then beware! beware! The viper's
poison is already at work. Alas! the spirit still
reigns among us, and ever, as of old, its chosen
organs are to be found among the saints and doctors
of the Church.




IX.
On R3estoring a Tinner.
" Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are
spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." —GAL. VI. I.
" B RETHREN,"  is of right emphatic  here.
The brotherhood of men in Christ lies at
the root of the duty here enjoined, and the power to
fulfil it loyally must come forth from the same
spring.  Brethren, " bear ye one another's burdens, and
so fulfil the law of Christ."  " The Church a brotherhood" is a word full of the most blessed promise for
man. Two great thoughts have haunted him in
all ages-" God my Father; " "man my brother."
These ideas are rooted in the common nature
wherein we are one; and the effort to hold and to




204         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
unfold them, through the dark confusion in which
sins and lusts involve us, is the great struggle of
the world's life, and, let us hope too, of yours and
mine.
"God my Father."  Man cannot shake off the
belief that this is the great reality of his existence;
the truth wherein he lives, and moves, and has his
being as a man. " And yet," he is tempted to say,
"how awfully stern is all that I know of Him.
How pitilessly His law condemns me, how mercilessly His lictors wield the scourge."  The sense
that a Father's wise and loving method rules it all,
matures but slowly. Through long nights of weeping
and days of strain we come to understand it, and
the great lesson, the greatest of all lessons-God my
Father-is learned at last.
" Man my brother."   Harder yet to realize, in
such a sin-rent, passion-torn world as this.  And
yet it is a truth, as profound and vital as the other,
out of which it springs. There is not one of the
mighty movements which have stirred the world's
great heart —rebellions, revolutions, reformations,
whatever be their name-which has not borne to the
front, and made legible and audible to all, this great




ON RESTORING A SINNER.         205
truth, the brotherhood of man. It was the masternote in the tocsin of the first French Revolution.
Men screamed it frantically, even over the scaffolds
whence human blood ran thickly as that of beasts
in shambles.  They were the foes of universal
brotherhood, whom the mad leaders of a madder
mob believed that they were sweeping out of their
way. It was a dream, and like all such dreams,
costly to the dreamers, and cruel to their victims;
but it led the most mighty movement of modern
times.  While the very substance whose shadow
they were madly pursuing was there, close by them,
in the brotherhood of the great Elder Brother, who,
" seeing that the children were partakers of flesh
and blood, Himself also took part of the same;" in
whom we become one with that great family wh6se
brotherhood links earth with Heaven, and expands
time into eternity.
But what have we to do with the brotherhood of
humanity here? This surely is spoken of a select
society, quite out of the world, and called to bear
witness against the world; to condemn the world's
selfish violence by its own patient charity, and by
the contrast of its life to make the world's judgment




206         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
more just and sure. Thus a Jew would have conceived of it. The Jew had come to believe that this
was what his own Church existed for; and there
were Christians in the Apostolic Church terribly
tempted to transfer the notion, and to regard the
Church as occupying the room ofdthe Israel after the
flesh, in the estimation of Heaven, on the one hand,
and in its relations to the wide human world, on the
other. And the idea lives on.
" We are a garden walled around,"
is a canticle which is not yet obsolete in the Church.
But perhaps there is no idea more radically unChristian than the exclusive view of the end for
which the Church exists. There is no greater treason
against Him, of whom the Church is the fulness,
than the notion that He came purposely on an
errand of selection-to pick some jewels out of the
world's dust-heap, while He left the rest carelessly
to be fuel for the eternal fires.  He came to assert
that what the devil had made a heap of refuse to
every eye but His, was all precious, was all capable
of being purged from its dust and dross, and of
shining again with gem-like lustre, when set in a




ON RESTORING A SINNER.          207
Redeemer's crown.  The Church in its true idea
is, I think, not the contrast, the counterfoil, to the
world which Christ has redeemed, but its exemplar.
Not the elect host called forth to fight the Lord's
battles against the great world of the devil's liegemen; but rather like the elite regiments of an army,
the conspicuous key of its organization, and example
of its evolution: what they do, the whole force must
strive to imitate; what they are, the whole force
must strive to become.  The duties and relations
of Church brethren are the eminent heights of the
duties and relations of all human brethren.  The
same Divine thought runs through them all; but in
the Church they are lifted into the light, and made
conspicuous by the Celestial Sun.  The Christian
parent, brother, friend, is just the perfect human
parent, brother, friend. All that is truly and substantially human, is but the pattern of that which is
Divine. In the Church this Divineness is known
and honoured; its life is set intelligently to a celestial
key. It is "the praerogative instance," to borrow
Lord Bacon's term, of the truly human life. Set
apart, set on high, it is set to shine. Like all that
is grand and beautiful, and that seems to live under




zo8         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
privileged conditions in nature, the Church is the
reflector of a Divine light, the conductor of a Divine
fire; like the planets that radiate the great solar
lustre as they pilgrim through the midnight darkness
of the world.  One sun makes many, charged to
diffuse his lustre; and the one Sun of the higher
system, fountain of all Divine light and fire, wherever
his beams find a focus, creates a new satellite to
drop his radiant warmth on the darkness and deadness of some inferior sphere. Christ is spoken of as
"the fulness of God."   "In Him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily."  The Church in like
manner is the fulness of Christ. " The Church, which
is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."
Why did it " please the Father that in Him all fulness
should dwell?"  That He might Himself behold it
and rejoice in it, or that He might impart it to the
world? St. John shall answer:-" And of His fulness
have we all received, and grace for grace."  And it
pleased the Son, that in the Church, His body, His
fulness should dwell. Again I ask, why? That He
might see it and rejoice over it? that He might call
it His own, and reckon so much saved out of a
wreck which threatened to be utter? or that He




ON RESTORING A SINNER.           209
might show it, and shower floods of light, of life, of
love, through it, on the darkness and deadness of
the world? All the voices of the Scripture and of
the universe have but one answer to that question:
" Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor,
that ye through His poverty might be rich."  "Freely
ye have received, freely give."  " Go ye out into all the
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."  "And
I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."
Whatever, then, is urged on Church members as
a duty, on grounds which they only can fully understand, would seem  to be the unveiling of some
universal human duty, of which the Church is to
show the pattern; to fulfil which man was made,
and in fulfilling which alone man can be blest. The
truth is, that humanity was made to be Christian.
All is false and discordant, " like sweet bells jangled,
out of tune and harsh," until the law of human
living, which Christ developes, and which the Church
is set to realize, becomes the law of the great human
world. If an apostle says to the members of the
brotherhood of the Church, "Bear ye one another's
burdens," and enforces it by the consideration "ye
p




210         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," he means
to say that it is the duty of every man to bear his
brother's burden, because for his sake, He who was
rich became poor. He means us further to understand that until that is seen to be the true law of
living in any human circle, in that circle, humanity,
instead of living tolerably after a lower and selfish
law, is literally not living, but has in it the power,
and over it the shadow of death. By the Church,
God is not saying, there is a little company of men
in the world to whom a higher life is possible than
is possible to the great human mass; but, see in that
little company the true pattern of living for the great
human mass, and believe that the power by which
they live it is yours as freely as it is theirs, that it
is there in Christ within touch of your hand.
We believe in the Christian Church, but not in
the Christian caste-the Christian Brahmun, separated utterly in dignity and destiny from the great
brotherhood of mankind. If the life of God is in
a man, it is not to separate him from his brother
men, but to bind him to them more closely, in the
bands of a self-denying, self-sacrificing love.
It is the old question of the miracle, in another




ON RESTORING A SINNER.         2II
form. Much as the miracle stands related to the
whole course of the Divine procedure in nature,
the life of the Church stands related to the whole
life of the human world.  A miracle is a revelation,
a sign of a thing unseen; even of that Almighty
hand which under the veil is ever ruling the forces
and maintaining the order of Nature. When the
Lord lifted Himself from the pillow on which He
was calmly sleeping, hushed by the storm, "and
rebuked the winds and the sea, and immediately there
was a great calm," He did not mean us simply to
understand that there was One there stronger than
the tempests which had lashed to white fury those
blue Galilean waters, and that therefore while He
was present they were safe under the shield of His
hand. That calm sleep on the bosom of the storm,
that majestic " Peace, be still," when His trembling
friends were cowering to His side, declared that there
was One there in visible presence whose invisible
presence had ruled those waters from the beginning
of creation to that hour; whose Hand might be seen
in storm, in calm, in midnight gloom, in sunset
glow, in golden dawn; in all the beauty, in all the
terror, which mingle their tones in the many-coloured
P 2




212         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
mantle of the world. From that time forward the
vision of a restraining Hand would ever gleam forth,
when they watched the tempests gathering their
force in the wild ravines of the mountains, and
sweeping down with banner of mist unfurled, to
press their yoke upon the sullen sea, whose black
waves with their ghastly hissing lips of foam shrieked
back defiance to the storm. I say, they would see
the Hand in all such hours, and no faithless murmur,
"Lord, carest thou not that we perish?" would again
break from their lips. And when the mandate
" Peace, be still," had again gone forth, and the
morning sunlight flashed its smile over the golden
rippling sea; and when, as hot noon drew on, the
lazy clouds dropped purple shadows over the glowing
mist of waters; when the evening breeze stole down
from the hills with dewy freshness, and the cold
shimmer of the moon chased the hot glow of sunset
from the waves, and lit the weary fishers to their
repose; an unseen Presence would unveil itself in
all this beauty and splendour, and they would know
that this, too, was the benediction of the hand of
the Lord.
And I read here of a brotherhood constituted, as




ON RESTORING A SINNER.         2I3
it were, by the miraculous act of Christ. I read of
duties which the brethren owe to each other, of the
motive which is to inspire them, of the ground on
which, and the strength by which, those duties are
to be done; and I am quite sure that I have here a
revelation of the essential nature of all brotherhood,
-the duties which it involves, the grounds on which
they rest, and the mind in which alone they can be
faithfully fulfilled. I am quite sure that this instinct
and craving for brotherhood, which is characteristic
of the human everywhere, must come hither to learn
its lessons, and to be developed into a true human
brotherly love. And I think that there is one great
principle developed in the text, which lies at the root
of the whole matter. This "brotherhood" has been
the passionate dream of man through all the ages,
and it lies nearer than we deem to the heart of all
the great movements whose tramp has shaken the
solid world. But no actual brotherhood has grown
out of the dream. The dream has been dreamt, but
it has left no substance behind it; it has bequeathed
no legacy but disappointment and despair. " Let us
be brothers, let us embrace and fraternize," has
been the loud cry of man in every era of storm and




2I4         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
revolution; and men have been brothers after such
fashion; they have embraced and fraternized, they
have laughed and wept for very joy, and then, when
the ink was yet wet on their charters of fraternity,
they have dashed at each other's throats. Read the
history of the feasts of fraternity, and the feast of
blood, the Reign of Terror, in which they issued, in
that most masterly of all our histories, Mr. Carlyle's
French Revolution, if you doubt the truth of my
words.
"Brethren!"  The word means something on the
Apostle's lips. Something brotherly has been not
only talked of, but done in our world. (Read Acts ii.
41-47; iv. 33-37; xi. 27 —30; I John iii. IOI9.) And where is the broad contrast between the
dreams which men have sought frantically to substantiate, and the reality of brotherhood which is
freely offered to us by Christ in the Gospel. The
one springs out of sentiment, the other roots itself
in duty; the one seeks pleasure of intercourse, the
other occasion of ministry; the one is content to be
a passion, the other knows itself to be a power; the
one will weep copious tears over a brother's sorrows,
the other with brave strong hand will lift a brother's




ON RESTORING A SINNER.          2I5
burdens and bear them away; the one builds an altar
of incense, the other an altar of sacrifice; the one
draws its inspiration from a selfish passion, the other
from the loving deeds of the Elder Brother, who laid
down His life for us all. That which is of God
starts from duty; even as the Highest came not to
delight Himself in His world but to die for it, and to
find beyond long agony the fruit of His travail, in
such love as sacrifice only can win.
The world is full of clamours about human rights
-rights of men, rights of women, rights of subjects,
rights of workmen, rights of servants, rights of slaves.
Has it ever struck you that there is not a word
about these wonderful rights in the Bible? I read
there of the duties of men, the duties of women, the
duties of subjects, the duties of workmen, the duties
of servants, the duties even of slaves-even as the
Lord came to earth to assert no right, though all
right was His, but to fulfil the behest of duty, and
to sheathe His claims, as it were, in soft bands of
ministry and love.
And here we are on the track of one of life's
deepest and most blessed truths. Parent, brother,
sister, friend, would you win the joy that springs out




216        ON RESTORING A SINNER.
of those blessed relationships, " Deny thyself, and take
up thy cross," and it shall be thine. Snatch at the
joy-claim it, insist on rights, guard them jealously,
refuse to share them-the joy eludes you. Seek
how you may minister, see what burden you can
lift, what sorrow you can share, what fault you can
pardon, what sin you can cover, what help you can
bring, and there will be a love springing up there
which death can but transfigure, and which will
bear riper and richer fruit, age by age, through
eternity. Thosewill read these words, I doubt not, who
know something of this. Mothers, sisters, who have
fought the battles, and borne the burdens of some
prodigal, who, through their long agony of effort, has
grown into their heart of hearts, and from whom they
have won a love which has a tinge of almost worship
in it, which is their rich, their abounding reward.
Brethren, these are the true prizes of life. Beside
these your golden successes look but dim. Be not afraid
to win them, to wear them. Be not afraid to let your
loves and your hopes go cross-bearing through life;
they, too, like Christ's, will wear crowns in Heaven.
Thus much on brotherhood, its grounds, its
burdens, its joys.




ON RESTORING A SINNER.           217
The one great canker of brotherhood is sin. The
schism in the human unity was made, as Milton
finely expounds, when man's heart went astray from
God: —" In this the children of God are manifest, and
the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was
of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him?  Because his own works were evil,
and his brother's righteous."-(I John iii. Io-I2.)
Every act of sin makes the rent wider, because it
sunders man more widely from God. Strike out the
centre from a balanced system, a sun from the midst
of his planets, and the confusion is complete. And
discord must reign in the realm of sin. The only
cure of the enmity of man against man is the cure of
the enmity of man against God. He who came to
refound the brotherhood which sin had shattered,
saw the heart of the mischief. He began to draw
men to each other, by drawing them to God in
Himself. He charged them with duties and ministries to each other, of which He had given them,
not the pattern only, but the principle. He asked of




2I8         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
them, for their brethren, the ministries which He
had a right to claim of them for Himself, and which
He had Himself freely offered unto them:-" So
after He had washed their feet, and had taken His
garments, and was set down again, He said unto them,
Know ye what I have done to you?  Ye call me Master
and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then,
your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also
ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given
you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater
than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that
sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye
do them."-(John xiii. Iz-I7.)  That love which He
sought to win from them is sin's destroyer, sin being
the destroyer of human love. The brotherhood of
the Church was the brotherhood of men who believed
that sin, the destroyer of human, was destroyed by
Divine love. They vowed themselves in love to
Christ to struggle against sin, when they vowed
themselves to each other. They were sure that when
sin reared its hateful form in their fellowship, there
would be a breach in their unity-a schism which, if
the sin were tolerated, would grow wider, until it




ON RESTORING A SINNER.             219
rent the community to fragments.  And so they
recognised this as their primal duty: —" Brethren, if
a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering
thyself, lest thou also be tempted."
This restoring of sinners is the primary duty of
the members of the brotherhood of Christ. Is it
not, too, the great problem of society. It lies as
near to the heart of the welfare of homes, of kingdoms, as of Churches. Restore the sinners and you
save the State. It is the fundamental social question.
It lies under all our most searching Reformations;
it is hardly touched by our most radical Revolutions.
It eludes the grasp of the statesman; it is but feebly
handled by the priest. But so near to the heart of the
welfare of empires does it lie, that he who can turn
a sinner from the error of his ways, and restore a
soul in the spirit of meekness, earns, more richly
than statesmen or conquerors, the civic crown.
I. The man overtaken in a fault.
It is literally the man "even caught in a sin."
Putting the case most strongly, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one, despite the open scandal
and shame.  The sense of our translation, "over



220         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
taken in a fault," suggesting, I think, the idea of
surprise by the sin as well as in the sin, though not
the literal sense of the original, is, perhaps, spiritually not far from the truth. The word used for " sin,"
the word used for "restore," and the allusion to
temptation, seem all to point to the case of a man
overtaken and snared by a sin. In a sense, this is
the true history of sin: man in Eden was sought out
by a tempter and snared. We have here the case of
a Christian brother; a man who believes in righteousness; a man who does not believe in his heart of
hearts the devil's lie-who has a brightness within
him against which the sin looms darkly, who has an
uprightness there which a loving hand may restore.
There are those, alas! who overtake sins; whose
inmost soul searches, and is athirst for them, at
least as far as the soul is awakened; there may be
something deeper, some witness for God, latent
even there, which one day will rise up, and lay, at
any rate, the refuge of lies, the belief that sin is
the good, that Satan is the God, in ruins in the
dust. But they seem to catch sins as eagerly as the
vapour of naptha catches fire.  They spread an
atmosphere around them which kindles the faintest




ON RESTORING A SINNER.          22I
spark into a devouring flame. I do not know how
you can restore such. If the bent of their souls is
thus madly towards evil, I do not know that you
can do much to help them. God can restore them,
but after long miseries.  Saved, so as by fire,
charred, maimed, bare; but saved. God grant that
none of you may challenge that discipline. It is
a fearful thing for such an one to fall into the hands
of the living God.
But there are those whom sin overtakes. It is
out of the course of their most earnest purpose. It
comes as a perversion. It twists, if it does not break,
the unity of their lives. David's deadly sin was of
this character. Take that man's whole life course
and you will see how utterly adultery and murder
were out of the true line of it. They wrenched him
aside from the high aim of his life. Such a man
may yield himself to a temptation readily, as if his
whole soul were in it, the more desperately because
of the utter subversion of all his habits and principles
which it involves, just as the strongest sluice when
burst lets in the fullest tide; but it is sin to him.
Paint it to him as Nathan painted it to David, and
his soul will rise up in judgment against it. "As




222         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing
shall surely die." Listen to him in his calm moments; he moans and writhes: "Have mercy upon
me, 0  God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot
out my transgressions.  Wash  me  throughly from
mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.  For I
acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever
before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be
justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou
judgest."-(Psalm  li. — 4.)  It may be worse with
him than this.  He may see no way of escape from
it; he may say within himself, "I can never break
the  spell."  He feels himself afloat on a swift
current, the oars of his resolution are powerless to
stem it, but he knows full well that it is floating
him to perdition. He has visions of a higher life
which a man might live and be blest. Ask him
what he longs for in his best moments in his heart
of hearts, and he will answer, " Free me from this:
if this vile body is in fault, kill it; if this weak
heart, purge it, no matter how fierce the fire; but
give me strength to live the life that seems to me




ON RESTORING A SINNER.             223
so beautiful, so heavenly, on. which my thoughts
fasten, while the song of the Siren wiles me away."
That man is no reprobate, though, as with David,
reprobates might tremble at his sin. The fault has
found him. The flesh, the mind, in a careless hour,
have sent forth their tentacles of lust, and have
grasped a prize. But it oppresses him; he is restless, moody, wretched. Like Launcelot, in the
"Idylls of the King," it mars his life, and he
knows it.
"Another sinning on such heights with one,
The flower of all the west, and all the world,
Had been the sleeker for it."
Not so he. Sin has caught him, and holds him as
a captive. But there is an uprightness there which
it has bent but has not prostrated, a love for truth
and honour which it has blighted but has not killed.
Brethren, take him by the hand and clasp him.
Throw the cords of your love around him, and
stay him  in his mad career.  "Brethren, if a man
be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."
II. Ye which are spiritual.




224        ON RESTORING A SINNER.
Who are the spiritual?  Who knows the secret
of this Divine art of restoring souls? I suppose
that in any community of professed believers there
will be those who will prick up their ears at once
when the word "spiritual" greets them, and say
to themselves, " This concerns me; here is plainly
something with which I have to do. Spiritual is
what I strive and pray to be, and in some measure
I am thankful that I realize it. I know but little,
thank God, of these storms and struggles of the
tempted; heavenly things occupy my mind, heavenly
exercises and contemplations are my delight. Pious
conversation, pious literature, pious observances,
make up my world. If any have fallen into sin,
my superiority to temptation, my separation from
the world, my Christian attainments, will enable me
to restore them, to bring them, thoroughly humbled,
to repentance and confession, and point out to
them afresh the narrow path." The spiritualthose who know that they are the spiritual, and
who are the qualified teachers, correctors, and exemplars to their fellow-men.
I am not sure that this is the class which is
meant by the term, when we hear it on an Apostle's




ON RESTORING A SINNER.         225
lips-indeed, I am  quite sure that it is not.
I am quite sure that Paul speaks of a class of much
simpler and humbler men. Men who are not at all
sure that they are the spiritual; men who are only
sure that sin is a great sorrow to the sinner, a
great sorrow to the Saviour; a crushing burden on
the spirit, which so fills them with distress and
pity, that they can take no rest and know no joy
until they have lifted it and borne it away. Men
on whom another's burden, a burden of shame and
sorrow which has bowed down some poor despairing
brother to the dust, presses heavily as their own;
who have looked into the conditions of His life, who
" Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses,"
and who find some dim image of it in their own
hearts. The men and the women in a church who
are so spiritual, that they are conscious of stooping
from a great height to touch the sinner in the depth
-a height to which, they thank God, these low
and base temptations never climb-had better stay
there, and leave the work of restoring sinners to
those who know, too sadly, that the devil is as near
to them as to the poor fallen one, and that it is by
hard battle, through grace abounding daily, that
Q




226         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
they keep themselves out of the same pit. They
can see the brother's image in the sin as well as
in the suffering, and feel, as the Lord did, that
the poor lost sheep is the one whom it is worth
any sacrifice to save.
I think this is what Heaven calls " spiritual." It
is to be something like Christ, to whom publicans
and sinners drew near, as a sick child draws near to
the shelter of a nurse's bosom, while the whole-the spiritual, as they call themselves-stood apart
in contemptuous pride.  There were two once in
the presence of the Saviour. The one a righteous
man and a just; a man who had a right, as men
judge, to hold his head high among his fellow-men
-one of the recognized spiritual of his time; the
other, a crushed and broken thing, of no account
with any but with Christ, who was learning the
first lessons of that love which makes us spiritual
in the estimation of Heaven. It is worth while
to read the narrative again in this connection.
(Luke vii. 36-50.)  I have already made it the
topic of a discourse, and dwelt with special emphasis on the moral of it, " She loved much, for she
had much forgiven." Brethren, ye who are spiritual,




ON RESTORING A SINNER.          227
who have had much forgiven, and who love much,
if you see a poor crushed sinner who has been overtaken in a fault, afraid to lift up his head in any
Christian company, afraid to claim lest he should
shame the Christian name, feeling himself a dishonoured outcast from  all holy fellowship, and
tempted to believe-and this is the devil's crowning victory-that He who is the Head of all holy
fellowship has outcast him too, ye who are spiritual, ye whose heart is tender, whose hand is
healing, like Christ's, "restore such an one in the
spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also
be tempted."
I feel it profoundly important to insist on this
truth, that the spiritual in the church must be those
who are in closest sympathy with the spirit of Him
who came into this world that He might draw
sinners to Himself.  This was the spirit of the
Redeemer's mission; that must be spiritual which
is most deeply imbued with this spirit, and which
is able to work out most fully this mission of the
Saviour to the world. The spiritual are those who
can take God's view of sin-the view which expressed itself in the gift of Christ.  A hatred of
Q 2




228         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
sin, a horror of sin, so utter that the heart of the
God-man literally broke under the reproach of the
sin which He voluntarily assumed; joined with a
love, a sympathy, a pity, for the race which sin
had overtaken, and plunged into innumerable woes,
so profound and tender, that He bore for them
willingly the burden under which His heart
was breaking, that those who were crushed by it
might arise and live. A hatred of sin which, far
from hardening into a lofty contempt for sinners,
drew Him down to the sphere of their temptations;
that, as a tempted man-one who could be touched
with the feeling of their infirmities, and had like
themselves to learn obedience by suffering-He
might place Himself at their side.
So intense was His hatred of sin, that He could
not spare one sinner to be buried in its slime and
lost in its pit to God and the universe for everthat He held His own most precious blood to be
not too dear a price to pay to rescue sinners from
sin's fell bondage, and leave Satan spoiled of victims, while the house of God was filled with sons.
Ye that are spiritual, ye that stand beset, like
Christ, with temptation, who agonize daily in the




ON RESTORING A SINNER.            229
battle-field in which your poor brother fell, who
hate sin with such Christ-like intensity, that to see
a human soul its victim is a bitter pain, to snatch
a human soul from its chain a blessed and glorious
victory-ye that are spiritual, to whom a soul in
darkness turns with quick instinct, and cries, if
but with the dumb prayer of pain, for aid, "If a
man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual,
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."
III. Restore such an one.
Restore him. There is but one way. Restore
him to God, and you restore him to his brother, to
the Church, and to himself.
I. Do not imagine that you can restore him.
Man can do just one essential service to his brother:
he can bring him to Jesus, and leave him with
Him.  The highest are but ministers, to set the
soul before God, and Go4 before the soul.  "Readjust," "refit," isthe precise meaning of the word.
That is, readjust the man's Divine relations, and
the rest will fall into the true order at once. The
danger is, in our endeavours to restore a soul from
sin, lest we aim at too much. The best service is




230         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
to bring him to Jesus, and leave the rest with Him.
You may have formed strong convictions as to the
nature of the transgression. You could discourse
long and ably on the theme, to bring your brother
to a humbling sense of his fault. Beware lest it be
your righteousness the right as it seems to you,
rather than God's righteousness, as God can show
it to him, with which you are seeking to readjust
him: beware lest you be seeking, under specious
guise, a victory rather than a soul. Beware, above
all, of homilies on transgression. Be sure that God
is reading to him a sterner homily than any that
can fall from your lips; or, if not, yours will be
worse than useless. There is but one thing in the
universe which can convert him-the vision of the
Cross. Restore him. Don't crush him, lift him;
lift him, as Jesus lifted that heart-crushed woman
whose sorrow broke in a rain of tears at His feet;
or like the Good Shepherd, who, having lost one
sheep, left the ninety and nine and went after the
lost one until He found it, and lifting in His arms,
laid it on His shoulders rejoicing, and brought it
home.
The Father's grief, the Saviour's pain and sorrow,




ON RESTORING A SINNER.          23I
these are the great forces in the hand of the Spirit,
whereby he that is of the Spirit, he that is spiritual, may convince and restore souls. The great
matter, the greatest, is to get a fallen brother or
sister to believe that the very intensity of the
Righteous Father's hatred against sin, is the measure of His sorrow that a soul should be ensnared
by it; that every act, every thought of continued
transgression is a fresh and shameful question of
the earnestness of that purpose of Redemption
which sealed itself on Calvary, a fresh wound to the
tenderness of the Father's and the Saviour's love.
The most admirable exhortations, the most clear
expositions of the duties which have been neglected,
or the injury which has been inflicted, will be
powerless in comparison with the thought, that
he has grieved and wronged a love which clings
to him more tenderly at this moment of sin and
wretchedness, because he most needs its ministries; which receives fresh wounds each moment
that he hardens himself against it in pride
and impenitence, and will receive the last and
sharpest wound that he can inflict, if he breaks
away from its pleadings, and refuses to believe




232         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
that its best and most joyous welcomes await his
return.
The tenderness of the love of God in Christ to
the wretchedest sinners, yea to the rebellious also,
though the Church has been talking and the world
has been hearing of it for eighteen centuries, is all
unfathomed still. The meaning of Calvary has yet
to be explored. Could we make that love to sinners
which inspired the prayer, "Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do," glow in our words
and tremble in our tones, the Church had long ere
this restored a sin-lapsed world.  It is the one
over-mastering power everywhere, the tale of Calvary-the one triumphant antagonist of sin. To
the worst reprobates on earth, could my voice reach
them, I would cry, " Care for yourselves, for Christ
cares for you; save yourselves, for Christ is saving
you; conquer this sin, for it pierces afresh the
Friend who was'wounded for your transgressions,
and bruised for your iniquities,' even unto death.
Abandon that sin, for there is One on high who
must share the sorrow with which it comes laden;
the misery to which you doom yourself must press
as a burden on your merciful Saviour's heart." If




ON RESTORING A SINNER.            233
that thought will not unseal the fountains of tears,
the ablest homilies, the sternest denunciations, are
vain.
Brethren, ye which are spiritual, ye who can
enter into the mind of Christ about sin, and make
sinners understand the measure and the quality of
His love, bear ever His charge in mind, "As my
Father hath sent me into the world, even so I send
you." There are a thousand enterprises, a thousand
missions, on which the world can send its children.
Christ, in the Church, has but one-to seek and
to save the lost. Be ye His helpers. Spend, yea,
be spent, in the enterprise to which, unseen, all
Heaven is assistant, and whose fruits outlast eternity. Live for the help of souls, in their struggle
against evil; live to deepen their faith in the
force of the redeeming love of God. And if-for
"The Son of God, in doing good,
Was fain to look to Heaven and sigh;
Nor can the heirs of sinful blood
Seek joy unmixed in charity"cross-bearing, you have to fulfil that ministry; if
weeping you go forth, bearing that precious seed;
if, as you watch for the harvest of your toils and




234         ON RESTORING A SINNER.
watch fruitlessly, the hands hang down, the heart
fails, the spirit faints, and is ready to abandon its
mission in despair, remember the long-suffering
patience and hope of Christ-remember what He
sees, and you cannot see, of the harvest of His
toil and pain beyond the river of death, and go forth
to your work re-inspired.  "They that sow in tears
shall reap in joy. He which goeth forth and weepeth,
bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."




X.
anD  Pct there  io  aoom.*
"Come, for all things are now ready." "And yet there is
rooM." —LUKE xiv. I7, 22.
THIS is but one of the many touching and
beautiful forms in which the Saviour seeks to
set forth the freeness and largeness of His Gospel,
and to make the sin-sick, life-weary throngs around
Him understand that His love, His life, was no
private gift to a company of select expectants, but
God's public gift to the broad human world. Oh!
the wistfulness of some of those eager eyes that were
bent on the Saviour; the pining hunger of some of
those hearts which were waiting for the crumbs that
* This Sermon was preached to a very large audience of the
poorest of the poor. I have not altered it, but note the fact as
an explanation of some of the special allusions.




236        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
might fall from His bountiful hand! But had they
any right to touch them? What could the kingdom
of Heaven have to do with such beggared, bankrupt,
God-forsaken lives as theirs? For generations, such
as they had been drilled into the belief that the
kingdom of Heaven was the guarded domain of the
orthodox, reputable, and world-honoured Pharisees,
and that they, the publicans and harlots, the scum
and offscouring of all things, were scum in God's
sight as well as man's, and needed simply to be
swept out. And when they found that the Son of
man, instead of driving them into more utter darkness, loved to see them crowd round His purity, and
touch the hem of His heavenly virtue and might, it
broke up the fountains of the great deep within
them, it melted the rude rock of their hearts, it drew
them in throngs round His pathways, it bowed them
in a passion of tender devotion at His feet. They
bathed them with their tears, they covered themwith
their kisses, and they shouted, as they attended His
triumphal progress through the streets of Jerusalem,
"Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed be this King who cometh
in the name of the Lord!"
For, in truth, it was the first time that any such




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.         237
King had been seen on earth, and the first time that
any large and lasting benediction had reached the poor.
Benign words had been spoken from on high; there
was the echo of them still lingering in the air. But the
wise, the noble, the mighty, the self-styled holy of this
world had intercepted and engrossed them. " They
are for us-the worthy-these good words of God; the
kingdom of Heaven is our express domain. God is
seeking a select company to serve Him, to be honoured with His commands, invited to His fellowship,
and admitted to dwell in His palace halls on high. This
class He has found-we are the men. Stand by, we are
holier than thou. There is a broad line of distinction
to be drawn, a line which God recognizes as well as
man, in point of culture, manners, and morals, between us and you, who were altogether born in sinsa people not knowing the law-the helots of the heavenly
kingdom-the hewers of wood and the drawers of
water to the Lord's true congregation for ever."
They were right.  There was a broad line of
demarcation between the two great classes; the
Pharisees and the Publicans, the Scribes and the
sinners, the rulers and the mob, the luxurious lords
and the dog-licked beggars who lay whining at their




238        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
gates. There was a broad distinction. They were
right again, for the Lord recognized it as well as
man, and the Lord remembered it when He sent
His Son to cast in His lot with the toiling, suffering
masses, and share with them the priests' malignity
and the rulers' scorn; and when He rang that warning into their startled ears which has been so terribly
sustained by their history, " Verily, verily, I say unto
you, the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of
Heaven before you." Yes, God remembered the distinction which for ages they had been drilling into
the minds and hearts of the great company of the
poor. God remembered it, and they remember it
now. " There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,
when ye shall see A braham and Isaac and Jacob in the
kingdom of Heaven, and ye yourselves thrust out."  The
most damning sin in God's sight, and that which He
avenges most fearfully, is the making the gate of the
kingdom of Heaven, whether by doctrine or conduct,
too narrow for the great masses of mankind. This
was the condemnation of the Pharisaic school-that
having the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, they neither
entered themselves, nor would suffer the throngs to
come near the gate. We will look more closely at




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.           239
I. The scene and circumstance of this parable:-' And it came to pass, as He went into the house of one
of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day,
that they watched Him."
It was a grand banquet, at the house of one of the
chief men of the State. The rich Jews held sumptuous Sabbath-day banquets, like another people,
not unlike the Jews in genius and conviction, and
with a great name for holiness, in these modern days.
Indeed, it was their great day for dining out. It is
but fair, however, to say that the custom probably
arose out of the need of entertaining those who came
up from a distance to attend the worship of the
cities; so that originally it would be a banquet
chiefly for the necessitous and the poor. This would
give a point, and, let it be also said, a limit, to our
Lord's exhortation in the I2th verse.  This was
manifestly a specially magnificent entertainment.
Contests for upper seats were going on, giving occasion for our Lord's rebuke. I daresay the crowd
were allowed to hang about the doors and look in,
like dogs watching for the crumbs.  As dogs they
were treated, and as dogs they probably felt, before
these magnates of the kingdom. Their wistful looks




240        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
struck the Saviour.  I think there must have been
something especially touching about the aspect of
the poor crowd around the gates; something which
He thought might draw tears, even from the eyes of
a chief Pharisee, if they could be got to look at it,
and so He spake these words:-" When thou mnakest a
dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren,
neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they
also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee.
But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed,
the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; for they
cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at
the resurrection of the just."   One of the guests
caught up the  phrase: "the resurrection of the
just."  "Yes!" we can fancy him  saying, "that
belongs to me, that is a matter about which I
have a right to speak." The heavenly kingdom
was familiarly conceived of among that class as
the scene of a sumptuous banquet; at least, that
was to be the first act of the great drama. The
notion was founded, probably, on the imagery of
Isaiah xxv. 6: " And when one of them that sat at meat
with Him heard these things, he said unto Him, Blessed
is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom  of God."




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.            24I
One can readily picture him. A demure Pharisaic
saint, a man whose evidences were all perfectly clear,
so clear in fact that judgment and the love of God
were quite needless additions.  His salvation was
plainly decreed; why should he vex himself with
spiritual conflicts, benign ministries, and the daily
burden of the cross? He had all the pious platitudes
of his school at his tongue's tip. One of them slipped
easily off, as he lifted up his eyes with appropriate
fervour-" Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." His sleek self-satisfaction, his unclouded
conviction that whoever might fail, he should be there
and feast on the fat things of the heavenly kingdom,
drew this parable from the Saviour's lips. It is terribly stern to all presumptuous Pharisaism, it is benignantly pitiful and attractive to all self-distrustful
ignorance and sinfulness, all self-abandoned wretchedness and despair. It is emphatically the parable of
the kingdom. It is the charter of the poor and outcast; it claims the pariahs of a narrow and selfish
human society, as the citizens of the great universal
kingdom over which God rules in love. It establishes
His relation to even the poorest and wretchedest
outcast, trudging with naked and blistered feet along
R




242        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
the rough highways, camping under the hedges, sleeping on the door-steps, or moaning in the prisons, of
the world. All such, but specially the most wretched,
are here called to and claimed for the heavenly kingdom, and yet, though the myriads of the weary and
heavy laden have in all ages pressed into it, " YET,
THERE IS ROOM!"
This leads us to consider
II. The boundless comprehension of the call. " A
certain man made a great supper, and bade many;" and
first, remember, first, the very men who turned the
bidding into scorn.
The guilt of sin, in this and kindred parables, is
not the feature which is put foremost, but rather its
misery. I may venture to say that in dealing with
us, God seldom puts it foremost, save when for us
He laid the whole burden on His well-beloved Son.
God sees its misery in us; God lays its guilt on
Christ.  It is as wretched, starving, dying, that He
looks on us. There is no aversion, no hate. The
guilt which He must hate is there on Christ, borne
away into the waste. But pity, profound, unfathomable pity fills him, as He sees the prodigals wandering further and further into the wilderness, so hungry,




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.         243
so weary, so hopeless of help, that they resign themselves to share the husks and the sties of swine.
And He made ready a great supper-the bread of the
Father's house, the bread by which the angels liveand sent swift messengers to call them in. Them!
His prodigals-whom do you mean?  I have only
one clue.  The hungry, the thirsty, the weary, the
wounded, the dying, are the "called" everywhere in
the Book of God: and just because they are the
hungry, the weary, the wounded, the dying. It is
just that which touches this great bountiful King.
It is the lost sheep which is most tenderly sought;
it is the sick child which is most heedfully nursed;
it is the starving soul which is most largely fed.
If your hearts were open to this parable you would
feel that it is just your neediness which gives you,
through grace, the strongest possible claim on His
pity, sympathy, and aid: you would plead this as
your title-deed-the right which He gives to you in
Christ to a place at the Gospel feast, a mansion in
His home on high. But are these "the many" in
the parable? Was the outcast pagan world called
first and at once to share in the bounty and benefaction of the King?  No.  There is a mystery here
1 2




244        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
which we cannot fathom. We cannot understand
fully how there was to be an appointed time; a
time, too, far on in the world's history, but not in
the history of the universe, for the gathering in of the
Gentile with the Jew to the great feast of the Gospel.
It seems a dark mystery-that long pagan nightbut we see into it but a little way. The secret things
belong unto God. We can measure the visible dispensations, but we know not what ways of God with
human souls that darkness veils from sight. We
shall understand it one day, when the clear sunlight
of Heaven falls upon it all, and our cry will be, " 0
the depth of the riches of His wisdom and His love!"
I believe that the purpose of God in the calling of
the Jews thus early was to make them His witnesses
and missionaries to the Gentiles, as Joseph, Daniel,
and Paul became.  But they would not.  They
would not even recognise their own want of the blessing. They fed and puffed themselves with the chaff
of privilege, but they would have none of the bread
of God, nor should any one else have it. Thus much
they had firmly settled. Woe be to any Divine messenger who should venture to pass through their
coasts on his way to call the starving Gentiles home!




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.              245
Their taste was for the bread of this world.  When
God spake to them of His banquet, as St. Augustine
says, they opened their jaws and not their hearts: —
"And they all with one consent began to make excuse.
The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground,
and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me
excused.  And another said, I have bought five yoke of
oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me
excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and
therefore I cannot come.  So that servant came, and
showed his lord these things.  Then the master of the
house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly
into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither
the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast comnmanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto
the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and
compel them to come in, that any house may be filled.
For I say unto you, That none of those men which were
bidden shall taste of my supper." The streets and lanes
are to be ransacked, the highways and hedges are to
be stripped of their vagrants, and all are to be
brought in.  "Compel them to come in."  Why?  By
what right? Because they belong to the King, and




246        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
his treasures are theirs. The servants had a right
to say, laying hold of each poor tramp, harlot,
beggar, publican, " Come! my lord has need of thee,
and thy need of him and his feast is greater. Come!
these squalid rags are not the dress which went with
thee from his home, these dirty crusts, these shrivelled husks, are not the bread which he had stored
up for thee there, and which had been thine hadst
thou remained. No!'He would have fed thee with
the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock
would He have satisfied thee.' Come! Come! put on
the wedding garment; a braver robe than the angels
wear! Come! satisfy thy hunger at the King's
banquet-table; it is richer food than the angels taste.
Look on thy squalor, remember thy need, and come!"
The words of the commission are evidently intended to describe the pariahs of human society.
The highways and hedges, the courts and alleys!
What scenes of filth, squalor, wretchedness, anguish,
do the house fronts veil!  Open the window and
look through. A room smaller than your parlour,
and twenty people crammed into it.  They lie there
in the reeking rags they have worn all day. They
steam in the heat of the room; the stench sickens,




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.          247
and almost suffocates you. Old men, hoary vagabonds, hardened reprobates, are there; and young
girls, and wives and mothers, and stout lads and
children, all curled up there, trying to slumber, as
reckless, as ignorant of bare decency as the beasts
that perish. The oaths, the obscenities, the blasphemies that are current fill you with a shuddering
horror. There are young lives growing up there,
poisoned in their innermost springs, rotten to their
innermost core. Even well-trained Christian philanthropy is tempted to say, " Here all is rottenness,
let it be swept out into the waste." Blessed be God
that even to them, in His great name, we can send
the invitation. Not into the waste, but into the
King's banquet-hall let them be compelled out of
their sties and stews, to be clad with the wedding
garment, and to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, in the kingdom of God. Wherever men are
packed most densely by want and misery, wherever
hunger preys most fiercely, wherever vice riots most
foully, wherever decency is most dishonoured, and
manhood is most discrowned, we are not only permitted, thank God, we are bound to bear the message,
and to invite, nay, in the name of God's great love




248        AND YET THERE IS, ROOM.
for them, great need of them, to charge them, to
compel them, to come in.
The banquet is spread, the hall is lighted, behold
all things are now ready. The angels stand attendant to minister to the guests. Guests He must
have. Said I not rightly, that He needs you? A
home must be filled; who should fill it but the sons?
Shall God watch and wait for you, while you are
halting and hanging back? Let the men with the
fields, and oxen, and homesteads, set them before the
kingdom if they will, but you! What have you?
What is your life? A long, wearing wrestle with
misery, a daily burden which you are daily tempted
to fling down in despair, a ceaseless hunger, a constant pain. Come! fling off the rags, and put on
the wedding garment; throw aside the husks, and
feed on the living bread; quit the sty, and enter
where you were born to live, a son in the great
Father's home on high. You want pardon. Listen
to the promise:-" Though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow."  You want righteousness.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and confess Him,
and His righteousness is yours. You want power to
put down the tempter, and tread the world's blandish



AND YET THERE IS ROOM.            249
ments and threats under your feet; cry unto the
Lord, with whom is everlasting strength, to rescue
and to quicken you; take arms from His armoury;
take strength from His spirit; take courage from
His victories; and see the world, the flesh, and the
devil, which have long tyrannized and tormented you,
stricken, writhing, and at last slain, under your feet.
" Come, for all things are now ready."  "Come, for yet
there is room."
III. Let us endeavour to estimate the force of this
assurance, which brings home the invitation to each
one of us.  "Come, for all things are now ready,"
"' and yet there is room."
"Grace no more endures a vacuum than nature,"
says a shrewd commentator on this passage. The
fact that there is room is the very strongest invitation; those words on God's lips are the mightiest
appeal. That there yet is room we shall endeavour
to develope under these three aspects of the same
great fact, the one fact which meets us everywhere,
"the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
I. There is room in the Saviour's heart.
Till that heart is full, till the largest desires of
that love are satisfied, there is not a call only, there




250        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
is a claim on you to come.  Rich, educated, and
respectable, or thieves, harlots, and outcasts, the call
is to all, the claim is on all alike. Because of the
human likeness which is not yet obliterated, because
of the human faculty which is not yet squandered,
because of the human capacity for Divine influence
which is not yet killed, He not only calls you, He
claims you, in His heart of hearts, for there yet is
room. Till that heart is satisfied! Think you that
it is satisfied yet? Does He see of the travail of His
soul and rest in the satisfaction of His desire, the
fulfilment of His hope? Look round you. What a
world is wrestling, writhing, weeping, sinning, rotting, under the eye of the merciful Saviour; who so
loved it in its guilt, and so pitied it in its agony, that
He "left those glorious realms and royalties above,"
to bear its load, to purge its sins, to soothe its
anguish, by His own shame, agony, and death. The
saving a world inspired that sacrifice:-" For God so
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."  But let none dare to limit it:
"For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn
the world; but that the world through Him might t,




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.          25I
saved." It was a world's redemption at which He
aimed. It was a world's guilt, a world's agony,
which He bore upon His spirit. It was a world
which, as He drew near to the last scene, and
entered the cloud which hung around Calvary, He
clasped and drew to His heart. "And I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto me."  And there is
room still. Oh! the matchless patience and hope of
the Saviour. For nineteen centuries, just the gleanings, just the first-fruits, let us say, of the human
generations have yielded Him the tribute of their
love, and afforded Him but the earnest of His joy.
And the very class which he sought most eagerly
has been well-nigh barred out from His kingdom.
The sects have been wrangling around its gate, and
have driven the great throng of poor sinners away.
Flesh and blood is the one bond which He recognizes as the basis of His claim. "Seeing that
the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He
Himself also took part of the same." And lest men
should think that it was the finer clay and the blue
noble blood which He, the Highest, was thinking
of, He went to a manger in the stable of an inn
for His cradle, He went to a workman's cottage




252        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
for His childhood's home. For the rest, that the
homeless might find Him a brother, He had no
roof to shelter Him, and depended, as no beggar
in Judeea depended, on chance ministry for His
daily bread. Was there one poor pariah who was
hunted out of all reputable fellowship, and who
withered under the scornful scowls of rulers and
priests?  He sought him, and placed Himself by
his side, in full front of the malignant bigotry of
his time; covering him, if not to the eye of man,
at any rate to the eye of God and of the angels,
with the robe of His purity and love.  The reproach of the publican, the reproach of the harlot,
the reproach of the criminal, fell on Him. There
was no depth which He did not fathom, to show
what room was in His heart for every penitent:
the poorer, the wretcheder, the guiltier, the better,
for then was Satan most signally despoiled of a
victim, and then did God most triumphantly recover a long-lost son.  I say there yet is room,
while one child of flesh and blood still writhes in
the devil's bondage, while one prodigal still stays
his gnawing hunger with the food of swine. Come!
there yet is room. We ministers of the Gospel




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.         253
are bidden to affirm it. By His agony and bloody
sweat, by His cross and passion, by His precious
death and burial, by that untold depth of sorrow,
by that unutterable mystery of pain, by the omnipotent impulse of that love which bore Him on to the
triumphant consummation, we dare affirm that His
love is as deep, His sympathy as tender, His call
as earnest, His grace as free, to every sinner now
listening to these words, as when in the hour of
His anguish He plucked the dying thief from the
grasp of the destroyer, and bore him, justified and
sanctified, to His home in Paradise-the first trophy
of His saving power, the first of the willing captives
who shall swell with you His triumphal train.
2. There is room in the great Father's home.
The Father is the head of the home. At the
root of all His dealings with you lies the fact that
you were once, and are still His child; prodigal,
profligate, contemptuous of His very name, it may
be, but His still; belonging to the home, needed
by Him to make it complete. Lay hold on that
word "Father," and dare to give full meaning to
it; no other word will be needed to explain how
there must be room while you are wandering. No




254        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
elder son, however immaculate, can fill the place of
that young prodigal in the Father's heart. This
word alone explains the parable in Luke xv. 3-7.
The wandering sheep was a wandering child. A
father's love, a father's pity for his prodigal, hungry,
naked, and wretched, alone explains the leaving the
ninety and nine behind, and seeking the lost one
at any cost, till he should find it and bring it home.
And the Lord declared the Father to the world. I
have spoken of the Saviour's love; measure the
Father's by His. He bore the cross, He lifted the
cup and drained it to the very dregs; it fell empty
from His hand on the cold ground of Gethsemane,
but the bitterness of it passed into the Father's
heart. Tell me, ye who can measure fatherhood,
what pangs were borne by the Most Blessed, when
the Son fell fainting on the damp ground, with the
prayer, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me," or sent up that piercing cry from Calvary,.
" My God, my God, whzy hast thou forsaken me? "  and
He knew that for you He might not spare. Is the
love which bore that, and gave that for you, already
satisfied? Can the father rest while you are staggering blindly on the road to everlasting darkness and




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.         255
death   Can He look round on the recovered sons
and miss the absent one, without sending many a
pitying, longing thought after him, to clasp him,
and draw him home again from his drunkenness
and harlotry, or the bitter want and misery in which
he pines. Take your own fatherhood, motherhood,
sisterhood, or brotherhood, to help you to understand the cry of that Father's heart, "there yet is
room." Do not misunderstand the matter. Love
may be outraged finally. There may come a point
where even the wisest, most patient, most loving
father is constrained to cut off the son from his
family, and extirpate each tender memory from his
heart. But He has not cut you off. I am bound
to affirm that you are not yet outcast. Your place
still waits for you. Sin-sick, wretched one, there
yet is room.
3. There is room among the blessed ones on
high.
" In my Father's house are many mansions."  Think
you they are all filled? Heaven is large; it is but
thinly peopled yet.  But what have the denizens
of these blest abodes, the clear-eyed, the purehearted saints and angels, to do with me, but to




256         AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
loathe me and cast me out, full as I am of lust,
crime, and deformity; sick, wounded, "from the
crown of the head to the sole of the foot, full of wounds
and bruises, and putrifying sores!"  That is the Pharisee's scoff, never let it cross your lips.  They
watched the Saviour once, as the publicans and
sinners gathered round Him to drink in His gracious
words, and this was the anathema which they hurled
at Him, the most poisoned in their poisonous store,
"He  keepeth company with publicans and sinners."
But Jesus carried the cause to a higher tribunal;
He appealed from the earthly to the unearthly spectators of the scene. While earth's popular teachers
and competent critics were affixing the broad seal
of the world's anathema alike to Jesus and to
His Gospel, how grandly does He interpose the
record of a higher tribunal, and interpret to that
mute assemblage the thought of the spiritual world
-"Earth mocks at Him who would gather her
outcasts, and preach salvation to her forlorn and
lost,'But verily, verily, I say unto you, there is
joy in the presence of the angels of God, over one
sinner that repenteth.'" Believe it, brethren. Believe
that the whole spiritual world throbs in sympathy




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.         257
with the Father and with Christ.  Saints and
angels, cherubim  and seraphim, watch with rapt
expectation the issues of a work which cost so
much sacrifice, and expends so much love. It is
the one theme on high; how Heaven is to be filled,
filled with the fruits of the Redeemer's travail and
the trophies of His grace and love. " Worthy is the
Lamb," they sing who have already entered the
heavenly mansions; but the strain halts, the harmony is thin; Heaven still waits for you. Myriad
myriads yet are wanted to swell the strain —the
great company of those who love much, for they
have much forgiven, alone can make the harmony
complete. The saints who have gone home are still
expectant; their Heaven still lacks its most lustrous
ornaments, themselves their purest and most transporting joys. To you, and far on beyond you, the
Saviour gazed when He brought forth the world out
of the dark womb of chaos, and when He heard in
Eden, wailing through the universe, the first moan
of a sinner's pain. Beyond the sorrow of that hour,
beyond the ages of man's guilt and shame, the
Saviour gazed and foresaw the day, when a great
company which no man could number, of all nations
S




258        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
and kindreds, and peoples and tongues, should stand
before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed
with white robes, with palms in their hands, and
crying with a loud voice, "Salvation to our God
which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb
for ever and ever."
He gazes on to it still. To realise that vision,
to fill that home, to gather that innumerable company of blessed ones, was worth the bloody and
shameful cross. But if that fail, it is all as shameful waste. Sinner, shall it fail? Will you rob
Him of your presence there? Will you rob Him
of your song? Will you rob Him  of His joy?
There is room there, room in the inner circle, room
among the first-born around the central throne.
And from that throne He pleads; nay He leaves
that throne, He puts by that splendour, He wears
the nail-prints and the thorn-scars, and the Man
of Sorrows stands once more before the gate of your
hearts. " Behold, He stands at the door and knocks."
Lift up the bars, fling wide the gates, and bring
Him in with glad hosannas. He shall lodge here
with you through life's brief night, you shall lodge
there with Him through the long day of Eternity.




AND YET THERE IS ROOM.          259
" COME, THEN, FOR ALL THINGS ARE NOW READY."
Come with all your rags upon you, the best robe
awaits you, the rings, the banquet, and all the expression of the intensest joy.  Come! they are
watching there the tear which is brimming in your
eye, the sigh which is bursting from your heart,
with rapt expectation.  They see you turning in
purpose to the Saviour; they see your trembling
steps tottering to His Cross, and their harps already
ring forth the prelude of that exulting strain, which
will swell at last into the burst of Heaven's most
joyous, most triumphant minstrelsy, when the lost
prodigal returns, and the ransomed family is complete:-" These thy sons were dead, but they are alive
again; they were lost, but they are found."
And then the travail of creation shall be ended
-the patience and the hope of its King. The
burden of life shall crush no longer. The pilgrim
of the wilderness shall have found his home, the
bondsman of sin shall have found his freedom,
developed by toil, enriched by pain, immortal by
death.  The night of sorrow  shall be for ever
ended, remembered but as the husbandman remembers seed-time when the breeze rustles through
S 2




260        AND YET THERE IS ROOM.
the ripening corn. And once more the Voice shall
be heard, as when of old it blessed the young
creation in its beauty, but charged with a joy whose
depth and fulness He only can measure who has
borne through the weary ages the burden of such
a world as this. Again, the eye of God shall rest
on His creation-the new creation, fruit of His
travail, child of His pain; and again the benediction shall fall on it as a glory, and shall rest on
it for ever, "BEHOLD, IT IS VERY GOOD."




THE
DIVINE MYSTERY OF PEACE.








I.
Ctbe P iiciples.
" These things have I spioken unto you, that in me ye might
have peace."-J OHN XVI. 33.
OUR worst troubles are invariably with ourselves.
A man can look the world and the devil in the
face very calmly, if he be but pure within. May
God but unite my heart to fear His name, and then
"Get thee hence, Satan; thou has nothing in me."
A heart right with God can find, like the Saviour,
blessedness in suffering, and glory even in shameful
death. The Lord could say, " The hour is come that
the Son of man should be glorified," when the gloom of
Calvary stretched across His path, because "He
and the Father were one." In truth, men dread
themselves more than they dread any living being




264             THE DISCIPLES.
or any terrible thing. I mean, the men who have
ventured to look into the darker depths of their
nature, and have pored over the mystery of " self."
Deliver them from that, and there is nothing which
they cannot face serenely.  Those filled with the
assurance which animated the Apostle, "I live, yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me," may well be calm, for
what can separate them from His love. Women
chained to the stake have worn a smile of ineffable
peace and joy, as the hope of glory which was in
them brightened into vision; delicate maidens and
children tortured on the rack have seemed aglow
with a rapture such as we may be sure no victor on
a well-fought field, on which was hanging the fate of
empires, has ever known. Those who have looked
into the Divine mystery of peace in Christ, and abide
in it, dwell " quiet from the fear of evil." For them,
evil is no more.
" These things have I spoken unto you, that in me, ye
might have peace,"-the peace of a nature at one with
itself, because at one with God. In terror no more
of the storm that is without, of the dread abyss of unbelief that is within: safe, because sound and wholethe only true and complete salvation possible for man.




THE DISCIPLES.             265
Strictly speaking, no being, no thing, in this
universe can hurt a man but himself. The citadel
of a will neither angel nor devil can storm. It was
the avowed belief of the old magicians, that if a
man's will remained firm against all their terrors,
the hosts of devils raging around were powerless
for harm. They held him to be absolutely safe while
he remained master of himself. And, indeed, so infinitely high and pure are the joys which spring
from those inner fountains, so terrible the woes and
miseries which spring from the inward selfishness
and lust, that few who know what it is to live, would
hesitate to part with all the riches and splendours
of earth's mightiest empire, if they might but receive
the assurance from God's own lips that they should
be saved from those inner sorrows, and filled with
those inner joys for ever. Let the Spirit but bear
witness with my spirit that my being, eternal as
God's, shall be a blessing and not a curse to me
while eternity endures, and then you may lead
where you will; none of these things have power
to move me. The citadel of my spirit is sure for
ever against the malice of human and infernal
powers, and I bear about with me, wherever I




266              THE DISCIPLES.
move, the springs of a joy which is akin to the
joy of God.
This assurance is in Christ, and in Christ alone.
" Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me,
he will keep my words; and my Father will love him,
and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him. He that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings:
and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's
which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you,
being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which
is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my
name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things
to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as
the world giveth, give I unto you. Let notyour heart be
troubled, neither let it be afraid." " These things I have
spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace.  In the
world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer;
I have overcome the world."
" THAT IN ME YE MIGHT HAVE PEACE."
I have ventured to call this the Divine Mystery
of peace. It is a mystery, for it lies in the relation
of persons to a Person, in the region which no plummet of understanding can fathom; in which a spi



THE DISCIPLES.             267
ritual sense, that sense "which judgeth all things,
even the deep things of God," alone has discernment
of the truth. Where it said, " In the understanding
of truths which can be developed in the form of propositions, or in obedience to principles which can be
cast into the mould of laws, ye shall have peace,"
there would be no Divine Mystery in the matter;
the understanding would in that case take cognizance
of the process, and charge of the results. But the
matter lies far deeper than this. It is in a Person:
in a relation to a Person, which is elsewhere described as being " in Him," that our peace abides,
or rather that we abide in peace. It is part of the
great mystery of godliness, how, amid the storms of
the outer, and the strifes of the inner world, a soul
can rest, trust, and hope in Christ.  It is a mystery
which the world knoweth not, and cannot know;
it is of those things of Christ which the Spirit taketh
and showeth to the believing heart. Its springs are
deep and unsearchable as is the relation of God, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to the redeemed. Much in that relation comes out and is
visible to the eye, and cognizable by the intellect;
but much lies hidden in the depths unknown, un



268             THE DISCIPLES.
knowable, like the nature of life or the love of a
friend. But it is permitted to us to search into it;
nay, we are bound to search "all things, even the
deep things of God." We are despising the Divine
Mysteries when we give up the effort to search them,
as if they were insoluble riddles. The measure in
which we know what may be known, is the measure
in which we possess and take joy in what may not
be known. Those who use their reason most largely
in the effort to search the Divine Mysteries, are
those who may hope for the fullest vision, and the
most perfect knowledge of God. But the mystery
remains mystery still.
Before we proceed to consider at large the nature
and conditions of our peace in Christ, one broad
fact, which underlies the whole subject, demands
some words.
I. The power of Christ to speak peace to the
human spirit lies in the fact that He alone, of all
beings in the wide universe, can touch its innermost
springs, and make it whole and sound within.
There are those who seem to entertain the notion
that their life is just the tool or the toy of invisible
spiritual powers-that the devils drag it one way,




THE DISCIPLES.              269
the angels another. They speak of temptation as if
they thought that it simply depended on the question
whether the assailants or the guardians were at any
particular moment the stronger, which way, heavenward or hellward, they go.  I suppose that there
are human lives vain enough and light enough to
be tossed to and fro, as the plaything of the spirits;
and lives, neither light nor vain, seem strangely bent
in these days on giving themselves over into their
hands.  But there are few of us, I suppose, who are
not brought by some stern crisis to feel, with bitter
sorrow, that while a host of devils cannot drag a
soul into a sin it loathes, legions of angels are powerless to stay it, when passion is mad for indulgence,
and, like Israel, it has spoken the " I will" of lust.
There is a dread revelation, which comes to us
at some moments with overwhelming force, of the
powerlessness of all good spirits, human and angelic,
when they seek to save us from ourselves. Who
has not learnt, in hours which sear their records
on the memory, the essential loneliness of a will?
There is a sanctuary of the being which the dearest
footstep can never enter; there is an inner spring
which the tenderest hand can never touch; there is




270             THE DISCIPLES.
a depth which the most loving eye can never fathom;
that Holy of Holies of the spirit, within whose veiled
silence we realise the full meaning of the " I."  " I "
have sinned; "I"  have perverted that which is right,
and it profited "me " not; and " I," as far as man or
angel can help me, must bear the burden, and bear
it for ever. The dearest friends, the mightiest influences, troops of beloved and devoted defenders,
may stand round a soul in the day of its temptation,
powerless to save it; powerless, beyond a certain
point, and that not a far one, to help it in the hour
of its bitter need. There may be those here who
have seen, weeping tears of agony while they gazed,
a prodigal break away from his home into the wilderness; they knew full well the hunger, the filth, the
rags, the penury, for which he was bent on exchanging the wealth of the father's house, the warmth and
the brightness of its love, but they were powerless to
hold him back. A mother, a sister, whose life would
be joyfully laid down to save him from the doom of
the life which he covets, may cling round him with
fond, persistent tenacity; but if he will forth, he
must. They can but plead, and pray, and moan;
to save him is beyond their power, simply because




THE DISCIPLES.               27I
they cannot save him from himself. Is there any
that can save? This is the question of questions.
"0 miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me
from the body of this death?"  The answer, " I thank
my God, through yesus Christ nmy Lord," contains the
very marrow of the Gospel.  "There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, for the law
of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath set
them free from the law of sin and death." The whole
philosophy of Christianity is there.
He who spake these words of peace to the disciples,
can give a new mind, a new heart, to man. " Peace I
leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the
world giveth, give I unto you: let not your heart be
troubled, neither let it be afraid."   And the fundamental condition of this is the power of the Lord to
work within. There, in the centre of centres, the
core of cores of the being, He can enter, work,
quicken, dwell. To Him there is no closed sanctuary,
save such as is wilfully barred by unbelief.  But
other barrier there is none. " Christ in you," says
the Apostle, " the hope of glory:"-in you, in the very
heart's core of what makes a person, a new, Divine,
incorruptible self. "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth




272             THE DISCIPLES.
in me."  "Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible. Even of the word of God, that liveth and
abideth for ever." On this power, then, fundamentally
rests our peace in Christ. If it be a fiction or a
dream, this power of Christ over the inward discords,
the inward deadness, this power to quicken and to
develope the Divine life within-then peace in Christ
is a dream. In the world we shall still have tribulation, but there will be no escape from it; in that
case, none can overcome the world.
In considering the meaning of peace in Christ
more largely, it is well to see simply, at starting,
the true point on which the question hinges, the
true foundation on which the assurance rests. It is
the power of Christ over the inner springs, the
power to make us whole and sound in heart and
spirit. Salvation, remember, is not safety, but
soundness; the healed man is saved. But let us
beware here lest we fall into a dreary distrust, which
may easily deepen into a deadly unbelief. We say
that our faith stands in the power of the Lord to
quicken, renew, and transform the being. Souls
"groaning within themselves" over the ever-fresh
insurrections of passion, self-will, and lust, are




THE DISCIPLES.              273
tempted to cry impetuously, "Then why has He
not done it. Why this weary struggle, this wearing
anguish, this dread of the abyss of self, lest we sink
into its pit and perish? Why the storm and strife
in the midst of which the Almighty Saviour left
even the beloved disciples? Why the warning,'In
the world ye shall have tribulation,' while almost in the
same breath He exhorts them,'Be of good courage,
I have overcome the world?"'  It is the old, old
question-the  oldest difficulty of the  spirit-the
long day, the long way, of God; the long culture of
which He thinks us worthy; the far, great prize for
which He will have us wait. From within, not from
without, He wills to save us. The new life is to
grow, and by growth to take possession of the being
as its own. It is as yet but as a germ in the centre,
unseen of the world, unseen of ourselves. We feel
it daily stirring, as the earth may feel the stirring of
the corn in the winter. By the fostering grace that
planted it alone it grows. "And He said, So is the
kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the
ground: and should sleep, and rise night and day, and
the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.
For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the
T




274               THE DISCIPLES.
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.
But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he
putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come."
An old rude version of the history is in Judges ii.
20-23, "And the anger of the Lord was hot against
Israel: and He said, Because that this people hath
transgressed my covenant which I commanded their
fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice; I also
will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the
nations which Joshua left when he died; that through
them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way
of the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it,
or not. Therefore the Lord left those nations, without
driving them  out hastily; neither delivered He  them
into the hand of Joshua."  Little by little, as all great
things gather strength and greatness, the Lord's
new life grows patiently in all honest and believing
hearts. It has the winter's frosts, storms, blights,
to struggle through.  Checked, nipped to the eye, it
but roots itself more deeply, and works new spheres
of the being into the substance of its life. And the
Lord's eye is on it. He whose hand can touch the
innermost springs and guide the most vital currents
of the human spirit, is its husbandman; and He




THE DISCIPLES.             275
who saw the fruit of the travail of His soul beyond
the winter of the ages from Calvary, expects, because
He assures its fruit. "These things have I spoken unto
you, that in me ye might have peace."
II. Before we pass on to consider what these
words may import, in the fulness of their meaning,
as unfolded by the teaching of the Spirit and the
experience of the Church, it would be well for us to
ask ourselves what was the nature and the measure
of the assurance which they afforded at that moment
to the little, troubled company gathered around the
Lord. The two are not intellectually, though they
may be vitally synonymous.  We see what they
could not see in the Saviour's words; though their
souls were calmed and cheered, as our souls are
calmed and cheered, by the vital comfort which the
mere utterance of them by such lips imparts.
Abraham's faith was implicitly what ours is explicitly. We know what and why we believe. We
know what God has unfolded of Himself and His
methods, to awaken, engage, and justify faith.
Abraham "believed God" implicitly, and his faith
vitally comprehended it all.
And we may be fully sure that, in their then state
T2




276             THE DISCIPLES.
of knowledge and faith, the comfort which the disciples
derived from the Saviour's words was not such as
it would need any deep theological learning, or
conscious consideration of the relation between them
and God, to draw forth. Something spoke home to
them, the comfort and strength of which passed
into them like the light and glow of the summer's
sun; which they realised by the vital warmth it
kindled in the core of their pallid, trembling,
desolate hearts. To us, the mystery unfolds itself
more fully. We see how our peace standeth in the
harmonious action of the Persons of the Godhead
in the work of our redemption.
I. In the Fatherly love of God, as declared by
the Incarnate Son.
II. In the sacrifice of the Incarnate Son, the
Lamb of God who beareth away the sins of the
world.
III. In the indwelling of the Holy Ghost the
Comforter, whom the Saviour departing sent forth.
IV. In the great victory won by the Captain of
our salvation, expressed in the words, "I have
overcome the world."
These will be the topics of the four succeeding




THE DISCIPLES.             277
discourses, in which I shall endeavour to set forth
the nature and assurance of the peace which in
Christ is ours.
But for the disciples there was something preliminary to the full understanding of all this. They
could not comprehend it all in a moment; they
grew to the understanding of how broad, deep,
and eternal were the foundations of peace which
Christ had laid for them, but for the present they
believed simply in Him and were at rest. The child
does not understand in childhood all the worth of
the mother's love; how much that love endures, how
much it sacrifices, at what cost it cherishes the
nursling confided to its ministry by the Lord. The
child feels the warmth of the love, and cherishes its
life at the glow. It comes to understand, in time,
oftenest when that love is lost to it, how much it
was worth. It was expedient for the disciples that
the Lord should "go away" from them. They
never knew Him until He had gone. Their knowledge of Him, like His love, was glorified by death.
They must lose Him, to love Him as they oughtas we shall love the lost ones in eternity.
But it was not a too late love, like that of Joseph




278            THE DISCIPLES.
and Nicodemus, who had to spend on the corpse
that loving ministry which they had been afraid or
ashamed to offer to the living body of the Lord.
They lost Him but for a moment, that they might
find Him for ever; they lost Him from earth, that
they might behold Him, with all the touches of a
brother's sympathy and tenderness still fresh upon
Him, at the right hand of the throne of God in
Heaven. The tendrils of their love, which had been
rudely unbound from the Man of Sorrows when
death, as they thought, had wrenched Him for ever
from their embrace, lay trailing but for a moment;
they soon lifted their quivering fibres, and twined
them around the glorified Man, the risen Christ, to
clasp Him through eternity.
I think that there were two thoughts which the
Saviour, in this closing hour, sought with intense
desire to fix in their minds and hearts. They were
simple, and near at hand, but deep as His own
being-the milk of their infant discipleship, but
charged with all the elements of the nutriment of
the highest and maturest life.
I. That their present and their future were linked
with His own indissolubly.




THE DISCIPLES.            279
2. That His were as indissolubly linked with God.
I. Their present and their future were linked with
His indissolubly.
"Believe in God, believe also in me." The world
would learn, in the course of ages, what as yet they
saw but dimly, how much those words assured.
But they knew Him surely as the Christ of Godthe anointed One, of whom glorious things had been
spoken by the prophets, and who came forth from
God to accomplish in its fulness all that God's love
had promised, all that God's hope had forecast, for
man. Nothing could be more grand and splendid
than the Jewish conception of the Messiah; and
they shared it intensely. They believed that by
Him every glowing picture of their prophetic oracles
would be realized; that by Him every hope of the most
sanguine patriotic heart would be fulfilled. It were
mere idleness to suppose that their faith was never
crossed by doubts and questions, that no cold shade
ever fell upon the sunlight of their joy. The humble
estate of the Great Master, " the tender plant," " the
root out of a dry ground," " the marred visage," " the
stricken form," the beggar's lot, the outcast's shame
and pain, must have sorely distressed and amazed




280             THE DISCIPLES.
them. We cannot doubt that, with their high
hopes of what Messiah would be and do, they must
have fallen away from the Man of Sorrows, but for
the spells which His love had laid on them. He,
poor, despised, rejected, as He was, had become to
their hearts and hopes great as God; but their loving
trust must have had hard struggle with their doubts
and questionings, though it won in the end a
triumphant victory. His great aim in all His intercourse with them was to root those affections so
deeply, that no shock could dislodge them; to bind
them by the cords of love and the bands of a man
so indissolubly to Himself, that no force which man
or devil might put forth could tear them away. The
discovery of all that He could be to them and do for
them, He left willingly to time and to the anointing
of the Holy Ghost. He was content to make them
familiar with Him as the elder brother of the little
close-knit company, which had plodded so patiently
with Him for years round the cities and highways of
Judea; the elder brother, who had shared, with the
unfaltering fortitude of love, their lot of hunger,
cold, and nakedness, the scorn of the world, the
scourge of the ruler, the hate of the priest; whose




THE DISCIPLES.              28I
tenderness to them had trembled in every tone,
and emanated at every pore; who had stilled the
storms, and spread the desert with food for them,
and who had made it the great aim of His sorrowful
life to root in their hearts the conviction of how indissolubly He was bound to them, how surely the comrades of life were the comrades of eternity. "My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all: and
no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."
And this end He amply gained. They felt in their
heart of hearts that they belonged to Him. They
knew instinctively that in all the vague visions and
hopes of a glorious future which seemed to gather
around that lowly form, whose lowliness had flashed
into splendour on the Mount of Transfiguration,
they had indefeasible right to share. They felt their
right to be with Him; they felt that the right of
their love (to borrow beautiful words)" So indefeasible would be,
That when His spirit wonn'd above,
Theirs could not stay for sympathy."




282              THE DISCIPLES.
How vague the vision was, it is hard for us to
estimate; perhaps it is as hard for us to estimate
how firm was their grasp on the future which
associated itself with the person of their Lord. He
and they were one. It was the great lesson of life
which He taught them while He yet abode with
them in the flesh. And He and you are one.
"Bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh," is He.
" How, know ye not that Christ Jesus dwelleth in you,
except ye be reprobate?" If you have fixed your heart
on the world which slew Him, and is ever crucifying
Him afresh and putting Him to an open shame-if
your affection and hope are there, your own hand
unbinds the bands by which He knit you to Himself
through His redemptive work. I need not tell you
that you are not one with Him, you know it; though
He still remains the elder brother of the family,
whose flesh and blood you share. If the heart of
Judas is in you, I do not say you must go forth from
Him; your own hate will drive you forth-to your
own place. But if, even after a sin as deep as
Peter's, you can look up with tearful, trembling eyes
and say, as you lay bare your heart before Him,
"Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love




THE DISCIPLES.            283
thee," it is unbelief, as shameful as it is grievous to
the Saviour, to refuse to say, " He is in me, I am in
Him."  "He and I are one eternally."
2. He who had bound them to Himself so
indissolubly, was Himself as indissolubly one with
God.
This oneness with Christ would be the well-spring
of their purest comfort: out of His oneness with the
Father a glorious joy and hope would rise. He and
the Father are one. Binding them to Himself, He
had bound them to the Father. There was a joy set
before Christ by the Father, a future which would
make the cross illustrious, and the shame glorious,
and in that they knew that they must share. He
declared that He and the Father were one in the
deepest depth of His humiliation and sorrow; they
knew then that His path of death and shame must
be a way, a Divine way, to the most blessed and
transcendent results. All that God could hope for
the future of the universe, was staked on the patience
of that Man of Sorrows. God's eye must see
beyond the darkness, the vision of that day, with
the promise of which the whole universe travails; a
promise whose fulfilment that patience would assure.




284             THE DISCIPLES.
Believing, they were content to wait for it; and to
reckon that the sufferings of this present life were
not worthy to be compared with the glory which
would be revealed in them, in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. If the Father was one
with that lonely forsaken man in that hour, if in
that depth of sorrow He could say, "Alone, yet not
alone, for the Father is with me," the Father would be
with them as they passed through the same. For
them there could be in the universe no God-forsaken
darkness; He, with whom they were one, had passed
visibly through denser darkness to the home of God.
Earth and hell lost all their terrors in that presence;
powerless to shake their sublime confidence, as the
stormy seas to quench the sunlight, or the wrack of
Heaven to unsphere the stars. He willed that they
should be with Him in His glory. He had won
the right to will their glory by His own subjection
to suffering and shame. There His will and the
Father's will had entered into new and more fruitful concert. The will that revealed its oneness on
Calvary, the will wherein the Father and the Saviour
were one, subdued, by that living sacrifice, all things
unto itself. " Father, I will that they also, whom thou




THE DISCIPLES.               285
hast given me, be with me where I am: that they may
behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou
lovedst me before the foundation of the world."  That
will also was founding " a world."








II.
Cbe father.
" 7esus saith, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man
cometh unto the Father but by me. If ye had known me,
ye should have known amy Father also; and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him."-JOHN XIV. 6, 7.
" These things have I sPoken unto you, that in me ye might
have peace." —J OHN XVI. 33.
IT has been said already that the right and the
power of the Lord to speak peace to the human
spirit rests on the fact that He alone, of all beings
in the wide universe, can make it whole and sound
within. Salvation means soundness. A soul united
to fear God's name is saved-saved from the only
thing which can destroy a soul, inward insurrection
and discord; the only pit that can gorge it, inward
selfishness and lust. From that deadly strife the




288               THE FATHER.
Lord can deliver it; from that horrible pit the
Lord can save it. "Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give
I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither
let it be afraid."  "These things have I spoken unto
you, that in me ye might have peace."
We have spoken of those moments of dread experience when the sense of the utter powerlessness
of all good spirits, human and angelic, to help us
against ourselves, against the sins and lusts which
most easily beset us, bears with oppressive weight
upon the spirit. Mother, sister, wife-man's visible
guardian angels surely-may agonize in vigilant
effort to shield a beloved one from temptation, or
to support him against the pressure. Legions of
spirits, hosts of influences, may be there assistant,
in vain, in vain. They can but watch with streaming eyes as the prodigal breaks away into the wilderness. Will he ever come home again? Is that
parting of spirits to be eternal? God knoweth, and
God alone. All that is left to us to know is, that
there is a region in which every human spirit passes
beyond the sight and the touch of every other spirit,
and is absolutely, awfully, alone with God. So




THE FATHER.               289
dread does this mystery of being, this freedom of
a personal will, seem to men, that there are millions
of our fellow-men whose theology regards it with
something like horror; their one hope is that they
may, no matter at what cost, attain to the renunciation of it, and lose the sense and the burden of
personal existence, by reabsorption into the Supreme. This is the fundamental hope of the Buddhist. This is the passionate aspiration of a religion
which numbers among its devotees, it is said, onethird of the human race.
Does the Gospel open a new and more blessed
prospect? "Miserable man that I am," can the
Gospel open to me the hope of deliverance from
the evil which is in me, and which threatens to
become "me."  "I thank my God through Jesus
Christ my Lord."  "Christ hath delivered me from
the bondage of sin and the curse of the law that I
might receive the adoption of a son."  There lies the
whole marrow of the Gospel. " Power to become
a son," is what the Lord has brought to man, to
me.  The Lord is the Redeemer of slaves, that
He may give them the right and power to be sons.
He is the Healer, the Purifier, the Glorifier of
U




290               THE FATHER.
men —not of spirits only, but of men. Body, soul,
spirit, He redeems; the man in His wholeness
He makes pure, sound, strong, possessor of a
Divine nature, and conqueror, through that Divine
nature, of hell and of death.  Heirs of God He
constitutes the sons; that is, heirs of glory, and
of all that belongs to the glorified universe, which
God shall redeem from the bondage of corruption,
to be the transfigured home of His transfigured
sons, pure from stain, from pain, from death,
eternally.
The Lord who speaks peace to us is the Power
of God to the accomplishment of this hope.  He
can enter the inner sanctuary, He can touch the
hidden springs, He can search the deepest depth
of your spirit, and there, in the core of that " I"
which the poor self-tormented Buddhist finds to
be a burden too grievous to be borne, can form
Himself, the hope of Glory. To know this, as
spirits know, is to be saved. "This is the true God
and eternal life."
I have to consider, in the present discourse, what
seems to me to be the fundamental element of our
peace in Christ-the peace which springs from the




THE FATHER.                 29I
contemplation of the Father whom the Son hath
revealed. "And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall
ask the Father in my name, He will give it you.
Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name: ask, and
ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.  These
things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the
time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you
in proverbs, but I shall show  you plainly of the
Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I
say unto you, that I will pray the Father for you.
For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have
loved me, and have believed that I came out from God."
Nor is the revelation of the Father private and
peculiar to the disciples.  It is spoken of in the
broadest way as being patent to all. Even the unbelieving Pharisees were accused of having both
seen and hated both Christ and the Father; while
our Lord testified, "He that seeth me, seeth Him
that sent me;" and of that mission He declares,
"I am  come forth from  the Father and am  come
into the world, and again I leave the world and go
to the Father."
To know the Father of our spirits is to be at
T 2




292              THE FATHER.
peace. He who can declare the Father, and make
men believe in the name and the love of the Father,
lays bare the secret of their peace. The aim and
end of the work of Christ may be expressed in the
sentence, He came to make men know the Father,
that they might live. And this raises at once the
question, what is absolutely fundamental in Christianity, what is the Gospel truth of the Gospel?
Many will find little difficulty in answering, that
the atonement is the very marrow of Christian
truth; and that, in any statement of the grounds of
our peace in Christ which aims at anything like a
methodical treatment of the subject, the atonement
ought to stand first; the atonement, the sacrifice
offered by the Lamb of God on Calvary, being,
according to this view, the condition precedent to
the declaration of God's Fatherhood in Christ to
the human soul.
I feel this to be a profoundly important question:
most vital, and most worthy of close examination
and thought. It is not a question which it would
be profitable to wrangle "more theologico," but one
into which it is well worth our while to look
calmly in the light of the word of God. It may be




THE FATHER.                293
expressed simply thus, Does the atonement constitute or does it reveal the Father to the sinful
world? Is the atoning work of Christ the declaration of the Father, the way of the Father in the
reconciliation of His alienated sons; or does it
make Him or rather re-make Him their Father,
able, after the acceptance of that work, to feel
Father-like, and to declare Himself as a Father to
men.
I regard this as almost, if not altogether, the
most vital theological question of our day. On our
answer to this question the clearness and rightness
of our thoughts on Christian subjects very largely
depends. Is God the Ruler simply to the alienated
and rebellious-the Father only to the reconciled
and submissive sons? I answer that, in speaking
of the revelation of the Father as fundamental, as
that on which the whole structure of our redemption rests, I seem at any rate to place it where it
was placed by the Lord. I suppose that all devout
readers of the New Testament will feel that there
is one of the Gospels which, beyond the others,
contains the revelation of the spirit and the interior
life of the Lord, and of the great ends for which




294              THE FATHER.
He knew that He had entered into the world. It
can hardly be otherwise, seeing that this Gospel
records most fully the discourses of the Saviour;
and those especially which were delivered at the
most critical times, in the most critical scenes, and
before audiences to whom the Lord felt specially
bound to make His witness emphatic and clear.
And what is the main burden of the Gospel according to St. John? I do not quote isolated texts.
In nothing have theologians more mangled the
WORD of the Bible than by quoting its words.
The word must explain the words. The whole
tenor of a passage must explain its particular or
partial statements. If a man cannot read the word
with open eye and heart, special texts are not unlikely to mislead him. The widest and the wildest
oppositions of creeds and churches have been strong
in texts, wrenched out of the harmony of Divine
truth. A bit of flesh is a very poor sample of a
body, as combative theologians might remember
with profit when they are sampling the word of
God.
I would ask anyone who wishes to receive the
truth of God about this great matter, to read




THE FATHER.              295
through calmly and thoughtfully the Gospel according to St. John, and to ask himself what is
the chief burden of this most important and pregnant portion of the Divine word. What name
occurs in almost every paragraph? what authority
is pleaded for almost every statement? what revelation is forced, with all the earnestness of the Redeemer's spirit, on the people who surrounded
Him? what sin is charged most constantly on those
who refused to listen to Him? what name was revealed to them? what name was dishonoured by
them? Let a man read the Gospel thoughtfully,
that he may answer to himself these questions, and
he will learn that the whole burden of the Saviour's
word was the revelation of the Father as a Father
to mankind.
It may be answered that we have no right to
isolate the Gospels from the Epistles; that without the latter the former are incomplete. I believe
it most firmly. The Epistles very largely occupy
themselves with the fact and the nature of the
atonement. Its place in the scheme of the manifestation of God cannot be overrated; and the
shallow argument that the atonement is a se



296              THE FATHER.
condary matter, because the Lord dwells so little
on it in the Gospels, cannot for a moment be allowed. The Lord's whole speech is the whole
book. If the atonement be in any sense secondary,
it is secondary only to the Fatherhood, out of
which it springs. To me, the Epistles as well as
the Gospels are full of this most blessed truth,
that the great God of Heaven needed no work of
satisfaction or payment of ransom to make Him a
Father even to the rebellious and prodigal children;
the Father rather needed the atonement that His
fatherly love might declare itself in all its depth
and fulness, and that such a Father-the righteous
and holy Father —might establish a way by which
He might meet and clasp His recovered sons. The
Epistles seem to me as saturated with this truth
as the Gospels. The fifth chapter of the Romans
is as explicit about it as the Gospel according to
St. John.  But, without question, the chief topic
of our Lord's discourse, specially to the Jews, to
whom He most especially came, is the Father;
while, in the Epistles, the atoning work of the
God-man is most fully set forth. What can this
mean, but that the one is fundamental to the other?




THE FATHER.                297
That what the Lord came to declare by His word,
THE FATHER, men were to realize through His
work, which the apostles, by their preaching and
their epistles, were to expound to the world.  To
know -the Father is the one absolute need of a
human spirit. In the most awful moment of His
life the Lord declares it. The atonement is needed
that the Father may be known by and may reclaim
His sons; in order that, in knowing Him, they
may know one in whose righteous rule standeth
the welfare of the universe, which rule, therefore,
must be honoured beyond breath of stain; and who,
in the fulness of His love to the sons whom He is
reconciling, pays that honour at dearer cost than
dear life, that they may know that they are reconciled to the very righteousness and holiness of God.
God was in Christ, not seeking means of reconciling
Himself to the rebellious sons, but reconciling the
world unto Himself. Out of the fulness of that
Father's love to the rebellious also, the yearning
of that love for their recovery and return, the
atonement came forth.  "For when we were yet
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one




298               THE FATHER.
die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us,
in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more, then, being now justified by His blood,
we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if,
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we
shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we
also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom
we have now received the atonement."
Is the gift, then, the condition of the love, or is
the love the fountain of the gift? Is it Christ only
that the Father loves, and men through Him? or is
it men, for whom He gave Christ, that He might be
able to love them perfectly in Him? Are we to
conceive of God as saying through the ages, " My
fatherhood is, and must be in suspense till my attributes as a Ruler have received a full satisfaction for
sin?" or are we to hear Him say, by every word of
promise which He uttered, every ray of.hope which
He inspired, "It is fatherly love which has spared
you, which has guided you, which has wrought on
through every act and dispensation towards the appointed time, when it could pour forth its righteous




THE FATHER.                299
and holy fulness in the gift of the well-beloved Son,
to die for the world."  "For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. For God sent not His Son into the world to
condemn the world; but that the world through Him
might be saved."
To me there is something terrible in the picture of
the God whom I am called to believe in and to love,
waiting for some equivalents of anguish due to Him
as a Ruler, before He could sink the Ruler in the
Father; and needing to be turned from an alienation
to a reconciliation by the awful spectacle of unutterable, unmeasurable pain.  But the name of the
Father, and the very pain and shame of Calvary,
become glorious when I contemplate them in Christ,
who came forth, sent out of the bosom of the Father
-"His Father and our Father, His God and our
God,"-to reconcile the world.  In this doctrine,
Gospels and Epistles are harmonized; and Paul,
the expositor of the atonement, is at one with the
beloved disciple and the Lord.
I speak of the peace of a spirit in the contemplation of the Father as revealed in Christ. It rests




300             THE FATHER.
on the assurance that the God with whom He has
to do is a Father in His heart of hearts. Philip
touched the true key-note of human need in the cry,
"Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us."  He
knew but little what he asked. He knew not that
Gethsemane and Calvary lay between the prayer
and the revelation of the Father to the world. He
knew not that the work of atonement as well as the
word of revelation must be accomplished, before
man could fully know the Father and live. But to
know that this is the essential groundwork of the
relations between us and the God of heaven, makes
the vision of peace possible. As a great one of old
said, "We begin to see the beginning of peace,"
when once we get the eye fairly on the word Father,
as the name of God. The right and the power to
write the word Father instead of the awful unknown
Name, would have spared Paganism, as it seems to
our short-sighted judgment, a long death-agony, and
would have reared an impregnable barrier against
the invasions of sin. It is ever among the fatherless, the souls lost in the night, in whom the very
memory of the Father's house is dead, and in whose
hearts the name wakens no responses, that the devil




THE FATHER.               301I
riots at will, and lords it tyrannously. Show the
Father, and the tyrant falls from his throne. "I
beheld Satan, like lightning, fall from Heaven," said the
man Christ Jesus, when the glory of the Godhead,
full of grace and truth —in other words, full of the
Father —first shone upon the world.
I might set forth, as the first element of that
knowledge of the Father, which is the beginning of
peace, that the Lord gives a living form and substance to our vague, dread notions about God.
"He that cometh unto God, must believe that He is."
"This is an instinctive knowledge of the human
heart," say the rationalizing writers, both in and out
of the high places of the Church. " This is a truth
of natural religion," we are told; "destroy the Bible,
that truth remains true, and would be able to reveal
itself in its own light to human hearts." There is a
truth in this statement, which we thankfully recognize; but there is a deep untruth. The belief in a
personal God has struggled without a revelation in
all ages into human hearts. Without a revelation,
I say; I mean by that, a formal, verbal revelation.
For Paganism, for Judaism, for Christendom, it remains absolutely true, that no man knoweth the




302             THE FATHER.
Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal Him. What knowledge of the living
God may be in Pagan hearts, is there by revelation.
The light of the world everywhere and always is
Christ.  God has His witnesses ever before the
world. But to Paganism, destitute of the Word,
the revelation has struggled faintly, like sunlight
through dense mist; and whenever for the moment
the veil seemed to grow thinner, and some glow as
well as gleam of the sunlight appeared, the mists
have never failed to close up again, and make the
day of this world a murky, shivering night. Nowhere without the Word has the sunlight fairly
shone. There has been a diffused light, brighter or
fainter, through all the ages of darkness; but this
diffused light ripens nothing: the earth pines for the
sun. And long and bitter has been the struggle to
read the name of the living God, among the very
noblest nations of the world. Well may Paul speak
of "feeling after God, if haply they might find
Him." He knew with what agony they had felt
through the darkness, cried through the night, till
then in vain-and yet not in vain. Every nation
has strained towards the light, and caught it for




THE FATHER.                303
a moment. Revivals there have been, everywhere;
revivals of hope and life, to be followed by relapses
into the darkness, the coldness, the drearihood, of
death.  The truth was there-the Being of the
living and personal God; but it was too far. As
an observer, searching for some dim nebula on the
far shores of the universe, catches it for a moment
and loses it again, he has seen it, he believes it to be
there, but the veil has covered it again, he can catch
it no more-so the Pagan mind has searched for
God. No nation lived in the full sunlight of truth,
till " God, who at sundry times and in divers manners
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, did in
these last days speak unto us by His Son, whom He hath/
appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the
worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the
express image of His person, and upholding all things by
the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high; being made so much better than the angels, as He
hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than
they."
The Lord lit up the gloom of life: He filled the
world with light by living in it, and now to every




304              THE FATHER.
age the invisible appears. The unknown God is
known and named-The Father. "From henceforth
we both know Him and have seen Him." We see Him
in every work, we hear Him in every word, we know
Him in every expression, of the man Christ Jesus;
and the fact that He is there (passing by, for the
moment, the cost at which He is there), in the midst
of His children, a God at hand, and not afar off, a
God revealed, and not hidden, a God whom a man
can reveal, and whom, therefore, a man can know
as a living person, and not a nameless mystery or
a vague shape of terror, brings us near to the region
of peace. But peace is still beyond.
But be our sorrows what they may, be our struggles what they may, be our sins what they may, we
have an advocate ever present, ever potent, in the
love of a Father's heart. We fall into the hand of
neither judge nor foe when we fall into His hand.
A Father may judge, it is the most awful judgment;
a Father may afflict, it is the most dread chastisement; but behind all, beneath all, there is sustaining strength, there is sublime joy, in the thought
that the awful Name, for which man in all climes
and in all ages has been searching, writes itself




THE FATHER.               305
Father, that the mystery of mysteries in the universe is a Father's heart.
But we use the word Father with timid, trembling lips; we let our old dread of the Infinite
paralyse our filial trust. We imagine that we are
bound to use the word with limitations, and qualify
confidence by large admixtures of that reverence
which a sense of His infinite distance inspires.
But it is just the consciousness of that infinite
distance which He is striving to abolish; it is
just that paralysing fear which the word Father
means to destroy.  Dare, then, to stretch the
meaning to the utmost.  Pray for the spirit of
adoption, whereby "Father, Father," may be
the constant outcry of your hearts. Ask what ye
will that a child may ask, and a Father may grant,
and it shall be done unto you —for the Father
Himself loveth you.  His highest joy is to bless
and enrich His sons. For the Father is the very
type of pure, unselfish, self-sacrificing love. Of
all love, I suppose there is none so pure, so unselfish, as a father's love for his child.  A father's
love is learned in the lore of suffering; it knows, as
none other upon earth knows, that man's purest
x




306              THE FATHER.
joys spring up from fountains hard by the altar of
sacrifice. Its end is another's welfare, forgetful of
its own. The parent's love counts no gifts which
are lavished, no toils which are endured, for a child.
It fears no danger, it shirks no burdens, it dreads
no death, if the child may but live and be blest.
There is a hard, stern man, before whom his
dependents tremble, and of whom his friends
would as soon ask a self-denying kindness, as they
would' ask Dives to doff the purple and don the
rags. But that fair young girl can lead him where
she will with a silken cord, and bend him to her
pleasure.  He will hold a life's toils nobly repaid,
if she may never know a moment's care or sorrow,
and be lifted by his ceaseless struggle to a higher
level of life than that on which he fell. What
parent is there whose love does not grow by sacrifice? What mother does not yearn most tenderly
over the prodigal, whose sins have left broad scars
upon her heart?  The parental is the pure unselfish devotion-children live by the life-blood of
their sires.
And is it otherwise with God? Shall we trace
the vein of pure, unselfish devotion through the




THE FATHER.               307
human seams of being, and dare to say, "there is
a fault, the vein is lost," when we enter the Divine.
Nay. It streams down from the Divine into the
human; man can love and sacrifice as a parent, and
live by sacrifice, because sacrifice is the life of God.
God is love, and love is sacrifice. Love- lives in
the life of the beloved. It can pine in silence, and
find high joy in pining, if the dear one is glad, and
rich, and strong.  Sorrow, straitness, weakness,
become sacred if they but add contributions to
another's life. "And ye know the grace of our Lord
yesus Christ, how that though He was rich, for our
sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty
might be made rich."
The Father has not preached a homily on sacrifice; He has lived it. The world's Master, for
love's sake, has become the first-born of sorrow,
that the children might have joy in Him-the firstborn of death, that the children might live. That
love which inspired the purpose and planned the
methods of Redemption, prays you to stand by
Calvary, and measure its force and its fulness there.
A Father would die ten thousand deaths rather
than watch the death-agony of a child.  "The
r 2




308              THE FATHER.
Father spared not His own Son, but freely delivered
Him up for us all."  He marked the tottering steps
of the cross-crushed victim; He heard the taunts;
He saw the goads; He knew the horror of the
darkness into which the beloved of His heart was
passing; He saw the thickening glooms as the
death-shadow gathered around His thorn-scarred
brow; He heard the piercing cry of the victim
whom He had bound for the altar, as the sin of
the world let fall its crushing burden on His heart,
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
and He held the cup of death to the submissive
sufferer's lips. In that dread hour the Father, for
your dear sakes, did neither shrink nor spare. It
was the Father's love which the Son was revealing
through His own.  It was the measure of the
words, "Our Father which art in Heaven," which
He was giving to the world.
And this is the love out of which Redemption
springs-the Fatherly love of God.  The whole
work, from the first promise to the last consummation, is the way of the Father to bring home His
sons. To believe this is to begin to live the life
which is eternal. To this the soul, weary of sin,




THE FATHER.               309
weary of self, turns instinctively, as the flower to
the sunlight, as the infant to the mother's breast.
Till a soul begins to feel after the Father, you may
thunder your condemnations, you may press your
appeals on it, utterly and hopelessly in vain. The
feeling after the Father, as an instinct, an impulse,
not yet shaped into a thought, is the first fruit of
the movement of the Spirit over that darker than
the primeval chaos, a sinner's discordant and desolate heart.
Arise, then, sinner, and come.  "The Father
Himself loveth you."   What! me?-loveth me?
Yes, you. Does one filial murmur, "My Father,"
break the dreary silence within you? does one ray
of joy at the thought flash up in your heart? Oh,
might I but believe this truth —the Father Himself
loveth me!  Taker home the truth, believe it,
clasp it-it is yours. The Father loveth you, and
claims you as His Son for ever. It is this love
which draws you to the Saviour, and bids you
behold the Lamb that was slain on Calvary to bear
away your sins. It is this love which bids you
stoop under the Cross and lift its burden, that you
may know the fellowship of the Saviour's suffer



3IO              THE FATHER.
ings; and it is this love which shall raise you at
last, sanctified by sorrow, purified by death, to
wield the sceptre and wear the crown, in the Jerusalem of the redeemed on high. " Come, ye blessed
of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
before the foundation of the world."
" THESE THINGS HAVE I SPOKEN UNTO YOU,
THAT IN ME YE MIGHT HAVE PEACE."




III.
C{e Lamb of 6oM.
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world." —JOHN I. 29.'And I, if I be /fted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto me."-JOHN XII. 32.
" These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have
pearce."-JOHN XVI. 33.
TH E first Gospel record in the Gospel according to St. John is, "The Word," "who was
with God, who was God," "was made flesh, and dwelt
among us."  The second is, "Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world."  The
Incarnation, as we have seen, was the manifestation
of the Father; the work of the Incarnate One
was the reconciliation of the Father and the world.




312           THE LAMB OF GOD.
Not the reconciliation of the Father to the world,
for His coming was the gift of the Father, the
outflow of His love to man. Nor simply to reconcile the world unto the Father, unless you
understand that the atonement is the way of the
reconciliation of the Father with the world.  He
had come to reconcile the world unto the Father,
by opening the way by which the love of the
Father could righteously reveal itself to man.  The
atonement is the meeting ground, the only possible
meeting ground, of man and God. Thither the
Father comes; thither He draws the sinner. Other
meeting ground there is none. "Other foundation
can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
" Who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption."
It was the very last thing which those Jews were
thinking about, a Redeemer from sin, when they sent
Priests and Levites from Jerusalem to John, to ask
him, Who art thou? They, too, remember, had
their dream of peace. They were afflicted, tormented, under the iron yoke of the Roman dominion; to them it was intensely galling that God's
elect freemen, the people whose national liberties




THE LAMB OF GOD.             313
had been founded, and ofttimes defended by terrible
judgments, by the visible hand of God, should pass
under the yoke of pagan conquerors, and be indebted
to the intolerance of the lords of this world for
liberty to pay their worship to their Heavenly King.
Their fierce interruption of the Saviour, " We be
A braham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man;
how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? " shows how
deeply the iron had entered into their very hearts.
They hated Caesar with a fury of hate, second only
to that with which they hated Him who came to
declare the Father, instead of the splendid warrior
and conqueror, to the world. While they cringed
slavishly before Pilate, and said, " We have no king
but Caesar," that they might make the Roman their
tool in hunting incarnate Truth and Love to a
bloody and shameful death, they were raging against
Caesar, and cursing him in their hearts. They had
a dream of peace, and they needed it badly enough,
the wretched, enslaved, tormented people, whose
fetters their struggles but locked more tightly on
their quivering limbs; the sport of masters who
repaid their raging fury with a smile of lofty, imperturbable scorn.  They needed, badly enough,




314            THE LAMB OF GOD.
rest, deliverance, peace. And they dreamed a dream
of it-thus:A great conqueror, a strong king, shall arise for
us from David's line. He shall lift up the standard
of the Lord God of Israel; He shall plant His armed
foot on Zion, and the myriads of Israel shall swarm
to His banners. The ancient spirit of the people
and their conquering chiefs, "of Gideon, of Barak,
of Samson, of Jepthoo, of David also, and Samuel
and the prophets," shall descend and inspire the host.
The Lion of the tribe of Judah, with Divine, resistless force, shall sweep through the world on His
conquering mission; before the onset of His armies,
Rome and every worldly power shall fall.  The
Lord's elect nation shall pass up once more to the
world's high places; the mountain of the Lord's
house shall be established in the top of the mountains; the law of the great Lawgiver of Israel shall
rule the world in righteousness, and we, delivered
from our enemies and from the hand of all that
hate us, elevated and purified by the strain of this
glorious enterprise, shall see the dream of our hearts
realised, and shall thus enter into rest.
Their minds were full of such dreams and hopes,




THE LAMB OF GOD.            3I5
as they marked the career of that wonderful man,
who was drawing the multitudes forth into the
deserts, and proclaiming, with a voice which shook
their nation to the very centre, "Repent ye-repent
ye, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."  But not thus,
rather quite otherwise, must a man and a people
enter into rest. It is just that dream of our own
hearts, that watching for a visible external regeneration of society, instead of beginning at once the
work within, which makes peace impossible. No
glorious, God-like form, but a poor, tear-stained,
woe-stricken brother-no splendid, shining conqueror, but a bleeding victim, stricken through the
heart by their transgression, was to be their guide
to peace. Away from  the kings, away from  the
standards, away from the throne, to which they
were ready to lift Him, He led them to a cross, a
corpse, a grave. " Enter alone each one of you this
sanctuary of sorrow and sacrifice; learn what it is
to live, by learning here what it is to die-to die
to sin, to live to God; learn the lesson by my cross,
my grave; and then, beyond the cross, beyond the
grave, believe and wait for the kingdom of Heaven.
That kingdom, to those who have known the fel



316             THE LAMB OF GOD.
lowship of my sufferings, and have learnt by suffering to cease from sin, shall transcend the dreams
of the most vivid imagination, and fill eternity with
praise and bliss.  But the way is there,'Behold the
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.'
For that people, for you, for me, the way of peace
is by that Cross on Calvary, through the knowledge
of Him, of whom the prophet writes,'He is despised
and rejected of men; a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted
with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.  Surely He
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we
did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace
was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every
one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him
the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was
afflicted, yet HIe opened not His mouth: He is brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her
shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. He
was taken from prison and from judgment: and who
shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of




THE LAMB OF GOD.            3I7
the land of the living: for the transgression of my people
was He stricken.'"
To the Jews watching for a king, and a career of
splendid conquest, John presents "The Lamb of
God." He who bears away man's sin, bears away
man's burden; He who can silence the clamours of
accusing sin, and hush the terrors of remorsestricken conscience, has the right and the power to
speak to us peace.
I have said, and argued at length, that the deepest
foundation of our peace lies in the revealed truth,
the Fatherhood of God-the Father as revealed in
the Son, the Saviour of the world. To know that
the name of the awful Unknown Being, before
whose infinitude we have been trembling, is the
Father; to know the measure of His Fatherly love
and tenderness, by the sacrifice which it was willing
to offer, the suffering it was willing to bear, the
death it was willing to die, that no prodigal or rebel
should get beyond its cords and perish: to know
that He whom man, the child, was made to know
and to serve with filial sympathy and devotion,
away from whose sympathy, away from whose service, man must perish like a plant whose earth,




3I8           THE LAMB OF GOD.
whose air, whose sunlight, are gone, is seeking Him
with the most constant self-sacrificing Fatherly
love; to know that the home wherein alone a son
can rest and be blessed, is not closed against him,
but all unbarred, the banquet spread, the light
gleaming afar, the door wide open to invite, to
compel, his entrance; to know that there is a place
in that Father's house still vacant, which he, the
self-abandoned, alone can occupy, a place in the
Father's heart, still aching for the joy which his
return alone can give; to know this, as He can
make us know it, whose dying anguish on Calvary
was the unveiling of this love of God, is to see something more than the beginning of peace. It is the
righting of the centre of a disorganised system, the
sphering again of an unsphered sun, which brings
once more the satellite members and powers of the
being into harmony with each other and with the
all. The drawing of the heart of the rebellious,
wretched, desperate son to the Father, the first
mute cry of the spirit, " My Father," when it. gets
its eye on the home which has never been shut, and
the heart which has never been steeled against it,
even in the very frenzy of its sin-this is the first




THE LAMB OF GOD.              319
beginning of Redemption. It is the beginning of
the new order and concert of the disordered insurgent powers within, in which alone lies the peace
and the hope of the spirit. This is the new creature,
whose first infant cry, first sign of life, first pulse of
hope, is the word, Father-Father, murmured out
mutely in the ear of God. No contemplation of the
atoning work of the Lord Jesus, of the mission of
the Comforter, of the Author and Finisher of faith,
can bring peace to a human spirit, if there run not
through it all, this response to a Father's voice, this
joyful yielding to a Father's entreaty, this hope in
a Father's grace and mercy, this power to cry My
Father, which is the first fruit of the striving of the
Holy Ghost within.
And there, you may be ready to say, let it rest.
"And he arose, and came to his father. But when he
was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed
him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned
against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more
worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his
servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him;
and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And




320            THE LAMB OF GOD.
bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat
and be merry. For this my son was dead, and is alive
again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to
be merry." The reconciliation is complete-what
need we more? If man's fatherhood were the measure of, as it is surely the key to, God's, there would
need no more. The father, the son, on earth, bound
in the bonds of a common sinfulness, have each
something to forget and to forgive: they can agree
just to bury the past, and put it out of sight for ever.
Confession the father demands; confession the son,
if his repentance be real, delights to offer-and the
ruptured relation is restored. But there is no perfectness, or aiming at perfectness, in this. The
human father's restored confidence cannot meet all
the needs of the child's spirit, and satisfy all the
conditions of its peace, absolutely and for eternity.
God is not only a Father, He is the Father, whose
restored love is to be the joy of the child's heart, the
light of the child's life, the rest of the child's spirit,
for ever. THE Father includes in His Fatherhood
and its manifestations, all that is needful to satisfy
every instinct, sympathy, judgment, conviction, of
the child's nature; while He must equally reconcile




THE LAMB OF GOD.               32I
Himself, in the wholeness of His nature, to the
child. It is no casual yearning of a Father's spirit,
which fnay find a passing expression; it is the complete Fatherly nature, in the justice, righteousness,
holiness, sacredness, of its love, which has to manifest itself to the world.  Therefore it is by the
Atonement that it declares itself. The atonement is
the act in which the wisdom, the righteousness, and
the love of God, do not feel after a harmony, but have
and show their harmony, in dealing with a guilty
apostate world.
In things human do we not find, that in proportion to the depth of a child's transgression is the
difficulty of the work of reconciliation? When the
transgression has been slight and passing, a passing
word of forgiveness, a shake of the hand, a glance of
the eye, proclaims reconciliation. Where the transgression has been deeper, the son, before he can rest
in the reconciliation, needs to be assured that the
parent knows the depth of it, sees the guilt of it,
and yet is ready to extend to it a forgiveness which
is well considered and mature. A slight forgiveness
he cannot trust to. He fears that the parent does
not know the worst, and that the worst may come
y




322           THE LAMB OF GOD.
up at any moment, to destroy the reconciliation.
He says, let me be sure that my sin is known,
that all its consequences are measured and comprehended, in order that I may feel assured that
the forgiveness has full validity, and may dismiss all
burden and care from my heart.
"Behold the Lanmb of God, which taketh away the
sin of the world."  There learn how God comprehends your transgression; there see how righteously
God has put it away. Behold how He magnifies
His righteous law in the very act of forgiving; and
how all that your spirit tells you that you should
suffer for such sin against such a Father, has been
suffered for you by your Daysman; by One who can
rightfully stand as your representative-the man
Christ Jesus; the second man, the root-man, the
Lord from Heaven.
The forgiveness which man needs, must speak
through every organ of his being, and express the
mind of every attribute of God. The love of the
Father, which glows round the sinner's heart, and
draws forth its responses, must show also grounds
on which the reason can rest with satisfaction, and
which will remain immoveable, incontrovertible,




THE LAMB OF GOD.             323
through eternity. The sinner who has sinned like
man can rest in no slight and facile reconciliation.
The suggestion, " Don't worry; don't torment yourself about sin; look at the goodness, the love, which
expresses itself in the whole creation, and be at
rest;" which seems to sum up the creed of many
who take what may be called the broad view of
Christianity in our day, gives neither peace nor
comfort to the sinner; in his more earnest moods
he drives it as a shallow sophism of the devil from
his heart.  He will see its blackness, and he is
minded that God shall see it.  His spirit could
never rest in a forgiveness which was a light passing
over his sin by the Lord. He goes forth to meet
the Father, but he understands perfectly that it is
the Righteous Father, who hateth sin, who cannot
dwell with sin, who cannot so much as look upon
sin, from whom his soul is searching. A father who
will half shut his eyes on the sin cannot help him in
that anguish. A righteous Father, who comes to
meet him as a sinner, to treat him as a sinner, to
help him as a sinner, to save him as a sinner, is
what his soul demands; and therefore next to the
sentence, " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
_ 2




324            THE LAMB OF GOD.
us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth," stands
the word, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world."  The Father whom you
seek is there. The Being who can speak peace is
there. Seekest thou the Father? " God is in Christ,
reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them. For He hath made Him to be sin
for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him."
Lord, I believe-I believe in Thee, 0 righteous
Father, through that atoning work which is Thy
way to me, my way to Thee-help Thou mine unbelief.
The nature and the grounds of that peace which
is ours when we behold the Father in the Son, reconciling the world unto Himself, will appear as we
considerI. That in Christ, as the Lamb of God, we
have the expression of the mind of the Father
about sin.
II. We see in Him the satisfaction offered,
which is due to the Father by consequence of
sin; and,




THE LAMB OF GOD.            325
III. The power of the Father to condemn sin, and
by His mighty love, which won its chiefest triumphs
on Calvary, to destroy sin for ever.
I. The work of the Lamb of God expresses the
mind of the Father about sin.
You cannot do a sinner worse service than by
helping him to put away the burden of his sins
lightly and easily from his heart. Let him bear it;
let him faint under it; let him learn to loathe it; let
him gather from the horror of his own spirit how it
is hated and loathed by God. Then lead him to
Calvary; show to him the God-man, to whom sin is
intensely hateful, laden with the burden of it, even
buried in its gloom; losing sight of the Father's
sympathising eye and hand, so great was the horror
with which it filled Him, so utterly must sin be outcast from God; and let him measure there both
what the words "made sin for us" may mean, and
the Father's estimate of its deadly nature, its damning work.
Peace means something from those lips.  The
Father, whose heart passed with the well-beloved
Son through that fearful agony, in speaking peace
to the sinner, forgives a sin whose nature He has




326           THE LAMB OF GOD.
sounded to its very depths. He knows it, as you
can never know it.; in the flesh of the man Christ
Jesus He shudders at it as you can never shudder
at it; and in blotting it out, and casting the very
record of it away, He seals the expression of His
hatred of it with His own most precious blood. The
sinner, in his agony, knows that the Father comprehends perfectly the depth and darkness of his transgression; he sees that it is not love conquering
righteousness in the Father, perhaps to be conquered in turn; but love working with righteousness, through righteousness, to save. There is no
hiding of the heinousness of the transgression, that
the reconciliation may be pleasant and facile. It is
brought out into the daylight. It is placed in the
very fore-front of the transaction; and God gives
utterance to His condemnation of it with an emphasis which the words of a Redeemer alone can
bear.
The Lord is there to redeem the sinner, not by
making room for the sin in the Father's bosom, but
by condemning and killing the sin in the very innermost core of the sinner's heart. He stands there
before the Father, with such confession of sin on




THE LAMB OF GOD.               327
human lips, as Divine lips alone could utter. The
anguish of His last hour was the confession for man
of the guilt and misery of man's transgression; the
hiding of the face of the Father from the wellbeloved Son was the dread Amen of God. The
work of the Lamb is the assurance to the sinner
that the Father, in forgiving, has dealt with the
transgression in its wholeness, and in the wholeness
of His own nature; that the Righteous Father is as
righteous as fatherly in forgiving; that the word of
the Father, " Thy sins are forgiven thee; thy faith hath
saved thee; go in peace," is absolute and final-is the
word of the very justice and holiness of God.
The great laws of His government, the great facts
of His nature, suffer no contempt, no eclipse, but
receive rather a glorious illustration. The Lamb of
God, in taking away the burden of my transgression,
lifts it wholly. He knows it to its depths; He hates
it with a hate, of which I have but caught from Him
the inspiration; and He says that I am free.
"Thou know'st our bitterness, our joys are thine,
No stranger thou to all our wanderings wild,
Nor could we bear to think how every line
Of us, thy darkened likeness and defiled,




328            THE LAMB OF GOD.
Stands in full sunshine of thy piercing eye;
But that thou call'st us brethren. Sweet repose
Is in that word; the Lord, who dwells on high,
Knows all, yet loves us better than He knows."
II. In the work of the Lamb of God we see the
satisfaction offered which is due to the Father by
consequence of sin.
There is a strong tendency to ignore this element
of the work of the Incarnate Word, even on the part
of those who hold firmly to the truth of the Incarnation, and who regard it as the fountain of the
highest blessing which God can bestow upon mankind. From one point of view, this tendency may
be regarded as a reaction, and a reaction in a
healthy direction, though extreme, against the mercenary and mechanical views of the Atonement
which have obscured this great portion of "the
whole counsel of God." Against these views there
is little need to argue in the present day. The
general progress of Christian thought, in the great
current of human progress, is leaving them rapidly
high and dry to rot on the mud-banks whence they
sprang. One hears rarely enough now the subject
presented in words and forms which were frequent,




THE LAMB OF GOD.            329
even on wise and honoured lips, some twenty years
ago, and which vexed and perplexed our youth, and
made the battle of belief a hard one. We are most
of us agreed now that we are quite in a low and
worldly region, not near the sanctuary of Christian
truth, when we suffer ourselves to talk of equivalent
amounts, and to balance them in estimating the
atonement.  So many finite deaths due as the
penalty of human transgression, one infinite death
sums them all, and quits the debt-is the exposition which we have often heard of the mystery of
the atonement.  That sum in arithmetic-bad in
arithmetic as in theology-will never bring us near
to the heart of the work of the Lord Jesus.
As far from the truth, perhaps, is it to believe
that we have fathomed the mystery when we say,
that the Lord did something for us that we might
not have to do it; that the Lord suffered something
for us, that we might not have to suffer it. The
more we can enlarge the word substitute, until it
becomes equivalent to representative, the nearer we
can keep to the relation of the head of the body and
the members, and their essential sympathy and cooperation, in our conception of what the Lord has




330            THE LAMB OF GOD.
done and suffered for mankind, the nearer shall we
be to the truth of the matter. I read of one who
perhaps of all men best understood what the atonement meant, and what it had done for mankind,
who prayed that he might be "crucified with Christ,"
that he might know " the power of His resurrection,
the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable
to His death," and even "that he might fill up that
which was behind of the sufferings of Christ for his
body's sake, the Church."  The Lord has not redeemed us from suffering, nor from the death which
He died.  He is redeeming us by suffering and
through death. What He has redeemed us from is
the hopeless suffering of the sinner, and the death of
the soul that never dies. And from this He has
delivered us by a work, one cardinal feature of which
is the suffering for sin in the flesh as no mere
man could suffer, and the offering for sin, as the
sinner's representative, His life before the face of
God. Do not say that God, as a ruler, exacts so
much suffering as the penalty for sin, and that when
that suffering is offered by the sinless in the sinner's
behalf, God writes "cancelled" against the doom,
and think that you can thus reach the bottom of the




THE LAMB OF GOD.             33I
transaction. It lies far deeper than that. But there
must be some great necessity in the nature of things,
as well as in the will of the Father, if we may
separate them in thought, which finds utterance in
the words, " the soul that sinneth, it shall die." If
that sentence lie in the nature of things, as well as
in the will of the Father, as it must, if the Father
in His Fatherly wisdom has so constituted man and
the world, then we may be sure that some witness
of it, some strong sense of the necessity, must lie
hidden somewhere in the human heart. The necessity is there, and must be met. It is not by undoing
the structure of our nature, it is not by suspending
or repealing the laws of the universe, that God will
save us. It is through the system of things in us
and around us, that God will redeem  us, not in
defiance of it; and so the sentence stands, "the soul
that sinneth, it shall die."  And He who came for
man, to stand for man, the essential Man in whom
you and I are men, He whom the Father regarded
and dealt with as Man, poured out His soul unto
death, distinctly and confessedly for sin, and man
died in Him. "If one died for all," says the Apostle,
"then did all die."-(2 Cor. v. I5.)  The true render



332          THE LAMB OF GOD.
ing of this passage brings out the representative
idea in all its fulness. If the Lord died for man,
you and I, as men, died in Him. When that
great human heart, the heart not of a man, but
of humanity, broke under the pressure, then was
the penalty of man's transgression paid. All members of His body in Him offered the sacrifice; and
the law-which is a reality, which expresses an
eternal necessity, attaching death to sin as its
inevitable penalty as well as fruit-when it lifts
its accusing voice in the judgment halls of Heaven,
hears the answer, " My Lord has died for sin, I died
for sin, I die to sin, in Him."  Death! thou art
spoiled through death. Hell! thou art vanquished
through pain. He in whom I am, through death
hath destroyed him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil, and hath broken my bonds. " 0
death! where is thy sting? 0 grave! where is thy
victory?" The accuser is met with a fulfilled sentence; the devil is silenced by the word of a vindicated law. The sentence of death, accepted with
loving submission by man's representative, and
honouied to the last throb of agony, has reversed
man's judgment; and by the Lamb of God, the




THE LAMB OF GOD.           333
Father who in Him bore the burden of the sin
which, for the sake of the great end, He endured
within the bounds of His universe-has opened the
kingdom of heaven to all believers. "HE IS OUR
PEACE."
III. The work of the Lamb of God is the power
of the Father to condemn sin in the flesh; and by
His great love wherewith He hath loved us, which
revealed its heights and depths on Calvary, to destroy sin for ever.
The death of the Lord Jesus was the death of man
for sin. It was a death also by sin, by sinful man;
the death at the hand of man of the human person
of the only-begotten Son of God. Sin aims at God's
supremacy. Essentially, it seems the dethronement
of God, and the destruction of His kingdom; the
restoration through the universe of the reign of the
ancient chaos and night.  In aiming at the life of
Christ, it acted out its fell design. It struck, through
man, at the heart of God, and man, horror-struck,
recoiled. There is many a man who only sees his
sin when it has come out in some dread development. It was there within; he suffered it there;
he nursed it there; but when it acts out its will in




334            THE LAMB OF GOD.
some daring, damning crime, its essential horror for
the first time appears. It is on this principle that
the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
The slaying of goodness and holiness, patient before
the butchers, filled the world with a horror, which
reacted destructively on sin.  And thus the blood of
THE MARTYR, the Witness of the truth, the Witness
of the Father, has become the life-seed of the world.
Sin's grand achievement was its own death-stroke.
The blow aimed at the most Holy and Blessed One
recoiled, and struck Satan to the very heart. The
Lord of life and glory, the infinite Friend and Lover
of the world, submitted patiently to the stroke, and,
submitting, conquered. The Lord by that act,
dying under the stroke of sin, made sin in its essential nature known to the world. The Father, sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; He condemned
it, and held it up to the hate and horror of mankind,
as the murderer of truth, the murderer of righteousness, the murderer of love. And the world recoiled
from it. The men who had been its most eager
instruments, the murderers of the Holy and Just
One, came broken-hearted to cast themselves before




THE LAMB OF GOD.              335
His feet for pardon; and, from that hour, the tide of
evil has been ebbing from the world. The hour of
the triumph of evil was the hour of its doom. The
Son, the sent of the Father, condemned it in the
flesh-condemned it by His life, condemned it more
condignly by His death, and destroyed for ever its
empire over men.  He who can destroy that empire
is our peace.
And estimate the force of the Divine appeals
founded on that sacrifice. By that cross and passion,
the Father has cast the cords of love and the bands
of a man around the world. It had broken from His
hand as Creator, He has bound it to His heart as
Redeemer-it can never unloose itself from His
love.  "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus, how
that, though He was rich, for your sakes He became
poor."  " I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
God's love in Christ is the fell antagonist of sin.
Wherever the history of the cross and passion has
spread, Satan has fallen from the high places of the
world, and man has confessed his allegiance to his




336            THE LAMB OF GOD.
true and only King. The heart cannot keep barred
its gates, when the Man of Sorrows, the Man of
Calvary, craves entrance.  Hearts that had only
been hardened by His judgments, melt, break, before
the appeals of His woe-worn face, His thorn-scarred
brow, His pierced limbs, His stricken heart. And
He presents them still-He is urging the appeal on
you.  By His agony and bloody sweat, by His cross
and passion, He is beseeching you to be reconciled
to God. Refuse, it is His blood you trample upon,
His agony on Calvary you scorn, His eyes you fill
with tears such as rained once over doomed Jerusalem, His heart you pierce as no brutal spear could
tear it, and it is His voice that, laden with unutterable tenderness, and therefore the more terrible in its
hopelessness, will moan through the ages of your
lost eternity, " Oh, that thou hadst known, at least in
this thy day, the things that make for thy peace, but now
they are hidden from thine eyes."




IV.
bCe 10oip ly bot, the Comforter.
"And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another
Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever."-JOHN
xIv. i6.
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have
feace."-JOHN XVI. 33.
T was the will of the Father that in the fulness of
times a Divine Person should abide continually
in the world among men. From the hour when God
came visibly and openly to the world (when had He
not been coming invisibly?) He purposed to abide
with it. He would dwell with it, nay, in it, until His
hope should be realized, and it should become visibly
the kingdom of Heaven.
The Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost the Comforter,
completes the manifestation of God in the Incarnaz




338    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
tion. In His own person, the Word, who was with
God, who was God, dwelt in the flesh. By the
Spirit He still abides in the world, and dwells in
you. The contemplation of the Father is the beginning of the peace of a spirit; the awakening through
the Father's call of the long-dormant filial yearning
-the memory of the Father's home, the pining for
the Father's love. Till there is a cry in the secret
chambers, " I will arise, and will go to my Father,"
there is no peace possible.  Until there is that
awakened in the human spirit which responds to the
Father's call, and lifts itself to clasp the Father's
out-stretched hand, it is all darkness, drearihood,
and death. The Father meets the spirit with all
its burdens, all its ineffaceable convictions, all its
responsibilities, in the atonement.  The spirit of
man, yielding to the call of the Father, not first
seeking or knowing, but rather sought and known
of God, meets Him there. There, in the Lamb of
God, the Godhead in its wholeness meets the man
in his wholeness; the one way to the Father is
through the Son, the Lamb of God slain on Calvary,
who beareth away the sin of the world.  That
sacrifice is the full manifestation of the Father to




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   339
the sinner. No otherwise could the righteous Father
meet with and treat with the fallen child.  It is not
only, as we have seen, that there is something to be
done and something to be paid, but there is also
something to be expressed-the mind of the Holy
and Righteous Father about sin, and the fulness of
that love which, knowing the needful sacrifice, offered
the needful sacrifice and died for sin in Christ, that we
might die with Him for sin and to sin, and live by
Him and with Him unto God for evermore.
"The soul that sinneth, it must die." Truly
there is no cure for sin but through death. Man has
sinned in the flesh; because he has sinned in the
flesh, he must die in the flesh. The sinless state for
the holiest of us is beyond. The death for sin Christ
died. We died in Him. But we must die, too,
with Him, in the flesh. " The body is dead because of
sin," and it must see corruption in the tomb. The
new body, which shall clothe the renewed spirit,
shall be free from the motions of sin which are in
the flesh. The Lord, who quickens the spirit,
quickens also our mortal bodies, and will bring forth
a new immortal body out of the womb of the death
to which sin has doomed the flesh.  "But if the
2




340    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth
in you."
And here is the work of the Spirit.  Belief in the
atonement, the meeting of the Father in the sacrifice
which He has Himself offered for the sin which He
puts away in Christ, is the commencement of Redemption. The carrying on and the completion of
the work is the office of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter; from whose quickening call also the first
cry, My Father, springs. He is the Divine Person
who is ever with and in the world, as the life is
present in a body; through whom alone humanity,
that is, the great human body in which He abides
and which He inspires, fulfils the higher vital functions, grows to the likeness of its great Exemplar,
and realizes the Divine idea. The assurance of
the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is
thus an essential condition of our peace.
In treating this portion of the subject I shall
speak ofI. The Divine Person-the Holy Ghost, the
Comforter.




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   34I
II. The nature and methods of the influence of
the Spirit.
III. The office which He sustains, and the
functions  which  he  fulfils in relation to our
peace.
I. The Divine Person-the Holy Ghost.
I am not called by the exigencies of my subject,
nor should I feel myself competent, to enter here
into any difficult considerations as to the mutual
relations of the Three Persons in the Godhead.
Nor do I more than touch the still more difficult
question as to what the term Person, in such a connection, implies. Perhaps it has been- somewhat
misleading. To give it the narrow conventional
meaning, to conceive of the Persons of the Godhead
as persons simply in the sense in which you and I
are distinct, individual, isolated persons, each of us
with a will and faculties of independent, self-determining force and scope, is to fall easily into Tritheism. On the other hand, to deny to the word any
fulness of meaning, to conceive simply of one
Person as manifesting himself in manifold ways, and
presenting manifold aspects, by a Word, and by a
Spirit, is to miss the counsel of God in the method




342    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
of redemption, and to falsify the truth of His declarations concerning Himself.
He who was made flesh and dwelt among us was
no God-inspired or God-possessed man, the highest
only in the order of God-inspired men by whom, in
all ages, God has carried on His communications
with the world.  He was God in person, God manifest in the flesh, " God of God, light of light, very
God of very God," truly, absolutely, eternally, Divine.
Knowing Him I know the Father; seeing Him I see
the Father; for, as the Being who from eternity
hath been "in the bosom of the Father," He hath
declared the Father to the world.
I cannot read the New Testament without being
sure that, as our Lord intended us to know that
He was in person-" God manifest in the flesh," He
intended us to believe that, in the Holy Ghost the
Comforter, a Divine Person would be in and with
the world.  His words are mere trifling with an
awful subject, if He did not mean us so to
understand it.  If what He meant us to believe
was simply, that when He left the world He
would leave His Spirit behind Him-the spirit of
His truth, the spirit of His life-to carry on His




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   343
work, as the great ones of the world leave a spirit
behind them, and, being dead, by that spirit speak
and work through ages; then, if that were all He
meant, His words would be an awful delusion,
mockery, and snare. I use the terms unhesitatingly.
If the words mean no more than I have described,
words could not have been devised more artfully to
entrap men into the belief that a Divine Person, the
Holy Ghost the Comforter, would in person enter
into and abide with men.  All that helps us to
believe that, in the person of our Lord, God was
manifest in the flesh, is said to help us to believe
that, in the person of the Holy Ghost, God still
abides in, toils for, and suffers with the world.
There is One in whom, not something of God, but
God Himself, is present, in all the fulness of His
being and power, with you, with me, and with mankind.  The world did not lose the presence of a
Divine Person when the Lord left it to go unto the
Father; rather, it has gained a presence of God
more real, more vital, more abiding, than it was
possible for it to realise before the Saviour was taken
up from it into Heaven.
There is much here which we cannot fathom;




344    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
much to which what we see and know in man,
furnishes only faint and difficult clues; but there is
something also which comes out of.the mystery, and
is expressed with unqualified clearness, something
which we see, and are intended to see, as distinctly
as we see the God-manhood in the Saviour; even
the Divine Person, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter,
descending from the Father and the Son, entering
into and abiding with the world. I use the word
world throughout in no technical, theological sense.
I use it to describe the whole human sphere of the
Spirit's work; that which it is said " God so loved,"
as to give His Son for it, and in which (John xvi.
8-II) the Spirit is said to carry on His convincing
work, surely not to condemn, but to save.
Let us listen to the solemn testimony of the Lord.
"If ye love me, keep may commandments.  And I will
pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever —even the
Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because
it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: for He dwelleth
with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."-(John xvi. I5 —I8.)
"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.    345
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which
proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me. And
ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me
from the beginning."-(John xv. 26, 27.)
"Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for
you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him
unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the
world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of
sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness,
because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of
judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.  I
have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot
bear them now.  Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth; for He shall
not speak of himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that
shall He speak: and He will show you things to come.
He shall glorify me; for He shall receive of mine, and
shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath
are mine; therefore said I, that He shall take of mine,
and show it unto you."-(John xvi. 7-I5.)
How profoundly the apostles had received and
rested on the assurance, how  distinctly they conceived of Him as a Divine Person, as they conceived




346    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
of the Lord as a Divine Person, every page of their
writings might be quoted to show.
"But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira
his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price,
his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain
part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said,
Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the
Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the
land?   Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and
after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why
has thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast
not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing
these words fell down, and gave up the ghost; and great
fear came on all them that heard these things."-(Acts
V. I —5.)
"-As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy
Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the
work whereunto I have called them. And when they had
fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent
them away.  So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost,
departed unto Seleucia; and from  thence they sailed to
Cyprus." —(Acts xiii. — 4.)
How distinctly it represented itself to Paul, that
a Divine Person, the Holy Ghost, was present in




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.    347
the world to be "God with us," let these brief
passages prove:-" Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our
infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for
as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.  And He
that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what is the mind of the
Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints,
according to the will of God."-(Rom. viii. 26, 27.)
" But as it is written, Eye hath not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him.  But
God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit of man which is in him?  Even so, the things of
God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.  Now we
have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit
which is of God; that we might know the things that are
freely given to us of God.  Which things also we speak,
not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which
the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things
with spiritual."-(I Cor. ii. 9-I3.)  Take, again, the
formula of baptism, and the apostolic benediction:"And yesus came and spake unto them, saying, All




348    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye,
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world." —(Matt. xxviii. I9, 20.)
" The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of
God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you
all. Amen."-(I Cor. xiii. I4.)
To me, the thought is infinitely precious.  The
world would have been "orphaned," had the Lord
left it, and left simply the spirit of His word, His
work, His life, to occupy His room. The burden of
life is such, that " God with us," alone can sustain
its pressure.  Rob us of that belief, that God is
with us, is in us, and you rob us of that legacy which
the Lord died in shame and anguish to bequeaththe Divine Person, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter,
who, entering into willing, loving hearts abideth
therein for ever.  "Temples of God, through the
Holy Ghost."
II. The nature and methods of the influence of
the Spirit.
Again, here is an essential mystery, which, to the




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   349
pure intellect, is unfathomable, but which experience
helps us to grasp as a reality, and partially to comprehend.
How spirit acts on spirit, defies analysis. How a
will is acted on by a will, none of us can understand.
That a will may retain its freedom, and yet be
powerfully moved by another will, we know by our
own experience and our observation of mankind. We
talk of men being possessed by an idea, or by the
influence of another man. We never dream, save
in fiction, of releasing the patient from the responsibility of self-direction; our laws force on him the
responsibilities of his action, even though it be to
the issue of life or of death. The law recognizes no
absolute paralysis of freedom, because the thing is
not. Will may work on will with fearful power;
an orator may stir and sway the passions of a vast
multitude, till he lashes them to frenzy; he may
lead them forth, the captives of his eloquent tongue
and passionate soul, to extremities of suffering, or to
fight for a hopeless cause, even unto death. But
they move in freedom, they fight in freedom, they die
in freedom; and with God is both their and their
betrayer's account.  The influence of a parent of




350    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
strong character and constant persistence in effort
on a child's nature may be overwhelming. But, in
the strict sense, it is not absolute; it is spirit acting
on spirit; the spirit acted upon retains its freedom, and not seldom proves it at the last momentbreaking, by one daring stroke, from the master's
hand.
There is a spirit in the very words of a Plato, a
Bacon, which sways the thoughts, aye, and moulds
the lives of men for ages; being dead, by that spirit
they still speak, and work mightily in the world.
Each spirit is a creator-a parent, rather-after
the law of the higher influence, the law which reigns
in the sphere of free thought, will, and love. There
is no one living who is not daily begetting states of
thought and will in those who surround him, and
who is not a factor in the sum of the influences
which make some other man's life. And among
us, as even Seneca had the wisdom to see, " a Divine
spirit abides," working as a spirit on spirits, as a
free spirit on free spirits, in harmony with the laws
and institutes of the sphere of a spirit's freedom, and
yet with an energy of which all other spiritual forces
and operations are but the far-off reflections, and




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.    35I
to an end which will realize the hope, the idea
of God.
We dare not materialize the Spirit's work with
the high Calvinists, and make it a creation of mere
absolute power, like the material universe around us.
"He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it
stood fast," stands equally in such a creed for the
constitution of either world. When we open the
records of the Spirit's agency among men, we come
into a new and transcendant region. "He speaks,
and it is not done; He commands, and it does not
stand fast," we are tempted to say, at first sight, is
the law in this higher world. The mere marking
of a settled number, as the elect stones of the temple
of the new creation, and building them in, in spite
of even their struggles and rebellions, is nothing
like the picture of the way of the Spirit in the new
creation, which is presented in the word of God.
We have not to read far in that word before we come
to the record of the frustration of God's benignant
purposes by man's rebellion. Indeed, the history of
the whole Old Testament era is summed up by an
inspired summarist in these words:- " Ye stiffnecked
and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist




352     THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.  Which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and
they have slain them which showed before of the coming
of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers
and murderers: who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it." We meet
with these exhortations in St. Paul: —"And grieve
not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto
the day of redemption."   "Quench not the Spirit."
We read the record of the sorrowful resignation of
a fruitless struggle in the words, "0 Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."  "And
when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept
over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least
in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!
but now they are hid from thine eyes."
These are words to make  us tremble.  They
reveal to us, that not even in our relations to the
Holy Ghost, the Comforter, is our freedom overborne. The God who made us free, respects our




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   353
freedom, and will have us to be free subjects of the
heavenly kingdom, through the comfort of the Holy
Ghost.
And the comfort lies in the thought that it is
the living God who is with us, not only in the might
of His omnipotent hand, but in the power of the
relation which, as the Author of our being, He
sustains to it, and the access which in right of that
relation He claims and enjoys. He who made us,
and in whose image we are made, knows us; He can
find and touch our innermost springs. Nothing
within us is hidden from His eye-nothing can bury
tself beyond the touch of His hand. There is a
sanctuary which no human spirit can enter, but
which He can enter, and wherein He can dwell.
There, where we know sadly that the closest, tenderest friend is powerless to touch us, we know that
He can touch and work on us. In the centre of
centres, the core of cores, of our being, where all
human fellowship fails us, we can find, we have
found, Him, the Lord. And there is an infinitely
complete and profound correspondence between our
spirits and the God who made us, and embreathed
into our nostrils the breath of life. He can touch
A A




354    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
us, move us, and master us, for we were made to be
moved and mastered by Him.  There is not a
faculty of our being, not a nerve, fibre, or pulse,
which does not secretly own Him. It was made for
Him. It may drag on without Him what may be
called an existence. A plant may exist in the darkness; but when it comes out into the sunlight, every
pore opens its portal, the whole plant is alive with
joy. The Spirit has this special power over us, in
that we are His; and if the will in the mind chooses
to forget it, the faculties of that mind do not forget
it. They pine for God as for their sunlight. The
Spirit meets them at every point; He has the supply
of their every want, the help for their every need.
There is not a word which He can speak which does
not find somewhere within a responsive echo. There
is not a touch which does not heal some wound, or
soothe some pain. We need Him, we die without
Him. The self-will within us may rebel against the
necessity, as the prodigal battled long with the
hunger, before the pride was tamed; but it is there,
and is the source of His mighty power over souls.
Our peace, in the contemplation of the Holy
Ghost the Comforter, lies in the compass of the




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   355
forces which He can bring to bear upon the spirit.
Receive Him, and He is omnipotent to save.
III. The office which the Comforter sustains,
and the functions which he fulfils in relation to our
peace.
I. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter-the Paraclete
-what does it mean?  The precise meaning to be
attached to this remarkable word is a point much
debated among theologians. Literally, it is "one
called to the side of another," to sustain weakness
by superior strength, to enlighten folly by superior
wisdom, to renovate decay by superior life. The
word advocate exactly expresses it; but the term
with us has unfortunately a technical meaning,
which confuses our thought. In our modern usage,
the Advocate is the man who is to speak for us. The
Paraclete is the being who is to act for us; to comfort us in the old sense of the word, making us
strong by his alliance. Comforter is a nobler, larger
word than Advocate, if we can detach ourselves from
the modern meaning, which is simply cheering and
soothing in sorrow. The old word meant much
more. The root-idea is strength; to make strong
by fellowship is the original idea of comfort; to
AA2




356    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
stand by the side of a sufferer and say, " There, rely
on me: nothing shall tempt me to leave your side.
I am with you even unto death." That is comfort;
and of this strain' is the comfort of the Holy Ghost.
"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world."
I cling to the word Comforter in the large old
sense of the term, as the full rendering of Paraclete;
and to me it is deeply suggestive. The true comforter is always the man that can strengthen us. There
are two possible ways of helping the weary and heavy
laden. You may lift part of the burden for them,
and leave what is more within the measure of their
strength; or you may strengthen them to lift it all,
and even to bear it with a cheerfulness, a joyfulness,
which the unburdened never know. That is comfort;
and that is the Spirit's work. The true idea is
suggested in the passage-" There appeared an angel
unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him."-(Luke
xxii. 43.) Strengthening Him, not surely by bearing
His burden, but by cheering Him to endure. There
is no limit to endurance if the spirit be kindled, and
embreathe its courage and strength into the organs.
Inspire a man, and you comfort Him effectually.




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   357
To get leave to shirk the burden is a slave's comfort;
a freeman's, a son's, is to get strength to bear it
manfully, and to find in bearing it the fellowship of
God.
2. The first and most fundamental element of the
peace of a spirit in the assurance of the communion
of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, lies in His
mission to develop the filial spirit in the believing
soul.  "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear: but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.  The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children
of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God,
and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with
Him, that we may be also glorified together."  I return
to the old position. To know the Father is to be at
peace. The Spirit of God in us is the Spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, "Father, Father," and
enter into the peace of God. The main, grand aim
of the mission of the Comforter is to make us the
sons of God. Realise sonship, and devil may rage
or world may woo, the peace abides unbroken, a
peace which passeth all understanding, a joy which
is unspeakable and full of glory. It is a hard truth




358    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
to receive-the absolute Fatherhood of God.  "It
cannot be," we say, "we are all unworthy, children
of the devil rather than of God. The thought is too
awful: we cannot lift ourselves to its height." Is
there no comfort, no peace, in the thought that there
is a Divine Person in the midst of us, within us,
whose office it is to lift us to this height, and to
embolden us to cry'Father,' with filial hope and joy
-to make the incredible credible, the dream  real?
It seems far off from us-this power to cry, as an
infant to a mother, to the Lord of all. It is just
this infantile trust which the Spirit awakens, and
nurses to hearty confidence and assured hope. If
the filial spirit be our peace, the being able to rest
the burden of our care on God, with the quiet confidence that it will be borne, the sense that we have
a right to rest it there, then surely the knowledge
that there is a Divine Spirit with us, within us,
whose express mission it is to draw us to the Father,
must bring us peace. Remember that the only salvation for the prodigal was to be received as a son at
home again. The spirit which drew him homewards
choked the words, "Let me be as one of thy hired
servants," as they rose to his lips. "Let me be a




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   359
son, or I perish," is the cry of those in whom the
Spirit of adoption is working. Far off as God seems
from the wanderer, too far for thought to travel, the
Spirit can make the Fatherhood -the most vivid,
vital reality within the scope of the soul's consciousness; and can fill it with a trust and hope in that
one word, which places the world and sin and hell
for ever beneath its feet.  As the filial heart learns
to cry out for God, and to catch the responses, its
peace becomes broad and calm as the current of a
deep river, which the breezes of care and sorrow but
ruffle for a moment as they sweep by. " Why art
thou cast down, 0 my soul, and why art thou disquieted
within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise
Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God."
3. It is the mission of the Spirit to lead us into
the knowledge of the Fatherly counsel of God.
"He takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto
us."  "All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and show it
unto you."  It was the office of the Spirit by the
Pentecostal baptism to make known to the disciples
the things of God; the love of God, the thoughts
of God, the gift of God, the purpose of God for the




360       THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
world. The morning of Pentecost was as the transition from dim twilight to mid-day. The disciples
leapt at once to the knowledge of all which had
been given to them  of God in Christ.  His life,
His sorrows, His death, became glorious. Where
were the tears with which they had bathed the
corpse of the Redeemer, the hopeless sorrow with
which they had hallowed His grave?  Scattered
like the morning mists of the valley before the
splendour of the burning  moon.  Compare the
weary, heart-broken journey to Emmaus-"And
He said unto them, What things? And they said unto
Himn, Concerning yesus of Nazareth, which was a
prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all
the people: and how  the chief priests and our rulers
delivered Him to be condemned to death, and have
crucified Him.  But we trusted that it had been He
which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this,
to-day is the third day since these things were done,"
-with the clear, grand, firm exposition of the
meaning'of Gethsemane and Calvary: "The God
of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of yacob, the God of
our Fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus: whom ye
delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate,




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.    36I
when he was determined to let Him go. But ye denied
the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to
be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life,
whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are
witnesses. And His name through faith in His name
hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know:
yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.  And now,
brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did
also your rulers. But those things, which God before
hath  showed by the  mouth  of all His prophets,
that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled."  See
how, through the Spirit, they leapt, as it were,
in a moment, to the understanding of the Divine
counsels, and saw the purpose of the Father's love
in Christ, behind them, beneath them, around them
on every hand; upbearing them, too, against an
opposing world, an opposing  universe; for God's
eternal purpose who should frustrate, what hand
should disannul His absolute decrees?  And we
have the same rest in the Lord.  The  Spirit
taketh of the things of Christ and showeth them to
our spirits. Foremost, the eternal counsel of His
love. We see the glorious thought and purpose of




362    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
redemption stretching on from eternity to eternity;
we see how the whole universe has been moulded
with a view to its accomplishment; we hear the
groaning of the travail of creation, and we catch
the gleam of the hope which God hath lit in every
creature's heart; we see what universal interests
are enwoven inextricably with the purpose of our
salvation, what hope will be frustrated, what love
will be robbed of its object, what sorrow of the
Incarnate Word will become a wanton waste, if
God's purpose and hope of our redemption fail.
And as the Spirit taketh these things of the Father
and showeth them to our spirits, we clasp the
comfort, the strength, of God's sharing of our
hope, which utters itself in the triumphant words,
" What shall we then say to these things?  If God be
for us, who can be against us?  He that spared not
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how
shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
It is God that justifieth.  Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh
intercession for us.  Who shall separate us from  the




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.    363
love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day
long;  we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through Him  that loved us. For I am persuaded, that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ yesus our Lord."
4. By the Spirit, the Lord continues to share by
sympathy the sorrow, struggle, and suffering of the
world.
It is not the tale of a far-off conflict, a victory
won in bygone ages and complete for ever, that is
our message of peace. That were a gladder message
to the men of old time than to us. One who has
done with the battle, who is far from the sorrow,
who, having won the victory, sits on high serenely
on His throne, is not the Saviour to stir our deeper
passions, and to give us peace by the comfort of
His fellowship, His courage, and His love. No!
if He is to be our Elder Brother, our Captain of salva



364    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
tion, our conflict of to-day must be something real
to Him, not in the light of a past achievement,
but in the light of a present interest and hope.
We need a Captain, not who has been, but who is
with us in the battle, who is fighting for us and before us in the field; who is bending Himself under
the pressure of the burden which well nigh crushes
us, and is sharing all our tears, and fears, and
pains. And by the Spirit, the Lord is presentpresent in the flesh, bearing, pleading, striving,
sorrowing, weeping, as when once His weary footsteps trod the pathways of the world. Each generation He thus renews His incarnation; by and in
the Spirit He dwells with men. The battle which
they fight against sin is His battle; the Spirit
arms the combatants, He nerves and inspires,
them, He joys in their victories, and sorrows over
their defeats; He sees His own hope fail for the
moment when world or devil win the advantage;
He sees His own hope blossom and ripen as each
brave soldier strikes the triumphant stroke, and is
taken up with the victors into the joy of his Lord.
The Spirit comforts us by standing with us, by us,
in us, in the field. He prolongs the life-work of




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER,   365
the Saviour and renews for each age His brotherhood with sorrow, His acquaintance with the grief
and burden of the world. The agony of the Saviour
is over, is over for ever. "By one offering He hath
perfected for ever them that are sanctified."  But His
tender, sympathetic heart still goes forth with each
combatant and sufferer; He tastes Himself the cup
which He lifts to the submissive lips. Through
the Spirit we know that He is a Saviour at hand,
and not afar off; and that through all our conflict and all our discipline He is fighting as well as
sympathising at our side.  He has not left us
orphans; He has come to us. To you, to me, to
every human spirit, He is what He was to the men
who shared the sorrows of His pilgrimage-EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US.
5. " The Spirit likewise helpeth our infirmities."
i. By bringing to us, and keeping ever in our
sight, the things of the spiritual and eternal world.
There is One ever with us who is from Heaven,
who bears witness of Heaven, and who will not
suffer Heaven to pass away from our sight. There
is an upbearing of our spirits which cannot be described, but which I earnestly hope that all my




366    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
readers know, which makes the earthly things which
fascinate the flesh seem strangely poor and small,
and which lets in upon earth, as it were, the sunlight of the higher world. We seem set, for the
time, in a higher key of thought and feeling. We
do not ask, then, " What shall it profit me if I serve
the Lord?" we know that that service is the one
service; that it alone gives freedom and joy to a
spirit; that it is life, while all other service is death.
A kind of disgust and weariness of the things which
daily captivate us, and the ends which we so eagerly
pursue, steals over us. It is beggarly work, we
say, this life which we are living;' there is something far nobler than this within our reach. We
cannot be always grovelling; our souls were made
to climb, to breathe the holy, heavenly atmosphere,
to taste Divine, eternal joys. Then we bethink ourselves of our Father's house, and cry again for the
bread of His home, and His love. It is not that
we are shown at such moment the vanity of particular pursuits and objects; that we learn from  experience, the learning that is the discipline of life;
it is rather that the soul is lifted into a region in
which it realizes its true vocation, and knows that




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.    367
it is of heavenly birth. The things which, in its
common modes, fill large spaces in its field of vision,
are dwarfed, till they seem  poor and bare.  And
when it sees the Divine life unfolded before it, when
it has a vision of its glories and a foretaste of its
joys, the toils, the struggles, the sacrifice, the crossbearing seem light; nay, they have even a solemn,
attractive beauty; " This is the life," it cries, " that
I would live alway. Help me! help me! O my
God!"
ii. By making intercession within us with groanings which cannot be uttered.  "Likewise the Spirit
also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we
should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us mith groanings which cannot be
uttered.  And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth
what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh
intercession for the saints according to the will of God."
The Lord maketh intercession for us there; the
Spirit here, within. What is the principle of this
intercession, and what its fruits?  It rests on this,
that the desire, the want, of a child, even if it find
no utterance in words-nay, the more if it find no
utterance in words-is a prayer to a Father's heart.




368    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
Remember the fundamental principle on which our
redemption rests.  " The Father Himself loveth us."
"God so loved the world, that He gave His onlybegotten Son that the world through Him might not
perish." To a being who loves, the mute desire of
the beloved is more a prayer than the most pronounced wishes of a stranger. The knowledge that
there is there a want unsatisfied, is a grief and
sorrow to the loving, fatherly heart. But God, who
is rich in mercy, in whom all fulness dwells, waits
only the development of the want to satisfy it.
The Spirit's office is to awaken and enlarge the
deeper wants of the spirit; to make in the soul
a great need, a great void, which God alone can
fill. To rouse within it a longing for a good which
no creature can respond to; which can be met
alone by Him who begat it, that He might bestow
Himself as an eternal portion on His child. There
is in all in whom the Spirit is indwelling-and it
is a sign of His indwelling-deep down in the
nature, a pining for something which cannot shape
itself into a petition, a groaning under the burden
of the flesh and the world which cannot frame itself into a complaint. It lies under all our daily




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   369
acts and expressions. They may be far away from
the true occupation of our hearts. How little our
fellow-men, even the nearest, know us. Our words
may be light and trivial, or sharp and bitter, while
our spirit is groaning in secret, weeping over their
sins, or sighing for new freedom  and life.  God
knows us. He sees those silent tears, He hears
those secret groans, and before Him they make
our future. There, deep down in the unutterable,
is the true laboratory of the life; and there, " The
Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be expressed."  There He is stirring  and
shaping us, there He is enlarging and enriching us,
for all growth here is by travail; and there He is
sowing the harvest of eternity. The aspirations of
life, breathed out to no ear but God's, if we give
them full wing, are the possession of Heaven; the
lusts of life, if we give them full swing, become the
torments of hell. And there in the depths, kindling
the aspirations and crushing the lusts, is the Holy
Ghost, the Comforter, by whom we are sealed unto
the day of redemption.
6. The Spirit is in us as the earnest of eternal
glory.
B B




370    THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
The Spirit is ever spoken of as an earnest. His
work is to awaken aspiration and longing. The end
of His indwelling is beyond. He is the Holy Spirit
of promise, not because He was promised, only or
chiefly, but because He is a promise. He dwells in
us as the gift of the Saviour; His office is to reveal
the Lord in us-" Christ in us the hope of glory."  He
takes the finished work, the present glory, of the
Saviour, and shows them as the pattern of our own.
He could not be given till the Saviour was glorified.
The Spirit works by the Word: His power is according to the things which He can take and show
unto the soul. The love of God, the glory of Christ,
are the substance of His revelations. Till they were
declared in very deed, He could not show them;
when the Lord, having revealed the Father, passed
through death to glory, all the fulness of the Spirit's
quickening power burst like a flood upon the world.
And in witnessing of Christ, He is inevitably witnessing of a future. " Our life is hid with Christ in
God, and when He who is our life shall appear, then
shall we also appear with Him in glory."  The more
fully the Spirit makes us conscious of partaking that
life, the more profoundly does He prophesy of




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.    37I
Heaven. The more fully He abides in us, the more
do our spirits pine for the Father's home, the Father's
presence, and the sunlight of the Father's love; the
more do we long and pant for the day when we shall
lay down the burden, and be at rest with God.
" For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in
this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon
with our house which is from  heaven: if so be that
being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that
are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for
that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now  He that
hath  wrought us for the self-same thing is God,
who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit."
The groanings which He stirs are the groans of our
travail, the new-born struggling out into its native
world. He witnesses of that world. He gives us
the right to strain towards it, and in vision, at any
rate, to make it our own.
Jerusalem, the glorious,
The joy of the elect,
O! dear and future vision,
That eager hearts expect;
BB 2




372     THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.
E'en now by faith I see thee,
E'en now thy walls discern,
To thee my thoughts are kindled,
And strive, and pant, and yearn.
And, now, we fight the battle,
And, then, we wear the crown,
Of full, and everlasting,
And passionless renown.
O land that seest no sorrow!
O state that know'st no strife!
O princely bowers! 0 land of flowers!
O realm and home of life!
And with whom, in whom, is the Spirit? Who
has the right to all the comfort, the peace, which
the assurance of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost
affords?  "He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."
" Know ye not your own selves, how  that Jesus Christ
is in you, except ye be reprobates?"  I know not on
what ground any who feel the desires of the higher
life stirring within them, should feel themselves
excluded from the comfort of these words. Nay, He
is with those who are striving against Him; in
whom His work is a striving against their lusts.
He is there within, almighty to deliver. No soul
goes down into perdition without having resisted and
quenched  the  Spirit.   He  is there, witnessing,




THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER.   373
pleading, striving. His being there means all, promises all, yea, infinitely more than all, that I have
described. Lend Him your will: it is all He asks
for; and enter into full possession of the comfort of
the Holy Ghost. "THESE THINGS I HAVE SPOKEN
UNTO YOU, THAT IN ME YE MIGHT HAVE PEACE."








V.
Cbe Conqueror of tbe  WLorltb
" These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might
have geace. In the world ye shall have tribulation:
but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."JOHN XVI. 33.
THERE are two sides to the vital questionthe way of the salvation of the soul. Viewed
from the Divine side, it is the fruit of the love of the
Father, through the work of the Son, by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Its root is in God's purpose, its development is by God's power, its fruit
is the complete unfolding of God's thought-the
Divine idea realized in man. It is of God, and to
God.  God begets it, God developes it, God completes it; and God will present it perfect before the
presence of His glory, with exceeding joy, in eternity.




376     THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
And the soul, looking at it from this side, has simply
to receive it. "Stand still, and see the salvation of
God," is God's word to it. Rest in the Lord, believe
in the Saviour, receive the Spirit; cease from works,
cease from struggle, fall on the bosom of the Divine
love-rest, and be saved.
Looked at from the other side, it is all action and
enterprise. A captive has to burst his bonds, a
soldier has to arm for the battle, a runner has to
train for the race, an athlete has to wrestle for the
prize. Force has to be met by force; a spoiler has to
be beaten from his prey; a usurper has to be dashed
from his throne; a bold, subtle, indefatigable enemy
has to be defied and fronted; a path of peril, with
depths on either hand, has to be trodden, with firm
foot and steady brain; a crown of life has to be
wrested from the hand of Death. There are words
of saintly-inspired men which stir us like a trumpetcall, which rudely start the Quietists from their
assured repose. The kingdom of Heaven is for the
strong hands that can take it. Arm-arm! To the
field, where the foe is entrenched! to the midst of
the throng, where the battle is fiercest! there quit
you like men, young soldiers, there plant your vic



THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.         377
torious foot; for to him, and to him only, that overcometh, will the Lord give to sit with Him on His
throne, even as He also overcame, and is set down
with the Father in His throne.
Life is pictured as a long, stern battle.  The
Bible is full of battle-marches; of wails of defeat, or
paeans of victory. It breathes the spirit df intense
effort and conflict. It is the word of men whose
souls were strained to the utmost tension to do and
to dare for God and their salvation; men whose
eternal destiny rested on their endeavours, and who
knew that if they relaxed one moment their effort
and vigilance, they would find the devil near and
the Lord afar; who comprehended perfectly, that
while they helped themselves they would find the
Lord helping them effectually, while, if they proved
traitors to themselves and Him, they had nothing
between them and death. It would:be easy to construct such a theory of the Christian life, out of very
definite, very prominent, very; inspiring, passages of
the word of God. "Fight the fight;" "run the
race;"  lift the burden;" if you would win the
prize. "'Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let;us; lay aside every




378      THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let
us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who,
for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of
the throne of God."
It is a wholesome and inspiring vision of the
Christian life; but if this were all, alas, for us!
alas, for the world! If God simply met our advances, prospered our work, crowned our achievement, we might drop sword and shield at the outset,
and yield ourselves captives to our inevitable foe.
But, blessed be God, this is.not the Gospel. There
is the battle, the race,, the burden; and it is we who
must fight, run, and bear. No man can quell our
foes, or run our race, or lift our load.  If we decline
the conflict, or relax the strain, another must take
our crown. No statement of this necessity can be
too absolute, no exhibition. of it too prompt and
stern.  "Work out your own salvation, with fear and
trembling;" "gird unto you the whole armour of God,"
and fight.  But the peace of God comes to us,
through the -words which tell of a world already
conquered by the great Captain of salvation; a devil




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.    379
already beaten, and driven from the field. His voice
streams down on us serenely from the height of
Heaven, through all the dust and clamour of the
war. " These things I have spoken unto you, that in me
ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
There is no escape for a soul in earnest, upon any
system of doctrine, from the care and the burden of
its future destiny. Doubt must rest somewhere, and
does rest. To stand still, and see the salvation of
God, is the whole spiritual life of only the most
presumptuous and arrogant; and is mostly found in
concert with lawless liberty, and even sanctimonious
lust. We all feel, or ought to feel, that the seeing
God's salvation is the condition of our own vigorous
effort and constant toil; and that, in seeing His
salvation, we find our own course marked out, and
our battle arrayed. The winning the crown seems
to stand in our own effort and constancy; our
courage, conduct, and endurance in the field. We
dare not unarm for a moment, or relax the strain.
We must work out our own salvation with fear and
trembling, because we know that our salvation is of
God, and that He -is the living God who is working




380      THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure.
We may hold what views we will of effectually
calling and final perseverance, we do not kill the
wholsome doubt thereby.  We may sing, with the
higher school of doctrinarians,' We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made  peculiar ground;'
Or with the lower,
"'Ah, Lord! with trembling I confess,
A gracious soul may fall from grace."
But the high Calvinist does not get rid of his care
about the soul's salvation by resting'on the decrees.
Granted, that the soul joined to Christ'can never
be severed from  Him; "Am'I joined to>'Christ?"
becomes the one absorbing question.  The soul is
ever looking "into its evidences. And just'in proportion to the strength of its'' conviction -that the
soul one with'Christ is one with Him  absolutely
for ever, is the hesitancy of the conscience to take
home the'high assurance as indefeasibly and eternally its'own. I venture to ask those who entertain
strong-Calvinistic assurances on these high matters,
whether they have not known seasons of terrible mental anguish, and even- despair?:I find it in.the lives




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.         38I
of all the eminent saints of this school, that they
have had to pass through a horror of great darkness.
Just in proportion to the grandeur of the assurance
aimed at in their system, is the fear of a sensitive and
high-minded nature, lest it should be taken home
without warrant and lodged too easily in the heart.
On the other hand, the advocates of lower views
of grace are full of a busy and even bustling earnestness about the progress of the Divine life within.
They are always comparing notes of experiences,
and measuring signs of progress; full of perpetual
dread, lest after all they should be cast away. I
have no call here to measure the work of the two
systems. I only say there is the anxious doubt, the
black care, in both of them, which is perhaps best
mastered, or rather kept within due bounds, neither
by searching into evidences nor measuring experiences, but by looking out and up to Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith, and realising the
full force of His inspiring words, "Be of good
courage; I have overcome the world."
In considering this more fully, I shall askI. What is the assurance conveyed in these words,
"I have overcome the world?"




382     THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
II. Why should we, therefore, "Be of good cheer?"
What is its relation to our peace?
I. What is the assurance which is conveyed in
the words, "I have overcome the world?"
I. The Lord has given us proof that to be in the
world, and not of the world, is possible for man.
The temptation of man is dire. The pressure is
hard. Did God speak to man only of resistance
and conquest, man, overborne by the weight of the
malignant influences, by which he is everywhere
surrounded, might say in the bitterness of his soul
to his Maker, "Why hast thou made me Zthus?
Thou hast placed me where sin is easy, and holiness is hard.  I find it simply impossible.  The
tempter has every advantage through the world
and the flesh, while I-where are my springs?
My strength, thou hast thyself told me, is perfect
weakness.'It is not in man that walketh to direct his
steps.' Why hast thou made me thus, or suffered me
to inherit this?" God's answer is, the life of the
man Christ Jesus, and His assuring word, "Be of
good cheer: I have overcome the world."  Looking
away from Christ, we might well agonize over the
question, Is there any victory over the world for




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.          383
man? The splendid picture of the 8th Psalm, out
of Christ, seems to be a fiction or a dream. "But
one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man,
that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that
thou visitest him?  Thou madest him a little lower than
the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour,
and didst set him over the works of thy hands. Thou
hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in
that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing
that is not put under him. But now we see not yet
all things put under him."  But looking unto Jesus,
the Man who overcame the world, light breaks in
upon us; victory is possible; and we have no right
to complain of the Lord for having placed us within
such easy reach of the foe. The captain who leads
his soldiers to certain destruction is responsible as
their betrayer; but the captain who can lead them
even through deadly peril to victory, they honour
with crowns.  It is this victory which is the blessed
fact in the life of the Lord Jesus-He has overcome
the world. A man "tempted in all points, like as we
are," and who could "suffer being tempted," has lived
sinless, and has put the world underneath His feet.
2. He has conquered the temptation of the world.




384      THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
"Then was Jesus led Aup of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempited of the devil.  And when He had
fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an
hungred.  And when the tempter came to Him, he said,
If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones
be made bread. But He answered and said, It is written,
man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.  Then the devil
taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a
pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him, If thou be
the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He
shall give His angels charge concerning thee: and in
their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou
dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is
written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high
mountain, and showeth Him  all the kingdoms of the
world, and the glory of them; and saith unto Him, All
these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and
worship me.  Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence,
Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil
leaveth Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered
unto Him."   He proved there that a life built on




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.    385
the rock of the truth of God can bid the devil calm
defiance; that there is absolutely no overmastering
force in all the temptations with which man can
be called upon to struggle, if the soul keeps steadfast
to the allegiance which it owes to God, and to the
light of truth in His word. They were all therethe grosser temptations and the more subtle. The
clamour of appetite, aching for indulgence; the subtle
temptation of the high-wrought mind and heart by
the vision of empire-a swift leap by one wrongdoing to a coveted prize. Which of us is not beset
by them? Which of us does not know the pining
hunger of appetite and lust for forbidden pleasures?
Is there a day on which the devil is not urging on
us the thought that there is a swifter path to our
kingdom than by calmly working and waiting according to the will of God? Our kingdom is our
end in life, whatever that end may be. To the Lord,
these temptations were present more vividly than
they can ever present themselves to you.  He " suffered being tempted." Consider what His suffering
must mean. But the temptation never entered the
sanctuary of His spirit; it was barred absolutely by
the word of God. Out of that word, which, too, is
CC




386     THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
in your hands, He met, answered, and conquered the
tempter, and proved, absolutely and for ever, that
there is no form of temptation which can have a
shadow of power over a human spirit, if the "thus
saith the Lord" is established firmly as the rule, the
law, within.
3. He overcame the spirit of the world.
He brought the spirit of the heavenly world into
its presence, and the spirit of this world quailed.
" When Yesus had spoken these words, He went forth
with His disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a
garden, into the which He entered, and His disciples.
And _Judas also, which betrayed Him, knew the place; for
Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with His disciples. Judas
then, having received a band of men and officers from
the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus therefore, knowing
all things that should come upon Him, went forth, and
said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered Him,
Yesus of Nazareth. Yesus saith unto them, I am He.
And Judas also, which betrayed Him, stood with them.
As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they
went backward, and fell to the ground."  This is symbolic.  He overcame the world by living in it a




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.    387
heavenly life, and rebuking it by the contrast. The
world was ashamed, afraid, undone. His life condemned it. It had no power to meet His eye, to
face His word. Wherever He met it, He calmly
conquered it —inevitably, as sunlight conquers darkness, or spring the deadness and coldness of the
ground. Follow Him through life. Everywhere
you discern the calm assurance that the world had
nothing which could withstand or gainsay Him.
None speaking in the name of the world, or by the
spirit of the world, could silence Him, or trouble for
a moment the calm certainty of His word.  He
spake as one who had all Heaven, who had the
Father, with Him to affirm it. He had nothing to
change, nothing to qualify, let the world rage or lie
as it pleased.  He had one thing to do, to bear
witness to the truth; that truth ever put the rage to
silence, the lie to shame. For very shame men were
fain to be silent before His witness.  Falsehood,
selfishness, have not a word of defence when truth
and love look them in the face and look them down.
So the Lord looked down the spirit of the world,
which till then held lordly mastery, and had dealt
with human hearts and spirits as its slaves. It could
cc 2




388     THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
not meet Him; it could not face Him, as He stood
there alone, unarmed, in its midst, by the spirit
of the Father to speak His truth. It trembled,
faltered, cowered, before the spirit of the Saviour.
The spell was broken. He overcame the spirit
of the world, and wrought the great deliverance
for man.
4. He overcame the judgment of the world. Condemned by its tribunals, He suffered all it could
inflict of suffering and shame, and, suffering, overcame. All that the world could do by its terrors to
rivet its yoke, He endured, and broke the spell.
There is no terror in any suffering which a man is
willing to undergo. The pain to which a man is
dragged hath torment, but pain had none for Him.
He was not forced, an unwilling victim, to the
judgment-hall and Golgotha. The world gave its
sentence, He calmly accepted it. He laid down the
life which it had demanded under the conditions
which it demanded, and took it again at the hand
of the Father, under conditions which the world
could not touch through eternity. It asked His life
as its last effort at conquest, the last blow which it
could strike at His unfaltering soul; He gave it,




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.        389
He laid down His life, and proved the world's ultimatum to be worse than powerless; He came out
of its Golgotha immortal; the very body on which
it wreaked its vengeance He bore up transfigured,
glorified, to a heavenly throne.  In view of His
death He declared, " Now is the Prince of this world
cast out." He saw that the last blow would but
reveal His essential power and its essential weakness. He was already on the path to the Roman
bar of judgment and the anguish of Calvary when
He said to them, " Be of good courage; I have overcome the world."
II. Why should we be therefore of good courage?
How stands this victory related to our peace?
I. The spirit by which He overcame the world is
with us, is in us, that we, too, may overcome.
I have spoken of the indwelling of the Divine
Person, the Holy Ghost the Comforter. By Him
another world, "which is not of this building," is
revealed within us and around us, and the world
that now is, by its pure revelation, by its simple
force, is overcome. That by which the Lord overcame is with us, is in us. What were riches,
honour, power, praise, to Paul, to Peter, inspired




390     THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
by the Holy Ghost. Had the devil come to them
and shown to them all the kingdoms of the world,
and the glory of them, and said, "All these will I
give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me,"
what had been their prompt, emphatic answer?
"Get thee behind me, Satan; thou savourest not the
things that be of God, but those that be of men."  What
were the worlds of sense, in all their glory, to the
men who knew the Lord that made them, who were
His familiar friends, His brethren, destined to dwell
with Him in the house where the heavenly things
of which this world is but a "pattern," would be
their possession and joy through eternity? Perhaps
they might feel that they had the glory of the world,
the worlds, as Satan never could give it; that the
friends, the brethren, of Christ might say with a
truth which Satan could but falsely mimic, "All
things are ours."  "The world, life, death, things
present, things to come, all are ours," would have a
meaning for them which Satan never dreams of. It
is the Lord's world, already ours, which we are
selling for the devil's, when we listen to the tempter.
But a vision of the Lord's world, of what is ours in
Christ, strips the gaud of all its tinsel. Like the




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.    39I
chamber of the last night's orgy, with the light of
Heaven let in upon it, is the world, when the light
of the Lord has once been seen, and the purities of
the sphere, from which He came, to which He
passed, in which He lived even while they were
howling their imprecations around Him, have once
been tasted by the soul. Remember that He overcame the world by bringing into it what He has left
in it as an inheritance, the revelation of the kingdom
of Heaven. It is not easy to describe, but those
who may read these words who know well what it
means —what an utter eclipse this world suffers when
He has been seen, and His love has been tasted by
the soul.
It is very powerful, very terrible, the world's
pressure of temptation, while you feel that you belong to it; as a man suffers in a night-mare agonies
and horrors, while he believes them real. But when
Christ is seen, and the great Heaven which surrounds
Him, just "as a dream when one awaketh," all
the terror of this world passeth away. It is hard
to overrate the battle which the apostles had to
fight, the battle which you have to fight day by
day, in resisting your world, in making light of




392     THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
its temptations, and despising its threats.  I only
say to you, get a vision of Jesus and His world,
and the conquest becomes as easy as for an angel
to pass by a wanton's beauty, or a child to make
light of gold.  Hard as it is to renounce it, impossible even for those who feel it to be their world,
one gush of Heaven's light upon it makes it as utterly
bare of interest and beauty as the memory of a
satiated appetite, or some pleasure of this life for
which you were madly eager, when crossed by the
tidings of the mortal sickness of a beloved friend.
Have you never seen the glory stripped off the most
splendid prosperity in a moment, when a tiny hand,
dearer to you than worlds, has been locked in convulsions, or when the death-dew has settled on what
will soon be a young angel's brow? "Ah, my God!
take the world, but leave me that!" So the knowledge of Christ, "whom having not seen, we love,
and in whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory," quite easily strips the world of every shred
of its splendour, touches with palsy every nerve of
its power, discrowns and expels its king.
2. The Lord's overcoming the world is full of




THE CONQUEROR OF -THE WORLD.    393
vital comfort to our spirits, because His victory as
our representative, our leader, our head, at once
transfers our citizenship to the world which He revealed, and in which He reigns.
Your citizenship is in Heaven. Not shall be in
Heaven, but is, in virtue of that victory of your
Lord. He has won your freedom, and has proclaimed it. The world's chain is off you, the world's
claim on your allegiance is disowned and cast out.
The question is not, can you be a citizen of the
heavenly kingdom, can you hold high fellowship
with the angels, and move in the rhythm of the
motion of the world of spirits; you are a citizen
already, Christ, your King, has come to you from
Heaven, and has made you its citizen. The real
question is, can you, having your citizenship in
Heaven, turn again to the beggarly elements from
which He has set you free? The truth which the
angels know He has made known to you, perhaps
as they can never know it. There are things which
you know, into which the angels desire to look.
The motives which animate them, the objects which
inflame their ardour, the spirit which inspires their
zeal, are all before you and within you. The Lord's




394     THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
overcoming of the world has been the lifting of
the curtain of sense around you; the whole universe
is now in sight. Life and immortality are now no
more dim thoughts, haunting the verge of the invisible, they are brought out into light by the
Gospel. The sunlight of God shines over all the
scene of your travail and conflict: your daily
marches are lit by the lustre, whose fountain is
the light ineffable, that streams from the throne of
God and of the Lamb. If Heaven can do anything
to make the conquest of earth an easy victory,
Heaven is yours. If the spirit within you has heard
the call, " My Son," has uttered the joyful response,
" My Father-my Father!" has set its face homeward with the cry, " Make me glad, 0 my Father,
with the light of Thy countenance;" "guide me
on earth by thy counsel, and afterward receive me
to thy glory,"-there is infinite solace in the thought
that the world from which you are struggling to
extricate your spirit, imposing as it seems, has been
beaten and struck to the dust by your Saviour, and
that all Heaven's forces, all Heaven's influences,
are around and within you, to strengthen you to win
the same everlasting victory.




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.       395
3. Have peace in the contemplation of the
solemn, the awful force of the sanctions, the seals,
which Christ has attached to His promises-to His
great promise, wherein stands our hope, that He
will perfect that which concerneth us, and present
us perfect before the presence of His glory with
exceeding joy.  Joy —His joy, as well as yours.
The fruit of the travail of His spirit, the harvest of
His tears and pain, are all garnered up in you.
There, in the depths of your being, He has stored
them; losing you, He loses them for ever; saving
you with everlasting salvation, He saves them for
ever, to fill His eternal kingdom with the brightness
of glory and the music of praise. Measure by what
the Father has given, by what the Son has endured,
that He may be the author of eternal salvation to
every soul that trusts Him, the power which is put
forth in you and around you, ordering all things to
secure your full redemption.  If there be any
depth of consolation, any fountain of strength,
in the thought, that your hope, the hope of
your being, is the hope of God, the hope of
Christ, the hope that sustained Him through His
travail, and whose fulfilment is to be its harvest,




396      THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.
take it, and enshrine it in your heart-it is
yours.
All things groan and travail in sympathy with
your present struggles and sorrows; all things wait
your full redemption to put on the brightness of
their final glory.  "For the -earnest expectation of
the creature waiteth for the manifestatiorn of the sons
of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity,
not willingly, but by reason of. Him  who hath subjected the same in hope.  Because the creature itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage-of corruption
into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
The day of the manifestation of the sons of God!
Son of God, be there-be there! Be there, to claim
your birthright-be there to, take your crown. Now,
gird up the loins of your mind: endure hardness;
fight the good fight of faith; resist even unto blood,
striving against sin; the strain- will not last for
ever. The day cometh-it maybe, cometh soonwhen you shall ungird your festal garments, and
walk  white-robed through:the  heavenly streets.
There, no foeman waste Christ's vWide dominions, no
sin afflicts, no tears bestain, no death destroys.
"And there your sun shall no more go down,, nor




THE CONQUEROR OF THE WORLD.          397
your moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be your
everlasting light, and the days of your watching, your
mourning, shall be ended for ever."
" THESE THINGS I HAVE SPOKEN UNTO YOU, THAT
IN ME YE MIGHT HAVE PEACE. IN THE WORLD
YE SHALL HAVE TRIBULATION: BUT BE OF GOOD
COURAGE; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD."
UNWIN BROTHERS, GCRESHAM STEAM PRESS, BUCKLERSBURY, LONDON, E.C.