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1 2 3
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6
SERMONS.
LONDOK :
R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BRFAD STREET HILI.
SEBMONS.
BY
GEOEGE JEHOSHAPHAT MOUNTAIN, D.P., D.C.T.
LATE BISHOP OF QUEBEC.
.PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OP THE SYNOD OP THE DIOCESE.
LONDON :
BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STREET.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO.
1865. ■
4588
TH
I
TO
THE SYNOD OF THE DIOCESE OF QUEBEC,
AND TO
THE CONGREGATION OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH,
(TO WHOM THESE SERMONS WERE ALL DELIVERED),
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
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the
EDITOKS NOTE.
The Editor desires to express his regret at the delay,
occasioned by circumstances beyond his control, which
has occurred in the publication of this volume. He
has thought it better to give the Sermons as an earnest
of his desire to comply with the wish of the Synod,
so kindly conceived and expressed ; but he must ask for
further indulgence in order to be enabled to meet the
principal object of the subjoined resolution in a satis-
factory manner. The correspondence and documents
which he has already examined reach back beyond the
beginning of the present century, and it is obvious that
the work of selecting and condensing the materials
requires considerable time. He has only to add that
any profits which he may receive from the sale of this
volume wiU be given to the Labrador Mission Fund of
the Diocese of Quebec.
6
Besolution 0/ tlie Synod of the Diocese of Quebec^ adopted at
its FiHh Session, July, 1863.
Moved by Rev. Henry Roe, *
Seconded hy Mr. Spragoe,
"That it is the earnest desire of the members of this
Synod that a memoir of our late beloved Bishop, the chief
ruler of the Church in Canada for so many eventful years
of her history, should bo published.
« That it is also the wish of tlie members of the Church
generally to possess some of the eloquent and admirable
sermons of that lamented Prelate.
"That, therefore, a Committee of three be named by the
chair to convey to the Rev. A. W. Mountain the unanimous
request of this Synod, that he should prepare such a Memoir,
and also publish one or more volumes of the Sermons of
the late Bishop; and that the Committee be also re-
quested to obtain subscribers to the Memoir and Sermons,
should it meet the wishes of Mr. Mountain to publish them
by subscription.
) !
CONTENTS.
SERMON I.
The Trx Viroins— St. Matthew xxv. 1, 2 ...... . ""j
SERMON II.
Thk Judgment of Man— 1 Cor. iv. 3. 1 5 t^
SERMON III.
The Burden of Dumah— Isaiah xxi. 11, 12 gS
SERMON IV.
The Unproductive Vineyard- Isaiah V. 1 39
SERMON V.
Compliance with Ordinances— Nahum i. 15 / 53
SERMON VI.
The Joy op Christmas— Acts viii. 8 .--
67
SERMON VII.
Christ Coming to His OwN-St. John i. 10-13. . . go
SERMON VIII.
The Punishment OF SoDOM-St. Luke xvii. 32, 33 .... 93
SERMON IX.
The History or JosEPH-Genesisxxxix. 1 . . jq^
b
J<
»f-«"**^-'-
' -""X
X CONTENTS.
SERMON X.
PAGE.
The Choice of Moses— Hebrews xi, 24, 25 . . . . ,. . . 122
SERMON XI.
The ThreefoliJ Witness ly Earth — 1 St. John v. 8 . . . 134
SERMON XII. ^
The Prince of this "World— St. John xiv. 29—31 .... 148
SERMON XIII. ,
Prayer— St. Luke xviii. 1 160
SERMON XIV.
The JouRNEYiifos of Isba.el a Type of the Christian
Pi LGE image— Dent. viii. 2, 3 "iTQ
SERMON XV.
Confirmation and the Sacraments — St. Lake i. 6 ... 191
SERMON XVI.
WouDS AND Thoughts Acceptable before God— Psalm xix.
14, 15 208
SERMON XVII.
The Mystery of Godliness — 1 Tim. iii. 10 ?20
SERMON XVIII.
Sins and Good Works Manifest beforehand—! Tim. v.
24, 25 233
SER!,ION XIX.
God in Creation and Providence— Isaiah xlv. 78 ... . 246
SERMONS.
SERMON L
THE TEN VIRGINS.
St. Matt. XXV. 1, 2.
nm shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgv>is, which
tooK their lamps, mid went forth to r^et the bridegroom. And five of
them were wise, and five were foolish. ,
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, if they
were opened for the mere pui-pcses of inteUeetual
gratification or curious research, would not disappoint
the labour so bestowed upon them. Their force, their
originality, their genuine and simple pathos, ' their
^mstudied and, at the same time, unequalled sub-
hmity-the very peculiar characteristics which attach
to them from the extreme antiquity of some portions
of the book, and from the connexion of all either with
the earliest history of the world, or with the manners
and usages of remote times and countries, stiU partially
prevaiHng or exhibiting their traces in the East,--all
these are sources opened to us in the Bible, which are
replete with interest and rich in information.
Thus, in the parable before us, the illustration is
drawn from a custom which was thoroughly familiar
B
SERMON I.
\
%
■S^'
to the hearers of our Lord ; and it is related by some
travellers of modern times that in the matrimonial pro-
cession by the light of lamps or torches, which they
witnessed in certain parts of the world, the bearers of
these lights are provided with an apparatus for carrying
a fresh supply of oil to renew them when they begin
to fail. ^
But let it be hoped that in reading the Word of God
we enter upon our task with higher feelings than these.
The place whereon we stand is holy ground. Whatever
be the views with which we explore the treasuries of
human science and learning, we must draw near to
Christ as He stands shadowed forth to us under the
old covenant, or is made palpable in the assumption of
our nature under the new, with the motives and con-
victions of those who said to Him, " Lord, to whom
shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life."
My brethren, let it be thus that we now examine
and personally apply to ourselves the parable of the
ten virgins, who go forth to meet the bridegroom. These
virgins we may consider as representing persons who
profess the Christian religion, — I do not mean profisscrrs
in a restricted sense, according to the phraseology of a
school, but aU, according to the language of our own
Liturgy, who profess and call themselves Christians.
Wise or foolish, these virgins all alike have their lamps
lighted, and fed with a sufficiency of oil to maintain the
present flame. The difference lies in this, that the wise
virgins had provided a reserve of oU, while this pre-
caution had been wholly overlooked by the foolish.
..^..■4i«i5'*'-'«*
THE TEN VIRGINS. 3
Tlie mere lighting of the lamps may be taken to sicmify
our adoption of Christianity, our reception into" the
Church of God by the rite of baptism, and our sub-
sequent recognition of that act by certain formal and
customary compliances. The reserve of oil, provided in
the other cases, denotes our homefelt reception of the
seed of the word of life into the heart, and our rooted
attachment to the principles of our religion; it denotes
our consistent fulfilment of our Christian obligations •
our improvement of that grace assured and conveyed tJ
us m the covenant of which we are first made partakers
m baptism ; our devout and inteUigent use of all the
continued means of that grace ; our constant subjection
to the living principle of faith in the Son of God • our
earnestcultivationof the/mV../^Ae Spirit, all goodmss
and righteousness, and truth: in short, our provided
condition, our state oi preparation for death and iudg-
ment, those awful events hanging over our destiny as
men which are represented by the uncertain coming of
the bridegroom.
The prominent lesson, therefore, of this parable is a
warning against the awful danger of indiiferenee and
carelessness in religion_a warning against that de-
plorable proneness which we see so extensively prevalent
among mankind, to neglect their/«< concern, the work
of preparation for another world ; to say to themselves
mce, when there is no peace," upon the one subject
ot supreme importance-their welfare in eternity. They
satisfy themselves, they indulge a feeling of security,
though in a state of actual difftculty and perU; they
b2
:#
SERMON I.
suffer a fatal sloth to creep over their whole spiritual
man, and the seed of all spiritual life to be choked
in their breasts by the cares and the riches and the
pleasures of the world ; they lose all lively and effectual
remembrance of the fact that they have immortal souls,
and of the equally certain facts that those souls having
contracted sin, their only deliverance from the curse of
sin is in the remedies provided in the Gospel, their
only hope of profiting by those remedies is inseparably
coupled with their own watchfulness in duty and con-
stancy in prayer. All this they forget and keep out of
sight, as if it were something which did not belong to
them, or ■v<rhich they could afford to leave for a more
convenient season. In the meantime the Bridegroom
is coming ; and, behold ! He comes. They rise at the
midnight cry, but their lamps have gone out ; their oil
is expended, and where are they to look for more ? In
the suddenness of their terror and the agitation of their
distress, they fly to others in the hope of relief, but in
vain : the wise and provident can, in this case, make no
transfer of their store.
Men would fain reconcile, if it were possible, the
hope of eternal happiness in another world with the
full liberty of living as they please in this: they
shrink from the picture of so great a change — although
coupled with the message of mercy and all the promises
of grace and glory — as that of turning from their own
-way to the way of God ; they regard as an unwelcome
task the duty of humbling themselves before Him in
repentance, although that repentance be a gracious
r a more
THE TEN VIEGINS. 5
work within them, the happy renewal of a poUnted
soul ; they revolt against the charge to deny themselves
and to take up their cross, although, even with respect
to their well-being in this life, sacrifices and acts of self-
denial are things plainly essential. The love of God
with the whole heart, and the love of their neighbour
as themselves, they treat as a %ht above them, and
abandon all idea of engaging in it, although, in truth,
these two principles are the ground-work of all that is'
good or really great among mankind. They do not
choose to be disturbed in their lazy acquiescence in the
practice and example of the world, although, by the
recorded confession of all ages, the world is vain, de-
ceitful, and corrupt, and, by the testimony of the faith
which they profess, its friendship is enmity against
God. They accept, in the place of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, a kind of compromise and accommodation which
the world provides for its di^iples-a system of dis-
pensations by its infallible and sovereign authority
from things which the Bible very plainly requires.
" Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am
meek and lowly in heart," is the voice of their Saviour
and their Friend ; but it falls like the voice of a stranger
upon their ears. " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise
from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." is a
sound which they hear, and then turn themselves round
to sleep again. They cannot be prevailed upon to look
upon this world as what it reaU/ ^ .-the school of their
traimng for the world to come ; the place of trial in
which good and evil, each with its corresponding results
6
SERMON I.
in another hour, offer themselves promiscuously to
their hands, the good often distasteful to immediate
inclination, and the evil perpetually in some seductive
disguise; a place, therefore, in which they are called
upon at all times to discriminate and to determine, to
choose with nicety and to reject with firmness. They
will not remember that they are afloat upon a stormy
sea, where it never can he a justifiable part to drive
before the wind and to leave things to themselves, but
where they must steer by the chart of Eevelation and
the compass of God's eternal truth. No! charm He
never so wisely, they refuse to listen to the voice of the
charmer. They would be willing enough to please God,
if they might take their own method of doing so, and
would very readily avail themselves of the tidings that
they have an inheritance in heaven, if the terms upon
which it is offered would only spare their pride and
self-indulgence while on earth. What they are called
to seems hard— what they must forego is what they are
fond of ; and they do not stay to hear of the promises
of succour from Him Whose strength is made perfect in
our weakness, or the motives, the springs of action
which are imparted, the privileges, the hopes, the
prospects which are conveyed, to every believer in the
great salvation of our God. All this they forget and
put away from their thoughts — it is something foreign
to the habit of their minds. Holy affections, spiritual
thoughts, earnest concern for their own salvation, love
to their fellow creatures for Christ's sake, zeal for the king-
dom of God, — these they may admit, when pressed upon
THE TEN VIRGINS.
the subject, to be very necessary ; but, necessaiy as they
are, they do not heed them, till God, in just retribution
for their unthankful negligence, withdraws from them
the grace which they have despised, and leaves them to
be consumed by the enemies of their salvation. " I'rom
him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which
he seemeth to have." And thus, while they are blindly
groping for their way, they encounter the Bridegroom,
they are overtaken by " the great and dreadful day of
the Lord."
Turn, then, to the Lord while the day of salvation
lasteth, and "exhort one another daily, while it is
called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the
deceitfulness of sin." But it is not only to the un-
awakened worldling or the frivolous child of vanity
that the parable addresses its note of caution and alarm/
Its warnings, my brethren, come home to us all. While
the bridegroom tarried, they all, wise as well as foolish,
they all slumbered and slept. How truly, how undis-
guisedly does the Scripture show us to ourselves I
"What? could ye not watch with Me one hour?" is
the mild reproach which our Lord had occasion to
address to those who were His own closest adherents,
and who had just received His own particular and
pathetic charge, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even
unto death : tarry ye here and watch!* Alas ! who can
say that he has not incurred the liability to many and
many a similar reproach from his Master ? that he has
not often been dull, and heavy, and unprepared for action,
in that service which should enlist all his energies, and
\
8
SERMON I.
kindle all the fervour of his love ? Motives the most
spiritual, the most pure, the most exalted, are sometimes
found weaker in their power and less availing to endur-
'ttice and success than such as, at best, are mixed with
some baser alloy: the pride of system in the philo-
sopher ; the love of this world's applause and honour in
the man of ambition; the prostrate awe or the self-
righteous complacency of the superstitious devotee ; the
power of a meretricious excitement in the goaded mind
of the enthusiast ; the flattering effect of an exhibition
of gifts, in religious proceedings of a peculiar stamp,—
all these act more readily upon human nature than
principles of a higher order, removed from earthly con-
tact or animal sense ; and instances are known of their
producing effects which serve to reproach the disciples
of a better school.
This weakness of nature and deficiency of perform-
ance we cannot too freely or too feelingly acknowledge ;
but we must beware of turning the admission into an
excuse for any relaxation of our duty. Such a plea
could only aggravate our criminality. The conscious-
ness of weakness should be the very incentive to our
standing upon the guard, and exercising the more
earnestness in seeking that grace which we are expressly
taught to be ^^ufficient for us. Blessed indeed are those
servants, who rise so well above the infirmities of natures
that their lamps may almost be said to be always
trimmed and burning brightly ; whom their Lord, come
when He will, shall find watching. Blessed are they
who, like the apostle, know both how to be abased and
THE TEN VIEGINS.
9
how to abound, and have learnt to use this world as
not abusing it; who, in all changes of this lower
atmosphere, protect and preserve their faith, as it were,
in its freshness and its flower ; who in all varieties of
fortune, in all circumstances of human life, maintain
their independence of the things on the earth, and keep
themselves unspotted from earthly defilement; who
enter into the warfare of the world and sustain their
appointed part in its ^affairs; who mix in its business,
who thankfully enjoy its comforts, if bestowed upon
them, who fulfil all the claims of civil duty, and dis-
charge all the courtesies of social intercourse, but whose
treasure is not here, whose hope is laid up with Him
that seeth in secret, who tmly regard themselves as
strangers and pilgrims upon earth, and feel their home
to be in the house of their Master above, gone before
to prepare a place for them, that where He is, th.re
they may be also.
We are warned also in this parable, as in so many
other lessons from the word of God, against the danger
of delay. Woe be to him who shifts over to the day of
sickness and the bed of death that work which ought
to be the work of his whole Ufe. Men may be received
at the eleventh hour who can plead that no man has
hired them before ; but will this precedent avaU those
who from the morning, and all the day through, have been
called into the vineyard, and stood idle stiU ? We do
not set limits to the grace of God ; but it is rare, indeed,
that those who have trifled away their happy opportuni-
ties of serving Him through Hfe effectually turn to Him
10
SERMON I.
'
i.i I
at its close ; and often, where some seeming symptoms of
conversion, with prompters, possibly more zealous than
judicious, busy round the couch, have served in human
judgment to maTce out the case, it may be feared that it
is a hollow and fallacious hope. Many such supposed
conversions, in the prospect of death, have been lament-
ably falsified by an unexpected recovery or a reprieve
from the last sentence of the law. But even for such a
conversion as this, who can presume upon being indulged
with the opportunity ? Who can say that he shall not
be surprised by a call too sudden for the slightest pre-
paration ? Hurry and consternation are pictured to us
as the only portion of those who had left themselves
unprovided with a reserve of oil. At midnight there is
a cry made, " The bridegroom cometh : go ye out to
meet him." Will there be time given, after that cry, to
prepare ? Will death or judgment accommodate them-
selves to the procrastinations of the infatuated sinner ?
hang off till he is ready, and has had space io go through
some exhibition of repentance ? It is to the coming of
Christ to judgment that the parable appears particularly
to point; but this warning and all similar warnings
have precisely the same force when considered with
reference to our own death— for we all know that as
death leaves us, judgment will find us. We are so far
from having any warrant from the word of God to de-
clare the time of judgment, that its being kept from us
is a conspicuous feature of His dealings with us, and one
to which our attention is pointedly directed ; the utter
uncertainty of the period being again and again urged
THE TEN VIRGINS.
11
as a special motive for constant preparation. But
whether it be far off or near, judgment is coming; and
death, which is always near, requires the very same pre-
paration as if death and judgment were simultaneous.
That we all confess, my brethren— it is a very familiar
and a veiy common-place admonition ; but do we all
lay it effectually to heart ? Let us remember that our
negligence and carelessness in this point are rendered
the more inexcusable if occurrences themselves are so
ordained to fall that they read us a special lesson, that
they preach to us with a voice of power, upon the sub-
ject. And have we not— it is not my intention to
particularize, nor yet to indulge in descriptive touches
which work upon the susceptible feelings of nature—
but have we not, looking back upon the past summer,
and looking round upon the mourners who go about our
streets, and thinking of what has now freshly happened
in the highest quarter known within the land— have we
not had warning upon warning, alike solemn and tender,
to teach us not only how old and long-respected mem-
bers of our community will, one by one, drop off, but
how death may be close to any of us in unlooked-for
shapes— how scenes of preparation for festivity and
promised happiness may be changed in a moment to
scenes of overwhelming sorrow— how families may be
bereaved by one short stroke of their earthly stay— how,
by some sudden casualty or the rapid action of some'
fatal disease, the sunshine of the domestic circle may be
darkened by the gloom of death, and fair hopes and
fondly made calculations of our earthly future shattered
12
SEBMON L
at once into nothing ?* Let us, then,— returning to the
general thought tliat our preparation for judgment and
our preparation for death are one and the same, and that
the latter may, at any instant, surprise us— possess our
minds with these ideas : let us figure to ourselves that
the universal crash of nature and the general doom of
the world were to come suddenly upon us. Let us sup-
pose that now, at this moment, those "things which
shall be hereafter," and in which we must rise to have
our part, were to burst upon our astonished sight,
that, far more terrible than the nightly alarm of fire, far
more hopeless than shipwreck, far more appalling than
the rending earthquake, the conflagration of "the great
globe itself," the rapid dismemberment and absolute de-
struction of the whole frame of the universe, of the
whole visible workmanship of God, were to begin, to
come near us, to shake the spot where we stand ; and to
threaten, like an irresistible tornado, to whirl us in
among the fragments of creation. Are we prepared?
Can we be glad and full of hope ? Do we feel that our
treasure is laid up in heaven? that we shall be caught
up to meet the Lord, and to be ever with Him ? And of
all the pride, the pomp, the property,— of all ' ^ ^'ndnl-
gences, the vanities, the means of pleasure,- ff di the
fabrics of human industry, the contrivances of skill, the
subjects of eager contention, the materials for sagacious
speculation or laborious research which have now served
their Jif pnmted end, and, condemned by the fiat of God,
are ps-i bin.'? in the ruin which thunders round us,—
* Preached in the autumn of 1859.
THE TEN VIRGINS,
13
of all these is there nothing to which our strongest
hopes and dearest affections are linked so closely as
to be involved in their destniction ? Once more, are
we prepared ? or have we left our preparation for that
hour of confusion and alaim ? Alas ! how shall we
make it thrn. in an hour when "the kings of the earth,
and tho great men, and the mighty men, and the
rich men, and the chief captains, shall hide themselves
in dens, and shall say to the mountains and rocks.
Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb—"
(how much is conveyed in that expression, the wrath of
the Lamb, and how high must be the provocation, how
deep the curse of unpardoned sin, when the very-
emblem of gentleness, and the willing victim offered in
expiation for a guilty world, is represented as incensed ?)
" Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb :
for the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall
be able to stand?" No possible resource will then
remain to those who have not profited by their day of
grace on earth. Vain will be the appeal, as we have
already seen, " Give us of your oil, for our lamps have
^one out." Vain will be the expedient suggested, " Go
ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves."
"Every man shall bear his own burthen." Money
can purchase no exemptions: the Church has no
market of indulgences, no deposit of unappropriated
saintly merits, which (however they may pass current
in this world) can be turned to account in the other for
14
SERMON I.
; I
S
w
those who have forfeited their interest!, ^lirist. Souls
are ransomed, as we are told by an apostle, " not witn
corruptible things, as silver and gold, bat with the
precious blood rf Christ, as of i lamb without blemish
and without spot." " While they went to buy, the bride^
groom came. And they that were ready --^ent in vdth
him to t!ie marriage, and the do(yr was shut. And after-
wards came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord,
open to us. But He answered and said, Verily I know
you not." horrible and hopeless exclusion, to be for
ever disowned by Him who died for us, for ever shut
out from blessedness and peace, for ever condemned to
suffer the wrath of God ! Prepare, then, my brethren-
prepare even now for aU which lies beyond this little
life. Do you believe in God ? I will borrow the answer
furnished in a similar kind of case by the Apostle, " I
know that you believe." Do you regard yourselves as
beings made to live for ever? do you admit that you
can look for salvation through the blood of Christ
alone ? do you seriously consider as realities all that
is told you in the Bible of sin, of Satan, of grace, of
prayer, of the sacraments, of the inspiration of Scripture,
and finally of the resurrection, and judgment, and the
Hfe of the world to come ? suffer not then your lamp
to go out in darkness, suffer not the light of these awful
truths, which should guide your steps in safety, to be
obscured and smothered ; suffer not the tumult of public
life, the business, the entanglements, the allurements of
the world, its mixed and multiplied pursuits, its com-
forts or its gaieties (for I do not speak of those plain
THE TEN VIKGINS.
15
gross, broad, positive sins which have sway enough
within it,) so to occupy your immortal souls that you
must bo said to serve the world rather than to serve God.
Men and brethren, are these things so? Are we to
be either as the angels of God in heaven, or to be the
associates of condemned spirits in that place between
which and heaven there is fixed a great and impassable
gulf? The question is one which might rouse within
us some feeling of concern, and prompt us to ascertain
whether we are really in the broad or in the narrow
way. "Examine yourselves," then, my brethren, with
all the closeness of scrutiny, with all the deep and
conscientious earnestness of purpose, which so awful
an inquiry demands ; "examine yourselves whether ye
be in the faith : prove your own selves."
f^
', . »
}](!
Fi;
I
11
"il
SERMON 11.
THE JUDGMENT OF MAN.
1 Cor. IV. 3, 4, 5.
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you,
or of man's judgment : yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know
nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified : but he thatjudgeth
7m is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the titne, until the
Lord come, Who both will bring to light the hidden things ofdarMcss,
and will make manifest the coumels of the hearts: and then shall every
man havejpraise of God.
The fallibility of human judgment is a point which we
need not labour to prove. No man denies or can deny
it. The very fact that men dififer to an infinite extent,
and in every conceivable variety of shade, in the views
which they adopt upon the same subject, placed in the
same way and under the same lights before their eyes,
when coupled with the consideration that their opinions
cannot all be right ; that, in truth, that one only can be
so which corresponds with the exact reality of the case,
while all of them, very often, are proved, in the result,
to be totally wrong, this fact, when coupled with this
consideration, is of itseK enough. And every person
who has reached a certain age must be conscious of
many changes which have taken place in his own
opinions, many instances in which he has reversed
his own previous judgment upon men and things. The
unfavourable ideas respecting individuals or parties in
1 lii
THE JUDGMENT OP MAN. 17
a community which are formed in other minds, are
based, very commonly, upon some prejudice which
refuses to discriminate ; upon some envious calumny
which has never been examined j upon some suspicious
appearance from which an unjust conclusion is hastily
formed ; upon the influence of some interfering private
interests, or of some offence conceived which creates a
feeling of dislike, and engenders a spirit of miscon-
stmction. And men, when it suits them, when it
serves their advantage, when it conspires with some
new indulgence of their passions, when they unite
agamst a common antagonist, or perchance when they
are warmed together in scenes of convivial good fellow-
ship, will as strangely pass round to a new opinion as
they had rashly adopted its opposite. The wind shifts
and they shift with it. The proverbial inconstancy and
fickleness of the multitude are said to have been re-
markably exemplified in the case of an niustrious
commander of our own country, who, upon being
greeted on a public occasion by the most enthusiastic
acclamations, significantly pointed (as the report goes)
to his own mansion, which bore the sufficiently recent
marks of popular violence, prompted by hostUe feelings
iof which he was the object. And this variableness of
ithe cr,^d may be matched in the circles of society
which are above them, and in the individuals of whom
tJiose circles are composed.
Men, therefore, in the survey of all this, who affect
a certam philosophy of character, despise and disdain
or wish it to be thought that thev despise ^r^d d-dain
I ■]
:'f
I
!■
I
t
I
! ;4 5
i
18
SERMON II,
the opinion of the world, and, in some instances, pro-
fessedly set it at defiance. It is not in such a temper
that the Apostle is speaking when he tells the Corinth-
ians that he held it to be a very small matter, with
reference to the estimation of his ministry, " to be judged
of them or of man's judgment." He insists much, in
different places, upon the importance to ministerial
usefulness of avoiding all needless offence, and pre-
serving, so far as might be compatible with the
unshrinking discharge of duty and the maintenance of
consistent principle, a good name among men, and
conciliating their respect and good-will. But the praise
of men for its own sake, or their verdict, favourable or
unfavourable, as the test of solid excellence and the
touchstone of fidelity before God— these are what he
would utterly repudiate. He knew well that, in many
cases, " that," in the words of Christ Himself, " which is
highly esteemed among men, is abomination in the sisht
of God ;" and he remembered that the same voice had
denounced woe to the disciples, on the one hand, when
all men should speak well of them, and proclaimed
blessing, on the other, when they should be reviled
and persecuted, and all manner of evil should be said
against them falsely for their Master's sake.
The principle, therefore, which he means to establish
is his independence of any human judgment as a guide
in the execution of his solemn trust— his direct and
single reference to the will and pleasure of God, in
ascertaining the line which he was to follow and adher-
ing to it. And he proceeds to say, "Yea, I judge not
THE JUDGMENT OF MAN.
la
mine own self "—I do not set up my poor human judo-,
ment upon my own doings as the ultimate criterion of my
acceptance before God. Whatever I hope, my hope is
founded upon His promise in Christ, and the conviction
which I do enjoy that, notwithstanding my faults,
known or unknown to myself, I have received mercy to
be faithful. Upon these words, " Yea, I judge not mine
own self," we find, in antiquated but pithy language,
the following marginal note, in our own earlier transla-
tion of the Bible :— " How can you judge how much or
how little I am to be accounted of, seeing that I myselfe,
which knowe myselfe better than you doe, and which
dare professe that I have walked in my vocation with
a good conscience, dare not yet, notwithstanding, chal-
lenge anything to myselfe; for I know that I afn not
unblamable, all this notwithstanding; much lesse, there-
fore, should I please myselfe as you doe."
The Apostle then adds the words, " For I know nothing
by myself "—i e. as will appear at once to those who may
: consult the original, I am not conscious within myself
j of being open to any charge against me ; "yet am I not
j hereby justified." Upon these last words we may here
take in the remark of an excellent commentator of the
llast century. The Apostle, he observes, doth not here
|(in the words " yet am I not hereby justified " following
|upon the declaration of his standing free from reproach)
'* intend to say that he and others could have no good
lassurance of their present justification and favour with
|God from the testimony of an upright conscience,
•-vhich, saith St. John (in his first Epistle), gives ' con-
c2
!■
Ml
1 1
20
SERMON II.
M
I
: I
ill! ^
fidence toward God ; ' for then farewell all joy aiid
comfort in this world ! He doth himself assure us, in
his second Epistle to the Corinthians, that their 're-
joicing' was this, the testimony of their conscience, that
in simplicity and godly sincerity they had their conversa-
tion in the world. He adviseth all men, in writing to
the Galatians, to * approve ' their actions to themselves,
and then shall they have rejoicing in themselves alone,
and not in another. His meaning, therefore, is, that
our final justification, or absolution from condemnation,
depends, not upon the judgment which we pass upon
ourselves, but upon that which God the righteous Judge
will pass upon us."
The doctrine of justification by faith, upon which
this Apostle so largely and fervently insists, is not his
direct and immediate subject in the passage which we
are here considering ; but it is so necessarily involved
in this part of his argument, and so obviously suggested
by the words which we have just noticed, that we shall
naturally rest for a moment upon a familiar and prac-
tical contemplation of it. And it will be well if we all
take occasion to examine, upon this score, our own
personal state of relations with our God.
" How should man be just with God ? " There is
many an unthinking sinner to whom the import of this
question gives no concern. " God is not iiv all his
thoughts," and he scarcely remembers that he has a
soul. There are others of a cast somewhat more re-
flecting, who admit into their contemplations some
sense of human responsibility above, and the necessity |
• ;l
THE JUDGMENT OF MAN. 21
of preparation for judgment ; but, unlike the pattern
of our text, judge of themselves (although with some
confused and imperfect acceptance, perhaps, of the
doctrme of atonement, as a dogma belonging to the
system which they profess) that they are, in th^melvPs.
sufiaciently prepared. They are strangers to all the
misgivings of a humble spirit, to all the apprehensions
of a tender conscience ; they say that they have need
of nothing, and cannot enter into the conception of
those views and feelings which, in the veiy fulness
which he often and strongly expresses of conscious
integrity and faithfubiess, could prompt the prayer of
our Apostle to be "found," in the day of account, not
having his " own righteousness, but that which is through
the faith of Christ," or which could dictate the language
of the Psalmist, "Who can tell how oft he offendeth?
O cleanse thou me from my secret faults. If thou. Lord
wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, Lord whc
may abide it ? Try me, God, and seek the ground of
my heart : prove me, and examine my thoughts : look
weU if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead
, me m the way everlasting." To lament the degeneracy
of their nature, to sigh under the sense of their own
con-uption, to feel their hourly need of mercy, grace,
and light, are emotions which they do not recognise
and sentiments which are foreign to the frame of their
[mmds.
But if they are exempt from any trouble about the
sinfulness of their nature, or any self-i^proach for the
[imperfections of their service, are they thprpfore happy'
22
SEEMON II.
Happy ? Can men be happy wlio are not in a condition
to appreciate the Gospel, — who do not know the proper
meaning of its bringing good tidings of great joy, — who
are unacquainted with that joy and peace in believing,
which are founded upon a true reception of Christ and
His salvation, — who read without any experimental
response in their own bosoms to the force and interest of
the words, such passages as, " Look how high the heaven
is in comparison of the earth, so great is His mercy also
toward them that fear Him : look how wide also the east
is from the west, so far hath He set our sins from us 1 "
Happy ? no ! happiness is not, cannot be their portion
here or hereafter. They have built their whole fabric
with untempered mortar ; it will fall in the storm, and
great and sad will be the fall thereo£
The real wants of the soul of man before God appear
often in the awakened consciousness, the lively recog-
nition of those wants, which take, in default of better
guidance, a blind direction, and prompt a recourse to
the miserable devices of human superstition. It would
be easy to bring examples (and examples of the most
shocking description), from the records of Paganism, of
effects proceeding from an unappeasable remorse for
particular crimes, or from a pervading gloomy terror
of an exacting justice above us, or from the delirious
imagination of purchasing peace and privilege by self-
inflicted tortures or voluntary death. The voice of
bewildered nature testifies, in all these instances, to the
inherent want of expiation for sin. But it may be
useful to look for examples in Christian communities,
THE JUDGMENT OF MAN. ^
23
where the faith of the Cross has been obscured by the
additions of men ; and there are two which here offer
themselves very similar to each other, and both suffi-
ciently striking in their character. The first is that of
H^nault, a popular French poet, of a licentious and
irreligious vein, in the seventeenth century, who, be^
coming alarmed at the approaches of dissolution, wanted,
if the confessor had not, in this instance, been wise
enough to prevent it, to receive the viaticum or sacra-
ment with a halter about his neck, upon the floor of
his bed-chamber. The other is that of Lulli, a cele-
brated musician and composer of operas, the cotemporary
and countryman of H^nault, who, under the expectation
of death, consented, upon the demand of his spiritual
adviser, to burn the last of his compositions ; but the
appearance of danger passing off, declared jestingly that
he had taken care to preserve a copy ; and then relaps-
ing and being actually upon his death-bed, sufi'ered the
utmost pangs of remorse, and submitted, it is said in
the narrative to which I refer, to be laid upon a heap
of ashes, with a cord about his neck. In this situation,
it is added, he expressed a deep sense of his late trans-
gression, and being replaced in his bed, he, farther to
expiate his offence (observe that expression, my brethren),
sung to an air of his own composing, the following
words, "You must die, sinner; you must die." The
want which was felt by these unhappy men was the
same which was felt by the thief upon the cross, when,
not trusting to the expiatory effect of his own disgrace
and sufferings, but looking in true penitence and faith
'■I
t
24
SERMON II.
to the only quarter in which relief could be found, he
received the assurance from the lips of his Lord, " To-
day shalt thou be with Me in paradise."
The thief had no opportunity granted of evincing the
genuineness of his faith and repentance by a reformed
life. Had his life been prolonged, as is pointed out,
after one of the fathers, in our own Homilies, this proof
must have been afforded, or his hope would have been
forfeit, — and in all correct apprehension whatever of
an established state of grace before God, that conscious
rectitude of principle, and that careful fulfilment of duty
which the Apostle asserts for himself, must combine
with the sense of peace and reconciliation through Christ
and with the reposing of our cause in His hands alone.
Who is " able to keep that which we commit to Him
against that day." Men are apt most dangerously to
separate what ought to be thus combined, and they do
so in different ways. One will be found appealing to
his honourable conduct and correct moral deportment,
which supersede in his own self-deceiving estimate the
necessity of his coming as a helpless and undone sinner
before God ; another will be profuse in disclaimers of
his own righteousness, and affirm for himself an ab-
solutely and sensibly assured interest in the merits of
the blessed Redeemer, while he is so deplorably defec-
tive in some plain and common duties, as to prove, after
all, his rottenness of faith.
As a practical inference from the fallacy of human
judgment, whether having ourselves or other men for
its object, the Apostle, with reference to the latter case,
THE JUDGMENT OP MAN.
25
gives us the charge, "Therefore judge nothing before
the time, until the Lord -come, Who both will bring to
light the hidden things of darkness, and will make
manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall
every man have praise of God."
It is hardly necessaiy to point out those limitations
with which the charge must be understood, to judge
nothing before the time, until the Lord come. Men
are called upon officially to investigate, to pronounce
upon the conduct of others, and to deal with them
accordingly. And, in ordinary life, we witness familiar
exemplifications of what the Apostle tells us, that " some
men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment."
These are evidently cases which do not fall within the
prohibition of the text; but even in these we should
exercise a spirit of charity and allowance, a spirit which
rejoiceth not in iniquity. And in all that immense range
which is taken by our judgments, extending itself over the
diversified field of religion, politics, common transactions
of the day, common social intercourse, mutual relations
in lifo,--we should carry about with us the spirit of
charitable construction, which " hopeth all things, and
believeth all things." We should, in this point, as in
others, equip ourselves for travelling through this thorny
world, by "having our feet shod with the preparation of
the Gospel of peace." We should remember that we are
the disciples of One Whose own characteristic it was,
that He did " not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither
reprove after the hearing of His ears;" and Whose injunc-
tions are in our hands, "Judge not, that ye be not
^•••■»T^v^P~«^»i*;* fi«Jii«»4t-.',
( i
]!
26
SERMON II.
li'l
il
i
I'
judged ; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned ;"
and again, " Judge not according to the appearance, but
judge righteous judgment." Appearance how often de-
ceitful, and injuriously deceitful, yet how often, in a
manner, greedily laid hold of, to gratify the malice or to
ftirnish food for the mere gossip of the world ! How
often are false impressions thus propagated abroad, to
the prejudice of our fellow-creatures, left perhaps for
ever uncorrected in this world ; or like the formal pro-
ceedings of some foreign tribunals, in times which have
gone by,* corrected by a tardy justice rendered to the
memory of those who suffered all their lives under mis-
representation. And in how many ways do men mis-
judge each other ! how unadvisedly, how rashly, do they
pronounce by tests established within their own party,
upon the spiritual state and safety of their brethren !
" Thinkest thou," says our Apostle in addressing the
Romans, " thou that judgest another, thinkest thou that
thou shalt escape the judgment of God?" "Judge
nothing before the time," then, " until the Lord come."
Leave it to Him, in all cases which admit of doubt,
to " bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and to
make manifest the counsels of the heart." " For He
cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth." " But who
may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand
when He appeareth ? " think, then, brethren, upon your
own preparation ; look into your own hearts, consciences,
and lives ; forbear to judge other men, but in this sense do
* See the Causes c4Uhres. These reversals, however, were after the
infliction of death itself ; at least in many, if not all, of the cases.
THE JUDGMENT OF MAN.
27
judge yourselves, that ye be not judged of tlie Lord. If
you have fought a good fight, if you are in the way
rightly to finish your course, if you have kept the faith,
preserved unblemished the faith which looks to Christ!
and Christ alone for salvation, then judgment is nothing
terrible to you. Then you will be numbered among
those who, whatever may have been the judgment
passed upon them in the world, will have praise of God,
your poor services being accepted in the Beloved. Then
J m will love His appearing, and in and through Him
you will receive the crown of righteousness, and enter
upon the "inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled, and
that fadeth not jiwtiy,"
n
;ui;
I 1:
SERMON III.
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH.
Isaiah XXI. 11, 12.
The burden of Duinah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman,
what of the night ? Watchman, what of the night 1
The Watchman said, The morning cmneth, and also the night: if ye
will enquire, enquire ye : return, come.
The prophetic denunciation of heavy judgments from
the hand of God is familiarly called in Scripture a lurden
—as when Jehu, the appointed instrument of executing
the divine purpose against the house of Ahab, having
shot King Jehoram, commands Bidkar, his captain, to
take him up and cast him in the portion of the field of
Naboth, the Jezreelite. For remember, he adds, " liow
that when I and thou rode together after Ahab his
father, the Lord laid this Urden upon him,"— namely,
that the blood of Naboth should be requited in this
plat. And thus in the continuous utterance of prophecy
after prophecy, against many cities and countries, we have
as the introductory title in the several cases, the hurden
of Moab, the hurden of Damascus,' the hurden of Egypt,
the hurden of the VaUey of Vision, i.e. of Jerusalem, the
scene of many visions, occupying a valley among the
mountains, and the hurden of other places. In the
midst of this catalogue stands the hurden of Dumali,—
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH.
29
manifestly the same place, in such variation of the word
as constantly occurs in proper names, as Idumca or
Edom, the seat of the posterity of Esau, since the voice
of enquiry is immediately said to proceed from the
mountains of Seir, where Esau himself had planted the
race. " He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what
of the night ? Watchman, what of the night ? " •
The watchman set upon the tower to report the
motions of the enemy, and to sound an alarm upon the
approach of danger, represents here, as in other places,
the messenger of God commissioned to warn a thought-
less and guilty world. The Edomites, involved in
gloomy circumstances, and not knowing what mischiefs
may be coming upon them in the darkness of the
future— or, as others explain it, referring scornfully to
the situation and prospects of the people of God, to
whom they stood in the relation of hereditary enemies,
—are pictured as enquiring from the watchman the
news of the night. To this enquiry the answer is
made, " The morning cometh and also the night : if ye
will enquire, enquire ye : return, come,"— words which
may be understood in some such way as this : you seem
to be full of anxious curiosity in the night, and you
are looking for morning ; the morning will come, and
another night will follow ; but both may be alike charged
with perils ; if you are sincere in seeking instruction,
and seek it in order to being guided by it, returii to the
God of Israel, Whom you have deserted, and coine to the
fountain of hope and mercy; or thus. Come again* if
* Old translation.
30
SERMON III.
i,
II
H
i (
^ li
you now enquire in a proper and humble spirit, and you
shall then have a favourable answer. \
This is perhaps as correct an explanation as we are
able to give of the original meaning of a passage which
is not without its obscurity. Let us now consider it in
that allowable adaptation of which it is susceptible to
our own case and the general case of mankind, and see
whether it will not suggest some train of thought which
is appropriate to the present season of the ecclesiastical
year, in which we are specially reminded to seek the
grace of God, that we may cast away the works of
darkness, and put upon us the armour of light.
"We who stand at the altar and occupy the pulpit are,
without any pretensions to the prophetic character, in
the Scriptural language of our own Ordination Service,
the messengers, stewards, and watchmen of the Lord.
And we hold our station in a world which by nature
lieth in darkness and the shadow of death. The morn-
ing Cometh. We descry and we proclaim Him Who, in
His own words, is the bright and morning star, and the
light of the world ; Who is also described as the Sun of
Eighteousness Who arises with healing in His wings
radiant with open mercy and wide-spread love, and at
once sheltering and vivifying a sickened world. Men
want to know something about God and the world
unseen. They must have a religion of some sort, and
false religions, we know, have been invented for them,
without end, to meet this innate desire. They grope
about for some assurance ; they catch at what can be
gathered from others, in the dimness and incertitude
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH.
31
with which they are surrounded ; they ask the watch-
man, whoever he may be, or howevet accredited, what
of the night ? what of the night ? But alas ! if the
true light be brought fairly to shine upon them, which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world, how
often is it seen that they love darkness rather' than
light, because their deeds are evil ! how gladly they run
again under the refuge of error and the veil of the cover-
ing cast over the surface of all things, and conceaHng
their true features ! " For whatsoever doth make mani-
fest is light," and the Gospel of salvation, beaming as
It does with goodness and mercy, makes most painfully
manifest, in order to our appreciation and acceptance of
Its remedies and blessings, the character of the world,
the case of human nature before God, and the state of
the human heart. It pours into every crook and every
corner its strong and searching rays, and discloses the
bias to evil which lurks in endless shapes in the bosom
of man, and the long accumulation of errors and devia-
tions which stamp their character upon his life. It
detects all the subtle disguises of self-love, and unravels
the complicated intricacies of sin. It sets in view what
men ought to be, in broad and undeniable contrast with
what they are. It shows them that their first duty is
to honour their Father which is in Heaven, to do His
will upon earth, to walk in His ways, to live, since He
graciously invites them to do so, in His company, and
to acquaint themselves more and more with His love •
and It convinces them of the averseness of their hearts
trom all this ; the ingratitude, the coldness, the obdu-
il! !•
I
ill
lit I
i
32
SERMON III.
racy, the undutifulness, the direct, flagrant, repeated
disobedience of which they have been guilty towards
Him ; their proneness to lose sight of their responsi-
bilities here and "of their destiny hereafter — their un-
prepared condition to meet the questions which He
puts to them : " If I be a father, where is mine honour ?
If I be a master, where is my fear?" It exposes the
real hideousness and horror of vices and excesses and
acts of profaneness at which the world is but too ready
to connive ; the vanity and littleness and utter frivolity
of objects upon which the foolish heart of man is
eagerly set, or with which his mental capacities are filled
even to distention. It indicates the base immersion
of souls formed for the hope of immortality, in the
cares and the riches and the pleasures of this perishable
life ; the waste of existence, the unprofitable service,
the hiding of the talent, the prostitution, to other ends,
of precious gifts bestowed to promote the glory of God
and the good of mankind ; the degenerate abandonment
either to indolent self-indulgence or to a restless activity
in worldly pleasures, of beings who, redeemed by the
blood of Christ, ought to present their bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is their reason-
able service. It betrays to the sight, in their proper
malignity, the nest of vipers which poison the vitals of
the moral part,— the dark, the impure, and the violent
passions of nature in all their several exemplifications.
It shows the identity of indulged sin in the heart, and
sin tangibly developed in the outward act ; it exhibits
the fallacies which men put upon themselves, the
Ml
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH.
hollowness of their excuses for the neglect of duty,
their vain and destructive self-complacency, their false
self-attribution of goodness in actions prompted by
motives of an earthly cast, the worthlessness and
hypocrisy of all their professions and all their doings
in religion itself, if actuated by a spirit of strife and
vain-glory, or unaccompanied by a Christian temper
and a conscientious discharge of common, and perhaps
uninviting duties. It presents man, in short, as wretched
and miserable and poor and blind and naked— wanting
mercy, and wanting all—having neither hope nor re-
source in himself; so constituted within and so acted
upon from without, as constantly to require the exercise
of watchfulness and self-denial, and force put upon his
nature in order to his preserving the way of happiness
and safety even for this present life ; and yet without
strength of his own to resist the impulse of appetite
and passion, or the seductions which lie as snares in his
path. All this the light of the Gospel will discover,
and thence it is unwelcome to corrupted nature ; it is
coupled with great humiliation of soul; it implies the
sacrifice of what men naturally love, and it carries
alarms to their bosoms in the height of the good, easy
condition in which, for anything that they are aware of,
they may perfectly well allow themselves to rest. Light,
therefore, they do not like, for they do not want to be
disturbed ; and the compensations, the comforts of the
Gospel, the abundance of its blessings, the fitness of its
provisions for the case of human nature, the fulness of
^ its love, the glory of its hopes, these they scarcely look
34
SERMON in.
at, "bccaiiso the feature of the systeiri which catclies
their attention is that they must take up their cross.
"But let us sot the words which wo have been con-;
sidering in anotlicr point of view. " The morninjf cometh,
and also the night." The niorn'r ^ !ito opens freshly
and fairly to many among us. ao not anticipate
the clouds and changes which may he at hand, and, in
this stage of. our existence, we are not apt to think of
its 7won or its decline. Far less do we generally think
of the niyht. But the night cometh — the night when
no man can work ; and in every stage of our existence,
after we have once reached the power of thought, we
ought to think of this. Our day upon earth is passing
very fast ; the day of hundreds whom we have known
familiarly in life, has been brought to its close before
our eyes ; they have disappeared in darkness, their bed
is the grave, they sleep the sleep of death, their place is.
nowhere found among living men. Have we, then, my
my brethren, any patent of exemption from the same
summons, any privilege of survivorship to be pro-
longed at our own pleasure, that we seem, in so many
examples, to be living for this world, as if in an
assured perpetuity of enjoyment, and looking for nothing
beyond? sailing on with all security of feeling and
carelessness of pride upon the ocean of life —
■ V
" Regardless of the sweeping whirl wind's sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey " ?
I!
^1 I
How many professed Christians do we see — men who,
in virtue of that profession, are called upon to redeem;
!>»>
THE BURDEN OP DUMAH.
85
the time because the days are evii,--either getting rid
of what, it seems, are the superfluities of their time in a
lounging kind of existence, by expedients which serve
to beguile them of the way, or scheming with all the
stretch of their understandings, and toiling with all the
devotedness of their hearts," and strivihg with all the
energies which God has confei-red upon them, in the
traffic, the tumults, and the competitions of the world ;
not utterly neglectful of religious performance, not
setting at nought the decorum of moral observance, nor
refusing some measure of aid in objects of charity, but
failing to be rich towards God ; laying up no treasure in
heaven ; recognising no such principles, in affection or in
practice, although they do not repudiate them in theory,
as that the life which we live in the flesh we should
live by the faith of the Son of God; and that He
having died for all, we who live again through that
death, ought not henceforth to live unto ourselves, but
unto Him that died for us and rose again.
My brethren, let us learn what we are here for, and
what we have to do. Let us, in imitation of our Divine
Master, work the works of Him that sent us into the'
world while it is day, and remember that " there is no'
work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the'
grave whither" we are going. "And if ye wiU enquire,
enquire ye." I do not now advert to the case of scep-
ticism : if men have doubts as to the truth of our holy
reHgion, and make that a subject of enquiry, let them
enquire. We invite them to do so, and will give them,'
upon due occasion, all the help of which God may
d2
•'J
r
96
SERMON in.
pennit us to be the instruments. But, passing by this
case, if your attention is arrested, if your curiosity is
excited, if your interest is awakened in any way upon
the subject of religion — if you think it a duty to attend
upon the instruction of her ministers, do not stop there ;
follow up the movement to better purpose; think of
your own souls ; enquire ye into their state before God ;
examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith ; prove
your own selves. Did Christ die for you ? Is it so, or
is it not ? Enquire into that. If it is so, is that a
reality to be left lying, as it were, in the lumber-room
of our memories, while all the occupied chambers of
thought and feeling are filled with the comparative
nothings of this world ; and all the stir and movement
within us have no reference whatever to Him Who suf-
fered on the cross, no glance at the cause and the object
of "^ose sufferings ? Can we be safe ? Can we hope to
Tdc happy in the end, if, with the knowledge of such
facts before us as those whidh are recorded in the
Gospel, and of all the consequences dependent upon
those facts, as well as the exigency on the part of men
wMch led the way to them, we o^main unmoved and
ninconcerned, affected in no different manner, prompted
to no different course of action, from what might have
%een^8een in us if \we had never heard of a Saviour at
all, and the need of a Savicmr had never once been
suggested tto our minds ?
" If ye wai*enquire," then," enquire ye : return, come."
" Return, thou l)a(Sksliding Israel, saith the Lord ; and I
will not cause Mine anger ix) fall upon you : for I am
III
THE LJEDEN OF DUMAH.
87
merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for
ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast
transgressed against the Lord thy God." Will you deny
this ? Put aside man and the opinions of man, and the
countenance, the example, the influence of man ; the
habits of thinking among men ; cease from man whose
breath is in his nostrils ; bring yourself into contact
with the aU-holy God. Will you deny that you have
sinned against Him ? will you say that you do not want
to be forgiven? Oh ! rather you will say, if you can
see yourself as you are, that you have sinned, you have
done amiss, you have dealt wickedly ; that your sins
are more in number than the hairs of your head ; that
they have taken such hold upon you^ that you are not
able to look up, and that your heart hath failed you ;
rather you will smite upon your breast, without daring
so much as to lift up your eyes unto heaven, and will
say, God be merciful to me a sinner 1 And then the
promises of grace and mercy are your own. Then,
when you arise and go un>to your Father, and say unto
Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son,
your face being turned homeward once more. He sees
you while you are yet a great way off, and He opens
His arms to clasp you to the bosom of fatherly for-
giveness and love. " Israel, return unto the Lord thy
God ; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity I will
heal their backsliding : I wiU love them freely." "Eeturn,
come." " Beturn unto the Lord, and He wiU have mercy
upon" you, "and to our God, for He wiU abundantly
I if
H '.
•38
SEBMON III.
pardon." " Come, for all things are now ready." " Come
unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest." "The Spirit and the bride say,
Comey The Lord invites you by the inspiration of His
"Word and the influences of His grace ; and the Church,
by His command, echoes the invitation. " And let him
that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely."
' t
SERMON IV.
THE UNPRODUCTIVE VINEYARD.
Isaiah v. 1.
Now vjill I sing to My Well-beloved a song of my Beloved to^iching His
; vineyard.
There are very many passages in the Old and New
Testaments, in which the responsibility both of indi-
viduals and of communities, in proportion to the advan-
tages bestowed upon them, is pictured, in warning
representations, before our eyes, and often under familiar
imagery like that of our text. As, for example, where
the unfruitful fig-tree is condemned to excision, but the
stroke is stayed at the plea of the vine-dresser till yet a
farther trial, with farther care and culture, shall have
been afforded, — the limit, however, of one more year
being fixed, after which, in the event of making no
return, it is to be abandoned to the sentence of destruc-
tion without reprieve. Again, where the whole niation
of the Jews, with their teachers in religion at their
head, are figured forth, in their treatment of the pro-
phets and wise men sent successively among them, and,
finally, of the Son of God Himself, as the husbandmen
to whom the vineyard was let out, the distant lord
of that property, deputing His messengers one after
another, and closing the list with His only and well-
beloved Sou, in order to demand an account of the
I.
I,
I
UJ
40
SEEMON IV.
l> I
I
fruit. The conduct of these husbandmen, and the doom
pronounced against them, cannot fail to be familiarly
remembered. The parable came very home to the
hearers of Christ, and He appears to have spoken it
not without reference to that which the prophet had
addressed, in an age then long gone by, to their fore-
fathers : " Now will I sing to My Well-beloved a song of
My Beloved touching His vineyard." Christ is the Well-
beloved of His Father ; Christ is the Well-beloved of His
spouse the Church, when she is faithful to her obliga-
tions. It is the Jewish Church which is here repre-
sented as the vineyard. The signal advantages enjoyed
by that Church are thus portrayed : —
" My Well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful
hili : and He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof,
and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower
in the midst of it" (as a residence for the keepers),
" and also made a winepress therein." All needful pro-
vision was fully made, and all wise precaution was
carefully taken. God had fixed His earthly seat upon
the hOl of Zion, and called the surrounding country His
own ; He had fenced off His chosen people from a cor-
rupted world by a law from heaven, by statutes and
ordinances, and by miraculous protection openly and
gloriously displayed in their behalf: He had removed
the obstructions which stood in their way from contact
with idolaters ; He had planted the vine among them
which was designed to be incorporated with Christ
Himself, the vine transplanted from heaven ; He had
made Jerusalem a place of strength and of glory, mani-
THE UNPEODUCTIVE VINEYARD,
41
Testing His presence by visible symbols in the temple,
and had furnished all the apparatus required for dis-
pensing, in the richest overflow, the blessings of His
covenant to the people. To them " pertained the adop-
tion and the glory and the covenants and the giving of
the law, and the service of God and the promises." The
advantage of the Jew and the profit of circumcision
were " much every way : chiefly, because that unto them
were committed the oracles of God."
The Lord, therefore, looked, — and it was surely very
natural and reasonable that He should do so, — that the
vineyard should bring forth grapes. But it produced
nothing but wild and worthless fruit. He then, in His
supreme condescension, — as in other instances, and par-
ticularly where He says, through the prophet Micah,
that He will plead with Israel, and asks of His people
what He has done unto them, and wherein He has
wearied them, — puts the case to themselves : "And now,
inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I
pray you, betwixt Me and My vin^^yard. What could
have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not
done in it ? " There is no answer to this appeal. Every
mouth is stopped before God. He is justified in His
saying, and clear when He is judged. And there-
fore His righteous wrath must have its course. T^
example must be shown that a wicked abuse of mercies
and blessings cannot go unpunished. " And now go to ;
1 will tell you what I will do to My vineyard : I will
take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up ;
and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden
If'
42
SERMON rV.
down. And I will lay it waste : it shall not "be pruned
nor digged ; but there shall come up briers and thorns :
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain
-upon it." How literally, in some particulars, this sentence
against the vineyard was executed in successive judg-
ments upon the city and territory of Jerusalem ; how, in
the figurative aspect of the description, she has remained
since her last overthrow, century after century, trodden
down of the Gentiles, and the showers of the Divine grace
and blessing have been withheld from the hardened soil
of her people's hearts, — these are things which it needs
not to point out. God only take compassion upon her
in His appointed time, and give her abundantly beauty
for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, when the
times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled !
In the meantime, let us apply the lesson to ourselves.
Has God done less for us than He diu, under the old
dispensation, for the Jews ? Can we indicate any defi-
ciency, complain of any hardship, point out anything
more which might have been done for the vineyard now,
which He has not done unto it ? Has He not given for
us His only-begotten Son ? Has He not promised the
succours of His Divine Spirit ? Has He not engaged to
give a new heart to the house of Israel, and to write His
law with His own finger in their minds ? Has He not
rained upon them freely, on all sides, the manna of His
holy word ? Has He not furnished directions to find the
way of life, which he may run that readeth? Has He
not acted by glorious prospects upon human hope, by
awful yet affectionate warnings upon human fear, by
1 1 ■'
THE UNPRODUCTIVE VINEYARD.
-a:3
'immeasurable goodness upon liuman love? Has He
not fenced the vineyard, and built the tower, and made
the wine-press therein — a ministry being provided in
perpetuity, a Church founded immovably upon a rock,
sacraments appointed and ordinances established ; so
that all is complete and ready " for the perfecting of the
saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ ? " And has He not, in our own parti-
cular case (let us speak it not boastingly, but trem-
blingly), most eminently blessed the English Church
and nation, — calling us out from a state of darkness
And religious corruption ; preserving to us, at the same
time, the ancient model of church government, the pri-
mitive usages of worship, and the transmitted line of the
ministry from the beginning? — raising up for us, also,
holy champions of the faith, who, " for the testimony of
Jesus, loved not their lives unto the death," with a long
catalogue of doctors, pastors, and teachers, not surpassed
among uninspired men ? — farther still, making our
country, crowned as she is by a commanding influence,
and armed with seemingly inexhaustible Resources, the
steward, in a manner, for the world, of that light,
liberty, and still advancing civilization, for which she
is herself so conspicuously distinguished ? What more
could have been done for the vineyard which the Lord
has not done unto it ? Testify against Him, if you have
any grievance, any omission to represent.
My bretliren, if all these blessings have been made
ours, let us, individually and collectively, remember the
principle, that " unto whomsoever much is given, of him
f
i
' 1!
ii
U
SERMON IV.
I '>
shall be much required." We are answerable before God
for tlie full improvement of our privileges. We must
render the due return of fruit, or we must expect the
sontcnco which impends over unfruitfulness. But, in
order to come rather more closely and familiarly to
the point, let us select for our consideration, by way of
example, some of the principal sins and deficiencies
which, after his song touching the vineyard, are charged
by the prophet upon the Jews ; and wherever we find
any approximation, any tendency to these or similar
sins among ourselves, there let us seriously, deeply,
earnestly bewail our own sinfulness, and, by God's own
gracious help, forsake our evil habits, and thoroughly
amend our ways and our doings. Let us turn unto the
Lord, that He may have mercy upon us, and to our God,
that He may abundantly pardon.
The first wee which is denounced in the chapter under
consideration is against a grasping avarice and selfish
spirit of aggrandizement, labouring intently in the accu-
mulation of property. It is powerfully expressed in the
language of amplification. " Woe unto them that join
house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place,
that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth ! "
Now, in a country and in a community like this in
which our lot is cast, where men gifted with enterprise,
sagacity, and perseverance have many facilities for
pushing their way in the world, and most men, in enter-
ing upon life, have their own fortunes to make, there
are snares spread in this manner for the soul. There
is danger that, in such circumstances as these, a sue-
THE UNPBODUCnVE VINEYARD.
45
cessful industry, a watchful attention to business, a
practised eye for advantageous speculation, will so com-
plicate the web of worldly affairs, and so absorb the
attention and energy and attention of the mind, as to
leave neither interval nor activity of spirit for the ser-
vice of God. The world, it is too often found, has
drunk up the cup— the dregs only are left for Heaven.
Yet the man has an immortal soul: his stake is in
eternity, forgotten eternity ; death will soon cut short
his earthly calculations : after death he has ah account
to render and a judgment to abide : salvation or per-
dition must be his portion for ever : salvation it cannot
be, if he has not lived for God upon earth: hope cannot
be in his end nor happiness beyond it, if he has over-
looked his high destiny ; if he has not been awakened to
a care for his everlasting interests ; if he has not loved
the Saviour Who died for him ; if he has never demeaned
himself, never even regarded himself as a child of God j
or if he has not used the good things of life as a trust
which he is responsible above; if, with means put
into his hands of doing good in his generation, he has
failed to be fruitful in good works. It is not necessary
to suppose that he has been guilty of direct fraud or
oppression, or even that he has found it convenient, in
the traffic of the world, to discard some nicer scruples
of a conscientious integrity, and quietly to take some
advantages which may be varnished over by smoother
names than they deserve, or to practise some petty
deceptions not unusual, and therefore apt to be con-
sidered not illicit. Neither is it necessary to suppose
Vf
m
SERMON IV,
ill
that he has so openly, as well as so devotedly, idolized-
Mammon as to have renomiced all decent attention to
the stated external duties of religion, or shaken off all
thought of religion within the privacy of his own
breast. Neither is it necessary to suppose that he has
hoarded up his gains with a penurious hand and brooded
over them with a miserly jealousy in the dark : his
maxim may rather have been that of the rich man
in the Gospel, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up
for many years : take thine ease ; eat, drink, and be
merry."
Such cases as we have here successively specified,
although they may very well occur, are what it is not
necessary to suppose. It is enough to ask such ques-
tions as these : — Where is his heart ? Where is his
treasure truly laid up ? What is his habitual prepara-;
tion to meet the face of God ? his actual readiness to
answer the summons, if it should come, "This night
thy soul shall be required of thee;" his willingness
and fitness of heart to say with the holy Psalmist,
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with me " ?
The danger of striving and toiling for earthly gain, to
the neglect of the one thing needful for man — of serving
the world instead of serving God, is a danger by no
means confinied to those w^ho live already in some^
measure of affluence, and can indulge in the exhibition
of some worldly style. The sons of industry occupy-
ing the lower walks of life, who avail themselves of the
openings of a new count y to rise, step after step, abovQ
THE UNPRODUCTIVE VINEYAED.
47
their original condition, and to whom prospects more
extended still develop themselves as they rise, — such
persons, although their exertions, favourably contrasted,
in many instances, with the drone-like self-indulgence
of inherited wealth and station, ought not certainly to
be repressed, nor their desire for the improvement of
their circumstances to be discouraged, — such persons
are as liable as any to incur the danger of being en-
grossed by the world. The prophet, in his denunciation"
of judgments, declares in one part of the chapter, that:
" the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty
man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be
humbled/' And so, on the other hand, there is a class of
sins of which the coarser and more revolting exhibitions^
to be witnessed among the lowest orders of society,
might prompt us to fancy that there is nothing in
common with them, in this point, in those circles which:
make any pretension to respectability and refinement ;"
" Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that
they may follow strong drink ; that continue until night,
till wine inflame them." This is not a description of the
modern habits of polite society, and, whatever we may
be inclined to think of the safe and durable operation of-
schemes for a great moral renovation among mankind
which are based upon a pledge givren to man by those;
who disregard their anterior pledges to God, it is at;
least certain, and we may be thankful to witness it, that-
in the inferior gradations of life, some present and par-:
tial check, sufficiently marked, has been put upon,
habits of intemperance. Yet enough of them in hideous
SESMON IV.
|.r|
shapes remains. And let all who indulge in them
remember that no drunkard shall " inherit the kingdom
of God." But, that we may not lose sight of those who,
from their position in society, are less in danger of low
excesses and who duly observe the restraints of pro-
priety, let us follow the prophet to the end of his woe :
" Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that
they may follow strong drink ; that continue until night,
till wine inflame them ! And the harp, and the viol,
the tabret, and pipe, and wine are in their feasts : but
they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider
the operation of His hands."
Now we know very well, from the highest possible
examples and authorities in the word of God, that
neither wine, nor cheerful music, nor attendance at the
festive table, is a thing sinful in itself. But, this being
understood, are there no instances in which such liberty
is too largely taken or too manifestly abused ? Are uhere
none among the children of fashion, among the votaries
of gaiety, far removed either from the scenes of vulgar
nproar and disgusting excess, or from any destructive
habit of recourse privately and, as it were, in the dark,
to the stimulants of strong drink, to whom the latter
part of the prophetic description will apply ? Look at
the correct, the respectable company of this world : are
there none who, living in plenty, in elegance, in varied
pleasure, and in studied amusement from day to day,
shut out all homefelt thought of their God and shun
all devout and spiritual contemplation — ^listless in every
performance of religion — strangers to repentance —
THE UNPRODUCTIVE VINEYARD.
49
stupid in faith — and aliens in heart from the cross of
Jesus Christ ?
Let them be warned, for woe has gone out against
them from God.
Woe is denounced also against them " that draw
iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with
a cart-rope," twining together, as it were, their fabric
of fallacies which they have spun out to strengthen
themselves in their wickedness, and saying, in the
words which follow, "Let Him make speed and hasten
His work that we may see it, and let the counsel of the
Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may
know it." These are infatuated beings of the same
stamp spoken of by King Solomon, " Because sentence
against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore
the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do
evil ; " and akin to the scoffers of the last days described by
St. Peter as " walking after their own lusts, and saying,
"Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation." And are there no scoffers
now ? Are there none who make light of that glorious
truth of God which is described as a voice shaking the
heavens and the earth ? Are there none who are regard-
less of judgment, and if they think of it at all, think of
it as something so far off that they need not much con-
cern themselves about it now, abusing the long sufferance
of their God and treasuring up unto themselves wrath
against the day of wrath, and revelation of that righteous
judgment to come ? Or are there none now who draw
'/•»i
50
SERMON IV.
n
EflMRt
iniquity with cords of vanity — who cloak their sins by
a delusive sophistry, and fortify their evil practice by a
recourse to maxims accommodated to their wishes —
farther and more fully characterized, under a separate
denunciation of woe, as those " who call evil good, and
good evil, who put darkness for light, and light for dark-
ness, who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter"? Alas !
v/hat a familiar artifice of the world, and how powerful
a speF. in the hands of the enemy of souls, is this
method of falsely colouring the actions of men, and
inverting the true notions of unchangeable right and
wrong ! Holiness is accounted hypocrisy — humility is
meanness of spirit — uncompromising honesty of prin-
ciple is needless and troublesome preciseness — revenge
is honourable — unyielding pride is spirit and dignity of
mind — a little profaneness, a little irregularity in morals,
a little extravagance without the means of supporting
it, a little indulgence in show and vanity and pleasure,
at the expanse of industrious tradesmen who live, and,
perhaps, struggle to give bread to their families, by sup-
plying the fancies of luxury ; — these are the pardonable
peccadilloes of a good-hearted man — they do not detract
from his bearing or his standing as a gentleman — they
are borne with, they are connived at by many decent
Christians of the world— and with some companions
he is rather graced by them than otherwise— nay,
with some, " whose glory is in their shame," they actually
constitute his special merit.
What is he in the eye of God ? and what is the effect
of these things upon the state and safety of his soul ? -
THE UNPRODUCTIVE VINEYARD. 51
FinaUy, woe is denounced against those who are
" wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own
sight."
A good deal might here be said respecting the dangers
incident to some of the very blessings, signal as they
. are, of the age in which we live : the great advance and
the more general diffusion of science, the immense pains
taken, and the prodigious facilities afforded for circu-
lating aU kinds of information through all kinds of
channels, among all kinds of people,— all these have a
tendency, if not counter-worked by a holy influence, to
engender a pride of intellect, hard and presumptuous' in
its character, in the leaders of the movement, as weU as
unwholesome and distempered conceit in the popular
mind. Waiving, however, this application of the words
(for it is time to pass to the high celebration which is
here this day prepared), let us simply consider them as
impressing upon us, generally, the necessity, the awful
and imperious necessity, of our coming with a humble
and teachable heart before our God. Let us learn, my
brethren, if we have not yet learned it, to "cast down
imaginations and every high thing which exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God," and to "receive
with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to
save " our souls. Let us become fools that we may
be wise : divest ourselves of a carping, captious, and
misleading philosophy, when we come to be taught
in the school of Christ. The wisdom which He imparts
is not "the wisdom of this world." The things which
e2
«9
SERMON rV'.
are hid from the wise and prudent are things which
the Father reveals, in all their fulness and reality,
to babes. "Except ye be converted, and become as
little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom
of Heaven."
1 1
ality,
le aa
jdom
SERMON V.
COMPLIANCE WITH ORDINANCES.*
Nahum I. 15.
^tlfX^'^// "''""'"".'' ''"^"^ '^""^ ^-^^Oethgood tidings,
thatjuhhshcthpeo^c. Judak, keep thy solemn feasts : perform thy
In ancient times of warfare, and in scenes then
occurring of trouble and dismay, the watchman was
stationed upon the mountains, commanding a view
perhaps, of some battle-field where host had closed with
host, and the fate of a nation was staked upon the
issue ; or simply keeping a look-out for any movement
affecting the public interest. From thence he despatched
his tidings in all haste, to those who waited for them
in anxious expectation, if not in trembling suspense.
And right welcome were the feet of the messengers who
brought the news of victory or rescue, or who could, at
last, promise a happy cessation of any galling ' ppres-
sions and harassing alarms.
The feet or steps of messengers upon the mountains
became hence, apparently, a sort of proverbial phrase,
to denote the transmission of intelligence ; and the'
particular news of comfort and joy to which reference
IS made in the text are conceived to have been the
destruction, by the angel of death,.of the vast army of
Sennacherib, in the days of king Hezekiah, consequent
* Preached on Christufas Day.
U;
64
SERMON V.
upon which was the deliverance of Jerusalem and her
people from a siege in which their case had appeared
desperate. In the terrors of this siege they had made
many vows before God, and these they are charged by
the prophet to remember. There is a closely similar
passage in the fifty-second chapter of the Prophet
Isaiah, referring, in its original application, to the
decree of Cyrus for ending the captivity in Babylon, re-
building the temple, and restoring the holy city, but
prospectively enveloping a far higher meaning. We see
it applied by St. Paul, in the tenth chapter of his epistle
to the Romans, to the proclamation of the Gospel abroad
over the world, by the heralds of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It cannot require to be pointed out that the opening
words of our text are susceptible of the same sacred ap-
plication, and that they harmonize in a very exact manner
with the object of this day's celebration in the Church.
They find their echo in the voice of the angels lifted in
chorus at the birth of our blessed Redeemer. " Behold,"
says the prophet, " behold upon the mountains the feet of
him that brinpfeth good tidings, that publisheth ^peace^
" And suddenly," says the evangelist, " there was with
the angel (the single angel who had made the announce-
ment to the shepherds of good tidings of great joy) a
multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and
saying. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will towards men."
We then who, unworthy as we are to be door-keepers
in the house of our' God, are the watchmen of Israel,
and the messengers upon the mountains, — we who carry
COMPLUNCE WITH 0RDi.^ANCE8. 55
the comiriission of Christ,~we bring good tidings, and
we publish peace. But to whom do we address our good
tidings ? to whom do we make these gracious overtures
on behalf of God ? To all, my brethren, who are reached
by our individually appointed ministrations. " Go ye into
all the world, and preach the Gospel (which word, as is
well known, is precisely equivalent to good tidings), to
every creaturer But do these tidinjxs, in effect, prove
good to all ? Alas ! no. They have not aU, as the
Apostle says to the Romans, in the use which he makes
of the passage from Isaiah, "they have not all obeyed
the Gospel." And whose fault is that? Was it the
fault of Christ that, when He came to His own. His own
received Him not ? Did He place them, or did He leave
them, under an inability to profit by the calls of
mercy? Let His own words testify :—« Ye will not
come to Me, that ye might have life." « Jeru-
salem, Jerusalem, thou that kiUest the prophets and
stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not !
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." And so of
peace : Christ makes our peace with God, He imparts
peace and joy in beUeving ; His Gospel breathes nothing
but peace and love ; His special bequest to His disciples
runs in the words, « Peace I leave with you, my peace
I give unto you ; not as the worid giveth, give I unto
you." Yet what is His own declaration respecting the
effects which He foresaw from the preaching of the
Gospel to a perverse, rebellious worid ? «* Suppose ye
66
SEEMON V.
that I am come to give peace on earth ? I tell you nay, ,
but rather dhdsion." It is a truth which has the air of
paradox, that the very condition in man which creates
the want of the Gospel, is that which prompts his re-
sistance of the Gospel. The corruption of his nature
demands that twofold exercise of grace which is found
in redemption by the blood of Christ, and renovation of
heart by the Divine Spirit : these are freely tendered,
but he clings to his corruption ; his sins are dear to
him ; his pride enlists itself on the same side ; the world
sees him her willing slave, although it is a slavery which
will sink him in perdition; the flesh draws him, a
yielding victim, to the indulgence of a false and deceit-
ful happiness which will be fatal to his soul ; and the
cross, which is his only cure, is what he repels from
him with impatience and distaste.
My brethren, what are we here for to-day ? We are
here to hail, with prostrate adoration and fervent thank-
fulness of heart, the Eedeemer Who came among us as
a lowly child. We are here to declare before God Him-
self and the world, our acceptance, our appropriation,
with deep humility, as well as with devout out-pourings
of gratitude, of the good tidings of great joy and the
proclamation of peace, witli which the arch of heaven
was made to ring at the birth of the Virgin's Child in
the stable. let it not be said— tell it not in Gath—
publish it not in the streets of Askelon— that too many
of us have neither part nor lot in tliis wonder of divine
love ! If we do not feel those wants of the human soul
before God which find their relief in Christ, and in
COMPLIANCE WITH ORDINANCES.
57
Christ alone, then what can we possibly have to do with
the joy of Christmas ? Let us think of our destiny,
let us look into our preparation, let us become sensible
of our own nakedness, let us have recourse to Christ
that He may cover us, let us practically learn what it
means to be justified by faith, and so to have ^^acc with
God by Jesus Christ— peace through the blood of His
cross ; it is then that we shall be fuUy qualified to Iccp
the solemn feast for which we are here met, and which
the Church has appointed as a help to our edification
and devotion.
" Judah, keep thy solemn feasts ; perform tliy vows."
This refers, of course, to the stated feasts or religious
festivals and other ordinances subsisting under the Law.
And, under the Gospel, it can only apply in its spirit,
and not according to the Jewish letter. Yet it is very
obviously and properly capable of adaptation to the
external institutions of the Christian religion, and to the
course of observances prescribed in any particular branch
of the Church.
The rites and ceremonies of the Law were designed
for one people and for a limited duration. They were
emblematical of better things to come, and were pre-
scribed with a minuteness, and tied down to an un-
deviating form of celebration, which did not suit the
expansive and, in the proper sense of the word, the
catholic character of the Gospel.
There must, however, under every system, be ordi-
nances and observances to constitute the marks and
badges of the worshippers of God, and the tokens of
58
SERMON V.
their covenant with Him ; to assist in maintaining and
perpetuating the sense of religion among mankind, and
to liold men together in faith and devotional homage
These ordinances and observances, in the day of
the Gospel, may be classed under three different
heads : —
First, those which are of distinct, express, and positive
imtitiUmi by the authority of God, as the two Sacra-
ments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Secondly, those which ai-e handed down to us by that
Apostolic tradition of which mention is made by St.
Paul, being so far noticed in Scripture, luithout positive
imtitution, as to satisfy us, when such notice is compared
with the early, universal, and continued practice of
Christians, that they were delivered down by the
Apostles of the Lord : and to this class we must assign
the observance of the first day of the week, in sub-
stitution for the last ; the admission of inftints as sub-
jects for the Sacrament of Baptism; and, we may
properly add, the practice of Confirmation, which the
Church, in the form of administration, declares to be
kept in use " after the example of the holy Apostles."
Thirdly, those wliich are based purely upon eccle-
siastical authority, and are described in the thirtv-
fourth of our own Articles of Eeligion as the traditions
and ceremonies of the Church ; and these, as is there
shown, are susceptible of change and of local variety.
They must be taken to comprehend the particular manner
of celebration (in points which are not of the essence
of the ordinance), and the mere circumstantial appen-
COMPLIANCE WITH ORDINANCES.
59
dages belonging to those observances which faU under
the two former heads.
Among the ordinances thus classified, there are some
Christians, as the Quakers or Society of Friends, who
repudiate the two sacraments; a very few as for
example, the Seventh-day Baptists, reject the observance
of the first day of the week ; the Baptists at large, or, as
they are more distinguishmgly described, the Anti-pa3do-
Baptists {i.e. the opposers of the baptism of children^
withhold baptism from infants; and some few of the
reformed National Churches, together with all the sects
of dissenters (though not, as I have seen occasion at
different times to notice, without confessions here and
there, in strong language, of an error in having done so),
have dropped the rite of Confirmation.
With these exceptions, the ordinances which we have
ranged under the two first heads are received univer-
sally among professed Christians, including the un-
reformed portion of the Church, in which it is weU
known that additions have been made to the number
of the sacraments, as also that obs( /ances which rest
simply upon ecclesiastical authority, and too many of
which are irreconcUeable with the Word of God, are
placed upon a level with divine institutions.
Eespecting these merely ecclesiastical regulations and
appointments, it is sufficiently agreed, at least among
all the more enlightened followers of the Eeformation,
that (so far as essential principle is involved) they are
left freely to the discretion of public authority in the
Church in this or that country, with no other restrictions
60
SERMON V.
f;
than that nothing be admitted which is contrary to
God's Word, that " all things be done decently and in
order," and that every rule and observance be framed in
a manner subservient to edification, as well as to the
due preservation of reverence in the solemnities of
worship. It is only by a combination of the extremes
of fanaticism and ignorance, that men can be led to
suppose everything to be unlawful in the exterior
appointments of public worship which is not laid down
in so many words in the Gospel ; and, in truth, as there
is nothing laid down there at all upon the subject, the
effect of such a principle, consistently carried out, would
be to put an end to public worship altogether.
It is the part of wisdom, also, to pay much respectful
regard, in these matters, to the ascertained usage of pure
ecclesiastical antiquity, as well as to a-void giving any
needless shock to national customs and hereditary asso-
ciations or attachments. There are customs, usages,
and conventional demonstrations by exterior signs, im-
memoriaUy and uninterruptedly associated in the Chris-
tian Church with devotional sentiment and feeling,
which are of affinity with the proceeding of that
multitude who strewed the road of the Saviour with
branches and spread their garments in His way, or
with other exterior manifestations of affection and
reverence * r His person, which we will not stay now
to particularize, but which we know to have found
acceptance in His sight. And we should do undeniable
prejudice to the character and tone of our religion if
Wf were to lop away, with an unsparing sternness, every
COMPLIAl^CE WITH ORDINANCES. 61
ancient observance which may be open to the cavils of
utilitarian criticism.
In the train of our subject, as suggested by the text,
it is to the ecclesiastical appointment of certain com-
memorative days or seasons that our attention is more
particularly directed. And here we will say at once,
that we do not judge another man's servant. The days
which we thus regard, we regard, as we trust, unto the
Lord ; if there are others who do not regard them, we
believe that, in the omission of that regard, they equally,
in their own way of service, have regard unto the Lord
also. But in the quaHty of Church-members, we are
not free to take the same dispensation for ourselves;
and if we would follow the example of Christ, Who
insisted upon punctuaUy fulfilling in His own person all
ceremonial as well as all other righteousness, and Who
countenanced the observance of festivals which were
simply of human institution, we shaU admit it to be
the part of duty to heep our awn solemn feasts, and
religiously to improve for ourselves the particular system
of observances with which we are connected and con-
cerned. We are not to decry and disparage everything
which does not happen to resemble our own mode of
provision for religious homage ; we are not to maintain
that no way can be good but our own, or that nothing
could be made better among us when the experiment of
change can be safely tried ; but having our own, we are
to use it, to turn it to account for our own advancement
in holiness. And certainly the appointments of the
Church afford us, in themselves, a singularly well-
^1
62
SERMON V.
f
digested series of opportunities for such advancement.
Her services are so arranged and distributed as to act
like prompters to us in the subjects of Christian devo-
tion or instruction throughout the whole of our eccle-
siastical year, which thus presents an epitome of the
Gospel.
The season of Advent is a prelude to the celebration
of the coming of Christ in the flesh, and brings before
us the introductory ministry of St. John the Baptist,
with warnings of preparation for the second advent of
the Lord. The birth, the circumcision, the temptation,
and other marked particulars in the history of our Lord,
are statedly and specially commemorated, till at last we
reach the crisis — the week in which He suffered, the
day on which He died, — the interval in which the tomb
still held Him, — the bursting of that prison, by His own
Divine power, which speedily followed, and His appear-
ance among His followers as a living man, the living
man Christ Jesus, again — His triumphant ascension in
the clouds of heaven — His glorious execution of promise
in shedding down upon the heads of the Apostles the
miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost. Thus it is that all
the grand points of that wonderful tale which relates to
our redemption are, year by year, made prominently
familiar to us, and kept in their vivid reality before our
eyes : none of them, even in the most dim and cloudy
ages of the Church, none of them can escape uf.
And thus, with the help of a thoroughly scriptural
liturgy, and the consta:i)!. public reading of the word of
God itself, together with the special appointment of a
COMPLIANCE WITH ORDINANCES. 63
Sunday in honour of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity,
we seem to enjoy every provision and eveiy guard which
the wisdom of man could devise, or his piety could
prompt, to preserve us, amid aU the fluctuations and
irregularities of religious opinion which succeed each
other in the world, in the practice of an intelligently
spiritual devotion, and the exercise of a sound belief.
Nor can it, I believe, be questioned either that these
advantages, enjoyed by ourselves, have spread a bene-
ficial influence far beyond the immediate circle of our
own communion ; or that many a careless sinner, bred
within that circle, has, by these means, laid up. with no
thanks to himself a treasure of Christian truth and a
fund of scriptural knowledge, for which, in the hour of
subsequent conversion to God, he has had cause to bless
the provident care of the Church.
Again, we are repeatedly charged in the word of God
to set before our eyes, as models, the holy servants of
God in ancient times, and the primitive founders of our
religion : as when St. Paul, after his enumeration of
special instances exempHfjing the power of faith, calls
upon us to take pattern from so great a cloud of wit-
nesses; or when St. James says to us, "Take, my
brethren, the prophets who have spoken in the name of
the Lord, for an example of sufiering afiHction, and of
patience." The Church, therefore, is precisely trans-
fusing these principles into her worship, when she esta-
blishes certain minor festivals in commemoration of the
labours or the martyrdom of the holy Apostles and other
champions of the cross, who held some special post in
64
SERMON V.
K
tho sorvi(ic, as recorded in the books of tlie Now Testa-
ment itself.
The observances of Passion-week, Easter, Ascension-
day, anil Whitsuntide, occur on the real anniversaries
of tho events which they commemorate, for there
were events in tho history of Christ which, in the vast
and connected chain of Providence, were ordained to
coincide, in point of the precise time of year, with cer-
tain stated Jewish observances, by which they had been
foreshadowed. Tlie festivals which have been just
enumerated, together with that of Christmas, are all
observed by the Protestant national Churches of con-
tinental Europe, and many of the most eloquent sermons
of foreign Protestant divines are compositions pi-epared
for those special occasions. Of Christmas, and the fes-
tivals dependent upon it for their date, it cannot, I
think, with absolute certainty be averred that the cele-
bration occurs respectively upon the exact anniversary of
the real occurrence ; but it is, perhaps, not inexpedient
that there should be an instance in which the Church, in
the exercise of her discretion, according to the freedom
of the Gospel, should choose a day for the commemora-
tion of an event, which, if commemi ative observances
be admitted at all, could hardly be dropped out of the
catalogue. And we go back to the earliest times of the
Church which afford any record respecting such usages
— ^times long anterior to the days of declension and
corruption — to find the first notices of the season of
Christmas. Keep, then, my brethren, your solemn feast;
keep it religiously before God, as men who rejoice in
J
COMPLIANCE WITH ORDINANCES.
66
His mercy to sinners through Christ, or you do not
keep it at all. " I must by all means," says the Apostle
Paul, with reference to a festival of the earlier and
inferior dispensation, of which the observance then still
remained—" I nmst by all means hei^p this feast which
Cometh, at Jerusalem." And with reference to the mani-
festations of our love and duty to Christ, he says, " Christ
our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the
/rasif "-words which are not to be taken as relating exclu-
sively to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, but which
most certainly comprehend it in the objects to which
they point. Christmas can never be said to be kept by
non-communicants who are of age to communicate.
Communicants may, of course, be prevented by par-
ticular circumstances from attending the holy table-
it may so happen— but I speak of those who do not
communicate at all. You then, my brethren, who
are going to turn your backs upon the ov'niance to-
day, and do habituaUy turn your backs upon it,
suffer us, not to invite your participation now— we
desire to see no precipitate proceeding in such an act of
Hehgion us this ; but suffer us to charge it upon you
that you rest not, that you must not feel yourselves
safe, cannot have any title to be happy in your Eeligion,
tm you can " draw near with faith and take this holy
sacrament to your comfort."
Finally, in conjunction with the charge to keep their
solemn feasts, the prophet calls, we see, upon the people
of Judah to "perform their vows." And are we not
aU under vows to God ? Are we not aU baptized as
»/
66
SERMON V.
I !
Christians ? you, my T'onthful friends, who are very
soon about to seal voluJiiiHly, with your own lips, the
vow of your baptiain, aud to seek the solemn ^ ?nedic-
tion of your Church, in the name of her Lord— think,
think of your early reception into the privileges of
the covenant, your early dedication to your God and
Saviour, your training now to be brought up to this
point of confirmation— your engagements beyond in a
holy and blessed service— your duty also in the very
article just touched upon, to prepare yourselves for
becoming communicants of the Church. And let us,
my brethren, who are estal)lished as communicants, pray
God that we may, each in his vocation, have grace to
remember, and be helped and strengthened this day in
remembering, our responsibility to "perform our vows,"
so that we may utter from the heart, and be kept from
subsequently contradicting in our practice, the words
of our Prayer-book which we are immediately about to
put up : "And here we offer and present unto Thee,
Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable,
holy, and lively (or living) sacrifice unto Thee, humbly
beseeching Thee that all we who are partakers of this
Holy Communion, may be fulfilled with Thy grace and
heavenly benediction."
Which may God, of His infinite mercy, grant, through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
SERMON VI.
THE JOY OF CHRISTMAS.*
Acts VIII. 8.
^nd there was great joy in that city.
Wherever the public celebration of glorious and fm-
portant events is to be witnessed— wherever the demon-
strations of general joy are to be made upon occasion
of any success or achievement involving blessings to
postenty-wherever any particular day is kept as the
anniversary of a national deliverance, or is consecrated
m popular observance to the memory of men who have
greatly served their country,-a memory doubly en-
deared if they have suffered in that service,^there we
usually discover the symptoms of a warm interest in the
subject; we remark, everywhere, the contagious glow
of exultation, the thrill of animated feeling. I very heart
beats in unison with the sounds of triumph, every tongue
is employed upon the gratifying theme : the whole
mass of mind, if we may so express it, in the commu-
nity is actuate by sentiments congenial and proper
to the occasion : it is carried back into the midst of
past transactions : their exciting details come up again
fresh and alive : they are entered into with enthusiasm,'
an i dwelt upon with gratitude.
What, then, are the feelings with which we salute the
» Preached on Christmas-day, 1862.
F2
68
SERMON VI.
II
11
festival of to-day? with which we coniineiuorate the
oponing scouo of a mighty and marvellous deliverance,
sprcadincr in its effects from the rising of the sun to
the going down of the same, which was planned and
achieved by Almighty God Himself— the entrance upon
the world of that dispensation of mystery, hid from ages
and generations, which changed, with immeasurable
blessing, the condition and prospects of the race ? A
change effected by no otlier means than the voluntary
abasement, the voluntary sufferings and struggles, the
voluntary submission to a frightful death, of One Who
was in the beginning with God and was God, but gave
Himself for us in love. In His love and in His pity,
He redeemed us. Herein is love, not that we loved
God— no ! it was because we were sinners at enmity
with a holy God, and by that enmity lost in ourselves,
• that He came in the flesh, to seek us and to save!
Our estimate, then, of what we are engaged upon to-day
—our sentiments, our emotions, are they commensurate
with an occasion, do they adequately respond to a call,
such as this ?
It must, indeed, be owned that there are not many to
whom Cliristmas and its associations are not, from one
cause or other, welcome and agreeable. Some pardon-
able, if not amiable prejudice— some love for " the good
old times," (better they were, in some points, than^'our
own, though conspicuously inferior to tliem in others)—
some attachment to customs and conventional demon-
strations received from our forefathers and transplanted
from a land far away, for which our human yearnings
THE JOY OF CIIKISTMAS.
remai„,_tl,e,c are feelmRs and habit., of mind wl.icl,
". nmny quartcs, arc ,eo„ to prevail in connexion'
« th ho observance. Or the season is found to commend
iMf by a certam expansion of heart wl,ich it is unck-r-
stood to cnKcndcr-a kindly glow in the circle of
k.ndred at the Christmas fireside, a cordial interchange
o neighbourly and social good-will.-all of which, prl
love of r^ '" r'"'"""'^''"" '« "- genuine Christian
love of God and man, must be admitted to be in proper
n d perfect harmony with the observance, but which
otherw.se >s rather poetry tha.r Keligion. Again, n,any
I«.-sons are glad of some refreshing relaxati^r fr^nt ^
closeness of laborious employn.ent ; or find that a mere
break, of a lively kind, in the routine of ordinary life-
a briskness of external impulse communicated to 'the
spirits, comes acceptably in their way. Others are
are fond of Christmas good cheer. Alas ! there are
some who go beyond tbis-for with shame and grief it
nmst be confessed that such cases do exist -there are
Uiose who hail the holy festivals of the Church of Jesus
Christ as If they were meant to minister occasion for
actual intemperance and excess. r% assuredly " come
together for their Christmas celebrations, "noUbr the
better but for the wor.e," and can only expect to draw
down the heaviest wrath of God upon theii- heads. What ?
we must say to such a man, if any such should unhappily
be found among us,-will you keep the day which is
designed for the honour of God in Christ, as if you were
keeping the orgies of the heathen Bacchus? A person
-fCjSX
70
SEKMON VI.
wlio driiik(&tli liimsclf arunk Ix'causo it is Cliristmas-
timo, miglit as well think uf honouring tho (hiy by acts
of adnltory or thof't.
lUit let us in.Iuloo tlio liopo on hohalf of all,* if
]>ossil)l-, who aro ]unv. present in this liouso of God,
that tlu>y not only entertain the disposition to honour
th(> festival, but wish to houour it in a right manner ;
and niwer let us admit any inferenee to the preju-
dice of tiie festival itself, which is drawn from any
occasional instances of its abuse. The very obser-
vance of the Lord's own day might h) assailed
iip(>n precisely the same grounds. And in matters
wliich do not claim to rest upon the inichangeal)le
ap])ointment or precedent of Scrijiture, we ought not
hastily to depart from the innuenu^rial usage of the
Christian Church, nor lightly to regard tho prescribed
order of ecclesiastical authority exercised, in our re-
formed (.\)mmunion, according to that discretion which
Cu)d has given to the dilVerent portions of the Church
Catholic. :\ren should not only be careful, when they
cut away the diseased branches, to avoid woimding the
stem itself, which has often been rashly done, but they
should spare also those engrafted shoots which, though
not essential to its life and preservation, yet add to the
beauty and fruit fulness of the plant.
Let, then— in the review of all which we have just
been saying— let, then, the season be honoured, and,
I will add, let all its customary distinctions be cherished
and retained- and passed on, as I think we should wish
them to be, to those who are to follow us. If we make
THK JOY OF CHRISTMAS. 71
the aisles aiul urclios of our temple resound with the
heavenly nmsic of Handel, specially practised for the
occasion ; if we garnish our pillars with evergreens •
It we spread a table for some two or three hundred
of our school-children in the parish-let us not be met
111 any quarter, in the spirit of the question, " Why was'
this waste of the ointment made ?" Why are time and
money, which might be better spent, spent in this way?
Ihe hosannas rung out in praise of Christ have been
coupled, before now, with a display of branches, He
11 imseli accepting and approving the tribute (as He
did also that of tiie costly ointment poured upon His
head) ; and the common, customary festivities of mar-
vnige have been sanctionc^l by His presence, and pro-
moted by His miraculous exercise of power.
All this, then, being conceded, and conceded freely
let us take care, at the same time, that we do really'
seriously, devoutly keep in view the ultimate object of
these several observances. When we are told in the
words of our text, that " there was great joy in thlt city "
(the city of Samaria), we find that it was a joy felt
among the people, because they had been reached by
the tidings of salvation-had recognised, under the
ininistry of Philip, the power of the Gospel of grace
and had closed with the overtures of mercy. And ifi
m this cit3^ my brethren, there are, at the present
moment, manifestations of great joy, it ought to be
a joy partaking of the same character, and founded
upon our home-felt acceptance of the same evangelical
truths. It ought to be a joy breathing the full senti-
72
SERMON VI.
i
i ) I
ment of a well-known prophetic passage, as applied by
the Apostle Paul— "How beautiful upon the moun-
tains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,
that publisheth peace, that publisheth salvation, that
saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth ! " How welcome
the approach of the Messenger, watched for, as it were,
from afar, upon every commanding eminence, by men
longing and looking out for their deliverance ! Herald
after herald is here pictured to us as age follows upon
age, still echoing to an expectant world the message of
the angel—" Fear not ; for, behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy."
Consider the circumstances of that original announce-
ment.
To shepherds abiding in the field and keeping watch
over their flocks by night ; to men of humble condition
and simple capacity, leading an obscure, unvarying life,
and undergoing, at the moment, the customary hard-
ships of their condition ; to men who had little concern
with any high transactions of the world— who had
slight reason to look for any tidings of moment, and
could have but slender hope or ambition of bettering
their situation by any changes here— to these the met
sage came ; to these the envoy of the Lord God Omni-
potent address 3d himself: "Fear not; for, behold, I
bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to
all people : ior unto you is born this day in the city
of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."
Unto us also this message is delivered; unto us
this peace is published; unto us a Child is born; unto
THE JOY OF CHRISTMAS.
73
US a Son is given. Unto all who will embrace tliem,
in every condition of life, high and low, rich and poor,
one with another, are tendered the unspeakable mercies
of the Most High. " Whosoever will, let him take of
the water of life freely." That is the open, unreserved,
unrestricted invitation which proceeds from God. We
have all a common interest in these tidings of gladness
to the world ; we have all a common property in the
benefits of this salvation. O may we never turn them,
by our neglect and perverseness, to the savour of death !
And O may we be aided, through the grace of our God,
in averting such a danger, by the manner in which we
now proceed to weigh the purport of this celestial in-
telligence, and to examine the grounds of joy which it
envelops.
If, indeed, as is pointed out by the admirable old
divine. Dr. Barrow (from whom I am taking here and
there some other hints also), we would enumerate all
the subjects for thanksgiving which spring from this
one, we must comprehend in our view the whole scheme
of the Gospel — we must include the whole succession
of graces and blessings which flow from the death, the
resurrection, ascension, and glorification of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and His effusion of the Spirit from on
high. Tor the work of our redemption, undertaken
long before, was, in a manner, achieved when our
Saviour became incarnate. The movement of that
wonderful process began. Nor was there, in all the
history of His life and death, with all their circum-
stantial and consequent wonders, a single incident more
74
SERMON VI.
iiff
i , ,
fitted to make the stone "ciy out of the wall and the
beam out of the timber" to answer it, if men should
hold their peace, than His original submission to infirm
mortality. The need, indeed, on the part of* man was
great. Here was a moral and responsible agent, won-
derfully gifted, but liillen under the power and curse
of sin, conscience-stricken and self-condenmed, yet
without remedy and without hope, having death, judg-
ment, and eternity to face : but who would have looked
for such a provision of eternal wisdom to meet this
mysterious case of exigency,— nothing less being done
than that He who had glory with His Father before the
world was shouhl come down and make Himself man
—should enter this world a weak, wailing, helpless
infant— should draw otir first natural nourishment from
the breast of a human mother— should be carried in
her arms and laid to rest in a stable, because there was
no other room for the Son of God :-what marvel Mdiich
followed, in the whole execution of the objects for
which He came into the world, could surpass such a
marvel as this ? Well might the Apostle say that,
"without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness,"'
where he proceeds to make it the first point in his
enumeration of particulars, that " God was manifest in
the flesh."
Upon this fact, then— the fact of the Incarnation-
let us now fix our regards. Look at it— but you are at
once carried back to things of the ages preceding, and
things which took place before the foundation of the
world. It was planned from eternity that the seed of
THE JOY OP CHRISTMAS.
70
'g-
the w(jman should bruise the serpent'-, head. Look at
the continuous stream of the Divine purposes, and
trace it to its fountain in that promise. Look at the
train laid from the beginning for a glorious future.
Look at the long preparation of centuries ; the early
and reiterated prophecies; the symbolical signs and
wonders of old ; the marked typical occurrences ; the
emblematical institutions and significant ceremonies of
the former covenant ; the severance from the rest of
the nations of a peculiar people, from whom was to
spring Messiah the Prince ; the providential dircjtion
of events below, all things converging to this one grand
issue whicli concerned .i.e world at large. We see the
tide of ages rolling on, and the promise emerging more
and more, till, in the fulness of God's appointed time,
the blessed reality was developed and disclosed. Nations
and empires and languages had risen and passed away ;
sages and conquerors and names of renown had dazzled
for their day and slept the sleep of death ; the children
of a long, long line of many generations had been
gathered to their fathers before that Sun of Righteous-
ness arose with healing in His wings, under Whose
radiance it is our portion to pass our day upon the
earth. But now has the Gospel preached to Adam
been made good, and the seed of the woman has sprung
up in the siglit vi tliB world : Now has the mystical
Isaac, the mirar ulous son of promise, appeared : Now
has the grant to Abraham taken effect, that in his seed
all the families of the earth should be blessed: Now has
that Shiloh come of Whom Jacob foretold that to Him
76
SERMON VI.
should the gathering of the people be : Now is that
Mosaic assurance more than verified—" A Prophet shall
the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren
like unto me" (as the founder of a new covenant), " Him
shall ye hear : " Now is that Star come out of Jacob,
of which the vision in distance averted the curse of
Balaam from the people among whom it was destined
to arise : Now is that Divine oath discharged to David
— " Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne:"
Low are th.^ illustrious predictions of Isaiah exactly
fulfilled, such as, "There shall come forth a rod out
of the stem of Jesse;" "A virgin shall conceive and
bear a son;" "There shall jome out of Sion the de-
liverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob : "*
Now has that Eighteous Branch sprouted forth which is
promised b- 3romyand Zeohariah: Now the One Shep-
herd, of E. k t/ ; the Son oi Man, of Daniel; the Ruler
of Israel, ^ . ie goings forth have been of old, of Micah ;
the Desire of all nations, ot Haggai; the Messenger of
the Covenant and Sun of Righteousness, of Malachi, the
last of the propliets, have all, in very reality, appeared.
Now is that kingdom indefsasibly established which the
great series of patriarchs and prophets, of kings and of
wise men and righteous men, saw afar off and rajoiced
in the prospect, and which is ordained in the counsels
of God to be " an eternal excellency, a joy of many
generations."
Before this period, the worid was made up of two
very unequal portions, divided by a strong wall of
* Isaiah lix. 20, as quoted in liomans xi. 26.
THE JOY OF CHRISTMAS.
77
partition from each other. The people of God, whose
advantage was "much ojvery way," and who enjoyed
many and signal privileges, if only they had known how
to profit by them, were yet under the yoke of a mere
preparatory dispensation, and the ordinances prescribed
to them were but the shadowy prefiguration of better
things to come in substance. Of the remaining part
of the world, the condition was deplorable indeed.
Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers
to the covenant of promise, they were without God in
the world ; the children of wrath and disobedience ;
possessed with base and degrading conceptions of
Deity; sunk in monstrous and most filthy idolatries;
serving the spirits of darkness who bKnded their minds;'
dead in trespasses and sins.
Such was the sad but real condition of the Gentile
world ; such is the condition now of prodigious portions
of the globe; such were our own remote forefathers;
and such, by fatal consequence, we should have been
ourselves. But Christ came in the fle^;!,. The barriers
of sf paration were broken down ; Jew and Gentile who
would believe were brought into one spiritual fraternity
of love, and became the candidates for a common in-
heritance of glory. This Gospel of the kingdom,
although still in commixture and conflict with the
kingdom of darkness (for the tares and the wheat must
grow together till the harvest), is gaining, according to
God's appointed times and by the steps which He
regulates, its destined ascendancy in the world, sub-
duing, in its progress, the hearts of men, softening their
Ml
' ifi
'1
m
78
SERMON VI.
manners, enlightening their understandings, and purify-
ing their lives. The grain of mustard-seed has long
ago become a great tree ; the little leaven has operated
upon an extensive mass ; the religion of Christ, from
small and despised beginnings, has worked its way-
through the lapse of ages and the multiplied revolutions
of the world. And it v^ill work its way. Neither the
varied series of events, the changing policy of nations,
nor the perpetually opposing struggle of a depraved
nature ; neither persecution from without, nor long and
deep corruption within; neither the coldness and in-
consistency of its professed followers, nor the high-
sounding appeal of infidel pride ; neither the laxity
and worldliness of its legitimate guardians, nor the
vain jangling of lawless innovators and enthusiasts;
neither the disguised sneers of a smooth and skilful
sophistry, nor the miserable distractions of heresy and
schism, nor the mortifying exposure at different times
of wild and wide-spread delusion among believers;—
neither these nor any other obstructions, all hitherto
ineffectual or ultimately proving subservient to the
cause which they had seemed to threaten, shall ever
be able to crush the work of God, or forbid its travel-
ling on to its appointed mark. For " the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it." The earth shall yet " be
filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea." " The multitude of the isles may
be glad thereof, and all the ends of the world shall see
the salvation of our God." The voice shall penetrate to
ths darkest corners of the habitable globe — ''Arise,
THE JOY OP CHRISTMAS.
79
shine, for tliy light is come, and the glory of the Lord
is risen upon thee !"
And now, if we descend, in leaving our subject, from
all this magnificent and far-spread contemplation, and
look into ourselves— scrutinise our own hearts, how do
we feel as parts of this whole— as the creatures of the
hand of God, who are personally and individually con-
cerned in these themes of grandeur and manifestations
of grace— who are personally and individually among
the subjects of aU this amazing intervention from the
realms above ? Are we adequately impressed by this
thought?— practically and habitually linder the in-
fluence of this conviction?— alive, awake to all the
responsibility which it implies ?-prepared to appro-
priate the blessings, the consolations, the hopes of
glory, with which it is associated ? We look for the
kingdom of God abroad and in the future ; we pray
every day that it may come ; we forget, too many of
us, the warning words of the Redeemer— « Behold, the
kingdom of God is within you."
-«4
I
SERMON VII.
CHRIST COMING TO HIS OWN.
St. John I. 10—13.
He was in the xvorld, and the world was made hy Him, and the world
kneio Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him
not. Bat as many as received Him, to them gave He povjcr to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were
bom, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God.
The first statement contained in this remarkable passage
presents a fact npon which our minds do not, perhaps,
sufficiently dwell, and the magnitude of which we do
not, any of us, sufficiently appreciate ; the simple fact,
in itself, that " He was in the world." Let us rest a little
upon the contemplation of it ; let us familiarize our-
seh^es with this great fact and bring it home to our
minds. Who was in the world? — not merely by His
invisible presence, — not by the ubiquity of His spiritual
essence, — not by His pervading providence and rule, but
made flesh and dwelling among us, — one of ourselves, —
in corporeal and substantial reality, born, growing up,
living, treading the earth as a man among men ; was
He thus in the world Who was in the beginning, or from
all eternity, with God and was God ? He by AVhom all
things were made, and without Whom was not anything
tij
CHRIST COMING TO HIS OWN.
81
made that was made ? It must have been a portentous
need on our part which brought Him down, and a
mighty and marvellous purpose which He came to
effect in our behalf; it was such a need and such a
purpose as are -^ escribed in the words, *' I looked, and
there was none to help, and I wondered that there was
nono to uphold: therefore Mine own arm brought
salvation unto Me, and My righteousness, it sustained
Me."
Christ, the original creating Word, was in the world.
We " believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible."
But we also, in the same symbol of our faith, predicate
of the "one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God," that by Him " all things were made." And this is
the very statement of Scripture in our text, and in other
places which speak the same language. The work of
creation is primarily ascribed to the Father, in the
distribution, if we may use the term, of the parts sus-
tained by the Godhead, with reference to this visible
frame of the universe and its inhabitants. But the
mysterious plurality of persons in that Godhead of the
One true God, is intimated in the very account of the
creation itself; and in the words, " Let Us make man in
Our image, after Our likeness," a plurality of persons is
represented to us as actually engaged in that work.
And this was perceived by the Jews and taught by
their writers, of course without the benefit of that
full development of the doctrine of the Trinity which
appears in the New Testament. The Son, as St. Paul
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82
SERMON VII.
i!
expresses it in one of those passages which plainly
clothe the Lord Jesus Christ with the attributes of
Divinity, is One by Whom, in mysterious co-operation,
the Father made the worlds : and the Spirit, in His
genial influence — in more than one sense the author
and giver of life— brooded over the unformed mass and
infused into it a vivifying energy.
These are subjects too deep for man to fathom ; such
knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for us, wc
cannot attain unto it. God has graciously made known
as much as we are now fitted to understand, as much as
we want for our guidance and comfort ; if we would
rudely and rashly break in upon the bounds which
He has set around the place of His gloiy, we gain
no satisfaction, and only pay the penalty of our pro-
faneness.
Christ, then, by Whom the world was made, was in
the world. And He came "to seek and to save that
which was lost." But the world, the beings, taken in the
mass, who were the subjects of this amazing inter-
vention, knew Him not. And now that He has been,
long ago, in the world, and has accomplished the objects
for which He came into it, and has left behind Him the
eternal testimonies of His visit to the children of men,
and by His Spirit, by His word, by His sacraments, by
the standing and perpetual ministrations of His Church,
is among them— alive and breathing still, alive in an
unseen but efficacious presence, and breathing the breath
of an immortal power— how does the world now know
or regard Him? The world— speaking of that portion
CHRIST COMING TO HIS OWN.
83
of it which is called Christendom— has adopted the pro-
fession of the Christian faith. But how far does this
world, this nominally Christian world, really recognise
the claims of Christ the Saviour? honestly and prac-
tically respond to His own charge, " Take My yoke upon
you, and learn of Me " ? experimentally and in earnest
accept the principle which He establishes aod own its
sovereign sway, " This is life eternal, to know Thee, the
only God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent"?
What are the prevailing influences, what are the reign-
ing sentiments, what are the conventional maxims, what
are the common practices, what are the familiar lives
and habits to be witnessed among those — take them
collectively — who profess and call themselves Christians ?
Are they such as carry the holy stamp of the Gospel ?
Are they such as mark out this company of people to
the eye, as disciples of the lowly Lamb of God ? Let
the world, this Christian world, answer for itself; let it
testify whether its pretensions to the name of Christian
are genuine— whether it is, in fact, identified with the
cause in which, by the assumption of that name, it
avows itself enlisted ? A worldly man, or a worldly-
minded person, does that convey, in the language of the
•Christian world, the idea of a person devoted to Christ?
So it ought plainly to do, if the Christian world were
Christian indeed — if there were not an opposition
between this Christian world and Christ.
" He came unto His own, and His own received Him
not." There is a distinction of gender in the original,
which cannot be preserved in English, unless we render
G 2
il
u
SERMON VII.
;"n
the words in some such way as this,--He came to that
which belonged to Him, to His own proper possessions,
or His own territories, and His own people received Him
not. He came to His own,— Kis own, Tiere, refers to
things: His own received Him not— it here refers toper-
sons. That the Jewish Church and State, in their entire
system and constitution, and by the very principle of
their existence, belonged immediately to God, and con-
stituted the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, is what it
is needless to indicate ; and that Christ the Word, before
His incarnation, maintained a special connexion with
the affairs of Israel of old, and presided in a peciUiar
manner over the destinies of the people, appears from
different passages of Scripture. And all which was
done for them, and all which was prescribed to them,
and all which was made the subject of their national
expectation and hope,— all, all centred in the Messiah.
He came, therefore, to His own property. And His own
people, whom He found there, received Him not. The
chosen, the peculiar people whom the Lord their God,
by a mighty hand and by r -tretched-out arm, and by
great signs and wonders, had separated and set apart for
His own, they would not receive His Son. They had
maltreated His servants, they had murdered His mes- •
sengers ; but a hope yet remained, there was a last great
resource which might be tried. "It may be they will
reverence " My Son. But no ; the Son is sent, and the
husbandmen said, "This is the heir: come, let us kiU
him."
"If we had been in the days of our fathers," said the
CHRIST COMING TO HIS OWN. ;86
Jews, before this catastrophe, "we would not have been
partakers with them in the blood of the prophets" If
we had been in the days of the Jews, we, in like
manner, shall be at once prompted to say, we would not
have been partakers in the blood of Christ. Yet awful
as IS the supposition, my brethren, that any of us would
then have repudiated the Redeemer and lent ourselves
in the natural sequence of things, to His condemnation
we must not be too sure of ourselves in this point.'
Let us spare a moment to consider and examine this
matter, before we pronounce too boldly in our own
favour.
We have succeeded, by external -; -vilege and profes-
sion, to the place of the people of God. Our privileges
and our proper characteristics were foreshadowed in those
of the ancient Israel- and we are, therefore, as Chris-
tians, declared by the Apostle St. Peter, in terms drawn
from the language of the earlier covenant, to be « a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar
people." A people, he adds, whose vocation it is to « show
forth the praises of Him who hath called " them « out
of darkness into His marvellous light." Christ, therefore,
proposed to us, is proposed to His own— Ria own Church,'
His own professed people— His own by deeper obliga-
tions, by more constraining ties, by more endearing
claims, than those which established His property in the
Israel of old. We are not our own, but " bought with
a price." And if we try ourselves honestly by this test—
the test of the recognition, in our hearts and lives, of the
right which Christ has acquired over us, in virtue of
t.Mil . 1 1 .».". ! ] 1..J.-L'S
mffSsmstsiKf^m
86
SERMON VII.
that price paid for the ransom of our souls, — ^too many,
too many of us, it is to be feared, must be brought to
the sad and shameful confession, that Christ has, indeed,
been presented to us, and we are numbered among those
who are properly His own ; but His own, and we among
them, have not received Him. It will not do to say, as if
repelling, perhaps indignantly, an offensive imputation.
We have never rejected Christ : we believe in the Bible :
we claim the benefit of our baptism : we belong to the
Church. my brethren, have we received, have we
owned Him in our hearts, such as He is in Himself, such
as He is portrayed in the Bible, such as He is mystically
exhibited in baptism, such as He is proclaimed, it she
understand her message, by the Church, — intimately
and in the very marrow of our souls, acknowledging the
principle laid down by the Apostle, that " the love of
Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if
one died for all " — one sinless spotless victim for all this
vast family of sinners — " theii were all dead " — all lay
under condemnation, and without hope of life eternal —
and " that He died for all, that they which live should
not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him Which
died for them and rose again ? "
If we repudiate these appeals of our Eeligion, in their
homefejlt power — if we do not desire to entertain them
— if our minds are averse from them — if they are strange,
foreign, distasteful to our feelings, — then, in effect, my
brethren, we are refusing Him that speaketh, — we are
counting the blood of the covenant an unholy or worth-
less thing; and, in the figure of speech used by the
CHRIST COMING TO HIS OWN,
87
)o many,
ought to
}, indeed,
ing those
e among
say, as if
putatiori,
le Bihle :
ig to the
have we
self, such
ystically
id, it she
itimately
Iging the
B love of
}, that if
»r all this
— all lay
jternal —
'^e should
□a Which
, in their
lin them
) strange,
fifect, my
—we are
>r worth-
1 by the
Apostle, crucifying the Lord afresh and putting Him to an
open shame. And if such be, in any instance, our state
of mind, the verdict must be rendered upon us, that
(supposing our continuance in that state), we should,
without any figure of speech, have been led to concur in
the crucifixion, had it been our lot to live in the days
of the Jews.
If, on the other hand, we do so receive Christ, as His
own ought to receive him,— if we have so learned Christ,
have been so schooled in our spirits, as cordially and
thankfully to admit His claims upon us, as stated by the
Apostle in the passage which has been here cited, — if,
with all our manifold and still recurring deficiencies of
love and duty, we can, nevertheless, say that the life
which we live in the flesh, we "live by the faith of the
Son of God " — then mark what are our privileges and our
blessings, preserved to us undamaged from our original
sealing in the covenant, and how infinitely they surpass
all else which is within the reach of man. We are owned,
though, of course, in a different sense, as the sons of God,
ourselves. " As many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God, even to them that be-
lieve on His name." And the process is described by which
this new sonship is eflfected. They receive it, not by
natural birth, — not by having the blood of any eminent
forefathers running in their veins — not as the result
of any particular intermarriage — not by means of any
edict or conveyance of privilege personally, by human
authority : they " are born, not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
iiil
88
SERMON VII.
They are adopted into His family, and receive the Spirit
of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba, signifying Father.
They are made sensible of being established in such
happy relations with God, that they can invoke Him,
through Christ, with the affectionate reverence of chil-
dren loving Him and loved by Him with an ever-
lasting love. They know that, though all claims of
earthly kindred should fail, or all natural human affec-
tion should become extinct — though Abraham should be
ignoranl; of them and Israel should not acknowledge them
— though a woman should be found to forget her sucking-
child, and cease to have compassion on the fruit of her
womb, yet God is their Father by an unchangeable cove-
nant, and they as His children will never be forgotten
in His sight. He will give them " a place and a name
better than of sons and of daughters," even " an ever-
lasting name which shall not be cut off." And the literal
child, trained to know his God and Saviour, and lifting
his little hands to heaven and calling upon God as his
Father (to do that is the very first thing which we learn
in our Eeligion), the literal child, calling upon God as his
Father in the prayer bequeathed to us by Christ Himself,
h&s his share in the blessings and acts of grace described
in our text. If he can rightly call God his Father, it is
plain that he has received power to become the son of God.
Nor is their share denied to others who, whatever be the
development of their physical stature, are yet but babes
in Christ. In fact, the first act of this aflSliation, intro-
ductory to all which foUows, is, beyond all question, in
our baptism : for we must use means — we must use the
(I
CHRIST COMING TO HIS OWN.
89
be Spirit
: Father,
ill such
ie Him,
of chil-
.n ever-
aims of
iD. aflfec-
lould be
ge them
lucking-
t of her
le cove-
)rgotteii
a name
n ever-
e literal
. lifting
I as his
re learn
d as his
[imself,
scribed
er, it is
of God.
be the
t babes
, intro-
;ion, in
use the
means of God's appointment, and devoutly believe in
their efficacy. That is the part of humility and the part
of faith ; that is, in reality, the spiritual view of the
subject. Without the use of the means, we should have
no title, no ground whatever, to look for the ulterior
benefits comprehended in tl.3 description of those to
whom Christ gives the power to become the sons of God,
and who are said to be born of God ; for except a man
be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. The administration of the water
of baptism is, in the ordinary and established course of
things, the first step. He cannot be said to receive
Christ, who has not received and will not receive
Christ's ordinance. But if we have no warrant, except
under extraordinary circumstances, to look for the ulte-
rior work of the grace of God without the use of baptism,
how many baptized Christians, on the other hand, fall
away from all their baptismal engagements, and forfeit,
like Esau, their birthright of blessing ! that we could,
if it were possible, win them, one and all, back to their
Father, and persuade them to receive their Eedeemer,that
they may be owned as the sons of God, and be made, in
a fresh sense, and by a new exertion of His quickening
power, new creatures in Christ Jesus ! Vain, thought-
less, vicious, worldly-minded, sceptical, hard-hearted,
stupid, and unconcerned about their eternal welfare,
whatever be the nature, or whatever the degree of their
alienation from God, they are not beyond the reach of
His renovating grace. " For this My son was dead and is
alive again, and was lost and is found." It is necessary
mm
mm
90
SERMON VII.
I II !
that this grace should act upon us all ; that we should
be " transformed in the renewing of our minds : " that we
should be different beings from what nature or the world
would have made us, or could make us. A crisis full
of marked incident — a sudden excitement at one par-
ticular instant of our lives — a vehement struggle, partak-
ing of the character of animal sensation, which comes and
goes off like a fit — an electrical effect and a sort of dra-
matic exhibition of transported feeling, produced by the
unsparing application of certain stimulants in religious
pharmacy — these, or anything resembling or approach-
ing to these, although favoured sometimes and promoted
by good men, are not the safest phenomena of the pro-
cess, nor such as seem best to correspond with the
description of Christ, "The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is every
one that is born of the Spirit." But means having been
used, privileges conveyed and sealed — all conspiring
agencies being at work (the word of truth, among
others, by which we are expressly said to be begotten
again), — the energy of the Spirit gives effect to every in-
strument employed, and works upon the man, whether
for the daily renewal of the subject and his gradual ad-
vancement in holiness, or his recovery to God from a
wicked and worldly state. It is the Spirit Who moves
him to repentance, prompts him to flee from the wrath
to come, and to clasp to his heart the gracious offers of
mercy ; enlightens his mind in heavenly truth, brings
forth in him the fruits of righteousness, enables him to
CHRIST COMING TO HIS OWN.
9i
^e should
" that we
the world
3risis full
one par-
B, partak-
oines and
t of dra-
id by the
religious
ipproach-
promoted
the pro-
w'ith the
it listeth,
not tell
is every
dng been
3nspiring
I, among
begotten
every in-
whether
idual ad-
d from a
10 moves
he wrath
offers of
h, brings
s him to
go on his way rejoicing, and patiently to persevere in
good works, abounding therein more and more to the
end.
My brethren, let us look into ourselves, and find out
what part or lot we have in this matter. It is worth
while, if we believe that we have souls, to enquire whether
they are in the way to be saved or to be lost. Here,
then, are two pictures : they are drawn by the hand of
Christ — which of them will suit us ? which will exhibit
our resemblance ? Christ comes to the world, and to
those who are nominally His own : they do not know
Him ; they do not receive Him. He comes to another
class of human beings — (let us dare to hope that those
who, here, this day, are about to partake in the commu-
nion of the Body and Blood of Christ, belong to this
class), they know Him — they receive Him — they believe
on His name. They discern in Him, and in Him alone,
their salvation : they accept and embrace it : they be-
lieve with the heart unto righteousness. To them, in
thi most complete and ample sense. He gives power to
become the sons of God. Their heart has been reached ;
it has found what it wanted, and cannot be mistaken : it
passes its testimony to the understanding ; and making
always due allowance for strong faith in some cases and
weaker faith in others, as well as for many humbling me-
mentos of infirmity in all, the declaration is made good,
without presumption, without fanatical extravagance,
that the Spirit Itself beareth witness with their spirit,
that they " are the children of God. And if children,
then heirs : heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ."
92
SERMON VII.
Tliey are, in the only happy view of the case, His own :
He knows them and is known of them : He speaks to
them in reassuring language, " Fear not : for I have re-
deemed thee : I have called thee hy thy name : thou art
Mine." And to them, in the consummation of all things,
belong the glorious words, " They shall be Mine, saith
the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My
jewels."
SERMON VIII.
THE PUNISHMENT OF SODOM.
St. Luke XVII. 32, 33.
Remember LoCs un/e. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it •
and whosoever sJmU lose his life shall preserve it.
A GOOD deal of difficulty has been felt respecting certain
passages in the Evangelists, where the Coming of the
Son of Man is described in some detail by Christ
Himself; and a variety of explanations have been offered
with the view of conciliating the seeming repugnance
of some portions of these passages to other portions of
the same. The words appear at one time to point to
things then close at hand, and at another to refer to the
final judgment of the world. And hence it has been
the opinion of some persons, that both events are pre-
sented to us throughout, under one description, and they
have laboured to explain particular expressions in a
manner to make them applicable to, either case ; while
others, confining the whole description to one period,
have, in a similar manner, adapted their explanations to
this supposition. As, for example, wLen the Lord
declares that "this generation shall not pass away till aU
be fulfiUed," the words, « this generation " have been con-
ceived to indicate, not, in the usual sense, simply the
'N
94
SERMON VIII.
generation then living, but "this race of the Jews," which
should continue, through successive ages, till the pre-
dicted consummation of all things below. It can hardly
fail to appear, however, to every reader carefully and
without prepossession fctudying these passages, that they
do contain some expressions which can only apply to the
doom then impending over rebel Jerusalem, and others
which can only apply to the general judgment of man-
kind at the last day. Of the former class are those
intimations respecting flight and escape from the scene,
which cannot be appropriate in describing the end of the
world, as well as the declaration which closes the
chapter where our text is found, that wheresoever the
body is, tWther will the eagles be gathered together ;
the eagle of the Eoman standard suggesting a ready
and apt illustration of that devouring fierceness of the
Eoman arms, of which the Jews, wherever found, were,
in the times of trouble which were fast coming on,
ordained to be specially a prey.
The prophetic discourse of Christ, therefore, in th^se
passages, is of a mixed character ; yet not so mixed
but that it is left practicable to separate the parts
which belong to nearer events, and those which relate
to one more remote, while other pa:ts apply to both
alike. His coming to judgment upon Jerusalem,
the victorious establishment of His kingdom upon
earth, and the judgment r.f the great day, are all in His
contemplation, and His notice of ail is nrtturally
prompted by such questions as were addressed to
Him upon the occasion recorded in the 24th chapter of
THE PUNISHMENT OF SODOM.
95
St. Matthew. These questions, with whatever degrees of
distinctness or indistinctness as to their several objects,
in the minds of those who propounded them, will be
seen to embrace in their proper import, a very extended
range of enquiiy. Adverting to the utter destruction
of the temple which their Master had foretold, the
disciples there ask Him, "When shall these things be,
and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the
end of the world ? "
Without professing to have disposed, in these slight
observations, of all the difficulties which may attach to
the passages in question, in one of which our present
text occurs, we mny pasj? on to remark, that the whole
of the description which they contain is so far to be
regarded as one, as is implied in the fact that the awful
downfall of Jerusalem, with its attendant horrors,
emblematically represented the final judgment of the
wicked. In this point of view, indeed, the destruction
of Jerusalem is identified with the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah, and with other signal visitations, in
which the energy of the wrath of God has been put
forth ] and we find that the " day of the Lord " is a term
made applicable in Scripture to all such visitations.
And all these v/arnings, whether relating to things now
past, or to things future, or to both together, — all these
warnings, my brethren, "are written for our admonition,
upon whom the ends of the world are come," whose lot
is cast under the final dispensation of the Gospel. The
cities just mentioned are, we are told, " set forth as an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." They
96
SERMON VIII.
are so set forth in the Word of God ; and they are so
set forth in the face of nature, whose aspect, upon the
spot, carries the traces and constitutes of itself the record
of their memorable desolation. Their history, indeed,
affords a lively picture of the last outpouring of Divine
judgment upon the wicked. "When we read that " the
Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven," and that " the
smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace,"
we can hardly fail to be reminded of the visions of the
other world vouchsafed to St. John, in which the portion
of the condemned is described by saying that they " shall
be tormented with fire and brimstone," and that " the
smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever."
My brethien, we cannot appreciate the mercies of
God in Christ unless we estimate rightly the hateful
nature of sin in His holy eyes, and the necessity which
exists, in the preservation of His perfect attributes, that
justice should be executed upon transgression. Too
little are these awful truths regarded ; too readily are
they, if regarded at all, glossed over, and accommodated,
and explained away by a careless, undutiful, ungrr.teful,
and infatuated world. The Lord Himself has pointedly
directed our attention, in the context of the words which
form the basis of our present reflections, to the example
of these devoted cities of old, and He has warned us of
the more unsuspected among our own dangers, by speci-
fying such evidences of want of preparation on the part
of the inhabitants, as consisted, not in any of the flagrant
impurities and filthy abominations to which they were
M
THE PUNISHMENT OF SODOM.
97
notoriously addicted, but in their reckless abandonment
to the business and pleasures of the world, without
thought of their responsibility to God ; their obHvious
immersion in those cares and pursuits and occupations
of human life which in themselves are necessaiy or
lawful, but which become pernicious, and assume the
character of sin, when we make them the object of our
existence ; when we live for them, forgetting our higher
destiny and the higher demands upon us which are
presented in our connexion with the world above;
when, in short, we serve these earthly objects instead of
serving God. "As it was in the days of Lot ; they did
eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted,
they builded ; but the same day that Lot went out of
Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and
destroyed them all." Eating and drinking are absolutely
necessary to the very preservation of our own being :
marrying wives and being given in marriage, mentioned
just before in the similar enumeration which refers to
the days of Noah, are necessary for continuing the
species, in the persons of those who are to succe^ us :
buying, selling, planting, and building are requisite
proceedings or operations for carrying on the useful
purposes of life :— all these things, therefore, are only
censurable in their abuse, and the simple fact of our
being engaged in any one of them at the moment of the
coming of the Son of Man would not prove us un-
prepared. But they are abused and become the ministers
of sin to the soul, when they absorb the faculties or the
attachments of man, and deaden within him the remem-
H
mSm
98
SERMON Vin.
brance of eternity and the principle of spiritual life. En-
grossed by the cares and the riches and the pleasures of
this present life— making " provision for the flesh to fulfil
the lusts thereof," " serving divers lusts and pleasures,"
cumbered, perchance, about much serving in domestic
details— going " their way, one to his farm, another to his
merchandize," and praying to be excused from attending
to the calls of God,— the professed followers of Christ
may still have a name to Mve, but they are dead ; they
may pass in the world as creditable Christians enough,
but they are not recognised in that character by the
Lord Who " knoweth them that are His," by the great
Shepherd, Who knows and is known of His sheep —
they have no part in the blessed promise, "they shall be
Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make
up My jewels." They answer the roll-call of the Church
upon the stated returns of her service, and stand; to their
arms in the formal discharge of duty upon parade ; but
put them to the proof as soldiers of Christ in the actual
conflict with the world and the flesh and the devil, and
they have no heart to fight, no disposition but to surrender
themselves to the foe, upon terms which, falsely indeed,
but plausibly promise them ease. What do they know
about " the love of Christ which passeth knowledge ? "
What do they ca^;^ about comprehending with all saints
i, e. with all true believers — " what is the breadth and
length, and depth and height" of that love ? What do
they feel about the faith in His salvation, which they
should carry about as the animating principle of their
lives ? What do they understand, or how do they con-
[fe. En-
sures of
to fulfil
asures,"
omestic
3r to his
;tendmg
f Christ
d ; they
enough,
by the
he great
sheep —
shall be
L I make
5 Church
1; to their
ide ; but
le actual
evil, and
lurrender
y indeed,
ley know
wledge?"
all saints
ladth and
What do
lich they
J of their
they con-
THE PUNISHMENT OP SODOM.
cern themselves about grieving the Holy Spirit of God,
whereby they " are sealed unto the day of redemption " ?
And yet, if you can get them, in your solicitude for their
safety, to stop for one moment in the hurry of their
worldly career, and honestly to face the enquiry, can they
deny that these are points of the Christian Eeligion with
which, if they would be Christians indeed, and would
share in the hopes of Christians, it is necessary for them
to have a practical and home-felt acquaintance ?
Our Saviour Christ has come still closer to the point
in adverting to the history of Sodom and Gomoriuh, by
referring to the individual example of one who was
rescued in the first instance from the perdition in which
her fellow-citizens were involved, but who became after-
wards a signal monument of the Divine vengeance.
"Eemember Lot's wife." We know the particulars of
the narrative. Lot himself lingers : the angels hasten
him ; they take him and his family by the hand ; they
bring them forth, the Lord being merciful to him, and
they charge him— "Escape for thy life : look not behind
thee, neither stay thou in all the plain : escape to the
mountain, lest thou be consumed." This charge was
not observed by his wife. « His wife looked back from
behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." She
indulged in some regrets, we may presume, for the things
which she had left behind her, and the home which she
had possessed in the guilty city— perhaps for some of
its guilty company, with Tvh.m she had been wont to
beguile the time. The greatness of her deliverance,
the horrors from which she was snatched, the awful
manifestation of the curse of God upon the place, the
h2
100
SERMON VIII.
I' ' i
contrast of the mercy extended to herself and those
belonging to her,— all these considerations did not avail
to overpower her criminal predilection for what she had
lost. And while she yielded to the perilous attraction,
and drew back from those who were m-ging her in the
path of safety, she was overtaken by the descending
flood, and at once becoming encased and encrusted by
the nitro-sulphureous matter, which was poured down
from heaven, she stood fast and immovable — the human
creature was a pillar of salt. And it is said to have
stood for some subsequent ages.
Alas ! this looking back, what mischief does it not
work for us— what dangers does it not bring upon our
foolish heads ! Men who have been ensnared in seduc-
tive habits of intemperance or dissolute pleasure— in the
unhallowed excitement of debauched and profane com-
pany — in the destructive fascinations of the gaming-
table, or the midtiplied temptations of a course of
extravagant vanity and profuse ostentation, receive
some providential check ; their ruin is impending, they
become alarmed, they are touched with remorse, they
listen to advice, they see the necessity of repentance
and reform, they abjure their past practices, they
resolve to heed the warning voice of their Bibles
and to follow their heavenly guide. They seem to be
new men; and the language of charitable hope pro-
nounces them new creatures in Christ Jesus. But the
moral disease is not eradicated from the system, and
is ready, under the action of some accidental provo-
cative, to break out afresh. The seed has fallen upon
stony ground: it has sprung up with a promising
THE PUNISHMENT OF SODOM.
101
appearance, but it has no sufficient or stable root, and
it withers under temptation. Some old companion,
exercising an inflaence for ill, and using the persuasions
of worldly good-fellowship ; some particular opportunity
of indulgence difficult to be resisted ; some circumstances
reviving the force of insidious habit, suggest the belief
that a slight surrender may be ventured upon, and, in
an evil hour, they master the imperfect penitent: he
treats the instance as a trifle, and thinks that he may
ask, like Lot himself, in his plea to escape to Zoar, " Is it
not a little one ? " and he soon and sadly verifies the
scriptural adage, that "The dog is turned to his own
vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her
wallowing in the mire."
But we have seen already that it is not only against
these grosser transgressions that the Lord Jesus would
have us stand upon the guard ; nor is it only in such
cases that we are liable to the danger of drawing back
unto perdition. My brethren, where our treasure is,
there are our hearts ; and if our hearts and our treasure
are in the world, in its drudging business, in its money-
making speculations, in its political agitations, in its
ambitious schemes, in its gaudy vanities, in its glittering
pleasures,— then it is very plain that our heart is not
given to the gracious Lord Who demands it, and that
our treasure is not the " one pearl of great price." But
if, by the goodness of God, our eyes have been opened
to discern the things which belong to our peace— if we
do feel that, our lot having been cast in a sinful world,
the Lord has done wonderful things for our rescue, and
that we are as brands plucked out of the burning, then
i!
\l
1 ^
iiti
ilf
102
SERMON VIII.
let us continually watch and continually pray for the
succours of His grace, that we may not, because we may
be called perhaps to some distasteful sacrifice or exertion,
or because we may encounter disappointment in the
efforts of our zeal, be found to fall from our steadfast-
ness ; and that we may never be ensnared to yield again
by little and little to the demands of a corrupt nature
and a corrupt world to slacken in our devotion, to become
weary in well-doing, and to fall off in any point of
holy practice or religious observance, private or publia
"Kemember Lot's wife/' Remember that •' no man, having
put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the
kingdom of God." « If any man draw back, saith the
Lord, My soul hath no pleasure in him." Alas ! how little
do men in general regard the weight of a sentence like
this ! — " My soul hath no pleasure in him." A being with
eternity before him, disowned and repudiated by God !
There is great danger that in an easy and respectable
situation, where all the decencies of life must be pre-
served^ and a large measure of comforts and indulgences
may be freely enjoyed, without conspicuously or con-
sciously treading on forbidden ground — ^there is great
danger in such a situation, that men may mistake the
mere smooth and regular tenor of their lives for a con-
dition of spiritual safety and acceptance before God,
It is well for us to consider, in such a case, that there
are, in human life, although they may not appear to
threaten or come near us, severe and searching tests
of faith and duty,— and to probe ourselves honestly by
the supposition of our being thrust into such trials.
How should we acquit ourselves? how do we stand
THE PUNISHMENT OF SODOM.
103
prepared in heart ? Suppose that our lives were put
in jeopardy in the cause of Christ, should we rely
upon His promise and refuse to draw back from His
directions? "Whosoever shall seek to save his life
shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall
preserve it." These words of Christ appear primarily
to relate to the protection which would be over the
heads of those whom He reserved for His own work
upon earth, and to the preservation of their lives, upon
their abiding, through the power of faith, by His in-
structions, in the fearful scenes which were approach-
ing ; while others, distrusting His promise and seeking
safety by means of their own devising, would fall
the victims of their unbelief. But the words may
very plainly be adapted to the case of those who are
actual martyrs in His cause ; and who, being able to -zay
with the holy Apostle, "Yea, and though I be offered
upon the service and sacrifice of your faith, I joy and
rejoice with you all," do, by a happy paradox, preserve
their lives in losing them. They lose, what they must
in any case soon part with, this perishable and troubled
life below, and they preserve to themselves the life
which "is hid with Christ in God." And such were
they, — let me pay them, upon this first opportunity
afforded me, some little passing tribute, — such were
they* among my own brethren of the clergy who, after
voluntarily out-staying their appointed time at the
Quarantine Station, have (in addition to previous
• Reference is made to the deaths, by ship fever, in 1 847, of the Revs.
R. Anderson and C. J. Morris, Missionaries of the S.P.G.
■
I '
idH
104
BEBMON VUL
I
victims of the same stamp, in other places) heen
taken from us since I left you for a remote part of
the Diocese. Honoured be their names among men,
and dear be their memories, — although it was not to
this reward that they looked, and they have found a
better, through Him Whose unprofitable servants they
owned themselves, but Whom they served in all humble
faith and Icve, — honoured be their names, dear be their
memories, and precious and profitable be their example
to us all! Mournful, indeed, have been the gaps in
the ranks of our clergy, and severe has been our loss
of faithful and exemplary men, who rightly counted
not their lives dear unto them in meeting a loud and
urgent call to minister among the crowds of sick and
dying strangers, and to speak words of comfort and
extend deeds of mercy to the hundreds of bereaved
and desolate survivors. They would not, as some would
have urged them to do, leave their poor fellow-Christians
to die like dogs ; nor the widow and the fatherless to sit
and weep without a pastor to soothe and instruct them.
We can hardly be warranted to say yet that "one
woe is past " ; but if it be passing, our own experience
may surely suffice to teach us that another woe may
come quickly : let us always stand prepared, and if
we have been at all beneficially schooled by the melan-
choly lessons which have been before our eyes, let us not
impatiently escape back to the lightness and frivolity
and worldliness of heart which possibly attached to too
many of us before. " Kemember Lot's wife."
SERMON IX.
THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH.
Gen. XXXIX. 1.
And Joseph toaa hr<mght down to Egypt.
The history of Joseph is, in so many points of view,
pregnant with interest and instruction, that, although
the reflections which it suggests and the practical lessons
which it conveys require, for the most part, no laboured
elucidation in order to their being properly understood
and applied, it can never be a diy nor an unprofitable
task to follow them out. And this narrative of patri-
archal times being brought before us in successive
portions by the Church in her course of Sunday ser-
vices, during the present season of the year, it will
not be inappropriate to range through its whole extent,
in order to select, here and there, some prominent points
which may offer themselves to our regard.
The first feature of the story which it occurs to notice
—presuming the story itself, in every part, to be familiar
in the recollection of us all— is the unequalled power
of that touching and tender simplicity with which it
exhibits all the vivid realities of domestic feeling and
affection, breaking out in the genuineness of nature,
the same 3500 years ago that she is now. A few short
strokes, entirely unstudied and unambitious of effect—
106
8EUM0N IX,
U
I
orrathor, in the dignity of Divine inspiration, produccl
in disdain of nil attempt at effect — come liomo to our
human bosoms in a way to which no liigh-wrouglit
tale of imaginative pathos, no elaborate result of
artificial description, could possibly pretend. Wo can
hardly, in our modern modes of expression, even point
out these excellences without damaging that native
delicacy of truth in the picture, which will not bear
the touch of any other than the original hand. But
wo would indicate, as examples, — referring your memo-
ries, my brethren, to the words of the Bible itself,—
the force which Joseph is deacribed as having put
upon his own feelings, in probing those of his brethren
to the quick, in order to work in them, by a seeming
severity and harshness, the humbling effect which was
necessary for their good; tike effort with which he
enquires, with the air of a stranger, while they are
bowing themselves before him to the earth, after their
welfare, and asks whether tlieir father is well, the old
man of whom tliey spake, and whether he is yet alive ;
the question, when he lifted up his eyes and saw his
brother Benjiunin, liis mother's son, whether this were
their younger brother of whom they spake urto him ;
the words which then break from him, " God be 7. cioujj
unto thee, my son !" ; his inability any longc. . . com-
mand himself, because his bowels did yearn upon his
brother, and his going apart to weep ; and then, at last,
when the crisis has come, the manner in which he
disolop'>5 himself, and declares his identity, in all
his lei's:!!) oiagnificeuce and power, with the stripling
THE H18T0KY OP JOSEPH.
107
whom thoy hnd sold so long before, and, in the full
and giiHhing tide of unrepressed fraternal affection,
flings himself freely into their arms; and then, in
their trouble at his presence, his kind earnestness,
his ingenious reasoning, to re-assure their spirits.
Again, look at the moving plea of Judah, and his
Ronerous offer, dreading the effect upon their grey-
haired father, to remain in bonds in the place of
Benjamin, the full brother of Joseph himself, and the
child to whom the heart of the father now especially
clung. Or if we turn to the scenes in which the aged
father is pictured to us himself, we may notice the
struggles of his mind before he would consent to the
departure of Benjamin, and that consent wrung from
him at last by the stern necessity of the case, in the
midst of sorrowful forebodings prompted by the remem-
brance of what was believed to have been the fate of
Joseph, the once cherished child of his hopes.
We see from these few touches in what manner the
domestic interests and individual affections of huma«
life are portrayed to ua in the Scriptures, and mar-
vellously interwoven, sjnce men are the agents, with
that vast and continuous chain of Providence which
grasps, here and for ever, the destinies of the race.
Upon this point, however, we shall have occasion to
fix our attention more particularly before parting with
our subject: let us now look at some more familiar
lessons which are suggested by different portions of
the history.
The partiality, perhaps the undue, although not
'*I!.'J_«II!K!!'"19
mmm
W
It'
108
SEEMON IX.
undiscorning partiality, of Jacob for hxs son Joseph,
appears to have conspired with some other circum-
stances, and particularly with the relation, irom the
mouth of Josepu himsell, of tnose dre; ms by which
the Almighty was pleased to signify the purposo of
his future elevation, — to produce a stron«? feeling of
envy and ill-will against him in the minds of his
brethren, and to have created l kind of party in the
family. And hero is a lesson, not only for parents
and children, and members of the same household,
but for all persons who, in whatever way, are associated
together in life and act in company, to beware of giving
occasion for jealousy and offence, and, on the other
side, of being drawn into combinations against any
individual or individuals who, perhaps very innocently,
have become obnoxious. The bad feeling once con-
ceived in the heart, materials are never wanting to
feed the flame : appearances are misconstrued ; sus-
picions are formed and fostered ; grievances are made
out of nothing ; jealousy, dislike, and aversion assume
a more pronounced character from day to day ; heart-
burnings are indulged and aggravated in the private
communications which pass between the members of
the hostile party, till they are prepared for the first
opportunity of mischief and wrong. The resentments
which they have been nursing may not break out into
crime ; the circumstances of their position may forbid
any such consequence; but the seeds of that hatred
and malice are germinating in their hearts, which are
accounted,— let all tremble to hear it who entertain
THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH.
109
injurious grudges, or vindictive and rancorous senti-
ments against their neighbour.-which are accounted
as murder in tlie sight of God. " Wliosoever hateth his
brother is a murderer," - a declaration remarkably
exemplified in the issue to which the brethren of
Joseph were led on in their irritated repudiation of
his pretensions.
Let us learn, then, what devils in disguise are in
the heart of man, and what need there is that they be
expelled and supplanted by the Spirit of Grace and
Love. If we are Christians, let us never for a moment
forget that "this commandment have we from" Christ"
"that he which loveth God, love his brother also,"—
not only his brother who fraternizes with him' in
habits and sentiments and mutual acts of courtesy
and kindness— for sinners also do as much as this,—
no, it is every brother of the race, however disposed
towards ourselves, that we are to lu^^e— regarding our-
selves as the disciples of One Who rendered back bless-
ing to those from whom He suffered an accursed doom
and as the children of that God Who continually and
characteristically is kind and good to the unthankful
and the evil.
The troubles of the life of Jacob— things which are
linked closely with this portion of sacred history-
afford also an instructive lesson. Jacob was a chosen
servant of God : his name is associated with the names
of Abraham and Isaac in the title and memorial which
God proclaimed as His own throughout all generations :
he was the father of the twelve patriarchs who founded
no
SERMON IX.
II! '
the tribes of Israel, and ho was the progenitor of
Christ. But in the deception practised in his youth
upon his father, under the tuition of his other parent,
— although in that very act the overruling hand of
God was carrying out the purposes of His eternal
wisdom, — Jacob had unquestionably committed a great
sin ; and the moral of the story appears in the sequel.
The prophetic blessing took effect in the line of Jacob ;
but if we trace his own personal and individual history
from the day when he fled in terror from the paternal
roof, — after which his mother was never permitted to
behold the face of her favourite again, — we see, although
with a mixture of prosperous circumstances and frequent
marks of a special protection from above, of what a series
of hardships, vexations, and heart-rending afflictions a
great portion of his Kfe was made up, and what ample
grounds he had to declare before Pharaoh that f e 7 and
evil had been the days of his years upon earth.
We are by no means warranted to interpret all his
trials as judgments for his early delinquency ; his sin,
no doubt, was forgiven, and his peace was made ; but
this we may note, that whereas he had imposed upon
his father to the detriment of his elder brother, it was
particularly in domestic life that he suffered anxiety
and anguish of spirit. The same kind of principle
was carried out which was exemplified in the sentence
awarded against King David, that, as he had procured
Uriah the Hittite to be slain by the sword, so the sword
should never depart from his house.
There is too much disposition among men, in the
THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH.
Ill
hour of their own prosperity, to forget the claims of
those who have been their companions in the depres-
sion of their fortunes or ^'n the struggles of human
life ; too much disposition to think no more of the
debts of gratitude which they may owe, or the promises
which they have freely made to person? whose wants,
however great, are obscure, because they are obscure
themselves. And this disposition is strongly instanced
in the conduct of a high officer in the household of
Pharaoh ; one whose mind had been relieved in prison
by the power bestowed upon Joseph to interpret his
dream, and upon whom Joseph had depended to make
interest in his behalf. « Yet did not the chief butler
remember Joseph, but forgat him." Such is, as we
familiarly speak, the way of the world. And such an
experience of the world is apt, in minds which are
strangers to the influences at once soothing and cor-
rective of our holy faith, to produce sourness, misan-
thropy, and settled disgust. But the Christian, whatever
oblivion of benefits he may encounter in the world,
whatever disappointment of just expectations, whatever
coldness and distance in quarters where he is entitled
to countenance and favour and friendly regard, supports
himself by the reflection that there is One Who does
mi forget ; One greater than man. Who never loses sight
of the workmanship of His hands ; Who, in His bound-
less love. His unfathomable wisdom, and His omnipotent
energy of power, pervades His entire creation through-
out its details, so that it is declared of the very sparrows,
however insignificant they may appear in our eyes, that
i
u
112
SEUMON IX.
I" I
'A
ii'i I
»^
"not o\w of thoni is fort/oftm Loforo God"; Quo Wlio
stumls pknlirod in Clnist to tlio aiiilul childroii of tlio
dust, if only tlioy uro Indiovors ; nnd littlo us their
porfornmnoos can, in thonisolvtis, bo of bonofit or value
to llinj. graciously declares that He is "not nnrhjhtmis
to foi'ijvt \\w\y work anil labour whiijh prococHleth of
lovts" and Who records and requites the oflering of faith,
thou«;h it bo in the form of two mites given by the
liand of poverty, or a cuj) of cold water to refresh a
brother for whom Christ died : One Who, though a
woman may fovgd. her sucking child that she should
not have compassion on the fruit of her wond), yet will
not fimfd the people whom lie knows and owns— Who
bids them to trust in llim, for llo will never, iiovor
leave them nor forsake them.
The workings of ri»morse in the conscience, and tho
blessing which it is (if rightly improved) to men who
have conuuitted iniquity that they should be brought
into straits and nnluced to a condition of alarm and
humiliation, are also pictured to us in a lively manner
ill tho facts of this remarkable narrative. The brethren
of Joseph are before him in their urgent need, seeking
relief for the famine of their households. He puts
on an air of roughness : professes a distrust of their
character and object, and exacts, as a test, the liard
eondition that they should go back and bring their
youngest brother from his father's side,— one of their
number, in tho mean time, being detained in coufiue-
nieut as a hostage. And then it is that they are
prompted to say one to another— (it all passed in the
and
THE IIISTOUY OP JOSEPH.
113
iciinntr o
f .Tos(^pli, wl)om tlioy supprwod not to nndor-
stund thtur Itinguu^'o) — " Wo
aro vorily guilty concern-
ing our brotluT. in that wo saw tlio anguinli of his soul
when ho besought us and W(^ would not lieur : thonifore
i« this distress come up.m us." And it is brought liome
to tlioni by Keuben ; " Uouben answered them, saying
Spake I not unto you. saying. Do not sin against the'
chdd; and ye w(,uld lu.t hear? tlierefore behold also his
blood IS required." So again, in the same consciousness
ol ill-desert, when, upon their homeward road, the
money is found n.ysteriously restoi-ed in the sack of
one of them, their heart failed them, and they were
afraid, saying oiu^ to another, " WJiat is this that God
hath done unto us ? "
The checks which God gives us in our career of
common worldliness and folly-the manner in which
He brings up against us, by particular occurrences
hardly to be mistakcui, any notable transgression of
which we have thought too lightly, or not thought at
all, are among the chiefest of His mercies ; for what is
so dangerously stupid as a heart which does not know
Its own plague ?-what other infatuation is so deplorable
as an ignorance and blinded indifference about our own
cankered spots which are eating into the life of our
souls? Or where is there so fotal a sophistry as that
by which men disguise to themselves the real malignity
of those symptoms of which the existence is too palpable
to be unperceived ? My brethren, let none of us deal
so with our own interest in eternity ; and if we are
newly touched, if we are awakened, if our eyes are
[
ii;!
1 1;
lllih
114
SERMON IX.
opened to our sinfulness, by any providential warning,
and we turn at last to God, let us take heed that the
work is genuine and complete ; for we read— and it is
a very common, but a very frightful and ruinous case—
of those who when they were smitten by judgments,
" turned them early and enquired after God ; and they
remembered that God was their strength, and that
the high God was their Eedeemer." A fair appearance
this: a seeming promise of something permanently
good. « Nevertheless they did but flatter Him with
their mouth, and dissembled with Him in their tongue :
for their heart was not whole with Him, neither con-
tinued they steadfast in His covenant."
We have glanced, in the earlier portion of these
reflections, at that connected train of providential
design in which the incidents of private and domestic
life, and the changes affecting the plans and move-
ments of particular families, were made subservient
to those high and far-extended purposes of Divine
wisdom for the benefit of the entire family of man,
which are carried out into eternity itself. The little
spring which oozes obscurely from the ground, enlarg-
ing and still enlarging itself in its progress, till, in a
long and winding, but plainly traceable course, it is
spread into a mighty and imposing stream, mixes
itself at last with the interminable ocean. The pro-
mises were made to Abraham that his posterity should
possess the land of Canaan, with which he had no original
connexion, and that in his seed should all the families
of the earth be blessed. The grandson of Abraham is
THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH. 1]5
the father of the twelve patriarchs : these patriarchs
are the founders of that chosen and peculiar people
from among whom, after the flesh, the Messiah was to
sprmg ; circumstances are ordained to befall in tlie
family of Jacob, which, in their result, impress upon
the history of that people in its early stage, even as
It respects its secular features, such a character as to
exhibit a perfect representation, point by point, of the
achievements of Christ on behalf of the spiritual
Israel. They are no random occurrences ; it is no
fortuitous succession of events that we trace • the
agency of One supreme Mind, and One unswerving
Will IS discoverable throughout : the control of God
18 there; and the one great purpose promised from the
beginning is kept steadily in view, both in the distri-
bution of events to bring about the issue in its ap-
pointed time, and in the typical correspondence which
we have just noticed between certain facts of a par-
ticular national history and the series of transactions
m which we all have our part, as subjects of the dis-
pensation of Grace. Our rescue from the base bondage
of sm and the oppressive tyranny of Satan ; our
deliverance from the stroke of the destroyer by means
of the sprinkled blood of the Lamb of God • our •
entrance through the sacramental element of water
upon our journey through the wilderness of life • our
march through that wilderness under guidance' and
direction vouchsafed to us from above ; our victory
over the enemies of our salvation, greater and mightier
than ourselves, to be won under the banner of our
12
116
SERMON IX.
m
W^i
heavenly Joshua (for Joshua and Jesus, as most of us
know, are one and the same name, varied in the passage
from one language to another, and the Joshua of the
Old Testament is called Jesus where he is mentioned
in the New), and finally our establishment by the arm
of the same spiritual leader, the Captain of our salva-
tion, in the heavenly Canaan, the land of promise
which lies beyond this wilderness in which we sojourn,
— all these are points of correspondence too familiar
and obvious to require that we should insist or
enlarge upon them. And the way was paved, the
train was laid, for all these typical occurrences — for
the bondage, the exodus, and the establishment in
Canaan, of the Israelitish people — the train was laid
by means of the plots in the family of Jacob against
his favourite child, and the subsequent famine which
prompted their recourse to Egypt for relief.
But if we may thus run a parallel between the early
history of God's ancient people and His dealings with
the spiritual Israel throughout the world, it is well
known that in a great multitude of other examples
also, — whether in the rites and observances of the cere-
monial law, or in the individual history of men eminent
of old, as recorded in the Bible, — the greater things
of the gospel of salvation and often the personal
history of Jesus Christ Himself, in many of its leading
particulars, were distinctly foreshadowed. And thus the
unity of purpose diffused through the vast and com-
plicated whole, and the operation of the hand of God
shaping everywhere the course of things and causing
THE IIISTOliY OF JOSEPH.
117
all to converge to one point, present themselves in a
manner to rouse our feelings of interest, and, at the
same time, to inspire a contemplative awe. The history
of Joseph furnishes, under several different aspects,
an instance in point.
Joseph, in the early indications of his future gi-eat-
ness, and of his designation to a high and special task,
was very ill apprehended by those around him; but
his father, we are told, " observed the saying : " Christ
in His infancy and in His childhood excited a wonder,
little accompanied by an intelligent reception of the
truth ; but His earthly parent " kept all these things
and pondered them in her heart." Joseph, after a plot,
against his life, was taken into Egypt: Christ was
carried into Egypt to escape the murderous intentions of
King Herod. Joseph was hated of his brethren because,
in obedience to the dictates of duty, he brought to his
father their evil report: Christ was hated by the world
because He testified of it that the works thereof were evil ;
we are told that "neither did His brethren believe on
Him," and " His own received Him not." Joseph, on
account of his preternatural wisdom in divine things,
received the name of Zaphnath Paaneah, or, the man to
whom secrets are revealed: Christ is He "in Whom are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Joseph
is sold by his brethren; the price is counted out in pieces
of silver ; he appears in the form of a servant ; he is
arraigned as a criminal and made a prisoner, numbered
with transgressors, associated with two malefactors, one
of whom is pardoned and restored to favour, the other is
118
SERMON IX.
if
left to coiidomnation : in all these points, the coin-
cidences with the case of Christ are what it is needless
to indicate. Joseph is, subsequently, — observe, my
brethren, in every single particular which now follows,
the exact picture in the earthly occurrences of the lifo
of Joseph, of sacred, spiritual, and heavenly thin^TS re-
lating to the personal histoiy, the acts, and the attributes
of Christ the antitype,— Joseph is subsequently exalted
to the highest honours, Tharaoh only in the throne
being greater than he : Christ is highly exalted in His
glorified human nature, and sits down on the right hand
of the Majesty in the heavens. All power is given to
Joseph over the land of Egypt : all power is given to
Christ in heaven and earth. They ciy before Joseph,
Bow the knee : wo are told that, at the name of Jesus
every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things
in earth. Joseph becomes the dispenser of bread, the
restorer of life to perishing beings, and by his means the
hungry are literally filled with good things : in what
manner these expressions will apply to Christ (not to
speak here of their literal propriety, if made to describe
the miracles of the loaves), cannot fail to be immediately
perceived; -to Christ, Who is Himself the Bread Which
came down from heaven, and AVho, imparting Himself to
the souls of men, makes good His declaration that " they
shall be filled " " who hunger and thirst after righteous-
ness." Joseph was sent by God, in his own remarkable
words, to save the lives of his brethren " by a great
deliverance." How this is appropriate to the person of
Christ, it must be equally superfluous to point out. Is
THE HISTOllY OP JOSEPH.
119
there not here, then, a portrait, in earthly lineaments, of
Christ ? and what thougli some points of resemblance
which have been exhibited in tracing this parallel from
beginning to end, should be regarded by any among us as
unimportant or insufficiently made out — or what though
the chronological order of the occurrences which it com-
prehends, is not always the same in the two cases — can
we refuse to recognise the collective force and result of
the compared particulars as a whole ? Can we fail, if
we contemplate the similar close correspondence, in cir-
cumstantial particulars, of the personal history of Isaac,
of Moses, of Daniel, and other names of note in the
Bible, with the personal history of Christ, — can we
possibly fail to see that God was guiding all things to
one grand issue, and that He stamped upon successive
dispensations, as well the identity of His purpose as
the demonstration of His supreme overruling power,
ordering and directing the occurrences of this lower
world, " after the counsel of His own will ? "
There is one other point in common between Joseph
and Him who was God, yet made Himself man for our
sakes, that both were victorious in signal temptation.
Christ, indeed, in this aspect, stands alone : He was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. That
cannot be said of any other who has ever appeared in
human shape. It is precisely as to sinners that He
stands in the relation to us of a Saviour, and is the
sinless High Priest, and the spotless self-offered sacrifice
which our case requires. But woe be to us if, in a false
and perverted reliance upon this wonderful provision of
120
SERMON IX.
Divine mercy, we throw the reins loose to our sinful
inclinations, or relax in our resistance of temptation.
We are tempted in many ways and under many disguises
every day. We are warned of our danger in the simple
prayer given us by the Lord, and we are charged by Him
to watch as well as pray, lest we " enter into temptation."
Whatever would draw us away from maintaining a
heavenly frame of mind, from habitually walking with
God, from living " soberly, righteously, and godly, in this
present world," from strictly keeping "a conscience void
of offence toward God and toward men,"— whatever
would suggest to us that we may venture to decline
from this high standard, and would make us believe that
we consult our happiness in doing so,— whatever, my
brethren, would produce such effects as these upon our
minds, is a temptation from the enemy of our souls.
Never let us think that this or that deviation is a little
thing, and can do us no great mischief That is what
Adam and Eve were persuaded to think when they put
forth their hands to the forbidden fmit. « HoHness to
the Lord " is the state of preparation in which a Christian
should stand. No deviation from holiness is a light or
little thing. But there are, perhaps, some among us
solicited, and strongly solicited too, to acts of different
kinds, so plainly forbidden, that if they sin, they must
be said to sin with their eyes open. And if they are not
so far gone in the road of ruin as to be abandoned to a
course of sin and to glory in it, they plead the strength
of the temptation, and think that this will serve for
their excuse. let them turn to the example of those
THE HISTOKY OF JOSEni.
121
servants of God who have been enabled, through grace,
to triumph over combined and violent temptations, and
have been saved by the salutary remembrance of all
which is enveloped in the question of Joseph, " How can
I do this great wickedness, and sin against God V
SERMON X.
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
Heb. XI. 24, 25.
By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the so)i
of Pharaoh's daughter; dwosing rather to suffer affliction with the
people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
The early history of Moses, here placed in the Apostle's
catalogue of those who have nobly exemplified the
power of faith, is familiarly known. The particulars
are gathered from the second chapter of Exodus, the
seventh of the Acts of the Apostles, and the eleventh
of the Epistle to the Hebrews. To save him from
perishing by the cruel edict of Pharaoh, which com-
manded the slaughter, as soon as they were born, of all
the male children of the Hebrews, he was, after being
concealed for three months, committed in an ark o*f
bulrushes to the river Nile,— left, as we should be apt
to speak", to the mercy of the winds and waters, but
rather to the mercy and protection of that God Who,
in closely similar circumstances (of which these were,'
no doubt, ordained to be typical), knew how to deliver
His own Son, the founder of thd better covenant, from
the rage of the sanguinary Herod.
The faith of the parents of Moses in this proceeding
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
123
is notsd in the same honourable record in which his
own is set before us. And we find that it was not
disappointed. The child was discovered by the daughter
of Pharaoh, who went down with her attendants to
bathe in the river. The innocence of helpless infancy
in such a situation, aided by the sweet aspect of the
child (for this is intimated in the expression rendered
in our Bible by the words, " a proper child "), appealed
strongly to the feelings of nature. " When she saw the
ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And
when she had opened it, she saw the child : and, behold,
the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and
said, This is one of the Hebrews' children." By the
intervention of his sister, a Hebrew nurse was engaged,
and under the gracious providence of God, he was thus
restored to the arms of his own mother. His royal
patroness continued to watch with interest over a being
whom she had been instrumental in preserving: she
provided for his education, so that he became " learned
in all the wisdom of the Egyptian's," and adopted him
as her son, an adoption which, according to the account
of some ancient and modern writers, comprehended his
nomination to succeed to the crown of Egypt, but which
did certainly comprehend very high elevation and splen-
dour, and open before him a very dazzling perspective.
These privileges were declined. This tempting and,
in human estimation, most enviable position was refused.
He turned from a prospect covered with all which could
flatter his ambition, minister to his self-indulgence, or
feed his worldly hopes, and cast his eyes upon the
124
SERMOX X.
afflicted people of God. And with a constancy un-
shaken by the contrast, he chose his portion with them.
Without Kstening to any such suggestions of his own
mind as that the same Almighty Hand which had been
extended for his signal preservation had now met him
in a more advanced point of his pilgrimage, and opened
a way for him to befriend his countrymen, by means
of his power and influence at court, he rejected the
benefits which were within his grasp, and settled it
with himself that he was reserved for another destiny,
content to leave to the Divine providence and promise'
the future rescue of His people from their bondage.
But why did he thus calculate and thus decide ? Why,
but because he saw that to profit any longer by the
intentions of the princess would be to forsake his
God ? He must have identified himself with the cor-
ruptions of a wicked court and with the abominations
of an idolatrous system of religioa Eather than thus
*^ to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," he chose
" to suffer affliction with the people of God."
We must admire the rectitude, and we ought to
discern the wisdom, of his choice. For it is wisdom
unhesitatingly to sacrifice the world to the calls of
religious duty. It is wisdom to prefer the preservation
of a conscience void of offence, though coupled with
affliction and reproach, to all the smiling promise of
pleasure, the indulgences of wealth, the parade of gran-
deur, the command of power. If the acquisition or the
enjoyment of these partake of sin, it is folly, wretched
foUy, however harsh may be our alternative, to pursue
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
125
them. It is blindness to shun the "light affliction
which is but for a moment," if, in shunning it, we
endanger the "exceeding and eternal weight of glory"
which it may contribute to work for us, and if we
expose our souls to the peril of eternal condemnation.
If " the sufferings of this present time are not worthy
to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us " who believe in the salvation of Christ, it is a
deplorable miscalculation to risk the loss of that hope
in order to avoid some restraint, some self-denial, some
exertion, some privation (all coupled, be it observed,
with peace of conscience and comfort of soul) here
below. If our belief be clear and steady, and we have
not suffered our light to be dimmed by our immersion
in the world, it is impossible that we should hesitate
with such a choice presented to our minds. Faith is
what we want. " By faith Moses refused to be called the
son of Pharaoh's daughter." Faith was the principle
which prompted his decision and gave him power to
resist the world. He felt the conviction that he should
be no loser at the last by anything which he suffered or
sacrificed for God and His religion ; he knew that God
" IS, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him ; " and, more than this, we may be assured
that, like Abraham, he rejoiced to see the day of
Christ, and " saw it and was glad ; " he beheld, through
a lengthened vista, the glories of a better covenant, and
recognising a personal interest in the scheme of redemp-
tion, he anticipated the unseen " recompense of reward."
The Apostle tells us of Moses, that he esteem.ed " the
126
SERMON X.
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in
Egypt." To tliose who consider the disproportion be-
tween eternity and time, and remember that they are
certainly made to live for ever, nothing in this world
can seem either too good to part with, or too hard to
undergo, if that surrender or that endurance carry the
evidence of their being heirs of gloiy in Christ. It was
this which sustained the spirits of the primitive be-
lievers in all the varieties of persecution and martyrdom
to which they weie exposed, — this immovable per-
suasion and holy hope of unspeakable gain to be reaped
hereafter through that Master Whom they loved and
Who suffered and was glorified before them. Could our
minds be so divested of their worldly integuments as to
enable us to reason and to discriminate without bias, we
should at once see and acknowledge that they who
suffer for the truth of God, or who practise self-denial,
forego worldly benefit, resist worldly inducement and
influence from a sense of duty to Him, do not renounce
their happiness, but place it out at interest upon terms
more advantageous than this world can know ; and we
should be at a loss whether most to lament the sinful-
ness, or to compassionate the infatuation, of those
nominal believers in Christ who, in fact, live without
God in the world ; who form all their decisions, lay all
their plans in life, pursue all their interests and pleasures,
without taking into their consideration the manner in
which their eternal welfare may be affected; who eat
and drink, build and plant, marry and are given in
marriage, regardless of the flood of time fast mounting to
THE CHOICE OP MOSES.
127
its mark, which will surprise them unprepared when it
closes over their devoted heads.
These are considerations which derive much additional
. strength from our reflecting upon the mixture of bitter
ingredients in all unsanctified enjoyment; the uncer-
tainty of its continuance, the brevity at best of its
duration, and the wretchedness of its issue. Let us
take the example of men who unreservedly yield them-
selves up to enjoy the world, and to fulfil the lusts of
the flesh, discarding wholly the restraints which are
imposed by their duty to God, the care of their souls,
the very thought of a world to come. Will they not
often be found to verify the saying, that "even in
laughter the heart is sorrow^ful, and the end of that mirth
is heaviness " ? Will they never be known secretly to
suffer by a smothered consciousness of doing wrong, and
to feel the worm which corrodes their enjoyment at the
core ? Will it not be sometimes seen that, in the words
of a truly Christian poet,
" Scripture is still a trumpet to their fears . . .
That scruple checks them. Riot is not loud
Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst
Of laughter their compunctions are sincere,
And they abhor the jest by which they shine."
The effect of the self-reproving voice may be evaded by
some plausible sophistry, and the edge of remorseful
feeling worn blunt by the habit of sinful indulgence,
but it is only when men are abandoned to reprobate
hardness of heart, that the power of these checks is
wholly gone. Alas ! there are sins which men admire
128
SERMON X.
in themselves ; excesses and deviations, and acts of
irreligion, in which they glorj^ ; it is often unction to
their self-love to think themselves men of pleasure and
men of the world ; and thus vanity and sinful indulgence
play, as it were, into the hands r~ -^ch ocher, and are
mutually driven on. But suppos: fullest gratifica-
tion of both— will any man calmly and soberly say that
this is happiness ? It is the delusion of a diseased
fancy, the wild intoxication of an hour. No safe and
unadulterated pleasure can spring from any source
which is tainted in the least degree by sin. And how-
ever men may brave, in certain instances, the dis-
approving frowns of holiness, or sport in the alarms of
purity and the remonstrances of religion, yet there are,
as the case is put by one of our older divines, two
painful and uneasy passions which attach themselves, in
a manner at one day or other to be manifested, to every
violation of the Law of God— the passions of shame and
fear: shame, overpowered for the moment, but not
extinguished, by the false shame of the world, and pro-
ceeding from the undefined apprehension of exposure to
a dreaded eye ; and fear, from the apprehension, however
clouded or however remote, of punishment due to sin.
" There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."
But suppose that the pleasures of sin— that is, the
enjoyment of life, whether more gross or more discreet,
without reference to the service of God or the welfare
of the soul— could be unalloyed; yet, according to
the calculation of Moses, it is but " for a season." The
pleasure of some sins expires in the very commission :
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
129
there are others which procure a return of worldly
delight or advantage, less immediately fleeting in its
nature : — but the fruits of all are utterly precarious,
and liable to be exchanged for loss and pain. Concede,
however, another supposition — suppose them secured
for the date of life : what is that to beings who know
that they have an immortal part ? What is this life, —
which is proverbially a dream, a shadow, •' a vapour that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away," —
to those who are conscious that, beyond it, they enter
upon an existence which knows no end ? What can it
be but madness to hazard our condition in that here-
after, for the sake of anything here ? When we pass
hence into the world of spirits, it will avail us but little
to have revelled in the abundance of good things or to
have dazzled our neighbours by our distinctions and
advantages in the world below. All mankind will be
set upon a level before the judgment-seat of God : the
marks and discriminations of different classes in human
society were made only for this world, and will cease
with their occasion : tlio only remaining distinction will
be that by which God " will discern between the right-
eous and the wicked;" between those that serve Him
and those that serve Him not ; between the lovors of
God and the lovers of their own pleasure. Oh, how
infinitely greater will be that difference, how infinitely
more marked that separation than any which now exist
between the highest and the meanest of mankind.
"Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so
that they which would pass from hence to you cannot ;
K
130
SERMON X.
lu'itlier can Wwy pitss to us tlmt would conic, from tlionco."
"The An^rcls shiill conic (brtli and sever tlu^ wicked from
among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of
fire."
The indulf,'cncos, then, which men find it ao hard to
forc<;o, are at best only of value in this ])assin}» world,
and bear no price at all in that country wluire we are to
live for ever ; nor, if it were otlu^'wise, could we then
transport them with us. . "We brought nothing into this
world, and it is certain we cai\ carry nothing out."
Naked we came into it, and naked we shall go out.
The proud occupier of palaces, the lord of vast
domains, will soon have no other portion in the earth
than the narrow grave. " Be not thou afraid though one
be nuule rich, or if the glory of his house be increased.
For ho shall carry nothing away with him when he
dieth, neither shall his pomp follow him." The guilt
alone which nuiy have been contracted in the pursuit of
worldly gain or pleaisuro will adhere to his unhappy
soul, if it have not been washed in the blood of the
I^nib. Oh, but when we speak of guilt, and depravity,
and stains to be wiped away, and pardon needed for
miserable sinners, what is vail this to those who preserve
an unblemished chamcter, and are excellent friends and
neighbours, and disdain every dishonourable practice,
abhor every atrocious proceeding? This is what some men
cannot understand. They are not in a state to under-
staiid it. They are lulled in a pernicious security about
the concerns of their immortal souls : they are enveloped
in an uncertain twilight with regard to spiritual things :
,
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
131
the way wlu(;h thoy triuid tlicy know not— yet they
careusssly and uiiconcornodly tread on: tliey walk perhaps
upon the verj,'o of destruction and wander in bewildering
and deceitful paths, but they have company in thei*^
danger, and that is enough ; they are countenanced by
the practice of tlie world, and that suflices for consolation.
They believe that there is a place called Heaven and
another of which the name is Hell : they know extremely
well that there is a liible declaring the will of God, and
proclaiming a Saviour Who came into the world : they
think it a duty to attend public worship, and they are
not aware of anything which they have done,— or at
least which they continue to do,— constituting any out-
rage upon these principles or seeming to threaten ruin
to their souls. But, merciful Heaven ! do they consider
for what Christ the Son of God came into the world
and died, and what state they are in by nature from
which He came to rescue them; and how they can
assume to themselves and how preserve alive that close
connexion with Hmi which must be csscniial to their
safety, if it was necessary for Him to interpose at all?
Where is their fixed, their serious, their deep impression
of these truths, which if they are truths, are truths so
surpassingly, so unspeakably monumtous ? Where are
the signs of their having any real fear of God before
their eyes, any love to Him kindled within their
hearts ? Where are the marks of their having " put
on Christ;" of their being "renewed in the spirit of"
their minds ; of their having set their " affection on
things above ; " of their regarding themselves as " fellow-
K 2
T>0
SERMON X.
citizens witli tho saints and of tlio liousuliold of God ; "
of their feolinj^ly rucognisincr tho fact tliat they are
" houglit with a price," and the principle that " if One
died for all, they which live should not henceforth live
unto themselves, but unto llini that died for them and
rose again " ? How does it appear that they are sensible
of tho necessity of working out their "salvation with
fear and trembling," and aware at the same time that
" it is God that worketh in " them " both to will and
to do"? Can they be so deluded as to suppose that
they are not to be excluded from the rewards of tho
believer, because they have avoided that description of
wickedness from the temptations to which they have
been exempt ? Labour and warfare are the lot of the
Christian : he knows not what his religion is who knows
not this : laboiu- and warfare are his lot : prayer and
communion with God through Christ are his resource
and his solace, and God Himself is his strength : one
field is assigned to one man, another to another, but
work to all : even if there can be a condition in which
there is none abroad, lie finds it within the folds of his
own breast.
" His warfare is vvithiji : there uuaubducd
His fervent spirit labours ; tliere ho fights,
And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself."
To those who are content with the negative sort of
Christianity— the good, easy kind of religion to which
some of our remarks have been directed— it is well to
propose the question, to urge rather their proposing it
to their own hearts, whether they have the principle
within which would prevail over the world, in the fiery
THE CHOICE OF MOSES.
133
trial ? or how t\uj would luivo chosen, with tlic alter-
native which was placed before Moses, or before a
greater than IVToses— Christ in His human nature— to
Whom all the kin^rdoms of this world, and the -lory (.f
them, wore offered for one; single act of forl)idd('n
homage ? My brethren, we have, in fact, all of us, some
clioico sot before us which so far pait-ikes of the same
charactc^r as to furnish a test, of our spiritual state.
Every day, in some shape or other, the world or the
flesh is found coming in competition with the love of
God ; every day, right and wrong are offered to as
together— the former distasteful, the latter agreeable, to
our natural inclinations. How do we decide ? Whom
do we choose to serve ? The question involves tremen-
dous consequences. "For what is a man profited, if he
shall gain the whole wo«ld and lose his own soul?"
And if the earthly prevail over the spiritual principle,
in their common and abnost unobserved opposition!
then it is easy to see on which side the victory would
incline, if severe struggles were to come. " If thou hast
run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then
how canst thou contend with horses ? and if in the land
of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then
how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan ? "
SERMON Xr.
THE THREEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH.
1 St, John V, 8.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water,
and the blood ; and these three agree in one.
We can hardly enter upon the consideration of these
words without noticing the circumstance of their stand-
ing in conjunction with a celebrated text declaratory of
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, to which they bear a
strict correspondence of parts, and from which they
seem naturally to spring. " There are Three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost : and these Three are One. And there are three
that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and
the blood : and these three agree in one." TJiat text, it
is well known, constituting the seventh verse of the
chapter, has been the subject of controversy with refer-
ence to its genuineness — a controversy, however, not
involving any danger to the maintenance of that high,
sacred, and fundamental doctrine which it df^clares,
because the doctrine is most abundantly established by
other means, and it is a controversy with which we are
not here immediately concerned. There is no dispute
about the words, " There are three that bear record, or
THE THREEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH.
135
witness," — (we have translated the word in the seventh
verse, bear record, and in the eif,'hth, bear tvitmss, but in
the original it is in both instances the same) — "There
are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the
water, and the blood." About tlicsc words there is no
•dispute.
This, then, is the declaration which, in all humble
supplication that we may view it in a right and profit-
able manner, it is now proposed to consider. We do
not mean, however, dogmatically to assert the exclusive
correctness of the interpretation to be here offered.
There are many texts of Scripture susceptible of dif-
ferent explanations, and this is one, perhaps, more than
ordinarily obscure. However simple may be the Word
of God in all essential points of belief and practice, it
furnishes matter, in other instances, for the exercise
of research and arcjumentative discussion, serving to
quicken our interest, to stimulate our curiosity, to ob-
viate the stagnation apt to be engendered by an undis-
turbed and uniform acquiescence, and to engage in the
highest of all studies the powers and attainments by
which we investigate, compare, and form our legitimate
conclusions. To assist and lead the way in these en-
quiries is one of the duties attaching to the IVIinistry of
the Church, " the witness and keeper of / Writ,"
appointed not to have dominion over the faith of the
laity, but to be the helper of their joy. We must
always, however, approach our subject with reverential
steps, and keep within safe and well-understood bounds,
avoiding every sort of forced or fanciful exposition in
136
SERMON XI.
adaptation to preconceived and favourite ideas of our
own. The light in which it will be endeavoured to set
the passage now before us will, it is hoped, be con-
sistent with these rules of proceeding ; and the interpre-
tation given will, at least, be one which exhibits truths
directly connected with the objects of the text.
Who, then, or what are the three witnesses described
as the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood ? They may be
regarded in more than one light. First, under a more
general aspect and in a more unrestrained application ;
and next as standing and perpetual public witnesses
existing before our eyes in a precise tangible shape,
and unintermittingly exhibited before the world. In
this latter point of view they may be taken to describe
the inspired Scriptures and the two sacraments of our
religion. Respecting the Spirit, indeed, we can have no
possible difficulty or hesitation in prov.juncing that this
witness is God the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost
has taken the character of a mtness in many ways.
God is said to have borne ivitness to the first planters of
the faith, "both with signs and wonders, and with divers
miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost." "There are di-
versities of gifts," says the Apostle Paul, " but the same
Spirit ;" and after a specific enumeration of these various
gifts, he adds, " but all these worketh that One and the
self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He
wiU ;" a text intimating very distinctly the personality
and the peculiar and appropriate energy of the Holy
Ghost. With reference to the miracles of the Lord Himself,
" God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holi/ Ghost
THE THREEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH. 137
and with power," and according to the most received, and
what appears the most natm^al, interpretation, the lias--
phemy against the Holy Ghost is nothing else than the
ascription to infernal agency of miraculous operations
performed by the communication of that Divine Spirit
from above. The loitness thus yielded to the truth of
God does not require to be pointed out. It was most
conspicuously in this sense, that the proclamation of the
Faith came " in demonstration of the Spirit and of power."
A blaze of glorious prodigy testified to the divine
source of the new religion ; and in the miracle, in par-
ticular, of the day of Pentecost, the visible descent of
the Spirit upon the Apostles at once constituted in itself
a proof of divine agency, and afforded to those who
received the gift of tongues the means of testifying
abroad over the world the Eevelation of God.
Another exemplification of the witness of the Spirit
is that internal testimony in the breast of man which
was unquestionably within the view of the Apostle in
our text, since it is almost immediately that he adds the
words, " He that believeth on the Son of God hath the
witness in himself." Viewed, therefore, in this con-
nexion, these last-cited words correspond exactly to the
declaration of another Apostle, that " the Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God." Not, in these days, by any manifestations
which God makes of Himself to the soul, such as those
m which He revealed Himself to the saints of old who
acted under the impulse and guidance of inspiration—
not in the way of sensations, or impressions, or illumi-
138
SERMON XI.
nations, perceived at the moment to come directly from
heaven — that is what we are not taught nor warranted
to expect. Our faith must be content to dispense with
such communications, and must repose upon other
grounds ; and men often most dangerously deceive
themselves and others by substituting what is, in fact,
an alloy of gross and carnal excitement for the spiritual
influences to which they lay special and perhaps ex-
clusive claim. But apart from all rash and presump-
tuous extravagance, the believer has " an unction from
the Holy One ;" and it is by virtue of this that he knows
Whom he has believed — knows "that He is able to
keep that which" he has "committed unto Him against"
the last day. He has felt the adaptation of the Gospel
of mercy to his case ; he has found that it is " tlie power
of God unto salvation," supplying, what nothing else can
supply, the wants of his immortal soul, and healing,
what nothing else can heal, the wounds which have
been made in that soul by sin. He clasps its glorious
promises to his bosom to sustain him in all the trials
and temptations of the flesh. He discerns them as
having a character in themselves which does not belong
to the things of this world. He traces effects upon his
own heart and life which he knows are not the work of
human influence or natural reason, nor the issue from
any deceiving source ; and although the inward com-
forts of a true faith may differ much in different men,
and in the most favoured cases the believer will have
many alternations of discouragement, many occasions
of self-abasement, many roughnesses to endure and evil
1
THE THREEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH.
139
blasts to encounter, while in this corruptible body, —
yet he goes on his way rejoicing, since he carries the
deep and unshaken conviction that, through the free
and boundless grace of his God, he is numbered among
those who are children, adopted and maintaining their
adoption in the Gospel; "and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ."
The fruits of the Spirit afford witness, also, in another
way — in their effect upon man. The character which
is formed by this Divine influence constitutes a forcible
recommendation of the faith, and yields testimony in
the eyes of all thinking men to its having come out
from God. "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye
bear much fruit." We see how often it is urged upon
the believers, in the Apostolic writings, to have an eye,
in cultivating and cherishing the graces of the Spirit,
in their temper and demeanour and dealings with other
men, to the benefit of the holy cause— the Christian
character fairly exhibited carrying upon the face of it
a convincing appeal to every accessible mind.
But there is another testimony afforded by the Spirit
— one of a supreme importance and of a specific and
tangible kind. " The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of
Prophecy," and this, in a larger sense of the word, com-
prehends the whole Bible, the book of the Spirit. " All
Scripture is given by inspiration of God." « Holy men
of old" — the writers of Scripture are the persons in-
tended— " spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost." "David, in Spirit, calleth Him Lord"— "the Holy
Ghost saith" — "the Holy Ghost this signifyinf^" these
140
SEIIMON XI.
are familiarly the modes of expression in which passages
from the Old Testament are cited in the New. The
Bible, therefore, proceeds from the Holy Ghost. When
the Bible speaks, the Holy Ghost speaks. Just as we
say indifferently, in making reference to the writings
of men, that such a worh testifies, or its author testifies,
to such or such effect. And the Holy Ghost, through
this medium, is a witness, not only as the Bible is a
declaration to the world of the will, works, and dis-
pensations of God, not only as it conveys information
to man in things divine, but in the sense of direct and
irresistible proof. It carries the stamp of divinity upon
its face, and cannot be looked at, unless where the
mental vision is disordered and obscured, without the
recognition of its exalted claims. It is needless to
point out what proof is rendered, what testimony is
spread before us by prcyphecy in the more strict and
confined acceptation of the term. Take only the
example of those predictions relating to the person
of Jesus Christ: trace Him in the early promise to
our fallen parents — in the shadowed but unequivocal
resemblances of historical incident — in the exact cor-
respondence of type and antitype exhibited by the
ritual observances of the Mosaic law — in the minute
and particularizing delineations of the prophetic books :
go with Him where He leads you, as He led His dull
and dispirited disciples in the walk to Emmaus, when,
" beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded
to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Him-
self ;" and will not your hearts burn within you, as
THE THREEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH. 141
He is there distinctly developed to your minds ? Listen
to the Apostle Peter : "Ye have also a more sure word
of prophecy, whereunto ye do weU that ye take heed,
as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." Oh
glorious, but too often .despised, Book of God ! how
will its forgotten lessons, its unheeded warnings, its
rejected pleadings of love tell, in the last day, agJinst
its professed disciples, who have heard them with their
ears and had them in their hands. My brethren, if we
compare with the solemn predictions of Scripture re-
specting the indications of an approaching day of the
Lm^d—^n expression not limited to one only day,-— the
aspect, recent or within easy memory among living men,
of affairs in the world; the convulsive heavings of
human society ; the shaking of the powers of he^aven
(^. e. the powers constituted by the decree of heaven
to rule on earth) ; the pestilences, famines, commo-
tions in divers places and rumours of war which, long
rumbling in distant echoes, are found to burst at length
in an ominous collision of all the elements of terror
—shall we not, without presumptuously and hardily
pronouncing upon the details of unaccomplished pro-
phecy, yet feel ourselves caUed upon, as by a voice from
heaven, to watch the signs of the times and to prepare
for a great crisis which may be at hand in the destinies
of the race ? Shall we not earnestly endeavour to
assure our portion where it is independent of the
changes of this lower world? and shall we not learn
to cast our care upon God and to entrench ourselves
with holy confidence in the recollection that, in the
142
SERMON XI.
words of the 99th Psalm, as translated in the Prayer-
book, "The Lord is King, be the people never so
impatient ; He sitteth between the cherubims, be the
earth never so unquiet." Let us leave the issue of
things in His hands, believing that, whether for indi-
viduals, for the public, for our country, or for the
world. He can bring light out of darkness, and cause
the most threatening appearances — or, if it be so
ordered, the most terrible struggles — to issue in glorious
and blessed results.
We see, then, in what methods the Spirit bears
witness in earth: by the display of power in the
days of miracle ; by the inward testimony of the
bosom in which the love of God is shed abroad ;
by the external testimony of effects upon the character
and life, causing our light to shine before men; and
by the voice of inspiration in the Bible.
The vMter also bears witness upon earth. Let us
take this statement in its plain literal sense. Literal
water will be found in more than one way to bear the
kind of witness here in our contemplation. " This is
He," says the Apostle, in word?3 shortly preceding our
text, " that came by vMter and hlood, even Jesus
Christ ; not by water only, but by water and blood."
Now let it be remembered that this same St. John, who
was present at the crucifixion of our Lord, attaches
apparently, in his narrative of that event, a particular
importance and interest to the fact — furnishing, medically
and anatomically considered, the proof of actual death —
that water issued together with the hlood from, the side
Prayer-
3ver so
be the
ssue of
or indi-
for the
d cause
; be so
glorious
t bears
in the
of the
abroad ;
haracter
3n ; and
Let us
Literal
bear the
'This is
ling our
1 Jesus
blood."
)hn, who
attaches
articular
ledically
death —
the side
THE THKEEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH. 143
of Christ when pierced with the spear ; and he tells us
that he that saw it, i.e. this Apostle himself, hare record
(again the same word in the original, which in our
present text is rendered hear witness), and his record,
or witness, "is true, and he knoweth that he saith true,
that ye might believe." Then let us put all this together^
and the most obvious understanding which presents
itself of what is said respecting the water in our text,
wiU surely be ^7w5— that the Apostle speaks with a
reference to that same water in connexion with that
same Hood. That water, however, had also an emblem-
atical signification ; it represented the washing away
of sin in the " fountain opened " " for sin and for unclean-
ness ; " the cleansing of the soul from the imputation of
guilt by the atonement of Christ, and its purification
from the love of sin ; its transformation to holiness by
the action of the living waters of grace. The literal
water of haptism has precisely the same meaning ; it is
appointed as a sensible representation of the process
which, by the grace of the gospel, takes efifect upon the
soul, and moreover, as a sacrament, it seals and ratifies
our admission to the privileges of our faith. To this
ordinance of God, therefore, connected with the con-
veyance of spiritual benefits, and carrying the lesson of
spiritual renovation, we may well suppose that the
expression of our text emphatically refers. It refers to
that of which the Lord declares Himself, that "except
a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God." In order to our attain-
ment of the blessings of the new covenant, the use, in
\l
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144
SEEMON XI.
devout and humble faith, of the outward and visible sign
ordained by Christ, must open the way for the sanctifying
influences which are to be poured in upon the soul from
above, and which renew the inner man day by day.
If Christ had never instituted any such sacrament as
that of baptism, then we should be obliged to have
recourse to some different interpretation of these
passages ; but with the ordinance of baptism by water
ocfore our eyes, as solemnly commanded by Him, and
constituting one of the features of the Christian religion,
it would seem strange to suppose that these particular
expressions should be chosen if they included no
allusion of the kind.
In the same manner it may be reasonably believed
that the hlood, which is mentioned in conjunction with
the water, while it is primarily the blood itself which,
together with water, was shed upon the crots, is also to
be regarded as the instituted memorial of that blood-
shedding, — a part of the sacrament, by a well-known
figure of speech, being put for the whole. The blood
of sprinkling at the death of the Son of God, the victim
for our sins, hore witness once for all. Christ Himself
was the prince and leader of martyrs, and the term
martyr signifies simply a vjitness; it is hence that it
has been taken to denote one who is eminently a
witness by sealing his testimony with his blood. The
blood of Christ, Who, in the words of St. Paul, " before
Pontius PUate ivitnessed a good confession," sealed that
glorious testimony which was the object of His coming
upon earth. " To this end was I born and for this cause
THE THREEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH.
145
ible sign
ctifying
)ul from
by day.
iiient as
to have
f these
•y water
]im, and
religion,
articular
ided no
believed
ion with
f which,
3 also to
it blood-
I-known
le blood
le victim
Himself
;he term
3 that it
nently a
.d. The
, " before
lied that
s coming
his cause
came I into the world, that I should hear witness unto the
truth." But before He became a martyr, He ordained a
memorial of His martyrdom,— an actual conveyance,
indeed, to the soul, if received in faith, of the effect and
blessing of that divine sacrifice, but also, what is more
to our immediate purpose, an exhibition, through all
ages of the world, of our belief in His martyrdom, and
our reliance upon it for salvation. " This do in remem-
brance of Me. This cup is the new testament in My
blood. As often as ye eat this bread and drink this
cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come"
This, then, as well as the other sacrament, is a stand-
ing witness, in all perpetuity, upon earth. Among the
Jews, the initiatoiij rite of circumcision and the com-
memorative observance of the Passover— the latter re-
ferring to all the particulars of their typical deliverance
from the bondage of Egypt, and prefiguring the sacri-
fice of Christ,— were at once badges of their covenant
with God, and institutions which hore testimony, from
generation to generation, to facts in their earlier history.
Among Christians, who are exempted from the weight
of Jewish ordinances, and who worship the Father in
spirit and in truth, we yet find the simple initiatory rite
of baptism, and the solemn retrospective observance of
that same sacrifice upon the cross to which the Jewish
paschal celebration jprospectively pointed ; and these
Christian ordinances are to us at once badges of our
covenant with God, and institutions which hear witness
to facts upon which our system is built. There they
are-
c
L
-handed down from age to age in the Church — a
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146
SERMON XI.
.
r .
VI
»■ t
sacTament of coinmoii water ; a sacrament of common
bread and wine. Trace them to their origin— how did
they begin? how did they come to be received and
honoured ? who instituted them, and for what object ?
What do they mean? what do they represent? The
answers to these questions, which we can all furnish,
will immediately show that the sacramental water and
the representation of the blood of Christ in the sacra-
mental wine are ordained and decreed, while the world
lasts, to bear ivitncss to the grand truths of our religion.
And thus, although there are other ways also (as we
have seen) in which the Spirit, and the water, and the
blood may be shown, at different times, to have borne
or to be bearing witness in earth, yet if we look
for the standing fulfilment of the declaration in an
unbroken series, in a continuous line, among the or-
dinary and public provisions of our religion, by the
three means of testimony, acting in conjunction, which
are indicated in our text, we nmst rather fix upon the
inspired Word of God, together with the sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper as signified respectively
by the Spirit, the water, and the blood, than upon any
other objects upon which our conjecture can light. And
do not these three agree in one ? Do they not all
converge to one point? Do they not all tend to the
establishment and support of one system, the system
of faith in salvation by Christ alone ? What but this
only hope of sinners does the Spirit reveal in promise,
in type, in prophecy, in warnings to flee from the wrath
to come, in the evangelical narratives of facts fulfilling
THE THREEFOLD WITNESS IN EARTH.
147
:iommon
liow did
zed and
object ?
t ? The
furnisli,
iter and
16 sacra-
le world
religion.
I (as we
and the
ve borne
we look
n in an
; the or-
, by the
m, which
upon the
raents of
pectively
upon any
;ht. And
not all
d to the
e system
but this
promise,
he wrath
fulfilling
what was foretold in the earlier volume, in the doctrinal
writings of the Apostolic body ? What else does the
ivatcr of baptism either teach us in figure or assure to
us in privilege ? " Eepeut, and l)e baptized, every one of
you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of
sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,
Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins. Know
ye not thafc so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ
are baptized into His death?" What else is held out
to us in the consecrated " cup of salvation," containing
the lively emblem of the blood of Christ which cleanseth
us from all sin ? These three agree in one. They agree
in testifying to that great and everlasting reality of
achievement by Christ, which, if we use these means
aright upon earth, will form the subject of our song in
heaven : " Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from
our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and
priests unto God and His Father, to Him be glory and
dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
l2
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SERMON XIT.
THE rillNCE OF THIS WOULD.
St. John XIV. 29, 30, 31.
And nmv I h/tve told you he/ore it come to jumt, thnt when it is come to
juvia, ye miyht believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you,, for
the prince of this world eomcth, and hath nothing in Me. Dut that
ti';' VHwld may know that I love the Father ; and as the Father gave
Me CO nmandment, even so I do.
The Evangelist St. John has loft us a largo and full
account of the instructions and encouragements given
by our Lord Jesus Christ to His Apostles, in the memo-
rable scene which immediately preceded His sufferings
and death. It extends through several chapters, and is
wound up by the prayer which occupies the whole of
the seventeenth, and than which there is nothing of
deeper interest in Scripture. In the midst of the con-
versation which introduces this prayer, we find the
passage which has been now chosen for the subject of
our retiections. Let us weigh these words of Christ,
which, by the aid of the Divine Spirit, may carry
important lessons to our hearts. It was by that Spirit
that the Apostles were taught, and that all things were
brought to their remembrance whatsoever Christ had
said unto them: it is by the same influence breathed
upon us that, without looking for miraculous direction
or sensible communications, we must truly discern and
THE PHINCE OF T'lIS WORLD.
14!)
(iff'iictually lay to heart wlmtsoever wo find to have pro-
ceeded from Him, either in the record of His own
personal sayings or in the whole range of His holy
Word. In the exercise of their cyrdinary powers, with
minds rightly impressed, under the influence here de-
scribed, the disciples, upon different occasions, are stated
to have called to remembrance the things spoken by
Christ, or written of Him in prophecy, when they wit-
nessed the fulfilment of them after His death, and to
have then made the proper application of them. This
is precisely what, upon the occasion now before us. He
declares to have been His object in view. "And now
I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is
come to pass, ye might believe."
Look back, then, my brethren, making the case your
own, upon all which has come to pass since those words
were spoken— words which refer immediately to the
intimation just before given of His approaching depar-
ture to the Father, and its consequences. Are we not
personally concerned in all this? Have we not a
property in all that has happened to Christ since the
moment here in question ? Did He not die for our sins,
and rise again for our justification? Did He not, in
re-ascending to heaven, go before to prepare a place for
us, that where He is, there we may be also ? Is not
the Holy Spirit, who was bestowed as an effect of His
being glorified, a Comforter to abide with us for ever,
promised not only to the first believers, but to their
children and to all that were "afar off; even as many as
the Lord our God shall call ?" Are not the sacraments
' (
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150
SERMON XII.
instituted in perpetuity as the seals of the covenant,
the badges of our Christian profession, the appointed
vehicles of grace to our souls ? And is not one of these
sacraments, besides its other characteristics, an express
memorial of the Kedeemer Himself, a thing to be done
in rememhmnce of Him ; a thing only to be left undone
if we wish to forget Him, if we repudiate the memory
of what He suffered for us ? Has not this " Gospel of the
kingdom," which was to be preached to " all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem," this everlasting Gospel or-
dained to be proclaimed to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people, long centuries ago reached the
land of our fathers, and numbered us, in external privi-
lege and in capacity of salvation, among the people of
God ? Is it not, instead of being in heaven, that we
should send up for it there, or beyond the sea, that we
should have it brought to us from thence, made very
nigh to us, and thoroughly familiar in our hands, and
mouths, and minds? Have not all these things of
which we read been fulfilled for our benefit, and made
good in our behalf? If they have so come to pass, then
for what have they come to pass ? They have come to
pass in the accomplishment of prophecy and promise,
that we might believe — not that we might indolently
acquiesce in the received system of religion and leave
the tyuths of the Gospel undisputed ; but that we might
" believe in the Lord Jesus Christ " and " be saved : "
that we might " fiee from the wrath to come " to that
only Kefuge, and grasp that salvation to our grateful
bosoms, in the deep and homefelt conviction — the con-
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD.
151
jovenant,
ppointed
s of these
L exDiess
be done
t undone
memory
pel of the
nations,
ospel or-
kindred,
ched the
nal privi-
people of
that we
that we
lade very
mds, and
;hings of
nd made
jass, then
! come to
promise,
adolently
md leave
we might
saved : "
" to that
■ grateful
-the con-
viction of sinners delivered by a train of wonders
wrought by the right hand of Omnipotent Love — that
there is no other Name, that there are no other means,
under heaven whereby we can be saved at all.
" Hereafter," adds our Lord, " 1 will not talk much
with you : for the prince of this world cometh :" the
hour was fast advancing which was to close His own
earthly career, the hour of .which He said when it came,
in addressing Himself to those who were acting under
tlie instigation of Satan, "This is your hour, and the power
of darkness." The intervening time was very short, and
He could not talk much with them ; they were to pay
the more heed to the precious words which were then
dropping from His lips, and to gather them as pearls, to
be preserved with care. Brethren, the time is short for
us all to treasure up the truths of our salvation, and to
turn to account the religious advantages which we
enjoy. The last hour is swiftly coming upon ourselves ;
the little opportunity of a transient and uncertain life
is ebbing away : to-morrow, to-night may see any one
of us, for what we know, stretched upon the bed of
death ; at best a few years, which will fly like those
before them, now irrecoverably gone, will conduct us
to that solemn issue. Are we profiting by the sacred
instructions of our Lord ? have His sayings sunk into
our ears ? have we heard and understood ? have we
heard these sayings of His and done them? have we
practically applied them, and are we ruled by them,
formed after them ? Then, indeed, we are like unto the
wise man, who built his house upon a rock, and we
1 1 'I
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152
SERMON XII.
are prepared to abide the tempest and the ilood. But
if we hear these sayings of Christ and do them not ;
if we are trifling away, in unprofitable vanities, the
little space of our existence here ; if we are filling it
up by the unvarying and absorbing pursuit of the cares
and the riches and the pleasures of this life ; if, with
eternity to provide for, and with the warnings of the
Book of God before our eyes, we are making "provision
for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof," — tlien we have
built upon a foundation which cannot stand. We raise
expectation upon exj)ectation, and throw out project
after project, but all rests upon a shifting and treacherous
reliance, and at last our structure falls. Our hopes are
immediately ruined. Great is the fall thereof Great,
indeed, is the fall of a human soul, sparkling with
reason and the consciousness of immortality, and set,
by receiving revelation, in the midst of the lights of
heaven itself: it is a star shot from the firmament to
merge in " the blackness of darkness for ever."
The powers of that darkness, however, have a pro-
digious and woeful sway in this lower world. Men sin,'
and suffer, and die, and are coffined up for the worm ;
and these effects proceed from the energy of mischief,
which began to work in Paradise, and works on till the
consummation of all things in the day which God has
ordained. Amidst all the grandeur of creation ; amidst
all the loveliness of nature; amidst all the boundless
exhibition of wonders which encircles us, redundant
with the proofs of eternal goodness and wisdom, we see
also, in the wide-spread and glaring evidences of moral
m
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD.
153
and natural evil, under all tlieir variety of forms, the
ceaseless activity of a malignant influence. There is a
single historian of the fifth century, the title of whose
work, consisting of seven books, may serve to exemplify
our present point respecting the aspect and condition of
the world. It is entitled "Human Misery," and is
stated to contain " an account of the wars, plagues,
earthquakes, floods, conflagrations, thunder and light-
ning, murder and other crimes, which had happened
from the beginning of the world." And can we read
the history of any single country upon earth, of which
the pages will no^, with deeper or fainter characters of
aggravation, tell us the same tale as makes up the
materials of these seven books ? And in all this
mixture, in all this diversified mass of evil, how
prominent everywhere is the evil of sin ! how marked
are the evidences of a vitiated nature in man ! how
multiplied the instances of a perverse infatuation, or
of a revolting debasement of mind! Consider the
stupidity of heathen idolatry — the monstrous objects
of worship, senseless objects which millions of the
human family, verifying the words that "they that make
them are like unto them, and so are all they that put
their trust in them," are themselves actually so senseless
as to adore ; the only exercise of intellect appearing in
the ingenuity which is often applied to make them in
the utmost conceivable degree hideous and disgusting.
Consider the filthiness and the cruelty attaching in
very many examples to their religious rites. Consider
the oppressions of the powerful, with means of blessing
fl
i
H
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154
SERMON XII.
in their hand, which are to be witnessed upon earth,
and look at the degradation of the low : contemplate
all the scenes of bloated pride, of bestial sensuality, of
destructive intemperance, of profligate lust, of infuriate
anger, of deadly hatred, of unrelenting revenge : survey
all the instances of wily deception, of selfish ^-apacity,
of unscrupulous aggression, of unprincipled fraud. Turn
to those countries which exhibit the fairest picture of
the state of man, and in which the eye may most
readily rest upon scenes of peace and health and
prosperity, the enjoyment of liberty and equal laws,
the progress of improvement and the benignly amelio-
rating effects of our holy religion : yet there, if under
this smiling face of things we explore all the realties
of life, if we penetrate all the details of human society,
how much wickedness and how much misery will be
brought to light! Is there a day in which, in any
considerable and dense population, we do not see the
mourners go about the streets ? is there a street in
which there is not some fellow-creature stretched upon
the bed of sickness ? is there a house in which there is
not, if not some violence of passion or agony of grief,
yet some discomposure of spirit and vexation of heart ?
Is there an hour, is there a moment, in which God is not
insulted all around us ? In this city of Quebec, how many
]j:^r'jons do we suppose that there are leading an in-
famous life ? how many drunkards ? how many swearers ?
how many Sabbath-breakers ? how many hardened adepts
in dishonesty? how many fraudulent dealers, equally
dishonest and with less excuse ? And look at the
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD.
155
refined, and, in the eye of tlie world, correct circles of
society ; look at them as made up of professed Christians,
followers of Jesus Christ, redeemed by the purchase
of His blood out of a corrupted world, possessed with
the high aspirations which ought to belong to the
believer, and, as they ought to be seen, in full training
for the inheritance of glory, — what inconsistency, what
worldliness, what frequent and palpable violation of the
Christian temper of humility and love, what devotion
to the vanities of life, what specious disguises of self-
interest, what languor and backwardness in religion,
what alienation' from spiritual views, what a disposition
to start aside, like a broken bow, from the demands of
a holy and elevated faith, what a desire to accommodate
the Gospel and the whole system and observances of
the Church to the ways of the world !
But it is needless to proceed further, and in fact it
would be endless to accumulate the exemplifications of
an evil and m.ysterious ascendancy in the world which
we inhabit, and under which "the whole creation groaneth
and travaileth together." Enough has been said to ex-
plain and justify the language of Scripture in repre-
senting the actual subjugation of mankind to this
influence, and describing the author of these effects
as the "prince of this world," by which name he is
indicated upon different occasions by the mouth of
Christ, and " the god of this world," which title is given
to him by St. Paul, who also calls him " the prince of
the power of the air," because he and his emisearies
having a personal, although a spiritual existence, there
I.^
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i
1
1
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156
SERMON XII.
is a locality in their operations, and they range unseen
in the atmosphere which we breathe, " going to and fro
in the world, and walking up and down in it." And
it is to relieve us from the curse of this influence that
Christ came into the world. He is the promised Seed
of the woman, Who was to bruise the serpent's head.
He came " to destroy the works of the devil." He went
about, in the days of his flesh, " doing good, and healing
all that were oppressed of the devil."
My brethren, it is thus that we stand between two con-
flicting powers, to fall a prize either to the one or to the
other. If we c;3cape from an evil world and take refuge
beneath the wings of Christ, He is " able to save to the
uttermost/' and to bruise Satan under our feet. If,
either in their smoother or more broadly repulsive
forms, we fall in with and follow the ways of that
evil world, then we must be numbered among the
children of the wicked one, and cannot have our
portion with the children of God. And there is one
very unquestionable test of our state : " In this the
children of God are manifest and the children of the
devil : whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of
God."
" The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing
in Me." This was the language of Christ, who, although
for the execution of His task He assumed the nature of
mortal man, and voluntarily surrendered Hiiiiself to the
stroke of death, was exempt in His own person from all
shade of moral taint, and therefore not obnoxious to the
sentence of death, which came by sin, and which is the
. -. ti
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD.
157
work of the devil. In the language of the Apostle,
" Forasmuch, then, as the children (the children whom
Christ recognises as His own) are partakers of flesh and
blood. He also Himself likewise took part of the same,
that through death He might destroy him that had the
power of death, that is, the devil." This meritorious death,
made efficacious for the life of others, was not like the
forfeiture of life by the sinner, under the original
sentence: there was no personal guiltiness in the case
to contract a liability to death, and it is thus that "the
prince of this world," who had the power of death, "had
nothing in Him." In the judicial process held upon
Eim by man, His innocence is manifest: "I fnd no
fault in Him : I have found no cause of death in Him ;
I am innocent of the blood of this just Person," is'
the language of His judge who surrenders Him to
the violence of His enemies ; and it is said of those
enemies themselves, that "though they found no cause
of death in Him, yet desired they Pilate that He should
be slain." So with reference to the moral causes which,
in their physical consequence, render all human beings
naturally subject to that death of which Satan is the
author, the nan Christ Jesus was equally clear and free.
He died, be it remembered by all of us, "ih^ just for the
unjust, that ;£e might bring us to God." It was to make
the due manifestation of His entire conformity to the
will of God, and of His perfect and unhesitating dis-
charge of tho part which He sustained as the suffering
Saviour of the world, that He gave Himself up to
death ; it was in fulfilment of the prophetic words,
J
I
H
1/
hi
II I ill
I'
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!
158
SEKMON XII.
*
" Buriit-ofTcring and sin-offering hast Thou not required :
then said I, Lo I come : in the volume of the book it
is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, my God:"
it was, as He tells us in the words of our text, " That
the world may know that I love the Father ; and as the
Father gave Me commandment, even so I do." Even so
the blessed Saviour did, and even so must we, faithfully,
and, according to the measure of our weak ability, fully
do, if we would evince ourselves to be the true followers
of our Lord, and heirs, through Him, of the kingdom of
heaven. We must learn to practise the most unreserved
obedience to the commandments of God, and the most
unqualified submission to His will, in whatever trials and
temptations may await us below. If we refuse to deny
ourselves and to take up our cross, we cannot be His
disciples. It is to be feared that too many of us are
self-deceived in these matters ; and that is an awful case
of self-deception, which concerns the state and prepa-
ration of our souls before God. We really do not, in
too many instances, remember what we were m;.de for,
nor how we are filling our part, nor how responding to
the love of our God and Saviour. Men abandon them-
selves, without scruple, without uneasiness, without
apparent consciousness of any inconsistency or any
danger, into the arms of the world ; men who receive
as their authority that book which declares that " the
friendship of the world is enmity against God," and that
" if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not
in him." We must use this world, but we must use it
as not abusing it ; as not misunderstanding the nature
ill . i
THE PIIINCE OP THIS WOELD.
159
of our connexion with it ; as not making it our home.
We must be thankful for earthly blessings; but we
must watch and pray against their becoming a snare to
our hearts. To the Christian the kingdom of heaven is
the " one pearl of great price ;" and " the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus" his Lord, that for which
he is ready to " count all things but loss."
I
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III
I i
III I
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SERMON XIIT.
PRAYER.
St. LuKh XVlll. 1.
JIc spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to
pray, and not to faint.
The parable which He spake unto them was that of the
unjust judge who yiekled to the importunity of the
widow ; and the more particular lesson which it conveys
is that of perseverance and urgency in prayer. The
subject, however, is not so presented to us as to confine
our reflections upon prayer to this single point of view.
Leaving, therefore, the necessity of closeness and per-
severance to form one of the branches of our general
subject, let us proceed to consider at large the duiy
and benefits of prayer ; and, in the first place, the reasons
upon which it is founded.
To those who have made any advances in a religious
course of life, or who are even seriously endeavouring to
do so, it cannot be necessary to prove the point itself,
that it is right for the reasonable creature to pray to his
Creator. But there are doubts and objections which
may, possibly, in some minds, make it a question ; and
these we will endeavour to dispose of, in the threshold
of our argument.
The particular doubts and objections to which I
advert, are such as are founded upon the insignificance
PRAYER.
161
always to
it of the
of the
conveys
r. The
I confine
of view,
uid per-
general
he duiy
I reasons
religious
>ui'ing to
at itself,
ly to his
lS which
on ; and
hreshold
which I
nificance
and unworthiness of man, or upon the attribute of
goodness united with omniscience and omnipotence in
God.
How can I think of addressing God ?— it is in this
shape that the former class of objections may be put —
How can I presume to think myself — one frail, wan-
dering, offending member of this perishing family of
mankind, tliese children of the dust, born to-day and
gone to-morrow, tenants of this globe of earth, which,
however vast in our eyes, is but a speck in the universe
of creation — how can I venture to think myself autho-
rized to speak to Him Who dwelleth in eternity, to
forget the immeasurable distance at which I stand from
Him, and attempt to draw near to God Who is clothed
in unapproachable light ? What warrant have I to hold
direct personal communication with that awful Being
Who 'sitteth in the heavens over all from the beginning,'
and to solicit the attention of Heaven to my individual
concerns ?
You have all the warrant that it is possible for you to
wish for. You have the warrant of God s own blessed
word. Nature, indeed, and reason, although they are
miserably deficient guides in religion, might of them-
selves pronr)t you to believe that the Author of your
being is, in some sort, accessible to the expression of
your wants ; and that, whatever power caused you to
exist as a rational creature, you must still depend upon
that power, who may well be supposed to be interested
for your preservation and your welfare. And because
this power is something awfully great, and men have
M
162
SEUMON XIII.
liil!
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I' >
both a feeling of being accountable above, and a con-
sciousness of offending, they have, therefore, when^ they
have been destitute of Revelation, i)eopled heaven, in
the corrupt imagination of their hearts, with baser
objects of worship, and ransacked earth for devices to
propitiate the wrath of the powers above. But all these
wants of nature are provided for in the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, Who is both the Propitiation for our sins, and the
High Priest through Whose hands our offerings of prayer
are rendered acceptable to God. He " is the Mediator of
the New Testament." In Him " we have boldness and
access " by faith. " He ever liveth to make intercession
for us." " No man cometh to the Father but by " Him.
But the objector of the other class may draw a dif-
ferent conclusion from the same survey of the aspect of
things, and may argue, not that our prayers cannot
reach the Throne of glory, but that they must be super-
fluous. Why should I pray to God? — to God Who
made me, and Who supplies all my wants and those
of all creation ? Do we not say in the very forms of
prayer provided by the Church, that He is " more ready
to hear than we to pray," and that He knows both " our
necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking ? "
Does God need the information of our wants which our
feeble breath is to convey ? or is it to be recommended
to us to persuade Him by dint of argument, to move
Him by the charm and force of human eloquence ?
Most unquestionably not. But it is so appointed by
God, and we are so constituted in nature, that many
blessings and acts of grace are made contingent upon
PRAYFR.
103
(1 a con-
icn* they
;aven, in
th baser
Bvicea to
all these
of Jesus
1, and the
of prayer
ediator of
ness and
;ercession
)y"Him.
aw a dif-
aspect of
3 cannot
be super-
Jod Who
ind those
forms of
ore ready
}oth " our
asking ? "
i^hich our
mmended
to move
ioquence ?
Dinted by
;iat many
;ent upon
our prayers, I do not notice any refinements which
may be found, perhaps, in some modern publications,
as if prayer were only an evidence of what God is
working in us, and tlie prelude and indication of what
has been ordained to follow. Leaving all such books
and their perplexities, and going straight to the Bible,
you will there find that prayer is a very simple thing.
You will see it very plainly and very constantly taught,
that what you pray for in faith you will obtain, and
what you fail to pray for you will lose ; and that judg-
ments, which otherwise would most certainly overtake
you, will be withdrawn in consequence of prayer. And
the habitual exercise of prayer affords the means of
presenting us in a sense of dependence upon God, of
j)urifying our affections and drawing our thoughts to
the world above. It is what serves to keep in freshness
and life our communion with that heaven, through Jesus,
the Son of God, for which the earth is our stage of pre-
paration. If we live without prayer, we live witliout
God. And if we live without God in this world,
where, I beseech you, can be our hope for the next?
Prayer, therefore, may be made a test to us of our own
spiritual safety. If we do sincerely pray to God (for I
do not speak of a mere mechanical performance of
prayer, as a child repeats by rote a task learnt at
school), but if we do sincerely pour out our hearts in
prayer before God, we are at least advancing towards a
religious life. If, on the other hand, we are too dead to
the powers of the world to come, too busy with other
thoughts, too deeply implicated in pursuits and plea-
m2
il
M
ill
164
SERMON XIII.
sures, our devotion to which we feel to be inconsistent
with the devotion of which God is the object — if we are
too much under the power of the shame of this world
to prostrate ourselves as needy sinners before Him — if
the habit of our minds be averse from all spiritual exer-
cises, — then what can we pronounce upon ourselves but
that, continuing in such a state, we are strangers alto-
gether to God and hope ? Yes — on we go, carelessly
and unconcernedly, perhaps, with our sails all set to
catch the breeze which wafts us smoothly along, uncon-
scious of error, unsuspicious of harm ; but we are only
hurrying to make shipwreck of our souls, and to strike
upon our inevitable perdition.
These are the reasons of prayer. And for the same
reasons which make it necessary that we should pray at
all, it is necessary that we should pray frequently and
regularly. Eepctition and assiduity must be employed
to resist the ceaseless action of opposite causes, and to
preserve oar souls from the rust of the world. The
parable was spoken " to this end, that men ought always
to pray," and it is said in the same way of the exemplary
soldier, Cornelius, that he " gave nmch alms to the people,
and prayed to God ahvay." To " pray tuitlwut ceasiyig "
is also an Apostolic injunction. The meaning of these
expressions is evidently not that our whole lives should
be one uninterrupted act of prayer, but that we should
keep up the constant practice of prayer, that we should
habitually lift our hands and hearts to God. We stand
in continual need of His mercy, of His pardon, of His
guidance ; we exist only by His bounty, and of aU in
I'KAYER.
165
;onsisteiit
if we are
his world
Him— if
;ual exer-
elves but
;ers alto-
carelessly
all set to
g, uncon-
are only
to strike
the same
d pray at
ently and
employed
es, and to
rid. The
ht always
xemplary
he people,
ceasing "
; of these
es should
VQ should
A'e should
We stand
)n, of His
of all in
wliich our hands are engaged, the issue depends upon
His providence. :\.nd the causes of devotion occurring
so frequently, some correspondence should be seen in
the effects.
Such frequency is indeed essential to the production,
the nourishment, the growth and improvement of all
religion in the soul. Think only of all that is wanted
in this way. To keep alive that clear fire of inward
piety which, if it once die, it is hard to rekindle ; to
save us from sinking back, in the inner man, into a
dangerous ignorance of our own condition ; to maintain
the struggling principles of obedience and love against
the solicitations of our lusts within, and the assaults of
the world without ; to protect the tenderness of con-
science and the salutary dread of contact with sin;
to fortify our patience and invigorate our hope in all
the trials, the provocations, the sad perplexities of life ;
to preserve a spiritual state of the affections, a living
remembrance of our treasure laid up in heaven, a
temper, in our walk upon earth, of Christian humility,
gentleness, and love. What recourse have we for all this,
but to the promised grace of God, and what possible
expectation of that precious help if we neglect our
prayers ? Even as among men — (I borrow the illustra-
tion from an old divine from whom I now borrow some
other ideas besides, and who has left to posterity the
richest stores of thought and language) — even as among
men, the habit of meeting and conversing produces a
freedom of acquaintance, but forbearance of intercourse
dissolves or slackens the bonds of amity, and generates
;l
85
:n
166
SERMON XIII.
an increasing coldness between the parties ; so it is with
regard to God Himself. By seeking Him often, we
acquire a lively perception of His goodness, a solid and
sincere pleasure in approaching Him : but by long inter-
mission we become regardless of His favour and insen-
sible of His love ; we think of Him but little, remember
Him but faintly, and shun that faint remembrance.
An estrangement of our affections, a distaste, an aver-
sion for divine things, creeps gradually over the heart,
and warps also the understanding : abstaining from the
presence of God, we form attachments prejudicial to
that friendship which He deigns to hold with us ; we
contract a familiarity with His enemies, with all those
passions, propensities, habits, and influences which are
described in Scripture under the general terms of the
World and the Flesh ; passions, propensities, habits, and
influences which, having once drawn us into an unre-
strained acquaintance, soon reduce us to be their slaves.
Devotion, in short, must die without exercise. There
is, hj nature, a difficulty in abstracting our thoughts and
affections from sensible things, and fastening them upon
objects purely spiritual ; summoning to this one point
our rambling thoughts, and composing the irregular
frame of our hearts. Without practice this difficulty of
nature cannot be overcome ; with practice it gives way
more and more ; for, although the spirit of prayer is the
gift of God, it must, like other graces, be improved : " to
him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more
abundantly ; and from him that hath not, shall be
taken away even that which he seemeth to have." The
PRAYER.
167
t is with
ften, we
jolid and
ng inter-
id iiisen-
Biiiember
tnbrance.
an aver-
he heart,
from the
dicial to
L us ; we
all those
vhiah. are
IS of the
ibits, and
an unre-
lir slaves.
;. There
ights and
leni upon
ane point
irregular
Hculty of
ives way
^'er is the
v^ed : " to
ave more
shall be
re." The
more we draw near to God, the more we feel that He
draws near to us ; we acquire in time a devotional habit of
mind, a propensity to our religious duties, and a satisfac-
tion in the performance of them. Having access through
Christ, (jur great High Priest and Intercessor, we come,
as St. Paul directs us, " boldly to the Tin-one of grace."
We do not, indeed, lose our feelings of humility, our
solemn impressions of reverence and awe ; but when
we find that " as His majesty is, so is His mercy ; "
when we " taste and' see that the Lord is good," that
He " is nigh unto all such as call upon Him faithfully ;"
when our experience has taught us these refreshing
truths, we drop our reluctance and our languor; we
cast aside our discouraging apprehensions, and disen-
gage ourselves from the embarrassments of doubt : we
feel the force of the words used by the Psalmist, and
iidopt the resolution which they convey, " Because He
liath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call
upon Him as long as I live ; " we feel that He is our
leliance, our resource, our confidence, our hope, our light
and life, our all in all ; we cast our care upon Him as
upon a Father who will never, never leave us nor
forsake us.
But are we then to desist, if such feelings do not
accompany, if such effects do not follow from, our
[)rayers ? What if we must plainly acknowledge that,
although we believe the Gospel to be true, respect the
institutions of religion, and endeavour not absolutely
to scandalize it in our lives, we cannot pretend to be
in a state to which the terras of pieti/, or holiness, or
' i.
i
m
• '
' 'M
I
t;
M
jii J
4 8
ji i
n
168
SERMON XIII.
heavenhj-mindedness can, with any sort of propriety, be
applicable : we may be ready to grant that all this is
very insufficient, but so it is — we cannot help it — and
are we then to live without prayer till something shall
happen to make us excessively religious, and to abstain
from offering up our devotions at all, till we can offer
them in a really devout spirit ? Alas ! (we may say
to those who argue thus), have you any wish to become
more religious ? — are you not secretly rather afraid than
desirous of becoming so ? Pray, then : for God forbid
that we should cut away even the feeblest thread that
holdv you to your faith and duty : pray — for you have
need enough ; but add it to your prayers that God
would give you a better mind, and a sense of the awful
nature of things pertaining to your salvation — the sal-
vation of those immortal but sinful souls for which the
Son of God, Who had glory with His Father before the
world V7as, died the bloody and shameful death of the
cross.
But what if, with every disposition and desire to im-
prove in religion — what if, with the clearest conviction
and the fullest sense of our wants before God, we still
find that our hearts are cold in the performance of the
task — that, at least, we have no fervency of spirit, no
ardour in supplication ; that, whether in our private or
public devotions, our thoughts rove, in spite of us,
occasionally abroad, and rest upon other objects while
our lips repeat their mechanical exercise ? Or what if,
having prayed long and earnestly for such as we feel
to be fitting objects of prayer — for ability to keep our
PRAYER.
169
good rjsolutioiis ; for the correction of some evil habit,
or the extinction of some irregular desire ; for the
removal of involuntary evil thoughts, or of religious
perplexities and doubts ; for the spirit of prayer itself ;
for an improved mai ner of participation in all the acts
of divine worship ; for changes in our own circum-
stances, or in the state of affairs around us, which
would seem manifestly calculated to promote our use-
fulness or the interests of religion :— what if, having
prayed long for any or all of these, we still have prayed
in vain, till we begin to think ourselves excluded from
the benefit of those encouraging promises, " Ask, and it
shall be given you ; ' ek, and ye shall find ; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you " — " If ye abide in Me,
and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you." We seem to suffer
from the principle laid down by St. James, "Ye ask
and receive not, because ye ask amiss ; " yet in what
point we ask amiss, we are incapable of ascertaining.
To all these different complaints we must reply, Per-
severe, persevere, persevere ! The wanderings and dis-
tractions to which we maybe subject, although we ought
still to struggle against thsm, will never, perhaps, be
totally subdued ; some degree of this imperfection is,
probably, inseparable from nature, and how often do we
see it feelingly lamented in the posthumous private
devotions of lueri who have truly deserved the name of
saints/ We havx^ to do'with an indulgent Master, Who,
if the heart be truly humble and the spirit truly willing,
will not visit it upon us severely that the fiesli is weak.
i
M
itjiJ
1
i
i
1
-j
r
■'
■f i
!l
j|
ii
J
r
170
SKllMON XIII.
It is also usoful for us that our presumption sliould l)t»
chastisod by t\'(^lin<,^ that, wliilo we are eneumberiul with
this liouse of chiy, we cannot be exempt from the mix-
ture of iuHrmity; and that, alth(mfrh, in ihe resurrection,
we shall be as the an;4els of God in heaven, wo never
can be so while on earth. I confess, in fact, that I
would rather hear a believer hinumt his deticiencies in
prayer, than boast of his enjoyments, and shouhl regard
it as a better evidence of his spiritual states And when
wo speak of defect of ard(>ncy in pi'ayer, it is necessary
that we should understand what we mean. Our neces-
sities are great, and our sense of them ought to be deep ;
our love ought also to ^e lively. And to all this our
devotion should corresjiond; yet, possibly, we are covet-
ing (if I may so express it) a style of praying which
has mo\, to do than we suspect with a fervid tempera-
ment, r even with a meretricious excitement of the
imagii .= n. Prayer, although it should be earnest and
reverent, prompted by a s:aise of our wants before God,
spi'inging from fixed principles of faith ami love, and
flowing imnnuliately forth fiH)m the depths of the h(\art,
yet may be acceptably offered in the I'orm of a calm,
solemn, and composed address. And among the varieties
aftbrded in the examples of prayei- recorded in Scrip-
ture, we see little which exhibits the character of an
agitated and tunuiltuous vehemence. Let me not, how-
ever, be misunderstood : for God in His mercy keep us
from being content watli formality and coldness ! Let
me not be supposed to exclude the strivings of the soul
when it longs to lift itself on high, and leels that its
(juld 1)1'
I'od witli
he mix-
iTeetidu,
'6 never
that I
iieies in
I regard
id wlien
ecessiiry
r nec(!S-
)e deep;
this our
•e covet-
g whieh
enipera-
; of the
lest and
)re God,
3ve, and
le heart,
a caliii,
^^arieties
I Scrip-
sr of an
ot, how-
keep us
s! Let
the soul
that its
T'RAYKK.
171
wings are clogged with the hase particles of earth ; the
sorrow, even the agony, of the heart \inderthe conscious-
ness of multiplied failures and transgrcissions ; nor, on
the other hand, tiie light and comfort which breaks in
upon it in happier intervals, when its ytiarnings are
graciously met.
Jkit, again, with respect to i)rayers long offered in vain,
the first step to he recommended is to satisfy ourselves
whether we have proved our sincerity, and, at the same
time that we have sought the grace of God above,
have, in dependence upon llim, maintained the conflict
faithfudy, and done all that human weakness couUl do
to nuister the object ourselves. And if we have, and
still iiave failed, we may confide in Almighty God that,
in His own good time, He will remove our trial or tonpta-
tion, if to remove it be really for our advantage (with
which condition, and the comndttal of our cause into
the hands of His wisdom, we ought to qualify our
prayers). But, possibly, our struggle with that tempta-
tion is precisely the proof of our faith and constancy
which it is the will of God to exa^.^t; or the continuance
o£' tlie evil which we deprecate is itself the very exer-
cise of our perseverance in prayer by which it pleases
Him to put us to the test. The text instructs us not
only " that men ought ahvai/s to pray," but that they
ought " not tofainC Prayer, therefore, itself, is still the
cure ; and it is always to be remembered that we are
not to look, in general, either for a sendhle effect in
immediate answer to our prayers, or an infallible
guidance when we seek to be led in the way of truth.
,1
1
it
I t'itl
i!
172
SERMON XIII.
For this would bo little short of aakiuji a sign from
heaven, and would totally subvert the appointed system
of our Christian warfan* and ])rol)ation. How couhl
there be any trial of faith and patience if men were sure
always to gain the object of their prayers by as direct
and perceptible a consequence as tluy procure the
article for which tliey make payments to their brethren
among mankind; or where would there be any fi(dd for the
exercise of spiritual discernment, for steadfastness and
soundness of belief, for resistance to every passing niiiid
of doctrine, if Ood dealt out information to those who ask
it by as regular a return as our corres]>ondent8 in the
transactions of the world ? The wants which the sin-
cere Christian has represimted to his Father will always
be supplied at such time and in such measure as the
Father knows to be for his happiness and health. The
very turn of affiiirs which had disappointed his hopes,
and caused him to think the object lost, will, perhaps,
issue in some point which his eye could not comma^id,
and develop to him, in its subsequent course, the con-
duct of a power which sat above him, and saw more
than mortal ken. The reward of his perseverance,
though seemingly long delayed, will come at last ;
"though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely
come, it will not tarry." "0 tarry thou the Lord's
leisure: be strong, and He shall comfort thine heart."
" The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some
men count slackness." His measure of the lapse of
time is not adjusted to the scale of impatient and
short-sighted creatures : — " Hear," says our Saviour
niAYEU.
173
in the parable iiitrodiicod by the words of our text,
"hear what the unjust judge saith. And .shall not
Qod avenge His own elect, which cry day and night
unto Him, thuiujh He hear long ivith them V — God,
who is not only a just Judge but a merciful Father, —
" I tell you that He will avenge them sfpecdily." I shall
not here stop to take any coutroverHial view of what is
conveyed in the words " His own elect," but shall merely
notice, M'ith reference to this point, the important
charge addressed to us all by the Apostle, "Give all
diligence to make your calling and election sure." Our
chief and our only present concern is with that part of
the passage which encourages perseverance in prayer.
The example proposed to our imitation is that of an
importu7iity not to be rebuffed; and there are other ^^as-
sages of Scripture, in which terms equally strong and
decided are employed to dissipate the scruples and to
stimulate the backwardness of nature. In the parable
subjoined, in St. Luke's Gospel, to the Lord's prayer,
one friend is represented as at first resolutely refusing
to be disturbed for a matter of neighbourly accommo-
dation, but yielding in the end to the pertinacity of the
other; and the word in the original Greek which we
there render importunity is of such force as hardly to
bear a literal translation, signifying properly his effron-
tery, his ivarit of shame. We are instructed also by
scriptural precept and example to " continue instant," —
to strive " fervently in prayers," and to watch " there-
unto with all perseverance."
But after all that we can say upon the subject of
I
T'
Jiidi
H
B
i-i; I
II
ii
174
SETIMON XIII.
I>raypr — the reasons for performing it, the necessity of
being frequent and persevering in the performance — we
shall soon lose the spirit of supplication, and certainly
violate the precept that " men ought olwaya to pray,"
unless we establish and carefully observe certain rula^
for its stated performance. In determining these rules,
and allotting to their devotions the just place in the
distribution of their time, men are at liberty to consult
their own consciences and exercise their own discretion ;
yet there are particular times for this duty, at which
it would seem indispensable to perform them — times
which Nature herself appears to indicate, in correspond-
ence with her unchanging revolutions, which common
convenience would also suggest, and which, though
never appointed by any specific institution, are sanc-
tioned by the practice of men eminently religious of
old, and the consenting example of their successors—
those times which are recommended by the royal pro-
phet, " It is a good thing, O Most High, to shew forth
Thy loving-kindness in the morning, and Thy faithful-
ness every night." This rule applies also to the duty
which we can never omit to urge, though but incident-
ally, when we are upon the subject of Prayer— the duty
of family worship. AVith the return of day we may be
said to receive from our God a renewal of life ; we com-
mence or resume our several occupations; we buckle
on our armour and go forth, after the intervention of
secure repose, again to encounter the battle of the world,
its troubles, its business, its temptations : it is then,
therefore, peculiarly imperative upon us to thank the
PRAYER.
175
Author and Preserver of our lives (for thanks should
be always coupled with prayer, and mercies received
should h-e acknowledged when fresh mercies are im-
plored), to crave His direction and His support, and, by
offering the first-fruits of our daily occupations, to con-
secrate and ( t^ign them all to His blessing.
Again, is it not reasonable that before we sink into
the arms of sleep, the image of Death, we should close
and wind up our cares in the same manner ; that we
should wipe off, as it were, the sins and follies of the
day, and deposit ourselves and all that is dear to us —
our souls and all our earthly concerns — in the custody
of that Shepherd of Israel Who never slumbereth nor
sleepeth, beseeching Him that when we lie down to our
last repose we may be destined to rise again to a joyful
resurrection ?
But where religion is planted in the soil of a faithful
heart it is not only with the rising and setting sun that
it will exhale to heaven the fragrancy of pmyer. There
are numberless occasions in which it wall prompt the
secret aspiration ; and in the midst of the crowd and
bustle of the world the silent orisons of piety will
escape and find their way to the throne of God. There
are also conjunctures in human life which cannot wait
for the recurrence of stated hours, and in which prayer
(as before hinted) is our only solace and resource. In
the assaults of temptation — in the difficulties of duty —
in the doubts which confuse and darken our path — in
the sufferings of the body, the sore anxieties of the
mind — in the struggles of danger, the severities of dis-
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176
SERMON XIII.
i;
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tress — in the feeling of desolation, and the desertion of
all earthly comfort which proceed from the flood of
unlooked-for calamity, the crash of cherished hope, the
hoUowness of trusted friendship, or the bitter injustice
of the world — in all these cases the arms of God are
open to us, and to them we should fly for shelter and
reliet
Such is the nature and such are the benefits of the
duty of prayer. And will men, will believers in the
truth of the Gospel, suffer themselves to lose the habit
of devotion — excuse themselves from discharging this
duty ? What ! are they too closely engaged in a mul-
tiplicity of employments to bestow a thought upon
God and their own salvation? Are they careful and
troubled about so many things that the one thing need-
ful can find no place in their arrangements? Shall
worldly business, or worldly pursuits of any kind, be
pleaded as the sufficient and satisfactory reason for
leaving their souls to go to destruction? And will they
even undertake the charge of worldly business, the
responsibility of the duties assigned to them, without
seeking the blessing and guidance of Him upon "Whom
all ultimately depends ? Alas ! how many instances of
error and perverseness, how many violations of in-
tegrity, prudence, and moderation in the discharge of
worldly business, might have been saved if the persons
who have committed them had been governed by prin-
ciples of piety, and had reposed their affairs in the
keeping of God !
But some men may possibly plead inability or igno-
■ > > !
PRAYER.
177
mnce—want of instruction, want of all practice in
spiritual employments. Have you not the ability to
tell your wants ? The most uneducated pei-sons are not
deficient in appealing, for the reUef of temporal wants
and sufferings, to the compassion of their fellow-men :
where then is the difficulty of representing your spiritual
indigence to God, Who is « no respecter of persons,"
and Who understandeth even our thoughts afar off?
Are you looking for some extraordinary gift of prayer,
and imagining that the address which we are charged
to make, in the privacy of our closets, to our Father
which seeth in secret, can only consist in a certain
volubility of phrases, delivered in a peculiar intonation,
of which it is possible that you may have witnessed
some examples ? The gift of prayer, as has been well
observed, is a widely diiferent thing from the spirit ol
prayer. Gifts, which may edify the Church or distin-
guish its members, may be made matter of exhibition
and vain-glory, as were miraculous gifts themselves in
Apostolic days ; but the feeling within, however ex-
pressed, the breathings of the contrite heart, are what
the Lord of Sabaoth regards. And if you pray ill, can
you not pray that God would teach you to pray better ?
Can you not, as you now are, say so much as, " God be
merciful to me a sinner !" a prayer which we know may
prove effectual? Can you not borrow some petitions
which will suit you from the fifty-first Psalm ? Or can
you derive no assistance from some of those short
and simple forms adapted to a variety of cases \.'hich
are found in the Prayer-book, and in many plain
N
178
SERMON XIII.
manuals of devotion? learn to feel your wants
before God, and you will make or find some vent for
them in words! At least, you can say the Lord's
Prayer. Let us take you, then, if necessary, upon that
ground alone ; endeavour to say that prayer with the
spirit and with the understanding also. How large is
its import, how suggestive are all its petitions, is what
the time will not permit us to consider now ; but re-
member it is your Father Whom you there address.
Arise, and go to your Father. Do not hesitate to say to
Him, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before
Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son."
Once turn to Him in a repentant spirit ; He sees your
approach ; He is moved with compassion ; He runs to
meet you ; He clasps you to the bosom of forgiveness
and love. And there shall be a festival made in the
house for the joy of your return. " It was meet that we
should make merry and be glad ; for this thy brother
was DEAD, and is alive again, and was lost, and is
FOUND."
if what has been here delivered this day can only
prevail upon one unthinki. ^ sinner to bow his knees
and his heart before God, and seek, through Christ Who
died for him, the mercy which he needs, then one soul
may have been led into the way of salvation, and there
will be " JOY IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ANGELS OF GOD ! "
This sermon was first preached forty years ago, and is published by
particular desire of some who have heard it since, though the
thoughts are occasionally taken from Barrow.
r wants
vent for
B Lord's
pon that
svith the
large is
, is what
but re-
address,
bo say to
id before
by son."
ees your
runs to
'giveness
e in the
that we
brother
D, and is
can only
is knees
ist Who
one soul
ad there
fGod!"
iblished by
bough the
SEEMON XTV.
THE JOURNEYINGS OF ISRAEL A TYPE OF THE
CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGE.
Deut. VIII, 2, 8.
And thou shall remember all the way which the Lord thy Qod led thee
these forty years in the vnldemess, to humble thee, amd to prove thee,
to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His com-
mandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and mffered thee to hunger,
and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy
fathers know ; that He might make thee knov '?mt man doth not live
by bread only, but by every word that proccedeth out of the mouth of
the Lord doth man live.
It would not be easy, within the limits prescribed to
us in this place, to do full justice to all the topics pre-
sented to our contemplation in the passage which has
been here selected. We may, however* with the Divine
grace and blessing, engage profitably in such considera-
tions as we can afford to bestow upon its leading points ;
and they may be taken, without aiming at any very
formal distribution of a connected subject, in the order
in which they stand.
Moses, in that recapitulation of the law from which
the book of Deuteronomy takes its name, reminds the
Israelites of all which the hand of God had done
among them, and points out the object of all the
wonders of mercy, as well as of the signal chastise-
n2
I
180
SERMON XIV.
^'':
ments which they had experienced. They had been
rescued, by marvellous exhibitions of power, from their
oppressors ; they had enjoyed exalted privileges ; they
had been directed by visible guidance from above ;
they had been blessed openly by omnipotent succour ;
they had been relieved, in their need, by miraculous
supplies ; they had passed through many perils and
alarms ; they had suffered many privations ; they had
been visited by dreadful and sweeping inflictions
of Divine vengeance. It was a mixed history, and
marked by perpetual alternations of sunshine and
storm — radiance of heavenly mercy and thunders of
eternal wrath. And now he calls upon them to re-
member all the way which they had traversed, under the
Divine protection, in the wilderness — " that great and
terrible wilderness," as he elsewhere describes it, — and
charges it upon them to lay to heart the lessons designed
to be conveyed in all the varieties of good and ill
which had befallen them. The purpose of God was
to humble them •and to pj^ove them, and, as it is added
farther on in the same chapter, to do them good at
their latter end ; and He would make them know that
their lives were in His hand, so Jn&t, in a moment, He
could cut them down in all the fulness of their pride ;
or, in their lack of all ordinary and natural means of
sustenance. He could ^eaJc the word, and other resources
were at His command.
And we, my brethren, are not we called upon to
review the way which we may have thus far measured
in life, and to reflect, each of us, as well upon the
THE JOURNEYINGS OF ISRAEL.
isr
lad been
Dm their
es ; they
above ;
succour ;
iraculous
jrils and
hej had
Qflictions
ory, and
line and
nders of
tn to re-
inder the
[reat and
it, — and
designed
and ill
God was
is added
L good at
:now that
ment, He
;ir pride ;
means of
resources
upon to
measured
upon the
vicissitudes which may have chequered our individual
liistory, as upon the great things which God has done for
us all ? God has interposed for effecting our spiritual
deliverance in a manner corresponding in every par-
ticular (if it were now to our immediate purpose to
pursue the parallel) with the typical deliverance of the
children of Israel. We find, according to the wonder-
ful analogy which runs through the Divine dispensa-
tions as one mighty whole, our own case pictured to
us in every point. And here we are in this wilderness
of life, professing to look for our promised land beyond.
But oh ! how much schooling is required to set us and
to keep us in the way of preparation for that great
hereafter! Pilgrims and strangers upon earth, as all
our fathers were, soon, very soon to disappear for ever ;
and knowing, all the while, that we then pass into an
eternity for which we are here in a state of probation ;
how do we, nevertheless, suffer our hearts and affections
to grapple themselves to the world, as if we knew of
no other destiny awaiting us ! Witlf ample experience
of our own weakness, with evidence, on all sides, of
the blindness and corruption of nature if left to herself,
with abundant warning and direction from above, with
the gracious tender proposed to us of all the succour
and all the provision for the wants of our case which
Divine mercy and wisdom could conspire to supply,
with Christ, and His Word, and His Spirit attending us
by night and by day to guide our steps,— how con-
stantly are we seen to refuse and to rebel ! How prone
do we show ourselves to. indulge the wayward wishes
182
SEEMON XIV.
li ;•
of our own hearts, to substitute the maxims of men for
the law of God, to wander away from " the Shepherd
and Bishop of" our souls, to plunge into courses which
cannot consist with the idea of holiness, which cannot
be reconciled with any deliberate thought of safety to
the soul, which cannot, by possibility, end in peace !
We are, as Christians by profession, the Israel of God—
a people " holy to the Lord :" that, unless we repudiate
our religion, unless we renounce our baptism, we must
admit to be our express vocation. A people holy to
the Lord — my brethren, let us deal honestly with our-
selves, whatever may or may not be our exemption from
the grosser taints of vice, or the more conspicuous
characteristics of irreligion, is this, as a title applied
to ourselves, a people " holy to the Lord," a sound con-
genial to our ears, a statement responsive to our own
sentiments, a description accordant with the habitual
train and routine of our proceedings and favourite
pursuits ? happy for many among us if some season-
able check, some «ppropriate chastisement, some salu-
tary alarm, shall bring us to a new sense of what we
are and what we ought to be before our God, shall
serve to humble and to prove us, that we may our-
selves better know what is in our heart, whether, in
truth, we are keeping the commandments of God or
7w>, and where we are to look for help and hope, if we
find that we have been going wrong. Happy if we can
be made to remember all the way which the Lord hath
led us thus far, to muse upon the instructive points of
our own career, to mourn over our many wasted oppor-
THE JOURNEYINGS OF ISRAEL
183
tunities, our misused advantages, our unheeded respon-
sibilities to Him above, our broken resolutions, perhaps,
and our inexcusable relapses, after warnings received
before, which made, for the moment, some solemn im-
pression. And if we have a hope that our hearts have
been turned to serve the Lord and that, by His grace,
we have been made something better than mere cum-
berers of the ground, yet in how many points are we
liable to be self-deceived — so deceived, perhaps, that
our hope itself is ill-founded. " The heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked : who can
know it?" A careful and thoughtful review of our
own lives, an awakened religious contemplation of the
dealings of God in which we have been comprised, and
the incidents of our personal history, — a serious and
searching inquiry into the manner in which we have
met the calls of God addressed to us, in the general or
the particular dispensations of His hand affecting our
case, might conduct us to some self-condemnation,
which, of course, will be painful, l^jt the seat of that
pain is something which it has been very dangerous for
us never to have gone deep enough to reach before.
We are all subjects of mercy exercised by God : " it
is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed : "
created, preserved, redeemed by Him, we have been
unthankful recipients of His goodness, and have for-
feited our title to His favour ; He has tried many ways
to win us back, or draw us closer to Himself : all the
blessings, th^, comforts, of this life, all the benefits and
privileges of our holy faith, constitute one stream of
184
SERMON XIV.
!/i
1/ ;i
mercy poured from one high and hallowed source,
which ought to soften and fertilize the soil of the heart,
and make it bring forth, in rich abundance, the returns
of obedience, gratitude, and love. And if men cannot
be worked upon thus — if they rather, like Jeshurun
when he " waxed fat and kicked," grow lax and worldly,
because they are at ease ; if they become alienated from
the life of God in the soul, in proportion to their
worldly prosperity and advancement, and not unfre-
quently so use their religious advantages as to make
them the instruments of a hollow profession and a
self-satisfied but empty formality — then the Lord, but
still with a purpose of love, has recourse to treatment
of a different kind. Then comes the severe discipline
of God ; alas ! too often as ill understood as the pro-
fusion of His mercies. Pain, sickness, sorrow, calamity,
disappointment of earthly hope, injustice received at
the hand .^f the world, wearing vexations of heart,
humiliating reverses, overwhelming distresses, or appal-
ling dangers, — all these we call the trials of life, and it
is to try and purify us that they are sent — to humble, to
prove us, to know what is in our heart. In the seasons
of severe visitation, men who have lived in utter and
reckless ignorance of their own spiritual condition, or
men of some Christian attainment who have forgotten
themselves and fallen back, and have become ensnared
in some unguarded point of weakness, may feel a
change come over them, and be prompted to ask v^hat
they have been doing before God, and what it portends
to their souls. They are impelled to look into long-
I
THE JOURNEYINGS OP ISRAEL.
185
long-
unexplored recesses of the inner man, and unexamined
accumulations of trangression are brought to light :
tlie shock of adversity, the loud and perhaps sudden
disturbance of their thoughtless enjoyment, has waked
up the drowsy conscience, and they judge of themselves
as they failed to judge before. And then they look
back upon former mercies and warnings alike unim-
proved, and they stand condemned and alarmed. They
feel that they want mercy for the past and grace to
serve their God for the future ; and if they follow up
the blessed opportunity, they find both one and the
other in Christ, the friend of penitent sinners.
It is by a process very different from that which we
lay down in imagination for ourselves, that, when reli-
giously disposed and possessed by some good perception
of the beauty of holiness, we are advanced and confirmed
in a religious state of mind. We are apt to look only at
the brightness of our portion. "We forget our wretched
imperfections which remain, one after another, to be
cured : we think not of the trials and humiliations by
which that cure must be effected.
But let us proceed with the remaining portion of our
text. "And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to
hunger, and fed thee with manna which thou knewest
not, neither did thy fathers know, that thou mightest
know that man doth not live by bread only, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the
Lord doth man live."
The wants of the body, and the wants of the soul,
are both brought under our contemplation in these
m
h I'
I' I
186
SEBMON XIV.
words. As tlio words (i.e. the words which close the
pasHiige) are applied by Christ to His own case, in the
scene of the temptation, wo see that they are nusant to
declare the mandate of God, or simple exercise of His
sovereign will, to suffice, when He may see proper, for the
sustenance of life in His creatures, by extraordinary as
well as by ordinary means, or by no visible and sensible
means whatever — by manna showered down upon the
Israelites in the wilderness, by the naked energy of
Divine power in the forty days' fast of Moses, Elijah,
and the Son of God, Wliom the lawgiver and the prophet
had typically represented. We stand before God, in
every point of view, fuii of wants — always needy, and
absolutely and entirely dependent upon His goodness —
our wants for the very means of continuing our present
existence are perpetually recurring day by day, and per-
petually supplied by Him "Who openeth His hand and
filleth all things living with plenteousness. We pray
for our daily bread ; but we fail, for the most part, to
acknowledge in our hearts, with devout thankfulness,
blessings which are so common and familiar as the rich
and varied provision made by Infinite Wisdom for our
corporeal necessities. Yet these ordinary results of
many combining operations in nature, as turned to
account by the hand of man, himself the workmanship
of God, do not constitute a less exercise of power, nor a
lower subject of praise and wonder, than the departure
from the established train of causes and effects, which
it has been His pleasure upon marked occasions to
exhibit. And we should always remember that it is the
I
THE JOURNEYINOS OF ISKAEL.
187
efficacy of His Word, in the sense which wo have here
in viuw, by whicli all things are hold together and made
to proceed in tlieir appointed course. As, in the first
instance, " Ho spake the word and they were made. Ho
commanded and they were created," so the same
Psalmist, in one of his descriptions of the scenes of
nature, the objects of creation, the changes of the
seasons and the processes of vegetation, applies to all
these the words, " He sendeth forth His commandment
upon earth ; His word ruimeth very swiftly."
It is by the Wm-d of Ood, then, by the fiat of the
Divine will, that the animal life of man is sustained,
whether in the case of any miraculous intervention or in
the appointed and regular action of the different qualities
and properties of created objects in their mutual adapta-
tion—the body being the recipient of food. Things are
constituted as we see them, in their effects, depen-
dencies, and relations by God Himself : they are not so
by any original necessity, but so by His will, and subject
always to His dispensing power. But there are other
and higher wants of which man is apt to be far less
sensible, and for the supply of which he is equally
dependent upon the good pleasure of God. Man has a
soul, as well as a body ; and it is as necessary to the
preservation of his spiritual life, that he should be
nourished by the heavenly manna, the living bread
which came down from heaven, as it is necessary for
the sustenance of his body, that he should partake of
ordinary food. We must receive Christ by faith into
our souls : we must live upon Him in our spiritual
188
SERMON XIV,
)!,
Vl
man. The alternative is spiritual death. Yet Low widely
dees the Laodicean sentiment prevail, " I have need of
nothing ;" and how often is the question practically asked,
by those who survey, with a satisfied feeling, their own
religious attainments and performances, " What lack I
yet !" Ah ! happier, fai happier than this condition, to
have wandered ever so far from our Father's home, and
to have sunk ever so low in wretchedness and destitu-
tion, if only in that perishing condition the prodigal is
brought to himself, p.nd prompted to return with a
sorrowful confession of his shame. It is then that he
will be received with open arms, and clasped to the
bosom of paternal love. The Word of God, in most
familiar iteration, speaks blessing and encouragement to
those who " hunger and thirst after righteousness," a^id
assures us that He lilleth " the hungry with good things,"
while " the rich He " sendeth " empty away." And high
is the privilege of those, however lowly may be their con-
dition upon earth, to whom the precious promise belongs,
— " to him that overcometh will I give of the hidden
manna" — the secret influences of heavenly grace, the
comfort and refreshment of spirit unknown to the chil-
dren of this world, reserved in the person of Christ, as
the relic of manna was deposited for a memorial in the
emblematical ark of the first covenant.
Christ, ill accommodation to the wants of our nature,
dispenses Himself as the bread of life (in one special
way) through standing moiins, and appoints a ministry
of distribution in His Church. Such is the ordinaoce of
God ; and in this more general sense, as well as more
THE JOURNEYINGS OF ISRAEL.
189
y widely
ne(3d of
ly asked,
leir own
it lack I
lition, to
)me, and
destitu-
jdigal is
. with a
that he
i to the
in most
sment to
!ss," a^id
thing'","
Lnd high
iieir con-
belongs,
i hidden
race, thd
the chil-
^'hrisi, as
al in the
r nature,
e special
ministry
inaoce of
. as more
literally in the particular instance of the ^Y(yrd of Life, —
a devout and diligent use of the Holy Scriptures being
one grand means of spiritual nutriment, — we may apply
the expression that "man liveth by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
We are unquestionably to regard, as comprehended in
our recourse to the heavenly manna, a faithful obser-
vance of those institutions which are of express divine
appointment, and a dutiful compliance also with those
which are framed by the Church in the discretionary
execution of her divine commission, and in consonance
with the Word of God. The sacraments of Christ,
rightly used (both of which, if they were nothing more,
are badges of oir religion, enjoined upon us by its
Founder); prayer, public and private, rightly offered;
and participation, with tho spirit and with the under-
standing, in the several acts of our public worship;
all these are among the things which minister to the life
of the soul, and without which it cannot possibly thrive
or prosper. We need not be at all afraid, — unless in a
superstitious use of them which attaches the notion of
merit to the performance, and makes the mere quantity
of performance of just so much value counted up,--we
need not be at all afraid of the frequency of any such
acts. It is not by frequency that they pall upon us ;
they are most relished, and found to be most reviving,
precisely by those w^ho use them with constancy. O
that we could imbibe the spirit of the holy Psalmist, who
says, " Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house,
and the place where Thine honour dwelleth !" that we
190
SEEMON XIV.
could be like the holy Apostles and their company, who
continued " daily with one accord in the Temple," " and
were continually in the Temple, praismg and blessing
God ! " that we could make some faint approximation
in the Church on earth to the unfailing devotions of the
Church in heaven, where the mystical living creatures,
who were seen in vision surrounding the throne of God,
" rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, Which was, and is, and is to come 1'
(»>
N (f
SERMON XV.
li
CONFIRMATION AND THE SACRAMENTS.
t>»
St. Luke I. 6.
And they were both righteous before Ood, walking in all the command-
ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
My brethren, it is for the merit of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ alone, by faith, and not for his own works
or deservings, that man, as is most scripturally stated in
the eleventh of our own Articles of Religion, can be
" accounted righteous before God ;" and fatal will be
the issue if he goes about to establish his own righteous-
ness, and refuses to submit himself to the righteousness
of God. It is a constituent part, however, of this very
submission, and a perfectly indispensable feature of his
faith, that he should walk " in aU the commandments
and ordinances blameless :" he must not lie open to the
charge of living in the omission of any known duty,
either ceremonial or moral, if he would put in his plea
to acceptance and justification in the sight of God. He
must not, either upon the ground of a worldly wisdom
(or rather folly), which cannot see the use of these
things, or a spiritual arrogance, which soothes itself in
the idea of superior illumination in treating them as
non-essentials, take any dispensation, assume any ex-
emption, from the obligation of conformity to the example
•tm
■MtMa
192
SERMON aV.
of our Tx)rd Jesus Christ in insisting upon receiving
baptism at the hands of John. He must not be found
acting in opposition to the general principle, the standing
maxim in religion which that blessed One then laid
down for His followers : " Suffer it to be so now : for
thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."
The commendatory notice, therefore, of Zacharias and
Elizabeth, in the text, carries a lesson, plainly and un-
questionably, to the disciples of the Gospel ; and if we
are released from the yoke of Levitical institutes, we are
not therefore suffered to treat with neglect, or to hold
as matters of little importance, the fewer and more simple
ordinances enjoined by the Christian religion, or the
observances, not being repugnant to Scripture, which, in
virtue of her divine conmiission, are framed by the
authority of the Church. If there are men to be found
among our people, who rest in outward forms and religious
technicalities, neglecting the cultivation of spiritual
religion and failing in the weightier matters of the Law,
— an error against which I believe there has never been
any deficiency of warnings here, — there are others who,
reprobating this error, conceive that they hit the true
mark in depreciating, if not despising, the exterior ordi-
nances of religion, the appointments of worship, the trans-
mitted usages of the Church : whereas, according to the
authority of Christ, the primary and fundamental obli-
gations of practical duty, and the exhibition of Christian
graces in the character, are things which ought to he done
— nothing can be substituted for these, nothing can be
accepted which does them prejudice,— but even the
CONFIRMATION AND THE SACllAMENTS. 193
minTitim of religious observance and ecclesiastical rej,ni-
lation, are thinfjs tvhich ought not, to he left undone. And
this principle of Cunformity,--af^eeal)ly to the tenor of
our own 2Gth Article of Keligion, " Of the unwoi-thineHS
of the ministers, which hinders not the effect of the
sacrament," — is not invalidated by any unhappy incon-
sistency to be witnessed in our religious guides. For
Christ says again, "The ScriVas and the Tharisees sit in
Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever tliey bid you
observe, that obsei-ve and do ; but do not ye after their
works ; for they say, and do not."
I might apply these i)rinciple8 at large and in some?
detail to the duty which lies ui)on the professed mem-
bers of the Church, in rektion to the received ordinancejs
of their religion. I might so treat the subject as to
embrace the opportunities of public prayer and praise,
—the manner of participation in the forms of worship
(take the obvious example of kneeling in prayer)~and
the observance, generally, of regulations pre8cril)ed by
authority ; canying into our religion what cekainly is
not less obligatory upon us in our religious than our
civil performance (the thing enjoined being not contrary
to the will of God), the rule prescribed for us, "Submit
yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's
sake." All, however, which I now propose to do, is to
consider with you, my brethren, in a simple and familiar
manner, some leading points of three great ritual insti-
tutions of our Keligion in the connexion more particu-
larly which they have or. with another— namely, the
two sacraments and the ordinance of confirmation.
I; I
194
SEEMON XV.
Wliat is the use of baptism ? There are very few
persons, except absolute scoffers, who would be disposed
to answer that it is of no use whatever. But there are,
I am afraid I must say, a good many persons, them-
selves baptized, and not repudiating their baptism, and
procuring their children to be baptized like themselves,
who seem as if they would be much at a loss to describe
what definite meaning they connect with the adminis-
tration of the ordinance, and to explain what value they
attach to it, what benefit they expect from it. They
find and they take it as a custom handed down in the
Church, and they have a general indistinct kind of
notion that it is by baptism that people are made
Christians: moreover it is usually considered, among
the high and the low, as an occasion of some festive
celebration ; and besides, the child who constitutes a
new addition to the family receives its name, and the
registration is duly made, which may be necessary to
secure evidence hereafter affecting some legal rights.*
My brethren, I do fear that this, or something like
this, is the amount of the conceptions formed and en-
tertained in not a few minds, among professed Christian
men, in relation to the sacrament of baptism. But
there are also persons really religious, and very capable
of sustaining religious conversation, and very zealous in
communicating their own peculiar views upon religious
points, who, if pressed with the same question, " what is
the use of baptism ? " would, as a consequence of some
* There is no general registration of births in Canada by civil
authority.
!:i
CONFIRMATION AND THE SACRAMENTS.
19;
by civil
of their own explanations in religious matters, and in
harmony with some of their particular predilections,
be rather embarrassed in seeking to give any other than
a very lame and unsatisfactory sort of leply. For, if
baptism were nothing more than they would make it,—
if to attach any special importance to this sacrament, or
to attribute to it any extraordinary effects, be a mere
superstitious reliance upon the charm operated in the
ceremonial work,— if men, without any veiy great harm,
may dispense with it,— if the manifestation of any serious
concern about it, be only a characteristic of that igno-
rance which, in some quarters, is held to be the mother
of devotion,— if to contend for, to lay any stress upon it,
be an evidence of spiritual deficiency and darkness,—
then il. would be a little difficult to say what is the use
of baptism, or to conceive why such a rite was instituted
hy Him Who is the " author and finisher of our faith."
It would be a little difficult to say why there should be
such a standing and distinguishing ordinance of the
Christian religion at all, holding the place in that
system which was held under the old covenant by
circumcision, or for what object it was solemnly and
for all perpetuity appointed, if men maj^ use their own
discretion in complying with it, and are rather more
wrong in highly appreciating than in disparaging it ;
and if all the change to be looked for, in their actual
condition and their prospects, from their participation in
the Gospel and its privileges, is something totally inde-
pendent of this act of baptism.
But, in the meantime, what says the Bible ?— for that
02
■»>—
196
SERMON XV.
f 1 ii: I
ia the way to settle the enquiry. Does the Bible, then,
or does it not, represent our first adoption into the
covenant and its privileges, as effected by the means of
this sacrament, and the way as thence opened for the
ulterior communications of divine grace ? What is the
answer rendered by St. Peter to those who were pricked
at the heart, and asked, in their trembling anxiety,
what they were to do? "Eepent and be baptized,
every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for
the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost : For the promise is unto you and to
your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many
as the Lord our God shall call." What is the instruction
given to St. Paul, in the prostration of his soul under
the effect of his miraculous vision, and after the recovery
of his sight, emblematically analogous to the removal
of his mental darkness ? " Arise, and be baptized, and
wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord."
But, passing over many other testimonies of Scripture,
let us consider the language of Christ Himself. Christ,
then, in giving the commission for evangelizing the
world, and the promise to be with the bearers of that
commission to the end of time, has ordained baptism
by water, " in the name "—can any form more awfully
sacred be conceived?— "of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Christ, as we have
seen, by His example in submitting to the inferior
baptism of John, and by the maxim which, upon that
occasion, He lays down for us in ever-memorable words,
has warned us against any presumptuous licence to dis-
ble, then,
into the
means of
i for the
liat is the
e pricked
; anxiety,
baptized,
Jhrist, for
tie gift of
)u and to
1 as many
ristruction
3ul under
e recovery
e removal
itized, and
the Lord."
Scripture,
If. Christ,
;lizing the
irs of that
d baptism
re awfully
rD OF THE
3 we have
le inferior
upon that
ible words,
iuce to dis-
CONFIKMATION AND THE SACRAMENTS. 19
pense with, or lightly to esteem such an ordinance, as
seeming to our reason either superfluous or inefficacious.
Christ has declared that "he that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not
shall be damned "—making no promise of mercy, no
stipulation for conveying the blessings of the covenant,
to unbaptized believers— appointing means which the
believer is to use— denouncing the unbeliever— and
passingi hj the case of the believer who does not use the
means, and who trusts his salvation to the contingePv-^y
of his being accepted in the rejection of them, because
he believes ; — not, however, that he believes unreservedly,
since he withholds his belief from the efficacy of this
divine ordinance. Christ has also declared that " Except
a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God." The comparison of
this mention of water with the notices of baptism
already cited, appears to fix the sense of the word
upon the same object, and it is so taken generally by
the founders of the Reformed Churches.
We do not say that no marked subsequent change can
be required in the baptized subject— for experience proves
too well, in thousands of instances, the necessity of such
a change ; nor yet do we deny that there is, in all cases,
a work remaining to be carried on, a fuller development
to follow, imported in the words, " and of the Spirit : "
but, at least, and in the lowest view of the case, there
is, according to the admission of all fair and reasonable
enquirers, a sense in which a new birth is conveyed in
baptism. This, however, is what many persons have
i
198
SERMON XV.
lii
not faith to digest (for that is not unfrequently the real
secret of the matter). They are prompted to say in
their hearts, " This is a hard saying, who can hear it ? "
They do not consider that God, Who gave the infant a
body and a soul, and caused its natural birth to take
place, can communicate to that infant farther benefits by
whatever means He sees good to appoint. They do not
consider the action of the divine power upon the human
subject, as displayed in the example of John the Baptist
even within the womb of his mother. And sometimes
they would resolve their want of faith into a spirituality
which looks higher than to ordinances and beggarly
elements. Tlie doctrine of baptism, however, which is
here in question, founded upon the plain meaning of
words which stand in the Bible, was received from the
first by the whole Church, and passed down from age to
age : the Prayer-book shows you distinctly enough, and
in a great number of places, that it is the doctrine of
the Church of England ; and whoever has the oppor-
tunity of such research, will find that it is incorporated
with the systems of theology adopted by the different
national branches of the Eefomiation, and taught by
the most celebrated foreign Eeformers,
It is, therefore, not a little remarkable that, in our own
day, many sincerely pious minds should be led to con-
ceive an alarm at the language of the Church upon this
subject. They imagine that it militates against a cor-
rect estimate of vital religion by inspiring men with a
dangerous reliance upon outward forms, and, prompting
them to build upon these as sufficient for their salva-
CONFIRMATION AND THE SACRAMENTS.
199
the real
say in
ear it ? "
infant a
L to take
inefits by
jy do not
e human
le Baptist
jmetimes
>irituality
beggarly
which is
waning of
from the
)m age to
Dugh, and
jctrine of
he oppor-
lorporated
1 different
aught by
n our own
}d to con-
upon this
ast a cor-
en with a
prompting
leir salva-
tion, draws them off from looking directly to Christ,
and lulls in a blinded security those who ought to be
awakened to earnest strivings of the soul, in order to a
saving process to be wrought in their spiritual man.
Now, to men who are jealous for the safety of these
liigh interests, we should desire to speak considerately
and lovingly— thankful if, at the same time, we can do
so convincingly, and glad, so far as their object is con-
cerned, to go along with them. But we do conceive
not only that their alarm is unfounded, but that
nothing, in point of fact, can be more contrary to the
effects which they anticipate, than the proper and
legitimate consequences of the doctrine of the Church
in relation to baptism. The Church declares in her
formularies, according to her interpretation of Holy
"Writ, that the sacraments are vehicles of grace, and
that in baptism we are made "members of Christ,
children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of
heaven." Here, then, you have something to work
upon with advantage indeed. These privileges should
be kept constantly before the baptized subject in his
Christian training, and in his attendance through life
upon the ministry of the Word, as things of which it is
matter of unspeakable thankfulness that he has, by the
free mercy of God, been made partaker — as things
which it is awful beyond description to forfeit, and from
which, if he fall away, the loudest call is given to repent
and return — things which should operate upon him in
every step of his race, as a stimulus for giving all dili-
gence to make his calling and election sure, and for
! 1
ill
200
SEUMON XV.
seeking earnestly that he may be renewed, day by day,
by the power of the divine Spirit, and strengthened
with might in the inner man. And so it is that St.
Paul deals with the believers of the early Chureh ; as,
for example, when, in the sixth ehapter of his Epistle to
the Romans, he says, " Likewise reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through
fTesus Christ our Ix)rd ; " with all the consecutive ex-
hortations to be there found, it will be seen, by an
examination of the passage, that he fountls the whohi
charge upon the fact of their haptisni. As, again, in
the case of the Colossians, where the words occur, "If
ye then be Hsen with Christ, seek those things which
are above," with all the concomitant matter which he
there urges upon that body of believers. And so it is
that the Church earnestly prays for the child in the
administration of baptism, and so that she affectionately
charges the sponsors, whom (according to the true
intent of that spiritual provision) she takes as her
guarantees that a baptized child shall be religiously
brought up. And so she exacts it from himself to
promise, in the open face of her people, that, by God's
gracious help, he will do, assuming upon himself the
vow which had been made by those sponsuid in his
name, when, on behalf of her divine Master, ^>>;3 gives
him her solemn blessing at his confirmation.
The signal benefit of an ordinance such as that of
confirmation, is here very strongly brought out to view.
"We nre /eiy fai'from undertaking to say that, in the real .
eXj.v:i'iei.t.£A:? of life, it is always marked as a blessing ;
il
h
CONFIRMATION AND THE BACRAMJiNTS.
201
r by day,
tigthuned
that St.
irch ; as,
Cplstle to
ourselves
through
utive ex-
i, by an
lie whole
again, in
3cur, "If
gs which
vhich he
I so it is
d in the
tionately
the true
} as her
jligiously
mself to
by God's
nself the
Ld in his
she gives
3 that of
to view.
1 the real
blessing ;
for this wo cannot say of any roligiuus advaiilage
enjoyed by man. Men may have ard use the Bible, the ;
ordmance of the Lord's-day, the sacraments, and the
teaching of tlio Chribtian ministry, and slill be far from
God. Either collectively, from the laxity and degene-
racy of the times in which they may happen to live, or
individually, from their own perverse failure to improve
their advantages, they may discharge as a mere empty
formality the whole appointed round of their religious
duties. All may be lifeless and without fruit. And
thus the ordinance of confirmation may happen, here
and there, to have been so carelessly managed as only
to bring deserved reproach upon the Churcli ; or where
pains have been faithfully taken with the subjects of it,
and hopes are entertained for them by ministers and
friends, the promising appearances may vanish in the
trial wliich follows — the blossom of these hopes may go
up as dust. It is very disappointing, for example, to
find, among the young persons who are confirmed in our
communion, so many failures to follow up that solemn
act of their lives by enrolling themselves among the
habitual communicants of the Church. Yet what, in
itself, can be more happily contrived, more beautifully
adapted to set forward the youthful pilgrim in the way
of life, than this ordinance of confirmation interposed
as a link to connect together the two sacraments of our
religion, referring him back to his privileges received
and his obligations contracted in the former, and passing
him up to become a participant in the latter? In all
common consistency with these proceedings, he must
^02
SERMON XV.
lA, ii
f\ i
walk — happy state, little appreciate Uc uixder-
stood by a world, a cold-hearted, thankless, undutiful,
infatuated world, which nails itself Christian !~he must
walk as a child of the living God.
Even if this "laying on of hands," therefore, upon
baptized persons, with pi ay or and benediction, were 'wt,
as we see in Scripture tha*j it is, a practice established
by the Apostles in the Church, and mentioned by one
Apostle in a manner to indicate it as a standing and
perpetual ordinance; even if it were not a practice
which was accordingly received in the early ages of the
Church throughout the whole Christian world; even
if it were not a practice which was retained, upon
deliberate examination, as a feature of Apostolic and
* primitive usage, in many different branches of the
Eeformation besides our own ; even if it were not a
practice of which the loss has been most feelingly
lamented by men of name in other branches of the
Eeformation, who candidly acknowledge an error com-
mitted by their own communion in dropping it; — all
this, as many of you may be aware, my brethren, it is ; —
but even if confirmation did not, upon these grounds,
challenge our respect and claim our conformity — sup-
pose it were an invention of yesterday : yet what, in
itself, could be more appropriate, more seasonable, more
impressive, more wisely calculated, so far as means are
fitted to ends, to carry on the connected plan of reli-
gious training, and to provide for a particular crisis in
the stages of human life, than this? Than th'ts, that the
Church should step forward at once, carefully to arm
I-''
CONFIRMATION AND THE SACRAMENTS.
203
ndutiful,
•he must
re, upon
rvere 'lot,
ablislied
by one
ling and
practice
IS of the
1 ; even
d, upon
olic and
of the
•e not a
■eelingly
of the
•or corn-
it ; — all
it is ; —
grounds,
y— sup-
what, in
le, more
3ans are
of reli-
nisis in
tliat the
to arm
and affectionately to charge her youthful recruits, sealed
in infancy as tlie soldiers of Christ, — trained, prepared,
and examined by their immediate pastors, — and now
about to mix in the warfare of the world, and (especially
in the case of the male sex) to encounter the battle of
new temptations in many dangerous shapes. She may
be considered — when, in the ancient form of patriarchal
as well as of Apostolic times, she gives them her bless-
ing by the imposition of hands— as addressing each of
them thus : —
You are the child of Adam, and, as such, were born
the inheritor of sin. Sin carries an everlasting curse,
of which the natural death of the body and the count-
less evils which exist in the world are the present
visible and palpable fruits. This is your real condition ;
you must not shrink from the contemplation of it, as
you cannot escape from the reality; but you must think
of the cure. There is one way of relief from this curse,
and one alone ; but that way, if you know how to profit
by it, is effectual and sure. It is in Christ, the Son of
God, and the seed, at the same time, of the woman,
promised, from the day of Adam's fall, to bruise the
serpent's head. He has come ; He has fulfilled the pro-
mise ; He has suffered in your place ; He has paid your
debt; He has recovered for you your lost inheritance
of life. He has ordained means. He has provided
channels, for the extension of these benefits to man-
kind ; He has commissioned pastors to take care of His
people; He has confided the book of truth to their
hands to be freely and unreservedly dispensed to all ;
Ji H
tl
t 1
204
m\f- ili
if • I
iii
SEIIMON XV.
and has instituted ordinances as tokens and marks of
His worsliii)pers, — forms and demonstrations of their
lionuif^e, means of hoklin^^ then), together' in the bonds
of brotherhood, and vehick^s, by His own express stipu-
hition, for conveying gnice and refreshment to their
souls. You are compi 'liended in these; bh^ssings ; you
have been reached by these merciful provisions. You
sprang up by nature a worthless and a noxious weed in
the wilderness of this blighted world ; but you were
early transplanted into the garden of God llimsel., and
culture has been bestowed upon you, by His appoint-
ment, upon earth ; and genial influenc(;s have been shed
down upon you from heaven — the tender showers of
His abundant grace, and the vivifying radiance of His
eternal love, — and all to fit you for your future removal,
once and for ever, to the Paradise above. But you have
many dangers still. Many evil influences still breathe
upon you from the tainted atmosphere of tliis lower
world ; nuicli infection of nature remains in your core.
If you would serve God and save your soul, you must
keep close to Him ; you must love Him for His good-
ness to you ; you nmst pray to Him for His grace ; you
must acquaint yourself with His holy AVord ; you nmst
conform yourself to His holy will. Without all this,
your baptism will only turn to your reproach, your
blessings will only aggravate your iiiin. And yet how
many are the thuigs around you and within you, which
tend to draw your heart another way! how^ many
temptations from the world, the flesh, and the devil, to
indispose you to devotion; to rendei" distasteful to you
I' I
CONFIHMATION AND THE SACRAMENTS.
205
the duty of watcliinjf your own heart and temper, and
the di.scii)line of self-control; to possess you with the
love of vanity and pleasure ; to sway you hy the force
of evil exanii)l(^; to catch your soul with the baits of
sinful indulj^^ence ! And you cainiot he always nurtured
and protectc^d by friendly hands which have, thus far,
j^mided your weakness. The time is conui (it is thus
that the Church is still supposed to be addressinjr him)
when you must declare for yourself what shall be your
course, and act in your own name. Hear, thciu, the
voice of your mother, in whose bosom you have been
bred, and the milk of whose doctrine you have drunk
as a babe in Christ ; take her blessing and her prayers,
and receive her charge. Come forward and tell her
whether you will abide by your baptism,— whether you
will recognise your obligations to your Saviour ; come
forward in the assend)ly of His worshippers, within the
walls of His sanctuary, in view of the font of your
baptism, in front of the holy table at which, as the next
step in the appointed course of her ordinances, you are
invited to attend. Keep that sacred duty before your
eyes ; and remember that if your confirmation does
not, after a reasonable interval — why not at the very
first following opportunity ?— bring you to the table of
your Lord, you are falling back from your vows. And
if you draw back, God declares— and think of the
awful import of the words !— that He hath no pleasure
in you. He repudiates. He rejects you ; He will not
accept, when you offer yourself a living sacrifice to
Him, the refuse of your heart. " No man having put his
206
SERMON XV.
hand to the plough and looking back is, fit for the king-
dom of God." " Forsake not," then, in this point, " the
law of your mother : " she would lead you by the hand
to the holy memorials which set before your view the
immolation of the Son of God ; and if you decline her
invitation, made in His own authority and name, (Jierc
will be an evidence at once of something wrong, some-
thing unsafe. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supi»er is a
test to you to know how things stand between you and
God. Christ died for you: Christ commands, Christ
chai-ges you affectionately, as it were in His dying
words, to make a formal remembrance of His death and
sufferings ; And promises, if you are faithfully prepared,
to give you blessing in the act, to impart Himself, in
spiritual communion, to your soul. The Church invites,
prepares, assists, persuades you to come. But no — you
see how many there are that say so — this is too serious
a matter : when it comes to this point, we must stop.
What does such a refusal mean ? I do not speak here
of some humble and anxious souls who have not over-
come the scruples which make them distrustful of their
fitness, although their self-abasement is the very qualifi-
cation for their being graciously and tenderly received ;
but taking the world of Christians in general, what
does the refusal mean ? Why, it means this— neithei
more nor less than this : it is not that men decline the
Lord's Supper ; it is that they decline being religious.
They think there is something about this ordinance (as
if there were not something to the same effect about all
the observances of religion and all acknowledgment of
CONFIRMATION AND THE SACHAMENTS.
207
\ie king-
int, " the
the liaiid
v^iew the
liVniQ her
ne, i?iere
ig, some-
[)l>ei' is a
you and
3, Christ
LS dying
eath and
n-epared,
niself, in
I invites,
no — you
serious
list stop,
eak here
lot over-
of their
y qualifi-
eceived ;
al, what
—neither
cline the
religious,
lance (as
ibout all
•ment of
its tmtli) — sometliing which does not compoit with a
worldly and ungodly state of the heart, and that is a
state which tliey cannot bring themselves to resign.
Let it not be so seen with you. There cannot be a
stronger proof of the value of this sacrament and the
necessity of participation in it, than this very reluctance
to participate ; for here is a touchstone of safety ; here
is a candle brought which shows the existence of
obstructions in the way of approach to Clod— obstruc-
tions, perhaps, otherwise unsuspected, but unequivocally
demanding to be removed, before men can be in a riglit
and happy state. You are a being who are to live for
ever ; and there can be nothing right with you, nothing
happy, till you can enjoy the favour of God— till you
pray and are heard in your prayer, " Lamb of God,
that takest away the sins of the world, Grant us thy
peace." There are difficulties in a religious course — that
is not concealed from you : there is a cross to be borne,
but there is a crown in reserve ; and in the anticipation
of that crown, permitted to those who love the appearing
of their Lord, and in the exercise of those Christian
graces which constitute the preparation for it, there is a
peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
The lawful enjoyments of this present world are tenfold
enhanced, and beyond is the " inheritance incorruptible,
undefiled, and that fadeth not away."
r )
SERMON XVI.
WORDS AND THOUGHTS ACCEPTABLE BEFORE GOD.
Ps. XIX. 14, 15, P. B. Translation.
Let the v'ords of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway
accejdable in, thy sight, Lord, 7mj strength, and my redeeuur.
A NEEDFUL prayer for man ! Who is there but must be
sensible (if ever he thinks about his soul at all) of his
deficiency, his natural obliquity, his liability to err, and
the accumulated instances of his actual transgression, in
his use both of the faculty of speech and of the power
of thought ? Who is there that can fail to be conscious,
if he at all watches himself, and sits in judgment upon
his own doings, of his natural proneness to fly off from
the idea of God and heavenly things in the workings of
his mind, and, consequently, in the vent which they
find and the expression which they give themselves in
articulate words ? " I set the Lord always before me," —
"I am continually with Thee,"— "Thy face, Lord, will I
seek," — these are the sayings and sentiments of the holy
Psalmist, and they simply speak the proper language of
every accountable being upon earth, subject to the un-
ceasing inspection of the God Whose workmanship he is,
upon Whose mercy he depends for life and hope, and to
Whom he has a reckoning to render for the whole tenor
I
i M'l
WORDS AND THOUGHTS ACCEPTABLE BEFORE GOD. 209
E GOD.
rt, be alway
Icemcr.
t must be
ill) of his
err, and
ession, in
:lie power
3onscious,
lent upon
' off from
)rkings of
liich they
iselves in
re me," —
)rd, will I
f the holy
nguage of
:o the un-
ship he is,
pe, and to
bole tenor
of his service in all its parts and in every shade of its
duties. And yet are there not multitudes of professed
Christians who, instead of exhibiting any practical
remembrance of all this, may rather be described by the
words of the same Psalmist, where he says that God is
not in all their thoughts— nay, so far as regards any
living influence within them to control their thoughts
and actions, too often by the words of the same in-
spired author still, "The fool hath said in his heart.
There is no God"?
My brethren, that there is a God is what we all,
without exception, recognise as an abstract truth ; and
men believing this truth must beware of the danger of
going on, in this brief life, as if they believed nothing
of the kind. God has used means enough to make us
think of Him ; if we learn nothing of His eternal power
and Godhead from the book of this visible creation, the
Apostle assures us that we are left without excuse. How
much more if we remain ignorant or regardless of the
truths which concern the welfare of our souls, when the
book of Eevelation is in our hands ; when the weekly
returns of the day which the Lord hath made, the re-
iterated calls of His ministers and all the appointed
ordinances of His Church, are expressly provided to keep
us from forgetting Him, and to teach us that if we
would walk in safety through life, and end our walk in
hope, we must walk with God. It is impossible, utterly
impossible, that we can be entitled, upon any other
supposition, to look for any such happy progress below,
or happy result above.
i1
"11
t !
( :
Wt
|1 V,
I! P ^i
ii i
[ . ; 6*
■
210
SEKMON XVI.
God grant that the call given to us in the several
observances of this very day may, by His efficacious
grace and blessing, bring these solemn realities, what-
ever may be our actual habits of mind or conversation,
more home to all our heart3 !
Let us consider first, the necessity for praying and
taking heed that the words of our mouth should be
acceptable in the sight of God. So multiplied are the
sins of the tongue, and so easily are we betrayed into the
commission of them, that he that offendeth not in word,
as we are taught by the Apostle James, " is a perfect man,
and able also to bridle the whole body." But how
many among us not only have to lament infirmities of
this nature into which they have fallen in unguarded
moments, but seem in a manner unconscious of any par-
ticular responsibility for the words which pass their
lips, and virtually appropriate the sentiment of certain
ungodly men of old, " Our lips are our own ; who is lord
over us ? " It will be happy if, being convicted in their
consciences of their trangression in this particular in-
stance — their abuse of the gift of speech — they can
thence be convinced, generally, of the perilous state in
which they stand. " I say unto you " — they are hardly
prepared deliberately to dispute the authority of Him
Who makes this declaration — 'I say unto you, that
every idle word which men shall speak, they shall give
account thereof in the day of judgment. !For by thy
words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou
shalt be condemned." Let all men consider this, in the
first place, who are what the world calls very good and
tie several
3fficacious
ies, what-
versation,
-ying and
should be
ed are the
id into the
t in word,
rfect man,
But how
rmities of
mguarded
f any par-
)ass their
of certain
'ho is lord
id in their
icular in-
-they can
Ls state in
3,re hardly
y of Him
you, that
shall give
or by thy
ords thou
his, in the
' good and
WOEDS AND THOUGHTS ACCEPTABLE BEFORE GOD. 211
respectable men, and not unobservant of public religious
duties, but who now and then, according to a phrase
familiarly used to describe the case, are known to rap
out an oath. The same men, who say their prayers and
pray that God's name may be* hallowed, are known
sometimes to take His name in vain by their own pro-
fane and irreverent expressions, and to manifest no
extraordinary uneasiness at being assured by Himself,
that they vnll not he held guiltless for doing so. " Out of
the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing." No
blessing will return into their own bosom, if so accom-
panied. But we will not now enlarge upon the varied
offences of the tongue, of which the Apostle just above
quoted says that, although it be a little member, "it
setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of
hell ; "—we will not pursue in detail all the mischiefs of
the inflammatoiy public harangue, the irritating private
taunt — the provocation to deep and bloody revenge, or
the suggestion of unholy thoughts, by means of the
tongue, to other minds— the persuasion to dangerous
compliances in opposition to conscience — the mischiev-
ous insinuation to serve a selfish purpose — the un-
scrupulous false statement — the skilful practice upon
the credulity of other men— the frothy ebullitions of
boastful vanity — ^the foolish amplifications of the grounds
of personal pretension— the hurtful scandal carelessly
retailed and still gathering additions from mouth to
mouth — the ceaseless and ostentatious outpourings of
frivolity and levity and worldliness— the self-compla-
cent sarcasm upon persons who are conceived to be
p2
Hi ,i
liii.
I
II.
212
SERMON XVI.
deficient in such points as challenge consideration in
certain circles of society — all of which, common enough,
and passing with little censure in the intercourse of the
world, are broadly offensive in the sight of God.
Forbearing to pursue these details, let us consider
-how far the words of our mouth are, according to the
prayer of the Psalmist, positively acceptable before Him.
With reference to God Himself, as the party addressed
in the use of speech, the prayer which we offer, the
confession which we pour out, to be acceptable, must be
the prayer and the confession of the heart; the praise,
the profession of faith, to which we give utterance,
must be uttered with the spirit and with the under-
standing ; and it is little else than a mockery of homage,
bringing danger to our souls, if the heart be far from
Him, to honour Him with the lips. With reference to
our fellow-creatures, it is not required, nor would it be
found to promote the cause of religion in the world,
that those who fear God should never speak otherwise
than in a strain directly religious. It is not forbidden
that men should manifest a tone of cheerfulness, or
indulge in an occasional playful sally of a chastened
character ; nor is it otherwise than desirable that they
should have a facility of engaging in conversation upon
all general topics. But if they are Christians indeed,
as they will never in their actions, so will they never
in their words, lose sight of the cause of their Master ;
they will not only guard against being provoked to
speak unadvisedly with their lips— they will not only
pray, in the consciousness of their own infirmity, that
WORDS AND THOUGHTS ACCEPTABJE BEFORE GOD. 213
3ration in
n enough,
rse of the
d.
consider
ig to the
fore Him.
addressed
offer, the
J, must be
lie praise,
utterance,
he under-
f homage,
far from
ference to
)uld it be
he world,
otherwise
forbidden
Illness, or
chastened
that they
tion upon
IS indeed,
ley never
: Master;
)voked to
not only
nity, that
God would set a watch upon their mouth and keep the
door of their lips, lest they offend with their tongue,
but the general influence of their conversation upon
the minds of other men will be a good influence; it
will work, although often insensibly, as a good leaven
in the mass ; and they will know, upon due occasion,
how to " reprove, rebuke, exhort " their straying fellow-
creatures ; to comfort the broken-hearted ; to solace the
afflicted ; to encourage the diffident with a view to their
spiritual improvement. They will know, also, their own
privilege, intimated in the words that "the secret of
the Lord is among them that fear Him," and in the
description that " they that feared the Lord spake often
one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it,
and a book of remembrance was written before Him
for them that feared the Lord, and that tlwugU upon
His name."
They who feared the Lord and ^ahe often one to
another are the same, we see, as they who thought upon
His name. So the Psalmist couples, in his prayer, the
words of his mouth and the meditation of his heart. All
idea of avoiding or of correcting the sins of the tongue,
all hope whatever of cultivating the habitual observance
of the Apostolic precept, " Let your speech be alway
with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how
to answer every man," must be founded upon the re-
ligious frame of the bosom, upon the occupation of the
soul by the high and saving truths of the Gospel of
Christ. We must go to the source. " Out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good
I /
214
SERMON XVI.
man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth
forth good things ; and an evil man out of the evil
treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things." Let
us consider, then, as already in the case of our words,
the necessity for praying and taking heed that the
meditation of our liearts be acceptable in the sight of
God. Tlie heart of fallen man, abandoned to itself and
to the influences, whether of this world or the world of
darkness, which act upon it, will always verify the
description of the state of things which preceded the
flood, when " God saw that the wickedness of man was
great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Alienation from God, averseness from spiritual things,
indisposition towards the purifying control of the
Gospel, repugnancy to the meek, holy, charitable, and
self-denying temper which it would engraft upon us —
these are characteristics which, in a more prominent or
a more disguised and softened manner of development,
attach extensively to the professed Christian world;
and being, in our best estate, in contact with all this,
and having a remnant of infection uneradicated in our
own bosoms, so long as we are here in mortal flesh, we
are continually in danger, and the process must be kept
continually in operation by which these evil influences
are counterworked. The restless activity of the human
mind and the ceaseless succession of thoughts sug-
gested by the circumstances in which we are placed,
by the objects which offer themselves around us, by the
remarks which we hear or the conversations in which
WORDS AND THOUGHTS ACCEPTABLE BEFOEE GOD. 215
bringeth
the evil
[8." Let
ir words,
that the
sight of
;self and
world of
;rify the
eded the
nan was
a of the
inually."
1 things,
of the
ible, and
»on us —
linent or
lopment,
world;
all this,
d in our
flesh, we
be kept
ifluences
3 human
its sug-
placed,
3, by the
n which
we bear our part, demand from us the utmost watchful-
ness and the most careful regulation of the inner man.
We walk, as Christians, "by faith and not by sight ; " but
our faith will soon be dimmed if we do not cultivate
the habit of detaching our minds from the things of
sense. We are liable to be absorbed, to bo lost in the
vortex of our complicated engagements in life. The
duties of public office, the share which may fall to us
in matters political or municipal, the calculations and
competitions of traffic, the improvement of property,
the provision to be made for the wants of our families,
the economy of our households, the demands of society,
the cultivation of favourite sciences or accomplishments
— here is ei jugh, without speaking of the snares of
sinful pleasure, or the temptations which may assail
our integrity of principle — here is enough, in necessaiy
or lawful pursuits, to grasp the whole man, to fill up,
without his observing it, his time upon earth, and tax
the full energies of his naturd But what will be seen
in the end thereof, if he have left no room for the ONE
THING NEEDFUL of his existence — ^if he have so sur-
rendered himself to the claims of the world as to let
them interfere with, and therefore (for we cannot serve
two masters) as to let them set aside, to let them deaden
and obliterate in his heart, the claim of Him Who died
for all, and died for all upon the obvious and plainly-
stated understanding, that they who " live through Him
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
Him that died for them and rose again " ?
In this position, therefore, of danger — my brethren,
216
SKUMON XVI.
it is n real, a Rivat, a serious, an awful dan^^or — wo
inu8t study tho state of our lioarts ; we must ohscrvo
tlu) current of our Mioujjjlits, tlio (unuplexiou of our
meditations; we nmst f»m])i)le to our souls ilio 8oI(>nni
and glorious truths of tlie Ciosjxa ; we must constantly
revolve in our miiuls the high destiny wliieh is heforo
ns, the transcendent imporlanee of our salvation, and
tho utter uncertainty of cur (existence below ; we must
familiarise ourselves with the woixl of tlu^ living Ciod,
metlitating upon it day and night, and having recourse
to all the stamling auxiliary means to ])reserve a stuiso
of ivligion in our minds ; and, further, we must lay to
lieart tho instructive lessons which surround ua in tho
scenes of human life.
For the first point,— if we do not make that hlessed
word our companion and our guide; if we fail to
comply devoutly, intelligently, im])rovingly with its
positive institutions ; if we att(>nd mechanically, and
rather in the way of worldly conformity than anything
else, npon the ordinances of worship ; if we disi'egard
tho calls io the Holy Communion, or if we just com-
municate, as a matter of form and custom, npon high
occasions, once or twice a year ; it is well for us to put
the question to our bosoms, wlu^thcr, with these un-
deniable evidences of defective attention to our spiritual
interests, wo are pursuing a safe and hapjjy course ;
whether we should be ready, if Ood were to call ns in
a day when we look not for it, and in lui hour when we
are not aware ; ready to go aad render up our account
befoi*e God; ready, so ready, that every night when we
WORDS AND TlIOUflTlTS AnCEPTAW.K IlEFOllE fJOD. 217
i^r(?r — wo
ohscrvo
I of our
^ 8()I(>irm
iiHtuntly
is bi^lbro
ion, iuul
v« must
ing (lod,
rocouvRo
n 8(MIH0
it lay to
J in the
blessed
fail to
vitli its
ly, and
ny tiling
isri'^ard
sSt coni-
m hi^li
i to put
ivso un-
piritual
Bourse ;
1 ua in
lion we
iccount
icu we
lie down to our nvst, w(i lie down truHtin;^ in Christ,
that if w<^ w((i*o to wakti in another world we hIiouUI
bo found anumg the heira of a glonous i*e8urrection.
Aj^ain, we an^ called u|Km to profit in the Bame way
by the inatruetive oceurrc^nces which tak(i i>laco ai-ound
US. Tlioy are alwjiys taking i)laee : at houuj times in a
more marked manner than at othorB ; but wo live in a
■world which, at nil tinu>H, is preHenting to us HCfiues of
change, of suiVering, of dcMiih. Warning iuHtancoH of
sudden <leath, unlooked-for gapH in the eoninmnity, tho
disappearance, at a sti-oke, of individuals familiarly and
prominently known, or sad bereavements in wcsll-known
families, following fust upon each oth(!r, and awakcining
the gcintnul symi)athy of the place ; — these aro iK)t only
touching appeals to our sensibility, but also solemn
le-ssons which, for his own personal improvement, tho
living slundd lay to his heart.
Tho I'salmist, in tho former part of a passage which
innuediatt^ly ])rccede8 our text, asks, " Who can tell how
oft ho offendeth?" and imiys to bo clcansiul from his
" secret faults." And oh what a catalogue is this — tho
catalogue of our unoliscrved transgressions, of our un-
counted failures in the words which pass our lips, and
in the thoughts and inuiginations that lloat up and
down upon tho strean), of our minds I
liefoi'e that God Who understandeth even our thoughts
long before, Wlio is about our path, and about our
bed, and spieth out all our ways; of Whom it is
declared, that "He knoweth tho very secrets of tho
heart," of Whom it is asked, " Ho that planted tho ear,
218
SERMON XVI.
shall He not hear? He that formed the eye. shall He
not see ? "—before that God— that all-holy God, Who
than to behold" iniquity- _„.,«„,,,_
numerable instances, of which we are ourselves fully cog-
nisant, have we been guilty of vain, foolish, irregular, ex-
travagant^thoughts ; unchastised and ill-directed wishes ;
Httle, low, earthly calculations of the future; glaring
abermtions of mind even in our religious duties, from
the objects which ought to engage it in fervour and
holy aspiration ; distractions and wanderings in the
midst of prayers by wliich we are holding communion
with God Himself! And if these are among the sub-
jects of our own confession when we come before Him,
how far beyond this is the account known to Him, Who
is greater than our heart and knoweth all things ! What
are we to do, and where is our resource, with all this
load of sin upon us, with all this conscious helplessness
and frailty— lamenting that we have so perpetually been
domg wrong, and feeling that we are so little able to do
better-what shall we do, and what can we dare to
hope? Shall we, with St. Peter in the Gospel (read
to-day) say to our God, when the evidences of His
greatness and power are brought home to us, « Depart
from me : for I am a sinful man, Lord " ? No • we
will not say that. We will follow on the prayer of the
Psalmist to the end : "Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart be alway acceptable in Thy
sight, O Lord my Strength and my Kedeemer." My
Strength and my Redeemer ! There, in those two aspects
of our Lord God, we find all that we want : our Strength
/!
WORDS AND THOUGHTS ACCEPTABLE BEFORE GOD, 219
and our Redeemer. We are weak, even when we are
willing, and when our eyes are truly opened to the
magnitude and the power of the obstacles to our salva-
tion, we sink under the sense of our incompetency to
cope with them. But " God is our hope and strength,
a very present help in trouble :" it is precisely in our
weakness that His " strength is made perfect," and He
makes us " more than conquerors " in the end. And as
the contemplation of our guilt before Him, together
with our dread of its consequences to our souls, no less
dismays and overwhelms us, than the consciousness
of our native inability to struggle with our corruptions ;
this exigency is also relieved, — graciously, abundantly,
unfailingly relieved. Sin is not imputed, transgres-
sion shall not be mentioned to the believer who has
learnt to cast his care upon God, knowing that He
careth for him, and the burthen of his sin upon Him
Who is " mighty to save." He trembles no more under
the weight of his iniquities ; he appropriates, in all its
plenitude of consolation, the assurance of his God,
" Fear not ; for I have redeemed thee : I have called
thee by thy name : thou art Mine."
I
SERMON XVir.
THE MYSTERY OF OODLINESS.
1 Tim. III. 16.
And inthouf, cmtrovcrsy great is thv. mystery of qodlhms: Ood vm
^mn,jest in t/u^ flesh Justified in the Spirit, seen of anyefs, preaehcd
unto the Gentiles, oeheved on in the tvorld, received up into glory.
There are somo persons iwofcssing tlmmclvcs, like the
philosophising heathens described by the Apostle, to he
wue, who think it an evidence of their wisdom to lay
down i\iQ maxim that where mystery begins, religion
ends. Now certainly if we were to understmufby
mystery the shrouding of religion in a certain artificial
awe, by a particular order of men supposed to be
initiated in secrets, and possessed of dark attributes
of power, by which they sway the imaginations, and
turn to their own account the fears, of mankind, we
may readily adnn't that where .mch mystery begins,
there true and pure religion is grievously endangered!
There we discern the features of priestcraft on the one
side, and of superstition on the other ; or, as we may
be warranted to say, in a more indulgent spirit, of
superstition simply on loth sides ; for there is no 7icccs~
sity for supposing that the craft, as such, is consciously
and deUberately carried on by those who exercise it.
THE MYSTERY OF QODLINESS.
221
Their passions and interests are, indeed, enlisted in its
support, but tliey liavo not personally contrived it;
tluiy nfceivo it and cling to it as a traditional system.
The Apostle, however, is no friend to any such jnyntcry
as this. " We are not as many," he says to the Corin-
thians, "which corrupt the word of God: but as of
sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak
we in Clirist." And again, "Wo have renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness,
nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by
manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to
every man's conscience in the sight of God."
liut that there are in the verities of our religion,
which we must hold as essential and revere with pro-
found devotion of heait, mysterious points unfathom-
able by the human intellect, demands made upon us
to believe, wonder, and adore where we cannot pene-
trate — this the Apostle is so far from disclaiming,
that he speaks frequently of the mysteries attaching
in different ways to the scheme of redemption, and
describes the ministers of the Gospel as " stewards of
the mysteries of God." And in our text, before specifying
the successive particulars which are to exemplify the
declaration, he declares that "without controversy" —
beyond all possible dispute— " great is the mystery of
godliness : " the mystery presented in those truths of
which the acceptance must form the basis of all god-
liness in man, all true and practical recognition of his
relations with God.
The Church has very appropriately wound up, by a
till
222
SERMON XVII.
Sunday sot apart for tlio special contemplation of tlio
doct
■ine of the Holy Trinity, the series of obsorvm
ices
^vhi(«h corresponds, point by point, to certain ninrlu^d
features of the Cospel history, and striking ch^velop-
nienta of the attributes of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy d host. On that da" vfore, which is now
not far distant, some notice c ,.^steri(^s attaching to
the Divine Emnee may naturally bo looked for; and
it may be sufTicient to remark, for the pres(uit, that wo
are surrounded by mysteries in every department of
nature; wo are ourselves an incomprehensible wonder
to ourselves ; and is it reasonable, then, that we should
expect to pass familiarly within the circle of the sancti-
ties above, and to pierce the clouds of glory in which
the Godhead is enveloped ? « The corruptible body,"
according to the words of the Wisdom of Solomon,
"presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle
weigheth down the mind that nmseth upon many
things ; and hardly do we guess aright at the things
that are upon earth, and with labour do we find the
things that are before us : but the things that are in
heaven who hath searched out?" God has graciously
revealed Himself to us ; but revelation does not import
that we can " by searching find out God :" that we can
" find out the Almighty unto perfection." If He has
made known what will serve to guide and to save us,
that is enough : we must not rudely take hold of the
ark of His presence, and think that nothing is inter-
dicted to our touch. We do not act a wise, we do not
act a reasonable part, if, with aU the stamp of divinity
THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS.
223
>n of tho
!orvaiic(38
innrk(5d
(levolop-
^on, and
I is now
cliing to
for; and
that wo
nuMit of
wonder
) should
J suncti-
ti wliich
body,"
olonion,
)ornacle
ninny
! things
ind the
are in
iciously
import
we can
He has
ave us,
of the
I inter-
do not
ivinity
whicli is impressed upon our religion, witli all the irre-
fragable and accunndating evidences of its truth, with
all the fuhiess of tho provision whicli it makers for
the obvious wants of our nature, all its coiigruity to
our case, the «m!rflowing love by which it addrcsHses
itself to our hearts, and the magnificent incitement by
which it meets our yearnings and asinrations ; 1 m\y
we do not act a wise or a reasonable part, if, with all
this before us, v/e stagger at any strange wonder which
it presents, or depth in which our human investigations
are lost. This is what we ought to expect. For His
thoughts are not our thoughts : neither are our ways His
ways. We are nuiking an utter mistake when we irKuisuro
the one by the other. "For as the lieavens are higher
than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,
and My thoughts than your thoughts, saith the Lord."
" Without controversy," then, " great is the mystery of
godliness." And the first point stated in the enumera-
tion of particulars is the myster}^ of the Incarnation :
" God V)a8 manifest in the ficshr The mystery of evil
let loose upon the work f.f God, the mystery of a sinful
bias in human nature, violating the implanted principle
of conscience, and prompting mischief within and with-
out the man ; the mystery of suffering ; the mystery of
death; th? mystery of a visible, broadly legible curse
written in varied characters upon the face of all this
fair and glorious creation,— these aggregated mysteries,
locking in the one with the other, — call for, cry out
for some mighty counteracting intervention, and some
remedy commensurate with the magnitude of the damage.
224
flKIlMON XVII.
And for tins wo inii.sl, look hh lii^'li its to Clod IlimHolf,
an(l(Jo(l llimsolf immt look as low iw to coiiu; aiiionp;
m in tho pdrHou of ilio Kicnial Son, luul to bciionui ono
ol" ourM('lv(5«. And accordinjrly, ,,« h,,,),, ^^ (,],„ <.„r.s(5
took ollod, and our ruin hud hmn wrougitt, tlm iruiaiiH
of our r(;i!ovi^ry wuro proclaimed. Tho »wi{ of tlio
woman was to hruiH(5 tho HcrpiMit's hood. TIuui followed
tho \o\)^ train of ])ri)paration — typo.s poraonal or ('(ini-
luouinl, which nmdc thoshaihiwy hutcnrtnin ro.sonihhimio
of a wondrous futuiti to paas hoforo tho oyoH of nion —
tlio voico of propliooy, wliich s<»un(KMl lomhir and spoko
luoiv distinctly as a^^'o advanced ui)on ago ; tlm soviTanco
from all tho lust of tho world of a flinf»hi po()plo in
whoso bosom tho hlossing was to ho loilgcul ; tho ton(lon(5y
of events in their series which convisrgiMl to ouo graml
issue ordained by llini Who ruhvs tho destinios of men
iind empires. And with rosi)oct to tho particular and
leadin<; fact, of which tho inlluenco inseparably and
essentially pervades tho scluime of tho (jos|)oI dis-
pensation in all its parts, tho mystery of God manifest
in fJu'JIt's/i, the trumpet tones of in-ophocy followinjr up
the orij,nnal promise which compensated tlio expulsion
from Paratlise, did, indeed, sp(iak loudly and clearly here.
*♦ A vir<,Mii shall conceive, (iud bear a son, and shall call
His name Inmaiiud," which word Immanuel si«,niifu)8
God H'itlh US. " Unto us a Sou is born, unto us a OMld is
given : and the government shall be upon His shoulder,
and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselh)r,
tiie MiyJUi/ God, tho Everlasting Father, the Pniico of
J^eaco."
Il
THK WVHTKIIY OK CJoDtJNKHH.
225
(Jcrlain niiiiii ol.jcotH mu\ nirociH ol' UiIh inyHtnriouH
iiKiiinmlioii uni wluit ilio Apontln im)(;('.(!(lH to hUiU); luuX
tin- next Hl(>i) iH Unit (}(.(!, tliuH inmiif(!Ht in tlicyW/,, whh
.iiiHtili(.(l in tl.o Hpi,rU~iU>H\i iind Spirit Ix-in^ lioro, a«
()lH(nvIi(iiv, oppoRCMl to nnrh otli(!r, l.iit luvrn carryin^r ir,
thv'w o|)poHiti<)n tlio lii^li mid Hpficinl Hi^aiilifiution that
11(1 Who took upon Ilim oiir IKihIi, and wan mmloiu thn
lilomcHH of in(^n, wan HUHtaincd in JliH clainiH to })n an
incaniatfj (Jod ]>y tlio tnanilcHlationH oftlK! I )ivin(! Spirit.
W(! nuiHt nipird lliin an man nrid wo innut ro<^ard Ifim
as (Jod, for II(! was both ; aH Hiircly botli, m wo, Hiniply
liuninn boinj^'H, aro most inyHt(!rionHly ooniponndcd of
Hon! and body. Ah man, then, in Wh(mi (iw(!lt " all tbt
fiilncsH of tho (Jodhoad bodily," ],ut Htill an man, tho
y^;/// W/Y/s/ doHccndcd visibly upon Ilim at niHl)a])tiHm ;
th(( //o/i/ Ohmt lod Ilim oti to 11 Ih victoriouH onccdintor
with Satan in tlu! wilddrncsH; th(i Hoi,/ Ohmt,, acting' in
what (accord in-; to tho tiuior of r(!volation afforded npon
this point) may bo called lliw pccnliar province in the
oi)eration.s of tho Godhead, abundantly Hupplied the
Son of Man with ji living' <'ner<ry of wondcsr-working
power. The t<}>irit, we aro told, was not given « by mea-
sure inito Him ; " and " God anointed J('hus of Nazarfjth
witli tho Holi/ O/imf, and with [lower." Tho Ijlaspliemous
resistance of this proof of divin(5 agency in the pcjrson
of Christ or of Mis delegates after His ascension, is tho
sin against the Jfoli/ Ghost. And tlius was Christ
justijied in the Spirit. But above all, Ho was justified
in the Spirit by the subsofiuent effusion of the Spirit
from on high, Whom He had pledged Himself to send
Q
226
SERMON XVII.
For the Apostlo, aliliough at this i)oiiit of tlio onnmora-
tiou of particulars in our text lie had not reached the
statement which closes it, that Christ was retmvrd up
info (//on/, yet must be sui)posed in l)rin«;inj? in hero the
words juMiJicd in t/w Spirii, naturally suggc^sted by the
mention of thojlcfih, to be looking at the work and the
history of Christ as a wJiofe, and ao to anticipate at this
point the fruit of His ascension : above all, then, the
incarnate Son of God was jmtified in the /Spirit after
He had ascended up on high, and received gifts for men,
which He dispensed, in broad disi)lay, to the Church
below. In the first instance, by the Pentecostal effusion
of the Holy Ghost, Who proceeds alike from the Father
and the Son, upon the heads of the Apostles— con-
stituting the exact fulfilment of the promise for which
He had told them to wait ; and thence onward, by the
continued witness supplied to them " both with signs
and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy
Ghost." There can be no bettoi- commentary upon the
words "justified m the Spirii," than in that passage from
St. John in which it is said that "the Holy Ghost was
not yet given " (in the manner characteristic of the new
dispensation) " became tliat Jesus was not yet glorified ; "
and that other from the same Evangelist, in which the
Saviour says to His disciples, that when the Comforter
should come, He w^ould reprove the world of righteous-
ness, hecauM Christ Himself was to go to the Father and
they would see Him no more. He, the Comforter, would
afford the means of conviction (for that is ?:he sense in
wliich the word repi^ove is to be here taken) to the world
TJIE MYSTEUY OF GUDLINKSH.
227
nnnmpra-
Lolu'tl tlio
ccivfd up
hero tlio
!(l by tlio
: and tlio
ie at this
then, tho
irit after
I for men,
5 Clmrch
I effusion
10 Father
es — Con-
or which
lI, by tho
ith signs
the Holy
upon tlio
age from
host was
the new
orified ; "
hich the
omforter
ghteous-
ther and
ir, would
sense in
lie world
of tho rightoousness of Christ, of His i)r(!t(!nHion8 to be
tJic, l{ight(u)us Oiui, the Lord our liighteouHiiess, hccnuHe
after J lis own disappearanco from the (iaiih, tlui mani-
festations of the Spirit would amply nuike good all that
He had said. And among these is that manifestation,
to the brciast of the individual, of the truth and the
reality and tlus ])reciousness of the objects of his faith
wliich is described in the words, "The Spirit itself
beaieth witness with our spirit, that we anj the sons of
God." Or again, "Ho that Ixdioveth on the Son of
God hath the witness in himstilf." Not in any fanatical,
in any presumptuous interpretation of thos(3 words, as
if we were to look for direct, sensible revelation, and
perceptible sensations of affinity with the agitation of
the animal system in man, but as they describe that
homefelt acceptance and personal appropriation of the
remedies of tho Gospel of grace which tells us that we
have there, as the fallen children of Adam, with death
and eternity before them, precisely found what we want,
and that the voice of the Bible is the voice of God.
We know Whom we have believed, and know that what
has been proposed to our belief is not, cannot be, a
fabrication, or a fancy of man.
Christ is also represented, in our text, as having been
seen of angels. And from first to last, we read of their
watchful and zealous attendance upon His person, and
their interest, with all the earnest glow of pure and
seraphic natures, in every object of His mission to this
fallen world. An angel announced to the shepherds His
birth at Bethlehem : " And, suddenly, there was with
q2
228
SERMON XVII.
the anf,'ol, a multitude of tlio hoavcnly host, praising
Ood, and .sayin;,^ Ciloiy to God in tlio lii^diest and on
oarth poaco, goodwill toward men." "Hereafter," He
declares HiniHulf, in a lofty indication of the greatness
of the Child of the Virgin, with His retinue and escort
of the legions of heaven, "hereafter ye shall see
heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man." He was, in the
assumption of our nature, tempted in all things like
as we are, and His sorrows surpassed our sorrows, His
sufferings our sufferings: but in the scene of the
temptation, when the devil left Him, " angels came and
ministered unto Him ;" and in the agony of Gethsemane,
"there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven,
strengthening Him." When He was in the hands of
His enemies, He says to the follower who undertook
to fight in His defence, "Thinkest thou that I cannot
now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give me
more than twelve legions of angels ?" When He had
burst, by divine power, the bars of the tomb, and had gone
abroad again a living man, angels were in attendance at
the sepulchre, to inform and comfort the mourners who
came to visit the place of His remains. When He
ascended to heaven, and the disciples were gazing after
Him, angels again present themselves, and direct their
hopes to that day when He shall return in the clouds
of heaven, in the full and overpowering exhibition of
His own glory, and His Father's, and that of the holy
angels, of whom thousand thousands shall minister
unto Him, while ten thousand times ten thousand of
'/
I
;! i
THE MYaTERY OF OODLINKSH.
229
praising
b and on
fter," He
greatness
id escort
hall see
ling and
J, in the
ings like
ows, His
5 of the
:ame and
isemane,
heaven,
liands of
ndertook
I cannot
give me
He had
had gone
dance at
lers who
hen He
ng after
jct their
3 clouds
)ition of
the holy
minister
Lsand of
human beings shall stand before Him for Judgment.
The interest, the enthusiasm such as angels feel, with
which they wait on Christ, and witness His achieve-
ments, and watch the progress of His kingdom, may be
judged of from our being told that the unfoldings of the
scheme of redemption were things wliich " the angcla
desire to look into ; " that the Apostles, in their suffer-
ings and perils for the cause of Christ, were made a
spectacle to angels and men ; and that " tliere is joy in
the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that
repenteth " and is saved in Christ.
The next point of the statement is that Christ was
preached unto the Gentiles. Long before had it been
foretold, under the exclusive and preparatory dispen-
sation of the law, that the Gentiles should come to His
light, and kings to the brightness of His rising; nor
are there any passages of the Old Testament more vivid
in description, more ft rvent in feeling, more pregnant
with the grandeur of glorious anticipations, than those
which relate to the calling into the covenant of grace of
all the families of the earth, till, at last, " the earth shall
be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea." Yet the practical develop-
ment of this purpose, in all its amplitude of meaning, and
unreservedness of equal blessing to either brar-' '•f the
human family, was made the subject of a specie asion
to St. Peter, in order to open his mind to new and unex-
pected views ; and is described by St. Paul, in writing
to the Colossians, as a mystery " hid from ages and from
generations." And repeatedly, in other epistles, he
HICUMON XVIT.
n(Iv(»r(H to it ill Himilnr liui;^ruii|r„.* A ^lorioim dcvfilnp-
tnciil, it wnM ; iiiid rclnrniijj; to liis own otnirKMitprivilcf^'o
ami ]K»iMilini' ('oinniiflHion in ilH ikIvujkm}, Im HiiyH, that to
liini it wnn giv«ui to prciacli anioiij^ tlio (ktUih'H tlio
loist'ifir/nth/r n'r/ws of Christ, lukliiijr tlic wonlH, "And
to iiiiikt^ III! iiioii Hoo what is tlio liillowHliip of tlio
iuyHt(My. vviiicli from tlio lu^glniiing of \\w world hath
Ihumi hid in Hod, Who nroatod nil thiiifrH by.hwiH (JhriHt."
And, thns, whoii wo pniy that (Jod'n Idmjdom. may
come, wo shonM think of such ])aHHn|,'('H m that in tho
Apoc!i,lypH(\ whoro an an^M>l is i)ictiir('d to uh in viHioii
as llyinj^' " in tho midst of h(>n,v(Mi, hiiviiig- tluHworliistiii.ty
(^OHpoI (o ])r(>(U'h to thom that dwoll on tho earth, and
to ovory nation, and kindri'd, and tongue, and peiJphj."
Tho Aposll(> sayH also, that Clirist was helitwd on in
the worlit. AhiH ! if wo take tho world io repres(«nt that
multitude who pass through the wide gate on tho
journ(>y of lif(>, and walk in tho • .oad way, wo know
too well thai Ho is not, to any i»uri)os(\ lidicird on in
the iror/<t, and that, by a, great i)ortion of it, Me was
openly, seornfully, and fiercely reje(!ted. " llo was in
tho world, and tho worUl was mado by llim, and tho
irorfd kiieir Hii„ „otr " The light shineth in darkness,
and tho darkness comprehended it not." "Ifyoworo
of tho world, thi^ world would love his own : but bocauso
ye aro not of th(< world, but I havo chosen you out of tlio
world, therefore tho world hateth you." "Tho friendship
of tho worUl is enmity with (Jod." " Marvel not, my
brethren, if tho world hate you." These aro among tho
* Rom. \vi. '.».'. ; 1 l\)r. ii. 7 ; K,,h. iij. 4, 5^ ,^0. ; Col. i. 20.
TIfK MYHTKllY OF OODLINEHH.
231
(Icvolop-
ltrivil(»^o
^, that to
tiU'H tilt?
H, "Ami
I of* tho
rid hath
I (JhriHt."
ot)h may
t in th(5
ri vinioii
u'lasiing
rth, an<l
iMjphj."
d on in
cut that
on tho
know
i on in
He wan
was in
uid tho
U'kness,
yo woro
hocauso
t of tho
'ndship
lot, my
oiig tho
20.
Hcatteml paHHaj^oH which Hulliuiontly warn tm tliat whon
it is said Ohrini wnH Idiv/ml on in ths vjorld, wo \m\
not t(» Hatinly ournolvciH in falling in with hucIi a bclici
aH tho ])ortion of th(5 world at largo to whioli wo may
bolong, Ix'infj; now mmiinally (Miristian, may profoHS or
()nt(irtain. Wo muHt Htill apply tho maxim, "IJo not
con/ornird to thin world, but bo yo f/mnnformi-d in tho
roiuiwing of your minds." IJut within tho limits of the
world which wo inhabit, whoro tho taros Jind the whcsat
grow t(»gothor till tho harvest, thoro liav(!, from tho first
proi)agation of tho Oosik)!, \mm thoso— and thoy will
bo soiiii at the last day (with tho addition of thoso who,
by anticipation, "looked for rodtjmption in Israel " and
" wnJked with (Jod "), to bo " agnsat Tnultitudc, which no
man could iiumbor, of all nations, and p(!oplo, and kin-
dred, and tongues," who have (iffeotnally closed with tho
olTers in nuMry in (Jhrist; who have followed up tho
privileg(!s whi(;h wv.rc. sealed to them upon their recep-
tion into the (jov(!nant; who havci hungcjred and thirsted
after righteousness, and found tho promise made good
to them, that they who so hunger and thirst shall be
filled.
Finally, the Apostle tells us that Christ was " received
up into (/Ion/." Tho Man Christ Jesus — tho I]a)>e l)orn
in tho manger at liethlehem — tho poor Wanderer Who
had not where to lay His li(!ad — tho I'risoncr arraigned
before Pilate, insulted, sjut upon, and scourged — the
Sufferer in the garden — the Martyr on tho tree, — has
loosened the bands of death, by which "it was not
possible that He should be holden ; " He mixes for a
- ,T.,»'vr'-*?-*„
232
SERMON XVII.
whil(j witli some fuvounul followers, and thou, all btung
rnmlml for which lie cunm down, md all in duo train
for planting His church and preaching His salvation
upon earth, and all ripo for His return to glory Ho
passes up, in their sight, to occupy His phu^o. in' His
ex.dted human nature, at Ood's right hand feu- ever-
more; '<far above all principality, and power, and
"iiglit, and dominion, and every name that is nmncd not
only in this world, but in that which is to come " Tiu.re
having achieved our redemption, He everliveth to make
intercession for us; and as the power which He wii^lds
m our behalf is a supreme and illimitable powcu-, so the
lountain of His love is never dry. He is gone to
prepare a place for us, that where He is, there we nmy
he also. Do we want, can we ask, more than this ?
lo pass from this world of sin and strife, of suffering
that we may share with Him the inheritance of glory ?-'
the inheritance (in each of the three points contrasted
with the most coveted acquisitions here below) "incor-
ruptible, undeliled, and that fadetli not away."
SEIIMON XVIIl.
SINS AND GOOD WOIIKS MANIFKHT IJEFOKKIIAND.
1 Tim. V. 24, 2/J.
So)m men'H sins arc opm hr/orrJmmt, gotna UJorc, tn jwlgmflut ; and
mnr, m,m thqi follow after. JAkevmn nfso the good works of no7fUt
are manifed hrforchand ; and tlicy that are otherwm cannot he hid.
It will 1)0 seen from tho iinnuuliuto context of thia
l)a,s,sago that tluj Ai)08tl(5, interweavJn<r 8onio pasHing
advice and inHtruction of a personal kind to Timothy,
one of tho governors of tho early Church, is tr(5ating
of two points: first, tho exercise of discipline and
Church censure ; and secondly, tho caro and discrimi-
nation required in tho admission of aspirantw to ordina-
tion. And the words of tho text are h(5nc(5 very gene-
rally understood as having a connexion, particuhirly in
the former verse, with one or both of these two suhjcjcts.
With discipline and Church censure, thus : " Some m(!n's
sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment," i.e.
they are so flagrant and so plain upon tho very face of
tho matter, that all necessity lor any incpiisitorial pro-
cess is anticipated ; " and some thoy follow after," i.e. in
other instances the conviction of the offender is tho
result of investigation, or his bad character only appears
by some prolonged opportunity of observation. And
as regards the ordination of ministers, thus: "Some
234
SERMON XVIII.
men's sins aro open beforehand, going before to judg-
ment," i.e. there are some wliose habits and deportment
present so obvious a disqualification that the case, upon
its first aspect, is decided and disposed of against them ;
" and some they follow after"— there are others who
may appear to afford satisfaction, and may pass for the
time, but who afterwards disappoint all sucli favourable
estimate ; and there is therefore the more reason for
"laying hands" (as the Apostle speaks just above)
"suddenly on no man;" for using the most deliberate
caution in the reception of candidates for the holy
ministry, in order to guard against the risk of trouble
with the delinquents, as well as of scandal in the
Church.
So, on the other, the favourable side— with reference
either to the good repute and allowed standing of the
laity as consistent and useful members of the Church
of God, and their full admission to Church privileges,
or with reference to the grounds of satisfaction and
comfortable assurance in adopting individuals for the
ministerial office, " the good works of some are mani-
fest beforehand." Some are so situated, so put forward
by circumstances, so gifted in themselves, and so pub-
licly tested in the exercise of their gifts, that there can
be no question entertained respecting their high and
acknowledged place in the general company of believers ;
or, as the ca^e may be, their eminent official fitness.
" And they that are otherwise cannot be hid." There
are qualities and actions different from these— there are
men whose Christian graces and excellences are not
to judg-
iportment
ase, upon
ist them ;
hera who
s for the
ivourable
eason for
it above)
leliberate
the holy
f trouble
1 in the
reference
ig of the
> Church
rivileges,
tion and
i for the
re mani-
forward
so pub-
here can
dgh. and
elievers ;
I fitness.
' There
:here are
are not
SINS AND GOOD WORKS MANIFEST BEFOREHAND. 235
called, in the same way, conspicuously into action :
their characters are retiring, their walk in life is per-
haps obscure ; yet, by the grace given them, they so
keep the noiseless tenor of their way, in an even march
of personal holiness, charity, and conscientious dis-
charge of duty among men, and devout humility towards
God, that from all who can appreciate the solid worth
of a disciple of Christ they win golden opinions, as it
were, in spite of themselves.
This appears to be the most natural and just explana-
tion of the words, "they that are otherwise cannot be
hid." A different explanation has been given, refer-
ring the expression, "they that are otherwise," to the
contrasted case of evil men, who can no more be hid
than those whose good works are manifest. But this
would amount to a mere repetition of what is said in
the former verse ; and destroys also that correspondence
or equilibrium which appears to have been intended
between the different parts of the two statements made,
respectively, concerning bad and good men. Tliere are
some more, some less conspicuously bad, but both bad :
some more, some less conspicuously good, but both good.
My brethren, I have thus endeavoured to explain the
passage chosen for our consideration in the particular
connexion in which it is found to stand. It is, how-
ever, very evidently susceptible of an aspect more com-
prehensive than any which relates merely to the exercise
of Church discipline, or the choice of ministers. Let
us, then, pursue the enquiry rather more at large, and,
by God's help, endeavour to profit by it.
(^
A
l'
'"•'rT-JDWii
-•"*-«»»!M»fc-<t..»i..
236
SERMON XVIII.
And first of sin, in itself. " Some men's sins are
open beforehand : some they follow after." What is
this thing called sin, which meets us everywhere in the
Bible ; which is associated with danger, with death with
judgment, with wrath-the wrath of the everliting
God, present and to come ?— this sin of which the uni-
versal existence in this world, and the awful conse-
quences in the other, lie at the foundation of the whole
of that Gospel which we receive ; Christ having come,
"not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance ; "
having come into the world " to save sinners f having
been "made sin for us," exempt from sin Himself,
" that we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him ;" and presenting in His own person, His own
performance, and His own sacrifice, the means by
which God « justifieth the ungodly."
My brethren, the Apostles in different places and with
some variety of expression teU us what sin is : svn,
they say, "is the transgression of the law: " "where no
law is, there is no transgression." " I had not known
sin but by the law ; for I had not known lust,"— I
should not have been disturbed about the nature or
consequences of any irregular desire of whatever kind ;
I should not have had any proper perception of them,—
"except the law had said: Thou shalt not covet. I
was alive without the law once"— had no apprehension,
in my ignorance of the law, of incurring the penalty of
death ; " but when the commandment came, sin revived,
and I died," when the manifestation of the Divine will
which I had violated was brought home to me, the
SINS AND GOOD WORKS MANIFEST BEFOREHAND. 237
image of my sin stood before me as something real and
terrific, and I felt that I had forfeited my soul. |
Yes, my brethren, God has given us a law, and taught
us to look forward to a day of judgment : He has given
us a conscience— the law written in our hearts : He has
given a revelation of His will into our hands. And
this law we have broken, and are continually breaking.
The great mass of mankind, indeed, but too broadly
furnish the illustration of the saying that "God is
angry with the wicked every day." But not only so ;
for "there is not a just man that Hveth and sinneth
not." " All have sinned, and come short of the glory of
God." " If we say that we have no sin, we" do, indeed,
" deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." It is our
nature to sin, the nature which we derive from Adam.
The law of God, the law of our own minds rightly in-
formed, and discerning things in their real character, is
holy, pure, heavenly, elevated, calculated to refine, to
exalt, to make us happy, to prepare us for immortal glory.
But there is "a law in our members warring against the
law of our minds. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and
the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one
to the other." There is something continuaUy keeping us
down in our endeavours to rise above the baseness and
littleness of the world, perpetually dragging us back in
our advances towards every object worthy of the im-
mortal spirit within us. It is, in one shape or other, a
surrender to this corrupt proclivity of nature, inducing
an absolute forgetfulness, or at least obliterating any
efifectual remembrance of their high destiny, that we see
IH
w
238
SERMON Xnil.
in most men ; it is a conflict, a struggle still to be main-
tained with it, although by the grace of our God, a
victorious conflict and struggle, that we see in the best.
The sins of men, according to the intimation of the
Apostle in our text, develop themselves in different
forms ; and it must be almost needless to point out
some of those sins which " are open beforehand, going
before to judgment" — reference being had to the judgment
of God Himself. The very fact of their being so open
might seem to spare all necessity of describing them.
The coarser and more revolting shapes of wickedness,
the crimes which carry the stamp of infamy in the
world; the scenes of human life which are to be wit-
nessed within the walls of the prison, or in the lowest
haunts of hardened iniquity, the exhibitions of ragged
drunkenness or of roaring profanity — these are portions
of the picture before our eyes, which the judgment of no
man will be suspended in assigning to their proper class
and character ; nor will any possible hesitation be felt
in pronouncing how they must appear in the judgment
of God. And yet these are the doings of men ; — we are
of the same family ourselves, however we may disown
connexion with what we regard as its reprobate branches ;
— and it is well for us to consider how the sins and
vices which prevail in different circles of human society
are, after all, so shaded off, that it is the same tint of
iniquity which runs through the whole. How many
things are tolerated and connived at in the respectable
walks of life, which, under whatever varnish of refine-
ment, have still the undeniable character of sin, and if
Ik
t i
SINS AND GOOD WORKS MANIFEST BEFOREHAND. 239
brought to this test, hm/j do they look in the sight of God?
—the only touchstone of wliat is right or wrong, safe
or dangerous to the soul of man— must be put down at
once as unequivocally wrong, unquestionably dangerous,
" open beforehand, going before to judgment." Neglect
of the plainest religious duties— commission of things
plainly forbidden— indulgence in habits plainly at va-
riance with the purity and holiness and meekness
required in the Gospel— a loose and easy morality in
the departments of human conduct to which that word
is more familiarly applied— an avowed system of re-
turning, in certain cases, not good, but evil, for evil, per-
haps an exaction of blood for a passing, casual afl'ront—
a prodigal, unreflecting, unfeeling pursuit of gratifica-
tions beyond all reach of means at command to pay for
them— an unscrupulous recourse to intrigue and decep-
tion to carry on the public scheme or the political
purpose which may be in hand— a received principle, a
recognised practice of falsification in substituting the
spurious for the genuine article, and other arts of the
same stamp, in the common transactions of business-
measure all this by the standard of the world, the so-
called Christian world, it may pass, or a great deal of it
may pass, perhaps, unchallenged ; but is it, my brethren,
is it in the broad way, or in the narrow, that men are
walking who walk thus ? and what is, respectively, the
end of those two roads ? and what does it import to a
being with a never-dying soul, that, at the end of his
road, he misses life and encounters destruction ?
So far, then, we have considered cases to which there
I mil
240
SERMON XVIir.
:!
i
is no doubt attaching. I do not mean to say (as may
appear from remarks already made) tliat all persons
will, without doubt, condemn themselves, or be con-
demned by others like themselves, who are following
the courses which have been just described. The loo.^est
livers and the most irreligious characters (practically
speaking) will drop, upon occasion, some careless ex-
pression, implying their hope of being in the way to
heaven. But no person who takes breathing-space to
think upon the world unseen, and our preparation for it
here, can come to the conclusion that preparation is to
be made in such a manner as this. let us, then,
conjure the self-destroying sinner, the thoughtless and
ungodly child of the world, the alien, of whatever class,
from his God — let us conjure him to give himself that
breathing-space— to say to himself, " Here I am upon
the face of the world, like others that como and go.
How did I come here ? — what have I to do here ?
—whither am I going, when I go ? " You came here by
the pleasure of the Eternal God. What you have to do
here is to serve Him, to do good in your generation, to
prepare for a world beyond ; whither you are going
when you go, must depend upon your profiting by the
mercy of that God in His Son Jesus ^Jhrist, and
embracing the salvation which He offers to you. Are
you doing that ?— What ! when you are living without
one serious or effectual thought of God and your soul
when you are living simply and solely for the things of
this world and your own carnal indulgence— when, in
the pride of your heart and the fulness of misused
.■
SINS AND GOOD WORKS MANIFEST BEFOREHAND. 241
enjoyments, you uctuoUy disdain such a thought as that
of taking upon you the yoke of Clirist, and h^arning of
Him Who was "meek and lowly in heart " ? Oh no '
you are not-you cannot think that you are laying up
treasure for yourself in heaven-you cannot, at this
rate, think that your " life is hid with Christ in God • "
and if tliat he plainly not the case, what is the alter-
native ?--what are you then doing but treasuring up
to yourself " wrath against the day of wrath and revola-
tion of the righteous j udgment of God ? " " Flee," then
in time, " from the wrath to come." Turn, like the pub^
hcan Zaccheeus-like the woman who was a sinnor—
like the thief upon the cross-no matter what the
description or what the degree of your guUt-if you are
not in a state of reconciliation with God through Christ
you are lost, and that is enough-turn as they turned'
and you will be saved: the words will be spoken to you
which were spoken to them: "This day is salvation
come to this house; " « Tliy sins are forgiven thee • " and
m your dying hour, " To-day shalt thou be with' Me in
Paradise." But when we speak of being in a state of
reconciliation with God through Christ, we may be a
long way from this, although we may be cl.ar of those
gross and palpable transgressions, which afford the
means of pronouncing at once and beyond all question
upon our case. There are many men whose tenor of
conduct does not serve to anticipate our unfavourable
judgment upon their characters, and to supei-sede all
necessity of enquiry, yet who are not sound at heart;
B
242
8KKM0N XVIII.
I
I .
nud wo do not hero speak of nion delibomtely uiidor a
mask, who
"have within them undivulgod crimen,
Unwhiptof juitice:"
but men who prosorve, possibly, an unoxcoptionable
moral deportment and an exterior decency in re-
ligion, yet whoso bosoms aro nntouchod by the
living power of religion, and whose principles aro
not proof in the hour of trial; whose concealed but
uneradicated sins will, perhaps, betray themselves in
some unexpected manner, or break out with a sudden
vioicViOe, when certain restraints may happen to be
removed, or certain circumstances may present a new
temptation. Happy for such men if, while they are
resting in the mere formalities of duty, they, too, could
be brought to look unsparingly into themselves, and to
remember that they are under the eye of One Wlio is
gi-eater than their own " heart, and knoweth all things ; "
One to Whom " all things are naked and open ; " One
Wlio will yet "bring every work into judgment with
every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it
be evn."
We must now consider briefly the corresponding
representation made by the Apostle, in its two parts, of
the virtues exhibited by the true Christian : " Likewise
also the good works of some are manifest beforehand ;
and they that are otherwise cannot be hid."
The Christian character — the character which belongs
to a disciple of Jesus — ^is something engrafted upon the
BINS AND GOOD WORKS MANIFEST DKFOREIIAND. 243
liuman subjoot. It is not of *ho original growth of tho
plant Tho plant, we may well s-iy, is inado to wonder
at its new productions and fruits, which are not its own.
They ai-e " tho fruits of tho Spirit." The man is therefore
said to bo "a new creature in Christ Jesus"— a descrip-
tion whiolj, like other equivalent expressions, has been
embarrassed in the hands of unskilful, enthusiastic,
or vainglorious religionists, with many hurtful human
imaginations and many fallacious tests, but which
simply imports that his heart - iid temper are moulded
anew ; that tho vices of his old nature are cunjd ; that
his affections, his sentiments, his motives of action, his
pursuits and habits, receive a new character impressed
upon them from above, and his hopes are set upon a
new object, and for attaining it find a new dependence.
' He recognises, as his ruling principle, the love of Christ
"Who died for him, and he guides himself in all things
by a constant and direct reference to the Word of God,
Kow the light which he thus receives is not given
to be "put under a bushel, or under a bed;" it is
to be set "on a candlestick, that they which come in
may see the light." He is to let his light so shine
before men that they may see his good works, and
thence be led to glorify his Father Which is in heaven,
be prompted to acknowledge the Divine source of a
religion which can produce such blessed effects. His
advantages capable of being turned to a high and
happy account, his opportunities of doing good by his
example, his means of usefulness and beneficence, are
all so many talents entrusted to him upon which he is
r2
r*' -a«ui3a ii iifr» <
244
SERMON XVIII.
i
'!!
V
to gain. And thus, in proportion as his sphere of
action is extended — in proportion as his position is
advantageous — ^in proportion as his resources are multi-
plied,--in such proportion his "good works are manifest
beforehand." And he learns — it is a secret necessary to
be learnt in the school of Christ — perfectly to combine
and reconcile the observance of those precepts which
we have just considered respecting the recommendation
of his faith by his personal conduct in tlie eye of the
world, and respecting the open part which he is to take
in doing the work of God upon earth, with those which
charge it upon him to let his alms be in secret, and
not to let his left hand know what is done by the
right. It is of his Master, not of himself, that he is to
think ; it is for the glory of his Master, not for his own
credit, that he is to be concerned. And (as we have
had occasion to notice before, in the more confined
application of our text) however unobtrusive and re-
tiring may be his character, however small his oppor-
tunities, however shady and secluded the track which
he treads, his conduct and deportment in his genuine
exercise of Christian graces cannot he hid. They that
are otherwise — the performances of some men who are
differently situated from those whose " good works are
manifest beforehand " — still canvM he hid ; the influence
of these men is felt ; and, virtue having gone out from
their Lord to work within them a happy effect, a happy
contagion is communicated from them to others witli
whom they are engaged in life. They are " acceptable to
God, and approved of men." And although it be within
SINS AND GOOD WORKS MANIFEST BEFOREHAND. 245
a narrow circle that they are known at all, and by the
world at large they are perfectly content to find them-
selves overlooked, they cannot, in any case, be hid from
Him who saw, in his sheltered retirement, the Israelite
indeed in whom was no guile. They stand, in His sight,
above many who make a noise, even in religious doings,
in the world ; and their case will serve, among other
instances, to verify the saying of the Lord, that " many
that are first shall be last, and the last first."
" T3pffi.---i,:^;f^imff,wft,.
SERMON XIX.
GOD IN CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.
f ■
m
ISA. XLV. 18.
For thus saiih the Lord tliat created the heavens; Ood Himself that,
formed the earth and made it ; He hath established it. He created it
not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord, and tliere
is none else.
The survey of creation, in all its amplitude and vast-
ness, no less than the examination of its details in all
their varied infinity and elaborate minuteness, suggests
to the thoughtful mind the profoundest sentiments of
awe and veneration, of wonder and grateful devotion.
We have, in that survey, a book spread before us,
stamped everywhere with the characters of divinity,
impressed with the glowing evidences of illimitable
power and all-wise contrivance, combining, in their
exercise, with inexhaustible goodness and mercy. The
lessons which men may thus read as they run, leave
them, as is declared by the Apostle Paul, without
excuse, if they fail to lay them to heart and to make
the inferences which he indicates ; " the invisible things
of God," being, as he says in a strong figure of speech,
"clearly seen," and the " eternal power and Godhead"
of the Almighty " being understood by the things that
* Preached before the St. George's Society of Quebec, 1857.
GOD IN CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.
247
iare made." So, in his address at Lystra, recorded in
the Acts, — earnestly and passionately repudiating the
homage offered to himself and his fellow-labourer, and
directing it upward to the invisible Supreme, — he points
out to the ignorant idolaters that this God had never
left " Himself without witness, in that He did good, and
gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling
our hearts with food and gladness." And it would not
be difficult to cite some remarkable passages from the
more eminent of the heathen philosophers, exceedingly
pertinent here to our purpose — passages tracing, in
eloquent language, the Creator through His works,
though standing in unhappy conjunction with the
grossest darkness upon essential points of religion.
They are flashes of light which break out through an
almost impenetrable gloom. But the Bible, the book
of God's revelation, instructs and prepares us rightly to
study the book of nature ; and the voice of revelation
continually calls upon us to contemplate with solemn
attention, and with fervent gratitude, the wonderful
works of God displayed to the eye of sense. The
Psalms overflow everywhere '^ ith bursts of devout
feeling, prompted by this coi^templation ; and while
they point to the heavens as declaring the glory of
God, and the firmament as showing His handywork,
carry us also into all the departments of this magni-
ficent creation, and unfold before us all the scenes and
stores of nature, all the large and varied provision
which exists for the wants of the animal world ; all the
action of the elements, whether in those ordinary opera-
248
SERMON XIX.
tions in whicli they minister to the convenience and
enjoyment of mankind, or in those occasional forms
of terrific disturbance in which they remind us of an
awful power, armed with the engines of judicial inflic-
tion, as well as clothed with the attributes of grace and
mercy, which from end to end controls the universe,
and rules the lot of its inhabitants. The same prophet
from whom our text has been taken, earnestly warning
the people against their continual proneness to adopt
or imitate the stupid systems of idolatry by which
they were surrounded, appeals as well to their common
powers of observation and reflection, as to their trans-
mitted and peculiar advantages, and chai^res them in a
strain of animated expostulation, such as may be
instanced in the words, " Have ye not known ? have ye
not heard? hath it not been told you from the begin-
ning ? have ye not understood from the foundations of
th' earth ? It is He," i.e. it is Jehcvah, the Uving God,
"that sitteth upon the circle of the earth." And then
pointing out the perverse folly and absurdity of
attempting to represent by an artificial likeness, in
order to religious veneration, the Author of all the
stupendous effects to be witnessed in nature, and the
providential Ruler of the world, he adds, further on,
" Lift up your eyes on high, and behold Who hath
created these things, that bringeth out their host by
nur-ber : He calleth them all by their names, by the
gre«.ness of His might, for that He is strong in power ;
not one faileth."
The Scripture abounds in similar calls upon the
GOD IN CllEATION AND mOVIDENCE.
249
nee and
il forms
IS of an
il inflic-
'aeo anci
iniverse,
prophet
warning
adopt
'■ which
iommon
ir trans-
om in a
nay be
liavfl ye
5 begin-
tions of
ig God,
id then
dity of
less, in
all the
md the
ler on,
hath
lost by
by the
power ;
)n the
creature, man, to discern the hand of the Creator in His
works. The poor savage, if, as poetically doscribe<l, he
saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind, would
so far be right. But neither the untutored child of
nature, nor the sago of the civilized and lettered world,
nor the collective and concentrated wisdom of nations
illustrious in arms and arts, and alive to the necessity of
a public religion, have, at any time, in point of fad, —
whatever, in point of reason fairly exercised, they ought
to have done — arrived at any just notions of God, or of
the origin and first formation of the world and its living
inhabitants. Those of the most ambitious pretensions
among them " professing themselves to be wise, became
fools." Nothing, it is well known, can be more childish,
nothing more frivolous, nothing can be more gross,
nothing more impure and debasing than the fables
which, with whatever incidental mixture of traditionaiy
truth or of particulars borrowed, but distorted in the
bon'owing, from a sacred source, are found in all their
varieties, and in all ages, and all parts of the world, to
constitute the features of heathen mythology. And
with reference to the actual history of creation, it is a
subject of which man knows nothing, and can know
nothing, except from the simple account, sublime in its
simplicity, which is given in the Bible, "In the be-
ginning God created the heaven and the earth." The
simple fiat of His word, the bare signification of His
pleasure, the brief unlaboured promulgation of His will
that so things should be, caused them at once to be so.
" By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and
iW^-..^>
[i;
E'i
i
I r
! .1'.'
6 '
250
SERMON XIX.
all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
For He spake and it was done : He commanded and it
stood fast." The principle of creative power, the energy
which brought out into existence aU that we see in this
rolUng universe, in this moving and breathing world,
and which assigned its proper function in perpetuity to
every part, is found in those words which are cited as a
signal example of sublimity by the celebrated heathen
critic Longinus, " And God said, Let there be light ; and
there was light." Then comes the order of succession
in the several portions of the work, and the gradation
observable in its different departments, as distributed
through the tis consecutive days, the whole closing with
the formation of man,who has been called the masterpiece
of ^ God on earth. "And God," we are told, " saw every-
thing that He had made, and behold it was very good."
Alas ! the change soon came ; the blight quickly passed
upon creation ; the mischief which was to mar the
scene was not long in breaking loose ; the traces of the
early curse which came through sin are intermingled
everywhere, and in all the diversified forms and
variegated aspects of moral and natural evil, with what
amply remains to us of veri/ good— they pervade every-
where the glorious workmanship of God. The tares
and the wheat grow together till the harvest. The face
of creation, the history of the race, and the conscious-
ness of his own case in the breast of the individual
child of Adam, testify alike to the reality of the tale
told us in the Bible. We look abroad upon a world, we
recall a past, age by age, we contemplate n, self, all of
GOD IN CBEATION AND PROVIDENCE.
251
which bring us to the same result; and, without or
within, in that which has been or that which is, we
encounter the confirmation of the Fall of man. There
is one voice wherever we take our stand, and one voice
sent up from all around us, which is the echo of the
voice of God in Revelation. And all this suggests the
sense of desperate want, and prepares us for the great
disclosure of the remedy. Christ, the same Christ Who
was the Creating Word, Who " was in the beginnmg with
God, and was God," " by Whom all things were made,"
and without Whom " was not anything made that was
made," was promised from the beginning as the Seed of
the woman ordained to bruise the serpent's head, was
represented all along to the eye of faith, in the con-
tinuous chain of prophecy and type, till, in the fulness
of time, He came " in the likeness of sinful flesh," a man
among men, to repair the ravages of Satan, " to put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself," and to "make all things
new " in the establishment of a kingdom of grace. His
Church upon earth is ordained to be " an eternal excel-
lency, a joy of many generations ;" and the Gospel is
travelling on to its appointed mark, till " the earth shall
be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as
the waters cover the sea."
The place which man was originally commissioned to
fill in creation, and the gradual development of the
divine plans for peopling the earth and distributing
over its surface, by arrangements which were prospec-
tive in their character, the different races of the human
family, must be regarded in connexion with a train laid
•M!i|***-i--
252
SERMON XIX.
■I
i:!
■I I
I
1
1^1
for the advance of human happiness, and the progress
of social improvement ; the leaven of the Gospel, in
these later ages, working, although often insensibly, its
blessed effect upon the mass with which it is in contact,
and prompting and helping on the general amelioration
of the world. In the blessing conveyed to our first
parents before the fall, they are charged to " be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it,"
and the formal and solemn grant of dominion is made
to them, and, in them, to their children, over the whole
animal world, together with the use of all the alimentary
productions of vegetable nature. Next to that of
creation itself, the most remarlcable occurrence in the
physical history of the world is the judgment of the
Hood ; and the patriarch who, with the seven members of
his family, survived that universal catastrophe, receives
a renewal, nearly in the same terms, of the grant made
in the state of innocence, with the addition— for the
death of the creature was now a familiar thing— of
the use of animal food. "Into your hand are they
delivered," is a commission which, taken in its utmost
comprehensiveness, may well be understood as making
over to mankind all the benefits of the vast creation of
God ; all to be received as a gracious gift, and, at the
same time, a responsible trust directly from the hand of
Omnipotence. Tlie influences of the planetaiy system,
the processes of vegetation, the properties seated in an
endless catalogue of natural objects which man is gifted
with the sagacity to discover, the calculating power to
adapt and combine, and the manual skill to bring into
GOD IN CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.
253
progress
)spel, in
sibly, its
contact,
lioration
our first
fruitful,
xlue it,"
is made
le whole
niontary
that of
! in the
of the
rubers of
receives
[it made
-for the
ling — of
re they
utmost
making
ition of
, at the
hand of
system,
i in an
3 gifted
5wer to
ig into
activity ; the winds, the tides, the rivers, and the intor-
minablo deep ; the fertile bosom of earth, the quarries,
the mineral stores within her bowels, the countless
varieties of the forest, the tield, and the garden;
the wild beasts who yield their shaggy covering, the
domestic animals who are formed and contrived in nice .
and diversified adaptation to diff(^rent specific re(iuiro-
ments on the part of their earthly lord, all are made
tributary to man. All which can supply his wants, all
which can minister to his convenience and comfort, all
which can be turned to account in the commerce of the
world and the advancement of science, or can contribute
to the embellishment of life— all, all is made ready for
his use, and placed freely at his disposal. " Into your
hand are they delivered." " The heavens are the Lord's,
but the earth hath He given to the children of men."
O, happy if they could always recognise the Hand which
gives them their daily bread, and in the survey of
creation in all its profusion of stores and its loveliness
of ornament, could be prompted to break into the
devout exclamation of a Christian poet, " My Father
made them all!" 0, happy if they could feelingly
adopt as a living sentiment within their bosoms, in its
application to the material as well as to the spiritual
world, the declaration of an Apostle, that " every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above."
• In tracing that distribution to which we have re-
ferred, of different sections of the posterity of Adam
over the face of the globe, we find it stated that
"the sons of Noah were Shem, Ham, and Japheth,"
254
SERMON XIX.
(the lapetm of profane story), and of them ultimately
" was the whole earth overspread." A remarkable combi-
nation, however, ^^ ..covaud, occurring within the lifetime
of Noah, ot men who, in forgetfulness if not in open
defiance of the God above them, projected and com-
.menced a prodigious and unequalled work, by which
their own names (as they vainly iimgiued) were to be
immortalized, and which was to be the centre and the
means of consolidation for a far-extended dominion
which they aspired to found. The tower which they
were engaged in constructing within their new city was
probably an idolatrous temple, it has been supposed
by learned men to have been, after completion by other
hands, the tower of Bclus, the idol-god Bel of Holy
Scripture, which is mentioned by Herodotus, who lived
nearly 500 years before Christ, as existing in his own
day at Babylon. At least 'it is supposed to have
afforded the foundation of that structure. The authors
of this combination had it for their professed object to
prevent their being " scattered abroad upon the face of the
whole earth." But the purpose of God was the opposite
of theirs ; and tlie thing which they laid their plans to
avert was precisely the thing which was ordained to
befall them. " The whole earth was of one language
and of one speech." But God Who " made man's
mouth," Who framed him with the power of articu-
lation, and taught him the use of words— Who can, at
any moment, make the mechanism of which He is the
author in all the faculties of mind and body bestowed
upon man, operate in any new way that He pleases,—
GOD IN CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.
266
Who, upo one instructive occasion, put words into the
mouth of tlie dumb ass, to rebuke the madness of a
prophet— God, at a stroke, confounded their language,
tliat they could " not understand one another's speech."
It may here be observed, by the way, that this memo-
rable exerciso of miraculous power, in which we find
the origin of the diversity of tongues among mankind,
was, in a manner, reversed, although to a limited extent,
in the no loss memorable display of the day of Pen-
tecost, and the continuance, for a time, of the gift of
tongues, in order to expedite the propagation of the
Gospel over the world. Of the miracle now under our
notice, the immediate effect was to part off, here and
there, in separate bodies, the several portions of the
community who respectively spoke the same language,
and so to provide for the occupation of new tracts of
country, and to lay the foundation of different nations
and commonwealths.
It is a signal and a melancholy illustration of the
inherited debasement of our nature, that the leading
points of history are intertwined, in the chain of causes
and effects, with the record of personal o national sins.
The oldest and most authentic history in the world,
found in the pages of the Bible, is pregnant with testi-
monies of this description. The people marked out by
the hand oi God as the depositaries of His truth, and
the channel of future blessing to all the families of the
earth, — that people, sufficiently notorious themselves
fo^ their continual provocations and rebellions, were
rescued from their bondage by a series of wonderful
■^aB***-.
256
SERMON XIX.
i
i
n
!
judgments inflicted upon tlieir obdurate masters in
1^4,'yi)t, and were seated in the promised land by the
awful excision of the Canaanitish nations, whose enor-
mities are represented as if tlie very eartli herself vomited
them forth from her bosom. The Israelites, under
Joshua, in the fresher recollection of all the marvels
which had been wrought for them, typically represent-
ing the spiritual deliverance of mankind at large by
another Je»its, proclaim their determined and unalter-
able adherence to the Lord Jehovah, upon the ground,
as they state their own case, that " the Lord our God,
He it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the
land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and Which
did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in
all the way wherein we went, and among all the people
through whom we passed. And the Lord drave out
from before us all the people, even the Amorites which
dwelt ill the land : therefore will we also serve the Lord,
for He is our God."
It was a noble and happy conclusion to which they
were brought ; and to some notice of the circumstances
which prompted it we may shortly have occasion to
retrrn : let us, in the meantime, consider that the same
Almighty Disposer of events Whose intervention in the
earlier stages of the world was signalized to the nations
in broad miraculous display, directs and controls, to the
end of time, the destinies of the race. " He hath made
of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the
face of the earth, and hath determined the times before
;m t
(JOD IN C'lUiATlON AND rUOVIDKNCE.
2i>i
appointed, and tlu; bounds of tlioir luibitation, that tliey
jsliould 8(wk tlio Lord."
It is an attributo of the (Jodhoad, a peculiar proroga-
tivo of till) Majesty on bij^'b, a feature in tlio adminis-
tration of affairs below by supreme and inscrutable
wisdom, to use the instnnnentality of free and respon-
sible agents, without im])airing their freedom or nullify-
ing their responsibility, in carrying on the general phins
and accomplishing the, special purposes of Divine
Providence. The actions of men and the events of
history are ovcwuled to this end ; and, in the very
deeds of tlus most atrocious wickedness, ukui are found,
with reference to the issue and the (effect, to be doing
what His hand and His "counsel determined before to
bo done." Tiie time will not permit us to trace our way
onward through the historic pages of the lUbh^, or that
portion of secular history which is linked with the
fortunes of the Church of God. Nor shall I do more
than barely glance at those most wonderfully exact
prophecies of Daniel which relate to the four great
(iarthly empires to be succeeded by the kingdom of
(Jhrist on earth, or those sublime and mysterious
pictures in the Revelation of St. John, of which the
fuller development of events themselves must furnish
the key, yet of certain prominent points, in which wo
cannot fail to make the plain application to past or
existing realities of the world. Suffice it to say, that
the train of human affairs is not left loosely to take its
own course, and the series of events to jostle fortuitously
the one against th^ other. The reins are reserved in
rn'mmm n-'uses^.j^^ .
253
SERMON XIX.
the hands of God. In all the changes and chances of
the world, in all the revolutions of kingdoms and states,
in all the results worked out by political struggles and
convulsions, or other painful experience in what may be
called the life of nations, the same great ends of Divine
wisdom are kept constantly in view. Look at all the
achievements of science, at all the discoveries of virtues
and properties in nature, locked against a loner succes-
sion of ages, but only laid by for a crisis demanding
more extended grants of power to the delegated lords of
this lower creation ; such as, in the one instance, the art
of printing, in the other the magnetic indication of the
north, and, in our own day, the application of steam to
the means of vectitation by sea or by land, and that
wonder above all these other wonders, the recourse to
electricity for the rapid, the almost instantaneous trans^
mission of intelligence, even through the depths of the
ocean, to distant lands. Look again, at all the various
stimulating incitements of a novel kind, so addressing
themselves, in different quarters of the world, to the
love of gain, to the spirit of adventure, to the taste for
exploring and exhuming the monuments of a remote
and mighty past, or to the yearnings of Christian
philanthropy on an extended scale, as to give impulse
to the continual movement of enterprising individuals,
or the migration of large bodies of men ; in all, my
brethren, which has been here enumerated, singly or
collectively, we behold the development, we discern the
practical application of the Divine principle, we see
it in activity, that Qod Himself that formed the earth,
rJ m
GOD IN CREATION AND PEOVIDENCE,
259
created it not in vain ; He formed it to he inhabited ;
and within His purpose is the recognition on the part
of man, of the truth that He is the Lord and there is
none else.
The context of the passage, as may be seen by any
who consult it, points distinctly to the extension of
Gospel grace to all the ends of the earth. The visible
agents in those dazzling enterprises and diversified
operations to which we have just adverted, verify too
often the words of Scripture applied to another kind
of occasion—" Howbeit he meancth not so, neither doth
his heart think so"— their energy and zeal are too apt to
be absorbed in their worldly object ; but God is opening
up the world to ameliorate its general condition, and
to draw together more and more, in fraternal bonds of
sacred formation, the different branches of the family
of maa
I shall not dwell upon a particular topic, although
it has been my aim and desire to suggest it to your
thoughts in connexion with our subject throughout,
and indeed it very obviously presents itself upon the
present occasion, and has acccrdinglj been noticed upon
the occun'ence of the anniversary before — I mean the
topic of that great commission which, in the providential
distributions of the hand of God, appears to have been
given to the Anglo-Saxon race dispersed, and that under
different national auspices, far and wide over the globe,
to carry abroad in every direction those principles and
those privileges which have given them their a&cendancy
and eminence in the world. I shall only indicate, upon
260
SERMON XIX.
this point, the application which may be made to the
case of the British population in these countries of the
case of the Israelites of old. There were no such people
as the Canaanites in Canada or the suri'ounding regions ;
and, if there had been, it would not have been the part
of Christians to exterminate them. We are debtors —
deeply are we debtors — to these barbarians, to benefit
alike their souls and bodies. But it was decreed in the
counsels of God, that the race which occupied the land,
and in whose hands it would have remained one vast,
unbroken, howling wilderness, should give way to a
civilized and Christian population, and finally, that the
territory should pass, with all the consequences attaching
to such a transfer, under the power of the British crown.
Within the depths of its dense and boundless forests,
while tenanted only by wild beasts, and wilder men,
wliat stores, what inexhaustible stores were treasured uj)
for tlie subsequent exercise of human industry and art !
Without attempting a complete enumeration, here is n
soil ready to teem undei' the hand of labour with agricul-
tural proct ice — materials on the spot (besides numerous
quarries providing for prouder and more durable edi-
fices) for constructing all needful habitations with
rapidity and ease, the same materials furnishing a
staple article of most extended commerce, as well as
the means, in profusion, of a briskly-driven trade in
ship-building : Vast chains of communication and con-
veyance by river and lake : Abundant fisheries upon a
prodigious scale, and yielding large yearly exports, in
the Gulf: As the country advances new supplies, new
GOD IN CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.
201
resources opened day by day in Lower Canada aloue,
reminding us of the " land whose stones are iron, and
out of whose Jiills thou niayest dig brass ; " for, take
only the eastern townships and the county of Megantic,
and you find within those limits that the industry of
man is beginning to direct itself to the stores there
ready to his hand, of marble, of slate, of copper, of soap-
stone believed to be the best in North America, and
oth(;r minor productions of the mineral kingdom. The
very rigours of the climate answering to a description
found in the Psalms, " He giveth snow like wool, and
scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes : He casteth forth His
ice like morsels : who can stand before His cold ? " afford
their share of convenience— incalculable facilities of
transport in those earlier stages of settlement which are
often marked by almost impracticable summer roads,
and ready means for preserving animal food, for months
together, in an untainted condition— a compensatory
provision, serving to diminish the large demand for
fodder which the length of the winter would otherwise
create.
God, Who created not the earth in vain, Who formed
it to he inhabited, has opened the door, in these coun-
tries, to the redundant population pushed out from
the old world. He has introduced, He has established
here, a people under British rule. While we cultivate
the most friendly and cordial relations with all our
fellow-subjects — while we breathe tov/ards all men
living a spirit of charity and peace — we may cling,
without violation of these principles or sentiments, to
262
SERMON XIX.
British institutions; we may indulge English feelings
and sympathies; we may cherish the home of our
fathers in the associations of memory and thought.
But, in the meantime, if our advantages are signally
high —if during the recent celebration of a marvel*
accomplished in the facilities of intercourse between two
mighty nations, we took into our survey of conse-
quences effects which flatter our national self-satisfac-
tion, and n'-uister to many proud anticipations — let us
remember, with reference to the good which we are
made capable of effecting in the world at large, and the
manner of effecting it, and its connexion with the
happy influences of our holy faith, that to whomsoever
much is given, of them will be much required. Let us
keep our heightened responsibility before our eyes. Let
us learn the lesson, and lay it to heart, that we must all,
collectively and hidividually, in imitation of our divine
Kedeemer, "work the works of Him" that placed us
here "while it is day: for the night cometh" — it will
soon close upon us all — "when no man can work."
* The completion of the Atlantic telegraph used in 1858, on a Sunday
in which year this semion was again preached, with some alterations.
The event was marked at Quebec by a public celebration, of which a
special service in the Cathedral formed a part.
LONDON : R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLkR, PRINTERS.