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 THE 
 
 
 ABIDING WOED. 
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 Bl THE 
 
 REV. W. B. POPE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 WESLEYAN CONFERENCE OFFICE, 
 2, CASTLE STREET, CITY ROAD ; , , ... 
 SOLD AT 66, PATERNOSTER B^O^; 
 
 
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 PftlNTKU BY WILLIAM NICHOLS, 
 
 
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 THE ABIDING WORD. 
 
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 1 Peter i. 24, 25. 
 
 " For all flesh is as grass, aud all the glory of man as the flower uf grass. The 
 grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away : but ihe word of the Lord 
 enduteth for ever. And this is the word whiuh by the Gospel is preached uuto 
 you." 
 
 By this quotation from the prophet the apostle worthily 
 winds up his own strain. The theme which fills his 
 opening chapter is the immutability of the Christian 
 economy as opposed to the fluctuation of all created 
 things. The inheritance to which our hope is begotten is 
 one that fadeth not away ; the precious blood that bought 
 it is not corruptible, like the ransom-price of silver and 
 gold, but bears an eternal value ; the life of which God's 
 word is the seed is, unlike human life in the flesh, im- 
 mortal; and the conversation to which it leads is not 
 vain and transitory, but will have its issues in eternity. 
 This is the sublime contrast that rules the strain, which, 
 afber all its impassioned changes, finds its full, appropriate, 
 and perfect close in the cry of the ancient voice in the 
 wilderness : All jleah is as grass, and all the glory of man as 
 the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and thefl^mer thereof 
 falleth OAjoay : hut the word of the Lord endureth for ever. 
 
 But more than a quotation is here. It is that kind of au- 
 thoritative use which an apostle may make of a prophet's 
 words. Inspiration is quoting inspiration, and more than 
 
 A 2 - 
 
interpreting itself. The Old Testament lends to the New, 
 to receive as much again. In that mysterious colloquy of 
 Isaiah one voice bade the other cry that all the glory of 
 human power resisting the Divine decree for Israel's re- 
 demption from captivity would be but the flower of grass, 
 which the Spirit of God should blow upon and wither. 
 Another deeper and more comprehensive meaning that 
 voice did not and could not disclose. But St. Peter 
 unveils and releases the secret. Dropping the clause 
 that for a season restricted its interpretation, he adds 
 his own apostolical comment on the prophetic utterance. 
 That enduring word to which prophets made their appeal 
 was no other than the Gospel which apostles preached : 
 the word that pledged the lower redemption redeemed 
 its own pledge in the redemption of mankind. And 
 as St. Peter interprets Isaiah, so is he his own inter- 
 preter : we need not travel beyond the precincts of the 
 text to find the following illustrations of its force as a 
 new version of an ancient oracle. The Gospel is the word 
 of v/nchanging truth; proclaims a Divine purpose for ever 
 settled in heaven ; offers a salvation whose conditions 
 are immutable ; imparts a new life that is in itself impe- 
 rislmhle ; and formes a society that shall survive all the 
 mutations of time. These illustrations are no more than 
 a reflection and summary of the apostle's own thoughts. 
 They cover a vast field; but they revolve around one 
 central idea, while, they lead our meditations onward in 
 a profitable progression. May the Father of lights, with 
 whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, grant 
 us, in dwelling upon them, liberally of His wisdom. 
 
 I. The finished word op God is immutable. There 
 can be no question that the word preached in the Gospel 
 is in the highest and deepest sense the eternal Word, 
 who in His incarnation became at once the manifested 
 Revealer and the manifested object of His own revelation. 
 
5 
 
 le 
 
 he New, 
 loquy of 
 glory of 
 ael's re- 
 f grass, 
 wither, 
 ng that 
 Peter 
 clause 
 adds 
 fcerance. 
 appeal 
 Bached : 
 deemed 
 . And 
 I inter- 
 i of the 
 ce as a 
 !Ae word 
 for ever 
 nditiona 
 f impe- 
 all the 
 'e than 
 oughts, 
 nd one 
 ard in 
 8, with 
 . grant 
 
 There 
 jrospel 
 
 VoRD, 
 
 fested 
 ation. 
 
 St. Peter, like the two other chief apostles, uses lan- 
 guage bordering on an identification of the Word and 
 the words. But the term here used indicates rather the 
 oral and written oracles which the Son of God has made 
 the vehicle of His communications to men. And the 
 immutability of that word has in this chapter a twofold light 
 thrown upon it. Viewed in itself, the abiding word has 
 lived through its changing forms, and stamped upon 
 them its own permanence. Viewed from without, and in 
 relation to the words of men, it has maintained its 
 stability in the midst of all the fluctuations of human 
 tradition. 
 
 1. It has been one unchanging word from the begin- 
 ning, p^'eserving in a wide variety of forms the unity of 
 life. 
 
 The methods have been various by which the Spirit 
 of revelation, to whom all the avenues of hiunan nature 
 are known, has found access for Divine truth to the 
 minds and hearts of men. And the Bible, containing 
 the history of God's education of mankind, is at once the 
 record of that large variety and the witness of that essen- 
 tial unity. In its earliest pages we have the simplest 
 revelation. We hear the voice of God speaking to His 
 new creature in that pavilion of His presence from which 
 sin had not yet made man an alien. Then we hear the 
 same voice — changed, indeed, and yet not changed — at 
 the gate of paradise and threshold of a fallen world, 
 dooming the transgressor to the penalty of his sin, and 
 yet preaching to him the Gospel of a glorious redemption ; 
 in His justice turning man, the first sinner, to destruction, 
 but in His mercy crying, to him and all his unnumbered 
 descendants. Come again, ye children of men ! From that 
 time for thousands of years, and throughout the entire 
 Old-Testament Scriptures, revelation is the narrative of 
 the "sundry times and divers manners" in which it 
 pleased the wisdom of God to foreannounce the unuttered 
 
secret of the cross. The word of the truth of the Gospel 
 was long arrayed in the rich morning drapery of symbols, 
 its Levitical coat of many colours. It was expressed and 
 yet concealed, concealed and yet expressed, in a multitude 
 of mysterious rites. It was uttered and illustrated in an 
 abundant variety of typical histories. It was set to more 
 than mortal music in the Psalms. It was proclaimed 
 in a sphere higher than human poetry or musi<i could 
 reach in the visions of prophecy. Until at length, when 
 the ancient roll was closed, and after long silence in hea- 
 ven, the eternal Word came forth from the bosom of the 
 Father, bearing a " burden " that no prophet could have 
 borne, and sealed the long variety of revelation by giving 
 to His church, mider the keeping and interpretation of 
 the Holy Spirit, the one perfect and unchangeable word 
 of God. And, while He was giving His final revelation. 
 He declared that one living testimony to Himself per- 
 vaded the ancient Scriptures. St. Peter here only echoes 
 his Master's words. He tells us that it was the Spirit 
 of Christ who guided the pens and excited the desires 
 of the prophets; that they all transmitted to us one 
 immutable Gospel which they could not themselves as 
 yet understand. And the permanence of the living word 
 throughout its fleeting forms was fi*esh in his thoughts 
 when he wound up in the language of the text : " The 
 methods of the preaching, and the voices of the preachers, 
 have changed, but the word preached abideth un- 
 changeable. The organs of revelation have passed 
 away ; but revelation has never ceased, has never been in 
 reality suspended. The prophets died one after another, 
 with their deep desires in their hearts, and their longing 
 prophecies on their lips ; but the word which they minis- 
 tered to us, a generation more blessed and more respon- 
 sible, like Him who was its end, is the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and for ever." 
 
 And, as that word has given the imity of life to all 
 
 
Gospel 
 ymbols. 
 Bed and 
 altitude 
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 more 
 laimed 
 
 could 
 , when 
 in hea- 
 of the 
 
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 giving 
 
 tion of 
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 elation. 
 
 If per- 
 
 echoes 
 
 Spirit 
 
 desires 
 
 us one 
 
 ves as 
 
 §• word 
 
 oughts 
 "The 
 
 ichers, 
 
 h un- 
 
 passed 
 
 een in 
 
 other, 
 
 •nging 
 
 minis- 
 
 Jspon- 
 
 erday, 
 
 to all 
 
 methods of revelation, so it has insured the permanence 
 of life to the vehicle of revelation. The living truth 
 enshrined in the written oracles has preserved, and must 
 preserve them, in their integrity, through all the gene- 
 rations of men. 
 
 It has pleased God to commit His eternal counsels to 
 human language, and to human language under all 
 the penalty of Babel. From age to age he has raised 
 up men to utter His words to their fellow-men in their 
 own fleeting speech, and to deposit those words in docu- 
 ments which were not visibly shielded from the vicis- 
 situdes of all human things. He did not create for reve- 
 lation a dialect that should never change, or write it upon 
 tables that might defy the hand of man or the breath of 
 time to destroy them. The ancient tongues of the earliest 
 revelation are now dead languages. The original auto- 
 graphs are lost ; nor is there a single sentence extant 
 written by inspired fingers. God's book, like the books 
 of men, has been transcribed and continually reproduced ; 
 it has been translated, and must be translated into all the 
 languages of the earth, more or lees suffering, for a season 
 if needs he, in the process. Christendom does not remem- 
 ber, nor ever can now retrieve, any one central authorita- 
 tive copy. Such an archetypal Bible might indeed have been 
 preserved in the ark of the church, even as the law was 
 long preserved in the ark of the sanctuary, from the waters 
 of oblivion. It had been a light thing for Omnipotence to 
 do this. But God has ordered it otherwise : and, in ordering 
 it otherwise. He has protected His people from the danger of 
 enshrining and worshipping a book, whilst He has given 
 their faith in perpetuity one of its sublimest exercises. 
 
 The church's faith in the permanent integrity of the 
 written word has every presumption in its favour, is sus- 
 tained by the express assurance of Scripture itself, and is 
 justified by the results of Christian learning. 
 
 If God has condescended to inspire holy men to an- 
 
 •' 
 
8 
 
 nounce and write His will in a book, can we suppose that 
 He would permit their writings to be abandoned to all the 
 chances of time and all the caprices of men? that He 
 would suflfer His holy word to see corruption ? The very 
 thought is like the first shaking of the foundations. And 
 what man's instinct suggests, the Bible everywhere, 
 and with express emphasis, declares, that as the word of 
 God its every jot and tittle is under a mysterious but 
 most cei-tain defence: with no less assurance than it 
 appeals to inspiration for its origin does it appeal to a 
 special omnipotent Providence for its preservation. Scep- 
 tical criticism cannot deny that the Bible contains sub- 
 stantially the same documents as were received by the 
 faith of the church before and after Christ. And reverent 
 criticism glories in her function, as the handmaid of the 
 Holy Ghost, gradually and surely to restore to the sight 
 of man what to the eye of God has always existed amongst 
 the diversified copies, — ^the true and faithful sayings 
 which first sprang from inspiration. Concerning some of 
 the jots and tittles of the word we may for a time hang in 
 doubt ; but our faith is assured that there is no uncer- 
 tainty in the Holy Spirit. The foundation of God*s word 
 also standeth sure, having this seal. The Lord knoweth the 
 words that are His. And we also may yet have absolute cer- 
 tainty. Before the holy volume is rolled up again for ever, 
 it will shine forth in all its faultless glory. Meanwhile, 
 its transmission and preservation, as an aggregate of holy 
 writings running through all the ages of the world, is a 
 phenomenon standing alone. Its enemies, confessing 
 this, have many theories more or less plausible to ac- 
 count for it : to us it suffices that as the word of God, 
 created and hallowed to be the elect instrument of the 
 world's renewal, it must live on in its integrity until it 
 has taught its last lesson and conferred its last blessing 
 on our race. 
 
 2. The revealed word not only bears the evidence of its 
 
immutability in itself: as eternal truth it also lives down 
 the rival records of man*s wisdom or folly. No attri- 
 bute of that word is more constantly insisted on than its 
 truthf as opposed to the vanity and delusion of all merely 
 human thoughts. Ood is not a man thai He should lie, is 
 both a testimony to God's truth o.nd an impeachment of 
 man's falsehood from which there is no appeal: the 
 Scripture itself gives us our only response, Let God he true 
 and every man a liar. Wherever the strength or the 
 weakness of man's intellect has rivalled the word of God, 
 like the flower of grass it has been doomed to perish : the 
 truth alone abideth for ever. 
 
 Man's rivalry of Divine revelation is twofold : he either 
 teaches a word which is opposed to Scripture, or he per- 
 verts the Scripture itself. The lie is either outside the sphere 
 of revelation or within it. But, in either case, passing away 
 is the doom written upon all that is not God's word. 
 
 (1.) That word has always had its rivals.- As the Bible 
 has gone on from age to age accumulating its treasures 
 and enlarging the range of its influence, the inventions of 
 the "father of the lie," using the best flower of man's 
 intellect, have run on their parallel course. But not with 
 equal pace : always with fainting and failing steps. The 
 sacred books of ancient heathenism, the philosophical sys- 
 tems of classical antiquity, and the infidel speculations which 
 in modern times assume without deserving it the name of 
 philosophy, — all have contributed, or aro contributing, or 
 will contribute their illustration of our text. How vast 
 the multitudes of the world's religious wiitings that have 
 become mere curiosities of literature, not now moulding a 
 single human intellect, or moving a single human will, or 
 shaping a single human life. Where are the mythologies 
 of Greece and Eome ? where the Scandinavian supersti- 
 tions ? These, and many others, the spectres of which still 
 haunt the deserts of the world, have been swept from the 
 face of the earth by the besom of truth. Or, rather, they 
 
10 
 
 have faded and died out of human a£Pairs in obedience to 
 the inexorable law that truth alone endureth. And those 
 which still are living forces among men betray, more 
 slowly it may be but not less surely, their subjection to 
 the same decree. Their tenacity of existence is not the 
 tenacity of life. The ancient systems that still rule the 
 East exert a sway that perpetually wanes ; and, if left 
 alone, would perish even without the aggression of the 
 true word. The evershiffcing philosophies of the West — 
 so unlike the stagnant Eastern superstitions in every other 
 respect — agree with them in this submission to the eternal 
 law. But how glorious is the contrast of the word of Qod ! 
 All the efforts of man to make his own Bible have needed, 
 and will need, only time to convict them of their impo- 
 tence. They shall perish. The beautiful vestures in which 
 they clothe their inventions in due time become girdles 
 marred and filthy rags. But the word of God endureth for 
 ever. 
 
 (2.) It is only uttering the same truth in another form 
 when we point to the transitoriness of all merely human 
 commentaries on the word itself. The real and only for- 
 midable enemies of the Bible have ever been they of its 
 own household : holding the truth, but holding it in per- 
 version and unrighteousness. While the Divine Spirit has 
 never wanted men who taught of God have been worthy 
 expositors of His truth, and whose expositions, bearing in 
 them the incorruptible seed will live, the tradition of 
 which St. Peter speaks has been in every age the finitful 
 source of corruption, — from the single marginal gloss of 
 error up to the great systems of heresy that have rent 
 and darkened the Christian church. Scarcely a text of any 
 importance that has not been made the basis or the centre 
 of entire libraries of false doctrine. But in these there is 
 no continuance, and the truth is eternally safe. Like the 
 great systems of heathenism without the borders of Chris- 
 tendom, the great systems of heresy within have their day 
 
11 
 
 
 and vanish. But the central word abideth. The ancient 
 " traditions received from their fathers," like the conver- 
 sation they led to, were vain : the huge folios of rabbinical 
 comment and paraphrase have become mere refuse, while 
 the indestructible text has remained in its integrity. So 
 Christian ages have been industriously accumulating 
 another and still vaster Talmud, in the formation of which 
 superstition and infidelity have industriously joined their 
 forces. This has not yet passed away, but it is doomed. 
 The Bible is outliving modem, as it has outlived ancient, 
 tradition. That these errors fade so slowly is due simply 
 to the measure of the truth that they contain. But, sooner 
 or later, that residuum of truth exhales : they return to 
 their own place. The silent finger rubs out the glosses 
 that cumber the margin of the holy text ; but the word of 
 God endurethfor ever. 
 
 We live in days, brethren, one element of whose evil is 
 that this truth is recklessly assailed. That word which is 
 for ever settled in heaven is not suffered to be settled on 
 earth. But how good it is to turn from the vain criticism 
 of man to the sure sayings of God, and to hear the Bible 
 speak for itself ! The word of our God shall stand for ever, 
 said the ancient voice in the Old Testament ; the word of 
 the Lord Christ endureth for ever, is the New Testament 
 echo. The word of the Lord in the consummate Gospel is 
 thus made identical with the word that runs through the 
 Bible. Our Lord hath made both Testaments one : one in 
 the unity of eternal truth. He has not claimed Himself 
 to utter abiding words, while abolishing or rendering ob- 
 solete the imperfect oracles of earlier times. If that had 
 been His purpose. He wonld have told us. But, on the 
 contrary. He has authenticated all, and made the whole 
 Bible His own ; " beginning at Moses and all the prophets. 
 He has expounded unto us in all the Scriptures the things 
 concerning Himself." He has set His seal, which cannot be 
 broken, on the whole word : on every fact of the historian. 
 
12 
 
 on every strain of the singer, on every vision of the prophet. 
 We share Simon Peter's confidence, derived from the same 
 Bonrce as his. We too have gone np the holy mount, and 
 listened to the higher than prophetic voice, saying, This is 
 My beloved Son^ hear Him I We have heard that Son say- 
 ing. This is My word, given by My Spirit, hear it ! We, 
 like the first Apostle, rest assured that we have not fol- 
 lowed cunningly-devised fables. Cunningly devised, indeed, 
 but cunningly-devised truth : so cunningly devised by the 
 finger of God, that all the efforts of our modern critics to 
 break it, to unweave it, to reconstruct its fi^agments, to 
 assign to new authors and new ages their parts, to elimi- 
 nate the great masses of legend, reserving the little re- 
 mainder for criticism, will prove but like the trifling of 
 children in the market-place, equally puerile but far less 
 innocent. Heaven and earth shall pass away ; hut not one 
 tittle of My word shall fail. 
 
 II. The transition is easy, in the second place, to the 
 
 STEADFAST ENDUEANCE OF THE DiVINE PURPOSE IN CON- 
 TRAST WITH THE TRANSITORINESS OF HUMAN THINGS. The 
 
 one supreme purpose of God in Christ, which is the key to 
 the history of the world, and the living soul of the entire 
 Scripture, has been swaying St. Peter's thought throughout 
 this chapter, and gi' os its nerve to the outburst in the text. 
 All human glory is transitory : the Divine purpose sur- 
 vives. All human power is impotent : the Divine purpose 
 must surely triumph. 
 
 1. The Divine purpose lives on through all the muta- 
 tions of human things. The majestic word that heads the 
 Psalms may be set as a superscription over the whole 
 Bible: I will declare the decree. The establishment of 
 Christ's kingdom, and the gathering of a new and glori- 
 fied humanity into one in Him, was from the beginning 
 the central design to which innumerable other ends con- 
 verged, This keynote, struck by the morning stars who 
 
13 
 
 sang together over the dawn of the world's new hope, hajs 
 governed the ever- varying strain of Scripture through all 
 its manifold oracles down to the visions of the Apocalypse, in 
 which the temporal kingdom expands into universality and 
 melts into the eternal kingdom of heaven. But St. Peter 
 here breaks human history, waiting on the Divine pur- 
 pose, into two parts : that which sometime tarried for the 
 suffering of Christy and that which now waits for His glory. 
 (1.) For thousands of years after the Divine government 
 of a sinful world began, the redeeming death of Christ was 
 the common horizon of Divine purpose and human hope. 
 The word of God at the outset of revelation decreed that 
 an incarnate Eedeemer should by suffering and death 
 destroy the empire of Satan and of sin. This was that 
 will of Godj written above in the book unread by mortals, 
 which Christ came to do by suffering in the body prepared 
 for Him. But how many slow generations came and 
 went, with the infinite variety of their changing history, 
 while that body was a preparing, and that decree was 
 suspended ! Ages rolled on, empires rose and fell, dis- 
 pensation followed dispensation, and all things continued 
 as they were ! Meanwhile the Spirit of Christ never left 
 the world without a witness and a prophet of the coming 
 day. While the seers saw and wondered and waited; 
 while angels shared their dread curiosity, desiring to look 
 into the unsealed mystery ; known unto God from the begin- 
 ning was this, the crown and consimimation of all His 
 works. While heaven and earth mused in awe, He Him- 
 self knew what He would do. How gloriously did He con- 
 firm the immutability of His counsel, and check the 
 impatience of His saints, by awful oath of final appeal to 
 His own unchangeableness ! " My righteousness is near : 
 lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth 
 beneath ; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, 
 and the earth shall wax old as doth a garment, and they 
 that dwell therein shall die in like manner ; but My salva- 
 
14 
 
 tion shall be for ever." " By Myself have I sworn.'* " I the 
 Lord will hasten it in His time." At length the Father's 
 hour, the fulness of time, was come ; and the sacrifice of the 
 cross gave its eternal ratification to that dread oath, the 
 first great pledge that the word of the Lord endwreth f&r 
 ever. 
 
 (2.) No sooner did one mystery of the Divine purpose 
 cease than another began. " It is finished " sealed the 
 accomplishment of the first decree ; but the " glory that 
 should follow " became a new horizon of the Divine pro- 
 mise and of human hope. Already when St. Peter wrote, 
 that mystery — ^the delay of Christ's final manifestation 
 and universal supremacy — had begun to tax the patience 
 and the wonder of the saints. Already did the apostle 
 find it needful to utter his apology for the slackness, as 
 some men counted it, of God's promise ; and to make his 
 appeal to the timeless patience of Providence, with whom 
 a thousand years are as one day. The watchword of our 
 chapter for the waiting church is Ho'pe to the end, or rather 
 Ho'pe on to perfection. And still the labouring ages groan 
 on, under their imchanging burden of change, whUe the 
 decree is yet suspended. We also, like the ancient pro- 
 phets, search both what and what manner of time the, 
 testimony of Jesus, the Spirit of prophecy, still points to. 
 We see the earth now, nearly at the close of a second 
 great millennial day, greener with the grass of human 
 culture, and more glorious with its secular flower, than 
 with the herbage of the " garden of the Lord. We 
 see other empires founded and flourishing: not the 
 kingdom we long for. Of other battle-fields we hear : not 
 yet of Armageddon the last. Still our cry is. What of the 
 night ? and still the response is, over all the waiting earth, 
 only The Tnoming cometh. But the word of our Lord endureth 
 for ever. He shall not fail nor be discouraged ; and we 
 must enter more deeply into the fellowship of Christ's 
 patience, as well as of all else that is His. We must 
 
15 
 
 watch with Him yet. To-day is gone ; to-marrow 
 is all but spent; the third day, the third great millen- 
 nial day, the King shall be perfected in His august 
 kingdom, and we. His subjects, shall reflect His perfection. 
 Then cometh the end of the " things concerning Him." 
 Created nature shall yield its supreme illustration of its 
 vanity; and time shall expire with the last g^eat proof 
 that the word of the Lord endureth for ever. 
 
 2. But so far our application of the text has been only 
 negative : it has also a positive side. Not only does the 
 Divine purpose survive the mutations of human things ; 
 it also vanquishes the opposition of the perishable 
 creature. The prophet, who gave the word to the apostle, 
 had that great truth especially in view. The voice in 
 the ancient wilderness breathed out its defiance against 
 the people confederate in all their glory to resist the 
 redemption of Israel; and in that cry there was an 
 undertone of defiance against the enemies, hui.ian and 
 spiritiial, of the world's greater redemption. The voice 
 not only uttered the prophecy that all human combina- 
 tions against the decree would pass away ; it also blew 
 upon and blasted all their glory. So now, also, the same 
 Spirit of the living God, whose influence breathed upon 
 the people of God is their strength and their joy, blows 
 upon the greatness and glory of the enemies of God, 
 withers the sap of their strength, and parches them into 
 utter impotence. At their best estate they are but vanity ; 
 and, left to themselves, would soon come to nought. But 
 they are not left to themselves : the ftdl and steady current 
 of the wrath of God is for ever turned upon the enemies 
 of His church ; and, however slow may seem its withering 
 effect, it is absolutely sure. The wind passeth over it, and it 
 is gone. 
 
 The history of the world, as read by a believing eye, is 
 one great and manifold commentary on this text. From 
 the time when the Spirit of God first strove with rebellious 
 
16 
 
 man, and rescued the little church from the whole con- 
 federate world by unloosing with His breath the fountains 
 of the deep, through all the diversified drama of human 
 history, one great law has ruled all the Divine dealings 
 with the world : the vindication and defence of His holy 
 decree against its enemies. It is not only that the 
 Supreme has upheld His purpose throughout the bound- 
 less mutations of human things ; but at all the great crises 
 of rebuke and blasphemy the mockery of His derision in 
 heaven has been followed by swift and sudden catastrophes 
 on earth. Are not these things most plentifully written 
 " in the book of the wars of the Lord ? " 
 
 And there is another history, containing the deeds and 
 destinies of higher enemies than man, that will be found 
 hereafter to have been equally full of the truth of these 
 words. God's great decree for mortals has been studied 
 and withstood by beings more than mortal. When the 
 Redeemer defied the gates of hell. He saw more than the 
 glory of man confederate against His church. So also 
 His holy apostles perpetually open the eye of our faith to 
 see principalities and powers of spiritual wickedness in 
 high places set in array against the truth. In the sight 
 of God, human enemies are subordinate to angelic : while 
 all flesh is grass, spiritual powers are the flower of grass. 
 But the opposition of the invisible and the visible worlds is, 
 whether separate or combined, alike of no avail. Hell and 
 earth together have never yet thwarted one single purpose 
 of the Divine will. Heaven and earth, and earth and hell, 
 may pass away : but the word of God shall stand for ever. 
 
 3. It is the prerogative of the Church of Christ to be 
 co-workers with God, in the accomplishment of His high 
 and holy designs. As His servan*;S we are the agents and 
 the guardians of His high decree : the representatives 
 upon earth of His unslumbering Providence in heaven. 
 Whilst we are working out our own salvation, and pro- 
 moting all lesser objects of the Divine philanthropy. 
 
 this 
 its 
 the 
 The 
 Gofi 
 
17 
 
 this is our highest honour, that we are, with reverence be 
 it spoken, the essential and indispensable instruments of 
 the eternal purpose of God with respect to the world. 
 The will, and word, and oath of God — that Christ's 
 Gospel shall sway the world, and His kingdom rule over all 
 — is not more sure than that His people, confederate as 
 we are confederate, must be His agents in accomplishing 
 that design. This is the mystery of our vocation; but 
 it is also its strength. That we, in our mightiest 
 combination no better than the grass which to-day is 
 and to-morrow is cast into the oven, should be carrying 
 out plans conceived from eternity in an infinite Mind, to 
 whom the past, the present, and the future are one 
 eternal now, is a thought which amazes while it tran- 
 quillises the mind, and comforts while it subdues. By 
 exhibiting the infinite contrast between the vanity of His 
 instruments and the eternal immutability of His own 
 Being, God has strengthened His servants in every age. 
 So in the beginning Abraham's faith was made firm by 
 the lesson taught him under the steadfast heavens, 
 emblem of the unchangeableness of the all-sufB.cient God 
 who called him. So Moses recoiled with trembling from 
 his vocation, until the dread / am entered and steadied 
 his soul, and sent him on his unfaltering career. So 
 Elijah, with all his Carmel grandeur, never knew stability, 
 until amidst the awful convulsions of Horeb the still small 
 voice spoke to his dejected spirit the lesson of God's calm 
 and immutable power. And so we read throughout all 
 the Divine records, and pre-eminently in the Psalms and 
 the Prophets, that God's sovereign remedy for His ser- 
 vants' feebleness and vacillation has ever been the exhi- 
 bition by word and symbol of His own unchangeableness. 
 Let us then, brethren, strong in a sense of the irre- 
 sistible necessity of our triumph, labour on in our sacred 
 Master's cause, surrendering ourselves wholly to so high and 
 so holy a vocation. It is ours to go everywhere through- 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 out the land and throughout the world, declaring the 
 decree, A decree vaster and more authoritative than its 
 humble type, the Median's, we must publish it in every 
 language, and enforce it upon every soul. As a Society, 
 whether at home or abroad, essentially Missionary, we 
 must co-operate with our holy Master in proclaiming His 
 supreme authority ; and help Him to execute His blessed 
 vengeance upon the heathen, to bind their kings and 
 their nobles with spiritual chains and fetters of grace, to 
 execute upon them the judgment of mercy written in the 
 imchanging counsels of the word of God. Let us not 
 think too much of our own weakness, or our past failures^ 
 or even our past imfaithfulness. To dwell on our own 
 wavering attributes would be to encourage despondency, 
 and send us with our too great burden to Elijah's juniper 
 tree. Let us rather go to Horeb, the mount of God, 
 and dwell on the immutable attributes of Him who gave 
 us our commission, and whose word, that to Him every 
 "ktiee ahaM how, endureth for ever. 
 
 III. St. Peter suggests to us a third illustration of his 
 own text. The endvbing wobd op God is an immutable 
 
 FBOMISE FBEACHED IN AN IMMUTABLE GoSPEL. The decreo 
 
 which outlives and lives down all the changes of human 
 things works out its accomplishment through the publica- 
 tion of a message of unalterable mercy to man. That word 
 which, in regard to Christ, has the eternal kingdom for 
 its subject, is in regard to man a revelation of grace and 
 salvation. The preaching of glad tidings to mankind is 
 based upon a mediatorial work established from the 
 foundation of the world and immutable ; it is adapted to 
 those relations of men which know no change; and it 
 may therefore be offered with absolute confidence to all 
 men everywhere and for ever. 
 
 1. We are taught in this chapter that the redemption 
 of the world is an eternal redemption : not only, as the 
 
19 
 
 
 Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, eternal hi its issues, but 
 eternal in its origin ; and, between these two eternities, 
 unchangeable through all the generations of tune. The 
 text is a not distant inference from those great words : 
 " Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible 
 things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious 
 blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without 
 spot, who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of 
 the world.'* Silver and gold, the most enduring things 
 in nature, and all that they represent, were created in 
 time and with time shall perish; but the ransom of 
 mankind was not found in created riches. Th^ price of 
 human redemption — ^that goodly price at which He was 
 valued — ^was settled in heaven before the earth was defiled 
 with sin. The atonement rounds and enwraps the whole 
 destiny of man. " Before the mountains were brought 
 forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 
 from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God," receives 
 a new close in the New Testament, — " from everlasting to 
 everlasting Thou art God in Christ." Holy Scripture in 
 sundry places and by sundry hints transfers the sacred 
 scenery of redemption into a sphere beyond the threshold 
 of time. It erects the cross on that side of the river of 
 human life ; and makes redemption anticipate the fall, the 
 saving purpose prevent the act of sin. The Gospel is traced 
 back by successive apostles from age to age : it shows us 
 before the law, before the flood, before the faU, the I am of 
 our eternal redemption. Christ was the Lamb slain, the 
 King crowned, the Priest interceding for a guilty futurity, 
 before the foundation of the world : the Alpha before our 
 history began, as He will be the Omega when it shall 
 end. Well, therefore, might the apostle exult in the 
 word of the Lord, preached in the Gospel, as enduring 
 for ever through all the mutations of human things. 
 
 It follows, as a consequence, that this Gospel has 
 been in some sort preached in every age. Not only as 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 a prophecy brightening the pages of revelation, lighting 
 up every comer of it and leaving no part dark, but also as 
 a power of life and salvation has the grace of God been 
 preached from the earliest day of the world's sinful 
 history. While the Spirit revealed to the ancients that 
 they were ministering their prophecies to a future and 
 more privileged generation. He did not leave them 
 without their own portion in the truths they understood 
 not. Although His hour was not yet come to take of the things 
 of Christ and show them plainly of the Redeemer, He gave 
 them also their heritage in the everlasting consolation and 
 the good hope through grace. Their hearts too burned 
 within them in their Old-Testament way while the unknown 
 Saviour talked with them. In all times penitent faith, even 
 without the manifestation of its great object, received the 
 atonement. Christ was the Desire of all nations ; and in 
 every age those who have feared God and wrought righ- 
 teousness — ^whether patriarchs, or Jews, or Gentiles — 
 have been debtors to the blood of the Lamb slain from the 
 foundation of the world. Surely our Lord was with them 
 though they knew it not ; and His mediation made this 
 earth to many more than Jacob the gate of heaven. 
 TJnto us indeed they ministered : but it is our joy to 
 believe that they ministered something also to themselves. 
 Through all the changes of time one note of mercy hath 
 endured for ever. 
 
 2. The word preached in the Grospel is immutable as 
 adapted to those universal conditions of mankind which 
 are independent of change. Amidst the endless fluctuations 
 of human things there are a few characteristics that 
 never vary: a few touches of nature that make all the 
 world kin, and all the generations of mankind absolutely 
 one. For these few elements the Gospel was prepared : 
 it meets the sin and misery of the world with an 
 unchangeable remedy, the counterpart of man's immuta- 
 ble disease. Infinite is the catalogue of the effects of sin ; 
 
 a 
 
II 
 
 but the cause of all is ever and everywhere the same. 
 Guilt, defilement, death, are the three woes which in sin, 
 their central unity, rule the world with terrible unchange- 
 ableness. The Gospel, by its triple antidote, pardon, 
 renewal, life, — one in their central unity, grace, — delivers 
 us from the hand of the enemy that hated us. It preaches 
 a forgiveness full, perfect, and for ever the same ; it 
 preaches a living Spirit of grace, whose sanctifying power 
 cleanses the defilement of our nature ; and it preaches a 
 full and eternal redemption from all the penalties of sin, 
 from Satan, from sorrow, and from death. 
 
 Therefore, the Gospel cannot change. " For ever, O 
 Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven." A new Gospel will 
 never be devised of God; a new Gospel will never be 
 needed by man. The word of Qod, preached as St. Peter 
 and St. Paul preached it, endureth for ever. With what 
 unspeakable recoil of abhorrence did St. Paul deprecate 
 the thought of another Gospel: whether man or angel 
 preached it, let him be consigned to a curse ! But that 
 tremendous anathema has never been sufficient to restrain 
 the licentiousness of free thought from perverting the 
 Gospel of Christ. According to the apostles* teaching, 
 every change in the simple condition of the atonement is 
 publishing an alien Gospel. Hence, all wilful develop- 
 ments, all additions, all adaptations of the simple truths 
 of the Church's first heritage, are the perversions which 
 he denounced. Whether superstition on the one hand 
 overloads those truths, or rationalism on the other seeks 
 to tone down their oflfensiveness to unregenerate reason, 
 both are mere perversion : if not the lie direct, the shadow 
 of the lie. Known unto God were all the deep necessities 
 of hv 'nan nature when He pressed into one sentence the 
 terms of salvation. Those deep necessities are not among 
 the things that change ; and the word of God that meets 
 them with its relief will endure for ever. 
 
 With what calm confidence, brethren, may we proclaim 
 
22 
 
 it throughout the world ! Ita first preachers, strong in 
 the assurance that it was the power of God to save man 
 in every extremity of his weakness, went through all the 
 zones of humanity proclaiming their one message, and 
 were never ashamed of their confidence. Rejection they 
 often encountered; they never mot with failure. They 
 triumphed everywhere ; never finding a single tribe or a 
 solitary soul on whose willing mind the Gospel spent its 
 strength in vain. And their successors, although without the 
 apo.s ties' supernatural endowments and preaching the word 
 to races nnthought of by them, have never found their word 
 powerless to save. We can add our own testimony. By 
 multitudes in our day is the Gospel rejected ; but none 
 receive it perfectly without being perfectly mode whole. 
 We have no doubt that the word we preach can cure, and 
 will cure, man*s universal disease. We send it abroad 
 without any distrust to every region of our enterprise. 
 Tears and anxieties we may have on other grounds, — as to 
 OTu-selves, as ■* i the men we send, as to our resources for 
 sending them, as to our subordinate equipments and 
 agencies, — ^but not the faintest doubt about the Gospel 
 message and its universal sufficiency. It is still worthy 
 of all men to be received, and will endure for ever. 
 
 And with what confidence may we all, brethren, cast 
 the burden of our present and everlasting salvation upon 
 it ! Creatures of a day, but of a day pregnant with 
 eternity; passing vlr-vigh , swift probation to an un- 
 changeable state J we are bur-ought by our Saviour to take 
 refuge in His eternal luercy. "V^Te are sinners, but the 
 justice and the n^ercy of God are alike and together 
 pledged to our forgiveness. We are unholy, but the 
 fountain for sin and uncleanness flows unsealed to all 
 generations. We are beset by enemies, and exposed to 
 endless temptations ; but One ever liveth to make inter- 
 cession for us and save us to the uttermost. This is the 
 accepted time : now — ^between the two eternities — is the 
 
23 
 
 mg in 
 man 
 IJI the 
 , and 
 they 
 They 
 
 day of Balv;iH..n. You cannot have placed yourself yet 
 beyond the pale of the covenant of immutable grace, 
 Eoiuember tl e countless multitudes of those who have — 
 SUM , Paul made himself the pattern of all the saved — 
 proved his Gospel a faithful saying : " whose faith follow, 
 considerinff its end, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, 
 to-day, and for ever." If you refuse and rebel, the 
 judi^ents of God's word, the sanctions of His Gospel, are 
 equally eternal with its mercies. If you will not be a 
 monument of His immutable grace, you shall be a monu- 
 ment of His changeless justice. But this part of the 
 dread alternative is not St. Peter's theme, nor ours. It is 
 the mercy of God, from everlasting to everlasting to them 
 that fear Him, that we now proclaim. We plead with 
 you by the heavenly chorus that runs through the Bible : 
 by that mercy which — like His word — endurethfor ever. 
 
 rV. Once more, the truth of the text is illustrated by 
 
 the NEW AND IMMORTAL SPIRITUAL LIFE TO WHICH WE ARE 
 BEGOTTEN AGAIN BY THK ABIDING WORD. This is another of 
 
 the sublime applicatih^ns of his theme that fill the opening 
 ' r St. Peter's Epistle. "The grass withereth, the flower 
 fadcth : " man's life is fragility itself, and the glory of his 
 life is more fragile still ; but the Divine life in the 
 Christian man <ndureth for ever. Here the apostle 
 presents to our thoughts the indestructible dignity of 
 spiritual life, as maintained by the abiding Word; and its 
 eternal continuance, in contrast with the transitory life of 
 human generation. 
 
 1. The Gospel has given us a new and nobler life. "I 
 am come," said the Eedeenior, "that they might have 
 life, and that they might have it more abundantly," 
 literally, that they might have it more: a life nobler, 
 deeper, richer; fuller than man could ever otherwise have 
 enjoyed ; a life derived from union with Him the Living 
 Word, communicated by His indwelling Spirit, and 
 
24 
 
 sustained by His neverfailing word. " Thou hast," said 
 the same Simon Peter, in his first ever-memorable 
 confession, " the words of eternal life ; " and his doc- 
 trine here, like the doctrine of the whole New Tes- 
 tament, is that regeneration confers, not new strength 
 upon the old life, but a new and more noble life from 
 above, — a gift which, in his own very hold language, 
 makes us " partakers of the Divine nature." 
 
 Thus born again, we should glory alone in our new 
 being. How utterly unworthy of the name of life is that 
 mere existence, doomed to worse than annihilation, which 
 man unregenerate spends in the vain show of this world ! 
 How miserable is the career of human life, at its 
 best state and under its best possible conditions, if not 
 revivified from above ! How vain is every flower that 
 springs not firom the eternal seed : the flower of strength, 
 the flov^er of beauty, the flower of youthful joy, the flower 
 of family delight, the flower of wealth, yea, every flower 
 into which the grass of human life may bloom ! This has 
 been the very commonplace of the moralist in every age ; yet 
 how few there are in any age who act as if they believed 
 it, and who refuse to be content with theu' heritage in 
 the life that now is ! But let those who are born again by 
 the Spirit rejoice in that they have died to self to live in 
 Christ. Let us rejoice, brethren, together : we have 
 found that which we had lost, and more than we had lost, 
 — our true and imperishable life ; and can exult in the 
 possession of that immortal secret which makes existence, 
 even amidst the conditions of this changing and sorrow- 
 ful world, matter of infinite joy. 
 
 And how diligently should we seek the sustentation and 
 vigour of this life. As it was the word of God that gave 
 us our new being, so it is His word alone that can sustain it 
 unto perfection. The seed of that Ufe is incorruptible ; 
 but, like all seed, it der^ands its nourishment. " Mali 
 doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
 
 ceec 
 nat^ 
 Goc 
 
 VVJ 
 
25 
 
 ceedeth from the mouth of God doth man live." As the 
 natural Ufe depends for its continuance upon the word of 
 God making bread the nourishment of life, so the life 
 spiritual depends upon the continual impartation of the 
 Spirit in the word. " If ye abide in Me, and My word in 
 you," is the great condition of perfect and perfected life, 
 uttered by lips from which there is no appeal. " Severed 
 from Me ye can do nothing," because ye are nothing. Tiie 
 blessed Spirit of the new life is indeed incorruptible : He 
 can never, and therefore it can never, perish in our nature. 
 But He, like Christ, may leave us: it may be withdrawn, and 
 in this sense too the spirit may return to God who gave it. 
 But so great a calamity shall not be to us. We will re- 
 member the terms of our new and higher immortality, and 
 keep our renewed spirits for ever in communion with Him 
 who hath the words of eternal life, and who gives those 
 words to us for our sanctification as freely as He gave 
 the drops of His blood for our redemption. 
 
 2. Thus imparted and thus sustained, the new life will 
 survive the mutability of mortal things. " All flesh is 
 grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass." 
 The grass does not more siu'ely wither, nor the flower 
 fade, from season to season, than man succumbs to change, 
 decay, and death. Not more surely will the earth's pre- 
 sent beautiful scarf, woven by the cunning hand of spring, 
 wither, than the brightness of our mortal Hfe will depart : 
 " we all do fade as a leaf." But, in opposition to this life 
 appointed to death, that new life endureth for ever. 
 
 We carry about in ourselves the present illustrp.tion of 
 this truth, and the earnest of its eternal fulfilment. We 
 have two lives within us, not indeed struggling together, 
 but each taking its own calm course to its full develop- 
 ment : the one, the natural life, tending surely to decay ; 
 the other, the lile spiritual, tending to perfection. The 
 gloomy side of the text has its illustration in omrselves, 
 even as we see it affectingly illustrated in others: with 
 
 j^''^^ 
 
26 
 
 most of us the flower has already fallen away, and our 
 little stem of life shall never again put forth its blossom. 
 But we know, we feel, that there is another life within us 
 that holds on its steady upward course through all the 
 stages of physical delay; and, feeling that, while our 
 physical energies are daily failing us, our spiritual vigour 
 increases day by day, we rejoice in the earnest that our 
 life, like the word that gave it to us, will endure for ever. 
 
 Then with what calmness may we confront our coming 
 change, and death, its once dreadful representative! 
 How clear and blessed the prospect to the regenerate 
 believer ! Death to him is already swallowed up, if not in 
 victory, yet in hope ; and the very word is sanctified and 
 ennobled. Since that moment when, as the darkness rolled 
 from the cross, the voice of Jesus cried. Father, into Thine 
 hands I commit My spirit, the ministry of death has been 
 changed: not utterly abolished, but translated into the 
 ministry of an angel of light. The apostle's words con- 
 cerning it are few, but always serene. They are governed 
 by that sacred paradox uttered at the only grave before 
 which we have seen the Eedeemer stand: "He that 
 believeth in Me, though he die, yet shall he live ; and he 
 that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die ;" and by 
 that other word, uttered when the Lord intercepted the 
 retreating sph'it of the child, " Not dead, but sleepeth." 
 To Simon Peter, indeed, it is hardly sleep. He at least knew 
 that he must die, and had his inverted cross for ever sus- 
 pended before his eyes ; yet lie speaks of his death but once, 
 and then terms it his departure. That word he heard on the 
 holy mount, spoken there of the Lord's exodus out of life : 
 it lingered in his ears, and he dared to make it his own. 
 And now the word stands in the Bible twice concerning 
 death, — once for Christ, and once for you and me. Full 
 of his own text, St. Peter speaks of putting off his taber- 
 nacle with the same solemn tranquillity as he put off ere- 
 while his fisher's coat, to go to Jesus. Let us arm 
 
 PEL 
 
27 
 
 ourselves with the same mine', and comfort our hearts, as 
 the great change draws near, with the thought that the 
 eternal life within us shall never see death. 
 
 V. Lastly, the society formed by the word of the Gos- 
 pel IS AN eternal society. Hcrc once more we have the 
 apostle's own application of his great truth : " Bom again 
 of incorruptible seed, to an inheritance incorruptible, and 
 destined to an eternal fellowship of glory, see that ye love 
 one another with a pure heart fervently." But the 
 thought is still more in the spirit and the tone than the 
 words. Simon Peter, having strengthened his brethre.1 
 through life, strengthens them to the last ; and, knowing 
 that the end of all things, — the end of all changes too, — 
 was at hand, writes with the glorious anticipation of an 
 eternal fellowship. All earthly conversation or citizenship 
 is vain : the Christian society is redeemed from vanity. 
 All human confederations are transitory, and must be dis- 
 solved : the Christian church shall endure eternally. 
 
 1. Vanity is written upon all human confederations ; 
 but the brotherhood of the Cliristian Church is redeemed 
 from vain conversation. Earthly societies have indeed 
 their glory and their beauty ; but when compared with the 
 society formed around the cross of Christ their best glory 
 fades away. The family bond, with its tender grace and un- 
 utterable joy, we all too surely know has no continuance in 
 this life ; and it cannot in every respect be renewed here- 
 after. Earthly political confederacies, the unions of 
 nations and states, have their dignity; and, as appointed 
 by God, must not be lightly disparaged. But noble as 
 they are in human estimation, and magnificent as their 
 annals are in human history, in them there is no continu- 
 ance. In due time there is or may be an historian of the 
 decline and fall of every empire. And the destiny of that 
 last empire, the history of which no human historian will 
 survive to write, has been forewritten in the night visions of 
 
28 
 
 Daniel, and in the day visions of St. John the Evangelist. 
 Over all the glory of the kingdoms of this world there is 
 no defence. But the kingdom of the Son of Man is an 
 everlasting kingdom, and of His dominion there shall be 
 no end. The multitudinous grass of His subjects shall 
 be green eternally, and their flower. His sacred self, the 
 true and restored glory of man : ah, what shall e\8r dim 
 His lustre ! Other confederacies there are in human 
 things. The great fellowship of literature, science, and 
 art is the most beautiful representative of collective 
 humanity, viewed only as such. But its dignity and 
 beauty are only mortal. It is based on man's perishable 
 word, and its institutions change from age to age. The 
 treasures of literature pass into dead languages : one 
 generation is busy in disinterring the remains of another, 
 until human knowledge shall vanish away, and the day 
 come when all marl's thoughts shall perish. But the Christian 
 church, — the church founded when human history began, 
 — has gone on, through the fluctuations of time, from 
 strength to strength, with its immutable government, its 
 undecaying literature, its immortal hope. 
 
 2. But while the Christian fellowship is already re- 
 deemed from vain conversation, it is only in the future 
 state that its immutability will be absolute. The society 
 of its people is now more or less subject to vicissitude and 
 change. While the mystical body of Christ is in itself 
 incorruptible, and enjoys a life which is as inaccessible to 
 death as that of its Head, ^ho dieth no more, yet is that 
 living body clothed at present in vestments that decay and 
 change. The immutable church assumes among men a 
 variable form ; bears a multitude of badges that vary from 
 age to age ; changes from time to time her congregations 
 and services and many of her lesser usages and laws. 
 The eternal society is also more or less subject to temporal 
 vicissitudes, and shares largely in the general doom. To 
 name no other proof, she is constantly burying the genera- 
 
 tions 
 
 mort 
 
 she 
 
 comf 
 
 with 
 
 for e 
 
 pany 
 
 from 
 
 chan 
 
 the 
 
 the 
 
29 
 
 mgelist. 
 there is 
 m is an 
 jhall be 
 ts shall 
 elf, the 
 ler dim 
 human 
 ce, and 
 llective 
 ity and 
 •ishable 
 The 
 one 
 ttother, 
 he day 
 iristian 
 began, 
 , from 
 ent, its 
 
 dy re- 
 future 
 society 
 ie and 
 
 itself 
 ble to 
 s that 
 Lyand 
 tten a 
 
 from 
 itions 
 laws, 
 poral 
 To 
 aera- 
 
 tions of her dead r an immorl^al Rachel weeping for her 
 mortal children, not because they are not, but because 
 she sees them no more, and not indeed refusing to be 
 comforted. While hasting to the coming of her Lord 
 with songs, and everlasting joy upon her head, there is 
 for ever the sound of weeping and lamentation in her com- 
 pany, — gad proof that she is not yet altogether redeemed 
 from vanity and change, and the sorrow that cometh of 
 change. " All flesh is grass, and aU the glory of man as 
 the flower of grass," is the cry of a voice sounding within 
 the church as weU as in the desert of this world ; and how 
 mournfully has that cry been heard within the chambers of 
 our own bereaved community since the year began ! 
 
 But all this will soon be over. The time shall come — if 
 time it may be called — when the church shall lay aside for 
 ever every vestment of earth, and enter upon the eternal 
 possession of an inheritance that fadeth not away. As 
 her inheritance wiU be unchangeable, so she shall enter 
 upon its enjoyment as an unchangeable society, into which 
 no element of variation shall ever enter. Sin, the great 
 distm'ber, shall be no more. Time shall be no more ; and 
 mutability, the fleeting shadow of time, shall be no more. 
 And, in the prospect of that tranquil and eternal communion 
 of unchanging glory and unchangeable service, St. Peter 
 bids his own generation of Christians, and every genera- 
 tion, to love one another fervently as those who are imited 
 for eternity, to labour together heartily as those who will 
 share together the everlasting recompense, and to wait 
 patiently together until the great change shall come, — that 
 change which will end all change for ever. 
 
 Let us, brethren, in conclusion, sum up and hear St. 
 Peter's full interpretation of the ancient cry, as it is a 
 voice sounding not now in the wilderness but within the 
 com'ts of the Lord's house. It tells us that in this book 
 we have the eternal word of truth : let us make it in its 
 
30 
 
 inviolable integrity our heritage for ever. It tells us of a 
 Divine purpose that shall stand through time, and be glori- 
 fied in eternity : let us renew our pledges of devotion to 
 the service of that great decree. It tells us of a saving 
 Gospel unchangeably preached : let us cast our own souls' 
 eternal care upon its immutable promises, and count it 
 our supreme vocation to proclaim it to the ends of 
 the earth. It tells us that we have the seed of imperish- 
 able life within us : let us rejoice together in the earnest 
 of our immortality. And it assures us of an eternal 
 fellowship in heaven : let us take to our hearts the 
 everlasting consolation, and cry with St. Peter's Easter 
 song, " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath 
 begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection 
 of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance in- 
 corruptible, undefiled, and that fadcth not away.' 
 
 j> 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PBINTKO BT WILLIAU NICHOLS, 
 
 it, UOXTON SqUABC. 
 
 «;» 
 
Is us of a 
 I be glori- 
 votion to 
 a saving 
 wn souls' 
 count it 
 ends of 
 mperish- 
 e earnest 
 L eternal 
 arts the 
 s Easter 
 rd Jesus 
 cy hath 
 irrectiou 
 ance in-