^^L"-- ^' 
 
 
 
 a?: 
 
 

 
 ^^T^K ,-Z ■ * 
 
 L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLRSITY 
 
 Of 1 LLl NOIS
 
 /S'Cq.. 
 
 THE CHURCH'S FEAR AND THE 
 CHURCH'S HOPE.
 
 -1
 
 THE CHURCH'S FEAR AND THE 
 CHURCH'S HOPE. 
 
 A SERMON, 
 
 PEEACHED IN THE 
 
 CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS, 
 
 AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BATH AND WELLS DIOCESAN 
 SOCIETIES, ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER, 4tb, 1864. 
 
 BY W. C. MAGEE, D.D. 
 
 Dean of Cork. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STREET. BATH: R. E. PEACH, 
 
 8, BRIDGE STREET. DUBLIN: HODGES, SMITH AND CO. 
 
 MDCCCLXIV.
 
 SEEMON. 
 
 Acts xxviii. 15, 
 " Whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage." 
 
 These words are few and simple. The fact which they 
 relate does not seem at first sight a very striking or impor- 
 tant one. They tell us how St. Paul in his first journey to 
 Rome was comforted and cheered on his landing in Italy, by 
 finding that brethren from Rome had come so far to meet 
 him on his way. This account of their meeting seems 
 interesting and even touching, but nothing more. 
 
 And yet these words are of inestimable value. We could 
 better aiford to lose nearly the whole of the rest of this 
 story of the voyage of St. Paul than this account of his 
 meeting with his brethren. For while the rest of the story 
 tells us what St. Paul did, or what happened to him, this 
 tells us what he thought and felt. In all the rest of the 
 voyage we see the outer life of St. Paul ; here we see his 
 inner life, the very man himself We have here revealed 
 to us the very innermost heart of a great man, in a great 
 crisis of a great life. And we have him revealed to us in 
 quite a new and unexpected light. 
 
 Up to the moment of this meeting, the one characteristic 
 of St. Paul, perhaps, that strikes us most through all this 
 voyage, is his utter fearlessness. From the hour when he 
 first sets his face towards Jerusalem, to the hour of his 
 landing in Italy, he seems not to know what fear is. The
 
 4 The Churcfis Fear and the Church's Hope. 
 
 bonds and imprisonment that he knew awaited him; the 
 bitter partings with his dearest friends, their tears and 
 their entreaties that break his heart, but cannot break his 
 purpose ; the fierce mobs of Jerusalem ; the cool deadly 
 hatred of his enemies, their desperate conspiracies their 
 cunning accusations ; his long, "wearj imprisonments, his 
 vain pleadings for liberty; the perils of the deep, the 
 horrors of shipwreck — none of these things seem to move 
 him. They seem all alike powerless against the calm 
 resolute will, the lofty courage of this fearless man. 
 
 And, indeed, so remarkable is this fearlessness that it 
 seems to us supernatural. We account for it by the fact 
 that St. Paul through all these dangers enjoyed a special 
 and miraculous support. We think of him as the man of 
 visions and of revelations, assured by angel messengers of 
 his safety from the first. And, as we so look upon him, he 
 seems removed far above the reach of our sympathies. We 
 do not think of encouraging or comforting ourselves by his 
 example in om* hour of trial or danger. We feel that though 
 his danger might be our danger, yet that his strength could 
 never be our strength, nor his triumph our triumph. In a 
 word, it is the apostle we wonder at and envy ; it is not the 
 man that we sympathise with and love. 
 
 But as we read these few w^ords, all our feelings are 
 changed. For they tell us that this man, who seemed so 
 fearless, had all along been sore afraid. Paul " thanks God, 
 and takes courage." Up to this moment, then, he has 
 feared. The shadow of some great dread has rested 
 on his soul. He seems, as it were, to draw a long sigh of 
 relief as it passes away, and thanks God that it is gone at 
 last; and now for the first time, in the utterance of his thanks 
 for its departure, we learn how dark and how heavy it 
 was, and how long he bore it. 
 
 And as we see him thus, we regain at once all our 
 sympathy with him. He comes very near to us again 
 as we discover that all his miraculous gifts and helps 
 did not lift him above the level of our own himian 

 
 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 5 
 
 life, with its fears and its anxieties. And as we think 
 of him, haunted by these fears, burdened with these 
 anxieties, and yet hiding them in his secret heart — wearing 
 for friend or foe the same undaunted front, cheering with 
 words of lofty faith the weak souls around him — then it is 
 no longer the great apostle that we wonder at, it is the man 
 with whom we sympathise. The man of like passions with 
 om^selves, tried by the same trials, stirred by the same fears, 
 assailed by the same temptations, sustained by the same 
 sufficient grace, that we, in our turn, may know. And as we 
 see him, thus tried, and thus supported, we thank God for the 
 sight. All who, like him, are called to do or to suffer God's 
 holy will ; all who, like him, are called on to brave danger 
 or endure temptation in the Christian course ; all who, in 
 the voyage of life, know what it is to go down into its deep 
 waters, aye, and be wrecked in its great tempests ; all, 
 these — and they are all who are striving to live for God a nd 
 with Christ in this world — when they see these footsteps 
 deep-printed on the sands of time, may " thank God, and 
 take courage." 
 
 And, specially, brethren, those may do so, who specially 
 inherit St. Paul's mission, — those who are his successors in 
 the ministry of the Word, and who know, as he knew, though 
 in far lesser measure, the cares and anxieties, the fears and 
 discouragements, the toils and the disappointments of that 
 ministry; — ^we and all our lay brethren, too, who in any 
 way are working together with us for God, may learn 
 lessons of guidance and of encouragement from these words. 
 We may learn, too, lessons of warning. In our hour oi 
 carelessness we may learn to fear, as St. Paul feared, and 
 in our hour of despondency we may learn, like him, to 
 " thank God, and take courage." Let us then endeavour to 
 understand what were the fears, and what the encourage- 
 ments of this great Christian missionary and pastor, Paul. 
 
 Let us see, in the first place, what it was that St. Paul 
 feared. We can see at once what it was lie did not fear. He
 
 6 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 
 
 did not fear bonds or death ; not because these had no terrors 
 for him — they had — but, because it is clear that this could 
 not have been the fear from which the meeting with his 
 brethren delivered him. For this simple reason, that they 
 could have saved him from neither. These few Christian breth- 
 ren or the whole Christian Church at Rome, could have given 
 him no protection against the power of the Roman Empire. 
 It must then have been something else that he feared. And 
 what this was, we learn from a passage in one of his letters, 
 in which he asks his brethren to j^ray that utterance might 
 be given him, that he might " open his mouth boldly to 
 make known the mystery of the Gospel for which he was 
 an ambassador in bonds." ^ 
 
 What St. Paul feared was, lest the terrors of the imperial 
 Judgment seat should so awe him that he should fail to speak 
 boldly, as he ought ; lest he should prove unfaithful to his 
 great mission. His fear was not for himself, but ^himself. 
 He was afraid of being afi'aid, of not being equal to the 
 great crisis of his life, of stammering and faltering when he 
 came to speak to Caesar the message of Caesar's Master. 
 
 And, natm'ally, this fear must have grown stronger the 
 nearer he drew to Rome. For at every step in that journey 
 fresh proof must have met him of the might of that great 
 empire whose faith he was about to assail. The great 
 world-power, whose shadow had rested on his own distant 
 home in Palestine, and filled him from his youth with 
 a sense of its vastness, was rising up before him hour 
 after hour, as he neared it, grander and more terrible. 
 He sees the huge iron image in all its colossal proportions, 
 stately and stern, the feet, part iron and part clay, yet hidden 
 from his view, scarce smitten yet by the great stone that is 
 one day to crumble it into dust, and till its place in the 
 earth ! 
 
 And as he thinks how it is the faith that is allied with all 
 this power, the church of this great state that he is to try to 
 overthrow ; as he thinks of preaching to the law-givers of 
 the world the name of a convict sentenced by their law and 
 
 'Eph. vi 19.
 
 The Churches Fear and the ChurcKs Hope. 7 
 
 executed by their soldiers, as he thinks of proclaiming to 
 the sneering philosophers, and licentious nobles, and crafty 
 priests and cruel populace of Rome, the story of the 
 crucified Galilean, well might his heart fail him ; well 
 might he be tempted to feel for one moment ashamed of 
 the Gospel of Christ, and doubt if here, too, it would prove 
 to be " the power of God." 
 
 But if these were Paul's fears and Paul's temptations, is it 
 possible they can be ours now ? Are not all the circum- 
 stances of the case exactly reversed ? Is not all the power 
 and progress of the world now on the side of Christianity ? 
 Is it not a civilised and learned Christendom that now rules 
 the world, and confronts and beats back a barbarous and de- 
 caying Paganism? What is there, then, in the position 
 of Christianity in the world, what is there in the position, 
 above all, of Christ's ministers in the Church of the mightiest 
 empire the world ever saw — the empire of Christian 
 England — that should make us fear for the Gospel, or 
 ashamed to preach it? 
 
 And yet, when we look more closely into the condition of 
 Christendom at this moment, when we see how small a 
 portion of the world it has conquered in the eighteen 
 hundi-ed years of its history, when we remember that nearly 
 one third of the human race professes a virtual atheism and 
 one half is still pagan, when we remember that our own realm 
 of Engljand numbers more heathen than Christian subjects, 
 when we look within the limits of this Christendom, and see 
 in how large a portion of it the Christian faith is corrupted 
 with some of the worst errors of the paganism which Paul 
 encountered at Rome ; when we see all over the 
 continent of Europe the educated mind revolting against 
 this degraded Christianity, and see in ominous opposition, 
 piety and intellect, religion and progress ; when we find 
 the same startling fact within the limits of our own 
 purer form of Christianity ; when we hear our men of science 
 and of learning openly proclaiming that the science and 
 learning of the age has proved our Revelation a forgery
 
 8 The Church's Fear and the Church'' s Hope. 
 
 and onr Faith a superstition ; when we hear — more terrible 
 still — their cry re-echoed from within the walls of our very 
 sanctuary, and see priests of the Lord not gathering around 
 to save the ark of our faith, but putting forth unhallowed 
 hands to break it into fragments : — as we see and hear all 
 this, does there never come over us a feeling of utter weari- 
 ness and dismay — a feeling how great, how terrible is the 
 empire of evil in the world, how small, how weak the 
 kingdom of Christ? Oh! brethren, surely there is no 
 earnest thinker amongst us who has not felt this, who has 
 not said, again and again, as he looks on Christendom at 
 large, " The overflowings of ungodliness make me afraid, 
 the might of the world's power appals me." What worker 
 for God has not felt tempted to ask, " Is this gospel, after 
 all, the great j)ower of God — the greatest power of God ? 
 Is there no better, no purer, no higher revelation in store 
 for men ? Can there be truth in the great and swelling 
 words of our new apostles ? Is there some better thing for 
 us in these days? Is it not time to be ashamed of the 
 gospel of Christ ?" Whoever has felt this, has felt the fear, 
 and known the temptation, of St. Paul. 
 
 And now let us see what were St. Paul's encouragements 
 against his fear. When he sees his brethren, " he thanks 
 God, and takes courage !" What did he see in these few 
 Roman Christians to give him such courage ? 
 
 He saw, of course, a proof of the progress of Christianity 
 where he came to preach it. He was reminded of the 
 fact that in Rome there was already a Christian church, 
 and he might naturally be encouraged, as any teacher 
 of a new sect would be, at meeting with fellow believers. 
 But this was not all. Paul saw in these brethren some- 
 thing more than a proof that his sect was spreading. 
 He saw a sure and certain proof that it should not only 
 spread but conquer. He saw in these few Christian men 
 a sure and certain pledge of the final triumph of Chris, 
 tianity. For he saw in them a most sure and certain proof
 
 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 9 
 
 that tlie Gospel of Christ was " the power of God." They 
 gave him evidence, as clear as any voice from heaven 
 or sign on earth that he had ever seen or wi'ought, that God 
 was on his side against the world. For in these Christian 
 converts he heheld that which distinguishes the true convert 
 to Christianity from the converts to any other faith the world 
 has ever known. He saw not merely men whose opinions 
 had been changed by reason, but men whose natures had 
 been changed by grace. On these men had been wrought a 
 real miracle, the greatest of all miracles, the miracle of 
 regeneration. There was manifest in them that great inter- 
 ruption to the course of nature, that mightiest of all 
 interferences of omnipotence with the fixed order of 
 creation, by which man becomes a new creature, begotten, 
 " not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but 
 of God," that great supernatural fact which proves the 
 Church of Christ to be a supernatural kingdom, whose laws 
 and whose powers are not of this world, but are instinct 
 with a divine energy and might. 
 
 This is that miracle of which Christ prophesied, when He 
 told an unbelieving world that he that believed on Him 
 should do mightier works than His, that they might marvel. 
 This is that miracle which He promised should never cease in 
 His Church, when He said, " Lo, I am with you alway, 
 even to the end of the world." And when Paul beheld 
 once more this token of his Lord's presence in His kingdom, 
 when he heard, as it were, by the lips of these his brethren, 
 his Master's message, — " Fear not, thou of little faith, 
 I am with thee still ;" surely the vision of the great kingdom 
 of his Lord must have come back upon liis soul, seen, not as 
 he saw it then in the persons of those few Christian brethren ; 
 seen, not as it is ever seen on earth, in fragmentary and 
 imperfect portions here and there, but as he saw it in the 
 highest moments of his inspiration, when caught away by 
 the Spirit into the very heaven of heavens, he saw the city of 
 the living God in all its glory and its beauty, with its 
 innumerable company of angels and spirits of just men
 
 10 The Church'' s Fear and the ChurcKs Hope. 
 
 made perfect, its assembly and Clmreli of the first-born ; tbe 
 kingdom of God amongst men, with all its mighty powers, 
 eifectual to the pulling down of all strongholds of error or 
 of vice, its mysterious unquenchable life, deep hid with 
 Christ in God, its all-sufficing all-sustaining grace, its 
 present peace that passeth all understanding, its glorious 
 and assm-ed futm'e which passeth all conception. Surely, in 
 this hour of returning faith and hope, the might and the 
 glory of the Invisible came up before him to deliver him 
 from the power of the visible. He was no longer Paul the 
 prisoner, Paul the preacher of a new and despised gospel ; 
 but Paul the apostle and servant of Christ, the messenger 
 and i^rophet of the most high God, Paul the forerunner and the 
 herald of that great kingdom which, so sure as Christ lived 
 and God ruled on earth, should one day conquer the whole 
 world, and make it once more the kingdom and the Para- 
 dise of God ! And as this vision of the kingdom rose before 
 him, he "thanked God and took courage." 
 
 And we, brethren, have we not the same evidence, the 
 same encouragement that Paul had? Assuredly we have. 
 Christ has not left His later chm-ch without evidence of his 
 presence as clear as that He gave His earlier church. We are 
 not resting our faith merely on the historic tradition, however 
 certain, that God wi'ought miracles as an evidence of Christ- 
 ianity ; we rest it on the fact that He is amongst us working 
 them still. The spiritual man, renewed by the Spirit of 
 God, is the standing miracle of the Christian Church 
 which links the otherwise unmiraculous present with the 
 marvellous and miraculous past ; — the mu'acle, the greater, 
 higher miracle, which was designed to supersede, by its 
 clearer evidence, the necessity of repeating physical signs 
 and wonders ; evidence, which was designed to have grown 
 ever clearer and clearer, as the grain of mustard seed grew 
 into the great tree that shoiild overshadow the earth, its 
 own growth, its own heavenly fruit, its best evidence, no 
 longer needing that fence of physical miracle that once 
 protected its weaker infancy.
 
 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 11 
 
 And it is this miracle, too, whicli explains and justifies all 
 tlie others, whicli rescues them from that low use of them 
 which makes them merely proofs of doctrine — physical argu- 
 ments addressed by God to men's senses, though these they 
 were — which [shews them to be something more and better 
 than this, not proofs merely, but signs, significant acts, 
 supernatural tokens that a supernatural kingdom was come 
 among men, marvellous beginnings of that yet more mar- 
 vellous future, which they heralded — the life on earth of the 
 kingdom of heaven, miraculous stirrings of the pool of the 
 world's faith, which only prepared for the mightier miracle 
 to be wrought on those, who, stepping down, are healed 
 of whatsoever disease they have. 
 
 Yes, brethren, God has given us in this ever-present 
 miracle, an ever-present answer to the assailants of our 
 . faith. What is the last great discovery of scientific unbelief? 
 It is that the supernatural is impossible. The uniformity of 
 nature's laws, we are told, admits of no disturbance, and 
 therefore, whatever of miraculous our Christian history 
 alleges cannot be truth, for miracles cannot be. 
 
 Our answer is, miracles are, not were long ago, but are 
 now. Our testimony concerning them is that of eye wit- 
 nesses. " We speak that we do know ; we testify that we 
 have seen." You men of science tell us that you have 
 learned to reject all legends of the supernatural, because 
 they are irreconcilable with the laws of the natural world, 
 as deduced by you from j^rescnt facts. We invite you, then, 
 to the consideration of certain present facts, which we allege 
 to be supernatural. We are content, since you insist upon 
 it, to lay aside our books which tell us only of tlie past, and 
 we call you to come out with us into the world of to-day. 
 We ask you to accompany, in his round of daily duty, the 
 parson whom you despise for his superstitious belief in 
 stories of marvels eighteen hundred years old, and see if 
 you can account for certain marvels that he has to shew you. 
 You will see men of vice and men of crime — men on whom 
 society has done its worst, and for whom it has done, or
 
 12 The Church'' s Fear and the Church's Hope. 
 
 tried to do, in vain, its best — its outcasts, or its victims, 
 liopeless, hardened, desperate. You will see these men 
 arrested in their course of self-destruction, humanised, 
 civilized, reformed, sanctified. You will see di-unkards 
 made sober, harlots chaste, profligates pure, thieves honest, 
 misers liberal, selfish pleasure-hunters loving and self- 
 denying. You will see men, women and children — not 
 made of finer clay than their fellows, not of stronger will, 
 or higher mental endowments, not in any way naturally 
 superior to those about them — doing what those others confess 
 they cannot do ; daring what they cannot dare, suffering what 
 they say they could not suffer ; passing unhurt through fires 
 of temptation where others are consumed ; bearing, without 
 murmur, burdens of afiiiction beneath which others sink ; 
 compelling the admiration and the wonder even of those 
 who walk not as they walk, but who cannot help seeing that 
 round their daily path is shed a light which is not of this 
 world. Such sights, believe us, are to be seen — not many, 
 perhaps, in one place, for miracles alas ! are rare, but many 
 such, taken altogether, throughout this realm of England, 
 in this modern matter-of-fact every day world of ours, are 
 to be seen. And they are strange sights. They do not 
 seem altogether natural, not quite in the ordinary course of 
 events, which seems to run all the other way ; not, perhaps, 
 accountable for on any known principles of political econ- 
 omy ; not, perhaps, easily reducible under the law of natural 
 selection or of natural development, by which brutes become 
 men, but by which men do not become saints. 
 
 But you have not seen all. We ask you who insist so strong- 
 ly on the uniformity and universality of the laws which govern 
 natural phenomena, to mark in these phenomena we shew 
 you, the presence of a law equally uniform and equally 
 universal with those you worship. Ask those who have 
 been the subjects of this great change, what it is has changed 
 them. Ask those who are living lives so strangely different 
 from other men, what is the power by which they live ; and 
 they will, one and all, give you the same answer. They will
 
 The Church'' s Fear and the Church's Hope. 13 
 
 all tell you of a suiDernatural power — of a Spirit within them 
 working in their spirit, warring against their natural lusts 
 and affections — forbidding them to do what nature often 
 prompts them to do, enabling them to do what seems too 
 hard for mere natural flesh and blood, to do — a law in their 
 mind and in their members bringing them into captivity to 
 a higher and a nobler will than theirs — a captivity which 
 they feel to be the truest and the dearest freedom. 
 
 More than this. They tell you, one and all, in every part 
 of the world, in every language under heaven, yet with one 
 voice, that they owe this change to a person — that it is a real 
 living personal will that is ruling them. They tell you that 
 the new nature they feel within them is the gift of One 
 who promised that he would dwell in them ; that they 
 are striving, by the help of his Spirit, to live, however 
 imperfectly, that heavenly life which he lived perfectly. 
 They tell you that the best and highest moments in their 
 lives are those when they are most in communion with Him ; 
 that their holiest tlioughts, their wisest words, their noblest 
 deeds, are those in which they best succeed in imitating 
 him. They tell you that weak and sinful as they are by 
 nature, in Him they still find a supernatural might, 
 and that they " can do all things through Christ that 
 strengtheneth them." 
 
 And yet more than this. It is not these only who give this 
 answer, but all who have ever lived as they live declare that 
 the gospel of Christ has been the great power of God to their 
 salvation. TIn"ough all the past ; from the hour when this 
 person first appeared on earth ; from prophets, apostles, 
 martyrs, confessors ; from disciples of all times and of all 
 regions, high and low, old and young, rich and poor ; from 
 all alike comes still the same utterance, " Not unto us, not 
 unto us, but to Our Lord, to our Saviour, to Him who lived 
 and died and rose again for us, to Him who washed us 
 from our sins in His blood, to Him be praise and glory and 
 honor, for ever and for ever ! " 
 
 And now we ask the scientific rejecter and despiser of the
 
 14 The Church's Fear and tJie Church's Hope. 
 
 supernatural to explain these facts. Account for them, 
 produce them, by any means, physical, moral, social, at your 
 command, find a place for them in your classes of natural 
 phenomena, fit them into some scientific and rational hypo- 
 thesis. And if you cannot, if you are obliged to admit that 
 there are facts for which you can find no adequate cause, do 
 not too hastily, do not too scornfully, refuse to listen to our 
 explanation. Hear us at least patiently, nay, hear us re- 
 spectfully, when wo tell you that this is a supernatural fact, 
 this is a miracle, this is that greatest of all miracles, the 
 spirit of man wrought on by the Spirit of God. 
 
 And now in the presence of this great fact we are entitled 
 to draw from it our arguments, and our deductions, as you 
 do from the facts of nature. You tell us that the uniform 
 character of the facts with which you are conversant force 
 you to believe miracles impossible. We tell you that the 
 uniform character of the facts we are conversant with, force us 
 to believe miracles necessary. You deduce from your facts 
 the natural laws of the kingdom of nature ; we deduce from 
 our facts, the supernatural laws of the Kingdom of Grace. 
 Our facts, and our laws, are as much entitled to "respect as 
 yours. And we tell you further that you are unreasonable, 
 unscientific, in your treatment of the facts we shew you. 
 You refuse to take them into account. When you say 
 miracles are impossible^ you exclude from the facts of your 
 induction a large class of facts entitled to your respectful 
 attention. If you weighed them, you might discover some- 
 thing mightier in the world than its laws — the will of its 
 law-giver ; something deeper than its phenomena — the Spirit 
 of its Maker. 
 
 But it seems you have another difficulty in the way of 
 your accepting our explanation of these facts. The Book 
 which we say accounts for them, and which we say, alone 
 pretends to account for them — the Book which reveals to us 
 the laws which produce and govern the facts of the supernatural 
 world, you say, contradicts in some places certain truths which 
 science has revealed to you concerning the facts of the material
 
 The Churches Fear and the Church's Hope. 15 
 
 world. Its account of the creation wiU not harmonize with 
 Geology ; its history of man will not fit into modern chrono- 
 logy ; its descriptions of natm'al phenomena are not scien- 
 tifically correct ; and you require us to harmonize all these 
 contradictions before you accept our religion. But why 
 should we alone be called on to efiect this reconciliation ? 
 Does it not, after all, concern you as much as it does us to 
 attempt it ? Nay, does it not concern you far more than it 
 does us ? For this contradiction which you allege to exist 
 between Scripture and science in no way touches those 
 supernatural and spiritual facts which we have been insisting 
 upon. Regeneration, conversion, sanctification, by the 
 Spirit of God through faith in Christ Jesus, are facts, 
 whether Scripture does or does not agree in every respect 
 with science. Geology does not contradict the mystery of 
 regeneration. Ethnology has nothing to say against the 
 miracle of men's conversion. 
 
 Our facts remain untouched by yours. And it far more 
 concerns you to know whether our theory of these be true, 
 than it does us to know whether your theories concerning 
 yours are true. If you demand that we respect your facts, we 
 ask that you acknowledge ours. If you would smile at us if 
 we inferred from the facts of religion the falsehood of science, 
 may we not smile at you who infer from the facts of science 
 the falsehood of religion ? 
 
 Surely, if all you-say of contradictions between Scripture 
 and science were absolutely certain ; if we are bound to 
 accept as infallible the last of the many contradicting and 
 changing interpretations of nature which science has given 
 us ; and if this really contradicts our last interpretation of 
 some passage in an inspired writer ; all that would result 
 from this would be, that we should be compelled to modify- 
 that theory as to the nature of inspiration, which asserts 
 that it necessarily preserved inspired men from all errors 
 in matters of science. But this would leave the great facts 
 of Christianity, and the interpretation of those facts in 
 Scripture just where they were before. And it would leave
 
 16 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 
 
 the man of science just as much bound as ever to investigate 
 these facts for his very life's sake ; for if these be facts, his 
 eternal life depends upon his understanding and accepting 
 them. Why, then, should we be always called upon to leave 
 this vantage ground of spiritual and supernatural fact on which 
 we stand, to make our way to that lower height on which 
 stand the disciples of science ? ' ' Our rock is higher than 
 their rock." A brighter dawn, an earlier day is ours. The light 
 that gilds the summit of the highest mountain-peak of know- 
 ledge is light indeed from heaven ; but all around us shines 
 theglory of the Lord of Heaven, the light of that city that needs 
 neither the sun by day, nor the moon by night to lighten it, 
 for the Lamb is i\\Q light thereof. We hear, nay, we see that 
 far below, in the valley, as it were, where the base of these 
 two mountains join, in the lower level where Scripture and 
 science meet, rise fogs of doubt and mists of difficulty here 
 and there. It does not greatly trouble us for om- sakes. 
 Our feet are in a large place. The air we breathe is free 
 and clear. But for our brethren's sake, who stand below us, 
 we would they were rolled away, and for their sakes, not 
 for ours, we entreat them to fight their way through these 
 low-lying mists and fogs, and press still upwards and 
 onwards till they reach to us. 
 
 Let us not, then, be too feverishly anxious for immediate 
 reconcilements of science and Scripture. They will come in 
 God's good time and way, as other reconcilements have come 
 in times past ; come, perhaps, when men seek them, on the 
 one hand, less nervously ; on the other, more earnestly ; 
 come, when men of science own that it concerns them to 
 be religious, far more than it concerns men of faith to be 
 scientific ; come, when men of science lose their impatient 
 intolerance of Revelation, and men of faith their impatient 
 intolerance of science; come, when both alike only seek 
 honestly for truth, and not for victory ; come, when God 
 sees his Church sufiiciently tried and purified by the assault 
 upon her faith, through which she is now passing. 
 
 Meanwhile, we need not stay for one instant om' work
 
 The ChuTcKs Fear and the Church's Ilojje, 17 
 
 for God on account of these unreconciled differences. Nay, 
 tlie very knowledge of their existence is all the stronger 
 reason why we should be " steadfast, unmoveable, always 
 abounding in the work of the Lord." The more the authority 
 of Scripture is denied or its other evidences impugned, the 
 more does it behove us to strengthen that one kind of 
 evidence which alone admits of being strengthened or 
 increased by us. For the facts of religion are not like 
 the facts of science, which exist, independent of our care or 
 our neglect. They, on the contrary, can be increased or 
 diminished by us. Science in her hours of inaction sleeps. 
 Eeligion, in her hour of inaction, dies. Here, then, is the 
 quarter in which to look for the real danger and the real 
 strength of the Church. The question is not, what are the 
 numbers or what the strength of her assailants from without, 
 but what is the strength of the spiritual life within her pale. 
 The question is not what manner of men are sitting in the 
 judgment-seat of critical or scientific unbelief, before which 
 her ministers are called to plead, but what manner of men are 
 those brethren who still recognise her ministers as messen- 
 gers of God. What is the Christianity of our day ? Is it still 
 a living power among men ? Is the Church of Christ still 
 fertile in saints as of old ? Are the truths of our creeds 
 still living principles, by which Christians live and for 
 which they would be content to die ? Are Christians seen 
 and felt to be men walking by a higher law, sustained by a 
 loftier principle, truer, braver, purer, holier men than those 
 avowedly of this world ? Are " love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," to be 
 seen within the pale of the Church as they are not to be 
 seen without it ? If so, let us " thank God^ and take 
 courage." Christ is in the midst of her still — no weapon 
 formed against her shall prosper. 
 
 But if not ; if our religion is becoming less and less a 
 reality, and more and more a form ; if our creeds are only 
 a collection of notions, about which men are willing to 
 wrangle but by which they do not care to live ; if Christian
 
 18 Tlie Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 
 
 lives never rise beyond the level of morality that society 
 demands from all its members ; if tlic Chm'ch of Christ has 
 ceased to produce saints, and can only shew respectable men ; 
 if Christians are seen and felt to be less zealous, less devoted, 
 less truly spiritual than those of old ; if faith is waning and 
 love waxing cold ; — then, indeed, may we tremble for the 
 Church of Christ in this land. For then we may fear that 
 the time is near at hand, when the salt which has lost its 
 savour shall be cast out and trodden under foot of men. 
 Then we may fear, nay, rather most certainly expect that men 
 will rise up, with one accord, to sweep from their path, to 
 bury out of their sight that most odious and pestilential of 
 all things that rot between earth and heaven, the corpse 
 of a dead religion. Let those who fear or those who hope 
 for the Church in these days, ask themselves each this 
 question. Not what are men writing or saying for or 
 against Christianity, but what are we christian men doing for 
 or against it, each in his own daily life ; what evidence are 
 we giving each of us in our parishes, in our families, in 
 society, that the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto 
 salvation ? What reason would our brethren have as they 
 meet us in the course of life, strengthened by our faith, 
 uplifted by our example, to " thank God and take courage?" 
 This is a solemn question ; God give us grace to ask it 
 solemnly and often ; God give us grace to find a happy and a 
 hopeful answer. 
 
 But, in the next place, St. Paul was cheered by the 
 sympathy of these brethren. He felt, as he met them, that 
 whatever trial or danger he should have to encounter, they 
 would stand by him, feel for him, pray for him, speak to 
 him words of comfort and good cheer. Though they could 
 not deliver him from the hour that awaited him, they could 
 deliver him from the severest trial of that hour — the en- 
 countering it alone. His affectionate nature yearned for 
 sympathy. How he longed for it, how he suffered from 
 the want of it we know from his touching complaint of
 
 The Church'' s Fear and the Church'' s Hoj^e. 19 
 
 these very brethren, when he tells us how, at his first trial, 
 no man stood by him. 
 
 " Woe to him that is alone when he falleth." Alas, for 
 him who is called, even to stand, however bravely, alone. 
 It is a trial almost too great for the bravest heart. It was 
 the thought that he was left alone in Israel that drove the 
 prophet Elijah to cry out for death ; it was the revelation 
 that he had still brethren in the faith that restored him to 
 life again. It was the loneliness of His hour of darkness 
 that made it seem most terrible to Him who foretold how the 
 sheej) should be scattered every one to his own, and should 
 leave him alone ; it was the yearning of the human heart for 
 human sympathy that led Him in that hour to ask the presence 
 of the three disciples. And as if He remembered the lone- 
 liness of that hour, as if He knew how, ever in their hours of 
 trial or temptation, the sorest need of His followers would 
 be the sympathy of their brethren, as if He knew how 
 weak each one of us is alone, how strong in his union with 
 his brethren, he has made ample provision that our 
 religious life shall not be a solitary one. He has willed that 
 from first to last we shall find ourselves members of a 
 brotherhood, fellow-soldiers in one army, pilgrims together 
 in one helpful loving band, bearing one another's burdens, 
 sharing one another's sorrows, strengthening one another's 
 infirmities. He has made it our privilege to bear to the 
 weak or sufiering brother a message of love from the 
 common Father, a token by the hands of his more hopeful, 
 stronger brethren, that he is not forgotten nor forsaken, 
 that the Father who is chastening him, is chastening him in 
 love, that the elder brother who has passed into the heavens, 
 is very near him still, and, touched with a feeling of his 
 infirmities, has made this provision for them in the sympathy 
 of his brethren on earth. And as thus, in life's journey, 
 brother meets brother, as we realise our membership in the 
 great family in heaven and earth, and remember that it joins 
 us not only to each other, but to Christ and to God, we 
 " thank God and take courage."
 
 20 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 
 
 But it is not only for our encouragement tliat our Lord 
 has given us this fellowship ; it is for our growth in grace. 
 " It is not good for man to be alone." He who said this 
 knew that for man to be alone was not only to be unhappy, 
 but to be imperfect. All that is best and noblest in human 
 nature, can only exist, can only be conceived of in man as a 
 social being. It is society, with all its manifold relations 
 and duties, that educates and developes man. Without this, 
 progress is impossible. The man who lives apart from his 
 fellows becomes imperfect, deformed, dwarfed in all his moral 
 aud intellectual life, a mere fragment of a man. And, in 
 like manner, nations which have isolated themselves from 
 ^he rest of the world, have never advanced beyond a certain 
 point in civilisation ; they remain still childish, undeveloped, 
 imperfect. 
 
 So is it in the highest of all forms of life and in the 
 noblest of all kingdoms. Brotherhood is essential to the 
 perfection of its members. The isolated Christian can never 
 reach to the full stature of the perfect man. So surely as 
 the Christian separates himself from his brethren and makes 
 his religious life a solitary and a selfish one, so surely does 
 he stunt aud dwarf his spiritual life. And so it is with the 
 party or sect that isolates itself. It must ever remain 
 stunted, feeble, undeveloped, or else develop itself into some 
 diseased and monstrous growth. 
 
 And, therefore, our loving Lord has not merely appointed 
 for us this brotherhood, as a privilege ; he has made it a 
 necessity. He has forbidden us to separate om-selves from 
 one another. Even in om* most secret prayer He has bid us 
 say, not my Father, but " Our Father." He has given the 
 promise of his special presence, not to one alone but to 
 two or three gathered together in his name. He has made 
 the highest act — spiritual communion with Him — an act 
 in which those who together partake of His body and His 
 blood, being many, are made one. And as the brotherhood 
 of the Church of Christ is the highest form of human life, 
 so it is the closest form of union. It is something more
 
 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 21 
 
 than the unity of an association or a nation or a family. 
 It is an organised unity, the unity of a living body. It is 
 that kind of union in which every part is necessary to 
 every other, wherein if one member suffer all must suffer 
 with it, not merely by sympathy but by defect, wherein the 
 union of all is essential to the life of each and to the growth 
 and health of the whole. 
 
 In this direction lie two great dangers of the Christian 
 Church, which ever threaten its unity. Of these, one is 
 only good in excess ; the other is unmixed evil. They are 
 individualism and party spirit. 
 
 Individualism is the exaggeration of the personal element 
 in religion. True religion must ever be deeply, truly personal. 
 Its very core must ever be the individual soul in its personal 
 relation to God in Christ. It is a most precious truth, the 
 truth which the Reformation restored to the Church, that 
 between the soul and its Saviour none may intervene. There 
 are moments when this truth is fully realized. There are times 
 in the history of every spiritual man, when all his thoughts 
 centre on the great question of his soul's life or death, and when 
 he is only conscious of the existence of two beings, himself 
 and God. But there is a danger of remaining, of resting in 
 such a state — a danger of forgetting that our personal union 
 with the head is meant to unite us also with the members, 
 and that the communion of the visible Church of Christ is 
 God's appointed means of strengthening and perfecting the 
 life of each individual Christian. And this is a danger to which 
 the Churches of the Reformation are especially exposed. 
 For the very earnestness and completeness of their protest 
 against the Romish exaggeration of the truth of the 
 corporate life of the Church, tends to an exaggeration of the 
 opposite truth of the personal life of the individual. 
 
 But the danger to the Church from individualism is as 
 nothing to that arising from party spirit. From the days of 
 St. Paul until now, the spirit of schism has been the canker 
 and the curse of the Church. That evil spirit of separation 
 which gathers men in separate and hostile bands, each round
 
 22 T}ie ChurcKs Fear and ike Church's Hope. 
 
 its own miserable banner, on which some wretched party device 
 replaces the one sign which, lifted up, should draw all men 
 together; — the spirit which leads men to substitute their 
 shibboleths for the creeds of the Church, their leaders for the 
 Chm-ch's Head, their party sympathies and attachments 
 for the communion of the saints. 
 
 What fear, what hope have we, then, in this matter, for 
 our Church ? Cause for fear there has been, and there is still. 
 Fear, that in the awakening earnestness and life of the 
 Church in our day, minds intent on personal religion should 
 overlook the great fact that there is such a thing as a visible 
 Church of Christ, and that it is by membership and fellow- 
 ship in this Church their personal religion is to be perfected. 
 Danger, great danger in the strife of parties of the last thirty 
 years. The Church has, in that time, more than once been all 
 but torn asunder. The robe of Christ, which was spared by his 
 enemies has, in our day, been all but rent by His followers. 
 But there is hope, too, for our Church ; hope in the very ear- 
 nestness that has caused this stir and strife; hope in the 
 awakening and the life of the dry bones, that with confusion 
 and collision are coming together, clashing, yet uniting still, 
 till at last they make one great army ; hope in the fact that 
 party distinctions and party asperities are softening, that 
 Churchmen at last are rather seeking to discover w^herein they 
 agree than wherein they differ; hoj)ein the thought that the 
 assaults on our common faith are bringing the faithful nearer 
 to each other. As the foe assails our walls, we discover 
 that one wall girds us all, one citadel of faith unites us all. 
 Those who were once regarded as enemies are recognised as 
 fellow soldiers and saints, and of the household of God ; and 
 as we see this, wx " thank God, and take courage." 
 
 Lastly.* St. Paul was cheered b}'' the hope of Christian 
 co-operation. These Roman christians would be his fellow- 
 labourers in the gospel. The word of God would not be 
 imprisoned with him. They would spread the gospel through 
 a thousand channels he coidd never reach. There is no need
 
 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 23 
 
 to dwell upon the encouragement this must have given 
 Paul, nor on the encouragement it must give to any one who 
 like Paul is working earnestly for God. There is no such 
 worker who does not desire this help ; no one who hears 
 me who may not give it. But such co-operation brings 
 us more than comfort — it brings us special grace. If the 
 spirit of love and unity be the life-blood of the Church, the 
 spii'it of active zeal is the toil and exercise that sends that 
 blood through all its limbs with stronger pulse and warmer 
 flow. What can draw men closer together than work ? 
 What can wear away the angles of party distinctions like the 
 friction of daily active energy ? Differences that seem insur- 
 mountable in the study vanish in the street. In the presence 
 of the great evils and sins and sorrows of the world around 
 us, smaller questions dwindle into nothing. Men who are 
 wrestling with these have scarce time to stop to wrangle. 
 From co-operation, too, we gain the grace of all others most 
 needed — humility. He who works alone for God is apt to 
 grow puffed up, to look with satisfaction and pride on his 
 little plot in the vineyard where he has borne the burden 
 and heat of the day, and thinks how great his work has been 
 and how large should be his reward. But he who calls 
 many labourers round him is soon taught that God's work 
 is not to be done by one man. He learns how much of it 
 there is that he was never intended to do, and how much 
 others are better fitted for. He is made to see how God will 
 prefer some utterly despised and inferior instrumentality to 
 his own — some brother of less gifts, but greater grace. 
 He is taught patience, self-denial, willingness to see other 
 men enter into his labours and reap where he sowed or gather 
 a full harvest where he toiled in vain. All this is good for 
 us proud, jealous, impatient mortals ; good that we should 
 be taught how great is God's work — how vast is His j)lan 
 — how blessed our i:)rivilege in being allowed to work in it 
 at all. 
 
 And if co-operation in Christian activity for God be thus 
 healthful and blessed, surely here is a bright spot in our
 
 24 The ChurcKs Fear and the Church's Hope. 
 
 Churcli's liistoiy. Surely if one featni*e of Churcli life is 
 more marked than another in our day, it is the greatly 
 increased amount of Christian co-operation for God. How 
 many new Chm-ch societies have been originated in the 
 last fifty years — what life and earnestness infused into 
 older ones, what earnest active real work we see around us. 
 Of course this has its dangers too — danger of fussy noisy 
 activity rather than of steady quiet work — danger of self- 
 glorification — danger of neglect of the inner life. But, in 
 spite of all this, here is an evidence of life and zeal for 
 which we " thank God, and take corn-age." 
 
 And if active co-operation be thus the very life of the 
 Church, how manifestly is Divine providence favom-ing in our 
 day the development of it. Has not the whole progress of art 
 and of science of late years tended to facilitate communion 
 amongst men, to bring them together in the most mar- 
 vellous way ? How near all parts of the world seem to us ! 
 How rapidly each wave of thought flows out and flows back 
 again ! How near the portions of the Church in all parts of 
 the world are brought ! How much nearer to us for all 
 practical purposes are our missionaries at the antipodes, than 
 Paul at Rome to the Church at Jerusalem ! The sound of 
 their prayers, the echo of their songs of praise, seem to 
 mingle with our own. Not here and there, or now and then, 
 do the brethren seem to meet, but every^vhere, all over the 
 world, are they drawn together, nearer and still nearer. And 
 as they thus approach each other ; as they feel the bond of 
 brotherhood enlarging yet not slackening ; as they find their 
 power of helping each other hj word and deed still multi- 
 plying ; as brave deeds and noble words are heard and seen 
 almost as soon as done and spoken ; as closer and closer 
 seem to draw the ranks of the great army of the Lord, 
 does it not seem as if it were gathering together for the 
 coming of its King, as if the powers of good, as well as 
 evil, too, were heading up for the last great conflict, and the 
 soldiers of the Lord as they grasp firmer their weapons, and 
 gird themselves for a sterner battle, knowing whose the victory
 
 The Church's Fear and the Church's Hope. 25 
 
 shall be, should they not look up and rejoice, because their 
 redemption draweth nigh ? 
 
 Surely, brethren, with these tokens of Christ's presence 
 still amongst us, in spite of much that is discouraging, much 
 that is threatening, there is good ground for hope for the 
 future; hope, not of rest and ease for ourselves ; hope, not 
 of quiet times untroubled by strife or unvexed by heresy, 
 these are not likely to come in our day ; but hope for the 
 triumph of God's truth over all its assailants, though the 
 battle be fought with confused noise and garments rolled 
 in blood ; hope for the growing unity of Christian men, and 
 it may be of Christian communities, driven together by 
 assaults on Christian faith ; hope for the overthrow of the 
 strongholds of heathenism already shaken ; hope for the 
 reclaiming of the home heathen, the great mass of sin and 
 ignorance bequeathed us by the neglect of past ages ; hope 
 — nay, rather assured certainty — that if our Chm'ch give 
 herself to this work, if she rise to the greatness of her 
 mission, if she go forth to her master's work in her 
 master's Spirit, He will not forsake her. His j)resence will 
 be with her still. And as we see the proofs of His presence 
 still vouchsafed ; as we see sinners converted and saints 
 edified, as holy lives and happy deaths are still permitted 
 to reward our toil, we, still waiting and working on to 
 the glorious end, may possess our souls in patience and in 
 faith. " There is a river, the streams whereof," still as of 
 old, " make glad the city of God." The water of life, pure 
 as crystal, flows still through all her streets ; along its banks 
 the good Shepherd still leads the flock who know His voice ; 
 and as we draw trom that river the living water that alone 
 can quench the fever thirst of human life — as we listen to 
 the voice of its streams that bear along from all the ages of 
 the past all sweet and holy sounds — as we think of its 
 source high among the everlasting hills, hard by thefhrone 
 of God and of the Lamb — the roaring voices of the wild 
 waves of unbelief lose all their power to afiright us, we 
 " thank God and take courage." 
 
 R. E. Peach, Printer, 8, Bridge Street, Bath.
 
 WOEKS PUBLISHED BY E. E. PEACH, BATH, 
 
 And may be had of all BooTtsellers. 
 
 By the Very Rev. W. C. MAGEE, D.D., Dean of Cork, 
 
 SERMONS PREACHED IN ST. SAVIOUR'S CHURCH, 
 
 BATH. Second edition. Cloth, 5s. 
 
 SERMONS PREACHED AT THE OCTAGON CHAPEL, 
 BATH, Second Edition, Cloth, 6s. 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM: Can it supply the place of 
 
 the Established Church ? Fourth edition. 2s. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM : A Charity Sermon, M. 
 
 THE BLESSING ON THE PURE IN HEART. A SER- 
 
 mon. Gd. 
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE AGE: An Ordination Sermon, 
 
 preached at Whitehall, Is. 
 
 CHRIST THE LIGHT OF ALL SCRIPTURE : An Act 
 
 Sermon, preached in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, Is. 
 
 SPEECH ON THE SABBATH QUESTION. In Reply to 
 the advocates of the Sunday League, od. 
 
 REMAINS AND MEMOIR OF THE LATE REV. E. 
 TOTTENHAM, B.D., Prebendary of Wells, and Minister of Laura Chapel, 
 Bath. Crown 8vo., cloth, 7s. Gd. 
 
 AURICULAR CONFESSION : A Lecture. Price Is. 
 
 TALKING TO TABLES; A Great Folly, or a Great Sin, 
 Third Edition, price M. 
 
 LIGHTS OF THE MORNING; or Meditations for every 
 Day in the Ecclesiastical Year. From the German of Frederick Arndt. 
 With Preface, by the Very Rev. W, C. Magee, D.D,, Dean of Cork. 2 vols., lis. 
 
 THE HISTORIC GUIDE TO BATH. With Map and 
 Illustrations. By Rev. G. N. Wright, M.A. Author of " The Life and 
 Campaigns . of Wellington;" "The Rhine, Italy, and Greece;" "Scenes 
 in Wales," &c. Cap. 8vo., cloth, Qs. Qd. 
 
 RAMBLES ABOUT BATH. By James Tunstall, M.D. 
 
 With Map and Illustrations. Cap. 8vo., 5s. 
 
 THE CONNECTION OF BATH WITH THE LITER- 
 ATURE AND SCIENCE OF ENGLAND. By Rev. J. Hunter. Cloth, red 
 edges, 3s. 
 
 THE LITERATURE AND LITERATI OF BATH. 
 
 By George Monkland, Esq. Two vols., cloth, red edges, 6s. 
 
 THE BATH MINERAL WATERS IN CASES OF RHEU- 
 MATISM, SCIATICA, GOUT, &c., &c. By Randle Wilbraham Falconer, M.D. 
 Cloth, Is. 
 
 THE BATHS AND MINERAL WATERS OF BATH. 
 By Randle Wilbraham Falconer, M.D. Cloth, Is. 
 
 The Publisher will Jorvoard any of the above on receiving the 
 published price in Stamps, or otherwise.
 
 ■0.^, it-,- •»■ 
 
 f /:. 
 
 / 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^5i^w^i^ 
 
 m-- 
 
 '5^\ 4i,-| 
 
 w 
 
 '^'.'^ ' ''!*; 
 
 "^^m 
 
 JH. 
 
 
 -Yi-'HI-i! 
 
 ,:^ 
 
 
 \i ' 
 
 _"-7*^.j.'i\ ' ^,V,'?| 
 
 ;f^i^